“That would be your word against ours, madam, and you are the perceived traitor,” Wake countered, trying to control his rage. He hated her attitude.
“The perceived leader of the traitors, Mr. Wake. My last confession will be about how you hid in the Alcázar after observing the executions. At that point they will not care who or what you are. They eliminate unfriendly witnesses. You will never see daylight once they seize you.”
Manuel broke his silence and said, “Stop this sparring of words. Either come with us or do not. We are prepared to die. Are you?”
Allen lit another match, its flare making a ghoulish sight in the tunnel. All their faces reflected strain, but the woman’s was the most determined.
As the light dimmed Wake looked from Carmena to his watch. It would be dark outside by now. He glanced at Allen. “Well, old chap. I think it was you who said ‘in for a penny, in for a pound.’”
“Yes. One of my weaker moments in life . . .” came back out of the darkness.
“Carmena, when do you want to try this?”
“Now. It is time.”
***
A sliver of moon shown through the window as they climbed out of it one by one onto a ledge along the inside of the walls facing the large plaza known as the French Gardens. Filing along the ivy-covered ledge with Carmena in the lead, they made their way to a trellis of flowering bougainvillea. They climbed carefully around the bush’s needlelike thorns, then lowered themselves to the ground, Allen stifling an expletive when he lost his footing. Soldiers were everywhere along the tops of the walls and Wake couldn’t see how they could possibly escape, but followed directly behind Carmena, keeping one hand on her shoulder.
She led them along the bottom of the wall to another building. Climbing an orange tree, she leveraged her way up and over an ornate balcony on the second floor, whispering for the others to hurry as an officer walked by sixty feet away by a large entrance.
Once they had all climbed the tree and reached the balcony, Manuel shook his head at her. “Your room? You led us here?”
“Safest place in the Alcázar right now,” she said. She went thru the interior door to her bedroom without hesitation and out into a hall. They waited while she walked down the dark hall into another doorway, then waved for them to follow. It was a lady’s attendant’s quarters and the side wall had a door that led to another balcony. Manuel smiled, for he knew it well. It was the private place at which they had met for over a year.
She leaned over the railing and looked up, then over at each side. “The guards are not overhead right now, but they follow a schedule and will walk this way soon. We go now.”
Carmena put a leg over the rail. Wake heard a grunt as she hit the ground, twenty feet below. He looked over and saw her crawling across the grass of a lawn. She made it to a tree by a side street, hidden behind the trunk.
“¿Que fue éso?” Wake heard a guard above him ask what that noise was. A tall peaked cap appeared over the ramparts.
“Nada, ’migo. Un gato, probablamente,” came another voice from farther along the top of the wall, speculating that it was a cat.
“Entonces un gato gordo!” replied the first guard, joking that it was a fat cat.
Wake and the other men on the balcony held their breath as they flattened themselves against the wall under the overhang. The first guard was still above them, looking around. Then Manuel let out a howling animal wail, screeching louder, then letting it fade away.
“Ay!” said the first guard to his comrade as he started to walk away. “Sí, es un gato gordo, con amor en su mente! Pobre gato.”
The men let out their collective breaths and Wake grinned at Manuel, who shrugged. Then the Spaniard tipped himself over the edge of the railing and landed in the grass, followed by Allen. Wake was last off the balcony, hitting the ground just as the guard reappeared. A pain shot up his right leg, but he knew it wasn’t broken, just strained.
“Alto! Alto, ahora!”
Carmena and the others were waiting by the bushy tree along the street. When the guard issued the challenge for Wake to stop, she and Manuel started running across the street and down an alley. Allen said, “Run, Peter!” which Wake did at full speed, pain ignored as he imagined the rifle coming around and the sights centering on his back.
Wake made it to the tree and dashed across the street with Allen next to him, searching for their Spanish companions, but he couldn’t see them. As they pounded over the cobblestone pavement, each step jolting his leg, he saw a hand beckon them into another alleyway and turned obliquely toward it, still running as fast as he could.
Behind them the alert was being raised by the guard and more shouts could be heard. Dogs started barking in the streets and alleyways and inhabitants leaned out of windows, asking what was happening, some threatening harm, thinking Wake and Allen were thieves.
Wake caught sight of Carmena turning a corner ahead of him and followed, almost colliding with her and Manuel. All four of them stood there a moment, chests heaving with the exertion and terror.
Manuel spoke first. “We go to the river, swim across to the other side and get to the train to Cadiz.”
The others nodded and started behind him at a fast walk, spurred on by the sounds of soldiers running toward them. Manuel darted to the left and led them past a street, down an alleyway and into a plaza, in front of the Giralda Tower, the ancient Moorish minaret that was now part of the gigantic Cathedral of Sevilla. He stopped abruptly and held up
