The Sisterhood

by Helen Bryan

  “When Maria Caterina failed to return to the convent, the quarter where she had worked was searched, but all that was found was a single slipper and empty medicine vials. It was believed that she had succumbed to the disease and her body had been thrown with other victims into a common grave. Instead, the couple was hiding in my house. I begged them to leave Spain at once, but the arrangements in his affairs your father believed necessary delayed them, and then Maria Caterina found she was expecting a child, and was too unwell to travel. She extracted a promise from your father that if she did not survive the birth, the baby would be baptized and brought up as a Christian, as your father’s natural son or daughter.”

  “And my mother?”

  “She died giving birth as she had feared, and your brokenhearted father resumed his life for your sake. Neither your mother nor your father ever turned from the Muslim faith they embraced, though your father kept his promise and brought you up a Christian. Only the valet knew the truth, and for years extracted money from your father in exchange for his silence. A lesser man than your father would have had the villain murdered. Your guardian is too greedy to hand you over to the Inquisition. Your fortune would be seized by them and he means to keep that for himself.”

  “And the valet…surely he remains a danger?”

  “Ah, the valet…found in an alleyway with his throat slit. Thieves, no doubt hired by your guardian,” said Don Jaime dryly. “Now, my dear, your guardian’s wife is giving me suspicious looks. I will find a way to send help. Let the woman see me bless you.”

  Esperanza realized there was no one around her she could trust. She began to fear poison in every mouthful of food, every cup of wine, felt evil in the gloomy shadows of her guardian’s house. Her childhood nightmares returned, and sleepless nights took their toll as they had when she was small. Her room was a prison. Unable to eat or sleep, she grew ill—at first lethargic, then feverish, first unwilling, then unable to stir from her bed. Days slid into nights. The fever worsened; her joints ached and burned. Once she looked up and the guardian’s wife hung over her with a razor, a lock of Esperanza’s hair in her hand. Esperanza tried to scream and lost consciousness.

  When she finally came to her senses, a sad-faced young maid with a crooked nose was sponging her face with rose water. Esperanza’s head felt strange. Running her hand over it she realized her hair had been shorn. “Because of the fever,” the maid whispered. “But it will grow again. I am Maria, your new maid. Don Jaime sent me. He has a plan, but first you must work hard to recover.”

  Astonishingly, it seemed Esperanza’s guardian and his wife were determined she should get well. They sent for a prominent doctor who prescribed strengthening cordials and food. She was fed broth with eggs in it, bread made from fine flour, and wine mixed with spices and honey, and was continually asked what she wished to eat, and begged to name what dishes appealed to her. Strangest of all, her guardian’s wife came each day to read aloud to her, from the most dismal book imaginable, Esperanza thought—a dull work on the nature of females and their path to virtue. It was a litany of women’s imperfections as daughters of Eve, who had brought sin into the world, and whose inferiority and spiritual weakness rendered them unfit for anything except subjection to their fathers, brothers, and husbands. Her guardian’s wife read out the section concerning the conduct and duties of Christian wives with emphasis and significant looks.

  Finally her guardian’s wife could not resist telling Esperanza that she was betrothed through the kindness of her guardian, and a noble man prepared to overlook the stain of her birth. Suspecting something amiss, Esperanza asked the name of her husband-to-be. Don Cesar Guzman, was the tight-lipped reply.

  Maria, entering with a bowl of soup, whispered, “I will ask Don Jaime.” She rolled her eyes at the door closing behind the guardian’s wife. “Drink this.”

  A few days later Maria bent over Esperanza and hissed, “Don Jaime says better the Evil One for a husband than Don Cesar Guzman. He is old and has buried four young wives, all rich orphans, like you. He is cursed with a disease of his private parts, with pustules and swellings and a foul discharge, and suffers horribly in his efforts to beget a son. The need for a son has eaten his soul. He tormented his wives when they failed to conceive and within a few years, each died. Don Jaime says Don Cesar poisoned them. He believes your guardian has made a bargain, offering you to Don Cesar with a large dowry in return for asking no questions about your mother. Your guardian will keep the rest of your fortune and Don Cesar will let you live so long as you bear him children. Your guardian and Don Cesar are eager for the marriage to take place, and you must escape as soon as possible.”

