Author's Note: The first scene was inspired by the song 'Moliendo Cafe' by the Thunder Bay band Flamenco Caravan. Their song in turn was inspired by an older, traditional Spanish flamenco song.
One: At The Molienda
Café
From my seat near the back of the
Molienda Café I saw him walk in through the door, glance around, then sit at a
vacant table near the entrance. He was wearing his new wide-brimmed hat of
black felt and a fine woolcloth cape like a sheath of grey slate. I know this
because I have stared at the video clip many times since then, wondering if it
could have ended differently.
He ordered something when the waiter
came, but distractedly, as you would if you were trying to watch the charging
bulls of Confianza's annual encierro.
I kept watching the man. He sat as though listening intently to the flamenco
guitar, or like someone posing for a portrait, with a straight back. His eyes
occasionally flickered towards the doorway or the other tables. Once he glanced
towards mine, but without the slightest twitch of the eyebrow or lip to
acknowledge my existence, nothing to recognise how much of myself I'd given for
his cause, and how much more of me he could have taken.
The
waiter, young and nervous, passed me with Rodrigo's order: a steaming champurrado
flavoured with cinnamon, and a saucer of fat churros. My stomach was cramped
and empty, but I couldn't have touched a thing.
Without
touching the drink or the churros, he rested his hands on each other on the
tabletop. Now and then one finger tapped out the staccato of the tango which
was throbbing through the café's air. His finger was oddly streaked with
sepulcherous white flesh. My fingers, trembling, lay on my faux-leather purse
on the tabletop in front of me, shifting the purse fractionally so as to cover
him and the doorway in the peeping lense's stare.
Opposite
him, a family of five were arguing about the new mayor of Confianza's Montagne
district over a bottle of deep, red Càdiz and the remains of a fine dinner. A
couple, arm in arm, had just paid and were leaving. Each offered the other loud
endearments of veteran love, chuckling all the while as they performed a
stiff-limbed slow-step out to the pavement. At a table by a wide window sat a
much younger couple who hardly touched their cocktails, preferring each other's
fingertips. She was slender and young, and trying to hide her nerves; he was a
typical isocliner: sallow of face and unnaturally tall, as though made of
rubber that had been stretched. One or two of the customers spared a curious
glance at the lonely figure near the door.
At the back of the Molienda Café's main room is a
cramped semi-circular dais on which entertainers strut their stuff. That
afternoon, five musicians were playing: two guitarists, a pianist, a bassist
and a percussionist. There was a silver trumpet lying atop the piano. By the
tempo and the beads of sweat on their taut faces, they played only to keep more
than one or two bars ahead of death itself, all except the leading guitarist.
He perched, entranced, on a stool. His fingers were a blur over the frets of
his spruce-topped Casimiro Diaz classical guitar, flicking the rasgueados across the strings with no
apparent effort. While making a close study of his style, one might have
noticed the absence of the middle finger of his right hand. His cherubic face
lit with a smile at the end of a measure and he glanced at the other guitarist,
a lean, storm-battered crow of a man whose head was overrun by a frizz of
straw-coloured hair, and nodded emphatically as the mood slackened and the
piano took up the melody. A party of four were dancing nearby, three of them
intensely, one laughing as he stumbled.
To all those who say that the ancient styles such as
flamenco are little better than ghosts, or resurrected bones, imposing on our
world of the living, I say look at the dancers, and listen, and if your heart
be not stirred, then it is you who are the ghost. We owe the patient archiveros of the Casa Bronce an
uncountable debt.
Near the door the caped man did not
stir from his vigil except to ripple his longing fingers in time to the
dizzying spiral of sound now rising from the piano. It was hard for the
approaching waiter to see his features under the hat's brim except for a dark
moustache grown wild and lips like two pale salchicha
sausages set firmly above a resolute chin. In answer to the waiter's question
he perhaps twitched his head a hairsbreadth to one side. The waiter retreated
and bid a courteous farewell to the family of five who, oblivious, were still
arguing as they strolled out of the Molienda and down the old street. Their
feet doused momentarily the slick of each cobblestone.
The café is happily situated at the top of the market
street which leads down from its junction with Calle de Esperanza to the old
dock. It's been a feature of Confianza life for so long, and nobody seems to
know when it opened. Perhaps it's been there since the Founding. But that day,
the whitewashed shopfronts and their dripping awnings framed the view of the
steel dock, which gleamed from the afternoon's cloudburst in the lowering
light. That was my favourite seat, in part because of this view framed in the
doorway. Next to the dock could be seen the three white stone storeys of the
Bureau of Ancient Devices. Beyond and below the dock
stretched bright air, where in Córdoba the waters of
the Guadalquivir would have shivered past under the brooding gaze of Ángel de Saavedra. There paraded an immense bank of cumulus cloud down
below, dazzling against the distant haze. An air ferry alighted on the dock
with a dying howl and its passengers dispersed into the streets. Some climbed
the market street.
Three of them, two men flanking a young
woman, entered the Molienda Café and stood by the desk, waiting to be seated.
The men began to unbutton their long jackets and a few wet pearls arced through
the thick yellow beams that reached through the doorway. One of the men was
unusually tall and wide-shouldered, while the other walked hunched over. The
woman was dressed in a calf-length skirt, a quilted jacket and waistcoat all of
peach, and a swallow-wing hat to match. Her features were as those of a young
queen, coaxed by a sculptor out of silkiest, milkiest alabaster to evoke desire
in a man's heart, but her looks were downcast, almost absent, as if she were
exiled in her present skin.
Even as her heels were still
tick-tacking on the threshold, the waiting man jumped to his feet and his chair
tipped back onto the floor with a crash that turned all heads. I found myself
rising from my seat, but forced myself to sit again. The male isocliner also
rose to his feet, ducking under the ceiling, and his hand slid into his jacket.
The tango faltered and died.
The lone man passed a trembling hand
over one side of his ashen face as if his head were pounding. His hat fell to
the floor, revealing eyes that burned in starved sockets and cheeks mottled
with the same streaks of the ceramically smooth material that defamed his
hands. It was a little as though pale, glistening milk-flame tattoos licked at
his ears and eyes. His dark hair was long enough to touch his collar behind,
and fell lank and straight. As he stumbled around the table towards her, she
saw him and stared, puzzled and disturbed.
The waiter ran over. "Is
everything alright, sir?"
But he took another step closer and his back
straightened, his eyes locked on hers, the fingertips of one hand reaching: the
gitano bailerin dancer intent on
expressing duende, his soul. The two men also stepped forward to intercept him.
As if through parched lips, he spoke:
"Three words: cease thy suit."
"What seems to be the matter,
sonny?" grated the taller of the men.
The troubled man did not return his
stare, but murmured, "Señor Carlos, how sweet of you to come along."
Her eyes widened. "Three words?
But you're not... He's..." Gazing at his haggard features more intently,
she gasped a breath: "Oh!" Her hand flew to her mouth.
"Rodrigo?"
At the sound of the name, the men each
grasped one of his arms and the hunched one growled threats, but the desperate
man merely raised his voice.
Most of the café's customers were
listening. The isocliner was leaving in a hurry, with his girl trailing behind,
slipping between the tense scene and the front counter.
"Months ago – I don't know, maybe
a year - right in this place - you told me I was not the one for you," he
rasped. She nodded, breathing rapidly. "But suddenly it seemed to me that
I am. And I returned for you." He drew a long breath that shook his frame.
"So – will you come away with me now? Right now?"
