Return to Paradise (Torres Family Saga) (8 page)

      
I know your feelings about your Indian heritage. If only you could come here and meet these noble souls before they all perish, you would change your mind. They need your strength. So do I. Pray for us as I do for you. May God and Our Lady keep you safe until we are reunited here on Española ...

      
Rigo scanned the closing with its exhortations to write more often. Bartolome would never abandon hope that his adopted brother might come to the New World.

      
Isaac watched the play of emotions on Rigo's face as he read the letter, seeing a genuine expression of warmth infuse the harsh mask. “You love this Dominican well,” he said softly.

      
“He has newly professed his vows with the order in Santo Domingo two years past, but was ordained the first priest in the Indies in 1512. Bartolome is fifty years old now. Unlike me, he has spent his life trying to save others.”

      
“Their bodies or their souls?” Isaac asked skeptically.

      
“First their bodies. Their souls he leaves to God's mercy. Bartolome has fair worn out a dozen ships sailing from Española to Spain, pleading the cause of my mother's people. Tis a waste, yet he does not see it so. He is too good for this world,” Rigo said sadly.

      
“You despise your mother's people,” Isaac said with sudden intuition.

      
Rigo's face hardened. “They bare their bellies to Spanish steel and do not fight back. They choose rather to let a gentle man like my foster brother sacrifice his life and his health pleading their cause.”

      
“And you have also hated your father for deserting you. Is it easier to do so knowing now that Aaron Torres is descended from Jews?” Isaac watched Rigo, waiting patiently for a reaction.

      
Rigo shrugged rather too carelessly, then replied, “When my ministering angel, the lady doctor, first told me my Spanish blood was also Jewish blood, I felt it a great joke, but life has played many pranks on me and I have yet survived. I care not whether Aaron Torres is Jew or Christian, only that he spawned a bastard on a savage and walked away.”

      
Isaac could feel the pain behind the icy words. He nodded, satisfied that his family faced no threat from the Holy Office. As to the unsettling influence this embittered young man would have on them... “I was right to caution Benjamin concerning you. You will sow discord everywhere you go. Twould have been better if he and Miriam had not been able to save your life!”

Chapter Four

      
Judah Toulon sat in the accounting quarters that served as his personal audience chamber. Dark furniture from far Cathay lavishly carved with mystical snakes and dragons filled the large room, giving it an aura of menace combined oddly with opulence. The wall tapestries and window hangings were also Oriental, mostly Turkish, in dark, rich hues of purple, indigo and blood red. A massive bronze candelabra gave off flickering light against the dark night as the merchant studied his younger visitor.

      
Richard DuBay felt suffocated by the sickly sweet smell of incense. Judah's hooded black eyes, as inscrutable as any Mussulman's, added to his discomfort. He resisted the urge to squirm as he studied his own handsomely bejeweled hands. Finally, when Toulon's Christian servant had poured them wine and then departed, he broke the silence. “You know I have desired this alliance for some years. But Miriam is nearly twenty-four years old and the bloom of maidenly youth has been spent while you indulged her in the insanity of practicing medicine. You know I do not approve of that. She has wasted enough precious childbearing years. If we agree to a betrothal, I want the marriage celebrated quickly, and she must devote herself to my home and hearth.”

      
Judah smiled ever so slightly. “Well spoken. I have come to regret my decision to send her to Padua—not because she has become a physician, but because of the way events have turned with Benjamin Torres.”

      
Richard's spine stiffened. “You made a grave error allowing the betrothal with the son of a
Marrano
. Why have you changed your mind now?” He waited, angry at the way Judah was playing with him, but afraid to overstep his bounds.

      
“I did not change my mind. As to his father being a
converso
, here in Marseilles Benjamin is as much a Jew as you or I. Tis his accursed desire to return to the Spanish colonies that has brought me to this pass. I will not see my only child endangered and neither she nor I can sway him from his course. So I must act. You are suitable for Miriam.” Judah studied his prospective son-in-law, hiding his dislike of the greedy DuBay, whose fortunes were decidedly on the wane.

