Isabel too began to clap in time to the music, and suddenly hurried down from her throne to replace one of the men and join in the dance with one of the flower women as her partner. She was agile, with a light step—a natural dancer—and being one of the few in the room who was completely sober, she was the most graceful of the lot. The fact that Her Majesty had joined the dance compelled everyone in the room to turn toward her and join in the clapping.
When the second chorus sang again of the lover’s white breasts, the most handsome of the male courtiers reached out with both hands and seized the breasts of his female companion. I held my breath, waiting for Isabel’s outraged reaction.
The queen laughed. Not a small chuckle but a laugh straight from the belly, and she covered her mouth and flushed. This led to all of the dancers giggling through most of the dance, and the male courtier with his revealing codpiece repeated the act every time the song mentioned breasts. Isabel laughed heartily each time.
She was no weakling and remained on the floor for a total of six vigorous dances, all of them with earthy themes. She wouldn’t allow the lutist to slow the pace, despite the fact that her fellow dancers were gasping for breath. Unwisely, I’d made my way to the front row of the spectators, where the wine made me forget myself and clap and sing with drunken enthusiasm.
After the sixth dance, as Isabel was thanking the musicians and her fellow dancers before returning to her throne, she caught sight of me in the crowd. Her Majesty grinned suddenly and motioned to me.
“Doña Marisol, you have pleased us,” she said. “Come and dance! Enjoy this night while you can.”
As she moved back toward the red velvet podium, I handed my goblet to a passing servant and, filled with panic at the thought of dancing in front of such illustrious company, moved out onto the smooth marble floor.
“The sausages!” Isabel called to her musicians. “Do you know a song about sausages?”
The head lutist looked at her blankly as Isabel hummed the first line in an off-key alto; the queen immediately looked to me.
“Doña Marisol!”
I nodded, showing my understanding so that she need not finish her command, and sang the first few lines of the song. The lutists nodded and began playing the introduction. The male courtier with the most impressive codpiece and tightest doublet immediately caught my hand.
“Marisol, is it?” he said in my ear. His tenor was high-pitched and his intonation rather feminine; his accent was faintly Italian, as if he’d been born in that country and come to Spain in his youth. He was possibly the most handsome man I’d ever seen, with golden curls, pale gray eyes, and a flashing diamond in his ear. His clean-shaven face revealed his dimples, one in his chin and two others bracing his mouth. The latter flashed attractively whenever he spoke or smiled. “My name is Marco.”
His refusal to address me as doña was incredibly forward, as was his gaze, which took me in frankly from head to toe. I blushed and lowered my eyes as Marco pulled me into the circle.
“You’re my partner now,” he said, waving away his previous one, dressed in pale yellow silk. His tone was bluntly flirtatious. “And the most gorgeous young woman I’ve ever seen. Come dance with me, beautiful Marisol.”
The dancers weren’t slow to please the queen. They’d already quickly organized themselves into a wide circle, each male paired with a female, and were launching into the first steps of a country dance, the chiarantana. I hurried with Marco as all the participants suddenly closed the circle by walking to its center, so that everyone met. Just as quickly, we all retreated out to the circle’s perimeter and moved briskly around the circle.
I’d been nauseated earlier by the smell of the garlicky mussels; three glasses of the pink wine from Champagne in France hadn’t helped matters. As I began to revolve around the circle, the room began to spin, slowly, and when I closed my eyes to blot out the dizzying sight, I could still feel everything moving around me. I opened my eyes, but they wouldn’t focus; instead they twitched, unable to rest on a single object.
I gritted my teeth and continued through sheer will. Back on her throne, Isabel was clapping and crowed happily at the lines Oh, how could I resist his sausages, well stuffed? At that point, one of the other male courtiers grabbed his female flower and began to simulate the marital act, slowing those of us moving around the huge circle’s perimeter.
“Oh!” Isabel called from her throne, her hands to her cheeks in mock dismay. “Hurry and get my confessor! My ladies are supposed to be virgins!”
