The Sisterhood (45 page)

I was touched by the vulnerability I had glimpsed behind the warrior façade. It affected me so deeply I had to force myself to keep my eyes down, away from his. He was married and heathen and of a people who practice the most dreadful cruelty, but his presence dazzled me. I stared hard at the ground, as if a miracle were about to take place at my feet. Though somehow my eyes strayed of their own accord from the ground to his legs, strong and bare under his tunic. I forced myself to rejoice on his wife’s account that her children had been spared.

And he, too, was speaking of his wife, to say she and his concubines all lay dead after the earthquake! There were exclamations of sympathy from all of us. We felt grief for them all, especially for his graceful and gracious wife.

Then he said something that sent the blood rushing to my head and set my heart pounding. Because our gods kept us safe while so many others had perished, he had come to take a concubine from among us, as was permitted to a prince of royal blood. I gasped and lifted my head. He was looking straight at me and his
dark gaze was like a spear into my heart. A concubine? But his wife was dead—and I had an idea.

Mother Maria Manuela was saying with tact but unyielding firmness that his royal rights did not extend to us. “
Our
virgins,” she began, and I knew she was about to say “would be obliged to choose death instead,” so before she could do so, I sprang to her side and whispered urgently that I had not yet taken my vows and could abandon the novitiate if the commander chose me.

“Certainly not, Salome! Has lust made you mad?” hissed Mother.

“No Mother, wait,” I begged. “God may have sent this opportunity to achieve what we cannot accomplish otherwise. I think the commander is bargaining, one of us for his daughters. You, the
mamacunya
, must bargain in turn, to demonstrate the value of what he seeks.” Mother looked so shocked I rushed on. “First, you can truly say that Christian virgins may never be concubines. Their God permits them the status of wives, provided they are given to men in accordance to our laws and ceremonies, and never where there is another wife or concubine. And a man who would have one of our virgins as his wife must observe our custom, which is to grant her a wish, otherwise…er, otherwise to dispense with this formality will incur the wrath of her powerful God.”

Mother Maria Manuela snapped, “Salome, you are talking nonsense!”

“No, Mother. If the commander agrees to leave his daughters with us, the priests may follow suit and send girls here to intercede with God instead of sacrificing them. And a good Christian wife might persuade her husband that many wives and concubines are…unnecessary.” I blushed when I said that.

Mother gave me a look that said I was a demon’s changeling, sighed, and turned back to the commander to explain her conditions. He nodded and dispensed with any pretense about which
of us he preferred. He pointed to me and asked what wish I had, promising that his honor demanded he grant it. When Mother told him about giving the sacrificial victims to us it was his turn to look shocked, as if he had been tricked and betrayed. I held my breath. The power of his religion and his obligations as a royal prince warred mightily with his inclination, and even more with his sense of personal honor, which would not permit him to revoke his word. But only for a moment. Then he nodded and held out his hand to me. I stepped forward, and clasped it.

That same day a heavy rain began, as if heaven approved our union, although it would be months before the crops that were hastily sown would flourish. With the famine not yet over, would the sacrifices continue? The answer came a few weeks later when three beautiful girls of different ages were taken into the house from the hands of the native priests who delivered them with inscrutable faces.

The commander and I were married a month after the earthquake, by Mother of course—there was no one else to officiate at a Christian wedding. She conducted the ceremony with lengthy prayers begging heaven’s blessing on our union. There was nothing else to do. I wore a plain linen shift hastily made for me by the sisters, over which, in the native style, I wore a wedding gift from the commander—a fine tunic of beautiful native embroidery, clasped on the shoulders with gold serpents’ heads with emerald eyes. My hair had grown and I washed and brushed it out to hang down my back, tucking a large red flower over my ear. I could feel my face flushed with happiness and knew my eyes were bright with joy. I hoped the commander would approve.

We were married before as many people as could travel gathered to watch. After the sisters had sung every psalm, every hymn in their repertoire—Inca ceremonies are not official without music, sometimes many days’ worth—Mother blessed us. Then it was
time for the Inca part of the ceremony the commander insisted upon, saying people would not accept me as his wife otherwise. He bent and put new sandals made of vicuña wool and gold thread on my feet. I took a new tunic I had made from fine soft wool, and placed it over his shoulders. One of the members of the royal family joined our hands to signify that we were one.

He led me away to this Hacienda of the Sun and the Moon, which was badly damaged by the earthquake. Servants carried my few possessions, including a crucifix my husband particularly wished to hang in our home. There was another sparse wedding feast at our hacienda—corn beer and a few vegetables with the spicy sauce that accompanies everything. I could eat nothing. I was very nervous about the step I had taken, yet very happy on my wedding night. And I wished my mother could give us her blessing.

Salome’s face had softened as she spoke—even now the memory of her wedding to the commander warms her heart. She quickly had three children, the boys, Miguel and Matteo and a girl she named Beatris in honor of her mother. She took care to have them all baptized immediately with as much ceremony and singing as possible, to claim them for the powerful Christian God. The youngest, Beatris, was eight before the stonemasons and workmen finished repairing the hacienda. Salome said proudly that the commander insisted the peasants’ houses, the terraces for the fields, and the roads be repaired before his own home. She praised him as a just man, devoted to his duty to the people and the Sapa Inca, fearless, and good to her and their children. He sought her advice as an equal as well as her intercession with the Christian God. The commander’s daughters passed through the novitiate and took their vows two years later, the first native nuns. The commander and Salome attended their service of profession, and she had the satisfaction of hearing Mother Maria Manuela tell her privately that she had been wise to follow her heart.

