Return to Paradise (Torres Family Saga) (29 page)

      
Rigo stood in the doorway watching silently as the tall older man paced toward the window, all the while clutching the wine cup in calloused fingers. He was Benjamin's very image—or Benjamin as he would look in twenty-five years. There was a bit of gray at his temples, his sun-bronzed skin was weathered and lined, yet he remained slim and handsome, a Castilian aristocrat. “No wonder my mother found you so irresistible. You must have looked like the Golden Man of their myths.”

      
At the sound of Rigo's voice, Aaron pivoted, splashing droplets of wine on the window sill and the tiled floor. Benjamin had said he recognized Navaro instantly. Now Aaron understood why. The harsh, cynical face framed by Aliyah's straight ebony hair was his own—his, his father's and his younger son's. Suddenly, Aaron felt his throat close up, choked with emotion. He longed to rush forward and embrace his son, yet instinctively knew it would be a tactical error. He could feel the hostility that cloaked Rodrigo de Las Casas like full battle armor.

      
“I have waited thirty years for this day. I would trade my life to have had yours easier than it has been. But you are home now. Can we begin in good faith, Navaro?”

      
Rigo walked to the table, studying the soft leather boots, light hose and sheer cotton shirt his father wore. His eyes halted appreciatively on the sword and dagger of excellent Toledo steel. Aaron Torres, too, had been a soldier. He was dusty and sweat-stained from a long, hard ride.
So eager to greet me? Or to see if I was yet alive?
      
Rigo poured a draught of wine and sipped it, then said, “My name at baptism was Rodrigo Angel de Las Casas. I do not wish to use the Taino name. My heathen blood has cost me dearly over the years in Spain.”

      
“You are no longer in Spain,” Aaron replied quietly, “nor are the Tainos heathens.”

      
“Can you say they are treated fairer here than there?” Rigo asked with a scornful lift of one arched black eyebrow.

      
“No. Since I came here with the First Admiral in 1492, the Spanish have decimated the Taino race. Your uncle Guacanagari and his family are one of only a few small groups left alive in all the islands. What Spanish steel does not slay, Spanish diseases waste away—except in the interior where we live. The Tainos there are safe and healthy. I would have you meet Guacanagari and his people. You will change your mind about them being savages.”

      
Rigo's expression was guarded. “I shall judge for myself, but I have a lifetime of Spanish contempt for Indians to live down. My foster brother speaks well of you and says you are their champion.”

      
“Bartolome de Las Casas is their true champion. He has faced down kings on their behalf.”

      
“When I read his letters I felt the Indians were cowards, unworthy to live if they would not fight to survive.”

      
“As you had to fight to survive,” Aaron said gently, walking closer to stand face to face with this hard, hostile stranger who was his firstborn son. “I did not desert you, Rigo. I searched everywhere for you.”

      
Rigo stared into the piercing blue eyes, so eerily identical to his own. “Benjamin told me that. What of my mother? If you admire the Tainos so much, why did you not wed her?”

      
Aaron swore a remarkable Sevillian oath that Rigo was wont to use himself, bringing a small, unwilling smile to his son's lips. “When I met Aliyah I was one and twenty. She was very beautiful, the sister of a great
cacique
. Their culture was complex and their customs...different than those of Europe.”

      
“Not than those of victorious soldiers in Europe, I warrant,” Rigo said cynically, tossing off his wine and pouring more.

      
“She was not a camp follower but a royal princess! We were allowed to live openly together without her family expecting that I wed her unless we both agreed.”

      
“And you did not agree?”

      
Damn, the boy was not making this easier for him! “When she became pregnant, I was not certain the child was mine. While I returned to Castile she had a Taino lover. By the time you were born and I had returned to Española, Magdalena also arrived.”

