The Matador's Crown. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ stood off beside a portion of wood fence, a barrier the matadors could flee behind during a bull’s attack. The matador was tall and slender. Regal in his suit of lights, he studied each move the bull made as his assistant goaded the animal with the magenta-and-yellow cape.

      “Why doesn’t El Bravo test the bull himself?” she asked.

      “That’s his assistant’s job. El Bravo needs distance to take it all in. Looking for which horn the bull favors, and whether or not the beast charges straight and with its head down or high. This one is calm. A good bull.”

      “How would you know a bad bull?”

      “Those cartoons that feature the snorting bull that paws the ground with a hoof? That is a bad bull. Too cocky and fearful. Easily riled and nervous. The matador desires a calm, brave animal to put him to the ultimate test.”

      “The bull being an herbivore,” she mused, “it’s surprising they charge a man at all.”

      “Rhinoceroses are herbivores. I wouldn’t want to stand alone before one of those tanks.”

      “Point made.” Annja noted the matador’s keen eye on the bull as it lowered its head to charge the cape. “Do they know what they’re getting before the bull comes to the ring?”

      “Not usually. The bulls are selected before the fight in the sorteo. The matador never does the selection. He sends his second in command, who pays close attention to horn size, sharpness and shape. But it’s difficult to determine the animal’s mien in a small stockyard.” Garin finished off the beer. His attention swerved to her. “I assume you’re going to stick around and look into the murdered man’s life?”

      “Like I said, I’ll leave that to the police. It’s curious, if you ask me, that someone would leave behind a piece such as the bronze bull at the scene. Even if the murderer had no idea the value of the object, he—”

      “Or she,” Garin interjected.

      “Or she, should have been able to take one look at it, known it was an artifact and pocketed it.”

      “Perhaps their morals for stealing were stronger than for taking another man’s life?”

      “That makes no sense.”

      “Why? I’m not much for theft myself. Yet if faced with a situation where I had to defend my life by taking another’s life, I wouldn’t question the choice.”

      “Are you suggesting whoever killed Diego did it in self-defense? A knife to the back is hardly a defensive wound.”

      “No. Just showing you there are many ways to reason a man’s actions.”

      “Explain to me, then, a man’s choice to watch another man murder an animal before a crowd?”

      “Ah, but it’s not a defenseless animal. Name one other situation where an animal raised for slaughter is allowed the opportunity to defend its life?”

      Annja opened her mouth to reply, but said nothing. He had a point. A vague, far-reaching point.

      “Besides, the man isn’t safe from danger,” he added. “The matador faces danger for us all. He offers us that risk we are unwilling to take for the thrill of near death.”

      “This coming from a man who I know takes risks daily.”

      “Well.” Garin shrugged. “I’m speaking about the others.”

      The common people was the unspoken part he left out. So like Garin, and not at all offensive when delivered with his charming smirk.

      The matador had stepped out from behind the fenced barrier and swirled the magenta-and-yellow cape to attract the bull’s attention. The cape moves were called veronicas, named after the veil Veronica had used to wipe the sweat from Jesus as he marched to his doom.

      “Left horn,” Garin muttered. “He’ll present the cape to that one because that’s the dominant one.”

      The crowd cheered when the bull passed close to the matador, one deadly ebony horn brushing his hip. The matador didn’t step back, but instead leaned in toward the bull, bringing man and beast together as one. The bravery required to maintain that stance and not step aside was incredible, at once brutal and graceful. Annja nodded, impressed.

      “As I’ve said, bullfighting is an art,” Garin said into her ear to be heard over the approving shouts of “Olé.”

      And yet the word matador translated to killer. Annja took another sip of her beer, avoiding comment.

      “The crowd doesn’t attend to witness a grisly murder,” Garin continued, “but rather the art of man against beast as each offers his very life in a competition that pits grace and style against ferocity and danger.”

      She could buy into that. To a point. “Except when the picador enters, then the grace and style fades and the cheating begins.”

      Garin shook his head and popped open another beer that again seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. “Annja, I won’t even try. I had expected you, of all people, to have an open mind about this event.”

      “I can look at it objectively.” There was a certain art to bullfighting. “Just call me a nonpartisan observer.”

      She understood the first capework performed by the matador was designed to tire the bull, to seek out its weaknesses and exploit them. It was a mind game between man and beast. It was the moment when the bull showed its mettle, be it gentle and awkward when approaching the cape or determined and ferocious with each charge. It was also the first time the bull had ever seen a man on foot and not mounted on a horse.

      But her carefully restrained judgment nudged loose as the picador rode in on his horse, wielding the long spear he would use to poke the bull in the shoulder muscle to further weaken it. Rumors held that often the horse was drugged to keep it docile and less skittish.

      The horse the picador rode was shielded with a heavily padded mattresslike fabric and was turned to one side to give the bull a charging target, diverting its attention from the matador, who had successfully avoided all the bull’s charges, giving the beast nothing to connect with. The picador provided the bull something to charge after so many false charges against the matador, to give it encouragement as the beast’s instinct to charge the cape might fade.

      With his eight-foot lance, the picador stabbed the bull in the morillo, the huge neck muscle, in an effort to make it swell and weaken the animal. Before the picador could maneuver the horse to move in for the second lance, the crowd hissed as the bull pinned the horse against the wood barrier surrounding the ring. The picador flew off over the side of the barrier and into the contrabarrera, leaving the horse alone with the bull. A horn penetrated the horse’s unprotected chest and the dying whinny forced Annja’s attention back to Garin.

      The man wasn’t watching. His gaze followed the matador, who’d retreated behind the protective barrier. The matador was no fool. As much as Garin argued that bullfighting was an art, the horse was the most unsuspecting victim of it all.

      “So what brings you to Cádiz?” she asked, unable to take in what was happening below. “You mentioned you were already here. What, were you following me?”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