The Horse Healer (36 page)

“But, Mother, how is this possible? That is a foulness so terrible … You are, you are … cruel and hateful.”

She leapt at Doña Teresa to scratch her, disgusted by what she was hearing. Her mother guessed her intentions and was able to avoid her. She shoved her and Mencía fell down on the sheets. She was going to speak, she needed to understand, to ask why she was doing this to her, but her mother cut her off.

“I know what you feel for him.” Doña Teresa changed her tone and suddenly became more tender and understanding, almost even maternal. “Believe me, my poor daughter, I understand. You love him, no? You feel yourself dying for him and it seems impossible that anyone could ever replace him.”

“You don't know what I feel. And you have no right to decide my life. Do you understand?” she shouted, furious.

“You are the one who understands nothing. I know who deserves you and who doesn't. Forget that nobody and behave like an adult for once; erase that stupid daydream from your mind.”

“It's not a daydream.” Mencía turned around, exasperated, in her bed.

“I don't care what you call it, but forget him. And stop thinking about it anymore. It's very late and I'm not in the mood to hear more nonsense. Now you will obey me.”

She opened a small glass bottle and spilled ten drops into a glass of water.

“Take this. It will help you to forget … and it will also awaken your senses.”

Mencía couldn't believe what she had just heard.

“You're trying to drug me?”

Doña Teresa pounced on her and made her drink it. Mencía's chin began to quiver. She felt stunned, and she couldn't find a way out. She looked at her mother and saw a stranger. She studied every line in her face, trying to find there the slightest sign of compassion, kindness, or concern, but she only found sternness, coldness, cruelty.

“We've talked enough. The messenger awaits my orders. The life of Diego de Malagón depends on you. If you truly love him, you know now how to show it.”

“My uncle doesn't have to listen to you. …” Mencía looked for one last solution before surrendering herself to cruel reality.

Her mother gave an insensitive and cruel laugh.

“He agrees about all of this. I insist, don't think about it anymore. Do what I say.”

When the bells of the neighboring church of San Juan rang out at midnight, Doña Teresa rushed from the bedroom, prepared for Fabián's imminent arrival.

X.

A
mid sheets of ice, stones with sharp edges, and snow up to her flanks, Sabba brought Diego back to Santa María de Albarracín.

They had been away almost five months; it was already December, and there were only two days left till Christmas.

Diego's longing to see Mencía made him pull ahead of the rest of the horses when they were reaching the vicinity of Teruel.

Three hours later, a few leagues from Albarracín, the weather got notably worse; a lashing blizzard struck and the day was darkened by a thick fog, so that orienting oneself became impossible.

“Poor Sabba, you've got ice up to your mane.”

Diego took a hand out from his cape to clear it off.

When she exhaled, a thick cloud of steam emerged from her nostrils. Sabba opened her eyes wide, surprised at the effect. She jerked her head several times and whipped her tail from front to back in a signal of danger, a danger much greater than her master seemed to be aware of.

Diego sped up to avoid hitting the storm, though shortly afterward, when he could no longer of the path, he realized he was lost. Sabba looked down, fearful; she didn't know where to step either. At a certain moment, she ceased obeying Diego's orders and stopped. He spoke slowly to calm her down. He assured her that he had it under control, but Sabba refused to advance. She twisted her head from side to side, refusing his directions.

Tired of her behavior, Diego dismounted, took hold of the bridle, and pulled on it. He gave it his all, but she would only budge a few steps. He didn't understand. He doubled the reins around his wrist, tensed them, and clenched his teeth to drag her along, even if just one inch at a time, but then he noticed that she wouldn't step down on one of her feet, that she kept it hanging in the air. He turned, confused, and it was then that he noticed he was on the edge of a dangerous precipice, right there in front of his nose.

Sabba breathed out another cloud of steam and rested her head on his shoulder. Her fear had vanished and she was waiting for her master to reward her for her carefulness.

“You're my guardian angel.” He scratched her jaw and got back on her. “Find the path we lost, take it, and get me to Albarracín, please.”

Diego's breeches were so stiff, in fact they were frozen, that when he got back on the saddle to look for the way, their folds cut into his skin.

“We should be close, Sabba. At least I hope so.”

