Chapter no 15

The Familiar

Luzia learned how to comport herself at the banquet table, proper terms of address, how to sit in her new corset, and how to arrange the hoops

and buttresses of her verdugado so that she could use a chamber pot without tipping over or soiling her shoes—though she was firmly instructed to wait for a maid to help her, unless the situation was dire. The shoes themselves were leather but the chapines urged on her had quickly been discarded. The wooden sleeves with their corked heels were meant to make her taller, but

she didn’t have time to master walking in them. She had taken two swaying steps during her second fitting before Perucho had waved his hands and declared, “Not all experiments are a success.”

She wasn’t expected to know how to dance or play an instrument or to speak on geography or world affairs. She didn’t really need to speak at all. Smile and lift your glass when those around you do. Keep your eyes on your shoes or your plate. Safe replies to questions regarding politics or improper advances were the same: “I have lived a sheltered life, señor” or “I hardly know what to think.” It wasn’t so different from being a scullion.

A girl with orange hair appeared in the kitchen one morning, her full market basket already settled on the table, her arms wet to the elbow as she washed chickpeas for Águeda. Luzia hovered at the foot of the stairs,

unsure of what to do until Águeda said, “Does the señorita need something?”

Luzia opened her mouth, shut it. “No,” she managed.

Águeda released something between a grunt and a laugh and blew the hair off her sweaty face. “Just think, Juana, if you learn some tricks and wash your neck you may become a fine lady too.”

Her tone didn’t quite have the vicious snap of her wooden spoon. She was nervous now, unsure of what Luzia might be or become. Luzia wasn’t certain either.

But she was more worried about Juana gaping at her over the barley and almonds.

Águeda had warned her the rumors had spread and here was proof of it. Luzia had been trapped in Casa Ordoño, focusing on her lessons, trying to think of new ways to use the words from Hualit’s letters. What would happen if I walked to the market now? she wondered. Would heads turn to

follow her, a tide of whispers forming in her wake? The thought gave her an embarrassing shiver of pleasure.

Even so, Luzia felt possessive of her dirt floor, her candle kept tucked away in the larder, and had to resist the urge to hiss at poor Juana. Slowly she made her way up the stairs. She’d lost her place, but what was there to grieve? Why this fresh rush of fear? Maybe because none of it had seemed real before this moment. The new bedroom, the clothes, the lessons. She hadn’t quite believed in any of it. She’d thought she was rehearsing a play that would never open.

Santángel was waiting outside her room for their lesson. He was so tall she risked a stiff neck if she wanted to observe the angles of his face properly, and he looked different this morning. Still pale and lean, but less like he might expire at any moment.

“You’re distracted,” he said as he followed her inside, the door left open as it always was.

“I’m questioning where this all ends.” “In victory, of course.”

“You’re a very poor liar.” Across the street, the curtains of the music room were closed, the window shut. Luzia wondered if she would ever hear that harp played. “You and I both know I can’t win.”

“If I believed that I wouldn’t bother.”

“You’d do what Don Víctor tells you to do.”

He folded his arms. “Tell me more about what I would do.”

Luzia was wise enough to hesitate, but she found it hard not to be reckless during these lessons, with no one watching or listening but Santángel. “It’s whispered you’re an assassin.”

“You yourself said I do as I’m bid.”

“And does your master bid you do murder?”

Santángel’s nod was disinterested. “He has cultivated my skills and they are bloody ones. We do as we’re instructed. Is there another way for

servants?”

“Not that I’ve been able to discover,” she admitted. Did he care so little about the lives he’d taken? Should she be more afraid that he didn’t?

“Why do you think you can’t win?” he asked.

“I can see it in your gaze, hear it in your voice. I haven’t the manners or the poise. I have a scrap of power and your master has delusions.”

“You have more than a scrap of power,” he said grudgingly.

Luzia knew that but the sight of orange-haired Juana in the kitchen had tilted her mood. “Enough to win?” she pushed. “Enough to survive life as the king’s champion?”

Santángel was unsure how to answer. He had been both thrilled and disturbed by the scullion’s progress. Whatever power flowed through Luzia Cotado wanted free rein. That power would belong to Víctor. And Santángel would be free. It was as simple as that. And wouldn’t she be

happier? More contented than she had been sleeping in the dirt? Víctor’s

palace might feel like a curse for him, but for a girl with no learning and no prospects, it would be a glorious change in circumstance.

If she could win. Luzia could fill a room with beans. She could make roses bloom in profusion.

“But no talent for prediction?” Víctor had asked only last night. He’d been fussy, irritable, demanding constant updates on the scullion’s progress. The closer they drew to the torneo, the worse he became.

“The king has astrologers to make predictions.” “The Holy Child has visions, accurate ones.”

“You brought me a girl with a singular talent,” said Santángel. “I cannot remake it in the image you would prefer.”

“What good are roses and beans to a king?”

Santángel had to marvel at Víctor’s lack of imagination. He longed for a girl with visions, but how shortsighted he was.

“What if the beans were ships?” Santángel asked. “What if she could simply make him a new armada? Or a thousand muskets from one?”

“Can she?”

With his help she could. With his luck. But without him? “I don’t yet know.”

