The Matador's Crown (14 page)

15

Garin’s call came as a surprise. Annja was walking along the shore, checking out a row of warehouses edging the south side of the city. Could one of them be hiding illicit antiquities? She had her eye out for armed guards after sighting one at the corner rooftop of a brick building half a block from the nearest dock.

“Manuel mentioned your interest in some crowns he has hanging in his sanctuary?” Garin asked.

“If you call spotting stolen goods an interest, then yes. Is he angry about that? I don’t think he believed me when I told him I hadn’t touched them.”

“On the contrary, he said if you liked them so much you should get one for yourself. He got the replicas at a little shop in Cádiz off San Pedro.”

“That’s not far from the hotel where I’m staying. But a replica? Hard to believe El Bravo would place a cheap trinket in a room he calls his sanctuary.”

“You didn’t go
in
the sanctuary, did you, Annja?”

“I was lost. Looking for the bathroom.”

Garin sighed heavily. “Annja, don’t do this. Not everything that looks like an artifact is valuable. You of all people should know that. Some items simply hold personal value.”

“And some friendships blind people to the truth.”

She had no right to prod him. It wasn’t as though Garin Braden was redeemable at this stage in his long and notorious life.

“I’m passing along the message. Bravo thought you might be interested in owning one for yourself.”

“So what are you up to this fine sunny day?”

“I’m getting ready to watch the fight.”

“I’m not invited to join you?”

“Not this afternoon. I’ve got another friend on my arm.”

“I bet she’s buxom.”

“That she is. And she doesn’t wear khaki like it’s going out of style. Luck with antiques shopping, Annja.”

“Thanks. I think I will check out the shop Manuel suggested.”

So Manuel claimed the votive crowns were cheap knockoffs. The two crowns in his sanctuary had been the real thing. Annja felt it instinctually.

She’d handled too many valuable artifacts over the years to guess this one wrong.

Garin had given her an address, despite having told her that El Bravo said the crown was a replica. Something must be worth checking out.

* * *

T
HE
COBBLESTONE
STREETS
in the old city reminded Annja of paintings made by starving artists that depicted a mood but not necessarily a real place or event. Brick walls on either side of the narrow street sandwiched her in. Strung here and there were clotheslines flying laundry—sometimes bright and garish, sometimes all whites, bras, boxers and stockings. Moorish influence showed in the decorative tiles around window frames. Iron staircases hugged the walls, and rickety tin planters were overflowing with gaudy flowers. Graffiti she deemed worthy of an exhibit at a museum taunted her with the challenge to
Speak out!
and
Be Real.

The yellow-tiled cupola of the baroque Cádiz cathedral loomed high above the street. The cathedral had taken one hundred and sixteen years to complete and a person could sight the cupola from virtually any position in the city. She had to take a trip there before leaving town.

She pushed open an intricate black wrought-iron gate, taking a narrow alleyway toward San Pedro. She could hear the calls from shops and stands for “Fresh sausage!”, “Two for one!” and “Cold beer!”

The thermometer was pushing toward one hundred. A cold beer sounded great. She headed toward the vendors but kept an eye out for the house with the antiquities knockoffs.

She stopped dead when she came face-to-face with a massive bull. A real, live, very big bull. It had the blackest pair of eyes and black horns tipped with striated white bone. Its hide was red, which made her think of the Hercules coins. Hercules’s tenth labor had been to steal red cattle from the monster Geryon. The bull flicked its tail in the classic manner all animals used to broadcast anger.

Its shoulders were as wide as a draft horse and it stood in the middle of the street, eyeing her as if she were a magenta-and-yellow cape. Where it had come from was impossible to guess. She hadn’t heard hooves on cobblestone. The last turn she’d taken had been through the gate—that gate was now closed.

No time to wonder who had it in for her by closing her in with a thousand-pound beast. An uncaged bull stood staring her down. Its size and the huge
morillo
muscle at the back of its neck told Annja it had been bred for the ring. A bull bred to fight for its life and to use its horns against anything it deemed a threat. And if it truly were corrida bred, this may be the first time it had seen a human on foot. Any movement would act as the cape to the bull’s targeting eyes.

