The Devils of Cardona (43 page)

“Was Mercader aware of this?”

“No. Pachuca was Villareal's man. Mercader believed what he wanted to believe. He wanted heresy, and Vallcarca was only interested in Cardona. He had the countess's husband killed so that he could get her to marry his son. When that failed, he tried to get an Inquisition investigation in Belamar so that she would turn to him. If she was arrested, that was all
right, too, because then Espinosa would have become her daughter's guardian and he would have married
her
off to Rodrigo. It was a good plan, but Villareal wasn't going to let it happen. He bought off the baron's men and used them for his own purposes.”

“Which were?”

“Cardona. Villareal wanted the
señorio
for himself. He wanted to persuade the king to send troops to occupy Cardona, partly because he didn't want Vallcarca to get it and also because he expected to be rewarded for his efforts. And why not? He was Aragonese. He was already directly involved in this affair from the beginning. As treasurer of the Council of Aragon, he would have been the logical choice as Crown administrator for Cardona once law and order had been restored. Of course, that would not have taken long, because he was responsible for organizing the mayhem in the first place!”

“A clever plan,” Sástago agreed. “And a diabolical one. But who is this Catalan?”

“His name is Lupercio Borrell. He's a bandit. He was in the baron's employ, but he was also Villareal's man. That's all I know about him.”

At the mention of the name, Sástago looked even more anxious. “He's not just a bandit, Don Bernardo.”

“You know him?”

“I know of him. Borrell was a spy for our cause in France during the Wars of Religion. The Crown paid him, but he reported directly to Villareal here in Zaragoza. And there's something else you should know. Some years ago one of Villareal's daughters was impregnated by Rodrigo Vallcarca. Some say she was seduced. Others said she was raped. Either way the young lady had the baby before Villareal sent her into a convent. Of course he was angry with her—she ruined a very lucrative marriage. But the marquis was even angrier with Vallcarca. Naturally it was all hushed up. It didn't seem relevant—until now.”

“So it wasn't just money,” Mendoza said. “Honor was involved—if you consider that murdering innocent people and stirring up treason and rebellion in order to take revenge on your enemies is an honorable thing to do.”

“But a man who will do such things will not allow himself to be ruined. Be careful, Licenciado. Villareal has the ear of the king. He is also a grandee.”

“And his rank will not protect him from His Majesty's justice,” Mendoza said firmly.

The viceroy said that he had just received a letter from Villareal's secretary asking why he hadn't had any communication from Licenciado Mendoza or Corregidor Calvo in nearly two weeks and requesting further information on the situation in Cardona. The letter had also suggested that Mendoza was not competent and might have lost control of the investigation.

Mendoza looked unperturbed. “The marquis will never receive any letters from me,” he said. “From now on I will communicate the results of my investigation only to His Majesty.”

Sástago frowned once again. Whatever happened to Villareal, he said, neither Vallcarca nor his son nor any of the other prisoners could be tried by a Castilian judge, and Mendoza would not be able to take any of his prisoners to Castile. Diplomacy and the infanta's wedding demanded that these norms be respected. He had nevertheless arranged a compromise with the justiciar of Aragon, in which the prisoners would be tried by an Aragonese judge and Mendoza would be able to advise and give evidence but not to pass sentence.

Mendoza was not entirely surprised by this. The following day he and the viceroy met with the justiciar of Aragon, Juan de Luna, who said that Mendoza would be required to hand over all his depositions to the trial judge. Mendoza politely refused and said that Castilian law did not allow him to hand over documentation that he had acquired in the course of an
investigation. Both Sástago and the justiciar looked worried now, and after some discussion Mendoza agreed to allow his Aragonese counterparts to read and even copy his depositions in his presence or the presence of his scribe but not to hand them over.

He also managed to extract certain commitments in exchange for his cooperation. Rodrigo Vallcarca was not to be sentenced to death on condition that he testify against his father. Any prisoners or bandits who provided information on the conspiracy against Cardona would receive a similar commutation of sentence, and the Countess of Cardona's father-in-law, the Marquis of Espinosa, was to be banished from the
señorio
in perpetuity.

