Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (37 page)

      
With a swift, proprietary gesture Aaron pulled her against him and escorted her into the big room where first he had confronted his betrothed wife. The governor led the way and his
adelantado
followed with Lorenzo. Aaron's arm about her was warm and steady as he whispered low. “Be prepared for anything from that cur.”

      
“I will. There is no more left for me in Seville than there is for you, Diego,” she said, using his Christian name very carefully.
 

      
Since Fray Buil and his cohorts had departed for Castile, leaving only the faithful Fray Pane to save Taino souls, the threat of reports to the Inquisition had sailed with them, but now Magdalena was frightened. The House of Guzman was a powerful one with the royal ear. If Lorenzo had escaped the Holy Office while everyone else allied to the House of Torres had been destroyed, might he have ties to Torquemada? Something about his oily courtier's manner and those cold gray eyes made the hairs on her nape prickle in warning. What was it about him that had always caused her to instinctively loathe him?

      
Aaron sensed Magdalena's uneasiness and knew she feared for him.
Best let Lorenzo Guzman be the one to fear Aaron Torres,
he thought grimly as they were all seated. His icy blue eyes pierced the tall foppish courtier, who did not meet his stare but turned his attention to Magdalena.

      
With grave solicitude he said, “I fear I have the worst sort of news—I know not how to phrase it.”

      
“Try straightforwardly,” Aaron suggested bluntly, still standing with his arm about his wife's shoulders.

      
Lorenzo cleared his throat and said, “Your father, Don Bernardo, is dead.” When that elicited no reaction other than an intense stare, he continued warily, “He was found, er, owing money to the crown and the Holy Office. It seems the king felt...well, you know your father was Crossbearer in Seville,” he said with a very nervous glance at Aaron's cold, set face.

      
“Yes, I know what Bernardo Valdés was,” she replied coldly. “Pray continue.”

      
A look of great consternation passed over Lorenzo's face as he looked first to the governor, then the
adelantado
for some hint as to how to proceed.

      
“Did the lady's father run afoul of the king's justice?” Cristobal asked, only half-surprised. Although he was clever, Valdés was a knave.

      
“The king received information from one of his former ministers,” Lorenzo continued, this time not meeting Aaron's face even for an instant. “Isaac Torres, in exile in France, reported that your father had not given honest accounting of the confiscated estates of Benjamin Torres. Both the royal treasury and the coffers of the Inquisition were cheated. Don Bernardo stood accused, and the Holy Office questioned him.”

      
“And, of course, he was found guilty.” Magdalena said in a brittle voice.
Oh, Benjamin, how well the forces of darkness devour themselves, even’ as you said they would.

      
Aaron could feel the tension in Magdalena, but also an awful calm, almost as if she rejoiced in her father's death.
I am a most unnatural daughter. I tried to kill my father with a hay rake.
Her words echoed in his brain and he almost believed them.

      
“Tell me, Don Lorenzo, did the king's justice,” she paused to emphasize the irony of the words, “claim others of my family?”

      
Now Aaron could feel her fear—not for her mother, he suspected, but for her sisters.

      
“No. Only your father suffered death. Of course, your mother was forced to retire from court and went to live with your sister Maria and her husband.”

      
“A fate worse than death for that lady,” Magdalena said tartly. “Did the authorities burn Don Bernardo?”

      
Lorenzo felt himself go hot, then ice cold as he looked from the cooly self-possessed woman to her hard, dangerous husband. What coil had he stepped into by coming to this accursed place of exile? It seemed not only the damnable Torres whelp but even Bernardo's own daughter rejoiced in his death! “Yes, I am afraid he perished on the Field of Tablada.”

      
Isaac, I know not whether to bless or curse you, you master manipulator, playing God. You have robbed me of my revenge, yet done the deed just as I would have done it.

      
Magdalena looked at her husband, intuiting his thoughts…feeling relieved that he need never return to the Spains.

