Daughter of Fortune (25 page)

Her glance was attracted to the outside walls. There
were rows and rows of curious brown circles, misshapen and
shriveled. She walked closer, then gasped, turning back to Diego
for explanation.

“Apache ears,” he said. “Did you not notice them the
first time you came here?”

She shook her head, thinking of Cristóbal and the
woman softly crooning to her baby in the Tesuque pueblo. But, of
course, they were good Indians, not Apaches.

“I have tacked a few there myself,” he finished,
carefully overlooking the tightness around Maria’s mouth and eyes.
“Apache, Maria, remember that. And now, shall we go inside? I
cannot see any guards to stop us. In fact, I cannot see any guards
at all. ”

The courtyard was the same. Maria could almost see
herself sitting on the far bench, eagerly waiting for her sister,
La Doña Margarita. It seemed so long ago, but it was only a few
months, the time of the early planting, when Maria had sat there,
expecting her sister to make things better.

She followed Diego inside the palace. The wide
corridor was cool and smelled of pine and wax. Diego went to an
open door, peered inside, then rapped on the wooden frame.

Governor Antonio de Otermin was seated behind a
large desk writing. He looked up in surprise when Diego entered,
then half rose from his chair and extended his hand across the
desk. Diego kissed it as Maria dropped a curtsy.

The governor seated himself carefully, folding his
hands in front of him. “Diego Masferrer,” he began, fixing Diego
with a stare that made Maria move uneasily from one foot to the
other. “Diego Masferrer. I have been expecting you. Indeed, I
have.” He motioned toward the chair in front of his desk and they
sat down.

“How is this, my lord?” Diego asked. “I did not know
you wanted to see me.”

“Oh, I do. I do. We have a small matter to discuss.”
The governor eyed Maria and she drew back involuntarily. “This
small matter,” he continued, watching her.

“But first.” He looked back at Diego and then at his
desk. “For Father Pio, in Tesuque,” he said, handing a small book
to Diego. “Would you see that he gets it?”

“Of course, your honor,” Diego replied, pocketing
the book. He started to say something else, but the governor
interrupted.

“And I have something more for you, Diego. Of a more
serious nature. Except I wonder if you will think it serious. I
wonder if you Masferrers think like the rest of us.” He held out a
sheaf of papers, bound with red cord and sealed with red wax.

Diego frowned and did not reach for the document.
“Take it, Señor, indeed you must,” the governor insisted, holding
the papers, “although I do not wonder at your hesitancy. Take
it!”

Diego reached across the desk, his gloved hand
closing around the paper, the seal crunching in his grip. He took
off his gloves, pulled the string from the paper, flattened it out
and read.

Maria stirred uneasily in her chair as the veins in
Diego’s neck stood out and his face darkened. “What is the meaning
of this?” Diego spoke softly, and Maria’s uneasiness increased. She
knew that tone of his.

The governor had gone back to his writing, his pen
scratching on the paper. He looked up leisurely. “Unless residing
in this dusty kingdom has completely deranged me, Señor, I suspect
that someone has issued a warrant for your arrest.”

As Maria rose from her chair, Diego motioned her to
sit down, but she continued to stand. The governor gave her a
curious glance. “It is from your sister, La Doña Margarita Espinosa
de Guzman.”

When she continued to stare at the governor, the
color draining from her face, he went on, looking this time at
Diego. “She calls you all manner of dreadful things, Señor
Masferrer.” He leaned across the desk in a conspiratorial manner.
“I enjoy the part where she says you are a lecher and a womanizer,
ready to take advantage of a lonely orphan and a poor, helpless
widow. Have you come to that part yet?” Diego raised his eyes to
the governor, and Otermin looked away. “Poor, helpless widow
indeed!” murmured the governor. “How grateful I am that I do not
have two in my kingdom like Margarita Guzman.” His glance rested on
Maria again. “You look like a ghost, child. Sit down, do.”

When she had lowered herself into the chair again,
Otermin spoke to Diego. “But the presence of Maria Espinosa in your
company does require some explanation. I am willing—nay, I am
eager—to listen to your side of it. I fully suspect it will prove
to be as interesting as La Viuda Guzman’s story, and it has been a
dull summer.”

