The Devils of Cardona

by Matthew Carr

  As soon as he had finished, the square erupted into noisy chaos. Ventura congratulated Mendoza as he withdrew from the balcony and went downstairs, where he was surprised to find Juana Segura waiting for him.

  “I will take charge of the hospital,” she said. “And I’ll bring volunteers to help me.”

  “Are you sure you can do this?” he asked. “This is war.”

  “I’ve seen blood before, and my father has shown me what to do,” Juana replied. “Without him I’m the best-qualified person in the village.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m not doing it for you,” she said coldly, and turned to walk away.

  • • •

  WITHIN MINUTES the first volunteers began to assemble in the square with their weapons. Half an hour later, more than a hundred men of various ages had presented themselves to their two commanders. Some carried lances, some swords, and there was a sprinkling of pistols, hunting rifles, escopetas and harquebuses. But the majority were armed with stakes, or homemade bills or halberds made from farming tools, or pikes with knives tied to long sticks, or with axes and clubs. It was not the most impressive arsenal, Mendoza thought, and it certainly did not bear out the reports that the Moriscos of Belamar were stockpiling weapons and gunpowder, unless they were intent on committing collective suicide.

  Throughout the afternoon more Moriscos began to trickle into the village with tales of burning, killing and destruction. Ventura and Necker formed the volunteers into separate groups and details and gave them at least the semblance of a command structure, with designated runners who knew their officers by sight and a mobile group of fighters able to move to where the defenses were weakest. Alongside the fighting groups, men, women and even young children gathered stones, bricks and roof tiles. One detail set to work dismantling the ruined house near the mill, to use its bricks and rotting beams for barricades. Others piled carts, beds and household furniture, dug shallow trenches and sharpened stakes to make primitive chevaux-de-frise.

  Even old men and women carried stones in baskets or in their skirts down to the old medieval walls or brought food and water to their fathers and brothers. Some of them also brought food to Mendoza and his men without being asked. Mendoza was struck by the transformation that had taken place since the day he and his team first arrived. Having once feared them, the Moriscos now appeared to accept them as their defenders and fellow fighters. Necker had acquired an entourage of children who followed him everywhere and competed with one another to carry out his orders or run an errand for him, while many of the Moriscos now called Mendoza’s men by their first names.

  The Moriscos continued to work purposefully and resolutely into the evening with a cheerful confidence that Mendoza had often seen in soldiers on the eve of battle, who had convinced themselves that others, not themselves, would die and who knew that their chance of victory was dependent on one another. The response of the other Old Christians was more mixed. Those with Morisco wives and husbands immediately joined in the defense of the village, and so did some of the Old Christian families without Morisco connections. One Old Christian shepherd told Mendoza that his Morisca wife was more Christian than he was and that he would rather die with her than leave her. Two Old Christian millers approached him and said that the village was home to all of them and that all of them should fight for it.

  The baker Romero was noticeably absent from these efforts. Shortly after Mendoza’s speech, he closed his shop, until Mendoza ordered him to open it and make extra bread throughout the day to add to the village’s food supply. When he refused, Mendoza threatened to arrest him and told him that the bread would be distributed free if an attack took place.

  The baker was furious and was only partly mollified when Mendoza told him that he would not have to pay for the flour from the mill. From time to time, Mendoza saw him scowling in the doorway of his shop with his arms crossed, sometimes with his wife beside him. In the late afternoon, Mendoza and Gabriel were standing outside the village hall watching Juana and her female volunteers tearing and cutting shirts, skirts and sheets into bandages when they spotted Romero and his wife coming toward them, followed by a small group of frightened-looking Old Christians.

  “Licenciado Mendoza, we wish to speak with you in private,” the baker announced pompously.

  “You can speak to me here,” Mendoza replied.

  “We wish to leave Belamar in the morning,” he said. “This is not our fight.”

  The other Old Christians nodded and murmured in assent, and Mendoza looked at them in disgust.

  “This is not your fight?” he repeated. “Isn’t this your pueblo?” He gestured toward the Moriscos who were hurrying back and forth across the square carrying bricks and furniture. “Are these not your neighbors?”

  “They are Moriscos, Licenciado,” Romero said. “It is not right that we should be forced to take part in this battle and that our families should be in danger. Our blood is clean.”

  “Enough!” barked Mendoza. “So you feel closer to these bandits and murderers than you do to the town where your own children were born? Why do you live here? What do you think will happen when this is over, that you will just return to your homes as if nothing happened? No, I won’t make you fight, but you will not leave. And you will work alongside your neighbors to prepare the town, or I will lock you up.”

  “You have no right to do this!” Romero exclaimed.

  “I have all the right I need. Now, go and get to work before I change my mind and lock you all up.”

  Gabriel and Juana exchanged complicit smiles as Romero and his wife withdrew to their shop and the other Old Christians left the square, looking chastened. Mendoza was not amused. Tomorrow he knew that some of those who were working to defend the village would be killed, and if the whole lot of them did not fight well, they would all die, and he and his men would die with them. If that happened, then there would be nothing left of Belamar, and the king and his ministers would never know what Mendoza now knew for certain: that everything that had taken place in Cardona since the murder of the priest and possibly even before it had been nothing more than a piece of theater or a game of chess in which the Moriscos, the bandits, the mountain men and their victims were only pawns being moved by unseen hands for purposes that would always be hidden, unless he survived to report them.

