A Murder Most Watchful

by Jefferson Bonar

  “Get up!” Salvador shouted. “Get up!”

  Over and over, Salvador screamed into Mencía’s face until his voice changed into a more familiar man’s voice.

  Mencía opened her eyes to find the figures of three men standing over her through the branches, one of whom had a familiar face.

  “Get up!” Garcia shouted as he kicked the branches off her.

  Mencía stood and tried to dash past the men, but they were too quick and grabbed her.

  “Calm yourself! Calm yourself! There is nothing you can do!” Garcia shouted.

  But Mencía would not stop. She couldn’t be taken. Not now. Not after everything she had fought for. She kicked and screamed and threw her fists, trying to fight off Garcia and his men any way she could.

  Mencía was grabbed and held by the waist while her wrists and her ankles were clapped in irons. She struggled, but it soon became apparent this was futile.

  “There is nowhere you can go now. You might as well give up,” said Garcia.

  Mencía spat in his face.

  Garcia shook this off. “You must be the woman who killed my friend Salvador Torrini. I am Don Benito Garcia, a friend of his father’s. I’m also a magistrate from Almuñecar, which means I have the authority to pronounce sentence on you.”

  Mencía stared at the ground.

  “I’m impressed by how long you lasted out here. Tell me, what was your plan? Were you going to run all the way to Madrid?”

  Mencía tried to spit in his face again, but he saw it coming and dodged it.

  “Get her up.”

  The other men hoisted the defiant Mencía to her feet.

  “There’s no reason to keep fighting. You’ll just make it harder for yourself.”

  Mencía relaxed but thought perhaps there was an opportunity coming. God would never let these men hang her like that. Not when she had a child to raise in this world. No, she had to save her strength. And be ready.

  “Tell me, what is your name?” Garcia asked.

  Mencía almost told him but stopped. There were implications to be considered.

  If she gave the name Baltasara Aguilar, it was a death sentence. She would be seen as just some peasant girl who had committed a heinous crime, and these men would not hesitate to hang her. And what would Federico think if he ever learned of her fate? That she was a coward who ran away to avoid paying for her crime? How could she explain that she’d done it all for him? He would never know what she sacrificed. He would be embarrassed for how his mother acted, going to his grave without ever knowing what it had all been for.

  But if she gave them her real name, her fate could be worse. They wouldn’t hang her and would instead take her home in shame. Her father would use his connections to make the charges disappear, yet she would live the rest of her life beholden to him. Which meant she would have little choice but to accept her destiny at a convent.

  And what of Federico? Could she trust that her father wouldn’t track him down and follow through with his promises for his grandson as well?

  She needed more time to think about it. So she said nothing for now.

  “Very well,” Garcia said before turning to his men. “What’s the nearest pueblo to here?”

  “Otivar. About half a league to the east,” said one of the other men.

  “We’ll take her there. I’m sure they’ll have something we can build a gallows out of,” Garcia said, being sure Mencía heard him. “We could be back in Almuñecar by tomorrow afternoon.”

  The trip to Otivar was painful for Mencía. Garcia authorized the removal of her ankle irons so she could walk but not those on her wrists. A chain was attached instead that he’d wrapped several times around his forearm to keep her from getting away. The irons had sharp edges that cut into her skin on the back of her hand, and the men paid little attention to the fact she was bleeding. No rest was allowed, and when she began to stumble from exhaustion, Garcia pulled the chain harder, demanding she walk faster.

  They entered Otivar just before sundown and began to cross through the main plaza. Mencía was becoming dizzy from thirst and found it hard to keep up the pace Garcia had set. There were people from the pueblo standing about in the plaza who watched with mouths agape, as visitors of any kind were a rare sight, especially those with a female prisoner in tow.

  Garcia stopped the group in the plaza and introduced himself to a few of the people, asking them about where he and his men could find accommodation for the night and whether there were any tall trees in the local area.

  Now that they had stopped, Mencía felt the exhaustion she had been trying to ignore catch up to her. Her legs went numb, and she collapsed onto the flat stones of the plaza.

  Seeing they were being watched by so many townspeople, Garcia softened his tone and told the men the irons may not be necessary anymore. The men removed them and helped Mencía to her feet.

  “There is a small inn just down there,” Garcia said, pointing to a lane that wound off to the east.

  But Mencía had her eye on a different building. Seizing her chance, she shook herself free of the men and ran off towards the far side of the plaza.

  “Hey!” barked Garcia.

  The men ran after her. They were much quicker, but she didn’t have to go far. If she could just reach the threshold…

  Mencía raced across the plaza, pleading with her numb legs to keep going a few more steps. Much to her relief, they got her as far as the front doors of the church. One of them was propped open, and she threw herself inside, landing hard on the cold tile floor.

  Garcia and his men were a step behind her and grabbed her by the ankles.

  “Excuse me, what is happening? Who are you people?” came a voice from near the altar.

  Mencía looked up to see a bald man in spectacles and a white collar walking towards them, holding his hand out.

  “This is no concern of yours, Father. She is a fugitive.”

