“Forgive me, Princess, but you can’t know—”
She cut him off with harshness. “Dona Brites was under my employ for years, and she was nothing but respectful. Yet you choose to put your faith in a man who’d speak against his own mother and who isn’t even sure it was her that he saw.”
“Snakes such as her know when to play meek, and when to strike. You dismissed her for a reason, did you not?” He directed his question toward Denis, Yzabel’s input clearly undesired.
Her hands curled on the arms of her chair. They wanted to ignore her? She spoke louder, “This is nonsense.”
“It is,” Denis agreed, severe eyes on the prelates, but before Yzabel could sigh with relief, he added, “But we can’t overlook the fact that someone is sneaking through town at night and giving everyone bread, or that Matias saw a woman set fire to a house that’s his by right.” Denis stood, voice booming across the hall. “To put Dom Domingos’s suspicions to rest, we’ll ask the convent to surrender Brites to us tonight, and I will assign more patrols to the city at night in case the culprit is someone else. If the bread keeps showing while she’s under our care, we’ll know she’s innocent, and reassess our options.”
Yzabel’s breath stiffened in her nose, and her bones became stone. On the other side of the room, Matias stared at her still, the corner of his lips turned up as if to say, “Your move.” Righteous anger and determination blossomed in her chest, and she turned it all into scowling back at him.
Much as the idea of letting them lock Brites up again repulsed her, it was the simplest way to clear her name. But more guards at night meant more danger; more danger meant she’d have to be more careful. It was stopping that was out of the question. It was God’s will she carried in her heart when she gave away food, His will that let her turn flowers into bread. He would protect her from their misguided accusations, see her safely past the guards in the night, and help her clear Brites’s name.
“It’s all we ask, Your Majesty,” the Chancellor-Mor said.
After they were gone, Yzabel slid Denis a look, then leaned over to whisper, “You can’t keep throwing Brites to the dungeons every time Dom Domingos tells you to.”
“Yet you and I both know she is a witch of the Caraju.” Denis returned her side glare, suspicion unwavering. “If she’s innocent, you have nothing to worry about.”
Yzabel kept her teeth pressed together as she leaned back on her chair. “It’s disappointment I’m feeling, because you had a chance to put them in their place and didn’t.”
“What would you have had me do? Someone is giving away all that food, and at least this way, we’ll know for sure if it’s Brites.”
“Even if it were her! The bread is an act of kindness, and kindness isn’t witchcraft, Denis.” Yzabel crossed her arms over her chest, frustrated at the little sway she had in this matter. As the saint who left loaves of bread for the poor, she was one person, with that same reach. The saint only had enough influence to be in one place, at one time. But as Portugal’s future queen, Yzabel’s reach was that of a country. And she’d given enough to Denis to be able to make another demand now. One she could use to both help the country, and clear Brites’s name.
“If you’re so concerned about it, perhaps it’s time to reconsider my proposal to have a charity day every Sunday.”
Denis grabbed the boar leg on his plate and took his teeth to the tender flesh around it. “Back to this, are we?”
Yzabel regarded the food displayed around the long tables with a critical eye. “How much of this lunch is going to waste?”
“That isn’t your concern.”
“It is. So many people are starving while waiting for the next harvest, and we waste. So. Much.”
“I thought you were over meaningless charity.”
That offended her worse than any witch rumor. “Charity is not meaningless, and I will never cease thinking of ways to help those who need it. I will inherit your responsibilities when we marry; that means I’ll inherit your people, too. I will be damned if I stop my endeavors when it gets hard.”
Denis massaged the thin bridge of his nose. “Our responsibility is that we rule fairly. Nothing else.”
“By the Lord, can you not hear the privilege in your tone?” The anger boiled her insides, screaming the one way to extinguish it. Her lack of control drew the uneasy stares of nearby servants and lords.
Denis’s face turned stern, as hard as granite. “Calm down.”
“I will calm down when you listen to what I have to propose with an open mind.”
