I WAS ALREADY waiting behind a pillar in the garden when Zarita and a man appeared in the doorway and stepped out onto the paving.
Their conversation was too low for me to hear. He seemed to be flattering her. I didn’t think her the type to respond to such an approach, but instead of seeing him off, her tone of voice suggested she was being most reasonable with him.
There was an arrogance to his stance that struck me as familiar. But perhaps all nobles had that way of holding themselves. Something stirred in my memory, something I didn’t want to acknowledge. His face was obscured, but then he moved and the light from the window fell upon it. Where had I seen him before?
I flitted closer. This man I knew.
And his name was in my head, just as I heard Zarita say, ‘Ramón.’
Ramón!
Ramón Salazar!
The man who had chased my father from the church in Las Conchas.
At that moment Ramón Salazar lifted his hand to touch Zarita on the head. And the manner in which he did this made me recognize something else.
Someone else.
She was the girl!
I put my knuckles to my mouth and bit hard upon them. It couldn’t be!
Was it her? Was Zarita the girl who had been with Ramón Salazar on the day of my father’s arrest? Was she the daughter of the magistrate? Almost eighteen months had passed. In that time I had changed beyond recognition. So might she. On that day the girl walking with Ramón Salazar had her face veiled. She’d been slight of build with beautiful long dark hair. Now Zarita’s figure was that of a woman, and her hair was almost completely covered.
I ran to find Rafael.
In the deepest recess of my spirit I knew that I didn’t need any verification. But I had to be absolutely certain. I waited while Rafael went to find out the answers to a series of questions I gave him. He came back in a state of high anxiety with the information.
‘Señor Saulo, I implore you, stay away from this woman. They say—’
‘Tell me what I sent you to find out!’ I shouted at him.
Rafael threw his hands up in the air. ‘The girl, Zarita, is from a small port in Andalucía called Las Conchas. She has recently adopted her mother’s family name, but before that she used her father’s, which is Don Vicente Alonso de Carbazón. He was the magistrate of the town until he died just before Christmas when his house caught fire.’
I gave a loud cry of anguish and fell onto my knees. I tore at my hair and beat my forehead on the floor. Rafael fled from the room. He had been right. This woman was dangerous – a courtesan of the most deceitful kind. She had caused me to forget my true purpose in being here at the court – which was not to ally myself with Christopher Columbus but to destroy the seed of the magistrate, Don Vicente Alonso de Carbazón. And not only had she made me forget, she herself was the very person on whom I sought to take my revenge! Now I believed utterly in witchcraft. She had placed an enchantment on me. She was a sorceress, a demon, a Circe who lured men to their deaths.
Needles of pain lanced behind my eyelids. Shock and disbelief became anger, and then outrage.
I knew what I had to do.
I would go back to her private courtyard and wait there until she had retired to bed. Then I would break into the apartment and kill her.
I would kill her tonight.