“Are you sure she’s coming?” Oriana asked, leaning close.
“Yes.” Duilio turned to watch the traffic on the main street, and as he did, a carriage pulled to a stop and a woman in a white outfit stepped down.
After some wrangling with luggage, Madam Norton strode down the pier to the ship with one portmanteau in her hand. One of her aides followed, a young woman in plainer attire, clutching two portmanteaus and a briefcase. The two women in blue uniforms of the Signal Corps came last, carrying a large trunk between them. That had to be their mechanical arm. Good news, since that meant they could contact Barcelona and let them know the Tesouro was on its way.
Madam Norton walked directly up to Duilio and Oriana, clutching her straw hat to her head with one daintily gloved hand. “Madam Paredes, Mr. Ferreira, I’m grateful for your inviting me along. I hope there’s better news about my nephew when we arrive.” She turned to Duilio, one eyebrow lifted speculatively. “You say that I’ll be needed there. Could you tell me why?”
Duilio wasn’t going to admit his gift had told him that. He’d rather have some secret in reserve for future interactions with the clever ambassador. “You have your ways, we have ours.”
* * *
LLEIDA
The train finally drew up to the platform at Lleida as the sun crept toward the mountains in the west. The station at Lleida was another simple one, a small building with a metal canopy like Manresa’s. A river flowed toward the town, along the road from the station. To the east, an ancient cathedral rose on a hill. It looked more like a fortress than a church to Marina’s eyes. The whole town had that brownness she was beginning to associate with central Spain. She felt a sudden surge of homesickness for the often-foggy streets of the Golden City.
Father Escarrá immediately went to find a cab to carry them to the town hall. He returned a moment later with a large coach and, after a short discourse with the marquesa, helped her and Marina into it. Alejandro obediently climbed up and sat by her, keeping his knees well away from the old woman’s. Once they were all settled, the driver headed down the road that followed the bank of the river. It wasn’t like the Douro, deep and dark and powerful. Instead it seemed a lazy river, tamed, and more suited to this city with its bright sunshine and sandstone walls.
“What do we do once we get to the town hall?” Marina asked.
“I will speak with the . . .” The marquesa rattled off a phrase that meant nothing to Marina.
“That’s their title for the mayor here,” Father Escarrá said after seeing Marina’s baffled expression. “Paer en cap.”
The marquesa tapped her cane against the floor of the coach. “Who’s the bishop now?”
“Meseguer,” the priest supplied.
“He’s a good man. If the paer en cap won’t produce my great-grandson, the bishop will.”
Marina wished she felt as sanguine about the marquesa’s chances. Nobility wasn’t as much a guarantee of cooperation as it must have been in the old days. “What do you need me to do?”
The marquesa’s eyes narrowed. “Keep yourself and that boy out of the way. I’m not prepared to fight two wars at once.”
Alejandro’s face remained expressionless. He was probably accustomed to hearing himself spoken of in that way. Marina wasn’t. She looked away at the river they were passing along, but then the coach turned from the wide main avenue onto a narrower street.
The street was lined with older buildings, the same beige stone predominating on either side of the street. Like in the Golden City, the buildings had small balconies that overlooked the traffic, wrought-iron rails guarding them. The coach finally pulled to a stop in a wider area in front of a stern building with tapestries hanging beneath trios of narrow arched windows.
“The town hall,” Father Escarrá said to Marina as he helped her down.
It didn’t seem a very grand building, but that was often the case in older parts of cities where one would find a church or museum crammed in between houses or shops.
Marina waited while Alejandro jumped down from the coach, landing on the paving stones in his worn shoes. His eyes shifted around the square—it was more a wide area in the street rather than a true square—and he stepped behind her. He was coming back to his prison. He couldn’t like being here. She took his hand. “We’ll be fine.”
His expression was doubtful. His jaw clenched and he looked away.
