free fiction: opening of Key for Spies by M.A. Lee

Here's the opening 25 pages in The Key for Spies, M.A. Lee's 7th book in the Hearts in Hazard series.  Watch this blog for publication information!

Prologue ~ Two Officers

1^st April 1813, Thursday

Thieves night, his older brother had called it, back when they’d run together.  They’d taken to the dark streets, smashed locks to steal pastries or sausages, pried open windows to climb into dark rooms and stolen locked boxes with their stashes of coins.  Pierre never knew who Mattias worked for.  Belly stuffed with iced rolls or spiced sausage, he had trailed behind his brother.  Until the gendarmes caught Mat with a hand stuck in the alms box.

Hidden behind a dark column, he’d frozen when the gendarmes appeared.  Then black wings flapped before his face.  Pierre ran until his sides hurt and his too-tight shoes split along the worn sides.  He’d abandoned his brother, a betrayal that had never left him.

The next day he ran on to Marseilles and re-invented himself as Pierre LeCuyer.

The next time he entered a church, he and other soldiers arrested a priest and the aristocrats sheltering from la Terreur.

British officer Simon Pargeter, working
reconnaissance in northern Spain during
Wellington's Peninsular Campaign

Tonight, Thieves’ Night, he stood inside another church.  Cold stone surrounded him.  His half-shuttered lantern gave light enough to see individual columns, the benches near the lectern, and the painted gold that touched the Madonna’s statue.  The faint candlelight gleamed on the two coins waiting at the statue’s feet, two coins for the men he’d come to meet.  They were little more than shadows darker than the stone columns.  He’d heard them enter.  He watched them cross the nave to the lady’s shrine.  He let them have the first words.

“We should not be meeting.”

Rigo’s protest earned nothing more than Pierre’s chuckle.  “What do you fear in the church of San Miguel?  Do you think the saint will rise up and name your sins?”  Even in his only passable Spanish, the gibe sounded clearly.

The slender young man jerked in response.  “I am not afraid, señor.”  His denial rang off the stone walls.  Past adolescence, Rigo had the fiery Spaniard’s sense of honor.  His compadre had simpler motivations.  “But, Commandante LeCuyer, we have received a message that we will meet at dawn.  This meeting, it is not planned.  I have heard nothing of the reason we must gather.  Have you?” he asked his fellow traitor.  The sturdy man staying in the deepest shadows said nothing.  Rigo turned back to the French officer.  “This meeting is too soon.”

“Merde! Qu’est-ce que c’est?”  His question did not echo of the church walls, but the sibilant hiss echoed through the men.  Even the heavy-set man flinched.  “What must I expect this time?  Another ambush of my men?  A raid on a don loyal to King Joseph?  Another prank that will send my sentries running to the jacks?”

From the darkest shadows came a snort.  “Good joke, that, commandante.  And no one was hurt, not like when we ambushed that patrol.”

Pierre cursed again, uncaring that the Madonna gravely watched him and the two Spanish traitors.  He’d lost his fear of the more than mundane when he ran to Marseilles.  “Remind me again:  why did neither of you send to me word of that ambush?  Two died, three are still in the infirmary.  I have not received their replacements.  And your Doñabella suffered no injuries.  I wonder.  Do you betray me?  Are you loyal to her?”

“We are loyal to Napoleon!  We support his empire, not the old regime.”

“Hsst, imbécile.  Do not wake the priest.”

“You will have your revenge, commandante.”  The words came slowly, firmly from the shadows.  “We will all have our revenge.  And perhaps a little play with Doñabella before she learns the sharpness of my ten knives.”

Fernando’s relish shuddered through Pierre.  He, a major in the French corps, serving under Napoleon himself while in Egypt, feared the man’s violence.  He didn’t trust the stocky Spaniard.  His slow speech and movements were deceptive.  Pierre knew how fast he was with those ten knives.

