The Kingdom of the Damned

by Mario Garrido Espinosa

  He had acquired this maniacal attitude when he counted less than fifteen years. At that moment, there arose painful sores on his groin that almost prevented him from walking.

  “Where and what have you been doing?” They asked him and scolded his mother and his two aunts while they watched the evolution of the poles that, little by little, were drying up in the affected area... And the poor boy, meanwhile, felt all the turmoil of the world showing to the four winds his shame.

  “Well, you'll have to pray...” his aunt, Faustina, ordered him, who had been praying for two years in a row to Holy Lucia because she was about to be blind in the right eye.

  And Pietro prayed to St. Francisco, the saint who said his aunt who healed the sores. He prayed as if he had not come to this world for anything else. He prayed that this pain would disappear, but above all so, he would never again pass the daily examination of his aunts and not have to listen to his mother that this was a punishment from God and that he was well employed.

  Whether it was the intervention of St. Francisco or because the sores disappeared as they had arrived, that is, without any appreciable reason, the fact is that Pietro healed and since then he prayed every night of his life to various saints to avoid any illness .

  The Italian merchant tried, with good words, to accustom his beloved to these manias, although Irene simply let him do what he wanted, while she could also enjoy that privilege. Even so, some of her companion’s customs ended up being also hers. Following Pietro’s rules, they did not mix many foods in their meals, took everything tempered, never ate until were fed up, had a chicken egg every day except in the summer, between meals never ate anything, they fasted once a week and the meats were always cooked, being totally forbidden to prepare fried with any other oil that was not the famous Spanish olive.

  "In this life, everything must be carried out with extreme moderation," Sbaratto predicted. “You have to take care not to overdo food, sleep, drink and work.”

  "I suppose that's why you and I fornicated so little," Irene reproached him.

  "Of course," he answered immediately, without noticing the criticism, "and the same maxim should always be applied when washing us," he said.

  Over the years, Irene recalled her happy days when she had all the men she wanted and how she wanted them. That disordered appetite that for the carnal delights processed made her being unfaithful to her kind companion in many occasions, since he spent months without making love with her, following his own maxims. Pietro was afraid that Irene was unfaithful, but he was so happy by her side that having discovered her on some occasions with some unknown man in happy conversation, he had forgiven her right away. Nevertheless, one day he suspected two men at once felt that he should stop that situation.

  “Irene, you know that I love you with madness, but, although we are not married, I cannot always live with the doubt of whether you have been with another man. So, you're free to leave my side. But if you decide to continue with me, your adventures must be ended," Pietro Sbaratto warned his beloved one day they were on the wagon in the direction of Rome, “because if you are unfaithful again, I'll kill you. By God I do! Now you decide what you want to do...”

  “But I do not...”

  “Yes. Do not lie. I know. But I plan to forget everything if you promise that it will not happen again.”

  “It's fine. I promise," Irene said, and hugging the Italian gave him a kiss so nice that the man immediately changed his earlier serious gesture.

  Although Irene chose to continue alongside the merchant, she knew perfectly well that she would do what she wanted, as she had done all her life. Besides, she did not believe for a moment that Pietro was capable of killing what he most wanted in this world.

  6

  On January 16, they arrived at the Italian Punta Civitavecchia village. The celebration of St. Anton was celebrated and there were many people in the streets. As always on these occasions, the square hosted stalls of varied merchandise and Pietro took advantage of a gap next to a porch of rough granite columns to park the car and try to sell the French cheeses he was carrying: four pieces of blue cheese, three Rambolt, one Brie, a Camembert... Above all, a huge wheel of pestilent Chaumes that Irene had complained about on the trip, but Pietro knew that it would make good profits outside of France.

  "I'll go and see what they're doing there," Irene told Pietro and pointed to a group of people milling around the church, just below a St. Anton The Old’s image, a little more than a meter away from the church which was taken out from inside. Next to him, a server’s figure accompanied him, looking smiling at the saint’s face.

  "It's fine," Pietro replied. “But do not delay. I think we're going to sell everything today.”

  Irene jumped out of the wagon, put on her dress, and walked, disguising her limp. When he reached the height of the Egyptian saint with a white beard and a black hood, he could see how four waiters were holding two medium-sized pigs who were nervous before so many people shouting.

  “What are they doing?” Irene asked a young and handsome peasant who could not help but look at the neckline of the woman. She straightened her back and moved her hips a little.

  “You can see that trough there... Well, now they will release the pigs and the first one to arrive will be crowned King of the Pigs...”

  “What curious!” She said and deliberately crossing her arms pressed her breasts.

  The people made a corridor and the waiters let the runners go, who ran emitting nasty grunts and colliding with each other. Those who were left behind, the locals were responsible for whipping them with thorns, kicks and sticks, so that some piggy ended up going in the opposite direction. At last the first pig arrived at the trough and without being given rest they took it and crowned it with garlic and chilli peppers. Finally, they loaded it on top of an ass to walk around the square.

