The Crown that Lost its Head

by Jane Thornley

  I sat up to wave away the offer and retrieve my own bottle from my backpack. “Fine, thanks. Just a bit winded. That was close.”

  “Too close.” He rubbed his forehead on his sleeve. “This is a good time for you to tell me where we’re heading. We haven’t had time to talk.”

  “I don’t know where we’re heading exactly,” I admitted before taking a long drink.

  “Right then, we need to comb the archives in Madrid and search through all the court documents from the reign of Emperor Charles to Philip II. Maybe Ricardo overlooked something. It’s a long shot, as is everything else. There’s still a chance the crown lies buried beneath the altar just as Markus believes, but in the meantime, Madrid is a logical next step.”

  He was being so decisive, so take-charge male—endearing. “No, it isn’t.” That came out more absolute than I intended. “I mean, when I said I didn’t know where we were headed, it wasn’t because I didn’t know what to look for. It’s nothing related to King Philip or even Prince Carlos, at least not directly. It’s subtler than that. Maybe this will lead us to Madrid or maybe not.” I pulled out my phone and opened up the pictures I had taken of the overpainting.

  He gazed down at the screen. “You tampered with a Titian?” There was surprise in his tone along with more than a little amusement.

  “I wasn’t the first, possibly not even the second. Somebody buried clues in that portrait long ago and sent it to the House of Aviz for safekeeping.”

  “I’m not judging.”

  “Don’t you see? The carnation, which was not painted by Titian but by someone almost as masterful, was covered over with a layer of paint. The same thing with the tower behind the queen’s head. They’re messages. Whoever did this was counting on no one daring to touch a painting by the royal portraitist since Titian had reached acclaim in his own lifetime and had King Philip’s protection. It was a brilliant strategy considering that it kept the clues safe for over five hundred years.”

  “Until you came along.”

  “Until I came along, but listen, Evan, that flower means something. I just don’t know what. Carnations were Isabella’s symbol but why hide that? If we discover who that painter was, we’ll come that much closer to understanding. There’s a whole language threaded through here, the language of visual imagery and symbolism. The anti-Divinios didn’t use words, they used art.”

  “You amaze me,” he said softly.

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “You know it is.” He was gazing at me in that intense way he had that always made me feel like I was only one in the universe for those fleeting seconds.

  “Are you with me or not?” I asked softly.

  “I’ve always been with you.”

  I took the phone from his fingers, which held on maybe seconds too long. “Good. Thank you. I’m thinking no Emperor Charles or even King Philip. Even Queen Isabella was a smokescreen. That they used her portrait to hide clues is significant.”

  “How?”

  “Maybe the anti-Divinios supported the monarchy but not the sect? Maybe they were implying a connection with queens and women somehow? It was a wickedly sexist and often misogynistic age. It’s bad enough today but this is nothing compared to what women endured in the fifteenth century, even those of noble blood, maybe especially those of noble blood. My point is, in this hunt, think like a woman.”

  “But I’m a man.” Now he was teasing.

  “And that’s one of the things I love about you, Evan, but I sense a female presence working as our allies across time. For once being a man may not be the usual advantage.” I paused and smiled. “But don’t feel the need to change on my account.”

  “That’s a relief. Seriously, though, we need to track down the women who surrounded Prince Carlos in those dark days before his death.”

  “Yes, let’s start there. I’ve done some preliminary research but I need so much more.”

  “But we’ll need our latest Señor Anonymous’s help to get there, wherever ‘there’ might be. If our Spanish benefactor is in any way connected to the Spanish military, he’s one powerful ally, and by now should know where we are.”

  “Because I’m wearing a tracking device?”

  “You’re wearing a tracking device?”

  “Senhor Carvalho gave it to me yesterday.”

  “I was actually thinking that they would determine our position based on where our helicopter went down, which is a fairly definite clue. Also, the army helicopter saw us.”

