Bridge of Fire, page 6
“My child,” Pedro said, his voice and expression relenting, “do not look at me as though I am about to beat or torture you. I am not a hard father. You know that. I love you as I do myself. Come…” He bent forward and placed a finger under her chin. “Give us a smile.”
She tried, but all she could muster was a weak grimace. “That is a little better.” He stopped and placed a kiss on her cheek. “A year from now you will thank me for this. Now go along and get ready for supper.”
She walked up the broad staircase to her room, not weeping as she had thought she might, but spine straight, her lovely jaw set. She would not marry Ruy. At the moment she did not know how she could dissuade her father, but dissuade him she must.
Chapter V
The next day at siesta time Francisca stole down the stairs. Using the garden gate, she let herself out on the deserted street. Previously she had never left the house during the midday hours. It was too risky since Leonor, unable to nap or rest, would sometimes come to Francisca’s room, bringing with her a bit of embroidery and a need to gossip.
But today Francisca felt she could not wait until four o’clock. She had to see Miguel. She had spent a tumultuous night, turning and tossing, her mind churning as sleep continued to elude her troubled mind. The morning had been endless, her impatience all the more acute because she couldn’t show it. What Miguel could do for her, she did not know. But she had to talk to him.
When she reached the house and climbed the stairs to the room, she found the door was locked. She knocked several times, but there was no answer. Thinking she heard a rustling behind the oak panel, she put her ear to it. Was that a whisper, a muted voice? For a few moments she wondered if Miguel was on the other side, between the legs of another woman, making violent love and ignoring her summons. But there was no other sound, only silence. He had not yet arrived. Her disappointment was so keen, she could have wept.
She was descending the stairs when the gate swung open and Miguel appeared. She lifted her skirts and tripped down the stairs, rushing to meet him.
“Francisca!”
She was so relieved, so happy to see him, she could not speak as he held her.
“What is it? Has something happened?”
She nodded mutely.
“Come upstairs.”
Seated on the edge of the bed, with his arm protectively about her shoulder, she felt somewhat better.
“Now, tell me,” Miguel coaxed. “What is so terrible?”
“Everything. Oh, Miguel, my father has arranged a marriage for me.” She withdrew a lace-edged handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “I tried to argue, but he…he wouldn’t listen.”
Miguel drew in his breath.“For a moment I thought…”
“Thought what?” She lifted her head, her brown eyes questioning.
His lips quirked in a smile. “That you were with child. It would not be an impossibility.”
“Would it make you unhappy?”
“Unhappy? Zounds, no! I should be delighted. I have no children, you know.”
“But it would be a bastard.”
“I would have it legitimized.”
Then he does love me, she thought, and the next instant shuddered inwardly. To have a bastard, even Miguel’s, especially Miguel’s, would banish her from home and family forever.
“Nevertheless, Francisca,” he went on, “apparently that is not why you came. You say your father has arranged a marriage. Is he serious?”
“Very. He means to marry me to the widower Don Ruy de Diaz.”
“The name is unfamiliar.”
“Don Ruy has recently come to live in Mexico City. He is from Leon, where he owns an encomienda, a huge one with thousands of Indians who herd cattle and grow hemp for his benefit.”
“He is rich, then. And what other qualities does this wealthy grower of hemp possess that make your father think this is a good match?”
Before she realized it, she answered truthfully. “He is of the same faith.”
There was a small silence during which she seemed to hear the grand inquisitor pronouncing sentence to the solemn beating of drums.
But all was not lost. Miguel was smiling. “I should hope so. Thanks to the zeal of the Holy Office, Spain and her colonies do not harbor heretics gladly. So, my dear, we are all of the same faith.”
“That is true,” Francisca said in a small voice. She could never tell him. Never.
“Be honest with me, Francisca; do you find this would-be suitor of yours attractive?”
“Oh, Miguel, how can you ask such a thing?” she cried in protest, noting the sudden suspicious look that had come into his eyes. “Even if he was the most handsome, dashing man on earth, I would not look at him twice.”
