The only time in four years he hadn’t been made to feel like a helpless young boy who was too dumb to do anything for himself was with Julian and the San Bartolomé boys. They had come close to treating him like an equal. It had been fleeting, but he’d felt it.
So, it was no surprise that once Armada had heard of this, he had to immediately ruin it all. He couldn’t have his obedient little puppy dog go off by himself. So, he had to stamp it out, make sure Lucas had no hope of ever feeling like that again.
But Lucas was smarter than that, possibly smarter than the old man. There was a way to repair all this, to put things back the way they were. But to do it, he had to act fast. He had to get out of the room before Armada came back.
In his condition, however, moving fast meant pain. Lucas sat the rest of the way up in bed, taking long breaths to keep the pain in his ribs at bay. Although his left leg was still throbbing, it was his midsection that felt as though knives were piercing his insides whenever he moved.
Lucas planted his injured leg on the floor, then put his right leg in front and attempted to hoist himself awkwardly to his feet. His midsection throbbed again and Lucas cried out, but he stayed on his feet, panting all the way.
Grabbing a broken chair leg from the corner to use as a cane, Lucas shuffled his way to the door, trying not to cry out in pain whenever his midsection twisted slightly. He’d broken a rib or two, and now the key was learning to push himself forward without using the left side of his body in any way. Not an easy feat.
Lucas eventually shuffled his way out into the corridor, and seeing he was alone, he planted his free hand against the wall and slowly made his way down to the front door of the inn and out into the street.
Every step was painful, and he was becoming aware that his left ankle had swollen, making it difficult to move his foot. But he didn’t have far to go, and the cool air of the night felt good on his face and in his lungs. He focused his mind on the sensation of it entering his mouth and his throat, the only parts of his body that didn’t hurt, and pushed on.
Lucas made his way toward the university, hoping he wouldn’t run into any of Salamanca’s law officers who wandered these streets at night to keep the peace. They were mostly there to keep the vagrants and panhandlers at bay, to push them into the dark corners so they couldn’t be seen, or kick them out of the city entirely. If Lucas were to come across one of those, he would have a very hard time explaining himself in his present condition. Nor did he have much hope of running away.
But fortune smiled upon him and Lucas made it to the front door of the building. He took out the key he’d been given and unlocked the door as quietly as he knew how. Creaking the door open, he glanced over his shoulder to see that no one passing on the street was giving him any attention. But the darkness of the night had already descended, and no one was about. A few candles burned in the windows of the buildings opposite, but there was no way the people in those rooms could see him. The moon was becoming but a crescent, giving Lucas the cover of almost total darkness.
Inside, the building was dark except for a candle that was burning in the room on the back on the upper floor. Just a tiny bit of candlelight spilled into the foyer, giving Lucas enough light to see by. He shuffled his way quietly down the hall and at one point nearly fell over as his left foot tripped over the lip of a broken tile, forcing him to fall against the wall and bite his tongue to keep from screaming.
Lucas recovered and slinked his way down the hall to the familiar door. There was talking coming from inside, and a candle was burning.
Fear leaped into Lucas’s throat. This could all go so badly. But he had to risk it. It was too important.
Lucas opened the door to find Julian sprawled out on his settee and smoking tobacco. The entire room was enveloped in a haze that gave off a bitter, sour smell. A window had been left open, but without a breeze tonight, it did little to dispel the smoke.
“Do you have a death wish?” Julian said. He shot to his feet and raced over to Lucas, who readied himself for another beating.
Instead, Julian slammed the door shut. “Keep the door shut! I don’t want to have to deal with Ambrosio tonight.”
“Sorry…,” Lucas squeaked.
Julian was now standing far too close, glaring at him with a threatening look. One punch on the left side of his ribs, Lucas knew, and he would probably pass out from the pain.
“What are you doing here? You want another beating?”
“No…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…but…I wanted to warn you.”
“Warn me? About what?”
“That constable, Armada. He’s going to arrest you in the morning,” Lucas said.
“Arrest me?”
“Yes. He’s already planning on arresting Aurelio tonight. He thinks one of you killed Gregorio Cordoba.”
Julian backed away from Lucas, lost in his thoughts. Lucas could smell the brandy on him. He’d probably been drinking all day, celebrating with the boys at their having taken care of a mole in their group.
But Julian was sober now, his tobacco pipe left smouldering on the table behind him, forgotten. His eyes darted about the room, thinking.
“I felt like you should know,” Lucas said. Julian had gone quiet and Lucas needed to know if he was going to beat him again or not. If so, he wanted to be ready.
Julian turned and gazed out the window at the dark city just beyond for a long time, taking long slow breaths.
“Thank you…Lucas…,” Julian finally said. “I’m glad you told me. I don’t know of any other student here who would have done that.”
Lucas relaxed a bit. There wouldn’t be another beating. At least, not tonight.
Julian turned around and Lucas saw his warm expression return. “I need to leave.”
