The Barefoot Queen

by Ildefonso Falcones

  In the chaos the horses caused, Diego and his men managed to make off with four of them and drove them quickly to where the patriarch was waiting, on the outskirts of town. Milagros and Manolillo, who couldn’t help laughing once the tension was broken, were already there.

  “Get moving!” shouted Santiago, knowing that the deputy magistrate wouldn’t hesitate even a second before blaming them.

  They set off, loaded down with their cauldrons, baskets and utensils, along with some clothes and blankets that the gypsies had managed to steal in the confusion. One of them proudly showed off some shoes with leather soles and silver buckles.

  The patriarch ordered them to head toward Ayamonte.

  “Yesterday I found out,” he explained, “that a rich nobleman passed away, setting out in his will close to five thousand reals for his funeral: burial and masses for his soul—he was so sanctimonious, he paid for more than a thousand masses to be read! Plus mourning textiles and alms. They are calling all of the priests and chaplains from town as well as the friars and nuns from a couple of monasteries and convents—the halfwits are going to take his good money. There will be a lot of people …”

  “And a lot of alms!” one of the women said.

  They walked parallel to the coach road that led to Ayamonte, although before reaching San Juan del Puerto they had to take it to cross the Tinto River in a rowing boat; the boatman didn’t even dare to argue over the price Santiago offered him to take them to the other shore. That same afternoon they managed to sell off two of the horses cheaply to one of the customers and the owner of an inn on the way; neither asked where they had come from. They also scrounged up a few coins from the scarce patrons who had gathered at the inn after Milagros performed: she sang and danced suggestively, as Caridad had taught her, to incite the crowd’s desire. It wasn’t the deep, broken song the gypsies used to rekindle their passions and pain at night around the campfire, but even the old patriarch was surprised to find himself clapping and smiling when the girl started her cheery fandangos and zarabandas.

  Despite the cold, Milagros’s face, arms and upper breasts were beaded with sweat. Diego observed her as she walked among the tables where the patrons were drinking, and when she took a seat, with a long weary sigh, at the table where Caridad and María had been watching her performance, the innkeeper invited her to a glass of wine.

  “Bravo, girl!” María congratulated her.

  “Bravo,” added the innkeeper as he served her the wine. “After the roundup,” he continued, his eyes distracted by the girl’s cleavage, “we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to enjoy your dancing anymore, but since the liberation …”

  The chair went flying, the wine went flying and even the table went flying. “What liberation?” shouted the girl, now standing in front of the innkeeper.

  The man opened his hands before the circle of gypsies he suddenly found himself in the middle of. “You don’t know?” he inquired. “Just that … they are freeing them.”

  “Not even the King of Spain can take us on and win!” the gypsies yelled.

  “Are you sure?” asked Santiago.

  The innkeeper hesitated. Milagros waved her arms frantically in front of him.

  “Are you sure?” she repeated.

  “Am I sure …? That’s what they are saying,” he added, shrugging his shoulders.

  “It’s true.”

  The gypsies turned toward the table where the confirmation had come from.

  “They are letting them free.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I came from Seville. I saw them. I passed them on the pontoon bridge on their way to Triana.”

  “How do you know they were gypsies?”

  The man from Seville laughed sarcastically at the question. “They were coming from Cádiz, from La Carraca; they looked a wreck. They were accompanied by a notary who carried their discharge papers and several justices who were escorting the group—”

  “And the women in Málaga?” Milagros interrupted.

  “I don’t know anything about the women, but if they are freeing the men …”

  Milagros turned toward Caridad. “Let’s go home, Cachita,” she whispered in a voice choked with emotion. “Let’s go home.”

  THE GYPSIES weren’t profitable in the arsenals. They didn’t work, complained the governors. Both in Cartagena and in Cádiz, they claimed, they had let go the expert staff to replace them with that ignorant workforce unwilling to make an effort, who weren’t working enough to pay for the food they were eating. The gypsies, they insisted, were problematic and dangerous: they fought, argued and plotted escape. They didn’t have enough troops to control them and they feared the desperation of men imprisoned for life, taken away from their women and children, would lead to a mutiny they would be unable to snuff out. The gypsy women were just as problematic as the men if not more so, they didn’t even work, and their maintenance costs were a huge burden on the scarce resources of the municipalities they were being held in.

