14

It would be six days till they reached the Rio Hondo, a calm jungle river dividing Yucatán from Belize and Guatemala and which would put them within miles of Eric’s plantation. They swung south before reaching Tekax or Peto and took a wide detour around Chan Santa Cruz, the holy city where the Talking Cross gave orders through the tatich.

“He’s a mestizo, Bonifacio Novelo,” explained Eric. “And though Yucatán is constantly protesting, the British have little choice but to treat the Cruzob as a de facto nation. Besides, what are these squabbles and wranglings to us? We don’t care whether those with wood to sell or money to buy our guns are ladinos, mestizos, Indians, or Creoles.”

“They aren’t English,” summed up Mercy caustically.

“How well you put it,” said Eric. “But whatever your opinion of British condescension, the population of Belize is tremendously varied and free-shifting, with color no barrier to marriage and position. Whites are only a small fraction, far outnumbered by Negroes, mulattos, and Carib Indians who revolted against their French masters and fled here, close to five hundred Amoy coolies who were brought here last June to work in lumbering, some sepoys deported from India after their rebellion failed, and even some Confederates like your late husband.

“Then there are perhaps ten thousand refugees from the War of the Castes, some ladinos, some Cruzob, with every range in between. Most of them live in the Corozal region, which has been raided frequently during the last few years by Cruzob and Icaiche Mayas. The Icaiches are supposed to help fight the Cruzob, but they’d rather plunder across the Hondo.”

He went on to tell her that just before Christmas some men of the Fourth West Indian Regiment were sent to repulse Marcos Canul, the Icaiche batab, but instead were defeated and chased all the way to the city of Belize. During January, the Icaiches continued their invasion, demanding rent for the disputed border and Belize itself. The governor of the crown colony kept his barge ready to sail and panic was widespread. A militia was organized to aid the West Indian detachment and they set out with “rocket tubes” to subdue Mayan villages that had supported the invasion.

The zooming of these fiery missiles into easily kindled thatched villages quickly restored order, but the Icaiches were still on the roam.

“And as soon as the militia is withdrawn, the Icaiches will be back,” Eric growled. “Belize protests to Campeche, since Canul, as a batab, is actually considered a local official of the Campeche part of Yucatán. Campeche, which can’t do anything about Canul and his Icaiches, promises to try while complaining that Belize isn’t English but really belongs to Yucatán, and that people who sell guns to rebels shouldn’t howl when the guns are turned on them.”

“I can’t see how they’d feel that way,” said Mercy dryly.

The pack trail they’d come down had grown steadily worse, often little more than a tunnel through dense jungle and swamp along which the horses had to be led. Either the journey left Eric with little inclination to dalliance, or he’d been alarmed by Mercy’s near-prostration the day they started out, for, while he’d treated her as well as the grueling traveling allowed, he had not even kissed or fondled her since that morning assault in the hut.

She was almost beginning to hope that he’d decided he didn’t want her when, during a noon stop, he cocked his head at her. A week’s stubble made him look more than ever like a wild Norseman, but his white shirt was clean and his supply of linen handkerchiefs seemed inexhaustible.

“I don’t want you to think, sweet Mercy, that you no longer attract me. Nor must you think that the way I took you first is my accustomed mode with ladies. I thought it wise to teach you an initial lesson through your body, which, if learned solidly, needn’t be repeated. When we reach the House of Quetzels, I want to show you that I can be as tender and sensitive a lover as you could ever wish for.”

“A tender, sensitive man wouldn’t treat me as you have.”

His eyes glinted. “Well, Mercy, mia, you may have me however you choose, but you’ll have me.” He rose and lifted her to her feet with that effortless strength before which she was helpless.

On the sixth day they passed through desolated Bacalar, unmolested by the small Cruzob garrison kept there to protect the Rio Hondo trade route.

At the Hondo, a boat manned by eight blacks waited at a small wharf beside several thatched open shelters and warehouses. Thomas and their previous escort took the horses and packs overland while Eric handed Mercy into the pitpan.