      
DuBay stood up, shoving the red brocade chair back. He was barely of a height with Miriam and shorter than her father. Both men bowed and the younger spoke. “Very good. When may we announce the betrothal?”

      
Judah waved the question aside, saying, “First I must speak with Isaac Torres. Since Benjamin and Miriam have been pledged for so long, courtesy demands that we break off that verbal agreement first. I will be in touch, Richard, never fear.”

      
After DuBay departed, Judah sat alone in his accounting chamber as the candles flickered low. The tables were stacked with neatly rolled parchments and ledgers filled with figures. He had devoted his life to amassing a fortune to equal Solomon's. How he and Rachel had wanted children to inherit all of his vast empire. Yet God had blessed them with only one child, Miriam.

      
In addition to being unable to carry on her father's commercial ventures by virtue of her sex, she was also intent on being a physician. Yet he could deny her nothing and he would yet achieve his ends. All he had, and all the House of Torres had would one day be bestowed on Miriam and Benjamin. But first he had to keep that young fool from throwing away everything. “You may send your dusky Christian brother back to Española, Benjamin, but you will wed my daughter and I will keep you here.” He stroked his iron-gray beard and looked at the shelves of shipping invoices as the darkness thickened around him.

* * * *

      
Benjamin's face paled as he listened to Isaac's words. “He can not do this! Miriam would never agree.”

      
“It seems she will have little to say in the matter,” Isaac replied, wondering if that were true but testing the waters with his nephew.

      
“That is absurd! If Judah gave her leave to journey across the Alps to the finest medical school in Europe, he will scarce force her to wed against her will. DuBay is old enough to be her father and a fortune-hunting prig in the bargain,” Benjamin added with contempt.

      
“Richard DuBay is from a fine old family, he is but two and forty years, and he is well thought of by our rabbi. He first asked for her hand when she came of age,” Isaac temporized.

      
“And when she refused him, he wed a rich widow. Now that she is conveniently deceased, the man importunes Judah again,” Benjamin said angrily.

      
“Only because you and Miriam cannot agree on the terms of your betrothal. You are eight and twenty, she a scant four years younger. Tis far past time you were wed, yet you wrangle over leaving the safety of Provence for the dangers of an ocean voyage into the waiting arms of Spanish inquisitors. Why not light the fagot for her pyre yourself?” Isaac snapped, his patience at an end.

      
Benjamin ran one hand through his curly gold hair and shook his head. “Tis not as you and she believe. I have regular communication with my parents. If it were dangerous to bring Miriam home, they would never ask it. She would be happy there. Tis here she will be miserable, for that snake DuBay will never let her practice medicine.”

      
“Then you settle it with Miriam. Either the two of you come to terms, or Judah will act in what he believes are the best interests of his daughter. He has given her much freedom. Mayhap now he counts the cost of giving in to her desires too dear.”

      
“I will call on her this afternoon. If I cannot convince her to live on Española, I will at least take my brother home and then return to live with her here,” Benjamin said unhappily.

      
“If so, we could announce the betrothal within a fortnight,” Isaac replied, resisting the urge to rub his hands in glee.
Judah, you old schemer, tis working!

* * * *

      
Rigo sat by the edge of the pool with his long legs propped up on a pile of cushions, paring an apple and eating it. Benjamin shed his doublet, then stripped off his shoes and hose. As he pulled the loose white tunic over his head and tossed it beside his other garments on the floor, Rigo was once again amazed. But for coloring, even the patterns of hair on their bodies, the shape and contours of their bones and muscles, everything was identical. Well, not quite everything, he amended to himself with a crooked grin. He was not circumcised.