  The briefs from those in charge at the arsenals and jails didn’t take long to reach the hands of the Marquis of Ensenada.

  But it wasn’t only those officials who were complaining to the powerful minister of Ferdinand VI. The gypsies themselves were as well and from their places of imprisonment they presented complaints and petitions to the council. In addition there were some noblemen who protected them, clergy members and even whole town councils who saw how their communities had been left without workers to perform necessary tasks: blacksmiths, bakers and simple farmers. Even the city of Málaga, which wasn’t one of the places legally authorized to take in gypsies, decided to support the petitions of gypsy smiths residing there and refuse to detain them.

  The pleas and petitions piled up in the offices of the royal council. In little less than two months the inefficiency, danger and extremely high cost of the big roundup were exposed. Besides, they had arrested assimilated gypsies, who lived according to the laws of the kingdom, while many others, the undesirables, still camped freely around Spain. So, in late September of 1749, the Marquis of Ensenada backtracked and blamed the subordinates who had carried out the roundup: the King had never wanted to harm those gypsies who lived in accordance with the laws.

  In October, the council passed the orders necessary to liberate those unjustly arrested: the Chief Magistrates in each place had to process secret files on the life and habits of each one of the detained gypsies indicating whether they conformed to the laws and proclamations of the kingdom; the files had to be accompanied by a report from the corresponding parish priest, also secret, in which, most important, it must state whether the gypsy was married by the Church.

  Those who complied with all those requirements would be freed, returned to their places of origin and their seized assets restored, although they were expressly prohibited from leaving their towns without written authorization, and from ever attending fairs or visiting markets.

  Those who didn’t get past the secret reports would stay in prison or be sent to labor on public works or projects of interest to the King; those who fled would be immediately hanged.

  They also gave specific orders for the gypsies who hadn’t been rounded up: they gave them a span of thirty days to come forward, otherwise they would be deemed “rebels, bandits, enemies of the public peace and notorious thieves.” They would all receive the death penalty.

  THE GYPSY settlement had been destroyed. At night, Milagros, Old María and Caridad stopped at the start of the street that ran along the wall of the Carthusians’ gardens against which the shacks leaned. None of them spoke. The hope and illusions that had grown over two days of walking, with each of them spurring the others on, promising a return to normality, vanished at the mere sight of the settlement. After the settlement and the seizure of assets, the looters had been quick to take what they wanted from even the most miserable shacks. They were missing roofs, even those made of brushwood, and some walls had collapsed owing to the pillaging of the items t
he soldiers hadn’t taken: built-in iron bars, the few wooden frames, cupboards, hearths … Even so, they could see that some shacks were still inhabited.

  “There are no children,” noticed the old woman. Milagros and Caridad remained silent. “They aren’t gypsies, they are criminals and whores.”

  As if they wanted to prove her right, a couple emerged from one of the nearby shacks: he was an old mulatto; she, who had come out to say goodbye to him, was a raggedy, disheveled woman with her breasts bared.

  Both groups exchanged glances.

  “Let’s go,” the other two women urged the healer. “This is dangerous.”

  Chased by a string of obscenities from the mulatto and the whore’s peals of laughter, they rushed toward Triana.

  Once they had left the Carthusian monastery far behind, the three women crossed the outskirts slowly. On their way to the church of Nuestra Señora de la O, their distress over seeing their humble homes turned into a refuge for outlaws began to transform into consternation: the Vegas would never have allowed it. Once they were freed they would have kicked all those undesirables out of there. Old María became ever more pessimistic; Milagros, who didn’t dare to say aloud what they both were fearing, clung to the possibility that her family was waiting for her in the alley; her father was a Carmona and didn’t live in the settlement, but if they hadn’t freed the Vegas …

  That cold November night—colder, it seemed to the three women, than any of the preceding nights—was upon them. The San Miguel alley greeted them with an inhospitable silence; only the faint gleam of some candles behind the windows, here and there, spoke of a human presence. Old María shook her head. Milagros escaped the group and ran toward her house. The well in the courtyard, always hidden behind twisted, rusty iron pieces, greeted her now like a lonely, proud beacon. The girl stared at it for a long time before going upstairs.

