City of Silver

by Annamaria Alfieri

  The priest ran his fingers over the cloth. In Inez, the Alcalde had lost his most precious jewel. Perhaps somehow Morada already knew. News traveled fast in this city. Suppose the boy Juanito had thought to come here, to beg a few pesos in exchange for important information about the family? Perhaps the Alcalde was already over the shock.

  This was wishful thinking. Junipero knew he would be the one to inflict the wound. And what could he offer the girl’s father by way of an explanation? The priest had long feared the girl bore some heavy guilt she wished to conceal from her father. Did the Alcalde suspect anything? The priest could not imagine a sin Morada would not forgive her.

  And who on earth might have wished Inez harm? Her contemporaries disliked her, but that was just jealousy—because she was more gifted, prettier, richer than they. The Abbess did not believe Inez had a true vocation. She had wanted to re unite the girl with her father as soon as Inez was ready. Perhaps the great Abbess herself felt threatened by the girl, feared that one day Inez would outshine her. The priest’s own thoughts annoyed him. How absurd to think the Abbess would do anyone harm. She was a beacon of profound grace. Though he, as chaplain to her convent, was supposed to be her spiritual guide, she was often his. Not that she preached to him. Quite the opposite. More than a few times, in the midst of a philosophical discussion, she had asked him a question so subtle and pertinent that it had illuminated vistas of knowledge of God’s ways and the world’s.

  The door opened. A different guard entered and eyed the priest’s fingers on the bejeweled cloth.

  The padre jerked his hand away. “Remarkable work, this,” he said lightly.

  The guard squinted over the priest’s shoulder, as if he suspected the padre had prized loose and pocketed an emerald or two. When he was satisfied to the contrary, he escorted Junipero back across the interior patio to a brightly lit room where Morada and several other men who served on the Cabildo—the City Council—sat at a long table laid with a fine linen cloth and laden with fruits, nuts, and sweet cakes on golden plates.

  The Alcalde stood. “Tell the watch,” he said to the guard, “the Cabildo is offering five hundred pesos reward for a certain Sebastían de Castillo. If they find him, he should be flogged and then brought to me here.”

  The guard nodded curtly and left.

  “Good evening, Father.” Morada stood to greet the padre. He still had on the fancy clothing he had worn when he had read the Viceroy’s letter that morning—a red sash embroidered with precious stones, a tunic of brocade the color of mother-of-pearl. Two gold chains around his neck held a medallion in the shape of the sun. He showed none of the anger he had heaped on the priest at their last meeting. Perhaps he preferred to hide those feelings from his guests. Or he might feel a little sheepish about serving such a fancy spread during the last days of Lent. “We are just finishing our main meal of the day, Padre,” he said. “Please take a seat.” He indicated a chair next to Don Felipe Ramirez, the Tester of the Currency. “Will you take something to eat, some maté?”

  Junipero remained standing. “No, thank you. Nothing.”

  “We have been planning the festivities to welcome Dr. Nestares. We have a great deal of work to do to be ready for Monday.”

  “I have something very urgent that I must tell you in private,” the priest told Morada quietly.

  Morada eyed him with a hint of suspicion. “Please step into the next room. We are almost finished here. I will join you in a moment.” He pointed to a door that led to a small antechamber. The priest went in, and Morada closed the door behind him.

  The room was interior—without a window—and lit by a single candle on a stand that nearly filled the space. There was no source of heat. The padre drew his cloak around him. It was always like winter in this godforsaken city.

  He made out muffled voices from the next room and then clearly: “Buenos Aires is a backwater. Here in Potosí, we are at the center of life in this hemi sphere.” The accent was Estremaduran, but the padre could not tell who had said it or what he meant by it.

  “We must convince Visitador Nestares that drastic mea sures against Potosí would be a disaster for the King as well as for the city.” That was the voice of Ramirez, deep and resonant, carrying authority despite his short stature.

