“We will stay here for a moment to listen. Few come here anymore. These were the harem’s quarters for the caliph when the Muslims ruled. We can see out but they cannot see in.”
Wake ran out of patience, grabbing her arm. “All right, Carmena, we’ll wait here for a moment. Now, what exactly is going on?”
“I will tell you later. Shh . . .” She shook free of his grip and cocked her ear, listening. Wake heard it too. Boots again, this time in the patio below. Angry shouts echoed. Wake understood a man to say in an apologetic tone that he had searched something, but the rest was unintelligible. Another shout, a command perhaps.
Carmena smiled, looked at her companion and whispered in Spanish. “They know.”
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