“These are what the Indians were using when the Spaniards came,” he said. “The design can’t be improved on, but mine is a bit more luxurious than most.”

Mercy nearly smiled at that. Forty feet long, tapering from about six feet at the center to narrow ends, the pitpan was hollowed out from a mahogany trunk. Handsomely carved posts supported a wooden roof above cushioned seats, and there were curtains to protect passengers from sun and storm. Two of the blacks steered from behind with rudder-like motions of their oars, while the others sat two on a seat and plied paddles, as long as they were tall, beginning a rhythmic chant as they set the boat in motion.

Forest on either side; sun glinting off the water; the voices of the boatmen. Reminded of Cleopatra’s barge, Mercy could have enjoyed the excursion if she hadn’t been compelled to it and didn’t dread the end. Eric seemed content to relax and look from her to the sparkling water, radiating a kind of satisfied peace.

He was the buccaneer sailing home with his loot. Mercy avoided his quietly triumphant eyes and stared at the water, glimmering like broken fluid shards of mirror, until, almost mesmerized, she fell asleep.

She awoke while being picked up lightly. Eric sprang with her from the pitpan to a dock at which other boats and barges were tied up. Striding along the planks that shook under his weight, Eric held her high against his chest and kissed her on the mouth.

“Soon,” he said, “soon, my love. There’ve been many women at my house, but none like you.”

His mouth was hard, insatiable. Mercy tried to slip down. “I can walk.”

He chuckled. “But I wish to carry you. See? There’s my House of Quetzals for my quetzal woman.”

“I’m no quetzal woman!”

“But you are, for the quetzal is precious and rare.”

“And caged?”

“You’ll see.”

The house before them was built of beautiful woods, cedar, mahogany, and some she didn’t know, making a spectrum from ivory to near-black, with rich shades of red and dark brown predominating. Stone was used for the foundation and trim. It was a sprawling two-storied structure of many verandas, guarded by giant palms and other majestic trees.

Like a conqueror with booty, Eric raced up the steps with her through the doorway, where there stood a tall black in a spotless white jacket with a blood-red sash. They went through a passage, with doors opening on either side, and out into a court formed by the L of the house and thick plantings of bamboo and palm.

Here, among trees, vines, rioting bougainvillaea, poincianas, hibiscus, and poinsettias, hung a number of cages. Each held what could only be a quetzal, with iridescent tail feathers gleaming, the brilliance of green and crimson unbelievable.

Though the ornate brass cages were large, the birds wouldn’t fly. All perched so morosely that Mercy asked falteringly, “Are they alive?”

“Of course.” Eric put her down at last, but he kept his big arm around her. “These are all male. Females aren’t showy.”

“But they live in cloud forests!”

“These don’t.”

“Isn’t the climate bad for them? They don’t look very happy.”

He regarded her with amused scorn. “Happy? Birds? My dear girl, you’re wildly sentimental! Birds don’t have feelings. What they do possess is instinct, their nature.”

“It’s the nature of a bird to fly.”

Mercy’s voice shook. He stared at her in true astonishment. “You’re crying over them! Why? They have the best food and are safe from predators. Can’t you just think of them as living jewels?”

“I hate this garden!”

His jaw set. “Do you? Well, then, it’s time you saw your chamber.”

“My cage?”

“You could consider it your frame, your setting. I created it for you.”

“For yourself, you mean,” she corrected bitterly.

“By God,” he said slowly, drawing her inside, “do you need another lesson? Shall I rape you in the hall so the servants can watch?”

She didn’t answer. He gave her a slight shake. “Well?”

There was nothing to do but say, “I’d like to see the room.”

He picked her up again. Laughing exultantly against her hair, he ran with her up the curving staircase. Mercy closed her eyes.

It was a large, airy room with a balcony overhanging a view of the river and with windows with shutters that were open to let glossy leaves and fronds form a second sun-spangled curtain outside. The floor was covered with woven grass matting with Persian rugs scattered about, and the walls were of polished, fragrant wood. There were several gracefully curving bamboo chairs padded with turquoise velvet, an inlaid rosewood chest, a writing desk, and an immense bed of intricate brass filigree wrought into birds and leaves. It was mounded with pillows and spread with an iridescent green satin.

