"You told me that you had to stay clear of the comedias because you owed money and had slashed a creditor who insulted you."
Mateo patted the gold in his pocket. "I knew an alchemist who believed that gold could cure disease. He was right—but it is social diseases like debts and public offenses money cures. Bastardo, wait until you see the great playhouse of Seville. Those little corrals we toyed with—eh, you could put half of the City of Mexico under the roof of the Corral de El Coliseo. My favorite is the Doña Elvira, built by the count of Gelves. It is older than the Coliseo, and without as much roof, but an actor can be heard in it much better. But it is the play that will determine where we attend. Depending on what is playing, we will patronize de las Atarazanas, the Don Juan..."
I sighed. Arguing with him was futile. Plays were in the autor's blood. And my own inhibitions were weakening. I had spent years in hell, and now I shared his excitement. My blood was on fire just hearing about plays.
"Our attire must first fit our station as rich caballeros. Nothing but the finest silks and linens, the softest wool, for our doublets, pants, and capes. Boot leather smoother than a baby's bottom, hats with the rarest of plumage. And swords! Fine Toledo blades that draw blood with the ease of a clumsy barber. And jeweled daggers. One cannot kill another gentlemen with a woodsman's ax!"
¡Ay de mí! We possessed a king's ransom, but to a man whose views of money came from the grandiose fantasy of Amadis de Gaul, even the riches of Croesus were a pittance.
Our plan to live modestly and avoid attention was already in tatters. I would feel fortunate if Mateo did not storm Seville in a chariot like Caesar returning to Rome with his legions.
ONE HUNDRED AND NINE
"Don Cristo, may I present Doña Ana Franca de Henares."
"My lady." I greeted her with a low, sweeping bow.
Eh, amigos, did you think it would be long before Mateo and I enjoyed the charms and arms of feminine companionship?
Mateo had warned me about Doña Ana. Her ennobled title of doña was as genuine as my own beknighted don-hood. The daughter of a butcher, an elderly nobleman had retained her as a serving wench at age fourteen. Most of her services were performed in his bedroom. He was so decrepit he used her primarily as a foot warmer, mostly employing the private place between her legs for his cold feet.
She ran away at the age of seventeen with an itinerant acting troupe, instantly assuming the role of the autor's mistress. She had talent though and soon commanded leading roles in Madrid, Seville, and Barcelona. With fame, power proliferated, and her liaisons turned legion.
I admit to Mateo's warning not to get romantically involved with her. Not because she was a fortune hunter; that was to be expected. Not because she was immoral; that was to be desired. Nor because she had had many lovers; that made her knowledgeable. But because of the danger.
"The Count of Lemos is her current lover," Mateo told me before he introduced me. "He is a bad lover and an even worse swordsman. He makes up for his lack of ability in bed by being generous with his money to his mistresses. He makes up for his dueling deficiencies by engaging thugs to kill or cripple all would-be challengers."
"Why are you telling me these things?"
"Because she is an old friend who needs a new friend. The count seldom escorts her to functions or provides the love she needs."
"Bravo! Mateo, you are a mastermind. I come across a great ocean to dwell in this lordly land so a jealous lover can hire thugs to kill me—and I will not even desire the death by having pillaged the man's woman. Is that what you have in mind?"
"No, Bastardo, actually, what I had in mind is that for once in your life you associate with a real woman, a woman who can teach you things about being a gentleman that are impossible for me to convey. When she finishes with you, the colony clod will be gone, and a polished gentleman standing in his place. This is a woman who was made for love. Sadly, she is also intelligent, scheming, and greedy like a man, but in bed she would singe Ero's wings."
"Then why don't you keep her for yourself?"
"Because I consider my compadre's comfort and delight before my own."
I gave him my best horselaugh.
"Besides," he said, "I have another woman, one with a jealous streak as wide as the Rio Guadalquivir, who requites faithless lovers with a knife in their testiculos. The count knows Ana needs an escort for social functions but wants assurance that her charms will not be poached. She has described you to perfection, but I do not fit her august description." He grinned slyly. "She told the count that her escort prefers other men."
Ay, and I was chosen to play the sodomite. While I had no intention of playing this woman's fool, Mateo at last browbeat me into meeting her.
After one look in her eyes, I was ready to don motley and play a lunatic idiot.
Unlike so many famous actresses, there was none of the coquette in her. Those women flirted and teased their way into wallets and coffers. Ana Franca, on the other hand, was quiet and reserved, very much the lady. But of course she was that—with elegant silks, dazzling jewels, and demure eyes, fluttering behind an ivory-handled Chinese fan. Her lure was not beauty, though her looks were exquisite—skin softly white, lush chestnut hair piled high and cinched by pearls, an aquiline nose, while high, slanting cheekbones framed her extraordinary emerald eyes. Still it was not her beauty that drew me to her but the radiance of her being. She was muy grande mujer, a very great woman.
Not that I don't appreciate beauty, but a wise man soon learns that cold beauty means a cold bed. I have been eternally drawn to the inner essence, the warmth of the fire within, not the ephemeral look of skin arrestingly stretched on bone.
Ana's central allure was her eyes. Like the Sirens, the Odyssey's winged bird-women who lured sailors to their death by the sweetness of their song, Ana Franca's eyes doomed men to perdition. But while Odysseus was warned to deafen his ears against the Sirens' song, Mateo had left my ears and eyes wide open.
I cannot say I fell in love with Ana Franca. My heart was forever pledged to another. But at the very least I fell hopelessly in lust with her. I could well understand why she would be a count's mistress. Despite her humble beginnings, she had nothing of the working class about her. At our first meeting, she set down the terms of our relationship.
"Mateo describes you as a colonial bumpkin, and your sole experience is with the crudity of New Spain. We see these unrefined oafs all the time. They come off a ship with their pockets full of gold and the belief that newfound wealth is a substitute for breeding. They are met with sardonic amusement and outright contempt."
"And how does one acquire the countenance of culture?"
"One is a gentleman when one thinks like a gentleman."
Shades of the Healer. Could she tell I was not a gentleman by my smell?
"You have the clothes of a gentleman. You are not particularly handsome, but the scar from your pirate battles bequeaths boldness to your features. But remove the clothes, and one knows you are not a gentleman."
The story I had concocted had been a romantic one—a duel for a lady's charms. But Mateo disliked the duel story because other men might view it as a challenge, in his eyes, a self-pronounced death sentence for one of my sword skills. A fight with French pirates had the right measure of dash, without threatening the manliness of others.
The face that bore the pirate's scar was a stranger to me. From the time I first started growing hair on my face, I had had a beard. But a beard was no longer a disguise. Most of my sins had been committed with facial hair. Nor did I need to conceal the mine slave brand because Mateo had cleverly—and painfully—disguised it. Now a colorfully scarred, clean-shaven stranger stared back at me in a mirror.