City of Silver

by Annamaria Alfieri

  He knew where to find the person he was sure was the last to see Inez before she went to Los Milagros and her death.

  The façade of the theater was one of the city’s wonders. Under its soaring arch were three stories of graduated columns, built and decorated in the Baroque style but carved with Indian and Mestizo motifs. Instead of the fruits and flowers and baby angels one saw on buildings in Rome, here were Inca figures and leaves and vines found in the jungles of coastal Perú. Near the red-wood brass-studded doors, a hand-painted sign read, “Antonio Encenas and Francisco Hurtado present Troupe Astilla in Mareto’s Trampa Adelante, staged in honor of the arrival of Doctor Francisco de Nestares, Visitador General. Admission: fifty pesos.” Fifty pesos! Such a price. A man could buy three or four shirts for less.

  Padre Junipero swung the thick knocker and after a few moments was let in by a statuesque African who wore a red-and-gold silk turban and doublet of the same fine fabric. This resplendent porter showed him into the auditorium, where a rehearsal was in progress under the proscenium. At the rear of the hall, painters decorated a canvas. The odor of their paint brought back a powerful, deeply buried image of a soft, shapely young actress sprawled naked on a couch. The priest banished the memory.

  The African, who evidently was more than a porter, climbed onto the stage. In the seats for the audience, a group of barbers and hairdressers watched the proceedings and General Juan Velarde Treviño, a knight of the Order of Calatrava and a former magistrate of the city, lounged with two blowsy farceuses of the company.

  Padre Junipero excused himself and called out for Sebastian Vázquez. The actors stopped reciting and scowled at him. A woman in a bright red wig sitting with General Velarde raised her index finger to her lips and waved him toward a door that led backstage.

  The priest went through, up a few steps, and along a musty hall. At the end of the corridor, he found a room with the door ajar. Inside, a strikingly handsome blond man sat on a packing crate and ate from a plate he held in one hand. He was left-handed. The aroma of beef told the priest the man was not keeping the fast. This one would not be intimidated by priestly robes. He was studying a book propped up on a bench before him.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Padre Junipero said. “I am looking for Sebastian Vázquez.”

  The man leapt to his feet, hurriedly set aside the plate, and bowed graciously. “At your service, Padre.” He was graceful and lithe and spoke with a perfect Castillian accent. His elegant black doublet might have been a costume, but it fit him too well. This was no theatrical roustabout. It was easy to see he was a nobleman. A great many such men wandered Perú—men whose fortunes had run out and who could no longer live in Spain. But one did not usually find them in acting troupes.

  Vázquez pushed a sack onto the dusty floor and offered the priest a rough bench. “I am sorry we have no fire. The impresarios are afraid of burning down the theater.” He pulled his cloak around him. “Why is it always so cold here? Why didn’t they build the city on the southern slope of the mountain?”

  “You forget,” the priest said, “that you have crossed the equator. Here the north side is the warmer.” He sat and studied the young man’s steady dark eyes. “Are you the Sebastian Vázquez who knew Inez Rojas de la Morada?”

  Wariness and fear crossed the man’s classic features. “I don’t believe I have ever heard the name.”

  The priest raised an eyebrow. “Your expression has already betrayed you. I would have thought an actor could better conceal his feelings.”

  The man laughed heartily. “You are a smart one, Father.” He stood and paced to the wall. “If the truth were known, I have spent more time in the prompter’s box than on the boards.” He glanced at his image in a mirror. He had the vanity if not the proper skills for his profession. He was also unnerved.

  “Please sit down, my son, and speak to me,” the priest said softly.

  The actor paused for a moment, gazing at the crate as if he were assessing its ability to hold his weight. He sighed and sat. He leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs. His dark eyes were resigned and a little bored, as if he knew what the questions would be. “What do you want of me?”

  “First of all, tell me who you are. Your accent and your mannerisms betray a certain lineage.”

  Sebastian smiled in surrender. “I am the son of a Castillian nobleman, but alas, my mother was not his wife. My father took a liking to my blond locks and deigned to educate me, but that only made my life more frustrating—to know so well what I could not have.”

  The priest thought he saw the type of young man he was dealing with. “Did you then do something to incur your father’s wrath, so that he cut off your allowance?” The actor’s beauty and grace were the obvious attractions he held for Inez. Now, the priest understood that along with her beauty and charm, her father’s enormous fortune would be a powerful inducement for this man.

  “My father died.” Vázquez’s sadness seemed authentic. “My brothers—his legitimate sons—did not see fit to continue his generosity. In Spain, I worked as secretary to a conde for a while, but I decided to try my fortune in the New World, where I had heard the cobblers eat off silver and the common people live much at their ease and have their soup year-round, as only the richest do in Spain.”

  “How did you cross the ocean?” Everyone, even priests, required a license to take passage on a Spanish ship. The House of Trade scrutinized credentials.

  The actor shifted the crate and leaned against the wall behind him. “In the usual way of men like me, by bribing the ship’s officers to transport me under the guise of a personal servant. Are you going to report me to the authorities? Condemn me to rot in their jails?”

