The Flesh and the Devil (71 page)

         
Fleetingly he contemplated calling for help rather risking
those knives of agony through his leg again, but when he shouted his voice was
breathless rasp that would have made him laugh if the implication had been less
grim. A dog thirty paces away would not have heard him.

         
Wetness was seeping through his clothes now, creeping and
inexorable, but it did not seem to chill him; he realized with a sluggish
flicker of alarm that it was comforting, and that meant approaching fever. The
longer he lay there, the less capable he would be of helping himself. He must
get up, and quickly. But haste would bring another fall; he must move his leg
into a better position before he could. . . .

         
His lips curled back from his teeth in an agonized snarl as
he tried to force the outraged limb to move, and he thought wryly that he had
carried gun-barrels with less effort than he was spending on the simple action
of moving his own right leg. He did not see the imprint of his own head in the
mud, nor the matted red hair trailing in the dirt as he stared sightlessly at
the ground. All his concentration was upon the summoning of his will, to bear
the pain for those few more seconds that might shift the leg a little further.

         
At last he had to rest, gasping for breath while the
pounding died away; it was threatening to make him forget what he was trying to
do. Then, when his head had cleared and the scarlet suns no longer burst and
reformed before his eyes, he began again. He was rapidly losing all feeling in
his legs, and he wondered how he would know when he had achieved the position
he was trying for. It was becoming more and more difficult to reason, and he
knew that the fever was growing, but it had an advantage — he no longer felt
cold. He never questioned the blind impulse that urged him to fight back
against the death that Juana's cunning had tried to deal him, but only fought
patiently and implacably on.

         
Heaving himself on to his elbows with an effort that made
the sweat spring and his head hang for long recovering moments, Tristan peered
along the sprawled length oil his own body. He had managed more than he thought
- the injured leg lay sideways and partly bent; if he could reach it, he could
drag it into position with his right hand without using the damaged tendons.
If
he could reach it.

         
He swung his weight on to his left elbow, praying inwardly
that it would not collapse under him, and stretched out his right hand. He
could see his whole arm shaking with fever, and he had no way of knowing
whether his hand would obey him properly. It did not; his fingers fumbled as he
tried to close them round the crook of his knee, and as they brushed charred
cloth and torn flesh he swore savagely and long, while his heart banged like a
church bell and the rest of the world became a roaring whirlwind.

         
But the clumsy tugging had at last got his leg into
position, he realized as his sight cleared. When he raised himself up it would
drop forward, bent to bear his weight for as long as it took to get his left
foot to the ground and push up. If he did not lose his balance, he could stand.

         
The next few seconds were a sightless, soundless blur of
greyness and his own heartbeats and a jagged, grinding, tearing pain. Tristan
opened his eyes to find himself on his feet, swaying like an osier, and was so
astonished that he almost lost his balance and fell again. A dead tree,
spectre-white and branchless, saved him and he clung to its crumbling bark with
sweating hands.

         
He could stand, he told himself; therefore he could walk.
If he could find out where he was, he could get help to get to Luis' house - he
could –

         
The red agony in his leg was subsiding to a throbbing ache
as he let go the tree. He quickly discovered that he would have to hop; the
right leg was useless except to help him balance, and if he trusted any weight
to it he would fall. Now that he was upright he could see the decaying walls of
a couple of houses; the windows were dark, but they might not be derelict - he
could not see as clearly as usual.

         
They were about a hundred paces from him, and he set off.

         
'Thirsty?' Eugenio de Castaneda looked up from his wine in
a parody of polite enquiry, and nodded when Juana ignored him. 'Of course, I
forget. . . you are lately come from a feast. Did you enjoy young Ruiz's
love-making?'

         
Her eyes widened in pure astonishment, and he grinned as he
signed Martinetti to refill his cup.

         
'Of course, you do not know . . . our good host, Don
Bautista told me of him. You knew you were at his house, mmn? He paid for that.
. . gown you are wearing, and all the others, too. In return, he and . . .
la
viuda
are to share what the cockerel . . . paid to enjoy you. They told him
that you . . . were a virgin, so God knows . . . if he will pay, but to me you
are . . . worth more as you are, mmn?'

