Waiting to enter Óbidos

Padstowe nodded, still looking up at the swaying branches.

"When we are a safe distance away, and as long as M. Prideaux is not looking."

"If we bring Prideaux out, it might be an idea for you to ride ahead with José, once we have secured him. The less he sees of either of you, the better."

Stephen sat back. He envied Calderón, and his ability to fall asleep anywhere - it was a trait he envied just as much in Jack. This thought, along with his plan to drug Prideaux upon his capture, brought him back to the ampullae in his pocket.

"Might be," he said. "As long as you are certain you will be able to keep him in hand?"

"I intend to drug him once we are beyond the city walls; I will walk, leading the horses." He paused, momentarily struggling, before he reached into his pocket.

"Here." He handed a tiny ampulla to Padstowe, made of glass thin enough to be crushed between the teeth, not meeting his eyes. "There is enough sudden death in there to kill five men of your size. I would never recommend it in life, but..." He couldn't finish the sentence, and looked at the first stars appearing through the canopy.

Padstowe blinked and looked at the tiny capsule in his palm. Well,that put a damper on things.

"You navy fellows don't leave anything to chance, do you?"

Stephen pushed thoughts of Mahon aside - they were the absolute least useful things to think on at this moment - and shook his head, concentrating on the stars. "I do not. Not in this case. Other elements may be, may have to be, but this is one small precaution we can take against the extremity."

Possibly, Padstowe thought as he silently slipped the ampulae into a pocket, but he knew he would never use such a thing, not even if he faced torture.

"I take it, then," he said quietly. "By your offering of release and the curious formation of your fingernails that you have already experienced our friends' hospitality?"

Stephen, looking down at his crippled hands, spoke softly. "It is obvious, then? Yes, I have experienced it. In Mahon, a few years ago. It was..."

He swallowed. "I am a Catholic. Suicide is a mortal sin - the mortal sin, for there can be no hope of Confession before death. There are theologians who have this and that to say on the subject - casuistry, rendered venial by the obvious insanity that must cause self-murder - but the Church is clear on the fate of suicides. And I still carry this. If you do not know torture, then one can say to oneself 'I would never take such a cowardly option', but I have seen cowardice, and I have seen the shapes it can take. I have seen what torture can reduce a man to."

"And yet you survived," Padstowe brought his eyes up to meet the doctor's. "I do not see such a release as cowardice, Esteban, but as a relinquishing of hope."

He sighed.

"It is probably easy for me to say that because I have not experienced the pain, nor the fear that you might be reduced so much as to betray your own comrades - but it is what I believe."

Stephen had thus far avoided Padstowe's gaze; he met it now. "I did. I was brought out of that place by the greatest show of courage I have seen in a human being. And thus it is for the extremity only. The difficulty lies in judging when that is." He looked down again. "Or maybe not. Maybe it is an easy judgment. I do not know. I did not dare to hope in Mahon - I had no hope to relinquish. I had been alone for so long I thought I would die thus - it was anger that kept me alive. Stubbornness, contempt and anger. The thought that someone would risk their life to save mine was the most distant of dreams - it did not seriously occur to me. I hope I am a better friend now than I was then."

Sighing, he said, "Maybe it is bad luck to speak of these things now." He smiled at his words. "And maybe I have spent too much time among sailors."

[OOC: Sorry, Wimbledon. Yay, NADAL!!! Go boy!! ]

[OOC: Is Nadal winning? It's been going on for aaaaages...]

[OOC: He's won! Closest thing ever!]

Padstowe failed to see what sailors had to do with it, but he held his tongue and looked up at the brightening stars visible between the leaves and branches. That was a good enough change of subject.

"I don't know about you, Esteban, but I've always liked being in the open at night," he murmured. "On a clear night, when the moon is full and the air is dry. It's nice to see the stars."

[OOC: Oooh, excellent! House has been split - Mum and I for Nadal, brothers for Federa...]

Stephen was grateful; he felt his chest loosen. "It is, sure. I wish I knew more about them - Jack can read them like a book, or like a map, more likely. I understand nothing, though I would never tell him such a thing; I feel like an illiterate child staring at beautiful calligraphy. I know enough to recognise Hesperus though," he said, pointing.

Padstowe smiled, glad to be off the subject of death and torture.

"Jack?"

Stephen smiled, slightly annoyed at himself for the slip. "Captain Aubrey. My particular friend. He is the very astronomer of the world."

Padstowe's grin broadened. Although he sounded as English as the next man (and the next man happened to be himself) he loved to hear the Irish influences on the doctor's speech - recognising the phrase 'very --- of the world', remembering Hogan using it, wondering if could ever get Sir Arthur to say it, imagining the Peer with an Irish accent and very nearly laughing out loud. He forced his mind away from the concept, pointing up to a patch of sky.

"I do not pretend to be an astronomer, but my favourites have always been the Seven Sisters," he pointed more insistantly. "That tiny cluster, there. They always seem so small, so delicate - so much so that if you were not looking carefully you might miss them."

"Are you laughing at me, João? For shame." Stephen grinned back at Padstowe, and following his finger, peered into the blue. "I cannot see them, I- Oh! I do! I see them, there, just there! Oh, they are so small; I should never have spotted them. I thank you for the sight, sir."

"I always remember when my father first showed them to me - he had bought a telescope and thought he might take up th eastronomy, but it merely proved to be a fad - he talked of them so fondly, as if they were living souls. I remember aso Cassiopia," He pointed to the simple zig-zag. "The tumbling locks of that vain queen,and of Orion the Hunter," He pointed to the unmistakable three stars. He smiled again. "I always thought that maybe one day I could have such fame that they would name a star or a constallation after me. It used to be that one," He pointed to a small shimmering star just to the left of Orion. "I would look at the sky and think that it would be mine."

Here he gave a low chuckle, perhaps slightly embarrassed to recall such childish fantasies.

"Fat chance of that now, I find!"

"I know the myths, to be sure, but I'd never be able to point them out in the sky. I see Orion by his belt, and I know him from Homer and Virgil, and from Job and Amos. And of course the Arabs have all their own names - I know that one of those stars in Orion is called Betelgeuse, for it was in my Arabic grammar, and that means 'The Armpit of the Central One'!" He grinned. "And so is Padstowe to the other side of the belt, there?"

"For want of a better name." The captain gave a half-smile. "I don't think it actually has a name, which was why I chose it. But not all stars have to have a name - most are glorious enough without them."

"They are, sure." Stephen stared up. "They give me hope. Tonight might be Inferno, but there's the hope that we'll say "E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle" by the end of it." He crossed himself.

"Are they becoming brighter, or does the sky grow darker? Or do our eyes merely grow more accustomed to the night?" He paused. "The nightingale has stopped."

Padstowe listened. So it had, but there seemed to be no disturbance other than themselves, nothing new in the clearing. He shrugged.

"Perhaps it is too dark now even for it to sing?"

"Maybe he has found his mate? That is why they sing, at night: unattached males, trying to find a companion. He is the Catullus of the birds - he makes his loneliness known to the world, and the world sighs at the beauty of his verse, poor creature."

Padstowe grunted. To be honest he had been fairly unimpressed by the tuneless twittering.

"Well done him, I'm sure."