Free To the Edge of the World by Michele Torrey Page A

try his patience.”
    I sat to pull on my shoes, meanwhile watching the other marine out of the corner of my eye. From the moment they had found me, the crow-faced marine had not stopped staring at Aysó. Aysó seemed to sense his gaze, for she hung back now, her eyes saucers of fright, confused. Beside me on the ground, partially concealed with leaves, lay my dagger. Making no sudden moves, I grasped the hilt, shielding the blade under my arm. “I’m ready. Let us go.” I stood and casually fetched my guitar, turning from Aysó as if she were only a thing to be forgotten, my heart crashing against my ribs for fear.
    Then it happened. What I had been dreading.
    “Take him back to the ship, Segrado,” said Crow-Face. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
    Pock-Face, or Segrado, as he was called, loosened his grip from my arm, and I sensed his hesitation. That was my moment.
    I dropped my guitar, whirled, dagger in hand, and attacked Crow-Face. “Run, Aysó!” I screamed as my dagger bit flesh.
    The marine cursed. Surprise splashed across his face.
    “Run, Aysó!” With one look at me, panicked and terrified, Aysó turned and disappeared into the jungle. I heard nothing of her escape. I knew only that she was gone.
    An arm locked about my neck from behind. “Drop the dagger, Dog-Boy!”
    When I did not, the arm tightened. A veil of blackness began to fall over my eyes, and the dagger slipped from my hand. Run, Aysó, I thought. Keep running and don’t stop.
    A fist slammed into my gut.
    Again, and again . . .
    I stood facing Espinosa.
    His ice-blue eyes studied me.
    Just a few paces away, Magallanes gazed out the stern windows, his hands clasped behind his back. I saw the tightness of his jaw, heard the deepness of his breath.
    Motionless and suffocating, the captain-general’s cabin was as feverish as Spain on a windless summer’s day. Sweat soaked my shirt, clinging to my bruises, my aching ribs. My bloodstained hands were shackled behind me, and on each side of me stood the two marines. My accusers.
    Failure to return to the ship when ordered, they said. Resisting arrest. Attacking a marine with a deadly weapon. A flesh wound only, but one blade’s width to the left, and Minchaca would be dead. I was a boy gone wild, they said, uncontrollable.
    When the accusations dwindled under the punishing silence, Magallanes turned. His dark eyes gazed at me, his brow furrowed. And although his eyelids drooped and the flesh beneath his eyes sagged, his stare pierced me like an arrow. For you, Aysó, I thought, my heart fluttering even now with the memory of her.
    Under their scrutiny—Espinosa’s and Magallanes’s—I lowered my head. Shame covered me like a heated shadow, even though I had done nothing for which to be ashamed.
    “Well?” asked Magallanes finally, waiting for me to answer.
    I said nothing. Fearing to speak, fearing not to speak. From outside I heard the cry of a parrot. A dog barking. Laughter.
    Then Espinosa said, “Leave us.”
    I looked up, surprised.
Leave us?
    “Segrado, Minchaca, both of you, leave us. Wait outside the door. The captain-general and I wish to speak to the boy alone.”
    I sensed their reluctance. But, like well-trained soldiers, they obeyed the master-at-arms, latching the door behind them.
    Now I was alone with Magallanes and Espinosa. And even though I again looked at nothing but the boards in the floor, sanded and polished, I knew they regarded me. That they wondered what to do with me. That for the second time I faced the captain-general accused of a crime. That for the second time I shamed him. That he still believed me a liar and a spy. Perhaps Espinosa was regretting the day he’d stopped at the inn. That he’d shared his rabbit stew with me. . . .
    “Well?” Magallanes asked again.
    I sighed, miserable. “I had no choice,” I finally mumbled.
    “I can’t hear you. Speak up.”
    “I had no choice.”
    “Every man has a choice, Mateo.”
    “Not me.”
    “I see.