A Murder Most Literate

by Jefferson Bonar

  The neighbourhood was full of grand houses overlooking a beautiful stone-paved street smoother than any other in the city. The villa was the largest on the road, with Romanesque columns bordering the large oak front door. Julian and Federigo had already gone inside, leaving Lucas to get out of the cart by himself, which wasn’t going to be easy.

  Lucas shimmied his injured body to the edge of the cart and cried out as he slowly slid over the lip of the back and landed softly on his feet. Lucas took some long breaths until the throbs of pain in his midsection and leg subsided, then grabbed the chair leg he had been using as a cane and followed Julian and Federigo in through the large front door.

  Inside, he was greeted by a large foyer, in the back of which was a staircase leading to the rooms upstairs. Beyond that was a brick-lined archway leading to a large kitchen that Federigo was now lighting with candles.

  Lucas shuffled his way into the back to find Julian was cracking open a larder that was full of bottles. He picked one out, yanked the cork out of the top with his teeth, and spat it out, unaware that Federigo was going behind him to pick it up. Then he poured a silver goblet full of liquor and took a long drink.

  “Where are we?”

  “We’re home. My home.”

  “You live here?”

  “It’s the house I was born in.”

  With more candles having been lit, Lucas could see the house was packed full of exquisite things. The kitchen featured long marble countertops and cooking pans gleaming of pure silver. The entire kitchen was covered in thousands of painted tiles that formed beautiful mosaics on the walls, yet Lucas’s attention was drawn to the windows. There were only three of them, and they were quite small, as was the style for most Spanish houses. But what amazed him was the fact that they were all held a perfect reflection of the burning candles. Tempered glass, every one of them. It was a rare sight in all but the most extravagant of homes. Lucas wondered what marvels the rest of the house held.

  “You were born here?”

  “You’ve probably never seen a house like this, have you? Sometimes I forget what a campesino you are.”

  Lucas wasn’t sure if the slur was meant with malice or not. Julian tended to talk with a slightly sarcastic tone much of the time anyway, as if testing to see just how caustic he could be before anyone got upset. Lucas decided he had to let it go. It was true that he’d been born poor and in the country, so he could hardly argue the point.

  Julian drank his brandy and poured a bit more. He seemed little interested in offering any to Lucas.

  “Wouldn’t we be safer if we left the city? We’re not that far from the university,” Lucas said.

  “Left the city? Are you mad? There’s bandits and highwaymen out there. I’m not going anywhere. This is the safest place around. No one would dare enter this house without my father’s permission. He’s the Duke of Frades. Nobody just arrests the son of a Duke, especially not a lowly bellaco like that constable. He would never dare try something that stupid. My father would have his head for that. Federigo!”

  Federigo appeared a moment later.

  “I’m hungry. I want a bit of supper.”

  “Will your friend be joining us?”

  “I’m dying for a bit of the jamón my father bought in Tuscany last month. Also, some of that sparkling wine he got in Florence. He hides it behind those empty barrels in the cellar. Old fool. He thinks I don’t know it’s there, but I do. I can always sniff out his sparkling wine. Make it two!”

  “Yes, sir,” Federigo said and disappeared again.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a bit of Marco’s tobacco right now,” Julian said.

  “Shouldn’t we go back for Aurelio?” Lucas asked.

  “Augh, don’t mention his name tonight. It makes my head hurt.”

  “But…he’s San Bartolomé. We can’t just let him get—”

  “I said don’t mention him! And I’m not leaving this house. Tomorrow, I’ll talk to my father and he’ll straighten this all out. He’ll know someone at the Brotherhood who can make that constable go away.”

  Lucas wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps the way the candlelight etched shadows into the corners of Julian’s face, making it look more sinister. Or perhaps it was the way he swanned about the room, relaxed in a way he wasn’t at the university. But suddenly, Lucas could see Julian very differently. He made no attempt to be charismatic or be someone to look up to. Here in this house, in this back kitchen with so many candles burning, he looked younger, immature. Lucas hated seeing him this way. It wasn’t the Julian he had followed here tonight.

