Captain from Castile (73 page)

The other nodded. "Yes, but how then? If he lives—"

"Sir, you have written to Don Juan Alonso; you have written to the Duke of Bejar. They will stand with us."

"Yes, if they come in time. Pray God they do! Pray God the trial is delayed until they do!"

There was a pause which at last Don Francisco shrugged off. "By the way," he said, "I almost forgot. As I was leaving the inn, a peddler or such like gave me this for you." The old gentleman drew out a stained and battered letter sealed with coarse wax. "I asked him what it was. He said a humble friend in Jaen, hearing of your misfortune, sent you his respectful best wishes. So I gave the fellow a coin for his trouble. Here you are."

The door bolts rattled as Pedro thrust the paper into his purse. The turnkey popped in his head. He regretted to disturb Their Magnificences, but time was up. Don Francisco gripped Pedro's shoulders, kept his voice level when he bade him good night, and limped out, leaving a heavy silence in the vaulted room.

Still dazed by the ill news, de Vargas paced up and down. So far as he could see, everything depended on gathering enough influence to act as a buffer at his trial against the force and venom of the prosecution. This in turn depended on time, on whether the trial did not take place until his more powerful backers could be assembled. But even so, the prospect looked bleak. By the intervention of Medina Sidonia and Bejar, he might get off personally with a crushing fine; but his mission in behalf of Cortes was doomed.

Spain! The career at court! The brilliant future! He glanced back at his former dreams. He remembered too his talk with Garcia at Coyoacan. Yes, in New Spain he had possessed everything that money could not buy: friendship, respect which he had earned, unlimited

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scope. Here, these walls were his scope, and his life depended on the machinations of an enemy. It was de Silva who had the career at court, the brilliant future.

He paced up and down, unconsciously following the path across the floor worn by other feet. At last, remembering the letter from his well-wisher in Jaen, he drew it out and, still half-absently, having lighted a candle, broke the seal. It was evidently from a poor, unlettered person, as both paper and characters revealed. It reminded him that he had always found more loyalty among the poor than the rich.

At first he could make nothing of the drunken scrawl meandering over the paper. Then he began to recognize words, and at once his interest quickened. Desperately intent, he figured out the atrocious spelling and worse penmanship. At last, he read: —

Sancho Lopez did not answer your question about a certain black dog because he fears for his life. If he had answered, it would have been this. Years ago he knew the Black Dog in Malaga. He knows that said Black Dog from poor became rich by acting in secret for the enemies of God and Spain, who make war on ships. Black Dog once visited Red Dog in his kennel across the water. Better not ask how Sancho knows, for he has long been an honest man. That this may help you is the wish of your friends. By the hand of Paco the Muleteer.

De Vargas stared at the paper while a dozen thought sparks wheeled through his mind. Paco, the one who had cut Catana's name on the cup. So Lopez had taken this way to answer. ''Bravo, hombre!" Pedro's eyes blazed. De Silva in his youth an agent of the corsairs, one of those renegades who reported ship movements. Red Dog could only mean Barbarossa, alias Arouj or his brother, Khaired-Din.

This was capital news. And yet, on second thought, Pedro's exultance faded. It had been years ago. He had only the word of an anonymous writer for the fact. De Silva was in favor at court, a kinsman of the Bishop of Burgos. How could a prisoner on trial for his life make so preposterous a countercharge without doing himself more harm than good? But still—that recent heroic escape of de Silva's from the corsairs. Was it possible—

A slight noise at the door caught Pedro's attention, and he glanced around in time to see the small wicket in the upper panel closing. 'Evidently someone, probably the turnkey, had been watching him.

He put the letter into an inner pocket of his doublet but continued to turn over its contents in his mind.

Not long afterward, the turnkey entered with supper, which consisted of a brace of roast pigeons, a half loaf of fresh bread, some fruit, and a flagon of wine. It looked so much more appetizing than what he had eaten at lunch that Pedro did not object to the astonishing price asked for it.

"I can most heartily recommend the wine, Your Grace," said the turnkey. "It is a special Alicante fit for the lips of the King's Majesty himself."

