In late afternoon they arrived at the village of Becan, on the edge of the king’s hunting ground amidst banana trees and one towering mago tree whose ripening fruit hung from structures that looked as ornate as candelabras—it was a dismal collection of huts constructed of sapling poles and thatch, its muddy streets dappled with puddles. At the center of the village was a longhouse where travelers were permitted to sleep in hammocks for the night, and close by the longhouse was a largish hut, overhung by the leaves of a banana tree, wherein a wizened, white-haired old man, dressed in clothes made from flour sacking, with perhaps a dozen teeth left in his head, sat behind an empty crate and dispensed cups of unrefined rum. The late sun shining through the poles striped the dirt floor. Four wooden tables were arranged about the interior, but only six chairs, one toppled on its side and another occupied by a young woman who might have been pretty had she run a brush through her tangled hair and washed away the grime from her face and worn something more appealing than loose canvas trousers and a blouse that was mostly rips and stains. She affected what Rosacher judged to be a seductive pose and smiled at the two men as they entered, thus advertising her function. With a palsied hand, the old man began to pour from a bottle half-full of yellowish liquid. Rosacher laid a hand over the cup the old man had provided, but Cerruti gulped down his measure and gave a satisfied sigh.
“Another?” the old man asked.
Cerruti looked to Rosacher, who nodded, and the old man proceeded to pour.
“Do you have anything else to drink?” Rosacher asked.
“Yes, but it’s very expensive. Twelve quetzales for a small measure.”
“Let’s see it.”
Cerruti pulled up a chair next to the woman and they spoke together in muted tones.
From the rear of the packing crate, the old man withdrew a bottle wrapped in a red cloth and displayed it: Scotch whiskey, a decent brand. Rosacher signaled him to pour and leaned against the crate, gazing through the door of the cantina. A rooster hurried past, clucking, pursued in short order by a naked toddler. At the rear of one of the huts, a matronly woman in a striped dress was taking down her wash. The old man made a production out of cleaning Rosacher’s cup with a filthy rag and poured. As Rosacher drank, he asked if they had come from Teocinte.
“From Mospiel.” Rosacher pushed his cup toward the old man, asking for a refill, and handed him a fifty quetzal note.
“I have no change,” the old man said.
“I’ll drink it up,” said Rosacher, and the old man beamed.
Cerruti stood, linked arms with the woman and, with a salute to Rosacher, the two of them headed toward a hut on the far side of the longhouse.
“And what are you doing in Temalagua?” asked the old man.
“I am a trader in exotic birds. I’m going to the market in Alta Miron to buy stock.” Rosacher sipped the whiskey. “Truly, I did not think I would ever come to Alta Miron. Last night we were attacked in our camp by a beast. We were lucky to survive.”
“What manner of beast?”
“I did not get a good look at it. But it was black and very large. It trampled the jungle flat around our campsite. We eluded it by diving into the river. It killed one of our horses.”
The old man attempted a whistle in appreciation of Rosacher’s story, but due to his lack of teeth all that emerged was a breathy sound. “I have heard of this beast,” he said. “It’s said it killed a mother and her daughter in Dulce Nombre.”
“What a pity!” Rosacher said, chalking up the story to the rumors started by the riders he had sent on ahead and the typical hyperbole of Temalaguan storytellers.
“Indeed! But there is good news. It is said King Carlos will hunt the beast. Some of the men from our village have gone to the capital to volunteer their services.”
“Why would Carlos look to Becan for help? I’m certain his guards can ably assist him.”
“The men of Becan are accomplished trackers,” said the old man pridefully. “We have assisted the king on other hunts. And Carlos is a friend to the village. In fact it was he who presented me with this bottle”—he indicated the whiskey—“so he might have something suitable to drink when he stops by.”
“If that’s the case, should you be selling me whiskey?”
“Carlos is generous and kind. All I needs do is tell him I’ve run out and he sends me a new bottle.”
“Then I’ll have another.”
