Page 27 of The Familiar

“Your coach?”

Hualit’s lips twitched. So Valentina wasn’t totally without spine. “The coach belongs to Don Víctor, but he has offered us use of it.”

Luzia watched Valentina hesitate. She didn’t know which rule she might be violating, which liberty she might be taking. She would have to ask Don Marius for permission to leave. Luzia wondered what Hualit would do if Valentina said no, if she forbade Luzia from going. She probably should. It would put Hualit in her place, and Luzia knew her aunt: such a show of will would impress her. But Luzia didn’t want Valentina to refuse this opportunity. The greedy thing inside her was hungry for velvet and fur.

“I will fetch my cloak,” Valentina said.

Hualit smiled and Luzia couldn’t help smiling too.

Valentina had purchased her two house dresses from a market stall and made the third—the same gown she’d worn for her wedding—herself. There was no pride in this. She knew wealthy women had their own tailors who brought them fabrics or even gowns from Italy or France.

Valentina’s confessor, who was much older and sterner and more covered in whiskers than the young man riding beside the widow, had told her that it was a woman’s nature to be too concerned with worldly matters and that this was how the devil tempted Eve in the world’s first garden. He’d told her the story of a young countess who had pined after a ruby brooch with such fervor that she’d woken with a forked tongue.

So Valentina knew that both her soul and her tongue were in danger as the coach rattled over the streets, and yet she couldn’t stop her wayward, venal thoughts. It was unseemly, immoral, but try as she might to tamp it down, she felt as if her delight was oozing from her pores, slicking her skin. It was not just the promise of new clothes. To ride in a coach down the street, to see the world passing by in such colors. She would have happily ridden around the entire city that way, her mind scrambling to recognize streets and monuments, taking in fountains and storefronts and flocks of pale-breasted pigeons. Valentina lifted her wrist to her nose; the sachet of dried herbs tied to her sleeve was stuffed with rosemary and sage and she breathed deeply. It was made to protect the wearer from foul smells, but nothing could be foul about this moment. The stink of the city, even the sludge of garbage and excrement in its streets, was beautiful today.

Marius looked ill at ease in the close quarters of the coach, but he’d been unwilling to let his wife venture out with Catalina de Castro de Oro, priest in tow or not. Widow she might be, favored for her wit and beauty, and welcomed among the best families. But her allegiance was to Don Víctor, and he didn’t want her alone with their Luzia.

Not that Marius had asked, but Valentina thought he was right to worry. There was a peculiar ease between Luzia and the widow. Maybe ease wasn’t the right word. It was as if each word they spoke had another meaning tucked beneath it.

When their party emerged onto the street, Valentina felt another jolt of exultation. They hadn’t gone far, only to Puerta de Guadalajara, but it felt as if they were an entire ocean away from Casa Ordoño. She wasn’t sure what to call the building they entered, part shop and part warehouse. It was not like a butcher’s or a bookseller’s, but a kind of silo for the storage of luxury, two tall stories full of shelves and racks, connected by walkways and ladders, the stacks of folded fabric and heaps of brocade looming over three cutting tables and a chorus of stuffed dress forms, their torsos pinned with swags of stiff silk and wound with bolts of lace. Two rows of heads bracketed the doors in jeweled caps and veils. Cases full of feathers caught the light from the window, their shelves laden with carefully constructed panaches wound with gold and silver wire, striped pheasant feathers, blue and red parrot, iridescent plumes shimmering green then yellow.

“You’re staring,” Marius said, pinching her elbow and steering her along.

“Why should I not stare?” she snapped without thinking. “Would a blind man not stare at his first sight of the world?”

Now he goggled at her and she wondered if he might strike her or … she didn’t know what. She had never attracted Marius’s attention or his ire.

But the widow looped her arm through Valentina’s. “So few pleasures are allowed to women. No wonder we ache for a little silk.”

“It is sinful,” Valentina said, hating her prim, fussy voice.

The widow only winked. “More sinful to walk around naked.”

“This is why there are no tailors in hell,” said a short man dressed in heavily embellished layers of plum brocade.

The widow’s confessor made a disapproving mew, and Valentina didn’t know whether to laugh or beg forgiveness for keeping company with such people.

The tailor bowed to each of them, welcoming them warmly and introducing himself as Perucho with the air of someone who expected his name to be well-known. He wore his hair long and parted in the center, his mustache elaborately oiled. Beside her she felt Marius recoil. While the tailor’s accent was pristine, he had the air of the foreign about him.

“You have noted the work of our plumajero,” he said, gesturing to the cases. “Second only to the king’s. Egret, ostrich, parrot, even night heron. Note the colors. You’ll find no alum here. We dye with turmeric and berries from Persia more purple than a bruise.” He shepherded them toward one of the tables. “Come. I’ve just returned from a buying trip that took me over land and sea, and I have such treats prepared for you.”

But as he spoke he bobbed his head very subtly toward customers in another corner of the shop, a father and daughter.

The girl was like a tiny doll, her laugh high and sweet, her reddish-gold hair worn pulled back from her face in two jeweled combs.

“Ah,” said the widow, her eyes sparkling with interest. “Teoda Halcón. I trust you didn’t waste your best wares on that little viper.”

“She is a child,” Valentina said, scandalized.

Teoda turned as she and her father exited the shop, her gaze roving over their group and landing on Luzia, her lips curling into a smile.

“That is not an ordinary girl,” said the widow when they were gone. “That is the Holy Child.”

Her confessor crossed himself. “Of the sacred visions.”

“She’s one of your competitors,” the widow said to Luzia. “Take note.”

“A little girl?” asked Valentina.