Bridge of Fire, page 3
“Perhaps I shan’t get married.”
“What? Become a nun?”
“Heaven forbid!”
“There is no other choice, sister.”
“I know of a third choice. Mistress. Mistress to an illustrious and dashing lover.”
Leonor laughed. “Now you are truly making fun. But I don’t think Papá would find it humorous.”
“No,” Francisca said slowly. “I don’t think he would.”
Don Pedro returned from Taxco two days before the mascarada. Francisca was wondering how she could ask after Miguel without seeming more than casually interested when her father answered her unspoken question.
“Don Miguel did not accompany me on my return to Mexico City,” he told the family.
A servant was removing his muddy boots as he sat sprawled in a chair. He was a short man of stocky build with wide shoulders and dark, graying hair. His bearded face bore the marks of his journey, a sunburned nose and reddened, fatigued eyes.
“He thought it best to go on to Veracruz and see to his ship.” Pedro’s boots and stirrup hose removed, a basin of warm water with soothing herbs was brought. “Don Miguel is an odd man for a hidalgo,” he went on, inching his feet into the water. “Enterprising, shrewd in his business dealings, not afraid of a little work. He’s also a devout Catholic, I might add. He went to mass whenever we stopped at a village.”
“Devout Catholic, my sainted grandmother!” Aunt Juliana interposed scornfully. A widow, built like an olla, a jug, she had a small head set on a rounded body with short legs. Given to gossip and gluttony, dangerously outspoken in her dislike for Papists, she shunted between the homes of her two daughters and that of the de Silvas.
“I hear that he games and beds women like any Caballero,” she continued. “His name was mentioned just yesterday in the marketplace. They say La Flor is his mistress.”
“Juliana!” Francisca’s mother admonished. “Guard your tongue! This is not a subject for young girls’ ears.”
Francisca, whose heart had plummeted at the mention of La Flor, struggled to find her voice. “But…Mamá, everyone knows of La Flor.”
The courtesan’s notoriety had spread from the humblest abode to the pulpits of parish churches, where the priests had railed against her. Songs and verses had been written extolling her dark, seductive eyes and her golden limbs. Gossip claimed that she had conquistador blood running in her Aztec veins, that she traveled in a velvet-cushioned coach, curtained in scarlet silk and pulled by four matching white geldings. Men had bestowed priceless jewels, houses, and slaves upon her. It was also rumored that more than one duel had been fought because of her, and such was her feminine charm that a man once under her spell could never forget her.
And this woman, this Delilah, had become Miguel’s mistress.
Had he held and kissed La Flor the way he had held and kissed her? Had he whispered in her ear, put his lips to the palpitating pulse in her throat? Had his hand…?
“All the same,” Mariana was saying, “I would rather not have that loose woman’s name mentioned in our house. As for del Castillo, I suppose we’ve seen the last of him.”
“Unless he makes a return trip, which might be years away,” Don Pedro said.
Years away. Perhaps never. Then why should I fret? Francisca asked herself. He has gone out of La Flor’s life as he has gone out of mine.
Francisca’s father made no objection when she expressed a wish to be left out of the mascarada. He assumed, like Leonor and her mother, that she would remain at home watching from the window. But Francisca had secretly decided to participate. She had always envied the mestizo and gypsy girls who formed their own section of the parade, whirling their multicolored skirts as they danced and sang. Their carefree laughter would reach her as she sat stiffly, dressed in lusterless angel garb on her father’s float, a prey to dull convention.
But Miguel’s kiss had brought out a restlessness, a piquant curiosity she had only vaguely experienced before. At his touch she had felt her heart pounding with excitement, the hot blood coursing through her veins, had known—if even briefly—what it was like to be alive. Really alive. Now, thinking of those moments on the dark stair the smoldering rebellion deep within her sparked to flame. From the day she was born, her future had been mapped out for her. She would go from her father’s care to her husband’s, settling into sober maturity, still abiding by set rules, her freedom to move about strictly curtailed. She had never openly questioned the path she must take, had never defied propriety.
