Still, a wife had her duties. It was not to be expected that she would enjoy every one of them. He was home unexpectedly and hoped to have a little fiesta and then a little siesta, and yet the first impediment was that his wife seemed to have disappeared. None of the thirty servants would even venture an opinion as to where she might be. Of course, Margareta was not a favorite with the servants. She had been brought up to take a firm line with servants and she did take a stern line. She had once even cuffed one of her own ladies-in-waiting in public, at the beginning of a state dinner. The girl had failed to complete some small chore and was given a ringing slap, an action that drew much negative comment. The lady-in-waiting had been of good family herself; that this haughty woman from the City of Mexico had so forgotten decorum as to slap her was an action the old families of Santa Fe would never forgive. Doña Margareta had made little effort to conceal her contempt for local stan-dards—no, it did not make the Governor’s job easier; but then wives had to be lived with and there was no denying that Margareta was a great beauty.
But where, the Governor asked, had this great beauty gone? Probably she was out visiting, but about the only family she still visited regularly was the Berrybenders, where she had dined only the night before. The Governor, his mind on a fiesta, was about to settle for a siesta when he happened to pass a storeroom where a lot of heavy furniture had been stored while one or two of the bedrooms were getting a fresh coat of white paint. The Governor was strolling down the hall when he heard what sounded like a grunt from inside the storeroom. A moment later he heard another grunt, followed by a swishing sound. His first thought was that two servants were probably fornicating in the storeroom; servants could not be particular when an opportunity to fornicate came. The Governor was a tolerant man; he did not expect servants to behave like saints. He himself, as a young captain of cavalry, had fornicated in some pretty unlikely places: on saddle blankets, in corn cribs, wherever he could go with a willing girl. He was about to pass on, but then he heard a third grunt and stopped, confused. The grunt sounded like Margareta. Hadn’t she grunted like that in the early days of their marriage, when he still managed to excite her? He couldn’t remember. Lately she had ceased even to pretend that his caresses excited her. It struck the Governor—as it should have sooner—that the reason Margareta had no interest in him was because she had a lover. Of course she had a lover. In the City of Mexico it was no doubt the expected thing, for a woman of her class. Immediately the Governor wished that he had had the good sense not to go looking for his wife. Why hadn’t he been content with a nice long siesta? As the grunts continued the Governor had less and less doubt that his wife was behind the door, in the storeroom, copulating with—whom? A soldier? One of his generals? A trader? A servant, even? The Governor began to feel angry—then he became furious. But even his fury was mixed with doubt. Part of him knew that the wise thing would be to walk on—after all, many women grunted in their passion. It might just be two servants. If it was merely a servant girl, then nothing need change. But if he opened the door and found his wife in the arms of, say, General Juan Diego, then everything must change. He might have to kill the lover, banish the wife. If he discovered his wife with another man he would certainly have to take strong action or else become a figure of ridicule. There would be disorder in the Palace for a long time to come.
For a moment, as the grunting and swishing continued, the Governor struggled with himself. He was by nature prudent, deliberate in his actions. He had been made Governor of Nuevo México precisely because he was not impetuous. He took his time. He studied each question carefully; he wasted neither money nor men. His superiors in the City of Mexico trusted his judgment, his discretion. Was he willing to risk throwing it all away for a faithless wife?
A moment later the male won the struggle with the administrator in the Governor’s breast. He kicked open the door.
12
. . . she was whipping Tomas . . .
THE FIRST SHOCK the Governor received was that his beautiful, fastidious wife, noted at every assembly for her cool elegance, was drenched in sweat. It ran down her cheeks, pooled at the base of her neck, stained her armpits as she wielded the heavy whip—the same whip that had been used to lash the Ear Taker. But Doña Margareta wasn’t whipping the Ear Taker, she was whipping Tomas, the Governor’s most effective young footman, the one who rode on the running board of the Governor’s carriage.
