The Mapmaker's Daughter

by Laurel Corona

  ***

  The jostling of the two girls getting up wakes me the following morning. I lie in bed for a moment after they have gone, thinking about all that happened the night before. The mikveh in the fountain, the Zohar—somehow all the threads tied themselves together as I slept, for I now know clearly what I must do.

  My small traveling chest had been brought into the house the night before, but I put on the same dress I was wearing rather than bothering to open it. It’s Friday, and Simona is in the kitchen cracking eggs to make the Shabbat loaves. “I’m going back to Lisbon,” I say. Simona does not look surprised, nor does she urge me to stay.

  A carriage is brought, and the chest is put aboard. I hug Simona and the girls and give Isaac a kiss on his ruddy cheeks. Judah watches with approving eyes, but he keeps his hands clasped behind his back, in case I forget that touching him would be inappropriate.

  The trip to Lisbon is not long, but December days are so short that I can’t linger, and the coach is off the moment I sit down. Just yesterday, I would have dreaded my return, but now I’m ready to start over, to walk into that house in Lisbon as a married woman, not a girl crying and cowering in bed, not a specter wandering around lost.

  Diogo is taking his dinner elsewhere. After all, he is not expecting me. I ask the cook to prepare me something simple, and when I have eaten, I take a two-pronged candlestick from a shelf and bring it and two new candles to my quarters.

  I close the latch behind me. After lighting the candles, I motion the warmth toward me as my mother did. I’ve been away too long, I tell the Holy One. I haven’t honored him the best I can.

  The candles flicker, releasing black tendrils of smoke. “It will be different now,” I whisper. “I won’t forget you again.”

  9

  LAGOS 1445

  Diogo is gone again before the first buds form on the trees, saying only that the prince has chosen him for a new mission in Africa. Within a few weeks of his departure, I wake up ill every morning and realize I am with child from one of his brief nocturnal visits.

  By the time my belly has begun to swell, Diogo has summoned me to the port town of Lagos, near Prince Henry at Raposeira. He tells me to bring only Catellina and enough to stay through the summer. After the baby is born, we will move the household to Lagos because it is more convenient for his voyages.

  I arrive on a day sparkling with hope. Shorebirds dive and swirl over a bay dancing with whitecaps, and the breeze is warm enough to hint of the languid summer ahead. Diogo has bought a small house, situated about halfway between Lagos and the lighthouse at Ponta da Piedade, which he intends to expand to befit a man of his rising stature at court.

  The point is long and narrow, making Lagos, on its lee side, one of the most sheltered harbors in Portugal. From my new home, I can walk west a few steps and see the windward coastline in the direction of Sagres and the vast sea beyond, or walk east the same distance and see the busy port on the other side. Already Diogo has workers building a lookout at one end of the house, and soon we will be able to see everything in all directions without leaving our home.

  The years I spent in Sagres as a child made me comfortable with my own company—a good thing, because I see almost no one. There’s little reason for townspeople to come out here, and the only passersby are the lighthouse keeper’s family and the sentries manning the bulwark at the point.

  I touch my stomach at the flutter in my womb. Things will be better here, I tell myself as I rest each afternoon in the shade of wind-sculpted trees inside the garden walls while Diogo is off at sea. Mornings I walk out to Ponta da Piedade, where waves crash onto spiky rock pillars in astonishing hues of ochre, rust, maroon, and violet. I walk back along the edge of the cliff, looking down at tiny beaches that no one can reach except fishermen in boats tucked among rock arches and pinnacles in the jewel-like blue water.

  On one such walk, I notice several dots on the horizon, which over the next few hours turn into sails with the square cross of Prince Henry’s Order of Christ emblazoned in the middle. My belly is still small enough to disguise my condition under a loose-fitting dress, so I ready myself to go down to the docks.

