Alejandro took off his cap and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. Then he went back to sit on the bench as if nothing had happened at all.
Marina joined him there. “Are you hungry? There’s a meat pie left.”
His eyes snaked toward the bag on the ground. “Don’t you want it?”
Even that brief confrontation with the marquesa had left her stomach in knots. So she dug out the meat pie and handed it over to him. While he ate it, she gazed out at the road in the late-afternoon heat. She hadn’t made time to purchase a watch, and now she had no idea how late it was. She glanced at the sun. It was going to set soon. In an hour? Two?
She touched Alejandro’s knee. “I’m going to go just off the road over there,” she said, pointing to where the stream ran past the road. “Call of nature.”
He nodded, so she picked up her bag and headed down to the streamside. She hated leaving him alone, but she couldn’t put this off much longer. The little stream was easy to hop over, more a deep ditch than anything else. Fortunately, she found a secluded spot behind some bushes that looked like broom. Once she’d taken care of her needs, she made certain her dress was in order and headed back to the stream to wash her hands.
The water was cool, and after scrubbing her hands in the water, she lifted up a handful to take a cautious sip. It seemed drinkable.
“What do we have here?” a man’s voice asked from the side of the road.
Marina spun about, nearly losing her balance and falling into the water in the process. She ended up with one foot in the stream.
A squarely built man stood on the roadside a few feet higher than her, his arms akimbo and his feet wide. His garments looked like a farmer’s, a dirt-stained tunic over homespun pants. He had a handsome face, but his hair was unkempt and the look he directed at her could only be called lecherous. “Little lady coming to take a piss in the stream?”
Marina tried hard not to glance at the bag sitting on the ground a few feet from her. It currently held all their money. Every last peseta. Her passport. Her mother’s journal with its secrets. “Go away,” she said in as calm a voice as she could manage.
He started down the embankment toward her. “What’s in that bag, little lady? I bet there’s something there I’d like.”
She stepped back, putting herself between him and the bag. “There’s nothing there for you.”
She’d put a touch of a call into her words, but it didn’t work. Not when she’d told an outright lie. Her pulse was pounding in her ears now, panic beginning to shorten her breaths. What could she possibly do against a man this size?
He grabbed her arm and yanked her close to him. He wrapped his other hand about her jaw to make her look at him. “Pretty thing, aren’t you?”
Marina felt a blaze of fury go through her. She jerked her head out of his grasp and yanked at her arm, but his grip didn’t give. “I’m not a thing,” she yelled.
His beefy hand connected with her jaw, sending sparks flying through her vision. Then he yowled and released her. Marina stumbled backward, tripping over her bag and landing hard on her rump. Her jaw throbbed, but her vision cleared immediately, showing her that the man now held Alejandro aloft by the back of his jacket. Alejandro clutched a large rock in his hand.
Then the man raised his fist to strike the boy.
Marina hurtled to her feet and threw herself at the man, managing to score his cheek with her nails. “You touch him and I’ll scratch your eyes out!”
The man stumbled back, his eyes wide with fear as if he believed that hotheaded claim.
She’d done it without thinking.
She’d used her call. She wanted him to fear her, and he did.
He scrambled up the embankment on his hands and knees. In her fury, Marina jumped to pursue him, but the heel of her shoe caught in the hem of her skirt. She tumbled forward against the embankment and then fell back on her rump again.
“May lightning strike you!” she screamed at the man’s fleeing form.
Her breath was coming in ragged gasps and her teeth were on their sharp edge. She was ready to bite something. Or someone. Only the man was long gone.
She laid her hands over her face, only to discover that her palms were scraped. She pushed up to her knees and sorted out her skirts to rise, but went still when she saw Alejandro’s face. He wore a strange frown, his lower lip thrust out. Mud smudged the side of his face.
She wasn’t sure what that expression meant. Was he acting now?
She hadn’t meant to put him in danger. But if he hadn’t come to her defense, she didn’t think she would have gotten away from that ruffian. “You were very brave,” she said. “Thank you for saving me.”
He didn’t say anything in return.
So she tugged her handkerchief out of her sleeve and dampened it in the stream. Then she shifted closer to Alejandro. “Here, let me get this dirt off your face.”
She moved slowly. Even though the boy flinched away at first, he let her wipe the mud from his cheek, his mouth turned down in that terrible frown the whole while. When she’d finished, she held the handkerchief out toward him. “Do I have any on my face?”
He shook his head. Then his lips twisted abruptly and he choked out a sob.
Marina set her hands on his shoulders, but Alejandro began to cry in earnest, so she wrapped her arms about him and held him close. And then she was crying too.
How could she let him go once they got his mother out of the prison? There would be a hole in her heart when he was taken away.
Marina held him a moment longer, then eased back to wipe his cheeks. He was so guarded and distrustful that she’d almost forgotten he was just a little boy. It was cruel that Alejandro had been raised to be responsible for every ill that befell his mother.
“Don’t tell my mother I cried,” he whispered.
And there was the little boy peeking out from his hard facade. “I won’t if you don’t tell my husband I cried.”
He nodded. “Or the Vilaró.”
