City of Silver

by Annamaria Alfieri

  His mouth softened for a moment as if he would give in, then it hardened again. He uttered a phrase she did not hear but that shook his body as it escaped him.

  “What?” she said, trembling.

  “I said,” he enunciated slowly, “that Barco is my son. Beatriz cannot marry him. He is her brother.”

  THE AROMA OF beef, meat the padre had not eaten for months: The hunger for it made his temples throb. He inhaled it and other, strange smells. Musty clothing. Dust. Boot polish. A woman’s perfume.

  Padre Junipero sat up and shook himself. “Stop.” He tried to shout, but his voice was weak. The door to the hall was open, and the actor was nowhere in sight.

  The priest rose unsteadily to his feet and peered down the corridor. He brushed off his cassock and cloak and found his flat, wide-brimmed hat among the baskets and costumes strewn on the floor. He made his way back to the auditorium, where the rehearsal was still in progress. Not surprisingly, Sebastian Vázquez was absent from the company. The priest demanded to know his whereabouts. At first, no one admitted knowing where he had gone. Then General Velarde left the company of his actress friends and whispered to the priest that the young man had gone to the monastery of San Augustín to seek sanctuary. “What has he done?” asked the portly former magistrate.

  “I have reason to believe—” The priest caught himself before he gave himself away. Too much could be made of his suspicion. In this city, in an hour, a tiny rumor could surge into a tempest of revenge. If the Alcalde found out that Sebastian had killed his daughter, the actor would not be safe, not even in the sanctuary of San Augustín. Years ago, Morada had dragged a Mestizo miscreant from the Church of San Martín in order to bring him to justice. There would be no telling what he might do to avenge the murder of his beloved Inez. “I am not sure,” the priest answered, and quickly left.

  Certainly the actor needed to be brought to justice, but not until after his testimony had thwarted DaTriesta’s destruction of the Abbess.

  The priest hurried through the bitingly cold evening. The streets were thronged with Indian workers who, having collected their wages on Saturday, came into the city from the outlying villages to shop. In the open-air market in the Plaza de la Fruta, goods that had been set out by the Indian women blew about in the violent wind. In the Calle de los Mercaderes, a long pack train goaded by muleteers was just arriving to unload wine, charcoal, sacks of flour, and jars of oil for the feasting that would begin with Easter tomorrow.

  Rather than plow through the milling, shouting confusion, the priest doubled back to the Plaza Mayor and along the east wall of the Mint to the monastery of the Augustinians. He rang and was let in by the Brother Porter. “I must speak to Fray Vincente. It is urgent.”

  The Brother Porter left Padre Junipero to wait in a room bare except for a long wooden bench and a statue covered with purple muslin. After just a few minutes, the tall and powerfully built Vincente came rushing into the room and embraced his friend. “Junipero, tell me why you honor me with this visit.” There was considerable bulk beneath Vincente’s cassock of coarse-woven gray cloth. Never slender, he had gained weight. He was too fond by half of the pleasures of the table. If he continued, he would soon be totally unfit for the strenuous life at this altitude.

  “I am sure you already know,” Padre Junipero said. Vincente was a good priest and one Padre Junipero knew he could trust. “Within the past hour, a young Castillian nobleman presented himself here and asked for sanctuary. Knowing you, I am sure you have encouraged him to confess—”

  Vincente held up his hand in protest, as if he believed the padre were about to ask him to divulge some secret.

  Padre Junipero dismissed such worries with a wave of his hand. “I do not want to know what he told you. I just want you to hand him over to me.”

  The Augustinian took Padre Junipero by the shoulders and drew him to the bench. “Sit down and let me give you the message he sends to you.”

  Reluctantly, Junipero acquiesced. “I haven’t a lot of time.”

  “What is the great hurry? The whole city has seen you rushing about since Inez de la Morada died.” Vincente’s eyes gave him a knowing, pitying glance that said he remembered the conversation the padre hoped he had forgotten, which had revealed Junipero’s hopes for Inez. Vincente had counseled him then to draw away from the girl, that perhaps he was becoming too attached to her. Junipero had ignored the warning, knowing in his own heart that after that grave sin of his youth, he would never, never again be able to be with any woman.

