The Shores of Spain (39 page)

Could there be someone still listening to us?
Joaquim chose his words carefully. “They may have the journal by now. They may not. You were correct, by the way. Alexandre Ferreira fathered me.”

Her face lifted, a blur in the dark. “You’re the youngest son? The one he could never talk to?”

Other than the dull sensation that he was bleeding all over himself, the pain from his face wasn’t too bad. His arm was a different matter. He forced himself to focus on Leandra’s words instead. “What do you mean?”

“He told me he had three sons. The eldest was too much like him, the middle too little like him, and the youngest he couldn’t acknowledge.”

Joaquim chuckled wetly, which set the cuts on his face to burning again. This was the first time he’d ever heard of Alexandre Ferreira admitting his paternity to anyone, and he had to hear it now, in this horrid place. “Yes, I’m that third son,” he said. “Joaquim.”

“I don’t remember much about Ferreira, but for some reason that tidbit about his sons stuck in my memory.”

Perhaps it had stuck so that
he
could hear it one day. Joaquim licked his lips, the coppery taste of blood on them. “What happens to us now?”

“They’ll take you to the other prison, put you in with Marcos. He’s trustworthy. I cannot tell you how sorry I am about this, but we were desperate. We needed you here. I never thought they would treat you this way.”

That statement was followed by a fit of coughing that went on longer than Joaquim liked. He could understand her desperate situation better now. When her fit ended, he asked, “How ill are you?”

“I’m dying,” she said without inflection.

“Tuberculosis?” He’d seen someone else with it recently. The exhaustion and coughing combined were telling.

“Yes,” she said. “Almost three years now.”

Most people with tuberculosis of the lungs only lasted a few years once it was diagnosed, enough time to get their affairs in order . . . or plan an escape from prison. Joaquim turned his head toward the cell door. It seemed that the light was increasing, though, as if someone approached with another lamp. Then he heard the jangle of keys. The cell door creaked open again.

Miss Prieto walked into the cell and set her lamp on something behind Joaquim. She carried her bag over to Leandra first and began cutting the ropes that bound Leandra’s arms. “What did they do to you?”

“A few cuts,” the woman answered wearily. “And Piedad broke two of my fingers. My arms are numb, so I don’t know how bad they are. Can you splint them?”

The healer slowly lifted Leandra’s left arm and set her hand in her lap. The two outermost fingers were visibly twisted and swollen. “Give it a few minutes and these are going to hurt.”

“Check on him first,” Leandra said, pointing with her chin. “I think Piedad broke his nose.”

Joaquim didn’t argue with that assessment.

The healer came to his side and began cutting his bonds, surveying his injuries as she did so. “She used the gauntlet on you, didn’t she? She prefers that for men.”

Apparently this was a common occurrence in this place. Joaquim’s arms fell free and immediately he felt the sting of blood returning to that brand on his arm. “She hits hard enough without it.”

The healer shook her head as she looked at Joaquim’s nose. “She likes the blood. Yes, this is broken. I’ll have to realign it.” Her fingers brushed his nose and Joaquim fought the urge to jerk back from her gentle touch. She must be controlling his pain, though, because it
didn’t hurt nearly as badly as he’d expected. Then her fingers settled on the bridge of his nose, she jerked quickly to one side, and that
did
hurt. Joaquim hissed in an agonized breath, gritting his teeth together until the flare of pain subsided. “Try not to hit your nose for a while,” the healer advised.

“I have a feeling your Piedad’s going to do it for me,” he gasped out.

She turned to the other captive. “Leandra, can you feel your fingers yet?”

“No,” the woman said softly.

“Then let’s get this done before you do.” The healer knelt in front of Leandra, blocking Joaquim’s view. He didn’t want to see this anyway. He could hear the pop of bone moving against bone at one point, his own fingers curling reflexively into fists. He grimaced, his stomach turning, and that set his cheek to stinging again. Leandra’s jaw clenched, but she didn’t flinch.
How many times has this happened to her?

The healer searched her satchel and produced a length of bandage to secure the fingers to the middle finger. “I’ll try to ease the swelling,” she said as she bound the woman’s fingers, “but I can’t fix the bones.”

