Read Online The Mapmaker's Daughter by Laurel Corona - Free Book Online Page A

Lagos, the only real town near us, and I hear the Sunday bells ringing. It makes me sad to have drifted away from Mama’s ways, because it feels like losing her a second time, as if there is a place beyond the grave where the dead disappear only when they become strangers to the ways of the ones they left behind.
    The rock I am sitting on feels jagged and hard now, and my throat is dry. I shift my weight, and my bottom feels numb. Tareyja will worry if I am late for dinner. I start back toward Chuva. “Are you ready to go home?” I stroke her nose and lean my head into her mane, and she whinnies to say she loves me too as we head up the path for home.
    ***
    When I come back to our compound, I see a horse wearing the regalia of Prince Henry’s court tied up outside my house. I leave Chuva with Martim and hurry to see who is here. I feel guilty for being gone so long, because my father will have trouble communicating with whoever has come from Raposeira to see him.
    Papa has rolled up his new map and is slipping it inside a leather case when I come in. “He’s been summoned,” the messenger tells me.
    Before Martim has a chance to remove Chuva’s saddle, I am back astride and accompanying my father to Raposeira. We ride past white-sailed windmills and small farms, through grain fields and pastures dotted with cork oaks, across creeks and along ridges looking down to the sea, until an hour or so later, we arrive at Prince Henry’s palace.
    It’s really no more than a large house, nothing like the Duke of Medina-Sidonia’s residence, where I used to interpret for my father. The first room is a vestibule with a stone floor covered with fresh straw to catch the dirt from people’s shoes. Except in the worst weather, the heavy palace doors are open, and dogs wander through, sniffing in the corners for scents and making water to mark their spot.
    Anyone can come in this first room, but except for petitioners during set hours, only Prince Henry’s guests can cross the threshold to the antechamber. Inside, wall sconces and heavy iron standards hold lit torches day and night, but the light is dim enough that I have to stand close to the wall frescoes to see the details. One shows caravels heading across blue seas, carrying the banner of Portugal atop their masts. Here and there, a sea monster lifts its head and mermaids cavort—scenes that must have been painted before Prince Henry decided such things are foolish. The other fresco shows the Moorish ramparts at Ceuta, on the north coast of Africa. Led by the prince himself, Portuguese troops with banners and shields blazoned with crosses are routing the Moors, and flames rise from the besieged citadel.
    Off the antechamber is a banquet hall big enough for no more than ten or fifteen people, because the prince does not entertain large groups. He is always dressed exquisitely and expects the same of those in his service, but a meal at Raposeira is no grander than at the inns where we stopped on our journey to Portugal, with pewter plates, soup, and heavily watered wine. I’ve heard Prince Henry wears a hair shirt next to his skin, and I suppose the meager fare and the shirt are part of something God demands, though I don’t understand why the Holy One would make someone a prince and then not let him enjoy it.
    If I were a princess, I would have a huge palace. Perhaps if Prince Henry had a wife, she would insist on it. It seems odd he isn’t married, and I think he must miss having sons, since he seems partial to several of the young squires who attend him. A few go with so little protocol into the most private recesses of the palace that it seems as if it is their home as much as his.
    My father told me that Henry chose a life of chastity as a young man, and he has never known a woman. He’s the head of the religious fraternity known as the Order of Christ, and though he hasn’t taken vows, he thinks he should set a good example by being chaste like the others. It would