The armed men were still closing.
“Again!” Lorenzo and Dante leapt up to grab the line and hauled it down again. The sail cracked against the upper pulley and now the full height of the canvas caught the wind. The two men fell back into the canoe as the ice-sailer skidded and sliced across the Elbro, tipping up to the left at a precarious angle. Dante threw himself to the right and the sailer crashed back down level on its skates.
Lorenzo looked back. The three armed men were slowing, stumbling to a halt, doubling over, and gasping for breath. The hidalgo grinned. “You see? All we needed was to borrow a canoe on skates with a sail and we were perfectly capable of escaping. Nothing complicated about it.”
Dante collapsed into the bottom of the canoe on his back and laughed. “We stole this boat, Quesada, fair and square.”
“No, no.” Lorenzo shook his head. The wind blasted through his unbound hair and he used his free hand to hold up his collar to protect his face. “We’re just taking it out for a bit of exercise, to keep it limber for the owner, and then we’ll leave it tied up a mile or two upriver.”
The icy banks of the Elbro streaked by for several minutes until Lorenzo pointed out the dark silhouette of La Seo against the blue-black clouds roiling beneath the pale stars. They lowered the sail and let the boat glide to a halt beside an empty slip beside several other sailers. Lorenzo tied up the boat as best he could with the remains of the frozen lines and then the two men trudged up another long stone stair to the top of the bank.
When they reached the street again, the hidalgo paused to stretch his back. “Are we done running about for tonight?”
Dante nodded. “Yes. And thanks.” He grinned, but as his eyes strayed to the left his grin faded. “Or maybe not.”
Lorenzo turned and saw at the far end of the road a column of soldiers marching toward them, rifles held at the ready. By the light of the moon, the hidalgo peered into the distant face of the man leading the company and saw the sinister sweep of a black mustache and pointy little beard.
Two dozen armed men. Well, Fabris, that’s one way to skin an eight-hundred pound cat. Unfortunately, it’s not one that will work tonight.
He grabbed Dante’s arm and pointed him toward a dark side street. “Time to disappear.”
Chapter 17. Qhora
She sat in the last seat of a cold wooden pew near the back of the nave, far back in the corner near the entrance to the stairway that led up to their private rooms. For the first few minutes after Lorenzo left, she had waited in the room alone. Then she had ventured out to pace the hall, then to explore the stair, and now to sit and wait.
He’ll be back.
Flipping through the hymn book she found beside her, Qhora realized how far she still had to go in her Espani studies and she set the book aside. The stained glass windows were dark and indiscernible. The scattering of candle light throughout the vast chamber cast only the faintest of amber glows on the great stone columns and on the tiny stone statues hidden in the alcoves along the walls.
He’ll be back. Soon.
The minutes passed slowly. A man in a brown robe paced along the wall at one point, inspecting the candles. She watched him walking along from one pool of light to the next. A lay brother? A choir monk? She couldn’t remember what they were each called, or why, and she didn’t care.
He’ll be ba-
The heavy doors on the far side of the nave banged and the man in the brown robe strode across the wide room to the door. Qhora stood and peered through the gloom, waiting. The door squealed open and a babble of voices echoed across the pews. She couldn’t understand the words, but she knew that Enzo wasn’t one of the men speaking. She stood and slipped back to the doorway that led to the stair.
The voices burst out louder and more insistent as a stampede of boots pounded on the stone floor of the nave. Qhora saw the men pouring through the doors, she saw the rifles in their hands, and she turned and dashed silently up the stairs.
She passed the doors where Alonso, Hector, and Gaspar slept and rapped sharply on the door beyond them. She knocked again. And she knocked again. The door opened suddenly to reveal a squinting, yawning Mazigh pilot and behind her the Eranian girl sitting up in bed.
“What is it?” Taziri whispered.
“Soldiers. Grab your clothes and get out now,” Qhora said. “Take the stairs at the far end. Don’t hide. Get out of the church. They’ll search every room. The priests let them in, and they might tell the soldiers everything.”
Taziri and Shahera scrambled to grab up their discarded clothes and boots.
Qhora lingered in the hall, watching the near stairs. “Faster, faster. You can get dressed downstairs or outside. You need to get out, now.” She wasn’t thinking of politics or spies, or even of arrests or interrogations. All she could think about was what she had seen in the streets of Cusco when the Espani soldiers first arrived, and what those soldiers, those men of God, had done to the Incan women. I haven’t thought of that in years. It was a different time, it was war, and it was half a world away from here. And yet… Qhora touched the tiny Numidian dagger tucked between her breasts just to be sure it was still there.
Shahera dashed out of the room, her short arms clutching her coats and boots, her dark eyes wide, her plump lips parted in breathless panic. Taziri was just behind her, but she paused beside Qhora. “What about you? Are you coming with us? I mean, what if they think you’re Mazigh?”
“They won’t. You’d be surprised how many people in Espana have heard of the hidalgo’s Incan princess. And besides, the boys will look after me. We’ll be fine. Now go!”
Taziri hesitated another heartbeat before nodding and racing away after Shahera toward the far stair. Qhora slipped inside the women’s room to straighten the sheets and make sure nothing had been left under the beds, and then she stepped outside and closed the door. A torch flickered and flared at the top of the near stairs. She smoothed her dress, ran a finger through her hair, and walked slowly toward her own door. When the first soldier reached the top of the stair, she was drumming her fingers on the door handle and staring at the young man griping his rifle.
“Halt!” he yelled.
“I’m not moving,” she said.
“Yes, well.” He frowned. A moment later there were half a dozen more just like him on the landing, and a moment after that a tall man in red pushed through them.
Qhora forced her hands to rest by her sides and she swallowed her sudden desire to slash the Italian’s throat. “Good evening, Senor Fabris.”
“Signora Quesada, what a pleasure to see you again. Where is your husband this evening?”
“Not here, but not far away.”
“Far enough though, I imagine. What a shame. I was so hoping to see him again.” He turned to his men. “Check every room.”
The soldiers had barely stepped away when two doors across the hall opened and Alonso, Gaspar, and Hector all emerged as one. Gaspar and Hector both had their trousers on and shirts untucked, standing barefoot with their naked swords in hand. Alonso, however, was wearing only his boots, his small clothes, and a smile. Qhora stared at him. This is not the time, Alonso!
“Gentlemen!” Alonso raised his arms as though to embrace the entire regiment. “How nice of you to welcome us to Zaragoza. We are honored, pleased, and flattered. My name is Alonso, this is Hector, and that is Gaspar. We are students of Don Lorenzo Quesada. Perhaps you have heard of him, the hero of Cartagena? But of course you must know this already. I’m sorry to have you all out of bed on such a cold night, so why don’t we all retire for the evening and reconvene in the morning when I have more pants on?”
Salvator smiled. “Young man, where are the Mazighs?”