Bridle the Wind by Joan Aiken Page A

you – and this man has had dealings with smugglers. Are you certain that he is reliable?’
    Juan gave me a haughty look.
    â€˜If I say he is honest, you have no need to question it!’
    â€˜Very well,’ I replied, but inwardly resolved to ask Father Antoine if he could provide me with a map of the mountains, in case there proved to be any difficulty about Juan’s plan. Old Pierre might, after all, have died, or moved away.
    Then I told Juan about the three petitioners who had come to the Abbey – the midget, the tall white-headed man, and the cripple with terrible sores. Immediately all his confidence left him. He turned white as whey and began to shake.
    â€˜Oh, mon Dieul
They are the ones – the three leaders of the troop! They are after me already, then! The midget is Gueule, the big one Cocher, and the cripple Plumet. Of course he is not really crippled. His sores are made with mustard and saffron and spearwort and ratsbane. And he pricks his nostrils to make them bleed, and chews a bit of soap to simulate foaming at the mouth. Butwhat shall I do, where can I hide, if they are seeking for me here?’
    â€˜They do not yet know for sure that you are here,’ I said, and explained about Alaric’s denial. ‘He believed what he said, so that may throw them off the scent.’
    â€˜Oh, they are certain to catch me in the end!’ Juan buried his face in his hands, apparently giving way to complete despair. ‘While I was with them I told them that tale that I was a
benedictus,
a kind of warlock, that if they did me any harm I could put a curse on them. And they half believed it, they were a little afraid of me. They are French, you see, they are not Eskualdunak.’
    â€˜Eskualdunak?’
    â€˜Basque,’ he said impatiently. ‘But now, you see, they will know that my story was not true; for they hanged me, and no harm has come to them.’
    â€˜Still, you did not die,’ I pointed out. ‘So they may believe that is due to your magic powers.’ And there may be more truth in that than you know of, I thought but did not say.
    Juan’s face brightened at my words. His spirits seemed very elastic – they soared or fell at a trifle.
    â€˜I used to say a little poem in Euskar – in the Basque language,’ he boasted. ‘I told them it was a witch poem made up by my great-great grandmother. She was a real witch, Marie Dindart, she was burned in the great witch-burning at Sare, two hundred years ago.’
    â€˜Your great-great grandmother?’
    â€˜Well, perhaps great-great-great.’ He dismissedthat as of no importance. ‘She was my ancestress. At all events the troop hated the poem. They used to cross themselves when I said it and huddle at the other end of the cave.’
    â€˜How does it go?’
    â€˜Enune desiratzen
Bizitze hoberic
Mundian ez ahalda
Ni bezain iruric’
    â€˜What does that mean?’
    â€˜Oh, it is nothing – a shepherds’ song. “I ask for nothing/Better in life/I don’t suppose in the whole world/There’s a happier man than I.” But I used to recite it in
such
a way – squinting my eyes together over my nose, and turning up the corners of my mouth to make two great dimples’ – he demonstrated, looking very wild, placing his thumbs in his cheeks and waving his fingers – ‘that it really terrified them.’
    I began to see that there was more in Juan than just a scrawny, frightened boy.
    After Sext I managed to slip to the side of Father Antoine and asked if, anywhere in the Abbey, there might be a map of this region, and the mountains to the south. He looked at me thoughtfully, then gave a slight nod.
    I told him, too, about the three beggars, and Juan’s fear of them.
    â€˜They said they intended to come back today, sothat the cripple might be healed. What can I do? Suppose they ask Father Vespasian about Juan? Suppose they say he