Shaking his head, Denis took a drink from his wine goblet, bringing it down hard on the table when he finished. His jaw trembled, and Yzabel feared she’d provoked his temper—but he breathed out and looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Mention allocating money and this conversation is over.”
“There are no dinheiros involved.” When her fury didn’t subside on its own, Yzabel swallowed it. She gestured about the table again. “Look. Look at how much is going to waste every day from this table alone.”
“It’s not all going to—”
“Yes, some of it goes to the hounds. But so do the servants’ leftovers. And the guards’. The hounds eat well enough. The people, however, do not. I don’t propose we give them money to eat. You’re against that, and I understand your reasons. But Denis…if it’s food we’re going to throw out, why not give it to those who don’t have any? We’ll alleviate their burdens without spending anything. Same thing about clothes we don’t use. If we get everyone of means, every prelate to participate, don’t you think there’s much to gain? Just once a week, Denis, on the Lord’s day of rest, we do what He bade us to. We help our neighbors.”
A scowl settled on Denis’s face, but it was thoughtful rather than angry. “There’s some logic to what you’re saying,” he conceded. “It’s true we enjoy a surplus of resources. But you forget something—the Portuguese are a proud people. Do you believe they would accept leftovers? Wouldn’t they think we’re patronizing them?”
“Look at the other boar shank you didn’t touch. Look at the meat on it. Why would anyone turn that away? Why would they object to their king sharing from his table?” Her tone turned placating. “This would lessen the impact of the mysterious bread. If your subjects can rely on you once a week, they might no longer need the so-called witch.”
Brown eyes stayed on her, unwavering and unreadable. “Fine.”
She shouldn’t be so grateful, but she was. On an impulse and much to his wide-eyed surprise, she kissed his cheek and the red beard he insisted on growing. “Thank you. I’ll coordinate with the churches and the castle’s governess.”
It was small, but it was progress. And more importantly, it was progress she could use not just to help Brites, but the entire city.
…
After breaking fast together shortly after Court adjourned, Denis took Yusef and the rest of the Guarda Real to the barracks so they could organize the new patrols going out at night, as well as the several to be posted around the convent. Yzabel left the Great Hall to search for Faty, worried she hadn’t seen her since the morning, fearing she’d been caught. That concern wasn’t very long lived, for as soon as she ventured into one of the cold stone corridors, a hand pulled her into an alcove.
It took only a touch for her to recognize to whom it belonged. Faty, safe in her disguise. “You scared me,” Yzabel blurted out, hand on her chest. “Did you run into any trouble?”
“No. Did you?” Faty asked back in her masked voice.
“Yusef came to get me after you left. Did you hear what they said? What Denis is going to do?”
A quick nod. “Listen, Yza. I’m going to find out more about these night patrols.” Fatyan kept her tone a hushed whisper. “You need to go someplace where you won’t be alone. The more eyes around you, the better.” A reassuring touch to Yzabel’s upper arm
. “I’ll come get you once I know enough.”
Thus, Yzabel retired to the sewing room with Lucas, and found it already overflowing with gossip and embroidery. She barely had time to pick up her kit from the corner when talk of the bread started, and she wasn’t even in her seat when it turned derogatory.
“I’ve told my maids not to eat it,” Lady Violeta said without looking up from her cross-stitch of a hunting scene. “I’ll not have servants who eat the Devil’s food!”
Yzabel stabbed downward with her needle. This discussion followed her wherever she went, spreading like a sickness. “Perhaps if you paid them more, they wouldn’t have need to eat the Devil’s food,” she said.
“My princess! Surely someone devout as you must realize there’s devilish sorcery involved!”
She kept her face blank, but anger seeped along the edges of her tone. “I didn’t take the Devil to be charitable.”
“It’s how he gets you,” Lady Graciete said, jumping to Violeta’s aid. “With promises of salvation that are nothing but a sentence to eternal doom.”
