The Sisterhood

Chapter 22


From the Chronicle of Las Sors Santas de Jesus, by the pen of Esperanza, the New World, October 1552





My heart is so heavy with grief that, were it not for my promise to the Abbess and Sor Beatriz, I would abandon the Chronicle. It feels a lifetime has passed since we arrived in this strange place, although it has been less than a month since tragedy struck. Were it not for my promise to keep a record, I would write no more.

As the ship glided into the port, the air was heavy and damp, with sort of a gray mist over everything. The quay was teeming. Native men with broad dark faces were busy loading and unloading ships, jostled by slaves and porters, food vendors and merchants, Chinamen and black women in turbans, all shouting at the tops of their voices. There were native women with flat faces and babies on their backs, water sellers with buckets on yokes, flower vendors, carriages and sedan chairs bearing ladies in muslin gowns that fluttered in the breeze, followed by servants trotting to keep up. Caged parrots and monkeys squawked, mules and horses struggled to make their way through the throng, and over it all hung a powerful smell of fish. Donkeys brayed, sailors shouted in a myriad of languages, native porters called for customers, and in the town church bells rang every minute.

Marisol was smiling. How painful to remember that!

As the gangplank was lowered the captain made his way through the sailors to us, beaming with relief the voyage was over, and I am sure, grayer in his beard than when we had left Seville. “Now young ladies, if you please, welcome to Spanish America!” With a flourish, as if he were master of the land ahead of us, he bowed and indicated we were to go ahead of him down the gangplank.

We hesitated. Then Marisol tossed her head and said, “Come, then!” and led the way. We followed her. But how full of men the world is! And what an attraction four girls make among them! Men eyed us boldly, and as it was far too hot and sticky to wear our veils, we felt uncomfortably exposed. “Surely these ruffians cannot be the husbands we have come for?” Marisol muttered, as swarthy young men flashed her a smile or a wink or bowed. How Marisol contrives to look so pretty after our ordeal I do not know. One impudent fellow even kissed his fingertips in her direction and called something we did not understand, but must surely have been impertinent. Pia followed close in her footsteps, eyes down. Fortunately Pia had taken the precaution of covering her hair or there might have been a riot.

Sanchia clung to Pia’s hand, turning her head this way and that, staring at everything. I came last, feeling very beata-like in my brown dress and heavy shoes amid so much vigor and life and color.

We stood with our trunks and I took out the Abbess’s letter of introduction we were to present when we arrived. “We must go to the Convent of the Holy Sisters of Jesus of the Andes,” I said to the captain. “Can you tell us how we would find it?”

“Ah, so many convents,” he replied, waving a hand in the direction of the town. “Often convents and monasteries here are known simply by their local name.” He shook his head and shrugged. I steeled myself to ask one of the priests and friars making their way through the noisy throng, but just then someone roared, “Move aside!” and we were all four sent sprawling by a large wagon loaded with fruit, driven by a rough character waving his whip.

Two fine gentlemen in black silk hurried to our rescue, followed by their servants. We were helped to our feet and the men took in our shabby beatas’ gowns and our disreputable appearances and I felt it best to explain that we were bound for a convent, and I asked if they knew the convent, known as Las Golondrinas.

The older of the two, a dignified man of about forty with dark piercing eyes, introduced himself as Don Miguel Aguilar and the younger as Don Tomas Beltran. Don Miguel was courteous, but the younger man was the impudent fellow who had kissed his fingertips to Marisol, and who now stared at her with open admiration and winked. Marisol fixed a disdainful gaze on the horizon.

“The swallows’ convent, yes!” To my dismay he pointed into the distance where I could just see the mountains and white-capped peaks in the mist, explaining that the convent was in a fine new Spanish city a week’s journey inland. Don Miguel said that if we would allow them they would escort us to another convent near the quay where we could stay while travel arrangements were made. It was dangerous for young women to be abroad without servants, and they could see we had none.

Of course we accepted their help. They summoned their carriage, saw our trunks put on, and gave directions to the convent of La Concepción. Don Miguel explained that he had two cousins who were nuns there, and when we reached it he sent a maid to fetch his cousins to the locutio.

His cousins were two sweet young nuns who welcomed us cordially, saying we must stay and rest, and that the convent would help procure us wagons and drivers and guards in a few days’ time. We asked why the necessity for guards and were alarmed when they told us that the journey was dangerous. Travelers were often attacked by brigands, escaped slaves, or renegade natives, they said.

A young servant girl came and led us to a courtyard with a fountain where she pointed out a quarter for visiting women, with cells and rooms allocated according to wealth and importance. Wealthy ladies in the best apartments, narrow dark cells for women of lesser standing. There was also—she pointed to a barred section in the corner—a women’s jail. The courtyard was full of women, children, servants, visiting female relatives, and lapdogs. In the shade by the fountain, two girls were practicing their music with a lute and a guitar.

