The Devils of Cardona (20 page)

It was a hot day, with no breeze on the balcony, and as soon as the auto was over, he retired to his office to remove his inquisitorial robes and tell his servants to bring his lunch to the shaded patio overlooking the fountain in the Patio of Saint Isabel. Food was one of the few earthly pleasures that Mercader allowed himself, and he ate a full meal of meatballs and bread crumbs, accompanied by a glass of red wine, followed by a plate of assorted fruits.

The heat, wine and food had a soporific effect, and soon he was so lulled by the trickle of water from the fountain and the trilling of a nightingale from the garden that his head slumped forward and he fell asleep. Almost immediately he found himself in a strange dream, in which he was kneeling down to pray in a lush green garden when a naked male angel with white wings appeared on the patio in front of him. Normally angels were sexless, but this one was blond and exceptionally beautiful, and Mercader was shocked to see that the angel's shameful part was as solid and erect as a stallion's.

He woke to hear footsteps echoing from the darkened interior and looked up to see Herrero and his secretary coming toward him out of the gloom.

Herrero bowed deferentially. “Excellency, we have brought the prisoners.”

“And the wood-carver?”

“Still no sign of him, Excellency. But we have reason to believe that he may be the Morisco dog who has been shedding Christian blood.”

Mercader was silent for just long enough to let the
comisario
know that he was displeased as Herrero gazed hungrily at the uneaten fruit. “I have to report that Alcalde Mendoza stopped us on the road and demanded to talk to the prisoners.”

“Did you let him?”

“Absolutely not. Even though he insisted.”

“You did well. That man needs to learn his place. I will make it known to the inquisitor-general that he has attempted to interfere with our business. And if he persists in such behavior, I shall personally ensure that he is excommunicated. Now, let us see the prisoners.”

Herrero cast a last disappointed glance at the array of dishes as he accompanied the
comisario
back into the building and up the winding stone steps to the Troubadour Tower. They found Pachuca and the prison warden hunched over bowls of bread and stew with two of the other
familiares
,
oblivious to the rancid odor of excrement and musty straw and the sound of a woman sobbing from behind the locked door. Mercader was always careful to observe the prisoners in their cells when they were first brought in, so that he could make a preliminary assessment.

The foreknowledge that he acquired in these visits often shaped the tempo of the interrogations that followed. Some prisoners were like eggs who could be broken with only the lightest tap. They were the ones who became tearful as they protested their innocence or were so petrified with awe and terror that they could hardly speak at all. Men and women like this could be left alone for weeks or months, so that when they were finally brought to the tribunal, they were ready to pour their secrets almost as if they were in the confessional.

There were also those who required more severe forms of pressure, who refused to admit their guilt and were even openly defiant. The two Moriscos straddled these categories. Both men were sitting in a cell on the third floor of the tower, leaning on the great stone pillars beneath the old Arabic inscription proclaiming
THE EMPIRE IS ALLAH
—a message that always amused Mercader every time he saw it. The carpenter Navarro refused to even acknowledge their presence until Pachuca gave him a blow on the arm with his baton. The young apprentice was clearly terrified and insisted that he had done nothing wrong and pleaded to be told what he'd been accused of.

Mercader did not answer these questions. He had witnessed many similar protestations of innocence. Even the guiltiest men were able to show genuine conviction when confronted with the prospect of pain and death, but he had no doubt that the interrogation of the two Moriscos would produce the same results.

he news of the attack on the farmhouse reached Belamar shortly after daybreak the following day. By the time Mendoza and his team arrived at the scene, much of the farm had been burned to the ground, and the flames were still licking at parts of the main building. Segura organized volunteers from Belamar and the surrounding villages to bring up water from the well to put them out, but it was not until midmorning that they were able to bring out the bodies. There were eleven dead altogether, including a baby, in addition to the young boy they found lying in the yard, the girl they found near the well, and the cows, goats and horses that had been gratuitously slaughtered in their corrals and stables or left scattered all around the farm. The bodies in the farmhouse had been blackened almost beyond recognition, and the smell of charred flesh mingled with smoke and the blood of slaughtered animals.

Mendoza ordered Necker, the two militiamen and some of the Moriscos to dig a mass grave for the animal carcasses as he tried to piece together what had happened. The nearest neighbor to the del Río family was a farmer who lived nearly one league away, and he said that he had heard screams coming from the farm at around nine o'clock in the evening and had immediately hidden his family in the forest. Others had watched the fire burn and said that they had heard but not seen a large group of men and horses leaving the area just after midnight.

