A Murder Most Watchful

by Jefferson Bonar

  A MURDER MOST WATCHFUL

  A Domingo Armada Mystery

  Jefferson Bonar

  Step Into History

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  Chapter One

  October 1660

  “The fire! The fire!”

  Sancha heard someone race past her window, their footsteps shattering the stillness of the evening with the sound of leather moccasins grinding over loose soil.

  Sancha was more annoyed than alarmed. It had to be Melchora, her neighbour at the top of the road who’d had a nervous disposition since they were children. But this was too much. Did that foolish woman not know what people would think? She could send the whole pueblo into a panic. And everyone had been through enough.

  There was a murmur from her sleeping father, who had been awakened by the noise. Her mother, knitting to the dim light of the only candle in the room, put her hand on his knee to calm him. But she looked to Sancha with apprehension.

  Sancha cursed Melchora. She had just gotten her two children to stop chasing each other around the wooden table in the middle of the room, and they were now quietly stacking stones on the floor. Her father, who spent much of his days complaining about his sore stomach, had dropped off to sleep. With her mother knitting, Sancha had some peace in order to bellow the fire in the firepit and start preparing their evening meal.

  There was murmuring on the road outside the cloth that hung in the doorway to keep the mosquitos out. Neighbours came out of their homes to see what was going on.

  From the corner of her eye, Sancha saw her older boy try to peek through the cloth, his younger sister following along behind him.

  Sancha snatched them both out of the doorway. “Stay inside, you two. I’ll find out what’s going on.”

  Sancha whipped the sheet aside and stepped out into the road, feeling the November air fill her lungs. It was cooling off in the evenings now, and soon they wouldn’t be able to leave the house without thicker coats to put over their shoulders. This was always the season when Sancha began to worry more for her mother, who struggled with the cold last year, as there were never enough blankets to stop her shivering.

  The road outside was narrow, crowded on both sides by townhouses built right up against each other as was typical of a small Andalusian pueblo. The village overlooked the Mediterranean Sea as it shimmered in the dying light of sunset underneath a sky painted with brilliant streaks of orange, blue, and purple hues.

  There were a handful of people standing around outside their doors, but they were of little help. Nobody seemed to know what was happening, and they were beginning to gossip as if it were any other day.

  But Sancha didn’t have the time. She needed to get dinner going and then give her father the medicine he needed to soothe his stomach, or he’d be up all night complaining. And if there was one thing Sancha needed to keep this family going, it was a few hours of uninterrupted rest. She had a lot to do tomorrow.

  “What is that woman yelling about?”

  “Melchora’s always doing this. It’s probably nothing.”

  “You know what she’s like.”

  Everyone seemed in agreement that Melchora was getting them upset over nothing. Sancha decided she would speak to her at the market tomorrow. She knew Melchora would be there, for she was always buying far too much bread for just her and her husband and giving the leftovers to her dog, which had grown fat over the years from overeating. Even though they were both well into their forties, it seemed sometimes Melchora still needed a good scolding as if she were a child. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  Sancha turned to go back inside.

  “Look!” a croaky voice said.

  She spun around, recognizing one of the old men who used to fish with her father. He was pointing towards the hills to the west. At the top of the highest ridge, looming over the entire pueblo through the darkness, was a tall tower made of stone. It had been there as long as anyone could remember and was manned by soldiers day and night for one purpose—to watch the coast for any sign of African pirates who liked to raid little coastal villages like this.

  A fire burned on the roof of the tower, throwing off great billows of black smoke into the air.

  It was the signal. There were pirates approaching.

  Everyone in the road dashed back into their homes.

  “Not again,” Sancha whispered.

  Sancha tore inside, trying to look calm as she told her family what was happening. There was no time for packing. They had to run. As they knew from before, the pirates could already be on their way up the beach.

  Her son and daughter clasped hands like they’d been told as Sancha helped her parents to their feet. She grabbed a woollen blanket for her mother, then threw her father’s arm over her shoulders and heaved him to a standing position as he groaned from the pain. Then they all shuffled outside.

  There were panicking people already streaming past the house on their way up the hill towards the edge of town. Most people had sheds and cortijos there, hidden away under layers of branches and underbrush, with bars on the windows and large iron locks on the inside.

  Sancha encouraged her family up the road as quickly as they dared, getting swallowed up in the river of humanity racing up the hill behind them. With the help of her neighbours, Sancha managed to coax her family up a little dirt track that spun off from the main road. Staying on the main road another few hours would take them as far as Otivar, a pueblo of olive farmers that was larger and far enough inland to not have to worry about pirate raids. Sancha had never been there, but she envied them. She had quite enjoyed her life growing up as a fisherman’s daughter and couldn’t imagine not living by the sea. But it came at a cost, a cost that now felt much too high.