  • • •

  MERCADER HAD ORDERED the curtains on the left side of the carriage drawn because the sunlight irritated his skin condition. From the opposite window, he watched the mountains and valleys tediously unfold as the carriage bumped its way up the dusty road toward Vallcarca. The inquisitor did not like mountains. He disliked their extremes of heat and cold, their steep ascents and descents and the bone-crunching roads that turned into muddy swamps whenever it rained. Centuries ago these mountains had provided a refuge for monks fleeing the infidel invaders. Now they sealed off God’s chosen people from their heretic enemies.

  True civilization was not found in such places but down on the plains, in cities like Zaragoza, Madrid or Seville. And of all the cities he had ever seen, none was more beautiful or more civilized than Rome. As he stared out the window, he pictured the palazzos, villas and churches, the noble ruins and tree-covered hills, the wide streets and paved squares that he’d first seen when his father had taken him there at the age of twelve. Ever since then he had dreamed of inhabiting one of those palazzos. Or he might have one built himself, according to a design that would reflect his power and status, with comfortable rooms, and white marble corridors, and paintings by the finest Italian artists that he would personally commission, a palace that would remind the world of his presence long after he had departed it.

  Compared with what Rome had to offer, even the grandest towns and cities in the Pyrenees were like pale imitations of something better, and even their most illustrious residents seemed to have modeled their thoughts, clothing and furniture on those
of the inhabitants of the cities below them. Such places were to be endured rather than enjoyed, but Mercader had to endure them if he was to obtain his red cap and his palace by the Tiber, because the road to Rome led through filthy mountain inns and provincial cities like Huesca and Jaca that reeked of dung and echoed with the sounds of the barnyard, where second-rate officials like Corregidor Calvo and Commissioner Herrero grazed out their lives in obscurity.

  Such men lacked the ambition or the talent to rise further, but for him the mountains of Aragon were stepping-stones to the Vatican, and now, as he sat bumping and rocking in the carriage with Herrero and the notary Esquivel, the pains in his backside were worth enduring, because he could not allow Herrero to take credit for Segura’s arrest and for the other momentous events that were about to unfold.

  That glory belonged to him alone. He had brought with him letters from Inquisitor-General Valdés and Bishop Santos giving him permission to conduct a full inquisitorial investigation into the Morisco heresy at Belamar. He also had verbal assurances from Herrero that the Baron of Vallcarca would provide him with an armed escort when he went to Belamar to read out the Edict of Grace and throughout the investigation. Vallcarca had even promised him the use of his own prisons until he was ready to transport his prisoners back to Zaragoza.

  This was not strictly orthodox, but the baron’s men would not actually make arrests and would only assist the Inquisition in doing so, just as they had done with the Moriscos Navarro and Royo. This assistance was now essential, since Mercader’s own escort of ten men was only slightly larger than the one they had brought from Zaragoza, and that might not be enough to deter the countess and her bailiff. Both Herrero and Vallcarca had assured him that the road to Vallcarca was safe and that ten men would be sufficient to take them to the señorio, where many more would be waiting.

  “I trust that the monastery is more comfortable than this,” he said as a bump in the road jarred his spine yet again.

  “It’s one of the oldest in Vallcarca, Excellency,” Herrero replied.

  Mercader looked dubious. Age did not guarantee comfort as far as monasteries were concerned, and an anchorite’s bed was not what he required at the end of such a journey, when a feather mattress and silk sheets would do much better.

  “And where does Mendoza stay?”

  “I believe he’s staying at Dr. Segura’s dispensary, sir.”

  “Well, he’s going to have a lot more room now.”

  Herrero and Esquivel smiled politely at this rare example of humor from the inquisitor, and Mercader wondered how Mendoza would react to his arrival. He doubted that the man would be pleased, but he would not dare oppose the investigation when he saw the inquisitor-general’s letter. They followed the road through a wide river valley broken by patches of forest and occasional villages, and Mercader was on the point of dozing off when there was a shot from just outside the carriage, followed by a series of sharp hissing noises.

  He heard a heavy thump on the carriage roof, the gargled cry, the agitated neighing of horses and the unmistakable sound of sharp objects cutting flesh before the carriage came to an abrupt halt. Both the notary and Herrero looked frightened as the door opened and Diego Pachuca appeared. For a moment Mercader felt almost comforted at the sight of his familiar’s blood-spattered face and the bloody knife in his hand, but then his relief turned to horror as Pachuca reached past him and thrust the blade almost up to the hilt into Esquivel’s chest.

  “For the love of God, man, what are you doing?” Mercader cried.

  Esquivel made a horrible gurgling sound as he straightened up slightly, as if he were about to get out of the carriage, before sitting back lifeless, his eyes still open and his head lolling to one side. Herrero tried to open the other door, but as he did so, another shot rang out, and he fell back onto the seat holding his face. Mercader stared in horror at the bloodstained hole where Herrero’s eye had been when Pachuca grabbed his collar with his thick, hairy fingers and pulled him closer, till their faces were almost touching, then sank the knife into his stomach.