  Others chimed in, but the priest could not make out their words. His eyes had gotten used to the dark. There was a priedieu against the wall and over it, on a plain wooden shelf, a remarkable statue of the Virgin. Her serene face and praying hands were of ivory; her wimple, robe, and cape were of gorgeous gold-brocaded cloth. She wore a silver crown of graceful delicacy. The priest sank to his knees before her and rehearsed again, as he had in the convent church, the words he would say to Morada. “Your daughter is . . .” “I have awful news. . . .” “God has seen fit to take . . .” His eyes burned and his throat ached.

  He did not know how long he had been there when the door burst open, letting in a shaft of bright light. “Isn’t the statue beautiful?” Morada’s voice retained its earlier friendliness. He turned and bade good night to his companions, who were leaving by the opposite door. Morada turned back to the statue and touched its garments. “The face and hands came from China on the Manila galleon.”

  The priest rose, reached around the Alcalde, and pulled the door closed, even though the outer room was now empty.

  Morada’s expression turned suspicious. He studied the padre’s eyes. Holding Morada’s gaze, letting the Alcalde see his fear, was excruciating. “What is it?” Morada demanded.

  The padre could not speak, only whisper another prayer in his heart. A tear escaped him.

  “What is it?” Now Morada’s voice took on an edge of panic.

  “Inez—” He choked.

  Morada was on him in a second, taller, stronger, gripping his shoulders. “What?” he barked.

  “Dead,” he said, no louder than the tick of a clock.

  Morada shook him, sent a searing pain down his spine. “What?”

  The padre grasped Morada’s forearms and tried to force them away. “She is dead, Alcalde. I am sorry. She is dead.”

  Morada let him go and staggered back as if the priest had punched him in the face. Padre Junipero tried to support him, but he fell against the desk and upset it. Its contents crashed to the floor. The padre reached out to help him to his feet, but Morada leapt up on his own, slapping away the priest’s hands. A small painted writing cabinet had fallen off the desk. The priest bent to pick it up, but Morada snatched it, grasped it to his breast, and sank back into a broad chair in the corner. He hunched over the escritorio and moaned.

  Padre Junipero righted the desk and mumbled, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  The Alcalde looked up. The pain in his face was impossible to behold. The padre looked away to the serene face of the ivory Virgin.

  “No!” the Alcalde shouted. “No. You are sure of this? I don’t believe you. You—”

  The priest backed against the wall. “I anointed her body myself. She is gone.”

  “How? How could such a thing have happened?”

  “We don’t know. They found her dead in her cell.”

  “Don’t know? How could you not know? Was she ill? Had she a fever? What happened to my daughter?”

  “Mother Maria Santa Hilda and Sor Monica, the Herbalist, are trying to figure that out. As far as they know, she had not been ill.” He could not bring himself to tell Morada that there was even a hint of suspicion that Inez may have taken her own life. He did not accept that himself. They would find the proper cause, and the Alcalde would never have to know they had suspected Inez’s soul was lost.

  Suddenly, Morada came at him, got him by the throat. He choked, fought back in vain. “Murderer!” Morada shouted. “Murderer!”

  The priest struggled to pry the fingers loose from his neck. He sputtered, gasped, got no air. Just as he thought he would black out, Morada threw him against the wall. He crumpled to the floor, panting. His intestines trembled, and for a mom
ent he thought he would soil himself. He despised his own weakness, yet he had chosen to be weak, to be sure he would never hurt another person again. He cowered. He deserved this.

  Morada hovered, took the heavy, rustic writing cabinet that had fallen again to the floor, and for a moment the padre thought Morada would bash him with it, but he replaced it on the desk. When he turned toward the priest, his handsome face was rigid with calm, terrifying hate. “This is your fault. You did this. You killed her.”

  “No, Alcalde,” the padre protested. “No, I did not.”

  “Yes, you did,” he cried. “If it weren’t for you, she would never have gone into that convent. You. You turned her against me.” He raised his fist.

  The priest lifted an arm to block the blow, but it did not come. “I did not turn her against you, Alcalde. How could I have done such a thing?”

  Morada gained control of himself, lowered his arm, and sank back into the chair, sobbing. “You taught her to hate me.”

