Tapestry of Fear by Margaret Pemberton Page A

fascination we stared at the drama being played out below us.
    The cars were all there now, and dark figures were racing into the house and across the courtyard to the stables. It was difficult to see clearly as the sun was in our eyes, but I saw them seize the stable boy, saw him struck once, twice across the face. I forced my eyes away, desperately searching for Romero’s familiar figure. The shouts of the men echoed and re-echoed, alien sounds amongst the peaceful serenity of the trees.
    The shutters were slammed wide open, and two figures in skirts fled down the steps clinging in frightened hysteria to the bronze rim of the fountain, then running to the gates and the road beyond.
    Only once did I steal a glance at Jose. And in the vicious set of the lips, in the knotted muscles of face and neck, the raging eyes, the white knuckles clenching into fists of iron, I saw his suffering and I could not look again.
    Then, heart in my mouth, I saw Romero. He was struggling with a darkened figure at the top of the flight of steps that led to Lindaraja’s pillared entrance, then in the next minute he was sent sprawling, rolling down the ochre steps by the kick of the man behind him. Mesmerised, like the eyes of a cornered animal, I stared as he staggered to his feet from the dry clouds of sandy dust, only to be pushed viciously in the back, sent reeling against the fountain, the myriad droplets of jewelled spray raining down on his head and neck. He leant double, gasping with pain, struggling for breath. The sun glared, and with shielded eyes I saw the rifle butt raised, gleaming unmistakably. I bit my knuckles deep, not daring to flicker so much as an eyelash. The menacing figure was too slow, with all the strength he possessed Romero knocked the rifle from his hands, heaving the man bodily over his shoulder, plunging him face down into the ripples of the playing water. His victory was brief, seconds later he was the centre of a mob and Jose drew his breath in sharply, digging his heels into his horse, wheeling him round, plunging back down the hillside towards Lindaraja, shouting: “ For Christ’s sake! It isn’t the police! It’s Garmendia and Cia!”

Chapter Twelve
    It took Javier only a second to react, then he, too, was slapping the rump of his horse, disappearing amidst a clatter of stones and rustling leaves, charging down the mountainside after Jose, his horse’s mane flying in the wind.
    Seconds later, paintings, pottery, statuettes, anything they could lay their hands on came flying through Lindaraja’s opened windows, crashing in ruins at Romero’s feet as he knelt in the dust, forced there by the two men holding him, his arms held cruelly high. The treasures of generation after generation were smashed against walls, destruction for destruction’s sake ran wild and I was glad that I could not see the anguish on Romero’s face as he struggled helplessly, forced to witness the violation of his home.
    â€œOh my God,” I whispered to Roque, in new, increasing terror. “Look!”
    A grotesque figure, a blazing torch held high in his hand, raced across the courtyard, only inches from where Romero still struggled. Like some damned Olympic runner with the eternal flame he brandished it high, before plunging it obscenely into the heart of Lindaraja.
    A faint flicker of gold licked tentatively round the edge of a smashed window, then spluttered into crimson life, sucking in oxygen, bursting out into a roar of flying flame. It licked voraciously along the window-frame, sparks flying like fire-flies, igniting the slashed velvet curtains of the next window, flaming into sheets of fire as it fed on the splintered contents of the room, blazing now from several windows, white-hot tongues scorching skywards.
    Romero, still held, was dragged back to the high bronze gates as the heat seared their faces, as the interior of delicately carved wood and ornate draperies ignited like a