"Why, then," said Pedro, who knew the value of keeping on the fellow's good side, "you'll do me the favor of filling a cup and drinking my health."

But to his surprise, the turnkey declined. "Ah, Your Grace, would that I might! There's no other health I'd sooner drink, and God knows such wine as that is a treat I don't have once a year. But I suffer with the gravel, my lord. The cursed physician will not let me touch vino generoso this month. Thanks all the same, Your Magnificence."

"Too bad," said Pedro.

He filled Catana's cup, which he had taken out of his saddlebags. But deciding to eat first, he attacked the pigeons. The turnkey, after hesitating a moment, withdrew.

It was only by luck that de Vargas, glancing at the door a moment later, observed that the wicket had been once more slid back. But why should the man want to spy on him while he was eating? He could have remained inside and watched for all Pedro cared.

Then, as if from nowhere, a shadow of suspicion crossed de Vargas's mind. It was queer about the Alicante: men of the jailer's stripe were not apt to turn down a good drink. The fellow had made a point of praising the wine. It was still queerer about the wicket. Pedro remembered his father's estimate of the turnkey. Why not put it to the test?

Carelessly raising the cup in full view of the door, Pedro pretended to drink, tilted the tankard higher, set it down at last and smacked his lips, then returned to his food. When he glanced again, the wicket was closed.

Without wasting a second, he now carried the wine flagon across the room, emptied his water ewer into the basin, and replaced its contents with the Alicante. There was no use wasting good wine in case his suspicions were wrong.

Then he returned to table and finished supper, taking care to sag a little and to yawn repeatedly. He had to make a choice of symptoms; but if the drink had been tampered with at all, an opiate seemed more likely than violent poison. Finally he slumped over on the table, head

on arms but with his face turned enough for a view of things through his eyelashes.

A half hour passed. Finally he heard the faint click of the wicket, and immediately afterward the turnkey came in. But this time the man's face did not wear its former unctuousness; it was alert and professional.

Having shuffled his feet and coughed, the turnkey gave a satisfied nod. Then he drew from behind him an object which he had been holding in his left hand. It was a thin leather strap attached to a handle, and at the sight of it Pedro's scalp prickled.

It was a strangling thong, a garrote.

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When he had assured himself of de Vargas's unconsciousness by looking into the empty flagon and rubbing a pudgy hand over the prisoner's hair, the turnkey set about work with veteran deliberation. He even hummed a gentle tune to himself. First, he took a sheet from the bed, twisted it into a rough rope, and made a noose at the end. Then he threw this over the crossbar of the bed, which held the canopy, tested the strength of it, and tied the other end of the rope sheet to the bedpost.

So that was the way of it, thought Pedro. First the garrote, then the noose. In the morning, another suicide would be reported from the tower room. Unable to face the charges against him, the prisoner had hanged himself, thus confirming the indictment of the prosecution as well as saving trouble and closing the case. Perhaps this explained the turnkey's accounts of other gentlemen who had been found strung up there.

Still humming, the fellow now took time to run through Pedro's saddlebags and to appropriate a pouch of gold which his charge would no longer have use for. This done, he hitched up his sleeves and, taking the leather thong, slipped it deftly from behind around de Vargas's neck, drawing the handle at one end through the loop at the other. When adjusted, the torque of the handle would be sufficient to snap the spine and crush the windpipe in a wrench or two.

But the wrench never came. Pedro's arms, outstretched on the table, suddenly locked behind the head of the turnkey, who was bending over him. Then, turning slightly so as to avoid the table and using the old

wrestling heave, de Vargas brought the man catapuhing over his head. He now was behind the turnkey with one arm half-throttling him. A moment later, he found the proper spot on the man's jaw with his free fist and put him asleep for the time being.

When the jailer came to himself several minutes afterwards, he discovered that he was in a chair, a gag in his mouth, the sheet rope around his body, and the garrote in place about his own throat.

"So!" said de Vargas. "Now we can talk. But first let me point out that a man like you wouldn't live long in New Spain. Not clever enough. You'd be fair sport for the comrades. . . . Well? Feeling better?"

