Perhaps we were relieved at having survived the French dragnet, energized by the thrilling sense that we might live after all. Whatever it was, our desires and needs had overwhelmed us. We did not like each other—her hatred of me was indisputably homicidal—but that somehow made it better.
Dropping her to the ground, I fell on top of her in the alley. We had more leverage this way, and we were instantly banging at each other like hammer and anvil, as if all the demons in hell were struggling to escape our libidinous loins, as if our pelvises were weapons, battering rams in the siege-war of lust. She felt like she had steel plates in hers, and she pounded mine so hard it swelled and turned livid. None of which slowed me down . . . not with spasm after spasm after spasm of lecherous lust pumping out of me and out of her over and over and over and over.
Breathless, exhausted, covered with dirt, we finally rose, straightened our clothes and waited for the French to clear out of the street.
Kneeling, with my back to the wall, I closed my eyes and sighed when a knife was suddenly at my throat. Without moving, I gaped at the woman holding it.
“I would kill you for raping me, but Casio would be angry.”
Rape? Shades of Marina! I wanted to correct her false impression of our lovemaking; she had thrust her frangipani at me. I decided, however, not to argue with a woman as quick with a knife as she. Most women are soft and pliable after lovemaking. This one only got meaner.
I gently pushed the blade away from my throat. “I forgot to tell you Carlos’s message for you. Just before the ghost left his body, he said to tell you that you’re doing God’s will, not committing a sin, but following the path God chose for you.”
She glared at me. “What more did he say?”
“That was all.” I grinned. “He never told me your sins, if that’s what you are wondering.”
Rosa tapped the knife blade against her palm. “I have no sins, Señor Pícaro.”
Eh, I had a new name. A pícaro was a low-class rogue and scoundrel, a vile thief and defiler of women. She thought she was insulting me, but after having been called a lépero, bandido, traitor, murderer, and worse, being labeled a pícaro was not a slander.
SIXTY-SIX
GOOD NEWS,” CASIO told me effusively. “You can at last be a hero for your country.”
Associating with Spaniards had taught me that in their lexicon dead and hero were often indistinguishable.
“I am ready to serve the cause of liberty,” I lied.
“You’re lying, of course. Rosa has already reported to me that you are a worthless scoundrel. Under ordinary circumstances, I would cut out your liver and feed it to my dog, but . . .” he paused and grinned, “your ability to dupe others and survive is phenomenal. You’ve managed to avoid the colony’s hangmen as well as those in Cádiz and, so far, even those in Barcelona. Being a thief, a murderer, and a confidence man could be invaluable in this small war we wage against an overwhelming adversary. We will have abundant time to deal with your crimes after we’ve driven the French back over the Pyrénées.”
He told me that most of the battle plans Napoleon sends to his generals in command of armies in Spain come over the Pyrénées and through Barcelona.
“The emperor keeps his hands tight on the Spanish throat,” Casio said. “He allows his commanders little leeway, because they’ve suffered so many defeats at the hands of our regulars and guerrillas. We have information from a source at French headquarters inside the Ciutadella that a major campaign to sweep the resistance from our province will begin shortly. A general will carry Napoleon’s orders to his field commanders in Barcelona. He’ll attend a ball in his honor. The next morning he will assemble a group of high-ranking officers and give them their orders.
“The general, Habert, goes nowhere without his attaché case, which contains copies of the emperor’s commands. We need to obtain a copy of those orders. The simplest method would be to ambush him and his escort, but then the French would know we had their plans.”
“You want to copy them without him knowing,” I said.
“Exactly. We need to slip one out of his attaché case, quickly copy it, and return the original. Naturally, it would have to be copied by someone who is fluent in French.”
“Many people in Barcelona speak—”
“True, but we asked for someone from Cádiz because of the high risk that our own people would be recognized. Besides, while we have many people who can speak a little French, few can read it.”
I now realized why Colonel Ramírez had chosen “Carlos” for the mission. Carlos had had a talent for slipping plans out of an attaché case, copying, and putting them back. Because of his known French sympathies, they wouldn’t suspect him. If the plans included drawings of fortifications, Carlos could also duplicate them. Drawing was a talent I didn’t have, and I, too, didn’t read French as well as I spoke it. But these were not points to urge upon a man when my life was hanging by a thread and he held a dagger. To refuse the mission would be suicidal.
“How do I get my hands on the plan?”
“A noble woman who the French believe is sympathetic to their cause—will give a ball in the general’s honor. She is also, shall we say, a woman”—his smile at this point scintillated—”of charismatic charm and irresistible beauty. She will see to it that the plan is removed and replaced after you are through with it.”
I didn’t like anything about his scheme. Where the general went with his attaché case, troops of French dragoons would follow close behind. I also suspected that Casio had other plots up his sleeve, and my survival wasn’t part of the plan. My own suspicious nature and lack of confidence in the innate goodness of my fellow man led me to suspect friend and foe alike. Among other things, if the guerrillas really wanted the French not to know I’d copied the plans, they could dispel that possibility by killing me.
I felt a little like I did when the Mayan war chief ordered my heart served blood-rare as his main entrée.