Heart pounding, Annja flexed her fingers and cautiously took three steps backward, remembering movement was what the bull saw, not color or, in this instance, the lack of color in her khaki pants.

Who would waste a bull on her? Couldn’t be bred for the corrida—had to be one of those bulls used in the
novillerado
fights for amateurs. A bull that had seen a person on foot and had developed a healthy respect for the danger a biped presented.

She could hope.

The instinct to draw her sword was strangely absent. This threat was not premeditated on the bull’s part. It was innocent.

The bull charged.

Feeling the ground thunder beneath the bull’s hooves, Annja knew it would gain on her—and it did. She smelled the manure and animal musk close up behind her. Dodging to the right, she sensed the bull followed. She was the target. It went after what moved. So she should stop.

Except she wasn’t stupid.

Pumping her arms, she leaped and grabbed the bottom step of a second-floor iron staircase attached to the side of a limestone building. Something skimmed her boot, twisting her ankle painfully. A horn.

The bull clattered to a stop. It turned and snorted, searching for her—anything that moved—while she held her knees up tight to her chest, dangling above its massive bulk.

Clotheslines fluttered three feet above Annja’s head. The bull would never be distracted by the distant movement. She wasn’t even sure it could lift its head that high to notice the movement.

A heated yet whispered conversation between two men caught her attention. Annja noticed them at the same time the bull’s head swung around.

“Get out of here!” she yelled.

The men took one look at the bull and crept slowly back into the connecting alleyway. The bull charged them.

Annja eyed the laundry. A fluttery red-and-pink skirt would prove just the thing. Pulling up into a biceps curl, she kicked out and flung her body upward. She grabbed the skirt by the hem, and it tugged at the line as she dropped to the ground. The clothespin didn’t release the skirt and instead the whole line fell, blanketing her with clothing.

Above, a woman’s head popped out the window and she bulleted angry Spanish at Annja. Annja tugged the clothes off and yelled at the bull, which couldn’t fit its broad shoulders through the narrow alley where the men had escaped.

The bull snorted and whipped its tail angrily. It trotted away from Annja and down the street. She didn’t mind that the animal was moving away from her, but she did care if any unsuspecting people got caught in the bull’s path. They could be injured or even killed. She wasn’t about to let that happen.

“I hope this works.”

Dashing down the street and alongside the bull, she sped up beyond it by five yards and swirled the skirt to get its attention. The bull sighted the flash of fabric and veered toward it.

The little Annja knew about caping the bull had come from her impromptu session with Manuel. He’d taught her a basic veronica. How to lure the bull toward her and sweep it beyond her body while avoiding connecting. Capture the bull’s attention and mesmerize it with the cape.

She didn’t have time for style or swagger.

Sweeping the skirt aside and high, then flicking her arm behind her body, the bull passed wide on her right side, a safe four feet away from her.

Twisting, she called to the bull, which hadn’t turned to search for the cape again. “Hey!”

“It is ‘huh,’ señorita!” she heard someone call from behind and to the side. One of the men who had fled the bull’s path lingered in the alleyway. “Huh!”

The bull swung its head toward where the man hid. It could turn quicker than a polo pony despite its massive bulk.

“Huh!” Annja called to redirect its attention. It worked. “Call for someone who can manage this,” she yelled in Spanish. “I’ll try to keep it in one spot.”

“Already done. I sent my friend. A retired bullfighter lives not far from here. Watch out, señorita!”

The bull thundered toward her, horns down, and aimed for her leg, because that was where she held the skirt. Quickly she flicked out the fabric and at the same time jumped to the side to put her body out of the bull’s line. Not exactly a matador’s calm, defiant stance, but she was no torero.

A horn snagged the fabric, pulling it out of her hand. Not optimal. Not even the best of the best worst scenarios she could imagine.

Annja now stood alone in the alley with a bull, which was shaking its head in an attempt to dislodge the bright cloth flapping from its horn. On its flank she noted the brand. A half circle above a bar. If she survived, she intended to track down the bull’s origins.