Julian went to his wardrobe, grabbed a canvas bag from the back of it, and began stuffing some clothes inside.
“Where will you go?”
“I have places I can hide. I’ll have to leave tonight, though. I hope Federigo is still up.”
“Can I come with you?”
Julian stopped packing, looking back at Lucas, confused. “Why do you want to come?”
“I…I have nowhere else to go tonight.”
“I thought you lived here?”
“Tonight…I…don’t live anywhere.”
Saying it out loud sent a shiver down Lucas’s spine. At this point, there was no going back in his betrayal of Armada. There was a good chance he would never have a home with the old man again. And he hadn’t prepared. He hadn’t even thought to pack, but he could hardly risk returning to the accommodation now. The only clothes he had were those soiled and bloodied ones he was wearing at the moment.
“All right. We’ll both go,” Julian said as he went back to packing.
“What about Aurelio? Shouldn’t we warn him, too?”
“No. We don’t have time to worry about him. Come on, we need to get downstairs without Ambrosio seeing us. Federigo is down there and can get the cart ready in minutes. He’ll get us out of here.”
Julian left the room and as Lucas struggled to follow as questions began to drift through his mind. Why was Julian so happy to let Aurelio go to jail? What did he know? Did Julian somehow know it was Aurelio, and that’s why he was happy to leave a fellow San Bartolomé man behind?
For a moment, Lucas considered returning to his accommodation, returning to the comfortable bed, and returning to face Armada. It wouldn’t take long for Armada to work out his deception. It meant returning to his old life, but with even less respect than he’d had before. And he’d have to face the disappointed gaze of the old man for who knew how long. The thought of it was too terrible to contemplate.
Lucas couldn’t do that. He was loyal to Julian, to San Bartolomé. No matter what, he would give anything to them. He didn’t for a moment consider Julian to be the killer. He just wasn’t the type. Yes, he could be vicious when the situation called for it, but there was a long way between beating and killing.
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Yet if Julian did know the killer, and it was Aurelio, Lucas would inform Armada somehow. Perhaps in a letter, sent from whatever secretive location he and Julian were now heading to. He would have done his duty to the case.
The thought of it didn’t sit well. An instinct told him this was wrong, but Lucas ignored that feeling. Tonight, he was taking his future into his own hands. Tonight, he was choosing to help his friend, the only real friend he’d ever had.
Tonight, his life would begin.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The city constables were waiting for Armada when he returned home from the tavern just after nine. He had spotted them before they knew he was there and he considered running. But to what end? To leave Salamanca and never return? No, there was no other way but to face whatever obstacle was about to be thrown at him.
Armada approached the front door to the building he was staying at slowly, keeping his body relaxed to show he had no intention of struggling or fleeing. The men declared him under arrest, clasped his wrists in irons, and escorted him to the ayuntamiento.
It was the next morning before anyone arrived at his cell to tell him what was going on. Arturo was the first. It was just after sun up and he had hurried over with no escorts, using his influence to have some time with the prisoner before the city officials came to start taking depositions and assess charges to bear.
“Armada,” Arturo said through gritted teeth, rushing to the bars. It meant they probably had little time.
Armada slowly rose from the stone floor he’d dozed on that night, happy to have a reason to be upright where his back wouldn’t ache quite so much. It had been a long night staring at the night sky through the tiny window above. But all his years being plagued by sleeplessness had prepared him well for just such an eventuality.
“Corregidor,” Armada said. “Buenas dias.”
“What were you thinking, releasing Enrique like that?”
“Is that why they arrested me? The constables who took me into custody seemed unaware of what I’d done.”
“You forged a release warrant and the ayuntamiento knows it. They caught Enrique trying to flee the city through the gate at Villamayor. It’s fortunate there was a man working there that night who recognised him. Otherwise, he’d be gone by now, with no way to track him.”
“So, he’s back in custody?”
“They’re going to hang him on Friday. No stopping that now. What were you thinking?”
Armada was disappointed. All that work to free an innocent man, only for his carelessness to not only get caught again, but to bring his violent death that much quicker. It seems God had no desire to change Enrique’s fate.
“I was thinking he was innocent and didn’t belong in prison.”
“Which is fine, if you were the one who arrested him. But you weren’t. And you broke the law to let him go. You have any idea how much trouble you’ve gotten us both into?”
Armada produced the key to Gregorio’s workshop and handed it to Arturo.
“What is this?”
“The fruits of my sacrifice. The key to Gregorio’s workshop. You are free to dispose of the evidence, or bring it to light. It won’t matter to the case much either way now.”
The key didn’t seem to soothe Arturo’s battered nerves, and he stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket to deal with later.
“You were supposed to remain objective, Armada. Nobody was supposed to know you were here. You remember us talking about that? You find the killer, find the evidence, then we reveal what you found. Now it’s all a mess. You’re going to prison, that’s for sure. As am I, possibly worse. At the very least, my career and my reputation are over. And for what? To let a man who you think might be innocent go? Was it worth it?”
