Zorro

believe it. The idea that the twitch of a finger on a trigger would have such consequences had never entered her head. A sharp command from Diego, who had her victim’s partner immobilized with his whip, roused her from her trance. ”Quick! The stable is on fire! We have to get the animals out!“ The three women sprang up to save the cow and horses, which were bawling and whinnying with terror, while Diego pulled the two miscreants outside, one of whom was still bellowing with pain, his leg crushed to a pulp and slick with blood. The stable went up like an enormous bonfire, lighting the night. Now Diego could see Juliana and Isabel’s faces, which had so frightened their assailants. He, too, yelled with disgust. Their skin, yellow and lumpy like the hide of a crocodile, oozed pus in some places and in others had dried like a scab, tugging at their features. Their eyes were distorted, their lips had disappeared the two girls were monsters. ”What happened to you!“ Diego cried. ”Yellow fever.“ Isabel laughed. It had been Nuria’s idea. The chaperone had suspected that their depraved hosts would return to attack during the night. She knew how evil those men were from the story of the peasant woman whose husband had been killed. She remembered an old egg-based beauty formula that her ancestors had learned from Muslim women, and she had used the two yolks left from supper to paint the girls’ faces. As the eggs dried, they turned into cracked, stinking masks. ”It comes off with water, and it does a lot for the skin,“ Nuria explained, very proud of herself. They bandaged the wound of the bully with the scar who yelled and screamed as if he were being tortured to at least prevent his bleeding to death, though there was little hope the leg could be saved. They left his friend tied to a chair, but did not gag him, so he could call for help. The house was close to the road, and more than one passerby would hear. ”An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; you pay for everything in this life, or in hell,“ were Nuria’s words of farewell. They took a ham they found hanging from a beam in the house and the two ponderous, heavy-hoofed Percherons. They were not good as mounts, but they would always be better than walking; besides, they did not want to leave the pair of bandits a means of pursuit. The incident with the noseless man and his cohort with the scar served to make the travelers more cautious. From that night on they had decided they would take shelter only in sites designated by pilgrims from time immemorial. After several weeks of following the northern route, all four had lost weight, and were tougher in body and soul. The sun burned their skin, the dry air and freezing weather cracked it. Nuria’s face became a map of fine wrinkles, and she was suddenly old. That once stiff-backed, apparently ageless woman now dragged her feet and was slightly bowed, but far from making her ugly, it made her beautiful. Her grim expression relaxed, and a teasing, grandmotherly humor blossomed forth, something they had never seen before. She also looked better in the simple pilgrim’s robe than she had in the severe black uniform and cap she had worn all her life. Juliana’s curves disappeared; she looked smaller and younger with her enormous eyes and red, chapped cheeks. She rubbed her skin with lanolin as protection against the sun, but she could not escape the onslaught of the weather. Isabel, strong and slender, was the one who suffered least from the journey. Her features sharpened, and she acquired a long, sure stride that made her appear boyish. She had never been happier; she was born for freedom. ”Curses! Why wasn’t I born a man?“ she exclaimed on one occasion. Nuria gave her a good hard pinch, with the warning that such blasphemy could lead straight to the cauldrons of hell, but then she laughed heartily. Had Isabel been born a male, she commented, she would have been another Napoleon, given the battles she was always waging. They all adapted to the routine imposed by the march. Diego assumed command quite naturally; he made the decisions and dealt with strangers. He tried to arrange a bit of privacy for the women’s most personal needs, but they were never out of his sight for more than a few minutes. They drank and washed in rivers; that was why they had brought the gourds, the symbol of a pilgrim. With each league they traveled, they forgot past comforts: a piece of bread tasted like heaven, a sip of wine was a blessing. In one monastery they were given cups of thick, sweet chocolate, which they savored slowly, sitting on a bench outdoors. For several days that was all they could think of; they could not remember a more perfect pleasure than that warm, fragrant drink beneath the stars. During the day they survived on the leftovers of food they were given where they lodged: bread, hard cheese, an onion, a slice of sausage. Diego still had some money for emergencies, but they tried not to use it; pilgrims lived off charity. If they had no choice but to pay for something, he bargained a long time, until what they needed was nearly a gift; that way he avoided raising suspicions. They had traveled across half of the Basque country when winter set in without mercy. Sudden wintry blasts penetrated to the bone, and chill winds kept them shivering beneath wet mantles. The horses, also affected by the cold, seemed phlegmatic. Nights were longer, the fog denser, their progress slower, the frost heavier, and the journey more difficult, but the landscape was breathtakingly beautiful. Green and more green, hills of green