Yet why shouldn’t she enjoy—at least for one night—the excitement and gaiety of a fiesta?
The day before the mascarada, Francisca stole into her father’s library and extracted the key for the back garden gate from its hiding place in a volume of Catholic writings. The garden gate built into the wall that surrounded the de Silva house was unknown except to the converso friends of the family. Even the servants were ignorant of its existence. This entrance had been provided not only as an escape route, but for the protection of the few trusted guests who secretly came to the house to celebrate Jewish holidays. It was the only way Francisca could leave without being seen by the doorman, Manuel, who diligently guarded his post.
Muffled in a black cloak, her hair and part of her face covered with a scarf, Francisca stood hesitantly in the shadow of the shrubbery that hid the secret gate from the street. She had never left her house unaccompanied, and then very rarely on foot. Her passage through the city had been mostly by sedan or carriage. And now suddenly she was struck with a timid uncertainty.
But she couldn’t turn back. If she didn’t walk away now, she would never muster the courage to do so again. What is there to fear? she asked herself. She had known the streets of the Spanish quarter since childhood. She could easily find her way. And dressed as a servant girl, who would notice her? Chiding herself for cowardice, she stepped boldly out.
Hurrying along La Moneda, she traversed the square, passing the viceroy’s house crowned by its clock tower, and the Orozco house, where she had watched the auto. At the far end she turned into the Merchants’ Gateway. Here, crowding the dusty street, stood shop after shop, a bustling community of stone carvers, locksmiths, clog makers, chandlers, sword makers, pastry cooks, and chair makers. The ringing anvil of the blacksmith vied with the rasping saws of the carpenters; the cries of the grocers hawking melons and maize strove above the singsong voices of the weavers extolling their cloth.
Suddenly there was a shout, “Make way! Make way!” Negros in scarlet livery were bearing a sedan, its crimson, gold-embroidered curtains half-parted to reveal the face of a haughty Catalonian beauty. A group of laughing youths dressed in white, frilled shirts and black doublets followed on horseback.
Francisca, who had viewed this scene many times from the same sort of sedan that had passed a moment earlier, now saw it all with new eyes. It was exciting and wonderfully adventurous to stroll the street without her mother or Aunt Juliana dogging her footsteps. She could linger where she pleased, pausing at the silk seller or at the hatter’s or stopping to inspect the latest import of Flemish lace, running the fine work through her fingers.
Turning a corner, Francisca arrived at the costumer’s, a hole-in-the-wall nook crowded with clamoring last-minute buyers. The harassed merchant was shouting that it was too late to make up a new outfit; people would have to take what he had.
Francisca’s eye was caught by a white gown banded in red satin that hung from a peg behind the counter. She elbowed her way forward.
“I’ll have that costume,” she said, pointing.
The red-faced, perspiring shopkeeper shook his head. “No, no, that is spoken for.”
“Whatever has been offered, my mistress will double,” Francisca said, staying within her role of servant.
The man look dubiously at Francisca’s poor, shabby cloak. Francisca jingled her bag of coins.
“Very well, then. Four ducats.”
“Four ducats it is. I shall want a mask. Not that one. It’s too ugly.” It was a gray mask representing some monstrous ogre with gnashing teeth and bulging eyes.
“Tell your mistress the grotesque is fashionable. However, if you feel it won’t suit her, then there are only the plain crimson ones left.”
Francisca, with her purchases hidden under her cloak, had a bad moment as she slipped through the garden gate. Leonor and Beatriz were at the far end of the garden playing with little Pepé under a sapodilla tree. The girls didn’t see her since she was screened by a row of tall, flowering bushes. But the dog caught her scent and came bounding toward her, barking joyfully.
“Pepé!” Leonor called. “Pepé, come here at once!”
The dog, went on barking while Francisca tried to silently shoo it away.
“Beatriz,” Leonor said in an exasperated tone. “Go fetch him.”
Beatriz came after the dog and scooped it up within a few inches of Francisca’s feet. “Naughty, Pepé,” she scolded, carrying it toward the house.