         
Deliberately, Juana fixed her eyes on a point behind his
head and stared at it, trying to make her mind a blank as the breathless voice
ground on.

         
'If you had not been so . . . impatient, if you had
pretended to . . . endure Bartolome, all this . . . would not have been
needful. I never meant -' the sharp eyes searched her face - 'to stint such ...
a fair one of her pleasure. Felipe was just an . . . instrument, the first to
hand. ... If you disliked him, you could have had . . . any choice after. And
can still, once ... we return to the Castillo, and you are delivered . . .
safely.'

         
Was, she thought. None of the rest had any real meaning.

         
'What is that?' De Castaneda twisted awkwardly in the
wheeled chair as voices came from somewhere beyond the door. 'Riccardo ... go
and see.'

         
He held up the key, and Martinetti took it without replying.
When the Italian had gone, de Castaneda looked back at Juana.

         
'Those ropes hurt you, mmn? More than Felipe hurt you . . .
when he came to you? Or not as much? He never told me . . . how it was. You
will have to . . . enlighten me.'

         
Her head moved very slightly, no more than a tremor. She
might have been struggling to breathe through the gag, but he chose to take the
motion as denial.

         
'Oh, I am sure you will. Once we are . . . together in the
castillo there will be other things ... to think of besides the little Duque! .
. . We must have pastimes of our own, not just those ... for children.'

         
Juana's lashes stirred, but she kept her gaze immovable on
the point she had fixed on; there was a small scar on the wall where a picture
had been hung and then removed. De Castaneda lapsed into silence, his head
hunching forward as he waited broodingly. He reminded Juana of a toad, watching
a dragonfly with sullen attention before snatching it with its long tongue -
the same sagging shape, the same air of malicious gloating. A sound from the
door made him look round at last, and she drew a quick breath.

         
'Well, Riccardo?'

         
'Don Bautista has just returned, senor.' The Italian's
peaked face was paler than ever. 'It seems that there has been an accident at
the Casa de Herreros - Dona Jeronima fell downstairs only a few minutes after I
- we left there. He is very distressed and talks wildly, and he seems to think
that she might have been murdered.'

         
'By you?'

         
'No, by the Senorita de Arrelanos, in revenge for what was
done to her.'

         
Martinetti glanced towards Juana, then quickly away. 'But,
senor, he said something else, about Don Diego Ruiz. . . .'

         
'Not now! If that fat fool is . . . making accusations,
there is no time . . . to be lost; he might try to . . . prevent our departure.
Prepare to leave immedimmediately. We shall be gone before dawn.'

         
'Senor, you should hear this. Don Bautista said that the
senorita was incensed against Dona Jeronima because Don Diego did not -'

         
'Tell me of it. . . in the coach. There is no . . . time to
prattle now! We know the senorita did not touch that. . . old bawd, so what he
thinks makes ... no matter once we are gone.' De Castaneda made an abortive
gesture of dismissal with his wasted hand. 'Do as I bid you . . . go!'

         
'As you command, senor.' A flush dyed Martinetti's pale
cheeks, and faded again as he turned away.

         
As the door closed behind him, de Castaneda leaned forward
again in his chair.

         
'You hear how . . . unkind people can be? You will be
better off in . . . Andalusia, even though you may not be . . . termed Duquesa.
Yet perhaps for all that, I could . . . petition the Pope, if you wanted it. .
. after all, you were betrothed to Bartolome when . . . the child was
conceived, mmn? Would you like that . . . to be a Duquesa after all?'

         
Juana sat motionless, her whole body aching with despair,
and after a moment he chuckled.

         
'Not so near breaking . . . after all, and still as
damnably . . . proud! I must make sure that you do not bring up . . .
Bartolome's heir to defy me-with such parentage he will not be . . . tractable,
mmn? Though it would solve every problem if he favoured you ... all through.
Don Gaspar, Torres. . . .'

        
His voice faded, musing, and there was a pause before he
spoke again, this time with a sly note in his voice.

         
'You must not think that I will not value your . . .
company, without your son's. I had plans for your enjoyment, even . . . before
Bartolome died. Now I shall. . . rely on you to help heal the grief . . . of my
poor wife's sad death. I. . . .'