Page 16 of The Familiar

“I am not concerned by that.”

“More fool you. Is a title worth so much that you would risk your life and fortune?”

Víctor looked at him as if he were mad. “Of course. And when I’m done with her, that shadow of a girl will burn so bright with holy light the Pope will have to squint to look at her.”

Santángel almost laughed. How human Víctor seemed, how at his ease, brimming with confidence and humor, happily blaspheming as if he and Santángel were old friends. Maybe they were. A master could never truly know a servant. But a servant must know his master well, and it was not hard to understand Víctor de Paredes. He was as ambitious as his father and grandfather had been before him. He was a caballero but he wished to rise higher, and for that he would need the ear of the king, something not even Santángel could provide. Since the loss of the armada, Philip had become even more of a recluse, hiding in El Escorial like some kind of wounded suitor, his gift of bloody war rebuffed by England’s heretic queen.

It wasn’t just the king who was sulking. It was as if all of Madrid, all of Castile, shared his dark mood. Their great navy in ruins. Their prayers unanswered. English pirates laying siege to the coast. The warnings of Piedrola and the dark prophecies of that stupid child Lucrecia de León had all been fulfilled. The filthy streets of the capital were as full of discontent as they were of piss and garbage. Who was this Austrian to squander their taxes and their sons in his endless wars? What if God had turned his back on Spain and her empire? Philip heard their muttering. It was why he’d sent the Inquisition after Lucrecia and her followers.

“You shouldn’t be so eager to throw your lot in with Pérez,” Santángel warned, even as he wondered why he bothered. Perhaps because after all these years he still wanted to save his own cursed neck, and his fortunes could not be untangled from Víctor and his kin. “The king has no love for him anymore.”

“The king’s mood will change when Pérez brings him a champion.”

“Your champion.”

“Precisely.”

“A scullion.”

“I am a beggar at the table and I must take what crumbs fall to me. Besides, the prospect of the Marquesa de Ardales is an olive farmer’s son.”

Now a small smile crept across Víctor’s face, his scar crinkling slightly. If only that scrap of metal had pierced his eye and gone straight through his skull. Santángel had wondered about that moment too many times. Víctor had no sons. If he had died on that hunt, would Santángel have been free? Or would he have been doomed to sit in place, waiting until a De Paredes heir could be found to command him? “She surprised you,” Víctor said. “Admit it.”

Santángel would confess no such thing. At least not to Víctor. But to himself? He might as well admit he’d expected another fraud. He’d met countless supposed mystics and holy men in his long life. Monks who claimed they could levitate, seers whose hands bled when they were possessed by visions, dousers and diviners. But he couldn’t deny what the girl had done in that courtyard or the way his blood had leapt at it. An unwelcome sensation. He had been asleep for so long. He didn’t want to rouse himself to part the curtains and squint against the sunlight. Yet here was this sad servant pulling magic from the air and forcing him awake. And what a girl—shoulders hunched, eyes downcast, without dignity or beauty or fire. A sorry vessel for power.

His stomach growled. He was hungry for the first time in what felt like years.

“She has some talent,” Santángel said grudgingly. “But that won’t be enough. You expect that frightened, homely thing to survive among Pérez’s vultures? If you wish to wreck your reputation and bring ruin upon your family, by all means, bring your scullion to La Casilla, and when she fails, I will enjoy your humiliation.”

That much at least was true.

“She will not fail,” said Víctor. “You will make certain of it. You saw the power in her.”

Saw it? Santángel had felt his bones tremble with it. “What I saw was wild. Unpredictable. A child who has learned to start a fire is powerful too.”

“She can be trained.”

“How certain you are. And if something goes wrong? Will you see your family dragged to Toledo for trial? Yours is a grand fortune and one I’m sure Church and crown would love to pluck.”

“You will keep my family from ruin, as you always have.” Víctor tugged gently at his beard. “You will teach this girl. You will make sure she conquers the tests Pérez puts before her and that she wins his tournament. Pérez will have the king’s favor and be made his secretary once more. The king will have his champion to best England’s whore queen. And I will be a count. Perhaps a duke. In time a grandee.”

“Everyone will be happy.”

“Even you, Santángel.”

“Now that truly would be a miracle.”

“Of course you will be happy,” Víctor said. “You will be free.”

Santángel stilled the tapping of his gloved hand on his knee. He watched Víctor’s face. Freedom was not something Víctor joked about, not something he ever spoke of. When he had been a boy he had made Santángel promises. That he would not be cruel like his father or his grandfather before him, that he did not wish for a slave. That had changed, as all things did. Santángel stayed silent, waiting.

“Train her well,” Víctor said. “Secure her success as the king’s favorite, and you will be released from my service.”

He couldn’t mean it. And yet … if this girl could win, if she could claim a place by the king’s side, she might be both spy and servant for Víctor de Paredes, more valuable than Guillén Santángel had ever been.

Freedom. After hundreds of years. First hunger, now fear. And all in one afternoon. But they weren’t such different things really. This was the fear of wanting something he had forced himself to believe would remain forever out of reach.

Was it even possible to make the scullion a success? He thought of her standing in the courtyard, her white cap clamped to her head, her ruddy cheeks, her rough, red hands balled into fists as the magic overtook her.