My mind whirls for a few days. Then, with great trepidation, my father breaks the seal on a letter that has come from Duarte’s widow, Eleanor of Aragon. As Afonso’s mother, she has been named regent.
“I understand you have been waiting at Sintra,” she writes from Tomar, “and I regret the inconvenience these difficult times may have caused. Rest assured of your position at court, for you have a strong advocate among my husband’s advisers. Please stay at Sintra until the danger is gone, at which time we will send for you.”
We have an unexpected friend at court and Eleanor’s permission to stay. I can stop being afraid.
6
LISBON 1439
The Castle of São Jorge at Lisbon is bursting with children. King Duarte left behind five, as well as a pregnant wife. His brother Pedro and his family have arrived, and that’s another three boys and three girls. Another brother, João, has settled in with his three daughters. His oldest, Elizabeth, is eleven, just two years younger than I am.
All told, there are five young princes and ten princesses here, the rest of whom are too old or young to matter to me. I’ve never really had a friend before, and I don’t think Elizabeth has either, unless her silly nine-year-old sister Beatriz counts.
Eleanor sent for us when she returned to Lisbon after Duarte’s death, and since then, Papa has worked slowly on his atlas. Our journey, now five months in the past, took a great toll on him. He tires easily, spending much of his day dozing in his study or reading in the royal library. I keep him company in the morning, and then, after he has his midday dinner, I am free for the rest of the day, which I spend in the royal apartments where Pedro and João’s families live.
There are three worlds in the palace, one for the men, another for the women, and a third for the children. I don’t know much about what the men do, but the women visit Eleanor when she is not busy with affairs of state and make the rounds of each other’s quarters. There they are entertained by bards and musicians, read aloud, and gossip constantly.
The children have their own nursery, except for Elizabeth and Beatriz, who are old enough to have a separate apartment. Everyone attends morning mass in the royal chapel, and then all but the youngest spend a few hours with tutors learning Latin, religion, literature, and science before dinner at midday. All the children take this meal together, with their governesses standing over them, because even rules for breaking bread are important matters for the princes and princesses of the realm.
Afternoons are for outings in good weather, as well as music and dancing lessons, fencing practice for the boys and embroidery for the girls. Late in the day, they all pay a visit to their mother, after which they return to the nursery for supper, prayers, and bed.
The women treat me like a poor relation, welcome to join in whatever Elizabeth and Beatriz are doing, as long as I know my place. Perhaps the ladies pity me. My father is so reclusive, it must be easy to forget that I am not an orphan.
I like my two worlds—my silent cocoon as Papa’s companion and my busy life as Elizabeth’s best friend. Life in Sevilla as Mama’s conspirator was intimate and cozy, and with Papa in our little cottage at Sagres, it was solid and secure. Now everything seems as light and airy as the dancers and jugglers who entertain us in the evenings, as sparkling as the women’s jeweled crowns in the reflected torchlight of the banquet hall.
And as fleeting. Elizabeth is here in Lisbon because of the rancor among the nobility toward Eleanor, who is from Aragon and does not speak Portuguese well or know the customs of this land. At twenty-five, she is young for a regent, even if she does have nine children and her belly is swollen with another. She married at twelve and had a baby almost every year, though several died as infants. João, Elizabeth’s father, is here to support his brother Pedro’s bid to replace Eleanor. He has summoned a meeting of the Cortes, the national assembly, to end the dispute. If Pedro becomes regent, Eleanor will return to Aragon, Elizabeth will leave for home, and I will stay behind with Papa.
Elizabeth and I are tired of the gossip in the women’s quarters, so we spend our free time in the palace gardens acting out stories with her tagalong sister Beatriz. For her birthday, Elizabeth received a copy of Amadis of Gaul, Portugal’s greatest epic poem, and as we read, we dramatize our favorite scenes.
