City of Silver (8 page)

He slid to a halt at the convent door and jerked on the bell chord until Sor Diogene, the Sister Porter, arrived. He demanded confirmation of the news young Juanito had given him.

The lashes of the nun’s round gray eyes fluttered in dismay. Her hands came together. “Lord have mercy on her soul.”

Tears and anger boiled within the priest like some plume of steam that had escaped a volcano in the depths of the ocean. He turned away and pressed his fists to his mouth lest his emotions break the surface.

He dismissed the boy with a coin and unlocked the thick, arched vestry door of the church attached to the convent. The iron hinges squealed.

Without stopping to light a candle, he quickly donned a stole and surplice and took the holy oils of the last sacrament from their gold-and-silver cabinet. Through the gloomy, silent halls of the convent, he followed Sor Diogene to the infirmary. There lay the body of Inez Rojas de la Morada, clothed not in the fine silks and brocades she had worn all her life, but in the plain wool habit she had so recently taken.

As ordinary Church practice permitted, Padre Junipero administered the sacrament to the already lifeless girl. He
anointed her body, cool but not cold. Perhaps, though breath and heartbeat had stopped, her soul lingered within and would hear and benefit. The nuns chanted in the chapel across the cloister.

The priest laid hands on the veil that covered Inez’s soft brown hair—still long because she had not yet professed even temporary vows. He commanded his hands to be quick and businesslike, but they lingered in spite of him.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti . . .”

When he finished his prayers, he capped the holy oils and went out to find Mother Maria Santa Hilda, Sor Olga, and Sor Monica in the dim cloister. The chanting voices from the chapel were louder out here and rang in the chill, still air like tens of perfectly tuned silver bells. The three holy women stood together in silence under the stone arcade carved with scrolls and leaves. In its center was a square patch of grass surrounding a fountain made of marble shaped like the Star of David with a cross rising from it.

“What happened to her?”

The Abbess suppressed any look of disapproval at the priest’s New World lack of good manners. A true son of Spain would have greeted aristocratic women with queries about their health and protestations of sympathy at their loss.

Sor Monica covered his gaffe with her answer. “I hope she is with God.”

Mother Maria Santa Hilda spread her hands in a gesture of permission. She needed them both to help her find the answer to the padre’s question. The priest would have to help them understand what had happened, and the tiny Sister Herbalist had the finest medical mind in the city, regardless of what the bloodletting doctors thought of their fancy European studies.

Sor Monica’s huge eyes glanced into hers, looking for assurance. “Go ahead. Tell him,” the Abbess said.

Monica’s next words were so soft and tentative, they might
have been the rustling blades of grass on the cloister lawn. “We think she might have taken her own life.”

The priest jerked his head as if he’d been slapped. “Suicide?” He gave the Abbess a look as much accusatory as shocked.

A pang of guilt hit her gut. Well, should he accuse her. Inez had been in her care. If Inez had indeed taken her own life, the soul they had both most sought to save would be condemned to hell for all eternity. The girl would not even be permitted burial in Christian ground.

“What could make you think such a thing?” he demanded hotly.

Maria Santa Hilda turned away from his tormented eyes and scanned the shadows of the distant hills of the Altiplano, just visible over the convent’s roof. She wanted an answer that would soothe him and her both. She might as well seek rosebuds in the barren mountains. Or escape from this tragedy. She dragged her eyes back to his. “I do not accept the idea of her self-destruction. Inez showed no signs of despair. Nothing in her manner or speech led any of us to imagine she had lost all hope. . . .” Her voice faded.

“Surely there is another explanation. I cannot think Inez’s soul is lost to God forever.” The priest was as desperate as she was. Inez was one of the great spiritual links between them. They saw her the same way—troubled, but holding such great potential. Like the city they both loved so passionately, she had the capacity to become as beautiful in her soul as she was in her physical presence. The Abbess looked into the priest’s eyes and saw his pain and his resolve, both matching hers. “Tell me the circumstances of her death,” he said.

“She had locked herself in her cell,” Mother Maria began.

“Locked?” the padre interrupted. He glanced along at the row of identical heavy oak doors. Each was fitted with a simple iron latch.

