City of Silver (30 page)

Enormously proud of their city, the citizens had, for the while, forgotten their worries and lost themselves in the spectacle and celebration.

Nestares went on to pass under the largest arch, at the entrance of the main square, twenty-five yards high and ten yards wide, its top tier surmounted by a handsome throne in the form of a cedarwood pedestal all carved with curious moldings and covered with shining gold. On the throne sat an image of His Majesty Felipe IV of Spain and beside it Gemita, the daughter of the Alcalde, representing Fame. She was dressed in a tunic covered with flowers made of silk and feathers, girdled with a richly embroidered sash. A yellow banner flew from her hand. Though she affected a brave smile, the condor man came close enough to see she was sad and frightened.

The other Indians in the band saw this, too. “The height of her perch and the stares of the crowd frighten that poor girl,” one of them remarked. But the white Indian knew better what her fear was made of.

The procession moved toward the cathedral, where a “Te Deum” was sung and the Bishop offered a prayer more or less in Latin. The honored guests moved out again to the Plaza Mayor, where on a platform erected for the occasion, a chair and cushion awaited His Excellency. Two children, representing Urbanity and Generosity, guarded this place of honor.

The cavalier who carried the mace mounted the platform and proclaimed an amnesty for all past offenses by the inmates of the city’s jail.

While the crowd of Indians around the Visitador cheered the amnesty, the condor man shook his elaborately dressed head. The announcement was not motivated by compassion. The intention,
he was sure, was to clear the jail cells for the people Nestares himself would put there.

No sooner had the Visitador taken his seat than trumpets blared. In the four corners of the square stood four pyramids decked with silver work. Multicolored pennons flew from their summits. At a signal from the Alcalde, who stood beside Nestares, companies of cavaliers rode in, one from behind each pyramid, and executed four charges in close-order drill, all very showy and greatly admired by the ladies who observed from the balconies.

The Alcalde then gave a short, formal speech of welcome and announced a composition in Nestares’s honor by the Reverend Maestro Padre Fray Juan de la Torre, sung by a chorus of Indians.

When the music stopped, Nestares stood to speak. Despite the urgency of the white Indian’s task, he stopped to hear the man who could visit devastation on the city. Suddenly, after all the din of the cheering, the square went still. In the hush of the crowd’s collective fear, only the horses and the snapping banners dared make a sound.

But Nestares spoke no evil. He made reference to the hard mule ride, to his twenty-five-day journey. Finally he waved and said, “Thank you for this glorious welcome, for this outpouring of goodwill. I offer you my goodwill in return.”

The citizens who heard him stared in wonder. Perhaps they were safe. Perhaps with this great show of their respect, they had convinced Nestares to blink at human foibles, show kindness to ill doers.

The white condor man had mounted the steps of the Alcaldía to pass to the other side so he could continue on to the river and across. Suddenly, a hand grabbed his shoulder. “What are you doing here?” a voice growled.

The condor man trembled. Morada’s men, bent on vengeance, had found him. How? He had been betrayed. He opened his
mouth to defend himself, moved his hand to remove his Indian garb.

A powerful grip stayed his arms. “Away, Inca.” It was a soldier of the guard. He smelled of
chicha
and slurred his words. “Get off these steps. This is a place for white people.”

While Nestares was entertained by more close-order drill, the condor man ran from the center of the festivities, down the Calle Lanza. The drunken guard pursued him and caught him by the arm. The white man in the Indian costume shook with fear. He bowed and apologized in Aymara and broken Spanish, like a properly subjugated slave. His humility seemed to further enrage the guard, who drew his sword and ripped off the Indian’s headgear to reveal Padre Junipero of the Compañia de Jesus.

The astonished guardsman drew back.

The priest knew he could not explain himself. He turned and sped off, praying the drunk would be too stupefied to follow.

Half a block away, he allowed himself a glance over his left shoulder to see. The guard was holding his head and vomiting in the street.