Darkness slipped in, lamps were lit in the little huts, their gapped walls revealing families moving about within and the jungle resounded with the singing of insects and frogs. The old man, whose name was Alonso, served a dinner of beans and rice and chorizo, brought by a sallow girl with a cast in one eye. He joined Rosacher at a table and told stories of the village and the king. How Carlos had shot the man-eating jaguar of Saxache, a creature that, once dead, had turned back into an elderly woman, a bruja of some renown. How Carlos had hunted down the great caiman of El Tamarindo, also a killer of men—its head was now mounted above the Onyx Throne. How Carlos had brought doctors and medicine to Becan when the village had been afflicted with dysentery. Other men dropped by and, after being introduced to Rosacher, joined him and Alonso for a drink. They, too, spoke highly of the king’s courage and largesse, and one, a bearded fellow by the name of Refugio, missing a leg, told of how Carlos, his rifle empty, armed only with a machete, had risked his life to save him from a wild boar.
“A man like that,” Refugio said. “A rich and powerful man who would sacrifice his life for someone poor like me when he has so much to live for…he is much more than a king. He has been crowned by the gods and will one day reign with the Beast in heaven.”
“Truly,” said Alonso, and the other men echoed his sentiments.
Tipsy now, sweating profusely in the windless night, in that cramped circle of men, Rosacher understood for the first time that he intended to kill a man who had done far more good than evil. Even if one discounted the stories as embellished, it was impossible to deny that Carlos was an anomaly, a benevolent ruler in a region that consistently spawned kings who were little more than human monsters with the souls of jackals. He tried to think of how to avoid killing Carlos, but made no headway and instead bought the house a round from another example of the king’s largesse, a second and previously unopened bottle of Scotch. This accentuated the air of rough bonhomie that had come to govern the cantina, and soon stories about the king were replaced by songs that celebrated women, famous hunts, and the fictive events that masqueraded as glorious Temalaguan history. A choir of drunken voices served to suppress Rosacher’s guilt, but not to drown it utterly. As a result he happily joined in the singing, but his joy was compromised by an undercurrent of fretful thought and half-formed plans to return to Teocinte, his mission unfulfilled, and the possibility that he could approach Carlos, persuade him not to join forces with Mospiel. He entertained the notion that he was fighting on the wrong side and that he should immediately break with the city council, with Breque, the only member of the council who mattered, and throw his weight behind Mospiel and Temalagua.
He heard the screaming before he really registered it and, by the time he clutched for his rifle, it had ceased and all that could be heard was a snapping of poles and thatch crunching and the hoarse shouts of the men who had preceded him through the door of the cantina. He staggered out into the night and saw people running toward the ruins of a hut across the way. He followed them and then realized that the ruined hut was the same one toward which Cerruti and the woman had been heading.
He sprinted to the hut, thrust people aside, and saw Cerruti, naked, smeared with blood, sitting against the remnants of a wall, head in hands. Some of the thatch lay across the pallet where Cerruti and the woman had been, and was soaking in a puddle of dark arterial blood. Rosacher knelt and Cerruti glanced up, wild-eyed, strings of mucous hanging from his nose. He tried to speak, but only a bubble of spit came forth. The villagers behind Rosacher babbled and someone let out a wail.
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“He plucked her right off me.” Cerruti appeared to be speaking to someone hovering above his head. “I’s giving her a ride and Frederick…” His breath caught in his throat and he started sobbing.
“Shh! It’s all right!” Rosacher held his head, hoping to silence him before he gave away their part in this butchery.
“His face…” Cerruti’s voice was partially muffled by Rosacher’s chest. “I never seen Frederick like that before.”
“Get a hold of yourself, man!” Rosacher pulled Cerruti more tightly to him and whispered in his ear, “People are listening!”
“He didn’t act like he knew me!”
“Here! Help me with him,” Rosacher said to the villagers. “Get him a blanket!”
As he walked Cerruti over to the cantina, Rosacher caught snatches of conversation: “What will Adelia do now? Yasmin was her sole support.” “Give me something to wipe off the blood.” “He said, ‘Frederick’. Who is Frederick?” “Alonso, bring a cup of water!”