  “I—I—I urged her to God to—”

  “You drove her to that tomb of a convent in defiance of me.” The hate in Morada’s voice struck the priest harder than a blow. The Alcalde’s tears glistened in the dull candlelight.

  The padre waited. His own grief would not let him speak.

  Morada took a shuddering breath and fixed the priest with a desperate, hard stare. “What do you know about how she died? You are hiding something.”

  “As I said,” the priest answered guiltily, “I do not know what killed her. Do you know of anyone who would have been a threat to her?”

  Puzzlement softened Morada’s rock-hard features. “What do you mean?”

  “Did she have any enemies?”

  Morada glared at him. “An innocent girl like that?”

  “Yes, I know,” the padre said, “but she died so suddenly of no apparent cause.”

  Realization of what the priest was saying dawned in his eyes. “I cannot believe that. I will not believe anyone would take the life of my angel.”

  “I do not want to believe it either, Alcalde, but I prefer to believe that than to accept the possibility of . . .”

  “Of what?” His voice was a dagger.

  “Nothing,” Padre Junipero said. “Mother Maria is investigating. I will help her. We will find out how this tragedy happened.” He reached out his hand. He would have liked to touch Morada’s arm to comfort him, but he didn’t dare. “We have to think about the interment. The Abbess wants to put Inez in the vaults in the convent choir.”

  “In the convent?”

  “Yes,” the priest said gently.

  “No,” Morada said, “she must be put in a tomb in the cathedral. With Mass said by the Bishop. I will erect a gorgeous monument.”

  How could the padre explain the need to bury Inez without fanfare unless he spoke openly of the question of the suicide? “The cathedral would be difficult at this time. With the Holy Week services.”

  Morada looked doubtful. He was too powerful to consider impediments to what he wanted.

  “If we let her stay in the convent,” the priest said, “the sisters will pray for the repose of her soul forever. Or at least as long as there is a Potosí.”

  Morada sighed. “The sisters would pray for her every single day.” It was half statement, half question.

  “They would. And as I said, with Holy Week, the cathedral probably is not possible.”

  Morada strode back and forth in the tiny room. “Money would speak to the Bishop.”

  “Yes,” the priest said, “but the arrival of Nestares—We do not want to involve him in any inquiry. He might—” Padre Junipero let the thought hang in the air.

  Morada sighed. “I will make an endowment to the convent. Her full dowry.”

  The priest nodded. “I say my daily Mass in the convent church. I myself will remember her every day.”

  Morada paused, pensive for a moment. “I agree, then. Can the burial be tomorrow?”

  “Yes, but it will have to be quiet.”

  “So be it,” Morada said. Then he bent forward and put his head in his hands. He was a man defeated. “Inez,” he whispered over and over, and sobbed uncontrollably.

  The padre held his breath and bit his lip against his own pain until he tasted salt.

  After too long a time, the Alcalde gained enough control to look up at the priest and say, “Leave me. Go to her mother. Go.”

  Doña Ana! Padre Junipero had been so intent on the grief of the Alcalde, he had not given a thought to that strange, sad, remote lady. How would he ever tell her that her firstborn child was no more?

  Six

  AN AFRICAN SERVANT girl with a seductive walk shocked Padre Junipero by ushering him directly into the bedchamber of Doña Ana. Normally, ladies of the aristocracy met priests, or any guest, for that matter, on their patios or in their receiving rooms. He entered their private quarters only to bring Viaticum to the dying.

  Though the lady was not ill, Doña Ana’s chamber carried the odor of a sickroom—of a place too long closed up and a person too long unbathed. The room itself was of the Moorish style, typical of ladies’ bedrooms fashionable in Sevilla when he had studied there—when such places had not been unknown to him, as they were now supposed to be. The whitewashed walls were covered with tapestries fashioned like Turkish carpets but made by local Indians. Under the windows ran a raised platform—about six inches above the floor—covered with carpets and velvet cushions. On this estrado lay the remnant of a beautiful woman. Her heavy cosmetics camouflaged neither her pallor nor the black signatures of dissipation under her dark, glassy eyes. She sipped chicha from a cup and fed sweetmeats to a little red Chinese dog. She seemed not to notice the oddity of a man entering this room that, like a seraglio, was meant to be sacrosanct.

