The Sisterhood (31 page)

The man eyed me critically. He told me to walk up and down the room, then he called me to him and fingered my hair. His fingers crawled on my scalp like rats’ paws. I shrank from his touch, but he wound a lock in his fingers and pulled it so tight tears sprang to my eyes. He smiled as I struggled.

“Like mother, like daughter,” said my father. “You will not see such hair on many girls.”

“Perhaps. But still, she is not worth so much as you think. How old?”

A sly look crossed my father’s face. “Only eleven.” This puzzled me, since I was fourteen. “To certain gentlemen, who prefer them young and untouched, she is worth a great deal. I have had several offers, but since you are a connoisseur I thought perhaps you would appreciate her youth. Either accept my terms or I shall take her to El Padron…”

I did not know until later that El Padron was the nickname of a great whoremaster in Madrid, but I sensed that whoever he was I did not wish to go to him.

My father’s guest held his gaze for a moment and then shrugged. “Bah! Here is what I will give.” He tossed a leather pouch on the
table. My father could no longer pretend indifference and snatched it eagerly. Inside there was what looked like a great sum of money, but my father threw it back to the man. “El Padron has offered twice that sum.”

The old man stared at me for a few minutes more as if considering, then he stood, nodded coldly, and left.

“Who was that man, Papa? Will he come back?” I ventured, but he growled that I would find out soon enough. And if I did not do as he said, the Inquisition had condemned Protestants, like my mother and me, and he would turn me over to them. At school I had learned enough to fear the Inquisition, even more than I feared my father.

The next day my father told me to dress in my best clothes and make a bundle of my other things. When I had done so, he produced a little pot of red cream and dabbed some on my lips and cheeks. We were putting on our cloaks to go out, when there was a knock and the old man from the day before stood there. He held out a larger pouch than before. My father hesitated, then opened the pouch. He gave a slow smile and shoved me in the man’s direction. “Go,” he told me.

“Where, Papa?”

“Where you belong,” he said. By then he was hunched over the table, counting the
reales
from the pouch. “Take her,” he said, without looking up. “Her things are in that bundle.” I heard the clink of metal from the table as the old man thrust the bundle into my arms and pulled me out of the room. He had a hard grip that hurt my shoulder, and I did not like the look on his face.

“Get in and let’s examine the pretty prize,” he muttered, shoving me into a closed carriage. I was too terrified to ask where we were going. Then he was beside me, his body pressing against mine, and his hands tried to grope open my cloak, though I clutched it as tight as possible around me. “Let go!” he panted, his breath foul in my face, “or later I’ll beat you until…”

I screamed as loud as I could and fought him with all my strength. He slapped me hard and pinned me to the seat with one hand ripping my cloak away, and was tugging my skirts with the other when there was a great commotion outside. The horses screamed and the coachman cried out, then the carriage jerked and lurched into motion, moving, faster and faster, rocking wildly. People in the street were shouting; things bumped beneath our wheels, and the man and I were flung from one side of the carriage to the other. The terrifying ride ended when the carriage listed and bumped sideways, then overturned with a sickening crash that threw my captor against the splintered roof onto the cobblestones with me on top of him.

It was as if his head exploded. He lay half in, half out of the bloody carriage, and when people pried open the door I huddled with my bundle, feeling something warm and wet on my face. I put up my hand and I looked at it, now covered in red. The horses were screaming, hooves thudding against the carriage. People shouted that they had bolted, and others shouted they were trapped in their harness, and someone cried they had bolted when a flock of small birds had darted out of nowhere and flown in their faces. Others shouted they had been spooked by a woman’s cloak that had suddenly billowed and snapped under their noses.

The noisy mob fell on the coach. Hands were thrust through the smashed roof to search the corpse’s pockets and, too frightened to scream, I watched a ragamuffin’s dirty fingers steal a ring and the man’s shoes.

Then hands pulled me from the wreck. Beneath the hood of a brown cloak a woman’s voice said that I was safe now, then I felt her take my hand. “You can still walk. Quickly!” I was set onto my feet and concealed under her cloak as we hurried away. Then everything went dark and still.

Sor Sophia cannot explain what happened any more coherently. She had fallen asleep in her closed carriage and a voice told her of an accident—a carriage had overturned, an evil man was dead. Then Sor Sophia was awakened, as if shaken by an invisible hand, to hear a commotion outside. Suddenly the curtains were pushed aside and Pia was thrust in, kicking and shrieking hysterically. A woman’s voice said sharply, “It is not a man but a nun. Get in! You are safe, I promise. The business can wait, Sor Sophia. Return to the convent!”

Sor Sophia is argumentative. She opened her mouth to ask questions and demand answers, but before she could utter a word the carriage door was slammed shut and bolted and the driver had turned around and set off from the direction they had come. Pia, finding the carriage door locked, had fainted.

From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, Las Golondrinas Convent, Andalusia, Late Summer 1550

Pia was not the last! The Abbess received a curious message that the urgent removal of a “hidden girl” would require the personal help of one of the nuns, a strong and forceful one, as the girl was not an infant. There was little time, as the road would soon be impassable in winter, so Sor Arsinoe was dispatched in a great hurry, and returned with Marisol in a cold autumn hailstorm that slicked the mountain road and soaked them both. Marisol looked like a drowned rat, hair dripping down either side of her face, and large brown eyes darting this way and that. She is only thirteen, but even half dead with cold and terror, Marisol radiates something we rarely see in the convent—defiance. “My mother may have sent me here, but you will never make me into a nun! I will escape!” She hissed between clenched teeth, as she was led away to be dressed in a dry novice’s gown.