Salome followed the example of the commander’s first wife, taking food and blankets woven by the servants, often helping in the school, the infirmary, and the orphanage that had been filled after the earthquake. While orphaned boys were taken to be raised as soldiers, it quickly became established that orphaned girls should be brought to the nuns. From time to time the priests left beautiful girl children at their gates when they wished to supplicate the gods. In due course these little girls became nuns just as the orphans in Spain did. There was no other option for girls who would have been sacrificial victims—once selected, they could no longer remain among ordinary people.

Then Salome drew her story to a close, describing the night that changed their lives forever. A runner had come with an urgent summons for the commander and his soldiers to hurry to the capital. Men with carapaces of metal and strange beasts that breathed fire had flown over the sea with great wings, and there had been signs and omens in the sky to warn of the strangers who had brutalized and slaughtered many of the people en route to the capital. The messenger said the leader was Francisco Pizarro and she was afraid. It was a Spanish name.

Revulsion was plain on Salome’s face as she described the events that had happened as if she had become more Inca than Spaniard. The Sapa Inca, Atahualpa—a ruler so powerful the people did not dare look at him directly—was captured by trickery and executed, garrotted—a “mercy,” since at the last hour he recanted his faith and accepted baptism. Otherwise he would have died at the stake. His death had sown terror among the Inca. They believed that now the sun would withdraw, the world would grow dark and cold, and all would perish. When the sun continued to rise every day, resistance to the fearsome invaders crumbled. The harvest was plentiful, a sign that the gods favored these ruthless invaders.

The Spanish claimed this Kingdom of the Four Corners of the Earth for Spain, sacking and killing and looting all the while. The nuns sent messengers to the nearby house of the virgins of the sun to offer them the protection of a Christian convent. But the messengers found the virgins gone, carried off like prizes, the great blocks of stone still tumbled about by the earthquake. A bishop sent slaves to rebuild it for use as a Christian convent, and the Holy Sisters of Jesus, being terribly crowded in their old house, seized the opportunity and swiftly moved themselves and the children into the rebuilt part.

Salome was sickened by the Spanish and frightened for her husband. She persuaded him to accept baptism for the sake of the region, and the Spanish conquerors thought it advantageous to appoint a member of the Inca royal family and a Christian convert acting governor of the region. It was in the course of his duties as governor that he died last year in a distant province. Salome clings to the part of her life that is Inca and has little to do with the Spanish colonists.

It seemed that Salome had welcomed the opportunity to tell her story, but at the end of three weeks I could see that she becomes tired easily and we thought it best to go. In fact, she seemed almost eager for us to go, and something she let slip made me think her anxiety for us to leave was connected to her expectation of Don Miguel’s return. I tried to put the disappointment of not seeing Don Miguel out of my mind.

From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Esperanza, the Mission Convent of Las Golondrinas de Los Andes, March 1554

When we returned to the convent we learned that Pia is calmer but will not leave her cell, even when the beatas open her door and try to coax her out. She does not sleep for the battles waged by angels and demons for her soul. She is so thin her skin is translucent. It makes Sanchia and me cry to see her.

I have delayed writing to the Abbess and Sor Beatriz. It is impossible to know if letters reach their destinations, or whether letters from me will pose a danger to the convent, or whether they will be able to write back. I long to know if Luz is safe. I have her handkerchief still.

But to business…Mother called me to her parlor to discuss my future. After our visit to Marisol there were more inquiries about Sanchia, Pia, and me, especially Pia, with a view to marriage negotiations. Pia was in no state to marry anyone and I was reluctant for the three of us to be separated, so I managed to avoid the issue.

However, when we returned from our visit to Salome, Mother said someone has particularly inquired about me. I experienced a moment of foolish hope that it might be Don Miguel but Mother
said, “Don Hector Santiago. He is sixty and has never married, so you would not have to manage stepchildren. He is a distant cousin of the Beltrans. He was very particular about selecting a wife—so long as she is Spanish he is prepared to consider one with no dowry, provided she is plain, devout, modest, submissive, quiet, not given to fine dressing, and likely to breed. Preferably a simple girl not educated beyond reading her prayer book.”

I tried to match the name to one of the haughty landowners. When I did my heart sank. “Oh. I remember him, Mother—a little pinch-faced, sharp-nosed bantam of a man who thinks highly of himself, with dreadful breath, as if his teeth were rotting.”

“He is very rich—the family own many silver mines,” said Mother severely. This news makes him even less appealing. Don Miguel told me how natives are worked to death as slaves in the mines.

“His grandfather was one of Pizarro’s generals. Naturally the family will consider your background before a formal offer is made, but I trust they will find no obstacle?”

Worse and worse, I thought.

I had already told Mother as little as I could about my family, saying only that my mother had died when I was born and that my father had been a scholar. But now I protested vigorously that I did not fit Don Hector’s requirements as I had been rigorously educated at home.

Mother made a dismissive motion with her hand as if to say, “Let us ignore that.” She is anxious to have our futures secured, and I feel sure she will set this information in the best possible light when she replies to Don Hector. She told me to think Don Hector’s proposal over seriously. The idea made me shudder, though it would enable me to keep another promise—to give Sanchia a home before she gets into serious trouble.

Sanchia grows more and more restless in a way that alarms me. She slips out of the convent from time to time to join troupes of traveling players and musicians and dancers who entertain on platforms in the public squares and the new theaters. This is dangerous behavior. There are too many men, too many adventurers and drunkards, who think all women and girls are theirs for the taking. Especially the dancing girls that she befriends. She insists that the performances are religious in nature, morality plays to educate and Christianize the natives, but they draw unruly crowds all the same.