  Sancha helped her parents along the rutted track towards a rundown shack squirreled away under the canopy of a large carob tree. Her grandfather had built it long ago when he dreamed of starting an olive grove there. He died before he could plant anything, and the shed sat neglected and unused for years, until six months ago when it became the most important thing in their lives.

  Sancha got everyone inside and dragged the door made of thick pine branches shut. She slid the metal bar through the slots she’d made, locking them in. It wasn’t the most secure of doors, but it was the best Sancha could do without her husband, who’d died years ago.

  Sancha found an old wooden bucket and turned it over, giving her father a place to sit. Then she checked to see that her mother wasn’t shivering too badly. Her children each found a hole in the crumbling bricks made of packed earth to look through, hoping to see a real pirate for themselves.

  Sancha had no such wish and was instead worried about how long they would be confined. The shack was devoid of food or warmth. There were a few leftover building tools rusting in the corner, a pile of old, rotting fishing nets, and a couple of squawking geckos that skittered along the wood beams of the roof, annoyed at their home being disturbed.

  After a while, the sounds of people racing past on the road outside ceased. The sun had now set, casting the entire shack in darkness. Fortunately, her son managed to find a couple of ancient candles sitting on a rotted workbench in the corner. Sancha lit one, knowing it would only give them an hour or so of light. But the light helped to calm everyone’s nerves.

  They watched in silence as the first candle burned down and went out. Sancha lit the next. Before that one was gone, she saw her children had fallen asleep on a bit of hay they’d found in the corner, the combination of excitement then boredom too much for them to handle.

  Her father was snoring now, and Sanc
ha was envious. She wished she could get a bit of sleep as well. This was the worst part—the waiting. Not knowing what was happening or how much danger they were really in. There was little to do but listen through the door for any sign of movement outside. But beyond the odd twitch of a branch from a bird taking flight or hopping about on the carpet of dead leaves on the ground, there was nothing.

  After nearly two hours, Sancha decided she’d had enough. “I’m going to find out what’s going on.”

  “Don’t, Sancha. It’s too dangerous,” her mother whispered.

  “We can’t stay in here all night. Father will need his medicine in the morning, and you need your warm bed. I have to see if we can go home. Now, after I leave, don’t open this door for anybody unless you’re sure it’s me.”

  Sancha slipped out the door and heard her mother lock it behind her. Outside, the moon was full and bright, making it easy for Sancha to find her way along the track back to the main road. And she wasn’t alone. A few others had ventured out as well.

  “There was cannon fire last time. Did you hear any?”

  “I haven’t heard anything.”

  “It’s very dark down there.”

  The men were wary of going back to the village, so Sancha led the way, trying to look as though she wasn’t frightened. There were pleas for her to stop, but they were ignored.

  As Sancha approached the houses at the edge of the village, her fear began to subside. It was quiet. In fact, she’d never heard the village so quiet in her life. Sancha found a chunk of wood from a broken barrel and gripped it. If she were to meet a pirate along this road, maybe she couldn’t fight him off, but she could at least get a few good hits in.

  Sancha and a handful of apprehensive men with sticks continued into town, crossing through the main plaza and past the public fountain, whose trickling water was the only sound, before continuing down the slope towards the beach.

  Soon they stood at the water’s edge, and Sancha tossed her bit of wood aside.

  “What’s going on?” said one of the men.

  “I’d like to know that too,” Sancha said, seething.

  There were no pirate ships. There was no raid. In fact, by the light of the full moon, they could see the entire horizon was devoid of anything but a chilled ocean breeze.

  Their attention turned to the watchtower, where the fire still blazed.

  “Maybe they are still far away,” a man said. “Maybe you have to be up there to see them.”

  “After two hours?” another said. “No, something’s wrong.”

  “We should go see what is happening.”

  Sancha nodded. She didn’t want to return to her home without being sure.

  Everyone made their way to a little trail they all knew would take them up the steep hillside to the ridge at the top. The going was treacherous in the dark, as the trail threatened them with a vertical drop on one side for much of the way. And it was overgrown with thickets of sagebrush, oleanders, and various thorned weeds that were hard to see in the dark. But they had all been born here, had raced along this track as children, and knew every step of it.

  They reached the top, where an area had been cleared of brush and shelters had been built surrounding a large, open firepit whose embers still glowed.

  It was the camp the soldiers had made, the ones who were supposed to be manning the tower. But the shelters were empty. There was no sign of any of them.

  “Esteban!” came a cry from the direction of the tower a short distance away.

  The group ran over to find the eldest member of the company, Captain Salinas, standing at the bottom and yelling up towards the entrance to the tower at the very top.

  “Esteban!”

  “What’s going on? You’ve got the whole pueblo in a panic down there,” Sancha said. “Everyone’s run for the hills.”

  “I don’t know. My man isn’t answering me. Esteban!”

  One of the men from town grabbed Salinas by the collar. “You mean to tell me you put Esteban back up in that tower? After what happened?”

  “I don’t have enough men! None of you will volunteer!” Salinas yelled. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve let him fall asleep again!” another man said.