  He explained to Vincente the circumstances of Inez’s death and DaTriesta’s threat against the Abbess.

  “And how do you know she didn’t take her own life?”

  Junipero looked directly into his friend’s eyes and let him see into his heart. “I know.”

  Vincente sighed. “You have convinced yourself, but your personal conviction will not save Maria Santa Hilda.”

  Junipero gripped his friend’s arm. “But the man you have here, Sebastian Vázquez, can. I have reason to believe he murdered Inez de la Morada.”

  Vincente looked amazed. “How could he when she was in the convent? You yourself just told me she was locked in a room, and no one could have gotten in or out.”

  “He would have had to have an accomplice. The way he acted when I questioned him revealed his guilt.”

  Vincente shook his large head. He lifted his skullcap, scratched under it, and replaced it. “It is not what he told me. He did not ask for the sacrament of confession. He merely talked to me.”

  “And?”

  “He gave me permission to tell you the truth. For one thing, he is Portuguese—”

  “Castillian,” Padre Junipero objected.

  “No. He has been posing as a Castillian, but he is not.”

  They both knew that while many would imitate a Castillian for the social advantages of being of the highest class of Spaniards, no one in Perú would say he was Portuguese unless he really was. All Portuguese were suspected of being Jews. Portugal had exiled all her Jews, and many had made their way across the Atlantic to Brazil and thence by smugglers’ routes to the rest of Spanish America. Jews had three choices: to lie about who they were, to renounce their religion, or to die in the flames of the Inquisition.

  “His accent is perfect. His blond hair. It’s difficult to believe. Still, he would be condemned as quickly as a Jew or as a murderer. It must be the truth.”

  Vincente nodded gravely. “Of course he did not openly admit religion, but he knew what we would conclude.”

  “Tell me exactly what he said.”

  Vincente’s benign face took on an indignant edge. “You must promise me first that you will not denounce him to DaTriesta. I will not be party to a man’s death.” A glint of insistence hardened his kind, dark eyes.

  Like Junipero, this monk had devoted himself to lifelong repentance for a sin of his youth. Vincente’s was the wrongful death of his own brother. A few years ago, the two friends had confessed to each other their deeply buried grievous deeds. Though they never spoke again of their shared torment of guilt, they continued as friends in the strangely comforting knowledge that there was one other person in the city who knew and loved anyway. “I will not reveal him,” Padre Junipero promised. “Now, tell me what the Portuguese said.”

  “At first, he thought you were the agent of Inez, someone come to tell him when and how they would meet and marry.”

  “Like a priest in a play.” Padre Junipero shook his head in sad amusement.

  Vincente smiled. “He is an actor, after all.” The smile faded. “When you told him Inez was dead, he was horrified. He thought you might be Morada’s agent, come to kill him for defiling his daughter.”

  “So, he thinks the Alcalde knew about his liaison with Inez?”

  “He wasn’t sure. He said she would have done anything to get her father to give her what she wanted.”

  “The Alcalde would have given her anything.”

  “Perhap
s not marriage to a Jew.”

  Junipero threw up his hands. “Inez was far from stupid. Even if she knew the actor was a Jew, which I doubt, why would she have told her father?”

  Vincente shrugged. “All I know is that Inez said her going into the convent had something to do with getting money to marry him. It had something to do with some documents. He didn’t really understand what she meant by that.”

  Documents again. Pilar Tovar claimed that her husband’s barretero was killed over documents. But he couldn’t go off on that tangent. “So the actor claims, but perhaps when she got to Santa Isabella she changed her mind about marrying him. Perhaps she succumbed to God’s grace and jilted him. He might have killed her for that.”

  “I suppose.” Vincente’s doubt clouded his eyes.

  “Or perhaps he was afraid she would reveal his identity to her father. The Alcalde would certainly kill him. Yes. Yes. The Portuguese could have killed her to protect his own identity.”

