– XXXIII –

In which a verdugo raises welts and Guada writes a letter

Shiro was not prepared to face some of those who would come for the funeral, and he was concerned that Julian might be among them. He decided to leave. Rosario offered him the palace in Medina-Sidonia and he accepted.

On his last night in Sanlúcar, he heard sounds of flagellation coming from Rosario’s chamber. Pushing past a maid guarding her mistress’s door, he knocked and then entered. Rosario was naked from the waist up and whipping herself with a stay, a verdugo she’d removed from her hoopskirt. Her back was a crisscross of welts. Tears streamed down her cheeks and breasts. He bade her to cease, but she ignored him until he came up to her and grabbed as best he could the wrist of the hand holding the verdugo. She stared at his hand and renewed her sobs. He gave her a cloak with which to cover herself and held her during that night until the sobbing stopped and she fell asleep. He was gone the following morning.

Guada, Doña Inmaculada, and Soledad Medina attended the funeral. At Guada’s insistence, Julian did not. When the burial concluded, Rosario told Guada that Shiro had been there only days before. Guada walked out alone on the terrace overlooking the estuary. She sat on a stone bench and wrote to the Samurai. Doña Soledad, who had wandered up to the master bedroom, looked down at her niece from the window and contemplated the girl’s youth and the clean beach beyond still there even though the Duke was gone. He had taken her into the bed behind her, the bed he had died in. They had lain there together still young and content, at least for a while, when the thought of a day like this had been the furthest thing from their minds.