Death Mask. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ twisted the throttle hard. Her grip tightened as she leaned forward, and the rush of air battered her. Still, she accelerated, surging past the barely moving cars. A chorus of horns bade her farewell as she disappeared between the trucks, her shoulder blades inches from the high-paneled sides of both. The huge vehicles drifted closer together as she sped between them.

      She caught a glimpse of one of the drivers in his wing mirror. There was no mistaking the panic in his eyes. She grinned, but realized there was no way he’d be able to see the expression through her helmet’s black visor, which, all things considered, was probably for the best. He veered away suddenly, widening the gap for Annja, who surged ahead of the trucks and into the freedom of the open road.

      She hit a hundred and thirty-six miles an hour in a few seconds, topping out the engine. The landscape blurred in her peripheral vision. Annja kept her head down. Speed limits didn’t matter. She’d take the ticket, if the cops could keep up with her. Ticktock. Ticktock. It was just her and the road, but she didn’t have time to enjoy it. She only had eyes for the dashed line leading all the way to the horizon.

      She could feel the heat of the engine through the leathers on the inside of her right leg by the time she pulled up outside the high stone walls of the Royal Monastery of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Ávila.

      She’d ridden as if the devil was on her tail.

      The journey hadn’t even taken an hour.

      She checked her phone. There was a message from Roux’s hacker giving her the name of a café—Giorgio’s—and instructions to meet her there in forty-five minutes. The message was fifteen minutes old. That gave her half an hour to unlock the secrets of the Grand Inquisitor’s shrine.

      Ticktock.

       3

      23:00—Ávila

      Ávila, the City of Stones and Saints.

      That was how the place was described in the tourist brochure Annja picked up from the dispenser just inside the monastery walls. Footsteps echoed deeper inside the medieval building. She thumbed through the leaflet. It was the standard tourist fodder, ready to guide her to all kinds of attractions inside the city. She was only interested in the monastery. She handed over five euros at the glass window and put the change in a tip jar for renovations. Annja couldn’t tell whether the look the young museum worker gave her was admiring or disapproving, but the way his eyes lingered was most certainly lacking piety.

      She gave him a smile that raised the color in his cheeks and followed the sign that led inside.

      The monastery consisted of two floors built over three cloisters, and according to the floor plan, the initial building had begun in 1482 but only been completed in 1493. She skipped through much of what came next, looking for the name Tomás de Torquemada. It would be too much to expect any kind of reference to a mask in the literature, but she found plenty of the usual tourist facts broken down for easy consumption. A simple engraving showed him in profile, bearing the familiar tonsure of a Dominican friar. He looked...ordinary. It was hard to believe she was looking at the man behind one of the most ruthless religious purges of all time. There were a few cursory details about the Inquisition and the fact that Torquemada had lived out his final days here, being buried within the grounds of the monastery five years after its completion.

      Two elderly washerwomen busied themselves with mops, sluicing them across the stone floor of the cloister of Silencio. They worked in silence and Annja had no intention of making them uncomfortable by asking questions. She walked quickly across the wet floor, shrugging in apology to the women. There was no sign of anyone remotely official, which would have made asking questions easier. She worked her way slowly around the room, looking for any kind of visual clue in the decor.

      “It’s quite plain compared to the Reyes cloister,” a man said behind her. She hadn’t heard his footsteps on the tiled floor.

      Annja turned, expecting to come face-to-face with a monk. He wasn’t. Or at least he wasn’t dressed like one. He wore a lightweight charcoal suit with a matching shirt. “Sorry?”

      “The Cloister of the King. You were looking at the ceiling?”

      She glanced up at the vaulted Gothic-style ceiling above her, surprised that it hadn’t been the first thing to catch her attention when she entered the cloister.

      “There was a beautiful mosaic in the dome, the work of a Mudéjar—a Moor who remained in Spain after the country began to be reclaimed for Christians—but it’s long gone now, I’m afraid. Lost to time and vandals. The Mudéjars kept their faith even though they couldn’t make their devotions publicly. Such a sad time for our country. Our great shame. And yes, I say that with no hint of irony, given who is buried next door.” He offered her a wry smile. “The word Mudéjar also refers to the style of architecture, but in this case the ceiling was the work of a single man, or so we have come to believe. Sadly, as I said, it has long since been lost. Of course, not all Moors remained faithful—many converted to Christianity. They were called Moriscos, but that was a title that came loaded with contempt and mistrust.”

      So many Moors and Jews had been driven out of the country or forced to renounce their own faith under fear of death, and yet others were allowed to continue with their lives. But why? The cynical side of Annja wanted to say money. So often it came down to money. People bought their freedom with it. Was that what had happened all those years ago? The Mudéjars had paid off the Inquisition?

      “Might I ask, are you planning on making a program about us?”

      “Sorry?” she said again, running about three steps behind the man as he moved from subject to subject.

      “You are Annja Creed, aren’t you? I may be speaking out of turn, but I rather hope you aren’t planning on featuring Friar Torquemada in an episode of your Chasing History’s Monsters. He was one, of course, but he was a very human one,” he said, holding out a hand. “Francesco Maffrici. I am the curator here.”

      She smiled, shaking his hand. His palm was soft against hers. “No, no, this isn’t exactly work, more a personal interest.”

      “Excellent, then anything I can do to help, I am at your service.”

      “Well, obviously, I am interested in Torquemada, but not for the show.”

      The man nodded, offering her a wry smile. “The man and the Inquisition. They provide our daily bread.”

      “I can well imagine. Actually, I’m interested particularly in the Mask of Torquemada. I understand that it was buried with him?” She offered it as a question rather than a statement, inviting him to correct her.

      “That rather depends on which version of the legend you want to believe.”

      Annja was intrigued. Two legends meant a mystery. Not that she had time for one.

      “It wasn’t uncommon for a death mask to be made to capture the features of the recently deceased. Generally they would use wax and plaster. And perhaps that was so with Torquemada, but then you have to ask yourself—why would something like that be buried with him? That’s not so much a legend as a rationalization. The second hypothesis suggests that a mask was cast in metal some time before his death so that others could act in his place while he was ill. It would have meant that anyone could have overseen the tortures of the Inquisition, making it clear that they were acting in his name. Of СКАЧАТЬ