by Shirl Henke
“And you have also hated your father for deserting you. Is it easier to do so knowing now that Aaron Torres is descended from Jews?” Isaac watched Rigo, waiting patiently for a reaction.
Rigo shrugged rather too carelessly, then replied, “When my ministering angel, the lady doctor, first told me my Spanish blood was also Jewish blood, I felt it a great joke, but life has played many pranks on me and I have yet survived. I care not whether Aaron Torres is Jew or Christian, only that he spawned a bastard on a savage and walked away.”
Isaac could feel the pain behind the icy words. He nodded, satisfied that his family faced no threat from the Holy Office. As to the unsettling influence this embittered young man would have on them... “I was right to caution Benjamin concerning you. You will sow discord everywhere you go. Twould have been better if he and Miriam had not been able to save your life!”
Chapter Four
Judah Toulon sat in the accounting quarters that served as his personal audience chamber. Dark furniture from far Cathay lavishly carved with mystical snakes and dragons filled the large room, giving it an aura of menace combined oddly with opulence. The wall tapestries and window hangings were also Oriental, mostly Turkish, in dark, rich hues of purple, indigo and blood red. A massive bronze candelabra gave off flickering light against the dark night as the merchant studied his younger visitor.
Richard DuBay felt suffocated by the sickly sweet smell of incense. Judah's hooded black eyes, as inscrutable as any Mussulman's, added to his discomfort. He resisted the urge to squirm as he studied his own handsomely bejeweled hands. Finally, when Toulon's Christian servant had poured them wine and then departed, he broke the silence. “You know I have desired this alliance for some years. But Miriam is nearly twenty-four years old and the bloom of maidenly youth has been spent while you indulged her in the insanity of practicing medicine. You know I do not approve of that. She has wasted enough precious childbearing years. If we agree to a betrothal, I want the marriage celebrated quickly, and she must devote herself to my home and hearth.”
Judah smiled ever so slightly. “Well spoken. I have come to regret my decision to send her to Padua—not because she has become a physician, but because of the way events have turned with Benjamin Torres.”
Richard's spine stiffened. “You made a grave error allowing the betrothal with the son of a Marrano. Why have you changed your mind now?” He waited, angry at the way Judah was playing with him, but afraid to overstep his bounds.
“I did not change my mind. As to his father being a converso, here in Marseilles Benjamin is as much a Jew as you or I. Tis his accursed desire to return to the Spanish colonies that has brought me to this pass. I will not see my only child endangered and neither she nor I can sway him from his course. So I must act. You are suitable for Miriam.” Judah studied his prospective son-in-law, hiding his dislike of the greedy DuBay, whose fortunes were decidedly on the wane.
DuBay stood up, shoving the red brocade chair back. He was barely of a height with Miriam and shorter than her father. Both men bowed and the younger spoke. “Very good. When may we announce the betrothal?”
Judah waved the question aside, saying, “First I must speak with Isaac Torres. Since Benjamin and Miriam have been pledged for so long, courtesy demands that we break off that verbal agreement first. I will be in touch, Richard, never fear.”
After DuBay departed, Judah sat alone in his accounting chamber as the candles flickered low. The tables were stacked with neatly rolled parchments and ledgers filled with figures. He had devoted his life to amassing a fortune to equal Solomon's. How he and Rachel had wanted children to inherit all of his vast empire. Yet God had blessed them with only one child, Miriam.
In addition to being unable to carry on her father's commercial ventures by virtue of her sex, she was also intent on being a physician. Yet he could deny her nothing and he would yet achieve his ends. All he had, and all the House of Torres had would one day be bestowed on Miriam and Benjamin. But first he had to keep that young fool from throwing away everything. “You may send your dusky Christian brother back to Española, Benjamin, but you will wed my daughter and I will keep you here.” He stroked his iron-gray beard and looked at the shelves of shipping invoices as the darkness thickened around him.
* * * *
Benjamin's face paled as he listened to Isaac's words. “He can not do this! Miriam would never agree.”
