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Over the next week, gray clouds moved in and refused to leave, setting a dull ache in Cecília’s rib that she hadn’t felt so resolutely in years. She looked up as she stepped out of the carriage, vaguely wondering if God was passing judgment on all that had happened.
I’m sorry. She offered the weak apology, though it seemed laughably feeble against divine displeasure.
A soldier standing at the door of the imposing Junqueira Prison straightened, and Cecília silently held out the letter Senhor Carvalho had provided, allowing her entrance. She still had no idea what she actually intended to say once she was inside, but after the awfulness of the past few days, she couldn’t sit in her room and do nothing. What she could or couldn’t offer Luís, what he would or wouldn’t do... she supposed the specifics weren’t more important than at least going. The soldier read the page quickly then nodded as he swung the door open. Leaning inside, he called for some other guard to lead her deeper inside the claustrophobic stone building.
Cecília had to remind herself to breathe. The smell of sweat, blood, and human waste filled the air, caught inside the constricted hallways. She did her best to hide her grimace. If the smell wasn’t already overwhelming, the memories of the quake—being caught under stone, suffocated—would have been enough to send her running, at least in other circumstances. She suddenly couldn’t wait to be back inside the wooden palace, where the worst a quake could do would be to give her a bad splinter. Still, she was already there, even if it was only to salve her own conscience.
They started up a tight, curving staircase, and a piercing scream set every inch of Cecília’s body on edge. The guard leading her didn’t seem to so much as register the awful sound as he opened another door and led her into a dark hall lit by a single bar-covered window on the far end.
Without looking at Cecília, the guard stepped up to a door on the left and pulled a small flap away to look through a set of bars no bigger than Cecília’s hand. “This who you’re sent to see?”
Swallowing as well as she could without inhaling too much of the smell, she moved to the little opening and peered through. Her already frayed nerves sent panicked tingles through her fingers as she saw Luís sitting along the far wall. He didn’t bother to look away from his own little barred window as they peered through the peephole.
Cecília nodded quickly and stepped back to look at the guard properly. “I’d like to go in.”
He slid the flap back into place. “I can’t suggest you do that, senhorita.”
“The first minister sent me to speak with him.” She lifted her chin, doing her best to look commanding. “I don’t believe I can do that well through a door.”
The guard looked her over, seeming to size up the modest black dress she had chosen for the occasion, then went for the keys on his hip. “As you wish.”
The door opened with an unpleasant groan, and Cecília stepped through. The hinges creaked as the guard pushed it the other way, and a fresh wave of panic swept through her at the idea of being locked in, even for a moment. She fought it back as Luís finally looked away from his window.
His eyebrows furrowed. “Cecília?”
She looked through the open flap to see the guard standing sentry outside the door then took another step toward where Luís was sitting with his knees pulled to his chest. She attempted a smile. She couldn’t manage one. “Luís.”
He pushed himself up to standing. “What the Devil are you doing here? You haven’t been arres—”
“No,” Cecília said. Her eyes dropped over him quickly, and she attempted to hide her dismay at his appearance. The thin layer of dust that seemed to coat every surface of the prison had settled into his clothes, making his untucked white shirt look gritty and dun. It didn’t appear he had slept at all in the week he had been there, either, between the dark circles under his eyes and the gaunt look of his stubbled cheeks. She could hardly blame him. She likely wouldn’t have been able to close her eyes, let alone sleep in the place. Somehow, she rallied enough to turn up the corners of her mouth into something that could perhaps be mistaken for a smile. “I came to see you. My uncle got me permission.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” He took two steps toward her then stopped as if he didn’t know if he should close the rest of the distance.
She did instead, catching his hands. A chill traveled up her arms, and she registered how sharp the air in the room was for him to only be in a shirt and breeches.
There’s no glass in the window. Nearly Christmas, and he’s as good as sitting outside.
She rubbed his hands in between hers as if it would help against the damp winter weather. “I had to come. I’ve been so worried about...” She swallowed. “You need to get out of here, Luís.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “That isn’t up to me at the moment.”
“But you shouldn’t be here,” she insisted. “You didn’t have anything to do with this plot.”
“What plot?” Luís shook his head. “There never was any plot. This is all Carvalho—”
“They have evidence.” Cecília didn’t let him finish whatever he had to say about the first minister. If he started disparaging Senhor Carvalho, she wasn’t certain the first minster would keep any intent of clemency. “There’s the assassin’s testimony, the gun... The case is being put together now, but it sounds irrefutable. The death warrants are all but signed.”
Luís’s eyes shifted away from her, his jaw tightening.
“You didn’t know anything about it, did you?”
“Of course not.” He met her eyes again. “No, because there was no plot. Any idiot—”
“There’s testimony that the Vilhenas knew of it.” She held onto his hands more tightly as he tried to pull away. “That’s why you’re here. They arrested the entire household.”
“Whose testimony?”
Cecília debated how much truth to tell, not certain what would and wouldn’t help her case. She finally went with the truth. Or at least what had been accepted as the truth. “Graça’s. She overheard a conversation in their rooms one night when she was with Mateus.”
“Graça? She’s a reliable witness now?”
