The Devils of Cardona (15 page)

“And why would he want to do that?”

“Mercader believes that the lords of Aragon are allowing the Moriscos to worship as Moors,” the countess replied calmly. “He wants someone to punish in order to set an example. A widow is a convenient target.”

“And are you? Allowing your vassals to live as Moors?”

“These accusations have no foundation,” said Father García. “The counts of Cardona are buried in the pantheon at the San Juan de la Peña
Monastery, and the countess will be, too. Anyone who knows her knows what an exemplary Christian she is. There isn't a church or a convent in the whole
señorio
that hasn't received a donation from her. She has made contributions to two new religious orders since her husband's untimely death.”

“Is the Inquisition not aware of this?” Mendoza asked.

“The Holy Office sometimes sees what suits its purposes,” the countess replied. “There are those who believe that the Moriscos must be dragged to the faith and made to drink it rather than be allowed to acquire a taste for it. I choose to guide my Moriscos toward our Lord Jesus Christ with Christian kindness instead of herding them like cattle. That approach is not popular in certain circles.”

“Well, your vassals certainly appreciate it,” Mendoza said. “They have a very high opinion of you.”

The countess looked pleased. “Not all my vassals are Moriscos, Licenciado, and if they respect me, it's because I respect them. Is that not so, Don Lucas?”

“Indeed it is, Countess,” the old magistrate agreed. “The vassals of Cardona know that Her Excellency treats them kindly and will not allow her courts to punish them unnecessarily.”

“Go to Vallcarca and you'll see the difference,” the countess went on. “The baron treats his vassals like dogs. My husband and I always believed that we have duties and responsibilities toward our vassals, just as they do toward us. And we have a special duty to guide the Moriscos toward salvation. The Church also believes this, yet it sends a priest like Panalles to preach the faith—a man devoid of goodness or virtue. That is why we have this Redeemer—whoever he is.”

“There are those who say he comes from Belamar,” Mendoza said.

“Commissioner Mercader will always see what he wishes to see,” the countess replied. “Especially in Belamar. He is convinced that the entire population are heretics.”

“And is it your opinion that the Moriscos of Belamar are good and faithful Christians, my lady?”

“No more or less than many Old Christians, Don Bernardo. Some of them come every week to our church in Cardona. Others
want
to be good Christians, but they don't know how to be, because no one tells them what the Church expects from them. They don't know our prayers, the names of feast days or the meaning of the sacraments. Yet men like Panalles punish them for their ignorance. But what I would like to know, Licenciado, is why the king has sent you to Belamar.”

“I came here to solve the priest's murder, and now I have to solve four.”

“And do you have any idea who might be responsible for these outrages?”

“At present my information suggests that they may be the work of a Morisco avenger.”

“Well, I assure you that this Redeemer does not come from Belamar or even from Cardona.”

“May I ask what makes you so certain?”

“I know my Moriscos, Licenciado. And I know the Moriscos of Belamar particularly well. They are not killers.”

“In any case I would very much appreciate your assurance that I can continue my investigations unimpeded.”

“Of course. We are also anxious to solve these terrible crimes and the many others that have disturbed the peace in recent years. My late husband was killed by bandits, Don Bernardo, shot down like a dog on the public road.”

“I'm very sorry to hear that, Countess. Then I trust you will allow my investigation to take its course. And let me assure you that I do not accept rumors and false testimony from anybody, and I have no other interest in these matters beyond the speedy resolution of these crimes.”

The countess seemed satisfied by this. “Anything that contributes to improving the security of Cardona is good for all of us. I will instruct my
bailiff accordingly. Will you ride with me, Licenciado? I have something I want to show you.”

•   •   •

M
ENDOZA
HAD
NOT
INTENDED
to stay any longer, but from both a professional and a personal point of view he could see no reason why he should not spend more time in the countess's company. He sat talking with Tallada and the priest while she went to change into her riding clothes. Both men were at pains to impress on him what an exemplary Christian the countess was. The priest claimed that her strong religious convictions had enabled her to overcome the tragic loss of her husband and the deaths of two of her children in childbirth.

“The little girl is the countess's only child?” Mendoza asked.

