Return to Paradise (Torres Family Saga) Read Free Page B

unconscious officer.
           “Your captain is gravely injured. Have you no better place for him than this filthy sty?” Benjamin asked.
           “After a month of fruitless siege in which the French are far better supplied than the Imperial Army, we count ourselves fortunate to find any shelter from heaven's inclemency,” Pescara replied bitterly. “Rigo and I have both slept in the open since this folly was begun by our illustrious Count of Provence, the Due de Bourbon.”
           “Then you will lift the siege?” Benjamin asked hopefully. If he could but get Rigo into Marseilles, to their uncle's home, his chances of survival would be far greater.
           Pescara shrugged. “I am done with feckless carnage. There is no profit in it. Whether Bourbon will agree, we shall see. In any case, there is no safe town where we can take him within a day's journey.” The marques looked at the younger man with a shrewdly assessing gaze. “What means this amazing resemblance between you and Rigo?”
           “He is my brother,” Benjamin replied simply, debating how much it would be safe to reveal to this Spanish-Italian nobleman.
           “Aye. That is plain enough. Yet I warrant you did not have the same mother. Rigo was born in the New World of a cast-off heathen mistress. You have the look of pure blood about you.”
           Benjamin fought the urge to laugh at the grim irony. Purity of blood—in a Spanish Jew! “My father's family is from Seville, but he and my mother live on Española. I and my younger brothers and sisters were born in the New World. I would return your captain to his birthright. But first I must save his life. How much do you value him?”
           “We have campaigned the length and breadth of Italy together. I hold him as dear as a brother.” The marques' eyes did not waver.
           Benjamin decided on a desperate gamble. “What if I were to tell you I have friends within the city walls who would welcome me and my brother?” He held his breath beneath the scrutiny of those unnerving black eyes.
           Suddenly Pescara gave a sharp bark of laughter. “So, you were shipwrecked with the wrong army! Yet you speak Castilian like a Sevilliard.” He shot a quick glance at the Argonese and said, “Wait outside and repeat nothing of what you have just heard or it is worth your life, Alonso.”
           The soldier bowed smartly and did as he was ordered. Pescara waited a moment and studied Benjamin, then said softly. “Jews. You are Jews, are you not?”
           “ Marranos is the epithet of preference, according to my father. I plan never to set foot in the country of his birth.”
           Pescara nodded. “Having no other way to save his life, I will trust my eyes and let you take your brother to Marseilles. Tend him well, Physician. What is your name? In case I am ever fallen ill while journeying through Provence again,” he added with wry humor.
           “Torres. Benjamin Torres, from his Imperial Majesty's colony of Española,`' Benjamin replied.
           The general bowed smartly. “Tell Rigo I wish him well in his new life. But if he tires of it, he can rejoin me in driving Frenchmen from Italy.” He quickly ordered quill and ink, then wrote a pass for Benjamin and Rigo. After handing it to the physician, he quit the hovel and issued orders for escorts to carry Captain de Las Casas and obey his physician.
           Benjamin carefully instructed the litter bearers who carried Navaro from the Imperial encampment. As they walked slowly past the filthy, ragged besiegers he studied their faces, grizzled German mercenaries, young Argonese drummer boys, haughty Castilian noblemen. All listened with rapt attention as Pescara's voice carried across the warm autumn air.
           “My children, the Marseillaise have spread a fine feast for their visitors these past weeks. If you are aching to sup in