“Enrique Talavera did not kill Gregorio Cordoba.”
“So, who did? Do you know? Because everything depends on that now.”
Armada knew he didn’t have the answer Arturo had come for.
“No. Not yet. I need more time.”
“Well, you don’t have it. What you have is a long trip back to Granada in front of you. I’ve spoken to the magistrate after they brought you in last night. He’s decided to order you be returned to Granada under escort with a letter detailing your crimes addressed to your majordomo. They wanted Cordoba’s killer, not you. You, they want out of the city as quickly as possible so they can pretend this case is over and everything is going back to normal.”
“It won’t,” Armada said. “Not with a killer out there. They will kill again. I promise.”
“Yes, and if you’d done your job correctly and kept yourself discreet, you might be out there looking for him! But instead, you’re in here because you decided to be reckless with your morals. Come on, Armada! I feel bad for Enrique too, but you let your conscience get the better of you. You should have focused your efforts on gathering evidence on the real killer!”
“Surely this magistrate is interested in finding the killer as well.”
Arturo looked at him with a shocked look, then let an amused smile crease across his face. “I never pictured you to be so naïve, Armada. Hasta luego.”
“Wait,” Armada said. “I need you to do me a favour. My page…he should know what is happening. Can you inform him? He will need money to travel back to Granada as well.”
Arturo agreed to send word to Lucas, then left. For the next few hours, Armada was left alone in his cell once again. Then, around midday a flurry of events happened very quickly. The magistrate showed up with an entourage of clerks and a notary, who took a statement that was signed and stamped, after which charges were declared and recorded. These charges had already been penned into a letter recommending that Armada serve a long prison sentence for forging a release warrant. Then, whatever valuables had been confiscated from his room, including his prized sherry barrel, were inventoried and shockingly were just enough to cover all the fees associated with his arrest and his extradition. The only possession he would keep was his cart and Teo’s mule, which would be escorted back to Granada along with him.
By late afternoon, everything had been prepared and Armada was clasped in irons once again, put on the back of a horse, and together with three soldiers, they were soon making their way down the Rúa de San Martín for the last time. The soldiers used their muscle to force the traffic to the sides of the road as they passed, making quite a spectacle as they went. Armada suspected this was by design.
Once they reached the River Gate, their papers were checked over thoroughly by the excise men there, who had to give the appearance to all city officials of being studious with their recordkeeping, even though much of the fees they collected were kept from their records.
With everything checked, the party moved outside of Salamanca’s walls toward the old Roman Bridge. It was here Armada felt himself start to get annoyed. None of this felt right. The case couldn’t possibly end like this. What had he missed? There were plenty of suspects, but none of them quite fit the profile entirely. There were still too many missing pieces. If only he’d known how little time he had left, perhaps he could have…what? Cases like these took time. There was no avoiding that. Perhaps he should have seen this coming from the moment he’d stepped foot in the city. The Holy Brotherhood were supposed to police the empty, lawless countryside. Not the cities, all of which had their own law enforcement officials. He should have known it was going to end like this.
But something wasn’t right. There was a missing piece his mind couldn’t let go. Armada began to go over the evidence he had again and again. He thought about Enrique Talavera, Aurelio Martinez, Julian de Benaudalla, even the corregidor. They all were connected, but none of them seemed to fit well. Which meant there was a missing piece of the puzzle. Some clue, some bit of evidence he was still missing.
Armada’s mind rolled back to Gregorio’s workshop. Other than finding his payment money, there had been precious little to learn there. It shouldn’t have been that way. That shop was the beating h
eart of this case and he’d found nothing. How was that possible?
The cart began to bob up and down as the wooden wheels rattled and groaned over the stones of the bridge, distracting Armada. There was little traffic here for the moment, and the soldiers slowed their pace as they crossed the bridge, allowing Armada a chance to peer out over the Tormes River and enjoy the natural serenity that surrounded them for the moment. Everything was green and lush and the air was full of birds and life as they furiously prepared themselves for a summer of eating and mating. After this, Armada knew, there would be long stretches of hot desert wastelands, where there would be few birds and little greenery to enjoy. Just endless hours of jostling about over deeply rutted goat tracks.
Something crawled out from the morass at the back of Armada’s mind. It was connected to the workshop. It had been but a vague instinct before. Just a sense that he’d missed something. It had returned now, much stronger, much clearer. Armada focused on the banks of the Tormes. The river. The water. Then thoughts of the workshop again. What was bothering him? Oh, why did his mind have to work so slowly sometimes?
The only thing that had seemed out of place at the time was the sulphur. The sulphur had been missing. Which meant Gregorio would have kept it somewhere else.
Which meant there was a “somewhere else.” Gregorio had yet more secrets, stashed away in a place not even Maria had known about. Perhaps not even Julian de Benaudalla.
Something Teo had said bubbled up to the surface.
There are bits under the arches where bricks are missing. It’s easy to hide things there.
The Domingo Armada Mysteries Box Set Page 71