  Lucas tried to shake the image out of his head. It was just the light, he told himself. He was tired. His body was still recovering. It was possible his mind was playing tricks.

  “Are we really going to let Aurelio get arrested then?”

  “He deserves it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s a little ladron, that’s why.”

  Lucas found that answer odd. A thief? What had Aurelio stolen that would anger Julian so much? And did it have anything to do with why Julian had ostracised him from the group?

  Lucas knew he should let it go. He was risking angering Julian, who was already halfway through the bottle he’d taken from the cabinet. But if he was going to get any answers, it had to be before Federigo got back with plenty of distractions.

  “What did he steal?”

  Julian was quiet for a moment, and he opened his mouth to speak.

  But then something changed in his face. A new thought had occurred to him, and now his expression soured. He stared back at Lucas with suspicious eyes bordering on rage, the same look he’d given Lucas before he’d begun to beat him before.

  “Why do you want to know so much?”

  “I don’t…I was just curious….”

  “Yes. You’re always curious, aren’t you? Why do you have to ask so many questions? Are you working for that constable, is that it?”

  “I don’t…I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have….”

  “Because that’s none of your business. None of it is! I told you not to ask me about that!”

  “I’m sorry…,” Lucas said, keeping his eyes on the floor in a show of submission. He began to wonder just how unhinged Julian could become here, in this dark room with no witnesses.

  “I always knew there was something wrong with you. I could feel it. You’re always looking around. It’s odd. I noticed it ever since I first saw you at Ambrosio’s house. Don’t think I didn’t notice it, because I’m good at noticing things like that,” Julian said.

  “I don’t need to know. It’s all right,” Lucas said.

  But Lucas’s words did nothing to settle Julian’s nerves. He was still on edge. Could it have been the drink? Normally, Julian was so relaxed. But one mention of Aurelio, and suddenly Julian couldn’t relax. He was frightened. Paranoid, even. Why? What was it about Aurelio that could do this to someone as fearless as Julian?

  Julian was still staring at him, not drinking, which was a bad sign.

  “Tell me something, joven. Did you lie to me?”

  “What?”

  “Was that constable really going to arrest me tomorrow?”

  “Yes. That was the truth.”

  “How do you know?”

  Lucas froze for a moment. He hadn’t thought of a way to explain that yet.

  “I overheard him…at the university….”

  “I think you’re lying,” Julian said. “It’s not me he wants to arrest, is it? It’s you.”

  “It’s both of us now. He’ll know I warned you….”

  “No. It’s just you. You clucked like a chicken at me, telling me about how much trouble we both were going to be in. But you were just trying to save yourself, weren’t you? That’s all you care about. You just needed a safe place to stay. And you’re using me for it.”

  “No. I would never do that. I’m San Bartolomé. Kings for Bartolome, Bartolome for—!”

  “Well, I won’t
let you. You’re not going to get me involved in this. I won’t get in trouble for you! Federigo!”

  “Please, Julian…,” Lucas pleaded, but he could already tell it was too late. Federigo had appeared at the door.

  Julian pointed at Lucas. “Get him out of this house. He won’t be staying with us tonight, or any night. He’s not welcome here. Get him out before he gets me in any more trouble.”

  “No, wait…,” Lucas said, but he already felt Federigo’s powerful arms grab him by the shoulders and begin pulling him toward the front door.

  Lucas began to cry out from the pain of having his torso bend backwards at an awkward angle, shifting his broken ribs around. Federigo took little notice of this, and in a flash, Lucas found himself outside of the house. He was dragged out into the middle of the road and thrown to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  Lucas held his ribs and couldn’t help but be ill from the pain. He barely noticed as Federigo marched his way back to the Benaudalla home, closing the door firmly behind him.

