Her aunt believed that. The family line was all important.
Jovita sighed heavily, and added, “Valeria and Vitoria are among them. They denied knowledge of Lygia’s murder, but have both admitted they allowed you to be executed under false charges of treason. They hoped that by giving you to the Spanish, they wouldn’t have to turn over their own daughters one day.”
Oriana laid one hand over her belly, feeling the slight swell there. She didn’t know what she would have done in her aunts’ place. She hoped to the gods she never faced such a question.
Jovita’s gaze locked with Oriana’s for a long moment. “Iria was right, by the way. You do have your mother’s look.”
Oriana bowed her head to acknowledge the compliment.
“She was wrong, though, about the other. It was never the case that Lygia didn’t know how the game was played. Your mother simply refused to violate her principles. I believe you’ve also inherited that trait.”
Oriana wasn’t certain whether that was a compliment or a warning. “Thank you,” she said anyway.
Jovita looked away, picked up a stack of papers, and began flipping through them as if anxious to return to her work. “The Spanish embassy will be completely cleared in a day or so. I didn’t have enough personnel I trusted to clear all the embassies, which is why we simply forced the others out. But the navy has since agreed to supervise the investigation of the foreign missions, so your people can start moving back in as soon as tomorrow. They will, however, each be interviewed and cleared to ensure that the Canaries haven’t slipped in another agent.”
Oriana signed her acceptance of those terms. Fortunately, it would be a simple matter to prove the humanity of her personnel—they only had to display their human feet.
Jovita crossed her arms over her chest. “Would you, if needed, be willing to testify in the trials?”
That would make her more of a target, but she had to do it. Her mother had surely given her life trying to prevent this. She could help put an end to it and bring the collaborators to justice. Oriana glanced back at Duilio, and when he signed agreement, she said, “Yes.”
“This . . . series of revelations has shaken the oligarchy. When it gets into the press, we may see repercussions against the families in power.”
Oriana couldn’t hide her surprise. “It’s going to be allowed into the newspapers?”
“Yes,” Jovita said gravely. “It’s frankly the best way to protect any witnesses who do come forward. And as long as I’m alive, I mean to ensure that these people will not escape what they’ve done.”
Oriana hoped her aunt lived a long life, then.
CHAPTER 31
BARCELONA
Marina laid one hand over her mouth, kneeling on the floor next to Adler’s unmoving form. She closed her eyes. Be calm, she reminded herself. Be calm.
She had to help Adler first. She wasn’t a healer. She had no idea what to do with injuries, but once aboard the English ship there had been an incident with a seaman stabbed by another in the dining room. The cook had ordered one of the other men to hold a clean towel against the wound until the ship’s surgeon got there. Marina surveyed Adler’s clothes. Blood stained the left side of his coat, near the floor. He must have been lying atop the injury before she’d turned him onto his back. She clambered around to that side and drew his coat back, exposing a bloodied shirt. The wound was clearly visible from this angle, a deep cut between two ribs. She took off her gloves, dug a handkerchief out of her handbag, and pressed the handkerchief against the cut.
Adler groaned again when she did so. She had to be causing him pain, but that meant he was alive. She could only hope this was the right thing to do.
She looked up when voices sounded outside, echoing in the corridor under the arches. A moment later, two large men with aprons pushed the door wider open. They spoke quickly to each other in Catalan, and one immediately left. The other came to Marina’s side. “Is this your husband, madam?”
At least she was moderately certain he’d asked her that. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Catalan,” she said in Spanish. “He’s not my husband. Mr. Adler is with the American consulate general.”
“An American?”
Thank heavens he spoke Spanish. “Yes. He was with my husband, and two men set on them.” She could hardly admit that police had taken her husband, or the man in the apron would simply walk away. “Mr. Adler told me they took my husband, but I . . . I don’t know why they would take him.”
“Is your husband American also?” the officer asked.
“No, we’re Portuguese.”
A man in a black coat came jogging through the door. He surveyed the abandoned restaurant quickly, knelt next to her, and gestured for her to remove her hand. Marina edged back while he peeled away the now-bloody handkerchief. He took one look at the wound, replaced the handkerchief, and rattled off a sentence that she didn’t catch. German, she guessed, a language in which she only had a few words.
“Do you speak Spanish?” she asked instead.
“Only a little,” the man answered. “I am a doctor. Who is this man?”
“William Adler,” she supplied. “He’s American. He needs a hospital.”
“There’s one . . . not far, where I am a visitor. I will take him there.”
“I must find my husband,” she insisted. “I must go.”
The doctor patted her arm. “Go. go.”
Grabbing her handbag first, Marina pushed herself to her feet and headed for the door just as a pair of policemen came dashing into the old restaurant with the man in the apron in pursuit. They weren’t the same officers she’d seen before on the Rambla, a fortunate thing. She averted her face and eased past them. Where has Alejandro gone? If anyone knew where the police had taken Joaquim, she suspected it was him.
