clothing. They were no different in appearance from the usual penitents on their way to prostrate themselves before the famous Santiago, to whom they attributed the miracle of having saved Spain from the Muslim invaders. For centuries, the Arabs had been victorious in battles, thanks to the invincible arm of Muhammad, their guide, until a shepherd made the timely discovery of the bones of Saint James abandoned in a field in Galicia. How they got there from the Holy Land was part of the miracle. Those relics had the power to unify the small Christian kingdoms of the region, and were so effective in directing the brave Spanish forces that they drove out the Moors and recovered their land for Christianity. Santiago de Compostela became the most important site for pilgrims in all of Europe. At least, that was Nuria’s story, though hers was slightly more embellished. The chaperone believed that the head of the apostle remained intact and every Good Friday shed real tears. The supposed remains lay in a silver coffin beneath the altar of the cathedral, but in his desire to protect them from the raids of the pirate Sir Francis Drake, a bishop had hidden them so well that it was a long time before they were found again. For that reason the war and the lack of faith the numbers of pilgrims had been greatly reduced; previously they had come by the hundreds of thousands. Those who traveled to the sanctuary from France followed the northern route, crossing through Basque country, and that was the one our friends chose. For centuries, churches, convents, hospitals, even the poorest peasants, offered a roof and a meal to the penitents. That hospitable tradition worked in favor of the small group led by Diego; it allowed them to travel without having to carry foodstuffs. Although pilgrims were rare in that season it was easier to travel in the spring and summer they did not expect to attract special attention; religious fervor had increased since the French had been driven out, and the many Spaniards who had promised to visit the saint if they won the war were fulfilling their vows. It was growing light when they took to the road. That first day they walked more than five leagues, until Juliana and Nuria gave up because their feet were bleeding and they were faint from hunger. About four in the afternoon they stopped at a hut whose owner turned out to be a tragic woman who had lost her husband in the war. As she informed them, the French had not killed him; he had been murdered by Spaniards, who had accused him of hiding food instead of giving it to the guerrilla fighters. She knew who the murderers were she had seen their faces clearly, country people like herself who were using the bad times as an excuse to wreak havoc. They were not guerrillas, they were brutes, and they had raped her poor daughter, who had been mad from birth and never harmed anyone, and taken all her animals. Only a nanny goat that had been off wandering in the hills was spared, she said. One of the men’s nose had been eaten away by syphilis, and the other had a long scar on his face. She remembered them very well, and not a day went by that she didn’t curse them and cry out to heaven for revenge, she added. She had no one but her daughter, whom she tied to a chair to keep her from clawing herself. Her home was a stinking, windowless stone and mud cube that mother and daughter shared with a pack of dogs. This woman had very little to give, and she was weary of having beggars stop in, but she did not want to leave them without shelter. Because Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary could not find a place in the inn, the child Jesus was born in a manger, she said. She believed that refusing a pilgrim was repaid with many centuries of suffering in purgatory. The travelers sat down on the earthen floor, surrounded by flea-bitten dogs, to recover from their exhaustion, while their host cooked a few potatoes on the coals and dug a couple of onions from her wretched garden. “This is all I have. My daughter and I have eaten nothing else for months, but maybe tomorrow I will be able to milk the nanny goat,” she said. “May God repay you, senora,” Diego murmured. The only light in the hut entered through the door opening, which she closed at night with a stiff horse hide, and the glow from the small brazier in which she had roasted the potatoes. While they ate the frugal meal, the peasant observed them from the corner of her rheumy eyes. She drew the obvious conclusions as she took in their soft white hands, their noble features and slim bodies, and remembered that they were traveling with two horses. She did not want to know the details; the less she knew, she reasoned, the fewer problems she would have. These were no days to be asking questions. When her guests had eaten, she gave them half-tanned, smelly sheepskins and led them to a shed where she stored firewood and ears of corn. There they bedded down. Nuria found the shed considerably more welcoming than the hut, with its dog odors and the yowls of the pitiful girl. They chose spaces and skins and got ready for a long night. They were making themselves as comfortable as possible when the peasant woman reappeared carrying a small pot of fat, which she gave them with the recommendation that they rub it on their raw feet. She stood staring at the battered group with a mixture of distrust and curiosity. “Pilgrims indeed. Anyone can see that you are genteel folk. I do not want to know what you are running from, but here is some free advice.
