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Luis twisted Robert's hair in his fist and pulled him close. "Prove it," the infuriating man demanded.

And Robert's world contracted to the sting and strain of that grasp, the hungry demands of Luis' mouth, and the warmth of Luis' knee beneath his own bold fingers. Kneeling at Luis' bedside, Robert felt himself yielding all too easily to temptation. His lips parted to protest the onslaught, but he was neither surprised nor particularly displeased when Luis interpreted his muffled moan as an invitation. It had been, at best, an instinctually token protest. Reason nagged at him, reminding him that Luis was still weak, barely recovered from his delirium, and that this moment, however delectable, was ill-timed and inappropriate. But reason be damned: when Robert felt Luis' grip on his hair weaken, he reached his own free hand for the back of Luis' head and demanded his own kiss in return. He felt Luis' knees parting, allowing him to move still closer, and his hand began to slide up Luis' knee toward his thigh. The linen sheet wrapped around Luis' body was so flimsy a barrier, so easily pushed aside to bare the skin to a lover's caress.

A slight tremor shuddered through the other man's body. "Ah, Robert." Luis broke their kiss. Smiling, he ran a finger along Robert's swollen lips. "I find your arguments quite persuasive." He raised his other hand between them and tugged at Robert's shirt. But even that slight movement must have annoyed his shoulder wound: he stiffened and drew breath with a sharp hiss.

"Christ, Luis." Robert scrambled to his feet. "You should lie back and rest now. We can--we'll...talk when you are stronger."

"Chiflado," Luis grumbled. So he was a tease, was he? That was the pot calling the kettle black, considering the way Luis managed to let the sheet slip almost coquettishly from his body as Robert settled him back against his pillows. And when Robert started to move away, Luis grabbed his arm and pulled him into another incendiary kiss. "Oh no, my friend," Luis chuckled. "We will...talk now."

"Luis..."

"Robert." His eyes raked over Robert's body. "You are eager enough, to be sure."

"Luis, please. Believe me, there's nothing I want more." Robert hoped he would prove strong enough to do what professionalism--hell! what simple common sense--required. "In a few days, perhaps, or a week, when your shoulder--"

Luis ignored him. "Unless that is one more of your lies," he murmured into Robert's ear. Then he loosened his hold, even pushed him a scant, few inches away, and Robert felt suddenly bereft. "Ah, well. 'Love's best habitis in seeming trust,' no?" He sighed and threw back the blankets that had been carefully tucked around him. "Come to bed, Robert. Lie with me."

Robert drew back. All he needed was a little self control. He'd been good at that once. The realities of war had taught him to discipline his recklessness and channel it into quick-witted daring. He had learned to school his emotions, to cloak plausible denial behind a bland façade.

That, of course, was before Luis.

"Now," the man smiled.

Nonsense. Robert would just stiffen his resolve and-- But, at this moment, it wasn't exactly his resolve that was stiffening, was it? And, he supposed, if they were very, very careful, there were a few things they could do... If this were a battle of wills, Robert realized, he was going to have to concede defeat -- this time around, at least. And from the smug triumph of Luis' smile, he knew that as well, damn him, just as he obviously knew exactly how little was left to Robert's disobedient and fervid imagination when he moved his leg beneath the sheet like that. Damn the flirtatious bastard.

Robert licked at his lower lip.

"Take your clothes off," Luis directed, his voice barely above a whisper. Robert's fingers, obeying the command automatically, began to busy themselves with his shirt buttons. "No," Luis interrupted. "Slowly."

Christ, this was embarrassing. Excruciating. And not a little exciting. Each newly bared patch of skin tingled under Luis' heated gaze as if invisible fingers stroked him to ever greater arousal. And was it the late afternoon air feathering over his skin, or Luis' ever more laboured breath? Well, well. So his exhibition was fevering his erstwhile lover, was it? This encounter was beginning to fall into the familiar rhythm of their previous games. Robert rested his hands on his hips. "Satisfied?"

"Oh, not quite yet." Luis crooked a finger and beckoned him to approach.

"No?" Robert sauntered closer. "Then I will have to see what I can do, won't I?"

