“You think, then,” Joachim said. “But I ask you to give me your word. If you choose to act on what I’ve told you, and these acts turn to profit, will you give me ten percent of what you make?”
“If I find you have told me the truth and acted with honor, I’ll do so gladly.”
“Then I am content.” He stood. He looked at Miguel for a moment.
Miguel opened his purse and handed him a few guilders. “Don’t spend it all at the taverns,” he said.
“What I do with it is my concern,” Joachim said defiantly. He stopped halfway up the stairs. “And you may take it out of the ten percent if you like.”
Having concluded his business, Joachim bade Miguel a good afternoon, but Miguel followed him up the stairs for no reason other than that he did not like the idea of Joachim wandering around the house unescorted. At the top of the stairs, Miguel heard the swish of skirts before he saw Hannah as she hurried away. The panic that burst in his chest dissipated almost immediately. Hannah spoke not a word of Dutch; she might listen all she liked, but it would hardly tell her anything.
After Miguel had seen Joachim out, however, Hannah awaited his return in the hallway. “That man,” she said softly. “He was the one who attacked us on the street.”
“He didn’t attack you,” Miguel said wearily, half staring at the swell of her belly, “but yes, it’s the same man.”
“What business can you have with such a devil?” she asked.
“Sadly,” he told her, “a devilish business.”
“I don’t understand.” She spoke softly, but she held herself with a new confidence. “Do you think because you know my secret you may intrude upon my good sense?”
Miguel took a step forward, just enough to suggest an intimacy. “Oh, no, senhora. I would never behave thus to you. I know it appears unusual, but the world”-he let out a sigh-“the world is a more complicated place than you realize.”
“Don’t talk to me so,” she said, her voice growing a bit louder. “I’m not a child who must be told tales. I know what the world is.”
How this woman had changed. His coffee had turned her Dutch. “I don’t mean to belittle you. The world is more complicated than even I realized until recent events. My enemies have become my allies, my allies untrustworthy. This strange and bitter man has oddly put himself in a position where he can aid me, and he chooses to do so. I must let him.”
“You must promise me never to let him in my home again.”
“I promise you, senhora. I did not ask him to come, nor plan that things should end as they have. And I’ll do everything in my power to protect you,” he said, with a force that he had not intended, “even at the cost of my own life.” The boast of a hidalgo came easily to him, but he saw at once that he had said too much, for it was the boast a man makes to his lover, not to his brother’s wife.
Miguel could not take it back. In an instant he had committed himself to becoming her lover, so that was what he would be. “Senhora, I have a gift for you.”
“A gift?” His sudden change in tone broke the spell.
“Yes. I’ll return with it in a moment.” Miguel hurried down to the cellar and found the book he had bought for her: the Portuguese listing of the commandments. It would do her little good without instruction, but he hoped she might like it all the same.
He hurried into the parlor, where she stood looking fretful, as though Miguel might present her with a great diamond necklace she could neither refuse nor wear. The gift he did hold out was almost as precious and almost as dangerous.
“A book?” She took the octavo in her hand, running her fingers along the rough leather binding. It occurred to Miguel that she might not even know to cut the pages. “Do you mock me, senhor? You know I can’t read.”
Miguel smiled. “Maybe I shall tutor you. I have no doubt you will make a fine student.”
He saw it then in her eyes; she was his for the asking. He could lead her down to the cellar and there, in the cramped cupboard bed, he could take his brother’s wife. No, it was a defilement to think of her as Daniel’s wife. She was her own woman, and he would think of her as such. What held him back, propriety? Did not Daniel deserve to be betrayed after the way he had taken Miguel’s money?
He was ready to reach out for her, to take her hand and lead her to the cellar. But something happened first.
“What is this?” Annetje’s voice fell hard, startling them. She stood at the doorway to the drawing room, arms folded, a wicked smile on her lips. She glanced at Miguel and then looked at Hannah and rolled her eyes. “I think the senhora is bothering you.” Annetje walked forward and placed a hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “And what have you here?” She took the book from Hannah’s hands. “You know you are too foolish for books, dear senhora. No doubt she’s being tiresome, Senhor Lienzo. I’ll make certain it does not happen again.”
“Return that to your mistress,” he said. “You forget yourself, girl.”
Annetje shrugged and handed the volume back to Hannah, who slipped it in the pocket of her apron. “Senhor, I am sure you do not mean to raise your voice to me. After all”-she smiled slyly-“you are not the master here, and your brother may not like the tales he hears if someone should speak them. You might think upon these things while I remove the senhora to where she will trouble you no more.” She tugged roughly on Hannah’s arm.
“Let me go,” Hannah said in Portuguese, her voice loud, almost a shout. She pulled herself loose of the maid’s grip and then spun around to face her. “Don’t touch me!”
“Please, senhora. Let me just take you to your room before you shame yourself.”
“Who are you to speak of shame?” she answered.
Miguel could not begin to understand this display. Why did the maid think she could speak to Hannah with such cruelty? He hardly ever thought of her as speaking at all, just some pretty thing fit only for the occasional romp. Now he saw there were intrigues-plots and schemes he could not have imagined. He opened his mouth, prepared to speak once more, but Daniel appeared at the door.
“What goes on here?”
Daniel looked at the two women, too close for any casual business. Hannah’s face had turned red by now, and Annetje’s had hardened into a mask of rage. They flashed cold stares at each other, but upon hearing his voice, they turned and shrank into themselves like guilty children, caught at dangerous play.
“What goes on here, I say?” Daniel repeated, now to Miguel. “Is she touching my wife?”
Miguel tried to think of what lies might serve best Hannah, but nothing came to mind. If he accused the maid, she might betray her mistress, but if he said nothing, how could Hannah explain this abuse? “Servants don’t behave so,” he said haplessly.
“I know these Dutch have no sense of propriety,” Daniel shouted, “but I have seen too much. I have indulged my wife with this impudent strumpet long enough, and I’ll not listen to her pleas any longer. The girl must go.”
Miguel strained to find some words to cool everyone’s tempers, but Annetje spoke first. She took a step toward Daniel and sneered at him full in the face. “You think I don’t understand your Portuguese palaver?” she asked him in Dutch. “I’ll touch your wife when I please. Your wife,” she laughed. “You don’t even know your wife, who takes gifts of love from your brother and then hides them in her apron. And her lust is not the least of her crimes. Your wife, mighty senhor, is a Catholic, as Catholic as the pope, and she goes as regularly as she can to church. She gives confession, and she drinks the blood of Christ and eats his body. She does things that would horrify your devilish Jew soul. And I won’t stay in this house a moment longer. There’s more work to be had, and with Christian folk too, so I take my leave of you.”