A Murder Most Watchful

by Jefferson Bonar

  She had little fear of being spotted by anyone she knew, for just after Three Kings, the rescue fleet had arrived to take the survivors home along with the rotting bodies on the beach. A great weight seemed to lift off everyone’s shoulders after that. The smell of rotting carcasses soon dissipated, and the billeting stopped, meaning everyone could get back to their normal lives. Even Hector seemed to relax, and they all settled into a routine.

  There was a slight moment of panic just before the fleet left, as a sergeant had come to the house, saying Salvador’s name was listed on a register of survivors, but he had yet to board. Ana told him Salvador had gone out drinking one night and never returned. The sergeant accepted this, crossed Salvador’s name off the list, and left. Mencía, Ana, and Hector never spoke again about what happened to Salvador, which suited Mencía fine.

  To Mencía, Salvador was in the past. Her thoughts now were turning to the future. The seamstressing was going well, and she had begun to save a bit of money. In a few months, with a bit of luck, it would be enough for her and Federico to say goodbye to the Aguilars and make their way east, back to that little finca outside Valencia where Federico’s father would be waiting for them to be together.

  Mencía nursed her crying son until he was satiated, then put Federico back into his basket and took him into the house. Federico had dropped off to sleep again, so Mencía put him in the back bedroom where it was a bit quieter and returned to the endless pile of sewing that was waiting for her. It was the usual assortment of torn fishermen’s clothing, children’s clothes for mass, and some sheets that Señora Sanchez wanted Mencía to sew for a new bed her husband had built last week.

  Mencía had just begun when there was a man’s voice at the front door. He was forceful in the way he identified himself, demanding to be let in. Ana had barely gotten to the door before he pushed his way inside.

  “Salvador Torrini. According to the army register, he was billeted here,” the man said.

  “Yes, Don Garcia. He was for a while. But he left months ago,” Ana said.

  “His body was among the dead that arrived in Malaga, and it was a miracle he was identified. But the army register lists him as one of the survivors. I’ve come to find out what is going on.”

  Mencía had hidden behind the bedroom door and peeked through the gaps in the planks. She couldn’t see his face, only the lower half of his body. Ana had called him don, so he was probably a noble. He was well dressed in all black, with expensive leather boots like her father used to wear and a sword at his side with a familiar engraving on the handle. It was the mark of the Order of Santiago, which sent chills down Mencía’s spine.

  “He was billeted here, that is true,” Ana said. “But he said he was going to the tavern one night, and we never saw him again.”

  “Señora, the only way his body could have made it back to Malaga is if it was laid out with the rest of the casualties on the beach. He wouldn’t do that on his own, no matter how drunken. Also, I have this.”

  Garcia gave Ana a large cloth, which Mencía recognised as the blanket they had wrapped Salvador’s body in that night.

  “The people in this pueblo say this is yours. Your stitching is unique,” Garcia said. “So I’d like to know what Salvador Torrini’s body was doing wrapped up in it.”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps he took it with him that night. It was quite dark, and…” Ana said, but the conviction had drained from her voice.

  “Señora, do you know what this is?” Garcia asked, pointing to the engraving on his sword. “It means I am a knight of the Order of Santiago. I am here on behalf of Salvador’s father, who is a fellow knight and a dear friend. The death of his son has left him devastated, and if he were not so old and frail, he would have come himself. I made a promise I would come in his stead to find out what happened. A promise I intend to keep, even if I have to interrogate everyone else in this house or in this entire pueblo. Now, who else lives here with you?”

  “It’s just me and my husband, Hector. And he’s out fishing for the day. He’ll be back late tonight.”

  Federico gurgled and squirmed in his basket. Mencía tried to shush him, but the sudden attention made Federico more animated. He smiled at Mencía, but the scent wafting from the cloth wrapped around his bottom made it clear this wouldn’t last.

  Mencía did her best to soothe him, but Federico opened his mouth and began to cry. Mencía pleaded with him to be quiet. Just for a few more moments.

  “Whose baby is that?” Garcia demanded.

  “Mine, of course,” Ana said.

  “You’re too old to have a baby. Where is the mother?”

  Garcia was already marching towards the back bedroom, and Mencía became aware of what she had to do. There was little doubt Garcia knew her father through the Order. How long before he figured out who Mencía was? How long before he dragged her back to Seville, back to her father, back to his plans for her. Everything that had happened since the shipwreck would be just another time she almost escaped but didn’t.

  Federico was crying now, harder than usual, as if somehow he knew what was happening. It was for him that Mencía’s heart broke. If she were caught, Federico would be too. It was his life that would be ruined the most by it. For in this world, if you were raised in servitude, you lived in servitude. There was no escape.

  Federico didn’t deserve such a fate. His life had just begun. It was too early for it to be ruined and all for the posturing of a few old men with fancy, engraved swords. It wasn’t fair. Not for him and not for Mencía.

  Mencía would have to flee. But she couldn’t take Federico with her. There was no way she could take care of him and stay one step ahead of Don Garcia and his men. He would be much safer in the hands of Ana, who could make up an excuse about where he came from. She would protect him and give him a chance at a good life. There was no other way.

