Aztec Rage (45 page)

Barcelona

A
SHINING CITY
set against resplendent hills, Barcelona boasted one of the world's most beautiful bays. As I studied that picturesque seaport from the ship's prow, however, all I could think about was how to get out of it.

Again, I considered my escape plan. The colonel had instructed me to go to a waterfront inn called the Blue Fish and wait for one of his agents to contact me. I planned to head in the opposite direction.

I struggled with my conscience over my promise to Carlos—to give his sister his message and jewelry—but it was a brief tussle. I would not risk my life to search for Carlos's family, which would be the first place the colonel's men would look for me. Besides, the locket and ring I wore to honor Carlos were valuable. I was branded as a thief, no? Should I not live up to my reputation and rob my dead amigo's family? I could not sully my soul in the eyes of God any more than I had already.

As the fishing boat neared the city, the colonel's comment that a “surprise” awaited me at Barcelona weighed heavily on my mind. Sighting the port only heightened my nervousness, especially when the captain grinned knowingly at me. He definitely knew something that I didn't know, and I knew in my bones the secret didn't bode well for me.

Other than getting away from the waterfront, I had no idea of where I should direct my feet. Barcelona was a big city, but how thoroughly I could disappear into it was still unknown. At any time Spanish resistance fighters could slip a dagger between my ribs for betraying them, or the French could arrest me as a spy.

I was careful to ask only general questions about the various regions of Spain, not giving any clue that I might want to flee to another area. The captain told me Barcelona was only thirty-odd leagues from the French border. He had never visited Madrid but knew it to be an even bigger city than Barcelona. The sheer size of the capital attracted me. Furthermore, the road between the two large cities was well traveled, permitting me to melt in with legitimate travelers.

I would get out of Barcelona as soon as possible, not even spending a night in the city, pausing only to sell the locket and ring and buy a mount. Once in the capital, I would try to make enough money through honest labor—or dishonest, more likely—for passage to Havana.

I was deep in thought, devising and revising my plans, when the captain leaned beside me on the rail.

“It is the most magnificent city in the world, my Barcelona,” he said. “It is the city of discovery, too. On his return from discovering the New World, Columbus raced the
Niña
to Barcelona, where the king and queen were holding court, outsailing the treacherous Captain Pinzón aboard the
Pinta
. The men were racing to be the first to claim credit for the discoveries. Columbus brought six Carib indios and took them with him to the royal place in the Barri Góti, where he presented them to Isabella and Ferdinand.”

I told him about something curious I had seen earlier: fishing boats throwing large pieces of wood weighed down with iron and dragging a net overboard.

“Red coral,” the captain said. “Very valuable but too deep for a man to dive down and chip off. The boats are dragging the wooden rams along the coral, breaking off pieces which are then picked up by the net.”

We passed a French patrol boat, and I saw a man on board examining us with a spyglass.

“They are checking the name of the boat. When the
Sea Cat
sailed out of the city, they made a note of it. Now they will check to see how long the boat was gone. If more than a couple of days, the captain and crew are arrested and accused of carrying information to our forces at Cádiz.”

“Won't they realize you've been gone a couple weeks when they check their records?”

“The
Sea Cat
has only been gone overnight,” he said, grinning. “That is what their records will show.”

“You have someone altering their records?”

“No, señor, we of the resistance just have more than one boat named the
Sea Cat
. The other one was noted by the French when it sailed out of Barcelona yesterday, and we take its place on the French rolls today as returning from an overnight fishing trip.”

“Clever.”
But risky
, I thought.

“We'll dock near the Baceloneta district,” he said. “It is like a small village itself, a village of fishermen and dockworkers, even though it's part of the city. Your inn is near there.”

Again, the captain's knowing grin made me uneasy.

When we docked, I grabbed my sea bag of clothes and gear—I would have looked suspicious without it—and jumped down to the dock as soon as the crew had the lines secured. I waved good-bye to the captain and tried to keep my stride casual when I really wanted to break into a run. The wharf area was a busy one, bustling with fishing crews and fishmongers.

As I waved, the captain's grin got wider. He pointed at me and yelled, “There he is!”

Two women waiting at the end of the dock stared at me: an older woman who was recognizable as the mother of a younger one standing beside her. My eyes froze on the old woman because of the intense look she gave me. She wore widow's black from the scarf on her head to her shoes.

As my feet drew me involuntarily closer, I realized it wasn't my face she was staring at but the locket dangling from the chain around my neck. Her resemblance to Carlos was unmistakable, and just as the enormity of my dilemma sank in, she screamed:
“Murderer!”

I ran, and Carlos's mother gave chase, still screaming:
“Murderer!”

I dodged fishmongers with sharp knives and ran into the arms of two constables.

The widow and her daughter caught up with us. The king's men held me as the older woman pointed an accusatory finger at me.

“He murdered my son!” she shouted.

“How do you know, señora?”

Carlos's mother pointed at the locket and the rings on my fingers.

“He murdered my son and stole his jewelry.”

