I clapped him on the back, catching my breath.
“Thanks, Ignacio…and sorry I tackled you.”
Ignacio nodded, still in shock.
“Actually, I think it was good for me. I felt like a cop again, briefly, except back then I was always the one giving chase, of course.”
I smiled at him. He seemed a little more relaxed, but I was still waiting for my heart rate to return to normal.
“Do you ever miss life in the force?” I probed.
He thought about it for a moment.
“I don’t miss dealing with scum every day. I spend time with normal people now, law-abiding folks. No violence, no tragedy, no complications. Don’t kid yourself, Inspector: a life lived far away from criminals is easier.”
“Of course, it’s easier to look the other way when you know someone else is going to take them off the streets, stop the bad guys from having free rein. But I’m not sure I could live the kind of life you’re talking about without losing my mind.”
“You suffer from the hero complex, an overblown sense of duty. I used to be the same, and I paid a heavy price,” he said ruefully. “My twin paid an even heavier one. I took away twenty years of his life, and he’ll never get them back.”
Just then, I felt my cell phone vibrate. It was Peña. Possibly with news about Estíbaliz.
I stood up and extended my hand to Ignacio.
“I need to take this call. Sorry again about the tackle, but could you…?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll steer clear of your daughter when I’m in Laguardia.”
“Thanks. DSU Salvatierra just lost her mother. I’m sure you understand….”
“I do,” he said, looking me straight in the eye. He pressed my hand to say goodbye and walked away in his expensive, grass-stained clothes.
I hurried back to where I’d left Deba, Alba, and Grandfather, returning Peña’s call on my way.
“Any news?”
“Not yet, they’re still operating. Ramiro Alvar is no longer in critical condition.”
“Okay. I’m heading back to Vitoria now with DSU Salvatierra. She’s going to take over the investigation again. We have a meeting with forensics this afternoon.”
“By the way, Milán has been tracking that Twitter account since the tweet about the chronicle appeared. It was set up yesterday in central Vitoria with a burner phone that is currently inactive. There haven’t been any more tweets sent from the account. And I doubt there will be.”
“We have to make sure the information about the chronicle’s theft isn’t leaked to the press, or it will obstruct our ability to investigate. We need to get a gag order on that now. Another thing: watch the entrance to Number Two Calle Dato. Tell me if you see Ignacio Ortiz de Zárate today and, if you do, I want to know what clothes he’s wearing. I want photos.”
30
THE HANGING OAK
DIAGO VELA
Winter, the Year of Our Lord 1192
Fire took her from me, and fire brought her back to me, I thought.
I woke to the sound of shouting. I had fallen asleep in the tub, and the water was cold. Alix was gone, and I felt more alone than ever. I leaped to my feet, draped myself in Gunnarr’s bearskin, and looked out the window.
They weren’t shrieks of joy; they were shrieks of horror. I made myself presentable, went downstairs, and joined the crowd. Beyond the town walls, several women were on their knees, weeping, beneath the hanging oak.
Swinging from one of the boughs was young Vidal.
The lieutenant was already in the Plaza del Juicio, waiting for a ladder. Seven Navarrese guards who had been on duty at the Sant Viçente fortress had formed a circle around the tree and were keeping the townsfolk at bay with their lances. Was that necessary?
The mayor, the bailiff, and the lieutenant gathered around me. The four of us looked up at the hanged man’s feet. Vidal had died with an erection and his clothing was soiled with excrement. It was all crudely on display before the entire town. I could not decide whether he deserved this ignominious end.
“We can no longer conceal what happened last night,” I said to the lieutenant. “But neither can we stop Carnestolendas with all these people in the streets.”
“Take your men, Lieutenant,” I ordered. “Confiscate all the wine in the town and cart it out through Portal de la Armería. Make an announcement: Everyone is to abstain from drinking out of respect for the souls of Count de Maestu’s daughters. Mayor, sign a proclamation and have it read to the people this very morning outside the Santa María and Sant Michel churches. Inform the town that the priest acted alone and chose to punish himself for his crimes. And for heaven’s sake, cut down that poor lad from the tree, or I’ll climb up there and do it myself.”
The executioner unsheathed his dagger.
“That won’t be necessary. They have just brought the ladder,” he said. He propped it up against the hanging oak as we watched closely.
I left the square and made my way to Nagorno’s house, which stood next to my own on Rúa de la Astería. I found him stoking the hearth, stirring embers that had doubtless warmed the chamber all night.
He did not turn around when I entered—he knew my footsteps.
“I know what you’re thinking: Who stands to gain from these deaths?” he said slowly, still with his back to me.
“Was this your doing?” I asked simply.
“You know it was not.”
He took his time standing up, as though he were already tired of the matter. Then he went over to the window and peered outside. I joined him.
“Listen to me, Nagorno. Carnestolendas isn’t over yet, but I know all your masks. I won’t say a word to Onneca. I’d honestly rather she continue despising me. I also believe she’s in love with you, or something akin to love, and until her brother returns from Edesa, you’re the only family she has left. So, as long as you are by her side, make her happy.”