A door stood open to a small mirrored room with shelves and rods, obviously intended for clothes, and an arch revealed an alcove with a shell-shaped brass tub and an assortment of ewers, towels, and soaps.

“If there’s anything you wish changed, tell me,” Eric urged, clearly pleased with his handiwork. “The bellpull will bring your maid, Celeste. She’ll unpack for you and help you bathe.” His gaze traveled to the huge bed. “Rest a while before dinner. I don’t want you tired tonight.” He brushed a light kiss on her cheek and left quickly, sounding the bell as he went.

Mercy stood in the center of the rustically luxurious room. He had gone to great trouble to make ready her … frame? Setting? She was caged just as surely as those birds in the court, far from their high cloud forests, unable to fly. But she could plan. Sooner or later, there had to be a way.

There was a shy rap. “Come in,” Mercy said. She wasn’t going to take out her frustration and anger on the servants.

A girl with warmly perfect café-au-lait skin and upswept black hair stepped in and curtsied, her bangles and earrings tinkling. “I am Celeste, madame. You require a bath?” She spoke English with an upper-class accent. The effect was charming.

“I’d love a bath, Celeste.” The girl was so graceful and sunny that Mercy smiled in spite of her weariness and fears. Celeste smiled back.

“The water is being brought, madame. May I assist you in disrobing?”

“Thank you, I can manage.”

Celeste’s face clouded. “I have not displeased madame?”

“Of course not!” How could she explain that she didn’t much like being waited on and shrank from being naked in front of most people? It was different with Zane. “It’s just that I’m accustomed to looking after myself.”

“I can, perhaps, brush your hair?”

Celeste seemed so perturbed at not fulfilling what she expected of herself that Mercy sat down and was soon lost in the sensuous pleasure of having her hair brushed free of tangles and dust. Six boys of about Salvador’s age came in with pails, which they emptied into the tub, their eyes gleaming with suppressed mischief as they stole sideways glances at Mercy. They wore white cotton trousers reaching just below the knees and red sashes, but their bared upper bodies shone cocoa, copper, yellow, and shades in between.

They exited to return in five minutes with refilled buckets, three of which Celeste commanded to be left on the bench by the tub.

“It might be useful if I scrubbed your back?” persisted Celeste.

Mercy sighed, beginning to unbutton her dress. “Would you wash my comb and brush? And it would be a great help if you poured water over my hair after I wash it.”

“Excellent, madame!” Celeste vanished with the brush and comb and there were sounds of unpacking, but she was back in plenty of time to rinse the lather from Mercy’s hair and help her towel off, massaging Mercy’s scalp till it tingled.

In her dressing gown, Mercy walked barefoot across the grass matting and carpets to the bed, grateful to see that Thomas had brought her books, including the Badianus excerpts, which lay on the chest. Someone had placed a tray of freshly cut fruit on the small lamp table, along with a large crystal goblet of pineapple juice.

Persephone, Mercy thought with a superstitious chill. She ate the fruit of Hades and could never again live the whole year through in the bright world of her mother. But there was no mother to look for Mercy, or father, either, and Zane might not even know for months that she was gone from La Quinta.

Thanking Celeste, who stood waiting, as if to be given further orders, Mercy went to stand on the balcony facing the river and slowly sipped the sweet, delicious liquid.

Going back to the great bed, she simply could not get into it, tempted as she was by down pillows and snowy linens. She took one pillow and lay down with it on the floor.

She awoke to feel someone watching her. She raised her eyes to Eric, who stood looking down from what seemed a giant’s height. He motioned to a servant, who put a tray on the table by the chairs, set two places, and went smoothly, silently, out.

“Is the mattress too hard for you, my love?” Eric’s tone was courteously interested. “Too soft?”

“I don’t know.”

His eyebrows lifted. He was clean-shaven, smelled of bay rum, and wore a soft white shirt and white trousers. “Don’t know? Haven’t you tried it?”

