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wake up Don Ramiro and send him to you.Wait here until he
comes.Then do as he says. He will take you somewhere safe.
Without waiting for my answer, she walked to the door and
left. Exhausted, I collapsed on one of Mother s reclining chairs,
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200 CARMEN FERREIRO-ESTEBAN
and trying not to think of her wrath when she found the stains
on its beloved red velvet, I closed my eyes.The next moment,
Tío was shaking my shoulders.  Come on, Andrea.You have to
get up.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I stumbled after him, out
of the room and down the silent corridors, until we reached the
last door at the end of the hall.Wide awake now, I stared at the
closed room  the mystery room I used to call it when I was a
child  the only one in the entire castle that had resisted my
attempts to break in. I waited, trembling in anticipation at the
marvels soon to be unraveled before my eyes, while Tío fidget-
ed with the key. Finally with a heavy crack, the door opened.
Once more the reality didn t measure up to my dreams.
The room was just a plain-looking room with bare walls and a
bed, a table and chair, and a cedar trunk as its only furniture.
An iron pot was hanging above the fire burning on the hearth.
 Who needs a fire in the middle of the summer? I won-
dered aloud.
 We need it to boil water, Tío said sharply.Then he opened
the low door that opened into the servant s room, and pointing
to a frock that was lying on the bed the plain brown type worn
by maids he told me to go in there and change.
When I returned,Tío was pushing the bed toward the win-
dow.Without bothering to ask him why, as I did not want to risk
getting another of his enigmatic answers, I helped him in silence.
We had just finished setting the chair against the same wall
when I heard heavy footsteps outside. As the door swung wide
open, Mother s voice filled the room.  Leave him on the bed.
And if you value your life, forget you ever saw him.
I pressed myself flat against the wall, my eyes on the floor so
as not to be recognized. I waited. As the steps got closer, I saw
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TWO MOON PRINCESS 201
boots, soldiers boots, and the trim of Mother s dress covered in
mud.Then I heard the noise of a body being dropped on the bed
and my mother s majestic voice ordering them to leave.
Once the door closed behind the soldiers, I ran to the bed.
Mother was already there, holding Don Julián s wrist.
 Mother, is he . . .? I bent as I spoke, reaching for his other
arm. But before I could touch him,Tío Ramiro pulled me back.
Mother did not seem to notice. Her eyes still on Don
Julián, she let go of his hand and put two fingers to his neck.
For an interminable moment, no one spoke. Finally Mother
looked up.  He s alive, she said to Tío,  but barely so.We must
hurry. Get Princess Andrea to sit by me and bare her left arm.
I jumped back.  Why?
 Because Don Julián needs blood, Mother said matter-of-
factly.  As we don t know his blood type, and since you are O,
you are the perfect choice.
How do you know? I wanted to ask, but Tío Ramiro had
already taken me to the chair and was rolling back the sleeve of
my dress.Then Mother came over. I felt a sharp pain in my arm
and my blood started pouring into the tube hanging between
my arm and Don Julián s. After a while my eyelids felt heavy,
and I drifted to sleep.
When I woke up, my sister Margarida was smiling at me.
 Drink this, she said as she helped me to do so.  It will make
you feel better.
Silhouetted against the window, I saw Mother bending over
the bed. Behind her,Tío Ramiro, standing by the trunk covered
now with a white cloth, was handing her a sharp metal object.
The whole scene had a dream-like quality, and yet it seemed
vaguely familiar. I knew I had seen all this before the table,
the instruments. Of course on the TV, in my uncle s world.
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202 CARMEN FERREIRO-ESTEBAN
 Needle, gauze! Mother was saying and then, just as I slipped
again into sleep, she whispered,  Hold it, Raymond! We are
losing him!
SLOWLY I OPENED MY EYES. I COULD TELL I WAS LYING IN BED, BUT
where the bed was I didn t know. The room was not mine.
Although it was still day, the long shadows crawling on the
wooden floor already announced the sunset.
 How are you, Princess?
I turned toward the voice. By the side of the bed my moth-
er was looking at me, her eyes full of concern, a pale smile on
her strained face.  Mother? I said, and at the sound of my voice,
my memories returned.Wide awake, I sat up and searched the
room for the bed where Don Julián had been. But the bed was
gone. And the window was in the wrong place, too. Of course,
this was the maid s room where I had changed before.
 Don Julián.Where is he?
 Don Julián is in the other room, Princess.And yes, he s all
right. At least he s alive, and that is more than I would have
guessed last night.
I fell back against the pillows and closed my eyes.
 Although the arrow didn t pierce any major organ,
Mother continued,  he had lost a lot of blood. Actually he
needed more blood than you could give, so I had to call
Princess Margarida. I didn t want to bring her into this, but I
had no choice.
I looked up.  Thank you, Mother.
 You are welcome, Princess.As you see, I have kept my word.
Now it is your turn. I will listen to you as promised. But first I
want you to know I have already written a letter to Don Andrés,
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TWO MOON PRINCESS 203
telling him you are safe and that Don Julián is our prisoner. I was
only waiting for you to wake up to send it to him.
 But you cannot do that, Mother. Don Julián is not my pris-
oner. He saved my life. He stepped in front of me to protect me
from the arrows. And then when we fell into the river, I would
have drowned without his help. Don t you see, Mother, that is
why I couldn t let him die.That is why I brought him to you.
Mother stared at me for a long time.  You did the right
thing, she said at last.
It was the first time, ever, that Mother had approved of me.
I felt warm inside, and the pressure of tears built up behind my
eyes. I pushed them back.  But Mother, if you tell Father that
Don Julián is here, I have saved him for nothing. For my debt to
him to be repaid, he must go back to his kingdom as a free man.
Mother frowned.  Princess Andrea, to let Don Julián go
would be a terrible mistake. I don t think you understand how
much he means to his people. Under his command, his men
will die to the last, and the losses to our troops will be on our
conscience. But if Don Julián remains our prisoner, with Don [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]