Diego rose so abruptly that his chair fell crashing
against the dirt floor. He leaned across the governor’s desk, his
eyes boring into the governor’s. Then he deliberately ripped the
arrest warrant in pieces.

“Now, Diego,” said the governor, less assurance in
his voice. “You know I have copies in triplicate, perhaps even
quadruplicate. Our country runs on red sealing wax. I insist that
you sit down and tell me of this little—shall we call it—adventure
of yours. You hardly seem the womanizing type, although the Widow
Guzman would persuade me otherwise.”

Diego pounded on the governor’s desk, overturning
the inkwell which spilled onto the floor.

The governor frowned, but did not move. “I think you
go too far, Masferrer.”

“Not I,” replied Diego in that quiet, rock-hard
voice that Maria dreaded. “The Widow Guzman goes too far, and she
will hear from me before the sun sinks much lower. But first,
Maria, will you tell this man how you came into my household? One
moment, Maria. Governor, perhaps you should call in your scribe to
take this down. I see him peeking around the door there.”

The governor motioned to the man standing just
outside the door. He was dressed in black like all scribes, the
white collar around his neck wilted and brown with sweat. The
scribe sidled into the room, reminding Maria of the solicitors who
had picked over and plundered her home in Mexico City. She thought
also of the vultures at the caravan massacre.

The scribe picked up the chair Diego had tipped over
and then seated himself on a stool by the governor’s desk, hitching
himself and the stool closer to the window and farther away from
Diego Masferrer. He readied pen and ink from the writing table he
carried. The ink from the governor’s desk continued to drip to the
floor, soaking into the dirt.

“Your Excellency,” Maria began, “your Excellency, it
is not Diego’s fault.” Otermin’s smirk was eloquent. “You have no
right to make accusations against the only friend I have in this
whole, miserable Rio Arriba,” Maria continued. “After you and Diego
left me with my sister, she told me that she could not support me,
or take me into her household. She said she was too poor to afford
another mouth or a sister without a dowry.”

“She is poor like Croesus,” commented the governor,
half to himself. “No, no, Juan, do not take that down, you
blockhead! Only Maria Espinosa’s words. But do go on, my dear.”

“That is really all there is,” said Maria, sitting
farther forward on the edge of her chair, gripping the arms. “She
left me there.”

“But where did you go?” asked the governor.

“I went back to the courtyard, but you were gone.”
Maria’s voice fell to a whisper. “She said I would have to be made
a ward of the town. I just could not stay. It would have been too
humiliating.” She squared her shoulders and spoke louder. “I have
honor.”

Diego smiled for the first time, and his fingers
went to the scar by his ear.

“I remembered that Señor Masferrer said he lived
north of Santa Fe near Tesuque. I started walking.”

“You walked to Tesuque?” asked the governor.

“Yes. How else was I to get there?”

“How, indeed,” replied Otermin. “Were you not
afraid?”

Maria’s eyes softened at the silliness of his
question. “Oh, yes. You cannot fully comprehend how frightened I
was, Your Excellency. But I told myself that since I was still
alive, after all that I had been through, that I would
survive.”

“Did you not wonder about your reception at Las
Invernadas?”

Maria thought a moment, not looking at Diego, who
stirred beside her but made no comment. “Not really. I did not
think he would turn me away. Do you know Diego Masferrer, Your
Excellency? I know you are his governor, but do you
know
him?”

“Perhaps I do not,” admitted Otermin.

Maria smiled at Diego. As Diego bent to right the
inkwell, the flush rose in his face.

“And so you have lived there ever since. In what
capacity, may I ask?”

“As a servant. Señor Masferrer would not hear of it
at first, but I told him that those were my conditions.”

“You
told
him
?
”
said the
governor, a new respect rising in his eyes.

“She has a mind of her own, Excellency,” Diego
interjected.

Maria looked from one man to the other. “I told him
that since I had no one and nothing, I would earn my own way.”

“And does she?” the governor asked Diego. There was
no malice in his voice this time, no innuendo. The scribe’s
scratching pen was loud in the quiet room.

