An hour later old Pieto and a sour-looking woman, who, by the discourtesy he showed her, was presumably his wife, set out in a covered cart and made their way inland. Again, a little later, two men who had spent an hour with Señor Dasso left and took the same road.
CHAPTER XIV
AT CASA LUZO
Leading out of the town of Corbo, the Alcador road ascends steeply to the Palace Square, where, leaving the royal residence on its left, it winds away over a stretch of desolate brown moorland and cuts its way through the Yeldo Hills at the Quinlon Pass. Once through, the red fluted roofs of Alcador and the yellow belfry of its church lie spread out before one.
And all the way to the hills the road has for its constant companion the blue Ardentella, running first this side and then that. The many bridges where the road crosses the river are quaint old structures, the architecture of which plainly points to their origin being Moorish.
The casual traveller journeying on this road would pass the Casa Luzo without being aware of its existence. At one time the tower showed above the trees, a landmark for miles around, but that was long ago, and, as the stout stonework had crumbled into ruin, so had the forest spread in density, so that there was now little likelihood of the jagged tower that mingled with the tree tops being noted. True, there was a gateway, but there were no gates hanging on its hinges; only two gaunt pillars of stone, their bases hidden in a rank mass of herbage.
Count Ribero, in whose family the castle had been since Alfonso VI reigned over Spain, never visited his ancestral home, the gay young nobleman preferring the little villa on the shore at San Sebastian which had come to him from his mother. Dasso, therefore, by his distant cousin's invitation made free with the place for all purposes without compunction.
At his own expense he had made a few rooms inhabitable, and the hunting parties and carousals which he had held there had been until lately very popular amongst the gilded youth of the San Pietro army.
But of late years Dasso's orgies had been less frequent. Political ambitions had taken up the time of that enterprising gentleman, and the rooms were beginning to show the effects of non-usage. Large patches of damp were making their appearance on walls and ceilings, and the somewhat gaudy hangings and furniture were fast becoming the happy hunting ground of moth.