Lucas looked up at the tower. It no longer had the sinister look he’d felt before. It was now just a point of frustration. His mind worked through all the possibilities again, but everything came to naught.
“Here. You’re not done yet,” Pedro said, giving the key to Lucas. “You need to get this back to Salinas.”
“I can make that easy for you,” came a voice from behind them.
Lucas and Pedro turned to see Salinas approaching them with his hand out.
“I’ll take that back.”
“Sir…sorry, sir,” Pedro said.
Lucas was too frightened to speak.
Salinas snatched the key and hooked it back on his belt before tying his belt up again.
“I can’t imagine your master is going to be too happy to hear about this,” Salinas said to Lucas. “Stealing from an army officer is a very serious offence. How do I know you weren’t stealing provisions out of there? Provisions that could keep my soldiers alive should they ever come under siege?”
“Sir…I wasn’t doing anything like that. I swear…” Lucas stammered.
But Salinas had stopped listening. “And you, Pedro. I can’t believe you helped him. How did he ever convince you to do that?”
“I didn’t steal the key, sir. I just looked in the shed. That was all,” Pedro said. “It was the boy who—”
“Stop! I don’t care. You both were complicit, so you both have to pay the punishment. Now, we’ve been talking about digging a trench to bring water from that spring at the top of the hill down to the camp. It sounds like you two have just volunteered.”
Pedro groaned and gave Lucas a dirty glare. Lucas didn’t care about the work he would have to endure. He was more thinking of how humiliating it would be when Armada returned.
And all he wanted to do was help. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all.
Chapter Twenty-One
Armada returned to the army camp just after sunset to find Lucas and Pedro having spent all afternoon using worn metal adzes to dig a trench down from a nearby hill.
“I don’t know what that page of yours was up to, Armada, but it can’t happen again,” Salinas said after he finished telling Armada the story.
“I believe I do. And I can’t apologise enough for his behaviour,” Armada said.
Armada glanced over his shoulder at where Lucas was working. He could see the boy looking over at him, worried. Best to let him worry a bit longer, Armada thought. For whatever Armada told him now, it wouldn’t be half as bad as what Lucas was imagining he was going to say.
“Do you whip that boy, Armada? Boys his age need to be disciplined. My own father whipped me for everything,” Salinas said. “Kept me from getting into any real trouble. You can’t let them grow up soft, thinking they can do whatever they like.”
Armada was getting annoyed by Salinas’s smugness.
“I will consider that. Now, there was something else I was hoping to discuss with you. In private, of course.”
Armada led Salinas away from the camp towards an overlook that gave a breathtaking view of the town of La Herradura as it was swallowed up by the shadow of the ridge.
“Tell me where the brandy came from,” Armada said when he was sure they were alone.
“What?” Salinas asked.
“Those barrels that are locked away in a small shack down by the beach. How did they get there?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Salinas said.
“There is no track large enough to reach that shed by land with a cart or horses. Which means they must have come in by sea. That suggests they came from somewhere outside Andalusia. Given they are not stamped, it means no customs duty has been paid, which makes them contraband. And there is no way they could have come in by sea without being seen by someone in the watchtower. And don’t tell me they fell asleep again. Once I can understand. But twice is very unlikely. I just want to know if I should imprison you for smuggling or Martin Figueroa.”
Salinas stared at the little pueblo below, the smugness from before melting away.
“It was Martin’s deal,” Salinas said. “He said I would get a share of it if I could make sure the ship could unload the barrels in peace.”
“Who brought the barrels? Where did they come from?”
“Martin never told me. I only ever saw the ship from a distance.”
“What was the plan, then? To sell them?”
Salinas seemed to be trying to hold back tears. Armada hadn’t expected a reaction like that from such an innocuous question. Unless…
“That’s what was supposed to happen, yes. But…”
Armada had stumbled upon something far larger than he’d realised. “The raid. That’s what they’d come for, isn’t it?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be a raid!” Salinas shouted, then composed himself. “It was supposed to be a nice, quiet business deal. Nothing more.”
“But instead, the pirates pillaged the town,” Armada said, still not able to believe it himself. It now made sense why Martin Figueroa had vilified Esteban as much as he had. He was trying to cover up his own guilt.
“I don’t know what went wrong. Martin met with them, not me…”
“You must have paid off Esteban as well, then. He was working the tower that night.”
“We didn’t know what time they were arriving,” Salinas said. “So I had to bring Esteban in so that at least one of us was covering the tower when they got here. He’s the only one of the men who followed my orders, so I figured he was the best one to bring in.”
“So he wasn’t sleeping. Esteban let them come,” Armada said, more to himself, as it was so hard to believe.
Salinas’s hesitation got his attention.
“That’s what we agreed, but…”
“Go on.”
“He wasn’t there. He’d deserted the tower.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. I never could get him to tell me,” Salinas said. “He came back a few hours later with an injured foot and couldn’t walk. It was obvious he got into a scrap with someone, but he wouldn’t tell me. And it’s not like I could punish him for desertion. He said he would tell everyone what he knew if I did. So I made up the story about finding him asleep to make it sound like an innocent mistake. But it didn’t help...”