Rigo, young and nervy, was eager to build his name, but he lacked resolve.  A clerk used to commerce, blood repelled him.  Declared unfit for the Spanish regulars, he had reported to Britessca for any work that the garrisoned French needed.  Pierre had ordered him to infiltrate the local guerrillas.  Fernando had vouched for him.

But with two men watching the guerrillas, Pierre still did not receive the information he needed to capture Doñabella and kill her supporters.

He’d never seen the famed leader of the local rebellion, the one who had replaced Don Esperanza, but he would not want to see any woman after ten knives had carved into her flesh.

“She’s to be taken to Madrid for execution,” he snapped, lest Fernando forget his orders.  “The demand of King Joseph himself, direct to me.  And that will happen.”

Fernando’s darker shadow detached from the stone column.  “You will have a promotion.  I will have my fun.  The boy here—.”

“I am no boy!”

“Will have his initiation,” he finished, ignoring the interruption.  “And el reyJosé will have his execution.”  His heavy voice rumbled through the thick rock surrounding them.  “But the boy is right.  We did not need to meet.”

“A contrario, mi amigos. Madrid sends word that Wellesley will once again try to take Spain.  Many of my superiors believe that the English general will push for Madrid, to seize the capitol and hold Napoleon’s brother as hostage.”

“You don’t think this.”  Rigo proved his worth with his wits.  “What do you think?”

“We are not here to speculate on military strategy.  A troop is tracking a British officer who detached from the main unit.  Your countrymen lost him when he crossed the Duero, but a French troop remains on his trail.  He comes here.”

“You do not know this.”

“I anticipate.  Britessca opens a valley of easy travel to Vittoria, and Vittoria is a gateway to a passage through the mountains and the road into France.”  He bent and picked up his lantern.  “You two will watch for this British officer.  You will alert me when he arrives.”

“You expect him to contact Doñabella?”

Once again the clerk proved his worth.  “She leads the guerrillas.  We have an opportunity to arrest both Doñabella and this Englishman.  And I wish to know the reason you are called to meet at dawn.”

“Then we will get word to you in two, three days,” the big man said.  He had shifted closer to the Madonna’s statue.  He turned a little, and one of the glinting coins vanished.

“If another of my soldiers is killed, I will take retribution for his spilled blood out of your hide, do you understand?”

Rigo agreed quickly.  Fernando merely grunted.

Their answers didn’t satisfy Pierre, but he knew better than to push the two traitors any further.  “I leave now.  Wait until an hour has passed before you leave this church.”

“The bell is only rung during the day.”

“I have a watch,” the young man said hurriedly.  Fernando stretched out his big hand, and the glinting watch was soon swallowed by it.

Pierre did not linger.  His boots tapped across the marble floor.  At the side door, he lifted the latch before he shuttered the lantern.  Then he stepped into the moonless night.  Enveloped by the cool darkness, he walked along empty streets toward the garrison.  A British officer in one hand, Doñabella in the other:  what a coup that would be!

The boy Pierre had learned not to relish a sweet until the iced pastry entered his mouth.  Major Pierre LeCuyer also did not anticipate.  His troops and his two traitors would do the work for him.  Then he would enjoy his reward.

. ~ . ~ . ~ .

Moonless night, one worthy of ghosts.

Simon shivered as he stared at the twinkling stars.  The boulder he leaned against had lost its sun-drenched heat.  Winter still lurked in the ground.  The sky was clear, cold, but still warmer than any English Spring.  He might shiver in his wool jacket, but he wouldn’t freeze.  And he wouldn’t risk a fire.  He’d only shaken the French patrol in the early afternoon.

He propped his temple on the cold rock and resolutely shut his eyes.  But sleep still wouldn’t come.  Nothing stirred the chill darkness, no owl, no sleepless bird, no animal snuffling through the dry rocks, no predator lurking for easy prey.  Simon had soldiered for years.  He knew the tricks to sleep, no matter how hard the ground or how cold his body.  Yet tonight, every time he blanked his mind, a new thought erupted.

