This is chapter one. I just have one question: If you had picked this up in a bookstore, would you keep reading? Anything else you can share with me would be wonderful too! Thank you.
“Bless me, Father, for I am about to commit a multitude of sins,” I said as I pushed back the carved wooden screen of the confessional. I didn’t bother to whisper. Father Pero and I were the only two in the front half of the Church of San Fruitos—save old doña Antonia, who was deaf and therefore didn’t count except in God’s eyes. If there were a God, which I doubted—but I kept that thought to myself. With the Inquisition still raging in the capital, it was best not to be the torero waving a red flag at the Church’s higher-ranking bulls. And in the event I was wrong and there did turn out to be some sort of higher authority, I wanted to be able to claim on my deathbed that I’d never publicly disowned Him.
Pero could see all the way to the nave through his threadbare curtain. The church, like the two of us, had known better days, and frayed curtains were the least of his problems. There’s no anonymity in the sacrament of confession, though my friend would deny that to his last prayer. Remember this the next time you go see a priest: God et al. really do know who you are.
“Deeds done in the name of the king and Our Lord are not sins, my son. They are merely the imperfect means by which He accomplishes His sacred goals.” Pero’s deep voice echoed all around me in the tiny confessional.
Note the order of higher authorities in Pero’s words. Kings are much more critical to saving our bodies, if not our souls, for without a body, where would our souls reside? I couldn’t see Pero, though I could imagine him rolling his gleeful little eyes at our assumed piety. The fact that he already knew what sins I was about to commit for the Duke of Bejar said little for the state of the priesthood or for that of my eternal soul. I could only hope the sins wouldn’t be too egregious. The last time Pero had relayed instructions to me from our patrón, I’d barely escaped with my life, and the luscious little señorita in Valladolid later converted to a life of silent contemplation at the Convent of Santa Mónica. That’s another story best saved for a later date. But I will say that she chased me, I swear by the Blessed Virgin Mary in all her glory! Well, mostly she chased me.
Pero and I both enjoyed the sponsorship of the Duke of Bejar. The duke is a good man, or at least as good as one gets in the capital city of Spain, from which the entire world is run, this being the year of Our Lord 1604. A good man? Let me rephrase that: Of Duke Bejar I’d heard far less ill than I had of his fellows at court. And since listening to rumors and putting odd facts together were skills I was good at—unlike blacksmithing, sword fighting, and the chivalrous nonsense favored by other gentleman farmers of my own status—I felt certain that I could trust the duke, up to a point. Also, I owed him my life, but I had paid my debt to him when he had asked my help some months earlier and I was determined that in the future course of our interaction, we would be equals.
A waft of stale incense and yesterday’s onion tortillas wafted over me as Pero leaned closer to his side of the screen.
“Alonso, I fear this work he asks will be dangerous for you. The messenger said that … Excuse me.”
I heard a swish of fabrics as Pero stepped over Tabo, my greyhound, who lurked outside the confessional, and then Pero’s voice trailed away as he went to attend to the new arrival. Pero takes his work seriously, for a priest who’s almost an atheist, which is one of the reasons we get along so well. He would not have interrupted a confession lightly, not even a false confession. While I waited, I considered the ramifications. I was not in danger, or he would have whispered a warning. So whatever drew him away must involve him and not the church or me, ergo it was his business. And the only business I knew of was his investment in a ship sailing for the Indies. But that ship, the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, wouldn’t be due back for another half year at the earliest, so it couldn’t be good news. Neither could it be bad news for the same reason.
