Joaquim sighed. Had Alejandro ever had much choice in his life? He would suggest that the next time the boy needed to bathe, he should be told he could refuse, but that would make their lives unnecessarily complicated. He handed Marina the bundle from the store. “I had to estimate his size, but I bought a pair of clean outfits for him. Trousers, shirts, suspenders. I should have thought to take his shoes to find a match, but we can probably get a new pair for him later.”
Marina caught her lower lip between her teeth. “His feet are probably wider than a human’s. It would be better for him to have custom-made.”
That would take time they didn’t have. “Noted.”
“There is one thing,” she said as she untied the bundle. “When he undressed to get in the bath, there were no stripes on his legs, no sign of a dorsal fin.”
So his mother was definitely a sereia, not a Canary. “Someone other than his mother taught him Portuguese,” Joaquim said. “If she came from your islands, wouldn’t she have raised him speaking her language?”
Marina’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose. It just seemed odd.”
One more puzzle piece that doesn’t fit.
* * *
ILHAS DAS SEREIAS
Duilio had been the first to see the soldier approaching on horseback, one in Portuguese uniform. So Oriana waited on the drive in front of the beach house, squinting in the late-afternoon sun. Why would one of the soldiers be in such a hurry as to rent a horse?
Captain Vas Neves stood with her. As the horse came galloping down the road, they could see the rider was Corporal Almeida, who had gone just that morning to Quitos with Benites to speak with the Americans. The horse slowed, and as Almeida neared, the captain grabbed the horse’s headstall.
Face flushed, Almeida swung one leg over the horse’s bare withers and slid down to the ground. She drew the reins over the creature’s head and held them as it snorted and blew. “Madam,” she began with a nod in Oriana’s direction. “Captain. I’ve ridden ahead of the main group, but they should start arriving in a few hours.”
Oriana cast a glance at Duilio and turned back to the corporal. “Main group?”
The corporal faced her squarely. “Yes, madam. Not long after we handed that message over to the Americans, our embassy was contacted and given two hours to clear out. Since there’s nowhere on Quitos that will take humans, the lieutenant and your chief of staff agreed we should come here.”
“Clear out?” Oriana asked, beginning to feel like a parrot.
“Start at the beginning, Corporal,” Duilio said, coming closer. “Who gave the order to leave the embassy?”
“Subminister Paredes,” Almeida said. “She came to the embassy herself and informed us it was for our safety.”
Oriana pinched the bridge of her nose. What was going through her aunt’s head? She wasn’t even certain such an order was legal. Could a single government subminister order out an entire ambassadorial mission? Didn’t an expulsion order have to come via the oligarchy itself, or from their Foreign Office? And why so fast? Two hours was ridiculously short notice. While she had no doubt her guard contingent was handling this with aplomb, all the secretaries and clerks and typists were likely terrified.
“Did she say anything else?” Duilio asked. “Are we being expelled?”
“No, Mr. Ferreira, she didn’t use those words. The lieutenant made the call to evacuate, though, based on the warning. The Brazilians were already clearing out when the subminister got to us, so we gave it credence. She went from us directly to the Americans. If there was official paperwork, it came after I left.”
“She told all the embassies to clear out?” Oriana asked. That was a sign of trouble. All the missions’ personnel would have to ferry over to Amado. And while there were a few hotels in Porto Novo, there was certainly not room for that many.
“I was with the first group to get across, madam, so I don’t know. Benites sent me immediately to inform you, and the Brazilian ambassador was kind enough to leave one of his people behind at the ferry so I could get here sooner.”
The Brazilian mission was the smallest, an informal arrangement with a minimal guard. The English, Spanish, and Americans would all have far more people crossing over to Amado. Oriana touched a finger to her temple, needing a moment to think this over.
There were ships in harbor: one Portuguese, a handful of English, a Brazilian, and two American. The embassy staffs, if they couldn’t find lodging, could prevail on the captains of those ships for protection. The Spanish currently didn’t have that option.
“Did you see the English moving? Or the Spanish?” she asked the corporal.
“The subminister seemed to be going along the row of embassies, madam, so notification of the English would have fallen after the Americans, and the Spanish last. But there were already soldiers moving in by the time I was off embassy grounds, so the English would have known something was happening.”
Vas Neves shook her head. “Corporal, what soldiers?”
“Sorry, Captain,” Almeida said, flushing. “Sereia soldiers. Navy, since they wore khaki skirts. Lieutenant Benites will be able to tell you more when she arrives.”
First things first: water, food, and lodging. Duilio gestured for Oriana’s attention. “I’m going to take the boys—”
“Sir,” Vas Neves protested.
Duilio spread his hands wide in apology. “Excuse me. I’d like to take the remaining male guards up to the harbor and meet our people. The chief of staff will be bringing our files, and I’d like to find a safe place to put them.”
As much as she would like to be at the harbor too, just to hear their news faster, Oriana knew she would be more useful at the house, organizing. Benites would have more solid information when she eventually arrived. Along with the full complement of guards. And a dozen clerical workers and the chief of staff. Where am I supposed to put all those people?
