The Kingdom of the Damned

by Mario Garrido Espinosa

  Laura still did not appear in the kitchen. It was very strange, as she had never been a tug to get up from her magnificent four-pillar bed. In addition, she always assured that breakfast time was, by far, one of her favorite times of the day.

  No one seemed to notice Laura's lack, especially Irene, who was about to burst with impatience, knowing that the decisions her father made were always feared.

  The old soldier finally spoke:

  “You are going to be interned in the convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the...”

  “What!” Irene interrupted the old bailiff, pale with amazement.

  “You've heard it! I also want you to know that I do it for the good of the family and your own.”

  “You will not get it! I'll escape before!”

  "You will not go anywhere," Sir Higinio said, tightly holding his daughter by the arm, "because you're leaving right now!"

  “Release me! Do not dare to touch me!” Irene demanded without success, while Sir Higinio called the three strongest servants of the house, who already knew that they would be required during the course of the morning for the unenviable mission of holding and transporting an Irene out of the mansion.

  “Quiet! Do not make it harder..." her father told her just before she managed to let go from him with a ravenous nudge. She ran looking for the rear exit of the house, but in her running, she went to face with the servants who came to Sir Higinio’s call. The three employees took a good portion of kicks and scratches but managed to drive her to the front door of the mansion, leaving behind a trail of furniture overturned on the floor. Outside, a carriage was waiting. The coachman and two men, strong and trained in the discipline of immobilizing people, gave the relief to the servants. Even though everything was against Irene, she did a good job of hindering the work of putting her inside the vehicle. Thus, the tallest of the two men who were carrying the woman into the air, received a bite, but either by habit or by his strength, he did not worry about the wound until the ferocious woman was behind the door of the cart, with the lock and padlocks tightly closed.

  Inside, the carriage was like a cage. There were steel plates on the walls, and in the window of the only door there were four iron bars, somewhat rusted. She smelled the fragrance of wild animals mixed with that of their own urine. The dirt was of all kinds.

  "There you are, sir," said the coachman to Sir Higinio.

  "There you have your salary," he said, handing him two small bags of silver Alexandrians. “I hope you do not get sidetracked on your way.”

  “Do not worry. We know how to do our job. Until the convent, we will not stop nor to take a piss...” he sentence turned around and going to his vehicle.

  Sir Higinio did not like the way the coachman spoke, but he did not care too much. That man would do his job well because Sir Higinio ordered it to him and if he did not comply it could only be because he had little appreciation for life.

  The coachman climbed the box. The two men who had put Irene Lopezosa inside the carriage mounted their horses. One of them licked carelessly at a scratch on his arm.

  “Giddy up...!” The driver of the vehicle shouted with his hands firmly gripped to the reins and in a matter of seconds the horse carriage left with the two men behind, escorting him.

  “Good bye daughter. I know that with time you will thank me," Sir Higinio whispered, without being heard by anyone.

  Irene Lopezosa, during the first part of the trip, hit the walls of the carriage with her legs, arms and even her head, at the same time that the anger made her gray foam through her mouth. All this had caught her by surprise and she had not known how to react with all her infernal potential, and now it was too late!

  After twenty minutes, she ceased her efforts very tired and with her whole body bruised. She had made some new dent in the walls of the horse carriage, but it did not matter, because the ones it had before were countless and nobody noticed.

  Sir Higinio’s first-born, finally, sat leaning against the door of that rolling and rattling cage, where every stone or pothole of the road multiplied by ten its effect in the interior. She bit her lip and tried to endure the internal pain of her rage, but she could not. Prisoner of her own exasperation began to break, between demonic cries, her princess dress, which ended dirty and tattered.

  3

  Despite all the scandal in the mansion that morning, Laura did not seem to have noticed. Sir Higinio noticed it just as he returned to the kitchen and evaluated the damage caused by Irene. Dodging the servants who tried to compose the furniture with better intention than results reached the staircase and went upstairs very surprised. He knocked on the door of his daughter's room waiting for an answer. After a minute of silence, he entered the room.

  There was no one there.

  Chapter 11

  Conversation in the twilight

  1

  S

  abine and Severus left behind Fuendeltonto and Retortillo City. Near Cabins de Babilafountain they decided to camp and spend the night. It was beginning to get dark and the 12th century castle near Cabins could be seen from there, wrapped in a chilling halo of nocturnal mystery, which Severus and Sabine did not catch at any time. It was claimed that the fortress had been controlled by the followers of Catharism, although this cult was never given in these parts. In fact, no crusade came here, ordered by Innocent III or any other. It was also said that the first dweller was the Devil himself, and that it was him and not a human being who had ordered it to be built. The mission of the, once, impressive strength was to store inside the famous glass carved from an emerald fallen from the forehead of Lucifer. This supposed grail must have been stolen centuries ago, like everything else in the castle, because in the interior only dust and ruin could be found... In spite of this, people believed that the more than one hundred crimes that had been counted in the outside the castle were because of the evil influence of Beelzebub, who had never stopped roaming around. Fuentebabila Cabins was a land of people with overflowing and sinister imagination.

