The Flesh and the Devil (78 page)

         
She kissed Elisabeta and without a word ran out of the
little house to scramble into the ox-cart that stood waiting in the gathering
twilight.

         
CHAPTER 18

         
Afterwards Juana could never recall her first meeting with
Placido, any more than she could remember his surname. She could summon up a
vague impression of a short, wiry man who stood over her as she tended Tristan
and talked to her in a series of grunted monosyllables, and she remembered the
shadow that fell across her as she worked and the smell of wine and garlic on
his breath that mingled with the all-pervasive stink of mules that clung to his
skin and clothes. But other than that, she knew of him only I that he had
agreed to take them to Cadiz. She had agreed to all his sourly-made
stipulations and qualifications, nodding impatiently to have him gone in case
Tristan should wake and be troubled by a stranger's presence. The ox-cart's
slow, jolting progress did not seem to disturb him, but now and again the sound
of voices made his arched brows draw together and she thought that the talk
irritated him.

         
Had she but known it, the haughtiness of her manner had
puzzled the muledriver; he had not expected Luis Armendariz's so-called niece
to act like a lady and to behave as though she were, for all her youth and
womanhood, his, Placido's, equal. She looked like any everyday wench in her
blouse and russet-red skirt with its laced black bodice that was far too big
for her-borrowed, in all probability. Yet there was a delicacy in her face and
in the bare slender feet that was at odds with the fact that she had no
stockings or shoes.

         
That fact had cost Juana some qualms, but she comforted
herself that for the present, at least, she had no need to trouble about how
she would walk. Placido had signified that she was to stay in the bottom of the
cart until the mule-train was clear of the town. Later, when there was no
danger of her being seen, the could use her legs and stop burdening a valuable
animal. But until then she should keep out of sight and help by keeping her man
quiet.

         
So she crouched, half-stifled with heat, under the weight
of some empty grain-sacks that had been thrown over her, trying to keep them
lifted clear of Tristan's face so that he could breathe. It was dark, and every
noise was amplified by the sounding wood of the cart's sides as it creaked
along the streets. The rumble of wheels, the patient clopping of the ox's
hooves, the squeak and sway of the cart's timbers; once the sound of hurrying
feet and a man's voice asking questions mingled with the beating of her own
frightened heart as it pounded through her body like a battering-ram. She tried
to deafen her ears to everything but the almost inaudible sound of Tristan's
breathing - so different from his quick, feverish panting earlier on-but
sometimes half-a-minute would pass before she caught the sound of his regular,
shallow sighing, and for that time the world would stop; then she would hear it
once more, and her life would resume its interrupted course. At last she
settled on her side, with her back braced against the side of the cart so that
the breadth of her shoulders lifted the sacking away from his face to allow him
the precious air, and settled into an exhausted sleep as the cart lumbered its
way out of Villenos.

         
She was woken by a rush of cool air on her face and started
guiltily. Her first thought was of the incredible dark blue of the sky, with
the stars studding it; then she groped for reality and realized that the cart
was no longer moving. Her arms went out to shield the man beside her as she
stared up at the shadowy figure who had bent to peer into the depths of the
cart.'

         
'There is a fire if you want to cook your food. They are
unloading the mules for the night.'

         
Juana recognized Placido's gruff voice and struggled
stiffly to her knees. Her neck and back were in agonies of cramp where she had
lain doubled awkwardly against the cart-side, but she scarcely noticed it. All
her attention was for Tristan; praise be, he was still sleeping soundly and
there was no fresh blood on the bandages. She turned to look up at Placido with
unconscious authority.

         
'What hour is it? How far have we travelled?'

         
He scowled. 'We have been on the road for about four hours,
and we are clear of the valley. Come to the fire in your own time.'

         
He had better things to do, his tone conveyed, than to
stand answering a woman's foolish questions; a true woman would accept what
fate offered and seek to know no more than a man chose to tell her. Badgering
would not bring her to her journey's end any faster. He grunted, and then slid
down off the cart without another word.

