Mario Garrido Espinosa
The kingdom of the damned
Table of Contents
Title Page
The Kingdom of the Damned
The intrusion of the clumsy
Sir Higinio’s past
Market day
In the sister’s hands
Sir Higinio’s suspicion
Bachelor castagno’s short and sad story
The fall of the bale game
The bastard of dishonor
The dying man’s barrel
Sir Higinio’s choice
Conversation in the twilight
The beast hunting
Taming the devil
Night skin
Convincing an idiot
Turhaii’s youth
The St. Bonaventure day massacre
Tales and cares
The Nun-Ripper Cripple
The song’s end
epilogue
Dedication:
To my parents and brother.
To all those who believed in this novel, those who bought it in their original ebook format, those who read it and gave me their opinion (good or bad), those who were wanting for more, a second part, those who I was spoiled by the taste of what a character was doing to such or such a thing, those who asked me for new adventures of the protagonists, those who were active, day after day, on social networks for their bit (their "like", comment or "share") try to know what I write, believing as much or more than me that this dream would come true.
Juanjo, who was my first reader, many years ago.
And also to those who, being painfully close, did absolutely nothing. Let's not be spiteful at this point.
CHAPTER 1
The intrusion of the clumsy
1
T
his part of the four large ivies that, based on becoming entangled with each other, covered the small mansion, was half dry and about to die. At first glance, it might seem that the branches were attached to the wall as if it were part of its structure stone, but it was not like that. Instead, in this area, it’s quite the opposite, giving the feeling that the wall and the foliage professed, one towards the other, ancient and incomprehensible repulsion.
The place was only bleak for a few hours a day. The sun, during the summer, punished with all its fury the wall of the building. The tall, lonely and old elm of the square, with its robust and straight trunk, appropriated, with the authority that it gives to be the first to arrive, of all the sun's heat that it could, relieving, unintentionally, some areas of the wall —and the ivy that covered it— of the prevailing hell when the day was halfway. But the elm did not manage to cover all the ivy and the insufferable dog days were ending with each one of the drops of water that ran through its structure. In addition, no one took care of watering the climbers from the day that Sir Higinio was installed permanently in the mansion. In fact, before some plants lost most of their moisture, the owner had thought of tearing them out and leaving the walls bare. In the end, due in part to the titanic work that nobody wanted to do —although it would have been well paid—, the ivy was still there, dying with the slowness of a tortoise's walk.
Because of all this, it was not a good idea to try to climb that route.
A small, delicate creak sounded, almost imperceptible, but for Mario Toulon Middle-voice Rabid it turned out to be so loud and clear, so thunderous, as if only this noise had existed on earth. Instantly, he began to be aware that his life hung by a thread or, to be more accurate, from a twig of equal size.
He was not a good climber. Actually, this was the first time he climbed a wall. He was a man capable of walking, without taking breaks, large horizontally distances and on foot —in fact he did not have nor known how to ride a horse, which is very rare in those parts— but he had never considered, until now, the possibility of moving towards up and in total verticality.
Being manifest the little security and experience that demonstrated, Mario Toulon began to go down, with extreme care, where he had gone up. He took his time searching among those damned oval leaves for the thickest and theoretically strongest branches, but the foliage hid, almost maliciously, the improvised handholds ... He arrived, having much luck, to the area of the climber that did not seem dry. He twisted one foot in one of his abundant branches, full of knots in that area. In this way he managed —without his first intention— to partially discharge his weight on his leg and thus remove some responsibility from his trembling hands, since they still grasped, with much fear, almost dry areas.
The man had a good time in this last position. Quiet, like a ridiculous black spider that dozed with its eight legs stuck to the wall. He seemed to be resting but, actually, he did not know where to go. From time to time he trembled painfully if, by the action of his own weight, the plant moved a little bit. This agitation was maximum when he decided to detach one of his hands thinking he had found another branch to tie it. Immediately, the intrepid hand returned to its original place.
He was sweating like never before. His hands, between sweat and fatigue, no longer resulted from the effectiveness from the beginning. They slipped, almost unnoticed, through the hot leaves. And if all this were not enough, he began to have untimely cramps in his arms and legs, which he endured with gallantry, because he had no choice.
After the fifth painful contraction of his muscles —which now occurred in the left calf— he discovered a branch that crossed the wall almost horizontally, and that, being in front of his nostrils, he had overlooked until that moment. He managed to hold on to her, after executing a little difficulty maneuver, but for Mario Toulon turned out to be a feat worthy of note. In spite of this last effort and that his position had improved remarkably, his hands —whose palms protested emitting an intense and constant pain—persisted in traitorously slipping away.
How long could he stay like this? In a few seconds their punished fists would refuse to remain closed any longer.
