A Murder Most Literate

by Jefferson Bonar

  “So, how did they get him?” Carasco finally said.

  “Stabbed in the chest while he worked in his office. Quite gruesome, really.”

  “He was a bastardo and a ladron, but he didn’t deserve that,” Carasco said, taking another long inhale of his pipe.

  “Teo told me what Gregorio had been making for you. It sounds like you’ve lost a valuable supplier.”

  Carasco studied Armada’s face carefully, not seeing the need to hide that he was hesitating, trying to work out Armada’s true intentions.

  “I’m more interested in what the authorities in Salamanca have already found out.”

  “If they knew you were here, I suspect there would already be Spanish soldiers surrounding the village. But they are being diligent on this one. The reputation of the university is at stake. At the moment, it seems the only people who know you’re here are Teo, who has run off to La Mancha and will not return…and me.”

  “So, you’re a brave man coming here. I could kill you and most of my worries would be over.”

  “You could. But then you would never find out where I’ve stashed the last batch of serpentine Gregorio mixed before he died.”

  The commander leaned way back in his chair, keeping his eyes locked on Armada without blinking.

  “You look like a sherry man to me. Am I right?”

  Armada was flustered by the sudden change in topic. “Um, yes.”

  “I thought so.”

  Carasco rose from the desk and went to a small cabinet on the far side of the room. He took out a small silver key, unlocked the iron lock, and opened it to reveal a variety of dusty bottles containing various levels and colours of drink.

  Carasco rummaged through a few of them before finding one half-filled with a rich, dark liquid, and he gave it a sniff.

  Satisfied, Carasco gestured for Armada to follow, and soon they were standing on a back patio that overlooked the whole of the countryside to the south. The land was flat and almost treeless, giving them a view of several leagues in every direction. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to enter the town without being seen from a long way off. Armada realised this was probably why this town had been chosen. It was impossible to sneak up on. They must have spotted him approaching hours before he’d actually arrived.

  Armada sipped his sherry, which had a slightly tangy taste to it. A sign it had been sitting in a humid cabinet somewhere for far too long. But it had once been quite nice, and Armada could still enjoy the grandeur of what the sherry had once been.

  “Did you know Gregorio?” Carasco finally asked, sipping his own sherry.

  “No.”

  “There was a man I couldn’t figure out. I’ve always prided myself on being able to read people. I always know what my men are thinking, any time of the day. They can never hide their thoughts from me. It’s what makes me good at this job.”

  Carasco gave Armada a long, wary look. Had he already suspected that Armada was not being truthful? If so, why bring him out here on the patio?

  “Gregorio,” Carasco continued. “He…he was a baffling man.”

  “He had a lot of secrets to keep.”

  “We all have a secret or two, farmer. But Gregorio seemed very principled to me. He was ruthless with his convictions. It’s what drove him to make such perfect powder. But when it came to doing business with him….”

  “You didn’t like how he did business.”

  “It turned out he was a liar and a ladron. Always delivering a bit less than was arranged, always complaining he wasn’t getting paid enough. It was confusing. The price never changed. Three hundred ducats. No more, no less. I never thought him the type to play such games. It made things very difficult for me.”

  “Yet you persisted.”

  “Oh…that powder! It could blow the pantalones off a man half a league away. It’s never once jammed our harquebuses. Better than anything I’ve ever seen back home. If it was anything less than the best in the world, I would have cut the man’s tongue out myself. But it was worth the trouble, if only for a few more barrels.”

  Carasco now turned his body to face Armada in an aggressive stance, his eyes bearing down on Armada, as if trying to stare into his soul.

  “Which is the only reason I’m talking to you now, farmer. I told you, I’m good at reading people. And you’ve been lying to me since you arrived. But if there is any chance you’re telling the truth about having a bit more of Gregorio’s serpentine, I’m willing to risk it. Just know that if you sell us out, and anyone in Salamanca learns where we are, I’ll know it was you. And I will come after you and stick the dagger into your gut myself.”

  The commander raised his shirt to reveal a long, shiny dagger that had been tucked into the waistline of his trousers.

  “Don’t think you wouldn’t be my first.”

  “I have little doubt of that,” Armada said.

  Carasco smiled and lowered his shirt. “Good. Then let’s go make a deal.”

  Carasco left his sherry behind, turned, and went back inside.

  Armada needed a moment to keep his hand from shaking. The commander had seen through his ruse and he wouldn’t be safe until he was well out of range of this town. Plus, he didn’t have a plan for telling Carasco there was no final batch. Gregorio had died and taken the secret of his powder with him. There would be no more.

  Despite the danger to his life, Armada was elated, for the trip had not been wasted. He had figured out who the killer was and their motivation.

  But if he was to catch them, he had to get back to Salamanca quickly. And that all depended on the mood of a nameless mule that he could hear braying in protest from the plaza.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It had been an amazing day for Lucas. After concluding their business with Emiliano at the tavern, and after several more rounds of ale, he and Julian were back on the streets of Salamanca, shouting chants and annoying everyone they passed. They eventually returned, inebriated and happy, to the common room of the pupilaje, where the other boys of San Bartolomé had just returned from their lectures. One of them had brought along something Lucas had always been intrigued by but had never tried.