Her words prompted a chorus of raucous laughter.
I reminded myself that I’d lived a sheltered existence, that such crudeness was to be expected in royal courts. But it was hard to hear the sarcasm in Her Majesty’s voice. I’d been taught as a child that Isabel was a saint who spent her days and nights in prayer and kept company only with nuns and monks.
Once the dancers began to move again, Marco caught my hand and spun me around. The act caused the room to start revolving again, this time faster. Unable to catch my breath in the hot, airless room, I felt a flush of uncomfortable warmth, then a chill, followed by the sickening, unmistakable urge to empty my stomach.
I let go of Marco’s hand and staggered off the dance floor, with my hand clamped firmly over my mouth, and pushed my way rudely through the crowd toward the horseshoe arches and black marble columns where soldiers stood guard. They parted easily to let me rush past, as if they were accustomed to drunk guests needing to make hasty exits.
I ran past a dizzying blur of patterned tiles, white marble, and arches within arches within arches. Soon I found myself lost in a corner, clutching the busy walls. Despite my efforts, a bit of the almond cake made its way up—but I was already so ashamed at leaving the dance while the queen watched, and so desperate not to be sick inside the Alcázar, that I forced myself to gag it back down, my eyes tearing as the acidic bile burned my throat.
A gentle hand suddenly supported my elbow. I looked up through streaming eyes at doña Berta, her pale eyes full of pity.
“Poor child,” she said. “Come.”
I let her lead me, even though moving made me start to feel sick again. By the time Berta got me outside and into a deserted corner of an unlit garden, I could no longer control myself and heaved the remnants of the exquisite wine and cake onto an oleander bush. Another servant appeared in the darkness with a basin and towels, and when I finally came to myself, I was alone again with doña Berta, who was gently wiping my face with cold water.
“My fault, I fear,” she murmured. “I keep forgetting that you local young ladies aren’t as accustomed to drink as our courtiers.”
As soon as I could move, Berta steered me away from the oleander so that I wouldn’t have to watch the former contents of my stomach dripping from it. The breeze was delightfully cool, the air fresh, the gentle rustling of palms restorative. I lifted my veil and let it dry the perspiration on the back of my neck as I listened to Berta lecture me on how to recover. I must sip cold water slowly and make sure that I drink plenty, but not too fast, that night. In the morning, I must eat a raw egg. If symptoms persisted past the morning, a glass of sherry or brandy would ease them.
“Your husband will never forgive me,” she said, “or Her Majesty.” When I protested that the blame was mine, Berta shook her head and said shortly, “You’re my charge.”
We sat half an hour out in the dark garden, until I felt recovered enough to walk again. “Time to go home,” Berta announced. “Can you walk to the Patio de la Montería?”
I nodded, even though part of me wanted to find Antonio again before I left. I’d probably never have the chance to see him alone again. Despite my anger at him, singing with him had brought the only real joy I’d felt since he’d left Seville. At the same time, I feared the feelings it had stirred. That and the lingering nausea and headache convinced me to give up and go home.
Keeping my gaze downcast, I let doña Berta lead me haltingly back into the palace and out again on
to the Patio of the Maidens. As we neared the spot where the queen had addressed the crowd—right in front of the doors leading back into King Pedro’s Palace—I remembered that I had left my cloak in the reception hall. Berta left me leaning against one of the archways in order to run back and get my cloak for me. I’d been waiting only a minute when someone stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the retreating Berta. I looked up.
Antonio and Fray Tomás de Torquemada stood in front of me. Although they were matched in height, Torquemada seemed to loom over the younger man. Antonio was uncharacteristically tight-lipped and grim. He took a step back from the monk, as if to distance himself; he wouldn’t look directly at me, daring only to cast me an occasional sidewise look. Someone who hadn’t grown up with him might have thought he was simply avoiding me, but—I thought—I could still read him well enough to know that he was nervous, desperate to be rid of Torquemada and doña Berta.
Fray Tomás’ tiny eyes focused with unsettling intensity on my face and would not look away. There was no kindness in them, no human warmth, only the cold amusement of a cat toying with its prey.