She shrank back with wild eyes. The
musicians stood and stared. Everyone in the café appeared to be awaiting her
response. I knew what I wanted her to say, and also what I would have said in her place, if he had ever bothered to say
similar words to me.
She may have been wondering how her placid day could
be so brutally disrupted. But that's the essence of Rodrigo for you. His
malformed ego seems to feed off other people's admiration of him, just as much
as their frequent rejection of his schemes: he bursts into your life, shakes
you awake, then rushes off again, shouting "Follow me!" over his
shoulder. It will take me some time to explain Rodrigo. It will take me much,
much longer to forget him, to forget what he did to me. I might just as well
try to forget my own name.
So, since we won't forget Rodrigo for
many a year, I may as well fill in the blanks and try a sketch of him.
Scene Two : Many months
before
Today the cloud tops are restless
and the wind is disturbing the peach blossoms. As I sit in my mother's easy
chair on the edgeward balcony overlooking the orchard, I cannot see much beyond
Confianza for the clouds and for the more distant smog along the zero isocline.
It lays like a blanket gritty
floor hazy plain
Juana Maria Confianza Syrtisia sighed
and shook her head as she lay down her pen in the centre of her journal. She
ran a thoughtful finger over its precious recycled pages, which were rough like
a fine leather, like a man's skin. The receding rays of the sunball slid
between the clouds and the branches to touch the page and warm her fingers a
little.
A door opened behind her and a matronly
woman stepped onto the balcony, bearing on a tray a tall glass of a pink liquid
and a saucer of dark cherries. She wore a faded grey smock smattered with food
stains, and a white cotton peakless cap. "Ma'am, it's me," she
murmured. "A little something."
Juana turned and smiled, placed her journal on the
balcony ledge and rose to her feet with unconscious grace. She took the tray.
Thanking her warmly, she insisted at length that the other woman sit in another
chair nearby, and finally the serving woman relented and sat, looking pleased.
"Sualli, that's sweet of you," Juana said. She took a sip from the
glass. "Grapefruit juice! And
cherries! You know me so well." They exchanged pleasantries and shared the
cherries.
Sualli took a long look out across the cloudscape and
the slightly rustling tops of the fruit trees. "Your father is throwing
another grand ball," she said, in tones designed to intrigue. "We're
all very, very, busy." She
peered at the younger woman to see the effect of her words.
Juana nodded. "I suspected as
much. He's plotting diplomacy again, I fear." Her smile spoke of shared
confidences. An unrelated recollection lit up her face. "Sualli, when I
was walking out yesterday after dusk in Calle de Esperanza, near the dock, I
stumbled across the most enthralling café. They have live musicians, very good
ones too. The lone guitar sang like nothing I have heard before. I sat and
nurtured my champurrado for nearly an hour and listened before I came home.
Really, you must come next time. You must! You would love it. Father's idea of
a chaperone is big on nerves of steel and short on taste. The big ox kept on
suggesting we might be in some sort of danger. Imagine! In a café!"
Sualli coughed politely and regarded
the younger woman fondly. "I hope you chose your dress with more than your
usual sense," she said. "The things you keep in that
wardrobe..."
"Of course," she replied,
amused. "The long white one that's so hard to launder."
Framed by such well-tended raven's hair
drawn back in a net, Juana's fine features would tend to a brooding look,
except for the eyes which emitted amusement and understanding in equal amounts.
Her plain mauve dress reached from its modest neckline to ankles and elbows. A
thin belt of golden silk looped around her slender waist.
The sigh that hushed from Sualli bore a lifetime of
experience, and of having that wisdom ignored. "Juanita mia, child! I know that you have never had a man friend,
but you must listen to your guardians. These places, they are for those who
drown their sorrows, and for dishonourable liaisons. Not for the daughter of a
prince!"
Juana regarded her friend. "My father, a mere
prince? He is a king. But do not tell him
that I said so."
Sualli's face lifted in amusement. "Very well, Juanita mia. But promise me you will
never visit the Molienda again. And now I must go, or I will be missed."
Then she was gone, without waiting for Juana's promise, taking the empty glass
and saucer on their tray, and closing the door gently behind her.
At the far end of the balcony stood an
illustrated screen, standing in eight folding sections on slender brass feet
which almost seemed to hover above the spotless grey marble floor. Juana Maria
stood and examined the perhaps-oriental design on the screen. An extravagantly
feathered bird perched on the branch of a rambling, gold-leafed tree. In the
distance rose emerald foothills and cloud-piercing mountains, beyond which hung
a silver crescent that she`s always assumed symbolised the sunball. The bird
appeared to be at the point of taking flight, crying with open beak and
stretched-back neck in some ecstasy of desolation, or perhaps fury. Such
mountains – where would one find such peaks? Was there a sky-island large enough to host such a magnificent scene? And the carefully
defined wooded slopes were more like rounded crystals than hills. The landscape
fit the strangeness of the bird. She could not imagine being struck with such a
storm of emotion. The bird reminded her equally of her father's bouts of anger
and of the fiery music in the café. Perhaps the artist intended to exaggerate.
Just then the top of the nearest peach tree shook in a
pink snowstorm, and there, hauling himself over the edge of the balcony from
its lower branches, was Rodrigo González. Juana almost fell over backwards.
"What do you think you're doing?" she hissed. He turned a huge grin
on her and she huffed and glared. "Well – how did you get in here? Did you
fly?"
He straightened up, brushed the pink
petals from his tousled hair, and shrugged. "Guess I must have," he
smiled. Passionate lips sat between a strong chin and a moustache well trimmed.
Hazel eyes twinkled. The sunball's last rays lit his tanned complexion, showing
up every last wisp of the fine hair on his left cheek. He wore a dark leather
tunic and matching trousers, belted and collared like a windship pilot against
the cold of the sky.
Finally she chuckled and stepped up to
him, but not too close. She ran one finger along his left cheek where a new scar
had blossomed raw and crimson. "Fallen down the stairs again?" she
asked with a half-smile.
"Ahhh..." He was about to
answer, stalled the coming laughter in mid-breath, considering how much to say,
but instead changed tack. He lifted a hand to join her lingering finger.
"That was your father's servant just now, wasn't it?" She nodded
once. "He's invited the Dons of Castile and Grand Canarias for his latest
party. Sounds like a significant event." He raised an eyebrow.
"Don't worry," she said.
"It's not my betrothal." She turned, dropping his hand. "I would
love to read some more old plays with you. Last time – we didn't even get
halfway through Romeo and Juliet, did we?"
His laughter was glad. "No, we
didn't. We left them just as we are now, talking above an orchard. That was
very fine, until you blushed and would read no more."
She turned from him, perhaps to hide
her face. "Do you remember the day we first met? I think I'd drunk a
little too much at the ball, while we talked so long, you and I, mask to mask.
You played the piano for me. I`d never heard the piano played that way before.
I dropped my swan mask in the street, wandering home alone. One of those two
cut-throats picked it up and taunted me with it. Then you jumped in front of
them, out of nowhere. That's when you got that first scar."
He moved a little closer to her.
"It wasn't my first," he whispered, "but the first earned in
your service."
She backed away, picking up her journal from the
balcony ledge and closing it. "I do wonder," she went on playfully,
"if you had an arrangement with those thieves. It all seemed a little too
easy. And you must have been following me." He made as if to protest. She
went on, "Anyway, it worked. I was
grateful, wasn't I?"