And why were they being booted out of their own embassy on such short notice?
Many citizens on Quitos felt the same as her aunt, that the human stain on the islands was destroying their people. She only hoped that the massing of troops near the embassies wasn’t the start of a complete purge of foreigners. That would be the worst possible way to end her tenure as ambassador.
CHAPTER 25
TUESDAY, 28 APRIL 1903; BARCELONA
Alejandro hadn’t run off in the night, as Marina had halfway expected. In the morning he’d been in his bed in the sitting area, feigning sleep. When she’d told him to get up and get dressed, he acted as if that was an order. He had a disconcerting tendency to do as told and a disregard for his own privacy that made her suspect he’d learned never to protest anything.
He hadn’t given them many answers the previous evening, and they hadn’t wanted to press him too hard. He had nothing of his mother’s that Joaquim could use to find her. He had seen the journal; his mother still had it in her possession when she left him. He didn’t know who, if anyone, had hired them to steal the book. He didn’t know Iria Serpa and hadn’t ever met Dr. Serpa or Father Salazar. As for his situation at the prison, he’d been born there, had lived his whole life there until he and his mother went to the islands. He didn’t like to talk about it, Marina could tell.
He also never asked questions, which she found odd. He didn’t ask Joaquim anything about his family in Portugal. He didn’t ask why they were in Spain hunting his mother. He didn’t ask how long they would stay or where they would go. He didn’t complain either. He donned the new clothing that Joaquim had purchased, never commenting on the fact that his sleeves were too long.
His old garments were nearly worn out, some of the grime so embedded that Marina didn’t think it would ever come out. She folded each piece as neatly as possible to have the hotel staff launder them. The key rattled in the door, and Joaquim came back in. His eyes went to the small bed against one wall, and then
he looked at her, one eyebrow raised.
“I sent him into the dressing room to make himself presentable,” she said.
“Ah.” Joaquim shook his head, looking bemused by their new responsibility. They’d lain abed late into the night, trying to decide what to do with the boy. Whispering, because they worried he would overhear them. “I placed a call to the consulate again. They had a message from Duilio. It turns out they’d discovered Alejandro’s name and that he must be related to Duilio and me.”
“We already knew that,” she said.
“Yes, but he couldn’t have known that we knew. But the message was sent yesterday, so it’s helpful to know the Americans can get word from the islands to Barcelona that quickly.”
“Can they send word back?”
“That, they didn’t tell me. Also, they’ve not found the man from Paris or Leandra herself.”
Marina sighed, unable to hide her frustration. “The Americans seem to have fouled up everything.”
“Yes, this fellow from Paris has done more harm than good.” He came over and wrapped his arms around her from behind, briefly resting his chin atop her head. “Since they have nothing for us, what would you think of going to Terrassa this morning?”
They’d discussed that possibility during the night, for the first time since he’d mentioned his great-grandmother on the train. “We’ll have to bring Alejandro along.”
“Do you mind?”
She turned to face him. “No. Let’s go.”
Out of the corner of one eye, she saw that Alejandro stood in the door of the bedroom, his new cap in his hand. She went and knelt down in front of him. “After breakfast we plan to visit a relative of Joaquim’s. Would you mind that?”
He shrugged, not much of an answer.
“The people who are supposed to find your mother still haven’t done so, but as soon as we return, I promise we’ll start looking for her too.”
Alejandro nodded, so she rose and offered her hand. “We’re going to go down to the restaurant and have breakfast there.”
He wordlessly put his hand in hers. Clearly, food was important to him.
* * *
ILHAS DAS SEREIAS
The guards were camped out on the beach, most acting content to be there. Grandmother Monteiro had borrowed several canvas pavilions that offered cover from the sun and protection should it rain. The members of the clerical staff were all lodged inside the house itself, most sleeping on the terraces at night.
Their previous visitor had returned. Madam Norton had rented most of a hotel in Porto Novo for her staff. She’d driven out early to join them for a late breakfast and to inform them that their message to Joaquim had been sent despite the precipitous evacuation of the ambassadorial missions. “I’m sure you realize, Mr. Ferreira, the sereia government doesn’t give a damn what we consider a reasonable action to take against a foreign embassy.”
“I do,” Duilio admitted. “I merely point out that their Foreign Office, limited as it is, had to know a rushed evacuation would be looked upon with a jaundiced eye.”
Madam Norton smiled down into her cup of coffee. She was attired in far more casual garb today, a white shirtwaist with a beige-striped skirt. It made him suspect that clothing had been low on her list of priorities when choosing what to carry out of the embassy. What had she chosen to take instead?
Their own chief of staff had packed most of the paperwork deemed sensitive into locked cases and put them in a heavily guarded wagon. Once ferried across to Amado, those cases were transported directly to the Portuguese steam freighter Tesouro and placed in its hold. The chief of staff and the remaining male guards—minus Costa—were stationed on the ship with that cache. Duilio had been taken aback by how much so-called sensitive material they’d accumulated in only three months. The Americans, with their years of work here, could not possibly have transported everything important.
“While I would like to say I’m concerned for the safety of the Spanish,” Madam Norton added, “I admit to being rather blasé about their situation.”