“That is correct.” The magistrate glanced around him with a slightly furtive expression and lowered his voice. “And it is also a problem—unless the countess marries again.”

“Because of the inheritance?”

“Precisely. Both of the countess's parents are dead. One of her brothers was killed in Flanders. Another is a madman in an asylum and has not spoken a word for ten years. At present there is no male heir.”

“Not even on her husband's side?”

“The Cardona
fueros
do not permit this,” Tallada replied. “The late count appointed his wife as his executrix, but she can pass on the Cardona estates only to a son or a male relative from her own bloodline. That means that she must marry or wait for her daughter to do so.”

“And what would happen if neither of them were to have sons?”

Tallada looked gloomy. “In that unhappy—and unlikely—event, Cardona would become the property of His Most Catholic Majesty.”

The return of the countess and her maidservant brought the conversation to an end. Both of them were wearing long outdoor shawls, and the countess had changed into a less elaborate black dress and a black widow's
manto that covered her hair and reached down almost to her feet. Outside in the street, a small carriage was waiting for them, and Mendoza rode alongside it, with Franquelo, Daniel and two of her servants bringing up the rear a short distance behind them. Their route took them out of the town in the opposite direction from Belamar, along the road that led toward Vallcarca, through villages and hamlets whose inhabitants invariably bowed or doffed their caps as they passed. The countess acknowledged them with a smile or a vague wave of her hand and occasionally told the driver to stop.

Mendoza was struck by her lack of pretension as she asked even the most humble-looking peasant woman or craftsman about their children or a sick relative or their difficulties in paying taxes. She knew many of her vassals by their first names and spoke to them with the same easy familiarity with which she spoke to him. He wondered if such behavior was typical of Aragon in general. If so, the Aragonese were in for a shock when the royal court descended on them the following summer.

“Will you be hosting His Majesty during the royal visit next year, my lady?” he asked.

“From what I understand, the king will not be doing us that honor. But I will be attending the wedding. By all accounts the Duke of Savoy is a fine match for the infanta, and an alliance between the House of Hapsburg and the House of Savoy will certainly strengthen His Majesty's interests in regard to the Valois.”

Mendoza was impressed. A knowledge of diplomacy and high politics was not something that he had expected from a country widow living so far from the court and even from Zaragoza.

“What you have lost in honor, your kitchens and storehouses have gained . . .”

The countess laughed. “You are irreverent, Licenciado, but you are right. They say the court is a most exigent houseguest. Fortunately, these
mountains are a little too rugged for the Castilians. I hear that your constitutions are rather delicate.”

“Very delicate, my lady. The
meseta
suits us.”

“Not all of you, it seems. Many caballeros from Castile have acquired a taste for high mountains since my husband's death. Am I not right, Susana?”

“Indeed, my lady,” the maidservant replied.

The countess proceeded to describe some of the suitors who had approached her or written to her over the last three years to offer her their love or protection. One of them was an English Protestant baron, who had written to her from London promising to convert to Catholicism if she agreed to marry him. She had had offers from the dukes of Villahermosa and Gandía; from assorted viscounts, marquises and barons; from impoverished nobles with hard-luck stories; from second and third sons who would never receive their inheritance and aspired to acquire the Cardona estates instead.

“So many men want to be the next Count of Cardona, Licenciado!” She sighed with mock exasperation. “And what can a woman do when she doesn't want to marry any of them?”

“I understand that the Baron Vallcarca would like his son to be one of them,” Mendoza said.

The amusement immediately vanished from her face. “Vallcarca would marry me to his mule if he thought he could obtain my estates in that way. Instead he wants me to marry a brute whose only pleasure appears to be hunting and beating his father's vassals. And my own father-in-law is writing me letters almost every week pressing me to accept his hand!”

“I assume he is acting out of concern for your happiness?” Mendoza asked.

“The Marquis of Espinosa has never been concerned with anyone's interests except his own. He lives in Toledo on the income that I send him
because he has gambled away most of his own. My husband also used to pay for his upkeep, out of filial duty. I do so in order to keep him as far away from me as possible. But my marital status makes the marquis anxious about his own future. And so he wants to marry me off as if his own son had never existed!”

