The Quality of Mercy. Faye Kellerman
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chest would look much too womanly under a doublet. She needed help. She gathered up a set of gold sleeves, a slashed gold and red doublet, a pair of gloves, and a brown cap with a peacock feather. Stuffing the clothes under her arms, she opened the door to her brother’s bedchambers and peered down the hallway: a chambermaid, carrying fresh sheets. She disappeared into the left guest closet.
Her mother was not due back from her visit with Aunt Maria until suppertime. Her father was God knew where, discussing God knew what with God knew whom. He’d taken with him the new houseguest, Esteban Ferreira de Gama. De Gama had been most cordial to Rebecca since his arrival a week ago. She thought him quite witty, if not handsome—thickly set, with enormously powerful legs, like those of a draft horse. A warm smile, but not lecherous. Not like Manuel de Andrada.
Only he remained inside the house with her, alone with Grandmama and the servants, the door to his cell shut.
What would that weasel say if he saw her like this—false beard and dressed as a man. Would he laugh at her, tease her, or threaten to tell her father? She decided most definitely he’d threaten to expose her game—unless, of course, she capitulated to him. How many times he had pawed her or worse, tried to corner her and pry open her legs. She dared not tell the men in her family about it. She’d implied de Andrada’s improprieties to Ben once before, and her impulsive brother had been ready to kill the weasel on the spot. She had to use all her feminine wiles to restrain his rage. The last thing in the world the family needed was an unexplained murder in their house, the law poking its nose into the family’s personal affairs. So she held her peace about de Andrada and kept the door to her bedchamber locked.
Manuel de Andrada had to be a very important man for Father to keep him around. Or at the very least, a man who knew too much. She spat on the floor and cursed his name. How much longer would her father have to support that maggot? Give him clothes, food, and shelter? Several of her kinsmen had spoken of poison and de Andrada in the same sentence. She wished the talk would convert to action.
Tiptoeing out of her brother’s bower—all the sleeping quarters were on the upper level—she scampered down the hallway, then ran down the spiral staircase, hurrying into the library. She hid behind a walnut bookcase overflowing with her father’s medical tomes and surveyed the room.
No one around.
She rushed out of the library to the door of her grandma’s closet. Roderigo had built the chamber to suit the old woman’s needs. Since the hag was severely crippled, her cell was on the first floor—no steps to maneuver—and right off the kitchen. It made serving her meals easier.
Rebecca threw open the door and the toothless woman looked up from her poster bed and smiled. She was reading, her emaciated body propped up with a half-dozen pillows.
“I need some help,” Rebecca said, closing the door.
“You disguise yourself again?” the hag croaked out. “You’re the Devil!”
“Hurry, Grandmama. I must leave before that slimy worm de Andrada sees me.”
The old woman put down the book, slowly swung her legs off the mattress, and rested her bandaged feet on the floor. Rebecca stood to help her, but her grandmother motioned her down with the palm of her hand.
Her feeble movements were painful for Rebecca to watch—withered, spotted hands pushing up a frail body hanging from a bent spine, bony fingers reaching for her walking sticks. When the hag was finally upright—or as upright as she could be—she extended the sticks out and dragged her legs toward them. Her hands trembled horribly, but Rebecca knew there was yet so much the old woman could do with them. The young girl forced herself to act impatient and short-tempered with the hag. Anything less would seem as if she pitied her grandmama, and as sure as poison, pity would kill her.
“Hurry up, you old sot,” she chided. “Father should have put you away years ago.”
“Hush your foul mouth, Devil.”
“Have I all day to watch a cripple walk?”
“Whore.”
Rebecca smiled.
“Daughter of Jezebel,” the hag scolded.
“Tell me about Jezebel,” said Rebecca.
“Your learning of the scriptures is an abomination.” The old woman reached her and kissed her bearded cheek. Rebecca threw her arms around the skeletal frame.
“You’ll break me in two,” Grandmama screamed.
“I hope so.”
The old woman pushed her away, bent down on the floor and opened the lid to a box. She pulled out swatches of rags, a twine of string, and a knife. Rebecca stripped naked from the waist up.
“You’ve such lovely, large mounds, granddaughter,” the old woman said, wrapping the girl’s breasts in rags. “You’ll flatten them out if you keep this up.”
“Would I could lop them off.”
“Oh hush up.” After Grandmama encircled Rebecca’s chest with rags, she pulled the ends tightly from behind and secured them with string.
“I can’t breathe,” Rebecca gasped.
“Hush. You’ll grow used to it.”
“It’s too tight.”
Her grandmother responded by pulling the twine tighter.
“I’m being crushed,” Rebecca pleaded.
The old woman ignored her. “So you know nothing of Jezebel?”
“I know something of her,” Rebecca said. “I greatly like hearing your versions of the stories.”
“Not my versions!” the hag said, knocking Rebecca’s head.
“Ow.”
“These are stories as written by our prophets,” the old woman lectured. “Written for us with God’s guiding hand! Now, what do you know of Jezebel?”
“She was enticing … and wicked.”
“Aye, very wicked. She was the wife of the King of Israel—King Ahab. She turned him wicked as well.”
“Wasn’t Jezebel a whore?”
“Much worse, Becca. Jezebel was a murderess who used her womanly powers for evil—to lead the righteous to do evil. As she did with King Ahab.”
“Yet she was successful in her design, Grandmama,” said Rebecca.
“Why do you say that!”
“Because her scheming gave her the title of Queen.”
“And that is your definition of success?”
“Not a bad definition, I should think.”
“Ah Becca, it pleases you to rile me.” Grandmama tugged on the twine. Hard. “Aye, most of the time Jezebel was successful. But one man did not succumb to her designs. The prophet Elijah. He escaped her powers because he was strong in the mind and believed in God.”
“Our God,” Rebecca clarified.
“When I speak of God, I only speak of one God,” the old woman whispered. “The God of Moses—Adonai. Lo yeheya le’ha elohim a’herim al panai. ‘There shall be no other God before me.’ Jesu was an invention of a demented, embittered bastard named Saul. Because of Elijah’s faith in Adonai, his mind proved impenetrable to evil.”
“Elijah was a very dour prophet.”
“All the prophets were dour. They were forecasting doom. It would have been blasphemous to act otherwise. But Elijah did have one distinction. Do you remember what that was?”
“No.”
“God took Elijah whilst he was alive.”
“Ah,