He chuckled and shook his head. "I
did recognise one of them, actually. He occasionally worked a night-shift for
the Cumbrans. Scaring the innocent, silencing babbling mouths. And I expect
he's still up to the same."
A cloud seemed to pass over his face,
and he grew quiet, staring down at the peach blossoms.
Juana studied him. He seemed to hold in
reserve his inmost thoughts, weighing the necessity of what he would say. It
wasn't that he intended to keep her out of his life or present himself as what
he was not; but there was a great deal to his background and his daily life
that he was reluctant to share. But she trusted his intentions, for she knew
what it was to live amongst predators and eavesdroppers, and how a wrong word
to a loved one could bring danger just as well as shared intimacy. Finally she
asked him, "But surely my father would never allow the Cumbrans to operate
freely in his city?"
"He may not desire them here, but
they have their ways."
She wet her lips. "And how do you
come to know all this... this information? You told me last time that you work
for the benefit of the poor and defenceless. Yet you are not a lawyer, I can
see that. Your work as a merchant is only a cover – am I correct?"
He directed a long, measuring gaze at
her. "If I tell you what I am, you will be involved."
"I will not betray you, even to my
father!"
"Mm. But... not turning me in to
the authorities would be an offence."
"You're not a – a –
criminal?" Swallowing, she stepped back.
"That depends on who is accusing,
and what is a crime. If a wealthy factory owner pays his labourers barely
enough for their exorbitant rent – rented from the same swindler – and
withholds their pay for months at a time, and then lends them money at a
sadistic rate of interest, is it a crime to empty his safe and share out the
contents between them? If a certain island's nobility judges that stateless
wanderers are all subversives, and locks up a dozen of them in an airless hole,
is it a crime to let them out and find them a safe home?"
Flushed, Juana stared at him. "Is
that what you do? I had almost guessed as much. But these things would never
happen here. Maybe on some other island..."
"You'd be surprised. Every island has its shame," he replied, softly.
They stood in silence, their gazes
drawn to the parading cloudscape. From somewhere inside came a clattering of
brass trays and voices.
Juana broke the long silence, speaking
hurriedly, and not turning her eyes from the view. "Usually these days you
can see Maribia from here. It looks like a fuzzy apple seed about..." she
said, holding up thumb and forefinger high, at arm's length; "...there.
José says the Maribians seem lazy to him. Lazy, but content. Just a different
way of life."
Rodrigo smiled quizzically and nodded.
He gazed at her and lifted a hand: an overture, an invitation; but she turned
away a little and carried on speaking into thin air. "My tutor was trying
to tell me this morning about his favourite scholar, one Omnus Mundi. He's
travelled widely, this Mundi, and claims that the world is not an enclosed
space, but that we live sandwiched between two infinitely extensive
plates."
With a patient smile, Rodrigo nodded.
"So he doesn't believe in an outside universe. History's a mere fiction,
and all that."
"Yes. Well, you must admit that
the records are pretty fragmentary. What he doesn't explain is gravity."
"Does anybody explain that convincingly?"
She shook her head and gave him a slim
smile. She seemed to become aware of his gaze for the first time and met his
eyes for a moment, before looking away. "My mother is up to her
tricks," she confessed. "You know my step-brother José, her son from
her first husband who died so heroically. She's maneuvered father into
employing José as his Minister of Transport. But José's hopeless at management.
In fact he's pretty Maribian!"
Rodrigo frowned in concentration.
"So may I ask what your mother promised him in return?"
"I'm not sure. I heard her mention
some titles in Castile that she's not so attached to. Perhaps..."
"Yes, that would make sense. He's
constantly looking for leverage over the Castilians."
"You should see how they carry
on," she went on. A wistful smile crept to her lips and she turned back to
him. "Mother makes him think she's growing sick again, to get his
sympathy, then before he insists she convalesce on Grand Canarias – a place she
hates – she prompts someone to deliver a bad report about the present Minister
of Transport. Such timing! While he's fuming over that, in comes José with an
artifact father hasn't seen before, a good one."
"What kind?"
"A translator, and slimmer than my
journal. You just select one of twenty-eight languages, speak into it, and it
translates for you. It's not bad. We tried Spanish into Hindi, Spanish into
Arabic, and it made sense.
"So while father was smiling at
José, mother got them talking about work. Really José lost his position as
trade rep up in Maribia because they couldn't understand his Arabic, but mother
played up the climate and the drugs trade. By then I could tell that father had
seen through it all, and was playing along, just so he could get something from
mother. When he named his price, she almost exploded."
Rodrigo nodded. "You are one
amazing family, you know that?"
She pursed her lips. "It's just
politics. They all made up and laughed about it afterwards."
"Almost makes me wish I had a
family. Almost. You know the proverb, 'Better a lion in winter than a mouse in
summer.'" He leaned his forearms on the edge of the balcony. "By the
way, Juana, did José mention where he got the device? In Maribia?"
His question drew a low chuckle from
her. "No. He didn't get it at all. Hernandez did, through some sort of
deal he wouldn't elaborate on. Mother told him to keep silent and she'd fund
his expedition to Severny. I don't know who he got it from. He doesn't trust
even me." She looked down. "None of them trust each other at
all."
"Ah well. He's an interesting one,
your brother. He is half his father's son, and half someone else entirely. I
could almost trust him. He keeps his thoughts to himself."
"And everyone's an island edged in
sand," she quoted, looking at him.
He returned her stare. "A
temporary refuge where somebody else can stand?" he completed. "Not
quite what I had in mind with Hernandez. It's me who's doing the running away.
But he'll do well down in the freezing wastes, I think, until he misses the
good council of his wise sister." This won him a smile, and he took her
hands in his. "As I miss your company, often." Her smile dimmed a
little, then returned more tentatively.
"Listen, my wise and lovely Juana,
I miss you. I travel from island to island; I bargain and buy and sell; I never
sleep under the same roof twice. And I swear I never look twice at another
woman. And yes, I and my friends carry out dangerous work, for people who can't
protect themselves. But it's empty, for you are not with me."
"Really, Rodrigo, I hardly know
you, and –"
"We have met many times now, in my
shop and in your house, as well as at social functions. It's been at least one
hundred days since the masked ball. And I know well from the Bard and from many
older, wiser heads that this flush of passion I feel is no bedrock on which to
build our lives. Rather, I trust our sweet friendship and conversation. We're
the same soul; we see the world in the same light."
She pulled away her hands from his, but
gently. "Where can this end, though?"
He struggled to keep his tone level.
"Please, do not refuse this one request. Let me speak to your father. I
will –"
"No! If he finds out –"
"I will speak as a trader. I will
settle, and give up my flitting through the shadows. For you! He cannot refuse
me!"
"You mean, pretend to be who
you're not? Give up helping the poor? How could I respect you then? Even if he
never found out, which he will. There are already rumours about hooded foxes
and their daring deeds. He's frustrated."
"Very well. Then come away with
me! I know many places where we could live in freedom. We would be happy – I
would look after –"
"No! I cannot do such a
thing!" At his groan, she added, "At least, not now. Perhaps –"
Now he turned to her the face of the
condemned. "Don't make us lose this love! On all the islands, in all the
sky, not one in a million finds such a treasure, though they search for years
through the bazaars for priceless pearls. I tell you the truth, my heart is
breaking every day out of love for you." A sob escaped him, and they
embraced. She buried her face in his tunic.
