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  The Domingo Armada Mysteries

  Books 1-3

  Jefferson Bonar

  Step Into History

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  Contents

  A Murder Most Spanish

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  A Murder Most Watchful

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  A Murder Most Literate

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  About the Author

  A Murder Most Spanish

  A Domingo Armada novel

  Jefferson Bonar

  Chapter One

  Miguel Guillen gazed at the vast field of green sugar cane stalks with trepidation. It was hard to believe that he and just a few other men would be able to harvest the entire area in barely a week. The stalks had grown so tall over the sweltering summer, sprouting long, dagger-shaped leaves that melded together to form thick walls of vegetation that reached high over Miguel’s head. They fluttered now as they caught the sea breeze, creating a whooshing sound that roared in Miguel’s ears.

  It was early October and already the worst of the summer heat was subsiding. The next few months promised to be cool and temperate, and possibly a bit rainy. This time of year meant one thing to all the labourers in the area: harvest time. And in order to harvest sugar cane, it first had to be burned. Which meant fire. Fire had always made Miguel nervous, especially when it would be the size of the blaze they would set today. All of the undergrowth had to be burned away before the cutting of the stalks could begin. Miguel had heard many times in his life that this was how it was done, and it always amazed him. How could a farmer just set his own field ablaze like that?

  Miguel tried very hard to listen to everything his jefe Jose told him. He liked Jose. Jose was a firm man, like Miguel’s father had been. He spoke with a tone of voice that meant he knew what he was doing and that he was not to be questioned. There was a confidence there that Miguel couldn’t imagine having for himself. It helped to calm Miguel’s nerves, actually. He had never done this kind of work before. But if Jose thought he could do it, then he must be right.

  Confidence had always been so foreign to Miguel. He had never really had much to be confident about. Most people thought he was a bit dumb. He struggled to do a lot of things that others found easy. He couldn’t tie a knot, or count very well, although he’d been told his Latin was pretty good. Miguel had tried a few times to say something clever, but it always came out wrong. He knew people thought his accent was strange, but Miguel didn’t think so. It was just how he talked. He’d been told that he sounded like he came from the mountains, or that he was, perhaps, a gitano. But he wasn’t. Miguel had been born in a small town outside Almeria, nowhere near the mountains. And he wasn’t a gypsy. Not even a little.

  It didn’t help that Miguel was so tall as well. He towered over most people he met, with broad shoulders and thick upper arms that his mother had warned him frightened those who didn’t know him. It didn’t help that he’d gotten his father’s dark olive skin and thick, curly black hair. He had been teased mercilessly in his youth about looking Moorish. He’d been in more fights than he could remember. He wasn’t a Moor. He wasn’t even a morisco. His parents were Old Christians, going back as far as anyone could remember.

  The teasing stopped somewhere around age twelve, when his growth spurts began and he no longer had to fight so much. But people still thought he was dumb. And with his parents being so poor, there was little chance of going to university. Too much in life just confused him.

  But he could work. In the fields, where the tasks were backbreaking but simple
, he had found something he was finally good at. And if the drought hadn’t ruined much of the farmable land back home, he would no doubt be working his own field by now. It was something he dreamed about.

  Yet the dream would have to wait. What he and his family needed now was work, and his uncle had told him there was plenty to be found down on the coast in Salobreña during the sugar cane harvest. Miguel had never left the village before, and had never travelled on his own. He had been quite frightened to go. His father had accused him of acting like a child and stormed into the back bedroom. Then his mother had taken his head in her lap, as she had done his entire life, stroked his hair, and let him gaze into the fire while she told him he was twenty-three now, and despite what his father had told him, Miguel was ready to be a man and that he shouldn’t let anyone tell him different.

  But staring at the field in front of him now, Miguel felt it had all been a mistake. Everything was just so strange, including the town itself. All the sugar cane fields were down on a flat delta that stretched on for miles, bordered by mountains to the north and the Mediterranean shoreline to the south. But right in the middle was a strange rock formation, just a small hill, that looked to Miguel like a baby mountain that was racing out of the sea to catch up with its mother deep in the Alpujarras range. The town had been built right on top of this strange hill, just a cluster of white box houses nestled at the foot of the wall that surrounded the one feature that had amazed Miguel the most – the castle.