Chapter Eighteen

      
“If we are to keep Guacanagari as an ally and prevent a general uprising, this is the very sort of thing we must stop!” Aaron said, furious anger in his voice as he looked down the stone steps of the governor's palace into the plaza. He turned from the governor to where Alonso Hojeda stood preening like a peacock with two Tainos lying beaten and bloodied in the mud at his feet.

      
The little man stood poised on the balls of his feet, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword as his keen hazel eyes moved between the hesitant governor and his incensed military commander, Torres. “They stole from my men. An example must be set lest all of the heathen savages take to such practices.” He stared at Torres boldly, knowing he lived among the Tainos as one of them.

      
“The Tainos do not steal,” Aaron said, moving menacingly down one stone step. He, too, had his hand on his sword.

      
“When
Santa Maria
was wrecked, Guacanagari's people brought all the ship's stores ashore and not so much as a lace point was missing,” Cristobal said calmly, placing a restraining hand on Aaron's shoulder. “How do you know these men took the clothing from your soldiers?” he asked Hojeda.

      
“We were crossing a river—”

      
“And the Tainos, of course, were carrying your soldiers, who cannot swim, on their shoulders,” Aaron interjected, deriding the slothful and stupid colonists who followed a glory-seeker such as Alonso Hojeda.

      
“Tainos are no more than beasts of burden,” Hojeda replied with contempt. “I say the penalty is just. Cut off the hand that steals, for they did run with two baskets filled with fine linen tunics.”

      
“Two basketsful of underwear scarce seem worth a maiming,” the governor said with distaste. “Perhaps there has been some misunderstanding. These people have had the opportunity to steal things of far greater value and have not done so.” He turned to Aaron. “Question them and see what story they tell.”

      
Aaron moved past Alonso with arrogant dismissal of the little man. He knelt in the mud and requested one of the women in the gathering crowd to bring a flagon of water. Once he had offered a cooling drink to the elder Taino, he questioned him, then the younger, briefly. When he rose, his face was dark with fury. “These men, along with a dozen other Tainos and their women, were forced to journey with Hojeda's gold seekers. When one tried to escape the drudgery of working the streams for bits of gold, his nose was slit. Another had an ear slashed. All the soldiers drew lots and took the Taino women—against their will. These young men were carrying light loads of clothing. When separated downriver from the others, they dumped the worthless cargo in the jungle and tried to escape to their home village to warn the
cacique
of the arrival of these fine representatives of the crown.”

      
“That is a lie,” Hojeda said baldly. “In Seville I have killed men for such an insult!”

      
“This is not Seville. I am governor here and I say clemency is only just. We must have the Taino people help us to survive and our colony to flourish. We will not achieve those ends by making them beasts of burden—nor by raping their women. I put you on notice, Don Alonso, as I did Commander Margarite before he returned to Cadiz, that I will tolerate no further abuse of these people. They make willing servants if paid honestly and treated with Christian kindness, but they are not ours to enslave.” The governor motioned to Aaron. “Free them, if you please, Commander Torres.”

      
“Jew and Genoese, how well you deal together,” Hojeda said, spitting in the mud at “Aaron's feet. He turned and stalked away, parting the crowd as if swinging a scythe.

      
“You have made a vicious enemy, my friend,” Aaron said to Cristobal.

      
Colon smiled wearily. ” Twill not be my first—or my last, I fear. See to our fellows here, then come to my office. We must discuss the news from your Taino spies in Caonabo's camp.”

My Dearest Father,

      
Since our return to Ysabel many things grow increasingly difficult to bear. My son Navaro's dark blue eyes mark him as a Torres, yet I cannot claim him. I ache for the loss of my son whom I had to leave behind. How hard it must have been for you to send Mateo all the way to Barcelona. Uncle Isaac's last letter just reached me. I pray that soon Mateo's son Alejandro will be reunited with his family in France. Then, if only Navaro could be here with me, at least the children of our House would be safe.

