Page 101 of The Familiar

“This is Neva. She’s been here nearly two years.”

“Two years? On what charge?”

“Simple fornication,” Neva said with a grin that revealed a sparse collection of teeth.

“We are in Toledo,” Luzia said. A statement, not a question. Just as Fortún Donadei had warned. A prisoner of the Inquisition like Isabel de la Cruz had once been, and Piedrola, and Lucrecia de León. Fragments of the journey returned to her—the rumble of the wagon, the roar of a river. They would have passed the burning grounds as they entered the city walls through the Puerta de Bisagra.

“We are,” said Teoda on a sigh.

“I … I need to relieve myself.”

“The pot is in the corner,” said Teoda. “It’s all quite shocking, but maybe you will find it less so.”

“Because servants prefer to lift our skirts with an audience?”

“I’m sorry,” Teoda said with a laugh. “Neva and I will turn our backs and I will remember that modesty is not just for ladies with rich families.”

In truth, modesty was a luxury and Luzia had urinated in alleys and behind market stalls. But she was tired and frightened and her head was aching.

“Our wait for charges will not be so long,” Teoda said as Luzia saw to her needs. “There is an auto de fe planned for Todos los Santos. They’ll want to sentence us then. If you hadn’t been in a prison wagon you would have seen the stages and scaffolding going up in Plaza de Zocodover.”

The Feast of All Saints. That couldn’t be right. Trials were meant to last months if not years. “That’s mere weeks away.”

Teoda shrugged. “I have already confessed my heresies. They have no reason to prolong my stay here. Besides, the king will want to make a show of my death.”

“Then … you are to be burned?”

“Of course. If I repent the executioner will do me the courtesy of strangling me first, but I will not repent.”

“She’s not as brave as she sounds,” said Neva. “Neither am I. You’ll hear us crying at night.”

Teoda gave a huff that might have been another laugh. “We do each other the courtesy of ignoring it. We have no secrets here. And you should know the inquisitors sleep mere feet away and can hear us unless we whisper. Of course even if we whisper, Neva may denounce us for the sake of earning herself a speedier hearing.”

Luzia stretched, paced to the door where there was a small barred opening through which she could see nothing but a dimly lit hallway. A single window showed only the night beyond, and rags had been jammed into its seams to keep out the cold. The air felt too heavy, the damp dragging against her skin. She wished she’d been awake when they’d brought her here. She had no sense of where she was. They could be a mile belowground and she wouldn’t know.

“Try to breathe,” Teoda said, and Luzia realized she was panting, her hand pressed to her chest. “Or at least sit down so that you won’t be injured if you faint.”

“I don’t understand why I’m here.”

“None of us do,” said Neva.

“I do,” said Teoda.

Luzia sat down on the wooden cot across from Teoda. “Treason is a matter for the civil courts, isn’t it? Why am I a prisoner of the tribunal?”

“Count yourself lucky,” said Neva. “The city prisons are so crowded they force men and women into the same cells. They die in there and go undiscovered for days.”

Teoda gave Neva a meaningful glance. “A song for us?”

Neva beat her fist against her thigh and began to sing about three fountains in her village that ran cold in the summer and hot in the winter.

“A bit of privacy,” Teoda explained. “You must be here because of Pérez. He’s fled to Aragón, where the king is no match for his popularity. So Philip has sent the Inquisition after his old friend. Only the tribunal’s power reaches across every part of Spain.”

“How do you know all this?”

“We aren’t supposed to be permitted letters, but my brother has found ways to get news from the outside. And gossip is never in short supply here. The guards like to talk as much as we do.”

“Have you … Has there been word of Víctor de Paredes or his household?”