“May I see his things?” Armada said.
Quiteria snorted again, then went over to a corner of the room and grabbed a small box and handed it to Armada. “You can take them. I don’t have the time to haul these all the way up that hill to that army camp. I have supper to make.”
Armada dug through the box to find little of value. There was a small, worn Bible, some bits of metal he’d found while out walking in the hills, a few coins, some interesting feathers and oddly shaped stones, and a bit of paper on the bottom. Armada unfolded the paper to find it full of names, all connected by various lines and circles, as if trying to organise them somehow.
At the bottom were two names he recognised—Quiteria Maraion and Rodrigo Maraion. Their names were linked with a line.
It was a family tree, tracing the genealogy of the Maraion family back several generations.
“Did you know he was working on this? That is the Maraion family, isn’t it?” Armada showed the paper to Quiteria.
“He never showed it to me.”
Armada found that odd. Why would Esteban have such a fascination with the Maraion family? From what he could tell, there were no nobles in their history. Just a long list of fishermen going back three generations. Which means he’d been writing down the results of his conversations with Quiteria’s husband.
But why?
“You said everything was fine at first,” Armada said. “What went wrong? Did your own relationship with Esteban sour somehow?”
“Sin and vice, Constable. That’s what Esteban and all the rest of those soldiers have brought to our little pueblo. The sooner they leave, the better off we’ll be.”
Quiteria was staring at Armada now. The nervousness from before was gone. She had given her answer, and her body was telling him she would give him no more.
“Thank you, Señora Maraion. You’ve been very helpful.”
Armada turned to go, but something caught his eye through the back door. A wild boar, skinned and left to dry out in the sun until it was ready to begin the long, laborious process of curing and drying it into a jamon serrano that would help feed the family through the coming winter.
Armada’s attention was drawn to the stomach area, which contained the mortal wound that had taken the creature down.
A harquebus wound.
“Congratulations,” Armada said. “It’s a lovely creature.”
Quiteria stared at him until he was safely back out on the road. All around him was the sound of murmuring neighbours, each coming up with their own theory as to what was happening and how Quiteria was involved. Unavoidable in small towns like this, Armada knew. Soon the rumours would begin to circulate and could make things more difficult.
But Armada had learned that rumours worked both ways. There had to be gossip about what had soured Quiteria’s opinion of Esteban so quickly.
And whether it was enough to drive her to murder.
Chapter Seven
The sun was already setting as Armada hiked back to the army camp at the top of the ridge. He arrived to find Pedro showing Lucas a trick with his dagger that involved spinning it round the tips of his fingers without hurting himself. Lucas picked up the dagger and tried it but dropped it, nearly stabbing himself in the foot. Pedro laughed, patting Lucas on the back.
Lucas then noticed Armada arrive and stood straight up. “Welcome back, sir.”
Armada found himself a bit jealous of Pedro. He sometimes wished Lucas could feel as relaxed as that around him. There was always a formality to his relationship with the boy that would probably never change. Armada was an employer to Lucas, a mentor, possibly even a teacher.
But never a friend. Not like Pedro could be.
“I trust you got everything done today?” Armada said.
“Yes, sir,” Lucas said. “Supper should be ready soon.”
“Good. Then can you get me a glass of sherry? I’m parched.”
Lucas ran off to the cart to pour him a glass when Salinas appeared.
“Armada, you’re back just in time,” Salinas said with a smile. “Barros managed to catch us two mice this afternoon. We’ve cooked them up in a stew.”
Armada grinned, trying to look grateful. Given the conditions these men were living under, it must have been quite good fortune to have a bit of meat tonight. Armada, however, would likely go to bed hungry.
“I also got these, Captain,” Pedro said, pulling something from a bag nearby.
Pedro handed each of them what looked like a large bean pod that had turned brown and leathery. Then he took a bite of his.
“Carob…” Salinas said, taking a bite as well. “You went down to the bottom of the hill for these?”
“I found a shortcut.”
“You’re mad. I told you that was dangerous. Someone could have seen you.”
“I can be quick when I want to.”
Salinas took another bite from the carob and smiled. “Quick but mad.”
Soon the night was upon them, and everyone sat round the campfire for warmth as they ate their mouse stew. Barros and Pedro had little time for manners and gulped it down from tin bowls, while Salinas, like Lucas and Armada, preferred to slurp his with a wooden spoon.
“We have guests, tontos,” Salinas said as Pedro finished his and went to the large metal pot on the fire for another helping.
“This again…” Pedro said, glancing at Barros.
“I’ve seen you use a spoon before. You know what it is.”
“Who has time for spoons? I’m hungry,” Barros said.
“It’s just the Brotherhood. It’s not like His Majesty has come for supper,” Pedro said.
“If the king saw how you two eat, he would banish you to the mines of Almaden,” Salinas said. He looked to Armada. “I apologise for these two borrachos. I do try to teach them manners, but they ignore me.”
