by Shirl Henke
“For the last you would doubtless be grateful. Then you could wed Aliyah and claim your son!”
“I plan nothing so drastic as your death to claim Navaro,” he replied tersely.
Her eyes were suddenly shiny with tears as she fought to control her runaway emotions. “Do you deny going to visit them each day? I saw you playing with the boy yesterday in Guacanagari's bohio.”
“He is my son, Magdalena. I wish to claim him and raise him as my own. There is no dishonor in that. In Cordoba the admiral had a son by his mistress. Young Fernando is being raised at court with Diego, Colon's legal heir. It is my responsibility to provide for Navaro,” Aaron said, irritated by his own feelings of guilt.
“And what of your responsibility to Aliyah?” The instant she tossed the words at him, she wanted to call them back. You do not want to know!
He fixed her with his cool blue eyes, eyes mirrored in that tiny, swarthy infant's face, and said, “Aliyah is beyond my reach now. You have seen to that. Guacanagari will arrange a fine marriage for her with a cacique of high rank. Even now he searches for one she will accept. You are my responsibility, Magdalena, not Aliyah.”
“A poor trade indeed here on Española. I know Aliyah and all the Taino women have told you how inept I am at their domestic skills—as I was at ladies' work back in Seville.” She threw back her head and looked at him defiantly. His words about her scheming and his being bound to her by duty stung bitterly.
Aaron studied the proud contours of her beautiful Castilian face. “You were ever cosseted and spoiled back in Seville. Española is different.” He looked across the broad fertile valley bounded by the sparkling river. Across the fields the women were planting. “The admiral has complained that hidalgos will do no work that cannot be accomplished on horseback. You seem to prove his claim.”
“I merely rode to get away from—” She stopped, realizing that she was going to blurt out that she fled the village where his mistress and child tormented her. “I needed exercise,” she evaded lamely.
A slow smile slashed his mouth. “And so you shall have it, my fine spoiled lady. Come,” he commanded, pulling on the reins of the gray. “I will introduce you to Tanei.”
They rode toward a large field where several dozen women worked beneath the scrutiny of one older Taino woman who directed their planting, issuing occasional terse orders and taking the sharpened planting stick to show a young girl the correct way to use it.
“This is a maize field—a marvelous grain that does not grow in Europe,” Aaron explained as he swung down from his horse.
Puzzled and wary, Magdalena followed suit, watching the old woman approach Aaron with a broad smile wreathing her face. Her rotund body was clad in a knee-length grass skirt, a sign of marriage and social rank. She bowed slightly to Aaron and they began to chat in rapid Taino phrases that Magdalena could not begin to understand. Then he gestured to her and pulled her near him as if to present her to Tanei. By now the old woman's smile had been replaced by a look of uneasiness, perhaps even grave discomfort, which she strove to conceal.
Another exchange between Tanei and Aaron followed, after which he turned to Magdalena and said, “She is head woman for all the planting in this valley. Since you seem unable to do the skilled chores performed indoors by noblewomen, and you wished exercise, Tanei will teach you how to grow maize and other foods. The Taino are very inventive at agriculture, doing many things the Moors in Granada did, such as using soil enrichers and irrigating.”
Magdalena's jaw dropped in shock. “You mean I am to—to muck in the mud with crude wooden implements!”
He smirked. “The first time I met you, you were mucking about in the mud of a marsh—quite covered with it, in fact. Now that you are a grown woman, not a child, you will learn to work instead of play in the mud.”
Her plait of hair swung with a solid thunk, slapping one shoulder, as she shook her head vehemently. “I will do no such thing!” She stared at the row of clay pots standing nearby. The odor emanating from them was gagging. They were filled with a nasty grayish liquid.
“That is their soil enricher, made from urine and wood ash. To it they often add dung. It works wonders to make crops grow,” he said as if discussing the latest style of lace cuffs with an Argonese couturier.
