Luzia slept in her mistress’s room, a silent body around which the rest of the house continued to turn in its new orbits.
Víctor’s personal doctor arrived to set Santángel’s fingers and offered him something for the pain, which he refused. He needed his mind sharp for all that was to come, and already his body was doing the work of mending itself. The danger was always that he would heal too quickly, before the
bones had been properly aligned, and then they would have to be broken again.
The coach returned with two of Víctor’s men, who went about scraping Álvaro from the floor of Luzia’s room and searching Don Marius’s study for body parts. It was as if a butcher’s cart had overturned: a leg and groin still in velvet livery beside the heavy desk, half a torso and a limp hand slung over the side of an embroidered chair, and the rest of the bodyguard’s head, the skull cleanly severed, the glossy gray mass of his brain exposed
like custard in a dish.
The servants said nothing. They hacked away at the pomegranate tree that had already begun to wither without soil and water or Luzia’s magic to sustain it. They would take Álvaro’s remains to the countryside and bury them somewhere on the grounds of one of Víctor’s many estates or find
some pigs to feed them to. That was not Santángel’s problem to solve.
The widow appeared to look after Luzia since Valentina was still bursting into tears every few minutes. Juana was summoned from the kitchen to scrub away the archipelago of stains Álvaro’s parts had left on the floor. As for the ceiling in Marius’s study, it was harder to reach, but its coffers obscured the bloody marks of this disaster.
At the end of the day, when all their grim work had been attended to and Juana had been sent back to the kitchen with an extra coin in her apron and the warning “servicio y silencio,” they gathered in the salon.
They picked idly at a plate of cheese and sultanas, and Santángel was surprised to discover he was hungry. He hadn’t thought about the strength it had taken to lift Luzia until he’d settled her in Valentina’s bed. His health
was returning and with it his appetites. Because of her.
The widow looked tired, her face pale. Valentina snuffled gently into a handkerchief. Don Marius still hadn’t regained his color and sipped cautiously at a glass of jerez. Víctor had vanished in the hours when work needed doing but now he had returned. His expression was grim, but the
arrogance that had briefly abandoned him at the sight of his bodyguard split between the floors of a house had returned as well. He paced, then sat, then paced again.
At last he said, “If something like that happens at the competition we will all be ruined.”
“She almost died,” murmured the widow. “I saw no wound.”
“Perhaps because of all the blood?” she asked too brightly. Víctor glared at her and she dropped her gaze.
“You saw no wound because she was able to heal herself,” Santángel said. “We can resume her lessons when she’s had a few days’ rest.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” the widow asked.
Don Marius set down his glass, blinking as if woken from a dream by his own self-interest. “She must continue.”
“Yes,” agreed Valentina, dabbing at her nose.
If Luzia didn’t, there would be no more money, no gowns, no stay at La Casilla. But Santángel was just as bad. Worse. He needed Luzia at the torneo and he would get her there.
Víctor took up his pacing once more. “And what happens when she
bleeds all over the grand ballroom? When she slices through a guard or a guest or Pérez himself?”
“What went wrong today?” the widow asked. “What happened in that room?”
Víctor cast Santángel a warning glance. Surely Catalina de Castro de Oro already knew the man’s nature, but if Víctor wished for discretion he would have it.
“I don’t know,” Santángel lied. “I was harsh with her. Her fear may have tainted the miracle.”
“That can happen?” Víctor demanded.
Anything could happen, but these were the first lies he’d dared or bothered to tell Víctor in an age. When was the last time? Maybe when Víctor had asked if he felt pain. His master had been younger then, but Santángel had already seen what Víctor de Paredes was becoming, his father’s greed seeping into him.
“Not as you do,” he’d told Víctor then. Which was less true than he’d wanted it to be. Santángel understood as some did not that pain was fleeting, that very little couldn’t be endured. But he remembered too well
the torture he’d endured when he’d first entered his immortality. He hadn’t trusted Víctor not to test those limits, and Víctor’s behavior today was yet another sign that he had been right to show caution.
Yet Santángel was prepared to put an illiterate scullion without protection in his service. Víctor might be ruthless, the widow vain, Marius and
Valentina greedy. But Santángel was the only monster in the room. She will have a better life than she had scraping by for the Ordoños, he told himself. Santángel would do what he must. If he was a beast, let him be a beast without a cage.
He lowered his voice, speaking to Víctor alone. “Her mood may impact
the efficacy of her gifts. You know how women are. She was afraid and lost her focus.”
“Why could we not find a man for a champion?” Víctor growled.
“I’ve had many occasions to question fate, but fate has yet to answer.”