“Is he?” he asked, grasping her hand in a steely grip, his sea-blue eyes gazing intently at her. “Is he the most handsome man on earth? And if so, would you look at him a third time?”
Seeking to nip his budding anger, she said lightly, “Why, you are jealous, Miguel.”
“Have I cause to be?”
“No.” She tugged at his wrist, but he held on, though his grip had eased. “Don Ruy is old—older than Papá—old with bad teeth and sour breath. I cannot conceive of our nuptial bed, of having him—”
“I would kill him first. Don’t think of it. I will not allow you to marry this—this Don Ruy.”
“But my father—”
“A curse on your father!”
Shocked, Francisca wrenched her hand away and crossed herself out of habit. A curse was anathema! It brought on pestilence, poverty, and death. “You must not say that! Ever! You must not curse my father. He may want to marry me to a man I do not love, but is that so unusual? He is only thinking of me. He loves me. Please, Miguel, take the curse back!”
“You superstitious little fool. All right then, I’ll take the curse back. But you are not going to marry Don Ruy.”
He got up from the bed and went to the cupboard where he kept a jug of wine. Pouring a glass, he stood for a long time frowning down into it before he drank.
Francisca had seen the frown and felt a growing uneasiness. Perhaps he was planning to do away with Don Ruy. How? Challenge him to combat? But for a duel, one must have a reason, and Miguel had never met Ruy, much less been insulted by him. He could hire an assassin, but that did not seem to be Miguel’s way. Poison? A woman’s weapon.
Then there was always the instrument of the Holy Office. One had only to whisper into a familiar’s ear that Don Ruy de Diaz had blasphemed or that he had been seen in the company of a witch or that there was some cloud on his ancestry. They would take him away, and under torture he would reveal that he was a Jew, he would name names and…
Francisca, unable to think further, closed her eyes. “You mustn’t…” she began hesitantly, breaking the silence, “you mustn’t blame Don Ruy.”
“No more than I would blame any lecher who lusts after a young girl.”
“Oh, Miguel, if it weren’t Don Ruy, my father would find another man for me to marry. He says I’m of age, it’s time I took on a husband and children.”
He drained the glass, then with a sudden angry movement, flung it against the opposite wall, where it shattered with a loud crash. “Then perhaps,” he said with deadly vehemence, “you ought to do as your father wishes and marry Don Ruy.”
She gave him a despairing look, meeting the dark glitter in his eyes. His wrath had been fed by her defense, no matter how feeble, of Don Ruy and her father. He had every right to be angry. Perhaps he thought that she didn’t love him, and her opposition to the marriage was all for show.
She turned her face from his gaze so that he could not see the tears that welled up in her eyes.
“Well,” he said in a cold voice. “Is that your wish also?”
She tried to speak but was afraid her voice would betray her.
He rose, towering over her. “Answer me, Francisca!”
She shook her head, then despite her resolve, burst into sobs.
He knelt quickly beside her and, removing her hands from her streaming face, kissed them. This sudden transformation from anger to gentleness made her weep all the harder. Still kneeling, he cradled her in his arms. “Don’t cry, my darling. There is nothing to cry about. Do you think I really meant it?”
“Yes,” she whispered in a muffled voice.
He lifted her chin and, smoothing back her hair, kissed her forehead, then her warm, moist lips.
“I have been thinking of a plan,” he said. “Now, listen carefully. My ship sails for the Philippines in ten days. Two weeks at the most. I want you to go away with me.”
She stared at him, not quite comprehending. It was as if he had asked her to step off the edge of the earth.
He took her hands, holding them tightly in his. “I can’t bear to leave you. And if you love me…You do love me?”
She threw her arms about his waist and leaned up to kiss him. “My darling, there is no need to ask. You know that I do.”
“Then come with me. You may not find the comforts of home aboard ship, but we will have each other. We will be happy, I promise you, Francisca. Will you come?”
