by Shirl Henke
She looked at him warily. “They are not going to serve me fish eyes or some such delicacy?”
He smiled. “No, nothing like that. Only cassava bread, specially blessed.”
“Then I shall go. I tire of those puling priests in Ysabel decrying the heathenish religion of the Tainos when they will not even come to the village and learn what the Tainos do believe. How can we teach them of our faith if we do not even know of theirs?”
“Fray Ramon is learning their language and customs. In time I think he might have more success—if they do not convert him first,” he said with a smile.
“Fray Ramon is a good man, if over-bookish, but I do not think he alone can accomplish much. The admiral petitions constantly for more priests and none are sent.” He thought but did not add that he was grateful for that fact.
There is no harm in my learning more of Taino religion in the meanwhile.” She looked at him to see how he responded.
“I doubt you are in any danger of being converted to zemi worship!” Then his face lost its smile and he walked over to her, caressing her long, burnished hair. “If you go, there is some unpleasantness I would warn you of—not so bad as the fish eyes, but...” He stopped and extracted two small gourd spoons from a pot in the corner and handed her one. “It is customary before this high festival to purge oneself at the door of the temple, as a purification.”
She looked confused. “I thought you said their daily bathing was their means of honoring the temple of the human body. What else would they need do—fast, mayhap?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Only when he attempted to explain to an outsider did Aaron realize how assimilated into Taino culture he had become. Not that he worshiped the zemis, but he did accept their way of seeing God and felt no need to convert them. He looked at her puzzled expression. “This,” he held up the small spoon, “is used thusly at the temple door.” He inserted the spoon to the back of his throat without pressing down. “You must purge yourself by vomiting.”
She paled. “I would as leave fast, but...” She shrugged philosophically. “Twill be most interesting. Guacanagari is the priest as well as the cacique, is he not?”
“Yes. He will lead the procession,” Aaron replied.
Then Aliyah will be with him. “I will go with you and I promise not to disgrace myself or you. After the fish eyes, this will be but a simple matter—like eating green apples in early spring,” she added mischievously.
At times like this, Aaron felt himself falling more deeply under her spell. He forgot that her father was Bernardo Valdés, forgot that she may have been involved in his family's tragedy. She was not his enemy, but his wife. “Let us go. See you do as I show you,” he said sternly.
The procession was long and slow moving as nearly one thousand people—all those free people of sufficient rank, from artisans to the royal family—marched to the beat of the drum. Guacanagari, his brother, his wives, and his sisters led the procession. All the women of the royal family bore great baskets of cassava bread on their heads. Aliyah carried hers with regal grace while holding Navaro easily on one hip. Magdalena watched as Aaron's eyes fastened on his son. He wants the child. I must accept that. But she knew she would never accept her husband's continuing a relationship with Aliyah!
Steeling herself when they reached the large urns situated at each side of the wide door, she did as Aaron instructed quickly and then took a sip of water gratefully from a temple servant. The cane and thatch edifice was enormous, nearly fifty yards long and twenty wide. People huddled inside, squatting on their heels with the ease of those born to spend hours in such an uncomfortable position. Magdalena copied the others and sat close to Aaron, praying the ceremony would not take long.
Soon quiet spread as the women bearing the bread carried it into the center of the temple and placed the baskets around the large zemi of Guacanagari and a cluster of others.
As if on some prearranged signal, all began to sing. The chant was slow and resonant, coming from so many earnest voices raised in union. Aaron remained respectful but silent. Not knowing enough Taino to even understand the words, she did likewise, realizing with a sudden insight how a fifteen-year-old boy forced into a new faith must have felt when first brought to the cathedral in Seville. Since birth Aaron had been a Jew, an outsider in Castile, then a converso, unfamiliar and confused by the Christian faith. This for him was no new experience. But for Magdalena it was. She, too, bowed her head and maintained a respectful silence.
