"A sentry's job is not to spy on his friends, madame. Besides, I am quite certain my young friend has never progressed beyond holding hands in the past, so who is debauching whom? Can you say the same of her?"
And bully for Hamish! Toby would not grudge him his good fortune.
"He is taking advantage of her. The girl is simple."
"I really find that hard to credit, madame."
"Then what of Madame Gomez?"
Toby's heart skipped a beat. The senora must have seen his reaction, for she curled her hairy lip at him. "You did not know about her either?"
"I am sure that you slander the lady, madame. Besides, her tragic experiences have left her in a highly disturbed emotional state, and if you are implying that I would exploit—"
"Not you. The don."
That snotty aristocratic pervert! How dare he! "I cannot believe that they are more than friends! How can you doubt her virtue or his honor?" But Toby had wondered what the two of them found to talk about—the prospect made his mind reel. Imaginary armies or imaginary ghosts?
"They, too, share a blanket," Senora Collel announced triumphantly. Her pleasure came from seeing Toby's anger, not from outraged morality. "Gentry like him think casual seduction is a game, yes? That they have the right to defile any woman they fancy?"
"Madame Gomez is a grown woman and I am not an abbess. Nor, if I may say so, are you, madame!" Feeling his face burning under her scorn, he lengthened his stride and stalked away.
Poor, foolish Gracia! All she needed was affection to support her in her bereavement, and she was not likely to find it in the fantasy world of Don Ramon. If Toby himself developed ambitions toward her, he could do nothing about them. So why this furious urge to punch a certain arrogant stuck-up nose until it sprayed blue blood all over its ridiculous mustache?
***
Yes, the company was coming together, if slowly, and on that fourth morning he had some reason for optimism as he strode along the column. He also had serious worries, because the last of his food had vanished the previous evening. Father Guillem admitted that the clerics were down to their last crumbs. The devastation of the Valencian countryside had been rumored in Toledo, but none of the pilgrims had comprehended the scale of it. There were no inhabitants to offer charity, no markets in which to shop, no crops to pillage. At noon Toby would have to propose that the haves start sharing with the have-nots, but he was hard put to see the four peasants doing that, while Salvador Brusi would expect to be recompensed liberally for every lentil they wrung out of him.
The don paraded in front with his squire, followed by Josep and Father Guillem, Pepita and Brother Bernat and Gracia, then old man Brusi and his horses, Senora Collel and Eulalia riding, and the two Elinors and Thunderbolt. Hamish, Rafael, and Miguel brought up the rear. Toby mostly patrolled back and forth, exhorting, encouraging, and keeping watch for stragglers—usually Pepita, who kept running off to search for berries or butterflies. Although he approved in general of the don's disposition of forces, he always tended to loiter near the center of the group, uneasy about that vulnerable midriff.
The sun still scorched as if it were summer. The country was a melange of overgrown pasture, weed-covered fields, burned hamlets, and groves of mutilated trees, a landscape broken up by walls and hedges and imperceptible ridges, a paradise for ambushers. It seemed deserted, but that was illusion. A sharp eye could gather evidence that people had used the road recently, and at sundown thin columns of smoke wrote warnings in the sky. Distant dogs barked in the night. Whoever the inhabitants might be, they were likely to be lawless and desperate. The calm was deceptive.
Around mid-morning, catching up with Brusi, Toby said, "Senor? Have you any idea of where we are? How many days to go?"
"No." The old man was hunched in the saddle like a bundle of sticks. "We still have not crossed the Ebro. It is utterly shameful to destroy olive trees like that. It takes many, many years to grow an olive tree. The destruction of wealth is mindless criminality."
"It is more shameful to destroy people, surely."
"People can run away, olive trees cannot. How will the cities prosper when the countryside has been blighted? The Fiend has destroyed what he has won. I do not see how he hopes to drive the Tartars out of Europe when he is worse than they ever were. He must be crazy."
"His purpose is not to liberate Europe. It is to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible." Toby knew he would not be believed, but the rich man's indifference to the plight of the poor enraged him. "He enjoys tormenting his own people as much as the enemy. I doubt he would accept the Khan's surrender were it offered. He is a demon incarnate—literally. I have that on very good authority."
The prune face wrinkled up in scorn. "Good authority? You? Some drunk in a tavern, I do not doubt. And you are privy to Nevil's secret strategy? I did not realize I was in the company of an international statesman. You are a worthy flunky for the don."
Toby shrugged and scanned the trees that had provoked the discussion. "It is not easy to kill an olive, senor. They will not burn. It is hard to uproot them. Most of these will recover sooner than the people will, for it takes twenty years to make a citizen. And the ash trees have not suffered."
He pointed to the coppice on the other side of the trail, a forest of massive, shoulder-high stumps, each of which bore a crown of high vertical shoots. Coppices provided tool handles and staves for many purposes, and the rebels had been able to inflict no more damage than a normal harvesting would.
Brusi looked where he gestured, and thus both of them were facing the trap when it was sprung. Weedy undergrowth had concealed the shallow stream bed that flanked the track and also concealed the dozen or so men hiding in it. They had planned their ambush well, letting the armed vanguard go past before they leaped up, yelling to panic the horses. They charged, brandishing cudgels and a few swords, screaming as loud as they could.
The horses did panic, naturally. Brusi's roan reared, toppling him back into the confusion of the pack animals he led. By that time Toby had already dropped his bundle and dived under the flailing hooves. He cut his sword free from its rope baldric and thrust the point into an assailant even before he himself was fully upright. He tugged it from the falling body and somehow managed to dodge a whirling club wielded by a skinny youth who reeled off-balance before him, staring eyes and open mouth in a stark white face, both hands struggling to swing the cudgel up for a second blow. Toby stabbed at his neck and connected again—blood!—only vaguely aware of the screaming women and horses behind him, the crash of bodies and animals meeting branches. He parried a slash and riposted. A man with white hair... blood!
The odds were impossible, because he was facing the whole assault singlehanded. His supporters at either end of the line needed time to arrive, and their progress was blocked by the melee of fallen horses and baggage. He lashed out with a foot, parried a sword, thrust his blade into a leg, and reconciled himself to dying at any second.
Then help arrived on Atropos. Ancient the warhorse might be, but he remembered his days of glory and for a few seconds made the ground tremble beneath mighty hooves. With a piercing war cry of, "King Pedro and Castile!" Don Ramon thundered down the line like a fusillade of cannon. His lance impaled a man and nailed him to another before it broke. Atropos bowled over two more and then went by, riderless. His shield still slung on his back, the ever-agile don hit the ground with his feet and a foe with his broadsword, cleaving helmet and head both. Oh, magnificent!