Today, Elizabeth puts her hand to her heart and flutters her eyelids as I walk through a break in a manicured hedge and stride toward where she stands on narrow stone steps leading up to the palace ramparts. Never mind that I am wearing a dress—for the moment, I am Perión, the King of Gaul, and Elizabeth is the beautiful princess Elisena. I am tall and bony enough to play the men’s roles, and since they do more interesting things than swoon, I don’t mind. As usual, Beatriz is sulking in her perpetual role as the servant.
Amid the squawks of the parrots and macaws roaming the palace gardens, Elizabeth drops a ring from her perch on the stairs. I pick it up, and she bends with a graceful sweep of her arm to take it from my outstretched hand. “Thank you, King Perión,” she says in a breathy voice.
“It shall not be the last task I do for you,” I say, lowering my voice to a manly pitch as I bend my knee to the ground. “All my life will be spent in your service.”
I hear the sound of a throat clearing behind me and look up to see several of Pedro’s advisers looking at us. One of them, a portly, full-bearded man in his thirties, is dressed differently from the others. His cloak is well-cut from a plain but lustrous fabric, and he’s wearing a black skull cap. Solemn brown eyes look out at me from below dark brows so thick they intrude on the tops of his eyelids.
I know who he is—Judah Abravanel, our advocate after Duarte’s death. The Cresques family’s mapmaking is a source of pride for Jews, and even if my father is a converso who no longer bears the family name, I am confident we will not be sent away as long as Don Abravanel has any influence at court.
I am embarrassed to be acting so silly. I shake off the dirt that clings to my skirt and stare at the ground. “We were just playing a game,” I say.
“And an excellent one at that, it would seem,” one of the men replies.
Something about the way Judah Abravanel looks at me pierces to my core, as if he knows all my secrets. I look back and see he is still watching as Elizabeth makes an embarrassed withdrawal and drags her sister and me back inside the palace.
***
That night, I lie awake, reviewing what I know about the intense man in the garden. I interpret for my father when they meet privately, and I know that Don Abravanel was one of the late King Duarte’s most important advisers, raising money and lending his own treasure to help finance Henry’s expeditions and the failed military campaign in Tangiers. As a reward, Don Abravanel is a wealthy man, granted by the king a house and land in the nearby town of Queluz.
He is proud of my father’s new work, accurate far into Africa and more detailed to the east than any atlas before it. “We should limit ourselves to what we actually find,” he said one day, tapping the side of his head and looking at me. “Knowledge. That’s the key to conquering fear. And fear is the greatest enemy of man.”
Judah Abravanel has a home where they light candles, where they sing special songs on Shabbat afternoons—precious things I have lost. Christians keep their distance from Jews on the streets, but I always try to pass as close as I can, hoping to catch their words. Often I know they are near before I see them, as if a force in the air connects us.
I know why I can’t get my mind off him. I have drifted too far and too long from what my mother taught me. I am a thirteen-year-old girl who lives in a Christian world. I should accept that. Still, I find no rest until the night has crept all the way to dawn.
***
“‘The Child of the Sea remained fifteen days in that castle, where the damsel tended to his wounds, and then, though they were hardly healed, he departed.’” Elizabeth traces her fingers over the words in Amadis of Gaul.
“He was very brave,” Beatriz says solemnly.
“But such things have to be done,” Elizabeth says. “If a maiden needs to be avenged, any good knight is obliged to do it.” Her eyes drift away dreamily. “Even if it costs him his life.”
I look out the window. It’s a week after Easter, and I am in the private compartment of one of the royal barges, heading up the Tagus River toward the Convento de Cristo at Tomar. The day is warm, and the curtains flutter as the scent of blossoms wafts around us. The oars creak as twenty or more rowers strain against the current, but the only other sounds are the riotous calls of birds and the occasional buzz of a dragonfly that has left the riverbank to investigate the brightly colored barge.
So much has changed in the two weeks since Eleanor had her baby. People had been waiting to see if it was a boy, for if so, he would be second in line to the throne, and Eleanor would be harder to get rid of. Luckily it was a girl, baptized Juana, and quickly forgotten.