A new cramp erupted in his left hand. Then it was his right hand’s turn. The third cramp was so violent that the man released his two hands from the branch whose position was parallel to the ground. When he saw himself half suspended in the emptiness, he tried to push himself, in a very vague and desperate way, to hold onto the branch again. He reached his objective with his left hand, but the pull was so strong that the plant roared with another one of its already familiar creaks, to later split definitively.
He closed his eyes tightly, gritted his teeth and waited with painful resignation for the blow to the ground. And he waited. And he waited a while that seemed a long time. He was so high! It was going to be a terrible blow! He shrugged his shoulders, pulled his hat to his brow, and gritted his teeth again. He waited. He listened to his heart pounding to the break point. He kept waiting. And he waited ... but it was already too long, so he opened his eyes and found with surprise that he did not rush towards the ground; he only experienced a slight rocking. He took a deep breath and became aware of his dangerous position: he was face down, five or six meters high, supported only by that foot which had twisted in the ivy. Finally, he made an effort, despite his daze, to think how he would get out of that situation. A situation that only he had sought.
2
The immense woman stopped at the fountain, turning her back on Mario Toulon. This one, upon seeing her, held his breath and tried to make his swing minimal. The girl, who was well into flesh and years, unloaded a basket of eggs on the incandescent floor, assuming the risk of bursting by the high temperature of the pavement. He scanned the bottom of the three streets that led to the uncrowded Hundred Fires Square. They were deserted. He did not bother looking at the top of the houses, maybe thinking that no one at four
in the afternoon, with a sun of a thousand demons, would be leaning out of a window. They seemed more likely to find themselves napping in the cooler room, waiting for the relentless heat to subside as the day ended.
The fat woman got up the gigantic and threadbare skirt that, based on many meters of cloth, covered a huge belly ending in two wine-barrels size legs, and absent, therefore, of any female form. Then she sprinkled water all along and wide that part of her body. Then, not without difficulty, she cupped her cleavage, one by one taking out her two fallen, venous and ugly breasts, similar in volume to her excessive belly. She refreshed by herself abundantly that pair of udders and when she saw them fit, she turned around, sat in the sink and, to the horror of Mario, settled again in place the pair of flabby tits.
The man began to despair: first by the horrible spectacle; and second, because the branches that supported him, seemed to resist no longer his weight and would break soon. In addition, the hateful bellowing of a pair of male cicadas, which prevented him from thinking clearly in a way to avoid the imminent and safe blow, got through his ears.
The heavyset woman, already more slowly, wet her face. She must have understood that putting her head in the pool was a quicker method than approaching the water, using her hands like a bowl, to her ugly face, and, without thinking twice, she introduced the skull right away until she got wet her shoulders. The formed waves partially overflowed the accumulated water.
Mario Toulon began to notice some problems to breathe air into his lungs. With heat and the posture he started to turn red. Soon his sight was clouded. "Disappear once and for all, damn fat woman!" Shouted the poor man in his head, and he could not help but feel a certain horror when he saw, now in a rather blurred way, the woman’s face, who was showing her oiled, wet and black hair stuck to her forehead and her tremendous cheeks, where soon after you noticed you could discover small badly healed sores.
The cicadas continued to rub the rough areas of their first pair of wings, competing to see who bothered more with that noise.
The depleted girl reflected a face of immense satisfaction and sighed with relief ostentatiously. Mario Toulon, however, rehearsed with his face strange faces and judging by the new color that began to take his face, it should not be long before all the blood stored in the body ended up staying on his head.
The woman looked for the first time in a few minutes to left and right, then bared her foot and, with an unimaginable agility in the beginning, raised it and submerged it in the pool, lifting, with a certain grace, her Varicose constantly wobbling and abundant flesh leg, as if it were of a girl’s of a few years and many dozens of kilos less. Afterwards, the other foot received the same treatment.
“Leave at once ...!” Mario Toulon pleaded, his eyes clouded at all, to any divinity that might be listening to him.
Just then the woman coughed as if something obstructed her throat. She cleared her throat with force and, taking impulse, spit a greenish-brown substance that crossed the water of the pool as if it were a stone, to end up staying among the scum of the bottom forming a small crater. The water partly clouded for a few seconds.
Mario Toulon's complexion color now turned to greenish tones, curiously similar to those of the bodies of the two insects, which not only did not remain silent, but at times seemed to make a louder noise.
Finally, after a long time, the megalithic woman picked up her basket of eggs, rehearsed a last sigh of pleasure and left where she had come, leaving a trail of water that was absorbed by the floor immediately. Mario Toulon breathed strongly all the air that was missing and, in doing so, the branch of the strenuous plant, already half parted, broke completely.
The sound of the blow silenced the two cicadas.
The fall had taken place at incredible speed. The head was the first Mario Toulon’s body part that hit the cobblestones of the street, next to the holes where the main branches of the ivy came from.