  The inquisitor doubled over with pain and shock. He felt the familiar’s stubble brushing against his face and caught a faint smell of wine on his breath before Pachuca dragged him from the carriage, held him upright with one hand and slashed him across the throat in a deft horizontal stroke. As Mercader fell to the ground, he had time to see the green-and-black-clad bodies lying around him and the men on horseback and on foot with pistols, swords and crossbows whom he did not know.

  To his astonishment Mercader realized that he was dying, and he wished that he could have lived a little longer, just long enough to ask Pachuca why he was killing him. But he did not even have the strength to cry out as Pachuca and one of his companions lifted him up by his hands and feet. The inquisitor caught a last glimpse of the blue Spanish sky and wondered what he had done to incur God’s wrath, and then he felt himself sinking down into the cold waters, and he knew that he would never make it to Rome.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  endoza woke with a dry mouth and a tightness in his stomach that he hadn’t felt since Lepanto. He had slept in his clothes, and he stepped barefoot across the darkened room and pushed back the shutters. The sun was not yet visible, but the gray sky was already tinged with purple as he heard the cock crow. It seemed incredible to think that this might be the beginning of his last day on earth. Lepanto had been his last battle, and he had not expected to fight another, let alone against Christians in his own country.

  The prospect of his own death did not frighten him; he’d been in danger too many times for that. But he felt sorry that he had placed Gabriel at risk. He felt sorry for Daniel, who had died because of him. His decision to visit Péris had also brought about the wood-carver’s death, and though he felt little sympathy for Péris himself, the distraught expression on his widow’s face had reminded Mendoza that he was responsible for that man’s death, too. And now it seemed that Segura would burn at the stake, thanks to him.

  All this filled Mendoza with a mixture of guilt and frustration, because for the time being at least it was not possible to take action against Vallcarca, Mercader and the other men who were seemingly prepared to set all of Cardona on fire in order to achieve their aims. And if things went badly today, then he would have failed completely, and all the deaths that had already taken place would have no meaning.

  He put on his boots and buttoned his doublet before going to wake Gabriel, who was still snoring peacefully, his mouth open.

  “Wake up, boy,” he said gently.

  Gabriel opened his eyes and immediately sat up like a startled deer. “Has it begun, sir?”

  “Not yet. Get dressed.”

  Mendoza returned to his room, buckled on his sword and clipped a pistol to his belt. He was filling his pockets with ammunition and dangled a powder bottle from a strap around his shoulder when Gabriel came in, wearing the sword that Mendoza still could not get used to seeing on him.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  They went downstairs and out into the street. Outside the village hall, small groups of armed men were standing around talking quietly while women came and went carrying trays laden with bread, cakes, buns and pitchers of water. Inside, they found Juana Segura with two Morisca volunteers and four stretcher-bearers, eating from a tray heaped high with curd patties. Her father’s desk was piled with bandages, medicine bottles, ointments and a bowl containing a poultice mixture. A sword and a wooden lance were leaning against the wall behind it. Another table was lined with bowls of water, and there were mattresses and a pile of straw on the floor, in addition to two planks to be used as stretchers.

  Gabriel visibly brightened at the sight of Juana, and she looked no less pleased to see him as she invited them to eat an empanada. Mendoza was not hungry, but he accepted one in an attempt to reduce the nervous agitation in his stomach. Gabriel also took
one, and Mendoza noticed that his hand was trembling slightly, when Necker appeared in the doorway.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Is everything in order, Constable?”

  “As much as it can be,” Necker replied. “Sir, can I have a word in private?”

  The pie was surprisingly tasty, and Mendoza took another one and followed the German outside.

  “Sir, I have to report that I observed some of the Moriscos at the cemetery praying this morning,” Necker said in a low voice, looking around him warily.

  “And? It’s what men do before battle.”

  “Sir, I don’t believe they were Christian prayers. They were bowing, not kneeling.”

  “I see. Have you prayed this morning, Constable?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then let us hope your prayers have been heard. And for the time being, let us not concern ourselves with whom these Moriscos pray to, as long as their prayers help them to fight better.”

  In that moment the lookout in the church tower let out three blasts. Outside, some of the Moriscos were pointing at the ridge above the ravine, where a line of moving men could be seen like a row of ants carrying large pins.

  “Return to your position, Constable,” Mendoza said. He hurried away from the square with Gabriel trailing along behind him. As soon as they were out of sight, he stopped and said, “I want you to go to the church.”

  Gabriel looked aghast. “But, sir, the church is for women and children.”

  “And I am holding you responsible for them,” Mendoza said. “I made a promise to Magdalena that you would come back alive, and I intend to keep it. Go to the church and stay there. Those are my orders.”

  Gabriel continued to look so abject and humiliated that Mendoza reached out and tweaked his ear affectionately. “God bless you, boy. And know that whatever happens today, I will always hold you in the highest esteem.”