He envied his horse.  Muzzle nearly touching the ground, the beast drowsed, not even flicking its tail when moths blundered into him.  The days over twisting trails through the hills had taken their toll.  But the horse hadn’t balked, just kept plugging on when and where Simon directed.  A dun color with raw bones that bulged through the coarse coat, a broad head with ears longer than a mule’s, a mane that looked like rubbed ash, the horse didn’t attract eyes in this country that loved beautiful horseflesh.  And that’s what Simon had asked for when General Murray tapped him for this assignment.  Something ugly with great stamina, sturdy and with a little speed over short distances.  Nothing that would attract attention.  A horse tall enough to fit Simon’s own height but with more muscle than speed.

His own horse, Chancy, remained with the army, well into Spain by now.  He missed Chancy’s even gait and easy seat.  The stallion’s long legs that ate up ground.  Those sleek muscles, a dappled grey coat, and eyes lashed like a courtesan’s drew everyone’s attention, even peasants on their burros or leading oxen to the fields.  The glossy hunter would have sped away from that French patrol, leaping over fences and rock walls and racing over smooth ground.  But Simon’s trail wound through the hills.  Against the mottled earth and pine forests, Chancy’s moon-touched grey would stand out.

The dun gelding vanished in the shadows and blended with the boulders jutting out of the hillside.  The horse kept at a trail when Simon was ready to stop.  He tolerated heat and cold and didn’t need a stable.  He ate hay and green grass and anything else that Simon found for fodder. 

And slept as soon as he finished his nightly food and water while Simon stared into the darkness and wished for sleep.

He checked again that his pistols were at hand then re-folded his arms, a poor barrier against the cooling night air.  He missed the soft pillows and giving mattress of his London lodgings.  He didn’t miss the cold reception from his father, a memory more uncomfortable than the rocks digging into his arse.

On this moonless night, was it that memory that kept him awake?

Eyes shut, Simon turned up the collar of his duff wool jacket, tucked in his chin, and closed his eyes to see the memory more clearly.

A footman had admitted him to Ainsley Hall.  The butler had taken one look at Simon and sniffed.  But he had led the way to his lordship’s study.  After the grand entrance crowded with massive paintings and heavily carved tables and cabinets, Simon had expected the room to be lined with bookshelves, a few tables covered with ledgers, chairs around the tables, a massive fireplace with a leaping fire against the chill of early January.

Lord Ainsley’s study had the fireplace and the fire, but the walls were painted plaster.  The only table sat perpendicular to the fireplace and had only an inkstand, a leather mat, and a single ledger.  One chair, darkened by age, stood against the amber-painted plaster.  One bench stood at the windows, with green curtains opened to the snowy day.  And his lordship sat in a straight-backed chair behind that empty desk.  He wore severe black, his cravat tied plainly.  He had Simon’s high forehead and dark eyes, but his hair had silvered.  He couldn’t be more than five and forty;  he looked two decades older.

He templed his fingers as the butler intoned “Simon Pargeter, my lord.”

Simon had hesitated at the door, but when Lord Ainsley merely lifted one eyebrow, he stepped forward.  He stopped before the desk, like any servant called before his master to endure a lecture.

“Well?” Ainsley asked, and when Simon still hesitated, not sure what to say, not even sure if he should say anything, the high brow deepened its furrows.  “I know the name Pargeter, but that’s a long time ago.”

Simon withdrew the letter his mother had entrusted to him only as she lay dying.  He had read it, then looked to her for more answers.  She had none, only an injunction to present himself to Lord Ainsley.  He handed the letter across to the man his mother claimed was his father and watched as he read it.

The baron scanned the letter, glanced at the leaping flames that warmed the room, then read the letter again.  Then he folded it and placed it carefully on the leather mat.  “So you’re May Pargeter’s son.”

“And yours.”

He nodded once, a small admission.  “We did elope together.”

“But you abandoned her before the promised wedding.”

