Masquerade (3 page)

Toñito was too drunk to catch the dangerous expression on Leandro’s face and jeered at him, ‘
Espetiede
bastardo
!’

‘Toñito, watch your tongue, or one day someone will tire of it and have it out.’ The
gitana
glared at her younger son, who scowled back at her.

Toñito started to say something, then, obviously thinking better of a confrontation, raised his arms in mock defeat and grinned crookedly.

‘Okay, okay, I’m off.’ He shoved the catapult in his back pocket.

Just then another gale of laughter erupted from the group of men opposite. An older man had joined them and was playing with a knife while a couple of the
gitanos
rushed to pour him a cup of brandy.

‘Hey, Toñito,’ one of young men shouted, ‘our Uncle Juanillo here reckons he can beat your record with his
navaja
and there’s a bottle in it for the winner!’

Toñito turned his bleary gaze to Leandro. ‘Enjoy your better things, brother.’ He spat on the ground and took a step backwards. ‘Diego, you can tell him I accept his challenge,’ he called back. As he turned, he almost unbalanced, then staggered off to rejoin his group.

The
gitana
sucked on her pipe. ‘Foolish boy! He may come from my loins but he’ll never amount to anything.’

‘He’s young and foolish, true, but he’ll grow up soon.’ Leandro stared after his brother for a moment, then sighed. He picked up a stick and threw it on to the fire. ‘He’s just trying to please you, that’s all.’

‘Please me, eh? Before you came along, my little brother Pablo was the only one I could rely on. Since he left us, it’s just you. Anyway, be off with you now. Do what you need to do with this girl and hurry back.’

‘I’ll take her back on Ventarrón,’ the young man told his mother but she was not listening any more. She smoked placidly, her eyes staring vacantly, the shadow of a smile hovering across her face.

In the still of the night, under a velvet sky studded with stars like diamonds and a bright golden moon hanging in the heavens like a big porcelain saucer, Leandro rode to L’Estrella, holding Luz to him on his jet-black stallion. The sea was quiet, the air soft with an all-pervasive smell of iodine and seaweed. They made their way, corkscrewing along the empty cobbled backstreets of Cádiz that snaked uphill to the top of the cliffs. There, L’Estrella lay; the focal point of an enchanting setting, a tiny jewel-like circular house in calm seclusion, halfway between fascinating reality and a mirage. Its whitewashed walls gleamed almost luminous under the full moon and a faint breeze whispered through the cluster of almond trees fringing the entrance.

The house was dark. Luz was still asleep – the concoction must have been strong, his mother perhaps a little heavy-handed with the herbs. Leandro was perplexed: no one seemed to be waiting up for her. The lights were off but the front gate was wide open. He quietly steered Ventarrón to a holm oak in the courtyard. Carefully leaning Luz forward against the stallion’s mane and holding on to her with one hand, he slid to the ground. With the other, Leandro tied the horse to the trunk of the tree and then carried the young woman into the hacienda.

The grounds of the villa were all steps and corners, arches and angles, linked by patios and punctuated by sweet-smelling shrubs and orchard trees. Leandro walked up to the house and circled round it: the place seemed deserted. Gently hitching Luz closer to him, he searched her pockets for a key but there was none – it must have been lost when she fell. He was toying with the idea of taking her back to camp when he noticed, in the light of the moon, Zeyna grazing on one of the expanses of grass at the edge of the garden. The creature lifted its head and regarded Leandro for a few moments before bending back down to the ground. ‘Well, at least the mare is back,’ he muttered to himself.

As he turned with Luz in his arms, a veranda draped in wisteria caught his eye, f lanked by a handsome flight of stone steps. He climbed to the top of them and was relieved to find a French window slightly ajar. Nudging it open with his foot, he gazed into the moonlit room. It was a bedroom – Luz’s bedroom by the look of it. He walked in.

She was still fast asleep against his shoulder. He laid her carefully on the bed and slowly removed her riding boots. He spotted a blanket neatly folded on a chest next to the window and gently tucked it around her. For a moment he stood there, feasting his eyes on the ripe perfection of his Sleeping Beauty. Her eyes were closed, her mouth pink, and thick dark lashes feathered against her pale face. She was lovely, but unconscious and remote. What would she, a rich
gajo
, say if she woke to find that he had brought her home and was standing in her bedroom alone with her? What had she thought of him when she had looked his way? She fascinated him. He stretched out a cautious hand and touched her silky black hair. A slight frown creased his brow and he hesitated, then stooped and gently, ever so gently, brushed her soft, parted lips with a kiss. There was a hint of worship in his caress.

