I wiped the water away with the edge of my sleeve and curtsied to my hostesses.
“Marisol,” one breathed, as if it had been a prayer. Her brown eyes were wide with adoration and disbelief, as if she had just laid her eyes on an angel or saint. She was quite short—shorter even than me—and tiny waisted, despite the solitary streak of gray in her black hair. She was dressed like most proper Spanish matrons, in a high-necked black grown with a tiny crucifix at her heart; for some reason, she looked terribly familiar.
“Marisol,” she repeated, her slack expression transforming into a radiant smile. “My name is Alma. I’m don Francisco’s youngest daughter.” Not
doña Alma,
as would have been proper for a stranger, but the far more intimate
Alma.
“And this”—she moved aside to gesture at the woman next to her—“is my youngest daughter, Luz.”
Luz’s welcoming grin was unfeigned. She was roughly my height, with black hair and dark eyes and a nose like my mother’s; she might have been my sister had it not been for her tight natural curls, which formed a riot of ringlets around her face, and for the fact that she looked to be ready to give birth at any time. Her swollen belly strained so hard against her emerald brocade gown that it showed the outline of her out-turned navel.
“Marisol!” she exclaimed, as if meeting a long-lost friend. Shifting her weight, she leaned forward and reached out to take my hand. I stared down at hers uncertainly; it was spotted in places with faint layers of wet clay drying to dust, the hand of a potter, and she politely withdrew it at once.
“We’re sorry,” her mother Alma said. “We don’t mean to overwhelm you. I know this is a terrible time for you. Come.”
I followed her and Luz past delicate, decorative iron gates that led onto an inner patio planted with a dozen orange trees, where a white-haired woman wielding a broom displayed a gap-toothed genuine grin. The house reminded me a great deal of the Hojeda’s massive estate, except that it was kept in far better repair. We passed by
mudéjar
archways balanced on slender marble columns, and went through the front double doors into an open sitting room large enough to accommodate hundreds of guests. It was high ceilinged and airy, with pale marble floors and many windows to let in the sun. A wide curving staircase inlaid with azulejo tiles bisected the room; dozens of padded brocade chairs and settees lined its walls, along with shelves of ceramic saints. My mother had painted some of them; I recognized her hand. Although it was early, the smell of roasting meat and onions wafted from the invisible kitchen. I drew in the smell and was immediately homesick for my parents and every meal we’d shared.
I wondered where my father was at that instant—what he’d had to eat since they’d taken him, whether he’d been able to sleep at all, what he was setting his eyes on right now. It didn’t seem fair that I was free, breathing sweet air, and looking on such beautiful things.
“Let me rouse don Francisco; I’m sure you have many questions for him,” Alma murmured, turning to leave.
“Oh, no,” I countered thoughtlessly, “don’t wake him on my account.”
“Nonsense,” Alma said. “He’s anxious to speak to you. I’ll be back shortly.”
She lifted her skirts and hurried up a broad spiraling staircase, while Luz led me over to a padded chair facing a huge rectangular mirror in a gilded frame over the marble mantelpiece and offered me food and drink. I was cotton-mouthed, so Luz rang for a servant, who brought me a sweating silver goblet of heavily watered wine. To my delight, it was the same I’d drunk the night before in the royal reception room. I took a few grateful sips as Luz settled her bulk into a chair opposite mine.
“I was so sorry to hear of doña Magdalena’s death,” she said sweetly. “You have my condolences, and those of my family. We were so saddened to—”
“I don’t know you,” I interrupted, a bit too harshly. “And you didn’t know my mother.” I was suddenly angry at Luz for what I decided was feigned sympathy. Although the love and pity on her face seemed to be real, not even don Francisco had had a real relationship with my mother. And this young woman, despite her kindness, could not have known her at all.
Luz flushed, but her expression remained kind and sad. “No, I didn’t. But we all admired her so. And I know how awful it must be for you this morning, after what happened last night.” She lowered her voice on the last sentence, even though we were alone in the vast room.
Her words so startled me that I forgot my anger. “You know about my father?” I gasped.
She lowered her gaze and smiled sadly at me. Only then did I notice the crease between her brows as she struggled to keep her eyes fully open. She was exhausted, as if she’d slept little, and I realized suddenly that her mother had looked drawn as well.