Tomas had been stripped to the waist and tied at the wrists to a bedpost. Doña Margareta grunted when she struck, so intent on her task—her fine features distorted, her eyes shining—that for a moment she failed to notice her husband standing in the doorway, as shocked by what he was witnessing as if he had seen a dead man rise. Though the whip was heavy, Margareta was small and inexpert. Though Tomas had a few red marks on his back she was not really hurting the boy—what was hurt was his pride, the pride of a young gentleman of good family who had risen to the post of first footman to the Governor of New Mexico. It was plain that Tomas was terribly embarrassed. When Doña Margareta called for him he was rather surprised. Tomas was the Governor’s footman—Doña Margareta’s was a vain young man named Jesus, whom the Governor would not have put up with for a minute. But Tomas had gone obediently to Doña Margareta’s chamber, only to be marched, without a word of explanation, down a hall and into a dusty storeroom, where he was told to remove his shirt. Tomas found himself trapped in a nightmare. Why was he in this storeroom full of dusty beds and tables? Why must he remove his shirt? Why was Doña Margareta carrying a whip with dried blood still on it?
“Get your shirt off at once or I’ll tell my husband you raped me,” Doña Margareta demanded. Tomas felt the nightmare close around him. If Doña Margareta made good her threat, then his life was over. Unhappily, Tomas removed his shirt and allowed Doña Margareta to tie him to an old bedpost. She didn’t tie him well—he could easily have freed himself, but then what? If someone saw him half unclothed with the Governor’s wife they might jump to the wrong conclusions. What seemed clear was that Doña Margareta had become a madwoman. Her breathing was harsh, her bosom heaved, her hands became so sweaty that she could hardly hold the whip. At first she struck him on the shoulders, but then her blows were directed lower. At one point she came close, squeezing him and mauling him before stepping back to strike again. The whipping didn’t hurt, but where would it end? What if Doña Margareta took his pants down? The prospect horrified him.
When the Governor opened the door and stood there with a shocked expression on his face, Tomas felt greatly relieved. Now surely it wouldn’t become anything worse than it had already been. The Governor was too stunned to speak, but at least he could see that his wife, and not his trusted footman, had brought the strange proceedings about. She held the whip, he was tied; as the Governor’s footman he should not have been subjected to such indignities. It was a craziness of some kind; there was no explaining it.
The Governor, stunned for a moment, was trying to find an explanation that made sense. Tomas was not one of Doña Margareta’s servants. Could the boy have somehow committed some mild offense that set Margareta off? It was hard to imagine what the boy could have done that would cause Margareta to march him off to the storeroom and whip him. Usually she just slapped servants where they stood, if they displeased her.
“What has Tomas done?” the Governor managed to inquire.
Caught in her frenzy, Doña Margareta had scarcely noticed her husband’s entrance, but when she did notice she whirled on him. There he stood, gross and fat, the man whose sweaty belly she was often beneath, pressed into the mattress, ugly hairs plastered to her body, feeling nothing but distaste. Why had he, of all people, followed her to the storeroom? What could this big-bellied ox possibly want?
“Go away!” she hissed, her look so furious that the Governor retreated a step. For a moment, it seemed his wife might turn the bloody whip on him.
“But what did he do? Why are you whipping Tomas?” the Governor asked. “He’
s my footman. Why have you brought him here?”
“Go away!” Doña Margareta screamed—her scream echoed down the empty halls. Old Constancia, folding linen, heard it all the way across the building.
“But he’s such a good footman, I only want to know what he did,” the Governor said meekly. He very much wished he had not opened the door. It was not pleasing to see one’s wife, soaking in her own sweat, vicious with anger.
“He was insolent!” Doña Margareta insisted. She didn’t want to make any broader accusation—that might result in the slim, handsome Tomas being removed from the household entirely.
“I told you to go away!” Doña Margareta screamed a third time.
