13

Disturbing the Bishop of Sevilla

The four of them crawled back into the tunnel and waited there three hours by Wake’s watch, which he saw by the light of a match from Allen. Crouching in the dark with his ear to the wood panel, Wake listened to Carmena explain what they had gotten themselves into when they entered the ancient fortress.

The man beside Carmena was Manuel Salmerón, son of Nicolás Salmerón, one of the leaders of the Republicans in the Spanish Cortes, or parliament. The Republicans were trying to build a coalition of all the parties to unify the country, and Salmerón senior was widely regarded as most probably the next prime minister. But only a few days earlier General Pavia, the captain-general of Madrid who was allied with the Radicals and Democrats, had declared against the federalist Republican government and called on the other national parties, except for the Carlists, to form a new government.

She explained that the men in the Alcázar were Carlists who were executing local Republicans first, before embarking on a campaign against Pavia and the Radicals. The royal guard regiment her husband commanded was not a real regiment in the army, but a unit of German mercenaries hired by the Carlists to form a cadre around which the people would be expected to rally.

Carmena’s husband and a few Carlists had been living at the Alcázar for five months as part of the coalition government. They, and others in positions of power within the city, had been waiting for an opportune moment to begin another attempt at restoring the reign of the monarchy and the Church. Her husband had been promised a title of nobility, a grant of lands in the Phillipines and Cuba, and the proceeds from the tenants on them. General Pavia’s declaration had given them the anarchy they needed, and the Carlists had moved their mercenaries into positions around the city the previous day. The small regular army guard detail at the Alcázar left when the mercenaries arrived, and the regular Spanish Army garrison at the main fortress outside the city had not decided which side to take as of early that afternoon.

Wake didn’t understand. “But why are you with Manuel?”

“Because he is my lover and my leader. I am a Republican.”

“A Republican? Then why are you married to your husband, the Carlist?” Wake insisted.

“I can assure you it was not my idea or choice, Mr. Wake. It was arranged in the old manner, years ago, when I was sixteen. I have been a prisoner in my marriage and a prisoner in the Alcázar. Tonight, his men have found me missing and their suspicions of my affair will finally be confirmed.” She took an audible breath. “When my husband finds out, he will give orders for me to be killed. His honor demands it.”

“It’s eighteen-seventy-four for God’s sake, not the Middle Ages. This is insane,” muttered Allen.

“Yes, Mr. Allen, my life has been insane for many years—until Manuel, two years ago. And tonight the insanity will stop. One way or another.”

“What do you want us to do?”

“I know a way out of the Alcázar. Once we escape, you will get us aboard that British ship at Cadiz and we will leave Spain. You are an unforeseen gift of good luck—our way out of the country. They won’t publicly search a British ship, especially after what happened at Santiago in Cuba last year. They are still afraid of the British.”

Wake remembered the Virginius incident where the local Spanish general in Santiago went into a rage and began shooting American and British citizens who had been traveling on a British ship suspected of supporting rebels. The Royal Navy had arrived and the executions stopped. That was when Porter had mustered the American fleet at Key West.

“And if we don’t?” he asked. “We could just walk up to these men and say the truth—that we are foreign citizens who are lost. America and Great Britain are not part of this civil war. We might get killed, but we also might get out of here. Staying with you increases the likelihood of getting ourselves killed.”

Carmena’s tone chilled Wake. “I have absolutely nothing to lose. If you walk out there and surrender, then I will too, and tell them that you have been hiding with us. You know what will happen then. You just saw an example. And I do not think you are mere citizens. I am not sure what you are, but you both walk and talk differently from mere citizens. The Carlists will find out exactly what you are—as you die slowly.”

“That’s blackmail, madam,” said Allen.

She hissed her reply. “Precisely . . .”

Wake forced himself to be calm and think the situation through. Once they got out of the Alcázar using the woman’s escape route, they could attempt to get away from them and make their way back to the ship.

Then, as if reading his mind, she shook her head. “And should you try to abandon us outside the walls we will commit suicide by calling for a policeman and letting him know about you two. The police are controlled by the Carlists. Since we would die anyway without a way out of Spain, I will make sure you do too.”

“That would be your word against ours, madam, and you are the perceived traitor,” Wake countered, trying to control his rage. He hated her attitude.

“The perceived leader of the traitors, Mr. Wake. My last confession will be about how you hid in the Alcázar after observing the executions. At that point they will not care who or what you are. They eliminate unfriendly witnesses. You will never see daylight once they seize you.”

Manuel broke his silence and said, “Stop this sparring of words. Either come with us or do not. We are prepared to die. Are you?”

Allen lit another match, its flare making a ghoulish sight in the tunnel. All their faces reflected strain, but the woman’s was the most determined.

As the light dimmed Wake looked from Carmena to his watch. It would be dark outside by now. He glanced at Allen. “Well, old chap. I think it was you who said ‘in for a penny, in for a pound.’”

“Yes. One of my weaker moments in life . . .” came back out of the darkness.

“Carmena, when do you want to try this?”

“Now. It is time.”