No one had dared approach the farm until daylight, and Mendoza did not blame them for that. As far as he could tell, there'd been no attempt to rob the del Río household; the sole purpose of the raid appeared to have been killing and destruction, and the hideous tableau was completed by the crude wooden cross that had been planted in the yard in front of the household, which the family's neighbors insisted had not been there before. At midday the first relatives of the deceased began to arrive, and some of them wept at the sight of the bodies lying in a row in the courtyard.

Shortly after one o'clock, Pelagio Calvo arrived with a contingent of constables and militiamen, who immediately began to help the Moriscos digging and dragging the carcasses toward the deepening pit. There was already a faint smell of wine on the corregidor's breath as he stood supervising them with his hands on his hips, looking even more like a small, fat bird in his tightly fitting leather doublet with his bandy legs.

“I shit in my mother's milk, but this is a bad business, Bernardo!” he exclaimed.

Mendoza saw no reason to reply to this banal observation, which failed by a considerable margin to do justice to the horrific violence that had been inflicted on the Morisco del Río and his family.

“Did you know that del Río was smuggling horses?” he asked, leaning on his stick to shift his weight from his bad leg.

“We suspected it, but we never caught him. If he was, he wouldn't have been doing it on his own account.”

“He wasn't. He was working for Vallcarca.”

“How do you know this?”

Calvo listened grimly as Mendoza told him about Ventura's encounter with the smugglers in the mountains and the robbery of the tailors' carriage.

“Well, I can't say I'm surprised,” Calvo said. “I always suspected that Vallcarca had business across the border. Do you think he killed del Río to shut him up?”

Mendoza had already considered this possibility. It could not be entirely coincidental that Gonzalo del Río was the same man his cousin had encountered in the mountains less than three days before and relieved of one of his horses. In addition to Vallcarca, the smuggler had also given up Franquelo's name, which might constitute a motive for an exemplary massacre, assuming that the
alguacil
even knew that he had done so. But Franquelo had been in Belamar when the massacre took place. And since he had not yet acted on his cousin's information, then the only person who knew what had happened in the mountains was the smuggler Rapino, and he was nowhere to be found.

“It's a harsh way to ensure silence,” Mendoza said. “And what about this?” He pointed toward the cross.

“This is Spain, Bernardo. Business and religion aren't mutually exclusive.”

That was true enough. In the Alpujarras even the scum of the Seville streets had believed that God had given them permission to loot and rape the Moriscos when they attacked their villages, but no one appeared to have even tried to rob the del Río household.

“If you ask me, Bernardo, it looks as though the Old Christians are taking their own revenge. You can blame the Redeemer for that. Your cousin has done good work. At last we know who he is. Now, let's go and get him.”

Mendoza nodded. He did not tell Calvo his own doubts about the Catalan or Vallcarca's accusations against Vicente Péris, partly because he had
not yet resolved them in his own mind and also because he no longer believed that the wine-sodden corregidor who had once been his friend had anything illuminating to say about them. Instead he glanced at Franquelo, who was standing in front of the entrance to the smoking farm to ensure that the Moriscos did not approach it, looking suitably grim and somber.

“What's your opinion of our constable?” he asked.

“Franquelo? He's lazy, and I wouldn't be surprised if he makes a little money where he shouldn't, but he does his job—more or less, as long as someone keeps an eye on him. You don't think he's involved in this?”

“Del Río told Ventura that he was the man who brought Vallcarca's horses.”

“Then I'll take the son of a whore back to Jaca in chains!”

“No, don't do that. I don't want him to know he's under suspicion. Not yet.”

“You know what I think, Bernardo? This is all getting out of hand. First you've got Moriscos killing Christians. Now Christians are killing Moriscos, and the only arrests so far are those two rapists in Vallcarca. If it doesn't stop, things are only going to get worse.”

Mendoza marveled once again at his friend's ability to state the blindingly obvious.

“Maybe the king needs to start thinking about pacification rather than investigation,” Calvo went on. “A few thousand soldiers and we can wipe out every bandit in Cardona and Vallcarca.”

“We're dealing with crimes, not acts of war.”

“For now,” Calvo said ominously. “But the
montañeses
are getting restless. They're saying that if we can't protect them from this Redeemer, then the Old Christians will have to protect themselves. Maybe this is just the beginning of that. Maybe some of them thought del Río was the Redeemer. Or maybe they just thought they'd kill any Moriscos they could find.”