The Governor, looking at Tomas, realized the boy was too embarrassed even to meet his eye. Tomas had always been shy and polite—the last thing he could be accused of was insolence. The Governor wondered if his wife’s screams could be heard outside the Palace. He didn’t know what to do, how to help the trembling boy, what to say to his sweat-soaked wife.
“Don’t be too long,” he said finally. “Remember, we are having guests.” He who had fought savage Indians, neither giving nor expecting any mercy, quailed before the anger in his wife’s eyes.
The minute he stepped back Doña Margareta kicked the door shut. Before the Governor turned away he heard the grunt again and knew that his wife was already applying the lash. It made him feel a fool. He was, after all, the Governor of Nuevo México. He should have struck her down, the vicious woman who was whipping one of his finest young footmen.
And if he had struck her down, would that have changed anything? Men, after all, were supposed to rule women. He should have taken the whip from her and lashed her a few times himself. He should have dragged her to their bedroom and had his way with her, sweat or not, hairs or not. He should have paid the woman back in her own coin. But he hadn’t. He had been cowardly. Besides, shut up in an old storeroom with a handsome boy, who could know what else she might do?
The two secretaries and the scribe were shocked and disappointed when the Governor walked back into his office. They thought they had the afternoon off. They were playing cards. On a normal day the Governor would not have tolerated the cards or the idleness. He sat down at his empty desk, in his big chair. He stared out the window. He did not move until the shadows began to fall.
13
. . . extremely fine features and a long, graceful neck.
TAKE A LOVER if you need a lover—there are several handsome young officers here,” Tasmin pointed out to Vicky, who looked sad and downcast. Her labor with her second son, Randy, had been long and difficult—she could not seem to reclaim her energies. It was always a struggle to be a good wife to Albany Berrybender, and the struggle had recently been made even more difficult by Lord Berrybender’s infatuation with Julietta Oli-varies, wild, a beauty, and of the very highest nobility—Spanish, not Mexican. Married at fourteen to an elderly French banker, Julietta had run away with a conscript; captured and put in a convent, she had escaped. Exiled to Mexico City to cool off, she seduced so many young men that she was exiled all the way to the end of the road, which was Santa Fe, where she had an aunt.
Neither Tasmin nor Vicky was used to being overshadowed in the looks department, but the dazzling Julietta made them both feel old, dowdy, child-ridden, heavy, past their prime.
“I don’t know that I want a lover,” Vicky said, finally. “I haven’t the energy. I just resent being displaced by a sixteen-year-old.”
“Well, that’s a very natural resentment—you should just kill the old bastard,” Tasmin suggested. “You did once threaten to tear his throat out, I believe.”
They were on a balcony, watching Lord Berry-bender hold hands with his new love. He and she were in a buggy, about to set off for a jaunt—they merely waited for Signor Claricia, their driver, who had been poorly lately.
Julietta Olivaries had extremely fine features and a long, graceful neck. Both Tasmin and Vicky remembered being—or at least remembered feeling—that beautiful once. But they were no longer sixteen, at which age Tasmin had been seduced in a horse stall by Master Tobias Stiles, her father’s head groom. For more than a year they copulated frequently in that stall, a liaison that only ended when Master Stiles was killed at a jump.
“I so want to go back to England,” Vicky said, coloring—she looked tearful. “I miss it so. I think if I were in England I could accommodate myself to whatever regime Albany wants. I could have in my musical friends. There could be a proper nursery, with proper nannies. I know Little Onion does her best, but she doesn’t really speak the language and I can’t help feeling that that’s important.
“Do you miss it, Tassie?” Vicky asked, drying her eyes.
Tasmin’s thoughts were elsewhere. She was watching Little Onion help the ailing Signor Claricia into the buggy. Of late, thanks to the dust in the high capital, Signor Claricia had had difficult breathing, especially at night. Little Onion had gone round the stalls of old Indian women, seeking herbs to ease her friend’s respiration. In defense of Signor Claricia, Little Onion flinched at nothing. She even tried to persuade the startled Lord Berrybender that his old carriage maker was too sick to be going on jaunts.