A stifled muttering filtered through the gag.

Pedro, stepping behind him, gave a slight twist to the thong, which made the man's eyes pop.

"You see, my friend, what the situation is."

Then he relaxed the garrote and, moving back in front, drew up another chair.

"I hope," he continued, "that you won't make the mistake of considering me a milksop. Hombre, I've killed a number of men in the past four years and all of them better men than you. If I can get what I want out of you, perhaps you'll live. Otherwise, please don't think I'm tenderhearted."

A moan through the gag and the terror in the fellow's eyes answered.

"Good," Pedro nodded. "It pays to be intelligent. There are various ways I can deal with you. For instance, I could strangle you and carr)' your body downstairs some place. Then who's to know who did it? Or I could make you drink the Alicante, which I've saved, and let them find you asleep here with me in the morning. I don't believe your employer would like that, or the governor of the prison. You would hang judicially. Also it would help me at my trial to have the facts published. So you see, friend rat, that you are in a bad place and that I have nothing to lose by dealing'with you one way or another. You do see that, eh?"

The turnkey groaned and shut his eyes to escape the grim countenance in front of him.

"Now," said Pedro, returning to the handle of the garrote behind the man's neck, "I'm going to untie your mouth. But keep your voice low. You wouldn't think of talking too loud, much less calling for help. Then you'll answer some questions. Remember, I'll know if you lie, and that would be painful for you."

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He pulled loose the knots of the gag and at the same time tightened the strangling thong.

"There you are. First question. Who paid you for this?"

Pedro could feel the movement of the man's Adam's apple, but the answer came. "The lord de Silva."

"How much?"

"A hundred pesos."

"You were to make it easy for anyone to visit me, I suppose, and you were to listen at the door?"

"Yes."

"What other instructions?"

"I was to look for papers."

Pedro congratulated himself on the forethought of leaving his papers with Don Francisco. Then he remembered the letter from Jaen. It would have been a help to de Silva to know about that.

"Have you heard when my trial is to come off?"

"Tomorrow." The turnkey winced at the sudden tightening of the thong. "It's the truth," he squeaked. "I can't help the truth, can I?"

Tomorrow! There would be no time for gathering help. If tonight's plot failed, de Silva had at least made sure of the trial.

"Now, listen, rogue. And this is the most important of all. If you help me in this, you live; if not, you die. Tell me what you know about de Silva. He works underground, and you underground rats will have sniffed something. I want a hold on him, understand? Come, speak out."

The man faltered, "I don't know anything. . . . Ay de fni" he croaked, as the leather tightened, "how can I tell what I don't know?"

"Think. I'll give you a half-minute."

Streaks of sweat showed on the turnkey's jaws.

"Ten seconds," said Pedro.

"Wait, Your Grace! Wait! I know who killed the messenger from Seville. They threw his body into the river. It was Tito el Fiero and his men. De Silva hired them."

"And this man Tito—where does he live?"

"On the Calle del Salvador near the market. But, my lord, if it came out that I—"

"It wdll not come out. If you know it, others of your kind know it. Tell me more of de Silva. What other rogue does he frequent or pay besides Tito?"

"Your Grace, I know of none."

"Think."

In an effort to say something, the wretch was probably fabUng, but he said hesitantly, "One night I saw him come out of the house of Pablo Stuiiiga."

"Who's he?"

"A rich merchant from the south, from Malaga. A moneylender. They say he's a converted Jew or a Morisco. But gentlemen only call on such a man when they're in trouble."

This might mean something or nothing. Don Francisco had spoken of the style maintained by de Silva, and moneylenders fitted into that pattern. But you have to have assets to raise money. Pedro had learned in Jaen that de Silva's fortune had been sunk in the American venture. Indeed, that had been the burden of the Marquis de Carvajal's grievance against him. Still, in the case of Stuniga, his court influence might be an asset.

Feeling that he had now got all he could from the turnkey and that some of it, notably the part relating to the murder of the messenger, might be usable, Pedro considered his next step. Evidently the carcelero was for sale to the highest bidder. If he could now be turned into a witness against de Silva, he would be of more use living than dead.