The Stars of Heaven

by Jessica Dall

  Cecília nodded, not having any good response to that. As silence settled over them, she ran her fingers over the silver cross at the bottom of the rosary. The small figure of Jesus hung there, face entirely placid for all of His suffering. Her fingers stilled.

  “Were you scared?” she finally asked in a small voice. “Yesterday?”

  “Terrified,” he said. “You?”

  “I still am,” she admitted.

  Mr. Bates nodded slightly, his face showing understanding even if he didn’t answer. In the quiet, he placed his hand over hers and squeezed gently. Even if she should have, she didn’t pull away, accepting the comfort in the little island of light they’d created on the back steps.

  Chapter Four

  Cecília prodded her ankle experimentally and grimaced. The worst of the swelling seemed to be retreating, but the pain was still there. She huffed. After four days of sitting around a vineyard that was slowly returning to business as normal with no sign of new visitors, she was starting to move from simple bouts of panic to pure irritation. If Mamãe had left town, she had to have gone to Loures. Or perhaps Cecília’s memory had it wrong, had made everything that much worse than it really was, and Mamãe and Bibiana were back home, fixing whatever damage the quake had done there. Perhaps she and Mr. Bates had just ended up in the worst of things, and Mamãe was now sitting around, worried sick, hoping Cecília showed up again.

  “Senhorita Cecília.”

  Cecília snapped out of her thoughts and focused on the man in front of her. “Jorge.”

  He set a bucket down near the back stairs. Cecília imagined he’d been drawing water from the well halfway between the house and the kitchen, and she had been too wrapped up in her own thoughts to notice. Pushing some of his curly black hair away from his forehead, he straightened again and looked Cecília over. “Should you be out here without a wrap? There’s a cold wind starting.”

  “I’m fine.” Cecília smoothed out the bottom of the simple day dress she had taken from Tia Serafina’s things so it would cover her ankle. There was a crispness to the day, suiting for early November, but it was certainly not as cold as she’d grown used to, sitting with Mr. Bates out on the back step while the rest of the house was asleep every night. She glanced up at the hills. The bright sunlight showed the lines of grapevines stretching out around them in a way Cecília hadn’t properly seen on their moonless nights. She nodded toward the men walking along the rows. “What are they doing?”

  Jorge twisted to follow her eyes to the hill. “We’re still checking the trellises to make sure none of them were damaged.”

  “Have any been?”

  “Nothing that can’t be fixed. Save the church bells, it seems the worst that’s happened is a few smashed bottles and the well running a little low.” Jorge smiled. “If anything, it might help drive up the price of a few years’ vintages.”

  “I’m not certain attempting to profit off a disaster would be taken well by many people.” Mr. Bates’s voice came from the doorway, and Cecília saw Jorge’s eyes narrow with thinly veiled loathing.

  “There’s some damage,” Jorge said, “but I wouldn’t call it a disaster.”

  “Did you have a building fall on you?”

  Cecília’s stomach twisted as the memory threatened to come back. “Mr. Bates.”

  He obviously caught the tone of her voice, brushing the back of his hand against her shoulder in a quick apology.

  The way Jorge’s expression darkened said he hadn’t missed the brief touch, and the look didn’t make Cecília’s stomach feel any better. “You know, I am a little cold,” she said. “I think I’ll go inside.”

  “Do you need assistance?” Jorge asked.

  “I have it.” Mr. Bates turned slightly.

  “I’m fine.” Cecília held her hands up as both men seemed about ready to swarm her in some attempt at proving Cecília didn’t even know what. Stepping around the Englishman, she moved back inside. Without looking, she could hear Mr. Bates following her a moment later.

  That will help... At least it didn’t sound as though Jorge had decided to follow as well. She waited for the door to fully shut before she turned to face him.

  Mr. Bates slowed as he searched her face, looking genuinely confused at her dark expression. “What’s the matter?”

