City of Silver

by Annamaria Alfieri

  The Abbess took back the letter. “Perhaps Captain Morada has seen that in this regard, it is best to allow his daughter some time in my convent to come to peace within herself.” Mother Maria did her best to hide the triumph in her voice. “I will seek to restore Inez’s former attachment to her father, the Alcalde. However, if she comes to believe that her soul’s salvation lies in a life of contemplation, I will welcome her as my Sister.”

  The Bishop’s pale lips drooped in a dyspeptic frown. “With Inez de la Morada and Beatriz, the daughter of the mining Captain Tovar, your convent may soon be collecting two very large dowries.”

  “Be careful, Lady Abbess,” DaTriesta said evenly. “With all that wealth, your convent will become the envy of other religious orders in the city.”

  The Bishop nodded in agreement.

  She bowed to him. “Perhaps, Your Grace, but I think Beatriz Tovar may soon leave us.”

  Three

  IN HER CELL at the Convent of Santa Isabella de los Santos Milagros, Beatriz Tovar sat listening to the brooding silence of the cloistered garden, where the last leaves and one forgotten shriveled apple clung to the branches of a lone tree. Fear shone in her dark eyes. Two possible fates awaited her: endless days as empty as this in the convent or, if she gave in to her father, a life at the beck and call of some odious man chosen because he had money and connections. Both choices filled her with dread. The rock of fear in her heart flamed into molten anger. She would not give her body to anyone but Domingo Barco. If she could not have him, she would be the bride of Christ. She would never submit to a husb—

  Her heart went cold again. Her breath faltered. This wish might come true. Her stubbornness might condemn her to spend the rest of her life here, with nothing but her woolen habit and God to keep her warm.

  God was supposed to be enough. Sor Olga, the Mistress of Novices, said so. To be a worthy person, she must leave off her selfishness and take on the cross of humility. She was willful. Her prescribed penance—a flail—lay on the table beside her narrow bed. She should mortify herself as Christ was tortured—loosen her novice’s habit, expose her back, take the silver handle, and swing the chains so that the barbs on the ends bit into her skin. Punish herself for her pride.

  She fell to her knees before the crucifix on the wall and begged Jesus to forgive her unwillingness to use the flail.

  Her father would want to see her whip herself. “Marry Rodrigo or I will put you in the convent,” he had said. He had commanded her in a harsher tone than he used with his Indian miners.

  “Then I choose the convent.” How could she answer otherwise? She would never marry this Rodrigo, whom she had never met. She was in love with Domingo Barco. But she could never tell her father because Domingo was Mestizo—half Spanish, half Indian. And he had no money. But he was good, not at all as people described others of his ilk—as wastrels who cared about nothing but clothes and gambling and fighting duels. Domingo was the mayordomo of the ingenio—her father trusted him to command the men of his mine and refinery. Why, then, could she not marry him? He worked hard. He was so handsome and forceful. She had no brothers or sisters. As her husband, Domingo could one day take the place of her father as Captain of the mine. Like her noble father, he knew how to fight with a sword. When she was ten, he had taught her to do it, secretly, when her father and mother were away. That was when she fell in love with him. He took off his doublet and stood in the patio in his shirt, his straight black hair gleaming in the sunlight, and showed her how to hold a sword, how to parry, and laughed when she said she wished she could grow up to be a knight in the King’s service. Domingo’s teeth were so beautiful. His laugh so deep and heavy.

  So what if he was half Indian? It was evil of her father to hate him for that. Padre Junipero as much as said so.

  And Domingo loved her. He always brought her sweetmeats when he went to the market on Wednesdays. And he saluted her when he saw her watching him from her window as he oversaw the work in the ingenio yard. The best proof came when her father dragged her to this place. Domingo had insisted on coming with them. She saw him blinking back tears as he looked up at the convent’s stout stone walls. That profound sadness in his eyes was what kept her resolve. Domingo loved her so much, he wept at the thought of her being swallowed up here. As long as Domingo loved her, she could hold out against her father.

  She went to her small, unglazed window and looked out at the belfry—as high again as the building itself. Her thoughts twisted like the carved stone columns running up its sides.

  Her sister novice Inez de la Morada claimed she really wanted to live in this prison. She said she intended to stay forever. Beatriz could not believe it. Live a life of prayer and repentance? Naughty Inez?

  Since they found themselves together in the convent, Inez had made surprising overtures of friendship, even told Beatriz secrets. In the past, they had quarreled because their fathers were enemies. The convent was all they had in common. They had learned music and needlework together here when they had been too young to know about their fathers’ war. They used to talk about how romantic it would be one day to take the veil, to lie facedown, arms outstretched on the floor of the chapel, and take Christ as their bridegroom. An act of heroism and beauty. Beatriz tried now to summon the swell of love for God that had moved her so when she was ten. Now her chest contained only the stone-cold fear that she would be lost forever in profound silence and solitude, would never go again with her sweet mother to the Calle de los Mercaderes to order silk for dresses. Never eat Rosa Yana’s bread, hot and crusty from the oven. Never see Domingo’s hair gleaming in the sunlight or the love in his dark, serious eyes.

