by Shirl Henke
After Hojeda bowed to the governor and then to Magdalena, he walked off, head high and stride firm, even though his once grand clothes were in shreds and his body covered with superficial wounds.
“I mislike having my back to him in the thick of a melee,” Aaron muttered to Bartolome.
“I agree. He will be assigned a place of honor near me, away from all his fellows from Seville,” Bartolome replied with a grim smile.
With the fight ended, the crowd broke apart and dispersed. The Colons and the guards departed after a few brief courtesies to Magdalena and promises to meet with Aaron at dawn.
Aaron's eyes were icy as he glared at his wife. “Were you going to skewer Don Alonsò as you did those two ruffians in the plaza?” he asked, looking at the dagger she still clutched unconsciously in her hand.
Red-faced, she replaced it in its sheath, hidden beneath her cloak. “Only if Hojeda endangered you,” she replied as she walked toward their house.
“Best beware endangering yourself, you little fool! I have told you not to be about in this city without me. You were at that hospital again without my permission, were you not?”
“If Dr. Chanca can use my skills, why would you refuse to let me help?” she argued, hating the pleading sound that had crept into her voice.
You might be injured or take a fever! He refused to let her see his fear for her, his weakness, so he answered harshly, “You will remain in our home where you cannot incite more mayhem. Bartolome and I must both leave Ysabel. There will be no rescuers to save that beautiful skin while we journey to the interior.”
“What am I to do? Sit and wither? There is no useful task for me in Ysabel but plying my healing skills. Benjamin gave me instruction—even books. You have seen me read them. He thought me a good pupil.”
The anguish of his relationship with her and the loss of his father caused him to seize her wrist in a cruel grip and whisper curtly, “You are not a student dabbling at healing back in Seville. You chose to follow me to this dangerous place. Now sit home and wither! 'Twas your choice. Mayhap you are breeding. A babe would give you plenty to occupy your time. Fit work for a wife.”
She flinched as if he had struck her, but did not break stride as he virtually dragged her into their house. “If I am not breeding, 'tis not your fault, I know. You have not stinted in performing your husbandly duty. As in all else, I am inferior—add barrenness to my other sins, Aaron! You have a son you cannot claim. Perhaps 'twould be best if I returned to Seville. Then Aliyah would doubtless give you Navaro, and you would be quit of your troublesome wife.” She turned and walked to the window, fighting with every fiber of her being not to give way to the womanish weakness of tears.
“You cannot return to Seville,” he said curtly. “The authorities have confiscated all your father's estates. The Holy Office might well decide to question your involvement with him. They could have you burned.”
“Then you would be free,” she said with a tear-clogged voice.
“Do not be foolish!” Aaron cursed himself for falling so under her spell. She was spoiled and perverse, stubborn in her refusal to be an ornament. Of course the fact that he once scorned her because he thought she was such did not enter his mind at the moment. All logic and reason fled as he took her in his arms and she turned to face him with tears glistening in her bright green eyes.
Muttering a particularly vile expletive, he took her face in his hand and tilted it up for a savage, hungry kiss. Her arms tightened about his shoulders as she returned it. They both tasted the salt of her tears in their mouths as they sank onto the raised bed beside the open window.
* * * *
The dawn stillness was broken by screeching parrots, then the gentle rustling of the lush jungle vegetation as a long line of naked Tainos padded over the thick, soft carpet of damp leaves and moss, headed up a steep and twisting path. The men and women walked single file, moving sinuously as a snake, resolute in their purpose and unfaltering in their steps. Then their leader reached the end of the jungle's shelter.
A sharp promontory jutted out over a large lake, deep and silent as death. Its waters were black, overshadowed by the steep mountains that surrounded it, hiding it from the eyes of the white invaders.
Caonabo waited by the very edge of the straight drop-off as all his people filed onto the barren, rocky shelf high above the lake. One step farther and he would plunge to his death hundreds of feet below in the icy dark waters. Their medicine man said zemis with great power slept in the fathomless depths. It was wise never to disturb them...until now. Now everything was changed. Nothing the zemis might do would surpass the evils that the white men had already visited upon them. Let the Old Ones awaken, he thought. His obsidian eyes glowed in a wizened face, old as time itself. His body, in odd contrast, was yet lean and vigorous although he was well past middle years.
