The Inquisitor's Wife (14 page)

He reached out quickly and slapped my cheek.

His attack was less than halfhearted; the blow stung only a little, and I never wobbled. But the damage to my feelings was devastating: He’d never struck me before.

“Don’t ever speak to me so again,”
he said huskily, and his slightly wild, empty gaze dropped to the floor.
“Don’t ever speak to me at all. I’m no longer your father, do you understand, Marisol? And you’re no longer my daughter. This is the end of it. You’re an Hojeda now. Forget that I ever existed.”

“What?”
I gasped at the impact of his words and reached for him.
“Papá, how can you say such a thing to me? You know I love you! You’re not yourself. Please, you’re upset over Mamá!”

He lowered his head so that I couldn’t read his eyes; his shoulders sagged, and he began to shout with an odd rage, one that left his voice ragged and tearful.

“You’ll leave this house and never come back! Do you understand? Never come back! I won’t have it! I won’t—! You’re not mine anymore! You have to get out, do you hear? You have to get out!”

He broke into wrenching sobs and hurried out my door.

I sank to the floor and sobbed without restraint, hearing the silent jeers of the boys out in the street on the day the Jew had wandered into our neighborhood:
Marrana! Marrana! Marrana!

And I imagined I heard my Old Christian father’s voice among theirs. I understood all too well what he hadn’t had the courage to admit directly: Shaken by his wife’s death, don Diego was marrying me off to Gabriel Hojeda to be rid of me and the danger presented by my tainted blood.

Seven

Standing now in the bedroom where Gabriel Hojeda’s mother had died, I stared down at Máriam, who knelt beside me in front of the quieting hearth, her oily brown-black face gleaming. As much as I had always adored and trusted her, I understood why my father had dismissed her and why he harbored doubts.

“So,” I asked softly, without emotion, “were there any clues that my mother was planning to kill herself?”

Máriam turned her head sharply to stare up over her shoulder at me. Her great brown eyes were narrowed, the dark, velvety skin beneath them twitching. We had never spoken honestly about how my mother had died.

“Doña Magdalena never said any such thing to me,” she whispered harshly, and turned just as quickly back to the fire; she thrust at the white-edged logs mindlessly, provoking as much flame as she discouraged.

“Didn’t you ask her,” I persisted gently, “why she was making you promise to look after me?”

Her full lower lip thrust forward as she scowled at the flames. “She made me promise that many times when she was close to death after losing a child.”

For a moment we remained silent while I struggled to repress all the questions that had tormented me over the past two weeks:
How did she dress without your help? Without waking you? How could you not have noticed when she walked past you out the door?
Máriam was easily awakened, far more so than my mother; I’d never seen her in bed or asleep.

Some painful thought pricked her. She dropped the poker and jerked back toward me, still on her knees.

“Do you really think, doña Marisol, that I would ever have wanted any harm to come to your mother? That I didn’t love her as I love myself?” With the word
love,
a tear spilled from each of her eyes, and she didn’t stop to wipe them away. “She lied to me. She said—” Her face contorted violently, and she turned back to the fire to compose herself. When she spoke again, staring steadily into the fire, it was in a whisper. “I have no one to care for now, except you.”

I sank to my knees and hugged her sinewy arms and bony shoulders, an impulsive gesture that startled her: I hadn’t embraced her since I was a child and was still unaware that servants weren’t family. Máriam turned her face away, unable to relax into the embrace, and I slowly unwound my arms and rose again.

“I know how you loved her,” I said huskily, then turned away myself toward the eastern wall.

A tall, very narrow dresser made of pale creamy olive wood was pushed against the wall. Save for the handsome pattern of burls in the wood, the dresser wasn’t notable, but the statue sitting on it was: my mother’s Madonna, veiled in blue, her solar halo gilded, her cherry ceramic lips smiling down at the chalk-white child in her arms. Her clumsy grin seemed smug, even mocking.

“Take this away.” Even I was surprised at the bitterness in my tone. “I don’t ever want to see it again.”

Máriam stood, poker in hand, her composure returned. “But it was your mother’s, doña!”

“And what good did it do her?” The blasphemous words were out of my mouth before I could weigh them.

