Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (31 page)

      
His smug condescension indicated that he did not believe she possessed it.
You will see otherwise, husband!
But dogs? Reptiles? She repressed a shudder and raised her chin as Guacanagari clapped his hands and all the brilliantly arrayed revelers settled back to feast.

      
Slaves, supervised by lower-class servants, began to carry in the food in endless bowls. Each delicacy was first served to Guacanagari. Then when he had signaled his approval, more was served to the assemblage. To her surprise, Magdalena found the firm white meat of the iguana to be quite tasty. Even the dark sweetish
hutia
was palatable, as were the ever-present fruits,
cassava
bread, and yams. When the grayish chunks of stewed meat, which she assumed was made from the small, barkless dogs indigenous to Española, was served, Magdalena even managed to force a few bites of it down under Aaron's scrutiny.

      
“Twould not be so terrible if I knew not what I ate,” she managed to say with admirable calm.

      
Then came the greatest treat, for everyone began to make oohing and aahing sounds of delight when a large, hearth-fired tureen was placed before Guacanagari. His slaves dipped a gourd spoon into it and brought forth a strange, whitish substance, which he ate with great relish. Immediately a platter filled with big lobsters and whole roasted fresh river fish was served.

      
“The seafood course is always considered the greatest delicacy,” Aaron said matter of factly.

      
When a slave bowed before them with the serving gourd filled with the noisome white matter, Magdalena nearly gagged. Close up, the smell was overpoweringly fishy—and raw! She inspected the small, round, grayish-green lumps with great suspicion, then recoiled and placed her hand over her mouth lest she emit a shriek. Fish eyes, raw fish eyes stared at her from a bizarre jumble in the heaping spoon! She watched Aaron take a hearty helping. If Magdalena had not been so horror-stricken, she might have noticed how swiftly he swallowed the delicacy.

      
As the slave readied a mercifully smaller portion for her, she glanced frantically across the room to Bartolome, who was manfully gulping down the treat. Guacanagari beamed at the
adelantado
. Aliyah smiled malevolently at her red-haired nemesis.
You savage witch!
Magdalena took a deep breath before the spoon neared her lips, then held it and swallowed the slimy mass with the speed of a lizard snatching a fly with his forked tongue.

      
Seizing her water goblet, she gulped down several huge slugs before she dared exhale. “Blessed Virgin, what I would give for a flagon of good red wine,” she muttered beneath her breath, meeting Aliyah's hostile stare with a triumphant smirk.

      
“The Taino people do not use spirits, only the
tobaco
, a mild stimulant that is burned. The smoke, when inhaled up the nostrils, brings on effects somewhat similar to strong drink,” Aaron replied, admiring her grit in spite of himself. The first time he had been forced to partake of fish eyes, he had excused himself soon after, to go wretch quietly in the jungle.

      
“I detest the evil stink of their stimulants. Good wine is preferable to sour smoke that surely rots the brain,” she replied, trying desperately to bring her rebellious stomach under control by discussing anything else but what was in it.

      
“You and Bartolome will favor the next course—nuts soaked in honey.”

      
Recognizing the agreeable looking sweet, she let out a long sigh of relief.
I have survived!

* * * *

      
Magdalena had hoped the feast was a trial that, once overcome, would give her acceptance in Taino society. Early the next morning, at dawn's light, she was disabused of the notion when Aaron awakened her, pulling the sheer cotton insect netting from her body. “I am going fishing with Caonu,” he said as he reached for a long-handled spear with sharp fishbone prongs attached to one end. “You are to learn the skills practiced by noblewomen here.”

      
She rolled over with a moan. “I can imagine well their skills, plucking the eyes from innocent fish,” she said with a shudder.

      
“Scarcely that. They weave beautiful twilled baskets and paint cunning designs on pottery. Dress quickly and I will escort you to Guacanagari's
bohio
.”