We were given a plain whitewashed room big enough for three, with coarse linen on the beds. The maid brought water with rose petals for us to wash in, and insisted on taking our traveling clothes to be laundered. She wrinkled her nose as she carried them away. We washed and changed and the maid returned to lead us to a section of the refectory where other visitors were seated at long tables. We helped ourselves from dishes of fish, small flat cakes made of a coarse yellow meal, and strange vegetables in a spicy sauce. The sauce was so fiery it made us gasp and choke, but strangely, after eating it we felt less oppressed by the suffocating atmosphere.

Two older ladies at the table were looking at us with frank curiosity, so I ventured to speak to them and asked if they knew of our rescuers, Don Miguel and Don Tomas. This brought a flurry of eye rolling and exclamations. Don Miguel Aguilar, they said, was a wealthy widower. A very proud man, a cacique. We did not know what that was, but before we could ask, they were shaking their fingers warningly, saying to beware of Don Tomas Beltran, who was Don Miguel’s godson. Don Tomas—their faces grew long with disapproval—has a dreadful reputation. “A rich young man but given over to vice and licentious ways,” whispered one lady. “A frequenter of taverns and brothels. He is the despair of his mother.”

“His father has been dead for six months, and Tomas is the eldest son. He should assume his responsibilities as head of the family,” said the other, “but so far he has shown no inclination to do his duty. His mother is anxious for marriage to steady him, and she is a lady of some determination. They say she has arranged a good match for him, a girl from a Spanish family. Not pretty, but with a sound bloodline. It is Don Tomas’s duty to get a legitimate heir. So far he has perpetuated the line only with mestiza bastards. A great many of them!” Here both ladies shook their heads and tutted again.

Marisol said nothing, but I could tell she was listening closely to this exchange.

A few days later, much restored, we thanked the kind nuns for their hospitality and set out in a hired carriage, our trunks following on a mule-drawn wagon, with armed outriders and a middle-aged laywoman from the convent accompanying us as chaperone. We began to climb above sea level to a plateau where the air was drier and it was clear enough to see the mountains. The guards told us the Incas had built the road, as they had built many others throughout their kingdom. We saw many Inca peasants on the road, wide-faced people with copper complexions burned by the sun and wind, leading long-necked beasts of burden. Their fields of crops were terraced high into the hills, and as we went higher still, great birds soared overhead in a bright-blue sky. “El condor,” our guides said and crossed themselves.

We stopped the first night just before the sun began to sink, and the guards busied themselves making a campfire. The moment the sun disappeared it grew bitterly cold and we were quickly chilled to the bone. We were given heavy blankets that smelled of mutton and our guards brewed a drink over the campfire. “Chicha,” they call it. Though we grimaced at the bitter taste, they insisted we drink it. Afterward we felt light-headed and ceased to feel the cold. When we lay down to sleep, there was a haunting sound, like the music of the wind. Our chaperone told us it was the drivers’ native pipes.

Three afternoons later we had reached a broad plateau and were dozing from the rocking of the carriage when a shout from one of the guards woke us. There was a sharp crack of his whip and we felt the carriage begin to go very fast. “Look, Marisol, that man from the quay is following us on horseback,” exclaimed Sanchia, hanging out the carriage window. “The handsome one who bowed to you and laughed when you would not look at him. He is waving his hat. But I do not think he will catch us; we are moving too fast.”

“Enough, Sanchia! Don’t wave back or I’ll box your ears!” Marisol pulled Sanchia inside. “Yes, I think he has gone,” Marisol said. She looked out the window a long time to be certain.

On the fifth day we were approaching a narrow pass through some rocks. The carriage halted to let the baggage wagon go through. All the guards but one followed. Then “Banditos!” the driver shouted, and looking out we saw a party of mounted men galloping from behind the rocks toward us. The remaining guard drew his musket, but the bandits were upon us, throwing the guard to the ground and wrenching open the carriage door as their horses reared and plunged. They all had scarves across their faces and pushed Sanchia and Pia to the floor. Then their leader pointed to Marisol and beckoned. When she shook her head, in the blink of an eye he reached in and pulled Marisol from the carriage, shrieking, kicking, and biting. He flung her easily onto the front of his saddle, and off they all rode with Marisol’s screams ringing in our ears. The guard took aim but could not fire lest he hit her. “Banditos!” he spat, and shook his head. “Very bad men!”

They had come and gone within minutes. The chaperone began to wail and supplicate the saints, one by one. The three of us burst into tears, stunned by the horror of what had happened. The guards who had left us came back to see why we had not followed. When they heard what had happened they swore and spoke of going after the bandits—though it was plain they were reluctant, and would not follow very fast.

In the following days we prayed sorrowfully for Marisol and kept an anxious watch for the brigands’ return. The mountains seemed no closer, though we had been traveling for days. Finally Sanchia shouted, “I see it!” The driver pointed to a great gate with a cross above it rising above a cluster of buildings, against a background of snow-capped mountains and a very blue sky. “Look lady and young ladies! The convent of Las Golondrinas!”