He nodded again.  He pressed fingers to the letter then leaned back in his chair.  “She recorded your birth in her home parish?”

“No.  She never returned home.  The vicar at St. Anselm’s in Cardiff recorded my birth.  He’s still there.  She sent you word of my birth.”

Once more he gave that single nod.  “How much do you want?”

Simon stepped forward and reached for his letter.  Lord Ainsley let him take it, watched mutely as Simon restored it to an inner pocket, and said nothing as he turned on his heel and stalked out of the study, out of Ainsley Hall, and away from the father he’d discovered he didn’t want to know.

Why did that memory haunt him tonight?  He’d cast it off along with the dust of Ainsley Hall.  With the carefully hoarded guineas that his mother bequeathed him, he bought a lieutenant’s commission and marched on.  He never looked back.

A pointy rock dug into his arse.  He scrabbled to find it then flung it into the darkness.  It clattered across rocks.  The dun gelding briefly lifted his head.  When no other sound came, the horse returned to sleep.  Simon shifted position, dug his heels into the rocky ground, and knocked his head on the boulder, hoping to knock the memory out.  But the old ghost was stubborn.  The scent of leather and whiskey had scented the study.  The fire had warmed the room, welcoming him, ready to cast off the chill after his long walk from the village.  Standing before the large desk, watching his father read the letter, he had hoped and feared and—.

Simon opened his eyes and into the pitchy dark.  Pinpricks of light flashed in his eyes.  He refused to let that memory skulk around.  He didn’t smell leather.  The whiskey was the single swallow he’d permitted himself to stave off the cold.

But this day was like that half-hour.  Desperate to shake the patrol, hoping the next hill offered more shelter, he’d pushed on.  A decade ago he’d felt the same desperation.  His mother’s letter had given him a shock even as it offered shelter from loneliness.  Her parents might have welcomed him, but after Lord Ainsley’s rejection, Simon wouldn’t risk another dismissal from family.

Once again he shut his eyes.  Once again he breathed deeply and willed himself to sleep.  He refused to remember.  He had a mission.  Find the road north, a road that would support an army’s swift passage.  Wellesley would not waste time in the south.  He wanted to block the French border.  Cut off supply, cut off reinforcements, and he could oust Napoleon’s brother from the Spanish throne.  Once he did that, the Spanish would rise to ally with the English.  Together, with Portugal aiding, they would maneuver the French into a decisive battle.

For all that to happen, though, Wellesley’s reconnaissance officers had to find the passage north.

Which meant Simon had to sleep.  Come morning, he needed sharp eyes and sharper wits.

Prologue ~ Two Guerrillas

1^st April 1813, Thursday

Black night, Jesus thought as he did on every moonless night.  Black as evil.  Black as charred bones.  Black as blood.

Raucous laughter flooded from the taverna, muffled by the wooden walls.  He imagined his cousin Angelo scooping up more coins, French soldiers downing more wine, sweaty men gathered around the table, vultures wishing they could feed on the French coins the way that Angelo did.  Sour wine and overcooked beans and thick smoke still pricked his nostrils.  The smells countered the chill washing over him from the cold night.

He shivered.  First April meant spring, but the winter had released its grip on the night.  The walk home would warm him, but he waited on his cousin.  The cold night was wiser for him than the overheated tavern.  A soldier had given Angelo a black-browed look, and Jesus had reached for his knife only to remember he couldn’t kill the man.  The soldiers were five too many.  One would be no trouble, two difficult, a third he could take.  Angelo could take the fourth.  But the fifth man?  He would run and fetch the French officers who ruled Britessca.  And his fellow Spaniards gathered round the table?  They were laborers and servants used to the town.  They thought knives only cut meat and bread.

Jesus had nudged Angelo and pointed to the door.  “Three more,” his cousin said then threw the dice.  And Jesus escaped for any fight started.

The next roar from the taverna was laughter, not the anger he expected.  Maybe this game would end without argument.  Only the black-browed soldier had guessed that the simple paisano was not so simple.