From what Joaquim understood of healers, repairing bone was beyond them, so he was stuck with the broken nose as well.

“Prieto.” A guard spoke from the cell’s doorway behind him. “Is he ready to move?”

Joaquim closed his eyes and pretended to sleep again.

“I’ll need to replace the bandage on his arm,” the healer protested, “and stitch up that cut on his cheek.”

“You can do that at the prison.”

Two men hoisted Joaquim to his feet between them and began dragging his limp form from the cell. Apparently it was time to go.

CHAPTER 35

                   T
ERRASSA                   

M
arina was still reading when the train pulled into the station at Terrassa. Alejandro looked disappointed when she put the book away, but she needed to prepare her mind for the coming confrontation.

The marquesa had been nothing but unpleasant to Joaquim. Marina didn’t have any illusions about the woman helping her. But she knew something about the marquesa that the woman wouldn’t want known. The marquesa
had to be
a witch, and the Spanish still imprisoned witches.

Marina didn’t think it would come to the point of actually denouncing the woman, but she could make the woman believe she would do it.

Inside the station, one of the clerks provided her with the name and direction of a hotel should they miss the last train back to Barcelona. Once outside the station, she hired a driver to take her and Alejandro to the marquesa’s estate. As they rode along in the back of his open carriage, the boy eyed the rows of vines marching up the sides of the hills. “What are those?”

Marina stared at him, startled. That was the first time he’d
asked a question. “Grapevines. This part of the country makes wine called
cava
.”

“Oh.”

That seemed an end to his curiosity. “There are some cork trees farther along,” she said. “So I suppose the winery produces its own cork.”

Alejandro’s dark eyes slid toward her mistrustfully. “Cork
trees
?”

So she found herself explaining how cork was harvested from trees, something she only knew because one of her father’s clients grew cork in Southern Portugal. Then she launched into a one-sided discussion on how wine was made. Alejandro seemed to accept everything she said as truth, as if he didn’t think she could lie to him.

Marina saw that they were approaching the gate of the estate. Unfortunately, when they reached it, the gate was closed.
Well, we’ve come this far
. Marina stepped down from the cart, helped Alejandro down, and grabbed her bag from the cart’s floor. Once she’d paid the driver and he’d driven away, she turned back to face the locked gate.

Did it mean that the marquesa was out? Or that she was traveling? Marina carried her bag over to the gate and set it down. How humiliating it would be if she wasted an afternoon here when she could be searching out help from someone else.

“Should I climb over?” Alejandro asked.

She shook her head. That wrought-iron fence must be eight feet high, and the spike on the top of each stake looked deadly. “Will she come back?”

He nodded, so she decided they could wait. She surveyed the area around them. To the side of the road she could see a stream, its banks crowded with shrub. She hoped the stream was clean enough that they could drink from it. She didn’t have a flask with her, a foolish oversight. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again. And when she needed to attend the call of nature—which, given her monthly, wouldn’t wait forever—the shrubs would suffice as cover.

So she sat on a green-tiled bench in front of the stone wall where
a honeysuckle vine bloomed, spreading its sweet fragrance about them. She tugged out the book, beckoned for Alejandro to sit next to her, and once he was settled, began reading again.

It was some time later when the rattle of a coach coming down the graveled road caught Alejandro’s ear. He tugged on Marina’s sleeve to alert her, and she spotted the old contraption as it came around the curve into view of the gate. Hoping she still looked presentable after sitting out in the wind, she rose.

The coach was large and grand, with a coat of arms painted on the door. When the coachman set the brake, a stripling in old-fashioned livery clambered down from the back of the coach to unlock the gate. He shot a startled glance at Marina and Alejandro.

“We need to speak to the marquesa,” Marina quickly said in Spanish as he passed.

“The lady doesn’t have time for beggars,” the groom said in a squeaky tenor.

I don’t look that bad, do I?
“I am not a beggar. My husband and I met with her only a couple of days ago.”

The groom averted his face and went to unlock the gates.

The portly driver leaned down from his high perch and barked, “Move on, woman.”