“You must find a way to control her. We’re about to place her in a basket of snakes. She can’t flinch every time one bites.”
“We will find a way, I assure you.”
“It’s your future at stake here as well as mine, Santángel.” “That is not something I will forget.”
That seemed to appease Víctor, and he turned to the Ordoños and the widow to discuss their plans, while Santángel was left to contemplate the
truth of what had split Luzia’s tongue and the uglier truth of his own nature.
The sun was already setting when Luzia woke. For a moment, she wasn’t sure where she was, but then she recognized Valentina’s chambers. The bedroom was made blue in the twilight, as if seen underwater. Her tongue still throbbed, a dull ache now, warm in her mouth. She pushed herself up,
poured water from the pitcher beside the bed, took a careful sip, felt it slide cool and fresh down her throat. It had been flavored with honey.
She remembered the taste of blood and struggled not to gag. How much of it had she swallowed?
Luzia stood, then had to reach for the bedpost as a wave of dizziness overtook her. She was still in her bloody dress. She would never be able to get the stains out and she had the distressing urge to cry. They can’t make you go out in stained clothes, she reminded herself. It would be a shame to the family. But they could make her pay for something new, take the money from her wages. She wasn’t thinking clearly.
Slowly, Luzia pushed her feet into her shoes and made her way down the hall to her bedroom. She could hear voices in the chambers below.
There was no sign of the violence that had come before. The floor was clean, the smell of vinegar sharp in the air. She went to the window. Across the street, the music room was dark, the dim shape of the harp like the prow of a ghost ship.
At the basin, Luzia sponged dried blood from her neck, then lit a candle and leaned closer to the mirror. She opened her mouth, examining her
tongue in the glass. It looked a little red but there was no sign of what had happened, no horrible scar.
She touched her finger to the wet pink flesh and pressed. There. There was pain. Proof of what had gone so wrong. But why had it? And had she killed a man in this room?
The writing table had been replaced, and here and there she could see
scratches on the floor. Santángel’s satchel was shoved against the wall, the bag from which he’d produced the pomegranate seeds. She shut her door and knelt down, her hand hovering over the satchel as if she were about to offer a blessing. These were his private things. But when would she have an opportunity like this again?
She slipped the laces free and peered inside. A book in French, which she couldn’t decipher, a collection of letters, some with his seal—the scorpion, its tail curled and ready to sting—awaiting a servant to carry them from Madrid. Who did he write to? Princes? Politicians? Spies? Was there a
woman somewhere hoping for news from her beloved? There was a letter in Castilian from a scholar at the university in Sevilla, and a letter in Latin too. Her eyes scanned the page. She’d had little cause to use the Latin her mother had taught her, but she hadn’t forgotten, and the occasional treatise
or manual borrowed from Hualit had helped. Her eyes caught on a name:
Pérez.
Luzia paused, listening to the murmur of voices in the salon, then read on, trying to glean as much as she could. It all seemed to be about astrology
—the sign Pérez had been born under and the meaning he had taken from
this reading, a long mention of the king’s own stars, and the fact that, when Philip was still a young prince, John Dee himself had read his chart.
John Dee. The protestant queen’s sorcerer. He was said to speak to angels as the Holy Child did. But if his God was not Catholic, whose voice did he hear? Was it the same devil who had spoken in this room? Who had moved through Luzia to tear a man in two?
She heard footsteps and hurriedly placed the letters back in the satchel, retied the laces, and lay down on her bed.
“You’re awake,” Hualit murmured as she entered and closed the door. “You could have remained in Valentina’s room.”
She sat down and smoothed Luzia’s hair back from her face. In the evening gloom she looked like Luzia’s mother. Or what Luzia remembered of her mother. She had a sudden memory of Blanca Cotado telling her that scorpion oil could be used to heal all kinds of ailments. But you have to catch them and fry them up first, mi tesoro. Is the danger worth it?
Yes, mama, she’d said. A good remedy is worth some pain. Blanca had laughed and called her daughter bold.
“I brought rue,” Hualit said. “And rosemary. For protection. Does it hurt?”
“Not so much.” The words sounded too thick, their shape swollen along with Luzia’s tongue. “I have only one dress and it’s covered in blood.” And she had killed a man.
“I’ll give you one of mine.”
“I look forward to tripping on the hem.”
A smile tugged at Hualit’s mouth. “Can you tell me what happened?” “Are you asking for yourself or your patron?”
“Your patron.”
“He is a monster, Hualit.”
Hualit looked over her shoulder as if she expected to see Don Víctor standing there or the devil in his place. “Not that name. Not in this house.”