Magdalena felt her bile rising, but then she studied his face and that of the distraught head woman. He expects me to fail—or to beg and cry. “As I said before, Don Aaron, do your worst!” She turned to the very unhappy Tanei and bowed, then stalked over to where a pile of the sharply pointed sticks lay. Picking one up, she asked in broken Taino, “Show me, please?” She gestured from her implement to the other workers.
Shrugging in perplexity at the strange customs of the men from the sky, Tanei guided her through the long, straight rows of newly planted maize to where two naked Taino women toiled.
Magdalena set to work, not deigning to look at her husband's expression. She heard him ride away, the rotten villain, taking her gray with him.
By evening she was sunburned, sweat-soaked, and painfully insect-bitten. Her back felt as if it would snap if she stooped but one more time. She was covered from head to foot with muddy, soil-enriched earth. By midday she had been so encumbered by her long, hot under-tunic that she had scandalously pulled the back of the skirt up between her legs and tied it into her girdle. Then she rolled the long sleeves well above her elbows. The mosquitoes feasted and the sun blistered, but Magdalena doggedly persisted, even pouring the loathsome contents of the urns along the furrows in a thin trickle that spilled onto her bare feet and squished between her toes.
As she had with the fish eyes at that first banquet, she breathed through her mouth, never her nose. As a child she had frequently been forced to drink down Miralda's noisesome home remedies, and the trick had served her queasy stomach well. But even those horrid concoctions had not stunk as vilely as did the dung-filled soil enrichers. Now she was proud of simply holding down her morning meal!
Aaron rode back to the village, puzzling over his rash act. “Always she drives me to do things I later regret,” he muttered sourly to his bay gelding, Rubio, feeling certain that long before nightfall she would come limping into their bohio, muddy and defeated. Keeping her here was a disaster. He would simply have to face returning to Ysabel and fulfilling his promise to the admiral. Much as he disliked the prospect of commanding the ill-disciplined, motley lot of adventurers who had come to Española to get rich, he knew he could accomplish the most good for Guacanagari's people if he did so.
What should I do about my son? The thought tormented him. He had approached his friend the cacique about it, and Guacanagari agreed to try and persuade Aliyah to give him the child once he was weaned. Of course, that left the next problem unsolved. How would Magdalena treat his half-caste son when he introduced him into their home? He supposed he could always hire a Taino servant as a nurse.
All of this destroyed, or at least greatly postponed, his plans to sail to Seville and exact his revenge on Bernardo Valdés. He was a man pulled in two directions, bound to his enemy's daughter in wedlock, bound to Española by his son. He cursed the fates that had led him to this sorry tangle.
Aliyah watched Aaron dismount and begin to rub down his big red beast and a gray one that she knew his wife rode. She had waited at his horse pen for over an hour with Navaro. At last Aaron was alone. To speak with him she would brave nearing those fearful great snorting creatures. She decided to wait until he finished his task and closed the gate. When he began to walk toward the village, she stepped from behind a copse of flowering shrubbery.
“Aaron, you are deep in thought. Does she who rides that great beast worry you?”
Pulled from his preoccupied thoughts by Aliyah's purring voice, Aaron smiled at her, his smile deepening as he caught sight of the infant in her arms. Her rich chocolate eyes were darkened in calculation, and she sauntered toward him with blatant sexual invitation, letting her large, milk-laden breasts sway seductively. �
��I have asked you not to discuss Magdalena,” he replied, not wanting to reveal the reasons for his deep thoughts about her and their son either. “You have brought the babe far from the village, Aliyah.”
She stopped directly in his path and placed one hand on his bare chest. “Your son is in no danger. See how content he is? Would you like to hold him?”
Aaron eagerly took the sleeping infant in his arms. Since Navaro's birth, he had become quite adept at handling such a fragile miracle. Each time he gazed on his son, he was newly amazed at the perfection of each tiny feature in the dark little face. I do but act the vain father, for he is made so like me! He smiled as he touched the delicate nose and finely formed lips with his fingertips, then bent to kiss them. When he brushed his lips across the babe's thick black lashes, Navaro opened his eyes. Torres blue in brilliance, they stared with the intent fascination of newborns into his father's face.
