I hang my sausages in the kitchen with care
And feed you and our guests the same …
Doña Isabel and I kept time; she sang with us, her voice low, soft, off-key. I should have remained terrified, but the queen’s manner was so irresistibly friendly and engaging that I thawed at once, realizing that my teacher wouldn’t be punished for having a female student in his office. So did Antonio, and together, we gave a remarkable performance, perhaps out of sheer relief, winking and gesturing at each other when delivering the more-suggestive lines.
Oh, how could I resist
His sausages, well stuffed?
Doña Isabel laughed aloud and nudged the monk standing beside her. “Clap, Fray Tomás!”
Fray Tomás was half a head taller than she, so motionless and so quiet that I hadn’t noticed him at all. He was altogether ugly: His tiny hazel eyes were embedded in folds of flesh; his hair, mostly gray with a few streaks of dark brown, was excessively curly and shaved in a monk’s tonsure, so that only a riotous fringe, as soft and cloudlike as Máriam’s, encircled his otherwise bald skull.
His head was large and square, his eyes, ears, and mouth very small in proportion. His huge nose eclipsed his face: It was thick and bulbous, with large, broad nostrils and several bumps in the bridge. Unlike his queen, the monk didn’t smile. His lips were entirely invisible, leaving only a taut, thin line of flesh against flesh for a mouth, tucked into the folds of his ponderous cheeks. His skin was brown and mottled with age—very dark for an Old Christian’s, if he indeed was one.
As I glanced at Fray Tomás, he caught my gaze. His was like a freezing draft in an otherwise cozy room; his eyes were dead as frost.
In the next instant, he turned back to doña Isabel with a look of mild reproach and intentionally disregarded her command. I expected the queen to lose her temper at such insubordination, but Isabel merely shrugged her shoulders and ignored him, instead returning her attention to the music.
Oh, how could he insist
Our tryst should be so rushed?
The queen clapped again, keeping time as Antonio and I harmonized and began another verse. By then, I had noticed that behind the regal Fray Tomás stood Fray Hojeda, his plump, owlish profile revealing a forced smile.
The queen was obviously pleased and enjoying our music, but just as we were launching into the rousing chorus, Fray Tomás leaned down suddenly and spoke into her ear. Doña Isabel’s smiled thinned, and her eyes hardened with faint irritation at the monk’s words. She lifted her hand into the air, like a priest ready to make the sign of the cross; Antonio and I broke off in mid-note.
As Antonio hushed the strings with the flat of his fingers, Her Majesty doña Isabel smiled, her gaze bright, intent, and focused solely on me. I didn’t know if anyone could tell my lips were trembling; I widened my grin, stretching them more tightly, hoping it would still them.
Doña Isabel spoke; her voice was deeper and huskier than I expected, her tone pleasant and infinitely self-assured.
“My wise confessor, Fray Tomás points out that this is not a place for rejoicing, but the more serious business of routing out heresy. But you sing so beautifully, my dear! Who are you?”
Before I could answer, Fray Hojeda leaned forward. “This is Marisol García de Hojeda, Your Majesty,” he said quickly. “My sister-in-law.”
Isabel eyed him skeptically. “Your sister-in-law? Really?” Neither mentioned the word
conversa,
but both were thinking it.
“Yes,” Hojeda replied eagerly. “My brother, Gabriel—your civil prosecutor here in Seville—saw that she was in need of protection. I, of course, granted them permission to wed.”
Looking unconvinced, Isabel moved into the room, her steps mincing, as if her shoes pained her. Once she was no longer braced by the doorway and Dominican friars in black, her thick waist and wide rib cage were visible, but other than the fold beneath her chin, there was no excess fat on her. Several other monks, including the two who had appeared at the town square for the Edict of Grace—Fray Morillo and Fray de San Martín—surged into the room behind her, along with a scattering of elderly nuns, until Antonio’s little office was overcrowded.
“Well, doña Marisol García de Hojeda of Seville, you must explain to your husband that you are going tonight to the Real Alcázar, the Royal Palace, to perform at the court of Isabel, your queen. Your voice is lovely and pleases us. Where do you live? We will send a coach this evening. Come hungry.”
I hesitated, but not overlong. “Off San Pablo Street, Your Majesty. On the Calle Hojeda.”