Then, as if sensing her curiosity, Aaron whispered that the song was one beseeching good health and a bountiful harvest for all people of Guacanagari's cacicazgo. When it ended, Guacanagari stood up and began to pray over the bread set before the zemis. “He blesses it for all the people to partake. It will give them sustenance in the coming year,” Aaron whispered to her.
When he had finished, the women of the royal family began to distribute the cassava bread, breaking it carefully into small pieces so that the head of each household could come forth and take one piece for his family to share once returned to their homes. Even field laborers and slaves were permitted to partake of the blessed bread.
The similarity to the Holy Communion was not lost on Magdalena, who turned questioning eyes to Aaron as he explained the practice. “The blessings of bread is as old as civilization in places all across the world—Christians and Jews, Moors, even those peoples of the Indies’ mainland that Marco Polo described—all have some custom similar to this. I warned you it might be troublesome for your single-minded conscience,” he said softly as the Tainos again began to chant reverently, filing out of the temple as each received his blessed cassava bread.
Magdalena's smile was sincere when her eyes met Aaron's. “I am not troubled at all,” she said quietly. Benjamin, you were right, so right about many things, my friend...
Chapter Seventeen
“Guacanagari has need of me—as Cristobal's representative. He has received a messenger from Caonabo, an old enemy who wishes to discuss matters of importance with the cacique of Marien,” Aaron said as he entered their bohio and began to gather his arbalest and several quivers of bolts from their pegs on the walls.
“Matters of importance—such as war?” Magdalena asked with dread, letting the stirring paddle drop unattended into the pepper pot bubbling over the low fire.
Aaron shrugged. “It is possible. Caonabo is the cacique who ordered the gold seekers of Navidad killed—that is, those who did not hack each other to pieces in their lust and greed.”
“But surely Guacanagari will not join him in warring on the admiral and the colonists of Ysabel?” Magdalena felt suddenly vulnerable, isolated so far from white civilization.
“Guacanagari has always been a loyal friend of ours, but men like Margarite and Hojeda sorely try his patience with their cruelties. The Colons have been unable to control them. Guacanagari does not trust Caonabo. I will see what that crafty old fox is up to and then report back to Cristobal.”
Magdalena placed her hand hesitantly on his arm as he strode past her. When he stopped, she asked, “What shall I do?”
He smiled. “You will be quite safe here. In fact, safer here than in Ysabel. Only wait. We should return by dark. Caonabo has deigned to journey all the way from the Vega just to treat with Guacanagari.”
With that he was gone. Magdalena knelt dejectedly by the cookpot. In the weeks they had spent with the Tainos, she had developed some little skills as a cook, even if basketry still eluded her as much as embroidery had. “Wonderful! I have finally steeped a whole pot of stew overnight and now he will probably not return in time to eat of it before it is burned. Oh, how I long for someone who speaks Castilian,” she murmured to herself. She knew the only person who spoke her language now that Guacanagari and his advisors had gone was Aliyah. “Rather would I cut out my tongue than converse with that one,” she said glumly.
Again she recalled how beautiful young Navaro was and how much his swarthy little face had already grown to r
esemble his sire's. The startling blue eyes were always the Torres stamp, even if the boy's hair was coal black and his skin tawny. If only I could give Aaron a son. But she knew that would not end her husband's sense of responsibility or love for his firstborn. Her ambivalence about Navaro troubled her more with each passing day. Could she take the child of Aaron's mistress and love it as her own? For their tenuous relationship to grow into a true marriage bond, that is what she would have to do.
“'Sitting here pitying myself will settle naught.” She said with a dejected sigh. After she grated the last of the manioc roots and pressed them into flat cakes, she would bake them and then dry them. Picking up the sharp-edged tipiti, she began the laborious chore, carefully saving the juice from the plant for the pepper pot.
By the time the last of the dark, crisp cakes of cassava bread had been set out to cool, Magdalena felt she had accomplished a good day's work, but in spite of her aching body, it was only mid-afternoon. Rubbing the small of her back, she looked at the pile of dirty linen clothes and decided to wash them. For once, Aaron's scandalous loincloths appealed to her—they meant far less washing now that she was the family laundress. If anyone in Seville had told Magdalena Valdés that she would one day find herself living among a tribe of primitives, cooking and scrubbing like a peasant woman, she would have laughed at the absurdity of the idea. She swore at her absent husband as she gathered up her pile of wash and began to trudge to the river.
