by Jessica Dall
Cecília dared to glance at the king and found Dom José studying her—or perhaps he was staring past her—before he nodded and stood. He turned to Senhor Carvalho. “How many?”
Senhor Carvalho pulled a paper out of his pocket and began listing, “Marchioness Távora, Count Alvor, Teresa Távora, Duke Aveiro, Marquis Alorna, Count Atouguia...”
As the names continued to stack upon one another, the enormity of what she had been brought into registered in Cecília’s mind. Of the list Senhor Carvalho had, all the conspirators he had were either legitimately found out or purposely funneled into the plot, depending on how much testimony was actually true. Cecília caught her hands in her lap, praying only the truly guilty would end up caught in the net being cast.
“Count Vilhena, Mateus de Vilhena, Isabel de Maraliva, Luís de Terra—”
“Luís?” Cecília couldn’t stop her mouth in time.
Three pairs of eyes locked onto her.
“I’m sorry.” She stuttered, “I-I-I just... Senhor Terra. I can’t imagine—”
“People can surprise you,” Senhor Carvalho said and lifted the page. “I’m certain no one ever would have thought half of the people on this list would be involved in treason.”
“But—” She cut off sharply at the look Senhor Carvalho shot her.
“Senhorita Durante?” Dom José asked.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness.” She forced a weak smile. “I was just surprised. I am so sorry about everything—”
He held up a hand. “We are all in shock. Unfortunately, these are the times we live in.”
“I’m sorry,” Cecília said again in a near whisper.
“It’s getting late,” Senhor Carvalho said. “As distressing as this has all been, I’m sure Senhoritas Cardozo and Durante are tired.”
“Of course.” Dom José motioned their dismissal. “We thank you for your help.”
“Your Highness.” Graça stood and curtsied.
Cecília followed suit then added, “Please let me know if I can help, Your Highness. All of this is so awful. If I can—”
“We’ll be in touch, Senhorita Durante.” Senhor Carvalho cut off her rambling. “Just telling the truth about what you’ve heard come the trial will be help enough.”
Cecília curtsied again, praying she could control her stomach at least long enough to return to her own room. She followed Graça out of the apartments, not certain if she breathed until the doors shut behind her. Stopping a few steps into the hall, she sucked in what air she could get, trying to fight off the nausea. “What was that?”
Graça turned to face Cecília again. “What did it sound like? The beginning of the end.”
“Why would you bring me in there without telling me what was happening?” she hissed, keeping her voice low even though it seemed they were alone. She knew better than most that the tapestries didn’t stop voices from penetrating wooden walls.
Graça shrugged. “I didn’t have time.”
“Why would Senhor Carvalho let me in there, not knowing what was happening?”
“I may have told him I already let you know,” she said.
Cecília sent her an incredulous look.
“Do you know how hard I’ve been working?” Graça’s voice rose as much as it could while remaining a whisper. “You get to hide away, ‘ill’ for days, and then spend all your time with a man who’s so obviously in love with you he’d likely give you a written account of everything he’s ever heard for you to enter as evidence. I had to deal with that dog Vilhena. Do you know what it’s like, having the minister order to let that man touch you?”
“And you were bitter enough to sweep Luís into whatever story you told?”
“They’re arresting the entire Vilhena household.” She shook her head. “He lives with them.”
“But he doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Then he doesn’t have anything to worry about.”
“Why do I doubt that?”
Graça searched Cecília’s face. “You can’t tell him.”
Cecília kept her eyes hard.
“If you tell him, you’re going to get caught up in all of this as well. Is that what you want? To be an accomplice to treason?”
Cecília huffed, her mind turning everything over, but she finally started down the hall. “Of course I’m not going to tell him. What could I possibly say?”
Graça hooked her arm through Cecília’s, either missing or choosing to ignore the fact that Cecília tensed. “The minister’s doing this to protect us, you know. It’s what all of us have been working for.”
“It just would have been nice to have been fully alerted to that fact.” Cecília shook the other woman off and took a step away. “I’m going to bed. I have the feeling it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
“A few long days, and then everything will be sorted.” Graça offered a smile. “Trust me. Everything will be so much better.”
CECÍLIA COULDN’T FIND it in herself to leave her room as the arrests started, no matter what the first minister might have thought of it. The shouting grew loud enough to echo through the tapestry-covered halls and all the way to Tio Aloisio’s room off and on throughout the day.
“How dare you! Take your hands off me!”
“Papai!”
From the screams, even children were being carted away in the name of removing the king’s enemies. It kept Cecília’s stomach churning strongly enough that she hadn’t been able to keep a thing down since daybreak.
Someone rapped on her bedroom door, and Cecília’s body tensed even though she had no reason to think that Senhor Carvalho had turned on her in the past twelve hours.
“Cecília?” her uncle’s voice came through the door. “Are you decent?”
Sitting in her bed dress, she supposed she was as decent as she was planning to get for the day. “Yes, Tio.”