"Mmmm. That you will." Luis reached out to grasp his hand and pulled him off balance and onto the bed. It was hardly the most elegant landing, and Luis grimaced as Robert clambered over him and arranged himself in a posture that would jar neither Luis' shoulder wound nor his own bruised ribs. It was too absurd.

"We have lousy timing," Robert chuckled.

Luis raised his hand and stroked it along Robert's cheek. "But a soldier learns to take what opportunities the fates allow him, no? Now," he added with a sly smile that crinkled the skin at the corner of his eyes and turned the imperious commander into a mischievous youth, "I suggest you make use of this opportunity." His hand slid around Robert's neck and pulled him toward a kiss, stopping just before their lips touched. "I am, after all, still awaiting proof of your truthfulness."

"Bastard." Robert kissed him then, hard, forcing Luis' mouth open and thrusting his tongue deep into the other man's warmth. Breaking, he dipped his head to kiss hungrily along Luis' jaw, down his throat, skimming the line of his clavicle. He shifted lower along the line of Luis' body, and felt Luis' fingers loosen and rustle through his hair as they released their hold on him. There was the slightest little nick, an old wound, just below Luis' left nipple, and Robert kissed it lightly. There was another scar, he had noticed, a little lower, on the last rib, probably from the clean thrust of a sword. Despite the aristocratic trappings and affectations, Luis had the body of a soldier: not that of some soft parade ground dandy, either, but one trained and trimmed to a sleek, efficient elegance. The wounds only testified to his strength, his intoxicating danger.

Luis shivered a little beneath his touch, and murmured something. Robert raised his head. Luis had turned his face toward the window. But there was no one, nothing there except a slight breeze moving the curtain. "Luis?" He turned back, but still refused to meet Robert's eyes. "Luis? Is something wrong?"

"This isn't-- I'm not just dreaming this again?" There was something charmingly vulnerable, but a little unsettling, in the question.

"You dreamed about this?"

"Something like this, yes. Your laudanum."

"Ah." Robert smiled to himself and dropped his head to trace a line of kisses further down the man's abdomen. So it seemed he had as much a place in Luis' fantasies as Luis had in his own. That thought was almost as delicious as the friction of Luis' skin against the sensitive flesh of his own aroused cock as he slid lower along the man's body. "Really? And what else did you dream? This?"

"That was when I woke up and saw--"

The Queen? "Forget her, Luis." Robert kissed the third scar, the pale, ragged mark of an old bullet wound on his thigh. He nuzzled at the softer flesh on the interior of Luis' leg, and along the crease between his hip and his groin. "I'll make you forget her," he murmured, then licked slowly up the thick vein of his cock. He wrapped a hand around the organ, taking the head in his mouth. Luis shivered toward him, running fingers through Robert's hair to encourage his attentions. Robert varied the rhythms of his hand and tongue, urging him to greater arousal, and was rewarded by feel of the flesh lengthening and thickening beneath his touch. He tasted its first bitter weeping, and let his ministrations become more ardent, more demanding.

Luis gripped his hair. "Robert-- I-- Soon--" His body stiffened and shuddered as he came.

Robert swallowed around him, resisting his efforts to pull him away until he had drunk his fill of the lover's seed. Only then did he allow himself to be drawn back up the bed and drawn into a kiss. Luis' hand stroked his flank and he once more aware of how urgent his own needs were. He took Luis' hand in his own ad drew it down around his achingly hard flesh. His touch was firm, insistent, possessive. Luis pushed him back against the mattress, covering him and stifling his moans with deep kisses. Ah, yes. This was his masterful Colonel, his sweet foe.

Luis lay back, finally, his warm smile lighting up his face. "Ah," he breathed out slowly. "I could not have dreamed that." But a furrow deepened between his eyes as he watched Robert fetch a cloth damp cloth. The frown relaxed only when he returned to the bed to clean them off, running the towel over Luis' abdomen first and then his own.

Robert laid the cloth aside. The afternoon was rapidly fading into evening: he took a moment to light a lamp on the table beside the bed. "So are you sure of me now? Or," Robert added, turning with a smile, "will you require further persuasion?"

