– XXX –

In which a mother is lost and another gained

On the night she and Shiro were assaulted, Guada fled her house by way of the servant’s entrance and walked the streets alone until she reached the palacete of her parents. Both were in residence and appalled by the bruises about her face and the violent tale she related. Rodrigo, somewhat unconvincingly, for neither woman paid him much mind when he said it, promised to give Julian ‘a thorough thrashing he’ll never forget.’

But by the following morning their tone had cooled. Rodrigo left the house early to visit an estate, and Doña Inmaculada came to Guada’s bedroom when her daughter was taking breakfast.

‘How long do you plan on staying here?’ the mother asked.

‘For as long as I have to,’ said Guada. ‘Until we can get Julian to leave my house.’

‘It is his house.’

‘But you gave it to me.’

‘We gave it to the both of you, but it is, of course, registered in his name. It was part of your dowry and the least we could do in exchange for the lands that came to us from his family.’

‘What are you telling me, mother?’

‘That perhaps you should give him some time to calm down and apologize.’

Tears came into the girl’s bloodshot eyes.

‘He beat me and raped me. Apparently, he has killed a man in cold blood and had another brutally assaulted before my eyes. What are you saying?’

Guada began to cry. Inmaculada sat on the bed near her daughter but made no move to comfort her.

‘Do you remember the conversation we had, in Carmona, before you were married?’ Doña Inmaculada asked.

‘What of it?’

‘You asked me whether your father had been gentle with me, ever. And I explained to you how we came to no longer share a bed.’

Inmaculada paused for a moment, taking a fold of Guada’s coverlet between her ring and index fingers, recalling its provenance, from her own mother’s dowry.

‘There was a time when my life with your father sometimes resembled what you went through yesterday. Men are beasts, my dear. Look at what was done to our savior. Study the Stations of the Cross. And yet you and your brother were born and prospered. Your father and I still live under the same roof. We have learned, over time, to be civil with each other, even to appreciate each other.’

Guada dried her tears with a large linen napkin.

‘My father and Julian share the same whore.’

‘And what does that tell you?’ Inmaculada asked.

Guada looked away, feeling betrayed and alone, a stranger in her own home. She saw what they were up to. She looked back at Doña Inmaculada, swearing to herself that she would do all in her power to never acquiesce and end up like her mother. But all she said was ‘Very well mother.’

‘Very well what?’

‘I shall think on what you have said.’

After breakfast and her toilette, after examining her face in a mirror and reliving once again all that had befallen her, she sent a note to her aunt Soledad, who responded immediately. By early that afternoon, she had moved once again.

‘Your mother is a sufferer,’ Doña Soledad said. ‘I am not.’

They were seated together in the same light-filled chamber where the older woman had received the Duke.

‘I withstood a tempest,’ she added. ‘But not for long.’

‘What can I do?’ Guada asked.

‘Very little,’ her aunt replied. ‘That is to say, there are some fundamental things you cannot change. As women, we have scant recourse. The house is his. You cannot throw him out, though perhaps he will tire of Sevilla and leave of his own accord. I remained in mine and bolted my suites to my husband, and he continued to carry on in his own part of the house like a drunken fool until he died from it.’

‘I cannot go back there,’ Guada said. ‘I cannot be alone with him, anywhere, ever again, nor do I wish to set eyes upon him, ever again.’

‘Then you shall stay with me,’ Soledad said, taking her niece’s hand. ‘For as long as you wish. And when I die, this house shall be yours. And he will never be admitted here or to any of my properties that will all be yours someday, as well.’

Guada began to cry again, this time from gratitude, and she put her arms about her aunt, who in turn held the girl close and kissed the top of her head.

‘I hope you can pardon me for what I am about to say,’ her aunt went on, speaking gently but with a tremor of anger in her voice. ‘But it is my view that your parents are greedy, needlessly so because they are extremely wealthy. The estates that have been added to their ledgers thanks to your marriage mean, I fear, as much to them as your own happiness. I do not understand it. It is as if Inmaculada wishes you to have the life she has had.’

‘I won’t,’ Guada said.

Soledad looked at her intently, tears coming into her eyes, as well.

‘No, you won’t. I can see that. And, you know, despite their avarice, ours is the better family by many gradations, something those in power appreciate.’

‘For whatever good that does me,’ Guada said.

‘It means that over time, as word goes around, Julian’s star shall dim, more and more, and when you take a lover, the King shall approve.’

‘A lover.’

‘Alonso informed me you had a suitor, though I’m afraid he shall never do.’

‘A suitor?’

‘A young man from Japan, one who speaks Spanish and who, according to the Duke, saved his life.’

Guada lowered her head and smiled to think the Duke had said such a thing to her aunt, but then the smile turned into a look of distress.

‘What is it, Guada?’

‘The man you speak of is the one Julian had beaten so badly. They stabbed him and broke his hands and threw him into the street.’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps then it was jealousy on Julian’s part.’

‘No. Julian knows nothing, not that there was anything to know. Shiro—for that is how the foreigner is called—came to avenge the death of a friend he accused Julian of murdering.’

Soledad continued to hold her niece, listening to all she said, and as she listened, she gave silent thanks for her advanced years, for she remembered how painful it was to be young.