  “Go on, joven,” Julian said, grinning.

  Lucas considered the long wooden pipe he held in his hands. One end was smouldering, filling the room with a sour smoky odour that was quite pungent. Moments ago, Marco attempted to suck the smoke of it into his body, and he’d collapsed into a coughing fit that had inspired a bout of jeering and insults from the other boys.

  And now it was Lucas’s turn.

  “Haven’t you smoked tobacco before?” one of the boys asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So, go on.”

  Not wanting to suffer the same fate as Marco, Lucas came up with a plan to put the pipe in his mouth and only pretend to fill his lungs.

  His plan failed immediately, however, as simply having the smoke near his nose sent him into the same uncontrollable coughing fit as Marco. The other boys erupted into laughter once again. Julian laughed too, but it was gentler, not meant to hurt but more to continue the play.

  The pipe was passed around the room until the tobacco burned itself out. Then, it was stashed away and the windows were opened to air out the room, as the boys had no desire to invoke Ambrosio’s wrath today.

  It was around this time that Lucas began to feel the effects of the tobacco. The taste in his throat felt as though he’d just eaten the ashes of a campfire, but a warmth was beginning to spread across his shoulders and the back of his head. His limbs were relaxing, and there was a sense that all was right with the world, an unfamiliar sensation to Lucas.

  “Sorry, joven, but you need to leave.”

  There was no menace to Julian’s tone, but he’d made it clear he was not to be questioned.

  “What? Why?” Lucas asked, unable to control the squeakiness in his voice.

  “The boys and I have to discuss something. And it isn’t for non-Bart
olome ears.”

  “I can stay quiet,” Lucas said.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s colegio business. Come back in a couple of hours. Then we’ll go get a drink.”

  Lucas looked around the room. There would be no argument on this point.

  “Hasta pronto,” Lucas mumbled as he got up and awkwardly left the room.

  Out in the corridor, Lucas couldn’t help but wonder if what they were discussing had anything to do with Gregorio’s murder. Perhaps it was just mundane business. Perhaps it was just about the election. But if there was any chance it had to do with murder, Lucas could never forgive himself. He had to know for sure.

  To do that, he needed to hear what was being said in that room. The door he’d just come out of was too thick to hear anything through, and the boys had lowered their voices to make it even more difficult.

  Lucas surmised that he had to get to the other side of the room, where the window shutters had been left open. Perhaps, if he climbed out onto the ledge, he could get close enough to hear.

  There were footsteps clomping about at the end of the corridor. It was Ambrosio, and the moment he laid eyes on Lucas he could count on at least half an hour of lecturing before he was left alone again. He had to avoid Ambrosio, but that end of the corridor was also the only way out of the building.

  Then Lucas spied the doors to the other boys’ bedrooms. They were all in the common room at the moment, which gave Lucas an idea. He nipped down the corridor until he came to Marco’s room at the very end. Marco had left his window open. There was a bit of a ledge just below the window that led all the way back to the common room. It was risky, but there was a chance it would get him close enough.

  Lucas crawled out onto the ledge and wondered how quickly he could get back into the corridor before being spotted. If he was caught out here, there would be uncomfortable questions that he didn’t have answers for.

  Lucas carefully sidestepped his way toward the common room window. A few times, the concrete at his feet gave way and he had to hold fast to whatever he could grasp to keep from falling down into the olive trees below. The fall probably wouldn’t kill him, but it would hurt and make a lot of noise.

  Eventually, Lucas made it to just outside the common room window and grabbed the open shutter to support himself. He held his body as still as he could, then listened.

  “…it will definitely swing the election our way….”

  “…I don’t know, it seems extreme….”

  “And you’re sure they’ll think it was the Arzobispo boys who did it?”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll tell them!” It was Julian’s voice, low and hushed. “Everyone knows we have a rivalry going on. They’ll just think Arzobispo took it too far and sympathise with us, especially if they think some of us could have died. And we’ll do it all the night before the election, so it’s fresh on everyone’s mind when they go to vote.”

  “Where did you even get that? Are you sure it will work?”

  “It will work, don’t worry. I’m certain.”

  “Does it have to be the whole building?”

  “No, just a piece of it. My father can have it fixed easily enough. More importantly, Vergara will have won that chair, and he’ll remind this school every day why San Bartolomé will always be the best colegio mayor in all the Spanish kingdoms. Kings for Bartolome, Bartolome for Kings!”

  The boys immediately joined in with Julian’s chant, leaving Lucas with more questions than answers. First, he needed to figure out what “it” was. The boys were all huddled around something. If he could just get a glance at it….

  Lucas leaned a bit further over to peek round the edge of the window, then suddenly felt the shutter give way in his hand. Lucas instinctively grabbed the sill of the window to keep from falling, making a loud clatter in the process.