  "Then they will sacrifice it," said the peasant, "and they will cook some porridge with stumbles... They are very good.”

  Irene smiled, as only she knew how to do it. Then he took the man by the arm and led him away from the people, taking him to an alley. There, she kissed her without warning as she pressed him against her body.

  Pietro could not see the latter, but he did appreciate how Irene talked to a young man and knew what would happen next. Without thinking twice, he picked up his merchandise —before the people disapproval who waited his turn to buy— and looked in the wagon for his Gurracamese wick archabbot, which he had not used for many years, but which he always kept clean and in perfect use.

  He walked steadily to the area where he last saw Irene. Suddenly, two young men disguised as demons appeared out of nowhere. They rode in two huge male pigs that did not really control. Thus, one of the men fell from his mount giving a push to the merchant, who was not for jokes. His serious face and blunderbuss in his hand sent the demon running.

  Pietro went down the nearest street and walked lost at the same time he was left alone and the noise of the square got away. Walking aimlessly almost reached the end of town. The place was very lonely and the merchant gave up while swallowing all his anger. Then he heard a distinctly familiar sound: Irene's laughter.

  The merchant kicked open the barn door. For the first time in his life, he ignored his rule on moderation in human acts and two accurate and spaced shots, to recharge the weapon and light the wick, separated Irene Lopezosa Quesada’s head from the neck, before the young man’s hysterical cries who saw how in a matter of seconds he went from being in glory to being covered in blood, with the heavy and disfigured head of the woman with long, blond hair, who had just made love, between his legs.

  Pietro Sbaratto returned to the square at a good pace, picked up his wagon and left quickly from Punta Civitavecchia, so that no one would remember him. For some years and on very marked days he cried for the unconsciousness of his beloved, without regretting his own acts.

  Chapter 20

  The song’s end

  1

  S


  ir Higinio Lopezosa Quesada was absolutely alone within ten hours. The retired military man would remember and curse those ten hours every day for the next seven years. From being four people there in the mansion in the One Hundred Fires Square, only he remained. With Irene and her son, he thought he knew exactly what had happened —including the legend and disappearance of the Nuns-ripple Cripple, from which some bailiffs from St. Josafar came to ask him, after they papered La Alpurria with the face of her first-born—, but Laura's fate was totally unknown... and this ignorance caused him a deep pain. In this time, he came to realize how much he loved his youngest daughter. In one of those ten fateful hours occurred the moment he saw her for the last time, but could not remember if that last contact happened during the dinner or if that night Laura, before retiring to her room to sleep, had given him an affectionate Good-night kiss in his incipient baldness, which the old military man at first disliked, but eventually got used to wait as one of the few pleasant things of each day... In his mind, there was no sign of those last moments, but, to his misfortune, there was no way he would be left with the memories of the abominable act of abandoning his grandson in the Burnt Willow forest. And he remembered, how at that time, Laura did not agree to leave the child in the woods, and as she was the youngest, was not given any attention. She was not even heard. How many times Sir Higinio had regretted?

  He spent a fortune in looking for his daughter and after spending four years of pains and false clues, he resigned to continue with this company. She had disappeared. He did not know if she was dead, kidnapped or if she had just left Gurracam, but it was impossible to find her.

  Sir Higinio became a sad old man and worthy of all pity. He hardly ate or slept, and because of that he looked twenty years older than he really was. His complexion turned sallow and rough, all his remaining hair had fallen out and he always moved with the help of a club, stooped like a humpback. He did not take care of his appearance or dress, which once was luxurious, and now it was boring, old and simple. Besides, he rarely left his room. In the town, people were already beginning to believe that he was dead or sick of death, and it was celebrated in secret. Only those who did not know him would have bet their fortune against the truth that the defenseless old man, who lived in a neglected mansion full of shields, was an implacable, harsh and authoritarian young military.

  In his senior moments, sometimes dressed in his old costume of Sheriffs Guard and driving one of the many halberds that were in the house, played to be a soldier of the Sheriffs Royal Guard of St. Josafar, giving escort of honor to the King. So much grief he had that even tried to commit suicide on several occasions with one of those halberds, but some servant avoided it or simply failed by himself in his attempt. The explosion that occurred when the old man tried to manipulate a bombardment in one of the courtyards of the mansion will never be forgotten in La Alpurria. The machine, that no one remembered how it got there, burst possibly to be its mouth obstructed and Sir Higinio miraculously ended alive, but with his right leg shattered. The wounds healed slowly and badly, and because of that he was half lame for the rest of his life.

  2

  The bachelor Benito Castagnos, who remained faithful to his interested friendship with Sir Higinio and had gained control, came to the mansion one day in the spring, reporting that he had seen someone in the town square who looked a lot like Laura. If someone else had told him, at this point, he would not have believed him, but if the retired military man was still aware of something, it was about the respect and fear that the bachelor had towards him, even though at this moment he could not instill fear nobody. Only pity.

