tension leave Alonso’s arm and she let him go. The young man stood very close behind her and she felt the heat billowing off his bare chest.
At that moment, a pair of soldiers returned to the near stair to report nothing found in the corridor above them. A minute later, another man returned empty-handed from the kitchens. And another from the stables. And another and another. Soon the entire company had returned and all with the same report. There was no sign of the other women anywhere in La Seo.
“And what now, Senor Fabris?” Qhora asked. She gestured to Gaspar. “This young man needs a doctor. Will you leave us in peace, or do you need to continue maiming children, threatening women, and bullying the gentle priests of this church?” She projected her voice over the crowd of soldiers, scanning the young men’s faces for reactions. She saw many pursed lips and uneasy eyes.
Salvator sighed. “No, I suppose not. Sergeant, please let the good brothers out. And wait here until Signora Quesada and her companions are fully dressed before you bring them back to the barracks with us. I’ll return immediately to summon a doctor, or whatever passes for a doctor here.” He turned and strode away to the stairs.
Qhora blinked. The barracks?
The boys dressed, helping Gaspar to wrap his shirts and coats around his arm, and within a few minutes they were all bundling down the stairs and out into the street over the mealy mouthed objections of the sleepy priests and monks. The first blast of night air snapped her eyes open and left her shivering all the way down the riverside, and then through the maze of narrow stone and ice corridors to the prison-like block of the army barracks.
Moments later she was sitting in a large cell with the three boys posturing around her like overprotective lions. They might have made a more impressive display if they had had their swords and if Gaspar hadn’t been hunched over, cradling his arm to his chest with a spatter of red on the floor beside him. A dozen soldiers milled around the large room on the other side of the bars while Salvator explained to the Espani major why he was holding four prisoners and why he needed a surgeon and why he needed a cup of real coffee and not the watered down piss the Espani called tea. Then Salvator left the room.
As soon as the Italian was gone, the soldiers dropped their rifles and converged on the cell with bright beaming smiles. “Alonso!”
Alonso pressed up to the bars, shaking hands and grabbing shoulders and tousling hair. The next few minutes were a deafening roar of laughter and shouts as the young diestro embraced his old friends and tried to introduce them to his fellow prisoners at a full holler. Qhora just smiled and waved at the young men hanging on the bars and babbling in their sharp northern Espani accents.
Eventually one of the soldiers, a narrow-faced boy with a crooked nose and a booming voice took over the chaos. “Alonso, what’s really going on?”
“I don’t know. One minute we’re on vacation to train at the cathedral and the next minute some fancy Italian is dragging a whole party into my room in the middle of the night, and not in the good way.”
The boys laughed.
Alonso pointed at the door through which Salvator had left. “So who the hell is he? Why are you taking orders from an Italian?”
“Who knows? He just showed up two hours ago, flashed some papers at the major, and suddenly he’s in charge. And he smells.” More laughter. “Like a drunken wad of burnt hair.”
“Boys, boys, please.” Qhora stood up. “Now that we’re all friends, can we please go?”
They exchanged guilty looks. “Sorry, Dona, we can’t do that. Orders are orders. But we do have the doc coming to patch up your friend there. Did Fabris really do that?”
Alonso nodded. “He may smell like dead fish, but he knows which end of a sword to hold. Keep clear of him.”
Qhora approached the bars. “Please, listen, this Italian is hunting innocent people. He says he’s looking for Mazigh spies, but we’ve only seen him attacking Espani. We had another young man with us, Enrique. Fabris attacked him on the road and we had to leave him behind in the care of strangers. He attacked my husband, and now he’s attacked Gaspar. This Italian is as depraved as he vicious. You must help us. Please, I need to find my husband, Don Lorenzo Quesada de Gadir. He’s out in the streets right now, he can’t be far.”
The soldiers hung on the bars outside, casting frowns and squints at each other. The one with the crooked nose said, “Sorry, but if Fabris comes back and you’re not here, we could all end up in a cell, or out in the street. We didn’t exactly join the army because it was the best job available. It’s either this or working the ice.” He shuddered.
Alonso snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. Switch clothes with me.”
A smattering of nervous laughs ran through the crowd. The soldier boy said, “The Italian may be stupid, but he’s not that stupid.”
“Just for an hour. Half an hour,” Alonso said. “Just so I can find Don Lorenzo and tell him what’s happened, please. I’ll be gone and back before the surgeon ever gets here, if he’s even coming at all.”
Everyone glanced back at poor Gaspar, doubled over on the stone bench with Hector hovering over him.
The soldier frowned. “Half an hour?”
Alonso nodded. “Or less.”
Chapter 18. Taziri
As she slipped through the squeaky kitchen door and into the howling wind of an icy alleyway behind La Seo, the Mazigh pilot felt the freezing night air stinging her eyes. Above the dark gray walls she saw a black ribbon of sky salted with cold stars. Taziri shivered as she tried to straighten out her hastily assembled layers of shirts and coats. The sleeves were all snagged and bunched, particularly around the brace on her left forearm.
Shahera stood panting and shaking beside her. The Eranian girl shuffled down the alley toward the road. “Come on, come on! They could be right behind us!”
Taziri glanced back at the door they had just come through. Old and filthy. Grimed and rusted. In her inner jacket pocket she found one of her older screwdrivers and she jammed the tool through the door’s handle. “Let’s go.”
At the end of the alley they found a dark road that ran the length of the rear of the cathedral, and with no sound of pursuit in the alley behind them, Taziri led the way more slowly and carefully. With several inches of snow and ice lumped on the ground, the footing was treacherous and both women kept their eyes on their boots. The next intersection was empty but footsteps and voices echoed to their left so they drew back into the dark recess of a doorway and waited.
First the shadows and then the bodies of the soldiers marched past and Taziri clenched her teeth at the sight of the Italian leading them down the street. Qhora looked as regal and defiant as ever surrounded by the armed men, as though they followed her instead of herded her along. One of the boys was obviously injured, but they were moving so quickly and were so obscured by the soldiers that she could not tell who it was or how badly he was hurt.
When the soldiers were gone, Taziri stepped out into the road. “We have to help them.”
“What? How?”
“I don’t know. But she saved us. It should be us going to prison, not them.”
Shahera shook her head. “No. If they took us, they’d kill us. But they’ll let the Espani go in a day or two. They’ll be fine. I’m sure they’ll all be fine.”
“That Italian is some sort of butcher. You saw what he did to Enrique. I’m not leaving Qhora with him. Come on!” She strode into the night and a moment later heard the Eranian girl following a few paces behind.
They followed the noisy troop of soldiers through the dark, cold maze of Zaragoza, twisting and turning from one stony lane to another until the men filed into a bleak little building on a dark square where only the flickering candle light in the windows illuminated the road outside.
As soon as the door closed behind the soldiers, Taziri dashed to the wall and eased around the edge of the first window to peer inside. She saw snow and soot, and through the filth a blurry yellow glow.
Damn it. Can’t these people keep anything clean?