A thousand questions raced through Armada’s mind. “So you haven’t told the other men in your company what happened?”
“No. None of them know,” Salinas said, glancing back at Barros, who was poking fun at Pedro and Lucas as they sat by the fire and poured water over their sweating heads.
“Is that why you brought Esteban up here? To keep him quiet?”
“Yes. But also to keep him alive. When Martin started blaming him for the whole thing, I had no choice. Everyone in the pueblo wanted his head on a pike after a while. Esteban was furious and wanted to return to town. He didn’t seem to care if the pueblo hated him. I never understood that.”
“So you killed Esteban to keep him from revealing your role in the raid.”
“No!” Salinas said. “I didn’t kill anyone. I was in town when Esteban was killed. Ask anyone.”
“So who was it? If not you, then Jose Encinas? Or Martin Figueroa?”
“I don’t know,” Salinas said. “I haven’t spoken to either of them since the raid. I doubt Esteban would have let them up into the tower anyway. He knew how much they wanted him dead. He was no tonto.”
Armada sat on a boulder, hanging his head low, trying to contemplate the whole situation.
“I was in a room with the families of those who lost children in that raid,” Armada said. “The loss, the grief, the sadness. It’s still so raw. It washes over you, makes you feel like a drowning man in the sea during a storm. And you just let them go on thinking the world is a cruel place where random things like that just happen? When you know the truth?”
“I tried,” Salinas whispered. “You don’t think I tried? But…to look tho
se people in the face and tell them their children are gone because I… I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t…”
Armada had heard enough from the cowardly captain and stood.
“What are you going to do?” Salinas asked.
“Nothing until I have more proof of what you say. And you should be aware that if you decide to run, there are constables in the Holy Brotherhood who will find you. No matter how far you get. And they will not be as generous with your life as I am.”
Salinas nodded. “I understand. Where would I go?”
Armada knew there was a chance Salinas would throw himself off a cliff or something equally as foolish now that he knew he was caught. And Armada didn’t much care at the moment.
Armada stormed over to the campfire, where Lucas was drinking water from a bowl with his shirt tied around the top of his head to stop the sweating.
“Your time digging trenches is over, Lucas,” Armada said. “Change your clothes, and come with me. I’m in the mood for a bit of ale tonight. Oh, and bring that tunic of yours from the other night.”
Lucas scrambled to his feet. “Um…yes, sir.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“That’s incredible, sir,” Lucas said after Armada finished telling him all he’d learned that night.
“Yes, and it leaves me in quite a quandary. I now have two different sets of suspects to consider, both of which are compelling.”
Armada took a gulp of his warm ale and tried to pretend it was sherry but failed to. Looking at the tavern, it was a sure bet the actual sherry they stocked here was some awful fino left to rot in the sunshine out back and would be far worse.
“Two sets, sir? Who else do you suspect besides Salinas and Martin Figueroa?”
“We cannot rule out a revenge killing by the Maraion family, can we?” Armada said.
“But, sir, I thought you said you knew her father didn’t do it.”
“I did. And I still don’t believe he pulled the trigger.”
“Then I’m confused, sir.”
“Did you bring your tunic like I asked? The one you were wearing the night of your adventure on the hillside?”
Lucas went into his bag and pulled out his tunic, which was still soiled and smelled of wet earth. He handed it to Armada.
“Yes, that’s the one. Now, if I remember…”
Armada looked at the bottom hem of the tunic and flipped it over to look at the inside. There was a bit of sticky vine there, which he now pulled off and held up in front of Lucas’s eyes.
“Chickenweed. It’s all over the hillside below the tower. Sticks to anything, especially clothing.”
Armada demonstrated by pinching the vine between his two fingers, then opening his fingers to show the vine had stuck fast to them.
“And not just yours. But also Isabel Maraion’s.”
“You think Isabel Maraion is a suspect, sir? But she’s pregnant.”
“Yes, I thought about that,” Armada said, rubbing the sticky weed off on the bottom of the table.
“She has the motivation. She was hurt by Esteban’s rejection of the baby, and his apologies may not have been enough. I think there is a chance she kept that last meeting, the one Esteban asked her for in the letter. Isabel said she thought he was going to propose to her. If Esteban had done anything besides that when she arrived, she would have been disappointed. Given that was the second time he dashed her hopes for a good future, it could have been enough to motivate her to kill him.”
“So if it wasn’t marriage, what did Esteban want to talk to Isabel about that night?”
“I have no idea, I’m afraid,” Armada said. “We may never know. But it makes sense that Esteban would have lowered the ladder to the watchtower for her.”
Lucas took a sip of his ale but winced and set it aside. The boy had yet to develop a taste for it, despite being almost fifteen years old. Armada was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with him.
“But, sir, how could she have overpowered Pedro that night? Remember, he said he encountered the killer. And he was pretty injured. There wasn’t a mark on her.”