How long they stood there they could
not tell. But when there came the sound of approaching footsteps at the door,
he spun and made for the balcony's edge. She shook her head and gestured to the
screen. He squeezed behind it, out of sight, just as the door banged open.
The stout, middle-aged man who stepped
onto the balcony was dressed in a tight grey tunic beneath a richly brocaded
maroon waistcoat with plain black leggings caught at the knee. An unruly scruff
of iron-grey hair burst from above his ears, leaving crown and forehead shiny.
He carried his head lowered, as though about to charge, and he glared out at
the world from under wiry eyebrows. "Juanita!" he bellowed
immediately. "Your look betrays you. Who have you been dreaming
about?"
She tried to smile, as if at a joke.
"Father, how foolish of you to take time off from your appointments
to-"
But he laughed aloud and clapped her in
a quick but tight embrace, relented, and held her at arm's length. "My
angel, my angel, how you are growing! Soon, very soon, the time will
come." Strapped to his left wrist, a thin device bearing a blanked screen
beeped once and flashed a red indicator. He ignored it and peered more closely
at his daughter. "But I joke not. Either you have been dreaming of a man
or talking to one. Who is he, my dove? Tell papa. Do you think me such an
ogre?"
"Really, father, you have the most
outrageous imagination," she replied, trying to smirk.
"That's so true," he said,
dryly, "but my intuitions are just as powerful." He leant far out
over the balcony and peered among the branches. "Ah, so perhaps I was
wrong."
He turned and sat down suddenly in one
of the two chairs. "Please, sit with me. I came not out of suspicion but
out of a desire to sit with my fairest daughter." As she sat down opposite
him he began to describe the arrangements for the upcoming ball he was
planning. From the orchard came the rustle of birds' wings and a trilling cry.
Indeed, prominent guests from neighbouring Castile and
Grand Canarias islands had accepted invitations, and a few from Severny or
Maribia or the Seven Sisters might even attend, he claimed. But it was the
seating arrangements at the banquet which interested him the most. "I have
seated you next to old Count Álvarez's eldest
son. He and his father are well known for their conceit, and I will easily lead
them to believe that I am thinking of Carlos for your groom."
"But father! He's so –"
"Hush. I have no intention. I
merely want to lighten the Count's mood."
Juana's brow lowered. The peach trees
hissed and trembled, perhaps with a breath of wind. "I used to think that
you were the best father any girl could ask for." She stood. "Now you
just use me in your tactical game-plays. I'm just a piece on the board."
Her father had risen too, and was about to reply when several grey doves
took flight from the branches next to the balcony with a noise like an ardent
smattering of applause from velvet-gloved hands. He noted her sudden flush and
how she turned to look. "What is this? You were seeing someone! Why these nerves?" He stepped to the
screen.
"No! Why would you think
that?" she let out.
He pulled aside the screen with a
violent heave that sent it crashing against the wall. Its frame cracked and the
illustrated bird was ripped through upon the back of her chair. Juana's stifled
cry turned her father's head. "There's something going on here," he
grumbled, and strode from the room with a final glare.
Juana stared for a moment at the blank
wall revealed by the screen's demise. Then she looked down into the orchard.
There was Rodrigo, struggling into some
sort of harnessed backpack and walking towards the chest-high wall at the outer
edge of the orchard. He glanced up. At her hissed sound of exasperation, he
grinned. "A polariser," he whispered. "Watch!" Having
checked the buckles, he twisted a heavy dial on the harness's chest strap. His
body began to rise. He pulled at the top of the wall and easily floated higher,
as if he were as buoyant as a dirigible. Then, turning another control on his
chest, he powered up two small fans set in the backpack and accelerated away
into the open air with a final wave.
Behind Juana there came the sound of
footsteps once more, and she spun to find her father moving quickly back onto
the balcony. "Ah! So I was right!" he bellowed, and rushed to the
edge of the balcony. "A man? A flying man?" He turned on her.
"Who? Who is this dog?" But he spoke no further word to her for a
long moment, save a sharp muttering into his wrist screen as he stabbed a tiny
stud on its gunmetal grey frame: "Northwest upper perimeter – escaping
intruder – air intercept."
She said nothing, knowing the futility of words at that point, but her lip
trembled. His wide eyes searched her face, from one eye to the other, to her
hairline, her chin, her cheeks. When he regained the power of speech, it was in
a stage whisper, a quavering tone, as though he were mortally wounded.
"Juanita... I thought you... you above all the rest... I always thought I
could..." Turning away, he put up one hand to cover his face. "I
never thought that you would..." He continued to address the doorway.
"All the others – Hernandez –
your sisters - even your dear, dear
mother – they were never like you."
He spun around. "How could you do
this to me?" Before she could open her lips to reply, he went on, but in a
level tone, as if he were asking her opinion about the state of the peach
trees. "Does this mean I can never trust you again?"
"No, father! Please listen, I
–" But before she could reach him and fold her arms around his barrel of a
chest, he had turned and gone.
Later, she sat in her mother's chair,
her journal open on her lap. She stared into the faraway.
I know enough not to believe father's emotional scene. He
twists me around his finger.
The peach blossoms have mostly blown
from the trees and lay on the ground, no longer as colourful as before. The
dove has flown away, not to return. I wonder where he is. Swooping amongst the
clouds? Have I driven him away?
Scene Three : At the Dock
At the lower end of the market street,
nestled high up on the island's irregular, concentric cliffs, a pavement café
drew in its customers as they came off the air ferries or waited for the next
departure, or as they emerged from the Bureau of Ancient Devices, some of them
dazed, as though crawling from a labyrinth.
The nine waxed wooden tables were
spread with heavy place mats of bamboo and pine-green felt, and decorated with
slim vases of hibiscus shoots, each topped with a nodding scarlet bloom. The
proprietor had tried more than once in his life to erect sun umbrellas over
each small table, but the unpredictable winds sweeping in from the great airy
spaces had defeated him each time. The café's whitewashed building bore its
peeling green woodwork and broken shutters with the look of a beaten prize
fighter, slumped in a corner of the ring. But still, most of the tables were
occupied and the three waiters weaved a pattern of grace and efficiency born of
haste and long practice.
Two customers with the dress and bearing of weary
gentlemen of the city were seating themselves at the table nearest the dock and
against the steel railings that ran along the cliff edge. A fog bank licked at
the heights of the city, defying the late morning sun. Both men were uniformed,
one in the much-buttoned black of the City Guardia and the silver-starred
epaulettes of a Watch Teniente. He
wore his peaked black cap on the back of his head, exaggerating the look of
sweaty disarray on his strained, fatherly features. The other's pale blue,
single-breasted jacket screamed 'Air Service of Confianza' to passersby. Its
thick collar, the deep blue of sunny skies and matching piping, not to mention
the three golden shoulder stars, were enough to send shivers up the spine of a
teenaged boy seated at another table. The bicorne dress hat, with its white
cock-tail plume and round red-yellow-red cockade, lay already on the table.
The Air Service officer slumped into
his chair, coughing as if sick, and ordered a hot champurrado with cinnamon
immediately the waiter came near. The other man shook his head gruffly at the
waiter's timid enquiry.
When they were alone, the Watch Teniente sniffed loudly, screwed up his face and peered over the
railings into the hanging fog. "Hey, Rod - I mean, um, Ricardo, what's all
this about, then? The uniform and all? I have a shop to run."