She stepped out from under the gallery of arches into the bright sunlight of the square. Although a few people had gathered around the entry of the old restaurant, most of the plaza’s inhabitants sat chatting and drinking as if nothing were wrong. Anger surged through her for a moment, only to flow away and leave her weary. She wanted to cry but didn’t have time.
I’ll go back to that bench. If Alejandro had run off, perhaps he would go back there. Then again, Joaquim had told him to go back to the hotel. She took a deep breath, gathering her wits. Then she turned and marched across the square back to the entry through which she’d come. There, leaning against one wall, Alejandro waited, his cap in his hand.
Well, at least he’d found his cap. That was one problem she didn’t have to solve now. She held out a hand and he set his in it. They came out onto the Rambla, and she immediately turned toward the hotel, walking as fast as she could without dragging Alejandro.
“I’m not going to run away,” Alejandro said, a hint of exasperation in his voice. “You could let go.”
Marina realized she’d been squeezing his hand in hers and turned him loose. “I’m sorry, Alejandro. I’m upset. Do you know where they took Joaquim?”
“To the prison,” Alejandro said without hesitation.
She leaned down closer to him. “Why do they want to take you back there?”
He shrugged.
“Because they need you to make your mother do what they want?” When he nodded, she asked, “But what about your sister? Can’t they use her to make your mother do things?”
“She’s a girl,” Alejandro said. “They don’t hurt the girls.”
Marina almost stumbled. There weren’t just two children at that prison, Alejandro and his sister. There were girls. “Only the boys, right?”
“Boys aren’t important,” he said.
And that meant there were other boys as well. Marina felt the urge to cry return, prickling at the back of her throat. Botheration! She hated it when she got weepy. “Well, that’s not true, Alejandro. Boys are just as important as girls.”<
br />
“Not to the sirenas,” he said.
They were nearing another pair of police. Alejandro stuck his thumb in his mouth and turned his face toward her skirts, clearly mimicking someone he’d seen before. Marina didn’t speak again until they were far past the two men in red and blue. They walked out into the square, and she paused before making up her mind. “I need to go to the American consulate general, to tell them Mr. Adler has been hurt. I have to do that.”
The boy looked up at her, eyes narrowed. “It’s not your fault, is it?”
“No, but it’s the right thing to do.” She wondered if he grasped that Adler must be the father of his sister. It likely wasn’t important to Alejandro, though, not if he’d been taught that males weren’t important, a very sereia attitude.
She led Alejandro over to the cab line near the tram tracks and hailed a cab, suddenly grateful for Joaquim’s insistence that they divide up their funds. If he’d carried all the money, she wouldn’t have anything. She helped Alejandro up and then called instructions to the driver.
Alejandro remained silent as the cab carried them out toward the harbor. When they arrived at the consulate general, they stepped down and she wrangled for a moment with the driver. He spoke in Catalan and she answered in Spanish. He thought because she was a woman and foreign, he could charge her more money than was reasonable. She finally gave him the same amount Joaquim had paid the drivers on their previous visits and walked on toward the guards at the doors. Familiar with her by now, they let her in without a fuss.
“Please wait here,” a secretary said.
As Marina rubbed her fingertips against her left temple, trying to stave off a nascent headache, she spotted Mr. Pinter hurrying down the hallway toward her.
He peered at her from behind his spectacles. “Mrs. Tavares?”
She gestured for him to walk some distance from the desk where they might speak without being overheard. “We met with Mr. Adler on the Rambla this morning. A couple of Mossos set on him and my husband. Mr. Adler was stabbed, and he told me my husband was taken. I don’t know where.”
Mr. Pinter blinked rapidly. “Adler was stabbed?”
“Yes. I think the police—other officers—conveyed him to the hospital near there.”
Mr. Pinter ran a hand through his dark hair. “I’ll find Adler. Now, what was that about your husband?”
She took a deep breath to calm herself. “Mr. Adler said the men had taken him. I don’t know where or why. Alejandro thinks the prison in Lleida.”
“Were you not there during this assault?”
“No,” she admitted. “They were all chasing the boy. I’m not particularly fleet of foot, so I stayed behind. When they didn’t come back, I went to find them, but only found Mr. Adler.”
“These men,” Pinter said, drawing a small notebook out of a pocket, “can you describe them?”
She sighed. “They were Mossos. One was heavyset, average height, thirtyish, dark complexion. The other was taller, but thin with a narrow face. Younger as well. That’s about all I can tell you. I didn’t get much of a look at them.”
Pinter pushed his spectacles back up his nose. “That’s more of a description than most people would give me. Do you have any idea why they took your husband?”
Her headache was getting the better of her now, making her snappish. “No. Is there anything the consul can do to help?”
His shoulders slumped. “It might be better to go to the Portuguese consulate and have them start making inquiries, since your husband’s not an American.”
She didn’t know enough about consulates and embassies to have any idea if that was true. But they hadn’t visited the Portuguese consulate here because they’d been trying not to pull the Foreign Office into this. Marina looked at Pinter and had the sudden urge to touch him, to use her meager call to force him to help her.
She closed her eyes for a moment. Pinter seemed to be a good man, and she had to believe he would be helpful without her interfering with his mind. “Please, is there nothing else you can do?”