“Only the vault where we store the deposited silver and the
street doors have locks,” the Abbess said, “but Inez had managed to wedge a plank of wood behind the bed and the
armario
so that the door was barred. There is no other way in or out of the room. The only window is high and narrow and covered with bars. No one could have gone in or out once she barred that door.” The Abbess had gone over it and over it in her mind for the last hour, like the repetitions of the prayers she should have been saying.

“Could there have been someone hidden in the room with her?”

Sor Olga shot him a shocked and disapproving look. “She was completely alone.”

“You mentioned an
armario,
” the priest offered.

“I opened it to take out a blanket to cover her,” Maria Santa Hilda said. “There was no one there.” She paused and lowered her voice to a faint whisper. “I think you should know she was unclothed.”

“I see,” the padre said blankly. His eyelids fluttered as if he were trying to clear his mind’s eye.

The Abbess went on talking. “Sor Monica and I have gone over all possibilities. It was not noxious gases from the coal in the brazier. There was no fire.” Such gases had killed many inhabitants of this bleak place, who built their rooms small and practically windowless to keep out the chill and had nothing to burn on the treeless mountaintop but poisonous coal.

“Her death was sudden,” Sor Monica said. “Her lips were blue, as if she had been suffocated.”

This surprised Mother Maria. “There was nothing covering her face.” She turned to the Sister Herbalist. “Could it have been her heart?” Her mind raced for some way to wipe out the image of Inez taking her own life, destroying herself before the Abbess found a way to help her unburden her sins.

“I cannot say for sure,” Sor Monica said, though her voice
sounded completely decided. “I only know that vigorous, otherwise healthy young women do not drop dead of heart failure. Nor had she any fever or infection or complaint of any sort. Except for a certain intensity when she spoke, her humors seemed completely in balance. She ate her dinner in seemingly perfect health.”

“A spider? A poisonous snake?” The priest was grasping at straws.

“Father, there are none such at this altitude.” Sor Monica clenched her hands together in an attitude of desperate prayer. “We have examined her and tried to posit every explanation. We have none, except that there was a carafe of water and a glass on the floor next to her. She could have made herself a draft of something.”

“Where would she have gotten such a mixture?” he demanded.

Sor Olga was indignant. Sor Monica chewed her bottom lip and looked at the Abbess’s feet.

Mother Maria folded her hands into her wide sleeves. “Outside substances do come in. The maids come and go and . . .” She did not finish. A sigh escaped her and betrayed her exasperation, her fear, her frustration.

Sor Monica reached into her own sleeve and drew out a glass vial. “I have collected the water left in the carafe and from the floor. I put one drop on my tongue.” She glanced into the Abbess’s eyes. “I made a perfect act of contrition first.”

The Abbess could not help smile. “And?”

“It tastes like plain water. I . . .”

“Yes. Yes. Go on.” The Abbess saw that the priest disapproved the sharpness her voice betrayed, but he did not have to put up daily with the Sister Herbalist’s excesses of humility.

“I do not like to endanger one of God’s creatures, but I had thought to feed this to the cat, to see if it had any effect.”

“You must!” the padre replied vehemently. “You must prove that it is not poison, that she did not take her own life.” Meeting the Abbess’s glance, he modulated his voice. “The scandal of a suicide could hurt your convent, Mother.”

“How well I know that,” Mother Maria responded, “but unfortunately, showing the water is not poison will prove nothing.”

Sor Olga seized this. “She might have eaten something of which she left no sign. Considering the circumstances of her death, we must assume she destroyed herself.”

“No!” The Abbess clenched her jaw. “We will assume no such thing.”

“If she did not plan to commit some sin, why did she lock herself in?” Sor Olga demanded.

The Abbess saw Sor Monica and the priest look to her for an answer. “There could be any number of reasons,” she said, though she could think of none that would help Inez’s soul before God. “Even if the water is poisoned, that does not mean that she killed herself. Someone else could have put poison there.”

“Mother!” Sor Monica said in shock. “Who in this convent would take another’s life?”

“Who indeed?” Sor Olga demanded. “The girl took her own. She must have.”

The Abbess held up her commanding fingers. “Stop. It is not our place to accuse Inez of suicide when we have no proof. If the water is not poison, we must assume that she died of some unknown natural cause.”