When the priest turned to continue on his way, a sword pointed at his throat stopped him in his tracks.

“Interesting garb for a priest,” Don Jerónimo Taboada sneered.

The terrified, confused padre looked around for anyone who might help him. The street behind him was deserted. He folded his hands at his chest in a gesture of prayer—to his attacker, to God. He did not know.

“It is time for you to pay for the murder of the Alcalde’s daughter.” The sword drew closer to his eye. Taboada gripped his arm and began to drag him toward the deserted lanes near the Ribera. In the dark corner of an
ingenio
entrance, Taboada pressed the padre to a wall.

“I did not kill her,” the priest barely choked out.

“He told me himself that you did.” Taboada’s powerful grip
tightened. His sword grazed the hair that had fallen into the priest’s eyes. “And I intend you to die for it.”

“It is a lie.” The priest prayed for the courage to fight back.

“Why would the Alcalde lie about such a thing?”

Terror blotted out all reason. “I—I—” The priest groped his stricken mind for any answer.

A red cape flashed to his left. Before he could turn his head, the man in red shouted, “Halt, whoremaster.”

Taboada spun around, still gripping the priest in the feather costume.

Domingo Barco, sword drawn, charged them. With one gesture, he threw off his cape and smashed his weapon into Taboada’s. The priest was pitched to the ground. Clanging steel echoed from the buildings of the narrow street. Padre Junipero crawled into a doorway.

Taboada bellowed and attacked mercilessly, but the Mestizo, with great agility and grace, parried the powerful blows and returned them.

With his left hand, Taboada fumbled with the ornate clasp of his heavy ceremonial cloak.
“Mierda,”
he growled.

Barco seized the moment and charged. With shattering two-handed blows, left and right, he smashed Taboada’s sword from his hand. It clattered across the paving stones to the priest’s feet. Still gripping his weapon with both hands, Barco held its tip to his opponent’s throat. “Pick it up, Padre. You finish him off.”

Beneath the ice crust of fear, rage seethed in the priest. He began to move toward the hilt of Taboada’s weapon. His vow stopped him. Never. He had promised God never to touch such a thing again. He stood and withdrew again into the doorway.

Barco spat in disgust. Then, smiling malevolently, he swung his weapon back and spun forward with it, smashing Taboada’s chest with the hilt. The blow lifted the vanquished man from his feet and sent him sailing several feet before he landed, unconscious, against the wall across the street.

Only then did Padre Junipero take up Taboada’s sword. “Thank you, my son.” He offered the weapon to Barco.

Barco took it and slung it toward Taboada’s inert body.

“I truly owe you my life,” the priest said.

Without putting up his sword, Barco scooped up his red cape and threw it over the priest’s head. “Perhaps I will take the life you owe me,” he said coldly, and at the point of his sword, he marched the padre through the now dispersing crowd.

NO ONE TOOK any special note of Don Antonio Tovar’s
mayordomo
marching an apparently drunken Indian dancer toward the Mint. The crowd expected such an aftermath of the ceremony they had just witnessed.

Nestares himself was being ushered much more ceremoniously in another direction, to the mansion of His Grace Bishop Don Fray Faustino Piñelo de Ondegardo.

After breakfast with the Bishop, the Visitador rested only briefly before the guild of amalgamators escorted him to the performance of Mareto’s
Trampa Adelante
. The Visitador remarked at finding such an opulent and modern theater in such a remote place. The citizens smiled and accepted his compliment, though inwardly they were insulted and disheartened that Nestares did not seem to understand that Potosí was the most important city on earth. After the play, the weary Nestares dined with the Alcalde Morada and the members of the Cabildo at a state banquet, where the table was set with vessels and plates of gold-plated silver adorned with diamonds, pearls, and rubies. As if he weren’t totally exhausted already, his hosts promised him three days of bullfighting sponsored by the officials and silver traders, banquets and fireworks every night in the major plazas, and daily tournaments of jousts.