   A month ago in Vittoria, Angelo hadn’t been so lucky.  The men he cheated had beaten him then taken back their hard-won reals and columnarios.  A week later, he appeared at Jesus’ door.  Bruised, his cut lip still swollen and sore, he asked for a room.  He hadn’t complained when Jesus pointed at the estable.  He helped around the farm and worked the estate, and gradually his story came out.

Yet when his bruises faded, he resumed his old tricks, going from taverna to taverna in Britessca, losing and winning, getting a name for his card play and for the todas tablas which sucked in the French soldiers who thought the game simple even as they lost.

Once again, tonight was todas tablas.  His cousin never seemed to have a strategy, but he lost when he bet low and won when it mattered.  He didn’t know how Angelo kept ahead on his bets.

And he was better out here.  If his cousin ran foul of the French officers, his job was to ensure they didn’t kill Angelo.  He kept his eyes on the darkness and his back to the taverna.  He rubbed a thumb over the smooth pommel of his knife.  He could take all five soldiers, one by one, picking them off as they returned to their garrison.  In an alley, in the concealing black against a wall, at the well in the central square.  But one soldier might go upstairs with one of the prostitutas.  One soldier missed meant eyes that had seen Angelo, and tracking Angelo would lead straight to Jesus.

And the priest had reminded him, as he confessed before the Dominica de Passione, that Easter was coming quickly.  The sins he’d committed when he avenged his parents and his little brother and his sister, those were purified by the Crucifixion.  Every confession, the cura reminded Jesus of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, whether Jesus had bloodied his knife on a blue-coat or not.  “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord,” the priest repeated through the confessional screen.

But the cura had not seen the black-charred bones.  He had not seen the blood smeared on Joska when Jesus found her in the stable.  He had not heard her scream and scream when her own brother carried her to the convent.  The cura did not see the French soldiers winning in taverns and winning time with Spanish woman eager for the Napoleon coins.  He did not see his Spanish countrymen bowing to French masters.  Jesus did, and his stomach revolted, spewing his guts as it had when he uncovered the blackened corpses of his parents huddled with his little brother behind the chimney.

The knife was in his hand.

Cold air filled his mouth.  Jesus deliberately re-sheathed the gleaming blade.  Then he lifted his gaze from the pitch-black street to the sky.  Over the rooftops, a gleam of light caught his eye.  The gilded dome of the Brittesca church caught a stray human light and cast it to the heavens.  He watched the light glint around the dome, tracking someone’s passage across the square, his way lighted by a lantern.

Then greater light poured from the taverna as the door opened.  Jesus didn’t look around.  His shoulders twitched as he waited.  Laughter, talk, someone singing without a tune.  The door shut.  Only then did he turn.

Angelo, night-blind, stood at the door.  A fool’s mistake.  He should have moved to one side or taken a few quick steps ahead.

“Jesus?”

Another fool’s mistake, to ask a name into the darkness, with wine-drunk soldiers soured by gaming as they boiled up stupid ideas.  “Here, you tonto.”

Angelo stumbled a few steps, but his night-sight came quickly.  “Glad you left.  You give me more black looks than you should.  It makes the Frenchies cautious.”

“Your winnings make them cautious.”  Jesus started walking.  Starlight and the occasional torchlight revealed any obstacles.  Once they passed Brittesca’s walls, only the stars would light the way.  Jesus liked the enveloping dark, but Angelo didn’t.  He covered his blindness with chatter, a word for each step.

“A few of your coins from last week are here.”  He jiggled the leather pouch, silver and copper clinking, a lure for any greedy or starving man.  “Do you want them back?”

“You won them.  You keep them.”

“Call them payment for my room and board.  You won’t lose coins to me in future.  You won’t be playing.”

“I play and see you shift the stones or palm one, and you won’t be playing with all your fingers.  Those Frenchies catch you, and they won’t just beat you.”

“Que?  You think this?  I do not.  The world has fools aplenty.”