Luis' fingers closed around his wrist and pulled him back on to the rumpled sheets. "I greatly fear, querido," he chuckled, "that I may never be completely satisfied. I am sure that you present so many riddles yet to be unravelled. Fortunately I have always-- Dios! Grisham did this?" He frowned and slid his hand lightly over the line of Robert's ribs, where yellow and green was beginning to edge the purple bruises. "Resisting arrest?"

"Oh, more like interrogation. Or punishment." Surely Luis couldn't be surprised? "You must have known he'd have a go at me."

"Not like this. I never gave him permission to touch you like this." Luis' eyes narrowed. "That idiot thought you would confess the Queen's identity, perhaps?"

What would he do, Robert wondered suddenly, if Luis were to ask him? If he were to make that information a condition of his affection? Christ! What if that was what all this had been about? Could he have been that much of a fool? "I don't know who she is, Luis."

"Hmmm. Don't you?" There was a moment's silence. "Very well, I will believe you. For now." He turned his head and started to nuzzle lazily along Robert's jaw-line. "Besides," he breathed between kisses, "I do not know that I am interested in the Queen just at present."

Liar. Luis could be a right bastard, and Robert could not honestly congratulate himself on having been too subtle about his interest in--his passion for--the man. Oh yes, he had shown himself so very willing to whore himself, hadn't he? He could hardly blame Luis for taking what he had offered so brazenly. And now? Despite his uncertainty Robert felt himself relaxing once more beneath Luis' attentions. Perhaps he should let his doubts lie, and accept the gift of Luis' affection, however illusory it might later show itself to have been. And then, too, it was possible he might be able to play upon Luis' weakness, his obsession with the Queen. How much would Luis give up for knowledge of her identity? But no, damn it all, that was unworthy of either of them. Better to end it all now. Robert drew a deep breath and prepared for the worst. "As it happens, Grisham was after quite different information."

"Was he, indeed?" Luis murmured into his ear. "What then? The location of El Dorado?"

"He seemed to think that you and I were lovers."

Luis paused. "Did he?" His voice was casually neutral, but he drew back.

"Don't worry, Luis. I told him we were barely friends." Robert kept his voice light despite the aching certainty that his fears were proving only too true. "And then I remarked upon his own curious interest in your love life."

"Grisham and I?" Luis shuddered rather melodramatically. "What a gruesome thought."

"Oh, I agree. As did he. And, strangely enough, after that he completely forgot to ask anything else. But then, he may have been too busy trying to beat some respect into me."

"Grisham has so little imagination. He underestimates you. I would never make that mistake." Luis looked at him closely. "And we are far more than merely friends, querido." He caught Robert's chin in his hand and prevented him from turning away. "You must know that."

Did he? He hoped as much, but desperate hope was so far from surety. Robert smiled and captured a kiss. It was not really an answer, merely an evasion of a lie, but Luis seemed to accept it. "Anyway," Robert added. "Grisham shows some native talent, but he's an amateur. I've lived through worse." Luis regarded him with naked curiosity. Well, why not? There could be little harm, could there, in telling him? Oddly enough, Robert wanted Luis to know the truth about his past--some of it, at any rate. A little truth to leaven all the lies they told each other. "My horse went lame and I was picked up by a French patrol."

Luis nodded; he understood, of course. "How long?"

"Three days--four, maybe. It's so easy to loose track. They wanted to know who was feeding information to the British, the name of our spy-master in Salamanca. I wouldn't, couldn't betray him. But then I remembered there was someone else, an enfrancesado we suspected was supplying money to the United Irishmen. A group of radicals, dissidents in the army," he explained. "That's who I gave them. Two birds with one stone." Robert shrugged. "I must have been convincing, because they left me alone after that. I managed to escape, to get back behind our lines."

"How resourceful of you."

"Oh, I was quite the bloody hero. Feted for my daring escape--though the other part had to be hushed up, naturally. I was quite proud of myself: I could hardly have planned a more extravagant way of bringing myself to the attention of headquarters. My career was made. Of course, after that, well, let's say that after that my duties changed rather."

"I see. They should not have betrayed your loyalty like that. But then loyalty is rarely rewarded as it should be: the gratitude of generals and kings. Although..." The sudden, sharp bitterness that had roughened Luis' voice faded into something that was almost wistful. "That is what has brought us both to this place, no?"

