Lucas grabbed the first rung and pulled himself up, then climbed another and another. Thus far, everything was all right, but there was still so much to go. All he had to do was not stop.
“What are you doing, joven?” came Pedro’s voice behind him.
“I’m going to climb up.”
“Are you sure? I don’t know if you’re ready,” Pedro said.
This spurred Lucas on. He pictured Armada’s face and having to tell him that not just once, but twice he had been a coward and couldn’t handle the height of the ladder.
Lucas climbed another rung. Now he began to feel the height as he stared towards the ground just below his feet.
“Come down, joven. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do!” Lucas yelled.
This got the attention of Barros, whose head popped out of the entrance of the tower far above. “What is happening?”
“He is trying to come up again,” Pedro said.
“Hey! Joven, good for you! Never let your fears get the better of you! Come!” Barros said, beckoning Lucas up with his hand.
“He’s not ready, Barros! He’ll never make it!”
“Of course he will! He’s a brave boy. Keep going!”
“You were not the one who had to help him down last time!” Pedro said. “And now I might have to do it again.”
Lucas went up another rung. He hated how Pedro was always calling him joven, like his father did when he was five years old. He was a man now, and he had to prove it. To Pedro, to Armada, to everyone.
“There is a better way to do this!” Pedro called up. “I can show you. Just come down. I will help!”
“Forget him, joven! He is too much of a coward himself. Don’t be like Pedro. Be like Barros! Be strong! Be courageous! Keep going!”
The tower felt like it was spinning but not as much as last time. Lucas noticed if he kept his focus on the ocean horizon instead, it helped to steady his head.
“Come down, joven. I can help you get over this fear before you try this again. You’re not ready!”
Lucas had steadied himself but was thinking about what Pedro might mean about getting over his fear. He couldn’t tell if he liked the idea of having a reason to give up or if he wanted Pedro’s help.
Lucas climbed another few rungs and found he was not that far from the point at which he had stopped last time. It somehow seemed even higher than before.
He had to stop himself from rushing. He was always doing that. Yes, that was it. He couldn’t rush this. Better to take it slow and to see what Pedro might have in mind to help him first. Armada would see the logic in that.
“Oh no, joven! You let the coward get into your head! Don’t let him do that!” Barros called.
And Lucas did feel a bit disappointed, but he knew he would be back. And next time he wouldn’t stop.
Lucas reached the bottom and felt Pedro’s hand on his shoulder.
“You did the right thing, joven. You can’t let that baboon up there push you into doing something crazy,” Pedro said with a grin.
“I want to be able to climb up there. I have to see the tower for myself.”
“And you will. But you have to understand your fear a little better. Come with me.”
Lucas followed Pedro out of the camp. Soon they were in a clearing where an old carob tree grew. It was ancient, with large swaths of bark falling off its blackened, twisted stump that had long ago split into three separate trees whose canopies now all blended together overhead. It had lots of lower branches that were now leafless, given the complete lack of sunlight that reached them.
Lucas followed Pedro to the main stump. Pedro patted it a few times and smiled.
“The first thing to know, joven, is that you don’t have a fear of heights. You have a fear of falling. You get over that, you get over your problem. So follow me. We’ll start with an easy one.”
Pedro then turned and heaved himself onto one of the lower branches of the tree. From there he clambered up another, then another, until he was quite far above Lucas.
Lucas followed but took it slower. Whenever he climbed to where he thought Pedro was, he would look up to find Pedro had gone one branch higher, beckoning him to follow. Lucas found climbing the tree was quite familiar, as he had done it a lot growing up. It inspired none of the terror in him the tower had.
Soon they were both as high up as the branches could hold them.
Pedro looked back at him and smiled. “See? That wasn’t so difficult.”
“You’re right. This isn’t bad.”
“Now, like I said, joven, it’s the falling that you fear. So you have to get over that.”
Lucas looked down. “It’s all right. I’m not afraid of falling from here.”
“Good, joven, good. But that’s not what I was thinking. You see, in order to get over your fear of falling…you have to get used to it first.”
“What?” Lucas asked.
Without warning, Pedro swung his leg around and knocked Lucas against the side of his head. Lucas lost his balance. He fell through the air. Panicking, he reached out for any branches to break his fall, but he was going too fast to get any kind of grip.
The ground crushed against his shoulder. His head knocked against a stone.
He rolled over onto his back, groaning. There was a crashing sound next to him. Pedro grinned at him from above.
“There, how was that?”
“You pushed me out of the tree!”
“Joven, I’m trying to help. If you knew how to fall properly like I do, then a fall like that would be nothing. And you wouldn’t be afraid anymore.”
“That was crazy.”
“No, Barros is crazy. He would have pushed you out of the top of the watchtower.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore, sir.”
“Come on, you can’t give up now. Let me teach you a few tricks, huh? And then we’ll try it again.”
Lucas decided Pedro was mad and trying to kill him.