The marquesa stomped toward the hall, passing under the archway on Father Escarrá’s arm. Marina followed with a reluctant Alejandro hanging on to her hand. The inside of the building was stately, the stone cast into a golden glow by the rings of lights hanging from the high ceiling and sconces on the walls. An arcade of arches surrounded the room, one covering a stairwell that led upward into what must be the areas of the building where the business of the city took place. The impressive main room in which they stood was nearly empty save for a few pieces of dark furniture under the arches and, incongruously enough, what looked like a well to one side.
The marquesa surveyed the room with a jaded eye and began banging her cane against the stone floor. A guard in ceremonial livery with a gold and red patch on his cap hurried over, his eyes wide with alarm. “My lady, how can I help you?”
The old woman peered up at the tall young man. “Get me a chair, you fool. And bring the paer en cap here. I want to speak with him now.”
“There are chairs in the waiting chamber upstairs.”
She snapped her cane against the young man’s shins, causing him to flinch. “I am not climbing those stairs, boy. I am the marquesa of Terrassa-Montcada. I am a grandee, and your mayor will come to me.”
Marina pursed her lips. Grandee? Surely Joaquim would know exactly what that meant. Whatever it was, it had the desired effect. The young man hurried off and returned carrying a heavy wooden chair. He set it on the floor and the marquesa settled into it with a satisfied huff. “Now, where is your mayor?”
“I’ve sent for him, lady,” the young guard said.
“Adequate.” The marquesa settled both of her gnarled hands atop her cane.
Marina glanced down at Alejandro, who rolled his eyes. She clamped her lips together to keep from laughing. It was the first time she’d seen him show such exasperation. He must share Joaquim’s egalitarian sentiments. She laid one hand on his shoulder instead. How long will we have to wait?
* * *
Joaquim took a great gasp of air. It seemed as if he’d been imprisoned in rock, stone filling his lungs. He blinked, dazzled by the light about him. How did I get here?
He was in a courtyard, he realized, the reflection of the one that Marcos had shown him this morning—the prisoners’ courtyard—but there was no wall. Where the wall should have been, rubble sprayed away from the yard. In the distance Joaquim saw men running toward the town, the streets he’d not been able to see from the other side of the prison. A handful of men in worn clothes huddled in the court despite the missing walls, gazing past Joaquim with frightened eyes.
“Where is she?” the Vilaró demanded.
Joaquim turned as much as his aching ankle would allow. The Vilaró stood to his left, open hands held wide at his side. “What did you do?”
“Where is Leandra?” the Vilaró asked again.
Joaquim swallowed, tasting dust. “How did I get here?”
“I moved you through the stone,” the Vilaró said. “Now find Leandra for me, witch.”
Moved him through the stone? What exactly did that mean? “Why?”
“Because if she’s still in the Morra,” the Vilaró added, “we need to get her out of there.”
Ah, he hadn’t thought of that. Joaquim closed his eyes and recalled Leandra’s face the last time he saw her, bloodied like his own and exhausted. She was far enough away that she wasn’t in this prison. “She’s still there.”
The Vilaró moved so quickly tha
t Joaquim didn’t have a chance to jerk away. He set his hand on Joaquim’s shoulder, and the world went dark again.
Then they were standing in a dim room of all stone, blocks roughly hewn. The smell was mustier, as if it was wetter here, but still carried the undeniable scent of human filth. This was the Morra. He recognized it by the smell, even if he hadn’t seen it before.
Joaquim coughed, trying to get the taste of dust out of his mouth. “What did you just do?”
“I moved you through the stone,” the Vilaró said again.
This place was lit by lanterns rather than electricity. They were on a lower level, in a central atrium that had stairwells leading up on either side. As the Vilaró hauled him toward the wall beside one of the stairwells, Joaquim closed his eyes and caught his sense of Leandra.
She’s in the same cell as before.
“If I get you a set of keys and a gun,” the Vilaró asked, “can you get her out of here?”
Joaquim gazed at the man, his stomach cramping now. The Vilaró’s hand, the one that had seemed burned to the bone, now looked whole. “What happened to your burns?”