She thought for a few moments, her fingers twisting the tassels of her shawl. “Are the Philippines a long way off?”
“Across a wide ocean called the Pacific. But then, you have probably seen them on your father’s globe.”
“Yes, but the islands seemed fairly close.”
“It is a voyage of two, three, sometimes four months, depending on the weather.”
“Than what? I mean after the Philippines.”
“I’ll trade my cargo of silver and mercury for brocades, silks, pearls, marbles, and porcelains, and we’ll return with that rich load around the Horn to Veracruz.”
“If I go with you, Miguel, I cannot come back to Mexico City.”
“Why not?”
“I will be your mistress, Miguel. My family would shut the door in my face.”
He shifted, releasing her, sitting down on the bed beside her. “Would it hurt that much? If you love me, nothing else should matter.”
“But it does. Have you no family yourself? Have you no father, no mother, no sister you miss, or you would mourn if you never saw them again?”
“No,” he said, biting down on the word. “There is no fondness between my older brother and myself. As for my father, he is a cruel and heartless man. He killed my mother, murdered her in cold blood.”
Francisca’s eyes widened in horror. “Surely punishment was meted out to him.”
“Punishment?” He gave a short, barklike laugh. “He was congratulated, clapped on the back, told he did well to defend his honor. You see, he accused my mother of having an affair with her confessor.”
“A priest?”
“Yes, poor devil. My father claimed he caught Fray Esteban Sanchez and my mother together in her bed. But it was a lie. Francisca, my mother was a good Christian, a pious woman whose only sin was her devotion to the church. But she had money that could only go to my father on her death. He invented that falsehood to get his hands on it. He killed her because of that. I would not mourn him should he drop dead at my feet. As for my wife—she is a stranger to me.”
Francisca sat beside him in silence, thinking of her own parents, who loved each other with a tenderness born of sharing a life together fraught with danger. They had raised their daughters with strictness tempered with affection. If she never saw them again, she would grieve, she would grieve deeply.
“You haven’t given me an answer,” Miguel said, drawing her close. “Or do I take your silence for assent?”
“I want to go with you, Miguel. I want to with all my heart. But you must give me time to think. It’s so sudden. I don’t know what to say.”
Had she once chafed under the restrictions her father had set down, wanting to be free? But that had been a childish wish, her venture into the gaiety of the mascarada an escapade, nothing more. Now she had been asked to exile herself from New Spain, leave the house she had always known, never see mother, father, sister, again. And what of the secret she kept locked within her, her belief in God, Jehovah, the one God she had sworn never to abandon?
“What must you think about?” Miguel asked.
“My family. My home.”
“But you are no longer a child. You are a grown woman.”
There was so much she could not explain to him. “Please, I beg of you, give me at least a few days.”
“Tomorrow? The day after?” He smiled at the uncertain look in her eyes. “All right then, Thursday. You will never regret your decision, I promise you.”
His lips touched hers, a light, teasing kiss that evoked a soft sigh from Francisca. “I will never stop wanting you, my darling.”
He grasped her more firmly, his mouth, warm with the taste of wine, rocking back and forth on her lips until they opened, giving him admittance. Hungrily he explored the honeyed mouth, his hand traveling down to cup a breast where the taut crest stood erect against her silken bodice.
Bending his head, he kissed the side of her neck, his lips moving to her ear. “Let us love one another, Francisca.”
“I can’t—not now. I must return. Aunt Juliana will be looking for me. Oh, please…Miguel…Miguel…” His hand had climbed down her bodice, caressing the naked flesh, his fingers closing around the firm mound, thumbing the straining peak. A languid warmth stole through her veins. Her mind, trying to separate itself from the sensual web Miguel was weaving, told her she must stop him, that she must leave.
Before she could speak again, he had slipped her gown and chemise from her shoulders and was covering her smooth ivory skin with impassioned kisses. Bold, hungry, wild kisses that made her forget caution. She trembled under the onslaught, her heart pounding, excited, aroused. Her hands came up in one last futile gesture of protest. But when his insatiable mouth began to savage the ruched crests of her breasts, she went limp in his arms.