"It's a job," said the other,
sending a baleful stare at his companion for his slip of the tongue. He
scratched at the thick, grey stubble that contradicted his relatively youthful
skin. "You know, the hobby we have in common." He was well-built for
one apparently so well on in years, but seemed to carry his body like a lead
weight. His hair and moustache were black and streaked with iron. While he
spoke, he directed his hazel-eyed gaze mainly at the façade of the Bureau of
Ancient Devices.
"Ahhh," breathed the teniente. He nodded to himself as if solving a minor mystery.
"And you've met Shirine before?
She's coming too. In fact, she was due ten minutes ago."
"D'you think she's still coming?
And by the way, if you always order that stuff, it's just another clue for the
bloodhounds."
The other first burst into a lengthy
bout of coughing, cleared his throat and sipped long at the steaming mug of hot
chocolate as soon as it was placed before him. Finally he ran his long fingers
through dark, lank hair and spoke, so quietly that only his companion could
hear: "Yes, she'll come. Shirine is the best. And I take your point. I'll
order it with vanilla or strawberries next time." Hazel eyes twinkled in
contradiction to his sickly behaviour. His stubborn chin tipped towards the
market street. "Here she comes, um, Raul."
A woman threaded a path between the
tables and was about to pull up a chair when the Confianza Guardia officer beat
her to it in a burst of energy that seemed to take a lot out of his overtaxed
body. She was about thirty, long and cinnamon-brown of face, with a raven's
wing of black hair almost hidden under a grey beret. Her heavy, knee-length
wool coat couldn't completely hide the outlines of her thick, determined
physique. She was trying not to breath heavily. "Thanks, and sorry,"
she gasped. Her voice was hoarseness imposed on honey, somehow conveying a wry
humour. "Turbulence."
The one apparently named Ricardo nodded. "Glad
you made it. Debrief, then we'll be ready for Act Two. I think I hear the Cordoba's props through the fog."
To Raul: "It's another exercise in reverse financing. Our acquisitive
adversaries the Cumbrans have intruded into our marketplace once too
often."
The other, whose real name may have
been Raul, spared a glance and a derisive snort for him and leaned forwards on
his elbows towards the woman. His tone was gallant. "So where have you
been since we last met?" He kept an eye on the other man's face, but
casually.
The Air Service officer waved the
question aside. "Let her speak." Motioning to her: "Go ahead.
From the beginning."
She cleared her throat. "We made our final
approach on Cordoba's stern-low
quarter while passing through thick cloud. They had their double spinnaker out
front. Plenty of turbulence. Pico was waiting on cue, waving at us like mad
from the Cordoba's rear cargo
catwalk." She chuckled at the memory. "His cap floated off. Lost it.
"He made fast our forward line,
wound the cargo doors open, and we made short work of the sacks. They were
fastened just as you described, uh, Ricardo, all twelve of them, and we swapped
them for the dummies one at a time. The only work involved was winching the
dummy masses with all that turbulence. It's surprisingly tricky in low-g. And
the liberated sacks slid along the zip wire pretty smoothly. Only one got hung
up for a minute."
Raul interrupted. "Working over the Cordoba, eh? Lightening the legendarily
deep pockets of Alvarez? Nice. About time someone did. If he carries on like
this, he'll own Confianza by this
time next week. You know what some people call that arrangement with the wire?
A flying fox." For that he received a hard stare from the other man, like
the opening salvo of an argument with the words barely withheld, and Raul
subsided with a pained frown.
Shirine carried on. "So we were on the
second-to-last sack, all the others stowed on the lifter, when we were
interrupted most rudely by one of the Cordoba's
crew. The second mate, I think. He'd probably noticed the broken lock and
–"
Now Ricardo cut her off. "But I
gave Pico the key. Why, for sweat and blood, did he –"
"He told us later the key didn't
fit. He had to force the lock. Believe what you like – you know him. Anyhow,
the intruder didn't give much trouble. Ranjeet trussed him up, but only after
getting a broken nose for his efforts."
"He needed a bit of action, did
Ranjeet," interjected Raul, with a genial laugh. "And his face was
too pretty by half."
Ricardo chuckled. "Come now, Raul.
'He jests at scars that never felt a wound.'"
The other man made a slow nod; a mystified
"Oh," came out; but Shirine narrowed her eyes. "I should know
that quote..." she murmured. She carried on. "So, then we were away,
with Pico, just as the Cordoba broke
into clear sky. We turned and slid the lifter back into cloud without any alarm
raised. They dropped me off five hundred metres higher, and the airsuit did the
rest." She sat back and signalled the waiter, but his attention was
elsewhere and she gave up. From beyond the railings came the sound of feathered
propellers driven by whispering electric motors. The fog began to darken in the
form of a tall, swollen oval.
Ricardo watched her for a few seconds,
then said, "I trust you stowed the suit well. Any sign of detection when
you landed?" All he got was a minimal shake of her head. He glanced around
the café languidly, coughed and sipped his drink again. "If I were wearing
one, I would doff my hat to you and your indomitable crew."
The dock hands nearby were rousing
themselves and laying hands on ropes. The solitary dock guard shifted his rifle
a little on his shoulder and took a few steps out along the dock.
"Well then, my friends, once more we are required
to thrust ourselves into the fray. Here comes our Cordoba. You know your part?" Shirine nodded at his piercing
glance. He murmured a few instructions to Raul, who slowly nodded and scowled
in concentration. The two men stood, Ricardo stiffly, Raul flexing his
shoulders as though shrugging on a second jacket. Ricardo placed a few coins on
the tabletop, retrieved the bicorne hat and set it carefully on his head as
though he'd never worn it before. Shirine stayed in her seat and finally
managed to order an espresso. Ricardo paused a moment to take a pair of gloves
from his pocket.
Out of the fog there emerged an
elephantine form, inching towards the dock. The sleek windship itself, hanging
close below the airship tug, poked its nose in at street level, just above the
dock. In shape it resembled one of the great flying boats of a bygone era, but
its wings were stubs, each bearing a great engine, and propeller blades which
now turned lazily in the breeze. The top and bottom masts were now folded flush
with the fuselage.
The tug's engines pulsed on and off,
swivelling on gimbals to set the windship down just so.
Finally the dock hands secured the Cordoba's drooping lines, fore and aft,
and extended a gangplank up the side of the hull to the windship's high lounge
door. The fuselage comprised two levels: a lounge above, and the bridge and
crew quarters below. Ricardo and Raul briskly walked along the dock in
businesslike fashion. A few passengers were already disembarking. A
thickly-robed Indian man carried a trunk, while a portly woman led a slender
white greyound on a leash. To one side of the gangplank was a dizzy drop off
the edge of the dock. Far below could be seen boulders and the rooves of
houses.
Without further ado, the two uniformed
gentlemen hastened towards the gangplank and threaded their way up it and on
board.
At the front of the main lounge a number of men were
gathered in deep and loud debate. They stood by the circular brass stairway
leading down to the bridge. "But that's impossible!" and "Evans
got a broken knuckle to prove it!" were two of the protestations emerging
from this huddle. There was the capitán of the Cordoba,
splendid in a jacket matching Ricardo's in colour, and a peaked cap much braded
with gold. His second officer and two richly dressed passengers completed the
foursome. One of these passengers, a short but lithe figure dressed in olive
fur jacket and hat, was most vocal, beginning most of his speech with the likes
of "I demand...!" or "Do you realise...?" He seemed most
agitated concerning the whereabouts of his company's merchandise.
The capitán stood his ground, his figure like solid oak, as if he'd
grown out of the deck. The slender form of his second officer, by contrast,
extended almost to the ceiling; when he moved, it almost appeared that he was
floating.