The mare turned back over her footsteps and began to walk more carefully. Diego was conscious that his responsibilities had grown. Not only did he have to take care of her, but he also had to protect the fragile creature she had in her belly. He still didn't know how it had happened, or when. He thought about the night he spent with Mencía in the hermitage, keeping safe from the rain. … Sabba was there with Shadow, but … It also could have been any other moment throughout the five months he had spent away. He had been so insensitive and apathetic recently that he hadn't even paid attention to the change in her attitude or, later, in the size of her belly.

But there she was, about to become a mother for the first time. Diego was sure she already felt the stirring of a new life in her womb. He caressed her tenderly and with the warmth of his embrace, he encouraged her to continue on her path.

When they glimpsed the long city walls as they curved around the Guadalaviar, their spirits lifted. Diego pushed onward down the hill until they reached the northern gate, and then passed through the streets in search of his house.

Night was falling, and he scarcely saw anyone on his way; it was too cold to be out in the street. He and Sabba entered the stable and he readied her a bed of straw and gave her a pitchfork of dry grass to eat, and he left her there lying down and resting from the journey.

When he entered the house, he found Marcos sleeping by the fire. He blew air on the coals and put on more logs. Before he sat down, he had a little cheese and a mug of wine. He stretched his legs in the heat and closed his eyes, overjoyed to be back home.

For a while he enjoyed that silence, only broken by the occasional creak or the crackling of the fire. But when he went to get more wood, he accidentally made too much noise and awoke Marcos.

“But look who we have here!” The two men gave each other a sincere embrace.

“Marcos, my dear friend … how has your trading gone? You have to tell me everything. But first you have to tell me how Mencía is. By the way, you're looking a little heftier.” With each question, Diego tried to make up for the five long months away from the city.

“Relax … You're trying to make me talk to you about too many things at once,” Marcos protested, perhaps to put off the one bit of news that was actually important.

“The trading couldn't have gone better, but what about you? How was your war experience? And have you been by the castle yet?”

“No, I needed to warm up and change clothes first; I smell like a horse.” Diego smiled openly; he looked beaming, anxious to see his beloved. “I have to admit, my experiences in the war helped me to make new decisions. Among them, I'm going to ask Mencía to marry me, and there's another one I'll tell you in a moment, but I need to have some time to think it through.”

Marcos's face twisted into a grimace of displeasure.

“I have to tell you something …”

“What happened?”

“It's about Mencía.” Marcos grabbed a poker and began to jab at a piece of wood to work up the fire.

“What happened to her?” Diego felt a sudden sensation of anxiety. “Is she sick?”

After holding his breath a moment, Marcos finally spoke.

“You won't find her in Santa María de Albarracín. …”

“Is she traveling?”

“No, it's not that. …” He looked at Diego downcast. “She married that man she met before we arrived, the one from Aragon.”

Diego put his head in his hands and felt a sharp pain in his stomach, as though someone had pierced him straight through with a sword. His eyes began to water. He couldn't speak.

“Everything happened after you left. One day this Fabián Pardo showed up and a month later, to everyone's surprise, their marriage was announced. A while later they went to Ayerbe, to live in the castle of the Aragonese.”

Marcos, crestfallen, put his hand around Diego's shoulder.

“She swore her love to me. …” Diego was defeated, desolate. “She told me she loved me more than anyone. How could she deceive me this way?”

“I should tell you another thing. …”

“There's more?”

“She was pregnant when she married.” Marcos cleared his throat nervously. “And I didn't know whether to ask you or not, but understand, from the dates when she'll be giving birth …”

“I never made her mine, if that's what you want to know. So there can be no doubt about the child's paternity. …”

“I'm sorry, Diego. Women … They're like that; unpredictable, volatile. That's why I never trust them. They change from one day to the next, and what goes on inside them is a mystery. That's why I enjoy them, I let them love me from time to time, I sample their plump bodies, and nothing more. You should do the same and stop being so romantic. It's not worth suffering so much over them.”

“I don't understand, Marcos.” Diego had gone pale. “I … I thought she loved me, she swore it. I thought she could overcome the barriers that came between my world and hers. … But she didn't. How naive I was! Just like others told me, lineage was stronger than love.” He brought his hands to his head again, wounded. “I don't know how I thought I would win the heart of a girl who was a daughter of the nobility, when I was a commoner, a miserable son of the earth. I thought I was someone because I was an albéitar, the way I saw Galib was when he walked around with the nobles in Toledo, but it's clear it's not enough. Mencía … yes, she gave in. Her surroundings made her choose something else, different for me, and she let their will break her.” He pushed the air from his lungs until he thought he would choke. “And what will I do now, Marcos? Die from pain?”