He wished they would just stop.

BEHIND THE WALLS of the cloister of Los Milagros, a thin edge of chaos had wedged into the calm. Mother Maria would very soon be taken away. The small planets that had circled that sun would be left wandering in space.

Sor Monica, though racked with remorse, fought to carry out—amid the confusion around her—the instructions of her Abbess. Her own words about the Abbess to the Grand Inquisitor de la Gasca had sealed Mother Maria’s fate. She had no choice but to prove herself instead the instrument of the Abbess’s salvation. That meant assuming a posture of command that terrified her.

“It is an act of pride . . . well, perhaps it is an act of pride,” she told Vitallina, “but I will die before I see Mother Maria burn. She is innocent.”

“You are all innocent,” Vitallina muttered with that cynical edge she gave nearly all her words, as if they meant less or much more than they seemed.

Monica studied the tall, stately Vitallina but could not
fathom her. Her neat, graying hair was pulled back in a tight knot. Her broad mahogany face was impassive, like the face of a woman carved on the prow of a ship, whose features never changed no matter how storms raged and waves crashed, not even when the souls of her sailors sank to hell.

Monica shook off images of damnation. “I will do it. I will prove that Inez did not take her own life.”

Vitallina seemed to be laughing at her. “To do that, you need to imagine how the devil thinks. You have to have some of the devil in you.”

A chill crept up Monica’s spine. “I know he may be here in this convent.”

Vitallina smirked. “But do you have the heart to find him? Can you look him in the face?”

Sor Monica sniffed. “You are being impertinent.” She sounded like Sor Olga.

Vitallina lifted her strong arms and let them drop to her sides.

Monica knew it was a mistake to allow the Negress too much familiarity. But she needed her. The Sister Herbalist fixed her features in what she hoped was a stern, superior look but said nothing.

Vitallina smiled. “Can you imagine, for instance, that the child who died was a murderer herself?”

“Inez?” What sense could such a theory make?

“I do not mean Inez. Inez was no child. I think perhaps she was never a child.”

Monica shunned the bright light of an unthinkable thought. “Then—”

“Hippolyta,” Vitallina said, as if the idea were tenable. “Suppose she killed Inez and then killed herself out of remorse.”

The notion staggered Monica. She stepped back and sat on the edge of the pallet where Sor Elena had died. She touched the pillow where her wise old friend’s head had lain. Oh, if Elena
were only here, with her capacity for transcendent prayer, to help her friend look in the eye of Satan. “Hippolyta could have . . .” Her voice wavered. She made it stronger. “She could have offered Inez a sweetmeat.” Monica pressed her mind forward. She was determined. The less she wanted to think a thought, the more she must force herself to think it. “She could have despaired over having committed such a sin and then eaten some poison herself.”

Vitallina nodded.

“But why? Why would she have wanted Inez dead? How could she have done such a thing? She was so timid and pliable.”

Vitallina’s hard black eyes waited.

Was not the weak Hippolyta precisely the instrument the devil would have chosen to do his works? Monica leapt up and raced toward Hippolyta’s cell.

She had found sweetmeats hidden in the folds of Hippolyta’s undergarments when Mother Maria ordered the search. The candies had seemed then like a girl’s small indulgence. Could they have been a weapon of murder?

As Monica and Vitallina crossed the cloister, the door to Hippolyta’s cell opened and quickly closed again.

Vitallina sped ahead and flung open the door. When Monica entered the room, Vitallina had the maid Juana by the shoulders. The tiny Indian woman’s toes barely touched the ground. “I came in to clean. It is my work,” Juana protested. Vitallina did not let go.

Monica’s eyes scanned the room. “Let her down, please,” she said distractedly to Vitallina. She glanced over the sparse furnishings, the rough wooden cot, the primitive table. Look Satan in the face, she told herself. Believe Hippolyta’s sweet, round, dimpled face was the mask of the Evil One. Believe that her sad eyes saw such debauchery.