Page 3

II

It is a late-October day, and María is sitting on the stable roof, her bare feet swinging off the edge. She knows that Rafa is searching for her, has been for the better part of an hour now. His fault, she thinks, for always looking down instead of up.

She hums, and twists a fiery strand around her finger.

Somehow, she is nearly eighteen.

María knows it did not happen overnight, that she did not go to bed a girl and wake a woman, though some days it feels that way.

The seasons have worked their change in halting strides, stretching her slowly into a stranger, her body too narrow, no hips or breasts to speak of, and her features too sharp—a long jaw, a narrow face, a high forehead interrupted by fair brows.

Felipe likes to say that she looks like bread dough that’s been stretched too much and failed to rise.

But her hair.

In the end, all her mother’s efforts were in vain.

It has not been cowed, darkened by mud or time to a more ordinary shade.

Instead, it has grown brighter, defiantly so, year over year until it now seems imbued with molten light, a liquid copper spilling in loose waves down her back.

In sun, it shines. At night, it burns, like a lantern in the dark.

And if she is too long and lean, too wild to be considered comely, the strangeness of her hair has made her something even better.

Striking. There may be nothing of Castilian beauty in María, but there is something undeniable about her looks.

A primal grace that makes men turn their heads and their horses in the direction of the hunt.

She made note of this new power as the seasons turned and the men in her own village—some little more than boys, others old enough to be her father—began to stare.

She made note, and knew something must be done.

Someone whistles now, a short, sharp sound, and she looks down over the edge to see Felipe craning his head, cheeks still dusted from his work in the shadow of the blacksmith.

“Rafa’s been looking for you,” he calls, one hand up against the glare.

María lies back against the sun-warmed tiles, studies a passing cloud. “I know.”

Below, Felipe lets out an exasperated sound.

“María, please, ” he says plaintively, and she sighs, and sits back up.

“Fine, fine,” she says, flinging herself over the edge. The drop is high enough to make her brother suck in a nervous breath, but she lands like a cat, bare feet sinking in the hay.

Felipe conducts her like a jailer, one hand against her back as he ushers her to the house. Inside, their mother sits by the fire, sewing in her lap. Rafa paces a groove into the floor.

But María’s gaze goes to the stranger sitting at their table.

The man is handsome enough, broad-shouldered and dark-haired, his beard trimmed short and his eyes a light brown at odds with the rest of his complexion.

And though he is of average size, he seems too big for the narrow house, too tall for the low beamed roof, too fine for the threadbare rug beneath his boots.

“María,” says Rafa, in the scolding tone that always accompanies her name. “This is Andrés de Guzmán, Viscount of Olivares, and esteemed knight of the Order of Santiago.”

She wonders absently how long it took Rafa to memorize that string of words.

But her attention hangs on the viscount.

The cloak draped over his shoulders, lined with black fur.

His vest, made from a fine brocade and fastened with jeweled clasps.

The medallion of the Order on a gold chain around his neck.

All of him flashing like a gem among the river stones.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she says, adding a breathless edge to her voice, as if she’s run all the way across town, instead of strolling up the lane.

Andrés de Guzmán rises from the chair, gives a flourish and a bow. “Encantado, mi senora.”

“A pleasure to meet you, vizconde,” she says, dropping into a low bow. A moment later, she feels the grip of his glove on her elbow as the viscount returns her to her feet.

“Now, now,” he says, “a woman need not bow so low to her betrothed.”

The air in the room tenses around the word.

But not María.

She is many things—stubborn, cunning, selfish—but she has never been a fool. She knows that she was born into this body. She knows it comes with certain rules. The question has never been whether she would wed, but whom.

So last year, when the heads began to turn, and Rafa started to worry the topic of marriage as if it were a wound, she looked around at the options in Santo Domingo, and found them lacking.

She looked at her life and found it small.

Saw the road that lay ahead, and there were no curves, no bends; it ran straight and narrow all the way to its end.

She saw it in her mother’s hands, gone stiff with age, as they now struggled with fine stitches that had once come easily, only a matter of time before María herself was expected to take up the tedious work.

She saw it in Rafa’s wife, Elana, round with a child that had already begun to waste her beauty and drain her youth.

In Felipe’s bride, Lessandra, promised to him so long that she had never thought to stray.

Both women walked into their marriage beds without so much as looking round to see if there were other paths.

But María has known, all her life, that she is not meant for common paths, for humble houses and modest men. If she must walk a woman’s road, then it will take her somewhere new.

She stares at the viscount now, seated at her table, as if they have not met before.

As if she did not see him riding at the helm of the caravan a month ago.

As if he did not see her standing at the edge of the crowd, and follow her across the square and into the shadow of the church.

As if she did not lure him there, feigning innocence as he cornered her, spilled praise at her feet and pressed to see what she might give. What he could take.

As if he did not reach out and coil a lock of copper hair around his glove.

As if she did not see the hunger in his eyes and know that she could use it.

By then she had spent nearly a year honing her gaze on the pilgrims passing through, balancing on that knife’s edge between too brazen and too shy. She had learned when to hold a look, and when to drop it. When to let a smile flicker like light on her lips, and when to bow her head.

When to be the predator, and when to play the part of prey.

