Hunger's Brides (110 page)

It felt like illness, it tasted like bile. Was the geographer seasick, did he need to rest awhile? Perhaps the geographer was only lost. No, it felt like falling. It truly did. A sickness not of floating bodies but of falling ones. Which only made sense after all. The sane objection to the world as globe was always that at bottom one must fall off. And yet even the mad geographer couldn't have it both ways, he had to decide: round or flat, floating or falling, convent cell or prison cell—

Or madhouse. For the sensation now was very much like falling—up. This madness of mine, this madness of the mind that spins too fast, that finds comedy where there is none, yes, but also threads of mystery everywhere and signs, always signs and holy messages. Where there were none. As here, in the coincidence of Democritus and Heraclitus, about whom I myself have written … in my first volume for María Luisa. Two holy messengers—I found myself swinging from one to the other now like a kind of pendulum for marking time: the philosopher who laughs, the one who cries. Two holy authors: Vieyra and Campanella. Two thought mad but not: Campanella and Democritus. Two gifts: a painting and a book. Two Vieyra sermons.

Too many twos, one too many coincidences … but wait. Madness is not the message, for the messenger is
not
mad.

The messenger is not mad …

“Antonia!”

Just as I'd thought—she was in the doorway almost at once, pausing there, hollow-eyed, to slip her nightshirt on.“Bring me Vieyra's sermons, please? Down at the end. I
know
you know where. Red leather. Next shelf up—left. There.”

She padded back, greenish eyes curious, my pale Angolan warrior princess in a torn nightshirt.

“Put something on your feet—here take my slippers—how can you walk around like that? As soon as it is light, I want you to go to the palace and try to find the Sicilian. First thing on a Sunday morning it should not be too hard, if he is in fact staying there. Ask him to
come at his earliest convenience—but bring him back with you if you can.”

“I could wake the turnkeeper right now.”

“No, we may need the favour later. Go down and get dressed—it's cold enough for
snow
. By the time you're ready I'll have a note for you to take to him….”

I laid my hand on the cover of soft red leather…. Vieyra's sermon was a famous one. Less for its content than for its origins: Christina of Sweden's drawing room in Rome. Vieyra had just arrived from Portugal to seek the Pope's protection from the Inquisition. He'd had the general idea for his oratory already, but during a visit to her apartments improvised the exposition with such stunning success Christina asked that very day that he become her spiritual director. Which he declined. Vieyra served one man alone, the King of Portugal.

Here it was … ‘The Tears of Heraclitus Defended in Rome against the Laughter of Democritus.'

What ignorance was a misery, an ignorance of
mine?
These emblems were not threads fallen together at random. These were the makings of a message—
and I knew what it was
. The message Baron Crisafi had brought me in the gift of Campanella's
Scelta:
the Archbishop was not mad.

In the two hours Antonia was away at the palace I had the idea of launching a counterattack.

None of the libels in the other pamphlets mattered, but those penned by the second Soldier, those we had to answer. For in them the Holy Office was sounding out its own arguments. But even more urgent now was to repair the horrible, gaping breach Palavicino had opened in my defences. This nightmare of the Soldier's cruel lance in my side, as in the side of an innocent lamb, as in the side of Christ….

Just then, seeing Antonia come swiftly up the steps, cheeks flushed, a strident scarlet ribbon in her hair, it came to me how we might do it. The
wound in the side, there was no wiping away the image—but if we changed the soldier, the wound, the side … the lance. The shepherdess Camilla. Virgil's own Amazon, I had her right in front of me. It could not be be more perfect. It must be Camilla's lance, through another side altogether….

The Tyrrenian giant Ornithus advances through a wood. He is a colossus dwarfing his little war pony and bearing savage arms never before seen. Espying Camilla in a clearing he turns and bears down on the one he has been searching out. Her flock scattered, she stands firm, watching him come—draped over his shoulders is a hide ripped from a bullock, his helm the gaping jaws of a giant wolf. A rough-hewn prod, thick as an oak bole, is clasped just behind the iron goad by a massive hand of granite. Ornithus springs from his war pony—three swift strides swallow up the meadow. Smoothly, quietly, swift as Achilles, she runs him through the chest with her lance…
.

And then the insult as he falls
.

‘And did you think, my friend, to come into these woods hunting game? The day has arrived for your vaunting to find its reply in a woman's arms. To the afterworld, hie!—and when you get there tell the shades of your fathers that the one who sent you, and how swiftly, was a woman!'

I looked into her greenish eyes. She read mine. “Work …” Antonia said, her smile engagingly grim.

Yes,
work
. Something for us both to do. We would answer Sor Philothea with a letter of our own, published in this case under a pseudonym—Sor Seraphina de Cristo. Christ's finest angel. And even as it poked a little angelical fun at our devoted follower and friend, and this for missing the point of a certain recent letter of ours, missing even whom it was meant to address, we would make it clear that dim Philothea had been involved in it all from the start, indeed had commanded that the sword be made, only to grasp it from the wrong end.