  The question displayed no fear, as if he already knew this priest would never do such a thing. “No,” the priest said. “Not on that count. How did you meet Inez?”

  Sebastian’s confident expression turned sheepish. “The only place a man like me can meet a girl like her—in church.” He looked as if he expected the priest to be shocked.

  Padre Junipero gave him a reluctant smile. “Would it surprise you that I was a man before I was a priest? I know about such approaches. Please tell me more.”

  The actor leaned forward again. “It was shortly after I arrived in Potosí, on the feast of the Epiphany. In the cathedral. I saw Inez enter with her mother. Actually, it was the mother who first attracted my attention. An extraordinarily beautiful woman. And she wore one red glove, the other white. I thought it was a fashion. Indeed, I admired the idea, until I saw the daughter was sullen and mortified and realized the mother was . . . shall we say, under the spell of Bacchus?”

  “Doña Ana is a very troubled lady,” the priest said diffidently.

  Sebastian smiled with an easy amiability that further annoyed the priest. “I would say that is putting it mildly, Padre. Anyway, the ladies de la Morada found two other women in the seats they normally occupy. Doña Ana walked up and slapped the face of one of the other ladies—a Basque woman, I believe.”

  “Yes,” the priest said. “I remember hearing about this. It was Doña Inmaculada de Aguirreya. There is a certain animosity between the Basques and the other Spaniards in this city.”

  “You are given to understatement, Father. Animosity? It is pure hatred.”

  “They fought a civil war. With many battles and many dead. About twenty-five years ago. The enmity goes on. Please finish your story.”

  “Another Basque—a man—came to the slapped lady’s rescue.”

  “Don Luis de Medina.”

  The actor shrugged. “Whoever. A great outcry ensued. Priests came out to stop the shouting and jostling. In the melee, I saw that Inez was distressed over her mother’s behavior. I offered my services to escort her home.”

  “And she accepted.” The priest saw how it must have been. “And then you took advantage of her.”

  Sebastian lifted his head. “She was a very willing participant. She fell in love with me.” The actor pointed to the
mirror that hung on the wall behind the priest. “She gave me that looking glass from Flanders as a gift. She wanted me very much.”

  Bile rose in the padre’s throat. How dare this handsome, careless wastrel speak so about a dead girl! “Do not try to shift the blame to her. You seduced her.” The priest knew too well the guilt Vázquez should feel.

  “It is an actor’s prerogative.” He said it as if it were a joke.

  Padre Junipero leapt to his feet and shook his fist. “To despoil virgins?” He fought to control his rage.

  “Oh, come now, Father. It is well-known that you priests seldom sleep within the walls of your monasteries. Perhaps you’d do better to repent for your own sins rather than scolding me for mine.”

  The padre poked his chin up sideways. “I am not that sort of priest.”

  “Ah, yes, Inez told me what a holy man you are.”

  His muscles rigid with rage, the priest stood over the seated larger man. “Inez never confessed the sin you led her into. She went to her death soiled with it.” It took all of his strength not to pummel the actor’s golden head.

  “Dead? Is she dead?” The actor gazed up at Padre Junipero with incredulous eyes.

  “Yes. She is dead.”

  The man sank back against the wall. “How? She was so young. So healthy.”

  The priest lowered his fists but kept them clenched. “That is what I am trying to find out. What do you know about her death?”

  Sebastian’s eyes went blank. “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing? You have admitted you were her lover.”

  Now Sebastian rose to his feet. He flattened himself against the wall and was silent for a second. Fear filled his eyes. Then he stood up tall. “We planned to marry.”

  The priest snorted derisively. “Ridiculous. You? A penniless bastard? Her father would never allow that.”

  “She said she could make him agree. I believed her. She was very persuasive.”

  The priest shook his head, but in his heart he too believed she might have convinced Morada. The Alcalde denied her nothing.

  “Instead, she got into an enormous argument with him. About some papers or something.”

  “Does her father know about you? Who you are?”

  Guilt and fear intensified in the actor’s face. He did not answer.

  “If her father knows you seduced his virgin daughter, he will surely kill you.” A glimmer of another idea was beginning to dawn on the horizon of Padre Junipero’s mind.

  The actor eclipsed it. “She was not a virgin when she came to me.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, Padre.”

  “I do not believe you!” the priest shouted, but he knew he would not have protested so loudly had he been perfectly sure. Then suddenly the cause of the actor’s fear dawned on him. “You killed her,” he blurted out. And having said it, he was sure it was true. “You murdered her because you were afraid she would reveal your identity to the Alcalde and cost you your life.” The priest stood up to the actor, certain he had him.

  The handsome face contorted. His mouth opened and closed. His breath quickened. He raised his powerful arms.

  The priest saw the blow coming but did not have time to avoid it before everything went black.