“I have done well with him, have I not, Aaron?” she asked proudly, relishing the bond that grew daily between him and his son.
“Yes, Aliyah, you have done well.” He still remembered the shock of first seeing his son when Guacanagari told him the news, then watching the tiny rosebud mouth suckle at Aliyah's breast the following morning. What am I to do? He stroked Navaro's cap of soft black hair.
Watching the interplay between father and son, Aliyah broke in, saying, “Guacanagari has received a very high bride price for me from Behechio, great cacique of Xaragua.” She studied his profile from beneath sooty lashes as they strolled.
He stopped and faced her. “Will you agree to the marriage?”
She shrugged coyly, still studying him covertly. “Will you be jealous if I go to him?”
“Once,” he began with a sigh, “when I was younger and more foolish, I was jealous of your other lovers. But now...no. I only wish you happiness.” And I want my son. He said nothing more, waiting for her to speak of her reason for lying in wait for him. A songbird warbled in the silk-cotton trees high above them and the steamy noontide heat intensified the heavy perfume from the flowers.
“I do not wish to go to Xaragua. It is many days' journey.” She could read nothing on his face, which was turned down to Navaro, again asleep in his arms. “But Behechio is very handsome and rich.”
“Then perhaps you should accept his offer.” He looked at her crestfallen expression and stopped on the path. “Aliyah, I am already wed. I cannot claim you. It is not the custom of my people to allow a man more than one wife. And you, as the sister of a great cacique, should be first wife, not second,” he said placatingly.
She nodded in agreement. “But if I go to Xaragua, when will you play with Navaro? He will miss you—or do you not care because of the pale-skinned children your white woman may give you?”
“I have spoken to you and asked Guacanagari to intercede with you, Aliyah. You know I want this child. I love Navaro and would not be separated from him. Let me keep him. As wife of a great cacique, you will bear him sons and Navaro will not have the place of honor there which he has here.”
“The red-haired one,” she said venomously, “your wife, she will treat my son worse than my husband would. I have seen the looks of hatred she casts at him. ”
He smiled bitterly. “You misread her, Aliyah. She is jealous of you, but she does not hate the boy.” He was not at all certain if the latter were true. “It matters not what Magdalena feels. I will find a good Taino nurse to raise him. He will grow up here protected by the love of his uncle and all his Taino family, as well as by mine.” He looked at her earnestly now. “Please, I know it is a hard thing I ask, but one many of your people have done in the past. Will you give me Navaro to raise?”
She studied him. “He will not be weaned for several months yet.” She took advantage of his entreaty to step nearer and rub her breasts against his chest as she reclaimed the babe from his arms. “I will think on it,” she said softly.
Aaron felt empty. All the lusty affection he had once held for this woman who bore his son was inexplicably gone. He did not wish to hurt her, but he had learned that she was childish and vain, subject to great emotional outbursts. He must be careful not to antagonize her and at the same time he must not encourage her sexuality. He gently placed his hands about her shoulders, cupping them and planting a chaste kiss on her forehead. Then he stood away, struggling not to look at Navaro again. “I must return to the village, for I am pledged to go with Caonu to hunt hutia this afternoon.”
“You care nothing for hunting! You only fear the wrath of that one with the ugly red hair,” she said petulantly.
He laughed. “I fear naught from Magdalena. At this moment she is doubtless soaking her sore feet in cool water in our bohio.” He proceeded to tell her of Magdalena's introduction to Tanei and maize planting. Her laughter echoed down the path as they entered the village. Good. His ploy had worked. Aliyah was not angry with him. He prayed that the proposed match with Behechio went well, for then she might be willing to leave Navaro behind with him.
Chapter Sixteen
When Aaron returned from hunting, it was nearing dusk. He and Caonu had taken nearly a dozen hutias. The young Taino was growing increasingly proficient with the arbalest as Aaron was with stalking skills. He was weary but felt the hunt had been an excellent means of purging himself of the tensions the women in his life had caused. Now a refreshing swim and he would feel infinitely better.
