The Inquisitor's Wife by Jeanne Kalogridis Read Free Book Online

me to face each other. As I turned, I glanced through my filmy veil at the bits of brightness against the backdrop of overwhelming gloom—at the carved white tears of the Madonna, at her gleaming sunburst halo, at the pale, skeletal leer of the priest. Behind us, my father stepped forward and handed something small and shining to my desperate-eyed groom, who took it and turned back to me as if I were his executioner.
    I looked reluctantly at Gabriel. Six years had passed since the elderly Jew had wandered into our neighborhood; I was seventeen now, old for a new bride, and Gabriel was twenty-three. He’d returned from university to practice civil law in Seville, reluctantly: He had badly wanted to join his older brother Alonso as a monk at San Pablo Cloister, but don Jerónimo had refused, saying that his offering of one son to the church was sufficient; it was Gabriel’s duty to supply him with grandchildren. Somehow Jerónimo had secured his youngest the post of civil prosecutor, a job many said was ill matched to Gabriel’s natural timidity and unimpressive intellect. Gabriel had lived with his father until the old man died, and afterward, continued to live alone in his father’s house.
    No longer a lad, Gabriel was still taller, broader, and more pious than his peers. Despite his sedentary days indoors either at court or reading law books, he was still powerfully built and strong. He saw the sun twice a day now, when he walked from his house to the government building near the vacant Royal Palace and back; it had bleached his hair stark white and left his fair nose and cheeks tinged with pink. Candlelight glittered off tiny beads of sweat on his upper lip as he reached for my hand.
    If I hadn’t been trapped within my self-made prison of grief and guilt, I might have pulled away from him and run down the altar steps to disappear into the darkness. But resentment—cold and burning as ice against bare flesh—made me hold my ground and glare into my bridegroom’s fear-filled, bovine eyes. I loved my father deeply, yet I was furious because he was sending me away when I needed him most, to live with a man I despised. For that crime, I was willing to be miserable for a lifetime as a reproach to him—and to myself. Fixing that thought in my mind, I listened patiently as Gabriel haltingly repeated the vows fed him by the priest, and when Gabriel reached for me, I lifted my hand to meet his halfway. I pressed my fingertips against his damp left palm and raised my right ring finger, enabling him to slip the thin golden band onto it.
    Then it was time for me to make my promise. There would be no ring for Gabriel, just as there would be no fragrant flowers, no happy mother of the bride, and no new wedding dress, only mourning.
    “I, Marisol, promise to take you, Gabriel, for my lawful wedded husband.…”
    My tone was flat; I rattled off the words as quickly as I could. They sickened me, for though I’d often longed to utter them, I was addressing them to the wrong man.
    *   *   *
     
    I returned to the tableau frozen in my memory—of the terrified old Jew and his mutilated face, sinking as he clung to the olive tree; of Gabriel, swinging the thick walking stick to the cheering of his teammates; of Antonio, his red-gold hair catching the sunlight as he ran, his right fist raised, up to Gabriel. I called out Antonio’s name, fearing he meant to strike the bigger boy, a losing proposition—but at the last instant, as Gabriel turned his quizzical face toward Antonio, the latter’s fist opened abruptly to fling sand up into Gabriel’s face at the same time that he shouted at the bully and the crowd:
    “Cowards! Cowards, all of you, to attack someone weaker than yourselves!”
    Gabriel roared and dropped the walking stick; his hands went to his eyes. He lumbered about blindly long enough for Antonio to recover the stick and wallop him behind the knees.
    Gabriel fell face forward onto the soft dirt in front of the