A Murder Most Watchful

by Jefferson Bonar

  Their progress had been slow along this final leg of the trip from Granada. La Herradura was not easily accessed by any road Armada knew. They had found this track, if one could call it that, by asking a local farmer coming the other way. He had told them this was the only way down by cart and warned them the going would not be easy.

  What followed had been an hours-long slog down washed-out trails along steep inclines that were always falling into the sea. They battled a myriad of potholes, boulders, and deep ruts that were hidden under the canopies of overgrown pine trees and impassable bushels of nettled weeds that stood guard in the middle of the road-like sentries.

  It was quite typical of an Andalusian coastal town not to maintain their roads. They were fishermen, and few would see the need for expensive mules or carts when they could just as easily get around the coast by boat. At one time the founders of this village must have thought these cliff faces would protect them from their enemies, who at that time still fought to expand their Moorish kingdom. Little did those founders know that a few centuries later those very same enemies would no longer attack from the land but from the sea.

  But the town was not their ultimate destination. As the sun began to set, they passed through the town and its curious residents and continued on into the hills to the west towards where they caught their first glimpses of the watchtower. An hour later, Lucas heaved the cart over the last rise, and the camp came into view. Lucas wiped his sweaty brow, making little effort to hide his relief at having reached the end of their journey.

  The camp was simple, just a few leaning shelters cobbled together from large boulders and bricks of compacted clay. Wild reeds had been lashed together and thrown over the top to make roofs that kept out the worst of the afternoon sun but little else.

  A handful of soldiers in tattered clothing stared at them from where they sat round a firepit, in which a tiny fire made of pine branches did little to warm them. One of them stood as Armada and Lucas approached and held his hand up to them.

  “You’re from the Brotherhood,” the man said, glancing at Armada’s green sleeves. “You must have gotten my letter.”

  “Yes. I am Domingo Armada, constable of the Holy Brotherhood,” Armada said.

  “Raul Salinas,” the solider said. “Captain of this company. Welcome.”

  Armada got out of the cart and looked about, trying to figure out why he already felt something was off.

  “I’m glad you could come so quickly. Things have been getting tense,” Salinas said.

  Armada stood at the edge of the army camp, gazing at the watchtower that stood a short distance away. From the top of this ridge, there was a stunning view but one that left the camp exposed to the elements. Although it was calm tonight, Armada knew how ferocious the winds were that rolled in off the sea. Everything in camp was tied down with rope or weighted down with boulders. Nothing light and valuable was left out in the open.

  Then it struck Armada what was so odd about this place.

  “Why aren’t your men billeted in town?”

  “Too dangerous,” Salinas said.

  “Dangerous? How?” Armada asked.

  Salinas smiled. “We were just about to eat. Join us.”

  Lucas needed little encouragement as they all sat down to a meal of fried anchovies cooked over a campfire, heaps of fresh olives stolen from a local orchard, and ale warmed from being left in the sun all day. It was hardly gourmet, but Armada was ravenous and had little reason to complain.

  Once his hunger was satiated, Armada had time to consider the company. There were two other men besides Salinas. One was Pedro Sanchez, who looked younger than his age and was quite dashing with his slender, athletic frame and soft facial features.

  But his time in the army had left its mark. Scars marked his face and arms, ruining his cherubic features and suggesting he was a man whose innocence of the world had long ago been lost in battle.

  Despite this, Pedro had a warm, gentle personality that came across as quite hospitable. He also had an injured arm, which had been bandaged from his elbow to his wrist with strips of soiled cloth.

  The other was Barros, the tallest of the group. He had blazing light-blue eyes, an intimidating moustache, and a permanent scowl he wore like a badge of honour. He said little, and when he did speak, his words were caustic and spat at you as if every one of them was meant to insult. Armada had met many Barroses in his time, so he didn’t let the man’s rough demeanour distract him.

  “So what are you hiding from up here?” Armada asked as everyone tucked into their food.