“It seems she will have little to say in the matter,” Isaac replied, wondering if that were true but testing the waters with his nephew.
“That is absurd! If Judah gave her leave to journey across the Alps to the finest medical school in Europe, he will scarce force her to wed against her will. DuBay is old enough to be her father and a fortune-hunting prig in the bargain,” Benjamin added with contempt.
“Richard DuBay is from a fine old family, he is but two and forty years, and he is well thought of by our rabbi. He first asked for her hand when she came of age,” Isaac temporized.
“And when she refused him, he wed a rich widow. Now that she is conveniently deceased, the man importunes Judah again,” Benjamin said angrily.
“Only because you and Miriam cannot agree on the terms of your betrothal. You are eight and twenty, she a scant four years younger. Tis far past time you were wed, yet you wrangle over leaving the safety of Provence for the dangers of an ocean voyage into the waiting arms of Spanish inquisitors. Why not light the fagot for her pyre yourself?” Isaac snapped, his patience at an end.
Benjamin ran one hand through his curly gold hair and shook his head. “Tis not as you and she believe. I have regular communication with my parents. If it were dangerous to bring Miriam home, they would never ask it. She would be happy there. Tis here she will be miserable, for that snake DuBay will never let her practice medicine.”
“Then you settle it with Miriam. Either the two of you come to terms, or Judah will act in what he believes are the best interests of his daughter. He has given her much freedom. Mayhap now he counts the cost of giving in to her desires too dear.”
“I will call on her this afternoon. If I cannot convince her to live on Española, I will at least take my brother home and then return to live with her here,” Benjamin said unhappily.
“If so, we could announce the betrothal within a fortnight,” Isaac replied, resisting the urge to rub his hands in glee. Judah, you old schemer, tis working!
* * * *
Rigo sat by the edge of the pool with his long legs propped up on a pile of cushions, paring an apple and eating it. Benjamin shed his doublet, then stripped off his shoes and hose. As he pulled the loose white tunic over his head and tossed it beside his other garments on the floor, Rigo was once again amazed. But for coloring, even the patterns of hair on their bodies, the shape and contours of their bones and muscles, everything was identical. Well, not quite everything, he amended to himself with a crooked grin. He was not circumcised.
Over the past month of Rigo's remarkable recovery the two estranged brothers had become fast friends, sharing time together as much as could be allowed owing to Benjamin's busy schedule and the restrictions on Rigo's physical activities. Often when Benjamin came home from making calls on patients, he took a bath in the large tile-lined pool on the first floor of the Torres mansion. It was of Moorish design, a magnificent circle twenty feet in diameter. Benjamin had grown up sharing public bathing with his father and brothers in the streams of Española. Here he had often joined his uncle or male cousins in a refreshing ablution. Now he invited Rigo here so they might talk in private before the family gathering for the evening meal.
“What are you grinning at, you jackanapes,” Benjamin asked fondly.
“Did that, er, alteration of your private parts pain you much?” he asked with a chuckle, still amazed that the stories he had heard about how Jews mutilated their bodies were true. The first time he had seen Benjamin naked he had been horrified. Now he felt comfortable enough to ask.
“Since I was but a w
eek or so old, I know not,” he replied as he slid over the edge of the smooth blue and green tiles and submerged himself in the warm water.
Rigo, having finished his apple, quickly stripped off his robe and joined Benjamin in the pool, still favoring his side slightly. “If your mother is Christian and you were born in the wilds of the jungle, why were you subjected to that barbarity?”
“Here tis a religious injunction, but as my grandfather and many other learned physicians have observed over the centuries, many Jewish religious prescriptions are also health precautions. One of the residents of our hato is a converso who learned how to perform circumcisions. My mother raised no objection to it. My family has always abstained from pork, not for religious taboo but because in hot climates it engenders worms that cause illnesses. Shellfish, if they are not consumed immediately after being caught and cooked, can be lethal as any poison.” He shrugged. “I do not know if this is some favor God granted Jewish lawgivers, or if tis but common sense and simple respect for the human body.”