Later that night Leandro rode back slowly from L’Estrella. He hadn’t returned immediately, wishing to avoid Lucas, the visiting horse dealer, and the rest of his family. Instead, he had sat on the beach near Luz’s cliff house for a long time, staring at the inky, glistening ocean.

Now, as he made his way through the gypsy camp, he watched the dark clouds drift towards the large shining moon as if intent on devouring it whole. So vibrant by day, the camp was now bleached of colour in the pale light. The fires were almost out, copper pots lay discarded and some caravans and makeshift improvised tents glowed from the lamps inside. The place smelt of burnt wood and petrol. A few figures were huddled round the dying embers,
murmuring to one another, and some were passed out next to the dogs on the ground. The sound of a donkey braying somewhere was replaced with the harsh miaow of squabbling cats. Leandro nudged Ventarrón on, the bells on the horse’s reins jingling softly. He sighed. Tonight, for the first time, the encampment was the last place he wanted to be.

His mother was waiting for him, sitting at the cave entrance with a tall
gitano
with long, greying, wiry hair and a worn face, who had a deep scar down one of his cheeks. He put the wineskin he was holding down at his feet and dragged on his long cigar.

‘Juanillo.’ Leandro brought his horse to a stop and nodded a greeting. He had never liked his uncle and was irritated that he was still there.

‘Leandro,’ Juanillo responded in a gravelly voice, nodding back. ‘We missed you earlier.’ He regarded his nephew with a squint as the smoke curled out of his nostrils. His hawkish eyes were black as coal, with a hard edge that made many give him a wide berth when passing him on the street.

Leandro met his gaze unflinchingly. ‘I was busy. I trust you and Lucas struck a good deal for your two horses and those mules you wanted rid of?’

‘I did – Lucas is a thieving rascal but I’ve always managed to make him see sense.’

‘I’m sure,
Tío
.’ Leandro dismounted and began unfastening the saddle.

‘Your business tonight must have been important to take you away for so long,
sobrino
, nephew.’

‘Important enough.’

‘Well, take care you don’t leave your mother alone for too long. There’s no more important business than family and Marujita’s already suffered plenty for hers.’ Juanillo took out a small whetstone from his pocket and played with it while smiling sardonically.

‘That she has,
Tío
.’ Leandro pulled the saddle off Ventarrón without looking up.

‘Be off with you, Juanillo!’ Marujita patted her brother’s back. ‘You’ve had enough brandy to kill the Devil in you today and I need to talk to my son.’ Her features were glowing, her midnight eyes shining with an intensity Leandro had never noticed in them before – he could see she was agitated.

Juanillo allowed his gaze to linger a little on Leandro before he rose to his feet with his wineskin. ‘Yes, you talk to your son. And if the Devil wants to come and get me any time soon, he knows where I am,’ he grunted and lurched off into the darkness.

When Leandro had put Ventarrón away for the night, the
gitana
emptied her pipe on the ground and stood up. ‘Come,’ she commanded in a tone that bore no contradiction, ‘we must talk.’

Once they were in the privacy of her bedroom she poured a couple of glasses of manzanilla and sat in one of the wooden chairs flanking a low round table at the foot of the bed. She swigged at her glass and dangled a gold locket hanging at the end of a chain in front of him as he took up the chair opposite her.

‘Look what I’ve found,’ she chuckled.

Leandro recognized it immediately. ‘Oh,
Mamacita
! Why did you have to take that?’ he said reproachfully. ‘I’ll get you a hundred gold lockets, if you want. You know you don’t need to do that any more.’

‘This is different, my son, you don’t understand. Saint Cyprian, the King of Sorcerers and patron of all fortune tellers, has finally answered my prayers.’

Leandro’s mouth twitched with amusement as he gulped a mouthful of the sherry. ‘
Mamacita
, Saint Cyprian might be the patron of diviners but if I remember right, he gave up being the King of Sorcerers when he renounced Satan. He converted to Christianity and died a martyr. Trust me, he would not condone theft. I will take that back to its owner tomorrow.’