"No dark cloud without its silver lining," Robert laughed. He lay back against the pillows.

"Exactly." Luis shifted onto his side, careful to support his weight on his good shoulder. "And so you left it all behind you?"

"Chucked it all. Well, you could say some of it chucked me, I suppose: Camilla and her father wanted a hero in a red coat, not a common surgeon."

"A fiancée, I assume? Genteel young women have such strong opinions upon matters about which they can know nothing." Luis' hand went to the nick on his chest, just over the heart.

"So who was she?"

"Who?" He looked down and pulled his hand away. "Oh. My betrothed. She threw a mirror at me."

"Decent aim."

Luis snorted. "We were talking about your romantic entanglements, not mine. Camilla?"

"Camilla O'Brian. Wentworth."

Luis' brows knit in recognition. "Not the wife of that insufferably arrogant sea captain? I thought there must have been something more between you. You should have let me trade the ungrateful baggage for his cannon." He snickered rather maliciously. "And did the Queen know whose rescue she was effecting? That must have been a knife in her heart."

The only person Robert had told had been the Alvarado girl, but the Queen had known, hadn't she? "Camilla probably mentioned something: she had decided she would take me back."

"Ha! A shallow and brittle young woman. I should never have imagined her to be your ideal mate."

"Oh? And who would you imagine, then?" In for a penny, in for a pound. "You, perhaps?"

"Of course." Luis' smile was smug and confident. "Though I fear that truth will disappoint so many fair ladies."

Robert turned to face him, running a finger playfully down his flank. "You're good, Luis. But are you sure you are that good?"

"Hmmph. A challenge, my bold friend?" He slid a leg over and around Robert's and urged him closer. "But, no, I meant the myriad of your admirers, all those pretty young things who look to you for relief of their... palpitations. I assure you, it is fortunate indeed that your reputation has escaped tarnishing. Senorita Alvarado, for example, leaves little doubt as to her interest."

"Oh, good Lord, Luis. You can't be jealous of Tessa Alvarado as well?"

"Maria Theresa Alvarado would be prosperous match for an ambitious man. And with only that dubious gypsy duenna to look after her... Not that you would take advantage, Robert, certainly not. No, girls like her only play with honourable men: they know well enough to avoid the Grishams of this world."

Robert frowned. "That night I found you in your kitchen, when you kissed me. You knew I had been having dinner with Senorita Alvarado."

"I should think half the pueblo knew. It was most indiscreet. Truly, lacking the guidance and restraint of a father, she is quite the menace to civilized society. An unwary gentleman might find himself entrapped into making certain rash promises, and think himself honour-bound to protect her good name." Luis tapped a finger tip against Robert's breast bone. "I feared for you, my friend: your peculiarly English honour might well have required you not only to marry her, but even indeed to remain faithful to her. And then," he grinned, "where would I be?"

"What a hypocrite you are, Luis. You demand that I be faithful to you."

"Ah, but that is quite a different matter. I am not a conniving and innocent virgin like the fair Maria Theresa: I am merely a vulnerable and sophisticated man of the world."

There seemed little answer to that beyond the kiss that proximity made almost inevitable.

Robert traced the mark over Luis' heart. "So this is the price--"

"Of a woman's vanity."

He moved his hand lower, to the scar on the last rib. "And this?"

"A man's pride. For what other reason is a duel ever fought?"

"And this one?" Robert skimmed over the roughened patch of skin on his thigh.

Luis pushed his hand away. "A lucky shot from a French sharpshooter."

There was more to the story than that. "Tell me?" Robert demanded with a kiss. "Tell me?"

Luis was silent a moment. "We were cut off while attempting to take and hold an impossible position. It was suicide--or murder, perhaps: a foolish order in the midst of an unnecessarily disastrous battle. I must have lost half my men before I decided to countermand it and withdraw. Our ignorant pig of a commander shouted that I was a coward and threatened to have me court-martialed. He tried to send the men forward again."

"Tried?"

