The Immortal Conquistador

by Carrie Vaughn

  “That is not my desire.” He didn’t want to rule; he wanted to live without doing too much damage. He wanted God to forgive what he had become.

  By the sneer in his lips and his half-lidded gaze, Eduardo did not seem to think much of Ricardo.

  “You must come to see the Mistress in Mexico City.”

  “Why?” Ricardo said.

  “Because it will be better if you come to her rather than making her send someone for you.”

  Again, Ricardo resisted the urge to draw his sword. After all, he had questions, too. “All right. I will come to the city to visit your Mistress. How will I find her?”

  “The same way we found each other tonight. You have so very much to learn, Don Ricardo.”

  Yes, that was what he was afraid of.

  Henri got up to meet him when Ricardo rode into the estancia some hours before dawn. Holding aloft a lantern, he waited at the front of the courtyard and shouted a greeting. Ricardo waved in reply. Henri was a short, dark-skinned man with unruly black hair and crow’s-feet at his eyes that gave him a perpetual smiling look. Ricardo had known him since he’d been born, had known his parents since they were born. The continuity of it was strange and wonderful. This was the closest Ricardo would ever have to a family of his own, and he valued it.

  “Feliz Navidad, sir,” Henri said, taking the animal’s reins as Ricardo dismounted. “How was your trip?”

  “Eventful,” Ricardo said. A rock still sat at the pit of his stomach. The world had not shifted yet—but it was about to.

  “Oh?”

  Ricardo didn’t elaborate. They worked together to untack and feed his horse, rub him down and put him away. Even the animals here had to adjust to a nocturnal schedule, poor things.

  When he first arrived here, this place had been a failed mission overseen by the demonic Fray Juan and his bloodthirsty caballeros. They had tried to recruit Ricardo. Failed. He’d stayed and tried to turn the old church and outbuildings into something resembling a working estancia. In exchange for destroying the demons who’d hunted them, a local village helped him. They worked the land, herded sheep—and gave him a public face to protect his nighttime secret. He built onto the church and transformed it into a rather elegant home. Nothing so grand as a palace, but it had a courtyard and garden, a patio, a well, and several fine rooms. He’d filed all appropriate documents with the government—on paper, he was the owner and landlord here. Already he’d twice posed as his own son to ensure he maintained ownership of his lands. It didn’t take much—an embarrassed bow of his head, a careful explanation that yes, he was an unfortunate by-blow, but for lack of other heirs his father had acknowledged him as his own, and here was the paper and will to prove it.

  Eternal life required so much planning, those of his countrymen who had searched for the Fountain of Youth had no idea.

  Ricardo washed up while Henri stoked the fire in the sitting room’s hearth. Dawn was coming soon—the sky outside was turning gray, and he felt the weight of approaching sunlight in his bones.

  “What happened?” Henri asked.

  “I met another one. A man like me.”

  Henri stilled for a moment, then hung the poker on its hook and came to sit across from Ricardo at the table. “I thought you were the only one, apart from the ones who made you like this.”

  “So did I. I . . . it seems this is all much more complicated.”

  “What does it mean?” Henri asked.

  “I do not know. But I must go to the city to find out.”

  “It is too dangerous—”

  “If I don’t, they will come here.”

  “There . . . there is more than one other?”

  “So I gather.” He tapped a hand on his leg and stared at the low flames writhing in the hearth. The warmth on his face felt good, but he had to sleep soon—in the cellar, underground, without windows and danger of sunlight.

  “Have you eaten tonight, sir?”

  “No, I haven’t.” He hadn’t thought of it, not even when Eduardo assaulted Marie. What he was attributing to anxiety might simply be hunger.

  Without further prompting, Henri fetched a cup from the sideboard and drew a knife from the sheath at his belt. He made a quick, shallow cut across his forearm, and blood welled. His movements were practiced, and in a minute or two he’d dripped a good amount of the stuff into the cup. Both his arms had lines and scars from many similar cuts. The arms of many of the people who lived here did. Ricardo was milking these people like cows.

