This is from the drafted version ~ with a few minor changes, it's the final copy published.
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
18th 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.”
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