  “Father.” Mencía coughed. She was becoming weaker and struggled for breath. “Father…please…I request sanctuary…please…sanctuary.”

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s deranged,” Garcia said as his men pulled Mencía to her feet.

  “Wait a moment, please!” the priest said. “This woman has requested sanctuary. And I am granting it to her until I know what is going on.”

  “She’s a murderer, Father. You don’t want to do this,” Garcia said.

  “She is also one of God’s creatures and a Christian. And as such deserves mercy. Now that sanctuary is granted it would be a sin to take her from this church. So I demand you let her go.”

  Garcia’s men looked uncomfortable. Violating the sacred laws of sanctuary in a church was a serious charge, and Mencía doubted Garcia had paid his men enough to commit such an offence.

  Garcia gave his men a nod, and they let Mencía go.

  “We’ll be staying in town, Father,” Garcia said. “When you’re ready to be sensible and help us bring this criminal to justice, you let me know.”

  Garcia and his men left the church. Mencía realised she had won, which made her so happy that she passed out on the church floor.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  October 1660

  Armada hated to do it. He didn’t want to alarm Lucas, but he needed the boy’s help tonight.

  Armada put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “Lucas. Lucas, my boy. Wake up.”

  Lucas opened his eyes, saw Armada standing over him, and bolted upright.

  “What is it, sir? Is something wrong?”

  “I’m afraid so. I need your help with this.”

  Armada held up his right hand, which he had wrapped up in a spare nightgown he’d found in the provisions bag. Even though the moonlight was doing its work of washing away the vivid colour of the day, it was clear Armada was bleeding from a wound on his palm.

  Lucas leapt out of bed and soon had Armada holding his injured hand aloft as he unwrapped the blood-soaked nightgown.

  “What happened, sir?�
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  Lucas removed the last of the nightgown and then lowered Armada’s hand into a basin of water, which revealed the extent of the injury. It was clear now that Armada’s fingers had curled up into a fist until his long fingernails had dug into the fleshy part of his palm. The pain was overwhelming and was combined with the severe cramping in his fingers, which had ruined any hope Armada had for sleep that night.

  But Armada suspected that’s not what Lucas meant with his innocuous-sounding question.

  What happened, indeed? It was a question Armada had been struggling with for much of his adult life. Tonight his nightmares had taken him back to that small cove in Peru, back to the moment of execution, back to the lingering doubt that had been born that night. It was so vivid it felt as if the decades of life he’d lived since then had never happened. He could feel the harquebus in his hand that day, his right hand gripping the trigger to keep his commander from seeing him shake. The frightened native in front of him, tied to a pole and blindfolded, looking up to the heavens to whatever pagan god he worshipped and pleading for mercy while his family cried out in anguish.

  Armada had focused on holding the harquebus steady that day, believing nothing else mattered. If he missed, it would be humiliating, especially if he had to fumble about reloading while the rest of his company got on with their executions. Someone else would have to do it for him, thus attracting the scorn of the rest of his company.

  But it went deeper than that. He’d been worried his commander was already becoming suspicious of his commitment to the company. Armada knew he had to get the shot right the first time to prove himself loyal. And to do that, he had to hold the harquebus as firmly as he could.

  The shot went through the man’s neck. The sound the native man made in his last few moments of life, struggling for breath while drowning in his own blood, was something Armada could never forget. He’d felt the pain in his right hand for days afterwards, just as he felt it now.

  “A ghost, Lucas,” Armada whispered. “One who has come to injure me. He was here, standing in front of me just as he had all those years ago.”

  Lucas managed to get Armada’s fingers removed from his palm, then washed his injury and wrapped it with a thick layer of wool and bandages. Armada’s fingers were so cramped it was impossible to straighten them, so they were left curled and stiff, like those of a corpse. Armada wondered if this was that native’s way of killing him, starting with the hand that had taken his life. It would seem such a silly thought in the daylight, but in the dark of night, it was one worth fearing.

  “You can tell me what happened, sir. If you want.”

  “It is nothing a child like you should hear. Perhaps when you’re older.”

  It was the response Armada gave every time Lucas asked about his past, which was growing more frequent. But as Lucas got older, it was starting to sound hollower.

  “But, sir, I…”

  An idea occurred to Armada, one so exciting it distracted him, sending the sound of Lucas’s voice fading into the background of his thoughts.

  “That’s how we find him… Of course,” Armada said.

  “Sir?”

  Armada rose to his feet. He needed to pace about; he needed a cup of sherry.

  “We have to see this from the point of view of our killer,” Armada said. “Don’t you see? Our history is always just over our shoulder, just behind the next door, just round the next corner. It affects our lives every day, no matter how many years have passed. And I’m betting it’s the same for our killer. This has always been about history, Lucas…a history worth killing for.”

  Armada walked over to the table on the far wall, picking up the genealogy that Esteban was working on and looking it over again.

  “That’s why Esteban’s work was so dangerous,” Armada said. “And that’s how we’ll draw him out of the shadows.”

  “Sir?”

  “We finish Esteban’s work. We find out what happened to this Mencía Marañón. Solve the mystery our killer doesn’t want solved.”

