The Mapmaker's Daughter (11 page)

The royal quarters are small at Tomar, and most of the party, including Papa and me, are lodged at the bottom of the hill. On this day, Diogo and I leave my father at the same time for the palace, I to join the princesses and Diogo to meet with the men.

We walk in silence through an arched gateway that opens onto the palace grounds. “I must leave you here,” Diogo says, putting one foot forward and keeping his leg straight as he bows to take my wrist. Time whirls as he brings my hand to his lips. I feel a pleasant stab in my belly, and my head spins with astonishment as I watch him disappear down the walk.

He kissed my hand! My heart pounds so furiously I wonder why the laces on my bodice don’t pop. I look up at the windows of the royal apartments, hoping Elizabeth is watching, before deciding I am glad she isn’t. I want to keep this moment to myself, rather than giving it to her and Beatriz, like another bauble to play with as they wish.

***

I go up the hill every day to visit Elizabeth and Beatriz, but there’s still plenty of time to explore Tomar by myself. One day, I notice a doorway with a menorah carved above it. Though I play an endless game of fetch with a stray dog, waiting for someone to go in or out, eventually I give up. The next day and the next I walk by, but still see no one.

The afternoon shadows are growing long one Friday when, after a visit with the princesses, I make my daily trip down that street. My heart jumps to see a man go inside. I hurry to the door and hear the sound of men’s voices. “Shema, Isroel,” the men chant, and memories of my mother lodge painfully in my throat. I don’t know how long I stand there, but eventually the door opens, and two men go out.

Judah Abravanel sees me immediately and stops. “Shabbat shalom,” he says to the other man, who heads down the street.

He sees tears welling in my eyes. “A wish for Sabbath peace makes you cry?” He means it as a joke, but I have to fight the urge to blurt out how much I miss hearing those words. His gaze is as intense as it was in the garden when he saw me acting out stories with Elizabeth and Beatriz.

“I should go,” I say.

He knows why I am there. “Would you like to look inside?” he asks. “This is the synagogue of Tomar, humble as it is.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, I would.”

“I think it’s best if you stand in the doorway and look only for a moment. It would be unwise for you to appear too interested.”

I take in the small, square room, no more than eight paces across. A few men talk among themselves, but otherwise it is deserted. In the middle is a raised wooden platform with a rail around it and a table in the center.

“That’s the tebah,” Judah tells me. “It’s where we read from the Law.” He gestures to a niche in one wall, covered by a curtain. “That’s the Aron Kodesh, the Holy Ark, where we keep the Torah scrolls.” He points to four evenly spaced pillars holding up an unadorned stucco ceiling. “You see those? They’re for the four matriarchs—Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. The pillars remind us that women enable men to become all we are capable of.”

“Do you have a family?” I blurt out.

His face lights up. “A wonderful family in Queluz. My wife and I have two girls and a baby boy.”

“You must be proud to have a son.”

He looks at me quizzically. “I am proud of all my children.”

We start up the street. “Don’t let this quiet little town fool you, Senhorita Riba,” Judah says. “People have an eye out for conversos who seem too interested in Jews. I wouldn’t come up this street again, if I were you.” He stops at the corner and bows politely. “The loss will be mine.” Without a word, he turns down the cobbled street and disappears around a corner.

***

“Esteemed Senhorita Riba,” Elizabeth reads aloud. “I would be most grateful if you could arrange an opportunity to meet with your father again before my departure for Lisbon.” She stares at me. “Again?”

Diogo left a week ago, and I have forgotten I slipped his note into
Amadis
of
Gaul
to hold my place. “He met with my father a few times,” I say with a shrug.

“Did he kiss you?” Beatriz asks. “Did he put his lips to yours in a passionate embrace?” The question is so fanciful, I wonder for a moment what strange creature would ask it.

“Of course not!” I reply.

“Well, that’s disappointing,” Elizabeth says, in a tone that implies such failure is entirely my fault.

To distract her, I pick up where we left off. “‘At the entrance of the valley, a Squire met them, and said, “Sir Knight, you pass not on unless you confess the mistress of yonder knight to be fairer than your own.”’”