Nagorno nodded with the languor of a serpent. Then something caught his eye.
“Where is that black smoke coming from?” he asked, puzzled.
I leaned halfway out the window.
“There are fires!” I shouted. “On either side of town. I think the fruit market is on fire, and the Santa María marketplace as well. Are you to blame for this? Have you been stirring up trouble with the Mendoza family?”
“You give me too much credit. I’m flattered, but this time I fear they’ve whipped themselves into a frenzy.”
“Very well,” I said, as we prepared to leave. “Rally the townsfolk, tell them to ring the bells in both the churches, and to bring buckets to the Santa María well. The inhabitants of Nova Victoria can fetch water from the Zapardiel to douse the flames at the market.”
I ran down the stairs and along Rúa de las Pescaderías. My worst fears were confirmed when I reached the end of the street. Grandmother Lucía’s roof was in flames.
They had set fire to the cloth overhang on the stalls beside her dwelling. The flames had reached the first floor.
I hurried to the well, drew a pail of water, and poured it over myself. Then I ripped off one shirtsleeve and wrapped it around my nose and mouth.
The thatched roof was a pyre of black smoke. A few onlookers watched the conflagration, entranced, like mice before a snake. Some men shouted ridiculous orders, bumping into one another and throwing punches as they ran about, while the women either tugged at their sleeves to separate them or handed them pails of water to douse the charred wood that had once been their market stalls.
The front door to Grandmother Lucía’s house was wide-open. I filled my lungs before entering and ran toward the stairs.
Crawling up the steps on my hands and knees, smoke burning my eyes, I managed to reach the kitchen. Her straw bed was ablaze. It was giving off so much heat that I could feel the flames on the right
side of my face as I passed by.
“Grandmother, where are you!”
“Over here!” Alix shouted.
She was trying to drag the old woman’s lifeless body across the floor. Alix’s dress and wimple were in flames. She was a moving bonfire.
I hurled myself on top of her. My sodden clothes smothered the flames on her dress, and I tore off her wimple and flung it away.
Choked by the fumes, we descended the stairs just as the joists gave way and the floor caved in. I groped my way, carrying Grandmother Lucía in my arms, but she gave no sign of life. It was hopeless. At this point I was simply rescuing her corpse for a decent burial. No breath remained in this charred, wizened shell. I stumbled and fell headlong down the stairs. I tried to shield her brittle bones, but we collapsed to the ground as the house erupted into blistering flames around us.
I lay sprawled at the entrance. After managing to carry Grandmother Lucía out into the street, Alix came to get me.
By now I was half delirious from lack of air. I didn’t want to breathe because I had inhaled so much smoke that each exhalation seared my lungs. Alix emptied a bucket of water over me to soothe my stinging eyes and throat.
And then, as though she had just realized I was too heavy to move, she seemed to give up. She sat beside me in the entrance, surrounded by flames, and cradled my head as though I were a baby. We gazed into each other’s eyes, waiting for the inferno to engulf us and end everything.
* * *
—
But that didn’t happen. Nagorno appeared in the midst of the flames, and, despite always having been smaller than me, he swiftly pulled me outside to safety. Then he carried Alix out over his shoulder. Her owl, Munio, had apparently hooted to alert him that his mistress was trapped in the flames.
Some neighbors gave us water to drink and carried us away from the fire on a cart.
“And Grandmother Lucía?” I asked as soon as I could speak.
“She’s badly burned and has lost her hair, but the physician says she will live.”
I was overcome with joy. It was more than I had dared hope for. Laughing between coughs, I fell back on the cart as it rattled over the cobblestones on Rúa Pescaderías, and then I abandoned my scorched body to the care of others.
Alix lay sprawled beside me, breathing shallowly. I was too weak to sit up or even to turn my head to make sure she was still intact. We gazed up at a sky, which had darkened from red, orange, and yellow to gray. I felt for her hand and pressed it firmly. She responded by squeezing tightly.
Thus our tacit pact was sealed: “Given that we shall die soon, we renounce nothing.”
* * *
—
Three nights later I had finally stopped coughing up ash and each inhalation had ceased to be a torment. My eyes no longer wept with the brightness of the candle flames, and chamomile compresses had soothed my burns. I made my way to Alix’s forge.
It was three hours until cockcrow. Outside the town was dark and deserted, but the torches on the wall lit up the street.
Alix, wearing her new wimple, was hammering a horseshoe on the anvil. In her furnace, the glow from the fire was warming instead of threatening.
“How is Grandmother Lucía?” I asked in a whisper.
“She’s sad. Her home has been reduced to four burned posts. She lives with me now.”
“I’ve hired a master builder to build her an identical cottage. May I see her?”
“She’s sleeping,” Alix replied hesitantly, “and besides, you’re not here to see Grandmother.”
She set down her hammer, and I went over to her. The last time I saw her she had been covered in ashes.
“What do I smell of today?” I asked as she sniffed my chest.
“Of a decision made,” she said slowly. “Close the shutters.”