      
“And of course, having a choice between a Taino princess and a Spanish noblewoman—”

      
“Magdalena had not a cent to dower her. She was fleeing the old queen's wrath. My father, your grandfather, had arranged our betrothal without my knowing of it.” Aaron's face grew warm as he confessed, “The First Admiral himself forced me to wed her.” He immediately put up his hands in a gesture of frustration and added, “I was never sorry once we worked out our misunderstandings. If I could choose again, I would choose her, not Aliyah.

      
“But mark this, Rigo. It is not because Magdalena is Castilian and Aliyah was Taino. In terms of worldly wealth and position, twould have been far more advantageous for me to have wed your mother. We do not choose where to love, my son. It just…happens.”

      
“How bitterly well I have learned that lesson,” Rigo muttered obliquely. “Why did Aliyah give me to Pedro de Las Casas?”

      
“Aliyah was a spoiled child, as unlike Guacanagari as Bishop Fonseca is unlike Fray Bartolome. She knew how desperately I wanted you, so she gave you to the Spaniard and then told me she had sent you to another village of Tainos. We searched for years in all the islands, never dreaming you had been taken to Seville.”

      
“What says your lady wife about claiming your half-caste by-blow?”

      
“Magdalena searched with me and grieved with me when years of searching proved futile. She waits at our
hato
, along with your uncle, eager to welcome you home..you and your bride. We received several letters from Benjamin, Rigo. I am not the only one who must offer explanations. You have brought your brother's betrothed, great with your child.” Aaron's face was grave, but not censuring, as he took another drink of wine.

      
“How neatly you turn the tables. God's bones, I think Pescara would like you well! You have an Italianate mind,” Rigo said grudgingly.

      
“I was a soldier and am now a stockman. Never have I been a politician, nor ever would be.” Aaron waited as Rigo gathered his thoughts.

      
Rigo shrugged. “Like you, I had little choice in my marriage—but unlike you, I wed the woman who carries my child.” Rigo could see the blow strike home, yet Aaron held his peace. Oddly, Rigo felt petty and cruel for having made the remark. As quickly and dispassionately as possible he outlined what had occurred since he was brought to Marseilles by Benjamin. “As you said, perhaps we cannot choose where to love. I had thought never to wed...and now I have betrayed my brother with his betrothed.” He turned and stared out the window, seeing nothing, feeling as drained as he knew Aaron Torres must feel.

      
“Do you love Miriam? Or, do you know yet? I did not know I loved Magdalena for several years.”

      
“Blessed Virgin, help me!”

      
At his son's look of woebegone misery Aaron dared for the first time to place one hand on his shoulder. “Miriam loves you and that is a good beginning. Women are far more sensible about such matters than are men.”

      
Rigo's eyes narrowed as he turned to Aaron. “I ask your leave to doubt the lady's love for me. Twould seem we share what you and my mother did—passion, nothing more.”

      
“Then why did she choose you when Benjamin offered her marriage?” Aaron countered.

      
“Come meet the lady and decide for yourself about her most mysterious motives.” He turned to leave the room.

      
Aaron almost called him back, thoroughly unsatisfied with their first encounter, then decided against it. Only time could heal the breech between them.

      
Miriam waited alone in the garden, her heart in her throat as she contemplated facing her father-in-law. Rigo and Aaron had been cloistered in the palace for what seemed an eternity. Maria had taken the children in for their afternoon siesta, leaving her to have a private interview with them. “How can I face him? He will think me the most vile harlot. Women, not men, are always blamed and I am guilty...” Her whispered voice faded as footfalls sounded across the courtyard.

      
Aaron Torres observed the tall, elegant woman who Benjamin had described so often in his letters. She was pale and frightened and most definitely with child. Miriam's very height and slenderness emphasized her condition. She nonetheless made a graceful curtsy and stretched out her hand when he extended his in greeting. Saluting it with a brief touch of his lips, he smiled warmly, hoping to place her at ease. “Welcome to Española and to our family, Miriam.”

      
Miriam felt a great weight lift from her shoulders. She could feel that Aaron's words were genuine. ”Tis amazing,” she faltered as she stared at her father-in-law, Benjamin's exact double but for the passage of years.