  “Escape? How? The doors are barred, my duenna watches me night and day, and the guard at the gate would prevent my leaving. And where would I go?”

  “Don Jaime devised a plan, but you must take me with you. Your guardian’s wife is the cruelest mistress under heaven. She wears the barbed belt under her dress to mortify her body, and the pain makes her eager to mortify the flesh of others. She orders servants beaten viciously on the slightest pretense, especially the young ones, saying beatings do their souls the more good. She withholds food, then punishes us for stealing it when we grow so hungry we snatch a morsel. I long for the mountains and my mother and a boy…I promised to marry before my father sold me as a servant. I must return before he forgets me and marries another.”

  “But how can we go? And where?”

  “Here is the how. You and I will dress as lads and make our way to the mountains. There is a convent not far from my village—women and girls, if they are beaten or treated badly, go to the nuns. To get their women back, men must give something to the Abbess in token of their good behavior. Men are in awe of the convent and treat women of our village with more care than other men do. The nuns will hide you from Don Cesar.”

  The duenna returned and heard the words “Don Cesar.” Crossing the room with an angry step, she slapped Maria for gossiping and ordered her out of the room.

  Escape seemed impossible. Thinking of it, Esperanza wept hopelessly for a time, then dried her eyes with the sheet. She had promised to accept her guardian’s choice, but her father would never have wished her married to Don Cesar. In her predicament she had no choice. She must trust Don Jaime. And find some courage, or else her wedding would take place as soon as they saw she could leave her bed.

  Provided her guardian’s wife or the duenna had not taken it, she had a store of gold reales hidden in a secret compartment of the carved cedar clothes chest that had accompanied her to her guardian’s house. That night when her duenna grew bored with the sickroom and left, believing she slept, Esperanza rose quietly and rummaged in her chest. The pouch of reales was there. She carried it back to bed with her. After that, each night she waited until her duenna left the room, then slipped out of bed to walk up and down the room until she heard the duenna returning, trying to regain her strength. She felt well again, but kept her recovery a secret and continued to languish by day.

  One day in late spring Maria whispered, “Summer is the only time we can travel into the mountains, and we must go soon. I will bring a new chamber pot to hide under your bed. From now on, pour the sleeping draft your guardian’s wife brings into it. I will collect it from you each day and save it. The night we leave, I will mix it into your duenna’s wine when I bring up her supper. I will give drugged wine to the guard at the gate as well. He is always clutching at me, groping at my bodice! I will smile and refill his goblet, wear my bodice unlaced, and he will think I have relented. Then we will dress as boys—”

  “Pages? Only my page is very small and I am…”

  “No, idiot! Kitchen boys! If you give me something to pay our kitchen boy he will part with his ragged clothes—he is tall as you. I warn you, they stink, but that is all the better, and since your hair is already short all you need do is dirty your face and hands…” They both looked at her hands. White and thin, with pink nails. “Rub soot well into your h
ands and under your fingernails. Looking like that they would give us away in an instant, whatever our disguises,” Maria advised. “And we will need money.”

  Esperanza triumphantly produced her pouch of reales, but Maria shook her head. “Country bumpkins with reales? We would be arrested as thieves!” She took one. “I never thought to hold a reale! Don Jaime will exchange it for small coins that peasants might have.”

  The duenna no longer watched as Esperanza drank her sleeping drafts. For ten nights Esperanza poured them into the spare chamber pot. On the tenth day, Maria slipped in with a bundle reeking of sweat and boy. On the eleventh day it was raining heavily, but cleared toward evening. That afternoon, Maria came for the chamber pot with the sleeping medicine and mouthed, “Tonight!” As night approached, Esperanza’s teeth were chattering with fear and the duenna frowned and said she must be feverish again. The duenna’s nose wrinkled at the smell of illness—the bundle of clothing under Esperanza’s bed—and kept her distance.