  “Oh, yes, there’s that.” It was growing so dark now that I could barely see his face.

  “But the Divinios have the same information and I expect they’ll be on our heels soon enough.” He had his phone in his hand. “Sir Rupert texted that all is well back at the castle. They’re under quarantine. He says that the ‘plague doctor’ has been called in from Sintra and would arrive tomorrow. As soon as he tests negative for Covid, the game will be up.”

  I sighed. “We don’t have much time. Where are we, anyway?”

  “About fifty kilometers outside of Córdoba.”

  I skimmed the texts on my own phone—one from Peaches saying that the smoothing lotion had worked; another from Max back in London saying that he was worried about me. Why no phone call? he asked. Connie texted to say that she apologized for her brother’s behavior but that his heart was in the right place. What did that mean? His heart might be in the right place but the rest of him wasn’t. Did she know where he was?

  I was about to show Evan the messages when he put a hand on his arm and indicated his own screen. Two red dots could be seen approaching the drive leading to the farm on one of his radar apps—cars, I guessed.

  We turned off our phones and ducked down behind the tractor, squeezing deeper into the shadows as car doors slammed and footsteps pounded on the cement outside.

  Barely breathing, we listened. Men entering the compound—three, maybe four. One speaking softly but no less definitively, and footsteps spreading out across the farm. We were being hunted. Another set of footsteps ran past from the other direction, a person shouting a question—the farmer?

  An argument erupted between the farmer and someone else followed by a third man interrupting in a voice as soothing as liquid honey.

  Evan left my side to climb onto the sacking and peered out the high window. In seconds, he was back, whispering: “Three men, one priest.”

  “A priest?” I hissed.

  “It’s them. We have to get out of here. They’ll find us.”

  We waited only long enough for the footsteps to spread around the outbuildings before bolting from our cover and risking a dash for the gate. It was a long shot.

  We could see the farmer speaking quietly to a man in a dark robe whose back was turned. As long as he didn’t catch sight of us and raise the alarm, we could make it.

  Only it didn’t work out that way.

  18

  We hadn’t counted on guards watching the compound. And now we were surrounded by four armed men wearing stark, grim expressions with matching clothes, their guns pointing at our chests. When two others joined them, we were hemmed in like stray cattle. And that’s how I felt—cornered and terrified.

  To my left, Evan stood tense, his hand hovering over his hidden holster, and I was afraid he might do something reckless. But we were outnumbered and surrounded. All we could do was wait for a chance to escape. I caught his eye and shook my head.

  The priest strode toward us, a little smile on this plump lips. In his early fifties with short graying hair, heavy build, and an expression on his round cherubic face that was unsettlingly mild, he lifted his hands. “Welcome to Spain,” he said in well-modulated English. “I am Father Don Santos and you are now in my care.”

  So this was a Divinio. What was I expecting? Not this. “Some care,” I mumbled. “Didn’t you just try to kill us and probably intend to do the same again?”

  “Do not be an alarmist, Señorita McCabe. For now, we talk only. Empty your pocket
s of all devices and weapons, and pass them to my men with your bags. Señor Barrows, do not try one of your notorious tricks or your lady here will suffer.”

  He thought I was a lady and that only the ex-MI6 guy knew tricks? Already he’d given me hope.

  We emptied our pockets—phones, guns—as two men stepped up to claim them along with our backpacks. I was beginning to feel ill and more than a little angry. Evan had gone into full alert mode, all senses probably scanning for an escape plan.

  “Señorita, you and I will travel together in the first car, and, señor, you will follow with your guards to the second. They have been instructed to secure you by any means necessary so let us avoid further violence, if possible. We have had enough excitement for today.”

  “Excitement? Is that what you call shooting our helicopter down from the sky?” I asked.

  It was as if he hadn’t heard me. “Please be so kind as to wear your masks and we will do the same.” He lifted one hand as if summoning the wind and bid adiós to the farmer watching by the entrance.

