The Devils of Cardona

by Matthew Carr

  “Come here, boy! Quickly!” Ventura shouted. “Are there any more?”

  “In the hut!”

  No sooner had he spoken than the third bandit came bursting out of the doorway and ran toward them with his sword raised. But now Necker emerged from the trees beside Ventura and brought his two-hander down on the top of the man’s head, splitting his skull like a large nut. Behind him, armed Moriscos now appeared at the edge of the clearing, some of whom were carrying torches, and Gabriel saw Juana standing with her hand over her mouth and looking at the hanging bodies. Necker ordered the Moriscos to cut them down and held up a torch in front of the shed.

  “There’s a woman in here,” he said. “She’s dead, too.”

  “Well, bring her out, then,” Ventura ordered.

  “She shouldn’t come out,” replied Necker. “Not as she is.”

  Ventura peered into the doorway. “By the Holy Cross, they don’t do things by halves, do they? Cover her up and put the other bodies in the shed. We’ll come and get them in the morning. The animals can have these bastards. Did they bring horses?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “I didn’t see any.”

  “Never mind. We’d better get back. There might be more of them.”

  Necker and the Moriscos cut the two bodies down and carried them to the shed, and the German pushed the bench against the door to keep it shut. Gabriel retrieved his sword and sheathed it once again. He did not look at Juana, but he was glad that it was too dark for her to see his face.

  Ventura patted him on his shoulder. “Are you all right, boy?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. And Constable Necker, too.”

  “You should thank Juana. If she hadn’t gotten back so quickly, we wouldn’t have made it here in time. She was very concerned about you.” He lowered his voice. “And when we get back, maybe you can tell me what in all the devils in hell made you think you could come up here by yourself without telling anyone.”

  Gabriel nodded. As they followed the dwindling torches back down through the forest, he thought the air smelled fresher and thinner than it ever had before. He did not speak to Juana or anyone else, and when they emerged from the forest and back into the ravine, he took special care to keep away from the light, so that no one could see his tears.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  n the little house chapel, the countess knelt down and prayed for the strength and vision to withstand the storms that were gathering around her. As was often the case, her entreaties were interrupted by the stern, accusing voice that insisted that she was a bujarrona—a female sodomite—who had no right to speak to God about anything except repentance. As on previous occasions, a softer and equally insistent voice told God that she loved Susana with the same love that Ruth the Moabite had once felt for her mother-in-law, Naomi, the widow of Elimelech of Bethlehem, when they found themselves without husbands and without sons and Ruth begged to return with Naomi to Judah rather than remain alone in Moab.

  That was how the countess felt about her maidservant, and she told herself that a love that brought her such happiness and pleasure could not be sinful. Once again the voice of her education rejected this defense and told her that she loved her servant more than she loved God and reminded her that a woman could never lie with another woman and that she had betrayed the memory of her husband and dishonored her parents. She responded with the same arguments she had so often prepared in her head but which she had never dared speak to anyone: that she had not chosen to be this way, that she had tried to love her husband as a woman should even though the marriage had not been her choice, that she had honored and respected him as the Bible commanded.

  This had not been difficult, because Miguel was a good man and a man worthy of honor and respect, who had loved her and treated her well. But no matter how many times she had lain with him, she had never warmed to his touch, even though she’d tried to pretend otherwise out of concern for him and because she knew that it was her duty to conceive. Once, she had asked Father García for guidance, and the priest told her that copulation was an obligation incumbent on every Christian wife and that it was not meant to be pleasurable as long as it produced results. She had hoped that over time she might have felt for Miguel what he so obviously felt for her. Perhaps that might have happened had he lived. But then Susana had come to her household, and her initial desire to offer Christian comfort to one of Panalles’s victims had turned into something quite different, something so overwhelming and irresistible that she had no choice but to surrender herself to it.

  Even then, she reminded God, she had not betrayed Miguel while he was alive. She had not broken her vows. It was not until after his death that she and Susana had known each other carnally. And now she felt that she and her chambermaid were as closely bound to each other as any married couple could be, and she could not imagine living without the happiness Susana brought her. And as she knelt in the chapel before the altar and the stained-glass window, she pleaded with God to forgive her and to remember the many good things that she had done to serve him, to consider the great harm that would be done to so many people if her estates fell into the hands of the Baron of Vallcarca. Still the voice in her head replied that she loved Susana more than she loved God, more than her own child or the good name of her family, and it warned her that she would lose all these things if she did not stop.

  She left the chapel feeling no better than when she had entered it, and she went to the salon to await the baron’s arrival. It was a meeting she did not want but one she could not avoid, and she had sent Susana out into town with Carolina for the morning, so that the two people she loved most in the world would not be present. She sat alone now on a cushioned seat by the window, looking through the Latin bestiary that her father had given to her as a child and which she had passed on to her daughter. Once, she had believed that the mountains were inhabited by the strange and marvelous creatures it depicted. Now she found it comforting to look again at the winged flying fish, the griffins and dragons and lions with human heads, the wide-eyed crocodiles and serpents with human legs protruding from their mouths.