His mother lifted her eyes to the ceiling. ‘You will do no such thing,’ she retorted, clutching the locket tighter. ‘Sometimes I wonder if you really are my son,’ she declared in an exasperated tone. ‘Listen
to me carefully.’ There was urgency in her voice. ‘This illness claws at me like the Devil himself. I don’t have long to live.’

‘But if you let me take you back to the doctors, things could be different for you,’ Leandro stood up and started pacing. ‘If you would just try—’

‘I don’t need any more doctors,’ she cut in. ‘Doctors cannot give me more life than God intends. I have seen it in the fire … in my dreams … cast in the runes. I know my fate.’ Her grim expression turned to something fiercer as she studied Leandro’s face. ‘But my wish has been granted and only you, my beloved son, can carry it out to its final closure so I may die in peace.’

A curious, blank feeling came over him, a kind of foreboding that froze him to the bone. ‘What are we talking about here?’

Marujita opened the locket. Inside were miniatures of a man and a woman.

‘Don Salvador and the high and mighty Doña Alexandra de Rueda,’ the
gitana
enunciated triumphantly. ‘Can’t you see? They are that chit’s parents,’ she snorted. ‘My lifelong enemies: the whore who stole Don Salvador from me, and the man himself, who not only rejected my love but threw me in prison and was the cause of my eldest brother’s death.’

Leandro paused as the meaning of her words sunk in. An icy heaviness took hold. ‘
Mamacita
, all this happened such a long time ago. Can’t you forgive and forget?’

A sudden flush burned her cheeks. She rose to her feet, her finger stabbing at the air, sending her bracelets ringing again like a warning. ‘Don’t you dare speak like a
gajo
and forget you’re a gypsy. You are Marujita’s son!’ Her mien had altered with the speed of a chameleon changing its colour. The
gitana
’s eyes shone wildly and her features contracted in an ugly spasm, a look that had caused her to be branded
Il Diabólica
, the evil one, by some. ‘Gypsies never forget a bad deed, you know that. The evil actions of our enemies must be returned upon them or their children, it’s our law,’ she rasped, holding the locket up to him again as if the two faces contained
within it were already her grisly war trophies.
‘La venganza de Calés
is not something to be bargained with. Fate has put that girl in your way for a reason.’

‘Perhaps.’ Leandro stared at Marujita. Even though he had often seen the darker side of her, she was scarcely recognizable to him at this moment. He had never anticipated that he would be placing Luz in danger by bringing her there. The story of Don Salvador and his wife from England was well known to him; his mother had bitterly reminded him often enough how it had affected their lives. And now he had unwittingly brought the daughter of Marujita’s sworn enemies straight to the
gitana
. The look in his mother’s eyes was clear and chilled his blood. So he was to be the instrument of her revenge.

Leandro paused, watching her. ‘Why me?’

Her laugh was bitter, more like a sneer. ‘Why
me
, he asks! Remember that because of them, you saw your first light of day in prison and, for that reason only, you were torn away from me. My baby son, wrenched from my arms. Even though you were only days’ old, you clung to me. I can still hear you crying as I watched you through the bars of my cell, disappearing down the long dark corridor of that prison.’

There was pain as well as anger now in her dark irises and it caught at the strings of Leandro’s heart.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked quietly. He knew her well enough to dread the answer.

The
gitana
moved over to him, her eyes shining coldly as she smiled up at her son. ‘You are a handsome young man,’ she whispered, brushing his cheek with her tapering fingers. ‘It is a known fact that
gajo
women go mad for
Caló
men. It would not be difficult to seduce her and if you get her with child, even better. Let’s see how her stuck-up family likes that!’ She paused to take a breath, which set off a fit of coughing. Leandro was in the process of turning away but she held up a hand. ‘Then … then, you will toss her aside as her father did me.’

Marujita stepped back and flicked up her fingers, sending her bracelets jangling roughly. ‘She will be used goods. No honourable Spanish man will marry her after that.
La honra
in those aristocratic circles obeys rules just as fierce as ours. It will ruin her life and her parents will shed tears of blood, as I have. And trust me, their punishment will be nothing compared with the pain they caused me, your mother!’

Leandro stepped back from her. ‘What you’re demanding of me is an evil thing. Do you really want your son to be a part of this?’