A Murder Most Literate

by Jefferson Bonar

  Alongside one of these groves was a large farmhouse surrounded by fields enclosed in waist-high stone walls that someone had once gone through a lot of trouble to build. These walls were now crumbling, having been pushed over by livestock in several places. The fields within were long neglected, now choked with browning weeds and covered in insects whose wings glittered in the sunlight as they flittered about looking for any last remains of wildflowers still holding out from early spring. A single, greying olive tree was the only living thing that remained of a front garden that once covered the whole house, but was now just a collection of dead stumps and ant trails baking in the sun.

  Armada dismounted and tied up his tired mule. There was every reason to believe the woman had long ago expired and her body was lying inside, having been picked mostly to bones now by stray dogs and legions of flies.

  Armada approached the house and peered in the front window through a shutter that had come partly off its hinges.

  Inside, he could see a house that was fairly tidy. The floors and walls were dripping in beautifully hand-painted tiles that formed patterns of colour that were rare to see in farmhouses like this. In the front was a large fireplace that took over much of the room. The furniture was a mix of fine French and Italian styles chosen by someone with a decorative eye, their gleaming satin and velvet textures coordinating well with the colours of the tilework.

  Wherever there was room on the wall, original artwork had been hung, including a moving portrait of a forlorn fish seller that looked suspiciously like an original Velazquez. In the smaller corners hung serving platters made of gold and silver, as well as several black iron crucifixes.

  In the back of the living room was a patio where he could just see the outline of an old woman sitting in a chair and reading. From this angle, it was hard to tell if she was sitting comfortably or lifelessly slumped, and he waited for any sign of life before walking around the back of the farmhouse.

  “You might as well come in,” the old woman called out. “Unless you’d prefer to spy through my front window.”

  Armada smiled and walked round the side of the farmhouse. Upon reaching the back terrace, he found the woman sitting under a wooden pergola made of reeds to keep the worst of the day’s heat off her head. She put her novel down and smiled at him as he walked toward the back patio.

  The woman’s eyes seemed to twinkle as he approached, and she rose to greet him. She was quite short, barely up to Armada’s shoulders, wearing a long dress that had been dyed purple at great expense. She wore a white chiffon to keep the sun off her neck and white silk gloves to protect her hands. Although she seemed well into her seventies and frail, she had little trouble getting up from her chair and moving about.

  “You must be the Lady Florentia. I am Domingo Armada of the Holy Brotherhood. It is good to meet you, Señora.”

  Armada kissed both her cheeks lightly.

  “You as well. So, what brings the Brotherhood all the way out to my door?”

  “The murder of Gregorio Cordoba, I’m afraid,” Armada said. “I wanted to find out what you knew about him.”

  Lady Florentia narrowed her eyes, looking him up and down as if he were a grouse she was getting ready to hunt.

  “Rum. A nice dark rum. That’s your drink.”

  “Sherry, actually. Oloroso.”

  Lady Florentia sighed. “There was a time when I rarely got that wrong. Don’t ever get old, Constable. It will get you nowhere. Come inside, I think I may have some oloroso left.”

  A short while later, Armada was sitting in the front room on one of the overstuffed chairs with a goblet full of sherry fresh from a tiny cellar that had been dug behind the house. Lady Florentia had described for him how her husband enjoyed a nice drink and had learned how to properly store it from a man he’d met in Italy, who had built something similar.

  Her husband’s efforts had paid off. Despite the sherry being over a decade old, it tasted as though it was as fresh as the day it was bottled.

  Lady Florentia had a bit of sherry herself, although she much preferred the darker, heavier Pedro Ximéénez. Armada was impressed. Not many could handle a mouthful of Pedro Ximénez, much less prefer it.

  “So, you didn’t know him at all?” Armada asked.

  “Not until a few months ago, when he contacted me.”

  “Contacted you? Gregorio Cordoba contacted you? How?”