  She was still sitting there when her servant announced that Vallcarca and his son had arrived. She took a deep breath and rose to greet them as Rodrigo Vallcarca’s braying voice echoed down the corridor and the baron swept in through the doorway like a cold winter wind, followed by his son. He doffed his green velvet cap and bowed to kiss her outstretched hand while his son looked on with the pouting smirk that she imagined he’d been born with, before he, too, pressed his lips against her limp hand, holding it in his hot palm just slightly longer than propriety allowed. It was not until they sat down that she noticed the faint red weal on the side of his face, which he had obviously tried to cover with makeup.

  “Why, Don Rodrigo,” she said. “Whatever has happened to your face?”

  Rodrigo replied that he had ridden into a branch while hunting, but the countess sensed that he was lying. It was more likely that Vallcarca had beaten him for some vile indiscretion. She had no desire to know what it was. She expressed her regret with as much sympathy as she was able to muster before turning back to his father.

  “My father-in-law told me that I might expect the honor of your visit,” she said.

  “Then you’ll know what I’ve come for, madam,” replied Vallcarca.

  Rodrigo’s smirk grew even wider, and his watery eyes looked up and down the high-collared black dress that she had worn for the occasion.

  “And my father-in-law will have told you my answer.”

  “Indeed. But he led me to understand that you might have second thoughts.”

  “I can’t imagine how he could have reached such a conclusion,” she replied calmly, “because I made my intentions very clear.”

  Rodrigo was not smirking now, but Vallcarca merely smiled patiently, as though he were talking to a child or an idiot, and asked the countes
s to hear him out. It was true, he admitted, that his son was not the most handsome or intelligent man in Aragon and that his manners were not as refined as those of the men of Zaragoza, but he was loyal, honest and true, and he felt only the warmest feelings toward her and the sincerest desire for her happiness. Rodrigo tried to look warm and tender, but the effort was beyond him, and his cold, fishlike stare only made her more anxious for the conversation to end.

  Vallcarca insisted that the strength of his son’s devotion would surely lead her to reciprocate it in time, as would the many children that would result from the marriage and ensure the survival of the House of Cardona in perpetuity. He spoke of the financial benefits and security that this marriage would bring to Cardona and reminded her that he would also become her father-in-law and that he would treat her like his own daughter. The countess had heard much of this from Espinosa and she wondered which of the two of them had composed the speech.

  “I thank you for the honor you have shown me,” she said when he finished. “But as I told the Marquis of Espinosa, I cannot marry your son.”

  “Cannot, my lady?”

  “Oh, let’s not waste our time, Father!” Rodrigo exclaimed. “She’s obviously not interested, and I’m not going to beg her!”

  “Get out, you imbecile,” Vallcarca snapped without looking at him. “Go and wait in the carriage.”

  “But—”

  “You heard me. I want to talk to Doña Isabel alone. Close the door behind you.”

  This was not what the countess wanted at all, but Rodrigo slunk out of the room while Vallcarca sat watching her with an odd, bitter smile and flicked back his cloak to rest his hand on the pommel of his sword.

  “How’s your little Morisca whore?” he asked suddenly.

  “I beg your pardon? How dare you use such language in my house, sir!”

  “The audacity is not on my part, Countess,” Vallcarca replied. “I know what goes on within these walls. There’s nothing you won’t do for your Moriscos, and it seems there’s nothing they won’t do for you. Am I not right, my lady?”

  The countess was too stunned to reply as Vallcarca abandoned all pretense at tact and diplomacy. “In the next week, Inquisitor Mercader will come to Belamar,” he said, “and my militia will ensure that he is not turned back. Segura and most of his family will be arrested, and they will talk and give him names. One of those names will be yours, my lady. Another will be your maidservant’s. The two of you will then be taken to Zaragoza, and you will reveal your secrets. Your little criada will denounce you, and you will denounce her. Maybe you’ll burn. Maybe you’ll go to prison. Either way you will lose your estates.”

  Vallcarca paused to allow this to sink in. “Your father-in-law will then become the guardian of your daughter,” he went on. “As any loving grandfather would. Then she, not you, will be betrothed to Rodrigo. Oh, he won’t actually marry her till she comes of age, but Espinosa will ensure that no one else does. Long before my son consummates the marriage, however, I will already be helping the marquis in the management of your estates.”

  “My father-in-law has no rights over the Cardona estates,” the countess protested. “The fueros prohibit it.”

  “Oh, the fueros!” Vallcarca waved his hand disdainfully. “They weren’t designed for situations like this. Espinosa may not be able to take over your estates, but as Carolina’s legal guardian he decides whom she marries. Even if the Crown takes interim possession, the Cortes of Aragon will never allow the king to claim permanent jurisdiction as long as there is the possibility that your daughter will produce an heir. You know how sensitive we Aragonese can be regarding such matters. In any case all this must go through the courts, and that will take years. In that time Carolina will be married. And if there’s one thing Rodrigo has a talent for, it’s producing children. Why, he’s left so many of the brats around Vallcarca that he doesn’t even know their names. That’s good Vallcarca seed, my lady, perfect for continuing the Cardona line.”

