Page 117 of The Familiar

Don Gaspar pushed his chair back and even the notary couldn’t hide his surprise.

“The girl has had her wits muddled,” Víctor attempted.

“Ask my maid from La Casilla,” Luzia continued. “She is in Don Víctor’s employ. Ask her who came to my rooms late at night. It wasn’t Marius Ordoño who took my virtue and invited me to consort with the devil. Santángel admitted to being a demon himself.”

Víctor’s laugh was unconvincing. “The girl is more deluded than I realized.”

“He said Christ was no more than a magician,” Luzia continued, enjoying the anger in Víctor’s eyes. Santángel had pointed the way, and even if she didn’t understand the destination she was choosing, she at least saw the road before her. “He said that resurrection was a trick that anyone could master. Cut him and see how he heals. Stab him through the heart and he will rise up, living and unharmed.”

Santángel smiled. Their path was chosen. The crossroads long past.

The judges didn’t look scandalized, only uncomfortable. The Inquisition considered witchcraft a delusion. The devil was real, but he didn’t visit the kitchens of Madrid. Don Pedro shook his head and Don Francisco sighed.

“It’s clear she’s gone mad,” said Don Víctor, “and would repay my kindness with cruelty. Best to put an end to this pathetic display.”

“You’re right,” said Santángel slowly, testing the words in his mouth. He stepped forward, and the judges recoiled. The scribe made a little mewl. It was as if they were truly seeing him for the first time, a creature of light and shadow, his bright hair, his glittering eyes. “It is time to end this deception. The scullion speaks the truth. I am the devil’s own man.”

CHAPTER 51

Santángel felt the room tilt, the planets shift, as if a new alignment had been reached. It was the same sensation he’d experienced his first night with Luzia. As if the sky above had rearranged itself and night would show new constellations—the shape of a pomegranate, a path through an orange grove.

Luzia had been the dagger in his hand. She had taken the only aim she could, at his reputation, not his master’s. She had turned Santángel into a liability. But was he irredeemable enough? Tainted enough by the threat of dark magic? So dangerous to Víctor that the preservation of his good fortune would demand they be separated?

“You think you will save her this way?” Víctor whispered furiously.

“Are you going to claim me now?” Santángel asked, unable to keep the smile from his face. “I will die on a pyre and she will go free. They may beat her or banish her, but she will live. She won’t need your money or your influence when no charge of heresy hangs over her.”

“I will find her and bind her to me. She will be a gift I give my sons and their sons.”

“She is powerful enough to thwart you, and she knows all about the bargain I made with Tello. You cannot use me to bend her fate once I am in my grave. The trap will not spring. Go on, tell them I’m mad too. Call me a liar. You know what I can show them. You know what will happen if they torture me.”

“You are making a confession?” asked Don Pedro. “You understand that every word will be documented, that you are confessing to demonic possession and witchcraft. There are no punishments for this crime. No means to recant. You will be handed over to the civil authority for execution.”

“I understand.”

“What of the Ordoños? And Víctor de Paredes? Did they know what abomination they were host to?”

Santángel would have liked to see Víctor thrown into a cell, but he couldn’t risk it. If he denounced and incriminated Víctor, he had no doubt the judges wouldn’t find him credible. He’d be deemed a lunatic or blame would swing back to Luzia to preserve Víctor’s reputation. The influence of Santángel’s luck wouldn’t allow for Víctor to suffer real pain or humiliation.

“No,” he said. “I assure you, the Ordoños were mere dupes, and Víctor de Paredes would never countenance such blasphemy beneath his roof.”

Don Francisco signaled to the warden. “You will be taken into custody. The warden will find you a cell and … We will meet in private to consider trial.”

That worried Santángel; it could take years to face sentencing. Víctor might find a way to bring him back into his household in that time. But of course, if Víctor left Toledo, Santángel would burn to ash the first morning he was gone.

“You are still bound to me,” Víctor whispered. “You will speak no word against me.”

“I should have stolen this from you long ago.”

“Señores,” said Víctor, “I would beg a little more patience from you—”

Don Pedro interrupted him. “It’s hard for me to fathom that a man of your intellect and knowledge of the world has had two people in his service—”

“Luzia Cotado did not serve in my home.”

“But you are her patron, are you not? And you plan to make her a member of your household after she is publicly sentenced and punished?”

Santángel waited, wondering which way the room would tilt now.