Fair Blows The Wind Part 5

"You mean he was a man who carried a sword?" The big man's tone was contemptuous.

"I mean a swordsman. He had the movements and the manner, the style, if I might say so."

"Ah? You speak as one who knows. Do you?"

"I do. I worked in the armory at Toledo. I was a maker of swords, and I have observed many swordsmen. I have seen the best."

"A swordsman. All right, I accept it. And a captain, too? A captain of what?"

"I do not know."

"What has become of him?"

"He went for a walk along the sh.o.r.e. I believe he wished to see if any s.h.i.+ps were about. He did not come back."

"Any s.h.i.+ps? Or one particular galleon?"

"Who knows?"

"So he did not return. Did he join others hidden nearby, perhaps? Did he seem interested in the galleon?"

"No," Armand lied. "He knew only that we had escaped from a sinking s.h.i.+p, nothing more."

The large man turned sharply on Felipe. "Is that true?"

"I believe so. He seemed interested only in getting something to eat. He was hungry, I think."

"Why do you think so?"

"I have been hungry, senor. I observed his attention to the fire where the food was, and how he ate. He was hungry, senor, even though he claimed this land-" Felipe waved a hand, "-as his estate."

The big man changed the subject. "The San Juan de Dios ... where is she now?"

"I do not know. We were ordered to the boats. When I looked back ... she was down in the water. But where or when she sank, who knows?"

The large man, whoever he was, seemed to know what he was about. That worried me. He was no man to trifle with, and it was obvious his sources of information were excellent. Yet where was his s.h.i.+p? If s.h.i.+p he had.

Now he was giving orders to several men and they were moving out.

"We'd better get shy of this place," Tufley whispered, "they're comin' for a look around, I'm thinking."

We moved back, taking our time and trying to make no sound or movement. From the slight rise from which we had first viewed the camp, I glanced back.

The original Spaniards were all there, but there were a number of other men moving about. There must now be at least twenty in all.

There was something disturbing about the large man, something that made me feel that I'd seen him before. Another strange man, a man lying on the ground with his back to us, had also seemed familiar.

Suddenly we heard the big man speak again. His voice was loud. "No man or woman is to leave this camp but by my order. Do you understand that? He or she who tries to leave will die, and I do not exaggerate. I don't care that," he snapped his fingers, "for any of you."

Don Diego replied, his voice strong and clear. "Senor, if harm comes to anyone here, I will see that you hang for it, and your comrades will hang beside you!" He paused then and said, "Do you remember who I am, senor?"

The large man bowed with a sweep of his hat. "Who does not, Don Diego? But let me remind you that the seas are wide and a man with a s.h.i.+p can go where he will. And I shall go where not even you can follow, and where the might of Spain is less than a whisper in the night. I will do what I please, Don Diego, and when it pleases me to do so I shall slit your n.o.ble gullet with my own hand, and feed what remains to the fish.

"Do you understand me, Don Diego? You are nothing here ... nothing! I have the power now, and I alone!"

We moved away, rinding our way back to a cedar-clad knoll where the waters of the sound could be seen, and much of the area around.

There was now no sign of the San Juan de Dios.

Had she sunk, at last? Or found some other place to rest until another tide floated her free? Search as I might, I could see nothing of her.

We went down off the knoll and into a deeper thicket of cedar. There we found a place where the earth had been hollowed, perhaps by some bear, long ago, at the base of a cedar, but close against the trunk where it was covered by thick branches. There was room for two there, and we took shelter. From the packet inside my s.h.i.+rt I took some s.h.i.+p's biscuit and shared it with Turley.

Night was shading down and we settled ourselves for sleep. Turley, with the ease of his years in the woods, was soon asleep, but I lay long awake, disturbed by memories of my youth. Why they had suddenly come upon me now, I could not guess, but lying back and looking up at the cedar, enjoying the pleasant smell of the crushed needles, my mind strayed back to my boyhood.

My father had been a bookish man, quiet in manner and gentle of voice. He loved to walk the lonely beaches as I did, and to climb among the rocks. Often when resting he told me stories of the Milesians who had come to Ireland from Spain, long, long ago, and how the Irish were then called Scots from a Milesian queen named Scota. She had been a daughter of Pharoah, ruler of Egypt. He told me tales of Conn of the Hundred Battles and of the old kings who ruled from Tara, and of the Druids who had been their teachers and advisers.

He told me the story of how the Danes had settled Dublin. In Gaelic it was Dubh-Linn, or the Black Pond.

One morning he took up his stick and said, "Come, lad, I've a thing to show you," and he took me out along the sh.o.r.e and up among the rocks to a high place where the ground was suddenly flat, rimmed all around with the ruins of an ancient wall.