  “But he’ll come after us, sir.”

  “Yes. But unlike Esteban, we’ll be ready for him.”

  The next morning during breakfast, Armada and an apprehensive Lucas talked to Barros and Pedro in front of a meagre campfire made of twigs they’d collected the night before. Their reception was somewhat cool, as Pedro and Barros were unsure of whether they still had a posting or if they would ever see wages again. Pedro complained he’d had to write to the colonel, informing him of what had happened with Salinas, and he was unsure of what the response would be.

  Armada made a point of listening to Pedro and Barros, knowing that if they felt he understood their worries, they would be more amenable to answering his enquiries afterwards.

  “Mencía who?” Pedro asked.

  “Marañón,” Armada said. “Did Esteban ever mention her? Or Alonso de Marañón? Or the Order of Santiago?”

  Pedro looked to Barros, who also looked confused. “Is she someone in town?”

  “How about the shipwreck of 1562? Did he ever mention that?”

  Barros smiled. “Oh yes, he was always going on about it. He talked our ears off some nights. And always about those relics that people find washed up on the beach. Especially—”

  “I don’t understand, Armada,” Pedro said. “What does this have to do with why he was killed?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Armada said. “But it appears he was trying to somehow prove he was related to this Mencía Marañón. And someone might have killed him over it.”

  “Venga. This is silly,” Pedro said.

  “Why?”

  “Because of why you arrested our captain, or did you forget about that already?” Pedro said. “You said yourself Esteban was involved with Captain Salinas in a smuggling ring! Do you not think that had something to do with it? And you seem to have forgotten how everyone in town wanted him dead because of the raid. But you’re not investigating any of that! Instead, you’re asking Barros and I about shipwrecks from a hundred years ago! This is madness!”

  Pedro kicked the stump he’d been sitting on to make his point. Barros and Lucas flinched.

  Armada remained calm. “The raid…yes…I’ve always been curious. Who else was here at the camp that night?”

  “No one,” Barros said. “Just us.”

  Armada smiled. “Good. That means one of you can tell me where Esteban went the night of the raid.”

  Pedro and Barros stared at him.

  “He injured his foot that night. Salinas said he could hardly walk when he returned,” Armada said. “If there was no one else here, that means it was one of you who helped Esteban back up to the tower that night. He couldn’t have done it alone, not in that condition. Which means one of you knows where he was.”

  Pedro and Barros looked at each other.

  Barros sighed and looked at the ground. “It was that family he was obsessed with…”

  “Barros!” Pedro barked. But it was too late.

  “The Maraions? He was with them?” Armada asked.

  “No, no. That other family he was always talking about. The ones who live up on the north side.”

  “I don’t know them,” Armada said.

  “He got into a scrap with the big one, the father. Luis, I think was his name,” Barros said. “The two went at it. He got in a good whack on Esteban’s ankle by the time I got there. That Luis was ready to kill him.”

  “Why? What was it about?” Armada asked.

  “Luis claimed Esteban had broken into his house,” Pedro said. “He was lying. Esteban didn’t do things like that.”

  “What was Esteban’s response to the charge?”

  “He said he was just walking past when Luis went mad and attacked him for no reason,” Barros said.

  “And I believed him,” Pedro said. “Esteban wasn’t a liar.”

  Armada glanced at Lucas, trying to squash the temptation to mention all the lies Esteban told about being an orphan, what he told his
father about going to Malaga, and everything he’d ever said to Isabel.

  But now wasn’t the time to reveal all he knew. Not yet.

  “Where is this house?” Armada asked. “I want to speak to this Luis.”

  They were given a brief description, and Armada and Lucas headed into town. Soon they were standing in front of a house on the northern side of town, built on the edge of where the landscape became too steep to build on. Armada called through the thick oak door, trying to listen for any signs of people moving about inside.

  “Can you open the door, please?” Armada called in again. “This is Domingo Armada of the Holy Brotherhood. I demand that you open this door now.”

  There was no response beyond the sound of muffled arguing.

  “I will open this door by force if I have to!”

  “I’m sorry. We cannot,” came a timid response.

  Something was amiss. There was fear in that voice. Far more than there should have been.

  Armada heard a great deal of shuffling about inside. He stood back and planted the full weight of his foot in the centre of the door. The latch broke free from the plaster and exploded into a small cloud of powder and dust. The door swung open to reveal the frightened eyes of a family huddled in the back corner of the room by the firepit. There was a woman, somewhere in her late thirties, with four children clutching at her, as well as an elderly couple next to her.

  “Why didn’t you open the door?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” the woman said.

  Armada looked around the room. There wasn’t anything immediately out of place. Just a typical Spanish home, a bit small for a family of this size, with the usual firepit and large wood table in the front. The rays of the sun streaked sideways through the window, splashing against the back wall and lighting up the dust that hung in the air.

  Armada let his eyes drift around the room and saw no sign of any relics.

  “Where is Luis? Is he here?” Armada asked.

  The woman shook her head, staring at him with fearful eyes. What was she so worried about?