“You saw her with Mateus. You know she was there at least twice. She very well could have heard something.”
“But she didn’t.”
“How would you know?”
“Because unless she heard Mateus himself, no one else would be stupid enough to be caught saying something like that.” He jerked away from her and moved toward the far wall.
Cecília caught her hands in front of her and did her best not to wring them. Treading carefully, she continued, “Supposedly, it was someone talking to a Távora.”
“Then she has to be lying. People go to the Távora apartments. They don’t go to others.”
“You’ve never seen any of the Távora family with the Vilhenas?”
“No.”
“Not even when they helped get Mateus out of trouble two years ago? Or now that Isabel—”
“Why do you care about this so much?” He turned back to face her.
Because I can’t save anyone else. Because I can’t take this much death on my soul. “Because I care about you.” She moved toward him once again. “I don’t want to see you locked in here for the rest of your life. Or worse. This is treason, Luís. Do you want to lose your head over some misplaced loyalty to people you don’t even truly like?”
Luís went silent for a long moment, his eyes searching her face. “What are you saying I should do, Cecília?”
She swallowed but pushed forward. “If you testified about what you know—”
“I don’t know anything!”
“You know Graça was in those rooms. You could corroborate her—”
“You want me throw all of my friends into a noose to save my own neck?”
“If they’re guilty, yes.”
“They’re not!”
Cecília clenched her hands tighter to stop them from shaking. She had told Tio Aloisio that Luís wouldn’t testify. He was too loyal, and he wouldn’t lie to save his own neck. Unlike some people, her mind taunted her.
But if I can save someone, just one person... Maybe, just maybe, she would be able to live with herself. She took a shuddered breath. “The first minister said if you testify, he’ll see you’re rewarded. You could fully get your title. No more whispers about illegitimacy. We could marry...” Even in the building desperation, offering that made her trail off, the uncertainty mixing into everything else.
The way Luís was staring at her—some mix of confusion and disgust—didn’t help any. “The first minister.”
Cecília nodded, tensing to keep herself from squirming. “You know he has the ear of the k—”
“Are you...? Do you...? Do you report to him?”
“Everyone’s been questioned. I was called before the—”
“Cecília, do you report to Senhor Carvalho?” He enunciated each syllable as though fighting them through a locked jaw. She hesitated a beat too long, and the confusion evaporated, leaving nothing but disgust on Luís’s face. He turned away from her, moving to look out the window, his back to her. “You can go.”
“I’m trying to help you, Luís,” she said in a rush. “If you’ll just testify—”
“Leave!”
“Luís, please...” Her insides squirmed, a rush of heat pounding through her veins as though her body could already feel hellfire building under all of them. The last thing she could possibly attempt flew out of her mouth before she could stop it. “Please. I love you.”
Liar.
Luís’s shoulders tensed at the proclamation, but he didn’t turn around. “Pray for us, if you want to help, Cecília. Or pray for yourself.”
Us. The word sat heavily in her chest. He had picked his side as much as she had picked hers, and as resolute a man as he was, it would truly have taken a miracle to change that decision.
Misericorda. Misericorda de Deus. She sent up a short prayer for mercy, even if she was far past deserving it, then nodded. “I will. I’ll pray for you. For everyone.”
“Thank you,” he said, his voice tightly cordial.
Fighting off the new waves of nausea, Cecília turned back to the doorway and stepped through so the guard could lock the door behind her. She kept her head high and silently followed the man back down the tight staircase and out the front of the prison. She would pray for Luís, for Francisco, for all those arrested. She would even pray for Senhor Carvalho and Tio Aloisio. Whether it would help, though, she couldn’t say. She would likely have been on her knees until Judgment Day if she started praying for all of the souls who needed saving—and after all she had done, she wasn’t certain anyone in Heaven would ever listen to her.
***
THE TRIALS WERE OVER so quickly that Cecília had to wonder whether the defense had been allowed more than a day to prepare their cases. Blessedly, Senhor Carvalho hadn’t asked her to do anything else for him as sentences for the plotters fell into place. She kept silent. Quietly celebrating the Nativity, Holy Innocents’ Day, the Solemnity of Mary, and Epiphany, all as if nothing was wrong, was likely damning enough. She didn’t need anything more on her immortal soul.
Tio Aloisio watched her as the carriage rolled along to the field in Belém, where a new scaffold had been built just for the occasion. Blissfully, he didn’t attempt to strike up a conversation. There had been enough shouting when he had told her she had to attend. With no choice but to obey, she had dressed and gotten into the carriage that morning. There was no need to discuss it at that point. The less she had to think, the better.
He finally spoke as the carriage began to slow. “Try to smile.”
Cecília snapped her head toward him. “Smile?”
“These are traitors. They don’t deserve our sympathy.”
She looked away from him, keeping her thoughts to herself.
“Cecília.”
“I know why we’re here,” she shot at him. “I came. I’m not fighting it. What more do you want from me?”
“You can’t cry for him. Not here.”