***

A sliver of moon shown through the window as they climbed out of it one by one onto a ledge along the inside of the walls facing the large plaza known as the French Gardens. Filing along the ivy-covered ledge with Carmena in the lead, they made their way to a trellis of flowering bougainvillea. They climbed carefully around the bush’s needlelike thorns, then lowered themselves to the ground, Allen stifling an expletive when he lost his footing. Soldiers were everywhere along the tops of the walls and Wake couldn’t see how they could possibly escape, but followed directly behind Carmena, keeping one hand on her shoulder.

She led them along the bottom of the wall to another building. Climbing an orange tree, she leveraged her way up and over an ornate balcony on the second floor, whispering for the others to hurry as an officer walked by sixty feet away by a large entrance.

Once they had all climbed the tree and reached the balcony, Manuel shook his head at her. “Your room? You led us here?”

“Safest place in the Alcázar right now,” she said. She went thru the interior door to her bedroom without hesitation and out into a hall. They waited while she walked down the dark hall into another doorway, then waved for them to follow. It was a lady’s attendant’s quarters and the side wall had a door that led to another balcony. Manuel smiled, for he knew it well. It was the private place at which they had met for over a year.

She leaned over the railing and looked up, then over at each side. “The guards are not overhead right now, but they follow a schedule and will walk this way soon. We go now.”

Carmena put a leg over the rail. Wake heard a grunt as she hit the ground, twenty feet below. He looked over and saw her crawling across the grass of a lawn. She made it to a tree by a side street, hidden behind the trunk.

“¿Que fue éso?” Wake heard a guard above him ask what that noise was. A tall peaked cap appeared over the ramparts.

“Nada, ’migo. Un gato, probablamente,” came another voice from farther along the top of the wall, speculating that it was a cat.

“Entonces un gato gordo!” replied the first guard, joking that it was a fat cat.

Wake and the other men on the balcony held their breath as they flattened themselves against the wall under the overhang. The first guard was still above them, looking around. Then Manuel let out a howling animal wail, screeching louder, then letting it fade away.

“Ay!” said the first guard to his comrade as he started to walk away. “Sí, es un gato gordo, con amor en su mente! Pobre gato.”

The men let out their collective breaths and Wake grinned at Manuel, who shrugged. Then the Spaniard tipped himself over the edge of the railing and landed in the grass, followed by Allen. Wake was last off the balcony, hitting the ground just as the guard reappeared. A pain shot up his right leg, but he knew it wasn’t broken, just strained.

“Alto! Alto, ahora!”

Carmena and the others were waiting by the bushy tree along the street. When the guard issued the challenge for Wake to stop, she and Manuel started running across the street and down an alley. Allen said, “Run, Peter!” which Wake did at full speed, pain ignored as he imagined the rifle coming around and the sights centering on his back.

Wake made it to the tree and dashed across the street with Allen next to him, searching for their Spanish companions, but he couldn’t see them. As they pounded over the cobblestone pavement, each step jolting his leg, he saw a hand beckon them into another alleyway and turned obliquely toward it, still running as fast as he could.

Behind them the alert was being raised by the guard and more shouts could be heard. Dogs started barking in the streets and alleyways and inhabitants leaned out of windows, asking what was happening, some threatening harm, thinking Wake and Allen were thieves.

Wake caught sight of Carmena turning a corner ahead of him and followed, almost colliding with her and Manuel. All four of them stood there a moment, chests heaving with the exertion and terror.

Manuel spoke first. “We go to the river, swim across to the other side and get to the train to Cadiz.”

The others nodded and started behind him at a fast walk, spurred on by the sounds of soldiers running toward them. Manuel darted to the left and led them past a street, down an alleyway and into a plaza, in front of the Giralda Tower, the ancient Moorish minaret that was now part of the gigantic Cathedral of Sevilla. He stopped abruptly and held up his hand for silence. Horses were coming from the riverside. Shouts of foot soldiers from the Alcázar in the other direction. They were trapped.

“Into the church!” Allen said as he ran to a heavy iron-studded door. It was locked. Wake ran to another, but it too was locked. There was a crumbling ancient wall further along. A portal in the wall was also locked. Wake ran to a gnarled olive tree next to the wall and launched himself up, flailing through the branches until he could grab the top of the stone wall and pull himself over to it. The Briton was next up in the tree and pulled Carmena aloft into the leaves, followed by Manuel.

Perched atop the wall, Wake heard the clatter of hooves close by and immediately dropped down through the dark into yet another large open space. As the horsemen arrived in the plaza, the others in the tree stopped in mid-motion while the cavalry circled within feet of them before splitting up to search the side streets. The last cavalryman rode off, and the fugitives dropped inside the patio, just as the soldiers on foot flooded into the plaza from two streets, fanning out and checking the doors of every building, including those of the church.

The four of them were gasping for air, leaning against the inside of the wall next to the huge closed portal. Above them stood the towering Giralda minaret, next to it the twin steeples of the cathedral. Wake peered through the dim moonlight and recognized orange trees dotting the vast stone-floored plaza. On one side, a hundred fifty yards away, was the gigantic cathedral and on the other two sides were four three-story buildings—the rectories and dormitories, he surmised. He wondered if the cathedral’s doors facing the patio were locked.

