City of Silver (40 page)

Then he turned to the Marquesa’s nephew. “We must go to the Tribunal immediately. Come, all of you. Follow me. Ladies. Rodrigo.”

“Rodrigo!” The name escaped Beatriz’s lips.

The handsome stranger—she knew him now for the one who had rescued her from the slobbering boy the day she left the convent. Could that have been just yesterday?

He bowed low and smiled into her eyes. “I hope very soon to make your acquaintance properly. Your father has hoped for many months to introduce us. I never imagined a woman as beautiful as you could be as brave.”

A blush began down beneath Beatriz’s trousers and spread over her belly.

AT THE LOFTY stone Church of Santo Domingo, before the dais of the Holy Tribunal, Maria Santa Hilda stood on aching legs and wondered at the slow, meticulous process that marched her relentlessly toward her doom. The cool, painstaking priests at the table went about their work so carefully, listening politely to DaTriesta’s accusations, nodding while de la Gasca read out, in a bored voice, from his tome the testimony of Beatriz Tovar, Monica, and Sor Olga. Bit by bit, they built their case that gave facts but no truth. Their underlying method lent an air of calm reason, of well-informed and carefully considered logic, to the violence she knew they wanted to do to her and to Eustacia. They followed rules, observed the laws. They had no cause to doubt what they were doing. No one—not the King, not the Pope, not Almighty God—could fault the way they saw to their duty.

Thoughts tempted her. To condemn, as Eustacia had, the God these men purported to represent on earth. Her sister accused stood beside her, clenching and unclenching her fists, mumbling
incoherently. Anyone watching her might have thought she was praying, but standing so near her, the Abbess caught the odd phrase—“wait for you in hell,” “spawn of Satan”—that revealed Eustacia’s terrified and terrifying thoughts.

With a loud bang and a shout from the guards at the door, de la Gasca stopped reading and looked up; his face lost its bored expression. The Abbess turned to see a large group striding toward them, led by a well-dressed, rather pointy man she had never seen before. He must have been important because two of the three priests seated at the table rose to their feet. De la Gasca remained seated and looked annoyed. As the intruders gathered near the dais, Mother Maria was astonished to realize that two of the lads in the group were really Beatriz Tovar and Gemita de la Morada, dressed in men’s clothing and accompanied by one of the maids from the convent. But wait! Not a maid. Dear Lord, it was Monica in a maid’s uniform. What madness for her to appear here, before these priests, in that attire.

De la Gasca spoke. “Your Lordship Doctor Nestares, I take it that some tremendously urgent business brings you to this holy sanctuary to interrupt God’s work.” Still seated, he showed no sign of deference, though the man before him must be the Visitador General.

For a split second, they faced each other—the embodiments of civil and ecclesiastical power, each obviously expecting some honorific from the other. Then the Visitador bowed. “Though you are about God’s work, Your Grace,” he said, “I must interrupt, for I bring facts before you that I think may alter your verdict in the case of these ladies.” He looked into Mother Maria’s eyes and bowed again, to her. Through all of this, Eustacia did not move and never desisted from her mumbling.

Nestares approached de la Gasca so that he towered over
him. The Visitador motioned to the standing priests to retake their seats, and then he himself presented to the Tribunal the evidence to prove that Inez was murdered and that the Abbess Maria Santa Hilda was innocent of blasphemy.

Before the judges had a moment to digest what they had heard, Fray DaTriesta stepped forward. “The Abbess is still a heretic and a Protestant,” he asserted. “She did not have this proof when she buried the girl. Therefore, regardless of the facts, she sinned and should be punished.”

The Abbess in her sinner’s robes sought to affect an air of great dignity. “Your Grace,” she addressed de la Gasca, “I believe in many things for which I have no proof. This does not make them false nor me foolish.”

“Leave us, all of you,” de la Gasca commanded.

The accused and their defenders began to file away. DaTriesta remained. “You, too, Fray DaTriesta,” de la Gasca murmured.