And that day, in the shadow of the church, she’d played it perfectly, bold enough to catch his eyes, chaste enough to stay his hand. Andrés de Guzmán had retreated, understanding that if he wanted to touch more than María’s hair, it would be as her husband.

And so he went.

And here he is again, and the silence must be stretching on too long, because Rafa clears his throat.

“The viscount has come to ask for your hand,” he explains, as if she is too thick to understand the meaning of the word betrothed.

They are expecting a performance, and so she gives them one.

“In marriage?” she asks, twisting her face into an imitation of surprise, eyebrows arching at this wholly unexpected ambush.

She even looks to her mother, as if for aid, finds only relief and resignation on the woman’s face.

As if this is a burden lifted, when the truth is, it was never hers to carry.

With their father gone, Rafa is the master of the house, and so the task of marrying María off falls to him. As he reminds her. Often.

“It is a happy day,” says her mother.

“Indeed,” says Rafa, looking as smug as Andrés, each convinced that they are the mind behind this meeting. As if she did not set the game and arrange the pins so all they had to do was knock them down.

“What if I refuse?” she asks, just to savor the surprise on Andrés’s face, the shock on Felipe’s, the horror on Rafa’s. She lets the question hang only a moment before laughing. Her brother sags, relief and embarrassment flooding his cheeks.

“Apologies, mi senor,” he says to the viscount, clearing his throat. “María has an odd sense of humor.”

The viscount doesn’t laugh, but he does not seem insulted either. He answers Rafa, but his attention is pinned to her. “María has only ever been a sister and a daughter. But she will soon learn to be a wife.”

The slightest emphasis on the word learn, like a switch grazing a horse’s flank.

But it will take more than that to make her flinch.

“Well, María?” says Rafa, urging her with a pointed look to accept the offer.

And for once, she does as she’s told.

She nods, holding out her hand, and Andrés de Guzmán’s mouth splits into a haughty grin, like he’s the one who played the game, and won.

And as he bends his head to kiss the bare skin of her knuckle, where the wedding ring will go, María imagines the road curving away beneath her feet, and smiles, too.

The viscount returns a fortnight later, a new kind of caravan in tow.

Cart after cart fills the road behind his horse, each one steered by a well-dressed servant and each brimming with gifts—fine tapestries and casks of wine, candied fruit and cured meats.

One cart rattles with chargers and cups, enough for every mouth in town, another arrives with hens packed so tight their feathers jut between the slats and fly away like dandelion fluff.

An homage to the miracle that made Santo Domingo famous, though hopefully none of these will rise up off their dinner plates.

In hours, the town’s plaza is transformed.

Tables dragged from the houses and hauled into the square, every oven commandeered to prepare the wedding feast.

The night before, María’s mother brushed her hair a hundred times, until it shone as bright as the fire in the hearth. And as she did, she told her daughter what it meant to be a wife.

Gentle. Loving. Obedient.

Words that made María tense. And, as if her mother could feel her stiffening, she leaned close and said, “You will learn, it is better to bend than to break.”

María stared into the hearth. “Why should I be the one who bends?”

Air hissed through her mother’s teeth. “I know you, daughter. I know you have always wanted more. And you have chosen a grand life. But it will not be an easy one. Men like the viscount, they take what they want.”

So do I, thought María as the comb hissed through her hair like water on hot coals.

They marry on the steps of the cathedral, Andrés in his finery and María in a brand-new dress, the edges trimmed with gold.

It is the finest thing she’s ever worn, and during the Mass that follows, while the priest drones on, she runs her fingertips along the stitching, counting the pattern as if it were coins as she tells herself this is what she deserves.

This is what she is worth.

At last, the congregation spills out into the square, and the wine flows, and music tangles with the laughter and the toasts. To the viscount’s health, and to hers, and to their happiness.

Her new husband covers her hand with his, and every time he speaks to her, or of her, he does not use her name. Instead he calls her mi esposa— my wife —the words chafing like rough wool. But María only smiles, and reminds herself they are a key, unlocking the doors to a better life.

His parents are not in attendance, though he assures her that they have sent their happy wishes, and that she will meet them soon enough.

Meanwhile, Rafa is smug, and Felipe is drunk, and their mother is wistful, and María wonders if she will miss them when she’s gone.

She tries to conjure the image of it, expects to feel something, a happy sadness, a parting grief, but she can’t.

And then it is time.

They do not linger at the feast. Andrés is eager to depart for his estate.

María’s mother cries, stiff hands clasped and tears running silent down her face, and her brothers embrace her, first Felipe, smelling of wood chips and soot, and then Rafa, who places a kiss on each cheek, and bids her Be a good wife.

Gentle. Loving. Obedient.

Felipe’s wife, Lessandra, smiles and dabs at her cheeks, but Elana catches María’s hand, hunger glinting in her eyes. “Do not forget us, sister.”

María can feel the woman’s greedy fingers inching toward the gold trim of the bridal sleeve. Knows she is trying to exact a promise.

“Of course, sister,” she says, a smile in her voice. “I will carry you in my heart.”

And then she pulls free, and takes her husband’s outstretched arm, and lets him lead her away, not knowing, of course—

She will never see her family again.