  “Padre,” she said languidly, through the dullness and distraction induced by the strong drink. Her hair was almost as dark and straight as an Indian’s. It fell awry around her shoulders. “Bring his chair near me, Bernardina,” she ordered the maid.

  The stately African carried from a gloomy corner a chair covered with painted leather. The presence—in an alcove—of a huge gilt bed with lace-trimmed sheets and pillows in disarray made him sit stiffly and greet the lady as formally as he could. There was a silver chamber pot in the corner.

  Without sitting up, Doña Ana handed the dog to the maid, who carried him out. The pillow behind the lady’s head was embroidered with a double bird—the Indian symbol of fertility—and the words Sonreír y Besar. The tragic eyes of the woman told the priest that little smiling and no kissing took place here.

  “Have you come to hear my confession, Padre?” Her thin, pale hands swiped at the wrinkles in her rumpled blue silk gown.

  “I am not here for that purpose, but—” He despaired at ever finding the wisdom to discharge his duty with her any more mercifully than he had with her poor, grief-crazed husband.

  She was, like the padre himself, a white Creole, the daughter of a wealthy encomendero—a rancher who had been brother in arms to Morada’s father in Pizarro’s army, reportedly a stern, silent man who was as frugal as Morada was extravagant.

  “Will you take some maté? Some chicha?” The offers were diffident, from a person whose offers were never accepted.

  “It is the climate, the cold, the thin air, that has reduced me to this.” She spoke distractedly, half talking to herself. Everyone in Potosí bore these hardships, but women of her class seemed more susceptible to their ravages than the men or the Indians. The priest questioned the wisdom of bringing white ladies to this altitude. Out of self-interest, the Crown encouraged Spaniards to marry and settle in the territories, but the King and the Council of the Indies gave little thought to the fate of Spanish women at the frontier.

  Out the window, across the courtyard, the moon lit the barren, ocher-colored hills. This was hell for a delicate nature such as Doña Ana’s. She was more isolated behind the locked doors of this house than any nun in a convent. She had n
othing to do all day except sit with her daughters and sew clothing for gaudy religious statues. Like the dolls of a child, a collection of them lined shelves over the windows. Those and her dresses and her jewels were supposed to sustain her. Her only role was to bear the children of the master of the house—not even to care for them after their birth—and to be a testimonial to his manliness, a sparkling bauble that adorned him like the pearls embroidered on his ceremonial saddlecloth. Few women maintained their sanity in such a life, especially in Potosí, a city dominated by Venus and Libra, where venery and the pursuit of riches were the preferred proofs of manhood.

  “My husband never comes to my bed,” she said, as if she had read the padre’s thoughts. “He has told me to my face he is bored with my love.” She sipped again from her chicha cup.

  To such laments, a priest was supposed to answer that she must accept her husband’s infidelities without complaint, that she should strive for the virtues of patience, humility, and obedience. How could he mouth such advice tonight? Besides, God help him, Padre Junipero saw in her slovenliness Morada’s excuse. Who would desire such a woman?

  “I know you are thinking how unattractive I am.”

  He jumped at the accuracy of her guess.

  She laughed a laugh of bitterness and desperation. “You are looking at the effect of his neglect, Padre. Not the cause.”

  His skin itched with fear of such insight. He had always imagined that Inez inherited only her beauty from her mother—that her intelligence came from her father. Now, he saw that this ruined lady was astute. Could she not then see that he had brought her a terrible sack of woe?

  “You may wonder why I care,” she said languidly, “about the attentions of a smuggler and social climber.” She raised herself up enough to look him in the eye. “He is, you know. Since he married me, he pretends to be of the aristocracy. But he is common. He has raised dealing in contraband to a high art. He does not even hide it. My father used to pretend he was going hunting when he was really going out to bring in goods. Francisco Morada does not even pretend—” She broke off and looked at the padre quizzically for a second. “Why are you here?” Her eyes challenged him, and she waited.