  By late afternoon, the first of three ships my husband commands has entered the harbor. Two boats put down anchor, and I wait at some distance while dockhands struggle with heavy lines to get the third secured at the wharf. When the gangplank is laid, Diogo walks off the ship to greet several of Henry’s courtiers.

  He nods to a group of men approaching the boat, clubs and whips in hand.

  I don’t understand what I am seeing. Naked people, black from head to foot, are coming down the gangplank. Most are men, but a few women and girls are scattered among them. They keep coming and coming until sixty or more of them are standing bewildered on the dock. The men are yelling at them, shoving them into a single file column before marching them away into the blinding light of the square.

  Diogo looks pleased to see me when I finally come to him. “Successful, very successful,” he says before turning back to Henry’s courtiers. I look back toward the ship and am surprised to see there seems to be little else to unload. I know about slaves, but surely bringing back people is not the only reason Diogo would brave the sea.

  I wait until Diogo and I have had supper and are settling in for the night. “So,” I say, swallowing hard, “tell me about your voyage. You said it was a success.”

  “A few more like it and you can have any house in Lisbon your heart desires.”

  “I rather like it here,” I tell him.

  “Good. That will make it easier for me. We can get to the coast of Guinea from here in less than three weeks, now that we know the way. Henry plans one voyage after another, now that everything is in place.”

  “In place?”

  “The gathering point on the coast. The captives are brought there. No more going up the river to find them ourselves, like we did with the first few. Henry is planning a new design for the hold so we can bring back more each time.”

  “Your only cargo is people?” My heart sinks. “You aren’t looking for gold anymore?”

  “Not people,” he says smugly. “Slaves.”

  “Diogo!” My jaw drops. “What have they done? Were they captured in battle? Are they hostages?”

  “Just unlucky, I suppose.” He shrugs. “Guinea is full of them.”

  He notices my crestfallen look. “Just wait,” he says. “Before too long, you’ll see them the way I do, a row of gold coins marching off the boat straight into my pocket.”

  I stand up to get away from him. “It’s not right, Diogo. It’s not—compassionate.”

  He laughs. “Compassion toward beasts? Save your compassion for lepers and orphans.” He shakes his head. “Since you are feeling so compassionate, you should remember that we are saving their souls. Don’t you think that’s important?”

  “I didn’t see priests taking them to church.”

  Diogo’s face grows stony, and he points to my belly. “Show some compassion for the child. If God wishes to provide a better life for our family, are you refusing the gift?”

  I shut my eyes to try to quiet my mind, but all I feel is a deep, stabbing ache behind my eyes. “Perhaps you’re right,” I say, desperate for the conversation to end. He must be too, for he gets up with a yawn and heads off to his bedroom, using the baby in my womb as an excuse for not touching me.

  ***

  Diogo is gone again within a few weeks. He and Lançarote de Freitas are competing for the admiralty that will go to the one who brings back the most slaves in the first year of Prince Henry’s new project in Guinea. Soon, square sails with red crosses again appear on the horizon, and Freitas’s boats are in the harbor. I am ready for them this time.

  I have arranged for barrels of water to be brought to the docks on donkey carts. My household staff comes with me, and as the first slaves come off the boat, we call out to offer them water. One man with wide, desperate eyes is struck across the back with a club
for approaching me, and I wince not just at his pain but because I have caused it.

  Enraged, I stride over to the men herding the slaves. “They need water,” I say, “and you are not marching them off until they get it.”

  The leader makes a move as if to strike me, but then he remembers who I am. “Does your husband know you are doing this?” he asks.

  “Does Prince Henry know his cargo is dying of thirst?”

  His eyes flit to the other men, who look equally perplexed. “Well then,” he says, “at least let’s be orderly about it.”

  The slaves are herded into a line, and each receives a ladleful of water from Catellina and me at the first barrel and another from the servants at the second. We’re not all bad, I want to tell them, praying it won’t be the last time they see evidence of that.

