The Matador's Crown

by Alex Archer

  “Left horn,” Garin muttered. “He’ll present the cape to that one because that’s the dominant one.”

  The crowd cheered when the bull passed close to the matador, one deadly ebony horn brushing his hip. The matador didn’t step back, but instead leaned in toward the bull, bringing man and beast together as one. The bravery required to maintain that stance and not step aside was incredible, at once brutal and graceful. Annja nodded, impressed.

  “As I’ve said, bullfighting is an art,” Garin said into her ear to be heard over the approving shouts of “Olé.”

  And yet the word matador translated to killer. Annja took another sip of her beer, avoiding comment.

  “The crowd doesn’t attend to witness a grisly murder,” Garin continued, “but rather the art of man against beast as each offers his very life in a competition that pits grace and style against ferocity and danger.”

  She could buy into that. To a point. “Except when the picador enters, then the grace and style fades and the cheating begins.”

  Garin shook his head and popped open another beer that again seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. “Annja, I won’t even try. I had expected you, of all people, to have an open mind about this event.”

  “I can look at it objectively.” There was a certain art to bullfighting. “Just call me a nonpartisan observer.”

  She understood the first capework performed by the matador was designed to tire the bull, to seek out its weaknesses and exploit them. It was a mind game between man and beast. It was the moment when the bull showed its mettle, be it gentle and awkward when approaching the cape or determined and ferocious with each charge. It was also the first time the bull had ever seen a man on foot and not mounted on a horse.

  But her carefully restrained judgment nudged loose as the picador rode in on his horse, wielding the long spear he would use to poke the bull in the shoulder muscle to further weaken it. Rumors held that often the horse was drugged to keep it docile and less skittish.

  The horse the picador rode was shielded with a heavily padded mattresslike fabric and was turned to one side to give the bull a charging target, diverting its attention from the matador, who had successfully avoided all the bull’s charges, giving the beast nothing to connect with. The picador provided the bull something to charge after so many false charges against the matador, to give it encouragement as the beast’s instinct to charge the cape might fade.

  With his eight-foot lance, the picador stabbed the bull in the morillo, the huge neck muscle, in an effort to make it swell and weaken the animal. Before the picador could maneuver the horse to move in for the second lance, the crowd hissed as the bull pinned the horse against the wood barrier surrounding the ring. The picador flew off over the side of the barrier and into the contrabarrera, leaving the horse alone with the bull. A horn penetrated the horse’s unprotected chest and the dying whinny forced Annja’s attention back to Garin.

  The man wasn’t watching. His gaze followed the matador, who’d retreated behind the protective barrier. The matador was no fool. As much as Garin argued that bullfighting was an art, the horse was the most unsuspecting victim of it all.

  “So what brings you to Cádiz?” she asked, unable to take in what was happening below. “You mentioned you were already here. What, were you following me?”

  “I had no idea you were in the city until Roux’s call.” He nodded toward the ring. “Manuel is a good friend. He’s invited me for the week. I’ll introduce you to him following the match.”

  It would intrigue her to meet the man who currently caped the bull away from the dying horse. A man who stood arrogantly bold and waited for the bull to charge before swishing the cape behind him and redirecting the bull’s aim.

  To more rousing cheers of “Olé,” the matador worked a crowd-pleasing performance and even picced the bull himself, placing the bright blue-and-pink-ribboned barbed darts—which looked to Annja like big cocktail sticks—at the hump of the bull’s neck with a daring charge directly at the animal. The trick was to jump high and to the side to avoid the horns. Normally this act was performed by the banderilleros, but some matadors chose to do it themselves out of machismo and to further impress the crowd.

  The second set of darts El Bravo held high to acknowledge the crowd’s cheers before waving them before the bull. Taunting it. Then, with a nod and a curt bow of respect, the matador ran counterclockwise around the bull, highlighting the beast’s sinuous ability to turn on a dime as it tracked its opponent. The matador stopped. As he backtracked the bull lowered its head to charge. And then he struck, jumping high to bring down the darts and land them directly on the hump.