That same day Mendoza dictated a letter to Gabriel that was addressed for the first time directly to the king, in which he detailed his case against Villareal. Gabriel spent the rest of the afternoon copying out Calvo's confession, and the following day Mendoza included the original in the letter that he sent to the king. He also went to the Aljafería and asked to see Mercader's colleague Orellana, a dour-looking monk who was now the sole inquisitor for Aragon pending Mercader's replacement. The conversation did not get off on a good footing, as Orellana informed Mendoza that the baker Romero was an employee of the Inquisition and as such could be tried only by the Holy Office.

“I am aware of this, Your Excellency,” Mendoza replied. “And it was my intention to hand the prisoner over to your jurisdiction as soon as I arrived in Zaragoza. Unfortunately, the justiciar has now assumed responsibility for all my prisoners.”

“Well, this is always the problem in this kingdom,” Orellana complained. “The Aragonese are intransigent.”

Mendoza agreed that they were and said that such intransigence had not helped his own investigation. Orellana listened with more interest now as Mendoza explained the purpose of his visit. He did not presume to ask the
Holy Office what the Moriscos had been accused of, he said, but he did know that they had originally been arrested on charges of rape and that these charges were false. His own investigation had revealed that the two sisters had been attacked not by the Moriscos but by men acting on the orders of the Baron of Vallcarca, as part of a criminal conspiracy against the Countess of Cardona in which Inquisitor Mercader had become unwittingly involved.

Orellana had clearly not been aware of any of this. “So the baron ordered the murder of the priest?” he asked.

“Indeed. It was carried out by the bailiff Sánchez, a bandit named Lupercio Borrell and Constable Franquelo. The bailiff was also an accomplice in the murder of the Count of Cardona two years ago.”

“And the three brothers?”

“They were also killed by Borrell and his band, as part of a criminal conspiracy undertaken by Corregidor Calvo under the direct orders of the Marquis of Villareal. The bailiff Sánchez was also part of the same conspiracy, and so was the Inquisition
familiar
Pachuca. Corregidor Calvo and the bandit Borrell were also responsible for the murders of Inquisitor Mercader and Commissioner Herrero.”

Orellana was staring at him with a mixture of incomprehension and astonishment. “And you have proof of this?” he asked.

“I do, Excellency. I have a full confession from the corregidor. I would be happy to pass on a copy to the Holy Office.”

Orellana thanked him for his cooperation and sat back in his chair with a worried expression. It was not the purpose of the Inquisition, he said, to punish the innocent, and he promised to reconsider the verdicts against the Moriscos and take this information into account. Mendoza left feeling satisfied that this was the best he was likely to get and confident that Villareal's name would now be passed on to Orellana's superiors. The following week he gave evidence to the new investigating judge, Argensola, for the first time. His testimony lasted two days, and the judge's questioning assuaged
many of his doubts about the willingness of the Aragonese to carry the investigation to its conclusion. The next week Vallcarca was subjected to the torment, and after four days of torture Argensola informed Sástago that Vallcarca had confessed to all the charges against him.

•   •   •

M
ENDOZA
WAS
NOT
REQUIRED
to play any part in these proceedings, but he was unwilling to leave Zaragoza until justice had been served. He and his men stayed at Sástago's palace. They slept in comfortable beds and ate fine meals every day. The ache in his leg had finally subsided now that he was no longer obliged to ride a horse each day, and he had time to visit churches, cathedrals and bookshops and make sketches of the city from the other side of the Ebro. Despite these pleasures he was eager to return to Valladolid, and he was anxious at the lack of any response to his letter to the king. Gabriel and Necker were equally keen to return to Castile, and Ventura was also becoming bored and restless.

Over the next month, the judicial process moved surprisingly quickly. In two large trials the bandits received a range of sentences that included service in the galleys and in penal colonies and the amputation of hands and feet. Five weeks after their arrival, Vallcarca and his son were sentenced by Judge Argensola in the criminal court at the Audience of Aragon in the palace of the Counts of Luna. Mendoza, Gabriel, Ventura, and Necker were all present at the trial. Rodrigo Vallcarca received eight years on the king's oars, and Vallcarca was given a death sentence. The baron looked older and less imposing than when Mendoza had last seen him, and his bull-like presence was notably reduced by the impact of the torture. He did not even make eye contact with his son. When the sentence was read out he merely smiled faintly and looked across the gallery at Mendoza.

