Daughter of Fortune (11 page)

“Because I must,” she declared, feeling an
unexpected stubbornness rising in her.

He stared down at the waters of the
acequia,
unmindful of his little sisters calling him downstream. Then he
sighed and threw up his hands. “What choice do you give me, Maria
chiquita
? We will put you to work, but I do insist that you
live in the family quarters. This must be.”

“Very well.” She put out her hand. After a moment’s
hesitation, Diego shook it.

“I have never shaken on a bargain with a woman,” he
said.

“It will do you good, Señor,” she replied.

“I doubt it,” he said, smiling a little. He turned
his head toward her in sudden seriousness. “There is something you
can do for me, if you will.”

“Anything,” she replied.

He chuckled. “Come now, Maria, we do not know each
other well, but I know you have too much of a mind of your own to
make such a rash statement.”

“Anything within reason,” she amended.

“That is better. It is a simple thing. Be a friend
to my sister Erlinda.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “She came
back to us four months ago, a widow. She has never spoken about the
events of Marco’s death.” He paused and brushed a hand across his
eyes. “Dear Marco. How I loved him.” With a visible effort, Diego
continued. “I confess to you that I know little of the human heart,
but I do know one thing—pain goes away faster when it is spoken of,
when tears are shed. Help her, if you can.”

He held out his hand to her this time and she shook
it. “This could become a habit.” He gestured toward the house.
“Come then, Maria. If you will become a citizen of the river
kingdom, then I suppose you must work like the rest of us.”

Diego was as good as his word. He put Maria to work
in his household, instructing Erlinda, who argued with him in her
gentle fashion, to teach her the daily tasks of the hacienda, the
labor of his Mexican servants.

“These Indians are descendants of the Christian
Mexicanos my grandfather brought with him when he made the
entrada
with Oñate in 1598,” Diego explained. “Their work is
the labor of the house, and tasks requiring some skills.”

“What of the Indians in the field?” she asked.

“They are my Indians from Tesuque.”

“Your Indians?”

“Yes, my Indians,” he replied firmly. “They were
given by
encomienda
to my father’s father, and now their
work is mine.”

She should have been warned by the deepening lines
around his mouth and eyes that this was a touchy subject, but she
couldn’t stop herself. “Can you own them now? I thought that was
forbidden by the Council of the Indies.”

“They gave me their work.” His answer was short, the
lines more pronounced.

“But the Viceroy says you cannot do that anymore,
that the days of Indian allotment are long over.” Some demon was
driving her on. A year ago she would not have cared about anyone’s
Indians, but now, with her own status so radically altered, she had
new vision. “My own father got in tro—”

“Maria!” Diego was past the point of tolerance. “I
had no idea women were so interested in such matters. Here we own
Indians. Don’t think there hasn’t been trouble from the Church and
the governor.”

“I would think so,” she murmured.

He banged his hand on the table. “That is the way it
is here. You tell me how else to get Indians to work except to
force them, Maria Formidable, and I will try it!”

She dropped the subject, and Diego made an obvious
effort to control his temper. He folded his hands in front of him
and sat silent for a moment.

“You will find it different here, Maria, of this I
have no doubt. Do not judge us until you know us.” He grinned then,
his anger gone as quickly as it had come. “And still you must not
judge us! Is it not against the teaching of the Gospels?”

“So it is, Señor,” she replied quietly.

He rose. “And now, if I do not mistake, we will find
Erlinda in the shed by the smokehouse, wringing her hands. Today
she will give you the baptism by fire that Our Lord spoke of.”

Mystified, she followed him outdoors, hurrying to
keep up. Diego laughed as he came to the shed, where Erlinda was
standing just as he had said.

“I cannot bear it, Diego mio,” she said, wrinkling
her nose.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “How grateful I am to
be a man! But plunge ahead,
mi capitana,
for I have brought
reinforcements.”

Erlinda glanced back at Maria. “I almost hate to do
this to you, so newly arrived in our kingdom, but candles must be
made.”

“Then you must show me, Erlinda,” Maria replied.

“It is a simple task, merely smelly. You would be
amazed how many tasks my servants can find to do when I need them
here!”