  The two assassins lit a fire, more because the nocturnal animals did not approach them due to it was actually cold. They ate four slices of bread that had a life longer than eight days, accompanied by a piece of ham, hard as a stone, which they first had to scrape off the mold. Finally, they watered the poor food with a red wine that, due to the rattle of the horses, was mixed with its own mother, which made it thick and very unpleasant. While they were eating, they talked about how rich they were going to be when they arrived at La Alpurria del Campo and remembered old and unspeakable dislocations, misdeeds and savagery.

  "With the money that Sir Higinio will pay us, I intend to leave the life we ​​lead. I'm getting tired," Severus suddenly said, without coming to mind.

  "You cannot say that seriously," Sabine replied after a few moments of silence and surprise. For some reason he feared something of all that, but he did not think that his friend's future intentions were that blunt.

  The two friends fell silent looking at the fire. Finally, Sabine said:

  “You must be getting old.”

  “Precisely because of that. I do not see myself with Sir Higinio's age and leading this life...”

  “Well, for that age we still have a lot left.”

  "Maybe, if we continue like this, we will not be so old," Severus pointed out to his companion, pointing to him with his piece of ham.

  “Until now we have been able to defend ourselves.”

  “Yes, but you will not deny that today...”

  “Maybe that bunch of bad mother's children have cowed you.” Sabine laughed amused. “They could not handle us. They were simple sailors. Braggarts!”

  "Today, if they had wanted, they would have killed us all," was the dry response. “There were more than twenty strong and unscrupulous people. Of course four or five would have come with us to hell, but...”

  After the last words uttered by Severus a strange wind flowed up, whistling as if he had mentioned something that was forbidden th
ere. Sabine did not seem to notice anything and said quietly:

  "Given death to the first, the others would have fled like rabbits.”

  “Sincerely, I do not think so. From the captain to the last cabin boy, they were armed to the teeth. Their companions’ deaths would have infuriated them even more.” Severus bit into a good piece of leathery bread. “How many would you have eliminated before they could handle you?”

  Sabine stopped worrying. A light breeze made the flames of the fire move. He jumped an ember out of the circle of stones where several logs of pine and holm oak were burned. Sabine spat into the fire. Then he stepped on the piece of incandescent wood while saying:

  “In any case, we're far from home...”

  “And what?”

  “Everything is different there... Those of our ilk know each other. They respect us.”

  "Who is bad, it's just bad... Your father said it," Severus said, who did not seem to be convinced with the argument proposed by his companion. Even as a young man, he must have been satisfied with the good advice of his friend's father.

  "That's a stupid saying," Sabine protested.

  “Maybe, but... I am sure that with time we will find someone stronger or smarter than us and take us out of the way. I do not plan to wait for that moment.”

  “You are exaggerating!” Sabine waved his hand. It was the gesture he used whenever he wanted to dismiss a topic. “Any man, however strong he may be, loses his strength when you Barne speaks.”

  “You know that there are more firearms hovering everywhere. You remember what it cost me to do with my gun... Now it would not take me one morning. Even in the market of La Alpurria you can get one.”

  “It will not be so bad.”

  "I've seen more than one merchant with a counter full of fruit or rags, but with more than twenty guns to sell under the apples, pears, cloths and fabric. I know perfectly what guys are the ones who can supply you with a good weapon, and like me the rest of the people.” Severus sent a snort of annoyance into the air. “Things are no longer solved by force or with a sword, as before. With guns and harquebuses, anyone can defend themselves. It's time we started thinking about all this...”

  “Very well, if it reassures you, from now on we will take more care of what we do and with whom.”

  “With that we only delay the fateful moment. Any day we will go to give a beating to a miserable who has bothered Sir Higinio, and we will open the head of a couple of shots.”

  “Do you think we should arm ourselves better?” Sabine asked who did not seem to want to understand his partner.

  “No, is not that. Look, do not insist on this topic. I plan to leave it. It is already decided. The reward of Sir Higinio can give me to do many things if I propose.”

  “In the end, you will know... But the silver Alexandrians will not last you a lifetime. You and I know that they are spent fast.”

  "Yes, that's true," Severus admitted, staring at the fire.

  “And what are you going to do then?”

  “I'm going to leave the Alpurria del Campo and far, far away, start a new life.”

  “A new life! Sabine said with puzzlement. You're going to get married maybe or you're going to work in the field. Or not, much better: you're going to take care of pigs and cows. What nonsense is this! Are you talking seriously or in jest?”

  “Seriously. Maybe I'll open an inn... I do not know.”

  “You're crazy! I do not see you as an innkeeper, much less being honest.”

  “An innkeeper does not have to be honest, as you well know Sabine. Besides, I will only put the money to build the inn and others will work on it. I will go to collect the profits.”

  “I did not take you such a naive. They will cheat you and steal you...”

  “I do not think so, because the first one to try it will be a dead man...”

  "It means, you will continue as before," Sabine replied sharply.

  "No, because someone else will kill," Severus said.

