I went towards the house. ‘Show me,’ I said, ‘where you found my papa’s body.’
As Garci took me inside the building, an overwhelming sadness came over me. So many happy days of my youth had been spent here. And now my mama and papa and our beautiful house were all gone.
Garci pointed to the foot of the staircase. ‘Your father lay there.’
Through my tears I asked Garci how he thought Papa had died.
‘It would have been very quick,’ he assured me. ‘He’d not been beaten, nor stabbed, nor run through with a sword. The doctor examined him and concluded that he’d had a heart attack. Your papa told no one, but I knew he’d been having chest pains off and on for over a year.’ Garci paused, and then added, ‘Since your mama died.’
So Papa had suffered grief just as I had. His death seemed to bring me closer to him. Yet he had married again so quickly. As that thought came to me, I asked Garci, ‘There was only one body found?’
‘Yes.’
‘So . . . what of Lorena?’
‘We think she got out of the house and went towards the barn. Ardelia is sure she heard someone running past her window, screaming, just before the barn blew up. Lorena must have been caught in the explosion, and such was the intensity, nothing of her would remain.’
I cringed inside when I thought of Lorena’s end. She’d died horribly, in absolute terror. Though I’d disliked her, I wouldn’t have wished such a fate upon her, nor upon the innocent child who would have died as she perished.
‘Was her baby not due to be born soon?’
‘Within weeks, yes.’
She must be dead. What other alternative was there? A gang of robbers wouldn’t kidnap a heavily pregnant woman.
‘Tell me the circumstances in the house before these men arrived.’
‘Your stepmother, Lorena, had retired for the night. She was increasingly tired. These last few days she’d been unwell and restless. Although the birthing date is weeks away, Ardelia said that she thought the baby was stirring, getting ready to be born. Lorena had gone to bed. Your father was sitting in his study reading through some papers. Recently he’d been spending a lot of time sorting out financial documents. The lamps and candles were lit. I brought him a glass of wine and bade him goodnight, leaving him to lock up the house from the inside as he always did. I walked the perimeter as usual. All was quiet, nothing amiss. I let the dogs into the yard, ate my own meal with Serafina, and we went to bed. Most everyone else was sleeping. Ardelia and Lorena’s maid, who share a room, were awake, gossiping together, but then they too fell asleep. The first noise we heard was the explosion, although Ardelia thinks she awoke moments earlier when she heard Lorena screaming.’
I walked through the hall and what remained of the kitchen and dining room. This was not the work of some random band of marauders. None of the paintings or silk hangings had been taken; neither had the plate or any household valuables been touched.
In the study I stood by the charred remains of the desk and I thought of my papa. I imagined him confronted by these men. He would not have submitted easily to their demands or threats.
Proud and disdainful, Papa would have done everything he could to protect Lorena and his unborn child. I glanced upward. Had she heard the disturbance and come down to see what was happening? Had Papa managed to shout a warning to her? He was an honourable man. He would have done that. Even if he’d died in the attempt.
I walked slowly back to the foot of the stairs. This was where he had fallen. He must have run here and died trying to protect his family. And Lorena, hearing him call out, would have come to the top landing. I imagined her looking down at these robbers. My father shouting to her, ordering her to barricade herself in her room.
I made to mount the stairs.
Behind me Garci said, ‘The steps are unsafe.’
‘I want to reach the upper floor,’ I told him.
He fetched a ladder and helped me clamber up. The floorboards cracked under our feet.
‘You must not go to the upstairs sitting room,’ he advised me.
That room had been my mother’s sitting room, the one that Lorena had taken over to entertain her guests at those foolish little parties she’d hosted.
The main bedroom was to the right and the floorboards were more sound there. The fire hadn’t reached here: the only damage had been done by smoke. The door was ajar, the bedclothes in disarray. Lorena hadn’t shut herself in. I examined the door panelling. There was no axe mark, no dent in the wood. On the dressing table lay an open box of jewellery. I ran my fingers through the soot-blackened beads.
Set against human life, how trivial and worthless these things were.
I gazed around me, thinking. If she hadn’t hidden in here, had Lorena tried to escape via the window? The casement was shut and locked. I sighed and leaned against the glass. Garci was right: she must have run out in the direction of the barn and perished in the explosion.
I looked outside. The view from this room was towards the paddock, the barn and the forest. Behind the road that lay beyond our back gate were the trees, both deciduous and evergreen. I recalled the walks Mama and I had taken there; the stories she’d told me of wolves and goblins. She’d warned me not to wander across the road to play on my own and never to go there at night. But Lorena hadn’t heard those tales. If my father had called out to warn her that they were under attack, perhaps she’d contrived to evade these men. If she’d managed to escape the house, then the forest wouldn’t appear a place of dread, it would be a place of refuge.
I turned and walked quickly from the room. ‘Saddle me a horse, Garci,’ I said. ‘I am going into the forest.’
Chapter Thirty-one
Zarita
WE FOUND LORENA very easily.