“Then you two will manage?” Diego asked.

“Of course,” said Erlinda, “and I am sure that you
also have urgent business that will take you far from this
smell.”

Diego put his arm around his sister and kissed her.
“How did you guess?” he asked, backing away quickly before she
could grab him.

Cristóbal passed through the yard on his way to the
fields to join his brother. “
Dios bendiga a ustedes
,” he
called to Erlinda and Maria.

“Y a Veustra Merced
,” Maria replied.

He came closer. “Oh, no, you must reserve that title
for the lord of the hacienda,” he said. “I see that
Vuestra
Merced
has put you to work.”

Something in his tone made Maria look at him. “It
was my idea, Cristóbal,” she said. “I must learn to work.”

He laughed. “Then you have come to the right place,
for you will work here. Diego has a genius for attracting free
labor.”

“Cristóbal!” Erlinda said, “Haven’t you duties of
your own?” He bowed to her, a sweeping bow that made Erlinda redden
and turn away. “It is enough, Cristóbal,” she said quietly.

He left without another word. Erlinda turned to
watch him go. “Something is wrong there, Maria,” she said, “and I
do not know what it is.” She turned back to the vats of tallow and
wooden frames of candle wicks. “But let us work.”

They made candles all day. Even though Maria wrapped
her long hair in one of Diego’s old scarves and rolled up her
sleeves to the shoulder, she knew the smell would linger for
days.

When they had made the common household candles
until they did not think they could bear to dip another one, Old
Martin lugged in his beeswax and the process began all over again,
but with a difference. These candles were destined for the family
chapel and
sala.
Erlinda and Maria made the sign of the
cross over each candle and recited Psalms from memory as they
dipped, then cooled, the cylinders of beeswax.

“I wish that the Bishop of Mexico could bless these
for the chapel,” said Erlinda, twisting one wick to make it stand
straighter. She looked at Maria. “Have you ever seen His
Excellency?”

Maria tucked her hair tighter under Diego’s scarf.
“I have. Indeed, on my last birthday, my fifteenth, he gave me a
special blessing.”

“Imagine!” said Erlinda, her eyes wide with
surprise.

“Yes, it was quite a birthday,” Maria said. She
could not hide the bitterness in her voice. “Indian runners brought
snow down from the mountains for ices, Papa arranged a fireworks
display and all my friends came.”

“I cannot imagine, Maria,” said the young widow,
carrying a frame of candles to the drying rack. “But was this so
bad?”

Maria wiped the sweat from her eyes and added wood
to the slow burning fire. “When Papa’s fortune vanished, my friends
came no more and the bishop no longer recognized us. Things can
change so quickly, Erlinda.”

Erlinda grasped Maria suddenly by the shoulders and
pulled her close, whispering, “How well I know. How well I
know!”

“Erlinda, I did not mean to cause you pain,” Maria
said.

Erlinda shook her head, silent until her voice was
under control again. “It is nothing, Maria.” She smiled, the tears
shining in her eyes but not falling. “Probably no people in this
whole New World know better than we how swiftly life can change.
Let us talk of other things.”

They worked on through the day, Erlinda talking of
mundane matters, her voice light, her eyes filled with private
pain.

Shadows were long across the yard before they
finished the last candle. Erlinda extinguished the fire under the
tallow vat and surveyed the day’s work. “As much as I dread
candlemaking, Maria, it was not so bad this time. Only think how
well we will work together next year. ”

The candles, white and gleaming, hung from the
drying racks. Maria ran a finger gently over the nearest one. “Do
you know, Erlinda,” she said suddenly, “I enjoyed it.”

Erlinda stared. “We spend an entire day bent over a
tallow vat, we smell like farm animals, our clothes are soaked with
sweat, and you tell me that you enjoyed it? Maria, the heat from
the tallow has deranged you!”

“No, no, you do not understand,” protested Maria,
laughing. “This is the first time in my life that I have engaged in
a useful task. You could not count the
varas
of lace I have
made and the altar cloths I have embroidered. They were lovely but
not essential.”

Erlinda shook her head in amazement. “Truly, Maria,
you have come to us from a different world.”

“I have,” Maria agreed.

