He said, "I am at fault also, senor. I should have wakened at the proper time, as you did."
About the hour he should have been coming off watch, the don's foot in his ribs had awakened him and not gently either. Hamish and Rafael should have called Toby and Miguel; they in turn should have called the don and his squire. They had not. Don Ramon had demanded an explanation. In the ensuing search, it had been Doña Francisca who found Hamish lying in the weeds, bound and gagged, one side of his face caked with dried blood. Now Don Ramon was demanding Hamish's head.
From the way Hamish was holding it with both hands, he might be very glad to be rid of it. He was barely conscious even yet, sitting there huddled under a blanket in the first glimmers of a very rainy dawn while nine people he had been supposed to guard stared down at him with expressions ranging from Pepita's sympathy to the don's homicidal fury.
Nine. Once the pilgrims had numbered sixteen. Now they were only ten, not counting Jacques who was still asleep in his cloak, and that was assuming Hamish and Toby survived the next few minutes.
"It was his job to call you, not yours to wake yourself," Don Ramon repeated. "He failed in that duty. He failed to sound the alarm. The penalty for failing on guard duty is death."
"Not in this case, senor," Toby said with the best blend of deference and stubbornness he could muster. "He was set to guard against intruders, not against treachery from his friends." Liar! He had warned Hamish not to turn his back on Rafael.
Hamish peered up at him blearily. He did not speak—fortunately so, because he was confused enough to say almost anything, even the truth.
"A sentry taken unaware," said the don, "is put to death. I expect he was fornicating in the bushes with the whore."
Hamish closed his eyes in abject misery.
"Were you?" Toby asked. He was taking a risk, but he was almost certain that the answer was no.
Hamish whispered, "No."
"I believe him, senor. Granted, the fire she lit in his belly has melted most of his brains, but he would not betray us when he was supposed to be on watch. Josep? You've shared watch with him more than any of us."
Josep's anger twisted into a grin. "No, Campeador. Sometimes he lay with her before and sometimes after, sometimes even both, but never during."
Hamish's great romance was common knowledge. He opened his mouth as if about to speak, then turned his head and vomited. Had he done that five minutes ago, he would have suffocated behind his gag and this inquiry would be a post mortem. He might easily have frozen to death. Feeling a rush of hatred for the people who had treated his friend so, Toby reached again for calm. Lochan na Bi!
He scowled at Eulalia, who was wearing what she might think was an expression of wounded innocence. "But the whore may have been an accomplice. I cannot imagine Jaume being taken like a broody hen unless he was distracted somehow. Did she come and talk with you?"
Hamish tried to shake his head and winced. "Don't remember," he croaked.
"Then they must have bribed her!" the don decided. "If we search her, we shall find some gold chains, I expect."
Eulalia screeched at this outrage to her honor and appealed to Senora Collel. The senora told her to shut her face. Gracia, who had been standing beside her, pointedly moved away.
"That wouldn't prove much," Toby said. "She may have looted some from the landsknechte." He had a strong suspicion that Eulalia had been helping both Manuel and Raphael enjoy their newfound wealth behind their wives' backs, but he would not say so in front of Hamish.
Again Eulalia erupted in torrents of Catalan. The senora silenced her with a slap as loud as a gunshot.
Hamish's eyes had opened wide. He turned to look at Eulalia and suddenly produced a strange sound, somewhere between a laugh and a choke. "I do remember! She came and told me she's with child."
"She is lying," Senora Collel declaimed. "I know it."
True or false, that assertion would certainly have been a potent distraction, and for a moment even the don looked amused. Then he found his anger again. "Very well, Campeador, we shall let Jaume live. See that he is thoroughly thrashed. We are wasting time. We must hunt down the traitors."
"No, senor."
Icy silence.
"Do I hear you correctly?" the don said very quietly.
Lochan na Bi... "Yes, senor. They will travel at least as fast as we can, and they have several hours' start on us. To chase them would be folly. They have stolen some horses from us, but we stole them in the first place. They do not seem to have taken much else that did not belong to them."
He waited for contradiction from Josep or Senora Collel, who used their moneybags as pillows, but neither disagreed. Whatever balance Miguel and Rafael still owed on Don Ramon's wages was a debt that must not be mentioned, and his mother had always known that her chances of collecting from them were slim.
But not all wealth was beneath a caballero's dignity. "You forget the rest of the booty!" the don snapped. "That belongs to all of us. You, especially, earned your share. They did not."
A penniless fugitive fleeing from the long arm of Baron Oreste would certainly find a few gold chains useful, but Toby could not accept that he had earned a link of them. It had been the hob who destroyed the landsknechte, not he. The fight had not been honorable, so the prize was tainted and he would shed no tears over losing it. He was probably being stupid again, but that was how he felt.
"We cannot ride down the fugitives without their seeing us coming, senor. They will have ample time to make the evidence disappear before we reach them."
"We can make them tell where it is!"
"Not I, senor."
The don's hand was on his sword hilt. The blue eyes flamed madness. "You are refusing my orders?"
"I am advising the noble hidalgo that to pursue those worthless peasants would be folly. We can reach Montserrat by evening."
"This a matter of honor you cannot comprehend. We shall pursue the thieves."
"Not I, senor."
Day by day Toby had been taking over the leadership of the group. Spirits knew he had not planned to and had done everything he could to preserve the fiction that the hired guard was still in charge, but no one was deceived. Now he had thrown down the gauntlet. It had been inevitable, probably, because he could never tolerate authority for long and was especially incapable of obeying nonsensical orders, but to upstage the deranged caballero was to die for insolence. As the don's great sword slid from its scabbard, his mother caught hold of his arm with both hands.
"Ramon, he is right!"
He froze. He could not have looked more shocked had she stabbed him.
Gracia stepped in front of him. "Senor, please!" she whispered.
"I agree with the campeador and your noble squire, my son," Father Guillem boomed. He rolled forward to clap a hairy paw on the don's shoulder. "What good will be served by a long chase and then bloodshed? As Tobias says, we should merely be trying to steal back stolen goods, and some of us might be hurt in the fight. It will be you and he against the two of them."
Toby waited, arms folded, doing his breathing exercises. The don just continued to glare at his mother, and she glared right back at him—truly, there was a most admirable lady! At last he opened his hand, the sword dropped back in its scabbard, and death flew away.