Page 118 of The Familiar

“I do,” said Víctor, though he didn’t sound sure of himself.

“You will be responsible for her spiritual well-being and her education. She cannot be led into such delusion again.”

“I understand.”

For a few moments the judges turned to each other, whispering, but Santángel couldn’t hear what they had to say. He was about to be deposited in a dark cell for an unknown time to wait for death, and yet he felt freer than he had in hundreds of years. Because Luzia would live. Because Víctor might stay rich and happy, but he would always know what Santángel had taken from him.

He watched Luzia now, paler than she’d been, her skin sallow beneath her freckles. Her dress was mostly clean but gaped at the waist and her expression was troubled as she watched him too. He knew she was waiting for him to reveal some trick that would free them both. But he had no fresh hand to play. He would die and she would live. A tragic bargain but a clean one. She would be angry with him, maybe she would weep for him, but once he was dead, she would find her way free of Víctor. He would no longer have Santángel’s luck to protect him. She would have a chance.

He wished he could tell her all of it, but instead they stood in silence.

The warden vanished through the eastern doors, and Santángel expected him to come back with chains or more guards to escort him to the cells. But when he returned he had the Prince of Olives in tow. Doña Beatriz trailed in their wake, gowned in golden lace, her hands clasped tightly.

Donadei wore an expression of respectful humility but he looked as healthy and bronzed as ever, dressed in velvet, his curls gleaming. Only his cross was different. The massive emerald sat at its center still, but the jade stones that had surrounded it had been replaced with what looked like diamonds.

He bowed to the judges.

“Fortún Donadei, we commanded your presence today because you are a true and loyal servant of the Church and because you were at the torneo. You witnessed the strange goings-on there. You saw the illusions created by the fraud Luzia Cotado. Did you see her in the company of this man, Santángel?”

Donadei’s eyes darted around the room. He was trying to get his bearings, to find some indication of what the tribunal wanted. “They are fornicators. I know that.”

“How?”

“They flaunted it. I saw them embracing in the gardens.”

How easily he lied. Santángel wondered what might come next.

“Who else knew of this relationship?” asked Don Pedro.

Again Donadei paused and Santángel watched him calculate. “The Ordoños. Valentina Ordoño even offered Señorita Cotado to me. She wanted us to form an attachment. I think she hoped to sway the results of the torneo.”

“That cursed tournament is of no interest to us,” said Don Pedro. “Consult your conscience and speak truly.”

He was silent.

“Who else?” urged Doña Beatriz, her gaze angled purposefully toward Víctor.

Even before Donadei spoke, Santángel felt it again, that shift, the sense that luck was taking hold.

“No one else. It was not commonly known. I did not spread any gossip.” He paused, then said, “I know that Don Víctor believed his champion was nothing but pure and holy. He spoke of her often as a good and pious woman. I fear the creature Santángel and Luzia Cotado conspired to deceive him.”

There it was. Donadei was making his bid for a new patron to free himself of Doña Beatriz. There had been a time when he’d sought to avoid association with Víctor de Paredes. But he was too arrogant to fear curses, and his worries had been banished by his own ambition now that service to the king wasn’t an option. Santángel’s good fortune had moved the pieces on the board to save Víctor’s reputation and place two milagreros beneath his roof—Luzia and the Prince of Olives. Fortunate Víctor de Paredes, the luckiest man in Madrid.

Don Pedro leaned forward. “Then do you mean to say Luzia Cotado was party to these schemes?”

Now Santángel tensed. His gambit could not be undone so quickly. Donadei must say no.

Donadei’s gaze shifted from Luzia to Víctor de Paredes. What forces moved upon him beyond his own greed? Which way would the influence that preserved Víctor’s benefit move him?

At last he said, “She is coarse and immoral, but not so ill-educated as she seems. I saw her many times whispering with Antonio Pérez and the heretic Teoda Halcón.”

That easily the stars had found their new alignment.

Deny it, Santángel pleaded with Luzia silently. Tell the court Donadei tried to woo you to an alliance against Pérez, that he demeaned Doña Beatriz and Jesus and all his apostles in your presence.

But Luzia only shrugged. “All he says is true. I lie as easily as I breathe. The devil whispers and I answer. I would see the Pope hung by his ankles and King Philip nailed up beside him.”

The men at the table gasped. Doña Beatriz made the sign of the cross. Santángel wanted to roar his frustration. What was she doing? Why concede so easily? Why indict herself so thoroughly? Could the force of his cursed influence be so strong? Had all of this been for nothing?