“The Bishop and Fray DaTriesta will take a great interest in this,” Sor Olga said quietly.

Mother Maria looked up into the sooty clouds that surrounded the pale, rising moon. “Suicide or murder, either way it bodes no good for this convent.” The Abbess saw how this grim scenario might unfold. How the Alcalde might respond. “We
will bury Inez here in the choir, with our sisters who have gone before her. We will not accept the idea that her soul is lost.”

The priest nodded in agreement. “Then we must try to establish to the Bishop’s and Fray DaTriesta’s satisfaction that she did not kill herself.”

Sor Monica shook her head. “They will be hard to satisfy.”

“Perhaps not,” the Abbess said. “I am sure the Bishop would prefer to avoid any scandal, especially with the Grand Inquisitor and Visitador General Nestares both coming.”

The priest agreed that they must give the girl a proper burial, but the Abbess’s heart held no optimism about what would happen if they were accused of breaking Church law by burying a suicide in a sacred place. “We will be ready if we are challenged. We must find out all we can. Padre, you will look for information outside these walls. Sor Monica and I will determine all we can within them.”

“Is it permitted to make such an investigation during Holy Week?” It was, of course, Sor Olga who reminded her that these were the holiest days of the year and should be given over to prayer and repentance.

“Grave accusations can be made against the Abbess unless we can defend our decision with facts,” the priest said. “Besides, discovering the truth
is
God’s work.”

“And the Inquisition, the auto-da-fé . . . We must never . . .” Sor Monica reached out impetuously and grasped her Abbess’s hand.

Maria Santa Hilda drew back from the gesture and from the danger she knew to be real. “You are letting your imagination run away with you, Sister.”

“Perhaps,” the priest said, “but we must prepare to protect you, Lady Abbess.”

“Sor Monica, you will examine the body again for any sign,” the Abbess commanded.

Sor Monica’s hands went to her chest. “I am not as well trained as the physicians in these matters.”

Sor Olga’s dark eyes narrowed. “We cannot let a man examine her body.”

“No, of course not,” the Abbess said, “but I am sure your examination will tell us as much as any surgeon’s, Sor Monica. We will establish Inez’s innocence of suicide, and we will allow no scandal to besmirch this convent or to threaten any of us.”

A maid came along the corridor with a lit torch, placed it in a bracket near them, then disappeared into the gloom beyond the chapel.

“Will you tell her parents, Father?” The Abbess regretted having to ask him.

His shoulders sagged, but he said, “I will do it.”

Across the cloister, a door banged, and a figure in black darted into the shadows.

Sor Monica gasped, and Sor Olga’s eyes widened in fright.

The Abbess hesitated a second, then grabbed the torch from its bracket and made quickly along the round-arched arcade. Padre Junipero followed, with the others trailing at a safe distance.

At the corner, where a statue of St. Jerome looked down from a niche, they met Beatriz Tovar running toward them.

“Beatriz!” the Mistress of Novices scolded. “What are you doing here? You are supposed to be in the chapel.”

Beatriz halted and stared down at the stone pavement. “I’m sorry, Sister,” she said breathlessly, “but I had something—”

Sor Olga’s bony fingers grasped Beatriz’s elbow. “Return to the chapel at once. This is an outrage.”

A whimper escaped the girl. “But, Sister, you have to . . .” Her big, round eyes pleaded with the Abbess.

Mother Maria stepped forward and extended an arm between Sor Olga and the girl. “What is it, Beatriz?”

“I have to show you,” Beatriz said defiantly.

“Show us what?” Maria Santa Hilda demanded impatiently.

The girl drew a crumpled piece of paper from her sleeve and gave it to the Abbess, who read it aloud by the flickering torchlight: “ ‘Bea, please come to my room after Vespers and stay the night with me. I am plagued by secret knowledge, and I fear for my life. I need help. Please come. Inez.’ ”

“I thought she was exaggerating,” Beatriz said plaintively. “You know how she was.”

Mother Maria put a steadying hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“It must mean someone was threatening Inez’s life,” Sor Monica said. “Someone who feared this secret knowledge. It proves she did not commit . . .” Her voice trailed off.