Armada smiled but didn’t answer. His reply wouldn’t have been given much acknowledgement anyway. No, this was more about the banter. It’s what kept these men entertained during the long months spent up here. It’s what kept their minds off how cold the nights were about to become, the long hours in the watchtower, what happened to their friend, and how hard life was becoming for them. It kept them from going mad.
“Yes, Mother. Sorry, Mother,” Barros said, which got a laugh from Pedro.
Armada remembered nights like this from his own time in the army. It’s how the men in your company became brothers. It was necessary, as you would come to depend on these men for your survival. Especially in a place as dangerous as the jungles of Peru. It was the closest thing to family many soldiers would ever have. Which was why leaving the army was so traumatic for some.
“What was Esteban like as a soldier?” Armada asked.
“Useless,” Barros said.
“Barros…” Salinas said. He turned to Armada. “Esteban never seemed interested in fighting. Whenever Barros or I tried to teach him how to handle a sword or fire a musket, he would just tell us he knew all he needed to know and walk away. A bit arrogant, but isn’t every man at that age?”
“What about his free time?” Armada asked. “What did he do with that?”
“That was the odd thing,” Pedro said. “Whenever he didn’t have watch duty, he spent most of his nights with those Maraions. We tried to get him to come out with us. This was back in the days when we could always find a card game going somewhere. And when the tavern was still serving us.”
“How much did you know about his life with the Maraions?”
Barros laughed.
“Esteban was a bit strange when it came to that family,” Salinas said. “From the moment he got to La Herradura, he only wanted to be billeted with them. And it took him a while to convince that family to take him in.”
“Did he ever tell you why he was so interested?”
“No,” Salinas said. “I figured it was because he liked that daughter of theirs. She was about his age. Very beautiful. We all would have been happy to live there, belie
ve me. But Esteban never talked about her like that. He never talked about her at all, really.”
“And things went well while he was staying there?”
There were glances between the three soldiers.
“At first,” Salinas said. “But the last few weeks before the raid, he was…despondent. Something was really troubling him.”
“What?”
“He never said,” Salinas said.
“I caught him weeping one night. He told me he had done something unholy and disgraceful. He was ashamed of himself,” Pedro said. “But he couldn’t tell me what it was.”
“Unholy? That was the word he used?”
Pedro nodded.
Armada found this very odd. He could understand words like shameful or humiliating or even sinful. But unholy suggested something worse. Something that was perhaps illegal or against the church.
“What about the night of the raid itself?” Armada asked. “How did he seem?”
The soldiers went quiet, their gazes drifting to the flames of the dying fire.
“He wouldn’t speak to me,” Salinas said. “I asked him if he was all right to do his shift that night. He promised he was. He didn’t want to let down the company. But I could see it. There was something wrong there. I just wish he told us what it was before he…”
“Tell me about the night of the raid.”
Salinas sighed. “I was in town that night. I had just sat down to supper when I heard someone shouting down by the beach. It sounded like children playing at first, but then they ran past my window, yelling, ‘Pirates!’ By the time I got outside to see what was happening, the pirates were already on the beach. I looked at the watchtower but saw nothing. No signal fire, no warning. I went running up there, but it was Pedro who got to the tower first.”
Armada looked to Pedro.
“I was hunting,” Pedro said. “Sunset is the best time for foxes. I had just gotten back to camp when I saw the pirate ship anchored offshore. I climbed up into the tower to see why Esteban hadn’t lit the signal fire, and he was just sitting there, shocked. He must have just woken up. I ran up to the roof and lit the fire myself. But it didn’t make much difference. By the time I got the flame going, the pirates had done their work and were heading back to their ship.”
Armada was frustrated but hid it from the others. None of this was making any sense.
One big question was why Esteban had joined the army in the first place. Esteban was an orphan, a beggar in the streets. It was a very lonely existence. Joining a company such as this should have seemed an opportunity to leave all that behind. Here were men who would give their lives to defend him, who were willing to be the brothers he never had.
And yet Esteban had rejected all of it. He had done nothing to hide his disdain for fighting, refused to learn anything from these men, and had even eschewed their attempts to bond with him in their leisure time. This company was quite generous in calling him their baby brother because, from the sound of it, Esteban did not see himself in that way. He didn’t appear to look up to them at all. With so little interest in being a soldier, why join the army?
Instead, Esteban had joined the Maraions. It would be reasonable to assume he had become enamoured with their daughter, Isabel. But that didn’t explain the obsession he had with their whole family. Why would he bother with the genealogy? Hardly the kind of thing that would impress a young girl. Also, given what Quiteria was like, she would not have allowed Esteban into her home in the first place. How could Quiteria not have seen what would happen? None of it made sense.
What also gnawed at Armada’s mind was Esteban’s use of the words unholy and disgraceful. The kind of words one would use to describe some kind of blasphemy. But how did that relate to his time with the Maraions?
Armada’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a harquebus shot ringing out from the hillside below. A bit of wood exploded from the frame holding the cooking pot over the fire. Everyone jumped to their feet.
Barros plunged into the blackness of the hillside after them, following the sound of racing footsteps that crunched their way over the dried grasses.