  Shortly after, Caridad and María found her prostrate on the ground: she hadn’t dared to take even a single step inside the house, as if the completely empty space had hit her and knocked her down right there. She trembled in rhythm to her sobs and covered her face tightly with her hands, terrified of facing the reality.

  Caridad knelt by her side and whispered in her ear. “Don’t worry, it will all work itself out. You’ll see how they’ll come home soon.”

  THE HAMMERING on the anvils woke them up; the sun had already risen. After María managed to calm Milagros down and stop her going to other homes that might be occupied by delinquents, they had all three slept together, with Milagros crying every so often, covered with a blanket and the tent fabric that Santiago had given them for their journey. The sunlight insulted them by revealing the place without a stick of furniture; only some broken plates on the dust-covered floor testified to the fact that a family had once lived there. Still lying down, the three women stopped to listen to the tapping of the hammers: it was nothing like the frenzy of the smiths they were used to; these were scarce and slow, one might even say weary.

  Despite her knotted fingers, Old María surprised them with a hard, loud clap. “We’ve got things to do!” she exclaimed, taking the initiative and getting up.

  Caridad followed suit, but Milagros pulled up the tent fabric and covered her head.

  “Didn’t you hear, girl?” said the old woman. “If they are working with iron, they must be gypsies. No payo would dare to do that here, in the alley. Get up.”

  María indicated to Caridad with a look that she should uncover the girl. She took a few seconds to obey, but finally pulled off the fabric and the blanket to reveal Milagros in a fetal position.

  “Your parents could be in another house,” continued the healer without much conviction. “They could have their pick, and here”—she turned and waved her hand over the place—“they don’t even have a damn chair.”

  Milagros sat up with her eyes bloodshot and her face flushed.

  “And if they aren’t,” continued María, “we have to find out what is going on and how we can help them.”

  THE HAMMERING came from the Carmona smithy, which they reached from the same courtyard all the apartments shared. Inside, the effect of the seizure of assets during the roundup was clear: the tools, the anvils and the forges, the cauldrons, the basins for tempering … all had disappeared. Two young men were on their knees, working on the forge; they hadn’t noticed the women. Milagros noticed that they used a portable forge like the one carried by Domingo, the gypsy from Puerto de Santa María they had come across in the Andévalo: one of them was banging a horseshoe on a tiny anvil and the other used a ram-skin bellows to fan the incandescent coal that glimmered in a simple hole cut into the ground.

  The girl recognized them, as did the old woman. They looked familiar to Caridad. They were Carmonas. Milagros’s cousins. Their names were Doroteo and Ángel but they had changed. They worked the iron with bare torsos that showed their ribs and their cheekbones jutted out of their wasted faces. The women didn’t need to announce their presence. Doroteo, the one who was hammering on the anvil, missed the mark, cursed, leapt up and dropped the hammer.

  “It’s impossible to work with this …!”

  He stopped mid-sentence when he saw them. Ángel turned his head toward where his cousin was looking. María was about to say something, but Milagros beat her to it.

  “What do you know about my parents?”

  Ángel put down the bellows and stood up as well. “Uncle didn’t get out,” he answered. “He’s still being held at La Carraca.”

  “How is he? Did you see him?”

  The young man didn’t want to answer.

  “And my mother?” asked Milagros in a thin voice.

  “We haven’t seen her. She isn’t around here.”

  “But if they haven’t freed Uncle, they won’t have freed her either,” added the other.

  Milagros felt herself fainting. She turned pale and her legs shook.

