“My friendship with Senhor Parido is no breach of loyalty,” Daniel snapped back.
“Yet you value him over your own brother,” Miguel said.
“It need not be a contest. Why must I choose one over the other?”
“Because he has made it so that you must. You would sacrifice me for this man, and you would do so in an instant.”
“You know nothing of me, then.”
“I think I do,” Miguel said. “Answer truly. If you were asked to choose between the two of us, to make a choice in which you had to definitively side with one or the other, would you even for a moment entertain siding with me?”
“I refuse to answer your question. It is madness.”
“Then don’t answer it,” Miguel said. “You need not bother.”
“That is right. I need not bother. Why even speak of such choices? Senhor Parido has shown his goodness in the kindness he’s shown to our family, particularly after the harm you did his daughter.”
“It was no harm. It was but a silly affair and would have been of no lasting consequence if he had not allowed himself to lose all reason. I had a dalliance with his maid, and his daughter saw. Why must he make all this thunder over nothing?”
“There was harm, and permanent harm too,” Daniel replied harshly, “and if Senhor Parido feels anger over the damage done to his daughter, I for one cannot blame him, for you came close to doing the same harm to my unborn child.”
Miguel began to reply, but checked himself. There was something more to this affair than he knew. “What damage?” he asked. “She had a fright. It is nothing.”
“I should not have said anything.” Daniel looked away.
“If you know something, you must tell me. I’ll ask Parido himself if need be.”
Daniel put a hand to his forehead. “No, don’t do that,” he insisted. “I’ll tell you, but you must not let him know that you know, or that you learned from me.”
Despite his fear, Miguel could have smiled. Daniel would betray Parido if only to save his own flesh from the fire.
“More happened to Antonia than the senhor wanted the world to know. When she came into the room and saw you in your unspeakable act with her maid, she fainted.”
“I know that,” Miguel said testily. “I was there.”
“You know she struck her head. What you don’t know is that she and her husband in Salonika have since had an idiot child, and the doctors say it is the result of this injury. She can have nothing but idiot children.”
Miguel ran a hand along his beard and inhaled sharply through his nostrils. Antonia rendered unable to bear healthy children? He could not fathom the connection between her injury and its consequence, but he was not a medical man to solve such riddles. He knew enough, however, to figure out the rest. Parido’s own idiot boy was a shame to him, and Antonia had been his only hope of perpetuating the family, particularly since he had wed her to a cousin also named Parido. The parnass was a wrathful man by nature. What anger would he reserve for the man he believed had destroyed the future of his line?
“How long has he known this?”
“No more than a year. And I beg you to recall that you must not tell him I spoke of it.”
Miguel waved a hand at him. “No one told me.” He rose from his chair. “No one told me!” he repeated, this time far more loudly. “Parido had more reason to hate me than I could have known, and yet you said nothing. And now you doubt that he has sent this vile message to injure me? Your loyalties are as preposterous as your beliefs.”
“I won’t listen to any such lies about Solomon Parido.”
“Then we have no more to discuss.” Miguel hurried down the narrow staircase, almost stumbling as he did so. In his rage, he had nearly convinced himself that there was no more likely explanation for the pig’s head than Parido. Could there be any doubt that, in his rage and twisted sense of rectitude, he would do all he could to harm Miguel? Damn his brother for thinking otherwise.
In the damp of the cellar, he listened to the familiar scrape of floorboards as Daniel dressed and left the house. He had not been gone for more than a quarter hour when Annetje came down the stairs and handed Miguel a letter. It was addressed to Daniel and contained a circle in the upper corner.
The note was from the broker, asking confirmation of Daniel’s willingness to support Miguel’s trade. The letter was standard, nothing of consequence, but there was a line at the end that intrigued Miguel.
You have always been a respected man on the Exchange, and your friendship with Solomon Parido is more surety than any man could wish. Nevertheless, owing to your recent reversals and the rumors of insolvency, I hesitated before considering your guarantee solid enough to back your brother’s trade. Nevertheless, I shall gamble on Miguel Lienzo’s cleverness and your honor.
So Daniel was in debt. That explained why he insisted on receiving Miguel’s money right away. Well, it was no matter. Miguel forged a reply, which he gave to the girl to send off. She hesitated a moment, and only when pressed did she explain that the senhora had requested his company.
Hannah lay propped up, her head wrapped in a bluish cloth and her skin pale and wet with perspiration, but she appeared to be in no great danger. She was stretched out comfortably on that proper bed of hers, long enough that she could lie flat on her back, unlike the cupboard bed that tortured Miguel. This one had been built of an elaborate oak frame that rose above her. Among the wealthy Dutch, these new beds had become the fashion, and Miguel vowed he would buy one for himself the moment he left his brother’s house.
The bed had no curtains to part, so she lay there for him to see, her eyes wide and sorrowful. “We should talk quickly,” she said, her face grave but without accusation. “I don’t know where your brother has gone, so I don’t know when he will return.”
“I suspect I know where he has gone,” Miguel observed. “He’s gone to see Parido.”
“That may be,” she said.
Miguel took a step closer. “I only want to say that I am sorry for what happened to you, and for your distress. I never meant for you to be hurt. I promised you would not.”
She smiled slightly. “Your brother made more of it than was necessary. I was frightened for a moment, but I soon recovered. I have felt the baby moving all day as she always does. I have no fears there.”
She, Miguel noticed. Would she dare speculate on a girl child in front of Daniel? Did her speaking of it in front of Miguel constitute an intimacy?
“I am very happy to hear there are no lasting consequences.”
“I’m only sorry I couldn’t do more. I found a note, and I don’t know what it said, but I hid it thinking it might do you harm. Your brother took it from me.”
“I know. It was of no importance.”
“Do you know who left that vile thing there?”
Miguel shook his head. “I wish I did, but still, I thank you for your efforts. I’m sorry,” he said, taking a sharp breath, “that I behaved so poorly. I wish to discuss this matter with you again. Perhaps another time. When you are rested.” He had not planned to, but he took her hand in his and held it tight, feeling its coolness, the contours of her smooth skin.
He expected her to pull away, to chastise him for his unforgivable presumption, but she looked up at him as though this gesture of devotion were the most natural thing in the world. “I am sorry too-that I was so weak-but I knew nothing else.”