“You have to see it's just how women are. Like I said …”

“But she didn't leave you a note for me, something written before she left, nothing?”

Marcos lowered his head without answering. He understood his pain. When he looked at Diego again, his friend was trembling from rage or mourning. Marcos saw him go to the window, the one that opened onto the square. From there, he could see a corner of the Azagras' castle. Diego imagined Mencía in the arms of another, kissed and caressed by another man, and he couldn't take it.

One question, always the same, assailed him over and over. What could have happened to make Mencía break her oath of love and fidelity?

“This city, the streets, the air … Everything is making me sick,” he confessed to Marcos. “It's all impregnated with betrayal, lies, mocking. I can't go on living here another day, Marcos.” He began to pace nervously through the room until he stopped suddenly in front of his friend. “I need to get far away from here.”

“What do you mean?” Marcos did not seem convinced.

“Maybe it's time for me to go to Marrakesh and look for my sisters.” Diego's eyes explored a spot on the ceiling. “Of course, that's it! Now I can do it; I will cross over again into Al-Andalus.”

Marcos frowned. He didn't like that idea at all; Diego had told him about the difficulties he'd had to pass through when he crossed the marshlands, and he thought it was madness to go there again. Besides, it would mean abandoning his trade.

Anticipating what Diego's reaction would be, Marcos had already thought of another solution days before. If he managed to convince Diego of it, the fate Marcos had chosen would be even more profitable than selling sheep to the Valencians. While Marcos tried to find the best words to explain his plan, Diego made it easy for him.

“Wait, no …” Diego realized how selfish he was being. “You should stay. I'm sorry, I'm insensitive. You've already put down roots here, and I don't want you to leave behind what you've worked so hard to get. I'll go, but alone. That's what I'll do!”

“I won't allow it.”

“I won't allow you to come with me.”

“I know you too well not to have guessed what you'd be thinking, Diego. So I already made the contacts I needed to set up somewhere else, and …”

“Forget it, I insist. … I'll leave tomorrow at dawn.”

“Listen to my idea first.”

“Fine, tell me.”

“First remember this name, Cuéllar.”

“I don't know it. Where is it?”

“It's a free village south of the Duero River in Castile. From what I hear, it has an enormous herd of sheep. Two months ago I found out that Abu Mizrain, my intermediary with the buyers in Valencia, had the thought of setting up shop there, but to buy wool and not just meat. Apparently the sheep they raise in the region of Cuéllar have finer coats than those here, and the lamb is tastier, with more fat. I managed to go with him, and I liked it. I have a good contact with one of the largest livestock owners, and he could definitely help us break into that market.”

Diego was only half listening. Disappointment and misery were drowning him and nothing tied him to this or any other place. He didn't even have the strength to decide. … All he wanted was to be lost to the world, to disappear, to cry out his pain.

“I'm going to Al-Andalus. …”

“Why?” Marcos decided to change his strategy and at least make him delay the trip.

“I swore I would do something for my sisters; that is my plan,” Diego answered firmly.

“It sounds to me like a very noble decision on your part, but I suppose you also must have thought about how much it will cost you to carry it out. You'll need lots of money and someone to go with you, and it's best if you go armed; and you'll need a good excuse to be down there among the Moors, and lots of bravery above all. I don't deny that you have the courage, but the rest of it you still need.” He put a hand on his friend's shoulder. “Listen, Diego, great debts like the one you have aren't paid with weapons and strength. You need brains, intelligence, and especially a good plan. And to make it, you need time and plenty of economic resources. Let's go to Cuéllar, Diego. We'll do business there and we'll make money. We'll figure out afterward what to do with it, I promise. What do you think?”

Diego embraced him. He had never felt so wretched, but he'd also never received such a sincere show of friendship.

They sat in front of the fire and watched the wood burn with a feeling that they were sharing not only heat, but their lives and destinies as well. The tongues of fire twisted around the dry wood, in silence, until another crack opened and they devoured its interior.

Diego was so absorbed in his pain that he couldn't even move. His eyes were prisoners to those flames and couldn't pull away from them. He felt wounded in the deepest part of his being, as if he had been torn in half, from his head to his toes. Without Mencía, life itself had no meaning.

“I've been cheated, humiliated …”

He promised himself he would forget it, but he couldn't. He saw her blue eyes again, her beautiful hair, her sweet voice. Mencía had been his only love.