She was half lying against a tree trunk not far into the forest. Her nightgown was blackened and torn, her hair and one side of her face burned. I dismounted, and Garci held the reins while I went forward and knelt beside her. Lorena shrank away from me. Evening shadows were settling in the undergrowth. With the light behind me I suppose I looked like a menacing man approaching her.
‘Don’t fear, Lorena,’ I told her. ‘It is I, Zarita. Garci is here too. We have come to help you.’
‘The men,’ she said. ‘There are men in the house.’
‘They’ve gone,’ I assured her. I knelt down. ‘Where are you hurt?’
‘I came into the forest,’ she rambled feverishly. ‘I tried to hide. Is he dead, your father? It’s not my fault. He shouted to warn me. I begged for mercy. I thought the man was going to kill me but he let me go. I didn’t go far into the forest. I was afraid.’
‘It’s all right now,’ I said. ‘They’ve gone.’
Lorena groaned as she tried to rise, and fell back.
I put my arm under her shoulder. ‘Is your ankle broken? Your leg?’
‘The baby’ – she pointed to her stomach – ‘it’s earlier than it should be but I think the baby is coming.’
Garci ran back to find a cart while I tried to help Lorena sit up. She dug her nails into my arm and got herself halfway there, but then twisted round to kneel on all fours. She gasped. ‘There is something wrong. I’ve had these contractions for hours and the child does not move to begin its passage out of my body.’
‘My mama was in labour for two days and a night,’ I said.
‘I don’t want to hear about your mama!’ she said spitefully. ‘Tell me what is left of the house. Anything to take my mind off this pain.’
‘The house is . . . damaged.’
‘And my husband? Is he dead?’
‘My papa is . . .’ I hesitated. The promise I’d made as a novice to show charity in all things came into my mind and I tried to speak gently. ‘I am sorry to tell you that your husband is dead.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I saw him fall. He tried to warn me.’
Ah, so I had been right! Papa’s last act had been a noble one.
‘And I ran downstairs
to him.’ Lorena began to cry in a piteous manner.
‘You were brave,’ I soothed her.
‘He called on me to barricade myself in my room.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘Papa was trying to protect you and his unborn child.’
Lorena gave me a bitter smile. She looked as though she were about to say something, but just then Garci returned with Ardelia and Serafina. We manhandled Lorena into the cart and transported her, moaning, as fast as we could to the convent hospital.
Sister Maddalena took charge, pushing both my aunt and me from the room. ‘Make some infusion of raspberry,’ she said. ‘It helps a birth. Go on. To the kitchen with both of you. I’ll put a salve on her burns and prepare her for her childbed.’
Within minutes Maddalena joined us in the convent kitchen, her face serious. ‘The baby is lying across her belly,’ she said. ‘Also Lorena has begun to bleed heavily. It requires more skill than I have to deliver this child safely.’
‘Let us send for a doctor,’ I suggested.
‘We treat Plague victims and the dockside women who acquire various diseases through association with infected clients,’ Sister Maddalena informed me. ‘The town doctor will not come here.’
‘What can we do?’
‘I don’t know,’ my aunt replied.
‘Then who does know?’ I asked.
‘No one.’ Sister Maddalena blessed herself. ‘If it is God’s will—’
‘It is not God’s will that a mother and a child should die!’ I shouted. ‘I cannot and will not believe that.’
‘Hush, Zarita.’ My aunt laid her hand on my arm. ‘What you say sounds like blasphemy.’
I shook off her hand. ‘It cannot be the first time that this kind of thing has occurred. There must be someone who knows something more than we do about the complications of childbirth.’
The vivid recollections of Mama’s death were searing through me like labour pains of my own. Every time Lorena cried out, I heard again my own mother doing the same as she birthed the son who’d died. Even though it was nearly eighteen months ago, I vividly remembered how raw fear had fastened a hold on my mind. It was part of the reason I’d sent a message to Ramón to come and escort me to the church to light a candle. Cowardice had propelled me away from the house. When I thought of the events of that day, I regretted what I’d done. Had Mama asked for me as she lay dying, and I hadn’t been there?
I pressed my fingers to my temples. This mode of thinking was useless. I knew from past experience that it brought my mind down in a spiral of self-pity and defeated my spirit. I scolded myself – my time in the convent among the constant selfless acts of the sisters had helped me mature. I could not countenance internal self-absorption. I would not allow myself to think in this way.
‘Someone must have skills that we do not have,’ I declared.
Apart from the fat town doctor, what other doctors did I know? Only the one.
I ran to get my outdoor cloak from its hook in the hall, calling over my shoulder as I went, ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can. And I will bring a doctor with me.’
Chapter Thirty-two
Saulo
I DIDN’T LOOK back to watch the burning house of the magistrate, Don Vicente Alonso.
When I reached the main highway I rode away from Las Conchas, all that night and most of the next day. Eventually complete exhaustion forced me to find an inn. I paid for a room and fell fully-clothed onto the bed, where I slept until I came to with a fierce headache and pangs in my stomach.
It was dark outside. I had no idea where I was or whether the hour was early or late. I’d dreamed that I was at sea, up to my neck in water on a sinking ship . . .