“My grandfather knows everything that happens in Seville.” She paused, and her little grin faded. “I know you must feel very alone, Marisol. But you’re not. You’ve never been.”
She had no idea how I felt: Her mother hadn’t killed herself; her father hadn’t been arrested. But my efforts to hate her were failing. She was a
conversa
—like me marked by her hair, features, and dark eyes—and although she was gazing on me with pity now, it was only a matter of time before the Inquisition destroyed her family, too. I couldn’t let myself think how Torquemada would deal with her and her unborn child if I exchanged her life for my father’s.
As I looked at her, my gaze fell on the mirror. I saw myself, pale and desperate, and the back of Luz’s body and head, covered in a sheer veil. From her build, it could have been my mother sitting there against the backdrop of the opposite wall’s reflection. Her head was at the level of the wooden shelves, with their pantheon of ceramic saints. The front entrance, with its double wooden doors, was reflected as well; to their right, a small, special double shelf had been erected. On the very top sat a ceramic Madonna. She stood out from the other household saints not only because of her special post by the entry, or of the score of lit votives on the lower shelf, but because, of the dozens of figurines, she was the worst looking. The bright cherry-red paint missed part of the fullness of her lower lip and escaped the borders of her upper; the black dots that served as pupils for her flat blue eyes made the latter looked crossed. Her veil was a paler shade of the same blue, and behind it was a massive solar halo, with long gilded rays emanating from it. The child in her arms had been painted stark white and was overly fat.
I blinked several times, but the impossible apparition remained. It was a perfect copy of my mother’s ugly Madonna, the one that she was so fond of, the one that Máriam had insisted on bringing into the Hojeda house.
It was no doubt coincidence that an identical ugly statue resided in don Francisco’s home; I couldn’t afford to yield to emotion and trust him or anyone else, however badly I wanted to confide in this sweet girl. I closed my eyes and struggled for control while Luz waited patiently. When she reached out to pat my hand, I pulled it away.
“My parents and I have always been alone,” I said. “No one helped us when she died.”
“She is a hero,” Luz said vehemently. “Had it been safe for you and your father, we surely would have visited you after she passed.”
“Did you know her?” I asked.
“We never met.” Luz turned her face toward the windows. Rays of sunlight bathed her features, revealing a glaze of unshed tears over her brown eyes, flecked with gold; for the first time, I noticed that their rims were red, the lids puffed and swollen. In the mirror, her beautiful face appeared beside that of the homely Virgin. “But I knew
of
her, of course, just as she knew of us.”
“How—” I began, but was interrupted by the arrival of doña Alma.
“Don Francisco is thrilled that you are here,” Alma announced, glaring at Luz as if she had said too much. “Will you follow me, please, to his study?”
I obeyed. Unsmiling, I nodded a good-bye to Luz and followed Alma upstairs to a long corridor. We made our way to a closed door, where Alma knocked lightly, then opened the door, which swung inward, and turned to me.
“I realize that it’s inappropriate,” Alma said in a low voice, “but I’m afraid don Francisco has forbidden me to come inside during his discussion with you. But I’ll be right outside the door.” She put a tentative, reassuring hand on my shoulder and managed a wan smile; her eyes, too, were red, as though she had been weeping all night.
I stepped over the threshold and heard the door close behind me with a click. Now that the sun was climbing, the day was turning warm, but the fire in the study hearth was still blazing, and the room smelled of smoke. I breathed in a lungful of overheated air and immediately began to sweat.
The small, low-ceilinged room held little furniture. There was a pair of padded chairs with arms, a writing desk with inkwell and quill and a stool, and a velvet chaise longue with a sleeping pillow and rumpled blanket lying on it. The pillow still bore the imprint of don Francisco’s head. Near the desk, a massive tome sat open on a reading pedestal. Wooden bookcases that spanned floor to ceiling held more books than I’d ever seen collected in one place, books in Castilian, Aragonese, French, Italian, Latin, Arabic, and Greek. Some were leather bound, some scrolls, others unbound stacks of paper or parchment. My eyes widened at the sight of them all, and then don Francisco stepped into view.