“That’s because it wasn’t her who Pedro tangled with. No, that would have been her father, who made it clear to me how much he wanted Esteban to marry his daughter. It would also explain where she got a harquebus from.”
“Would Señor Maraion go through so much trouble for his daughter to marry a man who ruined her honour and then rejected her?”
“A good question. With two possible answers. Either Rodrigo Maraion believed, as Isabel did, there was a chance Esteban had changed his mind, or father and daughter went there with the purpose of killing him.”
“So it was about revenge?”
“You can wash your face if it’s splashed with mud. But honour can only be washed with blood,” Armada quoted.
“Calderon, sir?”
“Indeed. Rodrigo Maraion may have seen no other way of rectifying his daughter’s honour. Assuming he worried about such matters.”
“I thought people only worried about that sort of thing in plays.”
“It’s rare in real life, that’s true. But not unheard of.”
“Also, sir, it still leaves the question of how she got out of the watchtower.”
“Yes, how are you coming on that, Lucas? Did you get up there and have a look?”
“Um…yes, sir. But I didn’t see anything that might help yet.”
“What about in the storeroom at the base of the tower?” Armada asked. “Salinas mentioned how you believed the killer might be living down there. A bit foolish, I must say, but it must have given you a good excuse to have a look around. Was there anything there that looked like brandy?”
“Well, sir, it was…dark. I didn’t have a torch with me. So it was hard to see,” Lucas said.
Armada found it odd that Lucas couldn’t look him in the eye when he spoke. Embarrassment for not having brought a torch? Or something else?
“Lucas, there could have been clues down there. How did you not plan ahead?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“You’ll have to go back. I need a complete inventory of everything in that storeroom. I want to know if there is anything that could be contraband in there. And you won’t have to worry about Salinas. I’m sure he’ll be happy to provide you with the key this time.”
“Yes…sir,” Lucas said with an odd hesitation.
“And that brings us to our other two suspects, Martin Figueroa and Jose Encinas. I find their motivation much more believable.”
“But, sir, why would Esteban have dropped the ladder for them the night he was killed? He said it himself in the letter that he knew his life was in danger.”
“Oh, Lucas, you do obsess about these things, don’t you? It would have been quite easy for them to get up there.”
“How, sir?”
“The spare wooden ladder, of course. The one they brought to retrieve Esteban’s body. It is the only thing in town that can get up there. It’s simple deduction.”
Lucas scrunched his brow, and Armada resigned himself to the flurry of questions that were to follow. The way the boy’s mind worked was so tedious sometimes.
“So you’re saying, sir, that Jose Encinas and Martin Figueroa carried the wooden ladder all the way up to the watchtower, killed Esteban, lit the fire, and then carried the ladder all the way back into town afterwards?”
“Yes. Now, if we can get back to—”
“But, sir, that would mean they were carrying the ladder back to town after the fire had been lit. It would have drawn everyone’s attention. The ladder is very large and difficult to carry. They would have been spotted.”
“It was chaos that night. No one would have stopped to take a close look at anything. They thought pirates were coming. Everyone in the pueblo would be racing about, trying to get out of town. They could have dumped the ladder in the hills and run back to town.”
“But, sir, when Pedro and Barros went to get the ladder that night
, they found it where it was supposed to be. So Jose Encinas and Martin Figueroa would have had to return it right where they got it from, which is in the ayuntamiento right in the middle of the pueblo. How could they have done that without anyone seeing them?”
Armada drummed his fingers on the table, becoming ever more frustrated at not being able to argue Lucas’s point and wanting to move on.
“I don’t know, Lucas. But it is not the part of the case we should be focused on at the moment.”
“Sir, if they didn’t use the ladder, it means the only way they could have gotten into the watchtower was if Esteban lowered the rope ladder for them. But he wouldn’t have. It makes no sense.”
Armada had to admit it was a good point. What could those men have tempted Esteban with that night to get him to lower the ladder for them? It would have been odd for either man to be there that night anyway, so close to the army camp in the middle of the night. Nobody from the pueblo was allowed anywhere near the tower. And they would have risked sneaking their way through a camp full of sleeping soldiers. And how would they have gotten Esteban’s attention from below? There was no way to do that without shouting, even on a quiet night.
Salinas had admitted being in league with Jose and Martin with the smuggling, but did his loyalties extend to helping them murder a soldier from his company? This felt unlikely. Salinas was a coward, and it hadn’t taken much to get him to admit to his participation in the smuggling ring. If he had helped Jose and Martin murder Esteban, he wouldn’t have been able to lie about it to Armada so convincingly.
“At the moment, there is a more interesting question. Why choose to kill him on that particular night? It could not have been a coincidence that they wanted to kill Esteban on the same night he had hoped to meet Isabel and divulge his secrets to her.”
“Which means they must have known about Esteban’s letter,” Lucas said.
“Precisely,” Armada said. “And the only one who could have told them about the letter is the carrier of it.”
Domingo Armada series Omnibus Page 43