Their situation. During the exodus of the various embassies, one notable fact had become clear. The Spanish embassy compound wasn’t being evacuated. In fact, the military personnel who’d been seen massing nearby had moved to surround the wrought-iron and stone walls of the Spanish compound, a row of sereia naval sentries outside the Spanish guard posts. The Spanish guards were keeping them out, but the sereia were keeping the Spanish in.
Madam Norton leaned back in her chair. “You’ve been here on Amado less than two weeks, Madam Paredes. You’ve been visited by two ambassadors—I’m calling Madam Davila an ambassador because we both know that’s what she is despite her husband’s title. The subminister of intelligence, who also happens to be your aunt, has come to see you, and now that subminister is holding the Spanish embassy hostage with the navy’s help. I must say, I’ve been here more than a decade and have never provoked the evacuation of the embassies. For someone so young, that’s an impressive feat.”
Duilio kept his grin under control. Oriana preferred not to draw attention. It was an aspect of politics she was learning to tolerate, but he didn’t think she’d ever choose the spotlight. Certainly not this way.
“As for your queries about Subminister Paredes,” Madam Norton said, “my source inside the ministry says that it was indeed the subminister who sent a notice to Ambassador Alvaro in Northern Portugal about your near execution. One of her coworkers recalled it, since the subminister was agitated enough on that occasion to be remarked upon.”
“Thank you, madam,” Oriana said.
Duilio tucked away the fact that the American ambassador had a source inside the ministry itself for later consideration. What the agent had found, though, meant that Jovita Paredes had moved directly to save Oriana’s life. That moved Jovita into the role of potential ally.
“She hasn’t been able to locate any records old enough to verify anything about your father, though,” the ambassador continued.
“Ten years is a long time,” Oriana said.
“I agree.” Madam Norton tugged on her plain cotton gloves and gathered her parasol and handbag. “Now, I must return to the hotel. If you find out anything else about Leandra, will you let me know?”
With their promise—they could hardly refuse when the woman had gone so far to help them—the ambassador made her stately way out.
* * *
TERRASSA
Joaquim straightened his tie. He rubbed the top of each shoe against the back of the opposing pant leg. He should have asked Duilio about this, or Rafael. His own limited seer’s abilities had never told him anything about seeking out his great-grandmother.
He’d always wanted to know why his mother’s life turned out the way it had. He’d hired an investigator in Barcelona who’d traced his mother’s difficulties back to her grandmother. His mother’s mother, Mereia Quintana, had married an unapproved suitor, Emilio Castillo, a scion of the minor gentry from the north. Her mother had refused to speak to her ever again, and Mereia had died when Joaquim’s mother, Rosa, was born.
Joaquim knew little of his mother’s early life; she had died when he was only eight. When Rosa was a young woman, Emilio Castillo had sold his daughter to Alexandre Ferreira like a piece of chattel. Joaquim’s investigator had said it was widely known that Castillo had gambling debts, but Joaquim didn’t care why the man had sold his daughter. It was criminal of him to have done it at all, a betrayal of the trust a child should be able to have in her own father.
He gazed down at the top of Alejandro’s head. The boy had fallen asleep next to him on the bench, his head lolling against Joaquim’s side with the train’s motion. His cap had come off and now lay on Joaquim’s leg. The boy had slept a great deal in the last two days. That might have something to do with being able to eat his fill and having a safe place to sleep.
Joaqui
m didn’t know what he was going to do when they found Leandra Rocha. She was the boy’s mother. While Joaquim recognized her right to keep her son to herself, she’d already made plans for Alejandro’s disposition, which involved turning the boy over to the Ferreira family. For the moment, that was Joaquim. But when they found her, would she demand him back? And would he fight her to keep the boy?
He was beginning to suspect that Marina wouldn’t let him do anything less.
What had Alexandre Ferreira done for this son of his? Had he known that Alejandro existed? I’ll probably never find the answer to that. But he could amend Alexandre Ferreira’s negligence, just as the elder Joaquim Tavares had once done by raising a son he knew not to be his own. Joaquim set his arm about the boy’s shoulders, only to withdraw it when Alejandro jerked awake, eyes wide.
“It’s only me,” Joaquim said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Wordlessly, Alejandro settled back on the bench. He snatched up his cap and put it on his head again, then leaned forward to gaze out the window. The train was passing over a narrow river and rumbling the last of the distance into the town of Terrassa. It was by far the smallest town they’d visited, although since the station was north of the town, Joaquim suspected they weren’t seeing much of Terrassa itself.
The station wasn’t grand, although new, a building of white brick with arches that led to the street before it. They walked to where drivers waited and quickly found one willing to take them out to the Quintana Estate for the right number of pesetas. Joaquim helped Marina up into the carriage, let Alejandro scramble up on his own, and a moment later they were on the move again. The open carriage allowed them to view the edge of the town, but the horses went at a good clip and they were out on a country lane in only a couple of minutes. Alejandro watched the countryside pass without comment, although the first time he saw a vineyard, he turned his head to view the rows of vines as they passed.
The Shores of Spain Page 21