Two minutes later he sat up in a daze and remain sat, leaning on the palms of his hands in a slightly stupid position. He was not very aware of the reality that surrounded him and followed with his eyes a collection of stars and lights that only he could see. Instantly he noticed that his hands, legs and ass burned like hell. The ground of the street, because of the last hours of implacable sun, was burning. He jumped up and, suddenly remembering the unworthy intentions for which he had come to that square, ran to hide.
3
Mario Toulon, half hidden in an alley, observed for a few minutes the stillness of the place. Nobody seemed to have heard anything or simply did not want to look out over the brazier that was at that time the Hundred Fires square. When he understood that the danger had passed —a danger that, in fact, never existed— he decided to evaluate the damage.
He took off his hat, which was curiously similar to what the French musketeers had worn fifty years before, and noticed that it was completely wrinkled and misshapen. That hat, with its ornaments of plucked plumes, had never been much. In fact, he had found it lost —perhaps thrown away— at the edge of a road through which nobody ever passed. Since then he wore it in all the top of his head, having great affection. Today he was older than ever, but the thief did as well as he could with a blow here and another there, and it was not worse than before the blow.
As in a reflex act he put his head in his hand. It hurt a lot. Exploring his skull he felt some pieces of something attached to the hair by the places where he felt the most discomfort. One of these particles was plucked and without knowing how to recognize that it was, in an instinctive act, he put it in his mouth, where he tasted and bit. After a while he spit it out without noticing that it was one of the blood gobs from the small gaps that were created in the final impact of the great fall, and that with the horrible heat had dried soon, forming a few graceful dark red scabs. He did not worry too much because it had been a long time since that hair touched the water and, even less, the soap. He thought, finally, that they would be the remains of dirt that were customary to populate any part of his anatomy, and thus settled the matter quickly turned to put his battered and appreciated hat, as he felt like cooked his head.
He examined his sword —which surely was not made of Toledo steel— and saw that with the fall it had changed its straight form to a capital L form. He kicked it to the ground and when it was more or less right —which did not require too much work— he studied another way to climb.
It did not take him a minute to realize that he could not think clearly. His curiously courteous and dark colors clothes, which were completed with a tie of linen and lace very fashionable —God knows where he would have stolen them— were roasting him. The thief had to alleviate in some way that embarrassing feeling that he was beginning to feel, so that, making as little noise as possible, he put both legs into the pool of the fountain, and, when he thought it appropriate, he put the rest of his body in the water, including the head and the hat, which, instead of floating, stayed attached to his skull, as if his hair generated a strong glue.
4
This time, he went up without problems. The fresh water of the fountain managed to clear him of the stun accumulated by the heat and the terrible blow. First, he quietly studied an itinerary from the ground and thus chose, carefully, which a priori seemed better branches. He had learned the lesson and now he did not think to ascend without more, thus giving wings to his clumsiness regarding the climbing discipline. Consequently, he placed his feet in the right places, his hands grasped the correct branches and in a few seconds, with formidable ease, he reached his goal. It was from that perspective when he found that on each side of all the windows rested a coat of arms quartered in cross, sculpted in the stone. From below, because of the thick ivy, they could hardly be distinguished. Some of them were somewhat deteriorated, however, those closest to him retained the appearance of the first day. It was not the first time he had seen this type of emblem, but he did not remember the reason why it was so familiar to him. Immediately he forgot about the shields and set out
to observe, through the window, what was housed inside the mansion.
There he was, dazzling in the privacy. Mario Toulon was very happy for not being wrong. Almost a couple of hours before he had distinguished her right in this window, when she was heading towards the mansion, through the widest street of the three streets that were leading to the Hundred Fires square. At that time he was not sure how he was going to get to her, but as soon as he saw her through the window, suddenly, the idea of crazy climbing came to mind. If he had not seen her, he would not have dared to try anything and everyone's future, therefore, would have been less dramatic.
5
That woman was beautiful indeed. Her name was Laura Lopezosa Quesada, and that name would last in the thief’s memory for the rest of his short life.
In the last hour she had been busy preparing herself for a nice bath. She went from one place to another with wooden buckets full of water, collecting the spout from the fountain located in the inner courtyard of the mansion. Previously, she boiled a little water in the kitchen fire, mixing it with a medium bowl of rose-scented perfume. She poured the hot liquid into the huge metal bowl she had used to bathe since she was a child. She waited for the mixture to cool a little bit and the whole room ended up smelling beautifully.
All this work could have been done by a servant, but Laura knew from her own experience that water was never the way she wanted it: neither in quantity, nor in temperature, nor in the smell of roses ... nor in anything. So everything was done by her, and with the force of habit she ended up doing these works with pleasure; not in vain it was a way like any other to combat the permanent boredom of the town in which she had lived.
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