  Salinas glanced at the other two, then put his tin bowl down.

  “It’s that village,” Salinas said. “Most of them would prefer to see our heads on a pike and make no secret of it. We don’t go down there anymore. We have to get our supplies from Almuñecar, which isn’t easy on these roads. They’ve all gone mad. And we’re pretty sure one of them killed Esteban.”

  Armada was nearly finished with his meal and was left with half a stale biscuit. He contemplated whether it was worth the hard effort to chew it or not and fought off the temptation for his first glass of sherry for the evening. He wasn’t sure he wanted the soldiers to know he had brought a full barrel of it.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Six months ago, there was a pirate raid on the village,” Salinas continued. “Poor Esteban. He was working the tower that night and fell asleep. It’s a common enough mistake. He was twenty-one. He was young and foolish like we all were. He probably spent much of the afternoon in the tavern. But it meant no one in the village had any warning. The pirates ransacked the whole pueblo and took four children as slaves. We all did our best to fight them off, but there were so many. There was nothing we could do.”

  The mood around the dying campfire darkened, and the soldiers stared into the fire.

  “Once they take you, there is no coming back,” Salinas said. “Those children have no doubt been sold off in a market on the Moroccan coast somewhere. There’s no way to find them after that. And the life those kids have to look forwards to… It’s not worth thinking about.”

  “What happened after the raid?” Armada said.

  “Things got bad,” Salinas continued. “And that alcalde—Martin—well, it’s all his fault. Because he chaired the town council meetings, all he ever wanted to talk about was how the raid was all our fault. He got everyone to take their grief out on us, especially Esteban. It got to where we couldn’t walk through town without being spat on or having pebbles thrown at us. And they were especially bad to Esteban. The things they used to call him… It was humiliating.”

  “Did the family Esteban was billeted with believe the same thing?”

  “The Maraions? No. They really liked him. They even defended him against everyone else in the village for a while. But they could only do so much.”

  “And that’s when you moved your men up here?”

  “They were starting to desert. I couldn’t blame them. But my wages depend on maintaining a company of ten men. And by then I was down to Esteban, these two bellacos, and myself. I had to do something. So we came up here.”

  Armada saw Lucas doing little to hide his glances at Armada’s untouched biscuit.

  “Was Esteban working in the tower the night he was killed?” Armada asked.

  “Yes,” Salinas said.

  “Who else knew he was working?”

  “I can’t see how anyone outside of us would have known,” Salinas said.

  Pedro and Barros stiffened.

  Armada gestured to Lucas that he was welcome to the biscuit. Lucas scooped it up and gnawed on it like a starving beaver. While it seemed like Lucas wasn’t listening, Armada trusted that he was. Lucas was a good listener when it came to details of a case. Less so when Armada had to describe for him yet again how to properly launder his green shirts.

  “It wouldn’t have been hard for someone in the pueblo to figure it out,” Pedro said. “There is wild boar in these hills.
Some of the villagers who hunt them can get pretty close to our camp. Maybe one of them saw Esteban climb into the tower.”

  Armada gazed up at the watchtower, watching the light of their campfire flicker on the stone and mortar as the fraying rope ladder that hung from the entrance swayed in the breeze.

  “And you’re sure it was someone from the pueblo?”

  “Oh yes,” Salinas said. “Who else would light the signal fire after they did the deed? Someone was trying to make a point. They even pulled up the rope ladder so we couldn’t put it out right away. They wanted to make sure the whole town saw it.”

  “And what of the body?” Armada asked. “Who found it?”

  Salinas went quiet, staring at the ground. “It’s a sight I’ll never forget. A harquebus shot. Right up close. Esteban wasn’t just killed. He was…executed.”

  “Did none of you see the killer scale the tower?”

  “It was pretty dark that night. No moon or anything,” Salinas said. “So we didn’t see him go in. But Pedro saw him leave, that’s for sure.”

