Page 61 of The Familiar

She clasped her hands and he saw her knuckles were white. “I’m told I’m to face the devil in the second trial.”

“It’s a metaphor and nothing more.”

“Are you so certain?”

“If Padre Juan Baptista Neroni can actually summon the devil, we have greater problems than the torneo. But I’ll see if there’s anything else I can learn.” She had a right to her fear, and he would do his best to appease it. He folded his arms. “You’ve told me what you discovered about your competition but not what you thought of them.”

“I liked Teoda Halcón. She’s odd, but I suppose we all are.”

“Even Gracia de Valera?”

“No. She’s a boil disguised as a blossom.”

At that he had to laugh. “Apt. And the farmer’s son?”

Luzia turned back to the mirror.

“I see,” said Santángel. “The Prince of Olives has made you his friend.”

“I wouldn’t call him that. He isn’t suited to this place any more than I am. But he wants very badly to win.”

“And I’m sure he made his case most sympathetically.”

“He is in an untenable position.”

“More untenable than yours?”

At least she had the sense to pause. “His … patroness … She …”

“She has laid claim to both his body and his soul?” Why was the Prince of Olives sharing such confidences with Luzia? Santángel had to wonder how much of Garavito’s gossip might have reached Donadei’s ears and what the farmer’s son might share with her to earn her trust. “Fortún Donadei is no guileless country boy. He pursued poor loveless Doña Beatriz. He brought his guitar and played outside of her palace for days to get her attention.”

“Maybe it was greater attention than he wished for.”

“Or he is trying to blunt your appetite for victory, to weaken your resolve. You have as much to lose as he does.” Santángel certainly did.

“Maybe.”

He pushed off from the wall, unsure of why he felt such irritation. It was like being a green youth again, buffeted by bouts of jealousy and lust. Complications he didn’t need. That he had come to respect this woman, even like her, was understandable, if an unwanted burden given what he must do. But that he should desire her, that he should be left addlepated when she mentioned the pleasure of a hot bath? It was unacceptable. Just that morning, when Luzia had said she thought anticipation might unravel her, his mind had been overtaken by the thought of twining a strand of her hair around his finger, of releasing it and watching the curl spring back. Unravel. A single word might drive him mad. It stuck in his mind like a thorn, infecting him with a kind of fever, the thought of Luzia Cotado unraveling.

He turned to the window, but there was nothing to see in the darkness excepting a few torches set along the garden paths. He needed occupation. He needed to be gone from here. This sickness would pass, given time and diversion.

“You’re done with me then?” she said as he strode to the door.

I haven’t even begun. He needed to leave now. For both their sakes.

“We’ll practice tomorrow,” he said. “Get some rest and dream of how you might destroy a poor farmer’s son.”

Luzia scowled. “And what will you be doing?”

“I’m going to go learn all I can to help you best the devil.”

That much he could offer.

CHAPTER 29

The second trial was to take place at night, and so Valentina wore her black velvet. Her lack of jewels would be less conspicuous in the dark. Marius had appeared at the door when she was helping Concha finish placing the scalloped cockleshells in Luzia’s braids. He too had worn black and his goose-belly jacket looked a bit snug. The parade of food and wine at La Casilla never stopped. Still, she thought the excess suited him. He loved to hunt and to ride and he’d lost his sullen pallor. His black hair and beard were glossy, his eyes sparkled.

In the past it was as if he’d hoarded the things that brought him pleasure, greeting any question about his day or his interests as a kind of intrusion. But now he seemed eager to share with her, turning to her at meals to suggest she taste an interesting dish, returning from the hunt brimming with stories, even inquiring over her own day.