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

be said that Antonio had a bad temper; he was rarely angry, but when he was, he didn’t hide it. I recoiled, and he put a hand on my elbow, then drew it quickly away, as if afraid he might shake my arm.
    “You don’t understand,” I said stiffly. “I don’t expect you to.”
    “But what could possibly make you treat her so? Don’t tell me you’re ashamed she is a conversa !”
    I averted my eyes quickly—an admission of guilt.
    He stared at me in candid disgust. “Still you hate yourself for what you are? Do you realize that this makes you no better than Gabriel, or even Fray Hojeda? Do you really believe the stupid things people say? Your own mother!”
    “It’s easy for you,” I countered. “You’ve never been made to feel ashamed; you’ve never been taunted for what you are. Your people have never been murdered out of hatred.”
    He let go a long sigh, and with it, his anger. But he was still unhappy. “Marisol, when will you realize that the only way to have victory over such hatred is to love yourself? To love your mother and not turn in shame from her. I’ve seen you behave this way before. It’s unworthy of you. You’re a better person than that. Sometimes I think…” He trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought.
    “Say it,” I said. By this time, my own temper was rising. “Go ahead and say it. I’m marrying you just because you’re an Old Christian.”
    He was silent for a long pause and put his hand on my arm tenderly. “But then I dismiss it. Because no one could possibly feign the love you show me, Marisol. I just want you to be happy with yourself. With your mother.”
    My anger withered. “I don’t want to be unhappy.…”
    “Then promise me one thing. That you’ll look on your mother and yourself with more love. Can you do that?”
    “I’ll try,” I said, and he kissed me.
    It was only later that I realized: Antonio loved me more than I did myself.
    *   *   *
     
    Antonio left for Salamanca at dawn, on a day that promised to be brutally hot, as so many were in the late summer—cloudless beneath a blistering sun. Heat rose from the street outside the stucco walls of his father’s house, and the dry breeze held the brackish stink of the nearby river. As usual, it hadn’t rained a drop since March, the end of the wet season, and the waiting carriage was coated with dust.
    Antonio’s pale cotton tunic clung to the sweating muscles of his arms and chest; the sparse golden stubble on his cheeks and chin glittered. He’d said his good-byes to his parents, and his trunk was already loaded onto the waiting coach. He held me by my upper arms, studying my face as if afraid he might forget a detail.
    “I won’t be able to visit often,” he said, his eyes filling but his smile determined. “But I swear I’ll write you every day.”
    “You won’t be able to,” I reminded him; I couldn’t summon a smile, couldn’t keep my sadness from showing. “Not with your studies.”
    “Then once a week, at least,” he vowed. “I mean it. And will you write to me?”
    “Every day,” I answered. My small joke failed because I began to cry immediately after saying it.
    He tried to stifle my tears by pressing his lips against mine, but my shoulders still shook. I threw my arms around him and held on tightly, but all too soon, he caught my wrists and gently freed himself.
    Our faces almost touched as he whispered, “I’ll be back soon enough. And I will marry you, Marisol, and never leave you again.” His voice broke on the last word. As he pulled away, he tried to lighten the mood. “Don’t put me aside for another man,” he teased, and winked in the direction of the Hojeda house.
    I quit weeping long enough to roll my eyes and snort softly at the thought of my ever wanting anything to do with Gabriel Hojeda. “Don’t worry,” I said.
    *   *   *
     
    Antonio kept his word and wrote often; I responded to each letter and waited anxiously for the next. He spoke of