  Vincente grasped him by the shoulders. “You are letting your imagination run away with you, Junipero. You should not be involving yourself so passionately in this. That girl was a temptation to you in life. Don’t let her endanger you in death as well.”

  “I told you. I am trying to save the Abbess from the auto-da-fé.”

  “Can the Abbess not appeal to the Bishop?”

  “The Bishop is siding with DaTriesta.”

  Vincente looked dubious. Bishops resisted the Holy Tribunal since it sapped their episcopal power. “Is there no way the Bishop can turn a profit by protecting the Abbess?” They both knew silver, and not much else, motivated His Grace.

  The padre shook his head. “Perhaps the Commissioner has something in his Sumaria about the Bishop.”

  “If you can open a rift between the Bishop and the Commissioner, perhaps you can save the Abbess that way.”

  Padre Junipero rose. “I am going to find out if the Alcalde knew about Inez’s liaison with the actor. Please keep him here and guard him well.”

  Fear blazed in Vincente’s eyes. “How can you ask questions of the Alcalde? You would have to reveal too much. If he finds out, he will come here and take the actor by force.”

  “I have another source of information.” The padre embraced his friend and quickly left.

  THE BITTER COLD streets were still crowded with Indians, many addled with strong drink. God give him grace, the priest did not blame them for their excesses on Saturday night. No white man could do the work they did at this altitude without dying of fatigue.

  Junipero stopped at a pulperia in the corner of the Plaza de la Merced and ate a piece of hard bread and a bit of strong yellow cheese. He allowed himself a glass of wine to ward off the chill. As he chewed the first salty bites, he realized he had not eaten all day. A fast at the end of Lent. Perhaps he should have forgone even this. He drained the wineglass and left the counter.

  He made his way quickly to the Casa de la Morada.

  The inner courtyard was jammed with people, including Ramirez, the Tester of the Currency. Strange that a nobleman would be left to wait with the rabble.

  Perhaps because he was piqued about being snubbed by Morada, on seeing the priest, Ramirez grasped his sword hilt and grumbled something hostile but unintelligible. Junipero pretended not to notice and quickly moved away. He wanted no noisy confrontations.

  Also among the crowd, the padre saw Juana, one of the maids from the convent, sitting on a bench with her back against the wall, asleep. He had heard that she was trying to save her brother from the mine—that mouth of hell that consumed the poor, peaceful Indians in their thousands every year. What the galleons carried to Spain was not silver, but the sweat and blood of innocents.

  “The Alcalde is not here,” the guard at the inner door told him before he had a chance to say a word.

  “I have not come to see the Alcalde,” Padre Junipero said. “I want to see his daughter Gemita.” The soldier rightly raised his eyebrow. It was highly irregular to visit the girl after dark, but with less than two days left before the Grand Inquisitor arrived, the priest had no choice. “Please ask her mother if it is permitted.”

  The burly guard received the priest’s request with a sniff, opened the door, and escorted the padre into a sitting room that overlooked the mountain. The Cerro rose, multihued in the silver moonlight. The night sky was clearer at this altitude than anywhere else on earth.

  Within a couple of minutes, Inez’s sweeter but not as beautiful or intelligent younger sister entered the room, accompanied by her mother’s African maid. The liveried servant was dressed more richly than her little mistress.

  “May I offer you some Paraguayan tea, Father?” It was what an adult would have said, and it touched him that she tried to act the grown-up.

  “No, thank you.”

  Gemita eyed the maid askance, and the padre saw she was looking for a way to get Bernardina out of the room.

  “On second thought,” he said, “yes, I would.”

  Once the maid was gone, he came quickly to the point. “Does your father know that your sister, Inez, had a lover?”

  The girl showed no shock. She put her small hands behind her and paced to the window. Her frock was spring green, a curiously bright color for a girl who had just lost her sister. “My mother says it is not right to speak ill of the dead. That they will get revenge on you.”