  Twelve

  ALONE IN THE infirmary for the first time since Sor Elena fell ill, Sor Monica peered into the vial she had confiscated from Juana’s trunk. She poked at the brown mass with a long needle. If the substance were hard, she might have thought it was a bezoar stone. It was the right color and size. Though where Juana would have gotten the money to afford such a thing, the nun could not imagine. Bezoar stones were found in the entrails of llamas and vicuñas and used as powerful medicine for the heart and as an antidote for snakebite. They were so rare that one of this size would have cost many months of Juana’s salary. She could never have afforded it. Besides, this stuff was soft and sticky, not hard like a bezoar stone.

  Sor Monica did not want to feed it to the cat.

  It probably wasn’t poison any more than the water in Inez’s carafe had been.

  She would taste it herself. Perhaps just a little to see if it had any effect.

  It was probably just another Indian herb—like coca or the gum of that tree that took away pain. Perhaps it was an intoxicant, like chicha or wine, but stronger.

  If she tasted it, she might become intoxicated herself, and that was against the rules.

  If she tasted it, she might die.

  She put it aside. Vitallina had gone out to gather the last of the garlic, onions, balm, and mint from the garden in the cloister. Monica did not want to risk dying alone.

  Tomorrow was Easter Sunday. In thirty-six hours, the Visitor General and the Inquisitor would arrive in Potosí. At dusk, the crier had called out that there was snow in the mountain passes. Perhaps Visitador Nestares and his entourage would be delayed. Perhaps the day of reckoning for Mother Maria would be postponed.

  Sor Monica spooned some yerba maté into a gourd and ladled in some boiling water. Even if the snow slowed their arrival, it would not stop it. Even if Nestares and the Inquisitor had to wait for spring, they would still come to bring the city to justice for the false money and to arrest the Mother Abbess. Sor Monica had heard of prisoners of the Holy Tribunal being kept for six, eleven, even thirteen years before they were brought to trial.

  She put a silver straw with a small strainer on the end into the gourd and swirled the yerba tea.

  She took a taper and lit three candles against the gathering gloom. They treated candles as if they were nothing in this city. Tomorrow for Easter, more wax would be burned here in a day than they burned in her home church in Sevilla in a year.

  She held up Juana’s vial to the light. She took her notebook from the shelf and a quill and ink. On a blank page, she scratched a description of the sticky brown mass. She pulled the cup of maté toward her.

  If the Inquisition indicted Maria Santa Hilda, might they also take her? As a woman, she could be accused of sorcery for curing diseases. They might confiscate the notebooks in which she had recorded the actions of almost three hundred herbs. She had found many that were useful. With what she had learned, she could cure rheumatism, gallbladder, colds, and diarrhea. Her herbs were powerless against hereditary diseases, like sickness of the heart, or diseases that had become too advanced. Still, if DaTriesta wanted to, he could make a case against her. There might even be substances on her shelves that, unknown to her, were illegal. Ordinary coca, as common as bread in Potosí, was banned in Lima. People could be excommunicated for using it.

  She dipped the pen and wrote out her own state of health and age. “Strong. A virgin. Thirty-one.”

  If the Inquisition took her, they would strip her, lash her, try to make her confess to witchcraft for the medicine she practiced. Many times she had asked Padre Junipero if it was a sin for a woman to do what she did. He always said it was not.

  Still, the Holy Tribunal had its own ideas. They might arrest her. And keep her forever. Some men were allowed to escape the Inquisition. They paid handsomely for it. They gave up all their wealth, even their identities, and became fugitives. They were allowed to disappear from the cells and then were declared dead and burned in effigy. But she had never heard of a woman doing such a thing. Where could a woman go without an identity?

  People in Spain said that the discovery of silver in Potosí was the most important event since the birth of Christ. When she came to the New World, she felt she was participating in history. Now, her role might be recorded in the annals of the Inquisition.

  She stirred the tea again to make it strong. She had used it many times to help people cast up whatever incommoded their stomachs. But would it bring up poison? Would it bring it up fast enough? If she vomited the stuff too soon, would she falsely conclude that it was not poison?

  She ought to have someone with her when she did this, to testify about the poison if she died. Inez had died very quickly, she wa
s certain of that. She had not thrashed about. She had fallen dead in a second.

  Monica took up the quill again and wrote what she was about to do, as a record for those who might find her. She could not have anyone with her in this, because no one would permit her to do what she intended. They would make her kill the cat. But trying the poison on the cat would not tell the story. Many substances acted differently on animals than they did on human beings.

  She uncorked the vial. If she ate this substance, would her soul be condemned forever for suicide? She wanted only to help her Abbess. To save the life of the holiest, most intelligent, most useful person she knew. Christ willingly gave His life. Wasn’t this similar?

  She blessed herself, hoping that it was not a sin to compare her sacrifice to the Lord’s. “God have mercy on my soul,” she wrote at the bottom of the page. She inserted a glass rod in the vial, took a bit of the substance, as much as might fill the end of a small spoon. She grasped the gourd of maté with her left hand, and with her right, she raised the glass rod and put it in her mouth.