  Blood spilled down the bull’s hide, and once again Annja decided to take in the crowd instead of the spectacle. Was Diego’s murderer watching this display of savagery?

  Where had Diego gotten the bronze bull?

  Thinking about the few valuable items unearthed from the dig, Annja wouldn’t consider any of them the correct size for the wood crate. If Professor Harlow suspected a local gang of selling artifacts, it was possible they had either obtained pieces from various locations through theft or could have received them from other countries through the shipping port.

  Had it been the police who then passed the booty along to buyers? It would make sense a police officer, wishing to remain anonymous, would use a liaison to deliver the goods. And yet, would a public official wanting to keep his or her identity a secret involve a second party like Diego?

  She needed to find someone who had known Diego. Garin had guessed correctly—she couldn’t resist a good mystery when it involved an artifact.

  The crowd had settled to a hush, bringing Annja’s attention back to the ring. Garin sat forward in his seat, the empty beer bottle dangling from his fingers, between his knees. Anyone who glanced his way would guess he was a man in his late twenties to early thirties, not the five hundred years he had tucked under his belt.

  In the ring, the matador stood before the bull, his posture defiant. The line of his body was erect and graceful with his shoulders thrust back and his hips forward. The bull stood squarely, its head slightly down and its tongue lolling over its lower jaw in proof of its exhaustion. They stood less than eight feet from each other. Staring each other down.

  The matador held a smaller red cape now and he moved minutely to the left, the bull reacting by adjusting its front feet. This third part of the match was called the faena, the final act, in which El Bravo squared up his opponent for the kill.

  Compelled to witness what Garin described as an art and a spectacle, Annja watched as the matador led the bull in a series of close passes along his body with elegant sweeps of the cape. When the bull stood, tongue lolling and weakened, the matador approached him, holding his stiff bolero jacket open in defiance of attack.

  “Center of the ring,” Garin commented. “A bold place to perform the kill.”

  The matador bowed grandly before the bull. Then he turned to the crowd, lifted his chin as if to ask permission—when, in fact, he was asking permission to make the kill from the presidente, who oversaw the fight—and with a renewed roar of cheering, he turned back to the bull.

  Lunging, he leaped into the air and brought down the estoque, a special sword with a curved tip designed for the kill, piercing the bull’s swollen and bloody morillo and shoving the blade up to the hilt. The blade delivered correctly would sever the aorta and bring death quickly. But rarely instantly.

  In a renewed burst of energy, the beast charged. El Bravo slapped his palm to the bull’s forehead, tracking it in a circle until it came to a thundering stop. The bull took two unsure steps and fell to its front knees. The matador again bowed before his opponent. The crowd offered uproarious approval.

  His second in command, dressed in a dark blue suit of lights, rushed in for the coup de grâce, delivered with the puntilla, a stab never given by the matador.

  And it was over.

  Annja met Garin’s eyes and was surprised
to find that he seemed sad.

  Did the immortal man lament the death he could never have?

  7

  As the audience swept the air in a storm of white handkerchiefs, the matador and his entourage made a victory lap around the ring and were granted the bull’s ear by the presidente. El Bravo then threw it into the grandstand to renewed cheers. Their local hero had once again mastered death for them. As the bull was being dragged out of the stadium by a team of two mules, the crowd clapped in rhythm to acknowledge the beast’s bravery.

  Once out of the grandstand, Garin led Annja toward the inner workings of the stadium, and the crowd thinned as they went where only invited guests were allowed. Where the matadors and their crew packed the vans near the loading docks.

  It had been an afternoon fight, so it was still early, around six in the evening. The open-air backstage area provided a view of the pink sky shot through with gold clouds. Women in colorful, ruffled skirts and elegant updos dotted with roses and peonies swarmed the vicinity where Annja suspected the matador stood. She was suddenly conscious of her sun-baked ponytail and casual attire meant for hiking, not an after-event celebration. A glamour girl she was not, but she did like to blend in.