What had he done to her during those hours in the hut near La Quinta that, even after the intervening ten days of considerate restraint, made her shrink inwardly, evade his real question? “I … just felt like lying on the floor.”

He laughed unpleasantly. “No doubt—because you knew that bed is where you’ll lie with me. If necessary to rid you of that misgiving, my sweet, I’ll take you on the floor and, indeed, all over the house so there’ll be no place without memories of me. Stand up.”

She did, but she instinctively took a step backward. Eric’s eyes dilated. He gave the impression of moving, though he stood perfectly still before he suddenly turned to the tray and lifted a silver tureen cover.

“Ah! Turtle soup. You’ll find it superb. And here’s broiled lobster. We have two men whose sole duty it is to alternate in bringing seafood daily from the coast, and fishing’s good in the river, too. Pierre, the cook, learned his skills in Paris. I think you’ll find him able to conjure up even Texas dishes you might have a nostalgic feeling for.”

That seemed possible if she were to ask for the Louisiana Creole and Cajun dishes that were common in eastern Texas, but she wondered what he’d do with corn fritters and poke greens. Eric ladled soup into porcelain bowls broadly banded with gold and seated Mercy in the fan-backed bamboo chair.

Pouring a pale, sparkling wine, Eric shook out his cut-work napkin and broke open a small crusty roll with the inimitable odor of having been fresh-baked.

“Is the soup to your taste?”

She was, in fact, hungry, but his cool assumption that she’d so readily be on almost honeymoon terms with him outraged Mercy. She would not be cosseted and beguiled by luxuries or masterfully cajoled into enjoying this life.

“I have no appetite,” she said.

“Have you not?” Their eyes locked. “You’d better find it, Mercy, mia. You’ll need stamina tonight, I expect to make up for what I denied myself on the trail from esthetic considerations and sympathy for you.”

“Sympathy!”

He nodded. “I’m trying to exercise patience with you. Rape has its charms, but it grows repetitive. Love’s sweeter variations and delights require a willing partner.”

She stared at him, wordless, gripped with disbelieving hatred. Could he think she’d ever do more than he forced her to, ever want to pleasure or be pleased by him? He sighed and laid his hand on her throat. It was like being claimed by a great tawny cat.

“‘Willing’ may be too sanguine a description for the moment, but I shall at least have compliance, and that without dark looks and sulking. Eat now; it’ll make you feel better.”

“I told you …”

“There’s an alternative,” he cut in. “I wouldn’t dream of exhausting a dinnerless lady with the diversions I have in mind, but I can derive considerable satisfaction from alternate amusements.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.”

“Are you?” he smiled. “But, of course, I expect you to share the rather special entertainment.” He considered. “When girls are whipped in the courtyard, sometimes the quetzals scream along with them. But sometimes I prefer to watch just one at rather close quarters. The writhing and play of muscle is more intimate that way. Have you a preference?”

“You … whip women for no reason?”

“My amusement is the best of reasons. Don’t look so appalled, my dear. I don’t whip the girls. It’s done by an expert who won’t break the skin.”

“I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised if you slept with the women under your power,” said Mercy between clenched teeth. “But to use them this way! It’s horrible! Disgusting!”

“Oh, I enjoy them when I feel like it All the house servants, male and female, are the handsomest to be found. They don’t think me such a monster as you do. They’re not overworked, they live well, and whether I whip a girl or rape her, she gets her pick of baubles at the store.” While Mercy tried to fit this into her understanding of this man who was presently all-powerful in her life, he went on thoughtfully. “I could call in one of those boys who fetched your bathwater. There’re two of them, I think, whom I haven’t sampled yet.”

“B-boys?”

“You don’t know about one of the most ancient and celebrated kinds of love?” he asked mockingly. “I could have sworn that Philip had predilections that way.”

With the humiliated shame of new half-comprehension, Mercy remembered that night when Philip had been so drunk and the degradingly inexplicable and painful way he’d used her. Now Eric was saying that, of course, males could be used like that, too.