  To my surprise, Diogo is not angry when he returns. Henry heard what I had done and told the nuns at the convent in Lagos to take charge. I no longer risk my health in the summer heat by coming to the dock, which is just as well, for I could not bear to watch the priest, on a newly erected platform overlooking the procession, making the sign of the cross and thanking God that light has come to those who lived in darkness.

  I sleep most of the afternoon now. It’s July, and Diogo is preparing to leave again. He’s the only energetic person in the house, thinking of one last-minute need after another and making me pity the servants who have to do his bidding. I am too lethargic to do anything in this heat, and even the baby isn’t moving much anymore. I press my hand into my side to see if I can get it to respond, but it just slips away as if it is too tired to play such games.

  Diogo and his friends go to a tavern in the cool of the evening. As his departure approaches, the carousing spills over to our home, lasting well into the night. The noise in the house often keeps me from sleeping, and I lie in bed drenched in sweat from the lingering heat. The only remedy is to take a walk to cool down and shake the discomfort of my massive belly from my bones.

  Wisps of clouds drift across a nearly full moon as I look down on the harbor. A gust of cool air caresses the damp hair clinging to my neck, and I brush it free with my fingertips. Boats bob at anchor in water dancing with moonlight, and Diogo’s ship is a faint silhouette as sailors prepare for departure by the glow of lamps.

  The quiet of the world is broken by the sound of my husband roaring with laughter inside the house. Time to go back, before I embarrass him by having his friends see me outside in my condition. I close the garden gate behind me, and as I reach the house, a ragged urchin I’ve seen on the docks runs out. He collides with me, and a coin drops from his fingers.

  Through the open doorway, I see one of Diogo’s friends adjusting his private parts before fastening his belt. Diogo and Lançarote de Freitas stand next to him, their faces red and glistening.

  “Dios mio!” I whisper. Suddenly I know why he can only penetrate me when he rushes in from his parties. How could I have been so oblivious to the reason he is not interested in me?

  I am the perfect wife for him, I realize with a horrified, convulsive shudder. I have neither dowry nor beauty, no family to cry to, no one to make demands on my behalf. Peace in the house. He could count on it. And Henry, with all those pretty young men going in and out of his private chambers. What might Diogo have offered to make the prince favor him?

  I feel sick to my stomach and rush upstairs. Diogo’s guests must have left right after the boy, for the house is suddenly quiet. When he comes to stand by my bed, I turn away from him.

  “I’m sorry you saw that,” he says.

  “I am too.” I pull the coverlet from under me with a violent yank and throw it over myself like a rampart.

  “I don’t want to—to fail you as I have.” I hear what sounds like trembling in his voice. “It’s just that I—that men are—” He doesn’t try to go on.

  “Men?” I sit up to look at him. “You call that boy desperate for a little money a man?”

  “My friends are the ones who do those things. I only watch.”

  “Well, that makes everything much better,” I hiss. I don’t know whether to believe him, and I’m not sure I care.

  “I made a baby, didn’t I? That’s all you really wanted.” The momentary vulnerability in his eyes disappears as they narrow to slits. “At least I’m fairly certain it’s mine.”

  I gasp at the callousness with which he insults me to turn the subject away from himself. “I waited night after night for you!” Spittle flies as my anger boils over. “For what little you have offered!”

  He steps back. “My goodness,” he says. “The bitch can bite.”

  I get up out of bed and put on my robe. “If you don’t leave my room this minute, I will be gone from this house tomorrow—”

  Suddenly I feel as if my body has been pierced by a sword. The pain is so great I crumple to the floor. I feel a flood of warmth between my legs as Diogo calls for Catellina to come to me. The pain subsides and I pant for breath. Then it is upon me again. For hours, I writhe on the bed, trying at the same time to hold the baby in and force it to come, to end a pain so intense I am sure it will kill me.