There are wicked men on these roads. You cannot trust anyone. Best if the girls are not seen. Cover their faces, at least,“ she added before she left. Diego did not know how to relieve the women’s discomfort, particularly that of the one most important to him, Juliana. Tomas de Romeu had entrusted his daughters to him, and what would he think if he could see them now? Accustomed to feather mattresses and embroidered sheets, they were resting their bones on a pile of corn and scratching fleas with both hands. Juliana had been admirable: she had not complained once during that arduous day, and even ate the raw onion without comment. In fairness, he had to admit Nuria had not put a bad face on things, either. And as for Isabel, well, she seemed enchanted with the adventure. Diego’s fondness for the women had grown as he saw them so vulnerable and brave. He felt an infinite tenderness for their aching bodies and a tremendous desire to erase their fatigue, to shelter them from the cold, to save them from danger. He was less worried about Isabel, who was frisky as a filly, and Nuria, who was coping by nipping at her restorative liquor. But Juliana… The laborer’s sandals had worn blisters on her feet despite her wool stockings, and the scratchy habit had scoured her skin. And what was Juliana thinking? I cannot say, but I imagine that in the dying light of evening, she found Diego handsome. He hadn’t shaved for a day or two, and the dark shadow of his beard lent a rough, virile air to his looks. He was not the clumsy, skinny boy who had come to their home four years before, all smile and ears. He was a man. In a few months’ time he would celebrate twenty intensely lived years; he had grown tall, and had poise. No, Diego was not bad-looking, and besides, he loved her with the moony loyalty of a pup. Juliana would have had to be made of stone not to soften toward him. The healing lard gave Diego an excuse to rub his beloved’s feet, and in the process forget his gloomy thoughts. Soon his optimistic nature prevailed, and he offered to extend the massage to Juliana’s calves. ”Don’t be depraved, Diego,“ Isabel scolded, breaking the spell. The sisters fell asleep while Diego went back to mulling over his various worries. He concluded that the only good part of this journey would be Juliana; everything else would be struggle and exhaustion. Rafael Moncada and other suitors had been eliminated; finally he had an open field to win the beauty: weeks and weeks in close company. There she was, an arm’s length away, exhausted, dirty, in pain, fragile. He could reach out and touch her cheek, rosy with sleep, but he did not dare. They would sleep side by side every night, like chaste spouses, and share every moment of the day. He was the only protector Juliana had in this world, a situation that favored him enormously. He would never take advantage of that, of course he was a caballero but he could not help but notice that only a single day had worked a change in her. Juliana was seeing him in a different light. She had fallen asleep curled up in a corner of the shed, shivering beneath the sheepskins, but as she got warm and wriggled to find a comfortable spot on the corn, her head emerged. Bluish moonlight filtered through the chinks of the boards and fell on her perfect face, abandoned in sleep. Diego wished that the pilgrimage would never end. He moved so close to her that he could sense the warmth of her breath and the fragrance of her dark curls. The good countrywoman was right; they must hide her beauty and not attract bad luck. If a gang assaulted them, he alone could do little to defend her now that he did not have his sword. There were a hundred reasons to worry, but there was no sin in giving free rein to his fantasy, and he drifted off imagining Juliana exposed to terrible dangers and saved again and again by the invincible Zorro. ”If she does not fall in love with me now, it is because I am a dolt,“ he muttered. At the cock’s crow Juliana and Isabel were shaken awake by Nuria, who had brought them a cup of warm goat’s milk. She and Diego had not rested as peacefully as the girls. Nuria had prayed for hours, terrified of what lay ahead, and Diego had only half slept, aware of Juliana’s closeness and keeping one eye open and a hand on his dagger to defend her, until the timid light of a winter morn put an end to that eternal night. The travelers prepared to begin another day’s journey, but Juliana and Nuria’s legs would scarcely obey them; after a few steps they had to lean on something to keep from falling down. Isabel, on the other hand, demonstrated her physical prowess with a few knee bends, congratulating herself on the endless hours she had spent practicing her fencing in front of the mirror. Diego’s advice to Juliana and Nuria was that if they would start walking, their muscles would warm up and the cramping would pass, but that didn’t happen; the pain only got worse. Finally those two had to ride on the horses while Diego and Isabel carried the bundles. It was an entire week before they could make the six leagues a day that had been their goal when they started. Before they left that day, they thanked the peasant woman for her hospitality and left her a few maravedis, which she stared at with amazement, as if she had never seen a coin before. In stretches, the route was a mule path, in others, nothing but a narrow trail snaking through primeval growth. An unexpected transformation took place among the four false pilgrims. The peace and silence forced them to listen, to look at the trees and the mountains through new eyes, to open their hearts to the