  Garin, as usual, worked the crowd with the practiced ease of a celebrity. He attracted the women’s interest, which, Annja knew, pleased the self-professed playboy.

  When offered sherry on a silver platter, he took two goblets and handed one to her. “The local sherry is sweet, but I think you’ll like it. Let me introduce you to Manuel.”

  “He looks busy signing autographs. I’d hate to intrude.”

  “Annja, you need to exercise your social skills. Swordplay and dirt-flinging do not an appealing woman make.”

  “Is that so? And yet on certain occasions you seem to find some appeal in me.”

  He leaned in close. “I’ve seen many sides of you, and each one holds immense appeal. Perhaps you’re right. Stick with the adventurous-archaeologist look. Keeps the other men away— Manuel!” Garin shook his friend’s hand and kissed him on both cheeks. They shared some hearty man-speak with pats on the shoulders. “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. She’s an archaeologist.”

  Manuel Bravo dropped his interest in the women who flitted around him. “Can’t be,” he said, staring at Annja. “She must be a model or celebrity.”

  Now she really felt like an unpolished pebble among a scatter of gemstones. El Bravo’s eyes were as black as his slicked-back hair, and his face was thin and chiseled to the bone as if by the harsh Spanish sun. The hint of a five-o’clock shadow gave him a brooding, dark look. If she hadn’t seen him slaying a bull thirty minutes earlier, she’d never peg him as capable of such a brutal act.

  Then again, it was his profession; he’d trained years to master the elegant moves, the unflinching postures, the seemingly innate bravery. He was a master, and certainly he didn’t look upon what he did as murder.

  And Annja was impressed.

  He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it.

  “Yours was the first bullfight I’ve seen live,” she ventured.

  “And your opinion?” His dark eyes glinted.

  “You are indeed the maestro.” She used the title those in his field would.

  “Thank you. But had I known someone so beautiful was in the audience today, I would have dedicated the kill to you. Please accept my belated dedication to your beauty.” Another kiss to the back of her hand, and Annja tugged away and clasped her hands behind her back.

  She caught Garin’s smirk, which only made her feel more like a fish out of water.

  “Maestro!”

  Manuel nodded to the man who gestured for him to follow. Before leaving, he said, “I hope the two of you will do me the pleasure of coming to my villa later? We’ll be celebrating tonight’s success with a grand feast.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Garin said.

  “Garin is staying with me at the villa. Miss Creed, do you have a place to stay tonight?”

  The twinkle in his eye made her briefly forget she did have a room. Quickly she shook her head and thanked him for the offer. “But I would love to see your home and celebrate with you tonight.”

  “With you in attendance it will be far more interesting than I’d hoped,” Manuel said, then winked. “The two of you will ride along with me in the van, Braden?”

  “Of course.”

  “Very good.” Manuel turned to be sucked into the crowd of hungry-eyed women.

  “He’s quite the charmer,” Annja noted.

  “And he succeeded in luring you in with only a few words. Have you eyes for a man you consider a murderer, Annja?”

  “He’s not—” Perhaps Garin had been right. There were many ways to look at the reasons behind a man’s actions. Bullfighting an art form?

  Two killers had entered her life today. Now to determine if they were standing on equal—albeit shaky—moral ground or if one might be granted the excuse that art trumps blood.

  * * *

  THEY STEPPED OUT into the sultry evening under the glaring streetlights behind the van painted along the side with Manuel’s moniker, El Bravo. A decal featured him posed before a bull, cape sweeping gloriously. A rock star’s tour bus, Annja mused. Every culture had their idols. Spain happened to worship a man who slaughtered animals raised only for the one appearance in a ring, a fight that virtually always ended in the animal’s death. It was the rare bull that was granted its life for bravery.