  “You revolt me, sir.”

  “Perhaps. But there is only one thing you can do to prevent this from happening, and that is to marry my son.”

  “This is the most villainous blackmail!” the countess said weakly.

  Vallcarca looked unperturbed. “Indeed. But your stubbornness and stupidity have left me no option. My son proposed to you a year ago. Did you think that you could defy me after what happened to your husband? You can always report this conversation to Licenciado Mendoza when he gets back from France. But if you do, I’ll deny it. And you have no proof. And what will you tell him—that the pious widow who guards her husband’s memory is a sodomite? No, Countess, you wouldn’t be so foolish. If you want to save your estates—and your daughter—you know what you have to do. So do I have an answer?”

  “You do, sir. Please leave my house. And never come back to it again.”

  Vallcarca shrugged and stood up, holding his hat in his hand.

  “Very well. But it will be as I said, however long I have to wait. And if you do change your mind, you know where I am. I suggest you think it over and act accordingly, for your daughter if not yourself.”

  She did not get up to show him out and doubted whether her legs would have allowed her do it. It was only after he had shut the door behind him and she listened to his fading footsteps that she felt an urge to cry. She immediately repressed it, because this was not a time for tears or weakness. The threat was too real, and it was not limited to Vallcarca. Someone had given away her secret, and she could not think who it might be. But as she glanced at the bestiary beside her, she felt menaced by monsters that were far more ferocious than any of those the artist had taken from Herodotus, and she realized with a crushing mixture of betrayal and incomprehension that one of them must be a member of her own household.

  • • •

  MENDOZA KNEW THAT THERE was a very good chance that he and his companions would be attacked on their way back to Belamar. As a precaution he wrote letters describing the events in Pau to Calvo in Jaca and obtained King Henry’s permission to use the Béarnese royal post to take it to him. He also asked the corregidor to send an armed escort to the customs post at the Puerto de Somport to take them to Jaca and persuaded the king to let them remain in Pau for an extra two days to give Calvo time to raise the militia.

  Throughout the ride out of the Ossau Valley and up into the high mountains, Mendoza felt reasonably confident that no one would want to ambush an escort of ten well-armed Béarnese cavalry in a country where reinforcements were easily available. Aragon was a different matter. From the moment their escort left them on the French side of the Somport Pass and he saw that there was no escort waiting for them, he knew that their prospects of survival had suddenly receded.

  When Mendoza was a child, his father had sometimes entertained and frightened him by making the shapes of animals and monsters with his fingers in the candlelight, casting shadows across the walls that sometimes seemed much bigger than his hands. Now he knew that the Redeemer was like these shadows—a reflection cast by someone else’s hand, a hollow man like the carnival giants of kings, queens and warriors, their papier-mâché faces propped up on costumed wooden frames carried by men whose own faces could not be seen.

  None of this was reassuring, because Péris’s murder made it clear that the Catalan was not the only one carrying the Redeemer’s frame. And if Sánchez was responsible, then he could not take the risk that Péris had told them what he knew, and that meant that they could not be allowed to return to Cardona. The realization that he felt safer in the heretic lands of the Huguenot king than he did in his own country filled him with a sense of irony that he did not enjoy. He felt angry at Calvo’s inability to perform even this simple task, until the Spanish customs officers told them that a French post rider had been killed farther down the Jaca road early the previous morning.

  With no prospect of an escort, they could eith
er stay where they were and send a customs officer to get help or make their way back themselves. But Sánchez’s men were almost certainly watching the road, and an isolated customs post was no defense against the assault that would most likely follow if they remained there. Their best course of action was to leave the road that crossed the mountains by a route of Segura’s choosing. Segura had already reached the same conclusion, and they set off at an unhurried pace down the winding road that descended from the pass. It was an overcast and windy day, and puffs of low-lying gray clouds drifted through the upper valleys, obscuring the higher peaks. As soon as the customs post was out of sight, Segura wheeled his horse away from the road. They followed him at speed down a steep slope and then climbed upward once again toward a long ridge, where they paused to catch their breath.

  On the opposite side of the valley from the road, they saw the seven black shapes coming down the slope behind them. Segura dismounted and led his horse downward, below the level of the ridge, so that they could not be seen. Despite his age, the mayor moved surprisingly quickly through the mountains even on foot, and it was an effort for Mendoza and Daniel to keep themselves and their horses upright as they followed him.

  On reaching the bottom, they rode rapidly along rough but reasonably flat ground before ascending once again. The next two hours followed the same remorseless and exhausting pattern as they climbed and descended only to ascend once again, sometimes on foot and sometimes on horseback, in an attempt to increase or at least maintain the distance between themselves and their pursuers, but whenever they reached a high vantage point, they could see the cluster of horsemen coming toward them.