  The candle burned down to nothing by the time the duenna had her supper and drunk her wine and was slumped in her chair like one dead. Maria opened the door and whispered, “Hurry!”

  Maria was wearing a filthy leather jerkin over a ragged linen shirt and patched trousers, and she had chopped off her braids. Esperanza dressed quickly, disgusted by the filthy garments against her skin. “Wet your hands and face from the pitcher by the bed and wipe them with ashes from the grate,” Maria ordered in a whisper. She tied the pouch of reales under the pantaloons so it bulged where Esperanza’s legs met. Esperanza said it was uncomfortable, but Maria insisted it was a necessary part of a boy’s disguise. And since Esperanza’s accent would give them away, she must let Maria do all the talking in her country dialect. They were peasant brothers, returning to their village. Maria was the sensible brother; Esperanza was a simple fellow, unable to speak since birth. Esperanza crossed her eyes and scratched her pouch and Maria stifled a giggle.

  They crept past the sleeping guard, opened the door and waited until a party of drunken men lurched past, then the night watchmen. “Now! Stay in the shadows,” ordered Maria. They hurried into the night, knowing that when the guard awoke the alarm would be raised and a search for them would begin at once.

  They soon found this was true. Everywhere they stopped for food or shelter, even when they begged rides on peasant carts, they heard talk of the stolen heiress and the reward offered to anyone who returned her safely to her guardian. Their closest call came at a tavern where they had been given a crust and a little stew out of charity. They were huddled in the shadows by the fire when a party of armed guards entered, asking if anyone had seen the heiress, mentioning an even greater reward than previously offered. The company fell silent and Esperanza was seized with terror that she would be handed over, especially when one of the rough fellows leaned over, guffawing and slapped Esperanza’s back, saying, “Here she is, Your Worship! The reward is mine!” Then everyone laughed at the dusty simpleton drooling over his bread, nodding and smiling at the joke while he picked a louse out of his head and killed it between his fingernails.

  But mainly the journey was hard. They had quickly worn holes in their shoes, and tied them on with rags as best they could. Esperanza was limping and they begged rides on peasants’ carts when they could. But it was well into summer when they reached the foothills of the mountains, which had looked much nearer when they set out. They were two young hungry girls and their hunger at the end of the day was such that they invariably spent more than they intended on food. Their supply of coins was nearly gone, but Maria refused to let them use a reale. Now they survived on a little bread and oil and wild fruit.

  Despite hunger and weariness, Maria grew more confident, pointing out the white stones that marked their way through the forest, encouraging and goading Esperanza. Higher and higher they went. The air grew thinner and cooler and there were eagles and falcons in the wide sky.

  Esperanza lost track of time. Her feet were raw and she could think of nothing except putting one down after the other until the day’s end. Only the charity of people in the villages sustained them. Esperanza’s feet bled. Her fever returned. Finally she refused to go on, wanting nothing so much as to lie down at the side of the road to die. Maria left her collapsed on a rock and came back with a crust of stale bread and a half-rotted apple she had stolen from some pigs. Maria gave these to Esperanza, saying it was not much farther, Esperanza must try.

  Two days later, numb from cold after a night in the open, they reached a terraced olive grove at what felt like the top of the world. Maria kicked and dragged and cajoled Esperanza up the terraces to the gates of a great stone enclosure, panting, “Here! Just a little farther! Another step or two”—then dropped her in the dust to reach for a bell rope. The last thing Esperanza heard was its clanging. She no longer cared whether she lived or died.

  She awoke surrounded by nursing sisters cutting her ragged verminous clothes off. She struggled frantically to get up, crying she must escape before they married her to the Evil One. They fed her herbal broth and a calming cordial, and wrapped her in blankets warmed by hot stones, until she grew calmer. Finally she fell into an exhausted sleep so deep it seemed she had died.

  “And they will kill me if they find me,” she said, when she was well enough to talk.

  “I know,” said the Abbess.

  Now Esperanza’s hair has grown, her gaunt face has filled out and gained a little color, and she is content in the scriptorium. I depend upon her to write for me in the Chronicle when my hand and wrist are too swollen and stiff. It is good to have a girl by my side again, especially one who undertakes her tasks so efficiently.