  “He sent me a letter. He said he had something very important to tell me.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. He never told me. At least, now I know why. I found it a bit rude at the time to get an old woman’s curiosity piqued only to never mention it again.”

  Armada tried to hide his smile. Lady Florentia had a sense of humour that was all her own. Probably a result of so many years living by herself out in this farmhouse. It was obvious this villa had once been grand, with a great deal of effort put into decorating it in order to impress. Now that he was inside, Armada could see a large dining hall off the west wing of the house with more than twenty oak chairs around it. It had been specially built for large dinner parties and family get-togethers, but had now been left covered in dust. It was easy to imagine how full of life the house must have been once.

  “May I see this letter?”

  “It should be on the bookcase there.”

  Armada rose and grabbed the letter from the bookcase, his eye momentarily caught by the shelf of books all by an author he knew well.

  Armada studied the letter, but found it said nothing beyond what Lady Florentia had already told him. It was short, with just a few lines of Gregorio introducing himself, followed by a plea for them to meet so he could tell her something important.

  “When did you receive this?”

  “Must have been a few weeks ago, now.”

  “What do you think it was regarding?”

  “Well, given this Señor Cordoba is a professor at the university in Salamanca, I assumed it had something to do with Aurelio. He’s the boy I sponsor there.”

  “Is he the only student you sponsor?”

  “At Salamanca, yes. But I’m also paying for one at the university in Valladolid, and one at Alcala.”

  “So, this had to be about Aurelio….”

  “Is the boy all right? He had such a difficult upbringing, and despite it all he is such a nice boy. It’s why I selected him. I’ve been sponsoring him since he was in grammar school, helping him to learn his Latin and his counting so he could attend the university. I even got him into one of the colegio mayores there. There’s no more guarantee of success than that.”

  “Aurelio isn’t in trouble. I just want to know why Gregorio Cordoba wanted to contact you about him, and then why someone would want to murder him for it.”

  “That wasn’t my question. I asked if the boy was all right. Surely, you’ve spoken to him? I don’t get to. In fact, I never get to see any of the boys I sponsor. Despite how much I’ve given for them, they usually forget to write and tell me how they’re doing. Sometimes I feel like they could be dead and nobody would think to tell me.”

  Lady Florentia sipped her sherry, her eyes wandering out to the view beyond the back patio. It was stunning, a vast landscape of rolling brown hills and decaying stone walls, with little sign of man all the way to the horizon.

  “‘Even though it cannot see, praise this unfortunate eye because it is very graceful in its blindness,’” Lady Florentia quoted.

  “Calderon.”

  “A theatre fan? You are full of surprises, Constable. And no, it was Lope de Vega. I’ve always preferred Señor Vega’s more simple use of language. It’s much more honest, much closer to how real people speak. I’ve never been much of a lover of poetry. Calderon tends to be a bit flowery for me. He does let his soliloquys drag on.”

  Lady Florentia had little fear of offending Armada, which only endeared him to her more. Plus, it was hard to argue with her. Despite not loving Calderon, she had an entire shelf of his dramas and poet
ry. Hers was not an opinion that was hastily made.

  “Well, to answer your question: no. I have not spoken to the boy in that manner. But I can assure you he is alive.”

  “That does comfort me a little. Sponsoring children can be very lonely, you know. I always pictured them coming here whenever they could, visiting me as if I were a grandmother. I’m not sure why I thought that. I see now it was foolish. Boys don’t think like that, do they? Aurelio is really no different than any of them. I do try to make them feel special, though. I send each of them a pin. It’s a little silver one in the shape of a mint leaf, which grows so prodigiously around here. It’s to let them know they are a part of my family, in a way, no matter how far away they are. The boys always thank me in letters, no doubt at the behest of their mothers, and that’s the last I ever hear of it.”