“This is the old mosque’s patio. The Patio de Los Naranjos, a thousand years old,” Carmena explained between breaths. “It is part of the cathedral now.”

“Then we should be safe,” offered Allen, hopefully.

She shook her head. “No, no! Remember? The Carlists have great supporters among the church leaders. Many in the Church want the monarchy back.”

Wake recalled seeing men in clerical robes in the group that had entered the Alcázar. He hoped they hadn’t taken part in the execution but remembered that one voice saying something that sounded religious.

“Oh bloody hell . . .” groaned Allen as he gave vent to his frustration. “This bloody, God-forsaken, maniacal, damnably convoluted, museum of a city is really making me friggin’ angry now.”

“Maybe we can wait here for a while and catch our breaths,” Wake suggested. “Let things calm down a bit . . .”

Just then the door thudded loudly. Voices shouted for it to open in the name of the crown. Wake quickly surveyed his surroundings. Could they make the main doors of the cathedral before someone came out of the dormitory buildings and opened the door? Would they be seen by someone as they ran across the patio past the orange trees? The door thudded again, the commands more insistent. His mind was calculating the distance he’d have to cover, about to will his legs to run again, when he heard a vaguely familiar voice call out quietly in accented English.

“Hmm . . . I see you didn’t heed my lesson on Spanish political affairs, gentlemen.”

Wake almost fell down from the sight. It was the priest from the train. Carmena and Manuel looked like cornered dogs, their eyes wide and darting around, looking for escape. Wake felt his strength ebb as the priest stood there with a rueful look, gently shaking his head. Another thud boomed from the door beside them.

Allen looked at the priest and groaned again. “Well, if this doesn’t just cap the friggin’ night! I bloody well give up if God’s against us. I can’t run from Him.”

“You should never run from Him, my son,” said the priest with a smile. He calmly walked to the massive doors and opened the speaking port at eye level. His raised his voice, tone turned to dismissive, using the classical form of Spanish in addressing the soldiers outside.

“Yes, Captain? Is there something important for you to be waking us all up at this time of night. The bishop gets very angry when awakened for no good reason, and even angrier when it’s a soldier disrespecting the house of the Lord. What is your precise name?”

“I am only a sergeant, sir. Sergeant Alonzo Padillo. Padre, I am very sorry—”

The priest nearly shouted. “A mere sergeant—not even a commissioned officer—dares to do this to the Cathedral of Sevilla?”

“Oh, I am so very sorry, Padre,” said the soldier, whose dialect was of the lower class in the north of Spain. “But there are fugitives on the loose and we wanted to know if they had entered the patio or cathedral.”

“No, they have not entered the cathedral! I have been on my nightly stroll and would have seen such a thing. Now, may the bishop and the rest of our religious community get back to sleep without any further disrespect or disturbance from you?”

“Yes, Padre. We are very sorry for disturbing you. My apologies. Please, sir, tell the—” but the sergeant never finished, for the priest slammed the port shut in his face.

The priest then held a finger up to his mouth and beckoned with his hand for Wake and the others to follow him as he strode rapidly across the patio. Several minutes later they were in a tiny room on the sixth floor of the cathedral, just off the Giralda Tower and near the belfry, again gasping for air from the steep climb. The priest produced a match and lit three candle sconces on the stone wall, their flickering illumination making an eerie scene. Then he sat on a small leather stool.

Amazingly to Wake, the priest was not out of breath and serenely motioned for them to sit on the bench against the wall as he intoned as if to a class on ethics. “Let the record of my life at the gate of Saint Peter accurately reflect that I did not lie to that unfortunate sergeant. I told him the truth when I said that I did not see anyone enter the cathedral at that particular point in time.” He wagged a finger. “And I never said that I would not take someone into the cathedral later.”

“Oh, I’m sure that Saint Peter knows that, sir,” said Wake, his leg throbbing. “Thank you so much for giving us some respite, Padre. It’s extremely good to see you again. May I introduce you to my companions? You remember Peter Allen, of course. This is Doña Carmena Garza and Manuel Salmerón. I believe you recognize those two last names.”

The priest’s smile disappeared as he nodded. Wake turned to the two stunned Spaniards. “And this is Father Juan Muñosa, a Jesuit who has just returned to Sevilla after many years absence. Pete and I met him on the train here. He warned us against getting involved in the political turmoil here. Unfortunately,” he paused and glared at Allen, “we have.”

“My dear Lieutenant Wake,” said Muñosa. “I sense that there is an absolutely delicious story here and I would love to hear it.” He spread his hands. “It’s only two o’clock in the morning and I have nothing but time until first vespers at dawn.”

Manuel was visibly confused. Carmena’s eyes flared. “Lieutenant Wake?”

Allen looked at Wake and inhaled audibly. “Oh, my dear boy. This’ll be a bit of a long story, won’t it?”