Marina’s jaw clenched. Furious, she dropped Alejandro’s hand, strode over to the coach, and pounded on the door with the side of her fist. “I must speak with you, Marquesa.”

The shade was swept aside by a gnarled black-gloved hand. The old woman peered down at Marina, her dark eyes narrowed. “I don’t have time to gossip with every beggar who comes to my door,” she snapped. “Go to the Church.”

“I’m Joaquim’s wife,” Marina protested. “You met me earlier this week.”

The woman squinted at her, waved one hand, and pronounced, “I’ll talk to you when I’m ready.”

“What?”

“Stand back,” the driver called down. He set the horses to motion so quickly that Marina had to snatch her skirts out of the way of the wheels. The carriage rolled through the gate without even waiting for the groom, leaving an irate Marina standing in the dust kicked up by the wheels. The groom closed the gate, his eyes carefully averted.

Marina ran to the gate and grasped the bars. “I have come all the way from Barcelona to speak with her. I
must
speak with her. Please tell her it’s about her great-grandson.”

Flushing, the groom set the latch on the gate and jogged up the long drive to the house.

“Please!” Marina yelled after him.

He didn’t acknowledge that.

Marina pressed her forehead against the bars, trying to decide what to do. Would the groom repeat her pleas to the marquesa? Would the marquesa even listen?

She pushed down the urge to cry. She didn’t want to do that in front of Alejandro. And she wasn’t going to shake the bars in pointless fury. So after a moment she stepped away from the gate and looked back to where Alejandro stood waiting, his expression unreadable. “She said to wait,” Marina said. “We can do that.”

Alejandro took off his cap and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. Then he went back to sit on the bench as if nothing had happened at all.

Marina joined him there. “Are you hungry? There’s a meat pie left.”

His eyes snaked toward the bag on the ground. “Don’t you want it?”

Even that brief confrontation with the marquesa had left her stomach in knots. So she dug out the meat pie and handed it over to him. While he ate it, she gazed out at the road in the late-afternoon heat. She hadn’t made time to purchase a watch, and now she had no
idea how late it was. She glanced at the sun. It was going to set soon. In an hour? Two?

She touched Alejandro’s knee. “I’m going to go just off the road over there,” she said, pointing to where the stream ran past the road. “Call of nature.”

He nodded, so she picked up her bag and headed down to the streamside. She hated leaving him alone, but she couldn’t put this off much longer. The little stream was easy to hop over, more a deep ditch than anything else. Fortunately, she found a secluded spot behind some bushes that looked like broom. Once she’d taken care of her needs, she made certain her dress was in order and headed back to the stream to wash her hands.

The water was cool, and after scrubbing her hands in the water, she lifted up a handful to take a cautious sip. It seemed drinkable.

“What do we have here?” a man’s voice asked from the side of the road.

Marina spun about, nearly losing her balance and falling into the water in the process. She ended up with one foot in the stream.

A squarely built man stood on the roadside a few feet higher than her, his arms akimbo and his feet wide. His garments looked like a farmer’s, a dirt-stained tunic over homespun pants. He had a handsome face, but his hair was unkempt and the look he directed at her could only be called lecherous. “Little lady coming to take a piss in the stream?”

Marina tried hard not to glance at the bag sitting on the ground a few feet from her. It currently held all their money. Every last peseta. Her passport. Her mother’s journal with its secrets. “Go away,” she said in as calm a voice as she could manage.

He started down the embankment toward her. “What’s in that bag, little lady? I bet there’s something there I’d like.”

She stepped back, putting herself between him and the bag. “There’s nothing there for you.”

She’d put a touch of a
call
into her words, but it didn’t work.
Not when she’d told an outright lie. Her pulse was pounding in her ears now, panic beginning to shorten her breaths. What could she possibly do against a man this size?

He grabbed her arm and yanked her close to him. He wrapped his other hand about her jaw to make her look at him. “Pretty thing, aren’t you?”

Marina felt a blaze of fury go through her. She jerked her head out of his grasp and yanked at her arm, but his grip didn’t give. “I’m not a thing,” she yelled.