  Salinas threw the last of his biscuit at Pedro, who dodged it.

  Armada was surprised. “You saw the killer?”

  “Not his face,” Pedro said. “Like the captain says, it was too dark. I was on my way to relieve myself when he ran past. I tried to stop him, but he had a weapon and got me in the arm.” Pedro held up his injured arm. “Then he ran off.”

  Armada’s mind began to work, putting all the pieces together and seeing if there was any detail that didn’t quite fit. It was a process that would take all night at least, and he wanted to be alone for it.

  But there was something he needed to do first.

  Armada rose and looked to Lucas. “Can you grab everyone’s cup, please?”

  Lucas collected the cups and brought them over to where Armada stood by their cart. Armada whipped the tarp back that had been used to cover his barrel of sherry, opened the spigot, and poured four cups of the brown oloroso.

  Lucas distributed them to the men before Armada rejoined the men with his own cup. The soldiers gawked at Armada.

  Armada held his cup aloft. “To Esteban. God rest his soul. No matter what manner of man he was, he did not deserve his fate. No one does.”

  “He was a good man, I assure you, Constable,” Salinas said. “Salud.”

  There were murmurs of “salud” all round. Everyone drank and was then treated to another round.

  It was decided that Armada and Lucas would stay the night in Esteban’s shelter. It was cramped for the both of them, and the roof of reeds did little to hold out the howling winds that would plague them all night, but it was still better than sleeping under the stars.

  As they situated their things for the night, Armada caught Lucas gazing up at the watchtower. With the campfire extinguished, the tower was little more than a shadow, a vague shape so mysterious that the light of the stars could not penetrate it to reveal its secrets.

  “Is there a problem, Lucas?” Armada asked.

  “No, sir. It’s just…I didn’t realise it was so tall.”

  Armada found this a curious statement. “It depends on what one compares it to. Next to the Giralda Tower in Sevilla, it is a small pile of stones.”

  But this did little to pull Lucas’s attention away from the little door at the top of the rope ladder, where Barros was settling in for a long night.

  “Come along, Lucas. We need to get some rest.”

  Soon they were both wrapped up in large rolls of blankets, trying to wards off the cold long enough to get some sleep. Armada knew it would be difficult tonight as he stared at the reeds above his head, glimpsing the moon in the gaps between the stalks.

  That’s when it occurred to him. Salinas had said it was a moonless night, but Esteban was killed a week ago. It would have been almost a full moon. And quite easy to see someone moving about the camp who didn’t belong. Was Salinas mistaken? Or lying?

  Armada knew his mind would chew on the question throughout the night, much as he had chewed on that stale biscuit during dinner.

  And in both cases, the reward was probably not worth the effort.

  Chapter Three

  It was the smell that brought the memory back. The salty brine of seawater, heavy with seaweed and fish. A scent that overwhelms after having been trapped somewhere, barred from being carried off by an ocean breeze and instead imprisoned, forever fated to swirl about in a small cove full of rock pools and growing ever stronger.

  It was pleasant at first. But soon Armada could smell something else. A sour smell lurking under the surface. It was the smell of rot, of putrefying flesh, just under the water’s surface and masked by the serenity of the waves.

  It was on a beach that smelled like this, surrounded by an angry jungle full of menace and fear, that Armada had held the harquebus aloft and waited for his order. He looked down the barrel at the frightened man in front of him. He was a native of a tribe none of them had bothered learning the name of. For they were not there to stay. They had to move on. It wasn’t worth the effort.

  The man stared back at him, tied to a post and crying. Helpless and at Armada’s mercy, just as the rest of his companions were. The order was given, and his fellow soldiers did not hesitate. Shots rang out, and the heads of the men in front of them fell.

  Then Armada felt his own harquebus go off.

  Armada woke in a sweat and realised he was out of breath. There was pain somewhere, intense pain, and it took him a moment to realise it was his right hand. It was clenched so tightly that it felt as though his fingers were about to break.

