North grimaced. “Hmph. Now I am only interested in proving the truth of the one religious axiom that pertains to trading volleys with pirates.”
“And what axiom is that?”
“That, verily, it is better to give than to receive. Pass me that wine, damn you; I need a drink.”
Donald Ohde, the team’s unofficial radio operator, popped his head back in the door. “I’ve got the embassy standing by on the radio, Don Estuban. Don Ruy himself is on the line, wondering what you need.”
Miro rose. “Did you tell him that we are bound for Mallorca?”
“Yep.”
Miro smiled. “Then I will ask my Catalan friend what he might know about a most significant fortification on the island, the one known as the Castell de Bellver…”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Captain Castro y Papas knew that Senor Dolor was approaching him from behind, but not because he could hear the man’s boots on the deck. Dolor was, fittingly, as quiet as death, but the sailors working the sails and rigging hushed at his approach. As they always did. Some made warding signs when they thought he wasn’t looking. Castro y Papas was quite sure that Dolor saw it all, and more besides.
“Captain,” said the smaller man as he came to stand beside Don Vincente at the rail.
“Senor,” Castro y Papas acknowledged with as flat a tone as he could manage.
If Dolor noticed, or cared, that the response was markedly unwelcoming, he gave no sign of it. “Have your duties ever brought you to Mallorca before?”
Don Vincente shook his head.
“A pleasant island,” commented Dolor, “and Palma is a handsome city.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Castro y Papas lied. He had been admiring the view as their frigata rode the north Saharan wind known as the Llebeig into Palma’s broad bay. Flanked by eastern beaches on the right, and scrub-covered uplands on the left, their entry brought them abreast of Fort San Carlos, still under construction. Before them lay Palma itself, walls mounting up into an impressive skyline. The immense Gothic cathedral on the east offered its flank squarely to the bay, and pointed toward the rambling Almudaina palace that straddled the midpoint of the walls. The western end of the city seemed to slope down and away from that edifice, which mixed Arab, Spanish, and modern architectural elements into an aesthetic whole that, defying all logic, pleased the eye.
Close against the walls and just back from the shores that ran away to both the east and west city were wide, white arms that waved tirelessly, all doing so at the same speed. Those flanking clusters of well-wishers were windmills, turning in the steady wind that now freshened the ship’s sails and brought them closer to the Moorish pier, reaching out toward them like a weathered gray finger.
Dolor looked up into the cloudless light blue sky. “Odd,” he commented, “that you see no beauty in such a view. I would have thought you a man receptive to the romance of so striking a vista.”
“Perhaps the mood is not upon me just now.”
“Perhaps. At any rate, we are passing your new duty station, Captain.” Dolor pointed to the west shore. Set upon a knoblike hill barely a mile beyond the walls of Palma, a collection of round towers dominated the scrub-mottled uplands that overlooked the bay. “That is the Castell de Bellver. Formerly the palace of the king of Mallorca, it declined to a mere fortress, and now is descending in stature yet again-to that of a prison.”
Don Vincente studied the building that seemed to be perched watchfully over the western approaches to Palma. One tower, noticeably taller and a bit narrower than the other three, pointed like a white finger into the sky.
Dolor must have noticed his companion’s attention to that particular feature. “That is the lazarette. The final bastion of the fortress. Which, I might add, has never been taken by general assault. Nor have any prisoners ever escaped from it.”
Castro y Papas could see why, readily enough. The main body of the fortress seemed to be a squat tower itself, now that he had a closer view of it; it rose only two tall stories above the ravelins and ramparts that had been cut into the hilltop around it. At each true compass point of the circular main walls sat one of the structure’s four towers. The lazarette served as the north pointer, and therefore, sat back somewhat from the bay. With the pennons fluttering from the pinnacles of each tower, it looked much more like a white-pink fairy-tale castle than a prison. Don Vincente felt a tinge of pity for so fine a structure, built as the residence of kings, but now a gaol. “It no longer contributes to the defense of the city?”
Dolor shrugged. “Somewhat. There are cannons in the ramparts about its base and a few still on its roof. But as you can see, its design reflects the wisdom of the ages before cannon. The same is true for the substance of its walls.”
“What do you mean?”
Dolor swept his finger along the rough uplands of the west bank. “You will note all the faint white outcroppings, like stumps of teeth along the ridgelines? All sun-bleached sandstone. From which the Castell de Bellver itself was built, quarried from mines in the very hill upon which it sits.”
Don Vincente nodded. “So, if such soft stone was ever subject to bombardment by modern cannon-”
Dolor shrugged. “It would be a shattered ruin within an hour.”
“How many in its garrison?”
“At last report, approximately fifty within the walls, about that many again manning the ravelins and barbican outside. These will be increased now, of course. Although that change will not be welcome to the Castell’s governor.”
“Governor? Not commander?”
“No. Bellver’s situation is unique.” Dolor’s lip quirked in what might have been dark humor or genuine annoyance. “Sometime in the fifteenth century, it became the possession of the Carthusian Monks of Valdemossa. Although it is not staffed by them, they assign the Castell its governor, who has control over the garrison.”
The way Dolor had put emphasis on the word “garrison” prompted Don Vincente’s next question. “The garrison is not very proficient?”
Dolor shrugged. “It is staffed almost completely by Mallorcans. Yes, they are technically soldiers of the Crown, but almost none of them have ever left the island, or been trained and blooded with a real tercio. They are local soldiery. Mostly trustworthy, but not very dependable in a fight, I’m afraid.”
“Hence, your resolve to increase the contingent there.”
“Yes. By drawing troops from the garrison at San Carlos. Only twenty or so, but that will not please the governor. Not at all.”
“I would have expected that he would have seen a larger detachment as an honor, a signification of greater authority.”
“No, because the new troops will not be under his command. They will be on detached duty to the Castell, and under your direct authority.”
“You put me in a most enviable position, Senor Dolor.”
“I do what is necessary, as shall you. You will use the real soldiery from the fort to improve the readiness of Bellver’s current garrison. Your men will train with, and provide examples for, the governor’s.”
“In theory.”
“It is your responsibility to make this theory a reality, and quickly, Captain Castro y Papas. If agents of the USE plan on striking again, they will do so with all alacrity; if they wait much longer, they will be endangering the pregnancy of Stone’s wife.” Dolor moved away from the rail.
“And you, Senor Dolor? Where will you be?”
Dolor stopped and turned to look at the captain. “Wherever I am most needed. I will be at the Castell intermittently. If I am not there, my assistant, Dakis, is likely to be. But I cannot gather and oversee intelligence reports in a hilltop fortress two miles southwest of the viceroy’s palace; I must be where ships and roads bring messages. So I will mostly be in Palma.”