  The old constable guard marched to the center of the Alpurria and seeing the poor picture of his daughter fell to the ground crying with grief, barely held by the servile and crawling Castagnos.

  3

  It was too cold that morning and Joseph The Bull, who had woken up hours ago, could not go back to sleep no matter how much he curled up and covered himself with the few rags he used for this purpose. The waves were heard loud and clear breaking furiously against the rocky, wearing down and flattening a little more the edges of the island. The sky threatened storm and the black clouds that moved quickly, collided from time to time the one against the other, not letting see the light of the sun that struggled to stand up in the first hours of the day. Some gusts of wind crept without permission between the walls of the devastated house that served them as shelter, leaving with their whistles an unstoppable cold. The few existing trees shifted, causing their branches to crack as if they were complaints of the pain of bending. Birds flew low, gliding and screaming in panic. Joseph began to imagine what was going to happen from one moment to the next.

  In the distance a flash of lightning illuminated the blackened morning. A little later, the corresponding thunder sounded not too far. Joseph The Bull, already fully awake, realized that today they could not look for shellfish. They had a crust of bread, a piece of a sausage and a small stuffed tripe. He had exchanged them for three crabs the previous day, but that was not enough to satisfy their hunger.

  He felt quite angry whenever the weather was bad. He ended up getting angry and becoming unbearable. A storm was coming, what he most hated and feared since childhood. And, in addition, the sounds previous to this temporary one were put in the ears, and, therefore, in the interior of its head, without it could avoid it. He turned around cursing and saw how a cockroach the size of a coin of ten silver Alexandrians scampered up to his face in search of a hiding place. As a reflex act, he raised his fist and let it fall, unleashing all his fury on the defenseless animal, which turned out to be well full of its viscous content. The giant sat up blaspheming to wipe his hand and then realized that among all the noise that was around him, in addition, he could distinguish the cries of someone. At first, he thought it was the thin, dirty, mangy vagabond cats that seemed to be in heat all year, or that they just mewled in fear, hidden in some hole. But it was not the felines. He stood up and saw Night Skin, on the other side of the hut, weeping inconsolably and silently, hugging Mario's decomposed and unrecognizable body, from which the green leaves of the potting tree that had left him were falling like green leaves that coated the skin during the last days.

  “How much did he look like?” Joseph asked, putting a hand on Night Skin's shoulder.

  “It was him,” was the immediate response.

  4

  Laura Lopezosa Quesada asked for alms in La Alpurria del Campo square with the most pitiful aspect that could be imagined in the girl. She was famished, dirty, barefoot, barely dressed in rags and sporting large spots on her skin, probably due to prolonged malnutrition. In addition, she lacked some teeth, turning that happy and beautiful smile that she wore as a young woman into a horror. The fresh, unabashed beauty of Laura's face and body was something that seemed never to have existed in the woman who begged. The impoverishment of the body of Sir Higinio’s daughter was such that anyone would have given her only a few months to live. At that time, she must have been around twenty-four years old.

  “My daughter!” Don Higinio said at last.

  Laura looked up heavily. The old man had abandoned his club and began to embrace her.

  “Father!” She exclaimed, surprised.

  “What happened to you? Why did you abandon me?”

  The woman fell silent.

  “Laura, come home. I cannot stand seeing you like this. Please! Come back and forgive me for everything," Don Higinio pleaded when he stopped hugging her.

  “I cannot go back.”

  “Why not?”

  “No, while Irene is at home.”

  “Irene does not live with me anymore. I interned her in a convent.”

  The former soldier did not want to remember now the sorry nun-ripper cripple story that his youngest daughter seemed to be unaware of.

  “And she was let that happen?” Laura asked incredulously.

  “No, but among several men we got it. Now, after all this time, she must be a good
nun who serves God and the Church," he said, although he knew that was what he wanted to have happened, and not what actually happened.

  “But I cannot go with you, father.”

  “What's going on?”

  Laura returned to submerge in a prolonged silence that exasperated the poor old man. Then, she reached out to see if her father was giving her anything.

  “But what are you doing! You are my daughter and I love you. Stop humiliating yourself like that. I'm not ordering you to come to my side. I'm begging you. We have suffered enough already.”

  "I'll come back when you recognize Matthias as your grandson," Laura said point-blank, since she had not lost any love for her father either. But in spite of that there were issues to be fixed first.

  “Matthias?”

  Laura pointed to a boy of almost eight years old who, with only one leg, his hair the same color as his mother's and his face full of spots, begged alms from those who passed through the center of the square. The boy moved with some skill, helped by two rough crutches from a single oak trunk. Every once in a while, he would do some pirouette or jump of a skillful cripple, or he would go completely upright on his crutches, to which the people responded with cheers, applause and a few low-value coins.

  "He's Irene's son, right?” Don Higinio retrained.

  “Yes.”

  “So much time has passed!” The old man regretted.