ILHAS DAS SEREIAS
Duilio dressed in his shortest pareu, the one that came only to midthigh. It was one he wore only when going down to the beach to swim, although it was early in the morning for that. But the wife of the Spanish ambassador had come to call and she was notoriously prudish. If anything would put her off her guard and provoke her to make mistakes, it was a display of bare skin. Unfortunately, that meant he had to leave his revolver in the bedroom.
He double-checked the paint about his eyes and made sure his overlong hair wasn’t too disordered, then turned to Oriana. “Good enough?”
She ran a hand across his tattooed chest. “You look lovely.”
He rolled his eyes. She always told him that. “Let’s get this over with.”
They had returned to the house on the beach the previous evening, Costa and Inês Guerra with them. The lovers were now settled in the guest quarters, and Duilio’s best guess was that Vas Neves had spent a couple of hours giving the lieutenant a severe dressing-down.
Since Inês’ information confirmed that Madam Davila was neck-deep in this chaos, the woman’s visit was timely. So Duilio followed Oriana along the hallways to the courtyard where the ambassador’s wife waited for them.
Grandmother Monteiro hadn’t dignified the woman’s presence by joining them; thus only two of the guards were there, the captain out of deference to the office of the Spanish ambassador. A rare smile lifted one corner of Captain Vas Neves’ lips when she spotted Duilio. She knew exactly why he was dressed as he was. Costa stood at her side, back in his Portuguese uniform. Reddish bruising marked his jaw, but most of the swelling had passed. Since they’d both been there for the incident in the market, Duilio wasn’t shocking either of the guards with his attire.
Madam Davila waited in the center of the sunny courtyard. She must be baking alive in all the layers of fabric she wore. She had on a dark blue suit with beige lace showing on her high collar and spilling from the cuffs of her sleeves. She cast a startled glance at Duilio’s mostly bared legs and quickly averted her face.
She glanced up again when Oriana entered the courtyard, and vexation flickered across her features. Oriana had chosen to eschew any vest. Apparently the ambassador’s wife was no more comfortable being confronted with Oriana’s bare breasts than she was with Duilio’s thighs. As long as her husband had been ambassador here, Duilio would have thought she’d become accustomed to near nudity by now.
Ignoring the woman’s reaction, Oriana ran through the customary greetings and inquired politely after Ambassador Davila. The ambassador was suffering from gout, his wife claimed, which Duilio considered just as good an excuse as any other. For all intents and purposes, Madam Davila was the Spanish ambassador in his stead.
The woman’s dark eyes flicked downward, taking in Duilio’s legs again, and returned to Oriana’s face. Madam Davila lifted her narrow nose in the air. “I see that you’re still playing at being a native, Madam Ambassador.”
“Playing?” Oriana smiled. “I was raised here, Madam Davila, in this very house, so this garb is quite natural for me. We were about to go down to the beach for a swim though, so you did catch us in less formal attire.”
It wasn’t a secret, so Madam Davila knew Oriana had been raised here. Instead she was commenting on their clothing to cover her discomfort. Duilio moved behind Oriana and leaned against the wall, crossing one ankle over the other. He folded his arms to display his armbands better.
“To what do we owe the honor of your visit today, Madam Davila?” Oriana asked.
“We don’t usually share information about our native staff, but it’s come to my attention that one of our domestics recently came to this island.”
An interesting tack to take. The unnamed member of the domestic staff had to be either Leandra Rocha or Inês.
“Why would one of your household come here?” Oriana asked innocently, hands folded.
“We aren’t certain,” Madam Davila said. “But now we can’t find any trace of her.”
“Surely you can replace her,” Oriana noted. “If she wished to leave your employ, that’s her concern, isn’t it?”
Madam Davila plucked at the leaves of one of the plants next to the fountain. Her glove, a delicate netting one, snagged on a leaf and she jerked it away. “If it were that simple, I wouldn’t have troubled you. But when she fled, she took a young boy with her, the son of one of the young women who work in our offices.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t contacted the government on Quitos, then,” Oriana said. “Why would this domestic steal another woman’s child?”