"He was shot," Luis remarked tersely. "Such things happen in battle." Indeed they did. Some called it Lieutenants' Disease: green, overly eager young officers who failed to win the respect of their men sometimes ended their careers through some unfortunate accident. It was rare that such things happened to superior officers, but it was not unknown. "I got the men--those who were left alive, and many of them were more badly wounded than I--back to the main body of the army. And, in the event, they made me a colonel."

Robert laid his hand over the scar again. "It was a serious wound. You were lucky: you had a good surgeon."

"I seem indeed fortunate in my physicians," Luis smiled.

"Don't be so sure." Robert moved his hand to Luis' shoulder, stroking over the bandage with his fingers and then pressing his lips lightly against the gauze. "I could yet hurt you, even more than I have done."

"Of course. And I you, mi corazón. We both know that. But for tonight," Luis whispered, "we shall be 'they that have power to hurt and will do none.' We shall call a truce. Hmmm? And we shall each give the other his parole."

Robert nodded. He closed what little distance remained between the two of them, licking Luis' lips open and allowing a first gentle kiss to develop into a more prolonged mutual exploration. Luis rubbed against him: they were both hardening again, though less desperately this time. They fell into the steady rhythm of shared arousal. Robert closed his eyes, feeling himself all but drowning once more in the sensations--the slick tautness of Luis' body against his, his indefinable musky sweetness, the salt taste of his skin. At this moment they could have no secrets from each other; there could be few lies, neither of commission nor of omission, between them. All they were lay bare before each other's lover's gaze, exposed to his touch. Or so it seemed--a pleasant fiction. What did Luis' beloved Bard call it? Love's best habit. Robert felt the familiar heat and tension coiling in his belly. And then the inevitable, inexorable release.

Afterwards they lay quiet and satisfied, silent. For the first time in years Robert felt unburdened by circumstances, almost free. He leaned over to extinguish the lamp. In the darkness they drifted toward sleep.

It was the bells that woke him. For a drowsy second or two, caught between dream and waking, he imagined himself once more a guileless boy, home from school on his holidays, listening to the bells of the local parishes ringing the changes. The sound from one church would echo, fading to an end only to be taken up by a competing congregation. But this peel was too simple, too determined. And then Luis murmured in his sleep, and edged his body into closer contact. Awakened into the present, Robert smiled fondly at him, raised a hand to stroke the stray locks of hair away from his face, and kissed his brow. It was odd: no soldier was a stranger to the forced intimacy of a shared billet. He learned to sleep almost motionless, solitary and independent in whatever blanket's width of space had been allotted to him. It was a lesson lovers soon forgot, needing, savouring every opportunity to touch and tangle.

The bells fell silent. There was something about the slant of the morning light through the muslin curtains at the window. It was still early, too early for the daily mass at the church across the plaza. Unless...Oh, Christ. It was Sunday: the bells were a reminder, and throughout the pueblo and the surrounding haciendas families would be readying themselves for High Mass--and, given that this was a garrison town, for Church Parade. It was not an occasion Colonel Montoya could afford to miss.

Robert groaned, and gently shifted away from the warm, inviting body beside him. He could at least make sure that Luis was ready for the ceremony. He'd need to wash and rebandage the wound. There would probably be someone in the kitchen to give him the hot water he needed--and the coffee. He would bring Luis back a cup, too; that should sweeten the pain of waking. His clothes were in an unruly heap across the room: he sighed, padded over to them and pulled on the rumpled shirt and breeches.

Robert had underestimated Señora Santiago. He met her at the head of the stairs, a tray with a pot and two cups balanced in her hands, and a kitchen maid gripping a covered jug trailing in her wake.

"Good morning, Doctor. El Coronel slept well? He will want to review the men as always, I think?"

"I expect so, señora."

Robert opened the bedroom door for her, and she swept in. The other servant hung back; he took the jug from her and followed the mayora into the room. She had placed the tray on a table and was pouring the coffee. She added a measure of milk to one cup and approached the bedside.

"Coronel," she said softly. "Coronel Montoya. Your morning coffee, señor."

Luis opened his eyes, and blinked at her. Then he frowned and drew himself up against his pillows, adjusting the bedding about himself as he did so, though the redoubtable señora showed no sign of embarrassment. It would take a great deal more than a naked officer, Robert thought, to unsettle that lady. She poured a second cup and handed to him. "I have sent Emilia to your house, Doctor, to bring your good suit. You will be accompanying the Coronel to Sunday mass, no? She will lay it out for you in the spare bedroom; there will be hot water, too, and a razor."