“He broke Santángel’s fingers. Or had Álvaro break them.” “Did you mean to kill Álvaro?”
“No!” Luzia cried. “I … I don’t think so. I don’t know what I meant to do.” If she’d had murder in her heart it had been for Víctor de Paredes. “Is he cruel to you? Has he hurt you?”
“He is a man and so the answer must be yes.” “Just speak plainly for once.”
“And what will you do if I say yes?” Hualit sighed. “Luzia, he has never struck me, never beaten me. His tastes are not like that. My life is better with him in it, querida, and yours is too.”
Luzia turned her head away, but Hualit grabbed her chin just as Don Víctor had. “Listen, Luzia. Do you know where I got the money for the coach I took to the Prado every night to wait for Víctor? For the gowns that so enticed him? For my own linajista to make me a good Christian widow worthy of more than a nobleman’s cock? I let a man wash my hair with his piss because it gave him pleasure. I dressed as a milkmaid and let the alguacil fuck me in a field while I pretended to weep. And those were the least of my humiliations. Learning to curtsy, to perform for the king, it is nothing. You must seek to please Don Víctor and Pérez or we will both pay for it.”
Luzia shoved her aunt’s hand away. She sat up and pulled her knees close, wrapping her arms around them. “You know as much as I do about the refranes. Why do they work? Why do they not work? I am lost in the dark.”
“What happened here … it could be un esticho. Witchcraft. One of the torneo competitors trying to disturb your gifts. I’ll write to Mari. She knows all about shedim and how to deal with angry spirits. Los ke vienen i van.”
Those who come and go. Luzia didn’t want to believe some vengeful spirit was chasing her, or that she was already in danger from rivals she’d never met.
For a long moment, Hualit was silent. “I’ll write Gento Isserlis too, but I have to be more careful with how I phrase things. He’s always on guard for idolatry.”
“He’s a priest?” “A rabbi.”
“You exchange letters with … with a rabbi?”
Her aunt closed her eyes. “He leads a congregation in Salonika. I send money for oil, for the lamp in the synagogue. There are many synagogues there. Can you imagine?”
Luzia couldn’t make sense of the words her aunt was using.
Hualit looked sad. “Do you really not know what I am? Why I serve olives and figs to you but never ham? Why I have a private confessor to dole out the sacrament and who has his own secrets to keep?”
“But you said … my father … you said he was a fool. That—” “Because he is. Because only secrecy can protect us.”
“You were baptized!”
“That wasn’t my choice. When King Manuel demanded the Jews of Portugal relinquish their children, mothers took knives to their babies’ throats rather than see them baptized. Maybe that’s what my mother’s
mother should have done too. Anusim, they called those who chose baptism over death. Forced ones. But what are we, their descendants, who say false prayers and kneel in their murderers’ churches?”
Christian. They were Christian, weren’t they? But here was her aunt, who had only ever seemed to care for good wine and fine silk, a Judaizer, the embodiment of everything the Inquisition reviled.
“Luzia, I might be the holiest and most pious of Christians and it would not be enough for them. Their great religion can make bread into flesh and wine into blood. But they don’t believe that any amount of holy water or prayer can truly make a Jew a Christian.”
“Does Ana know?” The housekeeper attended church with Hualit daily.
Had it all been performance?
“Of course. We pray together and keep the Sabbath when we can.” Two Judaizers beneath one roof. Luzia leaned back against the wall.
“Why tell me this now? Why burden me with such a secret?”
“Is that cruel?” Hualit mused. “Maybe so. Your father wanted you to have a Portuguese name to match his own. But my mother gave me a name full of power. It is not a woman’s name or a man’s. It is not Hebrew. It is not Spanish. It is not Arabic. It is all of these things. Just like the refranes you
use to work your miracles. We don’t need to understand where that power comes from, only that it is yours to wield.”
“How can you say that? I killed a man today. He died in this room. What if it had been Don Víctor I killed? What then?”
“Don’t think he isn’t wondering the same thing, Luzia. If he fears you a little, maybe that’s a good thing. Show him you can be biddable. Win Pérez, then win the king. Make them shower you in jewels and reales.”
“And then?”
“We’ll make our escape with our pockets full of gold and silver. We’ll join Rabbi Gento in Salonika. We’ll bring Ana too. His congregation is full of forced converts. They’ll welcome us back. They’ll teach us to pray properly. We’ll eat mulberries in the summer and brave the winds in the winter. We’ll keep the Sabbath holy and fear nothing but old age. But until that day all we have to protect us is the illusion of respectability, and we need Víctor de Paredes to preserve it. Find out what went wrong today and don’t let it happen again.”