“We’ve speculated that she’s delusional and believes he is her child,” Madam Davila said, waving one lace-obscured hand. “It’s hard to be certain why until we can find her and question her.”
Now that was a hastily concocted story if ever he’d heard one; they’d resorted to claiming madness. Madam Davila’s story was weak.
“I fail to see how we can help you,” Oriana observed.
“There is one aspect of this that you should know,” the woman said, her eyes fixing on Oriana’s bare feet. “The boy is almost eight years old. Clever, with dark hair and dark eyes.”
The ambassador’s wife lowered her lovely face then, as if embarrassed. “His mother named him Alejandro Ferrera,” she added, “and his resemblance to you is quite marked, Mr. Ferreira.”
Aha! So Inês had heard the boy’s name correctly after all. Duilio had given some thought to the probable timing of the boy’s birth. Nine years ago Alexandre Ferreira had been in Spain, selling off the family’s businesses in Barcelona. That would put him in the right place at about the right time.
His bastard uncle, Rafael’s father, Paolo Silva, had once warned Duilio that he had two bastard brothers. Duilio’s gift had told him then that he’d eventually learn it was true. He’d been waiting some time for that day to arrive.
“As you can see,” Madam Davila continued with ill-concealed spite, “this does concern you, Madam Ambassador. Or rather it concerns Mr. Ferreira.”
Duilio gave Madam Davila what he hoped was his best smile. “My father’s unfortunate behavior while away from home was known to the whole family, I’m afraid. My mother even raised one of my half brothers alongside me. And now to learn I have another brother? I would love to meet young Alejandro.”
Madam Davila must have expected dismay. She didn’t look pleased. And that made his day all the better. She left shortly after that, with Oriana’s generous promise that should Leandra show up, they would immediately send word. Not a difficult promise to make, since they knew Leandra was in Spain.
“Why would she come all the way out here?” Oriana mused after the woman was gone.
“I’m sure she has spies watching the house,” Duilio said. “I’d bet the watcher recognized Inês and sent off a report immediately. All of that might have been an attempt to learn what Inês told us.” He glanced at Costa, who shrugged. “Or she could have intended to prompt us to look for Alejandro.”
“He’s in Barcelona, isn’t he?” Oriana pointed out.
“Perhaps . . .” Duilio ran his fingers through his overlong hair. “I’d like to send a message to the Americans. Ask whether they can forward the boy’s name to Joaquim. It may help him locate Alejandro.”
“Do you think the Americans would do that for us?” Oriana asked.
“The ambassador very much wants to find Leandra,” Duilio said, “so I believe she will.”
Benites and Almeida were dispatched within the hour via ferry to Quitos. It would be interesting to find out how long it would take to get news of their new brother to Joaquim.
* * *
BARCELONA
Joaquim sat across the table from the boy, watching as he consumed an apple he’d stolen from some vendor on the Rambla. They’d strolled along the wide avenue back to the plaza and the hotel, avoiding the eyes of the blue-and-red-uniformed men. Once at the hotel, they’d ordered a lunch to be brought up and made their way back to their room, the very image of a family planning to rest after a morning of sightseeing.
It was eerie how much the boy resembled a younger version of himself.
Many years ago, Lady Ferreira had gathered all her boys to take a picture. She still had that photograph in a silver frame in her room, Joaquim knew. He’d been twelve and Duilio thirteen. Erdano had been a terribly restless fifteen, Alessio fourteen, and Cristiano only four. Shortly after that Alessio had begun teasing him about being a bastard. In hindsight Joaquim realized that Alessio had looked at the photograph and guessed the truth about him. In it, he and Duilio sat side by side. They’d looked almost like twins.
The boy sitting at the table could have made them a set of triplets. He was younger than the boys in that photograph, yet the Ferreira stamp that showed on Joaquim’s face—and Duilio’s and Rafael’s—already showed on this boy’s. His jaw hadn’t formed, but he had the wide brow they all shared. His eyebrows arched exactly like Joaquim’s own.