  Lady Florentia sighed. “If only it was easier for girls to go to university, perhaps sponsoring them would be different. They do seem to hold family in higher regard. But these days, the very concept of girls becoming educated seems to be going away. The grammar school I went to was long since closed. In fact, most of them all over the kingdom have closed, and it isn’t fair. It just seems that as our mighty empire collapses, so too does men’s ability to see women as intelligent. I’ll never understand it.”

  “I don’t either, I’m afraid.”

  “Maybe it’s for the best that I was never able to give my Jose children. It’s why I sponsor these kids now. Guilt, I suppose. My Jose wanted children so badly. We married so young. We saw our whole lives so clearly. A beautiful house in the country, lots of children, a life full of family and joy. Our parents helped to buy this land, and Jose worked himself to the bone to build this farmhouse. He was a very successful banker, but had no desire to live in the city. It wasn’t a good place to raise children, you know. No, the campo. In the fresh air, away from the stink and the rot of the city, away from the thieves and the vagrants. He didn’t mind travelling out here all the time. It was worth it to Jose.”

  Lady Florentia stared down at her unfinished sherry, wrestling with unpleasant memories. Armada was tempted to remind her that there was no need to tell him any of this.

  “Years later, it became obvious to me I would be unable to give my Jose what he wanted most. I could see it in his eyes. The enthusiasm he’d had when he was younger and more hopeful. It began to fade. I was so worried I’d lose him…I couldn’t stand it. So, I began to fill up the house with people. Any excuse would do. We had fiestas that would last for days, inviting anyone who would come. Family, neighbours, work colleagues. I wanted the house to be busy, to be lively, like Jose wanted. But it wasn’t enough. Those parties, they just seemed to exhaust him. And I watched him grow so old. He never left me, the fool. He just kept working, kept distracting himself with wine. I don’t think he knew what else to do.”

  Tears had now filled Lady Florentia’s eyes. How often had she sat in this chair, in this empty house, and ruminated on her past? Perhaps telling someone else only made it more real, brought it closer to the surface somehow.

  “Eventually, he worked himself into the grave. He’d gained a title by then. And so had I. I was a lady! And Jose had saved up quite a lot of money, which he had little use for. Nor did I, at the time. I just wanted my Jose back.”

  Lady Florentia wiped her eyes.

  “I couldn’t think of a better use for that money than to help other people’s children. I think Jose would have thought it fitting. I don’t know why neither of us thought of it while he was alive.”

  “Do you not visit them, the students you sponsor?”

  Lady Florentia glanced back at Armada, letting her tears fall now. “My place is here. It is my penance, in a way. It feels like a betrayal to Jose to leave.”

  Lady Florentia put her sherry down.

  “I do apologise, Constable. Perhaps I shouldn’t drink sherry on the rare occasion I have visitors any more. It does bring out the sentimental side of me.”

  Lady Florentia got up and went to the kitchen. She returned a moment latter with a rag, having wiped her cheeks dry.

  “I think I can guess what your next question is, Constable. And no, I can’t imagine what that boy Aurelio could have been doing that Gregorio Cordoba wanted to inform me about. I pay the university directly, so there is no way he could be stealing from me. And given I don’t really speak to any of the boys I sponsor, I’m afraid I can’t be of much help there, either.”

  Armada rose to his feet.

  “Thank you, Lady Florentia. You have been more than helpful. But I feel I should leave you.”

  Armada let Lady Florentia escort him to the door. It would have been so easy to spend the rest of the afternoon there, talking about anything except the case. Lady Florentia had ended up being one of the most honest people he had ever interrogated. Even using the word interrogate seemed too strong. It had been a chat, one that could have gone on for hours. They hadn’t even touched upon the books on her shelf, or her love of theatre. It was so rare in his business when Armada met someone who shared his passion. What other well-read opinions did she have? What of Molina? Or Cervantes? What else did she know about Calderon? What could she teach him about Vega?

  Instead, Armada found himself at her front door, having strange thoughts about if they were both several decades younger and under vastly different circumstances, how their relationship could be something quite different.

  “Well, Constable, it’s been a pleasure.”