  Chapter Thirty

  By the time the guard had returned, jangling the keys to declare his intentions, Armada would have found hanging preferable. He hated prison cells. He found them tedious to the point of distraction. A room devoid of any kind of stimulation, allowing the darkest of his thoughts to play about in his mind, unfettered. The nights had been spent trying not to go mad as the ghosts of his past revisited him, reminding him of the thoughts he had spent a lifetime trying to hold at bay.

  Finding the body under the bridge had allowed him to place another piece of the puzzle into place. If left to do his job, a lot of things would have happened very quickly. The rush of putting a case together was what he lived for.

  But his rush had been cut short. Upon discovering the body, he’d been swiftly returned to this cell in the basement of the ayuntamiento building, as his soldier escorts were not sure what else to do. There, he’d been left while the magistrate associated with the case began his slow, laborious process of catching up to what Armada had already worked out. Three times he was visited by a notary sent by the city magistrate to take down all the details of the case Armada had to give. All three times, Armada found the process tedious and demanded to speak to the magistrate directly. The notary, a young, anxiety-ridden man whose eyes never seemed to focus on anything in particular, reminded him every time that this was not possible. Don Torrejón was not to be disturbed. He was a busy and important man, and he had no time to speak to prisoners.

  Eventually, after the young notary used up a whole forest worth of paper writing down pointless details that were not important, he gathered his things up and muttered a promise that the magistrate would be in touch soon.

  By the end of the next day, whether it be a desire for a meeting or a hanging order, Armada didn’t care. As long as he could be let out of the cell. Staring out the window had long since lost its appeal. It was uncomfortable, as the window had purposely been built too high to reach easily, leaving little to view except empty sky and rusted bars. For a brief time the night before, the moon had been visible through it, casting silvery light through the entire cell to reveal just how many mosquitos were making a meal of him that night.

  “You are wanted upstairs,” the guard declared. Armada stood up, feeling an ache in his back from dozing on cold stone the night before, and he walked out of his cell with as much dignity as he could muster.

  He was taken up the stairs into the main foyer of the ayuntamiento building. At his feet was a mural of black and white tile in a vaguely Arabic pattern, in the middle of which was inscribed a Catholic blessing in Latin for the city of Salamanca. Armada was escorted, his wrists in irons, across this mural toward a staircase in the back, at the top of which was a large meeting room with nothing inside but a large wooden table surrounded by ten or twelve wooden chairs with high backs to convey the importance of those who met and decided policy here. A large window on the opposite side overlooked a well-tended garden, where the canopy of a fig tree waved lazily back and forth in the breeze.

  At the far end of the table, amidst a pile of papers and reports, was a severe-looking man in long black robes. He had a long, thin nose upon which were perched a set of spectacles that magnified his eyes. They opened wide, although his brow was permanently furrowed into a well-practiced accusatory stare.

  Sitting next to him was Arturo, who was wearing several layers of his own best clothing, and another man. Taller, more austere. This one had no reports in front of him and instead sat at the table while also wearing very expensive clothing, hands folded in front of him, staring at Armada with unblinking eyes.

  Armada was led into the room and his irons were removed. There was no chair provided for him.

  “Domingo Armada,” the other man said. He spoke in a slow, deliberate way, being sure to pronounce every syllable in a demonstration of the quality of his education. “Constable of the Holy Brotherhood chapter in Granada. You’re a long way from home, Constable.”

  “There is a lot of travel involved in this job.”

  The man’s eyes shot up at him, suggesting Armada had breached some kind of etiquette. Armada suspected the man wanted him to call him “sir,”, as everyone else in his life probably did. But Armada refused this. At least not until he identified himself.

  “I am Don Carlos Avila Torrejón, the city magistrate who will be rendering the judgement for this case. This is Francisco Perez, chief constable of Salamanca, and I believe you know the corregidor of the university already.”

  Armada bowed his head slightly. The chief constable and the magistrate did nothing to acknowledge this.