As the sun sank in the west and the bell of Tesuque
rang, Maria looked at Erlinda. “It is the signal to end labor in
the fields. The Indians of Tesuque will return to the pueblo, and
soon Diego’s Indians who live here will go to their huts. We had
better look to dinner.” They were joined in the kitchen by Luz and
Catarina. “And what have you done this day, my sisters?” Erlinda
asked.

Catarina rolled her eyes. “Oh, Erlinda, Mama made us
recite catechism all day!”

“Oh, no, Catarina,” contradicted Luz. “Not all day.
Only until Diego rescued us.”

Maria knelt by the young child. “You have a
caballero muy elegante
on your side? And what did he
do?”

“He took us to the fields,” said Luz. “We got to
play by the river. It has been so long since we did that.”

Erlinda noted the puzzlement on Maria’s face. “They
cannot leave the hacienda and grounds without guards to accompany.
We must always be ready for Apaches.” Erlinda turned to her little
sister. “And where is Diego now?”

“Talking with Mama,” replied the child as she set
the table for dinner. “He and Cristóbal quarreled awfully. Oh,
Erlinda, they were shouting.”

Erlinda looked at Maria, her lips set in a tight
line. “Do you know what it was about?”

Catarina sat down on the end of the bench and
stuffed napkins in the rings. “Diego struck one of the Indians who
would not work.”

Erlinda sat next to her sister, her hands tightly
folded in her lap. “A year ago that would not have bothered
Cristóbal, but now he is changing. He was always a man divided ...
now he is torn.”

She said no more. Diego came into the kitchen with
his mother leaning on his arm.

“Mother will eat with us, my sisters,” Diego said.
“Let us begin soon.”

“Do we not wait for Cristóbal?” Erlinda rose and led
her mother to the head of the table.

“No,” said Diego and nothing more.

Dinner was eaten in silence. Cristóbal came into the
kitchen halfway through the meal, and Erlinda prepared him a bowl
of meat and chilis, which he ate, sitting next to Diego. When the
brothers’ shoulders touched, they moved away from each other, the
space between them pronounced, uncomfortable.

Diego rose first. “I will write in my journal, then
we will have prayers,” he said, his voice full of weariness.

Maria felt the same weariness in her bones. Her
shoulders ached from bending over the tallow vats, and the little
burns on her forearms from splattering wax throbbed. She wanted to
sweep aside the dishes, put her head on the table, and sleep long
and deeply.

Cristóbal looked at her. “You are tired, Maria,” he
said.

She nodded.

“Do you have any other tasks this night?” The
kindness in his voice took some of the ache from Maria’s back.

“I think not,” she replied, “but I did promise to
take the kitchen scraps to the pigs.”

“Come, then. I will go with you.”

He carried the small bucket of scraps to the pigs.
Maria walked along beside him, enjoying the fragrance of the newly
turned earth in the fields beyond the
acequia.

“Ready for the planting,” Cristóbal said, reading
her thoughts. “Another year has turned.” He poured the scraps in
the trough and leaned on the fence, watching the pigs fight for
them. “What do you think of Las Invernadas after a day’s work
here?”

“It will do, Cristóbal,” she said, resting her arms
on the fence. “It will do very well. There is something about this
place and these people. ”

He grunted. “How well put,” he said dryly. “You say
nothing and yet much. I think that in better times you never would
have come within a league of a pig sty.” He sighed, turning around
and leaning against the fence. “Perhaps neither of us belongs
here,” he said, more to himself then to Maria.

Before she could answer, the bell rang from the
hacienda’s interior. “Let us go to chapel, Maria,” Cristóbal said,
offering her his arm.

She took his arm, struck by the incongruity of an
evening’s stroll, with a half-breed Indian, by the pig pen. As she
and Erlinda well knew, times change.

Silent, they walked into the hall to the chapel at
the far end, through the wide doors carved with the keys of Peter
and the crowns of Castile and Aragon. La Señora knelt already at
the front of the chapel, praying her private prayers. Diego knelt
beside her, saying his rosary in a low voice. He glanced behind him
at Cristóbal’s firm footsteps. There was no warmth in his eyes as
he turned back to the altar.