Pinter nodded. “We can’t make official inquiries, Mrs. Tavares, but I’ll get some guards out looking for him, and check the hospitals while I’m looking for Adler. I’ll let you know what I find.”
It wasn’t much, but it was more help than she’d had a few minutes ago. “Thank you, Mr. Pinter. I am grateful.”
“I’ll go take care of that now, Mrs. Tavares. I’ll come to your hotel when I have news.”
Marina watched him stride away. She’d done the proper thing and advised Adler’s people of his injury. Now she was expected to go back to the hotel and wait. “We need to get back to the hotel,” she said to Alejandro, “and then you and I need to have a talk.”
* * *
The carriage dropped Duilio and Oriana at a whitewashed hotel only a short distance from the harbor of Porto Novo. The two-story building had a long ell on each side, leading off the main street. One entire arm of the building had been commandeered by the American mission as their temporary headquarters. American guards stood in the hallways, the colors of their uniforms similar to the Portuguese, but with white belts and caps. Unlike the Portuguese, the guards were men. Reportedly they kept their ears plugged with wax at all times, communicating primarily with a hand language developed for the deaf. One stepped to block their path. “Your business?”
Oriana spoke very little English, so Duilio answered for her. “The Portuguese ambassador and her deputy to speak with Madam Norton.”
The guard carefully watched Duilio’s lips as he spoke, much as the priest did. Lip-reading. The young man asked them to stay in place and waved over another guard. With a series of intricate hand gestures, he silently repeated their request and the second guard strode down the hallway to deliver their message. A moment later, that guard returned and escorted them down the hallway. He reached the last room, opened the door, and ushered them inside.
In the hotel’s finest sitting room, Madam Norton ruled over a table covered with papers, a young woman in a smart suit with her. “Mr. Ferreira, Madam Paredes, how can I help you today?”
“We’ve just returned from a visit with Minister Paredes,” Oriana began, “where among other things she informed us that Madam Davila has been arrested. Something to do with a conveniently placed photograph.”
Duilio hadn’t expected Madam Norton to deny it, but was surprised by the smirk that touched the woman’s lips.
Madam Norton held up a hand to signal for her to wait and then asked her aide to leave the room. The young woman gathered up a sheaf of papers and hustled out, closing the door firmly behind her. The ambassador turned back to them. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s the importance of who possesses a photograph. I don’t like when my friends are hurt. As Madam Davila’s people are behind what happened to Leandra, I have no qualms over a little espionage.”
Duilio reminded himself never to cross the woman.
Oriana went on to summarize her meeting with Jovita Paredes, focusing on what Madam Davila had revealed and the Canary plan to take over the islands by provoking a war between the sereia and Portugal.
Madam Norton didn’t look particularly surprised. “Well, that explains quite a few things. Spanish domination of these islands would provide the Canaries with an endless supply of new blood to fill out their numbers. They might eventually control the entirety of Iberia.” She sat back in her chair and laced her fingers over one knee. “I left out a few details about Leandra’s history at our embassy.”
Duilio wondered if they were about to learn the true reason behind the woman’s eagerness to aid them.
She told them of a nephew’s visit and his subsequent near elopement with Leandra. “It now sounds as if neither my friendship with her nor William’s attempt to take her abroad provoked her arrest. She would have been accused regardless of her actions.”
“Yes
,” Oriana said.
“Unfortunately, my nephew shares my tenacity. When he learned Leandra was still alive, he made his way to Barcelona. He’s been interfering in the investigation, I’m afraid. He ended up in the hospital and says that Leandra has been taken up by the police there.”
“When?”
“Monday morning. William was taken to the consulate general there, but he slipped away from them again this morning. We can get information quickly, Ambassador Paredes, but we have about a day’s lag time.”
“But you can still get information to them there tonight, right?” Duilio asked.
Madam Norton peered at the clock on the mantel. “We still have time. Why don’t you follow me, and we’ll try to get your news to Barcelona?”
She rose and led them from the temporary office, back up the hotel hallway, and to another room. She knocked on the door and waited. After a couple of seconds, an older woman in blue opened the door. “We have a pair of soldiers on loan from the army’s signal corps,” the ambassador said with a glance back at Oriana.
Inside the room, a second young woman in uniform—not the same uniform as the guards in the hallway, but a brighter blue jacket and skirt—sat at a table. A golden device was affixed to her right arm, a mechanical arm built over her own. Silver gears formed the joints, large ones at the shoulder, shrinking down to the most delicate clockwork at the tips of her fingers. The pen in her hand was an integral part of the apparatus, fixed to the mechanical hand, and the delicate gears whirred with each movement of her metal-encased fingers.
An older woman stood near her, feeding notes onto an easel in the seated woman’s line of vision, as the younger woman slowly transcribed those notes in large letters on the blank paper before her. Her delicate features were blank as she copied out the words in a trancelike state.
“We only have a few minutes left in our window,” the ambassador said to Duilio. She stepped over to the table and wrote a note on a clean sheet of paper and handed it to the standing woman, who quickly perused it and nodded.
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