      
Magdalena did not ask if Aliyah would be present, but with each step nearer the
cacique
's residence, she dreaded another confrontation.
She might be holding Aaron's child, suckling his son in front of me
, she thought in silent anguish. Then she looked at his harsh profile, so cleanly chiseled in the golden light of morn.
I, too, may bear you a son, Aaron. Would he welcome him or reject him for his Valdés blood?
She would know in time if they continued to make love as they had on their wedding night. Holding the thought of a golden-haired babe close to her heart, she steeled herself to face Aliyah.

      
Aaron, too, worried silently about how the two women would deal together. If he were wise, he would send his wife back to Ysabel with Bartolome and Luis on the morrow. Then he looked at her haughty, beautiful face and the inbred pride that carried her each step toward Guacanagari's
bohio
. No, he would lesson her well here in the interior before letting her return to the comforts of Castilian civilization.

* * * *

      
Lorenzo Guzman watched the settlement of Ysabel draw nearer as the caravel floated in on the tide. God's bones, what a bleak piece of offal! A Palos tavern looked like the Alhambra compared to this dismal sinkhole. To think he had been banished here, possibly for the rest of his life, never again to see the glittering courts of Castile and Aragon! He drew himself up from his slumped posture against the rail. He would face that arrogant Genoese wool merchant's spawn like the nephew of a duke.

      
Bitterly he recalled his last interview with Medina-Sidonia. The duke had been trembling with fright, his skin like damp parchment, as he informed Lorenzo that Torquemada and his Holy Office had secured a full confession from Bernardo Valdés, who was scheduled to burn in the next
auto de fe
in Seville.

      
“All incited by a letter from the hand of an accused Jew,” he had cried fiercely to his uncle. “Who would believe Isaac Torres, fled into exile, a traitor to the crowns of Castile and Aragon?”

      
“Apparently King Fernando did,” Medina-Sidonia had replied tightly. “It seems his former minister gave a most thorough accounting of where every last maravedi of Benjamin Torres had been sequestered. The royal portion and that due the Church were far short. When Valdés' country estate was searched, several highly incriminating pieces of jewelry were found, as well as documents regarding transfers of gold.”

      
Then Lorenzo, too, had begun to tremble as he asked, “My name was not—”

      
“Yes, it was in the records of that idiot Valdés, ” the duke had hissed. “To keep the honor—and the very line—of the House of Medina-Sidonia safe, I had them destroyed before the Inquisitors saw them. Valdés alone stands accused...for now. I have risked everything pleading your case before the king. He and I are in accord. We would see you gone from court. Your own wife was accused by the Holy Office, and your daughter mysteriously vanished after Ana's death at the stake. This family can endure no more dishonor. You will leave for the Indies!”

      
“Tis no fault of mine that you and that treacherous judaizing
converso
Benjamin Torres arranged my marriage with his daughter,” Lorenzo said with fists clenched at his sides.

      
“You coveted too much. Not only your father-in-law's wealth, but that of his elder son in Barcelona. That was your undoing. I know not how long I can keep the familiars in Catalonia from your trail. If you leave now, we will all be better served by it.” The old man's voice was steely with finality.

      
And so Lorenzo had been banished in disgrace. All the wealth he had secured from Torres' estates had been claimed either by that greedy Trastamara king who set in motion the hellish investigation, or by the Inquisition itself. He was near penury. Only a pittance from his uncle had allowed him to book passage for the new colony as a gentleman.

      
As the gromets lowered the ship's boat into the water, he straightened his cloak and looked at the jungle and jagged mountains rising in the steamy distant haze.
If only there is indeed gold here for the taking.

* * * *

      
Magdalena looked down at her hands, the tender palms and fingertips bloody, crisscrossed with a thousand tiny cuts from her futile and clumsy attempts at working the sharp-edged cane strips into the tightly woven patterned baskets. She succeeded no better with basketry than she had with painting pottery. After several pieces of fine hearth-fired clay lay shattered around her feet, Guacanagari's elder sister Mahia pronounced her hopeless. At least that is what Magdalena deduced. In her two weeks with the Taino, she had mastered only bits of the language, but the disgust of Aliyah's sister was plain.