  Sabine spat gain into the fire. He looked into his partner's eyes.

  “Are you going to become the same as Sir Higinio, but in another place?”

  "Call it whatever you want..." Severus answered holding Sabine's gaze.

  “I think you see things very easy to do.”

  “Perhaps. But it is decided. I'll leave... The inn is one of the many ideas that cross my mind...”

  “I will not ask you to tell me these other ideas; because I think they will be as absurd as the inn...”

  “Very well. I do not tell you.”

  Sabine Olozaga Carpio de Villaquirán observed who had been his best friend, the person in whose own hands he would have placed the destiny of his life, and it seemed to him that today he was a true stranger.

  "You'd better forget your ideas," he told her truthfully, "and stay where you have something to do, even if it's not very well seen."

  "No, I will not stay," Severus replied grimly. “In La Alpurria, we are all considered bullies. Every time they look at us with worse eyes. Nobody trusts us.”

  “Yes, but they respect us. They fear us; and they do well not to trust," Sabine teased, although Severus did not seem to be amused, so he spoke in another tone: “I am sure that in La Alpurria, Sir Higinio would help you to make your inn profitable.”

  “Yes. Do not worry about that," he said, stirring the embers with a stick. “That way I would still be close to him so he could continue entrusting me with his account adjustments.” He threw a thick, dry trunk of oak into the hole he had made between the embers. “I'm not interested. I do not want to know anything else about Sir Higinio. You realize that our life in the last fifteen or twenty years has been at the expense of what that individual would have us do.”

  “But he has always paid us... and generously, by the way.”

  “Yes, but you think that if they lock us in a dungeon, Sir Higinio would move some finger to get us out.”

  “He would probably do nothing, but this is part of our covenant.” Sabine took a long drink from the bottle of wine he shared with his friend. “No one should know who is sending us.”

  “We have told to the captain of the ship.”

  “That will not talk. In fact, I do not think he remembers the conversation we have had.”

  “I do not know, I do not know... Anyway, I want to finish...”

  “As you want, as you want ... but I would stop thinking about strange things for now... What will be Sir Higinio’s reaction when he knows?”

  "I do not care," was Severus' sincere response.

  “But not to me.”

  “Maybe he does not find out.”

  “What nonsense! The day he calls us for another job, and only me is there, you really think you will not realize you are not... He's old, but not up to that point.”

  “Well, something you will invent.”

  "My friend, I'm either wrong or you're trying to carry a dead man.

  “I'm pissed! That man is not our master. We do not owe him anything. Neither money nor obedience. We are neither his slaves nor his employees...”

  “He gives us work from time to time.”

  “You said it: once in a while. Just sometimes. Therefore, we are not obligated to anything.” Severus did not want to continue down that path, sighed deeply and changed the subject: “And you, what are you going to do with your share of the money?”

  “Well, I have not thought about it yet, but rest assured that something will go away in whores.”

  Sabino laughed remembering two who looked broad ass and tits still upright, despite their many years of trade and old.

  "And if Sir Higinio stops giving you commissions, what will you do?" Severus asked.

  “There's always something. Sir Higinio is an important man. Threats, murders, beatings, burning a haystack, abducting a child... There will always be something," Sabine repeated, convinced that he would never miss this type of work. Then he drained the rest of the wine that remained, not leaving a drop of liqui
d or a pinch of mother.

  “And if he gets tired of you. If someone comes even more effective than you...”

  “Why was he going to tire? I've always been faithful to him, just like you..." He paused for a long time. “At least so far. Sir Higinio can be many things, but he does not betray his faithful men... Although the one who arrives will be better.”

  “And if he decided to go to the other side of Gurracam.”

  “Now there is no reason to think that. Sir Higinio is the master of the Alpurria. Out of there is nobody. You heard the bastard on the ship: he did not know him. Why would he leave?” Sabinus spread his arms as if what he said did not admit any possible discussion. “Besides, the Inquisition does not enter to the Alpurría by order of the King, unless our boss allows it.”

  “I never believed that. The Saint is above even the King.”

  “Well, it's true. Sir Higinio does not report to the Church.” He paused. “The pattern plays with a lot of advantage in La Alpurria.”

  “Imagine, despite everything, that he is leaving. That leaves everything... Or suppose the King dies. The Inquisition could have new powers over the people, if they do not already have them.”

  “Impossible!” Exclaimed Sabine, sure of what he was saying. Sir Higinio has always known how to cover his back. Every year he gives strong donations to the Church. The boss knows very well what to do to be calm with the clergy. You do not remember what your father said...

  “Of course! I Remember: The Holy Office first see your money and then look what you do.”

  “Well, that's it. But in any case if he leaves, I follow him and the problem is over.”

  “And if you ever fail, will he continue to entrust you more orders...?”

  "I do not fail," he said, as if he were a God. “You cannot fail when it comes to kill someone. If you make a mistake, they kill you; and then all this explanation is left over. It seems as if you were a newbie...”

  “You have an answer for everything, but I know one that even you will think about...”