TEN
On horseback, Ramiro could ride much farther and still return by nightfall. As Louisa became more comfortable with Fernando and Maria’s presence, he spent more time away from the villa. He roamed throughout the hills and along the verge of the great plain, seeking sign of the Almohad army. After a week of scouting, he was confident no army was lurking in the mountains or creeping along the pass carved through the Sierra Morena by the Despe?aperros River. Al-Andalus, on the southern side of the mountains, had belonged to the various Moorish caliphs for many generations; it was the high plain on the northern side, La Mancha and the territories surrounding Toledo, that were contested again and again.
If the Almohads were moving north, they would harry the isolated castles and cities of the high plain before taking the road to Toledo. Ramiro hoped that any army that Castile and the other Christian kingdoms could field would be enough to turn back the Almohad decisively. If the armies spent the spring and summer warring on the plain, the chances of one side or the other spilling into the foothills of the Sierra Morena would increase dramatically.
He couldn’t move Louisa now. Maybe in a few months, after the child was born. Until then, he had to be patient. He had to stay hidden.
In the distance, Ramiro spied a small citadel, its man-made outline clear among the rocky outcroppings that poked out like naked fingers from the verdant, tree-covered hills. Castillo del Ferral had once been a fortress of the Order of Calatrava, but it had fallen into Moorish hands after the battle of Alarcos.
The defeat at Alarcos had been tantamount to cutting out the heart of the order, and afterward, the rest of the body—the outlying citadels of Malagón, Benavente, Caracuel, Castillo del Ferral, and Calatrava itself—had sickened and died.
He had removed most of the markings on the saddle that would clearly identify it as Moorish, though there was little he could do about the shape of the saddle or the swords that hung off his right side. His robe and hood were plain and uncolored by dyes. If he were spotted, his mere presence would incite some curiosity, but he had no intention of being seen.
The wind shifted as he approached the base of the hill, and it carried the scent of cooking fires and the faint echo of voices, speaking Arabic. A Muslim garrison. There was no way to determine how many were quartered there without approaching the walls of the citadel, and Ramiro did not plan to get that close.
He found a small glade where his horse could graze, and he found a comfortable position beneath a sprawling oak which afforded him a view of the peak of the hill. The Castillo del Ferral was about a half-day’s ride from his villa; if he returned immediately, he could make it back before nightfall. But he settled in to watch the citadel.
Diego and the other deserters had said they had been fleeing the Moorish capture of Puertollano, which lay twenty miles or more to the north and west. There was no reason for those men to have gone south—toward Al-Andalus and the Moorish caliphate—unless they had been diverted by the presence of a sizeable Moorish army. It was possible they had been making for Valencia, but fleeing along the southern edge of La Mancha was not the most direct route. And then to stumble into the hills and run afoul of the garrison at Castillo del Ferral seemed like ill luck indeed, but Ramiro could not fathom any other way the men could have ended up near his lands, roasting one of his goats. The wounds suffered by the one who died had been fresh—a day or two old at most, which was in keeping with what Ramiro knew of stomach wounds. In all likelihood, Diego and the others had gotten lost, their sense of direction woefully incorrect, and they must have mistakenly thought the citadel housed Christian soldiers.
It had been built by Christians, but to believe that Christians still held it was a dangerous mistake in these times and in these lands.
Ramiro leaned back against the tree. The wind blew lightly against his cheeks and forehead, and he inhaled deeply, smelling the faint wetness of a distant storm. The voices of the Moors were a distant buzz, like the sound of grasshoppers during the hot summer months. He blinked slowly—once, twice—his mind wandering through memories of other citadels. Eventually, his eyes closed and he was swallowed by the past.
There was only one sentry pacing slowly back and forth atop the southern wall. A brazier at the eastern end of the wall provided a beacon in the moonless night that the sentry returned to time and again. Ramiro crouched behind the bole of an oak near the edge of the tree line, watching the sentry. The man took twenty paces in one direction before pausing and turning back. After a few iterations, Ramiro turned his attention to the rough stone of the wall, gauging the route he would take up its surface. The wall was not that tall—he estimated it wasn’t more than three times his height. Provided he could find purchase on its surface, he thought he could climb it before the sentry completed one circuit of his watch.
When the man reached the farthest point from the flickering beacon of the brazier, Ramiro scuttled out from the cover. He darted to the wall and leaped up to grab the first handhold he had been eyeing. The knob held his weight, and he hoisted himself up to a pair of protruding edges where he could rest his feet. He reached up, straining to his left, and found his second handhold. He moved his legs up and continued his rapid ascent. Just below the top of the wall, he stopped, clinging tightly to the surface. He heard the faint scrape of the Moor’s boots as he walked past, and he quickly hauled himself up to the top of the wall. He padded up behind the sentry, and when the man turned, he stood upright and shoved his knife into the man’s throat.
The Moor’s eyes grew large, and he opened his mouth to scream, but he couldn’t get any air. His eyes got bigger and his hands scrabbled at Ramiro’s arms, but his grip was already weakening. As the man’s legs gave out, Ramiro knelt too, twisting the knife up and to the left to make sure the Moor’s throat was cut.
As the man gurgled into death, Ramiro surveyed the interior of the citadel. There were a handful of tents scattered around the interior, and from the tumbledown keep came the glow of a weak fire. There were no sentries posted inside the walls. Apparently, the Moors felt the walls and a single sentry to patrol them were protection enough.
Ramiro dropped into the main courtyard of the citadel. A half dozen horses milled about in a roped-off arena, and several exhaled noisily at the scent of fresh blood on his robes and knife. Ramiro ignored them and moved stealthily toward the first tent. There were two men inside, and the first died from Ramiro’s knife without ever waking up. The second man caught sight of his face and had to be held down as he thrashed in fear. The man’s panic only made him bleed out faster.
Ramiro moved from tent to tent, repeating his silent assassinations, ten men in all. Once he had finished with the tents, he moved on to the keep. It took him longer to find the residents as they were scattered throughout the building. The four sleeping in the great hall before the fire were his final challenge, and he squatted on his heels for some time, watching them sleep, deciding on the best way to kill them all. Three of the four had thrown off their sleeping furs, and he decided that the one farthest from the hearth—huddled beneath a woven blanket—would be the one he let live.
He always let one live so that the Moors would know what had happened. They would know who had come among them and slaughtered them all.
The first died noisily, coughing and gagging on his own blood, which woke one of the others. He managed an abrupt shout, cut short by Ramiro’s sword, but it was enough to rouse the third, who reached for his weapon. Ramiro beat it aside, stepping on the man’s arm to keep the weapon at bay, and drove his sword into the man’s chest.
The fourth man moved under his blanket, sitting up, and Ramiro raised his sword. The blanket slipped down and the light of the dim fire revealed long black hair that fell down over an oval face. As the figure recoiled from him, the blanket slipped farther and revealed a vast belly, hard and swollen.
Louisa…?
Ramiro started awake, gasping for air. His heart hammered in his chest, and his skin was slick with sweat. Nearby, his horse whuffed air noisily; in the distance, he heard the mournful cry of a night bird. The moon was high in a sky that was beginning to fill with clouds. Atop the hill nearby, a glow of firelight limned the walls of Castillo del Ferral.
He had been dreaming. Except for Louisa, it was always the same. He had killed so many men in nameless citadels throughout the years that his mark was known. He always left a survivor to tell the tale of the Beast of Calatrava.