“No should go!” she insisted, and Lord B. seemed inclined to agree, but Signor Claricia wouldn’t have it. Angrily, a male defending his prerogatives, he shook off all opposition, took the reins, and issued a command. Soon the buggy clattered out of the Plaza.
Little Onion stood watching, obviously worried. “When Jim Snow shows up again I intend to insist that he divorce that girl,” Tasmin vowed. “She loves that old Italian. They may make an odd couple, but then I’m half of an odd couple myself. Why shouldn’t she have a bit of happiness? Without her our children would be wild as beasts.”
“Your daughter is wild as a beast anyway,” Vicky pointed out. “She’s cowed all the boys—it’s not a good sign.”
No sooner had Tasmin mentioned Jim than she realized that she missed him. Almost two years had passed since Pomp Charbonneau’s death. Her pain was still keen at times, but it was no longer constant. On Jim’s last visit she had been stiff; she wanted no husband yet. If told that life must go on, she would have disagreed. And yet, despite her, it had gone on. Pomp’s memory had clung to her; he was a ghost that could not be quickly shaken off. But time had begun to wear away memory. Tasmin had become a little impatient. Where was Jim Snow? She was anxious for him to come.
“That girl’s fifty years younger than Albany—did you see them holding hands?” Vicky asked.
“Oh well, Spain—read the histories,” Tasmin told her. “In the high nobility the prettier little girls are made to marry when they are about ten. Dynastic reasons, of course. In that society our Julietta would be considered almost elderly.”
“I don’t care—I still don’t like them holding hands,” Vicky said.
14
He fanned his mouth with one hand, but the fanning did no good.
COOK HAD HER DOUBTS, and the Mexican girls who worked in the kitchen began to smile in an amused way when they saw the green chilis that Little Onion had procured in the market. Yanquis might sometimes consume red chilis with pleasure if the red chilis were well mixed with meat or corn; but for a Yanqui to consume green chilis, however disguised, was a thing unheard of in Santa Fe. But Little Onion was insistent. Signor Claricia was become more and more congested in his chest. He ate less and less. Little Onion pressed her two fingers alongside her nose, to show Cook where the problem was. She didn’t know the words, but she knew she needed to help her friend, before he weakened even more.
The old woman in the Plaza who sold her the green chilis seemed to understand when Little Onion pointed to her breathing passages; the old woman insisted that green chilis would help her friend breathe better.
When Cook cautiously cut one of the chilis the juice made her skin prickle and her eyes sting. She put a speck of the juice on the tip of her tongue and her tongue at once became numb. C
ook’s suspicion of the green chilis was so deep that Little Onion took over the cooking of the chili stew herself, chopping the chilis fine, dicing the pork, adding corn and a few dry beans, and stirring and stirring until the stew was ready.
She was much relieved when she heard the buggy returning. Soon Signor Claricia came into the big kitchen. It had been a dusty ride. He rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands and face in a basin one of the servant girls provided. Then Little Onion poured him a good glass of wine and set the steaming green chili stew before him, along with some tortillas.
Since steam rose from the stew Aldo Claricia judged it too hot just yet to eat. He sipped his wine. He was hungry; he blew on the stew to make it cool more quickly. It smelled delicious. After a short wait, during which Little Onion stood by anxiously, he picked up his spoon and took three large spoonfuls before stopping. He took a fourth spoonful and stopped. The heat of the green chilis had hit him; suddenly fire seemed to fill his head. It was as if he had eaten flame. He dropped the spoon and gulped down the rest of his wine, indicating, by a desperate gesture, that he needed more. Little Onion poured him some but Aldo Claricia promptly spilled it. He fanned his mouth with one hand, but the fanning did no good. His forehead was flushed; he began to sweat copiously—it seemed to Little Onion that even his eyeballs were sweating. Signor Claricia jumped up, grabbed the big water pitcher, and began to pour water down his throat. Soon his shirtfront was drenched.