The bloated faces of drowned sailors drift past me. One of them is Jean-Luc; his mouth is open, crying for succour. But I can hear nothing. Above my head, the mast shatters as if hit by cannon shot. My father is hanging there, his eyes popping from his head. Slowly, silently, the mast bends towards me. I try to move out of its way, but my legs will not obey my will. I am paralysed as death descends upon me. I give out a moan of terror and throw up my hands to ward off the blow. My eyes open and I sit up in bed, shaking and sobbing.
The next days were spent in a similar manner. I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing. During the day I rode until I almost tumbled from my saddle. Then I slept the sleep of the doomed, dreaming terrifying nightmares without end. The pain in my belly increased so much that I needed to consult a doctor in one of the towns where I rested.
He said he could find nothing wrong with me except that I looked as though I needed a good night’s sleep. For an extra coin he offered to provide a sleeping draught. I shook my head and made to leave his rooms. As he saw me out of his house, he looked at me closely again and asked, ‘When did you last eat?’
I went back to the inn and forced myself to swallow the first food I’d tasted in five days. After twenty-four hours of agonizing belly cramps, I began to recover.
When I thought of what I’d done, a lowering feeling of shame began to creep through me. I thrust it aside and replaced it with another, encouraging anger to be the superior emotion boiling to the surface. I had been cheated, I told myself. Don Vicente and his wife had died by accident, not specifically at my hand.
But there was still the daughter. The magistrate had said she was at the royal court.
I asked the location of Granada and found that I’d ridden well out of my way. The next morning I arose and proceeded more slowly towards the place where Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand were at present holding court.
A hard cold weight had replaced the burning hatred inside my body. I carried it within me like a boulder used by farmers to weigh down the bag when drowning litter runts.
Nothing moved it or diminished it in any way: not drinking myself into an insensible state, nor nights spent with women, nor gambling, nor any other so-called pleasures that men deem sport or amusement to pass their time. There were plenty of such diversions available. As I got nearer to Granada, the villages and towns were full of every type of camp follower and army supplier.
One morning, in a town less than three hours’ ride from Granada, I looked properly in the slice of reflective glass hanging on my bedroom door, and the face of a ruffian looked back at me. If I was to continue with my mission, I would have to do something about my appearance. I shaved and bathed, and after prising some coins from the peacock jacket that I kept rolled up in my saddlebag, I went in search of more elaborate clothes to wear. The tailor I found assured me that he personally designed the costumes worn by the most prestigious nobles in all Spain, including the royal personages – the crown prince, the infantas, and Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.
‘Although taller than his majesty, you do have the look of a man from Aragon,’ he said as he took my measurements.
It was a question rather than a statement, but I was not rising like a fish to feed on his bait.
‘Do I?’ I replied.
He stood back to survey me. ‘Or maybe you hail from Catalonia? How are things going in that country now?’
This tailor didn’t only want to know my origins, he wanted my politics too. I’d picked up enough knowledge on my way here to know that the Catalans were not kindly disposed to living under King Ferdinand and his Aragon government.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ I retorted. ‘I’m recently returned from sea.’
‘A mariner!’ the man exclaimed. ‘Like the famous Christopher Columbus, even now in attendance on the queen and king?’
I grunted. ‘I know him, yes.’
The tailor prattled on about how sewing special outfits for mariners was also part of his repertoire, all the while probing me for personal information. I wondered if he was one of the spies that were said to cluster around places of government or merely a casual informant like many other people. It was only when the subject of money came up, when he refused to cut any cloth unless I put down a deposit, that I realized most of his quizzing was desig
ned to discover whether I had the means to pay him. What a delight it was to idly take out a gold coin, spin it on his shop counter, and say casually that I would take two – no, make that three – complete suits of clothing in a variety of patterns, a heavy winter cloak; and yes, I did agree that if I hoped to present myself at court then I would need his most luxurious fur capelet to sit around my neck.
In the end I found him very useful, for in his attempts to garner information he imparted to me a great deal about the workings of the court. He advised me on the most suitable clothes for court functions, the way one should act on specific occasions, how to effect an introduction, when it was considered acceptable to speak out and when to remain silent, and many other tips on manners and modes of behaviour.
While my clothes were being sewn I enquired exactly where the court was and how I might gain access to it. The words of the magistrate, Don Vicente Alonso, were in my mind. When I’d asked for the whereabouts of his daughter, he’d said she was safe. Protected. Within the court. Where the likes of me could never reach her.
My mouth twisted as I reflected how my fortunes had changed. I, Saulo, son of a sick mother and a destitute beggar, had contacts in royal circles. I thought of the mariner, Christopher Columbus, self-styled admiral of the Ocean Sea. He was now my friend. He admired the skills I possessed and would make me welcome. Under his patronage I would obtain free entry, right into the innermost circle of the royal court, to the feet of the queen and king.
No matter how well guarded she was, I would reach the magistrate’s daughter. I had to destroy her. I blamed her for the hard stone of resentment still lying within me. It existed because of her. She’d been the start of all my woes. My father had most likely asked her for only one coin. If she’d given it to him, then he, and possibly my mother, would be alive today. It was her fault they were not.
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