Mendoza was curious to know whether she did plan to marry again, given the implications for her estates, but it was impertinent to ask. Soon they came to a small town and pulled up outside a one-story building that looked at first sight like a storehouse and which had obviously been recently built or refurbished. Inside, they found ten boys in white smocks sitting at benches with slate and chalk, who immediately got to their feet as they entered.

“Say hello to the countess, boys,” the priest ordered.

“Good afternoon, Countess!” the boys chorused.

The countess smiled at them and told them to be seated. Mendoza stood by the doorway as she asked them what they had been learning that day. Apart from the benches, the larger slate board and a single glass-paned window, there was little to distinguish the bare walls and dirt floor from those of a barn. The boys were of various ages, from six to twelve, and all of them put up their hands enthusiastically as the priest asked them questions to test their knowledge. Mendoza was beginning to wonder whether he might have done better to return to Belamar when she thanked the priest and they went out to the carriage.

“Did you like our little school, Licenciado?” she asked as the driver flicked the reins and moved away.

“Very much, my lady.”

“The pupils are all Morisco boys. I built this school for them. Until two years ago, it was a barn without even a roof.”

Now Mendoza understood the point of this expedition. In that moment the school made him think of his own childhood in Granada, when he
had played with Morisco boys from the Jesuit
colegio
in the streets of the Albaicín or in the gardens of the Alhambra palace.

“That is how the Moriscos must be instructed in our faith, Don Bernardo,” she went on. “With kindness, persuasion and education, not with the whip or the auto. And that is the work that God intends me to do.”

“A worthy endeavor, and I wish you every success.”

“I am succeeding, Licenciado, whatever the Inquisition may say.”

“Look, my lady!” cried Susana in surprise. “It's Jean!”

Mendoza looked along the road and saw the bailiff in the familiar white beret, riding toward them from the direction of Cardona accompanied by a smaller group of men than he had previously brought with him to Belamar. As he drew near, Sánchez glanced coldly at Mendoza and doffed his beret to his mistress, who smiled at him warmly.

“Good afternoon, Jean,” she said. “I thought you were at market today.”

“I was, my lady. But I have bad news. Commissioner Herrero is in Vallcarca.”

“The baron allowed this?” the countess asked incredulously.

“It seems there has been an incident. Two nuns have been attacked. Things were done to them that I cannot repeat in your company.”

“But this is awful,” the countess said. “Have the perpetrators been caught?”

“Yes, my lady.” The bailiff glanced once again at Mendoza. “They were three Moriscos. And all of them came from Belamar.”

y the time the sun came up, Ventura had already reached the clearing where the Quintana brothers had been killed. By midmorning he had reached the French frontier, following the trajectory of the main road while taking care to keep a distance from it and remain concealed. Soon he saw the wooden customs house at the Puerto de Portalet. There were no travelers waiting to cross it, and apart from the two horses grazing nearby and a young boy selling fruit and vegetables who was dozing in the shade just outside the hut, the post might have been deserted. As Ventura approached, two officers wearing red tunics emerged from the hut, looking as though they, too, had been sleeping.

“Identify yourself,” one of them yawned.

“Sergeant Luis de Ventura, special constable from the Chancery of Valladolid. I'm investigating the murders of the Quintana brothers.”

“Sergeant López, chief officer of His Majesty's Customs and Excise at the Cardona frontier,” the official said, puffing out his chest. “We heard about those poor Christians. There are some bad men in these mountains.”

“Devils and villains,” his colleague agreed.

“There are bandits, smugglers and
salteadores
everywhere,” López continued. “And from everywhere. French, Spanish. Lutherans, Catholics and Moriscos—all of them ride back and forth across these mountains as if there were no frontier.”

“To commit crimes against God and His Majesty,” his colleague added.

“Where do they ride?” asked Ventura impatiently.

“If we knew that, we could arrest them,” López replied.

Ventura could not imagine these clowns arresting anyone, and it was more likely that they turned a blind eye or actively colluded in the traffic across the frontier. He thanked them and rode on back down the road till he was out of sight of the customs post, before veering off into the mountains. For the next few hours, he rode westward roughly parallel to the frontier, using the sun to orient himself as he scanned the terrain for paths made by goatherds and shepherds that might be used by smugglers.