  “You shouldn’t touch me in front of people.” You shouldn’t touch me at all, she had to admit to herself, but as each night had passed, sleepless and tense, it had seemed more and more pointless to deny what little comfort they could get from the small brushes and moments resting into one another. Things were just different in the dark.

  “When did I touch you?”

  “My shoulder?”

  “That was barely a graze.” Mr. Bates shook his head.

  “Jorge obviously noticed.” Cecília crossed her arms, keeping one a little higher to protect her injured side nearly without thinking. “People will talk.”

  “I think people have other things to worry about for the moment than shoulder grazes.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “As you wish, Senhorita Durante,” he said, the words—polite as they were—sounding as though he was just refraining from rolling his eyes at her. That familiarity also felt vastly more irritating in the middle of the day than during one of their sometimes-meaningless, sometimes-profound nighttime discussions. The front door slammed open before Cecília could snipe at him.

  “Santiago? Senhora Santiago?” Tio Aloisio’s voice echoed through the house.

  Cecília froze, half-certain she was hearing things. Mr. Bates’s body went stiff before he recovered and turned for the front hall. Cecília followed him.

  “Senhora Santiago?” Tio Aloisio had moved to the staircase, calling for the housekeeper.

  Cecília opened her mouth but couldn’t get words out as she watched her uncle’s back. Clothes ripped and dirty, Tio Aloisio didn’t look as though he had changed in days. And without one of his wigs, his shock of short white hair made him look so... old.

  “Senhor Durante,” Mr. Bates said, sounding just as shocked as Cecília felt.

  Though he can speak.

  Tio Aloisio turned, his thick eyebrows furrowing for a moment before he seemed to register who was standing in front of him. “Bates. Cecília.”

  Cecília’s stupor broke, and she threw her arms around her uncle’s neck, her relief at seeing him overshadowing anything else she should have been feeling.

  “Cilinha.” Tio Aloisio’s hands went to her waist. The pressure on her side made her jerk back.

  “She has a broken rib, sir,” Mr. Bates explained for her. “We were unfortunate enough to have the better part of a building fall on us Saturday.”

  Once again, the matter-of-fact way Mr. Bates talked about it made Cecília’s stomach churn. She tried to ignore it. “We were praying you’d come here. Have you seen Mamãe? And Bibiana and Tia E—”

  “Aloisio.” A new man strode inside, continuing on in what it took Cecília a minute to realize was English.

  Mr. Bates’s face reacted, and he stepped forward as two more men moved through the door. Though one looked in as rough a shape as Tio Aloisio, the other two were entirely put together. Finely dressed with either round stomachs or stomach padding, they looked far more successful than Mr. Bates. Perhaps more successful than Tio Aloisio. If they continued speaking in English, though, she supposed she would never know.

  She turned back to her uncle. “Tio Al—”

  “Senhor Durante!” Senhora Santiago appeared from somewhere deeper inside the house.

  Tio Aloisio gripped Cecília’s shoulder, his eyes already moving between the housekeeper and the other Englishmen who had come with him. “We’ll speak in a minute, Cilinha.”

  “Tio—” She tried to twist after him, but her side stopped her short. She grimaced slightly, placing her hand over her ribs, but Tio Aloisio was already with Senhora Santiago, gesturing sharply as he gave some directions.

  Mr. Bates u
sed his left hand to shake the second well-dressed man’s, looking entirely engaged in whatever was being said. Cecília pressed her lips together and stepped back against the wall. Whatever Tio Aloisio needed to do, it was obviously important. She would let him finish that and then find out what he knew about Lisbon.

  CECÍLIA GROUND HER teeth, standing in the hallway. She had barely understood a word that had been said since Tio Aloisio had arrived, the entire house suddenly seeming to only speak English. She was beginning to understand what Jorge was mumbling about Englishmen.

  Cecília straightened as voices began to move toward her. Wearing a fresh set of clothes, though still looking frazzled, Tio Aloisio strode down the hallway with two of the Englishmen no one had bothered to introduce, apparently headed for the back door.