Pulling Sor Eustacia with her, the Abbess followed them into the vestibule of the church, where Sor Monica began to explain herself. Maria Santa Hilda stayed her words, lest she give the lurking local Commissioner some new accusation with which to torture them.

Inside the church, de la Gasca and his fellow Inquisitors discussed not only the evidence against the Abbess, but also her lengthy and distinguished pedigree. In the end, they exonerated her.

When all had reassembled and the verdict was announced, DaTriesta reacted with pique and disappointment, looking like a diner at a cruel banquet who, when the cover is lifted from his plate, realizes his dish is empty.

“The convent will pay the cost of the trial,” de la Gasca pronounced. He turned to the Abbess. “You are released. Misfortune is God’s way of bringing us to Himself.”

“Your Grace,” she addressed de la Gasca, and indicated Sor Eustacia, “I plead for—”

De la Gasca held up an elegant hand. “Her fate is in God’s hands,” he said with great sanctimony.

“But—”

The raised hand did not move. “Go now,” he insisted. “Further defense of her will be taken as heresy.”

The Abbess drew herself up, ready to take the risk for her sister.

Eustacia drew near and squeezed the Abbess’s hands in her powerful grip. “Go immediately. Remember who I was. Always remember.” She dropped to her knees.

“I will do what I can from behind the scenes,” the Abbess whispered.

“Just remember who I was.”

The Abbess drew Eustacia to her feet and kissed her on both cheeks and blessed her with the sign of the cross. She took the yellow robe from her own shoulders and dropped it to the floor. She walked slowly from the church. No notation of her arrest ever appeared in the annals of the Holy Tribunal.

In the days that followed, Nestares arrested Captain Francisco Rojas de la Morada, Ramirez, the Tester of the Currency, Don Luis de Vila, Don Melchior de Escobedo, and forty other Treasury ministers. He confiscated the account books of Morada’s daily transactions. Men who might support or aid Morada in escape or rebellion were disarmed and held under guard in their houses.

Three days after his arrest, Francisco Rojas de la Morada was called to the great Council Hall of the Alcaldía to be sentenced. He strode in, fully resplendent in his best gold-brocaded doublet and crimson-lined cape of Neapolitan silk. He assumed the same posture of command that had been his wont when he presided over this room as Alcalde. At his side, his fellow conspirator Ramirez walked more tentatively, like a
man already being led to meet his fate. Neither of them bore a sword. The guard who followed them, however, was fully armed.

Nestares occupied the gold throne at the end of the room—a place that until seven days ago had belonged to Morada. The man who had sat in judgment was here to be judged.

Down the left side of the room, in the chairs normally occupied by his allies on the Cabildo, Morada’s enemies had been brought in to gloat over his defeat and disgrace. There near the front of the room, that smug bastard Tovar scowled, as if he saw a spider he meant to squash.

Morada gave him an evil glance that he meant to poison Tovar’s heart and then turned and glared into the small, cruel eyes of Nestares. His resolve wavered. His fate was sealed. In truth, he did not wish to escape it. His precious world of wealth and privilege had disintegrated. Inez, his beloved, his beautiful Inez had been the agent of his downfall. Once she had begun to betray him, every step he took to stem the acid that ate away at his crown of perfect power had only heated up and speeded his destruction. On that awful night, he had intercepted the stolen letters, hoping that would stop her. But the virago had run to the convent and threatened him from there. Oh, God, how could she have forced him to do what he had never wanted to do?

The Visitador examined him from foot to forehead, as if measuring him for a coffin. Morada did not move a muscle. He made himself into a statue of a knight. He would take this. His dignity, his honor, were everything.

“Francisco Rojas de la Morada”—the Visitador intoned his name in as loud a voice as if he were calling him from across a valley—“upon examining the evidence, I have decided that you have defrauded the royal Mint of four hundred and seventy-two thousand pesos. I declare you guilty of the crime of treason. You
have also been accused of the murder of your daughter Inez de la Morada, but you are exonerated of killing her. Her death was your right, because she dishonored you. This court finds you innocent of any guilt in that matter. I call upon these nobles of the Villa Imperial of Potosí to affirm my judgment and to swear their fealty to King Felipe.”

