“Sancha! Has anybody seen my Sancha?”
“Paricio, shout if you can hear me!”
“Hold on, Muño!” shouted the butcher’s wife. “Somebody help me, he’s trapped under the door to the shop!”
There was no rejoicing that day.
Hundreds of blackened ghosts cleared away rubble and screamed at the top of their lungs. Terrified hens squawked, trapped in coops no one expected to salvage.
I threw my bow on the ground and ran down the tower steps.
“Yennego!” I cried.
For hours, my voice rang out through the streets. “Yennego, my son, I’m here!”
43
A SPLIT TOMBSTONE
UNAI
October 2019
“Did your alter start appearing after your parents died?”
“No, it was after Alvar’s death.”
“What happened when your brother returned to the tower, the year you turned eighteen?”
“He made my life a living hell.”
“Why? What happened to make him turn against you?”
“Don’t you see? His death was my fault.”
“How can you blame yourself? He had a fatal illness. There was nothing you could have done to save his life.”
Ramiro Alvar clenched his fists, braced his arms against the sides of the wheelchair and rose to his feet. I stiffened, alert to his every movement. I expected him to hit me.
His whole body was shaking with rage: his lips, his chin, his voice.
“Yes, there was. Alvar had a hereditary blood disease called thalassemia. Other men in our family have had it to varying degrees, but Alvar suffered from the most severe form, and the consequences were devastating. He had chronic anemia and was prone to infection. The disease attacked his spleen, heart, liver—even his bones. He developed fractures in his legs, and the pain became unbearable. By the end, he had become addicted to painkillers. Whose wheelchair do you think this is? By the time he returned to the tower, his body was ravaged by the thalassemia. Only a bone marrow transplant could have saved his life. I was his brother, so we were compatible.”
“Then why didn’t you—?”
“Because no one told me, for God’s sake! The relationship between Alvar and my mother deteriorated so much that she hid his diagnosis from me. She could never forgive Alvar for his behavior when he returned to Ugarte. He was the talk of the village, stirring up rivalries among the local girls, causing rifts in families. He humiliated the family—and he laughed in my mother’s face. It was his revenge for what had happened with Gemma. So my mother never told my father and me about the thalassemia. At the time, my father’s psychiatrist had diagnosed him as schizophrenic and had prescribed antipsychotic drugs. My father was like a zombie. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him he was going to outlive his elder son. As for not telling me…My mother was good to me, but that’s something I can never forgive.”
“What about Alvar?”
“He thought I had refused to donate my bone marrow for the transplant. My mother told him that the entire family had disowned him because of his reputation in Ugarte, and he believed her. I still can’t believe that he would think me capable of such cruelty. During Alvar’s last year, when he came to live at the tower, he was dismissive, rude, verbally abusive. Every day, he reminded me that I could have saved his life. It was impossible to get through to him. He just wouldn’t listen. His personality had completely changed, and the constant pain he was in, coupled with his addiction to his pain medication, only made things worse. They say pain can dehumanize a patient to the point where those caring for them need care themselves. I can attest to that. He lived in a kind of parallel reality; he only acknowledged the truth when it suited him. The year I turned eighteen was a living hell.”
“And then you were alone.”
“Not exactly. They’re all still here in my head: Alvar, my father, my uncles and aunts, my grandparents…the whole damn family tree. No, I’m not alone in my tower. I have plenty of company. So far, only Alvar has become an alter, but it won’t be long before the others start to take shape. Now do you understand why I was desperate to get rid of him?”
I was surprised to see Ramiro Alvar like this. He was never confrontational—and the sudden burst of strength that had him standing on a broken leg was even more astonishing.
“How have you managed to hide your alter?” I asked. “No one seems to know about him—not the villagers, not your lawyer, not your publisher…not even Claudia, and she spends a lot of time just downstairs. How can Estíbaliz and I be the only ones who have seen you as Alvar?”
“Because I’ve been careful. Studying psychology helped me perfect the masquerade. I learned to turn off the lights whenever anyone comes near the tower. But now that I know I haven’t banished Alvar forever, I’m terrified that he might return. What if it’s just like when I wrote the novel? He went away for an entire year, until your colleague brought him back. She’s the only woman he’s fallen in love with since Gemma.”
This is like a siege, I thought. Ramiro Alvar is defending his fortress from behind a wall, trying to keep the monster inside.
“Maybe you don’t have to get rid of him,” I suggested.
He looked at me blankly.
“Why would I want to keep him?”
“I know he undermines you because he hates how passive you are.”
“That’s true. I don’t want him inside my head. I want to be alone in there, just me. I just want to be myself.”
“You’re already you,” I explained. “And the alter is not your brother. Your brother, or what remains of him, is here in front of you, six feet underground. He’s dead, Ramiro. Your alter isn’t Alvar; it’s you pretending to be him. And that side of your personality, more brilliant, mischievous, captivating—”
“Dynamic.”
