Death Mask. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ it hung. He had spent almost a year in the artist’s company after he fled to Paris. The last time they talked had been only days before Goya suffered his fatal stroke. It brought back so many memories, some of which he would much rather forget.

      “You think it was really like that?” Mateo asked.

      “Not at the beginning,” Roux said. “But by the end, certainly.” He spoke with more certainty than the driver could have expected. But then, the man could never have guessed the old man he was talking to had witnessed many of the Inquisition’s horrors firsthand.

      “There are some more of his drawings here in Seville,” Mateo said. “Some of them are studies that may have led to this painting.”

      “Are there?” Roux had thought the artist had destroyed everything related to his dark pieces. This was news to him. But did it matter? Was this the important thing he’d been hoping to find? A few sketches by a lost friend?

      “They are in the Museum of Fine Arts. Fifteen minutes’ walk from here, not even half that in the car.”

      “Then what are we waiting for?”

      “They aren’t on display—they’re only brought out for special exhibitions.”

      “There are always ways and means,” Roux said.

      He suddenly had a hunch and was curious to see what of his old friend’s art had survived. He remembered Goya’s fascination with the darkest days of his country. The man was a scholar with a passion for learning and a habit of hiding those things he had discovered in his art—especially in the sketches that formed the foundations of the finished paintings. There was no telling what he might have hidden on those charcoals. Roux hadn’t planned on this detour, but the few minutes it would add to the search could prove invaluable in the long run.

      Roux didn’t waste his time calling some petty bureaucrat in the museum. He cut to the chase, speed-dialing one of the movers and shakers in the country. The woman was on the board of a number of museums and art galleries and could pull strings quickly. She was also an ex-lover, which made the first sixty seconds or so of the conversation a little awkward. It had been more than thirty years since they’d spoken, and although she sounded much the same, she couldn’t be the young woman she had been, even if he was exactly the same man he was that last time he’d lain down beside her. The phone line was like the dark, though. It hid the truth of the years between them.

      She promised the pictures would be waiting for him when he arrived. He promised to come visit her soon. One of them was lying and they both knew it.

      The traffic made the journey slower than Mateo had suggested, but only by a few minutes, and it gave the curator time to set up a private room with the sketches displayed for Roux’s viewing. The curator, a short, balding man, met them at the door as they arrived, a hand held out in welcome as if they were old friends.

      “Welcome,” he said, ushering Roux inside. “I was given to understand you only have a limited amount of time, and with the very short notice, well, the space we’ve been able to make available for viewing...isn’t optimal. The lighting, et cetera... I hope you understand.”

      “Of course,” Roux said, waving away the apologies. “I’m sorry it was such short notice and appreciate your efforts to accommodate a demanding old man.” He smiled wryly.

      “Please, please,” the little man said, “let’s just forgive each other, then. This way, gentlemen.” He offered a mildly disapproving glance in Mateo’s direction as the driver climbed out of the car to follow them.

      “It might be better if you wait with the car, Mateo,” Roux said, deciding he’d rather not have a witness. There was a chance money might well need to change hands, if the curator was holding out on anything, and a man was always more susceptible to a bribe if he wasn’t being watched.

      Once they were inside the room it was clear why the curator had been reluctant to have the extra body inside. The private viewing room was barely larger than a broom cupboard—a particularly small one, at that—and was obviously set up for restoration work rather than viewing. A woman Goya would have dearly loved to have painted waited for them inside the room.

      “Our collection of Goya drawings is really quite remarkable, the pride of our humble little museum,” the woman said. “We were incredibly fortunate to have these willed to us in a patron’s estate many years ago. They are by far the most precious treasure we have in our care.” She waved an open hand toward a folio on a workbench that had been cleared. “Please.” She slipped on a pair of cotton gloves before she opened it. “Just let me know when you are ready, and I’ll turn them over.”

      Roux was momentarily disappointed he wasn’t going to be able to touch the drawings himself, but then they were the property of the nation, and she had no idea Roux’s own face could be hidden away inside one of them, just another one of the artist’s little jokes.

      She opened the folder to reveal the first of the pictures.

      It was a study of a man’s face beneath a pointed hat.

      The second was the face of a monk.

      The third was of a row of officials sitting in judgment.

      None of them were significantly different from the final pictures he’d seen in Milan.

      But as the woman revealed the fourth picture, Roux’s breath caught.

      The sketch was of a mask, or rather, a face wearing a mask.

      This was what he’d been hoping against hope to find. He’d half expected it not to be here. His friend had been obsessed with the Inquisition, and it was no surprise that Tomás de Torquemada figured into this. Still, he hadn’t dared to hope Goya had known anything about a mask because there was no way for him to reach across the years and ask him. Francisco Goya, though, had reached across the years to talk to Roux the only way he knew how—through his art.

      “What can you tell me about this?” Roux asked, trying not to make the inquiry sound as urgent as it felt. He wanted to hear it from their lips, but it was hard not to jump to conclusions. It had to be the Mask of Torquemada.

      “Ah, this one. Quite...haunting, isn’t it? Certainly one of his darker studies. There is, of course, the possibility this study has nothing to do with his Inquisition sketches,” the curator began, but the woman cut him off.

      “There were stories, none of them written down at the time, sadly—at least none that have been recovered—and many of them conflict, but it is believed that the Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada himself, wore a mask when he witnessed interrogations.” The woman pursed her lips, clearly not comfortable bringing anything as sordid as torture into the conversation. The art was all that mattered to her. “There is one school of thought that believes he wore it chiefly to terrify, but there is another that believes it was to hide his own fear.”

      “From what I know of the man, that doesn’t seem likely,” Roux said. The many religious zealots he’d encountered in his life had all relished their work. It was the one thing they all had in common.

      “As I was saying,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “There is an alternative theory, that the mask was actually a torture device itself.”

      “Interesting.”

      “Indeed. It may even have been the inspiration СКАЧАТЬ