      
God, using your brother as His instrument, has wrought justice on Bernardo Valdés. I do not think you exalt in the vengeance as I do. Please forgive me that I am glad of his burning. Strangely, Magdalena seems to share my sense of justice in the death of her father. She truly did hate him, but did she tell me the truth about her friendship with you? It would seem she loved you and mother well. But I fear to read too much into the situation, for I still do not trust her. She weaves a spell of witchery that frightens me. If only I had some way of knowing, some sign from you that you truly wished me to wed her.

      
Aaron put down the quill and ran his fingers through his hair. Over the past year he had faithfully continued making his journal entries to Benjamin. He seemed compelled to do so, as if there were some mysterious reason for committing the unfolding tale of his life to paper. “Perhaps someday I shall know the reason for it.” he murmured sleepily. The hour was late and he wrote by a flickering tallow candle, sitting in one corner of their
bohio
on a carved chair while Magdalena slept on the high bed across the room.

      
Magdalena. His wife. He could not even look at her as she slept without wanting to awaken her with fierce, passionate kisses. All too often he did just that, making love to her like a man possessed. He wondered if his parents had ever shared such an overpowering physical bond. Certainly he and Magdalena had little else to cement their relationship. Even if Benjamin forgave her her hated Valdés blood and amoral past, Aaron could not.

      
How many lovers, Magdalena? How many men were there at court? In Seville?
The thought tormented him increasingly, even when he was forced to dismiss any idea of her possible complicity in the deaths of his family. But unlike Aliyah, whose blandishments he was able to resist, he could never leave his wife. “Is it only because she
is
my wife?” he whispered on the heavy night air. Outside a steady rain fell, beating a soft tattoo on the roof. The night held no answers for him. He carefully closed his diary and replaced it in his saddle bag, then snuffed out the candle and walked toward the bed in darkness.

* * * *

      
Bartolome Colon paced nervously in his brother's private library, a small room filled with Latin and Castilian books as well as rolls upon rolls of charts and sundry navigational instruments. Cristobal sat, calmly testing the thread and weight on a marine quadrant while he let Bartolome vent his nervous energy.

      
“I am much concerned with Torres' news from Guacanagari. If Caonabo can convince other
cacique
s to join him, it augers ill for our colony, but if he can ally himself with the likes of unscrupulous liars such as Hojeda or Roldan, then our position is even less tenable. They have the same weapons and skills we do!” Bartolome looked at Cristobal.

      
Already intent on his quest for the mainland and heartily sick of bickering Castilian noblemen, the governor, who far preferred to be the admiral, sighed and laid down his instruments. “Alonso Hojeda is too vicious for any Taino chieftain to ally with him. All he can do is incite them to rebellion against all white men.”

      
“Then he must be stopped! Hojeda is openly insubordinate to you as governor of Española and the representative of the Majesties in the Indies. He speaks treason, Cristobal!”

      
The elder Colon's eyes were sad as he replied, “Yes, against Jews and Genoese. For how many years have I lived in Seville and Cordoba? Followed the royal court? I am as loyal to the sovereigns who supported my enterprise as was Diego Torres, who fought their ancient enemies at Granada.”

      
“Yes, and look at his reward! His whole family killed or exiled by those same sovereigns. New Christians, Jews, and Genoese, we are all outsiders to men like these Castilian peacocks—to all the people of the Spains. Never the less, the king and queen gave you charge of these colonial possessions, Genoese or no. If you would keep the Colon family as the governors of the Indies, you must put down rebellion. Begin with Hojeda—and what of that rogue Roldan?”

      
Overhearing Bartolome's impassioned speech from the doorway, Aaron stepped inside and said, “Let Behechio, the
cacique
of Xaragua, beware of Francisco, who will one day rule that distant peninsula. We would be unwise to venture so far to the south and west as to beard the lion Roldan in his lair. There is too much sickness here. We cannot spread ourselves so thin.”