The old man was bleary-eyed and stiff; he straightened with a faint groan, but greeted me warmly. “Doña Marisol. I’m so glad you could come.” His eyes were not as red as Luz’s or Alma’s, but he seemed to have aged a good deal overnight. His manner was grave, his tone hushed. “I’d hoped to have far better news for you this morning. We hoped to warn your father in time so you could both escape, but unfortunately, we couldn’t stop the arrest—nor the wagon that took him to the prison.”
“Yes,” I answered quickly, without really hearing what he’d said. “You know then, that he’s there. Can you help him?”
Don Francisco tilted his head to one side and let go one of the longest, weariest sighs I’d ever heard—the sigh of Atlas, bearing the weight of the world. “Doña, I know how you loved your mother and how you love your father. For this reason alone, I’ve told you as much as I dare. But I first must know: What did your mother tell you about me?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?” He lifted a disbelieving brow.
I shook my head; interestingly, he seemed relieved.
“But can you help my father?” I persisted.
“It will be far more difficult now, if not impossible.” His tone switched from apologetic to stern. “I’d meant for you and your father to leave Seville together last night. I’m sorry I could give you no warning; you won’t be able to take anything with you. But it’s imperative you leave Seville. Now.”
“Leave Seville?” I gasped. “Where would I go?”
“I can’t tell you that.” The old man shifted his weight uneasily; I realized that standing was hard for him and I immediately sat down in a chair so that he could do the same. “The carriage waits now,” he continued. “You’ll be well provided for; money won’t be an issue. You’ll go where there are people who will care for you.”
“There’s no one I know outside of Seville,” I answered, “and even if there were, I wouldn’t leave the city without my father.”
“Doña Marisol, I trust you enough to tell you that if you leave, your father won’t be deserted. But if you stay, you might well be captured yourself.”
I shook my head, vehement. “Let me make it clear, don Francisco. I know the danger and I don’t care. I’m not leaving Seville without my father.”
He watched me carefully throughout our exchange. His forehead grew furrowed as I spoke; my last words seemed to resonate with him. His watery eyes narrowed with pride.
“I had expected nothing less than courage from you,” he murmured. “You are indeed Magdalena’s daughter.” I flushed at the compliment as he continued. “I’m afraid that danger to you and others has required me to be oblique up to now, so let me be completely clear. Had it been possible, I would have had both you and your father escaping today.”
“You would have rescued us both today? Why?” I asked. “Why would you do something so dangerous? Why would you risk everything for us?”
“Because I love your mother,” he said.
I thought suddenly of my father’s behavior around don Francisco—polite, but doggedly distant. I thought of how my mother would smile shyly at Francisco in public without greeting him, and immediately lower her eyes.
“I’m afraid that’s all I can say at this moment,” the elderly patriarch added. “If you’re not leaving Seville now, it’s better that you know as little as possible. I urge you to go home and stay there or find someplace to hide. We can provide a place for you here if you like.”
“No,” I said. “I need to help my father. Is there anything else you can do for him?”
Don Francisco glanced up and to the right, at something invisible and ugly. He fingered the curl of his moustache absently as regret crossed his features, only to be replaced by faint hardness. “Not today, I fear. Not while the sun shines.”
“Then I’ll go to Queen Isabel and beg her for mercy. She told me last night she liked my performance and would grant me a favor.”
He shook his head. “The queen is good at making pretty speeches. But she’s a ruthless decision maker. I’ve known her for years, Marisol.”
The back of my throat tightened until it ached. “I’ll get Antonio’s help then. Maybe he can speak to his superior, Fray Morillo.”
“Hmm,” don Francisco said. “Do you think it’s wise to get don Antonio involved? Do you trust him?”
I hesitated. “No,” I said. “He deserted me. We were supposed to marry, but…” I glanced away at the flames snapping in the hearth. “He stopped writing to me. I suppose he found another girl in Salamanca. We pretend that we’re still friends, but—” I broke off. The world I knew had just changed. Perhaps it was all an act, but I trusted this man and these women who spoke so kindly of my mother. And even though I was still desperate to save my father, I felt a wild rush of hope. “Torquemada questioned me last night. About you.”