Mendoza agreed that this was a possibility, especially after the murder of the tailor. But he also found it curious that vengeful Christian vigilantes
should have killed the same man his cousin had encountered in the mountains only three days before. And the fact that del Río was both a smuggler and an associate of Vallcarca and possibly of Franquelo as well made it even odder still. The more he thought about these connections, the more it seemed to him that something beyond religion was at stake, and he had no intention of asking the king to send an army of occupation to Aragon on the basis of rumors, even if his friend was willing to do so.

“I'm returning to Belamar,” he said. “I'll have to report back to Villareal immediately.”

“Of course. I'll have a messenger standing by. Just send Franquelo up here. I assume you're still going to use him?”

“I am. Send him to pick up the letter before you leave. And I'd appreciate it if you don't tell him anything that I've told you.”

Calvo leaned closer, till Mendoza could smell the wine on his breath, and patted him on the back. “You're doing a good job, Bernardo,” he said.

Mendoza stiffened with irritation. In that moment he did not feel that he or anyone else was doing a good job at all, and he beckoned to Gabriel that he was ready to leave.

“I want a full report on the massacre,” he said as they rode away. “Ready to give to Corregidor Calvo by the end of the day.”

“Of course.” Gabriel was frowning in the way that always preceded a question.

“What is it, boy?”

“Why does God allow such things to happen?”

“Haven't I told you to be careful of what you talk about in public?” he snapped.

“You have, sir,” Gabriel replied calmly. “And that's why I'm asking you in private.”

Gabriel's earnestness and solemn expression immediately made Mendoza feel guilty at his bad temper. His page's question was one that he had often asked himself, and he'd never been able to come up with a satisfactory
answer. “The Church says that God gave us free will so that we could choose between good and evil,” he said. “Each of us has to make that choice freely. If we didn't have that choice, then virtue and heaven would lose all meaning.”

“And those people who were killed, will they go to heaven or hell?”

“It depends on when they made their last confession.”

“But the children couldn't make confession. And they had no choice. Does that mean they'll go to hell, too?”

As always, Mendoza was impressed and slightly alarmed by his page's willingness to explore these concepts that were best left to churchmen, and he replied vaguely that there must be some special dispensation for them. To his relief Gabriel did not ask what it was, and soon Belamar appeared in front of them. For the first time since their arrival, Mendoza was surprised to see that there was no one working in the fields. As they approached the main street, they found five men sitting on the stone bench near the
lavadero
, armed with a motley assortment of weapons.

“What are you men doing?” he asked.

“Protecting our wives and children, Your Mercy,” one of the Moriscos replied.

“Did Dr. Segura tell you to do this?”

“No one told us. We heard what happened. It was decided among ourselves.”

“Well, you might do better to see that your families have food on the table rather than stand here spreading alarm for no purpose,” said Mendoza testily. “And if you want to protect your village, perhaps you might see that your people come forward and give me information instead of concealing it!”

Gabriel and the Moriscos looked equally taken aback by this outburst, and Mendoza rode slowly through the village, past small groups of men and women whose faces emanated the same suspicion and fear. He wanted to shout at them that he had not washed properly since leaving Zaragoza, that
his clothes reeked of smoke and burned flesh, that he was sick of trying to coax information from a population that seemed determined to resist all his efforts. After a brief lunch in the tavern, he began to dictate the letter to Villareal in the village hall. They had barely begun when Franquelo returned and asked if the letter was ready.

To Gabriel's surprise, Mendoza told Franquelo to sit down on the bench while he continued with the dictation. When they finished, he asked his page to read out the description of the massacre once again, glancing over at Franquelo as he did so. The
alguacil
showed no sign of emotion and sat staring grimly at the floor until Mendoza handed him the sealed letter.

“By the way,” Mendoza asked casually, “did you know if del Río was ever involved in any criminal activity?”

“He was suspected of smuggling horses,” Franquelo replied. “On one occasion the corregidor ordered me to keep his farm under observation for a few days. I did that, but I found no evidence of anything illegal.”

The constable's face remained impassive. For the first time, Mendoza wondered if he was cleverer than he looked, because he had just lied without batting an eyelash, and if he could do it so easily to Mendoza, then he must have lied to Calvo as well, probably on more than one occasion. Mendoza was tempted to present him with the information that Ventura had brought back with him, but he did not want to draw any attention to his cousin's current assignment in the mountains. Instead he sent Franquelo away and promised himself that he would subject him to more rigorous questioning as soon as his cousin returned.