         
Juana was not thinking of his condemnation as she rummaged
in Luis's pack to see what he had given her, remembering how she had forgotten
to thank him for it. But there had not been time; and by the sound of the
hectoring voices in the streets as the cart passed through, they had only just
escaped in time. There was bread here, she saw, cheese, dried meat and a small
stock of rice, and another of flour; Luis must have given her most of what he
had in the house that would travel. Tears sprang to her eyes, but before they
could fall her head had jerked up alertly as a noise from outside the cart
caught her attention. If the mule-train had been followed after all - if they
chanced to meet Don Bautista's reinforcement of soldiers –

         
But the noise had come from the drovers clustered round the
fire a distance away, in the centre of a rough circle of carts, and from the
oxen grazing peacefully within the ring. Juana listened for a while longer,
then bent again to her task. Luis had thought of everything and she remembered
Elisabeta saying that he had been a soldier; the information had not penetrated
her mind when she heard it, she had cared only for his skill as a surgeon, but
he had even thought to provide two flat leather water-bottles, bulgingly full.
That was what Felipe would need more than anything else, she thought: water.

         
Carefully, so as not to lose any of the precious liquid,
she raised Tristan's head and moistened his lips with a few drops, watching him
attentively. There was no reaction; his head was heavy against her arm, and in
the starlight she could see the film of moisture evaporating on his lips.

         
She said softly, urgently, 'Felipe! Come, Felipe, you must
wake up and drink. Wake up.'

         
His head moved slightly as though to deny her voice, and
she urged him again. It was hard to judge his expression in the patched
starlight that rimed the outline of his features with faint silver, but she
could see deep furrows of pain across his forehead.

         
'Lie still. There is no need to move, only drink and you
will be well.'

         
He started to say something in the language she did not
understand, then seemed to hesitate and began again. In a voice that shook, and
in more thicklyaccented Spanish than she had ever heard him use, he blurted,
'Have they taken my father, too?'

         
'No.' She had stiffened, but she spoke instinctively to
soothe him. 'No, he is safe.'

         
As if the sound of her voice had woken him fully, Tristan's
eyes opened. They were luminous emeralds in the dark, and for an instant the
expression in them was shocked and wary; a cat who finds itself in alien
territory, startled, suspicious. Then his eyes focussed on her face and
hardened, coldly bitter.

         
'Not gone yet?' The dry whisper was scathing. 'I did not
know I had to die to cancel the debt. You might have trusted my word that it
was finished and saved yourself this inconvenience.'

         
For a moment Juana felt frozen with shock, then she lowered
her eyes to hide her hurt and spoke as though she had not heard him. 'You must
drink now,'

         
she said composedly. 'You have had a fever from the wound
in your leg.'

         
She thought he would refuse to obey her. He was stiff
against her supporting arm and she could feel his muscles rigid with
resistance; then, as if he could not help himself, he gave a sigh and his
eyelids drooped again. 'You have learned to dissemble at last. You sound like a
wife,' he responded, and let her tilt the water-bottle for him to drink.

         
He managed only one swallow before he began to gag, and
Juana lowered the bottle quickly; he was still, exhausted by the effort of that
slight motion, when she lowered his head again, and she realized how much that
consuming fever had weakened him. She had been waiting for the spate of sharp
questions about their whereabouts, and her presence, but she saw that he was
still barely conscious, and drew a breath of relief. The stronger he was when
he questioned her, the better for him, the more chance she would have of making
him understand.

         
He believed that she had tried to have him murdered, and
the reason was appallingly simple; even she could see that, who knew the truth.
Since the first day they met she had fought him with every weapon she had,
great and petty, because his calm, cold domination had frightened her into what
the had thought was loathing. And when she knew that she loved him she had
guarded her secret more jealously than any murder, fought not to show the
delight she had learned to take in his touch, his possession. She had stopped
every glimmer of her reluctant love from shining through the mask of her hatred
as if it were a beacon set to guide an enemy into a citadel.

         
As it was, she thought as she studied his sleeping face. He
was her enemy now, but no more than he had always been; whether she had
betrayed him or no, he would always hate her for what she was, no less than for
what she did.

         
If she were as selfish and ruthless as he believed her to
be, she thought, she would leave him now to the chance of living or dying. Take
the last shreds of her dowry and set off alone to make a new life for herself
and the child - though not in the convent she had talked of so glibly to Dona
Jeronima. That idea had been the last blinkered response of her restricted,
convention-taught mind; the fact, remembered from her childhood and Tia's dark
remarks since, that sinners should be hidden away from the world. Now she saw
things as they were, and she doubted if there was a convent that would take
her.