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Elena nodded as she looked around. “I have never seen so many people all in one place.”

“Just remember they are all too busy doing their own thing to be worried about us.” It was a lie, but he wanted her to relax a little. She had been on edge since the town had come into view.

When they entered, he swept the room with his eyes, recognizing some familiar faces. Thankfully, none of them looked like his French torturers. He made his way to the bar area, and a burly-looking man looked up and met his eye. He nodded, and Thomas strolled to the far corner, Elena close behind him. The burly man soon joined him and nodded towards Elena, who nodded back.

Usually, he could sense if something wasn’t right, but Carlos seemed neither surprised nor concerned by Thomas’s arrival.

“You’re alive,” he said without inflection. “I heard you were taken by the French, but I didn’t believe it.”

Thomas would have questioned how he knew this, but Carlos was well connected, and it would have concerned him more if he hadn’t known. “I was, but as you can see, I am very much alive.”

“Good to see,” he said, placing a beefy hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “I saw some of your friends pass by a few days ago. Are you going as far as Cadiz?”

“Maybe. I have some other issues to take care of first.”

“Can I get you and your lady a room?”

“Yes. And a bath too, if you could.”

“I’ll let the girls know. You know the room. The key is in the lock.”

“Thank you, my friend,” he said. “I’ll come down later so we can talk.”

The man nodded again and passed him a bottle of wine. “I’ll bring up some food in about an hour or so.”

“I’m indebted to you, Carlos.”

“I’m just happy to see you whole and with a pretty young companion,” he said with a wink in Elena’s direction, then turned back to his other patrons.

Elena tugged on his sleeve as they ascended the stairs. “Can we trust him?”

“I will know more later but it will be safe enough for now.”

Elena followed him into a hallway, where he stopped at a room at the end of the corridor. He opened the door and flung the sack he had been hauling onto the floor. He put down the bottle of wine and then relieved Elena of her bundle.

Elena looked at the bed like it was a dream, and he realized that she had not slept in a bed for many months, just like him. He swung her up into his arms and carried her over to the bed and dumped her down upon the counterpane. She laughed when he came to lie beside her.

“Are they really going to bring up a bath?”

“Yes. They have a big copper tub, and they bring up buckets of hot water and lavender soap. You can soak in there as long as you want. After, when you have eaten your fill, we can make love in this bed and sleep in until noon tomorrow if we want.”

She touched the soft fabric beneath her. “It all feels unreal. Yesterday we were trying to save our donkey on a dusty road and today we are in the biggest town I have ever been in. Did you see how many people were in the square?”

“If I had my way, you would have this kind of treatment always. Perhaps in La Barossa we can find you a nice place to stay until you find something of your own.”

The mention of her mother’s village made her smile fade. “We do not have the pesos for such luxury. How are we to pay Carlos? And what if I do not want to stay in La Barossa?”

He tapped her on the nose. “Then we can find you somewhere in Cadiz. I am sure you will find many patients there who will need your services.”

Just then, there was a knock, causing them both to sit up sharply, like children caught with their hands in the larder. Thomas opened the door, and two young men hauled in the copper tub and placed it in front of the unlit fire. Two girls followed with two steaming buckets of water to splash into the tub. They left but came back a few minutes later with more water.

“Would you want any clothes laundered, señora?”

“Yes,” Thomas answered for her. “We will leave them outside the door. Thank you, girls.” They both gave a bob and left the room.

“I can clean my own clothes, Tomas.”

“I know you can, but you do not have the means to do it at the moment. Let them help you. When we leave, we will need clean clothes.”