Elizabeth opens her eyes and looks at me. “We must get Diogo to fight like that for you. It doesn’t matter that you aren’t beautiful.”

“And it’s even better that you can’t marry him,” Beatriz adds.

“Much better,” Elizabeth says. “This way, he can be tormented.”

I curl my lip with indignant scorn. “That’s just silly.”

Elizabeth’s face clouds, and she falls silent. I see the faraway look that comes over her sometimes, and I brace for a change in her mood. “Fine,” she says in a clipped voice.

Beatriz and I exchange glances. It’s just like Elizabeth to go from giggles to curling up around herself as if she wants to disappear. Her eyes seem blank and distant as I continue to read, but eventually she lifts her drooping head. “It isn’t about beauty, it’s about love.” Her voice is flat, as if she were reciting the Hail Mary for the thousandth time.

“Angriote has to die now,” says Beatriz. “He has no other choice.”

I read on. “‘“Your Lady will be ungrateful if she acknowledges not thy pains in her defense,” quoth Amadis. “I swear to do all I can on your behalf.”’”

Revived by disbelief, Elizabeth sits up. “Help an opponent? Angriote won’t think Amadis is much of a knight if he’s going to do that.”

Beatriz nods somberly. “He should have killed him while he could.”

I’m impressed with Amadis, though it’s best not to argue with the princesses. What would Diogo do? I think for a moment but set those thoughts aside, because I have no way to know.

What would Judah Abravanel do? That, I tell myself, is far more worth pondering.

7

LISBON 1439

By late June, the court has drifted west to Sintra, where sea air and lush forests create a haven away from the Lisbon summer. Elizabeth and Beatriz are no longer in residence at court because their family’s lands are nearby, but they come and go between their home and Sintra when the mood strikes them.

I miss Elizabeth, but not too much. Her moods go from laughter to gloom so deep it seems like death then back again, and I get tired of guessing which person she will be. Once Beatriz found Elizabeth in her bedchamber naked from the waist up, a dagger to her chest. Another time, the three of us climbed a tower, and she went on about how just one little jump would solve everything. Soon she was cheerful again, seeming to remember nothing of her bleak mood and exhausting me with her determination that Diogo carry me off to a life of wedded bliss. Or, better yet, die of unrequited love because he cannot have me.

Papa and I now live away from the palace. He finished the atlas while we were at Tomar, and in appreciation, Pedro gave him use of a pleasant house in Sintra, where he will live out his days at the crown’s expense. I keep Papa company morning and evening and go off on my own in the afternoon. Though occasionally I ride Chuva to visit Elizabeth and Beatriz, most of the time, I prefer to be alone.

I left Sagres nearly a year ago and am almost fourteen now, but I still marvel at how two places could be so different. On our promontory, nothing grew more than a few inches because of the incessant wind, and only plants that could worm their roots into crevices survived at all. The trees were mostly cork oaks scattered in fields, and I can’t remember a time when a tree blocked my view unless I deliberately stood behind it.

Here, on the mountain slope exposed to the ocean, fog and mist hang over us, and the frequent summer rains feel as cold as winter. It’s dark most of the time, like a weight I can’t shake off. Even when I urge Chuva to gallop along the paths around Sintra, I don’t feel airy and free the way I did on the beach at Sagres.

It’s beautiful, though, like being in a bed with green blankets underneath and on top of me, from the tips of the pines to the moss covering the ground. My heart lifts when I see rays of light in a clearing, and when the fog burns away, my face turns toward the sun like the yellow sunflowers I remember in the Algarve. I yearn to run across open land, but here there’s no straying from the paths, for lichen-covered fallen branches make a barrier too dense to cross.

Coming home one day, I hear the sound of hooves on the path. Judah Abravanel comes up astride a beautiful chestnut-colored horse large enough for his substantial girth. He settles into a trot beside me.

“Senhorita Riba.” He gives me a deferential nod. “All alone?” He looks into the dense forest, although I don’t know what he expects to see.

“Yes,” I say. “I have no one to ride with.”

By now, we’ve reined in our mounts and stopped in the middle of the path. “I’ve been told it’s safe,” I add. “Chuva wears the colors of the royal household.” I reach down to stroke the side of her neck. “Don’t you, girl?”

