by Alex Archer
“Only when I was working at the Madrid museum. Gorgeous things. Why do you ask?”
“I saw a couple in Manuel Bravo’s home.”
Harlow whistled in appreciation. “They can’t possibly be authentic. Acquiring even one of those would be quite a feat.”
“Yes, and perhaps worth murder.”
“Annja, do take my warning about pointing the finger at a local hero seriously.”
“I do, and I will. You’re probably right. They couldn’t possibly be authentic. Thank you again for the invite to view the coins, James. We’ll talk soon.”
So, she’d missed something key about the dig. Someone was funding Professor Crockett’s efforts near the city to keep him close by. Because no matter if he found nothing on his digs, maybe he was a front for bigger and better things.
Such as whatever had been in the wood crate in
Diego’s hotel room. A round object, a little smaller in circumference than a basketball.
“Like a votive crown,” Annja muttered.
Sitting up on the hard iron patio chair and stretching out a leg before her, she typed in Visigothic votive crown. Google images brought up pictures of the gold votive crown displayed in the Madrid museum. It had been designed by the Visigoth king Recceswinth in the seventh century and donated to the Roman Catholic Church. The crown had a circumference that could very well be similar to a basketball.
Annja sat back, crossing her arms. Fitting the crown into the wooden crate worked like a How to Smuggle Artifacts tutorial video in her mind. She replayed it over a few times, and it continued to fit snugly into the brown packing paper shreds.
She brought up all the information she could find on the Visigothic votive crowns. There weren’t many pieces circulating through the museum system at the moment. The most famous were included in the Treasure of Guarrazar, dug up close to Toledo, Spain, in the mid-nineteenth century. It comprised twenty-six votive crowns and crosses offered to the Roman Catholic Church by the Visigoth kings in the seventh century. The medieval treasure had been divided over the years, and many pieces had been lost—which Annja interpreted as stolen or sold to private collectors. There was only a nineteenth-century lithograph drawing of a few of the Visigothic crowns, no actual photographs, so Annja couldn’t get a good idea if the crowns in Bravo’s sanctuary resembled any from the Guarrazar collection.
The National Archaeological Museum of Spain, in Madrid, actually listed six crowns in their possession. As well, the Musée de Cluny in Paris featured two, one of which had been bejeweled with pearls.
She found a gorgeous picture of a gold crown decorated with sapphires and precious stones that once belonged to King Recceswinth in the second half of the seventh century. The elaborate filigree design featured a dangling Byzantine pendant cross, along with the Latin words RECCESVINTUVS REX OFFERET, meaning “King Recceswinth offered this.” A truly remarkable piece.
Annja tilted a look at the crown. It seemed more elaborate than the ones in Bravo’s home, but his had been decorated with sapphires and the one had letters on it that read “Given by Alaric.”
She transferred a jpeg to her cell phone, then looked up King Alaric. Much earlier than Recceswinth, Alaric was fourth century and had been the first Germanic leader to take the city of Rome. His name meant “king of all” and he had been known as King of the Visigoths. He sacked Rome many times and liked to stage sieges, which was nothing new for the time period. There were no references to a votive crown in his biography, but that didn’t rule out the possibility that Alaric had one fashioned. His apparent lust for requesting outrageous ransoms led her to believe he would have surrounded himself with fine things, including a gold crown or two.
“I wonder if one or two crowns have been reported stolen within the past few years.”
After another fifteen minutes spent searching, she stumbled on a brief article listing the Cluny museum as having reported a crown missing six months earlier while in transport to the University of London. Police had investigated and had quickly traced the diverted shipment to a British man, who had been found dead in a warehouse of stolen artifacts. A local man, he was named as a police informant and had committed a laundry list of minor criminal activity. No name was mentioned—and the article stopped there. The case had just stopped.