It was up to this loud knot that Ricardo lumbered and
cleared his throat with a sound like thunder. "Capitán Hawkes; gentlemen," he began, silencing them all and gathering
their astonished stares, "I quite understand your concerns, and from here
on I and my men will extend our every effort to solving this deplorable
case." He stood eye to eye with the capitán. He appeared to be
in a convalescent state, or at the far end of exhaustion, but there was an edge
to his casual weariness that would not be trifled with. "Coronel Ricardo Juivre, at your
service," he finished, exchanging salutes with the captain and his officer
and seizing the outspoken passenger's hand in a firm grip.
His companion was at his shoulder. "Guardia Watch
Teniente Raul Inglesias, also at your
service, signores." And he stuck out a chubby hand to each for the two
civilians to shake, then raising it to his head in a salute of dubious quality
for the benefit of the two officers.
Their questions were immediate and confused. Firstly,
from the capitán, "How did you get here so quickly?"
The coronel
replied, "We had an anonymous tip-off this morning." He then
requested a full freight loading bill and lists of crew and passengers from the
capitán, who beckoned to a passing soldado and gave a quiet order.
"Which office sent you,
exactly?" This was the second officer, a sharp-faced man with dark and
brooding eyes.
"Guardia Criminal Investigations, to whom I have
been assigned temporarily from Air Intelligence. This case is basically an
inside job, you see. Not that we're implicating anyone on your crew... yet. I
hope I will not inconvenience you during my investigation, capitán. The teniente will brief you.
May I?" With that, he descended the stairway to the bridge.
Capitán Hawkes called after him, "But the cargo
compartment is to the rear, sir!"
A voice floated back up the stairs: "First things
first, capitán."
The capitán frowned and turned back to the fur-clad passenger who
was still at boiling point. "Señor Diaz, as you can see, a proper
investigation is already underway. Your company's merchandise will be recovered
as swiftly as humanly possible. Just a moment and I will retrieve the rest of
your considerable funds from my safe. I hope you will convey our respects to
the esteemed Señor Alvarez."
The answer was loud and protesting.
Meanwhile, as the second officer plied the teniente with more pointed questions,
the man in the coronel's uniform had
reached the bottom of the stairs and was quickly surveying the bridge. One soldado still stood by the wheel and was
busy talking down an air tube to the dockmaster. He exchanged a salute with the
strange officer and spared him an inquisitive glance. Coronel Ricardo moved to the back of the bridge and passed through
a door into the capitán's stateroom as if it were his daily routine. He pulled
from a jacket pocket a collapsible briefcase of striped black and grey fabric.
"Excuse me, sir, but you can't..." began the
soldado.
Words drifted back to him: "...Part of the
investigation... Your capitán's authority..." After this, the rating turned back
to his dealings with the air tube with a shrug. If the capitán wanted to admit the coronel to
his own stateroom, what business was it of his?
A minute or two later the officer
emerged, cast hardly a glance at the rating, and departed up the stairs, his
bulging case thudding on the railings. He exchanged a salute with the captain,
who was about to descend the stairs himself, and a few quiet words with the
second officer, finishing loudly with: "Yes, as soon as I have interviewed
our main suspect at head office." Then he strode smartly out of the lounge
and along the gangplank, the case still swinging from his left hand.
The weary teniente
raised a hand in what may have been a salute, before the second officer once
more engaged him in conversation concerning the Cordoba's recent misadventure. "Come, sir, and see the cargo
bay for yourself." He led Teniente
Inglesias to the door at the rear of the wingship's cabin. But the Guardia
officer began speaking to him in a hoarse whisper with many urgent
gesticulations towards the departing coronel.
The slim first officer stepped back in
alarm, measuring up the man before him for a long moment. "Do you really
believe so? Then what are we waiting for?"
Suddenly the capitán's voice rose in alarm from the bridge. "Where is
he? You say you let him into my stateroom?" There came the sound of feet
clanging up the stairway, shouted orders, and more running feet.
"Stop that coronel!"
cried the second officer, now at the top of the gangplank.
Teniente Inglesias joined him at his shoulder. "He's the
Flying Fox!" he yelled, his face red. At this, the guard at the foot of
the dock spun towards him, gaping, and unshouldered his rifle. Around the plaza
the twenty or so pedestrians stopped in their tracks and looked about the plaza
in confusion and a sense of wonder, saying to each other, "Where?"
"How wonderful!" "Did he say the Fox?" "It can't be
true!" "That's just a myth." "The Flying Fox? Here?"
"The Don's thugs killed him last week, didn't they?" "His men
left a fortune on my aunt's doorstep!"
The second officer beckoned to two of the Cordoba's ratings and hurried down the
gangplank. Teniente Inglesias tried
to overtake him, forcing his way past the others, saying, "I claim the
reward – it was I who –" But he never finished.
No one could honestly claim to have witnessed any foul
play. There was no reason even to suspect that an officer of the Cordoba would have intended to obstruct
an officer of the Confianza Guardia. The Cordoba,
after all, was owned by a foreign merchant. The teniente was obviously somewhat ill, enfeebled by a sedentary
lifestyle or a long, draining illness, and had grown excited under the
extraordinary circumstances. However it was with him, he tripped – or hypothetically,
was tripped - while attempting to push his way down the gangplank. The
waist-high wooden rail was not intended to prevent all mishap while passengers
crossed the gangplank. The bulk of the teniente,
or shopkeeper, or whatever he really was, slipped sideways under the rail and
fell. With a strangled cry of terror and frustration, Raul Inglesias – or
whatever his real name was – tumbled off the gangplank, over the edge of the
dock and disappeared. The dock guard and two other bystanders hurried to the
spot, but it was too late. He was gone.
By the time the second officer and two burly soldados had caught up with the coronel in the mid-point of the steep
market street, their quarry had turned to face his pursuers in puzzlement.
"What is this?" he demanded.
"Sir – Capitán Hawkes's orders, sir - I'll have to ask you to open up
your bag, please," gasped the Cordoba's
officer. The two ratings stood on either side of the baffled coronel.
"What in perdition is the matter? These are my
confidential papers concerning the Cordoba
and the case so far." The two men exchanged glares. One of the ratings
drew a great breath and tensed his formidable muscles. "But if the capitán insists... " He
proferred to them the black and grey-striped case, which seemed almost empty.
"I must ask why you come running after me with such a public hue and
cry," he went on. He indicated the knots of staring pedestrians outside
the market shops, crowding closer to them now.
The Cordoba's
officer took the case with sudden reluctance and unzipped it, saying,
"Very sorry, sir. Someone has opened the capitán's safe and
some... items... are missing." He took out a folder and opened it briefly,
then replaced it. "Even so, sir..." He handed back the case. "Capitán's apologies, but there has been a theft in addition to
the stolen sacks of merchandise. I am required to escort you back to the Cordoba until the money is
recovered."
"Really? That is remarkable. However, I have an
appointment with our suspect. I believe he will be able to shed more light on
all this. Convey my regards to your capitán, with my hopes that the Cordoba's security will in future not prove as
leaky as it has today." With that, he began to turn away from them, but
the two ratings found a firm grip on his arms, and he was held fast. "This
is most ridiculous, man," he growled. "I came here from the Air
Office to carry out an investigation, and now you wish to investigate me? Take your hands off me, lackeys of
Cumbra! You have no authority in Confianza. I will ensure that Don Paulo hears
of this!" However, in his apparent state of illness he could do nothing to
free himself, curse as he might.
