Beauvallet · Chapter 2 (2/2)

So rapt in conversation with Dangerfield was the lady that it seemed she did not hear. Beauvallet watched her a moment in some amusement, then turned to Don Manuel. “Do you suppose, señor, that your daughter will take wine from my hands?”

“Dominica, you are addressed!” Don Manuel said sharply.

She gave an admirable start, and turned. “Señor?” She encountered Beauvallet’s eyes, brimful with laughter. “Your pardon, señor?” He held out a cup in his long fingers. She took it from him, and turned it in her hand. “Ah, did this come from the Santa Maria?” she asked, mighty innocent.

Don Manuel blushed for his daughter’s manners, and made a deprecatory sound. But Beauvallet’s shoulders shook. “I had these quite honestly, señora.”

Dominica appeared surprised.

Supper wore on its way. Don Manuel, shocked at the perversity of his daughter in bestowing all her attention on Dangerfield, began to talk to the young man himself, and successfully ousted Dominica from the conversation. She bit her lip with vexation, and became absorbed in the contemplation of a dish of marchpane. At her left hand Beauvallet lay back in his chair, and played idly with his pomander. Dominica stole a sidelong glance at him, found his eyes upon her, wickedly teasing under the down-dropped lids, and flushed hotly. She began to nibble at a piece of marchpane.

Sir Nicholas let fall his pomander, and sat straight in his chair. His hand went to his belt; he drew his dagger from the sheath. It was a rich piece, with a hilt of wrought gold and a thin, flashing blade. He leaned forward, and presented the hilt to the lady. “I make you a present of it, señora,” he said in a humble voice.

Dominica flung up her head at that, and tried to push the dagger away. “I do not want it.”

“Oh, but surely!”

“You are pleased to mock me, señor. I have no need of your dagger.”

“But you would like so much to kill me,” Sir Nicholas said softly.

Dominica looked at him indignantly. He was abominable, and to make matters the more insupportable he had a smile that set a poor maid’s heart in a flutter. “You laugh at me. Take your fill of it, señor: I shall not heed your sneers,” she said.

“I?” Beauvallet said, and shot out a hand to grasp her wrist. “Now look me boldly in the face and tell me if I sneer at you!”

Dominica looked instead toward her father, but he had turned his shoulder, and was descanting to Master Dangerfield upon the works of Livy.

“Come!” insisted the tormentor. “What, afraid?”

Stung, she looked up. Defiance gleamed in her eyes. Sir Nicholas kept his steadily upon her, raised her hand to his lips, kissed it fleetingly, and held it still. “You will know me better one day,” he said.

“I’ve no ambition for it,” Dominica answered, but without truth.

“Have you not? Have you not indeed?” His fingers tightened about her wrist; there was a brilliant look of inquiry before he let her go. It disturbed her oddly; the man had no right to such bright, challenging eyes.

A silence fell between them. Don Manuel, absorbed in his topic, had passed on to the poet Horace, and was inflicting quotations upon Master Dangerfield.

“What came to Don Juan, señor?” asked Dominica, finding the silence oppressive.

“I suppose him to be steering for the island of your name, señora,” Sir Nicholas replied, and cracked a nut between finger and thumb. The problems besetting Don Juan seemed to hold no interest for him.

“And Señor Cruzada? And the rest?”

“I did not send him alone, señora,” said Beauvallet, one eyebrow lifting humorously. “I suppose Señor Cruzada, whomsoever he may be, to be of his company.”

The lady selected another fragment of marchpane from the dish, and refused an offer of Hippocras to drink with it. She looked pensive. “You give quarter then, you English?”

“God’s Life, did you suppose otherwise?”

“I did not know, señor. They tell strange tales of you in the Indies.”

“It seems so indeed.” He looked amused. “Am I said to burn, torture, and slay, señora?”

She met his gaze gravely. “You are a hardy man, señor. There are those who say you use witchcraft.”

He flung back his head and laughed out at that. Don Manuel was startled, and broke off in the middle of a line, to the relief of Master Dangerfield, a-nod over his wine. “The only craft I use is seacraft, señora,” Beauvallet said. “I wear no charms, but I was born, so they tell me, when Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction. A happy omen! All honour to them!” He raised his cup to these planets, and drank to them.

“Alchemy is a snare, as also astrology,” said Don Manuel sternly. “I regard the tenets of Paracelsus as pernicious, señor, but I believe they are much studied and thought of in England. A creed both absurd and heretical! Why, I have heard a man doubt but that his neighbour was born under the sign of Sagittarius for no better reason than that he had a ruddy cheek, or a chestnut beard. Likewise you will meet those who will not stir beyond their doors without they have a piece of coral about them, or a sapphire to give them courage, or some other such toys, fit only for children or infidels. Then you will hear talk of the sky’s division into Houses, this one governing such-and-such a thing, and that some other. A silly conceit, obtaining credulity of the foolish.” Thus Don Manuel disposed of Paracelsus, very summarily.