“So?” inquired Eric. “Fond memories recast in a different light, or perhaps they weren’t so fond? Don’t judge the departed too harshly, sweet. Perhaps like myself and any number of potent men, he found it an interesting side dish, but in the main preferred fairly basic delights.”

There was nothing to say. Like Zane, he controlled the daily lives and fates of humans on his estate, but where Zane had governed himself and used his conscience in the treatment of his workers, Eric had no law higher than his whim.

“So what shall we have?” he asked, as if consulting a menu. “A whipping here or in the courtyard? One of the boys? Sometimes they screech the first time, but, like women, they soon get used to it.”

“I think I’d rather die than live with you forever.”

He chuckled. “Enchanted with you as I am, Mercy, I doubt I’ll want you that long, since Zane’s already had you. In two or three years I might see just what he’d give for you, though I’ve a feeling he’ll be sticky about my leavings. If he was serious about marriage, I fear that’s one dream you’ll have to give up.”

“I don’t see how I could go to him or any other decent man after what you seem to have in mind. I hate to think what I’ll be like after two years with you!”

“So little confidence in yourself,” he mused. “Well, love, don’t let it fret you. There’ll always be a pensioner’s corner for you here, or I could surely find you an English husband in Belize City, one who wouldn’t know your amazing background. But why talk of the future?” He got to his feet in the graceful, easy fashion that always surprised her because he was so large. “I’ll ring the bell and by the time Celeste comes, you must decide about the evening.”

She caught his arm. “I’ll do what you want.”

“Good girl.” He gave her cheek an approving caress, sat down, and began to eat with a voracity that was frightening.

Mercy concentrated on her own food and wished the meal would never end.

After one of the innumerable servants had removed the dishes and left more wine and fruit on the table, Eric untied the sash of Mercy’s dressing gown and eased it off her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. He watched her for a moment, his breath quickening and his eyes seeming to film, before he carried her to the bed.

He took her quickly, as if he couldn’t wait, so swollen and hard that she bit her lips to keep from screaming till his fluid pumped into her and he rolled off and lay beside her with one arm flung across her body.

Tears stung at Mercy’s eyes. To mind the physical pain seemed ignoble under the circumstances, but she wondered how long she could endure simply that part of her captivity.

“I still hurt?” he asked gently, his fingers rubbing away the few tears that had squeezed out in spite of her pride. “Never mind, love. You’ll fit me better every time, and I can do some nice things for you that will feel wonderful.”

He began to stroke her. She went rigid. “I … you needn’t bother!”

“But I want to.”

Rising, he came back with water and cloths, cleansed her aching, plundered parts, and then rubbed scented oil on her from neck to toe, working it in with firm, sure strokes that gradually eased away her resistance and made her relax to a surprising extent. He turned her over, then oiled her back and artfully kneaded her shoulders, buttocks, and thighs. It felt so good that the only way she could accept it was to remind herself that she was helpless against his fancies and had better get any help from them that she could.

Everything seemed to be melting into the warm, flowing caress of powerful hands that turned her over again and began to smooth her breasts, brushing the nipples, traversing with strong, solid motions her vulnerable-feeling stomach and loins till even that unprotected area stopped tensing.

Maybe that’s all he’s going to do, she thought drowsily. Languor deepened with each soothing stroke. Then something damp and sensitive was following the hand as his tongue played around her navel, teased her nipples, and urgently but salvingly invaded the place he had breached so roughly.

Mostly his tongue flicked where she wasn’t sore, playing over a small, exquisitely tender place that Zane had found, too, but which had been a fusing, indistinguishable part of the rapture to which he could bring her.

With Eric it was different—she had no wish for him—but the arousal demanded discharge, with the tension mounting unbearably till she flexed her thighs, trembling, as his tongue probed the wounded but now desirous entrance to her depths.

Flames of pink and gold exploded within her. Eric seemed to drink, suck from her some essence. She cried out irrepressibly as the tautness drained, leaving her soft, spent.

“Sleep now, my love,” he said, and he held her in his arms.

She awoke caressed in the dim light of early morning. Almost before she remembered where she was and with whom, Eric finished preparing her and slowly, carefully, penetrated, stopping when she tightened, thrusting a fraction deeper when she relaxed.