The second officer looked back down to
the plaza, attempting to get a grip on the situation. "Now, men, look
here. Possibly the money has been dumped somewhere. You must hurry and search
the plaza. Question who you must. I will hold this gentleman, who will give his
word not to run, and bring him back to the Cordoba.
Your word, sir?"
Coronel Juivre spluttered and pursed his lips,
delaying, peering off above the heads of onlookers, across the plaza.
At the street café, a solidly-built
woman in a wool coat finished
up her coffee, stood and
picked up a case of striped black and grey fabric. With one finger she flicked
back a stray lock of ink-black hair. She walked off along the cliff-edge
walkway as though at the end of a long day of work, carrying the heavy case
close to her side. Soon she was out of sight.
Finally the coronel gave a curt nod. The ratings hurried off towards the plaza.
People standing around in the street turned away and continued with their
business. "Well now, sir," murmured the second officer of the Cordoba, "it's just you and
me." The two men looked at each other speculatively. Both began to grin,
then turned together down a nearby alley that ran between two small shops.
In the Molienda Café, at the top of the
market street, there were very few customers so early in the day. Rodrigo took
a seat in a booth that allowed him to sit with his back to the wall, viewing
most of the café's busy interior. He smoothed the sleeve of his fine burgundy
jacket where the cuff had turned over as he'd put it on. His cheeks still felt
abused from the removal of his disguise. He hadn't found time to wash all of
the silver streaks from his hair. That was a mistake, he felt sure. It was
unsettling.
Almost immediately, a tall, lightly-built man
resembling the Cordoba's first
officer, but wearing drab civilian clothes and a cap pulled low over his eyes,
squeezed in next to him. "So the drinks are on Shirine today, are
they?"
"That's correct, um, Durian. But
in her absence I can stand you one." He signalled the waiter from across
the room.
Durian sat back and flexed shoulders
and hands in an effort to relax his taut muscles. "You changed quickly.
Alfredo's back room reeks of rotting fish. Those uniforms will need a
dry-clean."
"Well, he's a fishmonger, and his
father's Italian. What do you expect?" They both chuckled. Rodrigo fixed
Durian with a steady gaze. "I will not forget what you've sacrificed
today." The silence hung between them. Durian said nothing and examined
the table. "You had a position on a windship, you had a secure future, and
you've-"
"But that means nothing,"
Durian burst out, quietly and intensely. He leaned forward. "Working for
that crook has rotted my – my – conscience, for want of a better expression. Do
you know some of the con tricks and dirty deals he pulls off? I know you do.
Now I'm free, and it is I who thanks you."
They regarded each other for a moment.
"Beware of Cumbra, Rodrigo. They can destroy Confianza."
Rodrigo nodded slowly. "They got close to me.
They, or one of the Don's men. That fake teniente
who was with me..." He acknowedged Durian's nod. "Dead, you
say?"
"I didn't have time to see. He
fell, like I said, probably all the way down to Salamanca district."
"Oh. Ah. He, too, has a family. I
must visit them." He motioned. "Here comes the waiter. What will you
have?"
Before the waiter arrived at the table,
however, Durian had excused himself on account of his 'eternally anxious
mother' and walked out through the door of the Molienda.
Rodrigo began to order two champurrados
with cinnamon, then stopped, rolled his eyes, and changed the order for a
bottle of red wine and two glasses – "The best in your cellars – I trust
your judgement, Roberto." Roberto nodded, and departed with a trace of a
smile at one corner of his mouth.
Soon Rodrigo noticed Juana entering the
café and looking about her. She was alone, and moved like a mouse pursued by a
cat. She wore a long, grey cloak that almost disguised her lithe figure. He
half-stood, raising a hand, and she hurried over and sat opposite him, casting
aside the cloak.
She gripped his offered hand. "How
long have you been here? I escaped my jailors as soon as I could."
"A minute or two. It's good that you're alone. We
must talk." Just then, Roberto returned with a dark green glass bottle,
already corked, and labelled in faded brown with red lettering, and two
thin-stemmed glasses. "Ah, Roberto. You are inspired today! Florentino,
perfect. Gran Reserva, sì?"
Roberto inclined his head slightly.
Rodrigo thanked him again, and he left.
He turned back to Juana and beamed.
"You are a sight of enchantment. What have you been up to today?"
She peered at him. "You're tired. What's that in
your hair? What have you been
doing?"
He chuckled and shook his head.
"You'd better not hear about that. Suffice to say that Cumbran greed has
received its due, and courage has won through in the end. And I'm fine,
really."
"Oh. Good. Bad, actually, come to think of it. If
you're tweaking the nose of Cumbra in public, my good father will be upset. He thinks that's his
job. Any time someone mentions the doings of this Flying Fox, he practically
erupts, because he can't squeeze the Cumbran traders out yet for fear of their
military."
"Right. In fact, today we tweaked
the nose of a gentleman of Papua in the Seven Sisters, originally Castilian,
but he's in the pocket of Szelkcheh of Cumbra as sure as he breathes."
Juana sipped at her wine and nodded approvingly.
"Well, for myself, I have traipsed around the heights of the Observatory
and worn down the patience and the shoe leather of my two guardians to such an
extent that they allowed me into the Museo
de los Héroes Immortales on my own, while they expired in the shade
outside."
"I've never been inside that
place. What's it like?"
"Oh... dusty and ill-lit, with
obscure passageways ending in alternative exits. Full of historical dioramas,
such as the Battle of Hawks, the discovery of the sublands, and so on. Nothing
at all about old Earth or Mars, as far as I could see."
"Why would there be? Nobody cares
except you and I and the Bard."
She smiled a secret smile and
reflected. "You know, my mother's father traced his line to Syrtis on
Mars."
"Hmm. And married a Rajput,
right?" He gazed at her, drinking in the sight of her, entranced. His
fingertips explored hers. "Where did you go after that?"
She laughed lightly, blushing at his
attention. "I repaid a visit to a new friend of mine. Last week I stumbled
upon an area of Salamanca called Las Azoteas de la Lata. You probably know it.
Very poor housing, no sewers or fresh water. It's a shame on the rest of
Confianza. But the people! So warm and... alive.
"So after they welcomed me in the
first time, I went back today with a few gifts and made a few children
smile."
"I can imagine. But you wouldn't need to bring
gifts to make them smile at you,"
Rodrigo murmured.
"That's very gallant of you. Anyway, it all makes
me realise why you're so... so keen
on what you do. They're people, real people, with a life and hopes and fears
and... you know." There was plainly more to her visit than she could
express.
"Yes."
"Which is why..." Here she grew solemn.
"Two weeks ago, you know that banquet with the Castilians and my father's
sly attempts at diplomacy? Well, he tricked me again. He really does want to matchmake me with this
awful, dull, greedy-looking forty-year-old. It's hideous! So-–calm down, Rodrigo--so I talked long and hard
with my father. In the end he relented, as long as I consent to marry a
Confianzan of his choice, someone I approve of. He has three or four lined up,
and no doubt he planned it all this way. But it's inevitable. It's all I can
do. And then-"
Rodrigo tried not to grip her hand too
hard. The blood rushed to his face. "There is no 'And then'. It will not
happen if you don't want it to. You must come with me! The world is huge, and
there are many pleasant places to live in, far from here."
"What I meant to say is that I can
still help you, even when I'm..."
He shook his head vehemently. "Your help is not what I need. I want to share
my life with you, Juana."