  “Help her,” María ordered Caridad. “And your parents,” she added after making sure that Caridad was holding up Milagros before she collapsed, “are they free? Where are they?” she asked when they nodded.

  “The elders,” responded Doroteo, “are negotiating with Seville’s chief justice officer to get back what they took from us. We’ve only been able to get this”—the young man looked indignantly at the small anvil—“useless portable anvil. The King has ordered that they return our goods to us, but those who bought them don’t want to do it without getting back the money they paid for them. We don’t have any money, and neither the King nor the chief justice officer wants to contribute.”

  “And the women?”

  “All those who aren’t at the town hall went to Seville at dawn, to beg for alms, work or to get food. We have nothing. We are the only Carmonas here. This thing”—he pointed at the anvil again halfheartedly, “only lets two people work. In other workshops they have also managed to get some old forges like the ones the traveling smiths use, but we need more iron and coal … and to work out how to use them.”

  At that moment, as if the other had reminded him, Ángel knelt down again and blew on the coal, which launched a cloud of smoke into his face. Then he picked up the horseshoe that Doroteo had been working on, now cold, and stuck it among the embers again.

  “Why didn’t they free them?” The question emerged from Milagros’s still pale lips as she escaped Caridad’s arms and walked haltingly toward her cousin. Doroteo didn’t beat around the bush.

  “Cousin, your parents aren’t married according to the Catholic rites, you know. That is an essential requirement for release. It seems your mother never allowed it …” he said, clearly angry. “I don’t know of any Vega from the settlement who has been freed. Besides the church wedding, they ask for witnesses to declare that they didn’t live like gypsies …”

  “Don’t repudiate our race, boy,” the healer warned him then.

  Doroteo didn’t dare answer; instead he extended his hands as silence overtook them.

  “Doroteo,”
interjected Ángel, breaking that silence. “We’re out of coal.”

  The gypsy shook one hand in a gesture that demonstrated both his desire to work and his sense of helplessness at the situation; he turned his back on them, searched for the hammer and made as if to kneel beside the anvil.

  “Do you know anything about Grandfather Vega, about Melchor?” asked the old woman.

  “No,” he answered. “I’m sorry,” he added to the women standing before him anxious for some good news.

  They went out into the alley through the door to the workshop. Just as Doroteo had told them, intermittent, faint hammer blows echoed in other smithies; otherwise, the place was deserted.

  “Let’s go and see Fray Joaquín,” suggested Milagros.

  “Girl!”

  “Why not?” she insisted, walking toward the exit. “He’ll have forgotten all about that crazy idea.” She stopped; the old woman refused to follow her. “María, he is a good man. He will help us. He did before …”

  She looked to Caridad for help, but the Negress was absorbed in her own thoughts.

  “We have nothing to lose by trying,” added Milagros.

  It reassured her that people weren’t surprised by her presence; they knew that the gypsies had returned. In San Jacinto, however, Milagros and Caridad’s hopes were thwarted again. Fray Joaquín, the doorman informed them, was no longer in Triana. He didn’t seem willing to give them much more information, but Milagros, who even went so far as to tug on his habit, got the brother to reluctantly tell them something more, mostly to get rid of them.

  “He left Triana,” he told them. “He suddenly went crazy,” he confessed with a wave of his hand. He thought for a few seconds and decided to explain further. “I could see it coming,” he burst out, with obvious presumption. “I told the prior on several occasions: that young man is going to bring us problems. The tobacco, his friendships, his comings and goings, his insolence and those sermons of his … so irreverent! So modern! He wanted to hang up his habits. The prior convinced him not to. I don’t know why the prior liked that boy that much.” Then he lowered his voice. “They say he knew Fray Joaquín’s mother quite well; some say too well. Fray Joaquín claimed that there was nothing to keep him here any longer, in Triana! What about his community? And his vocation? And God? Nothing to keep him here …” he repeated with a snort. The brother interrupted his harangue, closed his eyes and shook his head, bewildered, angry at himself when he realized that he was explaining to two gypsies and a Negro woman, who listened in astonishment.