  “It’s a trick!” I bellowed to the farmer, “Call the police!” I should have taken my cue from Evan and saved my breath.

  Don Santos sighed and shook his head. “Señorita, señorita…my friend does not speak English, and even if he did he would not believe you. I am a sacerdote—the bond between these people and the church is too deep for you to comprehend.”

  No doubt the man had also been fed a pack of lies by his dear sacerdote.

  Don Santos’s black-clad men ushered us toward two white cars parked in the drive—Evan into one, me into the other, accompanied by our guards as though we were off to some unholy communion.

  “Where are you taking us?” I asked when I was wedged in the plush leather back seat between the two men, Don Santos sitting up front with the driver.

  “Someplace safe. The two of you have given us quite a difficult time and it is necessary for this to cease. Now do sit back and enjoy the ride. This is a beautiful part of Spain.”

  As if sunsets over mountains and narrow winding roads through gilded orchards would soothe my heart. Trapped and helpless, I sat with my eyes fixed out the window. Evan was in the car behind but my guards refused to allow me to look out the rear window. Any time a car passed, Don Carlos would lift his hand as if bestowing a benediction on the passengers, who would wave in return. There’s no way the locals would believe any story we told.

  After about twenty minutes, Don Santos’s phone rang a few bars of some Gregorian chant. Did the devil have a sense of humor? He answered in Spanish, speaking in that measured way of his, and when the call ended, a conversation ensued between him and his driver that seemed so relaxed and conversational they could be discussing the weather. Meanwhile, my guards—a young man and an older one both clad in black shirts and pants—sat grim and silent.

  Finally, we turned off the main road onto a lane that wound farther down the valley into a little village. Glimpses of narrow cobbled streets with strings of flowers strung between the white-tile-roofed buildings rushed by as we turned a corner and drove straight up a long drive toward a church on the hill.

  I stared. A church—not surprising considering our host, but this structure was unusually magnificent for the size of the village and commanded its position with absolute authority. A huge painted statue of the Virgin Mary stood in the spotlight, a garland of wilted flowers adorning her head.

  The cars parked around the back where it was dark and shielded from the village by the bell tower and a tiny orchard. We were ushered in through the basement stairs, entering a corridor with a series of three little rooms off to one side that opened to a larger function hall.

  I caught Evan’s eye only briefly before he was shoved into one room while I was marched through the hall flanked by my two guards. Don Santos remained behind.

  Glimpses of children’s drawings of angels lined the stairs as the guards nudged me upward with their pistols. The sight of those sweet little crayon angels almost brought me to tears. I thought of Ana Marie, of Peaches’s dead baby daughter.

  The moment we had left the sacerdote’s presence, it’s as if my two guards eased into minor acts of cruelty. Maybe I could launch a surprise attack—kick out the way I’d been trained, use the element of shock to disarm them. With only two, it might even work, but what about Evan now bound in some tiny room with his captors? I couldn’t risk it, not now, anyway.

  Instead, I was shoved down the center aisle of the large, beautiful candle-lit church decorated with occasional frescoes, painted statues, and gilded carvings—not rich but still impressive—and was slammed into a wooden chair facing the altar. Before me a gilded carving of the crucified Christ gazed down at me in loving sorrow. At least He had to be on my side.

  One guy bound my hands and feet with cruel efficiency while the older one stood over me murmuring what I could only guess were sexual insults. I kept my gaze fixed on the floor, doubting that they would try anything in a church, but what did I know?

  A young short-haired woman in a printed skirt and top dashed in with a handful of fresh candles, caught sight of us, and gasped. The older man men yelled at her and she turned and dashed away. He ran after her. I heard a stifled scream, then silence. I pulled against my ropes until the other guard kicked me in the shins. I stopped.

  He was standing over me now, holding Evan’s and my phones, one in each hand. Turning them over and over, it was as if he expected them to speak. He must have heard that they were special somehow and wanted desperately to crack their secrets.