I did as she asked, and when I turned around, she had removed her wimple.
“We spoke of this,” she murmured, holding my gaze as she slipped off her leather apron and leaned back against the wall. “We decided it was unwise.”
“And it is. But I promise you: I’m not going to die.” I grabbed her shoulders. “Believe me, I’m not going to die. You will not have to bury me, and no one will accuse you of murdering four husbands. You’ve seen how resilient I am.”
“You’re surrounded by enemies.”
“No leader can go through life without having to fight every step of the way. I was born into this, Alix. My life has been one long battle, and my brother has made me pay for each of my victories. I am accustomed to it. You do not see my armor, but I have it, and it protects me always.”
“You can take it off with me, for I have no intention of harming you.”
I nodded; I believed her.
Then I noticed the piece of red yarn tied around her wrist. It was identical to the one Grandmother Lucía had woven for me.
“I believe we have Grandmother Lucía’s blessing,” I murmured, showing her my wristband, which had miraculously survived the fire.
“I know, I was waiting for you to realize,” she replied.
“Then…you consent,” I said, kneeling at her feet.
“I consent.”
I lifted her robe and caressed the length of her leg from ankle to thigh.
“And do you also consent to this?” I asked.
“For the love of God…” She suppressed a moan. “Hush, and don’t stop what you’re doing.”
“But you do consent?” I insisted.
“Yes. I consent to everything, Diago. Everything.”
31
THE AVENUE OF PINES
UNAI
October 2019
When I got back to the swings, my family was no longer there, so I headed to the hotel. Alba had locked the door.
“Where’s Deba?” I asked, anxious.
“She’s with Grandfather in Doña Blanca’s room. I made her promise to scream if any handsome blond men ever go near her again. Did you arrest him?”
“It wasn’t Tasio; it was Ignacio. I checked his ID. He said he didn’t know that I told Tasio to stay away from Deba. He promised to keep his distance if he sees you.”
“So we can’t lodge a complaint or ask for a restraining order against Tasio, because Ignacio wasn’t directly involved in the first incident.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“What do we do now?” she asked. I was surprised to hear her say “we.” She didn’t usually.
“We go to Vitoria. And we never leave Deba unattended. Between you, me, Grandfather, and Germán, we’ll be able to protect her. But right now, Estíbaliz is in the operating room, and I want to be there when she wakes up, assuming she does. She stayed by my side the entire time I was in a coma.”
“I remember. She needs us now, and we won’t let her down,” Alba said.
She looked up at the ceiling in the hotel’s entrance, saying goodbye.
“This place was beginning to grow on me,” she said in a hushed tone.
I know.
I drove slowly. No one said a word; we were all too tense. I didn’t like the defeated look in Grandfather’s cloudy eyes. He blamed himself for not seeing Ignacio approach Deba.
“Was it the fox himself?” he had asked when I went up to the room and found him and Deba grooming her plush wild boar. It was Deba’s favorite stuffed animal because her great-grandfather had given it to her when she got her first tooth.
“No, Grandpa, it was his twin. He meant no harm. We had no real reason to panic.”
“Well…I won’t let her out of my sight again, son,” he whispered, lowering his head.
Half an hour later, we were driving down the Avenue of Pines on our way to Vitoria. I always sped through that stretch of the road, where my first family had crashed into the giant tree on the right shoulder.
<
br /> Since that day, long ago, a kind person had left a bouquet at the foot of the enormous tree every week. It wasn’t me. I couldn’t bring myself to stop at that accursed place. At first, I couldn’t even look at the memorial. I’d step on the accelerator and stare straight ahead. Gradually, with each journey, the familiarity of the road eased my pain, and I started noticing the flowers. Sometimes there were dahlias, other times there were tulips, or occasionally winter roses that had survived the harsh weather in the Alavese mountains. Curiously, they always coincided with the seeds I bought Grandfather to plant in his garden.
I had never asked him. For once, this was a mystery I was in no hurry to solve.
That day, though, as I approached that spot, I instinctively slowed down. I was driving my wife, my child, my grandfather. I was terrified of losing them. And I started to wonder whether my determination to protect the city meant that, in some ways, I was repeatedly crashing them into a tree.
* * *
—
We finally arrived at the hospital. I squeezed Deba’s hand firmly as we walked into the building.
Come straight to the third floor, Peña had texted.
We went up, our hearts in our throats.
We found Peña in the hallway. Germán and Milán were also waiting for us.
“The doctors say she’s made of rubber. No burst kidneys, no brain damage. Just some broken bones. She has to wear a neck brace, and her arm is fractured in about two hundred places. She’ll need physiotherapy and lots of rest. We’ve lost our best markswoman for a while, but Inspector Ruiz de Gauna is still in one piece,” said Peña, grinning from ear to ear.
“Can we see her?” I interrupted him impatiently. Deba, in my arms, kept asking for her auntie.
“They just brought her up from the recovery room, and I think she’s still a little groggy from the anesthetic. Forensics wants to talk to us.”
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