gripped reverently in kid-gloved hands. Voices in the courtyard were calling out,
“El Presidente . . . El Presidente . . .”
and there was the jangle of accoutrements and the rising dust-cloud of many more horses. The priest—and the two European gentlemen in the corner—goggled in shock.
“Sir,” said the priest—unnecessarily, when he finally got his breath—“Don Prospero, that is no god, but a man: President and Generalissimo
Benemerito de la Patria
Antonio López de Santa Anna.”
And while the attention of everyone in the room was fastened on the handsome, broad-shouldered dictator whose election the previous year had precipitated so much furor in the country, January and Rose caught Hannibal by the elbows and silently dragged him from the room.
FOUR
“My friends, Shakespeare himself would boggle at the task of expressing the depth of my joy at the sight of you.” Hannibal collapsed onto a stone bench where the
corredor
right-angled into the narrower arcade that fronted the east and south sides of the court; when January put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, he could feel him trembling. “Get these damned manacles off me
—Let us break their bonds asunder,
as the Good Book urges,
and cast their cords from us.
Ylario must have been watching the house all morning. He and his bravos—if such they may be termed—turned up the minute Prospero and Natividad disappeared on their ride.
Even as the sun, with purple-colored face,
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase . . .
“You wouldn’t have anything resembling brandy on you, would you,
amicus meus
?”
January took his flask from his pocket as Rose extracted one of the long steel pins from her hair. She thrust the tip of the pin into a crack in the stone bench and bent it into a neat right angle: “Turn around,” she ordered.
“He has a judge in Mexico City,” continued Hannibal shakily, “an ally who was ruined when Santa Anna and the
centralistas
took over. . . . Thank you, I needed that.
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk / The best of life is but intoxication. . . .
Ordinarily a man will wait weeks or months to be tried, but I suspect my neck would be well and truly stretched by morning. I kiss your hands and feet,” he added to Rose as she pulled the handcuffs off him—both of them had at various times assured January that the simple locks on the average set of manacles were the most easily picked things in the world. January took their word for it—he’d never managed it. Hannibal took January’s flask from him and took a second gulp, his hands still shaking badly, then turned to Rose to suit the action to the word and paused, thin fingers touching her wedding-band.
Then he looked back at January with unalloyed gladness in his face.
“God, the best maker of all marriages / Combine your hearts as one.
No wonder Athene of the Owl Eyes here was able to make such short work of the spancels of Universal Law; it’s said love laughs at locksmiths. My dear friends, I wish you both happiness.” He hugged Rose and kissed her cheek, got up from the stone bench and embraced January like a brother: his bones under his jacket felt like a bag of sticks.
“Your letter reached us on the morning of the wedding,” said January with mock severity. “I assure you we were
not
pleased. Particularly considering I’d been up all night delivering my sister’s baby. A girl,” he added at Hannibal’s exclamation of delight. “Charmian. Healthy and pretty, like a little ripe peach.” He took from his pocket the draft Hannibal had sent to pay the ship’s passage, and tucked it into the fiddler’s short Mexican jacket. “We are also now rich. It’s a long story. Now
you
tell
us
a long story, about the night Fernando de Castellón died.”
“Ah.” Hannibal shivered and sank back onto the bench: January saw that the stone was very old, covered with worn bas-reliefs of feathered warriors,
“El Presidente . . . El Presidente . . .”
and there was the jangle of accoutrements and the rising dust-cloud of many more horses. The priest—and the two European gentlemen in the corner—goggled in shock.
“Sir,” said the priest—unnecessarily, when he finally got his breath—“Don Prospero, that is no god, but a man: President and Generalissimo
Benemerito de la Patria
Antonio López de Santa Anna.”
And while the attention of everyone in the room was fastened on the handsome, broad-shouldered dictator whose election the previous year had precipitated so much furor in the country, January and Rose caught Hannibal by the elbows and silently dragged him from the room.
FOUR
“My friends, Shakespeare himself would boggle at the task of expressing the depth of my joy at the sight of you.” Hannibal collapsed onto a stone bench where the
corredor
right-angled into the narrower arcade that fronted the east and south sides of the court; when January put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, he could feel him trembling. “Get these damned manacles off me
—Let us break their bonds asunder,
as the Good Book urges,
and cast their cords from us.
Ylario must have been watching the house all morning. He and his bravos—if such they may be termed—turned up the minute Prospero and Natividad disappeared on their ride.
Even as the sun, with purple-colored face,
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase . . .
“You wouldn’t have anything resembling brandy on you, would you,
amicus meus
?”
January took his flask from his pocket as Rose extracted one of the long steel pins from her hair. She thrust the tip of the pin into a crack in the stone bench and bent it into a neat right angle: “Turn around,” she ordered.
“He has a judge in Mexico City,” continued Hannibal shakily, “an ally who was ruined when Santa Anna and the
centralistas
took over. . . . Thank you, I needed that.
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk / The best of life is but intoxication. . . .
Ordinarily a man will wait weeks or months to be tried, but I suspect my neck would be well and truly stretched by morning. I kiss your hands and feet,” he added to Rose as she pulled the handcuffs off him—both of them had at various times assured January that the simple locks on the average set of manacles were the most easily picked things in the world. January took their word for it—he’d never managed it. Hannibal took January’s flask from him and took a second gulp, his hands still shaking badly, then turned to Rose to suit the action to the word and paused, thin fingers touching her wedding-band.
Then he looked back at January with unalloyed gladness in his face.
“God, the best maker of all marriages / Combine your hearts as one.
No wonder Athene of the Owl Eyes here was able to make such short work of the spancels of Universal Law; it’s said love laughs at locksmiths. My dear friends, I wish you both happiness.” He hugged Rose and kissed her cheek, got up from the stone bench and embraced January like a brother: his bones under his jacket felt like a bag of sticks.
“Your letter reached us on the morning of the wedding,” said January with mock severity. “I assure you we were
not
pleased. Particularly considering I’d been up all night delivering my sister’s baby. A girl,” he added at Hannibal’s exclamation of delight. “Charmian. Healthy and pretty, like a little ripe peach.” He took from his pocket the draft Hannibal had sent to pay the ship’s passage, and tucked it into the fiddler’s short Mexican jacket. “We are also now rich. It’s a long story. Now
you
tell
us
a long story, about the night Fernando de Castellón died.”
“Ah.” Hannibal shivered and sank back onto the bench: January saw that the stone was very old, covered with worn bas-reliefs of feathered warriors,
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