He eased her onto the bed. Kneeling above her, he quickly unbuttoned his breeches, then shoved her velvet skirts upward, his hand sliding along her thigh. He smiled to feel the moistness between her legs, proof that she wanted him as he wanted her. Gathering her in his arms, fitting the soft curves of her body into his, he thrust into the hot sheath, waiting a moment, watching for the ecstatic round O of her mouth to urge him on. She gasped, the “Oh!” forming, as he had anticipated, on her lips. Pressing his cheek into hers, he began again, gyrating upward, then down, again and again and again. In her sweet agony her nails raked his back, the silken shirt tearing under them. Then, closing her eyes, she gave herself over to wanton abandonment, winging to new heights, loving this man who had taught her the meaning of joy.
Francisca arrived home to find her mother hurrying from the kitchen through the garden to the storeroom, carrying covered baskets. In them were the foods that would be used that night in the Passover feast. Of necessity the preparation had to be done during the servants’ siesta, and the meal itself held in secret, late at night, after the servants had gone to bed.
“Where have you been?” her mother asked.
“I went to the weaver’s down the street to get some embroidery thread.” The lie seemed to burn Francisca’s tongue with guilt, a guilt compounded by the fact that she had completely forgotten this was Passover eve.
“You picked a fine time. Well, hurry then, and give me a hand.”
The de Silvas, like other Judaizers, had no traditional Jewish calendar, but approximated the few holidays they observed according to dim, half-forgotten memories. Nevertheless, for all their incorrect and fragmentary knowledge, they offered worship with as much dedication as their brethren in other lands.
The guests were greeted with warmth as they entered silently through the special gate. They were a small group: the Quesadas, Don Ruy, Aunt Juliana, the Orozcos, the Benavidos, and the Rodriguez family. As they arrived, Don Pedro escorted them to the storeroom he called, on these occasions, shul. There a trestle table covered with a white linen cloth had been laid with platters of bitter herbs and unleavened bread. Francisca, seated at Don Ruy’s right, glanced covertly at him before her father started to speak. Don Ruy was as old as she remembered, a man with yellowed skin and pouched eyes. His dress, however, could not be faulted. Unlike her father, he dressed in the height of fashion. His coat of rich velvet was made to fit his sloping shoulders without a wrinkle, and his snowy white falling-hand collar was trimmed with exquisite lace. Gracing the forefinger of his left hand was a gold ring set with a ruby as large as a pigeon egg. She did not realize she was staring at it until Don Ruy said, “It’s a beautiful stone, don’t you think?” His voice was low and gentle. “It is said the ring once belonged to the Emperor Cuauhtémoc.”
At the head of the table Don Pedro rapped for attention. “Shall we begin?” He looked around, then cleared his throat before he spoke.
“This holy observation commemorates the time long ago when God took the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt and brought them across the desert to the promised land.”
Ignorant of the Haggadah service, an integral part of Passover which had been lost to the exiles, Don Pedro went on to give the Judaizers’ version of the Exodus. When he was through, Don Ruy recited from the Psalms.
“When I look at the heavens, the
work of Thy fingers,
The moon and the stars which
Thou has established:
What is man that Thou art mindful
of him?
Oh, Lord, our Lord
how majestic is Thy name on all
the earth!"
Francisca had never heard these biblical verses before, and she listened raptly, finding in them a beauty and solace that made her forget for a brief time that her religion and her race were despised.
After the meal was cleared away, the guests lingered at the table, sipping Malaga wine and conversing.
Don Ruy turned to Francisca. “Your father tells me that you are being instructed in Latin.”
Francisca’s heart skipped several beats. Fearful that Ruy would catechize her and discover her lie, she quickly said, “I’m afraid I am a poor student. After all these weeks, my feeble intellect has retained but a few words.”