  Another phrase Armada rarely, if ever, heard. He kissed her lightly on both cheeks.

  “‘If thou dost love as thou dost suffer, thou suffers in the happiest way. And the acceptance of thy freedom, is all the ransom thou must pay,’” he quoted. “It’s been a pleasure, Lady Florentia.”

  “If you are ever able to return and quote Calderon to me again, Constable, then call me Carolina.”

  Armada bowed his head. “Domingo.”

  With that, Armada returned to his cart and took his time returning to the city, letting his thoughts drift over one of the most pleasurable conversations he’d had in a long time, and vowing to return under better circumstances.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Armada was feeling relaxed as his cart bumbled along the uncobbled track leading back into the city. It was a warm afternoon as always, with just a few wisps of clouds in the sky to the south somewhere over the sea. The only sounds were the soft footsteps of his mule and the constant squeak from the left wheel of the cart, but Armada still thought it was deathly quiet. There were few signs of people beyond the odd distant goat herd, or a farmer digging post holes to shore up a bit of his fence. He was alone and could now allow himself the indulgence of appreciating the pastoral beauty that surrounded him.

  It was something Calderon would have abhorred. Such pastoral romanticism had become quite unfashionable in the theatre. For most, a sheep herder’s life was one of unending tedium, and the attempts by playwrights of a bygone era to use them to represent the beauty of an older, simpler way of life did not last long. It had been seductive to people at first, as the Reconquest, the printing press, and the discovery of the New World had brought massive change very quickly to Spanish society. But audiences quickly saw through the fallacy of such sentimentalism and the genre died a quick death.

  But there was still something to say for appreciating the unspoiled countryside. Out here, there were no streets running with sewage, there were no dilapidated buildings around whose corners thieves could easily hide, there was no smell of rotting meat being sold by dodgy meat sellers, no drunks wandering out of a tavern and passing out in the street, and no endless traffic of horses and carts that could drive a man mad.

  It made sense why Lady Florentia had retired herself so far out away from the city. Who could get any reading done with the bustle of Salamanca outside one’s window?

  This thought made Armada smile, and he promised himself to return and have a discussion with her again that had nothing to do with murder.
As he entered the city and returned to his accommodation, Armada thought about what points he might raise with Lady Florentia over a cup of tea. Yet as always, as soon as he was back in the city, so too returned its manic pace.

  “He’s with the doctor now. You may want to hurry.”

  Armada raced off to his room, shot up the stairs, and burst in through the door to find Lucas laid out on his bed looking very ill.

  The doctor, an older man with a large nose and thick spectacles, sat on the foot of the bed and was wrapping Lucas’s ankle in a bandage.

  “Lucas…what happened?” Armada asked as he came to Lucas’s side. He was relieved to see when Lucas opened his eyes. His left one had been injured. It was red and swollen, and his eye couldn’t seem to focus on anything. But his right glared back at Armada.

  “How could you…?” Lucas whispered before coughing painfully.

  “Don’t excite him. He’s in quite rough shape.”

  “Is he all right?” Armada asked.

  “I think so. I’ve managed to stop the bleeding and gotten him wrapped up. But he’ll need quite a long time to recover. Those boys beat him pretty badly. I only wish I’d gotten here sooner.”

  “Those boys?”

  Armada turned to Lucas. “Julian did this?”

  “No, sir…,” Lucas whispered. “You did.”

  Armada resisted the urge to be offended at that. He turned to the doctor.

  “Thank you for coming by, Doctor. You can give your bill to the porter and I’ll make sure it is paid.”

  The doctor rose and collected his things quickly, having sensed the rising tension in the room. He mumbled to Armada how he should let the boy rest and, sensing his advice would probably be ignored, disappeared from the room.

  Armada knew his next move should have been to sit by the bed, take the boy’s hand, and have a sensible discussion with him. He should let Lucas be angry, let him get it out. Possibly let him rest for the night. Then, perhaps they could have the conversation that was beginning to brew.