  Miguel had never seen a castle before. His mother had told him about the gorgeous, majestic palaces where wealthy aristocrats watched over great battles fought in their honour, made important decisions about their lands, and did other “noble” things. The castle of Salobreña had been built on the highest point of the rock and it could be seen from anywhere on the delta, looming down over all the farmers. Miguel wondered who the important aristocrats were that lived there and whether they were watching him right now. The thought of making a mistake while they watched was terrifying, but it did little to tamper his desire to someday go inside and see the grand dining rooms and staircases and what his mother called “opulence.”

  “Once the fire is started, it will be very hard to put out until we reach the first firebreak, which is just over that ridge. So I want to make sure we reach it before sundown,” Jose said.

  Miguel listened intently and behind him could hear the other men shuffling about and whispering to each other. He hadn’t met them before. But he knew they had worked with Jose many times, so they probably knew what he was going to say. Miguel was the only new person. He’d only known Jose for one day, ever since Jose had spotted him in the tavern and offered him work on the spot. Jose didn’t seem to mind about Miguel’s accent, or his skin colour, or his dumbness. He was just interested in Miguel’s ability to work. Miguel had liked him instantly.

  But he wasn’t as sure about the other members of the crew. One of them seemed all right. His name was Enrique and he seemed really young to Miguel. He had light brown hair that was wild and shaggy to just below the jawline, and his face made him always look a bit confused by everything happening around him. He had a calm and gentle demeanour, as if very little in life could get him upset. There was a graceful way he moved his body that made Miguel wonder if he was educated, or from a big city like Malaga or Seville.

  But it was when Enrique spoke that Miguel could tell that he wasn’t. Enrique spoke with a thick, Andalucian accent, constantly clipping the ends of his words, dropping the “s” sound, and speaking much too quickly, as if trying to spit out his thoughts in large globs. Although Miguel had grown up around people who spoke in this way, he found it difficult at times to understand Enrique. Yet Jose seemed to have no trouble at all.

  It was the other man that worried Miguel the most. His name was Amparo. His face seemed etched with a permanent smirk, and he spoke in a tone that suggested everything he was telling you was a lie, and waiting to see how much of it he could get you to believe. He stared at Miguel with a twinkle in his eye, a twinkle Miguel knew from his childhood. It was the same he’d received from all the boys who had spotted his cowardice, how easy it was to make him cry to their endless amusement. The same twinkle he got before the beatings began.

  Miguel hated Amparo from the moment he met him, which was just a few hours before. It had been just before dawn as the men stood about waiting for Jose to arrive. It was obvious the other men knew each other well, leaving Miguel to awkwardly fold his arms across his chest a few steps away, pretending to be interested in a bit of weeds at his feet. His instincts told him to avoid Amparo’s gaze. There was something about the way the man smiled at him that meant danger. Once, Miguel glanced up to see if Amparo was still staring. He was. And now that Miguel had noticed, this somehow meant, through the strange rules of etiquette Miguel had yet to understand, that Amparo was free to speak.

  “Looks like they’re letting the moriscos back in now. There go our jobs, hombres!”

  Amparo had yelled it so loud the entire delta could hear it. The other two men had chuckled a bit, but Amparo didn’t care. He laughed at his own joke enough for all of them. And it wasn’t a joyous sound like it was with most people. It was a sarcastic laugh, a taunting sort of bark that hurt Miguel’s ears.

  “I’m not a morisco,” Miguel shot back.

  Amparo pretended not to hear.

  “You know, this town doesn’t like your kind very much, morisco. The people here might just chase you out of here one day. They’ve done it before. You better watch out.”