“Why do you keep asking questions?” the Vilaró snapped. “I can feel the guard’s feet on the steps. I’ll retrieve his keys and gun, but you need to help Leandra out of this place.”
Joaquim heard the footsteps of the guard above them now, clomping in heavy boots down the stone stair. A brawny man with curling hair came off the last step and turned to survey the atrium where Joaquim and the Vilaró stood. He turned his head one way, as if trying to spot something out of the corner of his eye, and Joaquim realized the guard couldn’t see him.
The Vilaró was hiding them, making them invisible even though they stood in plain sight only a few feet away. Back in the Golden City, the Lady could do the same, as could Prince Raimundo. That told Joaquim they all had common blood.
But the guard clearly recognized there was danger. He drew a dagger, then advanced. The man had a pistol in his sash but hadn’t chosen it, wise in this stone-walled space where any missed shot would ricochet. He paused again, expression puzzled, only a few feet away from where Joaquim stood.
Joaquim felt the Vilaró’s hand on his shirt slacken, and when he glanced back, the Vilaró was gone.
And in that same instant, the guard saw him. “Who are you?”
Trapped against the wall, Joaquim made his choice. He lowered his shoulder and rammed forward into the man’s stomach. The guard went down, Joaquim atop him, and let out a groan when his head hit the hard floor. As Joaquim grabbed at the dagger, the man’s head lifted, his teeth bared. He huffed cigarette-smoke-laden breath in Joaquim’s face as they wrestled for the blade. It hit the floor with a clatter. Joaquim reached for it, only to gasp in pain when the guard’s hand closed around his burned arm. The guard pushed, throwing off Joaquim’s weight. Joaquim’s back hit the floor, his head striking the stone floor hard enough to send stars flaring through his vision.
By the time he got his eyes to focus, the guard had rolled to his feet and now loomed overhead, pistol in hand. At this distance, he couldn’t miss. He took a step toward Joaquim, but then abruptly jerked away with a loud cry. Joaquim rolled onto his side and used his elbow to lift himself. The Vilaró held the guard against the wall.
The guard’s eyes were wide with terror. “No,” he pleaded with his captor. “No, Vilaró, don’t hurt me. I swear I will let you out of here.”
Joaquim couldn’t see the Vilaró’s face from this angle, but he heard a low laugh. Then the guard faded back into the wall, as if falling through it. The Vilaró continued to push him until all that was left were the guard’s splayed hands, and then those were gone too. The Vilaró’s arms emerged from the stone wall as if they were coming out of water.
Joaquim swallowed, tasting blood from a bitten tongue. What did I just see?
His breath short, Joaquim pushed himself into a sitting position against the hallway wall and regarded his savior with trepidation. In a low tone that he hoped wouldn’t carry, he asked, “What happened to him?”
The Vilaró merely said, “I wouldn’t think about it too hard.”
Joaquim glanced downward. His sleeve was bloody now where the guard had grabbed his arm, the brand bleeding again. It burned anew.
“There’s your gun,” the Vilaró said, pointing.
The guard’s pistol lay on the floor. He must have dropped it when the Vilaró grabbed him.
The Vilaró pushed his hands back into the stone, looking as if he was feeling about in the dark. When he withdrew his hands from the stone, one of them gingerly clutched a ring of large old keys. That hand was sheathed in stone. The Vilaró dropped the keys and the stone about his fingers dissolved into a cloud of dust that drifted to the floor.
Joaquim’s eyes slid toward where the guard had disappeared. “He’s dead, isn’t he? The guard?”
The Vilaró smiled benignly. “Very much so. I could have left him half in, half out. I was merciful, to spare your sensibilities, not because he deserved that mercy.”
Joaquim regarded the Vilaró, a prickle of fear running down his spine. He hated to imagine what this man thought just punishment looked like. “What did that guard do to you?”