The mountains were hard going, even harder than the Alpujarras. His horse, Aisha, was a pinto jennet that he had bought with the last of his soldier's pay. She struggled with some of the steeper slopes and passes as they crossed lush alpine meadows and river valleys, where the
montañeses
had put cattle, sheep and goats out to pasture. From time to time, he heard the faint tollings of a church bell coming from a monastery or one of the mountain villages, but he made no attempt to approach them. In the early afternoon, he found his progress blocked by a fast-flowing river that Aisha refused to cross, and he was forced to descend until he came to a small encampment of bivouacs and a wooden hut at the edge of a forest, where a rope-pulled ferry was waiting on the other side of the river.

The outer edge of the forest consisted mostly of the stumps of trees,
and there were fallen logs lying all around the clearing. He saw a fire burning near the wooden hut and was riding toward it when a bearded old man suddenly appeared in the door with a harquebus aimed directly at his head and the lighted match cord hanging from the serpentine.

“Stop right there, stranger,” the old man said. “This gun is loaded, and even I don't miss from this range.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” Ventura said. “But I only want to cross the river.”

“Well, you look like a scholar to me, sir. And a swordsman in these parts has only one purpose—to steal from those who work for a living.”

“Not me, brother,” Ventura insisted. “I'm an
alguacil
with the king's seal. And I have money to pay for whatever you're cooking.”

“Do you?” The woodsman finally lowered his musket and extracted the smoldering fuse. “Well, I can't say no to one of His Majesty's officials.”

He appeared to have forgotten all about the king's seal now, and he laid his weapon down and ladled a spoonful of watery meat stew into a clay bowl as Ventura got off his horse. The settlement was a
navatero
camp, the woodsman said. There were a dozen of them altogether, and they had spent all winter felling trees and dragging them to the river with mules and oxen, where they were strapped together with ropes and willow laths to form the rafts that were taken downriver to the Ebro and Zaragoza. His job was to guard the camp and the animals until his companions returned. It was not an easy task, he said, with so many thieves and murderers roaming the mountains, but he was too old to go make the river trip anymore.

“Maybe you're too old to be out in these mountains by yourself,” Ventura suggested.

“I'll be too old when I'm dead,” the old man said. “I'm a
navatero
. A raftsman. I couldn't live on the plains. All those damned priests and monks jumping all over me like fleas. At least up here I don't starve. If the bandits don't kill me, I'll live longer than many of my countrymen.”

“I hear there are many of them in these mountains.”

“There are.” The old man's eyes narrowed once again. “But a man who wants to stay alive doesn't talk about them to people he doesn't know.”

“A wise policy.” Ventura jangled two silver coins in his hand. “But I reward strangers who talk to me. I want to know where the routes are. I know they don't travel by road.”

“That is true, brother.” The old man took the coins from Ventura's outstretched palm and slipped them into the pocket of his frayed leather jerkin. “And if you cross the river, head upward about two leagues and turn west, you might run into some of them.”

Ventura finished his meal, and the old man pulled the little raft back so that Ventura could get Aisha onto it before hauling them across. Soon they were above the tree line, climbing through passes, gorges and ravines where birds and animals were more common than humans. Ventura saw eagles and buzzards, deer, lynx and chamois and at one point what looked like a boar or a wolf running across a mountainside in the distance. In the late afternoon, he heard the faint tinkle of bells, and shortly afterward a herd of goats came bobbing toward him, followed by a boy with a shepherd's crook and a dog. The boy looked about twelve years old. He was barefoot, with wild hair, a patched tunic and torn hose that came down just below his knees. On seeing Ventura he stopped and stared at his sword and pistols with his mouth open.

“Good afternoon, boy,” Ventura said. “Where have you come from?”

The boy continued to stare at him with a witless expression.

“Tu est français?”
Ventura asked, reaching back to the smattering of French he had picked up in Flanders. The boy still looked blank, and Ventura suspected that the distinction between France and Spain was not one that he recognized.