SIXTY-ONE

T
HE CONSTABLES TOOK
me to the Barcelona jail. My first fear was that I would be turned over to the French, but the captain had been right when he described the French's occupation as only being effective where the French stood. They occupied the massive, pentagonal fortress that dominated the city but left the day-to-day policing of the streets to the city police.

I spent my first night in jail, contemplating my options—everything from escape to confession—when in the morning a jailer released me from my cell.

“You're a lucky one,” he said, as I followed him up a dim set of stone steps. “Your lover arranged your release.”

I mumbled my appreciation and wondered who the hell my lover was. And if she would start screaming when she saw I wasn't Carlos.

I couldn't keep the wonderment off my face when I was brought into a room and came face to face with the young woman who had been with Carlos's mother on the dock. Her sisterly resemblance to Carlos was indisputable.

She gave me a hug. “I'm sorry, Carlos, but now we're together again.”

A grinning constable handed me my sea bag. He slapped me on the back. “I know what you'll be doing tonight!”

I was glad he knew; I certainly didn't.

I followed her out of the jail, neither of us saying a word. When we reached the street, her affectionate demeanor evaporated. She said, “This way,” and walked briskly down the street.

I followed her toward the heart of the city, questions with no answers
buzzing in my head. Did she still believe I murdered her brother? Why had she rescued me? Was I being rescued only so her family could wreak blood vengeance on me?

“I didn't kill your brother,” I said.

“Not now,” she hissed.

Despite her clear resemblance to Carlos, her personality was different, more assertive. She exuded a hardness Carlos had lacked; I didn't doubt she was capable of putting a blade in my gut. Perhaps living under foreign occupation had toughened her up. She was an attractive woman who no doubt had to resist the unwanted attention of French soldiers who thought Spanish women were spoils of war.

She led me into a maze of crowded streets intersected by narrow twisting lanes. The surrounding buildings had been built in the Middle Ages, but they didn't seem medieval; the atmosphere was too hectic, the district a frenzied hive of activity.

Carlos's sister had taken me to the Barri Gótic, the old Gothic section in the very heart of Barcelona. It was the oldest part of the city, dating back to Roman times. The area was filled with small businesses that manufactured many kinds of merchandise. In each a master craftsman employed an apprentice or two, producing wares such as wood casks, furniture, or iron goods. Generally the master and his family lived over the shop, while the apprentices slept wherever they could find room. The area contained the main cathedral and the Palau Reial Major, the royal palace where Columbus had appeared before the king and queen.

The street names mirrored the commerce of their shops. We passed a street called Boters, and as its street sign suggested, it housed wine cask makers. Agullers Street, true to its name, employed needle makers, and Corders featured shops full of rope spinners.

“A blind man could make his way through the Barri Gótic and know where he was with every step,” the captain had said, “just from the manufacturing sounds and smells.”

When we came to the royal palace, the woman—whose name I knew to be Rosa only because Carlos had told me—glared at me and said, “There's a room in the palace where the Inquisition used to conduct trials. They say the walls trembled when people lied.”

Was she trying to tell me something?

We came to a knife grinder's shop on Dagueria Street. Two young apprentices grinding blades did not even glance at us as we walked through the shop and to a stairway down to a cellar. I followed meekly—a lamb led to the matadero—conspicuously short on options. When we reached the bottom of the steps, two men appeared from out of the cellar's shadowy corners. Two more came down the steps behind me. All four men had daggers out.

“This is the bastardo that murdered my brother,” Rosa said.

SIXTY-TWO

I
THREW UP
my hands to show I had no weapons. “I was Carlos's friend, not his murderer.”

“Kill him,” she hissed. “He's a French spy.”

“Don't listen to her. I was sent here on an important mission by Colonel Ramírez in Cádiz. I'm here to contact the guerrillas fighting the French.”

“Murderer!”
She lifted her skirt and pulled a dagger from a sheath strapped to her leg.

“Stop it!” one of the men commanded.

“Casio—”

“No, we need information before we draw blood. You can take your revenge later.”

“I'm only here to serve,” I said, smiling. “Question me, and then she can kill me.”

The man called Casio stepped closer to me. I suspected he was only a few years older than me, perhaps around thirty but already world-weary. The hands holding the dagger were large and scarred from some sort of manual labor. Perhaps he'd been a smith. Stocky, powerfully built, he was a formidable presence.

I said, “I came here to help the resistance, not be killed by it.”

“What happened to Rosa's brother? Why are you pretending to be him?”

My life was on the line. Such moments arose now with numbing frequency, so numbing I did something shockingly out of character for me: I told the truth.

“My name is Juan de Zavala. I'm a colonial, from Guanajuato in the Bajío region of New Spain. I'm a liar and sometimes a thief by necessity, but not a murderer. I have only killed in self-defense. I didn't kill Carlos. He was my amigo. I tried to save his life when indios attacked us in the Yucatán. I nearly did so. He gave me his locket and ring to return to his family.”

Casio chuckled without humor. “And you came here, halfway around the world, to return them.” It was not a question.