Page 105 of The Familiar

Valentina descended the kitchen stairs. She couldn’t sleep. Not yet. She needed to speak to Águeda.

CHAPTER 46

Luzia dozed and paced and talked to Teoda and sometimes Neva. They were allowed down to the courtyard to empty their chamber pot and fill jugs with cold water that they heated for washing over a small coal stove. When it was time to eat, they were led down the corridor to the provisioner, who gave them bread, water, and occasionally salted fish. One day a rich, savory smell filled her nostrils.

“Cocido,” Neva said. “Some of the prisoners get better food, if their families pay for it.”

“Is it good, Lucrecia?” Teoda asked loudly. “Her family is poor, but her followers haven’t given up on her just yet.”

“Give them time,” grumbled Neva.

But it was their door that opened. “Luzia Cotado,” said the guard, and set down the steaming bowl. His name was Rudolfo, and when he wasn’t picking his nose he was moping about his love life.

“Who is this from?” she asked.

Rudolfo blew his nose into his sleeve. “The money comes, so does the food.”

They passed the spoon around, and as soon as Luzia tasted the stew she wanted to weep.

“It came from a playwright,” said Lucrecia through the wall. “She has taken up a collection for you at her theater.”

Luzia took another bite and then another. It was all impossible. Maybe she’d died in the woods. Maybe she was asleep at La Casilla. Why would Quiteria Escárcega raise funds on her behalf?

“Pass that bowl to me or I will bite your shins in your sleep,” said Teoda, and Luzia obliged.

She had never tasted anything so delicious, but one could grow sick on the impossible.

The mystery of the stew deepened the next morning, when they went down to the courtyard to fetch their jugs of water and empty their chamber pots. Rudolfo handed her a stack of folded clothes—a gown and fresh linen.

“Give me your dirty clothing and it will be sent to your home to be laundered.”

What home? Luzia wondered. She had no friends or family in Toledo. She had none in all of Spain now that Hualit had sailed away.

“More gifts from the infamous playwright?” Teoda asked.

When they returned to the cell, Neva whispered, “Feel along the stitching. There may be a note or a message.”

Luzia ran her fingers over the seams, and when she pushed her hand through the sleeve, a small green sprig fell to the floor.

Rosemary. Romero. For protection.

Valentina had sent the cocido, the fresh clothing. Luzia rubbed the sprig between her thumb and forefinger and inhaled the scent. She had to fight the hope that bloomed through her. Valentina and Marius had no power or influence with which to help her. But Hualit had sailed across the sea, and Santángel might be dead or captive himself. Maybe it wasn’t hope she felt at all, but the comfort of knowing that someone was on the other side of these walls, that they remembered her name, that they might say prayers for her when it had long since ceased to matter.

She did cry at night, and sometimes she screamed into her fist, her rage too big for the confines of her crowded cell. All her striving, the Latin in her head, the refranes she’d bent to her desires, her victory over Gracia at the first trial, over the gruesome shadows in the second, over Donadei in the third, had amounted to nothing. She’d done as she was asked and more. She’d fought her way out of the larder, and despite insults, and treachery, and an attempt on her life, she’d managed to win again and again. But here she was, powerless, and even more wretched than when she’d begun.

The only tonic for Luzia’s fear and rage was information. If she was to be tortured, she needed to be prepared, so when Teoda was in the mood to talk, she listened. This was usually in the daytime, after they’d visited the provisioner, when the cells were noisy with conversation and there was less chance of being overheard.

“They will take you to a room and remove your clothes—”

“Everything?”

“They want you to be shamed,” said Teoda. “The room is cold, but the worst of it is the devices. The rack. The potro. I don’t know the names for some of what I saw. The inquisitors will be there, one of the bishop’s representatives, and someone to document everything said and done. My brother says they keep very thorough records.”

“Were you frightened?”

Teoda hesitated. “Yes. More scared than I’ve ever been. I’m lucky though. I knew what I was accused of. They won’t tell you the charges, just demand that you confess.”

“The trick is that you don’t really know what they want to hear,” said Neva. “I’ve fucked my way through half of Castilla–La Mancha. How am I supposed to know who denounced me? I talked and talked, but I wasn’t saying what they wanted me to. So they tied me down and they just kept tightening the cords. They didn’t care how much I screamed and begged.” Neva pushed up her sleeve to display the scars at her wrists and elbows, marks the color of spoiled meat that circled her arm completely, as if she were still bound to the table. “They did send a doctor to see to me when it was over.”