  She went and poked the fire in the brazier. These rooms were so cold. When she was finished with the novitiate, would they let her have her cozy fur cape? She thought about her beautiful dresses. Her mother may have already given them away, even her blue Calabrian silk with the silver embroidery and Venetian lace. To prove her resolve, she had told her mother to give it to Inez’s little sister, Gemita, but Gemita would never look so well in it.

  AFTER VESPERS THAT evening, Beatriz walked the silent corridor softly, as she had been taught, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her novice’s habit, staying close to the wall with her head bowed to show humility. She entered Mother Maria Santa Hilda’s office, curtsied, and took the small oak stool as the Abbess’s gesture indicated. She struggled to imitate the saintly expression of the Virgin in the painting on the wall behind Mother Maria’s head.

  The Abbess’s mouth was stern, but her eyes were as kind as ever. “A vocation is a serious matter, Beatriz.” Her voice held a hint of reluctance that frightened the girl. Punishment was coming.

  “Entering the convent requires a pure act of love for God.” Mother Maria Santa Hilda also commanded her emotions not to show. The words she was about to say came dangerously close to a lie. Beatriz—alert, inquisitive, but frivolous—had a simple problem, but one not easily solved. She was a rosy, dimpled girl, but her soft exterior hid a core of steel. This valuable tenacity could turn to stubbornness if she was not handled well. “My daughter,” the Abbess said with purposeful gentleness, “life here can be very beautiful—peaceful, without the sharp conflicts of family life, but—”

  An insistent tapping at the door stopped the Abbess’s thought. “Enter,” she called impatiently.

  The door opened to reveal the small, intense face of Sor Monica, the Sister Herbalist who looked after the sick. Her large, tender dark eyes were wide with fear. “Mother. You must come at once.”

  “Is it Sor Elena?” asked the Abbess, referring to the old nun who lay wasting away in the infirmary.

  “No, Mother. It is Inez. When she didn’t come to chapel for Vespers, Sor Olga and I went to her cell to see if she was ill.”

  “And?”

  “You had better come.”

  Maria Santa Hilda leapt to her feet and made for the door.

  Beatriz considered that she ought to wait here for the A
bbess to return but quickly abandoned the thought and followed. They rushed across the stone-paved courtyard, passed the refectory, and sped down the corridor toward the rear cloister and the cells of the nuns and novices. Sor Olga, the Mistress of Novices, and chubby Hippolyta, another postulant, stood before the door to Inez’s room. Sor Olga was tapping on the door and calling insistently, “Inez. I command you to answer me. . . . Inez!” Between her commands, the dark silence of the cloister descended. When Mother Maria Santa Hilda approached, the others backed away.

  “If she has fallen into a faint . . . ,” Sor Monica, the Sister Herbalist began.

  Mother Maria held up her index finger and shook her head to silence her. Sor Monica held out her hands in capitulation.

  Beatriz read the emotional eloquence behind the hand signals. Women in contemplative orders communicated this way to minimize the amount of talking they had to do. Mother Maria’s long, aristocratic fingers commanded. Sor Monica’s soft, tiny hands accepted without question.

  “Inez, come out,” Mother Maria called in her sternest voice. “At once.” Without waiting for a reply, she stretched up to look through the grate in the door.

  “It is covered with a black cloth,” Sor Olga whispered. “And it is locked.” The second sentence carried the high pitch of shock and indignation. Cells were never locked. Never.

  Mother Maria stuck her long fingers through the wrought-iron bars and tugged at the black cloth. It did not budge. “Inez. Open now!”

  In forbidden curiosity, several pairs of eyes appeared behind the grates of doors along the cloister.

  Beatriz stepped back and caught the glance of Hippolyta, a girl her own age, and made a face. The two new postulants, who had sinned many times by breaking silence while scrubbing the floor of the refectory side by side, passed immediately a silent message: “Inez is really in trouble now.” Beatriz thought she detected gloating in Hippolyta’s blue eyes.

  Mother Maria again grasped the black cloth, this time with both hands. She pulled with all her strength and managed to tear it out through the grate. “Inez!” There was a tinge of fear in her voice. She peered into the cell, stood on tiptoe, moved her head up, down, left, right. “I can’t see her.” She turned to Sor Olga. “How is the door locked?” There were no locks on the cells in the Convent of Santa Isabella de los Santos Milagros.

  The Novice Mistress’s old wrinkled hands opened in front of her in a gesture of futility.

