Luzia stayed in her room the rest of the day, watching the light change, wishing for something to read, hoping Santángel would come to her,
afraid of the answers she might demand if he did. Sacrifice. She had learned to shape words in her head, to hear the meaning of her refranes and then find a new use for them. But what could she make of the word sacrifice?
She didn’t trust Fortún Donadei, but that didn’t mean she should ignore his warnings.
She thought of the Pleiades, the constellation that meant so much to Antonio Pérez. Her mother had told her old stories about the stars, about two angels who had been so besotted with mortal women they’d given up their secrets to them; of Orion the Hunter chasing Atlas’s daughters across the sky, and the scorpion that had pursued him in turn. Pleiades, she’d said to Luzia. Khima.
How can one constellation have two names? Luzia had wondered.
It has many more than that, her mother replied. Nothing is ever just one thing.
Luzia’s father loved the stories too, but he had never learned to read and took no interest in books or astronomy. Why name the stars? he’d said with a laugh, and lifted Luzia onto his shoulders. Just let them be bright.
From the moment Santángel had told her the story of the prince and the curse and Tello’s betrayal, she had known he was issuing his own kind of warning. Maybe she hadn’t understood the particulars of how their fates were entangled, or what she might be asked to give up in such a bargain, but she’d recognized the danger. Yet she couldn’t make the figures tally.
She was no immortal whose gifts could be passed from one generation to
the next. And if Santángel valued freedom most, then how could he bargain it away and break the curse?
It wasn’t too late to return to Madrid, to find Hualit’s house, to run. She imagined herself walking through the gardens and on to the stable, asking for a horse she could barely ride. It was risky to travel the roads alone, but she wouldn’t have far to go. She could even ask a groom to ride with her, offer him some of the beads from her rosary. Luzia wasn’t sure how her aunt planned to get her to Valencia without Víctor finding out, but Hualit had never lacked for resourcefulness. She would find a way. Luzia would see the ocean, board a ship, slip away from Spain, from the tribunal, from the king. She would be safe.
“I would rather be powerful,” she whispered to no one at all.
When Valentina arrived to help Luzia undress, she asked, “Did you bring me to the gardens to speak to Fortún Donadei?”
Valentina’s hands paused on her laces, then she resumed her work. “I did.”
“At Don Víctor’s suggestion?”
“Doña Beatriz approached me. She suggested that an alliance might serve both our interests.”
Did Doña Beatriz believe so little in her champion’s skill? And did Valentina believe so little in Luzia’s? “You think I’ll fail.”
“I don’t,” Valentina said with some surprise. “You don’t seem to do that.” Luzia couldn’t help but laugh. “There’s still time.”
They moved to the dressing table so Valentina could take down her hair, and Luzia marveled at how strange it was that her mistress now attended to her, at how easily they had fallen into this new routine.
Valentina began removing the pins. “I thought … I thought you might enjoy speaking with him.”
The idea that Valentina might be matchmaking had never occurred to her. “I don’t think Doña Beatriz would approve.”
“That’s not an attachment that can last. It’s good for neither of them, and she will make herself a laughingstock.”
“As I will with Santángel?”
Valentina made a disapproving hum. “Must we speak of him?” “Why shouldn’t we?”
“He is not natural.”
“Maybe not. Maybe I’m not either.”
Luzia hissed in a breath as Valentina gave a hard yank on her hair. “Don’t say such things. Even in jest. A stain on you is a stain on us all.”
Luzia met her eyes in the mirror. “Let go. Now.”
Valentina sputtered, “If you have his children they will all have tails.” “At least I’ll have children.”
Luzia regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. Valentina’s grip loosened, her eyes suddenly lost, a woman searching the crowd for a daughter she would never find. Luzia turned in her chair and seized her hands. “I shouldn’t have said that. That was … I shouldn’t have said that.”
Valentina seemed to sway slightly, a leaf on the branch, waiting for a strong wind to carry her away.
She didn’t look at Luzia when she said, “Did you … did you prevent me from having children? Because I was cruel to you?”
“You were cruel, señora. But I don’t have that kind of power.”
Valentina nodded slowly. Luzia couldn’t tell if she was agreeing or simply deciding if she believed that Luzia hadn’t made her barren.
“Then you can’t help me, can you?” she asked.
How long had Valentina been holding this question against her tongue, trying to work up the courage to let it free?
“I’m sorry,” Luzia said, and she meant it. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
Valentina nodded again, lips pressed together, as if considering the taste of her disappointment. Luzia thought she might leave, but she merely drifted backward, moved by an invisible tide, until her hip struck the bed. She leaned against it.
“I sometimes feel I’ve spent my whole life longing,” she said. “As have I.”
Valentina startled, shocked at the thought of Luzia dreaming. “What did you want?”
“Money,” Luzia said, and she was relieved when Valentina laughed. “Sometimes they were small wants. A day when there were no floors to scrub or curtains to beat or chickens to pluck. A husband to love me.”
“That is not such a small thing.”
“No,” Luzia allowed. “But I couldn’t stop there. I longed for beauty and power and rooms full of people, lively conversation, journeys to mysterious lands. I wanted to be looked at and admired.”
“Vanity.”
“Vanity, and sloth, and gluttony. Every single sin. I wanted all the time. I still do.”
“I thought I desired luxury and plenty. To wear fine clothes, meet fine people. But now I just want to go home, and eat Águeda’s cocido, and stop being so afraid. Some part of me hates you for bringing us here.”
Luzia raised a brow. “No doubt you hate yourself more.”
