Breaker of Bones
Breaker of Bones
David Penny
Contents
SPAIN: 1483
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Historical Note
About the Author
The Thomas Berrington Historical Mysteries
In memory of George Penny
2nd January 1923 - 23rd March 2015
One of this world’s true gentlemen
SPAIN: 1483
Cordoba, Andalusia
When mania creates a monster,
only one man can stop the killing.
March 1483, and surgeon Thomas Berrington makes a reluctant journey to Qurtuba at the request of his master. He expects only to operate on a Spanish prince and return home to Moorish al-Andalus. But fate has something else in store for him and his companion, the eunuch Jorge.
A warped killer is taking young women to create twisted creatures from their bodies. When Thomas is tasked by Queen Isabel to hunt down the culprit he is propelled into an unfamiliar world of religious mania where it is impossible to tell who is friend and who foe. Meanwhile Jorge is on a quest of his own—to track down the remnant of a family he abandoned twenty years before.
When the Bonebreaker takes a new victim the pair are forced to undertake their most dangerous challenge yet. Thomas and Jorge race to expose the killer before yet another life is taken – this time someone close to them.
Chapter One
Thomas Berrington came down to the river to wash, the ache in his bones reminding him of every one of his forty-two years. As he approached the water, sufficient light had gathered in the sky to show something floating there and he stopped short. The water roiled slow and deep, stained offerings marring the surface. The object drifted from sight into a mist that obscured the river more than twenty feet from the bank. Thomas shook his head, convinced he had been mistaken. A second look at the water and he decided washing could wait until he entered Qurtuba.
He lifted his robe and pissed into the polluted river. Had it been cleaner he might have relieved himself elsewhere, but he didn’t believe his own contribution was likely to make much of a difference.
His companions remained asleep. Pero beneath a blanket on the back of his cart, Jorge curled under his own blanket on the ground, his saddle for a pillow. It was almost the end of March but Thomas had woken to ice on his beard. He knew by noon he would be cursing his heavy cloak. They should have reached the city by now but Pero had insisted they take a detour two days earlier when rumour reached them of a skirmish near Castro del Rio. Now they were south of the Guadalquivir and still fifteen miles from their destination. The breadth and power of the river brought to mind the puny waters of his homeland of England, a place he hadn’t seen since he’d left at the age of twelve.
Thomas was adjusting his robe when he heard something out on the water, the source hidden by the mist. He stepped closer to the bank but saw nothing as the sound came again. An oar dipping? A splash as something was dropped into the water?
Perhaps something moved, darker grey against grey, but he couldn’t be sure and was reluctant to call out. Even this close to the city brigands might prey on the unwary.
Another splash was followed by two more. A shape pulled away upstream—it might’ve been a boat containing two figures, it might’ve been no more than a thickening of the fog. It slid in and out of the mist, never quite becoming visible as the sound of its passage faded. Thomas stared at the water as something drifted past and he took an involuntary step backwards. At first he took it for a child’s limb, but then he made it out—the hindquarter of a wolf, the fur matted, the limb angled in a way to suggest it was not human. He watched it drift from sight, spinning slowly in the languid current. When he started to turn away, wondering why anyone would discard such a thing, another floated towards him. This time it caught against rushes beside the bank and Thomas, cursing the curiosity that had got him into trouble many times before, reached out with a stick and drew it close.
“What have you found now?”
He turned to see Jorge coming down the slope, picking his way delicately as if afraid he might tread in something unfortunate, which well he might. Even cold, unkempt and tired his friend still possessed the special aura that had picked him out to be a palace eunuch.
“Nothing.”
“It looks like something to me.” Jorge moved a few paces downstream to perform his own ablutions.
Thomas avoided looking, studying the severed limb instead. He turned it over with the end of the stick, leaned closer. A frown settled on his brow. Whatever he thought he had first seen it hadn’t been this.
“Never seen a wolf’s haunch before?” said Jorge, adjusting his robe as he approached.
“Why would anyone toss it into the river? An entire wolf, perhaps, but who would cut it up first?”
“Or torn apart.” Jorge crouched beside Thomas, who knew his friend only pretended interest. They were closer now than before the business of last year which resulted in the ousting of one sultan and the ascent of another.
“So why throw it away? And see—this hasn’t been hacked. The cut is clean, precise.”
Jorge looked and shrugged. “As precise as you would be?”
“Perhaps not, but someone with skill did this.”
“A butcher? I expect they have more practice than surgeons. Why should they not also be skilled?”
“They have no need of such precision. And a butcher wouldn’t hack up a wolf.”