Máriam remained firm. “It was very dear to your mother. She wanted you to have it. She asked…” A breath of weakness crept into her tone, but she steeled herself. “Every time she asked me to look after you, she told me to be sure you had the Madonna.” She lowered her voice to an apologetic murmur, knowing that her lesser status made her wishes of no import. “We prayed together in front of it every day.”

I turned my back to it, still wounded. I would have insisted then that she put it somewhere else, where I wouldn’t have to glimpse it so often, but Blanca’s knock interrupted; she had come to take me to the wedding supper; I was too nervous to ask whether Fray Hojeda had left.

I followed her back across the long courtyard, past Santiago’s fountain; the cold and a faint drizzle kept us moving at a fast pace, until we made it to the opposite wing, which housed the dining chamber, kitchen, and public reception areas.

I’ve always prided myself on being fearless, but by the time Blanca opened the doors to the dining chamber, my legs were so wobbly from fright that I worried they’d give out at any moment.

Just as I’d dreaded, Fray Hojeda was standing inside, a goblet in his hand. My husband paced in front of the fireplace, not far from a near-empty flagon of wine set on a century-old table built to accommodate some forty diners; only a dozen high-backed chairs remained now, all of them set at one edge of the table, above whose center rested a gap in the ceiling covered by planks, suggesting that a large chandelier had been removed. Gabriel’s usually pale nose was red as a cherry, indicating that the flagon had been full not long before; he gripped the stem of his goblet as if it were a lifeline. For once, the friar was not quite scowling, though it was clear that not doing so strained him.

“Doña Marisol,” he said, in his commanding bass.
Doña,
he called me—the polite title of address for a married woman—and though his tone could not be called welcoming, it was civil. While he was not completely drunk, there was a slight slur to his speech; it had apparently taken more than just Gabriel’s words to soothe him. “I apologize for my earlier show of temper. Don Gabriel has something he wishes to give you.”

Startled, I looked to Gabriel, who was trying his best not to seem too pleased at his victory over his older brother. He nodded at my right hand, and when I lifted it, he held it and, smiling faintly, slipped the thin gold band back on my finger. Fray Hojeda could not bear to watch; he averted his eyes, his lips twitching with the effort to suppress his outrage.

“I wish to welcome you to the family,” Fray Hojeda said woodenly as he set his goblet on the table. “I see now that I was wrong to treat you as I have.” He paused, and his tone grew adamant. “I will not have the marriage annulled—on one condition: that you do not indulge in marital relations for at least one month. This marriage was made in far too great a haste to be consummated immediately; let the month serve, if you wish, as a period of betrothal. Gabriel has already vowed to maintain celibacy for the time. I must insist on the same from you.”

“Of course,” I said, perhaps too eagerly; I hoped my voice didn’t betray the infinite relief I felt. “I vow the same.”

“Good.” Fray Hojeda finally looked me in the eye. “Then I would ask one more thing from you, doña Marisol: that you let it be known that Gabriel and I have shown you great kindness and have taken you under our roof to protect you from those who are not as … tolerant as we are, who might do you harm because you are a
conversa
.” He lowered his voice. “There is no need, of course, to mention the vow of celibacy to anyone.”

His words about protection made no sense to me. Still, I was grateful for his change of heart, although I couldn’t imagine what Gabriel had said that could have caused it.

“I must return to the monastery,” Hojeda said, “so I will leave you two to your supper. I wish you both goodnight.” With that, he strode from the dining room without a further glance at Gabriel or me.

I turned to Gabriel in disbelief. “What did you say to him?”

I asked the question uneasily. For my entire life, I’d lived across the street from the man who was now my husband, but my only personal exchange with him had occurred years earlier, when he’d attacked the elderly Jew.

Gabriel smiled with a hint of timidity, although he was clearly pleased with himself. “You mustn’t blame him, doña Marisol. He has his prejudices—we all do—but if he is to succeed, he must learn the difference between a
converso
and a crypto-Jew.”

I stared at Gabriel in disbelief; had his beliefs truly changed so much over the years?