  “You have travelled well outside your jurisdiction this time. What made you think you had any kind of authority to come here?” the chief constable said.

  Armada glanced to the corregidor. Arturo looked back at him, pleading with his eyes. His career was at stake. He begged Armada not to make things worse.

  “I thought I could help.”

  “You understand, Constable, that this city already has enough law enforcement agencies of its own,” the magistrate said. “It hardly requires the assistance of the Holy Brotherhood. We’re not a pueblo full of poor farmers in the middle of nowhere. We are one of the largest and most prestigious cities in all of the Spanish kingdoms. We are capable of handling cases such as this on our own.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be a judgement on the abilities of the city officials, Señor Torrejón.”

  “Don Torrejón,” the magistrate corrected, emphasising the use of his title.

  “My apologies.”

  “I’ve asked you here for only one reason, Constable,” the magistrate said, getting to his feet. “I want to impress upon you how important it is that you leave this city at once. If you refuse, you will be imprisoned at once and charged with contempt. A long prison sentence will follow. I have no desire to wrangle over jurisdiction any longer, Constable. This is not your case. Nor was it ever. The only reason you are here is because of the cowardice of the corregidor, whose own contribution to the corruption of this case will be investigated at length.”

  Arturo kept his eyes on the table, shifting in his seat uncomfortably.

  “Can I ask what you’re going to do next?” Armada asked.

  “It’s already done,” the chief constable interjected. “The killer has been apprehended, so your assistance is no longer needed.”

  “I thought Enrique Talavera had already been apprehended?”

  “And hung by the neck, yes. But as it turns out, as sometimes happens, new evidence suggests he was not the right man. It is unfortunate.”

  Armada felt a surge at the magistrate’s lack of sympathy. It always happened when one wore the protective black robes for too long. It was too easy to disconnect from the horrors of crime and death, seeing them only as an endless series of reports rather than people. It made it easier that way. But people like Enrique, innocent people, sometimes became victims of men like Don Torrejón as much as they were
victims of killers. The result was the same. So why was this man’s mistake so easily forgiven by those who allowed him to wear those robes?

  Armada couldn’t get lost in such thoughts. The case wasn’t over. The killer was still out there. Armada couldn’t give in to such urges yet. He had to remain on this man’s good side as long as possible.

  “Can I ask who the killer was? Purely for my own curiosity,” Armada said. He was trying not to let himself get frustrated. He felt an affinity with this case. It didn’t feel right to just hand it off to someone else halfway through and walk away. He wasn’t sure he could do it.

  “Juan Mendoza,” the chief constable said, not able to hold back the curling at the corners of his mouth to show his pride.

  Armada glanced at Arturo, confused.

  “Who is Juan Mendoza?”

  “The boy who was pretending to be the real Aurelio Martinez. Thanks to your discovery under the bridge, and the importance of the pin, we were able to ascertain that he had been an imposter all the long. It’s obvious he killed Aurelio Martinez in order to take his place at university. It seems Gregorio Cordoba somehow found out about his deception and was killed in order to keep it quiet. A very tragic affair, really. But one that thankfully now has a conclusion. Rodriguez!”

  The door to the room popped open and Armada’s jailer stepped inside.

  “You can escort the constable back to his accommodation now. Allow him some time to gather his things and make sure you personally see him leave the city gates. I don’t want—”

  “It’s not him,” Armada said. “You have the wrong man.”

  The magistrate frowned at him, finding it rude to be interrupted so blatantly.

  “Do I?”

  “The saltpetre…he wouldn’t have shown it to me…it doesn’t make sense….”

  Armada had the attention of the room for the moment, but knew his time was short. The magistrate was already looking impatient with him. He had to make his point in a way that bought him some time. Armada was still working out his own thoughts, and if he was kicked out of this room now, it would be very hard to get back in. Impossible, even. As long as he was here, he still had a bit of power to influence this man’s opinion of what was going on. But how to get to him?