“You have to bend your knees. Then tuck your head, and try to roll…”
Lucas searched for an excuse to leave, but then a thought occurred to him. What if Pedro was right? What if he could master this enough to not be afraid of the watchtower anymore? Then Armada need never know about his fears or the fact he was a coward at heart.
So Lucas stayed and was soon climbing the tree once again.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Armada stood against the back wall of the ayuntamiento and watched as Martin adjudicated a dispute between two local fishermen. It was getting heated, as both men accused each other of violating a deal struck years before over a lucrative fishing area. A small crowd of other fishermen crowded about the table, shouting their opinions on the matter all at the same time. It was a common enough dispute, one that always arose during those years when the early arrival of summer or a cold winter made getting a decent catch more difficult.
“It isn’t right! He’s not supposed to be there until December! That’s what our grandfathers agreed!”
“That didn’t include the whole of the cove! I’m allowed to be near the sand dunes! They never said anything about the dunes!”
Martin nodded but said little. He appeared to know that an important part of resolving such disputes was to let the two men, and their friends, shout themselves out before attempting any kind of reconciliation. But as with most Andalusians, it could take a while.
Martin caught Armada’s eye and stood, telling the two men they had been at this for an hour and everyone needed a break. Martin then weaved his way out of the middle of the crowd, which continued on with their argument as if Martin had said nothing at all.
Armada followed Martin as he headed out of a back door into a small garden crowded on all sides by other houses. There was a small fountain in the corner, a basin built of bricks with a tiny iron spigot that trickled water from an unseen spring somewhere. Martin took a tin cup that he kept on the windowsill and filled it, taking a long mouthful
before turning to address Armada.
“I seem to remember telling you to stay away from the Maraion family.”
“Yes, and now I know why. You didn’t want me to see this,” Armada said.
He handed Esteban’s letter to Martin, who read it over, confusion on his face.
“What is this?”
“A threat. Esteban Marañón was about to reveal everything he knew about the raid as well as your part in it. He was going to tell Isabel Maraion everything, wasn’t he? It would have finished you.”
“What are you talking about?” Martin asked.
Armada faced the windows that overlooked the little garden, raising his voice to make sure that if anyone was home, they could hear him. He wanted to see just how innocent Martin considered himself.
“The raid. The barrels. The failed business arrangement. You paid off Salinas and, in turn, Esteban Marañón in order to make it all work. But it didn’t. And after the raid, all you cared about was covering it up. You had to be sure no one knew that the raid happened because of you!”
Martin grabbed Armada’s arm, pulling him away from the corner of the garden with a wary eye on the windows, the colour draining from his face.
“Yes, all right. All right,” Martin said, bringing his voice down to almost a whisper. “How did you find out?”
“That’s not important. What’s important is you telling me the truth about all this for once. Because I already have enough to haul you from this pueblo in chains, which I will be more than happy to do if you lie to me just one more time.”
Armada saw a glimmer of humility in Martin’s expression that he hadn’t thought possible.
“I did it for the pueblo. I understand if you don’t believe me,” Martin said. “But this town is my family, same as my wife and my children. And in order for it to survive, it needs to move.”
“Move? The whole town?” Armada asked.
“There were a lot more soldiers in that company before all this happened. They were corrupting everyone. The gambling, drinking in the tavern, starting fights every Saturday night. And they never came to mass, not that I ever saw. I tried talking to Salinas about it, but he was such a coward. He couldn’t even stand up to his own men. So there was nothing I could do, and those soldiers knew it. They would mock me in the streets. Always boasting about how they could do whatever they wished. I began to lose respect amongst the people in this town. I had to do something.”
Martin raised his chin, as if fighting to regain his dignity.
“Well, I can’t move the tower, but I can move the town. Not far, just a league or two inland. Then we wouldn’t be at risk of being raided, and the soldiers would leave us as well. It’s all empty countryside up north, with plenty of springs for water and wood for building fences. But it’s expensive to move a whole town. We needed money.”
Martin gulped down his water as if it were ale, then poured himself another.
“So what went wrong?” Armada asked. “I doubt the pirates would have risked a landing party like that without some promise of great reward. And they didn’t even find the brandy. How did it go so wrong?”
Martin took a moment to answer. “We were never going to make enough from the brandy we had. My connections aren’t that good. Besides, I had nowhere to store it. Jose’s shed was all I had to work with, and even that was risky. Jose is loyal but not smart. I took a big risk by including him at all.”
“So you told the pirates you had more brandy than you did,” Armada said.
“I figured we could give them what we had as a payment of good faith. I could tell them to come back for the rest in a few months. I hoped we could have moved the town by then, and we would have been safe. Those pirates would never risk coming that far inland, not with the watchtower there.”
“So you told the pirates that you didn’t have everything you had promised, and they raided the town instead,” Armada said.
“I had no idea they would… How could I know?”
“You amateur!” Armada barked, surprised at his own tone. “How could you have been so foolish?”