  And so we went calmly on in the scriptorium until the day soon after the swallows had returned and were filling the convent with the cheerful sounds of their nest making, and a new child arrived. This one was not an infant with a dowry and wet nurse, but one abandoned in rags outside the gate, though it had rained hard in the night. The Abbess sent for me, and, to my surprise, Esperanza.

  CHAPTER 13

  From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, Las Golondrinas Convent, Andalusia, Spring 1549

  At first we did not see the child with the adult’s head and face on the footstool at the Abbess’s feet. Luz does not speak, and can sit so quietly for hours that she is almost invisible. To see a dwarf child dressed in a ragged shift and broken shoes was surprising. The great households prize their dwarves, dress them in fine clothes, and keep them like pet dogs for amusement, as if they were not human beings with souls. It is a wicked custom and Esperanza whispered hotly in my ear, “I would never have thought the Abbess kept a dwarf! For shame!”

  The Abbess snapped, “Do not stare at me with such disapproval, Esperanza! This girl was left at the gate this morning.”

  Esperanza flushed. Leaning over to the dwarf child, the Abbess put her hand under her chin and raised her face into the light. The child flinched, and reason for the Abbess’s barely suppressed fury was plain. There were traces of bruising around the child’s nose, and what looked at first like a harelip was a ragged scar that must have been caused by a blow that split her upper lip. Her eyes were big and terrified in a dirty face, looking from one of us to the other, and her hair was matted and verminous. The Abbess’s expression changed and she said gently, “Child, you are safe here. No one will beat you. But can you not tell us your name and how old you are?”

  The child said nothing.

  “Who brought you?” The dwarf girl reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a folded paper and handed it to the Abbess, then hung her head like an animal waiting to be kicked.

  The Abbess unfolded it and read it out loud:

  Esteemed Sisters, I have traveled a long way to leave my granddaughter Luz to your mercy and care. There is no one else I can turn to. I am dying and can no longer protect her. The child has been sadly wronged by the circumstances of her birth. It has long been a custom in our family for cousins to marry
to preserve the family’s fortune and estates, and my only child, my daughter, was married to a cousin who loved her since childhood. She was the darling of her husband’s eye, a blameless wife, and a kind mistress to all the household servants—including her husband’s mischievous dwarf, known for his lusty ways with the kitchen girls. Then she gave birth to their first child, who is as you see her. The moment the poor baby was born, my daughter’s happiness was destroyed. When my son-in-law saw poor Luz he flew into a rage, convinced my girl had cuckolded him with his dwarf. My daughter protested her innocence, but was dragged by her hair from the birthing bed and locked away as an adulteress, allowed only a priest to make her confession, then left to die.

  When I heard what had happened, I hurried to my son-in-law, to tell him that although it was never spoken of, women in our family had given birth to dwarves on other occasions; there had been instances in almost every generation, and the children were kept hidden from sight. He shut his ears and would not allow me to see my daughter. The poor girl died alone in her locked chamber in a pool of blood, according to the servants who found her. The unfortunate dwarf was never seen again.

  I petitioned those in authority I knew to investigate the deaths of two innocent people, but all washed their hands of the matter, saying a man may regulate his family as he sees fit, and if he has behaved wrongly to his wife, that is a matter for his conscience; he should confess and do penance.

  A woman is dust beneath men’s feet, there is no justice for my daughter! I begged my son-in-law to let me take the child, but he is deranged by the supposed deceit and vowed he would see the creature suffer. He allowed me to remain in the household to witness it. I stayed, in the hope of protecting the poor baby from her father. I only sometimes succeeded. The man grew worse with time and has treated her like a dog—beatings and kickings and taunts, not taught so much as her prayers, sleeping in the straw by the fire, fed on slops. Yet according to family custom, as firstborn Luz will inherit the bulk of his fortune. He does not dare kill her, because he intends to marry her off to another orphaned cousin, and secure their joint fortunes to himself.