And Jesus walked beside one of them.

“Your meeting go well?”

“I got what I needed.”

“And what was that?”

Did the fool think he would talk of the information he’d gotten for the guerrillas?  “What I needed.”

Angelo snorted.  “You share less than nothing.  I am blood-kin, Chuy, but you treat me like a stranger.  Doñabella accepted me as one of her guerrillas, but you don’t trust me.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“What did I say?”  When Jesus didn’t answer, Angelo grabbed his arm.  He dropped it and flinched back when light glinted on the sharp blade at his nose.  “You’ll cut me?”

Jesus lowered the knife.  He didn’t remember drawing it.  He stared at the starlit blade.  Then he backed a step before sliding it back into the leather sheath.

Angelo jerked open his pouch and spilled coins into one hand.  A few fell to the ground, clinking on the paving stones.  “Take your back.  I didn’t know they would come between us.  Six coppers and two silvers, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t want them back.”

“I don’t want them either, if you’re hating me for them.”  He picked out the coins then flung them against the wall with more clinking on stone.  “You don’t want them.  I don’t want them.”

“Only a fool throws money away.”

“Then I’m a fool.”  He poured the coins back into the pouch then dropped it into his coat pocket.  “You think I am, anyway.”

“You gamble too much.”

“I win too much,” he chuckled.  “Keeps me warm and fed but makes me no friends.  Not even my cousin.”

“Forget it.  We both will.”

“And you’ll tell me about your meeting?”

“I will only tell Doñabella.”

Angelo snorted.  “I would almost think she had your heart, but I have seen you watching Elixane when you think she is distracted with her little brothers and sisters.  She has a pretty smile.”

Jesus’ hands clenched.  “Never mention her.”

“You will see her Elixane on Sunday.  This Sunday is Dominica de Passione.  She is certain to be there and not tending her sick amona.  Is that how you say ‘grandmother’ here?  Amona?”

“That is the Basque,” he agreed, but he wouldn’t be in Brittesca this Sunday.

The first Sunday of every month, he presented himself at the convent.  Mother Abbess would let him visit Joska on that day, if she would see him.  She had, two months ago, rocking in a chair as Jesus sat awkwardly across from her.  Last month, she had screamed when she saw the tall man standing by the table.  The nun had enfolded her in strong arms and pulled her from the room.  He could hear his sister’s cries for a long time, long after they ended.  The Mother Abbess merely shook her head when he pleaded to see her later in the month.  “You know our rules, Jesus.  Come again.”

“She will weep again,” he muttered bitterly.

But he would go this Sunday.  He might not see her, but he would go every first Sunday in the hope.  Joska needed to know that her brother still loved her.  She needed to know that not all men intended to hurt her.  And she needed to know that he was getting vengeance for her.

. ~ . ~ . ~ .

The red draperies belled out as the night breeze strengthened.  The candles guttered, spilling wax down the heavy silver candelabra.  The chill breeze stirred the red velvet curtaining the canopied bed.  Shivering at that touch, cold as ice, cold as the grave, Miri rose from the straight-backed chair beside the bed and crossed to the windows.  The wool carpet covering the tiles muffled her heels, but the carpet didn’t reach the windows.  Her heels tapped on the patterned titles for only a few steps.  Then she slipped through the billowing curtains.

The day’s warmth, palpable as the soft curtains, had dissipated in the hours she watched her aitona sleep.  Hand on the latch, she took one step more, onto the balcony, and looked up at the moonless sky.  Countless stars twinkled, white and cold, distant and uncaring.

Another chilly wind swept past her, into the chamber.  Miri stepped backward, back into the chamber.  She gave one last look at the stars then scanned the night-black vineyards that rolled with the hills behind the house.  Here, from the second story, she could view the estate.  On a moonlit night, she could see the olive groves that began beyond the last vines.  Without the moon, she could see stars and starlight reflecting on white paving stones and gravel.  Over to the right flickered yellow flame, earthbound but still distant.

