Aztec Rage (46 page)

“I came to Spain because I was mistaken for Carlos after I escaped from the savages. I had his identification on me when I was found. I was wanted in New Spain, not for capricious crimes, but for ones I was forced to commit because Señora Fortuna had stacked the deck against me.” I told them the sad tale of the caballero who woke up one day to find that he
was a changeling, of how I met Carlos at Teotihuacán while running from constables and stayed with him as his servant until he died in the Yucatán. I left out a few details, among them the countess in New Spain and the killing of the inquisitor-priest in Cádiz.

When I finished, silence filled the room. An uncomfortable silence. Casio looked at me as if I were one of those people Carlos had believed lived on another planet. He slowly shook his head. “I don't know if I should cry because of your sad story . . . or cut your throat because you are the biggest liar in Christendom.”

“No one could make up such a story,” the man beside Casio said. “Not even Cervantes could have dreamed up such a tale.”

“We shall see,” Casio said. “Get the indiano.”

I'd heard the word before. Men who had gone to the colonies in the Americas and returned after making their fortune were called americanos or indianos in Spain. We called them gachupines in the colony.

When the man left to bring back the indiano, I turned to Rosa. “I'm sorry about Carlos. I truly came to think of him as my own brother. I would have given my life for him . . . and almost did.”

She said nothing. I couldn't tell if she was still ready to kill me or not. One thing was for certain: she was not a compromising woman. While Carlos was a person of reason, his sister struck me as one who would make quick judgments and not change them.

After an hour or so the man returned with the indiano. Older than the men in the room, who were in their twenties or thirties, the so-called indio had grayish hair and was perhaps in his fifties.

“Tell him your story,” Casio said.

I started through it once again, slowly. I got as far as breaking out of the Guanajuato jail when Casio interrupted.

“What do you think?” he asked the indiano.

“Who is the intendent of Guanajuato?” he asked me.

“Señor Riano.”

“Anyone can know the governor's name,” Casio said.

“What's his oldest son's name?” the indiano asked.

“Gilberto.”

He asked me directions from the center of town to roads leading to other areas, from the largest cathedral in the city to two other prominent ones. He asked me the best place to buy jewelry in the city, and I confessed my ignorance. “Ask me who makes the best saddles,” I said.

“Tell me what your uncle—what Bruto looked like.”

“Not like me. His skin, hair, and eyes were lighter, but the most important thing was a mark here,” I touched the side of my head near my right temple. “He had a brown mark. He called it a birthmark.”

“He's Juan de Zavala,” the indiano said.

“Are you certain?”

“Without doubt. He's lived in Guanajuato, that's for certain. I met Bruto over ten years ago but don't remember him well. I don't remember the birthmark at all. But I know the changeling story from a letter my cousin sent me. It is the biggest scandal in the colony.” He shrugged. “Besides, he is obviously a colonial; he has their accent. But the most convincing proof is his boots.”

We all looked down at my boots. And his.

“Indios also make my boots. The boot makers of Spain cannot match their craftsmanship.”

“Thank you, señor,” I said, truly grateful.

The indiano left, and Casio faced me again.

“How do we know you are not a French spy?”

“I care as little about the French as I do about you Spanish,” I said. “Besides, I didn't spy for the French. Carlos did.”

“That's a lie!” Rosa snapped.

“It's not a lie,” Casio said. “That Carlos was a lover of the French is well known. Do they know in Cádiz this story of the changeling?”

“No, the colonel thinks I'm Carlos.”

He nodded his head. “Then you will be Carlos.”

I almost sighed with relief.

“We can't trust him,” Rosa said. “You heard him, he's not loyal to us.”

“But he's not loyal to the French either. He only cares for his own hide, so we know where he stands. Right now we need him. He was sent here because he reads French, and his face is not known to the French military here.”

“Rosa is right,” I said. “You need someone who is loyal to the Spanish cause. If you will permit, I will leave the city and never—”

“Our people watch every road in and out of Barcelona night and day. Not a mouse gets through unless we permit it. If you try to leave the city, we will give you the special treatment we reserve for traitors to our cause.”

I bowed in surrender. “Señor Casio, consider me a soldier in the war of independence from the French devils.”

“I don't trust him,” the she-demon said. “I think we should kill him,”

“Then you are the perfect person to watch over him. Let's go. I'm tired of this dark place,” he said to his companions.

As he started up the cellar steps, he paused and looked back at Rosa. “Don't worry, señorita, it's an extremely dangerous mission. He will more than likely be killed.”

SIXTY-THREE

I
'
M HUNGRY
,” I said, when we came out of the knife-grinding shop.

“You can starve as far as I'm concerned.”

Such sentimentality for a man who was her loving brother's amigo. I stopped and faced her. “When I said Carlos was like a brother to me, I wasn't lying. I would have given my life for Carlos and he for me. I don't care if you like me or not, but you have no right to be angry at me.”

She stared at me for a long moment, no doubt pondering whether she should put a knife in my ribs.

“I know a decent café at the square around the corner,” she said.

We drank
vi blanc
—white wine—and ate
arrós negre
—black rice—a dish with rice and pieces of monkfish, shellfish, onion, garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, squid, and squid ink. As we ate, we watched people on their afternoon siesta dancing the sardana, a dance uniquely Catalonian. The dancers held hands and formed a circle as they performed intricate and rather sedate steps. It was a dance of deliberation rather than the wild passion of a flamenco.

