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They shuffle uneasily like cattle ready to stampede, look to their duke for leadership. And the duke gives nothing in return. As he always has, thinks Mercedes. As he always has.
Larissa mounts the steps, full charge. Grabs the arm of the nearest solterona, whirls her like a hammer and sends her tumbling to the ground below. The women shriek. Crowd backwards like the cowards they are.
‘Get out! Get out! Go!’
She cuts through them like a tornado. A body flies down the stone steps, and another, and another. They hit the ground with dull thuds and the crunching of bones. One struggles to sit up. Blood streams from her nose and stains her starched white bodice.
And Mercedes sees fear on their faces and it is glorious. Oh, my mother, my mother. You are magnificent.
Larissa gets her hands on Madilena Harouj. Both arms. She must be seventy if she’s a day. I don’t care, thinks Mercedes. The older they are, the longer they have spent torturing us. She hauls her to the top of the steps and pushes her full in the back. The old woman stumbles, staggers down a couple of steps, teeters but stays somehow on her feet, her mouth gaping.
Larissa turns back while Mercedes’ father bleats from the square below. ‘Larissa! Stop it! Stop! What are you doing?’
The duke looks on. The colour has drained from his face, but he shows no emotion.
Half a dozen men break away from the crowd and throw themselves on her mother. Always the men, thinks Mercedes. Always the men. We’ll never be free of them.
Larissa bucks and flails and roars out her rage as they haul her backwards, and still she manages to land a couple of hard kicks on her quailing targets.
‘Get off!’ she shouts. ‘Get off me!’
They drag her down to the square. Hold her still among the fallen bodies as she pants out her defiance. ‘You!’ she shouts. ‘You fucking … killers! You killed my fucking daughter and now you want to come to her funeral? Get out! Get away! I don’t want you here!’ With a mighty lurch, she pulls away from her captors. Whirls round to face the crowd. ‘None of you! Do you hear? You all killed her. Hypocrites! Fucking hypocrites! Every single one of you! I don’t want you here!’
Her chest heaves. The men drop back, suddenly respectful. They know, thinks Mercedes. They know she’s right.
And Sergio wrings his hands and does nothing.
When Larissa speaks again, her voice is calmer. But no less certain. She glares about her, and her neighbours avert their gaze. ‘Are you proud of yourselves?’ she asks. ‘Driving a sixteen-year-old girl to her death? Is this what makes you proud?’
A collective gasp. A murmur.
Larissa turns back to the church. Fixes her eye on the duke. Raises a hand and points a finger, so he cannot be under the illusion that she is addressing anybody else.
‘And you. You’re no better than they are. You could have put a stop to all this years ago. But no. You love it, don’t you? Walking at the head of the parade, leading us all to the slaughter. And bringing those people here. All your yacht people with their money and their disdain. You’re one of them. Corruptor. You’re one of them!’
She spits on the ground.
‘You’re supposed to be noble,’ she says. ‘And look at you. Killer. Just like your friends. You may keep your hands clean, but you killed her just as surely as they did.’
Paulina Marino pushes her way into the space beside her and crosses her arms. Turns back to the other women. ‘Those were our sisters,’ she says. ‘Those were our daughters.’
‘Paulina!’ cries Hector.
‘No!’ she snaps. ‘It has to stop.’ She turns back to the church. ‘Go!’ she shouts. ‘Just go!’
Beata Vinci steps forward. Comes to stand beside them. Raises a fist and shakes it at the tyrants. Then Ximena Vigonier squeezes Mercedes’ shoulder, throws her a smile so sweet Mercedes thinks her heart will snap, and goes to join them.
And, one by one, the women find their voices. They push forward, shrug off their men and march to the foot of the steps.
‘Go!’ they shout. From nowhere, a stone flies and catches a tormentor on the cheek, and Mercedes knows that life has changed forever.
The duke has the grace, for one split second, to look ashamed. Then the priest takes his arm and pulls him towards the great carved doorway, towards sanctuary. And a handful of men – the ones who know on what side their bread is buttered – Cosmo Albert, Bocelli the notary and, to her eternal shame, her own father – jog up the steps to form a phalanx and shield him from the crowd.
A hand slips into hers. She looks down, then up, and sees that it belongs to Felix Marino. He stands beside her quietly as the church door slams, and the women shout, and she grieves for her sister.