  Cecília fell into step beside him as best she could. “Tio Aloisio—”

  “Not now, Cecília.”

  “But—”

  “I said not now.” He brushed past with the other men, disappearing out the back door a second later.

  Cecília blew out an annoyed breath, but she had waited long enough while the men all discussed Heaven knew what. Tio Aloisio obviously knew something of what had happened, and she was going to find out what. She stomped up to the back door as well as she could and threw it open. She froze, looking around in confusion. Tio Aloisio had been walking quickly but not so quickly he should have disappeared in the few seconds it had taken for her to get outside. She walked down the back steps and looked around, trying to work out where the men could have gone. The next group appeared at the back door before Cecília could work it out.

  She moved on to the next best thing. “Mr. Bates.”

  Standing toward the back of the group, Mr. Bates hesitated as all four men looked at her.

  Cecília remained focused on Mr. Bates, uncertain how well the others spoke Portuguese. “What’s happening?”

  Mr. Bates glanced at the other men before looking back at her. “Could we speak later, Senhorita Durante?”

  “If someone doesn’t tell me what’s happening right now, I’m likely to scream.” Irritation won out over decorum, Mr. Bates’s slightly politer attempt of being rid of her not feeling any better than Tio Aloisio’s brusque response.

  Mr. Bates hesitated for a moment before he said something in English to the other men with him. Nodding, they moved off, though not without sending Cecília a range of questioning to simply judgmental looks. Mr. Bates watched them leave until they were out of earshot.

  Cecília saw no reason to show patience anymore. “What’s happening? What’s everyone been talking about?”

  Something registered on Mr. Bates’s face. “Right. You can’t understand us.”

  “No. I foolishly didn’t think to learn English before traveling to Queluz. I obviously should have known better,” she snapped.

  Mr. Bates looked toward where the men had gone again. “Your uncle has come back for supplies. One of the king’s ministers, a Senhor Carvalho, is attempting to bring the city back under control. Keeping those living in the fields around Lisbon fed will likely go a long way to stopping any more looting or rioting. Senhor Durante has gone to see what we can quickly transport.”

  “We?”

  “I’ve offered what help I can provide.”

  Cecília’s mind attempted to sort through what Mr. Bates had said. Looting and people living outside the city meant there was a city to go back to, which was better than the worst of her memory. Mamãe and Bibiana could still be waiting for her. “We’re going back to Lisbon, then?”

  Mr. Bates hesitated. “We, your uncle and myself, are. By all accounts, though, it’s not somewhere you should be.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Your uncle can tell you what he likes of his ordeal, but... the city’s a ruin. The Paço da Ribeira, Casa da Ópera, Casa da India... all of them are destroyed. Most of the palace was swept out to sea in a giant wave that hit sometime after we left, from what Mr. Broome said. Half the city has been left to live in little dirty tents, and there’s nothing like a disaster to bring out the worst in some men. Likely not helped with the prison coming down as well. There are truly the worst sorts of men wandering the streets right now. It isn’t anywhere you should be.”

  It felt as though the air had been sucked from Cecília’s lungs. The thought of the beautiful buildings all along the river, gone, the very heart of the city... Her throat threatened to close. She fought to swallow the lump. She wouldn’t accept it. She couldn’t. She pushed the idea out of her mind. “But my family—”

  “They likely have gone to your grandparents’ at this point. You said they live close enough by?”

  “But if they haven’t—”

  “Senhorita Durante.” Mr. Bates shook his head. “You’re aware how many people live in Lisbon? If even just half of them are out in those fields, that’s more than a hundred-thousand people. You aren’t going to find anyone by wandering the streets.”

  “I can’t just sit here!” Her voice rose dangerously, even as she fought to keep it level. “It’s my city. My family. If they’re hurt, trapped out there, I can’t do nothing!”

  “Putting yourself in danger isn’t going to help anyone. You’re still healing.”

  “So are you, and you’re going.” She didn’t temper the bite in her tone.