  “All right, calm down.” Sancha put her arm on Salinas’s attacker. “This won’t help anything.”

  The man let go of Salinas, and Sancha had to squelch the urge to toss Salinas over the cliff. She had no better opinion of Salinas than anyone else.

  “Why can’t you just go up there and get him?” Sancha asked.

  “Esteban pulled the rope ladder up,” Salinas said. “There’s no other way in. I’ve sent two of my men back to town to get the spare ladder. They should be back soon.”

  It was a tense half hour as everyone waited. Sancha was tempted to return to the shack to give everyone the good news. But she knew she’d be met with a barrage of questions as to what was happening, both from her family and her neighbours. And she wanted to be able to give them answers as to why their lives had been so shaken up tonight.

  Finally, two soldiers from the garrison were heard grunting their way up the little trail and appeared with a long wooden ladder that had been difficult to navigate up the hillside.

  The soldiers laid it against the watchtower. Salinas scampered up to the top of the tower and crawled in through the tiny entrance. Everything went quiet again. No one spoke, expecting Salinas to pop his head out the door at any moment to explain.

  A few minutes went by. Then a few more. All this waiting was becoming unbearable for Sancha. She prided herself as being a patient woman, but this was too much. For her mother’s sake, Sancha decided to take action.

  She grasped the bottom of the ladder with both hands, took a breath, and hoisted her body up to the first rung.

  “Hey, you can’t go up there!” said one of the soldiers. “Only the army company can!”

  “Sancha, get down, you foolish woman.”

  “You’re welcome to try and stop me,” Sancha called over her shoulder to the men. “But I deserve to know what’s been going on tonight.”

  As Sancha predicted, the men jeered but did little to stop her. So she kept climbing.

  The rope ladder was worn and frayed, and the breeze made it sway against the side of the tower. Several times Sancha had to stop climbing and hold on to wait for the swaying to stop before continuing, leading her to question her decision to come up here.

  But she kept going, and as she neared the door at the top, she realised she had never in her life been so high off the ground. The view that greeted her at the top was stunning. She could see the whole of the coast, from Naixa in the west to Almuñecar in the east. But that awe was mixed with terror as she looked down. She wondered why they had to make this tower so tall.

  She reached the tiny opening at the top and realised she was wearing a dress and her modesty may be an issue with the men below. But she let this notion pass as she focused on getting her shaking hands to search about and find something large enough to grasp.

  Sancha heaved her body inside and took comfort in the firmness of the tower. It was solid and unaffected by the wind, which had grown stronger the higher she climbed. She found herself inside a small room she could barely stand up in, built of solid stone with a conical roof. The door was one of two openings in the room and offered a stunning view to the east and over the whole of the pueblo. The other opening looked to the empty coastline to the west, allowing a soldier to see the whole of the ocean horizon without being exposed to enemy fire.

  There was no sign of Salinas or Esteban, but there was a tiny staircase with a few steep steps leading up to the roof where the fire was still burning. Sancha took a moment to catch her breath, then squeezed herself into the narrow staircase where she hoped the answer of all this madness tonight might be revealed.

  The first thing she saw was Salinas, who sat on the ground, his back against the barrel of a small, dilapidated cannon, looki
ng dazed, as if he’d been hit over the head. Only the violent sound of cracking and popping of the fire could be heard.

  That’s when Sancha noticed Esteban lying flat on his back, his lifeless eyes staring up at the heavens with a look of terror that must have been what he felt as he left this world. In his chest was a gaping wound, still bubbling over with blood that had drenched the grey stones under his body and turned them red.

  Sancha knew how a wound like that was made, as she was no stranger to hunting wild boar in these hills—a harquebus shot.

  An uncomfortable warmth spread across her face and singed its way through the front of her dress. Sancha realised it was the heat of the flames next to Esteban’s body. Someone had built the raging bonfire by using all the available wood in the tower at once, wanting to make sure their work tonight was noticed. They probably knew the story of tonight would be talked about for generations, as nothing like this had ever happened before in the quiet fishing village of La Herradura.

  And hopefully never would again.

  Chapter Two

  The mule brayed as it struggled to pull the cart over another massive rock in an endless series of boulders. Lucas was behind, gripping the iron bars of the cage bolted onto the back of their tiny wagon, pushing as hard as he could to help the mule.

  “Just a bit more, Lucas. That’s it,” Armada said, comfortably seated on the bench at the front. “It’s nearly there.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lucas said as he grunted and pushed again.

  The wheel of the cart peaked over the top of the boulder, and the cart rolled forwards, freed of the obstacle. Lucas marched over to the front of the mule, grabbed the reins, and pulled him towards the inevitable next one.

  Armada sensed the boy was annoyed, but he couldn’t think about that now. This new case threatened to be a troublesome one, and he had to think. Although between the braying mule and the braying boy, it hadn’t been easy.