“One more mystery in the world for you to solve,” said Jorge, re-arranging his position so he could sit against the bank. “The priest is awake, by the way. He wants us moving. I told him I’d come and find you.”
“You’ve found me.”
“What are you going to do if you can’t cure this prince?”
Thomas pushed the wolf’s leg back into the current and watched it drift from sight. He thought the mist might be lifting a little. He could make out a rocky bluff on the northern bank, perched atop it some kind of fortified structure. “Go home,” he said in response to Jorge’s question, but the man had already disappeared and Thomas was alone again. He shook his head, both amused and frustrated at the eunuch.
Thomas rose to his feet, was starting to turn away when something else caught his attention, something different, paler, like the first sighting had been. He leaned over the water as the fickle mist chose to thicken at just the wrong moment.
The object drifted into the channel. Thomas took steps along the bank until it turned and approached closer once more. He looked around for another stick, found one, but whatever it was remained stubbornly out of reach. Even so he could make out what it was. This was no portion of a wolf. What he stared at was the headless torso of a young woman.
Chapter Two
Pero de Carraceco had already taken the cart and started down the rutted track by the time they returned. Thomas rolled his blanket and stuffed it into a saddlebag, then lifted both saddle and bag onto his horse and tightened the cinch before mounting. He glanced at Jorge, who was taking longer, and wondered whether to inflict the news of what he had witnessed on him. When he turned back the cart and priest had disappeared into the fog, but the muffled sound of its wheels could still be heard.
“We should simply turn around and ride home,” said Jorge. “But you won’t do that, will you.”
Thomas glanced up from tying his saddle. His mind was still on what he thought he had seen in the water, playing it over and over, each review adding layers of irrationality to the vision. He was starting to convince himself he had been mistaken. It could not have been what he believed. Impossible. He had seen animal carcasses that had been in the water too long, the fur fallen out, the skin grown pale and waxy. Yes, he thought, it had been the body of the wolf that belonged to the limbs, a body too long in the river.
“Will you?” repeated Jorge.
Thomas tugged at the saddle until he was satisfied it wouldn’t tip him off. He glanced around at the campsite to make sure nothing remained behind.
“You know we can’t,” he said. “Besides, a few months away from Gharnatah might prove healthier for both of us.”
“It’s almost a year since Muhammed came to power,” said Jorge. “Surely a man can hold a grudge only so long.”
“He’s never going to forget I ousted his father, nor what I know of his part in it. You witnessed his threat at the infirmary where I recover
ed from my wounds. He only keeps me close so he can torture me further. No—a month or more in Qurtuba sounds good to me.”
“They won’t want us to stay long. Why would they?”
“As a favour from one king to another?”
Thomas watched as Jorge mounted his horse, the man now comfortable in the saddle, his body straight. Jorge’s hood was thrown back to reveal the hair that had grown on his scalp, although the short beard on his face failed to mask the smoothness of his cheeks. Neither the journey nor his travel-stained clothes could hide the beauty of the man. Thomas would have preferred it if he looked worse.
Jorge spurred his horse into a canter and disappeared into the swirling mist after Pero. Thomas remained where he was, the conversation with Jorge reminding him of why he was standing on a stinking riverbank in the cold grey light before dawn. Little more than a year before his life had been settled. That had ended when the first attack occurred at the palace that dominated Gharnatah, and with it the scarring of a beautiful concubine. Helena. She had been gifted him by the old sultan, Abu al-Hasan Ali, because she was no longer considered beautiful. Except Thomas’s skills had restored her—not fully, but enough to cause trouble. Before long she was sharing his bed. And then the other killings had started.
He shook his head.
Since that moment death seemed to stalk him. As he had stalked the killer in the palace. Stalked and found him, ending in a confrontation which resulted in the death of the culprit, but also the overthrow of the old sultan by his son, Muhammed. Life since had become complicated. The arrival of Helena’s sister Lubna had sparked all manner of emotions in Thomas, even though she was not beautiful like her sister. Instead Lubna was smart, and she was fascinated by his work. Now he shared his life between Helena and his duty on the hill in the jumbled alleys of the Albayzin training Lubna to be his assistant, trying to ignore his growing attraction for her.
He wiped a hand across his mist-damp face and cursed. A few months away from that life might indeed be welcome.
Thomas mounted his own steed and let it carry him at a slow walk, relishing the moment of solitude. There had been precious few on the journey, and there were things on his mind that gnawed at his composure. It was obvious to him Jorge wasn’t himself, and not just because of the uncompromising presence of the priest or the uncomfortable journey. Thomas wanted to talk with his friend, to tease out whatever burden he was carrying. They would need each other’s support in this unfamiliar land.