“Yes, dynamic. That is also a part of you, but because it reminds you so much of your brother, it brings back memories you’re determined to suppress. Ever since you were a child, you’ve heard horror stories about a mental illness passed down through the men in your family—but they’re just stories, they can’t be proven. So you have a choice: You can accept this role that they’ve thrust on you, that they’ve terrified you with for your entire life, or you can walk away. You can tell yourself: ‘That isn’t my life. It was yours, but I refuse to live like my father and those before him.’ You aren’t the same as them. You weren’t destined to suffer from this disorder.”
“But Alvar is still inside my head. I can’t get rid of him. He has a life of his own.”
“No, Ramiro, that’s just a lie you tell yourself. You think you have a split personality caused by a traumatic event that you were unable to assimilate. That final year, when you cared for Alvar, he was abusive, and you were too young to shoulder that burden alone. So you followed your father’s example because it was all you knew how to do, even though you knew it was harmful. You’re an adult now with a will of your own. Stop hating your alter; he isn’t your brother. If your alter could win the heart of a woman like Estíbaliz, he can’t be all bad. He’s just one part of you looking for an outlet. You need to integrate Alvar, not reject him or try to kill him off him the way you did when you rewrote the chronicle. You need to take the best parts of his personality and make them your own.”
“How?”
“If it’s too hard to change the way you think about him, then start by adjusting your behavior. Get out of the tower, take part in the sort of activities you think he would like, but understand that, actually, you’re the one who wants to do these things. Take up riding again, you love it. Force yourself to go to Ugarte every day, visit the locals who like and respect you. You don’t have to be a recluse; you aren’t going to seduce every woman you meet. You’ve been in love with Estíbaliz from the first time you saw her. You, Ramiro, not Alvar. It was your lack
of self-confidence that made you take off your glasses, put on a cassock, and style your hair like his when you first saw her in the parking lot. But you were the one who wanted to eat stewed rooster combs, because there’s a hedonistic side to your personality, and you like good food, beautiful views, a well-written novel.”
“You’re right,” he said, uneasily. “I’m starting to remember that night with Estíbaliz in the grotto in Florida Park. It was the first time she looked at me with real interest, but I felt as if I weren’t good enough for her and I suppressed that memory for weeks. Still, it was there in my head, waiting to reappear…as was our first night together in the tower—”
“All right, Ramiro, I get the picture.” I cleared my throat, embarrassed.
Keep that memory to yourself, I begged silently.
But Ramiro was trembling as he stood next to me. At some point during our conversation, he had started to cry silently. He took off his fogged-up glasses and wiped them. He sank back into the wheelchair, his gaze fixed on the cracked headstone.
“So, it was never Alvar; it was always me, acting out what I admired and what I hated in him.”
I shook my head.
“Not what you hated. The Alvar I met was never distant or rude because it was never truly Alvar, it was your interpretation of him, and you are neither of those things. Take what you think was the best in your brother, and accept that those things have been in you all along.”
I thought this observation might split him in half like a bolt of lightning, but in fact the opposite happened: It made him whole again, fusing his broken parts. As Ramiro gazed beyond his brother’s grave, the tense grimace he always wore melted away. He smiled openly for the first time, like a child seeing his first dawn. I think he’d realized that life didn’t need to be as painful as the one he’d been living.
“You have an amazing brain,” I told him, pushing the wheelchair out of the cemetery. “I think you’ll find a way to overcome this. Come on. We’ll go to the tower now so you can see it with fresh eyes, and then I’ll drive you back to the hospital.”
44
SANTA MARÍA CHAPEL
DIAGO VELA
Summer, the Year of Our Lord 1199
Alix caressed her belly as she and I gazed in disbelief at the thirty-four shrouds at our feet. We were standing in the market square outside Santa María Cathedral. There was no space left in our cemetery. A few graves had been dug inside Sant Michel Church, and in the tiny cemetery of Sant Viçente, old bones had been pushed aside to make way for the graves’ new inhabitants.
“No family has been spared,” Alix said, looking into the distance. “Seventeen children orphaned. Each guild will look after its own, but Milia was nursing her newborn and Tello is also dead. I’ll pay the fishmonger’s wife to feed the baby, and if she still needs milk when our daughter is born, I’ll suckle her myself.”
I nodded. Alix was convinced we were going to have a baby girl. But even as she prepared for the new baby, she still mourned our son and would slip away to a grave in Sant Michel cemetery, half of which lay in Villa de Suso and half in Nova Victoria. She placed sprigs of lavender and the red wool bracelet on it as a tribute to Yennego, as if she were calling him home. It was her way of saying, Come back, son, your mother misses you.
But Yennego was far away from the horrors we were enduring. Part of me was relieved he hadn’t had to suffer like the other children who roamed the streets shouting for their parents until someone took pity on them and offered a morsel of bread and a few kind words.
The priest at Santa María said prayers for all our lost souls. Then the townsfolk left to assess the damage to their dwellings and workshops, many of which had been reduced to ashes or rubble.