“Chuva?” Judah says.

“I named her that when I lived at Sagres. She belongs to Prince Henry, but everyone at the stables thinks of her as mine.”

Chuva nickers and bobs her head, making Judah smile. “It appears Chuva agrees with the stablehands.” He looks down the path. “May I accompany you?”

I had been hoping for a chance to meet again after our encounter outside the synagogue at Tomar, but since my father no longer works at court, it hasn’t happened. “I’d be most pleased,” I say.

“Your father is a remarkable person,” Judah says as we go down the path, “and he has a daughter to match.”

“Me?”

“A daughter who handles every language spoken at court and turns it into signs. I’ve watched you, and I think I’ve picked up a little.” He points to his chest, to his head, and finally to Chuva.
I
think
Chuva…
He takes one fist and cradles it inside his other open palm before pointing to me.
Belongs
to
you.

I grin. “That’s very good, but can you sign it in Arabic?”

He gets my joke immediately, throwing back his head in a hearty laugh. “Signs are all languages at once, aren’t they? Perhaps everyone should learn them. It might be easier for us all to get along.”

I don’t know what comes over me, but suddenly I am stammering in Hebrew about wanting to hear that language again. He is so startled he pulls up his horse and turns to face me. “You know Hebrew?”

I feel my face growing hot. Papa would not want me revealing this. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I was just trying to impress you. You know my family are conversos.”

“But perhaps you are not so converted after all.”

I think for a moment I should cross myself and recite the Pater Noster to prove something to him. What kind of Jew is Abravanel anyway? Is he one of those who despises converts, or would he be happy to know someone in the Cresques family isn’t entirely lost?

“You’re afraid.” His voice is so soft, I turn to look at him. Under his thick brows are the most compassionate eyes I have ever seen.

Though I feel tears welling, I manage to shrug. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He holds up his hand to cut off my nonsense. “This is too serious a conversation to have on horseback,” he replies. “Queluz is not too far from here for a good rider like you. Perhaps some Shabbat, you could point your horse in the direction of my home.” He pauses. “If your father permits, of course.”

My father would not permit it, and I think Don Abravanel knows that. I suspect he knows I will come anyway. “Thank you,” I say, feeling like a drowning person being pulled from the sea.

***

When I reach Judah Abravanel’s home the following Shabbat, the family is just getting up from the table after the midday meal. His wife, Simona, insists that I sit down and have some challah and lamb stew, although I ate with Papa before I left. She is as small and wiry as her husband is portly, as animated as he is calm and reserved. Their two daughters, Chana and Rahel, are beautiful girls of about ten and eight, with eyes like black olives and their mother’s gleaming, dark curls. The youngest child is a moon-faced boy of two named Isaac, who watches the world with the contemplative eyes of a sage. His father holds him on his knee while he settles in to read with two men who are visiting for the day.

When Isaac fusses and Simona takes him from his father, I follow her into the bedroom, leaving the girls to play with their dolls. She lays Isaac on the bed and unties the string holding a cloth between his legs. When she takes the cloth away, I notice the flared tip of his penis, so unlike my little Abraham’s soft peak of skin. With a few expert motions, she has folded a dry cloth around him and secured it with the string. “There you are,” she says, standing Isaac up on the bed and holding him while he jumps up and down with a happy grin. “You won’t be needing this much longer, little man.”

I glance out the door. “What are the men reading?” I ask.

“The Zohar,” Simona says, in a voice so offhand she must think it’s obvious. Seeing my confusion, she tells me it’s a book by an ancient sage, a guide to unlocking the deepest meanings of the Torah. “Can you show Amalia your teeth?”

Isaac thinks for a moment then puts his finger on a lower tooth. “Where’s your nose?” He misses and grazes a nostril. “What do you say when you go to bed?” Simona asks.

“Mema,” he says.

“That’s shema,” she tells me with a smile.

“I know,” I say. “I have a little sister who said that when she was first learning. She wants to be a nun now.” My eyes well up. “I had a baby brother who didn’t live long enough to say it at all.”

She gives me a quizzical look. “Judah told me you might come,” she says. “He was surprised to hear you speak Hebrew, since anusim don’t learn it.”