Adolescent cheers caught her attention. Down the alley, where she had turned to enter the street, a klatch of young boys had pushed open the iron gate and skipped and tugged on a rope they each held with one hand. Unaware of the bull, they took up position at the end of the street and laid out the rope in preparation for some sort of game.

“No!” Annja yelled. The bull was still struggling to free itself from the skirt. “Boys!
Chicos!
” she called.

They didn’t hear her.

“Is the torero on his way?” she called to the unseen man.

“I haven’t heard from my friend. I will try to find another cape!”

“No, don’t—” She took a breath to alleviate her panic. He couldn’t help her. She didn’t want to involve anyone else in this incredible danger.

She didn’t need the man’s help.

The bull stomped a hoof down on the skirt and with a shake of its head finally tore it off its horn. It dropped to the ground in shreds. The animal looked down the alley and shifted its back legs.

It had seen the children.

Without a thought for her own safety, Annja ran alongside the bull, which was beginning to move. This time, she called the sword out from the otherwhere and without hesitation stabbed the bull in the bulging muscle behind the neck, much like the mounted picadors did with their long spears. The bull grunted and twisted its head in aggravation at the small stick that had penetrated its thick hide. It slowed to a stop.

Annja didn’t have the time or skill to perform precision moves of weakening the bull with repeated stabs to the swollen
morillo
. And the bull wasn’t about to stand around and wait for her to learn.

It charged her, head down and left horn aimed for her thigh. She leaped and rolled in the air, landing with both feet planted behind the bewildered bull. Her athletic abilities had improved ever since she’d first held the sword. She could perform some remarkable feats when necessary.

“Huh, huh!” she taunted the bull, waving her free hand, but its attention was no longer on her.

It lifted its head, the leathery black nostrils sniffing the air. The boys playing at the end of the street jumped over the rope on the ground, picking up stones as they landed on one foot.

A woman’s shriek finally alerted the children, and when they saw the bull, they panicked and backed against the iron gate that blocked the end of the street.

Annja again bypassed the bull, running toward the children, who had been accompanied by an adult she only now noticed. Panic widened the woman’s eyes. Annja stopped thirty feet in front of the children and turned. She waited for the bull to come to her. Was this what it was like to stand in the corrida and face down death? But this was no spectacle. Innocent lives were in danger.

The bull walked a few steps, its hooves marking hollow clicks on the cobblestones and its tail flicking fiercely. It was assessing its opponent.

Adrenaline racing, Annja waved her hands and walked toward the danger, angling slightly to the side. She hated leaving a path open toward the children, but if the bull followed movement, then perhaps she could lure it away.

With a snort, it charged.

She stared down a locomotive that couldn’t be stopped. The only hope to alter its path was derailment.

Gripping the sword with both hands, she raised it high above her head, blade pointed down. The battle sword was much longer and wider than the
estoque
employed in the ring, but it would serve the purpose.

The matador placed the blade between the shoulder blades at the back of the neck muscle. Perfect placement slipped the blade in smoothly, to cut the aorta and ensure almost instantaneous death. It was a move made so quickly the crowd often never registered the kill—the moment of truth.

Annja jumped high as she felt the heat of the bull gain on her. She brought the sword tip down and pushed it hard into the bull’s back, slightly left of the spine. She didn’t hit bone.

Landing with a hand on the bull’s side, she pushed off from the sweat-slick red hide and again landed against a brick wall bracing herself with her hands. The bull remained standing. She may have missed the aorta completely. A coup de grâce at the base of the brain might be necessary.

Turning, she waved her hands to keep the bull’s attention on her and not the screaming boys.

She slapped its side and it whipped around to charge her. The battle sword remained deeply embedded in the bull’s back.

Annja dodged and changed her trajectory to the right. The bull managed to follow her, its tongue lolling and blood spilling from the sword’s entry point.

She miscalculated the distance and ran right up against the rough wall. The bull was on her, its hooves punishing the cobblestone. Its hot breath on her arm, she turned to meet the bull’s forehead and nose as it butted up against her stomach—gently.