The cacique waited until each person was standing in a semi-circle about him on the cliffs edge. Then he took a golden necklace with its heavy, flat, oblong medallion, the symbol of his royal office, and removed it. Lifting it high over his head, he let the dawning rays of the sun catch its radiant glow and reflect on all the faces assembled about him. Every eye was fixed on him.
“This is the god of our enemies!” Caonabo cried. “Gold!” He paused, looking at all the nobles, their wives and children, all richly arrayed with their best jewelry. “They seek this great god gold in every place they go. Where they find him, there they remain. If he hides in the rocks or the earth, they discover him. If we swallow him, they rip open our bowels and drag him out.”
A soft murmur rose from the assembly, like the keening of a huracán wind near its eye. They waited for Caonabo to speak again. His glittering eyes held them spellbound. “Let us cast him into the waters below for the zemis to hold as prisoner. When he is no longer with us, the white men will forget us.” His face twisted by hate, Caonabo smiled a cold, lethal smile as he threw the priceless symbol of his office into the inky depths below. “Once disturbed, the zemis will remember the white men. Awaken them from their slumber!”
With that he began tearing off his armbands and nose plug, then the girdle at his waist, throwing them all into the lake. All the men and women in turn did likewise, removing every piece of gold jewelry and adornment from their persons and solemnly casting them into the black waters, which now seemed to come alive, rippling, rippling in ever widening circles. Just then the sun rose atop the peak directly across from the lake and everyone on the promontory was cast in blood-red light.
Chapter Nineteen
Magdalena stood in the plaza watching the long lines of the governor's army form into some semblance of order. It had been chaos when men, horses, and dogs began arriving at dawn. All the noblemen under Colon's command were mounted as befitted their status, outfitted in leather jerkins, knee pads, and boots that served admirably as armor against Taino darts, spears, and arrows. Their own arms were far more sophisticated and deadly—steel swords that could disembowel a man with a single stroke and long powerful lances with which a man riding full tilt could impale his target clean through from belly to backbone.
Most fearful of all were the dogs, large brown-and-black beasts, half as high as the horses with powerful jaws and long yellow teeth.
Infantrymen stood by cannons set on small carts hitched to strong horses, others held packs of the baying, slobbering hounds on tight chains, while the rest carried arbalests with short, deadly bolts that had a range of seventy yards, knives, and wildly inaccurate muskets whose noise upon discharge was of greater value in frightening the Indians than in killing them. A few drummer boys were set to lead the way when given the signal to move ahead.
Horses skittered, men swore, and dogs yelped as the governor, his adelantado and the commandant mounted their steeds. Magdalena tried to catch Aaron's attention, but he was busily engaged in issuing orders to unruly young noblemen and surly infantrymen to form their lines. A hound took a swipe at his booted foot in the stirrup and he gave it a
sharp cuff, then upbraided its holder to tighten his leash chain.
They had said their farewells, she supposed, last night after making love long and hungrily. “That is all we can do to truly communicate,” she murmured, bereft. Aaron had bade her stay abed when he rose in the darkness to arm himself and leave. She had felt his warmth depart from beside her body at once and lay awake, not knowing what to say to him, afraid to confess her love and have it rejected, yet afraid, too, that he might be injured or killed in battle without peace being made between them.
Thus, after he left, she had dressed with clumsy, nervous fingers and rushed out into the dim morning light. The rain had finally stopped and the golden sun cast soft shadows across the narrow, cluttered streets as she picked her way through the mud and offal toward the plaza. But now Aaron was in the middle of a throng of rough soldiers bristling with arms, holding slavering, vicious dogs. She was too late. Oh, please God, Blessed Mother, all the Saints, bring him safely back to me!
