26
The Making of a Lady
The morning found me by the river staring blankly at the distant shore that was now Don Alfonso’s kingdom. I was trying to erase from my memory the vacant look in Don Julián’s eyes as he had asked me to go, when a heavily accented voice called me out of my misery with a cheerful, “Good morning, Andrea.”
“Tío Ramiro!” I cried. But at the memory of my failure to protect Don Julián, my voice died in my throat and I moved back.
“Come on, Andrea. You shouldn’t let a little argument with your father upset you so,” Tío said, misreading my hesitation. “I know it is not a pleasant experience, believe me. He was ready to courtmartial me yesterday when he learned I had taken the guards off the bridge without his permission. And by the way, I’m getting too old for these games. Next time Don Julián has a crazy idea like that, he’ll have to pull it off all by himself.”
“That’s not funny, Tío. Don Julián is dead—or nearly so. Didn’t Father tell you so?”
“Sure he did. But I know better—” He stopped in midsentence and, coming closer, held me by the shoulders. “What is it, Andrea? What happened?”
“It was my fault,Tío. I let him row. I lost control of the boat, and Don Julián had to help me row. When we reached the shore, his wound was reopened. Then Father came and I had to go.”
Through my tears I saw Tio’s face. His smile was gone, and a deep furrow had appeared between his eyebrows. “I see,” he said.
“I didn’t meant to,Tío. I really didn’t.”
“I know,” he said, his voice gentler than I ever remembered it. “But that does not change the facts now, does it?”
I shook his arm. “Tío, we must go and help Don Julián. We are at peace now. We could go to Alvar. We have to.”
Tío pried my fingers from his arm. “Sure,Andrea. We go to his castle, knock at the door, and say,‘Hello, we were just passing by, can we come in? And by the way, how is your wound?’ Come on, Andrea, be reasonable.”
Reasonable? Who was not being reasonable here? “You don’t understand. Don Julián’s wound is open. Without stitches, it will never heal.”
Tío shook his head. “I do understand. I understand you feel guilty. But you must put things in perspective. There is nothing we can do for Don Julián now. And in the meantime, cheer up. We don’t want your father to suspect something and start asking questions. I’ve told enough lies for the day.”
“You! You! That’s all you care about!”
“If your Father ever guessed we had Don Julián in his own castle and let him go, he’d have no mercy on us. Not even your mother would be safe from his wrath.”
I moved away. Tío was right and yet . . . I felt the pressure of Tio’s arms upon my shoulders. “Come on, Andrea. Let’s go back. There is something I want you to see.”
Farther ahead over the stream, letting out a piercing cry, a silver bird dove into the waters and flew away, a fish in its beak still twitching. Tío turned me around and looked deep into my eyes. “Trust me, Andrea. It’ll make you feel better.”
I very much doubted that, but if I were to return—and I had to, because I had given my word to Father—I would rather do it on my own before he could notice my absence and send his men after me. I was too stunned then to realize he had already done that—that my uncle’s arrival had not been a coincidence. He was there following Father’s orders to bring me back after the soldier assigned to watch over me had returned to the camp with news of my whereabouts.
But just then, I didn’t know that. And when I looked up at Tío and asked him, “What do you want to show me?” I thought the choice was still mine.
“It’s a surprise,” my uncle said, gently pushing me away from the river, through the alder brush, and up the trail I had followed the previous night.
Soon the bright pennants of Father’s army came into view, and the acrid smell of cooking fires and the sharp voices of men shouting orders reached us from the plateau of the campsite.
Tío dashed forward with long strides, but just as the trail started its steep ascent toward the encampment, he turned right. My heart leaped in my chest when I saw he was heading toward the enclosed field where the horses had been turned loose to graze.
We’re riding back to Suavia after all, I thought. But before I could ask him,Tío stopped by the fence. “Mira. Look,” he said, his voice almost drowned by the thunder-like noise of hundreds of hooves beating the turf.
For a moment I just stared, my gaze lost in the maze of horses that filled the enclosure, flashes of bay, tawny, and blackand-white bodies.
Tío pointed east. “By the oak tree.”
I squinted my eyes, and against the brightness of the rising sun, I saw the slender shape of a horse, its golden mane flying in the breeze, already cantering forward. It was Flecha.
I gasped.
“Some soldiers found her downriver by the lower ford . . .”
I leaped over the fence and ran to her. It was not until I lost myself in her musky smell that I realized how much I had actually missed her.
Lua the copper moon was close to its zenith when, after four days of riding, we finally glimpsed my Father’s castle from the slopes of Mount Pindo.
“Easy, Flecha, easy.” I drew her to a halt.
Sitting high on my saddle, I stared at the impressive fortress that I had once called home. But its view failed to reassure me. The castle did not feel like home to me now, but cold and foreign inside its mighty walls—the walls of a prison.
“Only three more days until the full moon,” the familiar voice of my uncle whispered behind me.
Three more days for the door to open, I knew he was thinking, as it was the reason we had returned in such a hurry, leaving Don García behind in charge of dismissing the troops.
“I have had enough adventures,” Tío had told Father. “I’m going back.”
Father had agreed to return with him, apparently on my behalf. According to Tío, my father was worried about me and wanted to bring me under Mother’s custody as soon as possible.
As for me, I did not care much one way or another. Still without news from Don Julián, I was torn inside with fear. Tío had labeled my feelings as guilt and had lectured me extensively about it. I had nodded to him, pretending to listen. But the pain had not gone away.
We did not set up camp that night, but pressed on toward the castle across plains bright as day in the soft light of the two moons—twin moons, we called them, in the days when Lua is waxing and rides the sky from dusk to dawn in the wake of her sister. And in the early hours of morning, we entered the courtyard. There, a cheerful crowd surrounded us, shouting greetings and blocking our advance.
Holding Flecha’s bridle tight in my hands, I endured the excitement of the multitude with my best smile, but their joy found no echo in my heart.
Father addressed his people with a short speech of thanks and victory and then swung to the ground as the crowd parted to let him through. I jumped off my saddle and followed Father and his knights into the keep.
But when I entered the Great Hall and in the glittering light of hundreds of torches saw Mother dressed in gold sitting majestically on her throne, I froze. Mother had told me that if Don Julián were to die because of me, she would never recognize me as her daughter. For all I knew, Don Julián was dead by now, my negligence the cause. So when I reached her side, I stammered an awkward greeting from deep inside my throat and, averting my eyes, sank into a low curtsy.
“We are glad to have you back, Princess Andrea,” Mother said, and her voice was warm. “Come and join us now. Your place by your sisters has been empty too long.”
Just as I climbed up onto the dais of thrones, Father spoke. “Princess Andrea,” he said, his voice so uncharacteristically gentle that I shivered, “I know these last weeks have been difficult for you and that you are exhausted. You have my leave. Go now and rest.”