Ogre's Lament - The Story Of Don Luis

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Book excerpt

Chapter One

A village 

The morning dawned much as any other, but many remembered this day as the last one of normality before death came to visit the silent streets. From afar, the old clock chimed out the hour as it always did, the peel of its bell cutting through the still air, shattering the quiet, but only briefly. Locals said the mechanism had come from Germany, or Italy. Nobody knew for certain and nobody really cared so long as it worked.

Luis Sanchez stepped out into the bright sunshine and took in a breath. Another beautiful day. For a moment, the sun shone within him and he hoped today might be a good day. His mood, however, soon changed as the mundane routine of each and every day bore down on him like a heavy weight. Thoughts turned to his mother lying in bed dying, his tiny sister Constanza sitting on the damp earthen floor, playing with the little wooden doll Luis had fashioned for her out of an old piece of wood. The images brought a sad, resigned smile to his lips. If only he could do more for them. If only he were older, bigger, stronger, somehow able to find a decent occupation and bring in more money. So many ifs and buts. He sighed, shoulders dropping, and resigned himself to the fact that right now, the only thing he could ever do was go to Señor Garcia’s bakery to pick up the bread for the early-morning deliveries, and get through. What followed soon afterwards would be worse, and he knew that. The trek to school to face the baying of the children from the village. Home by two, sweeping out the house, making the meals, reading Constanza a story before bed. Always the constant round of monotony and despair.

The sunshine inside faded, despite the heat still burning his face. The day would be neither good nor indifferent, merely the same as every other.

Señor Garcia welcomed Luis with his usual growl. Already the bread lay on the table, bundled up for the various customers whose orders never changed. Luis knew them all by now, so no need for the list. Señor Garcia marvelled at this revelation when Luis first appeared at his doorstep not so many mornings ago, his eager face peering around the door entrance.

“I can help you with your deliveries, Señor Garcia,” Luis had said, flashing his best smile.

Garcia paused from kneading the bread and frowned. “Why would I want you to do that?”

Luis stepped inside, waved his hand over the flour, water, waiting masses of soft, sticky dough. “Because you’re a busy man and I’ve been watching you working hard, making your bread. After it’s baked, you have to rush out and get the deliveries done before your next batch of bread burns. I could help.”

“With the deliveries?” Garcia shook his head. “I’d have to pay you.”

Luis had shrugged. “Yes, but maybe the money you give me would not be as much as the money lost from all that wasted bread, burnt whilst you rush around.”

Garcia thought about the reasonableness of this. His mouth turned down at the corners and he appeared unconvinced. “You’d have to remember all the customers, where they lived. It would take months. I’ve been doing this for half a lifetime and I still manage to get some of them mixed up. I’d lose too much money. I’m sorry.” He picked up a large handful of dough and slapped it down on the worktop, kneading it with those thick, strong fingers of his.

“I’ll write them down,” said Luis, stepping closer, wafting his hand through the great cloud of flour pluming up around the baker’s hands. The baker had stopped, mouth open, stunned. Luis smiled when he saw the look of total incredulity on Garcia’s face. “Yes, I can read and write, Señor Garcia.”

Garcia put his hands on his hips and shook his head slowly. For the first and only time that Luis remembered, the man smiled. “Well, if the good Lord has seen fit to bless you with such a gift, then I don’t see how I can deny you! You can start tomorrow, at six.”

And so, every morning for the past three months, Luis had done just that. This morning was no different.

Without a word, he gathered up the bundles of bread as Garcia worked away at more dough. Luis stepped out into the street to begin his rounds.

Despite the early hour, the Sun beat down with relentless intensity. Summertime in the village was often unbearable. Riodelgado sat in a little valley, surrounded by the steep sides of the mountains, the heat funnelling downwards, hugging the streets, never managing to escape. The residents cooked in this natural oven and they grumbled and groaned constantly. No one liked the heat. They retreated into their dark, cramped homes, like so many tiny, nervous animals escaping from the danger of predators. They waited for the cool of the night to arrive before venturing outside again, to sit and talk. And talk. Constant talking.