“Weird. And yet…”
Annja had a hunch. A local London man who informed about stolen artifacts? She knew a guy like that. Russell Jones was sixty going on twenty and had never met a stolen chunk of pottery he didn’t like and couldn’t sell. He was also keen on tracking the nonexistent paper trail of artifacts and knew everyone who had ever touched looted goods, from decades of looting in every country under every condition. He was the last of the wild and crazy pothunters from a generation that had come before the dawn of the big-business organizations who operated by gun and threat.
Picking up the cell phone, she scanned through her contacts, pleased to find she still had Russell’s number. He changed it often, so she didn’t expect it to go through, but when a female answered, she asked after Russell, using the code name he expected.
The woman sniffed, and Annja heard her sit roughly on what must have been a creaky metal folding chair.
“Is he all right?” Annja asked. “He’s a friend. I haven’t spoken to him in years, though, and had a question about a Visigothic crown.”
“That damned crown!” the woman wailed, and the sound of her sniffling followed.
Bingo. Annja could guess Russell Jones had touched the votive crown at some point. But was it either of the crowns in El Bravo’s sanctuary? The one stolen from the Cluny? “Can I speak to him about it?”
“He’s not here.” More sniffling and a very unfeminine snort.
“Can I leave you my number so he can return my call? It’s important. I’m trying to track the origins of a specific votive crown and determine the current buyer.”
“He’s dead,” the woman said and snorted loudly. “Because of that stupid crown. So you won’t get any answers, and I don’t know who you are—”
Sensing she was going to hang up, Annja spoke quickly. “I’m so sorry. Do you happen to know where he sold the crown or even where it was shipped?”
“Are you going to find the guy who shot him in the back of the head?”
“I…uh, did you report it to the authorities?”
“They were the ones who found him dead when they were investigating the crown. He was going to marry me, you know.”
“Oh. Sure. Again, I’m sorry. But…” Not exactly a delicate question to put to the grieving fiancée. Matters of the heart always angled just by Annja’s common sense.
“I think it was Spain,” the woman blurted. “I’m sure of it because I like the curly stuff they have on their interior design. Russell called it Moorish or something like that. I wanted to visit but he said we’d have to wait for the honeymoon.”
“Spain. Thank you. That helps me a lot. Uh, if you’ve records…?”
“If you’re a friend of Russell’s you should know better.”
“I do.” All the man’s records were in his head. He would never risk putting anything to paper. “And I thank you. Goodbye.”
Annja hung up. The setting sun flashed across the hotel’s glass-topped tables.
Two men who handled the votive crown were now dead. No, make that three, if indeed the crown had been inside the crate in Diego’s hotel room. Everyone who had touched the crown was dead or missing. So whoever held it now was either next on that list or the one responsible.
As well, Ava had mentioned something about a man being found dead on the beach with a stab wound to his back. She typed in the info to bring up a search and found an obituary for Salamandre Riche, no family, and a stab wound to the back. Deemed a derelict, that was all it mentioned about him.
Might he have been used as a liaison to deliver a valuable gold crown?
Hmm…
“I wonder if a certain person gets so upset when people touch his
stuff that he’s willing to murder for it.”
14
Manuel waited patiently as Cristo unwrapped the bolero jacket from the crisp tissue paper that kept it pristine while traveling from stadium to stadium. The jacket was stiff and even when off him retained its shape due to the starch and elaborate beadwork. After each fight, Cristo brushed it clean if there was no blood on it and repacked it in tissue before hanging it in a special traveling wardrobe case. It had to be soaked in cold water overnight if it had taken on blood.
He preferred the light blue traje de luces because it had brought him luck over the years. Much better than the purple suit he’d been offered by a wily tailor last year. The fabric had been the color of a coffin lining. Very bad luck, should he wear that. Though he didn’t believe in luck in the ring, facing down the bull, he welcomed it most other times.
Luck had not brought Annja Creed into his life.
There was something about her he didn’t like. She was beautiful and smart and curious—that was it. Her curiosity offended him. She’d no right to enter his sanctuary without permission.
