He suffered from elephantiasis. His custom—known only to a few—of walking at night or sleeping outdoors on one of the terraces of his estate, listening to the nocturnal sounds, was related to his illness. The elephantiasis made him walk differently from other people, and he felt protected from their gazes in the darkness. It took him hours to reach the clifftop, but no one was watching. He was free to go as slowly as he needed. Nicanor, his deaf and dumb servant, would drive him back to Son Moragues in a buggy pulled at a trot by an Andalusian horse. They were always back home before sunrise. It wasn’t easy to communicate with Nicanor, but the man had found a way of making himself understood and never gossiped, as had happened with the other deaf mutes who’d been in his service. The archduke was loved for giving employement to deaf mutes, among other things; many people thought of him as a benefactor and idealist, although an equal number hated him.

This servant, who seemed to commune with his master in a secret language, also carried out certain dubious tasks. On occasion the archduke would ask him to recruit a couple of girls. The deaf-mute would travel to the other end of the island to choose two adolescents from the most poverty-stricken classes. While everyone was sleeping, the girls would wait naked in a clearing in the woods, with stones tied to their ankles to prevent them from running. The archduke’s game was to hunt them. They dragged themselves along until he caught them, at which point Nicanor would appear and join the orgy. The next day the unfortunate girls, with rope burns on their legs and bloodstained thighs, would be returned to their families along with provisions, money, and a letter of recommendation in the archduke’s own hand attesting to their suitability for employment in the households of wealthy local families.

But that day, on the terrace of the muntanyeta, not even the memory of his most debauched nights could compete with his astonishment at the sight of the animal, whose name he now knew, or thought he knew: myotragus.