SIXTY-SEVEN
WE’RE POSING AS servants,” Rosa told me.
The noblewoman’s palace was half a day’s journey from the city.
“French guards will watch the palace. Only servants will be able to move freely, and even we will be scrutinized. Their mistress is known for her . . . projets d’amours, as the French say.”
“She likes to bed men?” I asked.
Rosa growled something unintelligible but disparaging.
These Spanish noblewomen must be lusty wenches, I thought to myself. I had already bedded one of them in the colony, though she was of French blood. Could it be the same woman? I asked Rosa the name of the woman whose palace we were going to.
“That’s not your concern.”
I didn’t argue the point. For certain, the woman I’d met was not a Spanish patriot.
“You’ll be working as a wine steward,” Rosa said. “Late in the evening, you’ll carry brandy to her bedchamber and remain there in an adjoining room. She will entertain General Habert privately. She’ll slip a sleeping powder into his brandy and call you when it’s taken effect. You’ll remove the campaign plan from the attaché case, quickly copy it, and put it back.” She grinned at me. “It’s a very simple plan.”
I smiled and nodded, as if I were artless enough to believe her. I was to steal a military plan from a French general surrounded by French officers. A simple plan? My feelings about the plan could be expressed by a single word: gallows!
For one thing the plan presumed that the French were fools. I didn’t assume that French generals who had conquered most of Europe were incontrollable cretins.
“The French officers will be gambling and whoring.” Rosa eyed me narrowly. “Unless you want me to cut out your apple, you will behave yourself.”
What is it about me that made this woman’s bloodlust boil over one minute and her passion ignite the next? I had incited many señoritas to amorous feats and peaks, but this was the first woman whose lust for me was intrinsically homicidal.
&n
bsp; The noblewoman’s home was palatial. It would have humiliated the viceroy’s palace in Méjico City almost as badly as a servant’s uniform humiliated me. It didn’t fit.
“It’s not my size,” I told Rosa. The jacket was too small, the breeches too tight and short.
She stared down at my male parts bulging in the crouch. “Can’t you hide that thing?”
“It’s being strangled.”
“Keep it under control, or I’ll cut it off.”
There she went again, wanting to turn me into a castrato, a church choirboy who has had his cojones cut off to ensure he will never lose his sweet soprano voice. Women were not permitted to sing in church choirs, so the church turned men into women. Perhaps she desired men who sang with a voice higher-pitched than mine?
“Take this tray of wine goblets into the great hall,” she said.
As I came into the huge room, a French officer brushed by me as if I were invisible, arrogantly bumping my tray, spilling the wine. He walked away—no, strutted—without acknowledging his discourtesy.
Rosa was immediately in my face, hissing like a snake. “Stay in character, you fool. You look ready to challenge him to a duel.”
She was right; I should be looking for an escape route, not preparing to fight the French army. I put a blank-eyed smile on my face, hoping it would make me look harmless and stupid, and circulated.
What a life the conquerors had: fine food, fine wines, and the best-looking putas I’d ever seen. In one of the rooms, card tables had been set up. I noticed that most of the bets were placed with jewelry, gems that had obviously belonged to Spanish households. One officer, a captain of cavalry, announced as he threw a ring on the table that it was still bloodied from the finger he’d cut it off. The table erupted with laughter.
To the victors go the spoils, no? But from the way the guerrillas fought back, many of these arrogant bastardos would soon dine with the devil.
I was on my third tray of goblets and humility when the roomful of officers parted like the Red Sea and a woman of inexpressible beauty floated across the room toward me. Honey-hued hair down to her waist, dazzlingly bejeweled, eyes that scintillated like sin itself, she was exquisitely accoutered in a silver gown of sheer pongee silk fit for a queen . . . or a countess.
The earth vanished beneath my feet. I stared into my open grave, certain my hell-forged soul had vacated my body.
“Keep moving with that wine,” Camilla, Countess de Valls, snapped at me. She stared at me, with that noble eye that sees through servants but doesn’t acknowledge that they’re human.
Swaying on my feet, I had difficulty breathing. Rosa was suddenly in my face again. “You heard the countess: keep the wine moving.!”
Two women in the room who wanted to flog, castrate, and kill me. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I had convinced myself it wasn’t possible that it could be the same woman.
The countess’s eyes, of course, flickered no hint of recognition. Was it possible that she didn’t recognize me as the intruder who searched her room in the colony, then ravished her senseless? With due modesty, she might not remember the face of the man with whom she wrestled in the dark . . . but would she forget the finest loins on two continents? Yes, she might conceivably not recall my much-abused face, but she could never forget the love hammer that pounded her passionflower into a fiery frenzy of lewd lascivious lust. ¡Ay! Much to my embarrassment, my cañon rose obscenely against the taut seams of my too-tight servant’s trousers.
Perhaps she knew exactly who I was and didn’t want to give me away to the French. What had Casio said about the countess? The French thought she was on their side? She had been spying for the French in the colony, that was a certainty. Or was she? She could have been a double agent, only pretending to spy for the French while she ferreted out Spanish traitors. And using poor Carlos as her tool. Or, perhaps, like Carlos, the French atrocities committed against the Spanish people turned her against the Bonapartes.