"Thank you." If she was not embarrassed, he was at least a little flustered by her continued and apparently imperturbable presence.

Luis, damn him, looked amused as he drank his coffee and watched her open his wardrobe door. "Gracias, indeed, my dear señora. You will accomplish the impossible: the pueblo shall see Doctor Helm appropriately dressed for once. And I shall require my full dress uniform this morning, I think."

Robert laid his empty cup on the table. "You assume that I will agree that you are well enough to rise from your sickbed, Colonel." He collected bandages and medications, and poured a little hot water into the basin. "I don't remember releasing you from my care." He sat on the bed and removed the coffee cup from Luis' hand, letting his fingers linger caressingly as he did so. Then he began to unbind the wound. Thank God, it looked healthy. He washed it carefully, noting that the cloth remained clean of either blood or pus. Luis hissed a little at the ointment's sting, but the compound was obviously doing its job, keeping the healing flesh moist and free of infection.

"It's looking much better. Well," he sighed in mock resignation. "I suppose you may go and play commander, after all." Luis scowled at him, but there was mischief in his eyes. Robert wound a new bandage about the shoulder, trying to ignore the fingers Luis was so shamelessly letting drift up his thigh. Finally he had to remove the errant hand, and holding it in his, he glanced over to where the señora, her back turned, was busying herself laying out a shirt and clean linens. He stole a last, brief kiss, then forced himself to stand up and move away from the bed and its so tempting, teasing occupant.

Leaving Luis to his housekeeper's capable hands, Robert retired next door, where the maid had finished setting his clothes out on the neatly made bed. She nodded, and sketched the slightest curtsy before skittering away. She stopped in the doorway, though, gathering her courage.

"Doctor?" she inquired, her voice just above a whisper. "El Coronel--he is better? He will be well?"

"Oh, yes. He'll be fine." She smiled and started to turn away. "You care about him, don't you?"

"He is a good master, señor. Many gentlemen, they think that they own their servants and-- But he has never-- You were not here when that cabrón Krane and his men attacked the town. They started drinking, and Señora Santiago said that soon they would want women." The girl blushed. Robert nodded. He had heard about the event when he returned to town, and he was certainly as familiar as any old soldier with the depredations of which undisciplined renegades were capable. "So she said that we should go up into the hills, all the girls, and as many of the soldiers' wives as would leave. When it was over, and El Coronel came back, the house was-- All his fine things-- And he looked like thunder: I thought he would punish us for allowing it to happen. But he only asked the señora about us. We were unharmed? The bastards had not touched us? El Coronel is a good man." And then Emilia was gone.

Luis might mock Robert for having his female admirers, but it seemed that he, too, could inspire devotion. It was something more to think about, one more facet of the dangerous man he had taken as his lover: one could tell much about a commander from the way his men talked about him. It was not always the kindest or the most easy-going who proved themselves the most deserving of respect and regard.

Robert washed himself, scraped the razor over his chin for the first time in a couple of days, and redressed in clean, neat clothing. He took more care than usual in knotting his tie, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt and smoothing the lines of his frock coat, in slicking down and combing his hair. He caught himself preening in the large mirror--a vanity his own quarters did not afford--and grimaced. It had been a long, long time since he had bothered with such fripperies, and yet here he was, fussing over his appearance as he had rarely even bothered to when the form and fit, the spit and polish of his uniform had been the subject of formal inspection.

Speaking of which... The bells were ringing again, the tocsin inviting the civilians to church and warning the troop of soldiers to muster in the plaza. Robert hesitated before Luis' door and rapped sharply against the wood.

"Come," the Colonel's voice barked out. And when Robert reentered the bedroom, he could see that the military commander was very much in evidence. Every hair, every muscle was perfectly marshaled to play its appointed role as part of the rhetoric of power. "Ah, Doctor. Here you are. Shall we go? It will not do to be late for God."