As the governor gave the signal with a wave of his arm, the cavalcade began to move, headed inland to their rendezvous with Guacanagari and his warriors. While watching them depart, Magdalena did not notice the cool gray eyes of Lorenzo Guzman studying her assessingly.
Then, feeling a prickle at the nape of her neck, she turned and met his stare. He was dressed in ridiculous courtiers' garb much as Hojeda had affected yesterday. In the wilting jungle heat, he looked sweaty and mean, not in the least courtly or dashing. She would have smiled at the ludicrousness of his appearance, but something about the man had always unsettled her, from the first time she had danced with him at the court in Valladolid. He was a despicable lecher who made her skin crawl.
Yet there was something more, something about the arrogant fop that had been nagging at her ever since their meeting in Ysabel. His solicitude for her father's demise rang false in her ears, but all politicians were devious and hypocritical. He eyed her lustfully, but that, too, she had grown used to. No, Lorenzo Guzman was dangerous. She knew it. But she did not know exactly why.
With a shiver, she turned with Analu, her faithful escort, and headed to Dr. Chanca's hospital. While they were away, neither Aaron nor the Colons could prevent her from doing as her conscience urged her. As she walked, she considered the enmity between Aaron and Lorenzo. Although brothers-in-law, they had always disliked each other. Aaron had not approved of the match between his gentle sister and the worldly nephew of a duke. When Lorenzo proved faithless and uncaring to Ana, Aaron had vowed to punish him. She feared he still harbored such plans and only bided his time. Of course, now that the vengeance against Bernardo Valdés had been taken from his hands by Isaac, Aaron could turn full attention to Guzman upon his return from the interior. If only he does return.
Lorenzo Guzman watched Torres' beautiful redhead walk to the hospital. What passion there must be beneath that soft, loose-fitting under-tunic! How he would love to strip her silken curves free of all clothing. Was her skin sun-kissed all over, as it was on her face and hands? She had fire, as unlike the frigid little milksop he had married as a fleet Arabian was to a plowman's nag.
Taking her away from Torres would be sweet revenge, too. After all that had happened to his splendid plans to destroy the House of Torres and gain its wealth, he was cast out, virtually penniless in this ghastly jungle, while his old foe's son was in league with the Genoese trash who governed here. He had barely escaped being forced to risk life and health fighting a horde of savages with poisonous weapons! Only the plea that his horse had gone lame on the ocean crossing had saved him from being impressed on this expedition!
Tonight he would dine with the acting governor and his council. Young Diego Colon was a fool, better suited to a monastery than a governor's palace, even one in this backwater. That too would serve his ends. Diego was easily impressed and would be useful. Already he had prevailed on the infatuated young Colon to invite the lovely Doña Magdalena to join them for their evening meal. She had hated her father and that troubled him. Of course, if she abandoned life at court to follow a penniless marrano to this hell, she was no true daughter of Bernardo Valdés.
Still, he wished to learn more about her. He had ever been good at wheedling secrets from ladies and felt certain that with enough time and her husband absent, he could win her over. Smiling, he sauntered off to rest, now that all his foes were gone from Ysabel. He would have Enrique, his body servant, hang out his best brocade doublet and fine woolen hose for the governor's banquet tonight.
After a long day feeding and attending sick men and women, Magdalena was in an ill humor indeed to bathe and dress for Diego Colon's foolish dinner. But he was acting governor, Cristobal and Bartolome’s beloved younger brother…and he was infatuated with her. Sighing, she stepped into her small wooden tub and lay back, letting the warm, fresh water soak away the stench of dysentery and death.
There had been so many Tainos in the hospital this day. They died of simple maladies that she and her countrymen were impervious to. If the curse of disease combined with the decimation of warfare, she could foresee a day when Española would have no Taino people left. Just as the Spains had no Jews left.... The water felt suddenly chill as she stepped out and began to dry herself.
* * * *
The long banquet table in the audience chamber of the governor's palace had been set as lavishly as circumstances in Española allowed, with a simple linen tablecloth and pewter table service. Fat white candles of good quality lit the room as the gentlemen of the ruling council stood about with wine goblets in their hands, chatting amiably while Taino servants carried in trays laden with roasted pork and spicy mutton, fresh melons and other exotic fruits, as well as the ever present yams and large loaves of real white bread. A feast indeed for Ysabel!