“Bathing, washing the hands before eating, even dietary laws, such I can comprehend, but carving on my manhood!” Rigo shuddered even thinking of it.
Benjamin's laugh echoed atop the vaulted ceiling of the men's bath chamber. “If ever you become infected and swell from a discharge caught beneath that treasured bit of skin, I can assure you, you will change your opinion very quickly and part with it!”
“I shall endeavor to keep very, very clean,” Rigo vowed grimly. “Ah, the warm water does relax the tightly drawn skin healing about the wound.” He lay his head back against the rim of the pool and closed his eyes.
Benjamin watched his brother. You will talk of so many things, yet this is the nearest you have ever come to asking about our father. “I wrote to Papa when first I found you. He should be receiving the letter by now, barring bad weather or corsairs.”
Rigo's expression darkened. “I suppose he will be overjoyed to hear I might come to claim my birthright,” he said bitterly.
“Yes, he will be overjoyed. So will my mother and our sisters and brothers. They have heard much of Navaro, their lost elder brother. Yet you say only that you ‘might’ claim your birthright. Twill break their hearts if you refuse. What holds you here? You owe no allegiance to King Carlos any more than I do to King Francois.”
“I do owe my loyalty to Pescara. Tis for him I fight—and for myself. He has rewarded a half-caste bastard with handsome promotions and much spoils. I have learned to live well by my sword, Benjamin.”
“So I could see by all the scars you bear. You very nearly did not live at all and likely would not have if Miriam had not tended you as she did,” Benjamin said, still disturbed by her reaction to Rigo.
Wishing to shift the subject from their father and any plan to return to Española, Rigo seized upon the mention of Miriam. “I have not seen my lady doctoress in many a day. Now that I am recovered, is she afraid of me?” he asked, suspecting she might be avoiding him.
“Miriam fears no one, Rigo, not even you.” Benjamin's face grew wary yet his eyes betrayed great unhappiness. “We have quarreled again over returning to Española. Like you, she is loathe to go. Only this morning I learned from Uncle Isaac that her father wants to break our betrothal and wed her to another merchant here in Marseilles.”
Rigo paused in his ablution and looked keenly at his brother. “And what says the lady to that? I find it difficult to believe she will meekly wed a man she has not chosen.”
Benjamin sighed, then ducked beneath the water, rinsed his hair and rose, sending water flying everywhere as he shook his head. “I do not know what she wills. I do not think Miriam knows what she wills. I...I did a foolish thing in giving her an ultimatum—go to Española with me else I sail without you.” He smiled sadly. “Perhaps, if you decide to return to Italy, I shall be sailing home alone.”
“Española must be paradise to you if you would forsake Miriam whom you love so well, and all the wealth and privilege of this,” Rigo said, trying to understand this enigma who was his brother. “Even your medical practice is here.”
“Yes, but there is so much more need for my skills—and Miriam's—on Española. The Tainos are being decimated by our simplest maladies. There are few surgeons or physicians in the new world, and none will treat Indians, or even the whites on Father's hato. Tis a small kingdom, Rigo. Our family and many of Guacanagari's people as well as other colonists banded together to live away from the strife, far in the interior.”
“I heard there were rebellions over the misrule of the Colon family,” Rigo said, echoing gossip from the Seville waterfront.
“The Colons did not misrule. They were hated by the Castilians for being Genoese. But the problems were great and the factions of Spaniards many—hidalgos from Castile, sailors from Catalonia, even a haughty Argonese courtier or two, each thinking to gain gold and return to Spain in glory.”
“Now they have moved on to Mexico and are growing rich with Hernán Cortez. I have considered doing that, seeking out the golden Aztec cities,” Rigo said as a new thought crossed his mind.
As if intuiting it, Benjamin said softly, “You could return to Española with me and meet your family. Then, if you could not make peace with Papa...well, taking ship for Havana and thence to the mainland would be easy enough.”