  I try to remember all the invocations to keep the Evil Eye away, and I scream them again and again. Then, with such surprising ease it seems little more than an afterthought, a slippery package comes out between my legs. It’s a bloody and impossibly small baby inside a pale caul. It never takes a breath.

  ***

  Catellina is busying herself in my room when I open my eyes to the morning light. I lie on fresh sheets, but the smell of blood still rises from the bed. “Where is my baby?” I ask.

  Her brow is furrowed as she rushes to me. “They’ve taken him away to—” She sees my stricken face. “Your husband thought it best to bury him quickly. Lord have mercy and take him to heaven, even though the baptism wasn’t in time.”

  I lean back against the pillows, staring blankly at the ceiling.

  A boy.

  Baptized.

  Buried.

  I haven’t done what I could to enter him into our covenant, even if it was no more than the pin prick my mother had given Abraham. My firstborn child, torn from my body, is even more lost than I am. I put my hands over my face and weep.

  ***

  Diogo sails for Africa the next day, and I remain in Lagos only until I stop bleeding. In our grief, we speak no more of the argument we had been having when the baby came, and I never tell him I cannot bear to stay in the house where I experienced such a night. I remember nothing of my agonizing journey back to Lisbon with Catellina, and once there, I sleep for days to gather my strength.

  The Evil Eye has felled me. It sought me out in a comfortable house at Lagos with an admired and successful husband and a baby on the way, and it laid me low. How else could I explain why in a few months, a place that seemed so inviting became a nightmare of sweating slaves, predatory men, and my own dead child? I will never return to Lagos. Whatever Diogo wants from a wife, he will have to come to Lisbon to get it.

  10

  LISBON 1446

  When Diogo returns and finds me gone, he comes straight to Lisbon. I am ready to counter his recriminations with my own, but to my surprise he is contrite. He wants me to know that I haven’t done anything to drive him toward men, and that he has never been more successful with whores in the taverns than he has been with me.

  He tells me that what I saw that night was part of life at sea, one of the many uses of a cabin boy. Men seek outlets for their lust when there are no women around, and I shouldn’t be surprised that some of them choose boys even when they are on land.

  Diogo thinks that my knowing this behavior is widespread should be enough to brush aside my disgust, but his shrugs of explanation only deepen it. Still, he is right that I don’t know much about the world. Perhaps all wives have wounds and astonishments they keep to themselves.

  I think of Judah and Simona and grieve that the thousand invisible threads that link them, the loving secre
ts they convey with their eyes, will not be mine. Diogo and I are linked too, by silent anger and loathing, although I seem to be the only one hurting. I feel as if I am made of lead, and only at Queluz is my spirit light enough to smile.

  Diogo will be in Lisbon two months. He and Lançarote de Freitas will resume their rivalry in the spring because Prince Henry does not want to run the risk of ships being lost at sea in harsh weather. My husband’s contrition is only for having upset me, and though he promises not to bring boys into his library to entertain his friends, he tells me what he does away from home is not my business.

  Because we want a child, he uses his hand to prepare, but I ask him to do it in his room. Hearing his breath quicken sends chills through me because of what he might be picturing. Still, I welcome his visits, because we are partners in a conspiracy, and it is the only way I feel close to him. We are going to make a baby, and no one has to know how we did it.

  We keep an uneasy peace until I mention Judah over dinner. Diogo frowns. “Why do you know so much about his family?” he demands. I tell him I go there from time to time, and that I hope our children will bring us as much pleasure as Judah and Simona’s have them.

  “Jews?” Diogo arches his eyebrows. “You’re comparing our children to Jews?”

  “That’s not what I mean,” I protest. “They’re well behaved and healthy—that’s all.” But of course it isn’t, not in the slightest.

  Diogo scowls. “It’s not good for you to visit them. I already took a risk marrying a converso, and people might get ideas about your sincerity as a Christian.”

  “I’ve never heard anyone suspect my sincerity. And this isn’t Spain, after all.” I arch my eyebrows, as if my meaning should be obvious.