  His past was visiting him again. Peru. It was always the ghosts of Peru that haunted his sleep. But that memory had not visited him in so long. Why now?

  Armada considered trying to go back to sleep, but in the darkness, he could feel the past was too close. His ghosts would not leave him alone tonight. So Armada unwrapped the blankets and rose, leaving Lucas to continue snoring away in the shelter.

  It was the coldest part of the night. Sunrise was an hour or two away, and Armada felt the cold sting on his face. He found his overcoat where he’d left it hanging on an olive tree and pulled it tight over his shoulders. Then he went to the cart to pour himself a sherry.

  It was the smell. Something about the smell of the bay here. It was similar to that little cove where all the horrors had happened in Peru. That’s why the memory had returned. But it begged a frightening question. Would it ever leave him while he was on this case? Or was the prospect of sleep a distant fantasy until he returned to Granada? Armada spent the rest of the morning hours trying not to think about it.

  A few hours later, after everyone else had awoken and breakfasted, Armada pretended he’d slept well before leaving Lucas to get on with his duties. He headed into town, eager to get on with his investigation and away from his thoughts of the night before.

  After a quick scamper down the hillside, Armada found himself in the little village of La Herradura. Despite just a few hundred people living there, the centre of the village was densely built, with houses piled on top of one another and crowded over narrow lanes to help keep the town in shade during the hot summers, a trick learned from their Moorish predecessors.

  In a small square, a water fountain trickled with water from an unseen spring. As with most towns, it was a place that was rarely deserted. There were people everywhere, milling about and chatting, as there was a lot to chat about today. A stranger was a rare sight in the town, especially one with green sleeves. Many had their opinions of the Holy Brotherhood, few of them good, so Armada smiled but did not stop for any of them.

  It was a short stroll to the beach, where several large fishing boats had been pulled up onto the sand and moored to wooden posts.

  Around one of these fishing boats was a team of men who loaded supplies in preparation to go out fishing for the day. The oldest of them encouraged the men to hurry.

  “Martin Figueroa?” Armada asked the elder man.

>   The man glanced at him with contempt. “Keep loading. I’ll be just a minute,” he said to his companions as he climbed out of the boat. “That’s me.”

  “I am Domingo Armada, constable of the Holy Brotherhood,” Armada said.

  “A buenas horas, Greensleeves,” Martin said. It was a common phrase, meant to poke fun at the Brotherhood’s reputation for taking ages to prosecute crimes. And it was one few had the courage to say to the face of a constable.

  But Armada let it pass. “I was hoping to have a word about the murder of Esteban Marañón.”

  “I am about to head out for the day,” Martin said. “So I hope we can make this quick.”

  “Then I will get to the point,” Armada said. “I need to know who the families were that lost children in the pirate raid six months ago and whether any of them possess a harquebus musket.”

  “You’re mad,” Martin said. “You think it was someone in this pueblo who did it?”

  “I don’t think anything yet. But Esteban Marañón was killed by a harquebus shot in the chest from quite close range. So I am looking into anybody in town who owns a harquebus and might be aggrieved enough to use it.”

  Martin scowled at Armada. “You can’t imagine the grief those families are going through right now. To have your child ripped out of your arms like that. Their lives were shattered by this tragedy, and now you want to go into their homes and accuse them of murder?”

  “I want to ask them questions, alcalde. Nothing more.”

  “They are good Catholic people who abide by the law. I should know. I grew up with them and know them as well as my own family. And they should be left alone to mourn the loss of their children in peace!”

  Martin was spitting his words now as he opened his shoulders towards the boat to ensure his fishing crew could hear.

  He was performing, Armada realised. Word of their conversation would reach the pueblo soon, and Martin wanted to make sure he was portrayed accurately as the alcalde fighting for the dignity of his pueblo. It was not hard to see how this man got his post.