Miri closed the iron-braced balcony door then closed the inner door with its iron-graced glass.  The latches chilled her fingers, but both doors swung easily and closed with gentle snicks of the locks.  She slipped back through the velvet draperies and tiptoed across the patterned tiles to the carpet and returned to her chair beside Grandfather’s canopied bed.

The candle flames had steadied, but she would need to replace them soon.  Javier had set new tapers beside the ornate holder.  He had waited for her to look up from her reading of Cervantes.  Then he lightly touched them, a wordless signal, before he retired to his own room beyond her grandfather’s dressing room.  Miri eyed the height of the remaining candles and judged that she would wait another hour before replacing them.  Rubbing her silk-clad arms to warm them, she glanced at her grandfather and encountered his glittering black eyes.

“You should be asleep,” he chided, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“I can sleep tomorrow.”

“Where is Javier?”

“Asleep.”

“A conspiracy.”

“If you like.”  She smiled, for she and the old manservant had planned their hours to watch over her grandfather.  Even the housekeeper Arrosa would be enlisted for a few hours tomorrow, just as young Sebastien sat watch today.  For all his restlessness yesterday and the day before, her grandfather had sleep through the boy’s watch.

“Nothing is wrong with me.”

“If you like,” she repeated.

“Indigestion.”

“The doctor thought the problem centered a little higher than your stomach, Aitona.”

“Old fool.”

Since the doctor was decades younger than her grandfather, Miri pressed her lips together while her eyes danced.  Her grandfather knew that he was the old fool, although he would never admit it.  She wished to believe the diagnosis of indigestion, but she would not fall into that self-deluded trap.  Grandmother had died last spring.  She did not want to lose her grandfather this spring.  So she, Javier, Arrosa, and the rest of the servants prayed, and conspired to watch him, and followed the doctor’s order for rest and a bland diet, and then prayed more.

Grandfather shifted, lifting his shoulders before settling back on the pillows protecting his silver-gilt head from the deep and sharp carvings of the age-darkened headboard.

Mutely, she crossed to the chest with its candelabra, the book she’d read to him earlier, and a tray with a decanter of imported Amontillado, diluted with water by Javier.  The fox-flecked mirror reflected the bed and her chair, carved as deeply as the headboard.  She saw him struggle to sit up.  He had waited until her back was turned.  Miri bit her tongue.  He was proud.  He would not accept her help, only Javier’s or Jesus’ when he came to visit the only don he respected.

Wisely, she added an equal amount to a second goblet.  When she handed the wine to her grandfather, he eyed her glass then dutifully drank.  She wet her lips then propped the glass on her knee.

He coughed, then tried to give the goblet back.  “It’s watered down.”

She raised the goblet.  This time she sipped and swallowed.  He scowled but drank more.

He handed the wine to her a second time.  She set their glasses on the square table beside the bed.  When she turned back, he patted the mattress.  She perched on the edge.  Will he share what is troubling him?  His stress and his distraction started ten days ago, when a mud-splattered messenger came.

The man arrived without herald and demanded an interview with Don Teba ye Olivita without giving his own name or the reason for the meeting.  He’d closeted with her grandfather only a few minutes then left.  Arrosa tempted him with fragrant coffee, but he wasn’t snared.  Not even Jesus, walking the man’s weary horse before the wide arches of the front portico, could draw enough conversation to identify his dialect.

And Miri had rejoined her grandfather to discover him burning a letter.

After his collapse three days before, once the doctor left and Javier had taken charge, she dug through her grandfather’s papers, looking for any sign for his recent stress.  Then she carefully replaced everything.  If he asked, she would tell him what she had done, but she would not worry him needlessly.

As her grandfather hesitated, she tapped her lips.  “You wished to speak when the doctor orders rest.  Do you think you must tell me something that I am unable to handle?”