“Doña Marisol García de Hojeda,” Antonio announced with terse formality. “May I introduce you to Fray Tomás de Torquemada, the prior of the Dominican monastery of Santa Cruz in Segovia?”
Torquemada bowed without a sound or a smile. When he rose he said, in a voice almost as soft as a whisper, “Doña Marisol, I should like to have a word with you alone, if I may.” His tone was as unctuous and polished as any courtier’s, yet it held a dangerous undercurrent; he took a half step closer to me, and as his robes shifted, they revealed that his broad, large-boned skeleton held hardly any meat. Yet he pulled himself straight in such a way that, gaunt or no, he was as physically imposing as possible. For some reason, I flashed on the memory of Gabriel, his arm around Antonio’s neck as he pounded the latter’s head mercilessly.
“I’m ill,” I croaked. “I have to leave. Doña Berta is getting my cloak and will be right back.”
Torquemada tucked his chin and slowly lowered his gaze to mine, taking a step closer so that he towered over me. “Antonio will stay here and tell her where you’ve gone,” he said slowly. “I would think you’d be far more concerned about pleasing Her Majesty.”
Puzzled, I looked again to Antonio, who was busy examining the flagstones near his feet.
“Please,” I said. “I’m not well enough for conversation.”
“Only because you allowed yourself to become drunk,” Torquemada countered scathingly. “God’s work doesn’t wait because of sin. Come.”
Antonio remained silent as I let myself be intimidated into going alone with the monk. I followed Fray Tomás through a different archway, down different corridors lined with more dizzyingly patterned tiles and up a staircase. At last we arrived at the door to a small, private chamber deep in the palace interior, where the music and drone of partygoers grew muted. Walking so quickly made me feel sick again, but fear proved a good distraction.
Torquemada motioned for me to enter the chamber ahead of him. It was windowless and mostly dark, lit by a single thick taper burning in a brass wall sconce. A carved wooden crucifix hung nearby; beneath it sat a rickety prayer bench, on whose upper shelf rested a small statue of Saint James. In one corner, a wooden plank, the height and breadth of a man, lay on the floor beside a folded, many-times-mended blanket. The monk entered after me and pointed to a chair beside a small plain desk. Once I sat down, he took the chair behind the desk, facing me.
He made no effort to smile or set me at ease. Instead he sat silently, studying my face intently for long, torturous seconds until he finally spoke.
“You and Antonio Vargas seem quite taken with each other,” he said, and waited.
I curled my hand into a fist and pressed my fingernails hard into my flesh, hoping to distract myself from flushing violently at his words.
“I don’t know how he feels,” I said coldly. “I’m certainly not taken with him. We were sweethearts, but then he went off to university and forgot me.”
“Someone watching the two of you sing together wouldn’t think so,” Torquemada countered.
I shrugged. “It was an act for Her Majesty, so that she would enjoy the song.”
“You’re both quite the performers, then. I was entirely convinced.” He paused. “Is there anything you would like to tell me, doña?”
The tone of his question was intended to unnerve me, shame me. I narrowed my gaze and frowned curiously at him. “Regarding what, Fray Tomás?”
“Regarding the Edict of Grace. Did you go to the square and listen to the edict and bull that Fray Morillo read?”
I nodded.
“You’re a conversa, the daughter of a conversa who drowned in the river not long ago. There is much gossip in town regarding the circumstances of her death. You may be skilled at dissembling, Marisol, but your hair and eyes and flesh betray you.”
I felt a blast of heat on my cheeks and dropped my gaze to the desk. Its unvarnished surface was scratched and pitted from decades of wear; like Fray Tomás, it seemed out of place in such glorious surroundings. I glared at the burls in the wood furiously. I despised Fray Tomás for the ease with which he spoke of my mother’s death, for the way he referred to her as nothing more than a conversa, as if she’d been something less than human.
When I looked back up at him, I wondered whether the depth of my hatred showed.
