Anne closed her eyes, a sigh raking her chest. "I must do this."
Beatriz bit her lip. "I guess a lady's maid remains with her lady when she needs it, right?”
"No." Anne gave her a teary smile and pressed her hand affectionately. "Friends do."
Chapter 23
Thetreacherousduneshidholes deep enough to break a horse's leg. Pedro forced the party to walk their mounts. He wouldn't risk Erebus even to rescue the Pope. The wind came from a hot stove, swirling grains of sand and thickening the air. To their right, the Atlantic glinted with a thousand sapphires, calling to its blue depths.
"The fiercest battle was the victory of Garibaldi against the Austrian Forces in Sardinia," Dante bragged.
Cris scoffed. "In your pasta-stuffed dreams. The battle of Aljubarrota topples any Italian skirmish you can name. Nuno Gonçalves bathed the earth with Castilian blood, ridding Portugal of the Spaniards’ threat. What do you say, Pedro? Sardinia or Aljubarrota?"
"I'm not in the mood for prattle."
"Do you prefer to talk about last night?" Cris's smile strained his tanned skin.
Pedro would rather forget the fiasco. After he had stormed out of the whore's room, he had fought the sailors. Cris had shoved him from atop the Dutch a second before he had crashed his skull. Pedro glanced at his bloodied knuckles. "Austerlitz. There's never been a more brilliant general than Napoleon."
"Not a chance." Cris shook his head, laughing.
While both men kept a steady stream of battle talk, a crow circling the sky lifted the hairs on Pedro's neck. He watched their flanks, but no one had followed. Still, this could be a trap. Acting without confirmed intelligence was a rotten strategy, but time was scarce. Princess Isabel would return from England in September. With Pedro out of the quest, the king would squander her to an obscure German principality. The fortress he meant to construct, carved on influence, on power, his Torres Vedras, wavered, more unstable than the dunes they traversed.
What if they could not find the king's bodyguard? The Duke of Titano would have sacrificed Anne in the first gambit of his game, using her as his alibi. If he sniffed Pedro's reluctance, the duke would rant about her lack of lineage and incite him to take her as a mistress if he so desired. Pedro recoiled from the words as if his father had whispered them in his ear.
Beyond the marsh, a gray cottage crouched between gaunt olive trees. Pedro pulled the reins. "It's here."
Cris halted Guerreiro by his side. "Deserted?"
They dismounted and approached the entrance. Pedro pointed at the sets of footprints exiting the shack. "At least five."
"Do you think Gabriel's been here?"
"Not the guards. The regiment uses standard-issued boots. These soles are uneven."
The scarred door hung from its leather hinges, charred at the edges. Pedro entered first. Fire had licked the walls, leaving blackened wood and ashes in the place of furniture. The shack had a single room partitioned with a darkened screen. A cot, fishing implements, and a brick oven completed the squalid decor. Hardly the setting to enjoy a bribe. More likely, the bodyguard had felt the need to hide.
Cris whistled. "A sardine grilling went wrong?"
Pedro strained his eyes to adjust to the lack of light. "The bodyguard could've eliminated evidence."
Dante found an empty bottle and sniffed it. "Aguardente."
Sugar cane alcohol flared quickly, but too fast. "Search every corner. He could have left something behind."
"The sooner we leave this rat hole, the better." Cris affected a shiver and winked. "I bet evil spirits are lurking."
Dante widened his eyes and shuffled closer to the door. For all his bulk, the Italian was superstitious.
"Don't listen to him. The wise fear the living."
Dante lifted the makeshift bed, raising a cloud of fetid smoke. He was lowering it when Pedro spotted a volume below, cloaked in shadows. "What's that?"
Dante crouched and picked it up. "A notebook of sorts."
Pedro took the volume, careful not to damage it further. The fire had burned the edges but left the crest on the first page untouched. Pedro traced the two green dragons and crown of the Braganza coat of arms. The small, organized handwriting belonged to his friend, but the cottage's semi-darkness didn't allow him to read the words.
Pedro went to the window at the back of the house. Meager light and a faint droning seeped through the rattling panes. He pushed the shutters open. Among sage bushes and yellowed oleanders hid the unmistakable shape of a body.
