Page 49 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Chap­ter 13

Gabriel smacked his open palm against the gui­tar with a snarl. “Joder!”

“I guess it’s harder than it looks.” Raul’s voice came from the door­way.

Gabriel glanced up to see his cousin lean­ing against the door­jamb with his arms crossed over his chest. “A five-year-old could play a pi­cado faster than I do. And my ras­gueo…pa­thetic.”

All that was tech­nique…which was im­por­tant. How­ever, his dis­par­age­ment of his skills was mostly a way to avoid the big ques­tion about whether he could com­pen­sate for his less per­cep­tive hear­ing.

Raul straight­ened and saun­tered into the tower room. “As though I have a clue what you’re talk­ing about.” He sat on a me­dieval Span­ish chair with a green vel­vet cush­ion. “You haven’t played in al­most two years. Give your­self some time.”

Gabriel ripped a dis­cor­dant sound from the strings be­fore he draped his arms over the gui­tar. “I don’t have time. Marisela Alejo will be in New York in a cou­ple of weeks.”

“Catch up with her some­where other than New York.” Raul leaned for­ward. “Her­mano, your fin­gers are bleed­ing.”

Gabriel ro­tated his wrist to glance at the bloody fin­ger­tips of his left hand and shrugged. “I lost my cal­luses. They’ll come back.”

“You’re in­sane. No, you’re pos­sessed.” Raul set­tled back in the chair. “Can’t you just ease into prac­tic­ing? Let your cal­luses build up with­out slic­ing open your skin? Isn’t play­ing the gui­tar sup­posed to bring you joy, not pain?”

“In fla­menco, as in life, joy and pain are in­sep­a­ra­ble.” Gabriel flexed his fin­gers wide. In truth, he was shocked at how weak and slow his hands had be­come. He had ex­pected to pick up his gui­tar like he would get back on a bi­cy­cle. Some­how he’d for­got­ten the years of fin­ger-strength­en­ing ex­er­cises, the end­less bor­ing drills of pi­cado, ras­gueo, alza­púa, and arpeg­gios, the slice of the strings through his fin­ger pads, even af­ter the cal­luses had built up.

“I felt some­thing when I looked into Ko­dra’s eyes,” he said. “It’s ugly and vi­o­lent, but I want to put it into the mu­sic be­fore I lose it.”

Anger flashed across Raul’s face, but Gabriel knew it wasn’t di­rected at him. His cousin stood. “I think you should take a break. I’ll be back.”

Gabriel waited un­til Raul strode out the door be­fore he pulled out his phone and swiped on the metronome app. He set the phone to tick­ing and pressed his left-hand fin­gers on the frets of the gui­tar. He took a deep breath and be­gan with the pi­cado drill, two fin­gers pluck­ing up the strings and back down, first with the metronome’s tick, then dou­bling it, then qua­dru­pling it.

“Break time!” Raul held up two foils in one hand and two fenc­ing masks in the other.

“Cabrón!” Gabriel swore as he missed the next note.

“Hey!” Raul grinned. “It’s the per­fect way to take out all your frus­tra­tion. What bet­ter tar­get for it than me?”

Gabriel grinned back, mostly be­cause he hadn’t seen Raul in a play­ful mood for a long time. Maybe his cousin needed this break as much as he claimed Gabriel did.

He laid the gui­tar in its open case on the floor be­fore he un­folded his legs from their crossed po­si­tion to stand. Even his thigh mus­cles com­plained about the un­ac­cus­tomed po­si­tion.

Raul tossed him a foil, which Gabriel caught by its grip be­fore he whipped the blade through the air, test­ing its weight and speed.

His cousin handed him the mask. “Fif­teen touches wins.” He looked down at the smooth-soled loafers he wore. “Mierda!” he swore be­fore he toed off the shoes. “We will fight bare­foot.”

Gabriel sat to re­move his sneak­ers and socks. The worn stone floor was cold, but there was some­thing prim­i­tive and sat­is­fy­ing about feel­ing solid rock un­der his bare skin. He flexed his toes against it.

“Honor sys­tem, of course.” Gabriel fit­ted the mask over his head. He and Raul touched foils with a quick rasp of metal on metal and backed up a cou­ple of yards each. Gabriel dropped into the clas­sic bent-knee crouch. “En garde! Fence!”

As Gabriel had ex­pected, Raul ad­vanced im­me­di­ately with an ag­gres­sive at­tack. Gabriel re­treated with­out be­ing touched, and the bat­tle con­tin­ued.

Sweat dripped into his eyes, burn­ing and blur­ring his vi­sion. He shook his head to clear it, and Raul lunged, jab­bing the but­ton-tipped foil into Gabriel’s ribs. “Touché! One point to you,” Gabriel ac­knowl­edged, rub­bing the sore spot be­fore they set­tled back into their en garde po­si­tions.

They be­gan again. Now Gabriel had his fo­cus on the bout, and he hit Raul on the shoul­der.

Around and around the room they ma­neu­vered, like the old days when their fenc­ing mas­ter had de­parted, and they’d been free to ig­nore the con­straints of the rules and just have at each other. Ad­vance, re­treat, feint, lunge, parry. If oc­ca­sion­ally there was an il­le­gal hit or slash, no ref­eree was there to call a halt.

All he could hear was the slap of bare feet on stone, the gasp of their la­bored breath­ing, and the metal­lic clank when foil met foil in a parry or bind. All he could see was the light­ning flash of Raul’s foil, the shifts in his cousin’s stance, and the faint out­line of his face be­hind the mask.

The score ran al­most even un­til Raul scored three points in a row against him. Gabriel swore even though he could ill af­ford to waste the breath. Then he imag­ined Elio Ko­dra’s face be­hind Raul’s mask, as it had been dur­ing the fif­teen days he’d been held cap­tive in the tent. An elec­tric cur­rent of rage ran through his mus­cles, burn­ing away the fa­tigue while his fo­cus nar­rowed and sharp­ened.

“En garde! Fence!” he snarled as he crouched and then ex­ploded into mo­tion.

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