“Nothing,” the Vilaró said. “But I tell you this, the sirenas of the prison are off-limits to the men. If a guard attacks one of them, he will die slowly. That same protection was never given to any of the human women here. Ask Miss Prieto when you see her next. Don’t bother praying for that man’s soul.”
Joaquim didn’t intend to ask. He had a very good idea what could happen to a woman in a prison.
“Now, I promised Leandra I would help the others escape, so I must go back. You help her escape,” the Vilaró ordered.
Then he walked away through the wall.
Joaquim was alone. The Vilaró was gone, distant, he could tell. Probably back at the prison. But Leandra was upstairs in one of the cells, and he had to get her out. So he picked up the pistol and the keys and headed up the stone steps.
CHAPTER 44
The walls of the underground prison were cool and faintly damp, smelling of moldering stone. The cell was the only one on this level, with an iron-barred door like that of the cell Joaquim had woken in. Inside the darkness of the cell, Joaquim could see a still form lying on a bare bunk. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he tried several keys until he located the correct one. He pushed the door inward.
Leandra lay on her side, her unbound hair straggling off the edge of the narrow bed. Her swollen hand was swathed in bandages. Joaquim shook her shoulder gently.
Her eyes opened. “What are you doing here?”
“The Vilaró brought me to get you out.”
She started coughing. Joaquim helped her sit up and waited until the coughing fit passed. “They weren’t supposed to worry about me,” she said.
“Apparently, the Vilaró doesn’t see it that way,” Joaquim said.
She laughed diffidently and pushed herself off the bench. “If I asked you to leave me here, would you?”
Joaquim didn’t bother to answer. “Do you have any idea how many guards there are?”
“Two or three. No need to have more. I’m the only prisoner here right now.”
Make that one or two, Joaquim thought, thinking of the one the Vilaró had dispatched. “Where would they be?”
Leandra walked like one half-dead. Joaquim suspected if he offered to carry her, she would only insist on walking on her own. “At the door,” she said.
“The door?”
She stopped at the edge of the cell and peered out into the dimly lit hallway. “Out the hall, to the left, and up one flight of stairs. Door to the ground level.”
The same path along which they dragged me out of here. “Do you have a plan for this?”
“No,” she admitted. “I expected to be left behind.” T
he hallways were preternaturally quiet. As they left the cell, Leandra stumbled and set one hand against the wall to balance herself.
Joaquim wrapped one arm around her waist. “Why did the Vilaró not just take you out of here, the way he brought me? Through the stone?”
“Because he keeps his word,” Leandra said with a dry chuckle. “He promised me he would make certain the others were free first before he came after me. Since he brought you here to get me out, that still conforms to the exact terms of our deal.”
They headed for the stair that would lead up to the surface. There would be a landing, he recalled, then an iron door, a few more stairs, and a gate. Then they would be in the echoing area with the well. He was glad he’d been paying attention when the guards dragged him out.
Once at the stairwell, Joaquim helped Leandra up the first couple of steps, stopping when he thought they might become visible to the guards on the landing. He let Leandra go so she could lean against the wall.
Crouching down, he climbed as close as he dared and peered over the edge of the landing. Only one guard waited there, seated at a desk near the large iron door. To one side Joaquim saw a sereia, her gray dress giving away her identity as one of the wardens. Was she with them, or was she Spanish?
Joaquim felt for the gun he’d shoved into his belt. How close could he get before he had to strike? The guard would be impeded by the desk, so the sereia would have to be the first target.
Then she looked at him, taking away any option. She opened her mouth and began to call.
It was a low tune, the words unintelligible. It carried her yearning, her exhaustion, endless weariness bearing down on Joaquim’s bones, but her magic slipped past him. The guard’s head lowered to the desk’s surface instead.
Joaquim trained his gun on her. He hated shooting people.
The sereia stepped closer to the sleeping guard and reached down to take the man’s gun, still watching Joaquim’s face. The words of her call continued to flow past him, some taking shape now. Sleep, she sang, just as Reyna had sung in the cell, but . . .
The Shores of Spain Page 37