“One might say the same for your hair and eyes,” I said softly. I was tempted to bring up the cardinal Torquemada who had confessed to being a converso, but the monk’s expression stopped me.
His lipless mouth twisted in disgust, his eyes narrowed to slits beneath a thunderous scowl. “Don’t insult me!” he hissed. “God is not fooled, Marisol García. I must know: Did your parents ever pray together on Friday evenings, or light candles and keep them burning until Saturday night? Did you ever celebrate Passover?”
“Of course not,” I lied, my tone ragged with outrage. All I could think of was my mother, Magdalena, leaning over to light the Sabbath candles, her profile luminous in their golden glow.
He spoke over me, raising his voice to drown me out. “Your father has been denounced and is under investigation.”
The end of my gasp coincided with his last word. For several seconds, I couldn’t draw a breath.
“You’ve heard the Edict of Grace. It’s your solemn duty, Marisol, to report all heresy that you witness. It would be wise to tell me everything you know about your father, now. You would not only be saving his immortal soul, you would spare yourself from being interrogated as a witness. You could save yourself from suspicion.”
“My father’s an Old Christian.” I was angry with myself for not being able to keep my voice from shaking. “He’s always attended Mass and confession regularly and brought me up in the true faith.”
The friar lifted a grizzled brow. “He never prayed facing East? Never uttered a foreign word when he prayed? Did he eat pork?”
“No. Of course we ate pork. We’re Christians.”
Torquemada narrowed his eyes at me, unimpressed. “Then surely your mother did not, and your father protected her. Others have said that your father is a Judaizer. Some say he’s the head of a planned uprising against the Crown.”
“They’re lying!” I leaned forward over the desk, my nerves partially forgotten; no one had been more loyal to Isabel than don Diego. “Who says that my father’s done such a thing? Who accuses him? We’ve always been faithful to the queen!”
“Their anonymity is guaranteed by law.” Fray Tomás’s smug tone goaded me. “You know, if my father were under investigation and in danger of being arrested, I’d do everything possible to help him. I’d cooperate with authorities. Especially knowing that those who are arrested undergo extremely painful torture if they don’t willingly confess.”
“Is my father going to be arrested?” A sickening chill settled over me. It was one thing to hear such things from my mothe
r’s lips, quite another to hear them from Torquemada’s.
“Much depends on you, Marisol.” A corner of his lipless mouth quirked upward. “For example … there is the case of don Francisco Sánchez. Not just the wealthiest man in Seville, but a converso, like you. Except that both of his parents were conversos, and he’s long reputed to be a Judaizer. How well do you know him?”
“Not well at all,” I answered honestly, my anger eclipsed by a desperate desire to protect my father. “My parents knew of him, though he never dined at our table. I was just introduced to him formally this evening.”
“He seems to have taken quite an interest in you.”
“He was just being polite. As you pointed out”—my tone hardened—“my mother recently died. He was sharing his condolences.” I paused. “You’d be far better off talking to don Antonio about don Francisco. His family was better acquainted with him.” It was cruel of me to single out Antonio, but Torquemada was already kindly disposed to him.
“I see.” The Dominican looked at a distant spot on the wall behind me and nodded as if my answer vaguely pleased him. When his gaze refocused on me, he spoke again, this time in an easy, relaxed manner, as if his previous efforts to intimidate me had been in jest. “You could be of great help to Her Majesty, doña Marisol, and especially to your father, if you got to know don Francisco well.”
In my mind’s eye, the birdlike Sánchez patriarch stood next to me, clutching my hand and whispering May I send a carriage tomorrow? Perhaps I should have mentioned it. Perhaps Torquemada already knew. But I had no desire to endanger a man as kind as don Francisco, and so I said nothing. When my hands began to shake again, I withdrew them hastily from the table and clutched them in my lap, hoping the friar didn’t see.
“I will,” I answered huskily. “To help my father, of course I will.”
Fray Tomás’s mouth stretched into a black, cavernous smile. “Yes, doña Marisol. Of course you will.”
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