  But it meant saying goodbye to him. Just a few more moments with her baby. That’s all she had. It wasn’t fair.

  Mencía wiped her tears and kissed Federico on the forehead.

  “Goodbye, my love. Please…please remember me.”

  Mencía heaved her sore body through the tiny window that led out into the street. She scrambled to her feet and ran as she heard Garcia yell behind her.

  “Hey! You there! Stop!”

  Mencía ran flat out, making for the canyons to the north of town. She’d been learning those trails over the past few months and knew of a few that Garcia’s men would struggle to follow her on. But her hips and her abdomen were already aching, threatening to cramp. She had not yet recovered from Federico’s difficult birth, and it had left its mark. She gritted her teeth and ignored the pain as best she could.

  Wearing the thinnest of leather sandals, Mencía found she was lighter on her feet than the three men in heavy boots chasing her, and soon she was plunging into the scrubby underbrush of the hills. Here the canyons formed long shadows over tall, thick tufts of weeds where it was easy to lose oneself.

  Soon the shouts of the men indicated they had lost sight of her. But there was no way to get out of the little valley without revealing herself when she went over the top of the bare ridge. So she would have to hide out in the bushes until nightfall, which would help mask her dash for the open countryside beyond.

  Mencía came to a stone outcropping, underneath which she knew were a small series of tiny caves that were just large enough for a person to squeeze into. These caves were well hidden under a thicket of wild reeds and low-hanging Spanish pine branches, so she picked one and crawled in.

  In the valley below, she heard the men slashing and cursing their way through the prickly weeds. Garcia barked orders at his men to fan out into a pattern and begin searching under every rock and tree until they found her. Given the size of the valley and the fact there were three of them, there was little chance the men would happen upon Mencía before nightfall.

  But the thought didn’t soothe Mencía as much as she hoped, for it was clear they
were not going to give up so easily.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  October 1660

  “He’s what?”

  “He’s left. This afternoon. I don’t know where.”

  Armada stood in the Encinas house after having come straight over from his conversation with Martin at the ayuntamiento. Along the way, Armada decided to arrest all three culprits of the raid to make sure they didn’t entertain thoughts of running off.

  But he was too late.

  Ines Encinas stared up at him from across the table where she was having dinner with her two children when Armada had burst through the door.

  “When will he return?”

  “He said he didn’t know,” Ines said. “Is he in trouble? Jose is always getting into trouble. Sometimes I swear that gypsy woman he’s seeing can have him.”

  “Where could he have gone? Does he have a cortijo somewhere? Or family nearby?”

  Ines shook her head. “Just the one by the beach his father gave him. Although he hasn’t been down there in years.”

  “Why now? Why did he choose to leave today?”

  “Oh, that Captain Salinas was here earlier, causing trouble as usual. Whatever he said got my Jose all upset, and he told me he had to leave this afternoon. I knew he was in trouble. I knew it! My mother tried to warn me about Jose on our wedding day. She said he would be trouble. I should have listened…”

  Ines continued her rant against her husband as Armada sped out of the house.

  “Is he not there, sir?”

  “He’s fled. And Salinas warned him, which I’ll take care of later. We need to get to Martin’s house now. I’ve had enough of these games. It’s time to arrest him.”

  They arrived at the house of Martin Figueroa to find a crowd had formed outside the door. The crowd seemed shocked and murmured away at how something like this could have happened.

  Lucas pulled the cart to a stop, and Armada hopped out. The crowd gasped at Armada’s arrival, another sign something big was happening. Armada ignored them and pushed his way into the house. In the back kitchen, he found Martin’s wife and children sitting at the table, crying and being consoled by a group of neighbours crowded around them.

  “What is it? What’s happened? Where is Martin?” Armada demanded.

  Martin’s wife was unable to speak, so an elderly woman who had been embracing her turned to Armada.

  “In the back bedroom. But it won’t do you any good to go back there.”

  Armada dashed from the kitchen and into the bedroom to find Martin Figueroa lying on his back in the middle of the bed, his eyes open, his mouth agape, his hand clutching a crucifix.

  On the floor next to the bed was a small antique carafe made of tin coloured to look like gold. It was a Moorish design, and the top had been left off.

  Armada gave the bottle a sniff. It had a pungent, sour, herb-type smell that was unmistakable. Deadly nightshade. A poison made from a weed that grew all over the hills, known for killing quickly and painlessly if taken in a high enough dose.

  “Coward,” Armada said as he closed Martin’s dead eyes with his fingertips.

  As Armada emerged from the bedroom, everyone in the house began throwing questions at him. Rumours had already begun to circulate about why he would have wanted to kill himself, some of which even came from his distraught wife, who blocked Armada’s path out of the kitchen.

  “Please tell me why my Martin would want to do something like this,” she said.

  So Martin hadn’t the courage to tell his family why he was killing himself. He just snuck into the back bedroom and did it before anyone could stop him.

  “I’m sorry,” Armada said to her and then to everyone. “I’m sorry.”

  The grief in the room was palpable, and Armada felt himself getting angry in order to resist it seeping into his heart. He hated Martin for having made his job so much harder, as he was counting on the alcalde’s testimony. Now he would have to do without it.