Francisca waited a few minutes, then, scurrying across the garden, stole up to her room.
Chapter III
After the family and the servants, who had been given permission to attend the mascarada, had left, Francisca got into her finery. She was delighted to find that her costume fit better than she had expected. The tight bodice hugged the tender curve of her breasts and snugly embraced her slender waist. Yards of skirt dropping into ruffled tiers fell to above her ankles, revealing two inches of white stockings thrust into black satin slippers. The fall-away shoulders came down to sleeves that flared in red-banded flounces at the elbow. A flower for her hair, her crimson mask tied in place, and she was ready.
Once outside, she threaded her way through already crowded streets and paused in the shadows of an arched doorway to wait for the parade.
Presently she heard the shrill piping of flutes, the flourish of trumpets, and the beat of drums which announced the approaching pageant. Her heart began to leap with excitement as she stood on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of the leading figures.
And there they were! A group of Indians wearing simple white loincloths, their brown, half-naked bodies daubed with clay paint and their hair stuck with feathers, swarmed through the narrow street. Shouting and whooping wildly, they brandished clubs, frightening the small children, who clung to their mothers’ skirts.
The Indians were followed by a company of infantrymen in full uniform marching six abreast to the stirring strains of martial music. With standards billowing and brightly colored plumes fluttering from the crests of their helmets, squad after squad stepped smartly along.
After them came another contingent of natives, these representing the Aztec, Toltec, and Chichuneca royalty of conquest days. In full costume on floats or on foot, they presented an awesome spectacle. Each monarch bore a crown of turquoises surmounted by golden green plumes of the quetzal bird. Their tilmas, fastened at the shoulder by a knot, were embroidered with esoteric symbols, while their brown ankles and arms were adorned with precious jeweled bracelets.
Next came a group of some twenty-five or thirty citizens dressed in a variety of lavish, bizarre, or comical costumes. Francisca laughed with the rest of the crowd at Don Quixote with his broken lance, and the fat figures of Sancho Panza and plump Dulcinea riding beside him on decrepit mules. There were revelers in animal costume: cougars, coyotes, and two humped camels that bumped along next to Turks in tarbooshes and Romans in togas.
When a band of gypsies, dancing, singing, and strumming guitars, appeared, Francisca moved forward to join them.
No one questioned her or seemed to think it odd that she had stepped from the shadows to become a member of the gypsy band. Perhaps it was because she blended in so smoothly with the others, her body taking up the rhythm of tambourine and guitar without missing a beat. Gliding and twirling, her skirts flying above her trim ankles, she took her place between a guitarist and a stamping Romany. Francisca had learned the gypsy dances by watching the entertainers her father sometimes hired at special dinners to divert his guests. Afterward she and Leonor would amuse themselves in the privacy of Francisca’s bedroom by imitating the provocative hip-swaying and heel-clicking motions of the dark-skinned performers.
Now, caught up in the ebullience of holiday revelers, she felt an exhilarating, magical lightness, a giddy sense of freedom she had not known from her practice steps at home. This, the hand clapping and catcalls, the shouts and head tossing, was far different. How wonderful it felt to be liberated from the starched gowns and heavy brocades she had been condemned to since early girlhood, how marvelous to fling herself about in a cool, corsetless gypsy dress! She felt tireless, as if her feet had wings. Closing her eyes, she let the throbbing guitars and the voices singing ballads of love and seduction, songs of haughty women and scorned enamorados, engulf her senses. The music became louder, the dance wilder and wilder. Francisca lifted her arms, swaying and twirling, moving hips and shoulders sensuously as if she had been born a daughter of Romany and knew no other life.
Then she stumbled over an uneven cobblestone, and the mask slipped from her face. She was fumbling with the knotted ribbons when the parade halted for a few minutes. It was then that she noticed a horseman sitting in the archway of an open door that led to the patio of a magnificent residence. He was dressed in the costume of a conquistador of old, his silver mail polished to a mirrored shine. A sword swung at his side, a halberd lay across the high saddle, and a burnished steel shield protected his left flank. His head and face were covered with helmet and visor, so that Francisca could not see his features. It seemed to her that he was staring at her, a blank, faceless gaze that made her turn uneasily away.