“I promise.” She brushed hair from his forehead, that thick straight lock just like Joaquim’s.
“My mother can’t hug me,” he said then. “She doesn’t want to make me sick. She held my hand but said she shouldn’t hug me.”
Oh God. How painful that must have been for a boy who just wanted his mother to himself. And how terrible for Leandra, denying a mother’s instincts for her son’s sake. Marina knew the woman wasn’t indifferent to Alejandro, not after all she’d endured to get her children free. She set her hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I’m not your mother, but you can hug me in her place . . . whenever you want.”
He nodded quickly as if embarrassed, and rubbed his nose on his sleeve.
She didn’t even consider correcting him. Not after what he’d just done. Instead she washed her scraped hands in the stream, rinsed out her handkerchief, and collected her bag. “I think you can drink from the stream,” she said, and he complied, likely as thirsty as she’d been.
“Did you throw a rock at him?” she asked. “Or did you hit him with it?”
“I hit him,” Alejandro said. “On top of his head.”
“Well, you saved me,” she said. “So I will always be grateful.”
He shrugged. “He looked scared of you.”
“Anyone who threatens you had better be scared of me.”
CHAPTER 36
LLEIDA
The guard hauled Joaquim through the stone hallways of the Morra and up a series of steps. A metal door clanged open after a rattle of keys, and they went up a few more steps into an open building. Joaquim tried to pinpoint any clues that would tell him about the place without opening his eyes, but it smelled of stone as well, although dryer here and swept by wind. Sounds echoed and he smelled a well nearby. Prieto had said they were under the town hall, but he couldn’t imagine why there would be a
well in it, so they must be in an outer courtyard.
Eventually he heard the noise of traffic, people walking and talking nearby. Still feigning sleep, he didn’t bother to cry out for help. For some reason he was needed at the other prison. Having seen what Leandra had endured, he wasn’t going to fail her.
The guards hoisted him into a coach and dumped him on a seat. He slumped against the wall of the coach and listened as it began to move through the streets, but the guards only discussed an automobile race from Paris to Madrid that would take place next month, as if their captive was of no interest.
On arriving at the prison—easy to discern by its myriad voices and the smell of too many bodies—the guards dragged Joaquim down hallways and up a flight of stairs. One unlocked a door and shoved him inside. His feet weren’t under him, so Joaquim fell to the floor, his nose hitting his arm in the process and sending a flare of nauseating discomfort through his intestines. His eyes remained clenched shut as the door lock clicked behind him and he fought the urge to vomit.
“Let me help you,” a man said, gently grasping his elbow.
He didn’t need to feign sleep any longer. Joaquim wrenched his eyes open and saw he was in a normal room. There were three beds in the room, but it wasn’t a jail cell. It wasn’t a fine hotel either, not like the Colón, but it wasn’t terrible. “Where am I?”
“Lleida Prison,” the man said. A handsome man, he was a few years younger than Joaquim himself, with what could only be called soulful eyes. His hair was overlong, pulled back from an angular face, but he showed no sign of facial hair. He helped Joaquim to a chair. “Don’t let the appearance fool you. Come on, sit down.”
The throbbing in Joaquim’s nose was worse now, but his new surroundings were preferable to the Morra. “Who are you?”
“Marcos Davila,” the young man said. “Prisoner, like you. Miss Prieto will come around as soon as she can, but until she gets here, it would be best to clean up those wounds.” He went to one side of the room and returned with a basin of water and a pair of clean towels. “I see darling Piedad’s been after you.”
Joaquim choked out a laugh, tasting blood again. “I take it you don’t like her.”
“She’s my cousin, thankfully.” The man wet one of the towels and handed it to Joaquim. “Why don’t you wipe down your hands, and I’ll find you a shirt? Mine should work for you.” From a chest at the end of one of the beds, Marcos produced fresh linens and a clean shirt.
Joaquim wiped his right hand, removing the blood from where he’d tried to quench the bleeding of his nose earlier. “Why are you thankful she’s your cousin?”
Marcos let out a dry laugh, a desperately sad sound. “They don’t expect me to bed her.”
Joaquim stopped in the midst of unbuttoning his shirt cuffs.
“I’m the harem,” Marcos said. “Currently the only member. They keep me clothed and fed, but if I don’t do what they tell me, the woman I love will pay. It’s a damnable existence.”
If he understood correctly, a sereia-human mating would produce sereia daughters. But if Marcos was Piedad’s cousin, he must already have sereia blood. He must be webless, like Alejandro, but still a better choice than any of the hundreds of human men in the cells.
Joaquim heard voices from beyond the window, an increase in the sounds. “What’s happening out there?”
“One of the wings has been let out to get some fresh air in the courtyard.” He cocked his head as if listening to birds singing. “Ah, those are the Catalan nationalists. Their number has been increasing for the last few months. They’re the most harmless of the prisoners. Poets, writers, the occasional socialist. That sort,” he said dismissively.
Joaquim unbuttoned his shirt and removed it, then carefully peeled his undershirt off over his head, easing the right sleeve over his stained bandage. “Is there any chance of a glass of water?”