  Beatriz gulped.

  “Inez . . .” Mother Maria turned the round wrought-iron latch and pushed on the door. It moved a fraction of an inch, but no farther. The Abbess pushed harder. Again and again.

  Now eyes stared from grates around the entire cloister. Hippolyta looked again at Beatriz, whose hands went to her mouth. Silence, Beatriz thought. I am supposed to maintain silence.

  Mother Maria turned back to Sor Olga and Sor Monica. “This door is barred, but I cannot see how.”

  “I know, Mother.” Beatriz’s voice was barely audible to her own ears. All eyes turned to her. She looked away from the expectation and disapproval in their faces. “There is a plank. It is wedged behind the armario and behind the bed.” She glanced up again. “Inez told me she had it.”

  Sor Olga came forward and grabbed Beatriz’s hand and squeezed it in her hard, bony grip. “And you said nothing?”

  Beatriz bit her lip against the pain. “I told her if she did not give it up, I would report it in chapel on Friday at the Convocation for the Holy Rule.” That odious weekly meeting when each novice prostrated herself in front of the whole convent and revealed all the ways she had broken the rules of the order. “I told her it was wrong to—”

  Mother Maria held up her hand. “Leave that. We must open this door.”

  The strongest of the sisters took a long log brought in from the walled field behind the convent and used it as a battering ram. They shattered completely the peace and silence of the cloister. After many bashes against the door, they managed to push it open far enough so that Sor Eustacia could slip her hands in and lift the plank that barred it.

  Mother Maria Santa Hilda and Sor Monica, the tiny Sister Herbalist, were the first to enter.

  Inez Rojas de la Morada lay facedown on the tile floor, completely naked. Her abundant dark hair lay loose, covering her shoulders to her waist. Sor Monica turned her gently and put an ear to the girl’s chest, touched her temples. The Sister Herbalist looked up at her Abbess and shook her head. Mother Maria Santa Hilda averted her eyes from the nakedness at her feet, opened the armario, and grabbed a blanket to cover the body.

  Inez’s novice’s habit and her undershift lay thrown haphazardly on the narrow, hard cot, which was still made up with its linen sheets and pale brown vicuña wool blanket, as the maid would have left it that morning while Inez was in chapel for Matins. The plain wooden table that should have stood beside the cot was upset, probably by Inez’s fall to the floor. Next to the body lay the things that would have been on that table—her rosary, her flail, a miniature painting of Santa Isabella, the patron saint of the convent, the leather-bound breviary that contained the holy office—the prayers for every time of day and every season—and a smashed crockery water carafe. A fallen drinking cup and a small puddle of Inez’s drinking water lay next to her left hand, which was as pale and immobile as the ivory hands nailed to the crucifix that hung on the opposite wall. The girl’s lips and the tip of her nose were blue.

  Without allowing herself to show her shock, Mother Maria went to the door and looked into the expectant faces of the sisters. “Take the entire community to the chapel,” she said to tall, somber Sor Eustacia, who had thought to get the battering ram. “Sing a responsory for the repose of Inez’s soul.” Given the apparent gravity of the sins Inez had sought to hide, Mother Maria wondered if her soul would ever reach God.

  Four

  A BOY CAME at sunset to call Padre Junipero, the spiritual guardian, to the Convent of Santa Isabella de los Santos Milagros to administer extreme unction, the sacrament of the dying. The padre whispered a prayer of thanks, assuming saintly old Sor Elena was finally to be released from her long suffering. He followed the boy out to the Calle Real and took the opportunity to instruct the child on the value of offering up one’s pain for the sins of the world.

  Juanito was a typical Mestizo—born of an Indian mother and a Spanish father—with dark olive skin and lustrous coalblack hair. He earned a few pesos a week by waiting in the plaza near the convent for small commissions from the sisters. His fine-featured young face was grave. The priest put a hand on his thin shoulder. “Do not be afraid,” he said. “Death comes to take Sor Elena to heaven. She has borne—”

  “It is not Sor Elena, Padre,” the boy said. “It is the Alcalde’s daughter. And Luisa, the maid who sent me for you, said she was already dead.”

  In shock, the priest quickened his step. Then he broke into a run. It could not be. A young woman in the bloom of good health? So suddenly dead? He had heard her confession each week since she entered the convent. The sensation came back to him. That even in the confessional, the girl had been holding something back. She had confessed that she had talked back to her mother, that she had purposely made her little sister cry—the small sins of girls her age. But the way she spoke them, as if by rote, made his skin prickle with apprehension that her confessions obscured more than they revealed of her inner soul. Deep inside him lurked the conviction that no one, not even her confessor, would ever know all the secrets of her heart. Sweat broke out on the priest’s back.

  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 t
o 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.