According to Sor Arsinoe’s information, the girl is in danger from the authorities and the court painter Tristan Mendoza is somehow involved. Sor Arsinoe believes the mother was dying in childbirth when she took the girl away from court. The girl’s full name
is Maria Isabella Vilar d’Ascencion, but she insists on being called Marisol and scorned the idea that Tristan Mendoza is her father, insisting she is the daughter of Don Diego Vilar d’Ascencion, the commander of fleets to the New World. The Abbess said reasonably that if this was true, in justice to her father we should hear her story. Marisol is quick to argue but cannot withstand the Abbess’s calm reasoning.

My mother and my father were descended from Old Christian families. My grandmother died when my mother was born, and Josefa, an orphaned sixteen-year-old cousin too poor to have a dowry, took over my mother’s care and later accompanied her to convent school. When my grandfather died, his only living child—my mother—was heiress to his fortune. With no relatives to act as her guardian, she became a royal ward. At fourteen she left the convent where she had been educated and came to court, and lived with Josefa in apartments close to those of the queen.

Don Diego Vilar d’Ascencion was thirty years older than my mother when he saw her at court soon after her arrival. She was beautiful, well born, and rich, and he sought the king’s permission to marry her. The king consented—Don Diego had commanded fleets to the New World many times and returned with riches. But when not at sea, Don Diego was a connoisseur of paintings and beautiful women, and he ordered my mother’s betrothal portrait to be painted by Tristan Mendoza.

Josefa was scandalized. Tristan Mendoza’s portraits of women were said to have some magic hold over men that drew men’s eyes and excited their fantasies. Josefa told me Don Diego laughed away her protests, saying Josefa must guard my mother from anything improper.

Josefa would tell me proudly that Tristan Mendoza was irritated by her hovering and her refusal of his money when he tried to bribe
her to leave him alone with my mother. My mother was always amused when she said this, insisting that the artist told her stories and made her laugh, so that sitting for the portrait was not tedious.

When the portrait was finished, Josefa said that Don Diego was delighted. It hung in my mother’s bedchamber and my sister and I thought it very beautiful. My mother was far more splendidly dressed in the portrait than she was at home, occupied with a family and domestic matters. In the portrait, light danced up and down the folds of her silk gown with its wide skirt and her stiff white ruff. Her hair was caught up to frame her face with pearls and ribbons, her sleeves had lace, and the beads of her rosary were looped in her hand. Her dark eyes were wide, and though she looked shy, they seemed to smile just as she did in real life. Josefa said that before the wedding the portrait was displayed in one of the public rooms at court, to great acclaim, until it took the fancy of the crown prince, Don Balthazar.

At this point in the story Josefa would shake her head. She would murmur that perhaps an evil spell had been cast over him at birth. He had a harsh laugh that echoed down the palace corridors, and fits often robbed him of reason and he would howl and foam at the mouth, and wrestle imaginary foes, thrashing and lashing out at all around him until he had to be chained like a dog. Though he was heir to the throne of Spain, negotiations for Don Balthazar’s marriage had come to nothing. My mother would tell Josefa to find a topic more suitable for young ears than court scandal about the poor prince. Josefa would frown darkly and say, “I know what I know!” but say no more.

After the wedding, my father took my mother and her portrait to his castle, an old Moorish stronghold high in the hills south of Madrid. One of my earliest memories is of sitting with Josefa in one of its windy towers, waving good-bye as my father left for a voyage to Spanish America.

My mother had five children to occupy her time—my three older brothers, a sister Consuela, then me. We lived quietly, beginning each day with Mass, then lessons. After dinner the boys disappeared with their hawks, saddles, and hunting dogs, while Consuela and I had our music and embroidery, practiced our dance steps, or played checkers. Consuela was three years year older than I, and by the time she was thirteen she resembled our mother. Josefa said I was like my father.

When we saw him in intervals between voyages, my father was kind. Consuela and I would sing for him, he would quiz my brothers on their lessons, and then give us marvelous gifts—jewels and soft shawls, gilded workboxes, and finely made boy-sized swords. He and my mother would retire early. After a few weeks he would be gone again.

The boys slept in one of the towers with their tutors, and Consuela, Josefa, and I slept in a small alcove at the far end of the apartment from my mother’s bedchamber. Consuela slept soundly, but I was a light sleeper and small noises—the snap of dying embers in the fireplace, the hunting cry of a night bird on the plain, or Josefa’s snoring—would rouse me. One night, a month after my father had paid us an autumn visit and departed, I heard the sound of horses’ hooves clattering into the courtyard. There was an urgent command to “Open in the name of the king!” and then the sound of heavy feet and the servants being ordered away. My mother called sharply to Josefa to stay with the children. I said she sounded frightened, but Josefa shushed me in a way that meant she was frightened, too.

Many hours later, horses clattered away again. I asked Josefa who the mysterious visitors were. Josefa shook her head and said nothing.

The next morning I crept to my mother’s bedchamber. My mother had dark circles under her eyes and a bruise on her cheek,
and Josefa had an arm around her shaking shoulders. I heard her say, “But what could you have done that would not make it worse? He is the prince, and can order his way into the castle of any nobleman in the country. You say he had strongmen with him…”

“He is strong enough for ten and mad.” My mother wept. “Obsessed…he had a copy made of my portrait! If he fathers a child, he insists the king will restore him as heir. And if he does not, that they plot to kill him. He was ranting, says my image in the portrait speaks to him, it promised to make him a…normal man! Now he believes it has! When he…was done he put his dagger to my throat and ordered me to say nothing, but to wait and see if I am with child! If I warn Don Diego, the prince will say I lured him to my bed and my husband will condemn me for destroying the honor of his name. If I do not warn him, I fear for my husband’s life. Josefa, we are lost! Lost! My poor children!”