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Authors: Annamaria Alfieri

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BOOK: City of Silver
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After her adventure in men’s clothing, Beatriz Tovar returned home in the company of Rodrigo, the man her father had chosen to be her husband. She found that the prisoners of the cave-in at her father’s mine had been released. The
mitayos
had escaped with just a few broken limbs—serious, but not fatal. Rumor spread among the Indians that the curse had been lifted from the Corpus Christi lode.

Domingo Barco confessed to Antonio Tovar and Doña Pilar that he had given the papers to Santiago Yana, when Inez insisted he hide them for her. “I could not keep them myself,” he said. “My mother kept one to protect me from the Alcalde. But I knew he would suspect I had them and not hesitate to kill me and my mother. Santiago knew to bring them to Don Tovar if anything happened to me.”

“But why Santiago? Why did you give them to him?” Pilar asked.

“Because I knew he had debts, and I could pay him. I thought it would help him. The Alcalde must have followed me that night, when I met Santiago at the inn and sent him to get the papers. Morada must have waited at the mouth of the mine for Santiago to bring up the packet. I should have gone with Santiago and protected him instead of waiting in the town. The Alcalde threw him down the shaft, but Santiago’s death is on my soul.” His face, bathed in sadness, was handsomer even than when he smiled. So like Antonio’s face to Pilar, now that she knew him as her husband’s son. She knew too that she would never question Antonio about fathering this son. He had been five years in this New World before their marriage. Antonio—loyal as he had been since she came to Potosí—must be forgiven for this. Much worse her own sin for the son she had lost so many years ago.

THE DOWRY OF Beatriz Tovar was only eight thousand pesos, and smitten as the groom was, he did not even ask if the coins were old money or new. The marriage was arranged quickly because winter was setting in. The bridal couple were grateful for the haste because they could not wait to get at each other.

The groom’s most noble aunt bought the wedding cake and the bride’s gloves and joined with several other godparents to buy the veil.

“Men want their women devout because they enjoy thinking of themselves as bad by comparison,” Pilar told her daughter on the eve of her wedding, “but they do not want women to be too intelligent. There is no joy in feeling stupid.”

Beatriz was not listening. She was thinking of what her mother had told her earlier and was too busy contemplating the hole in the bridal sheet they would lay over her when she awaited her groom on her wedding night.

All of Potosí society attended the celebration of the
marriage—true noblemen, impostors who pretended to be descendants of the Conquistadores, Basques, even some Andalusians.

To his wedding Rodrigo wore a costume so rich, it was valued at eighty thousand pesos, all embroidered with the richest pearls, zircons, rubies, and sapphires and adorned with thirty emeralds of unusual size and also twelve diamonds of great value. In the months and years to come, he would have the cunning goldsmiths of Potosí work these jewels into magnificent adornments for his beloved Beatriz.

The bride wore Italian shoes with high heels studded with silver nails and a green silk mantle lined with lace. She carried a precious handkerchief given to her by her bridesmaid, Gemita. It looked curiously familiar to the groom.

On the morning of their wedding, Rodrigo waited for Beatriz before the gorgeously carved façade of the convent church of Santa Isabella de los Santos Milagros. The music of timbrels and pipes, reed flutes and tambourines, accompanied the bride to meet her groom, who presented her with a bouquet fashioned of feathers to look like fresh roses.

From the hidden choir that overlooked the altar, the nuns of the convent chanted joyous anthems as the couple entered, accompanied by their parents and all the guests. They then sang the glorious Mass of Tomás Luis de Victoria for the nuptials celebrated by Padre Junipero, with his left hand still bandaged from the damage sustained in his torture by Morada’s men.

At the feast that followed the wedding Mass, the Indians of the
ingenio
performed the
cueca,
a courting dance, while the company dined on beef and mutton, fowls, venison, raw and preserved fruits, corn, and wine, all of which had been brought from great distance on exhausted mules.

The weather held until after the ceremony, but snow soon closed the mountain passes, keeping the bride and groom in Potosí until spring, to the delight of Pilar Tovar.

The snow also stopped the exodus of miners from the city. The winter proved so brutal that many a day people were forced to remain in their beds for warmth. Some enjoyed this more than others.

BOOK: City of Silver
2.4Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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