Only a few days later, Pedro became the new regent, appearing with great fanfare next to Prince Afonso for Easter mass in the cathedral. Now Pedro and Elizabeth’s father João are taking Afonso for a ceremonial stay at the headquarters of Prince Henry’s Order of Christ at Tomar, and their families are coming with them.
Elizabeth hands the book to her sister. “‘He thought of his lost love,’” Beatriz reads, “‘and said to himself, “Ah, child without lands and without lineage, how dare thou fix thy heart upon her who excels all others in goodness, beauty, and parentage? I, who know not who I am, must die without declaring my love.”’”
Elizabeth sighs. “Wouldn’t it be nice to be loved like that?” She lies back on the ornate upholstered couch on which she has been lounging for the last hour while Beatriz and I sit in stiff and uncomfortable matching chairs. She lifts her hand, dangling her wrist as if it were a delicate wisp of gossamer. “Take this handkerchief, brave knight! It has rested against my breast all these years, waiting for someone worthy of my love.”
Her face grows somber and she sits up. “I wish I lived then.”
“If you lived then, you’d be dead,” Beatriz replies, a bit too cheerfully.
“I might as well be dead now.” Her voice is suddenly hollow. Elizabeth can be like that, full of cheer one moment and despondent the next. “I’ll end up betrothed to some little boy in an awful place where they don’t speak Portuguese. Or some old man who wants a young bride to make a son because he’s about ready to die and only has daughters.”
The barge is slowing to a stop, and I hear voices on the riverbank. I look out the window and see saddled horses. One man waiting for our party turns toward our barge as we step on the dock. My jaw drops. Diogo Marques? Here? Elizabeth’s eyes dart between Diogo and me. My cheeks are so hot they must be red as coals. I’ve given myself away, I realize with a sinking heart.
Diogo’s expression eventually shows that he recognizes me as the girl who roamed Sagres with hair as wild as her horse’s mane and hands and feet caked with beach sand. After months of acting out fantasies about knights and maidens, part of me believes he should fly to my side and cover my hand with kisses, but instead, he turns away without acknowledging me, and I wonder which of the two things, Diogo’s indifference or Elizabeth’s crazy ideas about love, will be the cause of more unhappy moments for me at Tomar.
***
Elizabeth conspires ceaselessly to maneuver me where I am likely to run into Diogo. I don’t tell her that I see him more often than she knows, for he comes every few days to talk with my father about the new atlas. The western coast of Africa bulges out farther than in previous maps, before dipping sharply to the east. Along the coast, my father has used sailors’ charts to fill in dozens of place names, add islands, and draw bays and inlets on the shoreline.
The interior is mostly blank, and the southern coast of Africa remains a rough line, but Cape Verde and Cape Rosso are marked, as are the Senegal and Gambia Rivers, neither of which seems to have an island of gold. Papa has ended these rivers not far from the coast, but not for long. Diogo’s new commission is to go upstream to see what might be of value there.
“What is of value to me,” Papa says, “is information.” Diogo admires my father for that, and Papa in return likes the dashing young mariner who shows such interest in his work. Diogo is polite to me but no more, asking my opinion about things like the Gold River, Prester John, and the true length of the African coast. “You know as much as anyone else, Senhorita Riba,” he says. That’s what he calls me, making me feel so grown-up that I have to keep myself from looking down ruefully that I still do not have the body to match.
My breasts do stick out a little, finally, and my hips are less bony than they used to be, but I am not beautiful and I am already too tall. Elizabeth’s maids can make my hair and her castoff clothing look quite nice, but even after they’ve done their best, I am hardly worth singling out.
The royal quarters are small at Tomar, and most of the party, including Papa and me, are lodged at the bottom of the hill. On this day, Diogo and I leave my father at the same time for the palace, I to join the princesses and Diogo to meet with the men.
We walk in silence through an arched gateway that opens onto the palace grounds. “I must leave you here,” Diogo says, putting one foot forward and keeping his leg straight as he bows to take my wrist. Time whirls as he brings my hand to his lips. I feel a pleasant stab in my belly, and my head spins with astonishment as I watch him disappear down the walk.