  “Thank you,” he said, taking the cup from Henri. He always said thank you, every time.

  He thought he could remember the way wine or brandy felt, drinking a whole cupful after coming in out of the cold. The way it hit the belly like fire and flowed through his limbs. The blood felt like that, tasting of comfort, lighting his nerves from within. He closed his eyes, sighed out a breath of pleasure, and yes, he felt better. Perhaps the problem of Eduardo was not so difficult. Perhaps this would all come to nothing.

  “Thank you,” he said again. He could never thank Henri and the others enough.

  “It is all for the good,” Henri said, and he sounded honest and true. This wasn’t a nicety; he meant it. “We keep you safe because you keep us safe. We are family. A strange family, but still a family.”

  Ricardo stood and clasped the man’s shoulder before retreating to his underground chamber.

  The journey to Mexico City was some four hundred miles. It would take two weeks at good speed. He and Henri acquired a wagon and horses to pull it, provisions, and imaginary trade business to explain himself. The wagon had no windows. During daylight hours, Ricardo slept in a crate to protect him from sunlight. In this manner, with Henri driving the wagon, they were able to travel by day, which made the journey faster. At night, Ricardo awoke and managed their affairs. They were usually able to find inns and carry on as any other travelers would. A couple of nights, they needed to sleep on the road, but both men had managed without roofs before.

  One of Henri’s sons, sixteen-year-old Suerte, came along, both to learn the business of making such a journey and also to bleed for Ricardo. Henri couldn’t sustain him alone for the whole journey, so the two took turns.

  His father slept early, but Suerte stayed up some nights to keep Ricardo company while he stood watch. And to ask for stories. Suerte’s appetite for stories was vast.

  “Tell me again about Coronado,” Suerte asked, sitting by the fire with his back to a piñon, carving on a walking stick.

  “I’ve told you everything I remember about Coronado.”

  “You say that every time, and every time you remember something new. So I keep asking. What was he like after the expedition? You don’t talk very much about that.”

  “Because it’s very sad. He was a broken man. He was supposed to find not only his own fortune but everyone else’s. He was supposed to bring glory to Spain. He did none of these. I remember him slumped as he rode, his dented helm tied to his saddle. He couldn’t even look up, as if he depended on his horse to know the way home.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “I hardly even spoke to the man. There were hundreds of us in his company, after all. I’m not sure he even knew my name. But I followed him because I believed in him. I believed in the stories, and I believed that Spain would spread all over this continent to make a great empire. I . . . don’t believe any of that now.”

  “How big is this continent?”

  “It’s taking us weeks to simply travel between Zacatecas and the capital. Imagine this journey multiplied a hundred times over, then double it. That is how much land there is north of us. In Coronado’s company we never came close to the end of it.”

  Suerte sighed in amazement, the wonder of it filling his vision. Ricardo grinned wryly. “You would break your father’s heart if you decided to trek north to find your fortune and leave the running of the estancia to him and Tomas.”

  “They would be happy to have me out of their hair.”
<
br />   “Maybe for a week, but no more.”

  The boy gouged a particularly rough cut from his carving. He was restless; the estancia was confining, and he wanted an adventure. To be his own man, not his father’s son and Tomas’s brother. Ricardo had to remember how he was as a boy—he’d been only a couple of years older than Suerte when he left Spain to make his fortune in the colony. He had no way of explaining that once a boy left on such an adventure, he would age quickly, live more life than the actual years, and he could never go back. Boys never understood, did they?

  “Are you laughing at me?” Suerte asked.

  “No,” Ricardo said. “I’m smiling at the patterns. Life is patterns. It’s comforting, somehow.”

  The boy furrowed his brow, confused, and went back to his carving without a word.

  Ricardo left Henri and Suerte at the edge of the city, unwilling to bring them to the attention of Eduardo and his friends. His first nightfall in the city, he dressed in his finest suit, pulled a gold-trimmed velvet cloak over his shoulder, put on his sword, and set out.

