Checkmate in Amber Read Free Page A

the doorway of the old scriptorium, which was now used as an archive for historical documents. The nuns’ work area was now just next to the monastery kitchens and, apart from the chroniclers and researchers directly authorized by the bishopric, nobody at all went into the scriptorium except to clean it. With one arm, my aunt ushered me into the room and, with the other, she waved away the sisters, whose disappointment came out in a low, stifled moan.
    ‘Take a look over there, on the shelves with the fourteenth and fifteenth-century papers.’
    I looked over in the direction she was pointing and noticed a huge splintered crack in the coffered ceiling, open through to the stone above.
    ‘What happened there?’
    ‘Woodworm and old age,’ she answered curtly. ‘It’s been on the cards for a long time. I told you about it last Christmas, but you didn’t pay me any attention.’
    I slowly shook my head and looked her straight in the eyes.
    ‘Last Christmas, Tía dearest, you asked me for money to repair the irrigation channels in the gardens, and I remember giving you thirty thousand euros on Twelfth Night, and another thirty thousand in June when you told me that the kitchen garden wall was about to fall down.’
    ‘Well, now I need a little bit more. Repairing the coffered ceiling needs skilled restoration work, not to mention the cost of killing off the woodworm once and for all.’
    For a second I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream the roof off.
    ‘Now listen here!’ I snapped, facing up to my insatiable aunt. ‘So far this year, I’ve given you sixty thousand euros. That’s quite enough already! It was fifty thousand last year and I don’t remember how much the year before that. Why don’t you get the money off the Castilla and León regional government or from your damn bishopric?’
    ‘I already applied for it,’ she responded calmly.
    ‘So …?’ Frankly, I was furious.
    ‘The government technicians are due to carry out an inspection next week, and if we’re really lucky, we might be able to start the work in a couple of years or so. Let me remind you that there are over forty thousand church properties in Spain in worse condition than ours, which is officially rated as being only ‘at average risk’. By the time any help arrives, all the wood in these archives will be sawdust. My advice to you is to write off your generous contributions to the monastery as charitable donations, just as you always have done.’
    I restrained my rage with some difficulty and lowered my head to hide my face behind my hair as I mouthed off a string of curses.
    ‘How much?’ I asked, when calm finally returned.
    ‘Fifty thousand.’
    ‘What!’
    My yell alarmed the sisters who were loitering outside the door and one of them popped her head discreetly into the room. My aunt’s killer glance popped it right back out again, at the speed of light. The nuns were well aware that it was my wallet which was financing the restoration work on the monastery. But they were convinced that it was pure generosity on my part, and sheer devotion to my only aunt. Major misconception: that harpy had been extorting money out of my father for years - and now she was ruthlessly extorting the hell out of me.
    ‘Fifty thousand euros, Ana María - and not a céntimo less.’
    ‘But Tía!’
    ‘Forget your buts. Either you pay up, or tomorrow morning I’ll ring up the Guardia Civil’s Historical Heritage Group and invite them to pay your dungeon a visit.’
    ‘You pig!’
    ‘What did you say?’ she asked, in a tone of pained indignation.
    ‘I said that you’re a pig, Tía, and that’s exactly what you are.’
    For a second, Juana just looked at me in amazement - not knowing quite how to respond to my insult, I suppose. Then, like a seasoned politician well-used to taking the rough with the smooth without a ruffle, she burst out laughing.
    ‘I’m going to invoke the guarantee of forgiveness - that whoever robs a thief