He kissed my hand! My heart pounds so furiously I wonder why the laces on my bodice don’t pop. I look up at the windows of the royal apartments, hoping Elizabeth is watching, before deciding I am glad she isn’t. I want to keep this moment to myself, rather than giving it to her and Beatriz, like another bauble to play with as they wish.
***
I go up the hill every day to visit Elizabeth and Beatriz, but there’s still plenty of time to explore Tomar by myself. One day, I notice a doorway with a menorah carved above it. Though I play an endless game of fetch with a stray dog, waiting for someone to go in or out, eventually I give up. The next day and the next I walk by, but still see no one.
The afternoon shadows are growing long one Friday when, after a visit with the princesses, I make my daily trip down that street. My heart jumps to see a man go inside. I hurry to the door and hear the sound of men’s voices. “Shema, Isroel,” the men chant, and memories of my mother lodge painfully in my throat. I don’t know how long I stand there, but eventually the door opens, and two men go out.
Judah Abravanel sees me immediately and stops. “Shabbat shalom,” he says to the other man, who heads down the street.
He sees tears welling in my eyes. “A wish for Sabbath peace makes you cry?” He means it as a joke, but I have to fight the urge to blurt out how much I miss hearing those words. His gaze is as intense as it was in the garden when he saw me acting out stories with Elizabeth and Beatriz.
“I should go,” I say.
He knows why I am there. “Would you like to look inside?” he asks. “This is the synagogue of Tomar, humble as it is.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, I would.”
“I think it’s best if you stand in the doorway and look only for a moment. It would be unwise for you to appear too interested.”
I take in the small, square room, no more than eight paces across. A few men talk among themselves, but otherwise it is deserted. In the middle is a raised wooden platform with a rail around it and a table in the center.
“That’s the tebah,” Judah tells me. “It’s where we read from the Law.” He gestures to a niche in one wall, covered by a curtain. “That’s the Aron Kodesh, the Holy Ark, where we keep the Torah scrolls.” He points to four evenly spaced pillars holding up an unadorned stucco ceiling. “You see those? They’re for the four matriarchs—Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. The pillars remind us that women enable men to become all we are capable of.”
“Do you have a family?” I blurt out.
His face lights up. “A wonde
rful family in Queluz. My wife and I have two girls and a baby boy.”
“You must be proud to have a son.”
He looks at me quizzically. “I am proud of all my children.”
We start up the street. “Don’t let this quiet little town fool you, Senhorita Riba,” Judah says. “People have an eye out for conversos who seem too interested in Jews. I wouldn’t come up this street again, if I were you.” He stops at the corner and bows politely. “The loss will be mine.” Without a word, he turns down the cobbled street and disappears around a corner.
***
“Esteemed Senhorita Riba,” Elizabeth reads aloud. “I would be most grateful if you could arrange an opportunity to meet with your father again before my departure for Lisbon.” She stares at me. “Again?”
Diogo left a week ago, and I have forgotten I slipped his note into Amadis of Gaul to hold my place. “He met with my father a few times,” I say with a shrug.
“Did he kiss you?” Beatriz asks. “Did he put his lips to yours in a passionate embrace?” The question is so fanciful, I wonder for a moment what strange creature would ask it.
“Of course not!” I reply.
“Well, that’s disappointing,” Elizabeth says, in a tone that implies such failure is entirely my fault.
To distract her, I pick up where we left off. “‘At the entrance of the valley, a Squire met them, and said, “Sir Knight, you pass not on unless you confess the mistress of yonder knight to be fairer than your own.”’”
Elizabeth opens her eyes and looks at me. “We must get Diogo to fight like that for you. It doesn’t matter that you aren’t beautiful.”
“And it’s even better that you can’t marry him,” Beatriz adds.
“Much better,” Elizabeth says. “This way, he can be tormented.”
I curl my lip with indignant scorn. “That’s just silly.”
Elizabeth’s face clouds, and she falls silent. I see the faraway look that comes over her sometimes, and I brace for a change in her mood. “Fine,” she says in a clipped voice.
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