Luis sauntered through the streets, placing a bundle of bread inside each customer’s open door. Not everyone ordered bread; some did not have the money, others made their own. Times, however, were hard, the lack of rain turning the ground iron-hard, crops unable to flourish. Coupled with this, news of the War filtered through every now and then, causing fear and concern amongst the villagers, numbing appetites. Recently things were not going well for the Spanish. Once, many years before Luis had been born, stories circulated of Spain defeating the heretics in the far north. But then the Swedes came, followed by the French who joined with these Protestant upstarts to oppose the Imperialist cause. The forces of Spain soon became hard-pressed. Luis, when he heard the news from a one-eyed itinerant tradesman called Pablo, didn’t believe the man’s words at first. “But France is of the true religion,” he’d blurted out.

Pablo had frowned, a gesture which made his single eye look quite terrifying. “How do you know anything about France?”

“I read it.”

“You read it…?” Pablo had shaken his head. “What is the world coming to when a mere child can read…”

“It’s true though, Señor Pablo. How can the Catholic French fight alongside the Swedes, who are Protestants?”

Pablo shook his head again, much more sadly this time. They sat by the dried riverbed, under the shade of the orange trees, not far from the tiny bridge. When he spoke again, Pablo’s voice sounded resigned, almost sad. “Like everything else in this mad world, it’s a mystery. Protestants fighting alongside Catholics, against other Catholics! Death is everywhere. I see so many horrors in my travels, and I hear tales of so many dreadful, inhuman things done to others. Things done in the name of religion, in the name of God.” He shook his head. “We are in the end-of-days young Master Luis, the end-of-days.”

Nevertheless, despite the War spreading, the tiny village of Riodelgado remained untouched by the scourges in the north. No soldiers ever came and the village carried on the way it always had, boiling in the summer, freezing in the brief winter.

A village like a hundred others in the mountains of Andalucía.

Until, one day, a soldier did come.

Chapter Two

A soldier 

Luis first spotted the man as he rode into the village square. A tall man astride a thin, over-laden horse, grey coat streaked with the sweat of a long ride. A soldier, that much was clear; sword at his hip, pistols in their holsters, breastplate protecting chest. He wore no helmet, instead a large, floppy hat, which cast his face in deep shadow. A bright red feather took all of Luis’ attention, as the man’s features, masked by the wide brim and a thick tangle of black beard, were difficult to work out. Except for the eyes, burning with an intensity Luis had seldom seen before. Dust covered the soldier like an extra coat, his poor steed stumbling forward to the drinking trough. They had obviously ridden for many miles in the searing, unrelenting heat. The horse dipped its head and drank. Luis, with only two more bundles left to deliver, sat down on the fountain steps next to the animal and studied the man keenly.

The soldier dismounted, stretched and sighed, his joints cracking. He pulled a bandana from around his neck, dipped it into the water beside his still drinking horse and washed himself, running the soaked piece of cloth over his face before pressing the material into his mouth. He dabbed his lips, stopped and noticed Luis as if for the first time, his eyes narrowing. Luis stiffened, a tiny thrill of fear running through him. The man’s look seemed dark and terrible, as did the rest of him. A soldier, quick to judge, violence never far from the blade of his sword. Luis quickly averted his face and went to move away.

“Boy, wait there.”

Luis froze, the gruff voice sharp, used to giving orders and no doubt expecting compliance. The man stepped closer, his air of supreme confidence unsettling.

“Where is everyone?”

Luis blinked. “Er… it is only early, sir. Most people will still be in their beds.”

“Bah… peasants.” He looked around, as if he were trying to find something that would prove the lie of Luis’s words. Nothing else moved in the square. They were quite alone. The soldier exhaled and slumped down on the stone bench next to the fountain, coat and trousers creaking as he bent limbs. He motioned Luis to join him. For a moment he hesitated. “I don’t bite, boy.”

Luis forced a smile and sat down. The tangy mix of stale sweat and aged, cracked leather invaded his nostrils, and something else. Something he knew, had smelled many times before; the acrid stench of decay.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Luis, sir. Luis Sanchez.”

The man cocked an eyebrow as he scanned Luis, from head to foot. Luis felt his stare and grew uncomfortable, edging away from him slightly. “You wear your hair long, like a girl,” said the man, turning away to rifle inside a little pouch at his hip. “You must be a page, or a scholar perhaps.”