“Flamencos are for mindless gypsies,” Rosa said. “The sardana is for inner contemplation. The dancers have to concentrate to do the steps correctly, counting their short and long steps, skips and jumps.”

Later, as we listened to the guitarist Fernando Sor, Rosa said he was the best guitarist in Spain. Something about the way she spoke caused me to ask, “Is he a guerrilla?”

She didn't answer, but her lack of response left me with the impression that this famous plucker of strings was also a partisan in the patriotic cause.

So far I had only one tiny clue as to what my mission was, other than Casio's pronouncement that I would probably be killed. The clue came from Casio's mouth. These people needed me because I read French, but what I was supposed to read was still a mystery. And I had to wonder whether there weren't other people in a city so close to the French border who read French.

I would be wasting my breath asking her, so I kept my mouth shut about the subject, hoping she would warm to me. As it was, she loosened up and began to explain some things. She said, as had the fishing boat captain, that they were fighting to bring Ferdinand, El Deseado—the Desired One—back to Spain and restore him to the throne. I held my tongue and didn't mention Carlos's opinion that Prince Ferdinand was an ignorant tyrant who would make a bad king.

She explained why she had taken me to the knife shop. “The master of the shop is my uncle,” she said.

“Does he make knives to put into the hearts of the invaders?” I asked.

“He is careful to make nothing but kitchen knives, because his shop serves other purposes. I work for him, making deliveries to his customers all over the city. You will be going with me when I make deliveries, so you should know what I do. The deliveries give me a chance to carry messages. And the French patrols get to know me as well, so they don't question my presence wherever I am.”

“I haven't seen any French yet,” I said.

“Oh, they're here. They avoid the Barri Góti unless they move in large numbers. The streets of the Barri are narrow, and a housewife is likely to pitch a cobblestone out of an upper window at them or douse them with a chamber pot. But they patrol other parts of the city, at least in the daytime. They retreat to the Ciutadella at night.”

“The captain on the fishing boat said the Ciutadella is a mighty fortress.”

“It's the curse of Barcelona. They say it's impregnable, and it is for our guerrilla fighters. We'd need a large army with artillery and siege equipment to take it. That's why we haven't driven the French from Barcelona; they hide behind the walls of the citadel. From it their cannons could turn the entire city into rubble before we breached a single wall. Do you know why it was built?”

I confessed my ignorance.

“It was built about a hundred years ago to house a Spanish occupying army after the city was on the losing side of the War of Spanish Succession. The war brought Felipe V, the first of Spain's Bourbon monarchs, to the throne, and he hated Barcelona for opposing him. He considered Catalonians radicals and troublemakers. To punish us and control the rebellious region, Felipe erected the huge, five-sided, star-shaped citadel.

“You see how his curse has come back to haunt us? Foreign invaders now hide behind the fortress walls, and we can't drive them out. His name is spit upon in Barcelona. When people relieve themselves, you'll sometimes hear them say they are ‘going to visit Felipe.' “

“So they control the fortress but not the city?” I asked.

“It's a stalemate. Our people avoid too many violent confrontations with the French, because we don't want them shelling the palace, cathedral, or any of our other beautiful buildings. But when they leave the city, they're fair game for our somatene units. We also have regular and irregular army units still operating in Catalonia. Did your captain tell you about the victory at Bruc?”

“No.”

She smiled broadly. “It has made the invaders a laughingstock. A small Catalonian unit, less than two thousand fighters, attacked a much larger
French army. As always, the French units had the best equipment and were highly trained. Our people had an advantage in that they ambushed the French from a rocky enclosure. They intended to attack, kill some French soldiers, then retreat into the rocks and scatter when the French came in pursuit. But we had a little drummer boy who was overly enthusiastic. He beat a ferocious drumroll that echoed so thunderously off the high rocks and escarpments, the French thought they were surrounded. As our people advanced, the French troops panicked and ran.”

I shared her laugh at the drummer-boy story and offered a toast to the brave somatenes like herself who were fighting the French. I could see she was warming up to me . . . and I to her—it had been weeks since I had had a woman, and my male member was telling me that it needed a woman's warmth.

As the wine and conversation relaxed her, she told me more about her city. I pretended complete ignorance even though I had heard some of it from the
Sea Cat
's captain. According to tradition, Barcelona was founded by either the Phoenicians or their descendents, the Carthaginians, who built trading posts along the Catalonian coast. The city was called Barcino during Roman times, and during three centuries of Visigothic occupation it was known as Barcinona. The Islamic Moors arrived in 717. Christian Franks about a century later. The counts of Barcelona consolidated their influence over Catalonia in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

“The hero of the city is Guifré el Pelós—Wilfred the Hairy. He started the dynasty of the Counts of Barcelona, who ruled for five hundred years. He died heroically, fighting the Moors. Before that he fought dragons and had other adventures. You saw the Catalonian flag: four crimson stripes on a gold field. That flag commemorates Guifre. Fighting for Louis the Pious in his siege of Barcelona, the Saracens wounded him severely. As he lay in his tent after the victory, the king came to him and noticed Guifré's shield, covered in gold leaf but without a blazon. Louis dipped his fingers into Guifré's blood and dragged them across the shield.”

I had heard the story on the fishing boat but didn't tell her that many doubted its authenticity because Louis had died before Guifré was born.

She suddenly stopped talking and glared at me.

“What is it? What have I done now?” I asked.

“Stop looking at me like I am a receptacle for your disgusting lust. Touch me, and I'll cut your peneocha off and shove it down your throat.”