Expecting to find a chastened, if cross, Magdalena in their bohio, he was surprised to see the big open room empty. No dinner bubbled in the cook pots, nor had any fire been laid outside for the roasting of yams or fresh meat. He swore beneath his breath, cursing the vagaries of spoiled Castilian noblewomen.
“Where in this lovely creation is—” His breath left his body as he beheld the long line of women from the fields dispersing to the various small caneyes. Magdalena walked with Tanei. At least he thought it was Magdalena. Her hair was tied atop her head and she was nearly naked! The modest linen under-tunic that covered her pale skin from neck to ankle had been drastically altered. The sleeves were ripped off at the armholes and the skirt was swaddled between her thighs, baring an enticing length of slim, shapely legs.
He stalked up to the pair of women, who stood in the wide dirt street communicating animatedly by means of Magdalena's broken bits of Taino and a great deal of sign language. Before he could open his mouth, the old woman turned to him with a broad smile on her wizened features.
“Your woman, she is a good worker. The white dress is foolishness. Better to wear no clothes, but she has learned much today. In time she will grow stronger and her skin will darken as yours has. She is a good Taino.” With that startlingly fulsome praise, Tanei bowed and walked serenely away.
Magdalena turned to face Aaron's fierce scowl. His face looked like the huracan she had heard Don Cristobal describe. Mustering every ounce of pride she had left, she forced the wilted, aching, itchy misery that was her body to stand straight before him and defiantly placed her mud-and-excrement encased hands on the equally filthy cloth bunched about her hips. “You wrinkle your nose?”
“You look like a harlot crawled from the sewers of the Malaga waterfront,” he ground out in low, whiplashing tones.
“You knew the nature of the work you assigned me—even the composition of the soil enrichers. Do you not like smelling it so close? See how it smells when worked into your skin,” she said as she rubbed both grimy hands roughly and thoroughly across his bare arms. Then she embraced him, her sweat-soaked, reeking body rubbing the under-tunic's coating on his chest and loincloth.
Before he could untangle himself, Aaron was covered with the awful muck. “By the twenty-four balls of the twelve apostles! You have covered me with shit!”
Magdalena's eyes widened in amazement. “Wherever did you hear such an oath?” she gasped.
Aaron smirked. “I learned that and many another worse from the sailors of their Most Catholic Majesties' ships Santa Maria and Nina,” he said, shoving her away and
trying desperately to breathe without gagging.
“Most certainly not from the admiral,” she replied righteously, striding boldly past him to enter the bohio. She ignored him and began to wash her hands in a basin of tepid water. Before she could even pick up a towel on which to dry herself after a bath, she had to get this filth free from at least one part of her body!
He leaned on the door frame, watching her with a peculiar mixture of emotions—intense irritation combined with an inexplicable surge of desire—and admiration. Aliyah's sweet-smelling body, pressed so intimately to his this morning had aroused no passion. This excrement-coated little vixen made his pulse leap. “You are right, the admiral does not indulge in the vices common to sailors—and soldiers. I learned a few choice epithets from the Moors, too, during the war. You, my lady, incite my penchant for blasphemy in at least two religions!”
“Best beware, if not for your benighted soul, then for your position. I am certain the admiral would reprimand you,” she snapped, still scrubbing furiously at her hands.
“The admiral would more certainly reprimand you for appearing in public with arms and legs bared. You are, as you have ever reminded me, a Castilian noblewoman, my lady,” he said with contemptuous irony in his voice.
She swiveled from her kneeling position in front of the basin and flung the filthy water directly into his face. “In a village of naked people, with you yourself clad only in that—that codpiece and your sun-darkened skin, you dare to tell me I should cover myself to slave in a sewer!” She was shrieking as he advanced on her. He deftly dodged the basin as she heaved it at him, ignoring the noise as the fired clay shattered on the door frame. Shaking droplets of the foul water from his face and hair, he seized her and tossed her up over his shoulder.