Page 17 of Under a Spanish Sky

The hotel they found in Jaca turned out to be splendid.

Luke and Amy were greeted warmly by a lady who was probably the owner and were accompanied to what looked like a newly refurbished suite of two bedrooms, each with immaculate marble-clad bathrooms. There was a shared dayroom, looking out onto a snowy terrace.

On top of this, the price was little more than the cost of a single room in Paris.

As he had done at each hotel since setting off from England, he led Amy into her room and gave her a brief tour, talking her through the facilities, particularly the bathroom.

The sensation of disquiet at being with her in these intimate surroundings had diminished, but not disappeared, over the days they had been travelling together. He took a look at his watch.

‘Great. It’s almost eight, so we should get something to eat before too long.’

‘Give me ten minutes to change. I feel decidedly crumpled.’

He looked at her surreptitiously and failed to see even the slightest hint of crumpling, but decided to let her be the judge of that.

‘Okay. I’ll wait for you in the bar downstairs if you feel happy about meeting me there.

Just down one flight of steps and the first door on the left before you reach the reception desk. I could?—’

‘Murder a beer.’ She laughed. ‘Go and have your beer and I’ll be down shortly.’

He threw his bag onto his bed in the next room, reminded her that the key to the apartment was in the door and made his way downstairs.

The hotel had obviously had a serious makeover in the last few months and the bar downstairs was a comfortable cocktail bar.

He settled down in a corner seat and ordered a large beer.

The barman took him at his word and brought a hefty half-litre mug full of light yellow beer, tears of condensation running down the outside.

He took a long draught of beer and stretched his legs.

It had been a long day. He thought back to the snowy wilderness they had crossed.

With the Range Rover they at least had been able to get over the pass in comfort.

It was sobering to think that millions upon millions of pilgrims had passed that very same way on foot over the last thousand years.

The numbers involved were truly awesome.

A multitude of people, rich and poor, all heading for Compostela and so many of them seeking the one single most important prize, the remission of sins.

As he drained the glass, he reflected that pilgrims had probably been draining glasses in this very same spot for centuries.

‘Una mas.’ He caught the barman’s eye and watched as another glass was poured and brought over.

He sipped it appreciatively and looked around the bar.

Most of the other clients appeared to be locals, men and women, with a thin scattering of foreign visitors.

His thoughts returned, as they did so often, to Amy.

Of course it was inevitable that two people, thrown together in close proximity for more than a fortnight, would either grow closer together or begin to get on each other’s nerves.

There was no doubt that he was drawing closer and closer to her and his sense of impropriety resurfaced.

He had been employed to act as her guide, not to take advantage of her vulnerability.

‘Are you still on the first one?’

He looked up with a start and saw Amy’s face smiling down at him, the proprietor at her shoulder. Luke reached up and took her hand, guiding her onto the bench seat beside him.

The waiter came over and asked what she wanted. ‘A glass of Cava, please.’ Luke was about to translate when the barman nodded and wandered off. ‘So how many beers have you had?’

‘I must confess I’ve already had one beer, but I reckon that drive merits a bit of relaxation. By the way, there’s a little bowl of peanuts right in front of your left hand.’ He watched her reach out and take a few. He followed suit, then washed them down with some more of the beer.

At that moment the glass of sparkling wine appeared and he pushed it across the table until it rested gently against her hand.

She took a sip and licked her lips appreciatively.

He did his best not to concentrate on her lips.

He took a mouthful of beer and let his eyes rest on her for a moment.

The linen shirt looked expensive and almost certainly was.

Her hair was newly combed and pinned up rather than tied back, which gave her an air of added sophistication.

Her face bore no trace of make-up, but didn’t need it.

The shirt was just tight enough across her body to reveal the swell of her breasts and he looked away hastily.

‘So who or what was he looking for at Santa Cristina? It can’t have been anything too heavy as he would have had to carry it. So no cartloads of treasure or anything like that.’