"It was a castle once," he said, "a fortress of a sort. It commanded," he pointed the path, "a way up from the sea, yet it was a rare raider who came this way. Most often they came from the east coast and attacked the people who lived there. Only now are we in grave danger here."

"We are?"

"You bear an old name, my son, as do I. Our name is a symbol, and so it has been for many, many years. Yes, one day they will come. Somehow we must get you safely away."

"I want to stay with you. I can fight." I said this with more hope than honesty, for although I had learned to ride and to shoot, to fence and to duel with the quarterstaff, I had never fought except with my fists against the village boys.

"No ... you must not fight. You must escape, and then one day you will come back here and claim what is truly yours.

"The name must continue to live, even though it must live in hiding. This castle," he gestured about him, "was built of huge timbers once. Twice it was destroyed, and then it was built of stone. Again it was destroyed and again rebuilt. The last time it lay as you now see it, but if the stones are down and the walls are gone, we still live. You must come back here, my son. Someday you must come back."

A few short years later, he was dead, killed by the invader, and I was a fugitive, hunted through all the countries of Ireland.

My mother's people were of the Tuatha De Danann, who ruled Ireland before the coming of the Milesians, a wise and strong people, noted for their arts and knowledge. So my people were doubly old in the land, and my name was known throughout Ireland.

Hard had been the years of my flight! Hard the very days after I landed in England! The village folk stared at me as I walked through, and the dogs barked and ran snapping at my heels, but frightened though I was I did not turn, but walked on through the village and away into the land.

That night I slept in a corner of a stone wall, and in the morning started on. The bit of food I'd brought from the boat lasted me through the day. Twice I turned down lonely lanes and then reached a muddy road and pa.s.sed an inn. I'd a bit of money and my belly demanded attention, yet I hesitated for fear of stirring curiosity at a lad going his way alone.

Most inns would not wish my custom. Yet my hunger was such that I turned from the road and went up to the door.

It was an impressive place, with timbered galleries, a courtyard, and stables. I went into the common room, glancing into the kitchen as I pa.s.sed the door. It seemed to glitter with copper kettles, bra.s.s candlesticks, and a row of pothooks at the wide fireplace.

There were evidently few travelers on the road, for there were but four men within the common room, one of them a stout, older man with gray hair who shot me a quick, appraising look out of kindly blue eyes. A pair of men who might be locals were sharing a bench and drinking to each other from the same tankard, as the custom was. The fourth man was slim and handsome, a man with prematurely white hair and lean features that might have been carved from marble, so white they were, and so expressionless save for the eyes. The eyes were very large and almost black.

He had glanced up when I came in, then paid me no attention.

I had slept in my clothes and they were rumpled. I must not have looked well, for the tavern keeper, a burly, brusque sort of man, came forward. "All right! We'll have no-!"

Young I might be, but I'd not been born to a castle for nothing. "Ale," I replied coolly, standing my ground, "and a bit of bread and cheese. If you have a slice or two of beef, so much the better."

I pointed toward an empty table near the stout old man. "I'll have it there," I said and, ignoring him, I walked over and seated myself.

He hesitated, taken aback by my manner, so unlike a lad from the lanes or the farms. He started to speak. "I have little time," I told him. "I am expected."

He left the room and a maid came quickly throwing me a curious glance. She hit the table a swipe with a cloth and then put down a tankard of ale. "A moment, sir, and we'll be having the rest." Then under her breath she whispered, "If you've naught to pay with, better run now. He's a fierce hard man!"

Placing a gold coin on the table, I heard her gasp. In a moment the tavern keeper was there and he reached for the coin. "Leave it," I said. "When I've eaten you can take of it what is necessary."

The white-haired man in the blue coat had turned his head and was regarding me. The last I wished was to draw attention to myself, but neither did I intend to be robbed or bullied. It was little enough I had, and each penny would be needed.

The tavern keeper turned from the table, his face and neck flushed with angry blood. He liked it not, being spoken to so by a mere lad, and had there not been others present it might have gone hard with me. Yet he was worried, too, for my manner told him what sort of person I was, and he wanted no trouble.

The food came soon, and I ate slowly, taking my time. Every morsel of food tasted good, and the ale did likewise. After a bit the old man got up, bobbed his head in a brief nod to me, and went out. A moment later I heard the creaking of a cart and glimpsed them pa.s.s the door, a covered cart drawn by a donkey. The old man walked alongside and a big dog trotted behind.

The tavern keeper came in again. "That'll be sixpence," he said.

The man with the white hair was gazing out the door. "Fourpence," he said, absently.