Nodding at Don Gonzolo and Don Bernal, Magdalena entered the room and immediately was set upon by Diego Colon, acting the solicitous host for his sole female guest. Taking her arm gallantly, his face wreathed in smiles, he escorted her across the room to the small group of gentlemen. Lorenzo Guzman stood with another man, one she had not yet met.
“Allow me to present Don Peralonso Guerra, formerly of the royal court, a dear friend of Don Lorenzo and his uncle the duke.”
As Diego Colon completed the introductions, Magdalena smiled and offered her hand to both Lorenzo and his minion. Peralonso was shorter than his friend, thickset with thinning tan hair, obviously an older hanger-on from the duke's entourage, banished to the Indies to watch over Medina-Sidonia's nephew. She fought the desire to flinch or wipe her hand on her skirts after they saluted her by kissing it.
“I cannot believe such beauty was present in Vallado-lid when last I was at court with Lorenzo here. Why did I not see you?” Peralonso asked with oily charm.
“The court was crowded. I seldom attended the royal functions. Such frivolities interest me little,” Magdalena replied.
Diego chuckled disparagingly. “I fear the lovely lady is more interested in tending sick colonists, even Indians, than in dancing at balls.”
“Yes, well since your husband has lived among the savages for so long, I suppose he wants you to aid them with the medical skills for which his family was famous,” Lorenzo said.
“I studied briefly with Benjamin Torres before his death and it is my wish to use what small skill I possess to help Guacanagari's people, who are our allies against those in the interior,” Magdalena retorted as smoothly as she could.
“I assume Don Diego Torres has not yet placed his approval on your activities?” Diego asked, knowing full well the whole story of her fight with Aaron about her hospital work.
She smiled serenely at him. “When a husband is away, he often finds his wife will do as she pleases.” Let this shallow boy try to stop me!
By this time the other council members had clustered about them, and Magdalena was plied with wine and compliments on her gown, hair, even the color of her eyes. Somehow, when the seating was arranged for the meal, she found herself beside Lorenzo Gu
zman, much to her dismay. Of all the men present, old Gasparo Morales and the fat, jolly Nicolas de Palmas were the only two she could abide and they were at the far end of the table.
Everyone discussed the upcoming campaign against Caonabo and his allies. To Magdalena it seemed as if the men felt the Indians less than human, fit only to be butchered or enslaved. Recalling her own harsh condemnation of Guacanagari's people as savage, her cheeks burned with shame. “We are supposedly people of the Christian faith, sent by the crown not only to claim lands, but to save souls. Yet it seems that you,” she directed her eyes for a telling moment to Lorenzo and the pompous Bernal, “see Tainos as beings without souls, whom we may exploit as if they were cattle. Is this not in conflict with what our Church teaches?”
Several councilmen squirmed uncomfortably, but Diego Colon, smiling indulgently as if treating with a dim-witted child, replied, “The Church wants us to baptize them, yes, but only if they will accept peaceful ways. Most of those in the interior are cannibals and as such, may be enslaved with the full sanction of the Holy See. But this is a bloody subject, unfit for the tender sensibilities of a lady,” he added, patting her hand.
“Yes, let us do discuss something less unsettling,” Lorenzo chimed in with a feral smile that did not touch his icy gray eyes.
For the duration of the meal they discussed the news from the royal court—dynastic marriage plans for Fernando and Ysabel's children, the ongoing maneuvering between Charles VIII of France and their clever Argonese king, even the settlement of the boundary dispute between the Majesties and João II of Portugal. By the terms of a treaty negotiated by the Pope, the Atlantic was cut in twain, north to south, and all lands of the Indies were divided between the two kingdoms.
“Twould seem the Portuguese are doomed to failure. Our sovereigns' admiral has claimed all the islands of the Indies for them. What can lie in the middle of the south Atlantic but empty water?” Don Gasparo said with a chuckle.