“I’m within you,” he said at last, “to the hilt, sweet Mercy. Shall we see if you can like this just a little?”

He kept up a soft rhythm for a while, but she was determined not to respond, horrified and angry at herself for his easy victory last night. As if he read her thoughts, he gripped her flanks, raised her to fit him as tightly as his size would allow, and hammered till that instant when substance spurted from him in pulsing jets that she felt like a muffled heartbeat in her loins.

“You’re tougher than you think,” he told her, panting as he collapsed beside her. “You won’t break from my usage, and in time you’ll rise to meet me and thrust back, wanting to feel me as deep as you can.”

She didn’t answer. How was she to fight him when the price was the torture of others? And if she had to be quiescent under his hands, how could she prevent her body from responding to his skillful, questing tongue?

There was no way, probably, though she doubted his prediction that she’d ever respond to his practice of the normal mode. With one careless arm; he lifted her on top of him and held the back of her head so that, resting on the pillows, he could see her face.

“Moral quandary?” He laughed, stroking her breasts and thighs. “How are you going to reconcile what your body does with your top-lofty ideals and love for your errant cavalier?”

Despairingly, she wondered what Elkanah, who understood human souls but ministered to bodies, would have said. He would never have told her to hate or despise the wonderfully made and vulnerable body for responding as it was intended and designed to in order to continue the race. If she’d been given a choice, it would be different, but she’d had none.

“Loving Zane has nothing to do with what you can make me feel,” she said. “I won’t blame myself for that any more than I will for eating and drinking.”

“Fortunate Mercy!” he chided, frowning humorously. “To enjoy the pleasures of sin while wearing a martyr’s crown! Possibly I shouldn’t have used that leverage but instead held you with force till you opened in sheer, hungry wanting.”

“That wouldn’t have happened as long as I could fight,” she said blightingly.

He shrugged. “There are potions. And sleep is perhaps the best drug of all, for then prohibitions of mind and conscience sink under the ocean of primeval needs. You couldn’t stay awake all the time. I could have you well on the way to flowering ecstasy, my dear, before your brain could warn you it was no dream of Falconer, but me in the questing, joy-giving flesh.”

“You have what you went to so much trouble to get in disregard of what I felt or thought or wanted,” she said stiffly. “I don’t see why you should consider it now.”

“But it’s what you think and feel and want that make you my quetzal woman, my rare, precious one.” He spoke in a lightly bantering tone, but she believed him. “I’m not a fool, Mercy. There are a dozen women at this hacienda as beautiful as you. They bloom like flowers, fragrant, exotic, ready for my hand. In spite of my rather frightening reputation, any number of society mothers in London or New York, not to mention Mérida or Mexico City, would give their daughters to me because of my wealth, though the girls, I think, wouldn’t come for that alone. But none of them has had for me that strange lure that Falconer must have sensed, too. There’s a strength about you like the flashing of a blade, a core of being. At that core, you are kind. Truly, Mercy.”

She stared at him, frightened for the first time that she might be stripped of her loathing for him. “You’re wrong,” she said. “If I ever have the chance, I won’t be kind to you, and I will show you no mercy at all.”

“That’s the flashing blade,” he mocked, though the pupils of his eyes contracted to a point. “But you could never wield it except to save someone else.”

“You’ll see!”

It flashed into her mind for the first time that she might find a way to kill him. He was right. Sleep did disarm. Even a giant lay helpless. At this moment, there was a knife beside the fruit.

He picked it up and cut for her a section of pineapple. “In case you should determine not only to harden your heart against me in case of my misfortune, but to do away with one you can quite justifiably consider wicked, I have entrusted Thomas with an order. He will carry it out if he lives because he loves me.” Eric raised himself on the pillows and regarded her with tolerant good humor. “Are you curious?”

“I had thought of cutting your throat, so perhaps you’d better tell me.”

He laughed in delight. “You are indeed my rare one! What became of the quetzal I bribed one of the maids to leave in your room at Christmas?”

“I dropped it in a chest.”

