EXIT SERAPHIM AND SATAN'S MEN
Rated: T
Disclaimer: Queen of Swords is property of Paramount and Fireworks.
Notes: Title from Sylvia Plath's "Mad Girl's Love Song". Bouchard was real. Marisa is one of the donas ["The Hanged Man"] and Pira is Enrique's wife ["Fever"]; Belen is the name I've given Enrique's daughter. Story written as short framed segments, like bulletins or war correspondence.
PART ONE
Padre Quintero is dead.
There is no service. There isn't time. There are the three beats between the moment she puts her two fingers to his still-warm wrist and the moment Bouchard's cannon sends the church bells toppling to the ground in cosmically symbolic cacophony. Three beats, in which she drops to her knees, whispers in paradisum deducant te Angeli and weeps for the small, sweet man who died as he did everything else: when no one was looking.
And then she runs, like everyone else, for her life.
Pira falls, quickly, dropping to the ground so suddenly that for a clenched, nauseous moment Tessa thinks bullet, oh no not a bullet until the woman's feet scrabble against the well and Belen, beautiful big-eyed Belen, catches up to her mother and tugs her up, only to fall herself.
It wasn't a bullet, but it will be very soon, so Tessa veers from the straight course [church to garrison, church to garrison, garrison is safety and guns, garrison] and hoists the little girl into her arms, pushes Pira and screams for her to run faster, and Belen whimpers but holds tight during the whole sprint to the immense wooden doors that no sword can cut through.
Inside, she drops against a wall with Belen still clinging to her side, and a corporal hands her a water skin. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't measure the water against the mask. She makes Belen drink first, and when the child is sated she starts to guzzle.
"Puerto de Papa," Belen whispers, and Tessa chokes.
The men are all loading muskets and selecting swords, and though Marta's eyes forbid it across mountains of cotton gauze and linen wraps, she can't exactly say anything. So Tessa joins them, finds herself instinctively appalled by the state of the musket she picks up—-the stock isn't even properly aligned—-and realizes that her survival has had very little to do with her superior skill or charmed life state, and more to do with the inability of the Spanish court to get its act in gear.
The corporal who gave her water nods at her and tosses a twist of powder, but it's snatched out of the air by Montoya. The boy steps back, but he doesn't shrink, and she finds herself inordinately fond of him for that moment. Montoya is glaring at her, and starts to open his mouth when Grisham steps up, slaps another powder twist into her still-waiting hand and moves along the row with sabers.
She can't help but smirk, even around the scrap of paper between her teeth, and gives the ramrod a bit of a twirl before packing the powder down. Montoya stalks away to his brand new pistols.
Vera—-of light—-is taking a roll of sorts, and it's a new facet to the blonde, the sharpness and familiarity with which she speaks to everyone, even Marisa. They way they all respond with genuine respect and deference, even now, says something equally new about her people.
Too bad she can't focus on all the fuzzies that could give her because of the sheer enormity of the fact that she herself will be missing, and all sorts of bad things will occur from that. Marta catches on with one look, one helpless look that feels like being fifteen, and catches Vera's elbow. A murmur, quick lies, and Vera nods, moves right along.
It's the fear, there, in the moment that Vera takes whatever story Marta's concocted without a second thought. Accounted for, that's all that matters, all they have.
She stands in a row with the men, waiting as Grisham sends them to their posts. He glances at the uniforms before barking out a position, gives each serape a steady gaze before naming the soldier they're to follow and actually ponders each waistcoat before pointing the way. Behind him, Montoya instructs the boys-—children her mind screams children at the slaughter—-on reloading priority. Soldiers first, always. Then the dons. He says nothing about the campesinos. The boys know how their fathers shoot. She trusts them to put family first.
"If you fail to kill on two shots, stop shooting. Save the ammo for the men who know what they're doing. Load guns for those men, if you can't shoot." Grisham pivots on his toes. She's starting to see a reason for military procedure—empty props for those moments when you know you're going to die. "Do not fall off the banquette. If you fall, I will shoot you. Out of mercy. Or maybe for your stupidity."
"Padre! Padre Quintero!" Vera's call is insistent and so confident that she'll get a reply that it hurts Tessa to open her mouth.
"He's dead." It's a croak. She hasn't used her voice properly all day—whispers or screams, nothing in between—so she has to say it again. "He's dead."
Vera blinks at her. Belen whimpers in Pira's arms and little Hernan pulls his hat off, twists it between his powder-stained hands. She can't look, so she drops her eyes to the ground, moves toward the ladder. "Let's go," she mumbles at Grisham, and pulls a second musket over her shoulder.
The view from the banquette is stunning. Stunning, as in has rendered her unable to comprehend anything.
Her town is gone.
The hotel is a shell, collapsed in on itself and down into the main plaza. Through the aching gaps in the adobe, she can see that Montoya's pink stucco palace is also in ruins. She thinks she smells burning roses but her body lies to her, on occasion.
The church bells lie on their side in ginger-colored dust. She's glad the padre is dead. He'd been so angry when he found out she'd stood on the altar and "gallivanted" on the bell rope—
Her throat seizes. Grisham just glances at her and hands her a handkerchief. "Always a lot of dust with cannon fire. Breathe through that." He pulls a blue kerchief up from underneath his tunic, settles it over his nose and resettles his musket.
Small mercies. "In paradisum," she repeats uselessly, and settles in to wait.