“You are not up here hunting!” Salinas yelled into the darkness. “You’re not fooling anyone!”
Armada looked to Salinas.
“That happens almost every night now. They are trying to frighten us,” Salinas said.
“Barros will never catch them. They are too quick,” Pedro muttered.
“Catch who?” Armada asked.
“One of the townspeople. Who else would know these trails well enough to walk them at night?” Salinas said. “And they want to make it clear they want us to leave.”
“Or to die,” Pedro grumbled.
Chapter Eight
The next morning, Armada awoke to find the sun had already risen. The campfire was just smouldering ashes now, still giving off tiny wisps of smoke that caught the breeze and flew off to the east. Armada was surprised to find he felt refreshed. Was it possible that he’d actually slept well?
Pedro and Lucas still snored away next to him, while Salinas was a short distance away, having a bit of breakfast cobbled together from leftovers of the night before. Barros was missing, presumably doing his shift in the tower.
Salinas smiled. “We had a visitor this morning,” he said with a mouthful of food. “A boy dropped this off for you.”
Armada was handed a message from Martin, informing him the meeting with the families who had lost children in the raid had been arranged for that afternoon. He was to meet them in the ayuntamiento at three. And he knew not to be foolish enough to make evening plans.
Armada tucked the message away in his pocket and had a bit of breakfast before heading out. There was much to do. He’d had a thought about what had gone so wrong between Esteban and the Maraions. There was only one person who could confirm it, and Armada figured they wouldn’t be hard to spot.
Armada arrived in town to find the plaza buzzing with activity. The weekly market was on, and the entire plaza was filled with rickety stalls full of fruit sellers and other merchants selling their wares to the crowd of shoppers that ambled past. Fruit, vegetables, spices, clothing, fabrics, soap, charcoal, and used farming equipment of every kind spilled out of display crates as the air rippled with the sound of haggling and boisterous conversation. Throngs of shoppers meandered about, holding homemade baskets and sacks overflowing with their purchases.
Although noisy, the market itself wasn’t large. Armada was able to find a spot to sit at the edge of the plaza, well out of view in order to remain inconspicuous.
After nearly an hour, a young woman walked by who grabbed Armada’s attention. She let her gaze linger over a small box of odd fruit from the New World. She was no more than nineteen, with smooth skin not yet bronzed from years toiling in the sun. She was quite tall with a slender build but large hands that gripped the fruit firmly so she could sniff it.
The woman gave the fruit a confused look.
“It’s called a papaya,” Armada said from behind her.
The woman swung round, startled.
“They’re quite sweet and make a lovely juice in the summertime.”
The woman smiled half-heartedly, making it clear she was in no mood for conversation with a stranger. She put the fruit down and moved away.
“You must be Isabel Maraion,” Armada said.
The woman’s head swung round to face Armada again.
“I was hoping to have a word about…the father.”
Armada glanced down at the woman’s belly, which protruded enough to stretch the stitching of the front of her dress. She had attempted to throw an apron over it to make it more discreet, but she was weeks away from giving birth, making such attempts futile.
“I…I can’t,” Isabel said and tried to move away.
Armada followed her, keeping a sharp eye out for Quiteria or her husband, who were probably wandering about somewhere nearby. His time was short.
“Please…for E
steban’s sake. You must not feel he deserved his fate.”
Isabel hid her face. “Maybe he did,” she whispered, and then she was moving again.
Armada followed but was careful not to get too close. He couldn’t push too hard. A few words from Isabel could be the key that unlocked the whole mystery. He had to be careful not to make a scene or make her too uncomfortable. There were too many people about because of the market.
Isabel left the plaza and soon turned off the main road to head down a narrow alleyway between two houses. Armada noticed there were no windows overlooking this little lane and no one coming in the opposite direction. For a moment, they were alone.
“Please, Señora Maraion. Help me,” Armada pleaded. “Someone needs to be brought to justice for what they did to Esteban, whether you think he deserved it or not.”
Isabel stopped and kept her back turned. Her shoulders were shaking, and Armada realised she was weeping. He moved closer to her but remained a couple of steps away.
“Of course he didn’t deserve it,” Isabel whispered. “I…I loved him.”
So Armada was right. This was about a love affair.
“So it is Esteban’s baby.”
“Yes,” Isabel said.
“How did your mother feel about it?”
Isabel faced Armada, looking more confused than sad.
“She loved it. At first. She thought…we all thought…that Esteban loved me. He was so eager to be in our family. He was always helping us out with chores. He gave us most of his wages and spent all of his time with us. I thought…”
“You thought he loved you as well,” Armada said. He could already guess where the story was going.
“It’s the only thing that made sense. Why else would he be there? He loved listening to my grandfather tell him all the old stories from when he was a boy. He felt like part of the family after a while.”
“I’m sorry if this is too private, but it would help me to know if he ever told you he loved you.”
Isabel gave a tiny shake of her head.
“So how did this…happen?” Armada asked, gesturing to her belly.
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