“I and my brother will make sure she is ready, Your Majesty,” Hojeda proffered quickly, apparently seeking an invitation.
But it was not forthcoming. “Very good,” the queen said, pointedly refusing to glance in Hojeda’s direction; his expression did not change, but his eyes narrowed at the snub. Her Majesty continued to address herself to me. “My coachman will come for you. I’m in the mood for cheerful music and will see you later this evening, doña Marisol. Bring your lute.”
Still frozen in the curtsy, I caught my breath. It was presumptuous to speak to royalty unless given permission. Fortunately, doña Isabel noticed my desire to say something and hesitated the instant before turning away.
“Yes?” She lifted her dark, rust-colored brows at me; I forced myself not to quake at the faint impatience in her tone.
“I don’t play the lute, Your Majesty. It isn’t mine.”
“Then bring your lute player,” she said, with a swift gesture at Antonio, and turned her back to me dismissively.
“Your Majesty,” Fray Tomás said, and waited until she nodded for him to speak. “The lute player happens to be the young man I mentioned to you—Antonio Vargas of Seville. Don Antonio recently received his degrees in both canon and civil law from Salamanca.” Sotto voce—just loud enough for Hojeda to hear—he added, “The one I recommended replace the current civil prosecutor.”
Replace Gabriel, that is. Hojeda directed a spiteful glare at Fray Tomás. It was humiliating enough that the queen had failed to invite Gabriel or Fray Hojeda to the palace; Fray Tomás’s comment added fresh injury.
“Ah, the lad with the double degree,” Isabel said, warming a bit as she addressed herself to my lute player. “Impressive. We’ve heard good things about you and look forward to seeing more of you during our visit, don Antonio.” Her tone grew faintly sarcastic. “So he must be the reason you led me back to this closet, Fray Hojeda?”
She turned to smile at Hojeda.
“I did not expect to find him here with my sister-in-law unescorted,” Hojeda countered. “Your Majesty.”
The queen’s smile never wavered. “The fault lies not with don Antonio, then, but with your brother, does it not? He should learn to be a more conscientious husband.”
Hojeda flushed scarlet.
“I’ve seen enough,” the queen told him. He bowed, nodding so vigorously that the waddle of flesh beneath his chin jiggled.
Isabel sailed past him. As he moved toward the door after her, I caught the look he shared with her confessor. Unnoticed by the queen as she stepped into the corridor, Fray Tomás lingered, regarding Hojeda with an air of contemptuous superiority, while Hojeda, his lips still curving in a frozen smile, shot the other monk a purely hostile look.
Fray Tomás turned his back to the abbot Hojeda with pronounced dismissiveness, and instead glanced at Antonio, who still clutched the lute.
“It’s good to see you again in the flesh, don Antonio,” the Inquisitor said, his tone far warmer than his manner toward the local abbot. “I trust your journey here was unremarkable?”
Admirably poised, Antonio gave a single long, gracious nod that served as greeting and answer. “I trust yours was as well, Fray Tomás, although I must admit I’m surprised to see your traveling companion. No one told me Her Majesty was coming.”
The corners of the monk’s lipless mouth curved upward, revealing small gray teeth like jagged merlons against a black sky, but the muscles around his eyes never moved. “I look forward to speaking with you tonight,” he said silkily, “after you perform for Her Majesty.”
“It will be my pleasure, sir,” Antonio replied. Although he treated the Dominican with the courtesy due a stranger, the familiarity in his tone disturbed me.
“Fray Tomás!” the queen called sweetly out in the hallway. When the monk failed to respond at once, her tone grew faintly irritable, her manner of address less polite. “Torquemada! I am waiting!”
Even then, the Dominican’s features failed to shift. He neither tensed nor hastened but glanced back at Hojeda to hold his venomous gaze an instant longer, his own once more so breathtakingly cold and predatory that I lowered mine rather than risk meeting it.
I’d heard the surname before. The famous Dominican cardinal, Juan de Torquemada, had died when I was a little girl. I knew of him because he was greatly admired by my parents and Antonio and his family. That Torquemada had vigorously defended the
conversos
in the northern city of Toledo, successfully reminding Catholic officials in Spain that, under the church’s own ancient laws, recent converts and Old Christians were equal in the eyes of God. Juan de Torquemada admitted that
converso
blood ran in his family.