      
“I was ever pricking my fingers with embroidery needles, too,” she said, forcing a sweet smile as she bowed and left the Taino gentlewomen to their art. She held her long, hot plait of hair away from her neck and felt the sweat trickle down her back. How wonderful it would be to ride, she thought with a smirk. The haughty Taino royalty remained terrified of horses. “Stupid savages,” she muttered, heading purposefully through the crowded streets to the edge of town and Aaron's corral.

      
He would be furious, of course, but he was sore displeased with her anyway, so what did it matter? Only in the dark of night, on their sleeping platform, did he reach out for her in tenderness. But that was passion, not love, she reminded herself as she opened the heavy cane gate and grabbed a hackamore for her mount. Quickly, she captured her flea-bitten old horse and in moments was galloping bareback across the valley. The breeze cooled her sweaty body, but she could not enjoy the stolen freedom. Her relationship with her husband intruded.

      
By now, Aliyah had recovered fully from the birth of Navaro. Each time Magdalena saw the beautiful black-haired child with his sculpted European features and Aaron's piercing blue eyes, she wanted to sob. When the noblewomen gathered, Aliyah carried the boy with her, taking every opportunity to nurse him in front of Magdalena. “She grows slimmer and more desirable. If I become pregnant and grow fat, he will return to her.”

      
The hot, sultry air swallowed up her anguished words as she rode blindly past carefully tended fields of manioc, yams, and peanuts. The golden-brown skins of the women laboring in them glistened with perspiration as they worked the long, fire-hardened points of their planting sticks in the soft black earth. They wore no clothing in the heat and kept their hair tied on their heads with cunning clasps made of twilled cane. She pulled at the heavy linen that clung to her sweat drenched body, cursing the jungle, Española, and her husband.

      
As if she had conjured him, Aaron rode up beside her, reached over, and took the hackamore from her hands, reining in the heaving old gray with a gentle steady pull. “What in the name of Michael and all his angels are you doing riding in the heat of the day, unescorted?” he gritted between clenched teeth. “You will either kill the horse with heat stroke or break your neck.”

      
“For the last you would doubtless be grateful. Then you could wed Aliyah and claim your son!”

      
“I plan nothing so drastic as your death to claim Navaro,” he replied tersely.

      
Her eyes were suddenly shiny with tears as she fought to control her runaway emotions. “Do you deny going to visit them each day? I saw you playing with the boy yesterday in Guacanagari's
bohio
.”

      
“He is my son, Magdalena. I wish to claim him and raise him as my own. There is no dishonor in that. In Cordoba the admiral had a son by his mistress. Young Fernando is being raised at court with Diego, Colon's legal heir. It is my responsibility to provide for Navaro,” Aaron said, irritated by his own feelings of guilt.

      
“And what of your responsibility to Aliyah?” The instant she tossed the words at him, she wanted to call them back.
You do not want to know!

      
He fixed her with his cool blue eyes, eyes mirrored in that tiny, swarthy infant's face, and said, “Aliyah is beyond my reach now. You have seen to that. Guacanagari will arrange a fine marriage for her with a
cacique
of high rank. Even now he searches for one she will accept.
You
are my responsibility, Magdalena, not Aliyah.”

      
“A poor trade indeed here on Española. I know Aliyah and all the Taino women have told you how inept I am at their domestic skills—as I was at ladies' work back in Seville.” She threw back her head and looked at him defiantly. His words about her scheming and his being bound to her by duty stung bitterly.

      
Aaron studied the proud contours of her beautiful Castilian face. “You were ever cosseted and spoiled back in Seville. Española is different.” He looked across the broad fertile valley bounded by the sparkling river. Across the fields the women were planting. “The admiral has complained that hidalgos will do no work that cannot be accomplished on horseback. You seem to prove his claim.”