The Devils of Cardona (17 page)

“Offenses that can be proved are normally the ones that offenders are punished for,” Mendoza pointed out.

“Not with Moriscos!” Romero replied. “They'd lie to their own mothers to protect their damned faith. No one who knows Péris will be surprised by what he's done now.”

“I haven't said what he's done,” Mendoza said. “How do you know?”

“This is a small village, Your Honor. Everybody knows what happened in Vallcarca.”

“Well, we appreciate your assistance,” Mendoza said. “And we may consult your expertise in the future.”

The baker was clearly disappointed that he had not been offered money there and then, but Mendoza merely smiled at him and watched in disgust as he crossed the square and hurried back to the bakery.

“I would like to send that weasel to the galleys myself,” he said.

“Do you think what he said was true—about the Moriscos?” Gabriel asked.

“Who knows? At this point I don't know who's lying and who's telling the truth. Come, gather your things. Today I want you to come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Vallcarca.”

here were few things that Ventura enjoyed more than riding in open country on a fine horse, and the Andalusian was one of the best horses he had ever ridden. The mountains were an ideal place to put the young and headstrong stallion through his paces and impose Ventura's mastery over him. From the point of view of the investigation, however, these rides produced nothing of interest. After a cold night in a forest, he spent the next morning riding back and forth above the tree line between the Somport and Portalet passes before gradually working his way lower and circling back toward the main road in the afternoon. By five o'clock he had seen no one but shepherds, cattle herdsmen and charcoal burners, and he was beginning to think that he might have to return to Belamar when he saw the flash of movement coming out of the forest far below him.

As soon as he saw the cluster of dots moving rapidly across the landscape, he knew immediately that no one with any legitimate purpose in these mountains could be riding like that, and he felt both relief and exhilaration as he spurred the stallion and rode hard down in their direction, taking care to maintain his distance even as he closed upon them. For the best part of an hour, he continued at the same speed, digging his heels into the stallion's sweating flanks until finally they slowed as the road appeared in front of them.

Ventura reined the horse in, matching the pace of those he was following and moving cautiously forward till he was able to make out about twenty or more horsemen, some of whom were carrying an extra rider with them. All of them had sacks and bags covering their faces as they took up concealed positions on both sides of the road. He edged the stallion into the forest behind them, threading his way through the trees, muttering soothing noises. When he had come as close as he dared on horseback, he dismounted and tethered the horse, taking the cocked crossbow with him, and crept slowly forward. On hearing the shots, he crouched down and ran quickly along the edge of the forest till he had nearly reached the road.

Directly in front of him, he saw a carriage with a team of four mules, entirely surrounded by a horde of masked horsemen. The carriage driver was lolling almost sideways on the pillion and was clearly dead. One of the horsemen had seized the reins and climbed on board to subdue the panic-stricken mules. Inside the carriage a woman was screaming and a male voice was shouting and pleading for mercy.

“Come out of the carriage or die inside it!” one of the
salteadores
shouted when the tumult had subsided. A door opened, and two women stepped down, helped by two male passengers, one of whom was holding his left shoulder as if he had already been shot. All of them were wearing clothes of good quality that contrasted dramatically with the improvised white masks and motley apparel of many of their attackers. The women stared
fearfully at the bandit chief, who was standing before them holding the reins of his horse in one hand and a silver mace in the other. He ordered the men to unbuckle their swords and the women to hand over their jewelry. When one of the women hesitated, the jefe yanked her necklace from her throat with a violent jerk that made her gasp.

“God curse you!” One of her male companions raised his fist in a chivalric gesture that Ventura knew was ill advised. The jefe stepped to one side and swung the mace upward. There was a noise like the cracking of a thin wooden box as the weapon struck the would-be knight in shining armor in the side of the head, and a jet of blood squirted from his temple as he dropped to the ground and lay still.

“Gos,”
the bandit sneered. The women and their wounded companion backed against the carriage as he turned toward them.

“You, little man, what's your profession?”

“A tailor, Your Mercy. Like m-my brother,” the wounded man stammered, staring down at the prone corpse. “We are on the way to Monzón to make dresses for the royal wedding.”

“Do you have silver?”

The tailor was silent, and the jefe drew back the mace. “If you want your brains to stay in your head, you better use them,” he said.

“Inside the carriage!” one of the women burst out. “There's a false bottom.”

“A sensible woman. You should listen to your woman, tailor. Then maybe you might live to see your grandchildren grow old.”

His companions now swarmed in and over the carriage, ripping out the false bottom and tossing bags and boxes down from the roof. Some of them held up their hands in triumph, brandishing silver plates, jewelry, bags of coins, fine cloths and velvet dresses, which they strutted around in as if testing them for size, to the amusement of their companions.

“See how the ladies of Monzón prepare for the infanta's wedding!” one of them crowed.

“Now they'll have to go naked!” shouted another.

“Enough,” the jefe ordered impatiently. “Gather everything up. Bring the mules, too. As for you”—he turned to the passengers, who were backed against the carriage like prisoners waiting for a firing squad—“go and tell the world the Redeemer has come to liberate the Moors from the Christian tyrants! Tell them the sultan and the king of France are coming to Aragon with their armies to reconquer al-Andalus, and there will be no city that can stand against them!”