Joaquim guessed the boy’s age as seven or eight, although he might be small for his age. He was thin, and the reverence with which he’d consumed his stolen apple suggested familiarity with hunger. But if he was around eight, that meant he would have been conceived when Duilio was twenty-one and still at Coimbra. Joaquim didn’t think Rafael had ever been to Spain at all, and he’d been in seminary at that time himself. No, if this child had Ferreira blood, he’d gotten it through Alexandre Ferreira.
Joaquim waited until the boy finished eating his apple, core and all. “Will you tell me your name?”
The boy’s dark eyes flicked toward Marina where she sat on the far side of the table. “Jandro,” he said, pronouncing the j in the Spanish way. “Alejandro.”
And that clinched the matter; Alejandro was the Spanish form of Alexandre.
“We went down to the Rambla to find you,” Joaquim said to him. “But you found us first. Were you looking for us?”
Alejandro glanced at Marina again, and nodded.
“Do you know who we are?”
The boy’s lips twisted. For a moment he seemed disinclined to answer, but his eyes crept toward Marina once more.
“Do you know me?” she asked gently. “Who I am?”
“You’re going to be my new mother.”
Marina’s mouth fell open.
So the boy had the seer’s gift as well. The only way he could have recognized Marina was if he’d seen her in dreams or visions. Joaquim tapped his finger on the table to get the boy’s attention, buying time for Marina to regain her calm. “What about your mother, Alejandro? Leandra, right? Where is she?”
“She didn’t tell me where she was going,” Alejandro said. “She left me with Capitan Captaire.”
That translated roughly as the chief beggar. But he hadn’t denied that Leandra Rocha was his mother, even if she’d left him behind. “Forever? Or does she mean to come back for you?”
The boy’s mouth twisted downward again. He shrugged. “She said if she didn’t to go to the Golden City.”
An odd order to give a boy so young. Is this boy clever enough to make his way across Iberia alone? “How? Do you have money to go there?”
“Capitan has it. He owes her, so he says he’ll send me.”
Honor among thieves? It did exist. “What will you do in the Golden City?”
“I’m supposed to find my family.”
Joaquim was fairly certain who that family was. “The Ferreira family?” he asked, just to be sure.
The boy nodded. “They call me Ferrera, but my name’s Ferreira. That’s why the Vilaró taught me Portuguese, so I’ll sound right there.”
Leandra Rocha had a mission that required she leave her son behind. She’d arranged for a caretaker to transport him to his father’s family if she didn’t return. She’d made preparations in case she died. “Who is the Vilaró?”
“He’s in the prison,” Alejandro said. “In the very bottom. The other prisoners leave me alone because they’re scared of him.”
Joaquim licked his lips, his stomach sinking. “You live in the prison?”
“I did,” the boy said, matter-of-factly, as if it were normal for a child to be raised inside a prison. “Mother told me never to go back there.”
Joaquim tried not to react, but nausea welled in his stomach. He had no doubt this boy was exactly who he seemed, a son of Alexandre Ferreira and a woman carelessly left behind.
He had a brother who’d been raised in a prison.
He’d held a grudge for some time against his dead father for refusing to acknowledge him. Alexandre Ferreira had always avoided being in the same house as Joaquim, and even if he hadn’t realized the man was his father, Joaquim had felt shunned anyway. He hadn’t complained of the man’s behavior, not even to Duilio, but he’d resented it.
Despite that, he’d had a good life and a loving father in the elder Joaquim Tavares. He’d had food and clothing and never worried for his safety. He’d had brothers who fought with him, but respected him anyway.
Alejandro had none of that. He’d been raised in a prison, and spoke of it so flatly that it must never have occurred to him to resent that fact. At the moment, Joaquim resented Alexandre Ferreira enough for both of them. He took a deep breath, forcing down his twisting stomach.
“Do you know your father’s name?” he asked the boy.