He closed his eyes, enjoying the drift of moisture against his face until the horse whinnied and shuffled sideways. Thomas opened his eyes and saw a shape, barely distinguishable from the grey mist. The longer he stared the less convinced he was that anything was there. Tendrils of mist thickened and faded, turning the world unreal.
Then the shape moved, coming closer. Thomas soothed his mount as it skittered backwards.
A wolf approached, yellow eyes switching between horse and Thomas. He looked beyond it, expecting others, but saw nothing. He dropped a hand to his saddle and drew the sword that rested there. The wolf’s eyes watched the movement. It stopped and cocked its head at a sound only it could hear. It looked back at Thomas, tensed and emitted a sharp yelp before sprinting away. Mist closed around the creature as if it had never existed. Thomas waited before sliding the sword back into its sheath. The wolf was a disturbing reminder of what he had seen in the river. But the more he thought on it the more convinced he became that what he took as a girl’s body could not have been.
“Come on, old man!” called Jorge. “Can’t you keep up?”
Thomas smiled. His friend might be carrying some secret burden, but he remained the same beneath it. He urged his horse into a canter until ghostly figures appeared ahead.
Jorge had claimed he couldn’t ride when they left Gharnatah. Now he sat at ease on his mare as a seasoned rider. For once Thomas envied him his lack of balls, for his own ached from the constant motion.
Jorge came trotting back, appearing like a wraith through the shifting grey currents.
“I told him to wait but he said no. I don’t like the man.”
“I expect he wants to get all that gold to his masters. And I doubt he likes you much, either.”
“Are we going to catch him up? We can’t let Pero enter the city first. There’s no knowing the tales he might spread of us.”
Thomas dug his heels into the horse’s flanks, urging it into a canter. He glanced at the sky. The mist was starting to clear. Already he could make out the circle of the sun. He twisted in the saddle, curious, and caught a glimpse of the structure he had seen earlier. Yes, a castle, perched on the crest of a rocky outcrop. It rose from out of the mist which still cloaked the water, the early sun catching white walls.
“Aren’t you curious about those remains?” Thomas asked.
“Not my area of expertise,” said Jorge. “Nor yours, I wouldn’t have thought.”
“They’re strange. Not the discards of any hunter I’ve ever seen.”
“This whole place is strange.”
Thomas made no reply. He wondered what Qurtuba would make of them—two strangers in Arab dress. They needed the priest to enter the city, he was their promise of a safe passage.
He caught sight of the cart at the top of the next rise. A breeze had started up and the mist trailed away in ragged tatters. Beyond it the air sat heavy, stained with smoke, but the city remained hidden. In the next small valley they caught up with Pero. The track rose, and at the brow the city came into sight, sitting on the north bank of the Guadalquivir. The track brought them back down to its banks, a stench rising from the water even worse than before as it carried the refuse of ten thousand souls. Ahead the roadway turned to follow the banks.
Soon other travellers appeared from side roads, some like them with carts, but drawn by oxen rather than fine horses, others hauling their own goods in home-made barrows. Each of them cast curious, and in some cases fearful glances at the two mounted men. It was the start of another day in Spain beyond the boundaries of al-Andalus, and this land hadn’t seen their like in many years.
Thomas had forgotten how different this place was. Gharnatah lay surrounded by fields and small villages, irrigation ditches carrying water from the snows of the Sholayr to grow crops: vines, wheat, mulberry and olives. Here the land was given over to sheep and goats, which grazed it so hard, barely any grass remained. As the breeze picked up with the rising sun, puffs of dust rose from the passage of wheels and feet to carry away a little more goodness from the soil.
Thomas had not ventured beyond Moorish boundaries in twenty years and had little wish to do so until now. There had been no choice in this venture, none at all, as there had been no choice in his life the past year since he had been instrumental in deposing one sultan and raising a new one to power.
The city walls rose higher as they approached. A bridge spanning the river funnelled everyone to the southern gate.
“Is the palace far once we enter the city?” asked Jorge. “My arse aches and I need a bath.”
“It’s close,” said Pero. “But there will be no bath.” His face showed how he felt about the application of water to the body. Thomas glanced at him, observing dark hair that hung lank around his face, grey skin that showed little health, and considered the priest might benefit from the application of soap and water. But he knew most in this land distrusted cleanliness. He had even heard Pero call it ungodly.