  Maybe that’s why she’d stepped a little closer toward the side of the bull and the line of protestors who stood behind a safety blockade wielding signs to Stop the Torture! She accepted that all cultures had their own beliefs, rituals and ceremonies. But that didn’t mean she had to subscribe to those beliefs.

  As Garin leaned close to say something to her, a flash out of the corner of her eye caught Annja’s attention.

  A woman in the crowd milling about the van cried out as a glass of sherry shattered on the ground. The metallic ricochet of a bullet hitting the van’s back quarter, just above the decal of Manuel’s eye, simultaneously drew Annja’s and Garin’s gazes like trained sentry dogs to scan the area for danger.

  One of Manuel’s assistants shoved his maestro into the van.

  “Was he hit?” Annja called, but didn’t wait for an answer.

  Her heartbeat quickening, she reached for the sword hilt, but with so many around her, she stopped short of grasping it. She’d seen a flash, and turned to scan the row of brick buildings lining the opposite side of the street. The pink sky provided a contrasting background to the dark buildings.

  A sniper? Possible. But a professional shooter wouldn’t position himself too close to the stadium and risk being sighted. Another flash from a rooftop a quarter of a mile down, possibly from sun reflecting off the shooter’s sunglasses, Annja decided. She said to Garin, “I’m going after him.”

  He palmed the pistol he always wore under his left arm. “Right behind you.”

  She took off down the street, pushing through the crowd that had become knit in a tangle of legs and arms as men and women attempted to see if their idol was safe. In Annja’s wake, a chorus of approval from the protestors weakened their argument against cruelty.

  “Was he hit?” Annja called back to Garin.

  “The bullet was four feet off its mark. What did you see?”

  “That building on the left side of the street. Three-story yellow brick with the curved windows along the top and Moorish tile work.” The city was old and didn’t boast many buildings over three stories high, so the skyscape was easy to pick out. “I’m going around this side. You take the north wall.”

  She dodged down a narrow, cobbled street where the streetlights didn’t reach and, seeing Garin didn’t follow, was surprised he’d taken orders without argument. He was a man who gave orders. And the only time he listened to a female was if she’d whispered a sweet nothing in his ear or dangled an HK P7 before him like a carrot.

 
Festive music close by kept Annja from picking out the sounds of footsteps, but the clang of metal against brick signaled someone had dismounted an iron stairway hugging the building. Turning right she spied a dark figure racing away from the scene, toward the music and glow of colored lights.

  Annja had a revelation. If that was the shooter, he—or she—was dressed in the least likely attire.

  Garin veered around the other side of the building, and she signaled with a slashing gesture the way the shooter had run.

  “You get a look?” he called.

  Dare she admit what she’d seen? It couldn’t have been the shooter.

  They converged in an alleyway littered with graffiti and headed toward the street where the live music was coming from. Arriving at the end of the street, Annja’s heart sank. The crowd was thick, dressed in bright skirts and colors. When the bullfights were in town there was always a party.

  “The shooter was wearing a skirt,” she said as they paused in the passageway before entering the fray.

  Garin quirked an eyebrow at her. She sensed he was holding off a snort of laughter.

  “The shooter was female,” she reiterated, confident in what she had seen.

  “Let’s hope so, because I’d hate to think it was a man. You sure? Maybe you saw a dancer from the crowd?”

  “I saw what I saw. No rifle, but running like she had a reason to run. I think the skirt was red with polka dots, though with the shadows that’s only a guess.”

  “Polka dots? A common fabric choice for the locals. Which will make finding the shooter virtually impossible.”

  They walked into the center of the festival. The street was packed wall to wall with tourists, children and dancers whirling near guitarists and singers.

  “Let’s scout the area,” Annja said.

  As they insinuated themselves into the crowd loitering beneath colorful swags of bright paper flags and lamps, skirts of many colors swirled about them. Everywhere flashes of red and white polka dots caught Annja’s eye.