“It was Alexandre,” the boy answered. “He had ships and lived in the Golden City.”
“Alexandre Ferreira was my father too. That makes you my brother.”
The boy’s mouth made a round O. Not surprise, but epiphany, as if some missing piece of a puzzle had fallen into place. “That’s why I’m supposed to live with you.”
It was telling that Alejandro had identified Marina so easily as his new mother, yet didn’t call Joaquim his new father. Somehow the boy’s gift had recognized that he was a brother instead.
A knock came at the door, a welcome distraction. When Marina jumped up to answer it, Joaquim raised a hand to forestall her and went himself to be sure it was safe. He opened the door only a sliver and saw that a waiter had arrived, so he allowed the man to bring in their lunch and handed him a couple of pesetas as he left. Joaquim locked the door behind him.
Marina took over, moving the food to the small round table near the balcony doors where the boy already sat. They had a basket of the local tomato-rubbed bread, soup with pasta and rice accompanied by sausage, and coffee with almond biscuits. Joaquim picked up his cup of coffee first, hoping it would help clear his mind.
After removing her gloves, Marina laid out utensils for the boy and placed a large chunk of the sausage on his plate with his bowl of soup. The boy’s eyes lifted to hers, almost as if he didn’t grasp that she’d set it there for him. “That’s yours,” she said to him. “I know you just ate, but it never hurts to have a full stomach.”
“Makes you slow,” he said. “Mossos are looking for me.”
“The men in the blue and red?” she asked. “Are they police?”
“Mossos d’Esquadra,” Joaquim offered. He recognized the name if not the uniforms. “The provincial police for Barcelona. Are they looking for you because of the apple?”
A shake of the head. “They want to take me back to the prison.”
Marina’s jaw clenched. “Well, you’re safe here. You can take a nap afterward. We’ll keep the door locked. No one will take you back to that prison. I promise.”
Alejandro watched silently as she sat in the chair next to him, laid out her napkin, and sliced up her portion of the sausage to put it in her soup. The boy began cutting up the sausage just as Marina had done, demonstrating that he understood either table manners or mimicry. Joaquim suspected it was a mixture of the two. Belatedly, he joined them at the table.
“Your hands are cut,” the boy said, eyes on Marina’s scarred fingers. “Like my mother’s.”
“Sometimes that has to be done,” Marina said. She talked to Alejandro at intervals during the meal, trying to determine what the boy liked. Most of his answers were vague, making Joaquim suspect the boy had never given much thought to his own preferences. He ate everything placed before him, finishing up with the almond biscuits that Joaquim neglected to eat with his coffee.
With a full stomach, Alejandro seemed about to nod off, so Joaquim led the boy into the bedroom. The boy went willingly enough and, after removing his worn shoes, curled up atop their coverlet. “We’ll be in the sitting room,” Joaquim said, and pulled a spare blanket over the boy’s thin form. “I have to go out for a bit, but Marina won’t leave you.”
Alejandro didn’t respond. Perhaps he was already asleep.
Joaquim left him there and quietly closed the bedroom door behind him. Marina watched him with wide eyes. “What do we do?” she whispered.
“I’m not going to leave him here,” he said. “We have to keep him with us. I don’t . . .”
Just because he’d found a brother he hadn’t known he had, that didn’t mean their quest to find the journal—and Alejandro’s mother—was over. But it changed everything.
How could they protect the boy here? He was not going to hand the boy off to some local nursemaid’s care. He didn’t know whom he could trust, and Alejandro was at risk of imprisonment merely for being half sereia. He could place both Marina and the boy on a train back to Portugal immediately, but if he suggested it, Marina would balk. And he couldn’t be certain they would be safe heading back alone anyway.
“I need to send a telegram,” he said to Marina. “I’ll let Lady Ferreira know . . .” Know what? That I’ve found another of her husband’s bastards? “I’ll figure out what to tell her on the way to the telegraph office,” he finished weakly.
He hoped that was the case.