The Devils of Cardona by Matthew Carr

birch and pine, by the castles and fortified towers and the alpine meadows speckled with edelweiss and sweet basil, but he was also wary. He had ordered his men to load their pistols, but the only traffic theyencountered on the roads consisted of peasants bringing their produce down to the markets in Huesca or Zaragoza or shepherds driving cattle, sheep and goats up toward the higher valleys. From time to time, they saw the raftsmen precariously balanced on giant rafts made from tree trunks that they were taking to Zaragoza on the fast-moving rivers, skillfully navigating their way through the surging waters with wooden rudders at the front and back.
    The roads were poor, and progress was slow as they guided their animals across streams and rivers, with Necker riding ahead of the group and scanning both sides of the road while Ventura kept up the rear guard. On the second afternoon, they reached the plain of Jaca, the former capital of Aragon, and followed the flat road into the city through the former Jewish quarter, past the old Roman walls, converted synagogues, Romanesque churches, elegant three- and four-story houses with painted wooden eaves, and a large square tower that had once been the town jail.
    Constable Vargas took them directly to the stone courthouse, where dozens of vagabonds, beggars and poor women were lining up to receive bowls of soup and hunks of bread. Mendoza saw a short, plump man in a cape and a soft green bonnet checking begging permits with another official who wore the red badge of an
alguacil
on his chest. It was not until they turned around that he realized that the man in the bonnet was his old friend Pelagio Calvo.
    â€œWell, well, if it isn’t Bernardo de Mendoza!” Pelagio grinned. “Should I call you ‘Licenciado’ or ‘Your Honor’? How long has it been, my friend?”
    â€œToo long,” Mendoza replied as the corregidor enveloped him in a warm embrace. He looked at his old friend’s thick walrus mustache and stubbled jowls and protruding belly. Calvo had not aged well. His hair and beard were tinged with gray, and he was barrel-shaped where he had once been firm and stocky. His clothes were of good quality but not especially rich or extravagant, and he looked like so many other provincial magistrates. Organizing soup kitchens and food distributions for the poor was asmuch a part of the duties of a corregidor as arresting vagrants, and Calvo exuded a mixture of quiet authority and obvious boredom as he looked over the proceedings.
    â€œA real hornet’s nest you’ve walked into, Bernardo,” he said. “This is Constable Franquelo from Belamar. He brought in the three dead shepherds this morning.”
    â€œThe Quintana brothers are here?”
    â€œYes, they’re at the hospital. Their father is coming to collect them today.”
    â€œI’d like to see their bodies first.”
    â€œVargas can take care of this. But it’s not a pretty sight. Are these all the men you’ve brought with you? You’ll need more than that if you’re going to Cardona.”
    â€œI was told that discretion was required,” Mendoza replied.
    â€œIf you want my opinion, Bernardo, His Majesty has shown a little too much discretion in these parts already. We only buried the priest last month, and now this! I don’t have the manpower to deal with this level of mayhem! In theory I can call up seventy, even a hundred volunteers for the militia. But you can’t do it just like that. I have to send my people all round the towns and villages to get them, and that takes time. And they can’t stay out permanently. This is the Pyrenees, Mendoza, not the
meseta
. I don’t think they always understand what that means in Madrid—or even in Zaragoza.”
    The hospital was a large, three-story building only a few minutes from the courthouse. It was staffed mostly by nuns, and in the mortuary the three bodies were lying