On the night of June 12, Mendoza visited Vallcarca in his cell to bring him wine, sweets and biscuits. The baron had just made his last confession, and Mendoza found him sitting on the edge of a cot that seemed too small
for him, wearing a white shirt with a prison blanket wrapped around his broad shoulders. He exuded an air of gloomy resignation and sat at the table to share the food and drink.

“So, Mendoza,” he said. “You've come to savor your triumph?”

“To pay my respects, Baron.”

“Baron!” Vallcarca pulled a sour expression. “Well, that doesn't matter now, does it? But I have made my confession, and the priest says there is hope for me.”

Mendoza doubted it, and he poured the wine in silence. Vallcarca raised his glass in one of his large hands and drank it down in a single gulp. “I thank you for bringing sweet wine to a dead man, Licenciado. Did you know that William of Orange has been assassinated?”

“I did.”

“And do you think His Most Catholic Majesty is responsible?”

“I have no idea.”

Vallcarca laughed. “You see, Licenciado. Even princes must sometimes behave like common highwaymen. What choice did I have?”

“Everyone has a choice,” Mendoza said. “The warden says that Rodrigo wants to see you, to ask for forgiveness.”

“He can go to hell.” Vallcarca poured himself another glass. “Maybe I'll meet him there. Then we can talk. Let him ask the
priest
to forgive him.”

“There's one thing about this affair that I still don't understand,” Mendoza said. “Why did Sánchez betray his mistress? Was it only for money?”

The baron looked at him with a faintly amused smile. “No one does anything just for money, Licenciado. The bailiff was jealous.”

“Jealous of whom? The countess has no plans to marry.”

Vallcarca's smile widened. “Who said anything about the countess? And I'm not talking about a man.”

Mendoza looked at him uncomprehendingly, and then he remembered the hateful expression on the bailiff's face when he spoke to Susana and the
insult he'd directed at her, and he realized that what the countess had been concealing from him had been in front of his eyes the whole time.

“Sánchez was in love with Segura's daughter?” he asked.

“Correct!” Vallcarca said. “And the countess was the reason he couldn't have her. There was his wife, of course, but you don't let things like
that
get in the way, do you? And you know what love can do when it turns rancid. Or maybe you don't, Licenciado?”

Mendoza felt momentarily angry with the countess for having deceived him, but the emotion quickly subsided as he looked at the smirk on Vallcarca's face.

“Does Segura know about this?” he asked.

“That pious old Moor? How do you think he'd feel if he knew his daughter was a sodomite?”

“But I suppose you used it against her?”

Vallcarca shrugged. “I tried, Licenciado. And thanks to you I failed. And now I would like you to leave. I need a little more time to prepare to meet my Maker.”

•   •   •

T
HE
FOLLOWING
MORNING
Vallcarca was decapitated in the market square. Gabriel did not want to see the execution, and Mendoza, Ventura and Necker joined the procession of dignitaries as Judge Argensola led the prisoner from the prison to the place of execution, where a large crowd had gathered to watch. Vallcarca dispensed with his guards and walked slowly and deliberately toward the execution block with his arms tied behind him, in an open tunic with his chest puffed out and a calm, unruffled expression. He loudly repented his sins to the waiting monks, glanced up at the drifting clouds and then laid his head on the block.

A moment later the ax came down and the bearded head fell to the ground. The executioner proceeded to carve the body into the four pieces
that were to be displayed on the outskirts of the city. Finally the crowd began to disperse, and the Inquisitor Orellana came over to Mendoza and told him that the Morisco carpenter Navarro would not be burned but sentenced to the galleys instead. His apprentice would be set free, and their families would not lose their property. Vargas was also among the spectators and told him that the Catalan Lupercio Borrell had been found hanging from a tree near the Puerto de Somport with a sign around his neck that read
BANDIT
. Some said he'd been killed by
montañeses
who had heard Mendoza's proclamation accusing him of the murders of the Quintana brothers. Others said he had been killed by his own men.