Within minutes the bandits had gathered up their possessions and ridden away with the laden mules, leaving the two women and their wounded passenger staring aghast at the body of their fallen companion. It was only then that Ventura emerged from his hiding place. For a moment he considered getting back to his horse and continuing his pursuit, but it would soon be dark, and it was obvious that the three survivors were clearly in no condition to go anywhere without help. The two women shrank back against the carriage as he came toward them out of the shadows, and the tailor halfheartedly put himself in front of them.

“It's all right, ladies,” Ventura assured them. “I'm an officer of the king. I'm here to help you.”

“You saw these devils? Then why didn't you stop them!” the tailor demanded.

“Because, señor, there were two dozen of them, and my name is Luis de Ventura, not Achilles. If I had tried to do anything, they would have killed me and probably all of you, too, in the bargain. Let me see that.”

The tailor flinched as Ventura drew his dagger and cut away the soaking velvet jacket.

“I've seen worse.” Ventura reached down and peeled back the dead man's clothes, tearing and cutting a strip from his white tunic, which he wrapped around his companion's shoulder. “You might live if we can stop the bleeding. Get back in the carriage and wait for me.”

“Where are you going?” one of the women asked fearfully.

“To get my horse. Do you think I'm going to pull you to the next town by myself?”

A few minutes later, he returned and attached the reluctant stallion to the wooden shafts. He dragged the heavy body of the dead tailor toward the carriage and hoisted it onto the broken floor at the feet of the passengers. He considered taking the driver's seat, but the dead coachman lay sprawled across it like a drunkard, and it seemed easier to leave him there.

“I know you weren't made to be a carthorse, my prince,” he murmured apologetically as he took the horse's reins. “But it's for a good cause. Don't worry, señoras,” he called back as they moved away. “We may take some time, but we will get there in the end.”

•   •   •

A
T
FIRST
SIGHT
there was little to distinguish the drab, cheerless towns and hamlets and cultivated fields of Vallcarca from Cardona. It was not until Mendoza and his men had been riding through the
señorio
for the best part of half an hour that they came across the unmistakable shape of a gibbet on the outskirts of a village. On drawing closer they saw a body swinging gently in the morning breeze and vultures pecking at its face, open stomach and bare feet, the birds scattering as they approached. The scavengers had fed well, and there was little untouched flesh visible through the tattered clothes. Nevertheless Mendoza saw that the body had once been male and young.

He had seen such things enough not to be shocked by them. In Granada the bodies of executed rebels had also been left to rot as a lesson to anyone considering disobeying the king. But those were exceptional measures taken during a war. Here there were peasants working in the fields as though the gibbet and the corpse were part of the landscape.

“You there!” he called to two ragged young men who were laboriously
picking stones from a terrace planted with barley. “Why was this boy hanged?”

“He was carrying a pointed dagger, Excellency.”

“He was executed for that?”

The peasant nodded glumly. “No one is allowed to carry more than a dagger in Vallcarca without the baron's permission,” he said. “And the point must be rounded. The first penalty is flogging. After that it's the rope.”

Once again Mendoza was surprised. The Inquisition had been trying to get the Crown to enforce these restrictions on Moriscos in Aragon for years, but Vallcarca was the first place where they seemed to have been applied, apparently as the result of a decision by the baron himself. As they rode on, he noticed that pointed weapons were indeed absent from the
señorio
, with the exception of those carried by the ubiquitous members of the baron's personal militia in their maroon tunics. Even the peasants working in the fields were mostly unarmed, and Mendoza passed various gibbets and whipping posts in prominent positions.

Vallcarca was nearly two hours' ride from Belamar, at the foot of a rocky promontory with the baronial palace looming gloomily above it. The palace consisted of a somewhat dilapidated-looking medieval castle with a more modern building attached to it that was obviously still under construction. As they ascended the steep dirt road toward it, they saw a number of carts and wagons drawn up outside the main entrance, which was guarded by two halberdiers wearing breastplates and combed morion helmets. All around them, servants, stableboys and other maroon-clad militiamen were hurrying back and forth, bringing boxes and bags out of the palace while a better-dressed man shouted orders at them.

Mendoza asked to see the baron, but the official barely looked at him.

“His Excellency and his family are preparing to go to Huesca,” the man said. “He is not receiving visitors. You!” he shouted to two sweating
servants who were laboring to carry a large, heavy box. “Be careful with that, you cretins!”

Mendoza dismounted and stood, holding his horse's reins. He had no time for lackeys who aped the mannerisms of their masters.

“I'm not sure that you heard me correctly,” he said. “I am Alcalde Mendoza, special justice of His Majesty the king, and I'm here to see the baron on a matter of great importance.”

“And I told you the baron doesn't want to see anyone!” the official snapped.

“It's all right.”

The guards stiffened to attention as a tall, barrel-chested man appeared in the doorway, his size magnified by the slashed black velvet jacket with raised shoulders and wide, open sleeves that hung down just above his knees. His neck was entirely concealed by a white ruff collar, which framed a great block of a head topped by a mass of thick black hair and a broad, pugnacious jaw that was partly concealed by a well-trimmed goatee.

“Good day, Licenciado Mendoza. I am Vallcarca. Please come in.”

•   •   •

M
ENDOZA
LEFT
HIS
MEN
OUTSIDE
and followed the baron into a spacious flagstoned corridor with little natural light, whose gloom was accentuated by the faded tapestries of hunting scenes and the gaping spaces in the walls where the plaster had fallen away.

“I heard you were in Cardona,” Vallcarca said. “You've caught me at a bad time. My family always goes to our summerhouse near Huesca during this season.”

“I won't take up much of your time, my lord.”