With his goblet, he gestured me toward the table, where a small silver candelabrum sat between two place settings near one end of the table. Save for the small area lit by the candles and fireplace, the room was dark, the bulk of its interior hidden from scrutiny, but given the echo of Gabriel’s steps off the walls, it was clearly vast and mostly empty.

I was grateful that the place settings were at the end of the table closest to the hearth, where a recently lit fire struggled to catch hold; the room was still so chilly I could just see my breath in the gloom and rued the fact that I’d left my shawl back in my apartment. I moved toward the hearth and fought to repress a shiver as I rubbed my upper arms.

“Poor doña Marisol, you’re freezing,” Gabriel said, and hurried to set down his goblet. He’d had enough sense to throw a wool cape over his tunic, and he undid the clasp, removed the cape from his shoulders, and draped it around mine. His body had heated it, and I gathered it around me, grateful for the warmth.

“Thank you, don Gabriel,” I said.

“Look at you, you’re damp,” he said kindly. “It must be starting to rain again. No wonder you’re cold.”

He reached toward my face as if to wipe the droplets away. For an instant, his palm hovered above my cheek, but he resisted the urge to touch it, as if it were a forbidden object, and instead directed his attention to refastening the clasp at my collarbone. He fumbled nervously; I put my cold fingers over his, guiding them until the clasp snapped shut, but when I tried to drop my hands, he caught and held one of them. I had to bend my neck backward in order to see the fast-spreading blotches of color on his cheeks. In his eyes burned the same flicker of desire I had seen when I’d shouted for him to stop hitting Antonio.

At the same moment, I realized that Blanca had disappeared without a sound. Had Gabriel so quickly forgotten his promise to his brother?

“Doña Marisol,” he half whispered, still clasping the hand I yearned to pull free, “you’re so beautiful tonight. I can’t believe that you’re under my roof at last.” His breath was warm and smelled of wine. Tipsy, he took an unsteady step closer, until our bodies grazed each other, the black silk over my breasts gently brushing his rib cage. I could feel the heat of him and hear his quickened breath.

I averted my gaze and my face, hoping he would think modesty, not disgust and horror, caused me to do so. He read my dismay, slowly released his grip, and stepped back.

“Your hands are so cold, my wife.” He used the term of address with a shyness that might have been charming under different circumstances.

“They’ll warm soon enough,” I replied tonelessly.

“Come to the table, then.” He pulled out a chair at the table for me, as if he were a servant. When I had settled in it, he walked through the gloom away from the fireplace, toward the distant glow of the kitchen, and unceremoniously called for supper before returning to his place across the table from me.

We sat in uneasy silence until Blanca came to refill the flagon and set food in front of us. It wasn’t what I would have expected for a wedding supper: watery soup, a leg of cold greasy mutton, olives, sheep’s cheese, and tart, sour wine. Gabriel drank copiously, and I fought not to grimace as I swallowed as much wine as I could; the unpleasant encounter with Fray Hojeda had unnerved me.

We spoke little during the meal, save to comment on the weather and the suitability of my quarters. Eventually Blanca arrived, not with the traditional sponge cake studded with almonds, but two pieces of sweet shortbread known as
polvorón,
purchased from the baker. Once she had served us, Gabriel requested strict privacy and dismissed her. I halfheartedly nibbled my piece, which was crumbly and dry, while Gabriel swallowed his in two bites, then pushed aside the plate and folded his huge hands upon the table.

“I’m sure you’ve heard that Queen Isabel appointed me civil prosecutor for the Inquisition here in Seville.”

I nodded, accidentally inhaling a piece of
polvorón
and muffling a wheezing cough with my fist, glad that it allowed me to hide my expression.

“It’s a great honor,” he said proudly. “Ideally, the post would go to a Dominican priest or monk, but Her Majesty has allowed me to serve because of my degree in canon law.” He hesitated. “I want to apologize for my brother’s bad temper. He’s very proud of my position and feared our marriage might jeopardize it.”

“Won’t it?” I asked bluntly.

He gave a faint smile. “I should think it wouldn’t, given that Queen Isabel is herself married to a
converso.
” His expression grew serious. “I hope my brother didn’t insult you with his insistence on our remaining celibate.” He studied my reaction intently.