“Arms,” Cristo said.
Manuel stretched back his arms and received the bolero jacket. The entire costume weighed around thirteen pounds. A weight he had borne through the years to entertain the masses—at the risk of his life. Not an easy thing to wear in the hot Spanish sun, but he’d grown up wearing a smaller suit designed by his mother. He was more comfortable in the suit of lights than in the casual clothing he wore outside of the ring.
Cristo adjusted the narrow black tie at the front of Manuel’s neck and then left, knowing Manuel’s routine required a half an hour to himself before loading the capes and swords in the van and leaving for the corrida.
To another dance with death.
Striding out from the bedroom with his flat black leather shoes, he made no sound on the tiles as he entered the sanctuary’s plaster walls. He bowed before the altar and crossed himself, shoulder to shoulder, then forehead to chest. Kissing his curled knuckles he offered blessings to the Virgin Mother.
Kneeling on the prie-dieu, he whispered the Lord’s Prayer and then said thanks for all the blessings he had received and was yet to receive. He didn’t think to bless his brother, Renaldo. Rather he did consider it, then decided he would not.
He tilted a look up at the votive crowns, gleaming in the circle of candlelight. The rubies set into the pounded gold on the first crown winked, as if the very eye of God approved the task before him.
Another piece of his soul ransomed for the cheers and adulation.
Standing, he ran his fingertips lightly around the base of the largest gold crown. Closing his eyes, he thought to feel the energy vibrating from kings centuries past. Without their strength, he could find none for himself.
And yet, he didn’t feel the positive energy so strongly tonight as he had on previous days. Annja Creed had touched the crown; he knew it. She’d lied about touching it to cover her crime. She had stolen the energy for herself.
Over the years, women, more often than not, had proven his bane.
He couldn’t allow Creed to keep his power.
Blowing out the candle, Manuel lingered over the smoke, inhaling the strong rosemary scent. It cleared his head and narrowed his focus. Now he would get in the van and ride to the stadium, but he must remain in his body, unaffected by the cheers and jeers from the crowds, the protestors, the hangers-on who wanted to touch him. He would maintain this peace until he entered the ring.
A peace made fragile by the reduced energy of the votive crowns.
* * *
THE PRIVATE ROOMS assigned to the matadors were behind the bull stable. Manuel liked when he heard nothing on the other side of the wall. To hear snorting and the clacking of horns meant the bulls were edgy and fearful. No torero preferred a cowardly opponent.
He paced the short stretch of the narrow room, avoiding the bottled water set out as a courtesy because he’d just taken a piss. He didn’t want to risk voiding his bladder should he be grazed by a horn or, worse, gored. He wouldn’t be gored. He was too quick, too agile. El Bravo was invincible.
He was first to fight this afternoon, and last. He liked those positions. Fresh out in the ring, he was the first to capture the audience’s admiration, and in the last position, he could win them completely after watching the other toreros’ performances, and learning from and avoiding their mistakes.
The door opened, and as he turned to demand solitude, he saw César Soto with his hands shoved in his front pockets. The man broadcast the image of the laid-back cowboy Manuel had seen in American Westerns. He didn’t like the cocky attitude, though some might claim the toreros walked the same arrogant walk.
It wasn’t cockiness but confidence.
“You know I don’t see visitors before the fight,” Manuel said. He was cautious not to allow his voice to cut like the blade he wielded so expertly. He walked around César as if the man were a ring-bred bull who hadn’t seen a man on foot.
“I came to wish you luck.”
Manuel nodded, but he wasn’t buying the lie. “And so you have.”
“You have no right to be quick with me, boy.”
Boy? They were the same age. And really? Manuel stood much higher on the social ladder than Soto did. He liked to use his badge as a means to belittle people. Fortunately, Manuel could rarely be cowed.
That didn’t mean he wouldn’t exercise caution.