“Maybe. Ambition is a terrible thing. When I married Marius, my parents were so pleased. Or as pleased as I ever saw them. But I think some part of him will always resent me, the match, my lesser name.”
“It’s a good name. Romero. It has a good meaning.”
“A pilgrimage name?” Valentina scoffed. “There’s nothing in it.”
“But it’s a name for rosemary too,” Luzia said, the word ruda forming an unsung harmony in her head. Rosemary, rue, hyssop, a little sugar. “For
protection.”
Valentina looked only skeptical, but she gestured for Luzia to turn so she could finish undoing her coronet. This time, her hands were gentle as they unplaited and smoothed Luzia’s hair.
When she was done, she said, “Don Marius, Don Víctor, Pérez, maybe
the king himself … they’re all the same really. They spin in their orbits and we are left to wonder at their movements. You must be careful with … with Santángel.”
It seemed everyone wanted to warn her today. “Because he made a deal with the devil?”
Valentina winced. She shook her head. “Because he is a man, Luzia.”
That night, Luzia kept the lamp by her bed burning a long time, wishing Santángel would come to her, remembering the names Donadei had listed, building his case. She hadn’t recognized all of them. She knew of Isidro’s miracles, Piedrola’s predictions, the mystic Isabel de la Cruz, Lucrecia and her dreams. All curses require sacrifice.
Had Don Víctor really sought to become Donadei’s patron? What role had Santángel played in all of it? What role was he playing now?
There was a strange mood in the palace that seemed to seep through the walls, a feeling of abandonment, as if the furniture had been packed away,
the paintings removed, the windows boarded up. Her mind walked a path to the stables. She saw herself riding a white horse on a moonlit road. Was she a fool to stay, to wager on her own gifts and a cursed prince?
How was she to sort love from desire? It was like planting sage beside foxglove, trying to separate the leaves when the plants were still new. Both were a kind of medicine if only you knew which was which. Santángel was dangerous, but was he dangerous to her? He had lain with her on this bed. He had whispered her name. A murderer who spoke to scorpions, who appeared places he should not. He was a horizon she didn’t yet know. Why seduce a girl of scant beauty or knowledge if not to control her? Why link himself to a peasant if there wasn’t some gain in it?
There had to be a path forward through this, a chance at survival if nothing else. And if she’d been witless enough to want more, to long for
love instead of crafting plans, then she could put those hopes aside. The rat didn’t dream of the ocean, not if it wanted to survive the cat.
Luzia nearly leapt from bed when she heard a tapping at the door.
Don Víctor stood in the dark hallway, his black cloak fading into the shadows so that his long face seemed to float in the gloom.
She recoiled, hiding her body behind the door, conscious of the thin fabric of her nightclothes and what her undress implied.
“I was expecting Doña Valentina,” she lied.
He studied her with his cold eyes. “Santángel is running an errand for me.
I thought it best you keep your thoughts on the task ahead.”
Then he knew, as Donadei had. Had Santángel told his master? Or had it been his master who commanded this seduction in the first place? The thought caught like a hook beneath her ribs. It should have left her in despair, but it only made her angry.
“Be prepared to ride out early tomorrow,” he stated. “Has the location of the third trial been revealed?”
He ignored the question. “Pérez’s position with the king is even more
precarious than I understood. But this will not all be for nothing. Tomorrow you will be extraordinary, so extraordinary that the king will not care who found this treasure, only that you are a vein of ore so rich you must be mined. Pérez will be of no concern to us.”
“Do you forget Fortún Donadei, señor? His gift is as great as mine, maybe greater.”
“God’s power is all that matters here.”
But he didn’t mean God. He meant Santángel and the luck that had always served him.
“I will do all that I can.”
“Do you understand the sword above your head? It hangs above your aunt’s neck too.”
Luzia struggled not to show her surprise. Had Don Víctor always known that she and Hualit were kin?
“I can strip her of respectability,” he continued. “I can take away everything she’s earned with her clever cunt. That is what my money and my influence mean.”
He was trying to frighten her. But she wouldn’t be goaded into revealing she knew of her aunt’s trip to Venice. Soon Hualit would board a ship to
Salonika and then she would be beyond Víctor de Paredes’s reach.
She kept her head bowed. “I understand, señor.”
Silence seemed to stretch between them in the darkened hall. “Santángel has a fondness for you,” he said at last. “He has always liked weak and broken creatures.”
“I think you will find me very sturdy. Most servants have to be to survive.”
“Sturdy like a cooking pot. Perhaps there is some novelty in fucking
someone so beneath you, but it’s not a perversion that has ever appealed to me.”
“How you must hate him.” The words slipped free, and they felt so good Luzia let herself go on. “He’s stolen any chance for you to know what kind of man you might be without him.”
He slapped her, hard enough that she lost her grip on the door and stumbled. Her hand went to her cheek.
“Sturdy, indeed,” he said. “I trust you can use your talents to heal any bruise or mark. A wonderful convenience.”
I could kill him, she thought. I could impale him on a spike of roses.
Instead she curtsied, no longer worried over the linen of her shift or that he knew she had been anticipating a visit from Santángel.
“Yes, señor,” she said softly, humbly, and when she glanced up she saw the unease on his face. Had he thought she would rage? Cower? Crumple
from a single slap? There were many ways a servant learned to survive. She had years of experience biding her time, counting up the insults done to her. She wasn’t yet sure how badly she’d been wronged, but she could wait until she had allies powerful enough to protect her, for the right moment to let Víctor de Paredes know just what kind of enemy he had made.
“Keep your wits about you tomorrow,” he said. “I expect miracles.”
Luzia smiled. She knew there was blood on her teeth. “Then I pray God answers both our prayers.”