  He had been back to the city once or twice in the last century, and each time it seemed utterly transformed. He felt he would have to remove entire layers of it to see anything that he recognized. It wasn’t just that Spanish civilization had become fully entrenched here. No, more that the entire world was changing, and quickly. Buildings growing taller than ever, churches becoming more ornate than he could have imagined. The streets themselves were better: more skillfully paved, more comfortable. He was traveling through time, into the future, one day at a time, forever.

  On a hunch he went to the wealthiest neighborhood, where the governor and commissioners had their palaces and the wealthiest merchants and landlords aspired to live. Here, the streets were wide, and the houses and courtyards sat behind walls with filigreed iron gates. Some folk had found their fortunes in the New World, obviously.

  He wandered the streets of this neighborhood, imagining himself a shadow. A few guards and carriages passed by; they did not notice him. But in less than an hour he felt that ice in the middle of his spine, the chill of another unholy presence approaching. He stopped and turned, taking stock, making sure he could watch all avenues of approach.

  And there was Don Eduardo, standing in the middle of the street as if he had appeared from nothing. Ricardo approached, imagining himself some acquaintance who had simply met him on the road, under a normal sun.

  Eduardo’s smile seemed pleased. “You came! I very much hoped you would.”

  “How could I refuse your invitation?” Let the man interpret whatever bite he would from Ricardo’s tone.

  The prickling sense at the back of his neck continued, and more shadows took on life, figures emerging, visible now only because they wished to be. A gentleman in brown with riding boots; another in a short cape. A woman in her thirties wearing a gown of dark velvet. Her pale hair was braided into a crown around her head. Ricardo glanced at each of them in turn, acknowledging that he was surrounded. The situation recalled a memory of a long-ago confrontation, when Fray Juan’s four knights of darkness surrounded him, attacked him, made him one of them.

  But that was a long time ago, and Ricardo was not so easily injured these days. He waited to see what they would do.

  “Eduardo! You didn’t tell us how beautiful he is!”

  Ricardo had just enough blood in his veins to blush at this.

  “Didn’t I? Ah well, I apologize for the omission,” the man answered.

  “The Mistress must see him,” the man in the short cape said. His beard was neat, and he had a hard look about his eyes. Ricardo had no way of telling how old any of them were. They all looked of an age, but they might have lived a thousand years.

  The woman with golden hair stepped toward him, her wide skirt shushing as she moved, elegant as any court lady. She put a seductive sway in her step, gazing demurely down her fine nose. “Now he is wondering who we all are, where we all came from.”

  “I suspect you are come from Spain.”

  She studied him, revealing the sharp points of her teeth in an amused smile.

  “Please do come with us, señor. I should so very like to know you better.” The woman moved to hook her arm through his.

  “Forgive me, my lady, for I have not yet formally introduced myself. I am Don Ricardo de Avila, and I am pleased to meet you.” He stepped back and made a very proper bow, as if they danced in some fine hall in Spain.

  The woman’s eyes shone. She appeared delighted. “Ooh, you are very fine indeed. I am the Lady Elinor.” She curtsied just as precisely, then took up Ricardo’s arm and tucked her own in the crook of his elbow. In his old life such familiarity would have astonished him, and he would have stammered as he tried to hide any sign of attraction to her. Now, though, they were merely two hunters in the same territory. Perhaps allies, perhaps rivals, who could say which? He was wary.

  He placed his hand over hers, securing her to his side. Her skin was as cold as his own. Together with Eduardo, they made a small procession to an alleyway that led to a villa, one of the more modest in the neighborhood. The liveried footman who opened the gate for them was human. He seemed quite ordinary, middle-aged, his gaze downcast, deferential. His skin was tan, his hair dark; he might have been mestizo. Ricardo wondered, did he know that he served demons? Did he know who dwelled here?

  They continued across a courtyard and to a set of double doors made of some rich carved wood. Another human footman opened these doors.