Tears grew in her eyes. She whispered,
"This is too much like a play. The orchard scene. You give me such a
difficult choice. But it's not your fault, it's just... the way it is. You want
to be with me; you're a romantic; and I love you for that. And I, too, with
you. I want... to... but... If only I could know..."
Suddenly he dropped her outstretched
fingers. "Your jailors," he growled.
Approaching their table were two bulky
men. The obvious leader, moustached and possessed of a fearsome grimace and
high, oriental cheekbones, fixed his stare on Rodrigo's face. He was both
extremely tall and well-built, like a bodybuilder magnified to about 120%
normal size. The other walked in a permanent slouch. His big-knuckled hands
hung out of his cuffs like wrecking balls. His eyes flickered languidly around
the room as though looking for a suitable seat. Their holstered sidearms stuck
out from beneath their waistcoats.
The first man was about to speak when
Juana rose to her feet. "Ah, Señor Carlos, how sweet of you to join us.
And I see that Señor Julito is still tagging along with you. Perhaps you should
feed him." She indicated Rodrigo. "This is a second cousin of mine,
Señor Adrián Martínez de Zapatero." Rodrigo nodded to acknowledge the
introduction, or perhaps in admiration at her choice of names.
Señor Carlos cleared his throat. His
throat and chest seemed to be congested with phlegm, so that his deep voice
took on the quality of serrated metal being dragged across a polished wood
floor. "Señorita, you must come with us now. That was not a smart thing to
do." All the while he was studying Rodrigo's features with interest, now
curling his lip. "And you, whatever you may be, have laid hands on the
apple of Don Paulo Confianza's eye. You will come with us, too."
With a blank stare, Rodrigo stood
slowly. The moment became a number of seconds. Juana glanced between the two
men. "Do as he says, please," she murmured anxiously.
"At your service, señorita,"
he muttered, edging his way out of the booth. "But first I need to hear
your final answer... and let it be 'yes'."
They faced each other, next to the
table, with the taller bodyguard holding Juana's elbow, and the second standing
behind Rodrigo. Juana began to weep openly. "What can I say? Now? In front
of... If only..."
Then she seemed to resolve something
in her mind and stood straight, shaking off Señor Carlos's hand momentarily.
"This is all I can tell you. It seems that you are not the one for me.
Three words: Desist thy suit." She let that hang in the air for a long
moment. Rodrigo stared at her in disbelief. "But understand me well! It
leaves so much unsaid!"
The words deflated Rodrigo. He
staggered, and began to cry out wordlessly, as though the thug behind him had
already struck him.
"Come on," muttered Señor
Carlos, and began to lead her away. Señor Julito reached out to take hold of
Rodrigo.
With an incoherent shout, Rodrigo moved. It could have
been the slashing hand of a flamenco bailero
in the urgency of his dance. The man behind him doubled up in wheezing pain.
Señor Carlos released Juana and made a grab for Rodrigo but he was already half
way across the café to the kitchen door.
"Stay with her," he growled,
and rushed after his quarry.
Juana felt a huge sob well up with such
speed that it came out as a laugh. "You'll never catch him," she
called after Señor Carlos.
+ + +
Along a narrow back street a bearded
man, wheezing and moving in slow motion, donned a spotless maroon jacket
several sizes too large for him. Then he squatted down in a crumbling arched
doorway and pulled a ripped blanket up to his chin. The street ended in a
chainlink fence, beyond which there was thin air. A crow left off picking at
rags and clattered up to a rooftop.
Señor Carlos ran to the doorway of a
derelict house and beckoned to the two Guardia constables. "He's running
out of rat holes," he rumbled. He motioned through the entrance. He waited
until they were through, then checked the chamber of his revolver and followed,
stooping low.
The house had plainly suffered many
alterations and additions. It was a maze of mildewed passageways, rooms opening
off rooms, and broken staircases. They could hear Rodrigo's hasty footsteps and
see the dust still swirling in the air from his passing.
Finally, climbing to the third floor,
they came to a long corridor. The footsteps had turned right. In that direction
there were no other exits apart from a single door at the end, a small door, as
for a broom cupboard. Their quarry had just reached the door and wrenched it
open. As the first constable began to run down the corridor and Carlos reached
the top of the stairs, panting heavily, Rodrigo glanced around. He gave them a
dismissive look, a silent defiance, then he slammed the door and bolted it.
The first constable, a wide-shouldered
man whose face was composed of heavy creases and hanging jowls, pulled out an
automatic and shot away the door handle and rusted lock. Two bolts still held
the door closed. They broke it down at length, but all they saw of the man was
a blur at the window. Then the room was empty. Carlos ran to the single window
whose shutter was banging in the strong breeze. He pushed the shutter fully
open and stared out and down. The wind whipped his short hair to and fro.
The window opened at the top of a wide
cleft in the massive rock that made up Confianza island. Here, the basaltic
crust of Confianza was split by a vertical cut down one side. Looking down past
the bottom end of the cleft, Señor Carlos saw nothing but the white haze of sky
and clouds, and a small, dark shape falling into obscurity.
He nodded with a grimace and stepped
back to let the other two men look. "Where's he gone?" one of them
asked.
Señor Carlos pointed down. "He
jumped."
"You mean - he's dead?"
This extracted a loud sigh and a string
of curses from Carlos that made the constables blanch and take a step back.
Carlos noticed a pair of airman's goggles on the floor of the room. He picked
them up, toyed with them, nodding to himself, then pocketed them. He began to
lead them back out of the small room and along the corridor. "No. He's
trying for Severny or Tranquility, I reckon. This was his safehouse, his
getaway."
"But Severny, that's - what - two
or three isoclines down from here!"
"Yeah. This whole building used to
be a drop-transit shed, before the air ferries got popular. Before your time, Junior." The craggy-faced constable scowled and said nothing. They reached
the street and continued retracing their route.
The old man had fallen asleep under his
blanket. The crow and two cousins were pecking furiously at their pile of rags
and ignored the three men.
One of the constables finally ventured
a question about the nature of drop-transit sheds.
"It was a cargo system," came
the muttered reply. "Obvious, really. They used the local Confianza
polarised zone, the local gravity, to build up the cargo barge's speed, then
cruised through the negative gradient and down to the next zero isocline,
steering with simple wings. But you need an airbrake, or you most likely carry
on down to the next, and the next, til you hit ice."
"Right. So it was just a one-way
system. Doesn't need much propulsion."
"Correct. As for this Fleeing Fox,
he's got some sort of suit. So he can glide across to the island he wants to
reach." They had almost reached busy Calle de Esperanza. He stopped at the
end of the narrow street. "So he can jump on a ferry and come back. And
next time, we'll be waiting, right? We'll lay our fox trap and nail the vermin,
skin him alive and hang his pelt out to dry."
+ + +
Rodrigo's eyes stung. The wind blasted his face. He
could only blink his eyes open and shut, but still it felt like they were being
gouged out of their sockets. He was falling, head first, at terminal velocity.
A dark blur glimpsed in his upper-left quarter might have been Tranquility. His
thoughts turned like clockwork: If only I
hadn't stopped to give that old man the jacket, I would have had time for the
goggles. Then I could see my way. I can hardly see. At least the airsuit keeps
me warm. If only I hadn't stopped...
Then it occurred to him that he had no
plan beyond reaching Tranquility. Juana had been his only plan. Now she had
turned him away, what could he do but nurse this terrible ache?
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