“I wonder that every day, Constable,” Martin said. “I have to live with those families who lost children. I can see the grief in their eyes. It will never go away. Every mass, every fiesta, every romeria. It will always haunt me…”
“Oh, be quiet with your platitudes,” Armada said. “You deserve little sympathy. You have yet to even admit to them what you’ve done.”
“This town still needs an alcalde, and I am the best one for the job.”
“I disagree,” Armada said. “But that is a matter for your pueblo, not the Brotherhood. I am here to find out which one of you put the bullet in Esteban Marañón’s chest. So which one of you was it? You, Captain Salinas, or Jose Encinas?”
Martin went back to looking confused. “I don’t know.”
“I doubt that,” Armada said, unmoved by Martin’s sudden confidence. “So I’m going to arrest all three of you on smuggling charges. You will be imprisoned, your assets seized, and everyone in the pueblo will know why. That is, unless one of you confesses to what you did.”
“I didn’t kill Esteban,” Martin said. “The night he died, I was at a meeting in the ayuntamiento, making arrangements for our Three Kings procession. Ask anyone else on the council. They will confirm I was there. There is no way I could have done it.”
“Perhaps, but you still know who did. And until I get the truth about that, I’m going to move forwards with arresting you. Tonight.”
“I told you, I don’t know. I…”
Martin looked into Armada’s eyes and stopped himself.
The man knew he was beaten. The guilt Martin Figueroa had carried around with him must have been so easy to put away at first. But Armada knew about guilt. And it had a way of eating its way into one’s soul, little by little, growing and becoming stronger every day. After a while, it would grow so large and powerful that all it took was one hard look for it to consume you.
And for Martin, that look was right now.
“Can…can I at least be allowed to tell my family first? About the raid?” Martin asked. “I think they should hear it from me. They deserve that much. I can do it over dinner tonight. Then you can take me. I won’t try to flee.”
“No. It has to be now. I can’t risk it.”
“Very well. Then you won’t get the answer you want. And I have it, I assure you. I know who killed Esteban. And I’ll sign a statement attesting to it. I’ll do anything you want. But you have to let me talk to my family first. Two hours, that’s all I need. Two hours.”
Armada wondered if the man was foolish enough to try to deal with pirates, did that mean he was foolish enough to think he could flee to the countryside as well? He could track him down if that happened. But it would be a hassle and delay the case.
On the other hand, this man’s world was ending. He had assumed he would be alcalde of this little town until his dying day. Now that was being ripped from his grasp. What would he be instead? Especially if everyone in town knew what he’d done? In a way, Martin having to face his family would be more difficult than any prison sentence.
“Very well. I will come to collect you at eight o’clock tonight.”
Martin nodded, staring at his shoes.
Armada poked him in the shoulder to make his point. “Eight o’clock. Don’t try anything foolish.”
Armada left Martin standing in the back garden a defeated man.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
April 1563
Mencía lay back on the hillside, feeling the warm spring sun on her face for the first time in weeks. Her body ached, and her hips were still sore, but she was healing. Over the past few weeks, the last of the cold winter air had been blown away, replaced by a warm breeze coming in from the west. The hillsides were exploding into colour. Wildflowers of every variety began to jostle with each other for room to grow as the air filled with the hum of hungry bees. Everyone in town began to move their lives b
ack outside after such a long, cold winter. People were hanging about in the plaza again, and there was always a conversation happening in the road.
There was a gurgling sound from next to her, then a groan that grew into a cry. Mencía opened her eyes and looked over at the tiny baby in the basket next to her.
Little Federico was up after a very short nap. Mencía had been hoping he would sleep a little longer, as it felt she’d done nothing but nurse him for the past few months. So many long, sleepless nights. It was exhausting. It made her realise why her own mother had hired so many nannies and nursemaids.
But Mencía wouldn’t have traded the experience of raising her son for anything. She was all on her own and would probably never sleep again. But it was still worth it.
“Mencía, you should come back inside, dear. It’s not good for the baby to be out in the sun too long,” came a voice from nearby.
Mencía looked over at Ana Aguilar, who was in the back garden a short distance away. She had just come back from the lavadero and was now hanging up the laundry to dry in the sun.
Mencía felt a bit guilty. She was supposed to be inside, sewing. Over the past few months, she’d developed a nice little business as a seamstress, which helped to pay her way in the Aguilar home. But the work was tedious and left her mind free to wander. She often thought of her father and wondered if he was still searching for her.
Had the shipwreck changed his mind at all? If he was to find out she and her baby were alive, would he still send her away again? Or would he remember the grief he must be feeling now and let her stay?
It was too much of a gamble. And she didn’t like the idea that he could snatch away her freedom again. Until that changed, she would let him believe she was dead.
Besides, life was getting easier in La Herradura. She was now able to go into town again. A few months ago, Ana had come up with the excuse that Mencía was her niece from Otivar, having come to stay with them after her husband died. This meant she was a part of the pueblo and could walk around in the open. And Ana had even given her a new name—Baltasara Aguilar—which Mencía loved.
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