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  He gave her a look that said he wasn’t going to waste their time stating the obvious: I’m not a woman.

  She refused to let it go. “You aren’t even Portuguese.”

  “Senhorita Durante, your uncle has more than enough to worry about at the moment. Could I convince you to attempt writing your grandparents first, at the very least? Your family could very well be there and worried about you.”

  Cecília ground her teeth, forcing herself to actually think things through, though every emotion pulsing around her body left her wanting to do nothing more than yell. She wasn’t certain how far her grandparents were from Tio Aloisio’s, as she had never traveled from one to the other herself, but she imagined it couldn’t be more than half a day. With how quickly Tio Aloisio was bustling around, though, it didn’t seem likely she would have long before he left again—and going with him was her only good chance to return to the city.

  Slowly, she began to work out a plan. “I think I need to lie down. I doubt anyone is going to miss me, anyway.”

  Mr. Bates looked at her as though uncertain that he trusted her sudden switch. With a glance after where the other men had disappeared, though, he apparently gave in to his need to catch up rather than press further. “Try to get some rest, Senhorita Durante. Obviously, neither of us has been sleeping well.”

  Cecília nodded and silently watched Mr. Bates go. Once he had disappeared from view, she turned in the opposite direction, hoping she would be able to find someone who could make an impromptu ride to Loures.

  Thank you, Santo Expedito. She sent a quick glance heavenward as she neared the stable. The saint had to be looking out for her, for there Jorge stood, repairing a cart wheel.

  “Jorge.” Cecília chanced speeding up, her ankle and side faring surprisingly well, all things considered.

  He looked up and offered a quick smile. “Senhorita Cecília.”

  “I’m glad to catch you.” She stopped at the end of the cart. “Are you busy?”

  “Senhor Durante asked me to get all the carts ready, but that’s done once I get this wheel on straight again. Why?”

  “I need to get a message to my grandparents in Loures,” Cecília said quickly. “Is that too far for you to ride?”

  “Loures?” he repeated and pursed his lips as he considered it. “It’s about three hours each way, I think. Perhaps you could make it under that if you pushed.”

  Cecília did the math in her head. With it already late in the afternoon, six hours would put any rider back well after dark, but if she waited until morning, even if a message left at first
light, it wouldn’t be back until midday. And assuming Tio Aloisio was planning to leave tomorrow, he certainly wouldn’t wait that long with how much time it would take to get to Lisbon, trailing a string of carts. “It is truly a lot to ask, I know, but would you be able to go now? I’m sure my grandparents would give you a room for the night, so you could ride back in the morning. It’s an urgent matter.”

  Jorge studied her for a moment before he lowered his head. “Of course, senhorita. I’ll be done with the carts within the half hour, if that isn’t too much delay?”

  Cecília smiled in relief. “Thank you so much, Jorge. You’re wonderful.”

  He smiled widely at the compliment. “My pleasure. What message do you need delivered?”

  Oh, right. In her rush she had forgotten she would need an actual message. She debated finding paper and ink, though as slow a writer as she was, a proper letter would likely take longer than fixing the cart wheel. Just keep it simple, she decided. “I need to know if my family is there. My mother and sister. Perhaps my brother.” Though Francisco would have been even farther east at São Vincente, so Heavens knew if he would have gone to Loures. “If they aren’t, ask if my grandparents have heard from them. And you can, of course, tell them I’m here and well.”

  Jorge nodded. “Anything else?”

  Cecília tried to think whether she had forgotten anything but ended up shaking her head. “I just need to find the rest of my family.”

  Chapter Five

  A light drizzle had moved in overnight and slowed the morning packing that was happening at the vineyard. Cecília could only hope that it wasn’t slowing Jorge’s return. As the hour ticked closer to midday, however, the energy in front of the house changed. The spurts of English she had been hearing got louder and more consistent as people ducked around the carts sitting near the front door. Cecília’s stomach knotted as she watched the men work from the corner of the house. She was running out of time to make a decision, and she still didn’t have an answer from Loures.