Lions of the Sea

2

The bells tolled to ten in Campeche, but the loud ringing drowned in the storm hitting the shores of Yucatan. The streets were empty in that hideous night. The howl of the wind, the clattering of the rain and the blare of thunder had taken the city over.

Diego Castillano dismissed the servants for the day and walked down the hall to the bedrooms. He opened a door noiselessly and looked in. Despite the storm, Hernan was sound asleep, the fortunate deep sleep only children enjoy. He closed the door and went back to the main hall of the house. There he locked the front door, and the door to the kitchen and the servants' quarters. At the library, he closed the door behind him and killed all the lights but one. Then he took two pistols from the mantelpiece.

He stood by the window opening to the garden. It was so dark that not even lightning allowed him to see the three thugs he'd hired that morning in the market. But he knew they were out there, trying to take some shelter from the storm. He didn't trust them, just like he didn't trust the pistols in his sash. But he counted on the thugs to be loud enough to give him a chance.

He lingered there, his eyes moving over the rustling shadows, and cursed yet again that unexpected string of late storms keeping him in town. He'd intended to be many thousand miles away from Campeche by then.

A sigh escaped his lips.

Twenty years.

That night it'd be twenty years from the 1640 riot in his hometown of Los Encinos, in Andalusia.

He could still feel it all over. The sweat running under his clothes and the hot barrel of the harquebus in his hands. The fear twisting his guts. The shouting, the shooting, the heat from the fire. The smell of gunpowder and blood. And amidst all that madness, the one thing that had remained carved in his memory: the child covered in blood, standing by the bodies of his father and brothers, shaking from head to toes, eyes wide open fixed on him.

A boy the same age as his son Hernan.

Manuel Velazquez. Who until that night had been his friend and protégée, the younger brother he'd never had.

Diego Castillano knew he would go. He wouldn't let such a date pass by without paying him a visit. And he'd try to kill him. Again. Like he'd tried a dozen other times already over the last ten years.

Was it fate? Was it God's will?

It didn't matter what he did, it looked like he couldn't leave that old tragedy behind. Couldn't leave him behind.

After the riot, the painful memories had pushed Diego Castillano away from his home. And God had led him to Cadiz, where he'd gotten a job at one of the many shipyards. While working as a carpenter apprentice, he'd managed to learn to read and write, and that had allowed him to get a post as an accountant aid in the shipyard. That had been the beginning of a prosper career.

Diego Castillano was happy in Cadiz. Fortune smiled down on him. He had wedded Isabel and improved his position. Hernan was born.

But exactly ten years after the riot, he had stopped at the church to light a candle and pray for those who had died on that fateful night. Especially his friends Jines and Antonio Velazquez.

A young beggar had approached him when he'd walked out of the church, a dirty hand stretched out to him for a coin. Diego Castillano had paused to grab his purse and had caught a glimpse of steel under the beggar's tattered rags. He'd managed to step back and cry for help, but not before a knife scratched his throat.

As he fell on the sidewalk, Diego Castillano had met the beggar's burning dark eyes, glowering down at him full of hate. And he'd recognized Manuel Velazquez. Some passers-by had run to his help and that had saved him.