Then we would see what the world thought of clever Philothea. In this affair there was mud enough to cast about.

For our purposes today, Antonia, think of irony as having not two surfaces but three, its blade a triangle
⁹
in cross-section—inserted, the wound it inflicts takes a good deal longer to heal.

Baron Anthonio Crisafi arrived by three, having cancelled one appointment and rescheduled another for that evening. He cut a dignified figure, in a fitted velvet doublet of an almond brown, a high collar, and across
his chest a heavy emerald-studded chain. A matching jewelled band girdled his brown velvet hat, and a heavy calf-length cape with a satin lining hung by fastening cords about his shoulders. I could not help noticing as he sat close by the grille that one eye was slightly skewed in its orbit.

“The Countess of Paredes sends expressions of her love and concern…. They are in Seville, at the home of her brother-in-law. The Medinaceli Palace has every imaginable comfort. As you may know, her husband, the Marquis …”

The Sicilian could tell me no more than that Tomás was still unwell. Baron Crisafi had only been there two days, and did not see him. Preparing to leave just as my manuscript arrived, the Baron stayed on an extra few hours at María Luisa's request and sent his affairs ahead to Cadiz by carriage.

“The Countess asks me to tell you that your second volume is ready for the printer in Seville. All that lacks are the endorsements and licences. She is holding the text you asked for, in hopes of ‘a climate more favourable for ice.' Did I get that correctly?”

“Yes, thank you, Baron.”

“She also emphatically agrees with the idea of publishing in Spain your letter on the Vieyra affair—of having it approved there before it can be formally condemned here in Mexico. She already has letters of enthusiastic support from nine poets, but the theological endorsements are not coming so quickly. She wishes you to know that in every free moment she is working to that end—and I can assure you she is working with great passion and energy. So far she has three….”

“She had thirty for
Castalian Flood.”

“So she said, yes. Vieyra is an enormous figure in Seville—not much less revered than he is in Portugal. But during King John's suppression of the Holy Office in Portugal, many Inquisitors took refuge in Seville. Few theologians want anything to do with the matter as long as the Inquisition is pursuing him. What the Countess wanted you to know was this: while soliciting approvals she has learned that certain distinguished officers of the Church in Seville
already know something
about the Vieyra controversy here in Mexico.”

My guess had been correct. The Archbishop's correspondent had hinted, the merest hint of a hint, that His Grace was perhaps not quite so unstable as was thought here. “Baron Crisafi, I do not know how to
thank you. Perhaps one day I may be in a position to render you some small service.”

“I am afraid, Sor Juana, there is more. This was the Countess's message
before
your package arrived. What I am about to tell you now, she had not wanted to worry you with, at first. You see, it appears the Archbishop's correspondent in Seville has also read a good deal about
you.” The
Baron leaned forward, lowering his voice. He did his best to meet my eyes. The emerald chain about his neck swung free, sparkling in the light, sending splinters of green across the chocolate doublet.

“The Archbishop has never given the slightest sign he knows I
exist.”

“But Sor Juana, that is exactly right, that is precisely how the correspondent put it. On bad days, His Grace the Lord Archbishop pretends you live in someone else's archdiocese.”

“Does he indeed, sir. Why, this happens also to me. But then I take it His Grace has his good days as well. Truly does one wonder what such days might be like.”

“I will tell you. On a good day, apparently, he almost manages to forget you are alive.”

Baron Crisafi looked genuinely pained to have said something so unpleasant. He assured me the Countess had reread my note accompanying Philothea's publication of my arguments three times before finally deciding this was information I simply had to have now. “The Archbishop's correspondent,” the Baron continued,“spoke of an antipathy dating back to the year 1683. The Countess said you would remember. And I am afraid that's all I know, Sor Juana. I should be getting back,” he said, straightening in his seat. “This is not a day to be away from the palace—especially for foreigners.”

“I'm sorry, I don't see what you mean.”

“My quarters are just down the hall from the French Viscount's. He mentioned you have met. Yes? Well it appears the Viscount d'Anjou has made an unannounced departure.”

“The stewards have checked the silverware by now, I hope.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes, Sor Juana. You see, a treasury official was found murdered last night. His wife says he left home late yesterday afternoon in great excitement to be meeting a very distinguished foreign visitor, but could not say more.”

“You are going to tell me this official is privy to information about the silver fleets.”

“It appears a shipment left for the coast recently.”

“The Viceroy will be happy to see you are still among us.”

“I am hoping he has not sent out a search party. It might be hard to convince his men I was on my way back to the palace.”

After thanking him, urging him to come again and expressing the very keen regret that he had not arrived in Mexico much sooner—last year, just for instance—I rose to let him go.

Two entire days the Baron had spent with María Luisa—
just weeks ago
. I wanted to ask him about each minute, I wanted to ask him how she was, how she moved, if she smiled.