Blood spread, a red flower on the aida cloth, and Yzabel realized she’d pierced her finger. She sucked on it, letting the metallic taste spread on her tongue.
Lips pressed together, Yzabel kept quiet while she waited for Faty to come back, thoughts raging a nebulous cloud over her head. She couldn’t stop her nightly escapades because of fear, or because others thought it foul play. The gifts she had waiting for her on doorsteps told her enough about the situation. It was the powerful who were afraid, and with their hold on the land weakened, they resorted to baseless accusations. A sign her efforts were paying off.
How could she stop now?
When Faty reappeared in her castle maid disguise a couple of hours later, Yzabel was about ready to burst. As she stood, she dragged her grumpy chair across the Arraiolos rug underneath her. “Excuse me. I have other business to attend to.”
Yzabel left the murmurs of “Our princess and her tender sensibilities” behind. Fatyan followed her as she stormed all the way back to her chambers and waited until they were inside with the door locked to shed the fake skin and say, “You can’t go out tonight.”
“If I don’t, they will see it as proof that it was Brites.” Yzabel slumped on the bed, Lucas climbing at her side. “All I can do is make sure the bread keeps showing. If not during the night, then during the day.”
“And get caught yourself?” Fatyan asked with a raised brow. “I heard Yusef asking Denis to join the Guarda Noturna, and he was so insistent on it—because he has to catch the witch himself—Denis agreed. He won’t be here at night anymore.” She tilted her chin toward Lucas. “That is a good wolf-bear-thing you have, but it can’t stop Yusef for long. Neither can you.”
Yzabel shook her head. “I must. If not at night, then during the day, somehow. Denis is letting me arrange a weekly charity day with the church, so I could—”
“Amazing. He’s letting you be charitable once a week,” Faty interrupted with the dryness of sand. “At least your relationship has improved to the point he’s not locking you in your rooms.”
“He’s not as bad as he first appeared.” Yzabel sat up and Lucas took the chance to place his head on her lap for continued attention. “He asked for my help in running the country. I’m glad to oblige.”
“And yet, you’re still afraid to tell him about the sahar,” Fatyan pointed out in a cold whisper. “He won’t be in the dark about it for long if you don’t change your plan. Forget being caught by the patrols, or Yusef telling him—what would’ve happened if he’d come to you in the night and you weren’t here?”
Yzabel lowered her eyes, embarrassment heating her face. “I, um…went to him first. The second night he retired before I had to.”
Footsteps shuffled on the stone floor. Then, too innocently, “Did it hurt?”
The question scratched at her heart, and Yzabel remembered the moments shared with her betrothed and their disastrous finish.
Fatyan’s sigh broke the silence in the room. “I’m sorry. That was mean of me,” she said, moving to add more wood to the fire the servants had lit in the hearth while Yzabel had been away. “I shouldn’t have—”
“I couldn’t go through with it,” she blurted at the same time. Fatyan halted. Yzabel’s confession didn’t, spilling out of her lips in frantic, broken syllables. “He-he has hair all over. On his shoulders, his back, his front—no matter where I put my lips, I’d catch a mouthful. His beard scraped, his f-fingers were rough, and I told myself to lie still, let him do whatever it was he needed to do. His tongue was down my throat, and I kept squirming, so I closed my eyes.” Tears had begun to fall, hitting her skirts in wet plops. “Then all I could think about was you, and how unnatural it was to want you. I hated myself for it, was so ashamed of it, that he stopped.
“I betrayed my engagement in Terra da Moura, and I did it again in my head when I was with the man I’ll be married to. That’s when I realized I was different. Something I never would have known had I not met you, had you not…” Yzabel refilled her lungs with a deep inhalation. “There wasn’t a day I didn’t miss you, a day I didn’t regret how I reacted, a day I didn’t wish for you, a day where I didn’t remember all the things I felt with you, and how everything else pales in comparison.”