Twilight had fallen when the mascarada began to move again. Looking back, she noted that the conquistador had joined a troop of mounted men in the section behind the gypsies. Apparently he had been a latecomer like herself, waiting to cut in to the procession. Many of the paraders now carried lighted torches, and in the distance the shouts of merrymakers and the explosive pop of firecrackers could be heard. The mascarada was winding down. Francisca didn’t want it to end. She felt as though she could go on singing and dancing until dawn. But she knew that after nightfall the mascarada deteriorated into drunken rowdiness. Already there were whistles and coarse remarks directed at her, and one reeling figure dressed as a court buffoon tried to grab her. She eluded him, only to have her gown snatched by an Apollo who reeked of cheap wine. She was trying to fight him off when a horseman galloped through the throng. Knocking her accoster aside with the butt of his lance, he scooped Francisca up and, swinging her across his saddle, rode off.
An astonished Francisca, grateful for her rescue, thought that once they had cleared the crowd, she would be released. But the horseman, instead of bringing his mount to a halt, clattered on. Craning her neck upward from her awkward position, Francisca saw that her benefactor was the conquistador she had noted earlier, his face still hidden behind helmet and guard.
“Could you put me down?” she shouted, raising her voice above the hollow beat of hooves and the jingle of harness. “Please?”
There was no answer, no indication that the man had heard. The horse picked up speed. Soon they were riding in darkness with only the gleam of an occasional torch, glinting off the conquistador’s mail, to pierce the gloom. The streets led one into another, the dusty, darkened alleyways fragrant with night dew and flowering trees disappearing from view as the flying hooves thudded on. The distant torches and the faraway sound of the festive crowd disappeared. A fitful half moon veiled by wispy gray clouds gave a feeble, ghostly light. Francisca, half lying, half sitting, pressed into the saddle’s hard wooden pommel on one side and the man’s steely armor on the other, felt a stitch of pain in her side. Where were they going? She could only guess why this man refused to let her go, and for the first time since she had ventured out of her house, she felt a shiver of cold fear work itself along her bare arms.
She was this conquistador’s captive, and they were galloping into the wind, traveling deeper and deeper into the night. There was no one to rescue her now. It would be hours before her family returned from the dinner they had been invited to at the close of the mascarada. Perhaps, her mother had said, they would stay the night. In any case, Francisca had asked not to be disturbed until morning. She would not be missed.
“Where are you taking me?” she shouted once more.
The silence of her armor-clad captor terrified her. Was there a living, breathing man of flesh and blood behind the breastplate and chain mail? Or had she been abducted by the ghost of Hernán Cortés himself? She was not superstitious, yet tales of the great conqueror haunting the streets of the old Aztec capital upon which Mexico City had been built still circulated freely.
Finally, after what seemed hours, Francisca was aware that they were passing through a gate into a patio. There was the sound of muffled voices and the flare of blinding torchlight. She was unceremoniously handed down to waiting hands before her captor dismounted. She opened her mouth to speak, only to be lifted and slung over a mailed shoulder. They mounted a staircase of tessellated tile, a broad, armored back and greaved legs carrying her up and up. A door was opened to candlelight throwing elongated shadows on a high, whitewashed ceiling.
The moment she was set on her feet, the animal instinct to escape precipitated panic. As she whirled to flee, a gauntleted hand gripped her arm. For a few moments she was held in a bruising grasp, her body brought forcibly against cold steel. Then her arm was dropped. Her captor brushed past her. The door was booted shut, a resounding slam of timber against timber. Francisca faced her abductor, her breath coming in little gasps, her heart pulsing in her ears.
He looked taller, more ominous, more menacing, than he had in the saddle. His polished breastplate glittered with dancing light. He did not remove his helmet or visor, but stood for a moment silently contemplating Francisca.