The flat, rocky stretch of shallows at the south side of the village was where the Taino women did their laundry, since there were lots of smooth stones on which to scrub the coarse cotton cloths they occasionally wore or used for bed covers and for drying their bodies. She stopped by the edge of the jungle and gathered some fresh fruit soap. Each time she did so now, she remembered the time Aaron had introduced her to the marvelous plant and the way they had made love by the waterfall afterward.
Just thinking of it heated her cheeks far more than the hot afternoon sun ever could. “I grow as brown as a Taino,” she said in dismay, then wondered if Aaron found the golden color of her skin, with its light dusting of freckles, unattractive. She certainly preferred his sinewy bronzed appearance to the pale, white-faced courtiers who languished in the shade of Ysabel's houses, sweating in their heavy doublets, hose, and boots. Covered from head to toe in layers of clothing, they mostly stank and seldom bathed. A small smile twitched at her lips when she recalled Miralda's scolding about her obsession for daily bathing. “Would she accuse the heathen Tainos of judaizing?”
Sweating even in her sheer under-tunic, Magdalena worked a rich lather into her laundry, piece by piece, then rinsed each item and lay it out to dry on a larger rounded rock that jutted from the knee-deep water. Numerous Taino women laughed and chattered about her as they, too, attended to similar chores. She smiled and returned the gestures of friendship, wishing she understood more of their language. Two young women sat at the edge of the river unabashedly nursing their babies as the late afternoon shadows grew longer across the water.
Out of the corner of her eye, Magdalena saw Aliyah draw near carrying Navaro. As she sat down with the nursing mothers, all the women around the riverside grew very quiet, their dark eyes moving uneasily from the cacique's haughty sister to the white woman. Magdalena quickly decided the best course was to ignore Aaron's mistress. She turned her back and continued to scrub her clothes.
Aliyah watched the fire-haired woman's slim golden arms twist and squeeze one of her foolish white garments. Giving Navaro to her cousin, she rose and slowly walked into the shallow water.
Magdalena saw the shadow of her nemesis fall across her but ignored the woman standing behind her.
“A pity you must work like a slave girl to wash so much cloth, but if my body were skinny and white like the underbelly of a fish, perhaps I, too, would wish to cover it in ugly long garments,” Aliyah said in serviceable Castilian.
“If I were cursed with fat thighs and sagging breasts, I would certainly not display them for all to see as you do,” Magdalena said, looking with contempt at the overly lush curves of the Taino woman.
Aliyah's eyes darkened and narrowed, but she drew herself up proudly, thrusting her large breasts out tauntingly. “My body is a woman's body, one that gives a man pleasure...and suckles his children. You are flat as a starved slave boy!”
“My husband has left your bed, Aliyah. My starved body must please him well enough, for he makes love to me every night,” Magdalena replied with a triumphant glitter in her green eyes as she stood up to face her larger rival.
Aliyah could still see Aaron and this hateful foreigner beneath the waterfall, kneeling on the soft ground in a bone-melting embrace. “He will not stay long with you. Aaron will quickly tire of your passionless child's body. I have given him a fine strong son. You—who say he lays each night with you—are barren. You cannot give him children. I can!”
The pain of Aaron's rejection, their forced marriage, and now the terrible divisiveness of his love for his half-caste son—all Magdalena's bottled up insecurities caused a red rage to well up inside her. With a snarled oath she took the water-logged tunic in both hands and swung it like a cudgel at Aliyah, smacking the taller woman full in the face. The proud Taino fell backward with a shriek and a loud splash, landing on her rump in the soft sand beneath a foot of water. Instantly she was up, fingers drawn into claws, raking at Magdalena's face.
