Wild Bells to the Wild Sky by Laurie McBain Read Free Book Online Page A

mission as special emissary of Queen Elizabeth. With a slight smile of satisfaction, Sir Basil thought of the tale of adventure, interspersed, of course, with appropriately imagined moments of suspense and danger, that he, courageous knight errant, would entertain his friends and family with when he returned home to England.
     

 
     
     
     
     
    I’ll note you in my book of memory.
    S hakespeare
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    S ir Basil was to find that the routine of the following days differed little from that first day of their arrival in Santo Domingo. Magdalena spent most of each day at her mother’s bedside. Doña Amparo, who had suffered a stroke that had left her partly paralyzed, was confined to her bed and grew restless whenever Magdalena was out of her sight. What little nourishment she would take was by her daughter’s hand. It was as if Doña Amparo knew she was dying and intended to spend what precious little time she had left in this world with the daughter and the granddaughter she had been denied seeing for so long.
    Doña Amparo’s own dark red hair was silvered with age and twisted into a thick braid that seemed far too heavy for the frail shoulder it lay across. Day after day she lay in bed, oblivious to the pain each breath cost her, and listened contentedly to Magdalena’s soft voice telling her about every moment of her life since she had married her Englishman and made England her home.
    Lily, her young hand caught and held tightly by the one blue-veined had that still retained some of its former strength, would sit quietly on the edge of her grandmother’s, lace-covered bed and chatter tirelessly about her home and her friends and her father’s adventures to faraway places. Doña Amparo’s deep brown eyes, dulled into colorlessness by illness, grew bright and missed no expression crossing that small, animated face filled with all of the wonders life held for the young.
    Often, when enjoying a moment or two of quiet reflection in the sunny courtyard, Sir Basil would hear the sounds of laughter coming from Doña Amparo’s darkened room at the end of the opened gallery above, a child’s infectious giggle carrying farthest. He was amazed by Lily Christian’s un-resentful acceptance of having to spend so much time in her grandmother’s room, for it could not have been a very pleasant experience to witness one of Doña Amparo’s frequent attacks. And yet never once had he heard Lily complain to be set free from so disheartening a responsibility as keeping a dying person company. With a wisdom and patience that even he himself would find hard to come by, especially at so young an age, Lily accepted the hour or so she had to herself in the courtyard, making the most of the time allowed her before returning to her grandmother’s room. And Sir Basil often thought that never had he known a child who could manage to get into such mischief in so short a time.
    The days numbered close to a week when Geoffrey Christian surprised everyone, except perhaps Magdalena, by announcing that he was heading back to sea. His men had been in port long enough now to have provoked censure from the authorities. The English crew’s good-natured rowdiness and appreciative eye for a trim ankle had resulted in several heated arguments with outraged gentlemen demanding satisfaction on behalf of their insulted wives and mistresses. Before an incident resulted in the unfortunate death of one of Phillip II’s loyal subjects, the captain of the Arion declared he would have his lads back on board and too busy manning the capstan and making sail to be of any further annoyance to the affronted gentlemen of Santo Domingo.
    The Arion would steer a course south, along the coast of Brazil—Portuguese territory—or, at least, that is what Geoffrey Christian wanted the port officials to believe. Whether or not the Arion kept to that course would be known only to the captain and crew.
    Don Rodrigo had not pretended to hide his