The Devils of Cardona by Matthew Carr

mission to Aragon,” Mendoza said. “Which you will be paid for. Does that tempt you?”
    â€œRight now anything that pays is tempting. Because this horse is all I own.”
    â€œThe night watchman can take care of him till the morning. We leave tomorrow. And I won’t ask what made you seek refuge with the Hieronymites.”
    â€œAnd I won’t ask you what you are doing out at this time of night.”
    Luis laughed the ribald, infectious laugh that Mendoza had heard so many times during the War of Granada. His cousin had never been to his apartment before, and Mendoza ushered him into the dining room and produced some bread, ham and wine from the kitchen.
    â€œWell, well, Alcalde Mendoza,” Ventura said. “I see you’ve gone up in the world. You earn a better living than I do.”
    â€œSo you’ve left the tercio?”
    â€œFor now. But I was thinking of reenlisting till you gave me a reasonnot to. And the abbot has told me I have to go out and do good in the world for my penance.”
    Mendoza laughed. “Did he? Well, I’ll do my best to give you that opportunity.”
    Until Ventura had entered the monastery, the two of them had shared the same house and been more like brothers than cousins. Instead Mendoza was the one who had been brought up in his uncle’s house as if he were the man’s son, except for a brief period when Ventura had abandoned the monastic life. These childhood bonds were strengthened when they fought together in the same war and the same army, and the conversation quickly turned to the War of Granada, to the battles they’d fought in and the comrades they’d known and lost, until Mendoza sensed that his mercurial cousin was becoming gloomy.
    â€œThis investigation also involves Moriscos,” Mendoza said. “I assume that won’t bother you?”
    â€œNot in the slightest. And the farther I am from Madrid, the better.”
    Mendoza shook his head in exasperation as his cousin described his near-fatal adventure with Ágata de la Prada and the cuckolded husband whose minions were hunting for him.
    â€œYou won’t change, will you, cousin?”
    â€œNo. But you certainly have. An apartment like this . . . you only need a wife to complete it.”
    â€œSo Magda was telling me.”
    â€œAnd how is Gabriel?”
    â€œHe’s fine. He asks too many questions, and he doesn’t know what questions he shouldn’t ask. As long they are only directed at me, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
    â€œDoes he ever ask about Granada?”
    â€œNo.” Mendoza looked at him severely. “And I don’t tell him. And I don’t want anyone else to do it either.”
    Ventura looked as though he were about to say something and thenchanged his mind. It was nearly dawn now, and Mendoza offered his cousin a place on his own bed, but Ventura preferred to sleep on the floor. Mendoza brought him a blanket and pillow and retired to his own room. Lying in his own bed, he found himself thinking of Granada, and he saw once again the scene that he knew would be permanently engraved in his mind until the day he died. He saw the elderly Morisca stabbing at him with a sharpened stake in the doorway of the smoke-filled house that had been hit with cannon and musket fire, ignoring his order to surrender. He saw himself run her through with his sword, and he felt once again the same shame and disgust as he walked away. He heard the piercing cry of a child from inside the bombed house and looked in through the gaping hole in the wall where the cannonball had struck, squinting against the smoke at the broken chairs and the overturned table, at the rising flames and the blood and the bodies of five children of various ages, a young woman and a much older man. He saw the toddler, naked and crying out for his mother, sitting among the bodies with the fire coming toward him, and just before he fell asleep,