Once Cerruti was seated in the cantina, he grew unresponsive to questions and stared into space, his lips moving silently. Relieved to see this, yet concerned for his well-being, Rosacher helped to clean the blood away and forced him to drink a glass of rum. Several of the men talked about forming a party to go after Frederick and the woman, Yasmin, but Rosacher dissuaded them, relating his “experiences” of the previous night and telling them that the creature was too fast and powerful for them to go off half-cocked. The headman of the village dispatched a rider to Alta Miron so as to inform the king and Rosacher made no attempt to interfere with this. He had abandoned his misgivings about killing Carlos, feeling that the die was cast, and thought that if the king could be brought to Becan, it would not only make their task easier, it would be proof that Griaule’s will was at work here.
After the furor had subsided and many anecdotes had been told about where this and that person was and what they had been doing when Yasmin was taken, Rosacher led Cerruti to the longhouse and helped him into a hammock. Though the night was humid, almost as warm as the day, Cerruti shivered and complained feebly of the cold. Clearly, he was in shock. Having no medicine, all Rosacher could do was keep him warm and talk to him. The headman had set guards with torches and machetes about the village in case Frederick returned, some of them standing watch beside the longhouse, and he was thus forced to keep his voice low, but he enjoined Cerruti to hang on, saying he needed him in order to direct Frederick, and finally managed to elicit some coherent responses.
“It’s my fault for lying with her,” said Cerruti at one point. “I wouldn’t have done, if I’d thought Frederick was about.”
His sweaty face, a pale orange in the dim, flickering light, was a mask of anxiety and anguish.
“He can’t abide women around me,” said Cerruti. “Or maybe it’s just women and I got nothing to do with it.”
Rosacher cautioned him once again to lower his voice. “Can you tell if he’s still out there?”
“Oh, he’s out there. He never goes far.”
“Will he do the job for us? Can you still control him?”
Cerruti nodded, or it might have been a shiver. Rosacher asked the question again.
“He’ll do your killing.” Sweat beaded on Cerruti’s brow. His skin was ghastly pale and the shadows in his eyes looked moist and feverish. “He’ll do your killing and more, don’t you worry.”
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Cerruti’s fever abated during the night, his temperature went down and his heartbeat grew regular. He slept late in the morning and was able to eat a breakfast of tortillas, rice and beans in the cantina. The villagers had cleared away the wreckage of the hut, restoring a semblance of normalcy to their home. Chickens and pigs foraged in the dirt, grubby children sucked on mango pulp, and hobbled beside a banana tree, a donkey that Frederick had passed over in favor of Yasmin stood placidly, chewing on a stalk of sugar cane.
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After breakfast, Rosacher cautioned Cerruti against speaking about Frederick and retired to his hammock, hoping to sleep for an hour or two; but his mind was agitated and sleep would not come. Having to care for Cerruti had suppressed his anxieties and, relieved of that duty, he thought of all that could go wrong. He wondered if Frederick, as Alonso had suggested, had been responsible for the death of the mother and child in Dulce Nombre—it did not seem so implausible now. And what did that say about Cerruti’s ability to control his pet? Rosacher suspected that Cerruti’s control was subject to Frederick’s inclination and doubted that the task before them could be accomplished with anything approaching ease. Would Frederick go after any woman who came close to Cerruti…and what if the king had women in his retinue, a distinct possibility. These and other related concerns pressed in on him until at last he sank under their weight and lapsed into a sleep troubled by dreams in which he lay awake, worrying about this and that.