The door opened, and Tio Aloisio stepped inside. He looked her over then sighed. “Graça was here a few minutes ago. She told me what happened last night.”
Cecília crossed her arms around her middle. “I said yes. I helped set all this off.”
“She said you were visibly distressed when Luís de Terra was mentioned.”
“I was surprised,” she said. “I know he didn’t do anything.”
After looking at her for another moment, Tio Aloisio moved across the room and took a seat at the end of the bed. “You did the right thing, Cilinha.”
Her stomach twisted, hearing the nickname her father had given to her, which only Tio Aloisio still used. It sounded sticky in his mouth. “Lying was the right thing?”
“You’ve lied before, I’m sure.”
“People are going to die.”
“We’re in the middle of a movement.” He shook his head, speaking to her as if he considered her truly to be an adult for a change. “Those books out there, the ones I could be arrested for? Those books are changing the world. Europe is changing, growing, and Portugal is two hundred years behind. You’re a smart girl—too smart for your own good, half the time. You know what would have happened if the king had died. Everything we’ve been working to do would be stopped, torn down. We’d be thrown back right to where we started.”
She felt her cross sitting heavily around her neck. “Would you have the entire country turn Deist?”
Tio Aloisio lifted his eyebrows. “Deist?”
“That’s what Mr. Bates called it.”
“Ah,” he said. “No, I’m Catholic, Cilinha. As is Senhor Carvalho. We’re just...”
“Reasonable ones?”
He focused on her. “Bates’s words again?”
Cecília shrugged.
“We aren’t looking to convert the country. Portugal is Catholic. We will always be Catholic, but we are trying to stop people from keeping us all back centuries while the rest of the world moves forward. Senhor Carvalho is taking power from the old nobility and shifting it to those who believe in progress. He’s making Portugal indepe
ndent of foreign creditors. He plans to open public schools to educate all the children in Portugal. The poorest family will be able to better its children’s minds. People like Bates, who certainly has the mind to be a scholar, won’t be forced to teach themselves—or not be taught at all—just because their families don’t have the money to spend on an education. I know you support those reforms. You’ve spent far more time than Senhor Carvalho has insisted on educating yourself these two years.”
“People are still going to die,” Cecília said softly. “And I don’t know who is actually guilty, if any of them are.”
Tio Aloisio took a moment before speaking again. “Do you have feelings for Luís de Terra?”
Cecília shifted uncomfortably. “What?”
“Some have reported that the boy is in love with you.”
Cecília had to imagine that “some” included Graça.
“Do you feel similarly?”
“I don’t want him executed, if that’s what you want to know.”
“I want to know if you believe yourself in love with him.”
Cecília took a moment to weigh her words, but even then, she wasn’t certain what she wanted to say, let alone what she should say. “Why do you need to know?”
“The first minister has said if you can convince Senhor Terra to testify against the other conspirators, he would see you both well positioned, should you wish to marry. From what I’ve seen, though, I haven’t gotten the sense you wish to marry him.”
“I doubt it matters if I do or don’t. He wouldn’t testify. He’s too loyal.”
“You may underestimate your effect on the younger members of my sex,” Tio Aloisio said. “I imagine you’re the reason Bates was considering taking work in the mess Lisbon was three years ago, though he’d have much better prospects back home.”
Cecília jolted, not able to school the surprise off her face at the shock. “He what?”
Tio Aloisio gave her a much more knowing expression than she liked before he moved on. “Senhor Carvalho has written you a letter of passage to see Senhor Terra where he’s being held in Junqueira Prison. Strongly consider the option. With support from the right men, you could find yourself married to a count. A living count. I imagine at least one of those things may appeal to you?”
Cecília wasn’t certain what to say, so she didn’t say anything.
Tio Aloisio lowered his head in apparent acknowledgement that he wasn’t going to get an answer and held out a folded piece a paper. “Consider it.”
After a final tense moment, Cecília took the paper and watched Tio Aloisio’s back as he returned to the antechamber just as another commotion went up somewhere deeper inside the Real Barraca.
Chapter Twenty
Over the next week, gray clouds moved in and refused to leave, setting a dull ache in Cecília’s rib that she hadn’t felt so resolutely in years. She looked up as she stepped out of the carriage, vaguely wondering if God was passing judgment on all that had happened.
I’m sorry. She offered the weak apology, though it seemed laughably feeble against divine displeasure.
A soldier standing at the door of the imposing Junqueira Prison straightened, and Cecília silently held out the letter Senhor Carvalho had provided, allowing her entrance. She still had no idea what she actually intended to say once she was inside, but after the awfulness of the past few days, she couldn’t sit in her room and do nothing. What she could or couldn’t offer Luís, what he would or wouldn’t do... she supposed the specifics weren’t more important than at least going. The soldier read the page quickly then nodded as he swung the door open. Leaning inside, he called for some other guard to lead her deeper inside the claustrophobic stone building.