  The boys came running over.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “He’s spying on us!”

  “Get in here, you rat!”

  Lucas felt hands grab his clothing and he was violently pulled inside and thrown on the floor. The boys then surrounded him, glaring down at him with looks that meant a beating would soon follow.

  But Lucas’s efforts had paid off. For he’d been thrown on the floor right next to “it,” which he could now see was a small barrel of gunpowder, complete with a homemade fuse made of cloth tied to the top.

  “For your own sake, you better start talking, joven,” Julian said. “Why were you listening in on us? Are you with Arzobispo, is that what this is about? Were you planning to tell them all about us?”

  “No, nothing like that. I swear,” Lucas said. “I just…I figured it was something for the election, that’s all. And if it was, I…I wanted to help. I really want to win that chair for San Bartolomé. Please…let me help….”

  The boys stared down at him, wondering if what Lucas had said could be true.

  Lucas wondered that, as well.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Armada returned to the gate at Villamayor around midday and wasted little time manoeuvring his cart through the city. Both he and the mule were both tired and quite hungry. The stable boy would take care of the mule, but Armada’s rumbling stomach would have to wait. He had a killer to apprehend.

  “He’s been arrested.”

  “What?” Armada asked.

  The landlady scrunched her brow again, incensed at having to repeat herself as she planted a hand against the doorway. She was not about to let Armada in again.

  “They arrested the filthy perro. First thing this morning. Frightened me half to death. And one of them stepped on one of my hams, which I’ll be charging them for.”

  “Who? Who arrested him?”

  “City constables. There were two of them. Teo squealed like a pig when they pulled him out. Woke everyone in the street up. It was quite a scene.”

  No! Armada thought. If only he’d been a little quicker to put the pieces together. He should have not wasted so much time. How had the city officers found him out so fast?

  Or perhaps, they didn’t….

  “What did they arrest him for?”

  “Apparently, that bellaco had a stash of serpentine he’d been hiding in the back of an old church. They’ll hang him for that for sure.”

  Armada thanked the landlady and raced off. If the constables were indeed city officials, then Teo would right now be in custody in the basement of the ayuntamiento. There might still be time. The procedure for jailing someone involved seizing all of their worldly possessions, and seizing possessions meant reports, and reports took time. Especially when there were so many clerks, notaries, and other administrative officials that needed to sign off on it and be paid for their service as well, of course. He might yet have time to fix this.

  Armada raced to ayuntamiento only to be stopped by the jail clerk and informed that there was no way he was going to get to see the prisoner. From there, the usual procedure ensued—after a bit of sweet-talking and bribery, Armada was finally told he might be able to see the prisoner if the magistrate in charge of the case signed a letter stating it was all right to do so. The magistrate, of course, was off on business and would probably not return that day.

  A bit more sweet-talking and bribery, and then a lot more bribery, and Armada managed to convince the clerk that the promise of such a letter was enough and that it would definitely be forthcoming. The clerk was still unsure, and Armada was told to wait while the clerk went to lunch. Two hours later, the clerk returned with the smell of ale on his breath and in a much better mood. It was agreed Armada could return the next day with the letter from the magistrate, stamped and signed, but only if Armada paid a few more maravedís to show his good faith.

  Armada was finally granted access to the cells below to find Teo sitting in the back of his cell, staring up at the little window that granted him the only light.

  It was so quiet in the cell there was little doubt Teo had heard Armada arrive, though he made no acknowle
dgement of it.

  “I was sorry to hear what happened his morning,” Armada said.

  “No, you’re not. You’re glad. Means I won’t be running off any time soon.”

  “I spoke to your friend, Commander Carasco.”

  This finally elicited a response from Teo, who looked at Armada, surprised.

  “He seemed to have no idea what you were up to.”

  Teo only smiled and went back to gazing at the window.

  “Tell me, did Gregorio know you were skimming from the shipments? Or from his payments? Is that why you killed him?”

  Teo leaped to his feet and rushed to the bars, planting his face against them to make his point.

  “I didn’t kill him. I told you.”

  “You certainly had reason to. He must have figured out what you were doing. He would have threatened to tell Carasco. That would have ruined your business for good. And threatened your life, as Carasco is not a man who lets go of grudges either.”

  Teo smiled, then broke into a laugh. “Is that what you think this is about? Oh, constable, you have it all wrong.”

  “Then help me get it right.”

  “Gregorio never knew, either. Him and Carasco never got along. They were so busy bickering with each other, neither one of them ever considered it was me. Why would I kill him? I was making a fortune off him. And if those raton constables hadn’t followed me last night and discovered my stash, I would be in Madrid right now, living like a king!”

  “So, what happened to the money Gregorio was paid for his last batch? His family certainly didn’t receive it. Which means you were the only person who could have taken it.”

  “If I had known someone would stick a dagger in him, I would have! What I could do with three hundred ducats! No, you have to talk to that assistant of his. That’s your man.”