I looked at Fray Tomás’s hazel eyes and dark complexion and decided he was likely related. The name was an uncommon one.
“Torquemada!” Isabel snapped again. Only then did the monk respond by walking slowly out into the corridor to join his queen, his movements as regal and unhurried as hers, his air one of such limitless power one might have thought he was the monarch, not she.
* * *
With a dark glance at Antonio, Fray Hojeda held the door open as the others filed out; the tiny office emptied almost as quickly as it had been filled, leaving the two of us and poor Máriam, still owl-eyed and stiff after holding a low curtsy for so long. Hojeda shut the door behind him with a resounding slam.
My lute player and I remained silent until the footsteps receded into silence.
“The Hojedas are using you, you know,” Antonio said with quiet anger.
I studied him coldly. “How so?” Admittedly, I had decided that Fray Hojeda had permitted the marriage only because Gabriel would inherit my father’s property one day—but I was confused by the friar’s sudden eagerness to claim me as a relative.
“Isabel’s official reason for not appointing Hojeda as Grand Inquisitor—for not giving him
any
position, in fact—was that he is too radical. He claims all
conversos
are heretics by virtue of their ‘unclean’ blood. As King Fernando is a
converso,
Her Majesty took offense.”
“So,” I said slowly, “Hojeda was trying to prove to her he’d changed.”
Antonio nodded. “Especially since she’s traveling with Fray Tomás—Torquemada. Rumor has it she’ll soon appoint him Grand Inquisitor—the position Hojeda thinks he deserves.”
I believed Antonio but lifted a brow and pretended to be unconvinced. “Why should I believe you?” I countered. “Obviously, you’re trying to take Gabriel’s job away.”
“Not I. Neither Fray Morillo nor Torquemada feels Gabriel is competent—and of course, there’s bad blood between the Hojedas and Torquemada, who has the queen’s ear.” He paused. “The real question you should be asking is why Gabriel chose to bring you here at precisely the time Isabel was touring this building. And why Fray Hojeda brought Her Majesty back to this office when there is nothing to see but a clerk and his files.”
“To see me, I suppose,” I answered.
“And to show me neglecting my duties by entertaining a young married woman. With the door closed.”
When we were sweethearts, I’d rarely heard Antonio utter a negative word; to hear him speak about such disgusting politics made me want to cover my ears.
“I’ve heard enough about the Hojedas and Torquemada,” I said stiffly. “The queen has commanded us to perform for her tonight. Shouldn’t we be preparing?”
Something very like embarrassment rippled over his features. “You’re right, of course,” he said softly.
Antonio and I didn’t share another unnecessary word. The unexpected encounter with Isabel and the realization that I had just received a royal summons to perform left me too shaken to cling to my rage, despite the fact that my tutor’s friendship with the Dominican Fray Tomás disturbed me deeply. Instead, Antonio and I agreed on what songs we would play that evening for the queen and quickly rehearsed the tunes and lyrics. Antonio admitted that he had twice been at the queen’s court in Valladolid, a day’s journey from the university at Salamanca, and instructed me on the basics of proper behavior around Her Majesty. By the time my husband’s driver returned to take me home an hour later, I had yet to deal with my sense of shock over all that had happened.
Máriam and I retreated to my chambers, where she immediately stripped me of my mourning gown, helped me bathe, and unbraided my hair. I was dazed during the process; seeing Antonio reopened an old hurt that made me want to weep. Together with my still-raw grief and my nerves over the thought of singing for the queen, it made me want to run across the street to my real home and find comfort in my father’s arms—but those were now closed to me.
Instead, I fought to steel myself and listened to Máriam rattle on about whether I ought to dispense with black mourning, as it hardly seemed appropriate for a royal performance; I nodded without really hearing what I was agreeing with. Before I knew it, she had pulled out a dark blue velvet dress—one I’d had made back in the fall intending to wear this past Christmas—and spread it out on the bed to ease the wrinkles.
At one point, I found myself sitting in one of the rickety chairs in front of the basin in the antechamber, staring into the mirror as Máriam brushed out my hair. By then, I was dressed in my finest white silk chemise and Máriam had convinced me to put on my mother’s sapphire teardrop earrings. A knock came at the door, and Máriam answered it to tell Blanca that I would be coming down for dinner that evening with don Gabriel, as I needed to speak with him about the summons from the queen.