Marcos opened an interior door, revealing a toilet stand and a sink with a mirror over it. He pulled a string, and an electric light brightened the tiny space. “My palace,” he said bitterly with a dramatic wave of his hand. He poured a glass of water from the tap and brought it over.
Joaquim drank, spotting a hint of red as blood flowed from his mouth back into the glass. “Thank you.”
“Truthfully,” Marcus said with a sigh, “this is far better than a cell with stone floors, and I have running water and decent food. Most prisoners here would be jealous.”
Joaquim didn’t doubt that. Once he’d had his fill of water, he went to survey his face in the mirror above the sink. He hardly knew himself. The harsh electric light made the cut running down his cheek look ghoulishly red, with spots clotted dark already. But it wasn’t as long as he’d expected, given the amount of blood. A couple of inches at most. His nose seemed swollen to twice its normal size, and the skin under his eyes looked red and angry. He wet the towel and began cleaning, starting first with the blood drying under his nose. He had a day’s growth of beard as well, making it harder to scrub his chin. Under the blood he found another cut and gingerly dabbed at it. Everything felt tender.
He cleaned away as much of the dried blood as possible, and once he thought he’d done as well as he could with his face, he washed his hands and wiped down his chest. He still smelled, but he didn’t know how much better he could do until he had a chance to bathe properly. He closed the door of the tiny water closet and used the toilet stand, thanking God that he could do so without a guard standing over him. Then he returned to where Marcos waited.
Marcos handed him an undershirt. Although it fit closer than Joaquim liked, it was silk and comfortable. He decided not to put on the offered dress shirt for the moment and instead asked if he could lie down. After being told that the bed under the high window was Marcos’, he picked the middle bed and lay down on his back. The throbbing in his nose eased once he was lying flat. He closed one eye and used the other to look at Marcos, who sat on the edge of his bed, his hands dangling between his knees. The young man had near-black hair and dark eyes, a striking combination with his fair skin.
“Leandra said I could trust you,” Joaquim said.
“I want to get out of here as much as she does, so yes.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Almost three years. They treat me better than men like you, so I’ve outlasted all the others.”
“Men like me?” Joaquim asked.
“Human men.” Marcos rolled up the leg of his trousers and displayed a swath of silver skin above his sock.
“You’re half sereia,” Joaquim observed dully. Now that he was lying down, exhaustion wrapped around him like a smothering blanket.
“Sirena, yes,” the young man said, using the Spanish word. “My mother came from this prison.”
“And your father?”
“A diplomat, like his father before him, as I’d hoped to be one day. The sirenas here needed someone in my father’s sphere of influence, so they sent my mother to seduce him.”
“Ah,” Joaquim said. “They didn’t raise you here?”
“No. I grew up thinking myself a fine Spanish citizen. When my father was assigned as ambassador to the islands, I remained behind in Madrid and went to the university. Three years ago, I was woken in the middle of the night by men who drugged me and brought me here.”
“You’ve been here ever since?”
“Not in this fine room,” Marcos said. “At first they put me in a room with another prisoner, a woman named Safira. She wasn’t Spanish, I discovered quickly, although she spoke the language well enough when she did speak to me. She’d been beaten, you see, by men on some ship. She was terrified. Can you imagine what that’s like? We had no privacy from each other. In time she came to trust me and I, not having any idea what lay ahead, fell in love with her. And that was what my grandmother was waiting for, why we were put together.”
“Your gra
ndmother?”
Marcos let off a short bark of laughter. “Don’t picture her as a sweet and caring angel, like grandmothers are supposed to be. She runs this place, runs the lives of all of them. She makes the decisions, who’s put with whom, who lives, who’s no longer useful. Her name is Reyna, but they call her La Reyna—the queen. For her everything is about maintaining their place here in Spain, their influence, their power.”
“To the point that she would imprison her own grandson?”
“Yes. It’s torture. Safira and I have a daughter together, but we’re never allowed to see each other.”
“And if either of you disobeys, the other is punished.”
“Yes, as you’ve learned already, I see. They use us all against each other. I only see my daughter once a month, but that’s enough to make me love her and fear what they might do to her when she is older.”
“What is her name?”
“Serafina,” Marcos said, “my little angel.”
Poor Marcos. Joaquim blinked, his eyes growing heavy. What would he be willing to do to save Marina pain? “Why do they do all this?”
“There are not enough of them,” Marcos said. “Not to serve on the ships and to run the prisons. Years and years ago, there was an outbreak of tuberculosis here. When a sirena catches that, she loses her gills. She cannot call any longer, and cannot control the prisoners. La Reyna holds back her own people—the sirenas—to influence the right men in government, like my father. But La Reyna wants to convince the humans to let her control all the prisons in Spain, not just this one. She needs more sirenas, and will do anything to them to force them to work for her. Some of the ones brought here, they fight too hard and they die. The ones who give in are sent out with the navy, and many were lost in El Desastre,” Marcos said, referring to Spain’s war with America. “The ones left here are the ones Reyna doesn’t trust. She keeps them close so she can force their cooperation. But La Reyna preaches that Spain will soon take over the islands Safira came from, where the Portuguese sirenas are, and then she will have as many as she needs.”
The Shores of Spain Page 31