His smile was a ghost of its former strength.  “Since your sixth year, Miriella, you handle everything, much like my Elizabeth,” he added, using the English pronunciation of his late wife’s name.  When his Elizabeth insisted that Miri learn English as well as Spanish and Basque and Latin, he acquiesced.  When she ensured that Miri develop an English girl’s perspective of the world, he agreed and deflected her parents’ complaints, sent from their apartamento in the king’s coastal palacio.  And when Elizabeth decided Miri must meet her English relatives and attend English parties in London, he’d backed her in the arguments with his son and daughter-in-law.

Elizabeth’s death had reduced them both.  He had not recovered.

Miri studied her grandfather’s downcast eyes, the papery-thin flesh, his shaky fingers plucking at the bedlinens.  She covered his hand.  “And?  Tell me.”

His eyes lifted.  They had lost none of their brightness, dimmed only in the months after his wife’s death.  “And I should have told you when the messenger came.  You have taken my place with the guerrillas.  I am proud of what you have accomplished.”

“Flying Spanish and English flags at the French garrison in Britessca?  Loosing the cavalry’s horses in the streets?  Those are only pranks.  We have not struck a real blow against the French since fall.  We failed to set fire to the barrack gates.”

“You give hope to the supporters of our deposed king.  You keep your rebels together.  Soon, soon, we can strike a strong blow against the French.”

“Soon?  How soon?  What is happening?”

“When he arrives, we will help him.  I gave my word;  you will keep it.  You and your guerrillas.”

“Who is he?”

“Your amona was an oracle.  You have her courage and determination.  And her eyes.”  His smile strengthened with those words.  “I trust you, Miriella.”

“Who is he?”

“A British officer” confirmed her guest and sank her heart.  With a traitor in their band, how was she to keep a British officer safe?  And in the last six weeks, her guerrillas were reduced by half, many going south to join the army forming to fight for Spain against the usurper who had taken the throne.  Her grandfather continued, unaware of her worry.  “On the 18^th of this month, at noon, you are to meet him on the ridge between Brittesca and the river.”

“This British officer’s name?  And his mission?”

“Simon Pargeter.  I do not know his mission, but I gave my word.”

She remembered the mud-spattered messenger.  For her aitona, the words “British officer” would have gained his immediate commitment.  He could work miracles with only that.  For her, even as Doñabella with only ten guerrillas remaining in her command—and a traitor hiding among the nine—Miri needed more information.  What was this Simon Pargeter’s mission?  Liaison or reconnaissance?  Or had Wellesley sent him to command her men so they would accomplish some blow, any blow, against the French?

“Do you know his rank?  Do you have a password or a signal so he accepts us as allies?  Or that we will recognize this stranger as our ally?  Or where specifically on the ridge we are to meet?”

“At the blasted pine.”

Grandfather evaded her scrutiny by pleating the bedlinens.  Had he expected to meet the man on his own?  Or would he have told her only a few hours before the meeting?  His illness had forced his hand.  Miri chilled at the realization that her aitona knew the doctor’s diagnosis.  Since his collapse, the doctor or Javier or the housekeeper or Sebastian or someone else had been in the room with them.  Tonight was their first opportunity to speak without anyone overhearing, and he had shared this information at last.

“Aitona—.”

“You must keep my word, Miri.  Swear to me.”

His word.  Only his honor would be remembered after his death.  His lands and title would go to his feckless son and then to an even more feckless grandson with questionable legitimacy to his birth.  Diego Teba ye Esperanza, conde of the northern Teba district and Brittesca, proud of his family, prouder of his reputation, and determined to preserve both until his death.  His careful management of the vineyards and winery, of the olive groves presses, created unrivaled wines and oils throughout Spain.  His work might endure the first decade after his entombment beside his English wife but not longer.  Only his reputation would endure.

“Swear, Miri.”

Those glittering black eyes pinned her and demanded an answer.  She hid her crossed fingers in the black skirt of her gown, for she didn’t know if the traitor among her men would set all their plans afire.  “I swear, Aitona.”