“Il y a une route à France ici?”
Ventura was beginning to think he was talking to a simpleton when the boy gestured behind him with his thumb. Ventura rode on, wondering if it was true that shepherds fornicated with their animals. He continued up the path and around the next slope until he
reached a fairly wide trail winding its way steeply down from north to south. He followed it down, noting with satisfaction the hoof marks in the dry mud, when Aisha suddenly reared up and tried to back up. There was just enough time to see the snake slither away from the spot where it had been sunning itself in front of them before the horse's hooves touched the ground again, missing the path so that she half fell and half scrambled down the rest of the slope before coming to a halt.

Aisha was dragging her front left hoof. Ventura cursed and led the injured animal off the path. He unbuckled his saddle and saddlebags and placed one arm tenderly around her neck.

“I'm sorry, my beauty,” he whispered, and slit her throat with his dagger. The animal reared up momentarily, and then her legs buckled as he thrust the knife deep into her throat, still holding the reins with one hand, till she rolled over onto her side. Ventura gathered up his things and took up a vantage point farther down on a rocky outcrop overlooking the path. It was not turning out to be a good day, he thought as he held up the wineskin and let its contents trickle into his mouth, but he was not prepared to walk back to the road if he could help it.

•   •   •

T
HE
WINE
AND
SUNSHINE
made him drowsy, and he felt himself dozing off. He was woken by the murmur of voices, and he looked down to see a line of seven horses coming slowly up the path. Five of them were without saddles and roped to the two riders who were leading them in double file. Ventura scrambled backward and ran back and round, before slithering down onto the path up ahead. He pressed himself against the rock face and waited till they were nearly alongside him before he stepped out with a pistol in each hand.

“Good day, señores.”

The two men gaped at the pistols and his bloodstained hands, and the
first rider took one hand off the reins and reached for the crossbow hanging from his belt.

“Don't be an idiot,” Ventura said wearily. “Is this really the day you want to go to the other neighborhood? And believe me, if I kill one of you, I'll kill both, so help me, as easily as I breathe. So drop your weapons and get down—now.”

The smugglers did as they were told. The one with the crossbow was dressed like a peasant, with dirty white stockings and wooden clogs. The other wore leather riding boots and a long cloak and slouch hat. They stood sullenly as Ventura cast an admiring glance over their horses, all the time keeping the pistols pointing directly at them.

“Some noble animals indeed, gentlemen. Isn't this one Andalusian?” He paused before a black stallion that shifted skittishly away from him. “And these look like Holsteiners. So the question is, why are you transporting such fine beasts across the border by this particular route? What's wrong with the main road?”

“The road is full of bandits,” said the man in the slouch hat.

“Is that so?” Ventura grinned and raised one of the pistols so that it was pointing directly at the smuggler's forehead. “Call me a cynic, but I can't help suspecting that what you're really trying to do is deny His Majesty the revenue that really ought to go to his officials in any transactions of this nature. Where have you come from?”

“From Huesca.”

“You're lying again. I'm afraid I'm just going to have to kill one of you. Then perhaps the other one will tell me the truth.”

“
Por Dios
, Your Mercy!” The peasant looked terrified. “We're just smuggling horses. You can't kill us for that!”

“I can kill you for anything I choose. And I will do it if you don't tell me who you're smuggling them for.”

“I work for him!” the peasant said resentfully.

Slouch Hat glared at him until Ventura held the pistol only inches from his face.

“Can you imagine what your face will look like when I shoot you from this range?” he asked.

“These are Baron Vallcarca's horses!” Slouch Hat replied. “Franquelo brings them to us.”

“Franquelo the
alguacil
from Belamar? Is that where you are from?”

“No. I have a farm a league and a half away. Near Pino.”

“Are you Moriscos?”

“He is,” the peasant said accusingly.

“And are horses the only thing you bring back and forth across this border? No pistols or gunpowder? No books the Inquisition wouldn't want good Christians to read?”

“None of that,” Slouch Hat protested. “I'm just a simple farmer trying to make a living—not a heretic!”

“And your name, simple farmer?”

“Gonzalo del Río.”

“And you?”

“Pedro Rapino,” the peasant replied.

Ventura gave him a long, hard look. “Well, gentlemen, this is a good day and a bad day for you. You can continue your journey. But I'm taking the Andalusian.”

Slouch Hat looked aghast. “And what do I tell them when I show up with only four ponies?”