“Yes, and then some,” Diego replied. “She tends to
household chores, reads to my mother and helps with my little
sisters. I might add that she has taken much of the burden from my
sister Erlinda.”

Otermin folded his hands together on the large desk,
looking at Diego. “And you, sir, have you felt no slight, tiny
twinge that perhaps the Widow Guzman might be concerned about the
welfare of her sister?”

“None, Governor Otermin. After Maria knelt at my
feet and pleaded with me to give her shelter, I never gave La
Señora Guzman another thought.”

“So it would seem,” murmured the governor. “But it
appears now that La Señora Guzman has entertained second thoughts.
It puzzles me, Masferrer, how a stiff-necked ranchero like you, and
I might add, like all the stiff-necked rancheros in this
Godforsaken land, would not have considered the question of
honor.”

“La Viuda Guzman has no honor.”

“Indeed she has.” said the governor. “Do not we all?
Sometimes I think it is our Spanish curse. Of course she has
honor,” continued Otermin. “I strongly suspect she was just toying
with Maria. It is a regrettable habit she has. She is a whimsical
woman. She came to me in tears, real tears, mind you, after Maria
was discovered gone, to plead with me to do something about the
situation.”

“I do not believe the widow’s tears,” said
Diego.

“You must be more charitable, Diego. She has come to
me to right things. It would be best for Maria to leave your
household.”

“No!” shouted Diego. The governor was silent. Diego
could not look at Maria. “That is, not unless Señorita Espinosa
wishes to go.”

“Of late, I have been considering it,” Maria told
the governor quietly.

“It seems that your sister wants you now,” replied
Otermin.

“Maria!” Diego said. “How can you?”

She raised her eyes to his. “It would end a
situation at Las Invernadas that can only grow more dreadful,
Señor.”

Otermin waved to the scribe to stop writing. “I must
say, Maria, you are telling me what I want to hear, but why do I
feel so uncomfortable all of a sudden? Nonetheless, because you
have not the protection of a husband, I think that you have no
choice.”

The room was silent again. The scribe looked up from
the paper on his lap, his eyes eager for more. He dipped the quill
in the ink, ready. Diego walked to the window and stood there,
looking into the courtyard, his hands behind his back.

“What if I marry her?” he asked.

Maria gripped the arms of the chair, wondering if
she had heard him correctly. The scribe bent over his record, his
smile broad. He could scarcely wait to leave the room and tell
someone, anyone. The idea of Diego Masferrer marrying a penniless
nobody would flame the fires of gossip long past the first
frost.

The governor leaned forward as if he had been struck
from behind. “Well, Señor,’’ he said, when he found his voice
again. “I suppose you could do that.”

“Then I shall,” said Diego, turning around.

“But, Diego,” continued the governor, “do not be
hasty! Have you considered? She is a pretty little thing—provided
one is partial to freckles, of course—but she has no dowry, no
family connections here, no ...” he paused, at a loss. “The
people of Santa Fe will think you have been wandering around in the
sun without your hat.”

“Of what possible concern is that to me?” Diego
asked.

“None, obviously,” snapped the governor, his
patience receding. “But what would your father have said?”

“He probably would have said ‘Congratulations, long
life, and many children,’ ” replied Diego, “because you see,
Excellency, the possibility lingers in the back of my mind that I
am not really good enough for Maria. Perhaps she will make me
better than I am.”

“Oh, Diego,” murmured Maria. She could not raise her
eyes to his face.

The governor stood and walked to the window to stand
close to Diego. “Now I am not a romantic man, Masferrer, but you
say nothing of love.”

“I am a realist, too, Excellency,” said Diego. “I do
not have the time to sit down with my feelings, to think of love. I
know there is no survival in this brutal place unless one marries
well.” His eyes softened again as he looked at Maria.

“Then why are you saying this now?” asked the
governor.

Diego looked out the window again. “I do not know.
It was just an idea. And not a bad one, for all that you think me
crazy.” He turned suddenly. “But in the meantime, no matter what we
decide, I will not cooperate with your warrant, I will not give up
Maria.” He went to Maria and pulled her to her feet. “And now, good
day to you, Excellency.”