Luis studied the man filling a white bone pipe with tobacco taken from the pouch. Once before had he seen this. The mayor often smoked a pipe, the only man in the village to do so. Tobacco was rare and expensive, brought in from the Americas. Luis knew where that was. He had pored over maps at his school and would often spend hours daydreaming of adventures in far off lands, of voyages across vast, open seas, of mountains and valleys and—

“Are you listening to me?”

Luis snapped his head around, blinking rapidly. The man’s eyes burned with anger and the atmosphere became charged with danger. Luis held up his hand, alarmed. “I’m sorry, sir. I was thinking, and I meant no disrespect.” He tried a smile, but the man’s expression did not change.

“Thinking about what?”

Swallowing hard, Luis pointed towards the pipe. “Tobacco. Our mayor, he has a pipe. Rare things. Expensive.”

“Expensive…” The man’s voice drifted away and he sat back, closed his eyes and sucked on his pipe. His mouth made tiny popping sounds and smoke trailed white into the air.

The relief was palpable, the moment of danger past. Nevertheless, Luis remained upright, anxious not to allow his imaginings to return and so receive another sharp rebuke. So he sat and he waited, whilst the soldier quietly puffed away.

They remained like that for some time, neither speaking nor moving. Luis concentrated on his heartbeat, struggling to keep it steady. He had an urge to run, but he overcame it, grinding his teeth, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the soldier as the man’s lips popped around the stem of the pipe.

The horse shook its head and abruptly, the soldier stood up. He knocked out the old tobacco against the fountain step, then stuffed the pipe back inside the pouch. “A tavern.”

“Excuse me?”

“Is a tavern close by, where I can find refreshment? Stable my horse?”

Looking up at him, Luis marvelled at the man’s size. The buff leather coat strained across wide shoulders, arms thick and strong, legs, like coiled springs of steel, stuffed inside long riding boots. Sheer strength oozed from every pore. Even Fernando, the village blacksmith, couldn’t compare with this man. What stories he must have, what tales to tell of battles fought, cities besieged, all the things he’d seen, the places visited.

 “Have you never seen a soldier before boy?”

Luis shook his head, and for a moment allowed his imagination to wander, pictures of distant castles, endless forests, rivers of silver, adventures invading his mind, sending him far away.

A crack of laughter shattered his imaginings. He gasped and held his breath, waiting for the reprimand. But this time the man did not seem vexed, merely curious. Luis let out a slow sigh of relief. “No, sir, I’ve never seen a soldier. Never.”

“So none have ever passed this way?”

“None.”

“Are you certain?”

Luis nodded. The man seemed satisfied, pulled in a breath and adjusted his belt. “So… tavern?”

“Filipe runs an inn, sir. Up the main road,” Luis stood and pointed towards the hill that ran from the square. “Just after the bridge. You can’t miss it. Or the mayor, he sometimes lets out rooms I believe.”

A moment of tension returned, the man’s shoulders tightening. “Filipe’s will suffice.” He took up the reins and lifted himself into the saddle. The horse stamped at the ground, annoyed to be moving so soon.

Luis patted the horse’s neck. It nuzzled into him and he stroked its soft nose. “You have come a long way.”

The soldier studied Luis intensely. “You’re not just a country bumpkin, boy. I can see that. You are a scholar, then?”

“Yes, sir. I like to think of myself as such.”

“Peasants are ignorant, stupid. Dangerous. But you… you are different. And that, my friend,” he struck the horse’s flanks and began to move away, “makes you even more dangerous. We shall meet again, Luis Sanchez. Farewell… and thank you.”

Luis stood still, contemplating the man’s words. Different… Yes, he was different; he knew that much, the other children of the village reminded him of it every day. But the soldier meant something more, a difference which ‘…makes you even more dangerous.’ Those words, curious, made no kind of sense to Luis at all. How could he, little Luis, be dangerous? If anyone was dangerous, it was he—the soldier. He had an air about him of barely contained fury, as if he struggled constantly to keep it at bay. Violence was his companion, his friend, his constant. And now he was here, in Riodelgado. But why? That was the biggest question of them all.