Lorenzo led his wife and the others along the road that followed the River Elbro to give them what he had hoped to be a grand introduction to the La Seo, but the evening sky was dark and dreary, and a light needling of frozen mist stung their eyes whenever they lifted their heads to look about. They reached the grand entrance to the church, were brusquely directed to the side entrance for travelers with animals, and then began the long ritual of climbing down, unpacking, explaining what exactly Wayra was and how she was to be cared for, and all the other arrangements for their stay.
Atoq had been a concern when they reached the edge of the city, but Qhora simply climbed down and stroked his head and whispered in his ear, and the giant cat had padded off into a snowy field beside the road. When Lorenzo asked her about it, she simply said, “Don’t worry about him. He knows how to deal with a city.”
When they finally reached the cathedral’s guest quarters on the upper level, Lorenzo called a quick gathering in the hall outside his room. It felt strange to speak to his wife, his students, and his guests all at once with his natural inclinations to be familiar or formal warring as he looked from one face to the next. “Well, here we are. Home away from home. Alonso, Gaspar, and Hector, there is an empty store room in the cellar that we’ve been given permission to practice in. Feel free to explore, as we have the run of the cathedral, more or less. Don’t disturb the priests, of course, and if they ask you for help doing anything, anything at all, you will do it. Yes?”
The boys nodded solemnly.
“As for you three,” he said to the pilot and her two passengers, “I’m afraid you’ll have to stay inside the building, and probably keep away from the public spaces where the townspeople might see you. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about soldiers storming La Seo, but if the mayor demands it, then the bishop will definitely hand you over rather than risk a fight in a house of God over a handful of spies or criminals or whatever it is they think you are. The priests here are good men, but they have their own priorities and their own problems.”
“Don Lorenzo, might I just say,” Dante said, his voice almost civil for the first time that Lorenzo could recall. “Thank you for bringing us here to this sanctuary. I’m sure you have delivered us from being suddenly discovered by any soldiers from Valencia who might have been pursuing us. However, I’m sure you’ll agree that we’re now well out of danger. From what you told us, I think the man you fought in Algora was more interested in you and your private affairs than any of us. Assuming that’s true, wouldn’t it be reasonable for me, and perhaps the young lady from Eran, to head east to Barcelona and sail back to Italia as soon as possible?”
“Maybe,” Lorenzo said. “But I think it’s best if we all stay indoors for a day or two and get a sense of the ground under our feet first. I’ll speak to the bishop tomorrow and see what he has to say about the military here in town. If everything is quiet here, then maybe you and your friend can leave.”
Dante pressed his lips tight for a moment and sniffed. “All right. A day or two.”
They said their good-nights and retreated to their rooms. Lorenzo sat on the hard pallet he was to share with Qhora for the next few weeks. It was easily one of the three worst beds he had ever felt, and one of those others had been a prison cell floor covered with straw to soak up his urine.
Qhora closed the door and slipped off her heavy coat. She was still wearing his re-tailored army coat, the belt cinched tight to accentuate her tiny waist. He remembered wearing that coat while slaughtering Incan warriors on the beaches of the New World, his uniform covered in mud and gore.
And now it’s covered in satin ribbons. Life is strange.
She said, “Well, here we are. I suppose it could have been worse, this little journey of yours. Enrique could have died.”
Lorenzo sighed. It’s going to be one of those evenings. “Yes, yes, we all could have died. They would have told stories about it for a hundred years and our ghosts would have roamed the countryside, knocking over milk buckets and frightening small children.” He smiled at her. She worries about death at all the wrong times, but it’s nice that she worries. “But at least we would have been together, my dear. I’m sorry you’ll have to settle for us all being very much alive, here in the grandest cathedral in northern Espana.”
“Ah, yes, our life of luxury.” She glanced around at the bare walls and floor of their cell. The only objects in the room were the bed, the pegs for their clothing, and the triquetra hung from the wall above the bed. The narrow window was completed obscured by icy grime on the outside. She smiled.
Lorenzo laughed. “It will get better, I promise. This is just the first night. We’re all tired and cold and hungry. Everything will look better in the morning.”
A door creaked in the hall and both them looked sharply at their own closed door, listening. The soft shuffle of footsteps chuffed away down the corridor.
“It must be Shahera looking for the toilet,” Qhora said.
Lorenzo didn’t answer. He focused on the cadence of the footsteps, quick and precise. No, the Eranian girl moves more slowly and less certainly. He stood up and slipped his sword belt back on. “I’ll just be a moment.”
Qhora narrowed her eyes but said nothing.
He peeked out into the hall and saw no one there. With his left hand holding his weapon still and silent on his hip and his injured right arm aching with every jostle of his body, Lorenzo slipped to the end of the corridor just in time to look down the stairs and see a shadow moving below.
Well, he isn’t looking for the toilet.
Down the stairs and around the corner he spotted the hooded figure striding through a narrow doorway, and then down another hall, through a door, across a courtyard, and out into the open starlit streets of Zaragoza. Lorenzo stood in the shadows, watching the figure in Italian boots hurry away down the lane.
Seriously? You couldn’t wait a single night? Some of us have wives to undress.
The hidalgo followed Dante through the cold city streets, seeing and hearing no one else outside though he saw and heard many people in their homes, eating and laughing and generally looking warm and comfortable. His injured arm ached fiercely.
Dante followed the river east and Lorenzo guessed he was looking for some sort of transport on the Elbro itself. Though it was frozen solid and all hulled ships were locked to their moorings, the river’s banks were lined with ice-sailers. The slender canoes rested on long blades on the Elbro’s frozen surface and tall sails carried them flying before the wind from Zaragoza along the mad snaking paths of the river all the way to Amposta on the shores of the Middle Sea.
There was nothing and no one to be found along the banks of the Elbro, though the wind shrieked mightily and Lorenzo heard bats squeaking in the dark, their leathery wings fighting valiantly against the icy gusts.
“What are you planning to do, Lorenzo?” a woman’s voice whispered in his ear.
“Gaaa!” The hidalgo stumbled sideways into the iron chain along the river’s edge that prevented pedestrians from slipping on the ice and falling down to the Elbro’s white face. He clutched his chest as adrenaline burned through his brain and arms.
Dante!
He looked up and saw that the Italian had stopped and was looking around, snapping his gaze from one side to another. He looked back at Lorenzo once, directly at him, but the shadows were deep enough and he was huddled low enough to remain unseen. Dante resumed his quick march into the night.
Lorenzo stood up, glaring at the pale ghost in the street beside him, her silvery outlines shuddering before the wind like a thousand pennants in a fresh morning breeze. “I don’t mean to tell you your business, sister, as I have almost no experience being dead myself, but could you please try to appear in front of me instead of behind me? Even just once in a while? Just for the novelty of it?”