Read Online The Mapmaker's Daughter by Laurel Corona - Free Book Online
Authors: Laurel Corona
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the glorious sky.
He nods and goes back to his paint and brushes. When I go out the door, the wind finds me, and I lean into it forcefully in the direction of the stable. The sky is huge and blue, with a few low clouds hugging the horizon at sea. The cluster of buildings on the promontory—two cottages, a walled garden, a stable, a tiny chapel, and a watchtower—are so white they hurt my eyes.
I can see Tareyja’s husband Martim in the corral. He is about my father’s age and small like him, but strong and light on his feet. He and Tareyja are serfs who came at the prince’s orders to live in the caretaker’s cottage and tend to the needs of the deaf mapmaker and his daughter.
“Can I take Chuva out today?” I ask him. I named my Andalusian mare after the Portuguese word for rain, because her gray shoulders and haunches look like dust spotted with raindrops. A carriage transports Papa and me to Raposeira in bad weather, but I learned to ride when we first arrived, and we go everywhere we can on horseback.
Martim saddles up Chuva and holds the bridle while I get on. The wind-scoured rock is uneven and slippery—too hard on Chuva’s hooves to do anything more than pick our way forward, but beyond the promontory the footing in the scrub flowers and low grass is better, and I ease her into a trot. “Do you want to run on the beach?” I ask her, sure she understands because she tosses her head and nickers.
A gentle, sloping path leads to the water. The beach is a half-moon of sand, bounded on both ends by low cliffs and surf-carved rocks. The gentle breakers shimmer like strewn handfuls of jewels. I let out a laugh that comes from the deepest place within me. “Go, Chuvita!” I call out. “We’re the wind, you and I!”
Chuva’s stride lengthens when she reaches the packed sand near the water’s edge. Back and forth we gallop, her hooves splashing through the edges of the waves. I sing loudly to the sky, because in these moments, I am so free nothing can stop me, not even the ends of the world itself.
I dismount and leave my shoes and stockings on a rock while Chuva wanders over to a ragged patch of grass. Making my way to the water’s edge, I let the hem of my dress lift up as the surf hisses and crackles around my feet. It tickles my toes as it washes in and out, sinking my feet into the sand. The water is so cold it takes a moment to be comfortable enough to wade in up to my knees, soaking the back of my dress as I squint into the sun in the direction of the watchtower on the cliff top. Then, as always, I walk up the beach until I am too close to the cliff to be able to look up and see the buildings.
If Papa or Martim or Tareyja were to come to the cliff’s edge to look for me on the beach, they couldn’t find me. I feel reborn in these moments, and my imagination runs wild. If a stranger came along, I could make up any story at all, because no one would expect me to be the Amalia people know. I could be a gypsy girl, or perhaps a Moorish princess washed ashore from Africa, or a mermaid who suddenly discovers she has lost her tail and must live in the world of humans.
Even more than these stories, I love having nothing at all in my head except a feeling of comfort in the world. It’s not too hot or too cold, I am neither hungry nor uncomfortably full. I am out of the wind and the midday sun. Everything is perfect.
I tip my face to the sky. “Baruch atah Adonai,” I whisper. Saying a blessing at such moments still feels natural to me, although I’m really neither Christian nor Jew now. Living our solitary life at Sagres, I rarely go to mass. I would not have known it was Passover a few months ago if I hadn’t been at Prince Henry’s court for the day and overheard a Jewish visitor refusing to eat leavened bread, or Eastertide if the prince had not spent most of his time praying in his private chapel.
One day is like another on the cape—although I know I’ve missed Shabbat if we come into
He nods and goes back to his paint and brushes. When I go out the door, the wind finds me, and I lean into it forcefully in the direction of the stable. The sky is huge and blue, with a few low clouds hugging the horizon at sea. The cluster of buildings on the promontory—two cottages, a walled garden, a stable, a tiny chapel, and a watchtower—are so white they hurt my eyes.
I can see Tareyja’s husband Martim in the corral. He is about my father’s age and small like him, but strong and light on his feet. He and Tareyja are serfs who came at the prince’s orders to live in the caretaker’s cottage and tend to the needs of the deaf mapmaker and his daughter.
“Can I take Chuva out today?” I ask him. I named my Andalusian mare after the Portuguese word for rain, because her gray shoulders and haunches look like dust spotted with raindrops. A carriage transports Papa and me to Raposeira in bad weather, but I learned to ride when we first arrived, and we go everywhere we can on horseback.
Martim saddles up Chuva and holds the bridle while I get on. The wind-scoured rock is uneven and slippery—too hard on Chuva’s hooves to do anything more than pick our way forward, but beyond the promontory the footing in the scrub flowers and low grass is better, and I ease her into a trot. “Do you want to run on the beach?” I ask her, sure she understands because she tosses her head and nickers.
A gentle, sloping path leads to the water. The beach is a half-moon of sand, bounded on both ends by low cliffs and surf-carved rocks. The gentle breakers shimmer like strewn handfuls of jewels. I let out a laugh that comes from the deepest place within me. “Go, Chuvita!” I call out. “We’re the wind, you and I!”
Chuva’s stride lengthens when she reaches the packed sand near the water’s edge. Back and forth we gallop, her hooves splashing through the edges of the waves. I sing loudly to the sky, because in these moments, I am so free nothing can stop me, not even the ends of the world itself.
I dismount and leave my shoes and stockings on a rock while Chuva wanders over to a ragged patch of grass. Making my way to the water’s edge, I let the hem of my dress lift up as the surf hisses and crackles around my feet. It tickles my toes as it washes in and out, sinking my feet into the sand. The water is so cold it takes a moment to be comfortable enough to wade in up to my knees, soaking the back of my dress as I squint into the sun in the direction of the watchtower on the cliff top. Then, as always, I walk up the beach until I am too close to the cliff to be able to look up and see the buildings.
If Papa or Martim or Tareyja were to come to the cliff’s edge to look for me on the beach, they couldn’t find me. I feel reborn in these moments, and my imagination runs wild. If a stranger came along, I could make up any story at all, because no one would expect me to be the Amalia people know. I could be a gypsy girl, or perhaps a Moorish princess washed ashore from Africa, or a mermaid who suddenly discovers she has lost her tail and must live in the world of humans.
Even more than these stories, I love having nothing at all in my head except a feeling of comfort in the world. It’s not too hot or too cold, I am neither hungry nor uncomfortably full. I am out of the wind and the midday sun. Everything is perfect.
I tip my face to the sky. “Baruch atah Adonai,” I whisper. Saying a blessing at such moments still feels natural to me, although I’m really neither Christian nor Jew now. Living our solitary life at Sagres, I rarely go to mass. I would not have known it was Passover a few months ago if I hadn’t been at Prince Henry’s court for the day and overheard a Jewish visitor refusing to eat leavened bread, or Eastertide if the prince had not spent most of his time praying in his private chapel.
One day is like another on the cape—although I know I’ve missed Shabbat if we come into
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