She couldn’t multiply gold or precious stones without consequence. He’d learned that to his own detriment when he’d insisted she attempt to turn one piece of silver into many. They’d become tiny hornets and he was still covered in welts. But books she’d made in profusion, multiplying his

treasured Petrarch into a stack of perfect copies, each word in its proper place, even if she couldn’t read them.

There was advice he should give Víctor. It was dangerous to tie your fate to someone of uncertain talent. A title was one thing, but it was foolish to put yourself in such close proximity to a king’s caprice. Had Santángel been a true friend or a true advisor he might have said all these things. But he

was a captive, and a captive’s only thought could be of freedom.

“She will impress,” he promised. “If I have to wring the magic from her myself, she will impress.”

Now he watched Luzia go to the desk and sit. She rested her hands in her lap and closed her eyes.

“What are you doing?” “Sitting.”

“And?”

“Sitting is a great pleasure for a servant.”

“Doña Valentina was meant to hire another scullion.” “Juana is your doing?”

“My master’s. He wants your time and strength devoted to practice and prayer.”

Her eyes opened, large and dark, thickly fringed. He understood why she had hidden that gaze, constantly keeping her eyes on her hands or the ground or her clumsy feet. It was too wise, too watchful, and it told him that she knew he was lying.

Santángel had suggested hiring the new scullion when Víctor complained that Luzia stank of the kitchen. “What is the point of dressing her up in velvet if she smells like onions and bacon grease?”

Santángel had been tempted to correct him. He had been close enough to Luzia to know she smelled of orange blossoms and had considered advising her that women of good families didn’t wear scent. How was she affording it anyway? Did she have a lover? The thought disturbed him, but only

because she could afford no indiscretions. “Then take her out of the

kitchen,” he’d told Víctor, echoing Luzia’s own words. “Pay for a scullion. It will give you another set of ears in the household.”

“How eager you are to spend my money,” Víctor had grumbled. “Only because I know how much of it you have.”

Santángel considered Luzia, returning her gaze. “You’re not pleased to have another pair of hands at work?”

“She’s young,” Luzia said, “and built like a piece of straw when we need a whole broom.”

“That isn’t your problem any longer. Your goal is to win. Or to perform well enough that the king will claim more than one champion.”

“Is that possible?”

Santángel looked out the window to where El Peñaco leaned against Víctor’s coach, awaiting orders. Why would the king settle for a single holy soldier when he could have an army?

“If he can be sure that your power is angelic, it’s possible the king will want to hoard milagreros as he hoards relics. But Philip hates court. He is happiest alone with his books or poring over work that should be beneath him. If he chooses more than one champion, he’ll only be setting the stage for a grand rivalry. That can be perilous for everyone.”

“How do I know …” Luzia hesitated, eyes on the heavy crucifix that hung over the door. “How do I know if my power is angelic?”

Santángel sat down on the bed across from her. “That’s a dangerous question. More dangerous than being a conversa in the king’s court.”

When she flinched, Santángel knew his guess had been a good one. The conversos had been the start of the Inquisition, the fear that the Jews who had accepted baptism to save their lives and homes, and then to remain in Spain, were not true believers at all, but frauds who practiced their religion in secret, who might corrupt the very soul of Spain. The priests and their henchmen had done their work well, and these days, there were few secret Jews to hunt, so they’d turned their attention to heretics and fornicators and blasphemers. But any taint of Jewish blood, no matter how many

generations old, could not be tied to someone who hoped to rise in status, to join a military order, or to study at university, certainly not to someone who could work miracles.

If Luzia entered the king’s service, every element of her life would be scrutinized. Her baptism, the time she spent at mass, when she did or didn’t take communion, if she observed feast days or fasted during Lent, or didn’t eat from a dish made with pork. She would be challenged to swear faith in the Trinity—easy enough. But then she might have to explain it— something even few viejos could do. Winning the Torneo Secreto would be only the beginning.

“Víctor de Paredes makes no move without understanding the game he is playing,” Santángel said. “He has already met with a linajista to attest to the

purity of your blood and write up a clean history for you.” “As if I am to be married.”

“Into any family of fortune or reputation, yes.” “A scullion doesn’t have such concerns.”

“No. No one looks too closely at a woman in rags.”

“They should,” said Luzia. “Who has more power in a house than the woman who stirs the soup and makes the bread and scrubs the floors, who fills the foot warmer with hot coals, and arranges your letters, and nurses your children?”

Her anger radiated from her like heat from a stone left in the sun. She

was right, of course. These were the ways women entered the body, through the kitchen, through the nursery, their hands in your bed, your clothes, your hair. There was danger in such trust, and a wise man learned to respect the women who tended to his home and heirs.

“Do you not wonder where this power comes from?” she demanded. “Do you not fear it?”

“In the Ghayāt al-Hakīm magic was seen as the natural result of a holy life, the mark of a true sage. For a long time, crown and Church shared this belief. It was even translated into Castilian, by royal command.”

Luzia laughed. “But I haven’t lived a holy life.”

“I’ve seen all manner of power,” he said. “Sacred and perverse. I’ve never been able to locate the lines between science, and faith, and magic, nor have I cared to.”

“And you’re not afraid … of the devil? Of his minions?”

“Fear men, Luzia,” he said. “Fear their ambition and the crimes they commit in its service. But don’t fear magic or what you may do with it.”

It was the closest he could come to honesty.