  Inside the villa, the chill and power of the demons loomed large. Some terrible mystery waited for him here, another revelation that the world was not as it seemed, and everything was about to change. Could he survive this new change as he had survived his first transformation?

  He hesitated, pulling against Elinor’s arm. “Are you afraid?” she said, hiding a laugh.

  Considering a moment, he found that he wasn’t. “This feels rather like making one’s first confession as a boy. One hardly knows what to expect.”

  They all stared at him, and he wondered what about the statement shocked them. Then he realized: he had probably been inside a church more recently than any of them. This thought made him smile, which no doubt only confused them more.

  Guided by Elinor, he strode on and imagined himself walking into his own parlor.

  He had not been in a room like this since he left Madrid. A true palace, with marble floors and painted ceilings, gilt accents on furniture, tapestries on the walls. The smell of beeswax candles saturated the walls. Shadows lingered on every surface.

  More devils came out to meet him. Twelve of them, men and women in their primes. He could not tell how old they really were, how long they had walked this earth, beautiful and elegant, dressed in the height of fashion. If Ricardo were more vain, he would have been chagrined at his own clothing, which he realized now was a decade or more out of style. He had not been paying attention as he should. No matter. If he cared for fashion, he would live here in the capital, not on his remote estancia. Or he would go back to Spain.

  Eduardo and his entourage joined the others, so the whole court of them spread out around him. Elinor let him go and went to her place among them, leaving him alone in the center of the floor, as if he were the focus of some tribunal.

  Proud, pleased, wicked, all of it, Eduardo stepped forward. Ricardo recognized the look—his old acquaintance Diego, the man who had brought him to Fray Juan, had looked like that.

  “Welcome, Don Ricardo! It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to our patroness. Our Mistress. The reason for our being here.”

  All the devils in the guise of lords and ladies turned to the back of the room, where a great velvet armchair stood on a shallow dais. A woman in black silk and cloth-of-gold reclined there as if bored, gazing with heavy-lidded eyes. She looked young but seemed ancient, centuries pressing out of her like waves of cold from a block of ice. Her skin was olive, her features not particularly fine, but they had strength in the set
of her jaw and brow. Her dark hair lay loose around her shoulders, a few clips set with gemstones pinned on locks here and there. She gave the impression of being a woman of great power who had the luxury of not caring too terribly much what happened around her because her fortress would always remain secure.

  The men and women of this court waited to see what he would do when confronted with this startling vision of a woman on an almost-throne. Their gazes were heavy on him.

  Eduardo addressed the woman. “Mistress Catalina, I bring to you Don Ricardo de Avila y Zacatecas, of whom I spoke—our mysterious hidalgo de la noche. Don Ricardo, you are in the presence of La Reina Catalina.”

  She was not the queen. As subjects of the Spanish crown—technically speaking, he supposed—they had only one queen. Yet all of them bowed to her as if she were a queen. No—they would not abase themselves so deeply for His Majesty King Philip. This was more than a noble lady with her attendants. There was power here, ropes of it between Catalina and the others. They were linked; he could feel it.

  She had turned them all as Fray Juan had turned him. Turned them, made them hers, and they seemed grateful for it. Unlike him.

  Ricardo offered only the respectful bow he would to any noblewoman in her home. “Doña.”

  Remaining silent, she held the tableau for some time. Finally, in a calm voice that matched her demeanor, she said, “Don Ricardo. The gentleman who should not exist. Eduardo has told you this, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes, he has, señora. And yet I am here. I confess—I do not understand.”

  Catalina leaned forward, and her acolytes watched as if witnessing a duel. “Do you know what you are, sir?”

  He swallowed, and his breath caught—he did not have to breathe since that night he had died and been reborn as the monster. If he wanted to speak, he had to concentrate to draw breath, and for just a moment he’d forgotten. He had never spoken the words aloud. He had never explained it. Not to a stranger.

  “I am a demon,” he said.

  The woman laughed. “Who told you that?”