  The sun hadn’t yet risen, so much of everyone’s face was still in shadow. Miguel was glad Amparo couldn’t see the tears in his eyes. He couldn’t help but cry. It was always how he reacted to such taunting, ever since he was little. It made him angry. How long would it be before he was finally old enough to not be teased like this? Was he not a man yet? No one else seemed to have to bear this. Why was it that there were always men like Amparo around, no matter where he went, ready to make him feel bad?

  Jose had finally arrived and told the men to gather round before giving them the rules on using the water barrels that were strapped to a special saddle on the back of a donkey he’d brought.

  “I’ll keep them near me if things get out of control,” Jose said. “But if you use them, you’re the one that goes back to the shoreline to refill them.”

  Everyone seemed to know what Jose was talking about except Miguel, and without any other instruction the men began shuffling their way toward the edge of the field where a dusty wagon track separated it from its neighbour to the west. Along the edges of this track grew wild tufts of lavender, mint, and rosemary that filled the gusty breezes billowing up the track with their intoxicating scents.

  This fragrance was soon overwhelmed by a far different odour, one that burned Miguel’s lungs and made him cough, much to the amusement of the others. Soon the entire wall of vegetation in front of him was ablaze, spitting and cracking violently, spewing out black plumes of smoke and filling the air with the scent of burning wood.

  The sight startled Miguel, and he flinched. This did not go unnoticed by Amparo.

  “What’s the matter, morisco?! Scared of a bit of fire?”

  Amparo picked up a bit of broken cane stalk, which was black and still glowing with red embers on the end, and waved it about in Miguel’s face.

  Miguel backed away. He wasn’t frightened. He just didn’t want those embers to touch his face. But Amparo took it as fear and waved the stick even closer.

  Miguel instinctively batted the stick away.

  “Ooooh!” Amparo said, chuckling. He had sensed Miguel getting upset, a man who never knew what to do in these situations. He didn’t want to fight Amparo. He just wanted to work.

  Amparo jabbed the stick closer, glancing about to see if the other men would join in. But they seemed uninterested. It didn’t seem to dampen Amparo’s fun, however.

  “Do you not have fire up in those mountains of yours, morisco?” Ampa
ro said, waving the stick closer.

  Finally, Jose came to Miguel’s rescue.

  “Amparo! Get to work!” Jose yelled.

  Amparo finally put the stick down and gave Miguel a devilish smile before all the men fanned out and began their work for the day.

  But Miguel found it difficult to calm himself. It was all becoming too much. Would he have to endure Amparo all day? Would it ever end? He had come to Salobreña to work, not to put up with endless taunting as if he were a child again.

  It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all.

  Chapter Two

  After a few days, Miguel found the work difficult, but he could handle it. His job was to walk along just ahead of the fire, gathering cane stalks that were too small to harvest, and tie them up in bunches. Then he’d set them on the ground in the direction they wanted the fire to go in, which Jose had called “coaxing” the fire along. Sometimes the wind would shift, or blow too strongly, and Jose had warned him he should always be ready to run. The fire was like a tiger, Miguel thought. Always just behind him, waiting for its chance to pounce if it got hungry. He didn’t need Jose to tell him to be ready to run. He was like that anyway.

  Miguel couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this hot. He had to stand so close to the fire, and there was also the heat from the midday sun, always warming his neck and making his forehead sweat. But Miguel didn’t mind that. Once the fire got going, the rest of the crew had to fan out and were far away from him for much of the day. Amparo did his same job on the far side of the fireline, while Jose and Enrique were somewhere on the other side of the flames and smoke, chopping the burned stalks with their long cutting knives, leaning over to cut as close to the ground as possible before tossing them aside to be collected later. Miguel was almost enjoying it. He only had to deal with Amparo when they met in the mornings, or when work ended for the day in the evenings. The rest of the time he was by himself.

  Always by the end of the day Miguel heard the men start talking about the tavern and all the ale they would guzzle. Miguel had never been much for beer, or taverns for that matter, but the thought of drinking anything after a long hot day in the sun seemed like heaven. He soon decided to finally accept one of Jose’s invitations to join the crew after work for a night’s drinking.