A clamor of voices, of horses neighing and being steadied, woke him. He lay still for a minute or thereabouts, unable to bring these sounds into focus. His head throbbed and his heart fluttered. A few minutes more elapsed and he sat up. In front of the cantina were a group of brown-skinned men wearing royal livery, perhaps ten or twelve, and an equal number of horses. The villagers crowded around them, all speaking at once. Rosacher swung his legs out of the hammock, blinking against the morning light, and went to the door. The man central to this hubbub was not in the least imposing: he had a pale complexion and was of average height, with neatly trimmed brown hair and a Vandyke. Handsome, but not remarkably so. Clad in a red doublet trimmed with gold and khaki riding trousers. Had it not been for the beard, which was meticulously barbered, a foppish accessory shaved into points along his jaw, Rosacher might not have recognized him; but recognize him he did. This very man had come to the House of Griaule not two years before, in the company of a half-dozen other men, seeking information about a young woman who had been employed there. A cousin, as Rosacher recalled. The man had traveled under an assumed name, but it was evident by the attentiveness of his retinue that this was Carlos. Stunned by the fact that he had previously had dealings with the king, Rosacher retreated into the shade of the longhouse, debating how best to handle the situation, whether to dissemble and hope that Carlos would not recognize him or to put on a bold face and own up to the fact that he and the king had met before. After smoothing down his hair, deciding to trust his instincts on how he should proceed, Rosacher walked out into the light and was quickly pushed forward into the king’s presence by the villagers, who claimed him to be someone with intimate knowledge of the monster.
After making a salutatory bow, Rosacher thought he detected a flicker in the king’s expression and, thinking that this signaled recognition on the king’s part, he said, “It may be presumptuous of me, Your Majesty, but is it possible that we have met before?”
“Carlos,” said the king. “There are no majesties here. Yes, I was thinking the same thing myself.” He studied Rosacher for a moment. “The House of Griaule, was it not? You’re the elusive Mister Mountroyal’s aide de camp. I’m sorry…I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Myree,” said Rosacher. “Arthur Myree. I did serve Mister Mountroyal for a brief period in that capacity, but we parted ways after a disagreement over salary. I am now a trader in exotic birds.”
“So Alonso tells me.” Carlos indicated that Rosacher should enter the cantina. “I have spoken with your companion, Mister Cerruti, about the beast that attacked him, but he was not very forthcoming. I’m eager to hear what you have to tell me.”
“Where is he?” Rosacher asked, as he stepped inside the cantina. “He was suffering from shock and may need medical attention.”
“He’s with another of my party. An artist. I hope he’ll be able to describe what he saw and that my artist is able to capture its likeness. I’ll have my doctor look in on him once he’s done.”
Alonso served Rosacher a plate of beans, rice and fried plantains. As he ate, he told Carlos the story he had earlier
told Alonso and, when he had done, the king said, “It would appear that the creature is nocturnal. All the attacks thus far have occurred at night…though one of the three killed in Dulce Nombre occurred near dawn.”
“Three?” Rosacher set down his fork. “I was told only two, a mother and daughter.”
“There were three. A girl sent to fetch water with which to prepare the morning meal. She happened upon the remains of the other two and was killed. A black shape was seen feeding upon her flesh, but the witness was too terrified to remember much detail.”
The acuity that Carlos brought to bear on him as they talked unsettled Rosacher. The king seemed to register his every movement, every change in expression, but Rosacher maintained the demeanor of a man who had been through a frightening experience, yet had mastered himself and was trying to be helpful—he did so, he believed, without error, but he could not be certain as to what Carlos perceived.
Their conversation was interrupted by a middle-aged man whom Carlos introduced as Ramon, who brought with him a large sketchbook that he handed to Carlos. Rosacher asked Carlos, who was leafing through the sketchbook, if he was in the habit of traveling with an artist.
“I am a vain man in many ways,” Carlos said. “Often I am unable to bring home a trophy from my hunts, and thus Ramon travels with me to record my successes and failures.”
He stopped leafing through the book and showed Ramon one of the pages. “This?”
“He swore it was accurate,” Ramon said. “But his memory may have produced an exaggerated image.”
Carlos handed the book to Rosacher. On the page was the sketch of a furred animal standing on its hind legs, as might a bear, but with an elongated head that resolved into the leathery face of a horrid old man, so distorted and vile, every wrinkle and line etched so deeply that it appeared the face of a demon, its mouth open to reveal an array of needle-like teeth framed by fangs. The drawing was beautifully rendered and shaded, rife with delicate lines that implied musculature—in the manner of one of Durer’s engravings. Rosacher gazed at it, struck speechless by this representation of, he assumed, Frederick’s base form.
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