Quietude descended. Yzabel lifted her aching eyes to Faty, who stood with her parted lips shivering, thick black hair gleaming gold in the vagrant daylight. Looking at her, being with her, brought that quivering feeling back to her stomach and farther below, that grip squeezing around her heart, the memories of kisses and touches that she wanted to relieve so desperately.
“Was he angry?” Fatyan asked at last, concern deep in her voice. “When you couldn’t, you know…”
A shake of the head. “No. He said we wouldn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to. That he can always legitimize his bastards if we have no children.” Heat spread across her cheeks. “He was very understanding, considering.”
“Huh.” Fatyan blinked rapidly, but the genuine surprise was quickly replaced by a scowl. “And you still didn’t tell him that you can make food out of flowers?”
“You saw how he was in Terra da Moura when Brites used the Caraju.” Yzabel shook her head and gave a small shrug. “Why wouldn’t he act the same way toward me?”
“You won’t know unless you tell him.” Fatyan’s footsteps pounded, ever closer as she crossed the room. “This is one large frog for me to swallow, but…I might have slightly misjudged your husband-to-be.” She knelt before the bed and took Yzabel’s free hand. “But let’s put that aside for now. It’s Yusef who’s the real danger, and he thinks he has you trapped.” A mischievous smile curved her full lips. “Let’s find a way to trap him.”
Yzabel worried her lip as she considered it, and for the next couple of hours, she and Faty went back and forth on how to end Yusef’s threat once and for all while keeping Yzabel safe and the suspicion off Brites. The details Yzabel obsessed over were nothing but pebbles in Faty’s thinking, easily overcome or brushed aside, and when Yzabel would stick to proven tradition, Faty sought alternatives for improvement. They balanced each other nicely, virtues complementing each other’s faults.
Faty made her work better, in a different, yet similar to the way Yzabel made Denis’s work better.
Alone and her way, it wouldn’t be long until Yzabel either broke from exhaustion or was caught. But with Faty’s help, and her perspective, Yzabel felt like she could not only feed one city, but the entire nation as well.
If the convent helped. If Yusef didn’t see through their trap. If Denis was the person she thought he was. And at the end, one reckless leap of faith.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Last Gamble
After the six o’clock mass in the Church of São Francisco, Yzabel stayed behind to talk to Padre Augusto about her plans for
São Martinho in a couple of weeks. The castle would be opening its doors for the commoners to share agua-pé and roasted chestnuts with them; the churches would be providing bread and ingredients for soups to be given to anyone who asked. She was trying to make it a weekly custom and hoped Estremoz would prove a successful experiment, and then she could see it implemented across the country.
She parted from the Padre with a kiss on the cheek, then went to the convent next door while Grand Prior António—whom Denis had assigned to her when he shuffled Yusef in with the added night patrols—followed close behind. The empty vestibule greeted her with ominous silence. Behind the bars in the middle of the door, no sister waited with her knitting. Frowning, Yzabel tugged on the bell’s cord, ringing it thrice, tapping her foot while she waited for someone to come, then pacing around the room when no one did.
She rung the bell again—some long moments later, a younger nun who introduced herself as Fabiana emerged on the other side of the bars. “I’m sorry, Your Highness,” she said as she rushed to unlock the door. “It’s been a most trying day. The prelates and the king demanded we give them Sister Brites; they said her induction had been illegal, and that by harboring a witch among us, we risked not only eternal damnation, but condemnation of these very walls.”
“I know.” Yzabel noted the sister’s red-rimmed eyes, her blotchy complexion. “That’s why I came. To help clear Brites’s name.”
The other woman sniffed. “Sister Zaida will be glad to hear it. She hasn’t stopped crying.”
Zaida. That was Brites’s Enchanted Moura. “Can you take me to her?”
“Yes, of course.” Sister Fabiana wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Follow me.”
The nun took her to the same room where Brites had taken Yzabel the night before. A circle of sisters gathered close to the fire, all clad in different forms of grief.
“Sisters,” Fabiana called. “The princess is here.”
A Curse of Roses Page 26