  “God’s Blessed Mother will protect you if you tell the truth.”

  The girl hesitated only a few seconds more. “I am not sure my father knew about the actor,” she said as innocently as if she were talking about her dolls. “But he did know about Domingo Barco.”

  The priest’s thoughts froze. “Domingo Barco?”

  “He was her lover before Sebastian Vázquez.”

  “Impossible.” Barco was the mayordomo of Morada’s chief enemy—Antonio Tovar. And a Mestizo to boot.

  “Being alone with him was easy for Inez. His mother is our cook. When he came here to visit, Inez dressed him as a maid and sneaked him into her room.”

  The priest suppressed a gasp of shock. Scandalous, how this seemingly innocent girl matter-of-factly described her sister’s debauchery. He would have preferred to disbelieve her, to imagine Gemita was inventing this story out of some sisterly jealousy. But he had already invented every defense for Inez his mind could produce. And they had all fallen before the onslaught of her history. His dream of what Inez had been, what she might have become, blackened and burned in his heart.

  The girl went on blithely. “When she took up with the actor, she had to get out of the house alone.” A hint of glee glinted in Gemita’s round, dark eyes. “Then she invented a million deceits. Once she stole a key from the maid who carries in water from the fountain in the plaza. After everyone was asleep, she dressed herself in robes so that only her eyes showed. She let herself out by the kitchen door. Another time, when my father and his men were not here, Inez even pretended she heard people shouting a warning in the street that the Caricari dam had broken again.” The girl was speaking rapidly now. Recounting the story with relish, as if it were an adventure from a chronicle. “Mother started screaming that we would all be washed away. She pushed us and the maids out the door into the street, shouting, ‘Run. Run towards the Mercaderes.’ Inez ran, but toward the theater. And another time . . .”

  While the girl rattled on, the priest went back over the facts. Barco. She had jilted Barco. He could have killed her, then. Beatriz Tovar. The Abbess said Beatriz fancied herself desperately in love with her father’s mayordomo. Spanish girls were notoriously jealous. Beatriz could have—

  By the time the maid’s bracelets clanked outside as she turned the door latch, he was on his feet, pacing. He had a vague recollection of the Alcalde’s cook—a wiry woman, handsome despite her pockmarked face, who had once sent her Mestizo son to learn reading and mathematics at a small school run by the Mercedarian order. Evalin, her name was. That boy must have been Domingo Barco. The priest had never put the
two together.

  Junipero gestured away the gourd of maté the maid offered. “I must speak to the cook.”

  Bernardina peered at the tea and frowned. “Is something wrong with it?”

  Gemita and the priest left her in the salon holding the tray. The padre followed the child across the family’s central patio to the rear of the house and a small, messy courtyard filled with buckets, mops, and empty crates. A scrawny black-and-orange cat poked listlessly among the trash.

  They entered a cluttered kitchen that smelled of good soup. Gemita presented the priest to the wary cook and took a place near a great stone fireplace in which a cauldron simmered over a charcoal fire. There were bowls of grapes and olives on the table in the center of the room.

  “Thank you for escorting me here, Gemita.” The padre gave her his most charming smile. “I think I need to speak to this lady in private.” He purposely confused the girl by calling her cook a lady.

  Gemita folded her arms across her burgeoning breasts. “Everyone treats me like a baby when I know more than anyone.”

  The priest gestured her toward the door. “Nevertheless, you must leave us alone.” He waited silently the few moments it took her to acquiesce. She twisted her mouth and stomped out.

  “What do you want with me, Padre?” Evalin demanded unceremoniously. Though there were two plain wooden chairs in the room, she did not invite him to sit down.

  He remained standing with her as if she were the lady he had called her, and he addressed her in Aymara. “Is Domingo Barco your son?”

  “Yes.” The woman’s black eyes hardened.

  The priest waited, but she offered no further information. “Does the Alcalde know this?”

  She wiped her hands on the long sleeves of her rough cotton dress. It was the color of river mud. She never took her sharp black eyes off his. “Yes.”