Alix went to get Grandmother Lucía. Her house had been spared, just as ours had, but the old woman had always been afraid of storms, and she was insisting that the thunder we had heard that morning would return.
While Alix was away, I slipped into the cathedral. I told myself I was searching for peace, but perhaps I was just looking for a place that didn’t reek of smoke and blood.
The townsfolk were all gone. Only one lit candle remained, casting dancing shadows onto the wall next to the altar. Then I realized I wasn’t alone. I knew that silent presence very well.
Nagorno was down on one knee, and he was weeping. I drew closer, puzzled.
“I’ve never prayed to him,” he said. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t need to, my brother could always recognize me. “To the man on the cross. I’m still a pagan at heart.”
“As am I. Yet when I ask Father Sun and Mother Moon for answers, they are as silent as this Christ figure whom so many worship these days. Were you praying for your life?”
“No. Death means nothing to me. I do not respect it.”
“Why this pretense at prayer, then?”
“I’m praying that you will come to my aid,” he said. He spoke slowly, weighing each word, and then he rose to his feet to look me in the eye.
“Tell me, Brother,” I said. “What is it you want from me? You make me uneasy.”
“I want you to bed my wife.”
I heard his request in silence. Onneca…
“You are not asking me to…” My voice was a whisper. “Hush. You are in God’s house, and He forbids it in thought and deed. You know not what you are saying—you are weary. Tomorrow we’ll meet by the wall, for we have graver matters to discuss than your warped desires.”
“She believed herself barren. I told her the truth.”
I stared at him, bewildered.
“You told her you’re incapable of giving her children?”
He nodded and looked away.
“You’ve never admitted that to any woman before. You must truly care for her.”
“I want you to give her a child,” he said.
This was pure folly.
“I am not your stud,” I responded angrily, shaking my head. “Find another man to do your work for you.”
“He must carry our family’s blood.”
“What about Gunnarr?” I suggested.
“You know he’s celibate.”
“Héctor, then.”
“Héctor doesn’t live in the town.”
“You’ll find someone willing, I’m sure.”
I turned to leave, but Nagorno was too quick for me and blocked my way.
“I want it to be you!” he insisted.
“I’m not your stud. No!” I repeated and hurried to leave the cathedral before we woke the entire town.
“You hate her, don’t you?” he said, grasping my arm. “You hate her with the same intensity as you once loved her, isn’t that true?”
I took a deep breath to calm myself. I did not want to commit an outrage in that hallowed place.
“Alix is my wife. We are still looking for our missing son, and we are soon to have another child. I won’t destroy any more lives, and I refuse to allow you and Onneca to destroy my family.”
“I’m not afraid to die during an attack, nor do I fear a siege, but King Alfonso will not give up this town. We must surrender before we are no more. You are familiar with the laws of Castile: should Onneca and I die without issue, Count de Maestu’s estate will go into the king’s coffers.”
“And you want me to place my manhood at the service of your titles.”
With that, I went home to sleep with my wife.
45
A BROKEN PENCIL
UNAI
October 2019
Early the next morning, we gathered in the conference room. The lights were switched off as Alba summarized the latest developments in the case. Milán, Peña, and I sat around the table in the gloom, listening.
“We’re going to pursue other lines of inquiry,” Alba announced. “Until now, we’ve concentrated on one suspect: Ra
miro Alvar Nograro. And the evidence we have against him is circumstantial: the barrel Maturana was drowned in matches those found in the old bodega on his estate, as do the plastic bags. But forensics didn’t find fingerprints or footprints—the floor in the bodega had been swept, which could indicate that the suspect was trying to cover their tracks. We also have an unidentified person dressed as a Dominican nun who fled the scene of Antón Lasaga’s murder. Inspector López de Ayala chased this person but to no avail. A similar costume that had been on exhibit at Nograro Tower’s museum is missing. And there’s been a second aggravated burglary at the abandoned Dominican Quejana convent. We know Ramiro Alvar made donations to the Natural Science Museum; however, this appears to be a family tradition: Milán has traced prior donations made by his father, Lorenzo Alvar Nograro. The museum has confirmed that some blister beetles were taken, as well as the snake found in the barrel with Maturana. So far, the novel has not linked Ramiro Alvar to the case, although this evidence has led us to look more deeply into his background and into the village of Ugarte.”
“What are you proposing?” asked Peña.
“We’re going to approach the case in a different way. The victims were what we would consider low-risk victims in low-risk situations. Looking into their social lives, families, and work backgrounds hasn’t provided any clear motive, so we’ll have to start assuming the killer picked them at random. We’re going to be proactive in drumming up leads.”
“What do you mean by ‘proactive’?” asked Peña.
“We’ll start with the media,” Alba said.
Milán looked as puzzled as Peña.
“The media? Won’t that just make things worse? It’s possible Inspector Ruiz de Gauna is in the hospital because of a press leak.”
“I know, and I accept the responsibility. But we’re still going to take off their muzzles. In exchange, they’ve agreed to cooperate.”
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