The tavern keeper started, glancing swiftly at the white-haired man. "It'll be sixpence," he said under his breath.

"Fourpence," the white-haired man repeated.

The tavern keeper took up the gold coin and left the room. I waited and waited, but the white-haired man waited also. Finally, my host returned and placed a stack of coins upon the table.

"Count them," the man with the white hair said. "Is it that you think I'd cheat the lad?"

"You would," the man said. He got to his feet. He was not a tall man but lean and well set up.

My coins were a half-crown short. I held out my hand for it, and with ill grace, he put the coin in my hand. "Now be off wi' you!" he said gruffly.

"I shall," I said, then added, "The ale needs a bit of aging."

Once outside, the man with the white hair stepped to his saddle. He lifted a whip in salute, then rode away. Hastily, I made off down the road in the opposite direction. I had gone no more than a few yards before the two locals who'd been drinking in the tavern came to the door and looked up the road.

It was lucky for me they looked the wrong way first, for I saw them, knew what they were about, and ducked through the hedge. Once on the other side, I legged it along the back side of the hedge, then across the corner of the field and over a stone wall.

Behind me I heard a shout and knew I'd been seen, so crouching low behind the wall, I ran not away from them but back toward the lane. I heard them cras.h.i.+ng through the hedge, but I reached it on the road above them, ducked through a hole, and crossed the lane and ran swiftly away from them.

A low wall loomed before me and I took it on the run, ducked behind a hayc.o.c.k and then a barn. There a dog saw me and began barking furiously but I kept on, knowing they'd be after me now. I'd no doubt the tavern keeper had put them on me.

Small though I was, I'd had practice in running these past months, and in dodging and hiding as well. I came out on another, smaller lane, and ran along it, holding to my own direction.

There was a village somewhere ahead, but I knew not whether that be good or bad, simply that it was there and I must consider it.

Then the village was before me but I went around a hayc.o.c.k along the back side of a barn and down a wild bit of hillside away from the village. Now I ran no longer, but moved from cover to cover, keeping an eye out for them.

I'd lost them, or so it looked. I came to another lane and followed it away from the village. But the lane suddenly betrayed me, taking a turn around a low hill within sight of the village. For there they were, the two of them, and no chance for me to get away.

They spread out a little and came at me.

8.

To flee from them was impossible, for their legs were longer than mine. It was a sunken lane with stone walls on either side, and as they closed in toward me, I suddenly bolted between them.

One grasped wildly at my shoulder and my s.h.i.+rt tore under his hand. Yet I was briefly free of them and I went up the bank and swung over the wall, sprawling on the earth beyond. My hands closed over dirt and I came up quickly, frightened. They came over the wall at me and I flung the dust into their eyes.

One man let a fearful yowl out of himself and both men grabbed for their eyes. At that moment I saw a stout stick, a twisted branch broken from the hedge nearby. Catching it up, I swung hard on the nearest man and caught him alongside the jaw, and he went down. Then I closed in on the second, whose eyes were busy blinking the dust away. He threw up a hand as I swung my cudgel but I brought it down, striking him on the kneecap.

Then I ran.

Across the pasture into which I'd fallen, past a barnyard and into the lane beyond. On I ran until I thought my lungs would burst, when suddenly before me there loomed a patch of woods bordered by a wall. I went over that wall and into the woods, pausing, my breath tearing at my lungs, to look back. There was no one in sight.

I plodded on into the forest. I was sick of running and desperately worried, for in all this broad land there was no friend to whom I could turn. Nor had I a place to go. It was lonely and tired I was when at last I seated myself on a fallen tree and began to cry.

Shamed am I to confess it, but so it was. Lonely and sick with the fear of all that was about me, with enemies all on every hand, I cried. My dear father was on my mind, and my lost home, and the knowledge that I'd no place to go nor anybody to go to anywhere that was friend to me.

"Are you hurt?"

It was a girl's voice, and I sprang to my feet, putting a hand across my eyes to wipe the tears.

She was standing there, not a dozen feet away, with a great dog beside her, a huge bull mastiff with great jowls.

"I said, are you hurt? There you sit, crying like a great b.o.o.by. What sort of boy are you, anyway?"

"I was not crying!" I protested. "I was tired."

"What are you doing here in my forest?"

"Your forest?"

"Yes, mine it is, and I did not invite you here. You are n.o.body I have ever seen. Are you a gypsy?"

"I am not!"

"Well, do not be so proud. I think it not a bad thing to be a gypsy. I have often thought it would be a great thing to go riding about in a red and gold wagon, eating beside the road. I would have white horses, four of them, and I'd have Tiger with me, and-"

"Who is Tiger?"

"My dog. Tiger is his name."