A group of the dons stood waiting outside the gate to the Rose Courtyard, and Robert dropped back as they flocked like ravens--or vultures, more like--around Montoya. The dons had their own reasons, he was sure, for being concerned about the health of their legally appointed governor. And the Colonel was meticulous in his performance, his assurances that whatever weakness he might have suffered for the past couple of days, he was quite recovered. One or two of the dons were less effective in their professions of gratitude to the Almighty.

Montoya approached the files of uniformed men outside the church, and Captain Grisham straightened. It took quite an effort: the slightest motion seemed to cause him discomfort. Sergeant Perez, looking especially pleased with himself, shouted the men to attention. Most of them even managed a semblance of discipline this morning. Robert caught Corporal Cruz' eye and inclined his head.

"Ah, Capitán," Montoya purred. "You are quite yourself again, I hope. I was saddened to hear of your illness."

"Sir."

"You were fortunate, Grisham. Very fortunate. The...falling sickness can, I understand, be fatal. And your case was quite an advanced one. Was I not told that even before your faintness you had been exhibiting signs of confusion and disorientation? That in your weakness you even forgot my very specific orders concerning the release of a certain prisoner? Let us hope that you do not suffer a relapse, eh? Private Esteban," he called out. The unfortunate trooper looked up from his intense inspection of his own dusty boots, and coloured. "You are relieved of your medical duties. We shall all pray, I am sure, for the good capitán's continued well-being."

"Si, Coronel."

"No thanks to that idiot. They poisoned me, him and that witch--" Grisham sputtered.

"By 'that witch' I presume you mean my inestimable housekeeper. I have always found her most trustworthy. And as for Private Esteban: really, I am shocked and disappointed. You once seemed to have such great faith in the man. Were you not willing to entrust your wounded commander to his tender mercies? Could I do less for my most loyal captain of the guard?" He leaned closer. "'Hoist on your own petard,' Grisham?"

Robert turned aside to hide his smile and moved further back. He saw Señora Santiago watching the Colonel and his captain with her usual vigilant sang-froid. "Professional interest, señora, but what did you use? Jalap and calomel?"

"For the first purge, si. And then some tea." There was something unaccountably sinister in her use of the quietly domestic word.

"Some tea. Herbal, I assume."

"Toloache leaves." Datura. Good Lord. Robert almost felt sorry for the man: the leaves weren't as hallucinogenic as the root, but he'd still have been numb and dizzy, delirious. "Then wild celery root." And after that Grisham would have been vomiting, and with the jalap still in his system, probably shitting his guts out all night.

"Nice work. Thorough."

She nodded, with only the slightest of self-satisfied smirks, and moved away around the edges of the crowd heading for the church door. The Alvarado duenna, Marta, was awaiting her mistress just to one side, and the mayora greeted her with all signs of friendship.

The priest appeared on the front steps, preceded by one altar boy holding high the gilt processional cross and followed by three or four others, barely containing their youthful irreverence. Montoya dismissed his men to file in and join their families. Maria Theresa Alvarado closed in upon the Colonel's side. Robert was too far away to hear what they were saying, but she was obviously fluttering for all she was worth, and Montoya was smiling patiently but apparently paying little attention. He caught Robert's eye, and his smile warmed and beckoned. Robert started to move toward them.

A stray gust of wind caught the Alvarado girl's hair, and pulled it free; she swept it out of her face absent-mindedly, and Robert stopped stark still. He knew that gesture, though he was used to seeing a different hand performing it: a hand in a black leather glove pushing unruly locks away from a black lace mask.

She walked away from the Colonel, and Robert followed her with his eyes. Once one suspected, it all became clear, didn't it? Almost obvious.

"Doctor Helm?" Luis came up to him and touched his elbow lightly. "Robert?" he repeated, more softly. Robert turned, but not quickly enough: Luis frowned and glanced toward where the Queen-- toward where Tessa Alvarado approached her duenna and Luis' housekeeper. "Something troubles you, Robert?"

"What? Oh, sorry. No, nothing. Just something Señora Santiago said, about one of the herbs she used on Grisham. I was thinking that I might try a weaker distillation..."

The words tasted bitter in his mouth. But after all, he asked himself, what was one more lie between them, even in the clear light of this new day?