      
Over the past month of Rigo's remarkable recovery the two estranged brothers had become fast friends, sharing time together as much as could be allowed owing to Benjamin's busy schedule and the restrictions on Rigo's physical activities. Often when Benjamin came home from making calls on patients, he took a bath in the large tile-lined pool on the first floor of the Torres mansion. It was of Moorish design, a magnificent circle twenty feet in diameter. Benjamin had grown up sharing public bathing with his father and brothers in the streams of Española. Here he had often joined his uncle or male cousins in a refreshing ablution. Now he invited Rigo here so they might talk in private before the family gathering for the evening meal.

      
“What are you grinning at, you jackanapes,” Benjamin asked fondly.

      
“Did that, er, alteration of your private parts pain you much?” he asked with a chuckle, still amazed that the stories he had heard about how Jews mutilated their bodies were true. The first time he had seen Benjamin naked he had been horrified. Now he felt comfortable enough to ask.

      
“Since I was but a week or so old, I know not,” he replied as he slid over the edge of the smooth blue and green tiles and submerged himself in the warm water.

      
Rigo, having finished his apple, quickly stripped off his robe and joined Benjamin in the pool, still favoring his side slightly. “If your mother is Christian and you were born in the wilds of the jungle, why were you subjected to that barbarity?”

      
“Here tis a religious injunction, but as my grandfather and many other learned physicians have observed over the centuries, many Jewish religious prescriptions are also health precautions. One of the residents of our
hato
is a
converso
who learned how to perform circumcisions. My mother raised no objection to it. My family has always abstained from pork, not for religious taboo but because in hot climates it engenders worms that cause illnesses. Shellfish, if they are not consumed immediately after being caught and cooked, can be lethal as any poison.” He shrugged. “I do not know if this is some favor God granted Jewish lawgivers, or if tis but common sense and simple respect for the human body.”

      
“Bathing, washing the hands before eating, even dietary laws, such I can comprehend, but carving on my manhood!” Rigo shuddered even thinking of it.

      
Benjamin's laugh echoed atop the vaulted ceiling of the men's bath chamber. “If ever you become infected and swell from a discharge caught beneath that treasured bit of skin, I can assure you, you will change your opinion very quickly and part with it!”

      
“I shall endeavor to keep very, very clean,” Rigo vowed grimly. “Ah, the warm water does relax the tightly drawn skin healing about the wound.” He lay his head back against the rim of the pool and closed his eyes.

      
Benjamin watched his brother.
You will talk of so many things, yet this is the nearest you have ever come to asking about our father.
“I wrote to Papa when first I found you. He should be receiving the letter by now, barring bad weather or corsairs.”

      
Rigo's expression darkened. “I suppose he will be overjoyed to hear I might come to claim my birthright,” he said bitterly.

      
“Yes, he will be overjoyed. So will my mother and our sisters and brothers. They have heard much of Navaro, their lost elder brother. Yet you say only that you ‘might’ claim your birthright. Twill break their hearts if you refuse. What holds you here? You owe no allegiance to King Carlos any more than I do to King Francois.”

      
“I do owe my loyalty to Pescara. Tis for him I fight—and for myself. He has rewarded a half-caste bastard with handsome promotions and much spoils. I have learned to live well by my sword, Benjamin.”

      
“So I could see by all the scars you bear. You very nearly did not live at all and likely would not have if Miriam had not tended you as she did,” Benjamin said, still disturbed by her reaction to Rigo.

      
Wishing to shift the subject from their father and any plan to return to Española, Rigo seized upon the mention of Miriam. “I have not seen my lady doctoress in many a day. Now that I am recovered, is she afraid of me?” he asked, suspecting she might be avoiding him.

      
“Miriam fears no one, Rigo, not even you.” Benjamin's face grew wary yet his eyes betrayed great unhappiness. “We have quarreled again over returning to Española. Like you, she is loathe to go. Only this morning I learned from Uncle Isaac that her father wants to break our betrothal and wed her to another merchant here in Marseilles.”