On a dark road, the coach Víctor de Paredes had hired rattled along,
Hualit safely tucked inside. He’d sent Gonzalo and Celso as outriders
because the country was less safe than the city, especially at night. But night it would have to be. Some part of her was sorry she wouldn’t get to see much of Venice. When she arrived, she would find a way to separate herself from the hosts Víctor had arranged. She had contacts in Italy and she had already booked passage to Salonika.
Her gown was heavy with jewels and coins she’d sewn into the lining, enough to augment the bit of spending money Víctor had given her and serve for any necessary bribes. She was weighted with every diamond, ruby, and gilded bauble her lovers had given her, but she didn’t mind.
Fear made her giddy; it always had. It was less that she loved risk than
the thrill of gambling on herself. She only wished Luzia or Ana were here to chatter to. Hualit had always been a social creature. That was her gift, more than her beauty or her limitless will to secure a real future for herself.
Her sister had married a poor peddler and she had died young because of it. Maybe it wasn’t fair to lay Blanca’s death at Afonso’s door, but she had no talent for fairness. Blanca was just and kind and Hualit was greedy and bold. She fell in love a hundred times and out of love a hundred more. As her sister had taken to Latin, she had taken to desire, learning the language of men’s needs and the proper responses. She had used this aptitude for translation to will herself into a better life than fate had ever intended for her, one of comfort and pleasure.
But now she would be among strangers. She would have to find a new person to become. Or maybe she could stop pretending, stop pleasing. She would be called by her own name. She would join the other women on the balcony at synagogue. She might even find a husband, one she actually liked. Salonika. Let it be all I’ve hoped for, she prayed. She’d had enough
disappointments to know it was dangerous to long for something, to
imagine it for months and years and to find yourself on the cusp of it at last.
She would miss her cheerful house, her courtyard with its grapevine. She wouldn’t miss Víctor, but she did wonder if he would miss her. Was it
perverse to want to be longed for by a man she didn’t love? Still, Víctor was not the type to pine for anything other than more. He would seek out some other woman to entertain him. He would find a new mistress to keep or turn his attention to his beloved wife again.
He hadn’t wanted to let her go, but she’d gotten her way in the end. He
was always amorous after spending time with sweet, pious María, and she’d gone out of her way to make sure he was well satisfied before she raised the issue. She’d told him the events at the puppet show had scared her, that she was afraid of being questioned, and wouldn’t it be better to be free of any hint of scandal should his plans with Pérez go awry?
Again she looked at the empty seat across from her and felt the uneasy sense that she’d done wrong. Ana had gone ahead with her trunks, but this
should have been the journey Hualit and Luzia took together. She had never wanted children of her own; the thought had frightened her. She’d had a hard enough time carving out a life without trying to do the same for a
helpless creature. Luzia had been too much for her, a burden she couldn’t bear. Yes, her magic had been a threat to Hualit’s safety. But it was her need that had frightened Hualit the most, her longing for affection, her loneliness. Hualit could not mother her. Would not. It wasn’t her fault that Blanca had made the mistake of having a child, then chosen to let poverty kill her in a paupers’ hospital.
But if she had been kinder, would Luzia be with her now? She might never see her niece again, the only person in the world who shared her blood. The thread had been cut. Hualit wanted to believe that Luzia would go on to glory. But she knew what court was like. She had moved in Madrid’s best circles and there was no way Luzia would survive there. The king was weak. Pérez was dangerous. And the truth was that if Hualit had spirited Luzia out of Madrid, Víctor would have found a way to drag her back.
I should have waited a little longer, she thought. I should have argued with more force. But her fear was greater than her love. That was the truth of it.
The coach slowed, then rolled to a stop. Was someone approaching? She had nothing to fear. Gonzalo and Celso were a match for any brigand or bandit.
The door opened and Celso stood in the moonlight. She could hear the churning of a river. The Tagus? Or had they already reached the Júcar?
“Is there a problem with the bridge?” she asked. He offered her his hand. “Señora?”
Behind him she could see the soft blue shapes of the hills and Gonzalo watching the road.
“Why have we stopped?”
He said nothing, only waited, his gloved hand outstretched, as if he were asking for a dance.
In a way, she supposed he was. Only she had heard the music too late. The song had been playing all along, if only she hadn’t been so distracted by her own cleverness.
“Ana?” she asked. He shook his head.
So there would be no trip to Venice, no hosts waiting to receive her. She would never slip away to board the ship to Salonika. Mari would never meet her in the harbor. Víctor hadn’t capitulated or been swayed by her wiles. He’d used her one last time, laughing at her schemes, knowing as he entered her that he’d sentenced her to death.
A silly part of her wanted to ask why, as if Celso knew or could answer if he did. Had Víctor suspected she meant to slip free of him and decided to punish her? No, it was simpler than that. Víctor de Paredes had decided she would die on this road because it was easier for him. He would never have to fear her testimony or her interference. He would never have to adorn her with another jewel. It was all very tidy, she had to admit. Her death would be blamed on bandits. These roads were dangerous, after all.
“Very well,” she said, taking Celso’s hand and stepping down from the coach. “If you’d be so kind, I’d like to stretch my legs a bit.”
“You cannot run.”
“Certainly not. Where would I go?”
She thought of her snug house and its comfortable bed and the fountain burbling in its courtyard. All of it belonged to Víctor. Would he install his next mistress there? She hoped whoever lived there would love it as she had, that she would sit and listen to the birds calling across the rooftops and
eat grapes off the vine. On sunny mornings the printer’s wife who lived next door sang as she did her housework. She didn’t have much of a voice, but Hualit had learned to like the sound.
She had been lonely in that house sometimes. She had wondered what life might have in store for her. She hadn’t predicted this.
“I can offer you jewels,” she said as she made her way to the edge of the bridge, listening to the sound of the water far below. If she were brave she could jump. “Money.”
Gonzalo laughed. “You can’t afford us, señora.” “Will you make it quick?” she asked.
“I can offer that,” said Celso. He sounded sorry, but his hand was already on the knife at his hip.
“You have other things to bargain with,” said Gonzalo.
Now Hualit laughed. “So you can fuck me and then cut my throat and leave me in the bushes?”
“You must prepare yourself,” said Celso.
She held her hand out to him. “Pray with me.”
“It isn’t right,” Celso said to Gonzalo. “She doesn’t have a priest.” “She’s a whore,” said Gonzalo. His blade was in his hand.
“I won’t fight you,” she said, smiling gently, softly.
Hualit hoped they would say prayers for her in Salonika. Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.
Gonzalo grabbed hold of her shoulder.
“Come,” she said, her hands grasping his jacket, her back pressed against the railing. “We’ll go together.”
He was stronger, but he didn’t expect the weight of her, her pockets full of reales, her hems and sleeves sewn full of jewels.
Gonzalo shouted as they toppled from the bridge. It felt good to take one of them with her.
Hualit’s neck snapped when she struck the surface. She died quickly as she’d hoped to, as Celso had promised she would. Gonzalo broke his back but floated along for quite a while, trying to fight the current, until finally, weeping, he slipped beneath the surface.
Months later, a woman brought a fish home from the market and cut it open to find an emerald the size of her thumbnail. She thanked the fish, tucked the jewel into her pocket, and left the house, never to be seen again. Her husband, a drunkard with heavy fists, found only the fish, which he was
forced to prepare himself for dinner. He choked on a bone and was buried in a pauper’s grave.
His wife walked all the way to Paris, where she opened a parfumerie and lived happily for many years, eating lamb and vegetables and snails, but never fish, who she felt had done enough for her.