Don Baltazar Andres y Sotomayor, whom Nestares had appointed the next Alcalde, began to rise from his chair at the head of the line along the wall.

Morada, who had willed himself a statue, suddenly burst forward. “Dogs! Bastards!” he shouted at the men along the wall. “The King! You would execute me for what I did to the King. It is for the wrong crime. My child is the one who should be avenged. Not the King. The King takes too much. A mule would be able to see that. We should have taken it all from him. It is ours. We are the ones who suffer living in this godforsaken place. It should be ours. Inez saw that. Even she saw that. Oh, my Inez. You condemn—”

The guard was on him, dragging him away. “Bastards,” he raged. “Dogs! Jews! You are condemning me for the wrong crime. Taking my daughter’s life. That was my crime.” He continued to rage, and his bellowing echoed in the halls of the Alcaldía and the streets of the city until he was locked in a cell under the Mint.

Nine days later, when Morada was brought to justice, his vast fortune in silver was declared to be confiscated, but no one knew where it was, and he went, with his faithful Ramirez, to be garroted refusing to tell.

Many citizens of the City of Silver mourned their Alcalde. He had stolen enough so that he could be generous with those who might have envied him—unlike some poor wretch who does not steal as much and must go to his punishment unloved. In the grip of the people’s abhorrence at the death of Morada and the depreciation of their money, they attacked Nestares,
and he was forced to flee the city that had welcomed him so grandly.

In the weeks that followed, thousands abandoned Potosí. Freelance miners went to La Plata or to Oruru, where new veins of silver had recently been discovered. These mines were not as rich as those of the Cerro, but they were at a lower altitude where the climate was slightly better and where no threat of disaster hung over the towns. The maid Juana and the brother she had saved from the mine slipped away among the throngs.

Maria Santa Hilda made a vow to pray for the repose of Morada’s soul every time she took silver from the cache under the floorboards of her strong room. With those riches, she provided for the poor children of the outlying villages and the broken and damaged women in her care. And she prayed for Inez. She would never know if the girl had repented before she died, but she clung to the hope that the flail that killed Inez had been a means of true repentance.

The Alcalde’s widow, Doña Ana, entered the convent and took the name Sor Inez. Her daughter Gemita remained in the care of the Tovar family at the Ingenio de Corpus Christi. The convent assured Don Antonio and Doña Pilar that a substantial dowry would be available for Gemita when the time came for her to marry.

Money changed hands between the Abbess and a certain scribe known to have connections with the lesser officers of the Inquisition, after which Sor Eustacia was released into the care of the Abbess. The record in the gold-tooled, green leather tome said Eustacia was irreparably insane. In the peace of the convent, this eventually proved not to be so.

DaTriesta retired at half pay from his post as Commissioner—the usual punishment for officers of the Holy Tribunal whose offenses were too flagrant to be overlooked or whose personal habits offended the Inquisitor.

For her escapades outside the walls, Sor Monica was ordered by the head of the order in Madrid to return to Spain. Her Abbess mourned her loss, and though Monica would have to endure two consecutive winters and a perilous and horrid journey, she rejoiced that she would arrive in Spain for the following Easter. In the warmth of the Spanish spring, she would plant her herbs. They would flourish, and their blossoms would surround her. “I knew all my prayers would be answered,” she told her Abbess. “God has wrought all these miracles through the intercession of His Holy Mother.”

How modest they are, thought Doña Ana, now Sor Inez, that they attribute all their accomplishments to God.

Potosí grew poorer, to the great advantage of morals, according to one chronicler who said the citizens stopped burning money and burned wax candles in church instead. The Inquisition went on. The Bishop went on. The injustice went on. But the pleasanter parts of life also went on.