“But the giver’s not so easy to dispose of, eh?” He grinned. “I’ve instructed Thomas, in event of my death at your hands or in any suspicious way hinting at your involvement, to kill Falconer if possible, or his daughter.”

Mercy drew away from him. He only chuckled. “I reckon that I’ve thought of everything, Mercy, mia. There’s no way to thwart me without bringing destruction to others. If you’d quit beating your wings against the cage, you could enjoy the mansion.”

With a stifled gasp, she turned away from him.

“Why don’t you sleep as late as you can?” He shrugged mildly. “Come down for breakfast when you’re ready. I’ve an accumulation of business, but I’ll acquaint you with the house today and we might even go riding.”

She pretended to sleep while he dressed. She sensed him standing over her, and she fought to keep her breathing regular. His hand trailed over her from throat to flank, as if affirming possession before he covered her and left.

But Mercy couldn’t sleep. Light spilled through the shutters now and she abhorred the comfort of the huge bed in which Eric had not only taken her, but had exacted blind tribute from her body. She almost wished he’d remained the brutal attacker of that first night, a man she could hate physically, detest as a complete ruffian.

Eric, though, was subtle, highly intelligent, and complex. She felt transparent with him. Just as he was intrigued by something other than her body, she had to contend with much more than his. Since he was ruthless and she wasn’t, he could control her. All through his subjection of her, he’d never threatened her with death or whipping, though his rapes had been calculated to break her resistance and implant fear.

A formidable adversary.

But she was Elkanah’s daughter, and she had been Zane’s love. As long as Zane lived, there was a fragile hope they might be reunited. After losing her old life and identity, she’d been able to make a place for herself at La Quinta.

Just as she held out against Zane’s early wish to seclude her in the tower, she must keep inviolate here her own center, her own fifth direction, which was another way, probably, of naming that essence Eric craved. Instead of putting her inside a tower, he wished to storm and carry the citadel within her. It would take all her courage, endurance, and inventiveness to withstand him.

But it was at least a challenge, better than the bleak, trapped hopelessness she’d known with Philip. Mercy tossed off the light coverlet and sprang up, ignoring her aches. She opened the shutters and looked northeast, across the Hondo and Cruzob territory toward La Quinta.

What were they saying about her there? Chepa would be puzzled and sad; Jolie must feel betrayed. But at least she had Salvador and Chepa till Zane came home again. Mercy couldn’t bear to imagine what he’d think when he read her letter.

Mutely, she prayed he was well, and Jolie, too, and all at La Quinta. She hoped that somehow she might be able to see them again. And then she turned from the river and began to check exactly which of her belongings Thomas had brought, much as a shipwrecked person would inventory tools for survival.

Her clothing was in the small room, and, though that wasn’t of vital importance, it helped to remember how Zane had insisted she get the gray-blue satin, and that Jolie had a dress of the same blue challis and slept at night with a stuffed coati of that material. Here was the black coral necklace, the sacred virgin water, and, defiantly, she wore the ring Zane had given her.

Besides the Badianus copy, there were her father’s letters and the few books she’d kept of his. It was like finding lost treasure to open a box and find the herbs and medicines Chepa had given her along with what she had taken from Texas and what she’d collected at La Quinta.

Thomas had done well, and when she had a chance, she’d thank him, though it was ironic to be grateful to someone for breaking into her room and taking her effects.

The sight of the herbs reminded Mercy that Eric was virile, and as often as he seemed intent on having her, she might experience the common result. In one of Chepa’s jars were dried flowers of the dwarf poinciana. Mercy resolved, though with revulsion, that any time her flow was late, she’d immediately purge herself with the brew Chepa prescribed for women who had more children than they could care for.

Fortified by this, decision, the means to carry it out, and the presence of the objects she most prized, tangible links to her loved ones and skills, Mercy washed, cleansing herself thoroughly of Eric’s male odor, and dressed in the prim gray-blue poplin with white collar and cuffs.

She brushed her hair severely, pinned it in a coil, stood a moment behind her door summoning courage, and then entered the larger household, where for a time she must live.