Or perhaps I had walked into a trap, and by morning the general would gibbet me in front of the Barcelona fortress and the buzzards would breakfast on my eyeballs.
Rosa was suddenly in my face again. “Stop thinking about your pene and serve wine.”
“Did you know the countess is a French spy?”
“She’s a patriot. Now start serving.”
A patriot, yes. But for which country?
By late evening, I was tired and sick of serving French officers. Finally Rosa ordered me upstairs with bottles of the best wine and brandy from the countess’s cellar. I went up the steps that led to the countess’s chambers. Rosa came up behind me and served common wine and a good meal of beef and potatoes to the guards at the corridor. The guards hardly looked at me as I passed by with the spirits for the countess and her special guest, General Habert. The top two buttons on Rosa’s blouse were undone, and the guards were busy staring. I ogled her, too. Men are swine.
I had seen the general arrive earlier and was not impressed with his bearing. His stomach ballooned over his belt, but I suppose that as a general he had little need for physical fitness.
However, I was impressed with his attaché case. Hand-crafted leather elaborately embossed with a gold coat of arms, it never left his side, according to Casio. He carried it himself rather than have the aide at his heels handle it. He disappeared upstairs soon after arriving. The countess went up shortly after him. The plan was for her to divert the general, drug his drink, then let me into the room to copy the papers by candlelight. But, like I said, something about their scheme bothered me. And now that the countess turned out to be my old nemesis, my thoughts were even bleaker.
By the time I mounted the stairs, the French officers were drunk, many had passed out, others were carousing with whores or playing cards in a smoke-filled room.
Following Rosa’s instructions, I waited outside the countess’s chambers by a side door that led into a private alcove. Rosa told me I was to wait in the alcove and out of fear that I would snore, to not fall asleep. Of course I wouldn’t snore; I would be too busy spying on the countess and looking for an escape route.
I had never been tempted to take a whip to a woman . . . until I tangled with Rosa.
Kneeling at the keyhole did not give me a good view of the countess’s bedroom. The bed was too far off to the left for me to see anything but its foot. The room was not dark but dimly lit, shadowy, half of the candles extinguished. I quietly opened the door just enough to poke my head in. I heard the telltale heavy breathing and guttural grunts of lovemaking but still didn’t have a view of her bed. Keeping low, I snaked across the floor on my belly to a table and peeked around it.
The countess was mounted atop the general. She was bare-ass naked, and even in the dim light I recognized her bountiful bottom, the concupiscent curve of her breasts, and knew it was she. General Habert was flat on his back, with his behemoth belly ballooning up like a hairy beast. She was the only one working, pumping and groaning, as if his manhood filled her with blind passions and insane cravings. From experience, I recognized her ecstatic gasps as false cries by a fulsome whore to fool vain men into believing they have garranchas of steel.
The prized attaché case was on the table next to the bed.
A strange sound came from the bed. I strained to listen. It was a sound that I recognized yet could not place. Then it hit me: the general was snoring!
The countess’s mendacious moans subsided. Finally she stopped her sexual charade and stared down at the general’s flaccid features.
“Général?” she asked in French.
He responded with a painfully stentorian snore. She gently slapped his face and called his name again.
“Did you drug him well?” I asked.
“Akkkk!” She swung around, the twin muzzles of her magnificent melons targeting me like artillery pieces.
“Shhhh. The guards are outside.”
She careened off the snoring walrus. As I suspected, the brandy and drugs had spiked and
crumpled his cañon. I wondered how long it had been that way.
“You aren’t very good at obeying orders, are you?” she hissed.
I shrugged. “When did you stop spying for the French and start whoring for the Spanish?”
She didn’t hide her nakedness from me, not even a modest hand over her breasts. Nor had I tried to hide the fact that I desired her. The burgeoning bulge in my breeches amply attested to that reality.
“I watch which way the winds blow. Right now, it’s blowing the Spanish crown off Joseph Bonaparte’s head.”
She opened the attaché case, exposing a thick ream of papers, and pulled out a one-page document. “Copy this.” She indicated a quill and a pot of ink on a table.
I sat down and hurriedly skimmed the document. It contained instructions to three different commands concerning troop movement. The instructions were brief and to the point and in simple enough wording even for my limited grasp of written French. It gave the name of the commander and the exact movement the unit was to make. It gave routes, dates, and troop strength in a few concise paragraphs.
“Just copy it,” she said. “The information means nothing to you, you lépero scum, but the guerrillas will make good use of it.”
Rosa entered just as I was finishing the copy. The two never spoke to each other. Both hung over me until I had written the last word.
“Go now,” the countess said. “Leave this way.”
I followed her across the room. She opened a secret door that led into another alcove. Across the alcove was another door. I knew immediately what it was: a way for her lovers to make their way in and out of the bedchamber without being seen.
“Take the stairway behind that door to the ground level and leave through the door to the garden. A horse is saddled and waiting. The French guards at the front gates have been told to expect a messenger. See that the war plans get to the hands of our people immediately. They’ll be waiting for you by the forest road.”