  But there was still one more person who could help.

  Armada pushed his way out of the house and hopped back into the cart with Lucas.

  “What happened, sir?”

  “Get us back to the army camp. Quickly!”

  They reached the camp. Armada was relieved to see that Salinas wasn’t working in the tower at the moment. His arrival caught the attention of Salinas, who was just waking up from a nap in his shelter. He got to his feet and approached Armada.

  “Armada…I thought you were going to arrest somebody. Isn’t that why you took your cart to town?”

  Armada grabbed the irons and tossed them at Salinas. They hit his chest and clanged onto the ground at his feet.

  “What is this?”

  “An arrest. Unless you can tell me exactly what I want to know.”

  “But I didn’t kill Esteban. I told you.”

  “Was it Jose Encinas?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must have known. You were the first to discover the body. You were involved in the smuggling operation with Jose. The murder took place in the watchtower that you have command over. This case swirls about you like a storm, so don’t try and tell me you have no idea what is happening! Tell me if Jose Encinas killed Esteban Marañón!”

  Salinas glanced over Armada’s shoulder. Barros was there, making little attempt to hide the fact he was listening from a few paces away. Just over Salinas’s shoulder, Pedro had popped his head out of the tower.

  “I told you. I don’t know,” Salinas said.

  “How did you, Martin, or Jose find out about Esteban’s desire to meet the mother of his child that night? Did you see the letter?”

  “What letter?”

  “And who pulled the trigger that night? You and Martin claim you were in town. Was it Jose, then? If so, how did he convince Esteban to lower the ladder? And how did he cover the sound of the gunshot?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!” Salinas cried. “I told you, I had nothing to do with any of it!”

  Armada took a breath. It didn’t do any good to let himself get too upset. He had pushed Salinas as far as he knew how, but it got him nothing. At least, that’s what Armada told himself he was doing.

  What Salinas needed now was some time to think about how awful life could be for him if he didn’t reveal his secrets. And there was one good way to do that.

  Armada gestured to the irons. “Put those on.”

  “What? Armada, be reasonable. I beseech you. I’ve told you everything I know. What more do you want?”

  “What I want is to arrest you and take you into town to be imprisoned until I figure out what I’m going to charge you with—murder or smuggling. Either way, your days of being a free man have come to an end.”

  Barros took a few steps towards Salinas, as if offering to help Salinas fight off this attacker. But Salinas lowered himself and picked up the irons, signalling he was going to submit. He put the irons on and locked them into place. Armada gestured to Lucas to escort him into the cage on the back of their cart.

  Meanwhile, Barros and Pedro watched on in shock, unsure of what to do next.

  “Pedro, I’m making you acting captain. Keep the watch going as much as you can,” Salinas said from between the bars of his tiny cage. “I’ll send word to the colonel when I can and tell him what happened.”

  Armada climbed into the cart. Lucas swung it around to head back into the canyon as the mule brayed in protest at having to make the trip for a second time that night.

  Armada glanced over his shoulder at Barros and Pedro and decided he and Lucas would need to arrange some new accommodation for the night.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Armada leaned against an olive tree, trying not to draw attention as he gazed over the tilted tops of hundreds of hand-carved gravestones. None of the graves here were much older than 1490, around the time the town had been reconquered from the Moors. And there was every reason to believe the Moors buried their dead here as well, their gravesto
nes long ago pulled up and thrown in the ocean in an attempt to rid the landscape of every trace of their existence. But they always left the bodies. It was a common story in towns like this. They were too hard to dig up, as if it were impossible to erase the Moors from the land itself. So the Christians built their new world on top of the old, adding a new layer to the continuing history of this place.

  On the opposite side was a group of people who stood round an open hole where a coffin had just been laid. Many, including Martin’s wife and daughter, were weeping while the priest said a few words, reassuring everyone that Martin Figueroa’s soul was well on its way to heaven.

  Armada wasn’t sure whether he should have come. But he had felt bound to that morning, if only to let the family know what was happening. From their point of view, Martin’s suicide must have seemed so abrupt. Armada knew the next step would be the inevitable spread of rumours and of blame as people tried to make sense of Martin’s act. Armada was powerless to stop that, but he could make sure the family knew the truth of what was going on. They deserved to know what kind of a man Martin was and the part he played in the raid that had shattered this quiet village. It wouldn’t be easy, and there was no guarantee they would even believe him. In fact, there was every reason to believe they would direct their hate at Armada, scolding him for spreading lies about a respected man so soon after his death.

  There was nothing about this that was going to be easy. And it all felt too soon. There was every reason to believe Jose Encinas had done it. He had the opportunity, he had the motivation, he had no alibi for that night, and he had now fled into the countryside. No one else had as much reason to kill Esteban Marañón as Jose.

  Yet a vague instinct told him something wasn’t right. It centred on why Salinas didn’t seem to have any idea of what was going on. He could understand Salinas lying to help cover for Jose Encinas to prevent himself from getting involved in this. But Armada already knew all about his involvement. So why not tell the truth? What did he have to protect by lying?