City of Silver by Annamaria Alfieri Read Free Book Online Page A

Morada to her father.”
    Maria Santa Hilda suppressed a smile and reached into her pocket for the Alcalde’s note. “My lord, I have—”
    “His Lordship here has told me that you harbor some strange ideas about protecting young women from their duty to their fathers,” Commissioner DaTriesta interrupted her.
    Fear, like the footfalls of a spider, crept across the Abbess’s shoulders. DaTriesta was sniffing for heresy. She bristled at the threat. Showing him the note would stop him, but she was tempted to let him stumble into a losing fight. She withdrew her hand from her pocket. “We live in a licentious and quarrelsome city, Father Commissioner,” she said with forced humility. “My sisters and I devote our lives to prayer that we may be a wellspring of grace to serve God’s people.”
    “Is it true, as I have heard,” DaTriesta said, “that you harboropinions about women that are very liberal—almost Protestant?”
    The Abbess looked to the Bishop for some defense. He suppressed a belch and turned to the Commissioner. “Come now. The Lady Abbess . . .” His voice trailed off, as if he could offer nothing but her nobility to credit her.
    “I think the Lady Abbess should answer my question,” DaTriesta said, and licked his thick, dry lower lip.
    Sor Olga’s face worked. She looked as if her tongue were scraping something off the roof of her mouth. Her eyes gloated that her repeated warnings to the Abbess had come to pass.
    An excess of temper forced the truth from the Abbess. “I merely reminded His Grace that it often falls to convents to take problem women off the hands of the wealthy.” She refrained from saying such as poor wretched girls who had lost their virginity and were no longer marriageable. The insane. The deformed. The merely ugly. Women considered useless because they would make no nobleman a desirable wife.
    “Be careful of pride, my daughter,” DaTriesta said.
    “May I respectfully remind you, Father, that I am answerable only to the head of my order in Madrid.” She looked to the Bishop, but his small, round eyes deferred to DaTriesta.
    The Commissioner held back his haughty head. “If you are thinking of appealing to your Mother House, remember it will take six months for your letter to cross the ocean and a reply to return. Much can transpire in such a time.”
    She met DaTriesta’s gaze and struggled to hide her disdain.
    “Shall I tell Captain de la Morada that he may come and get his daughter?” the Bishop asked.
    She withdrew the paper from her pocket. “In fact, my lord, he writes me that he has relinquished her to the convent. He begs only that I keep her safe and to pray for both of them.”
    The Bishop took the paper and read. His mouth opened and closed in shock. He fell silent.
    The Abbess took back the letter. “Perhaps Captain Morada has seen that in this regard, it is best to allow his daughter some time in my convent to come to peace within herself.” Mother Maria did her best to hide the triumph in her voice. “I will seek to restore Inez’s former attachment to her father, the Alcalde. However, if she comes to believe that her soul’s salvation lies in a life of contemplation, I will welcome her as my Sister.”
    The Bishop’s pale lips drooped in a dyspeptic frown. “With Inez de la Morada and Beatriz, the daughter of the mining Captain Tovar, your convent may soon be collecting two very large dowries.”
    “Be careful, Lady Abbess,” DaTriesta said evenly. “With all that wealth, your convent will become the envy of other religious orders in the city.”
    The Bishop nodded in agreement.
    She bowed to him. “Perhaps, Your Grace, but I think Beatriz Tovar may soon leave us.”

 

    Three
     

     
    IN HER CELL at the Convent of Santa Isabella de los Santos Milagros, Beatriz Tovar sat listening to the brooding silence of the cloistered garden, where the last leaves and one forgotten shriveled apple clung to the branches of a lone tree. Fear shone in