The carriage rolled to a stop, and Cecília tossed the door open, not waiting for the driver. Compared to what some of the noble houses were facing, the Vilhenas were lucky—highly ranked enough to avoid a torturous death, yet not so important as to be made an example of. Most of the women had even been given a stay of execution, their sentences commuted to exile. That didn’t mean watching a blatantly innocent man hang—watching him hang with a smile—would be any easier.
Did you want to hang, Luís? Cecília asked for the millionth time. There were so many ways you could have escaped it. You were no one important...
To end up with a death sentence over even exile, he would have had to have been making a point. And Cecília could only guess it was directed at her. He held honesty so dear as to go to a noble death rather than live with such heavy sin on his soul.
Though it was barely past eight in the morning, the field was packed with more people than Cecília had seen since before the quake. Easily ten thousand men, women, and children stood around, waiting to see what would happen to the people who once would have been thought untouchable.
Skirting the masses, Tio Aloisio led Cecília to another set of risers and placed them low alongside the courtiers who had stayed on the right side of the fallout and who gathered there. Graça looked over from where she was standing by her parents and offered a quick smile. Cecília pointedly looked away.
A rise of voices went up through the crowd, and Cecília turned in time to see the first line of traitors being led forward under guard, the opening course for a bloodthirsty crowd. Theirs would be simple hangings, nothing like what would come. The thousands standing closer to the scaffolding began to jeer, some throwing rotting food and other things Cecília didn’t want to identify. She swallowed, every urge pushing her to shut her eyes. Already, she felt faint, and Luís wasn’t yet in sight. Tio Aloisio’s hand went to Cecília’s elbow as though he sensed she needed to be steadied, but she jerked away.
Almost mockingly quickly, the line of men turned to dangling corpses, the beam holding them aloft creaking under their weight. Another line came, then another—a mix of faces Cecília knew, didn’t, and had only perhaps seen wandering the halls of the Real Barraca once or twice. Their lives could easily have been exchanged with hers if only for a few changes in providence.
Finally, a mix of much-too-familiar faces appeared, with Luís toward the end. Cecília sucked in a sharp breath before she could stop it, tightly closing her eyes. A hard pinch to the fleshy part of her forearm made them open again. She glanced at her uncle, but his eyes remained fixed forward. Taking as steadying a breath as she could manage, Cecília forced herself to watch.
That’s the very least you can do. Watch. You put him there.
Though none of the men had been allowed to properly dress, lacking coats or anything to cover their heads, Luís still managed to look entirely dignified, his face set in a look of determination and his chin raised as if he couldn’t hear the shouting from the rabble. Compared to the trembling, pale men around him, he looked truly noble. Cecília curled her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms, attempting to use the pain to hold herself together. Charges were read as nooses went around necks, one by one. Even as the rope was tightened, Luís didn’t flinch. Cecília bit down her own whimper. Then the rope went taunt, and the world seemed to fall silent, nothing making it past the loud pounding in Cecília’s ears. Each twitch hit like a physical blow, knocking the air from her lungs. The world around her spun.
And then the roar came back. Cecília blinked, feeling Tio Aloisio’s hand back on her elbow, keeping her upright.
“Try to smile,” he murmured.
If she’d had the air, Cecília would have laughed in his face. The bodies were being taken down and added to a pile at the bottom of the scaffold, waiting to be burned once it all was over. Cecília only blinked, forcing her hands to relax, though she could feel a stickiness that said her nails had drawn blood. She didn’t bother to look, her eyes glazing over as she tried to forget the day even as it unfolded in front of her.
The rest of the deaths seemed to rush together, each stage growing more and more gruesome. The marchioness lost her head. Five were strangled at the stake. Two were strapped to a cruz de Santo André and broken alive. And then came Antonio Alvares Ferreira, the poor man who had the unholy honor of being the day’s finale. With the bloody and broken bodies uncovered around him, he was brought to the stake, tied there even as the executioners stacked bodies and kindling as though needing to taunt the sniveling, shaking man about his fate. They began to read his list of crimes, each dark and vile, enough to fully deserve the fate he’d been dealt—if any of them were true. The executioners finished stacking. The magistrate finished reading. And the lit torch appeared. A true hush fell over the crowd for the first time all day. Ten thousand people went quiet enough that Ferreira’s sobbing and broken calls for mercy and proclaiming his innocence carried across the field. The executor lifted the torch theatrically then lowered it to the kindling set under the dead bodies.
Cecília closed her eyes again, not receiving another pinch for it this time, and mumbled a prayer for Ferreira, for all of them, fighting to keep down what little she had eaten for breakfast as the smell of wood smoke and burnt flesh floated over the field.
The sobbing turned to shouts then screams, as he was apparently left with no friends even to lessen his suffering by throwing in a charge of black powder.
Of course he doesn’t have any. They’re all burning under him. Cecília swallowed and forced herself to open her eyes for a final time, watching the thrashing man disappear behind the climbing flames. The only friends left at court are Senhor Carvalho’s.
Finally, the screaming died away, replaced by the noise of the crowd and crackling fire as the entire platform and all of the bodies were reduced to ash. Blinking away the smoke that floated toward the risers, Cecília felt something tight and hard forming in her chest, just below her rib cage. And though her heart still pounded and her blood rushed through her ears, she went blissfully numb.