Cecília had to remind herself to breathe. The smell of sweat, blood, and human waste filled the air, caught inside the constricted hallways. She did her best to hide her grimace. If the smell wasn’t already overwhelming, the memories of the quake—being caught under stone, suffocated—would have been enough to send her running, at least in other circumstances. She suddenly couldn’t wait to be back inside the wooden palace, where the worst a quake could do would be to give her a bad splinter. Still, she was already there, even if it was only to salve her own conscience.
They started up a tight, curving staircase, and a piercing scream set every inch of Cecília’s body on edge. The guard leading her didn’t seem to so much as register the awful sound as he opened another door and led her into a dark hall lit by a single bar-covered window on the far end.
Without looking at Cecília, the guard stepped up to a door on the left and pulled a small flap away to look through a set of bars no bigger than Cecília’s hand. “This who you’re sent to see?”
Swallowing as well as she could without inhaling too much of the smell, she moved to the little opening and peered through. Her already frayed nerves sent panicked tingles through her fingers as she saw Luís sitting along the far wall. He didn’t bother to look away from his own little barred window as they peered through the peephole.
Cecília nodded quickly and stepped back to look at the guard properly. “I’d like to go in.”
He slid the flap back into place. “I can’t suggest you do that, senhorita.”
“The first minister sent me to speak with him.” She lifted her chin, doing her best to look commanding. “I don’t believe I can do that well through a door.”
The guard looked her over, seeming to size up the modest black dress she had chosen for the occasion, then went for the keys on his hip. “As you wish.”
The door opened with an unpleasant groan, and Cecília stepped through. The hinges creaked as the guard pushed it the other way, and a fresh wave of panic swept through her at the idea of being locked in, even for a moment. She fought it back as Luís finally looked away from his window.
His eyebrows furrowed. “Cecília?”
She looked through the open flap to see the guard standing sentry outside the door then took another step toward where Luís was sitting with his knees pulled to his chest. She attempted a smile. She couldn’t manage one. “Luís.”
He pushed himself up to standing. “What the Devil are you doing here? You haven’t been arres—”
“No,” Cecília said. Her eyes dropped over him quickly, and she attempted to hide her dismay at his appearance. The thin layer of dust that seemed to coat every surface of the prison had settled into his clothes, making his untucked white shirt look gritty and dun. It didn’t appear he had slept at all in the week he had been there, either, between the dark circles under his eyes and the gaunt look of his stubbled cheeks. She could hardly blame him. She likely wouldn’t have been able to close her eyes, let alone sleep in the place. Somehow, she rallied enough to turn up the corners of her mouth into something that could perhaps be mistaken for a smile. “I came to see you. My uncle got me permission.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” He took two steps toward her then stopped as if he didn’t know if he should close the rest of the distance.
She did instead, catching his hands. A chill traveled up her arms, and she registered how sharp the air in the room was for him to only be in a shirt and breeches.
There’s no glass in the window. Nearly Christmas, and he’s as good as sitting outside.
She rubbed his hands in between hers as if it would help against the damp winter weather. “I had to come. I’ve been so worried about...” She swallowed. “You need to get out of here, Luís.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “That isn’t up to me at the moment.”
“But you shouldn’t be here,” she insisted. “You didn’t have anything to do with this plot.”
“What plot?” Luís shook his head. “There never was any plot. This is all Carvalho—”
“They have evidence.” Cecília didn’t let him finish whatever he had to say about the first minister. If he started disparaging Senhor Carvalho, she wasn’t certain the first minster would keep any intent of clemency. “There’s the assa
ssin’s testimony, the gun... The case is being put together now, but it sounds irrefutable. The death warrants are all but signed.”
Luís’s eyes shifted away from her, his jaw tightening.
“You didn’t know anything about it, did you?”
“Of course not.” He met her eyes again. “No, because there was no plot. Any idiot—”
“There’s testimony that the Vilhenas knew of it.” She held onto his hands more tightly as he tried to pull away. “That’s why you’re here. They arrested the entire household.”
“Whose testimony?”
Cecília debated how much truth to tell, not certain what would and wouldn’t help her case. She finally went with the truth. Or at least what had been accepted as the truth. “Graça’s. She overheard a conversation in their rooms one night when she was with Mateus.”
“Graça? She’s a reliable witness now?”
“You saw her with Mateus. You know she was there at least twice. She very well could have heard something.”
“But she didn’t.”
“How would you know?”
“Because unless she heard Mateus himself, no one else would be stupid enough to be caught saying something like that.” He jerked away from her and moved toward the far wall.
Cecília caught her hands in front of her and did her best not to wring them. Treading carefully, she continued, “Supposedly, it was someone talking to a Távora.”
“Then she has to be lying. People go to the Távora apartments. They don’t go to others.”
“You’ve never seen any of the Távora family with the Vilhenas?”
“No.”
“Not even when they helped get Mateus out of trouble two years ago? Or now that Isabel—”
“Why do you care about this so much?” He turned back to face her.