Luke jumped guiltily at the sound of her voice and returned his attention to their story.

For a moment he felt like reminding her that this was after all just their invention.

There was no logical reason why there should be an explanation.

But the idea passed as he saw the concentration on her face.

Of course this was heightening the experience for her.

Unable to see the mountains, abbeys, villages and countryside, she needed some extra stimulus.

He tried to think it through, just as if they were dealing with a real event.

Why not? he thought to himself. Who’s to say it isn’t?

He tried a few suggestions.

‘So not treasure, then?’

He watched her face. An expression of annoyance crossed it and she snorted. He tried again.

‘Revenge?’

There was a pause as she thought about it.

‘Not this man. Anyway, if it’s revenge he’s seeking, then surely he’d do better to stay in France.

Don’t forget, most of the Spanish and Portuguese didn’t believe for one moment all the lies that the King of France was putting about.

The baddies are back in France, not over here. No, not revenge.’

‘Friendship? Loyalty? Love?’

‘All of those, but something more. He had a very special mission to accomplish, I’m sure of that.’ Her brows were knitted in concentration. ‘I know. Maybe the girl he’s travelling with can help him. After all, why take her with him otherwise? She would only slow him up.’

‘Maybe he liked her. Maybe more.’ His old familiar anxiety as to where the conversation might be leading returned, but she went on in a very matter-of-fact way.

‘Oh, I’m sure he did like her, maybe even love her, but as a Templar he would have taken an oath of celibacy.

So they weren’t lovers for sure.’ There was an awkward silence, which she finally broke.

‘Just because he’s a man and she’s a woman doesn’t automatically mean there’s a physical bond between them.

They’re probably just friends.’ The tone of her voice had changed now and both of them heard it.

She stopped, unwilling to go any further with the conversation, and Luke decided it would be a very good idea to change the subject.

‘I suggest we head for a restaurant. I could eat a horse.’ He drained the last of the beer and stood up, gesturing to the waiter that they wanted to pay.

* * *

Luke was awakened by urgent knocking at his bedroom door. He pulled himself up onto one elbow as the handle turned and Amy came rushing in. She was wearing a pair of stripy men’s pyjamas, and her hair hung tousled on her shoulders. Her expression was one of considerable excitement.

‘Where’s the fire?’ He watched with amusement as she made straight for the window and felt for the cord to open the roller blind.

She pulled it as hard as she could and light flooded into the room.

He was still squinting in the sudden brightness when she threw the window open and leant out perilously.

‘Hey, no suicide attempts before breakfast.’

He would have run to grab her, but for the sudden realisation that he was naked beneath the blankets.

This fact unsettled him more than her apparently lemming-like behaviour.

Then she was running back towards him, one arm held out.

She bumped into the side of the bed and fell onto him, the outstretched arm catching him across his bare chest. He gave a very un-macho squeal as he realised the outstretched arm was covered in thick, fluffy and extremely cold snowflakes.

She gave a guffaw of laughter and rolled off him, a broad smile on her face.

‘Not bad for a blind girl who couldn’t get her window to open, eh?’ She was definitely very proud of herself. ‘Go on, then, ask me how I knew it was snowing.’ She was kneeling on the floor with her elbows on the bed beside him. ‘Go on, ask.’

‘How did you know it was snowing, Amy?’ He affected an obedient tone.

‘I heard it.’ She really was very pleased with herself.

‘Or rather I didn’t hear it. I mean that I didn’t hear any of the normal morning noises you’d expect in a town this size.

They were strangely muffled and the only thing that could have muffled them at this time of the morning was a thick snowfall.

And it must be really thick. I haven’t heard a single car, not even a snowplough.

For a Monday morning that’s really unusual, isn’t it?

’ She looked up, disconcertingly straight into his eyes.

He felt the same sense of unease that he always felt when the glacier eyes looked through him.