      
As if reading her thoughts, Aaron replied, “Yes, my elder sons do favor me. You will see when you meet Bartolome and Cristobal that they have more of their mother's features.”

      
“And your lady, will she welcome me?” Her glance swept Rigo's shuttered face before she returned her eyes to Aaron. “After what I have done to Benjamin, she would be justified in hating me.”

      
“No, she would not, neither will she judge you before meeting you. Give her—and yourself—a chance. I think you will become friends.”

      
“Will it not matter that I am a Jewess?”

      
Aaron chuckled. “Benjamin said you were outspoken and honest. He did not exaggerate. Your faith is not an impediment, Miriam. Magdalena has her own rather unique views on religion.”

      
“Then I look forward to meeting her and your other children,” Miriam said with a grave smile.

      
The argument about the litter resumed that night at dinner, but with Rigo's charming father to cajole her, Miriam relented, agreeing to the cumbersome mode of transportation. Aaron had smiled and explained that there were worse options: the Taino nobles had been carried on the shoulders of their slaves. She decided the litter was preferable to that! The journey would take a week.

      
The morning they departed the weather was cool, dry and sunny with a light breeze. By the end of the day they reached the foothills, where the trail narrowed and steepened. They made camp near a cultivated stretch of land and Miriam watched with trepidation as the hoard of servants Aaron had brought with him began preparing their evening meal, throwing all manner of strange, unidentifiable foods into a boiling kettle. She saw no meat enter the cookpot but some freshly caught fish from a nearby stream did. Her stomach growled, and she vowed to sample the spicy concoction and prayed it would stay down.

      
Rigo noted over twenty armed men, many of them half-castes like himself, who rode with his father. During the day they had split up with some scouting ahead while others walked point in the dense underbrush and the rest took positions behind their small caravan. Both footmen and those on horseback were heavily armed with swords, lances, arbalests and small arquebuses. Aaron, too, seemed watchful, although he rode beside Miriam's litter and charmed her with conversation during the day.

      
When he slipped off to issue orders for the posting of a night watch, Rigo followed him, observing the way the men obeyed him. Sometimes he spoke Castilian, other times the strange soft dialect of the Tainos. As Aaron strolled back to the central campfire, Rigo waylaid him where their horses were penned for the night.

      
“According to Bartolome and the
virreina
, there is no threat from Indian rebellion in the central provinces. All is peaceful but for Enriqullo's rebels on the southwestern peninsula. Why do we travel so heavily guarded?”

      
Aaron, who had begun to rub down his big chestnut, continued his work as he replied, “I knew you would ask, being a soldier all your life. The threat is not from any Taino band. For over a year our
hato
has suffered from a variety of depredations.” He shrugged. “Always, from the earliest days, we made enemies, siding with Tainos against Castilian gentlemen. Even our friendship with the Colons did us little good, for as Genoese they were hated as much as we.”

      
“Genoese and Jews,” Rigo said with heavy irony in his voice.

      
“And Indian lovers in the bargain. I have spoken to Miriam this afternoon and I will caution you again that she is to say naught about her religion. As far as the government—what little there is in the interior—is concerned, we are New Christians and converted Tainos. A suspicious lot, but our very isolation protects us.”

      
“As long as no one learns you have a Jewess in your midst who has not abandoned her beliefs,” Rigo said, patting Peligro. “If these attacks began only a year ago, your religious practices cannot be the reason for them. What exactly is happening?”

      
“Burned orchards, tillers in our fields murdered while at work in isolated areas, caravans laden with hides and other goods stolen by armed bandits.” Aaron's face became a stone mask when he said, “My youngest son Cristobal was almost kidnapped during one such raid. Since then we have armed all our own people and trained them. From Diego Colon I secured an additional group of trustworthy men to act as guards. Our worst losses to date have been in the area we cannot control—at sea.”