Sheffield questioned the padre. Harriet didn’t know the words, though she recognized some of them from before. Heartening was the fact that the padre didn’t shake his head. He released the goat from the stanchion and ushered another into its place, taking the opportunity to point at the little house behind the church before he poured the milk into a large earthen jug, and started milking the next goat.
Sheffield gestured for Harriet and Jonesy to follow him as he crossed the courtyard. “Father Enrique has only served this parish for a couple of years. He suggested we talk with the parsonage housekeeper, who’s been here for decades.”
They retrieved their horses, led them closer to the house and tied them up near a water trough, then followed the smell of cooking food around to the house’s back entrance. A boy in his late teens opened the door, dressed to work in the field or barn. He and Sheffield briefly conversed, and the boy gestured for them to follow him inside.
The kitchen was presided over by a matron with gray at her temples, a large white apron about her waist, and a wooden spoon in her hand that she tapped on the side of the pot hanging over the cooking fire. Delicious scents of carrot, garlic, and onion wafted in the air.
She gestured for them to sit at the rustic worktable, and at her instruction the boy brought them pewter mugs and a pitcher of new wine. Harriet and Jonesy drank while Sheffield and the housekeeper exchanged greetings. Harriet listened closely, recognizing only a word here and there.
“You are from England, yes?” the housekeeper said.
Sheffield grinned, and Harriet and Jonesy exchanged startled looks.
“Yes, madam, we are.”
“My English is rusty. Father Enrique is a nice young man who serves his parish well, but only speaks Portuguese, Spanish, and Latin.”
“Then we are happy to help you practice.” Sheffield took a sip of his grape juice. “We are searching for a padre who helped my family. And Harry’s family.” He tilted his head, indicating Harriett. “He would have come to the area about five years ago.”
The housekeeper glanced between them. “Father Miguel?”
Harriet struggled to keep her mouth from falling open. She barely heard Sheffield’s reply over the pounding of her heart.
Sheffield calmly maintained a mild interest. “Yes. You know him?”
She shook her head, and Harriet’s heart sank. “You are not the first to ask about a priest named Miguel.”
Sheffield leaned forward to rest his forearms on the table. “Who else has asked? And when?”
She gestured to the boy and spoke to him in rapid Portuguese, then he brought them bowls and spoons, and set the soup pot on a trivet in the middle of the table. She unwrapped a towel around a basket, revealing a rustic loaf of bread, and lifted the lid on a crock of butter. “Eat, please,” she said. “There is plenty. I always make extra.”
Harriet barely restrained herself from continuing the questioning, but obediently ladled soup into her bowl and buttered a hunk of bread. Hard to believe she was hungry again already. Olive oil made the potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, and watercress taste distinctly different from vegetable soup she’d eaten at home. She savored several bites, fighting the urge to fidget, to press for answers.
“Three, maybe four days ago,” the housekeeper said at last. “He was charming, like you,” she said to Sheffield. “The same dark hair, blue eyes, and smile. Close to my age, though.” She patted the hair at her temple. “A dusting of silver and grey. Your father or other relative, perhaps?”
Harriet held her breath.
Sheffield didn’t recoil as he had in Spain, but he went absolutely still. Then he calmly swallowed another spoonful of soup. “And what did you tell him?”
The housekeeper eyed him as she ate a bite of bread, then washed it down with a sip of new wine. “That I do not know of a priest with a horse who came from Spain five years ago.”
They all took another bite, Harriet fighting not to show her disappointment.
“There must be an interesting story behind this search.” The housekeeper refilled her mug.
“Just unfinished business.” Sheffield scraped the bottom of his bowl. “What else did the Englishman say? And what did you tell him?”
Harriet was ready to scream at the polite back and forth interspersed with eating and drinking. Get on with it! she wanted to shout. Instead she drank the new wine and finished her soup, wondering if she and Mama could replicate its complex flavor with ingredients available back home.
The housekeeper smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “He would not say why he sought the priest with a horse, either. I told him that my sister remembers priests being among the refugees coming from Spain to escape the French cannon fire. She may know the one you seek.”
At a nod from Sheffield, Jonesy pulled the paper and pencil out of his pocket and prepared to write.
“She is housekeeper for the priest at Igreja Paroquial do Nosso Senhor do Bonfim, a few miles southeast of here. Parochial Church of Our Lord of Bonfim.” She gave directions and Jonesy scribbled furiously to get it all down.
Sheffield rose, and Jonesy and Harriet followed his lead. “Thank you for your hospitality, and the information.” Sheffield set coins on the table by his dirty dishes. “To help stock your larder, so you can feed more hungry travelers,” he added, when the housekeeper looked like she would refuse.
After a thoughtful pause, she gave a pragmatic nod and swept the coins into her apron pocket.