Manuel lifted his chin, his jaw tightening. He eyed César, and the man matched his stare with a cool, straight gaze. He possessed a lanky ease about him, again like the gunslingers on the television. His body language was difficult to read, and Manuel didn’t know when the cape would be necessary or when a dash for safety behind the barrier was the wisest move.
“What do you want?” he asked. Adjusting his tone, he struggled to prevent his frustration from spewing out. “The money is gone. I work my body weary each season to meet the blood price my father has been paying on you far too long.”
“I’ve never expected anything from you,” César said in his slow, sure tone. “Yet we remain tied by bonds that sicken me.”
How dare the man insinuate such a thing? “No one asked you to become my keeper.”
“Is that so? Then I should stop covering your tracks? Just let the detritus fall where it may? Splayed out in the open like a dead man for all to see?” César grabbed Manuel by the wrist, but he wrenched away from the presumptuous intimacy.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Right.” Soto rolled his eyes. “Don’t touch your things. Don’t touch you. You’re a freak, Bravo.”
Clenching a fist, Manuel ran it along the lower edge of his jacket, scraping his skin along the gold beading to distract him from his anger.
“Have you spoken to the female archaeologist?” César asked.
“The gorgeous, green-eyed one? Of course.”
“Right. There’s not an attractive woman in the country that hasn’t lain beneath the great El Bravo’s horns. You screw her?”
“Why is that your concern?”
“Because she’s trouble. She’s been looking into things. Asking questions.”
A suspicion Manuel had already begun to entertain. “Then get rid of her.”
“I tried that already. She’s bounced back onto my radar. Which means you had better lay low and keep your horns tucked.”
“I can’t keep her from approaching me. You know how the women—”
“Yes, don’t I know it. Avoid her, Bravo. If you know what’s good for you.”
“You have no idea what is good for me, Soto.”
“Is that so? Well, it’s not that woman. You have another fight in a few days?”
“I get to kill all six bulls. It’s the grand exhibition in my honor.”
“Right. Your one-hundredth corrida. How did I let that one slip from memory?” César stroked a hand along his holstered gun, then opened the door. Outside, Manuel’s team waited in full rega
lia with capes and hats, lined along the hallway, quiet yet anxious. “The archaeologist is bad news, Manuel. She’s getting close to touching things you’d prefer remained untouched.”
“She’s already contaminated something I hold precious.”
“Well, then. You know how to take care of people who touch your things.”
Manuel lowered his head, nodding resolutely. He didn’t like it when Soto presumed things about him.
“To the bulls,” Soto said and left.
Manuel punched the wall. “You will see what I do with the bulls, you bastard.”
15
Garin’s call came as a surprise. Annja was walking along the shore, checking out a row of warehouses edging the south side of the city. Could one of them be hiding illicit antiquities? She had her eye out for armed guards after sighting one at the corner rooftop of a brick building half a block from the nearest dock.
“Manuel mentioned your interest in some crowns he has hanging in his sanctuary?” Garin asked.
“If you call spotting stolen goods an interest, then yes. Is he angry about that? I don’t think he believed me when I told him I hadn’t touched them.”
“On the contrary, he said if you liked them so much you should get one for yourself. He got the replicas at a little shop in Cádiz off San Pedro.”
“That’s not far from the hotel where I’m staying. But a replica? Hard to believe El Bravo would place a cheap trinket in a room he calls his sanctuary.”
“You didn’t go in the sanctuary, did you, Annja?”
“I was lost. Looking for the bathroom.”
Garin sighed heavily. “Annja, don’t do this. Not everything that looks like an artifact is valuable. You of all people should know that. Some items simply hold personal value.”
“And some friendships blind people to the truth.”
She had no right to prod him. It wasn’t as though Garin Braden was redeemable at this stage in his long and notorious life.
“I’m passing along the message. Bravo thought you might be interested in owning one for yourself.”