The red-haired woman grabbed a fistful of flying ebony hair and yanked with all her strength, using Aliyah's momentum to unbalance her and send her flying once more, this time headfirst into the river. As Aliyah rolled over, coughing and cursing, Magdalena was on her, gouging and clawing. The Taino was heavier-boned and larger, but Magdalena was wily and fast. Sheer fury fueled her now. Beyond any reason, they each grabbed fistfuls of the other's hair, rolling in the shallow water in a frenzy of kicking. Aliyah ripped Magdalena's tunic, baring one breast, and then yanked the long-sleeved garment down about her right arm. The long skirts rucked up about her hips as Magdalena kicked and struggled until she finally emerged on top of her opponent.
The Taino women were aghast, frozen in horror as the two combatants exchanged hostile words in the strange language of their man and then the wife attacked the mistress. Aliyah was the sister of Guacanagari, but Magdalena was wife to Guacanagari's honored guest. What were they to do?
Magdalena held Aliyah beneath the water, attempting to drown the flailing woman. Suddenly there was a commotion behind them and the sound of a furious male voice. Strong arms fastened about Magdalena from behind and Aaron lifted her from Aliyah's submerged body. The Taino came up sputtering and screeching. She lunged for the woman in his arms. By this time Guacanagari had arrived at the battle ground and restrained his sister. Both women continued screaming threats at each other and trying to break free so they could resume the fray.
Guacanagari remonstrated with Aliyah in the sibilant Taino language, gently holding the furious woman whose eyes were black with hate. Struggling to catch her breath, she spoke rapidly to her brother, then to Aaron in Taino, now ignoring Magdalena. When she called out several words to Aaron, he froze for a moment. Without another word he tossed Magdalena over his shoulder and strode toward their bohio.
One of the onlookers unobtrusively gathered Magdalena's laundry together. On the morrow she would return it. Somehow the Taino knew this would not be an opportune time to visit their bohio!
When Aaron reached the door, he set his wife roughly on the ground. “Why by the Keys of St. Peter did you attack a member of the royal family? That is a crime punishable by death!”
“Then you would be well rid of me, would you not? She came after me, deliberately taunting me, spoiling for a fight, thinking her great fat body could easily overpower my pale skinny one. Now she knows not to assume fat is a substitute for muscle! I would have drowned her, and damn the consequences!”
He looked at her wet, tangled hair and half-naked body. “Aliyah did manage to strip you a
ll but naked,” he said, observing her shiver in the cool twilight air.
“I care not. Tis she who has the bruises from my fingers about her throat!”
“She insulted you with a few childish taunts about your smaller breasts and pale skin, so you tried to choke and drown her. What of your much-vaunted Christian charity?” he asked bitterly. “Could you not turn the other cheek, my lady? Twould have served much better.”
“I should let her hound and humiliate me? You would never bear such an insult from any man. Women have pride, too, my fine lord, in case you did not know it,” she snapped.
His eyes were glacial now. “Castilian courtesans have a great excess of it, twould seem.”
Magdalena seethed with jealousy and hurt. “So, we come back to the heart of the matter—your mistress can flaunt her lovers and that is no stain on her. But you think me a harlot although none but you has ever touched me. You did not wish to wed a tainted Valdés. Nothing will ever be right between us, Aaron. Bernardo, damn his soul to hell, will ever keep us apart.”
“Your father...and my son,” Aaron replied, his voice as broken as hers now. “Guacanagari told me on the way back this afternoon that Aliyah had agreed to give Navaro to me. Now she has changed her mind. The boy goes with her to Xaragua.” He turned and stalked off into the gathering darkness.
Magdalena felt as if a great weight were crushing life and breath from her. So that was what those final hateful words were that Aliyah had called out to Aaron. And he blames me, as always.
Aaron did not return to their bed that night, but went down to the pen where he kept the horses. He took Rubio and rode down the river in the silver moonlight. Magdalena lay staring at the night sky for sleepless hours, then rose and dressed with the first light of dawn. If it took abasing her vaunted Castilian pride to gain her husband his son, she would do so. If only she could sway the cacique and he his sister.