velvet, enormous forests in every shade of green, rivers and waterfalls of crystalline, emerald green water. For great distances the track would disappear in the moist soil, only to reappear later as a faint path through the trees or the worn cobblestones of an ancient Roman road. Nuria convinced Diego that it was a good economy to spend money on liquor, the only thing that warmed them at night and made them forget the torment of the day. At times they had to stay two days in a shelter because of the pitiless rain and their need to collect their strength. They used that time to listen to the stories of the other travelers and the monks and nuns who had seen so many sinners on the road to Santiago de Compostela. One day in the middle of December, when they were still a long way from the next village and had not seen a house for a long time, they saw flickering lights through the trees, something like dying bonfires. They approached with caution, thinking it might be army deserters, who were more dangerous than any felon. They tended to travel in groups, ragged and filthy, armed to the teeth and ready for anything. In the best of cases, those war-hardened men hired themselves out as mercenaries and fought for money, to settle arguments, to deliver revenge, and other livelihoods that might be dishonorable but were preferable to life as bandits. Their only skill lay in their swords, and manual labor was unthinkable to them. In Spain only peasants worked; on their backs they bore the enormous weight of the empire, from the king down to the last bailiff, pettifogger, priest, gambler, page, streetwalker, or beggar. Diego left the women behind some shrubs, armed with the pistol, which Isabel had learned to use, to scout out those distant signs of life. At closer range he confirmed that, as he had thought, the light came from several campfires. He did not, nevertheless, think it was a gang of outlaws or deserters because he could hear the soft melody of a guitar. His heart leaped when he recognized the music, a passionate lament that Amalia used to dance to with whirling skirts and clicking castanets while the rest of her tribe kept time with tambourines and clapping hands. It was not unique; all Gypsies played similar songs. He slowly rode on until he reached the clearing with several tents and fires. ”God help me,“ he muttered, ready to shout with relief. These were his friends. No doubt about it, it was the family of Amalia and Pelayo. Several men of the tribe came out to see who the intruder was, and in the gray light of evening they saw an unkempt and unshaven monk coming toward them on a large plow horse. They did not recognize him until he jumped to the ground and ran toward them the last person they expected to see again was Diego de la Vega, and certainly never in a pilgrim’s robe. ”What the devil has happened to you!“ exclaimed Pelayo, clapping him affectionately on the back, and Diego couldn’t tell whether it was tears running down his cheeks, or drops of rain. The Gypsy went back with him to look for Nuria and the girls. Once they were all seated around the fire, the travelers, in broad strokes, painted a picture of their recent adventures, from the execution of Tomas de Romeu to their encounter with Rafael Moncada, omitting the minor twists and turns that added nothing to the story. ”As you see, we are fugitives, not pilgrims. We have to reach La Corufia to see if we can sail from there to America, but we have traveled only halfway, and winter is nipping at our heels. May we travel on with you?“ Diego asked. The Romany had never received a plea of that sort from a gadje. By tradition they distrusted non-Gypsies, especially when they showed good intentions most likely they had a viper up their sleeves but they had had good opportunity to know Diego well, and they respected him. They walked off to consult among themselves, then left the group of gadjes drying their clothes beside the fire while they went to one of the tents. Stitched together from several cloths, ragged and filled with holes, it nevertheless offered shelter against the caprices of the weather. The meeting of the tribe, called a kris, lasted a good part of the night. It was presided over by Rodolfo, the from baro, the eldest of the men, the patriarch, counselor, and judge, who knew the laws of the Roma. Those laws had never been written or codified; they were passed down from generation to generation in the memory of the from baros who interpreted them according to variables in time and place. Only males could participate in decisions, but enforcement of that custom had relaxed during those years of misery, and the women did not stay silent, especially Amalia, who reminded everyone that Diego had saved their necks in Barcelona, and then had given them a pouch of money that allowed them to escape and survive. Even so, some members of the clan voted against Diego’s request; they believed that the prohibition against fraternizing with gadjes was stronger than any amount of gratitude. Only commercial dealings were allowed; anything else led to ma rime or bad luck. Finally they reached an agreement, and Rodolfo cut off discussion with an irrevocable verdict. They had seen much betrayal and evil in their lives, he said, and they should appreciate it when someone held out a hand to them. Let no one say that the Roma were ungrateful. Pelayo left to take the decision to Diego. He found him asleep on the ground beside the women, all of them huddled together because by then the fire had gone out. They looked like a pitiful litter of pups. ”The assembly