  “Password,” he barked. It was hard to see his features in the candlelight especially with that black mask covering his lower face, but he seemed like he’d be a good-looking kid no older than twenty-something.

  “No!” I said.

  He kicked me again, this time harder. Damn him. My device was voice activated but whether it could identify me through a mask was another matter. Worth a try. “Intruder alert!” I cried. “Burn!”

  And just like magic, the phone screen flashed orange, turned smoking hot, and seared the kid’s palm. I could smell singed skin through the mask.

  He dropped the phone like the burning thing it was and kicked it under the pews. I turned to see it slide three rows down, still pulsing orange before going dark. Evan was a genius.

  “There,” I said, turning to the kid. “My phone says go to hell.”

  He might have grasped the gist of that if he hadn’t been so busy nursing his hand. He plunged the wounded member into a flask of what might be holy water—no, wine, I realized as the red liquid dripped over the yellow embroidered altar cloth. Shame—it looked to be late-eighteenth-century silk.

  When another guard stomped in to find his young comrade still going on about his singed palm, he exploded.

  “¡Me duele, me duele!” the younger one wailed.

  “¡Callate!” the man barked, slapping the kid across the side of the head.

  “¿Que esta pasando?” Don Santos demanded, now striding down the aisle. A flurry of excuses followed that the priest cut off with a chop of his hand. Whatever he said next caused the men to scurry toward the basement door.

  “You just can’t get good choirboys these days,” I whispered, but the priest wasn’t paying attention. Glancing from the ewer to the stained altar cloth, he wrinkled his nose and attempted to blot the stains with the edge of his robe.

  “You need to soak that in cold water,” I said, “Soon, before the stain sets.”

  He turned to me. “Señorita McCabe, I regret to say that your man has not told me the information I require, which is very unfortunate. This is becoming tedious. Know that we haven’t time for games. Now I must ask these same questions of you, and should I not learn the truth, I will be forced to add some painful incentive. Do not force my hand. Answer me this: what is your business in Spain?”

  What painful incentive? What had they done to Evan? “We’re here because we were forced to leave Portugal and abandon our ailing friend.”
I was guessing that he knew all this, which meant that I had to keep to the script. “There’s a chance that he may be infected with Covid.”

  “Yet you come to Spain and not London?”

  “All flights to London were either booked or canceled so we managed to secure a helicopter—at great expense, I might add. But as you know, small helicopters can’t travel as far as jets and our only chance to make it home was to reach an airport in Spain and fly from there. That is before you shot us down. Was that pilot killed, by the way? Is your brotherhood satisfied with the blood they shed across the ages?”

  “I will not defend my organization to you, señorita. It is well beyond your comprehension. Are you here to locate the crown?”

  He considered his brotherhood an organization, not a holy order? “Hardly. I presume the thing lies in Portugal and is currently beyond our reach. Senhor Carvalho has forbidden us to look further, anyway. Now we just want to escape in one piece, deliver our friends safely back to London, and collect our fee.”

  He was studying me carefully, the way a man might who had served a congregation as chief confessor long enough to know when someone was lying. He knew I was lying. “What do you know of this crown?” he asked softly.

  What did I have to lose? “Only that a pack of religious fanatics have kept alive a cult for five hundred years based on the belief that religious persecution is grounds for a holy war. Like thousands of years of human history has taught us nothing.” Go for broke was my next strategy. “These nuts hope to force the globe under one God, one belief system. Like that’s worked in the past.”

  He pursed his lips together, causing his round face to look disconcertingly baby-like and his marble-like eyes anything but. “The faithless do the world a great disfavor. You have so little respect for your betters, or understanding. You are like a dog that sniffs at a wall and believes you know how to design a building. Yet you believe you have the right to this, the right to say that. Your opinions do not matter, señorita. It is time that you learned to bow to a higher authority, woman, and not presume to speak of which you know nothing."