Rigo shrugged, pushing the matter to the back of his mind as he turned his attention to the brother he had grown to love. “Let that be for now. What will you do to win your doctoress? You are obviously smitten with her, although I cannot see why.”
Benjamin rose to the bait. “Miriam is lovely, just not conventional.”
“I agree. She dresses drab and plain as a nun. She told me wearing a farthingale would interfere with her work!”
“Ah, but she has silver gray eyes and bronze hair,” Benjamin rhapsodized.
“She is too tall.”
“Not for me. The Torres men are all well favored with height.”
“She is too outspoken and knows not the proper place of a female.”
“That I appreciate above all. Her mind, quick, keen and compassionate.”
“I would rather have passion than compassion in a woman,” Rigo said with asperity.
“For a casual bedding, perhaps, but in a wife, no. I know Christian marriage vows are often broken by men who keep mistresses. Tis not in favor with Jews, who must cleave to their wives alone. Much better to find one whose companionship you can enjoy after the bedding is done. Miriam and I share our work. We have common interests.”
Rigo rolled his eyes heavenward. “Then I think you should lay your earnest suit before this paragon lest she deign to wed her father's unworthy second choice.”
Benjamin climbed gracefully from the pool and seized a length of towel. As he rubbed himself dry he said, “You could not be more right. I know we are meant to share our lives. I promised Uncle Isaac I would settle it with her this afternoon.” He left the chamber whistling.
Rigo laid his head back against the cool tile once more, his thoughts returning to the week past, like a tongue worrying a sore tooth. The things he had said to draw out Benjamin's feelings about Miriam did not reflect his true opinion. He found himself attracted to his brother's beloved and was most distressed about the fact. He prayed Benjamin had not noted it.
The events by the courtyard fountain replayed themselves in his mind once more. He had been on one of his first excursions outdoors, sitting in the garden beneath a gnarled olive tree whose scanty branches allowed the warmth of noonday sun to soothe his aching wound. Dozing fitfully, he was awakened by a rustling sound, followed by a sharp intake of breath, as if someone was in pain. Sharp survival instincts caused him to come immediately awake and rise noiselessly behind the meager shelter of the tree to peer at the intruder.
A slow smile had spread across his face as he recognized the gleaming bronze mantle of Miriam's hair falling across her shoulders. She was kneeling in the middle of the flower beds between several large rose bushe
s, a basket of scarlet and pink blossoms by her side. Her finger was caught between those soft pink lips. The delicate tip of her tongue darted out to lap a droplet of blood. Rigo felt his body heat climb and knew it was not the sun that caused the sensation but the woman.
He leaned one shoulder casually against the tree trunk and said, ”A clumsy thing for a surgeon, pricking such nimble fingers on a rose thorn. Best take care lest you be unable to stitch another patient.”
Miriam whirled on her knees at the sound of that mocking voice, bumping the basket so the flowers spilled out. She looked up at the tall, slim man whose dark figure was silhouetted by the sun, feeling at a distinct disadvantage, dusty and disheveled before her nemesis. Removing her injured finger from her mouth, she said waspishly, “A rose prick will scarce impair my skills as a surgeon. You seem well recovered. What are you doing spying on me—and dressed in Benjamin's clothes?” The rich burgundy doublet with its azure-slashed sleeves fit his lean muscular frame as if made for him. So did the hose. She felt her face flame as she realized that her eyes had involuntarily paused at his codpiece for an instant—an instant he recognized.
Rigo chuckled at her discomfiture. So tart and aloof one moment, like the spinster she was becoming, then appealingly vulnerable the next. “My brother and I are of a size, tis all too obvious, is it not? Benjamin lent me his clothing since all I brought on campaign were rude soldiers garments and armor.” He appeared to consider for a moment, then added, “Mayhap the armor would have been a good precaution. You look ready to attack me with your rose knife, my lady.” She dropped the knife into the basket as Rigo strolled from the tree to where she sat and knelt beside her.
Careful to avoid the thorns, he quickly put her blooms back into the basket, then stood up, holding the prize as he offered his hand to her.