City of Silver: A Mystery by Annamaria Alfieri

Author:Annamaria Alfieri [Alfieri, Annamaria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Historical, General
ISBN: 9781429991230
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2009-08-03T22:00:00+00:00

Twelve

ALONE IN THE infirmary for the first time since Sor Elena fell ill, Sor Monica peered into the vial she had confiscated from Juana’s trunk. She poked at the brown mass with a long needle. If the substance were hard, she might have thought it was a bezoar stone. It was the right color and size. Though where Juana would have gotten the money to afford such a thing, the nun could not imagine. Bezoar stones were found in the entrails of llamas and vicuñas and used as powerful medicine for the heart and as an antidote for snakebite. They were so rare that one of this size would have cost many months of Juana’s salary. She could never have afforded it. Besides, this stuff was soft and sticky, not hard like a bezoar stone.

Sor Monica did not want to feed it to the cat.

It probably wasn’t poison any more than the water in Inez’s carafe had been.

She would taste it herself. Perhaps just a little to see if it had any effect.

It was probably just another Indian herb—like coca or the gum of that tree that took away pain. Perhaps it was an intoxicant, like chicha or wine, but stronger.

If she tasted it, she might become intoxicated herself, and that was against the rules.

If she tasted it, she might die.

She put it aside. Vitallina had gone out to gather the last of the garlic, onions, balm, and mint from the garden in the cloister. Monica did not want to risk dying alone.

Tomorrow was Easter Sunday. In thirty-six hours, the Visitor General and the Inquisitor would arrive in Potosí. At dusk, the crier had called out that there was snow in the mountain passes. Perhaps Visitador Nestares and his entourage would be delayed. Perhaps the day of reckoning for Mother Maria would be postponed.

Sor Monica spooned some yerba maté into a gourd and ladled in some boiling water. Even if the snow slowed their arrival, it would not stop it. Even if Nestares and the Inquisitor had to wait for spring, they would still come to bring the city to justice for the false money and to arrest the Mother Abbess. Sor Monica had heard of prisoners of the Holy Tribunal being kept for six, eleven, even thirteen years before they were brought to trial.

She put a silver straw with a small strainer on the end into the gourd and swirled the yerba tea.

She took a taper and lit three candles against the gathering gloom. They treated candles as if they were nothing in this city. Tomorrow for Easter, more wax would be burned here in a day than they burned in her home church in Sevilla in a year.

She held up Juana’s vial to the light. She took her notebook from the shelf and a quill and ink. On a blank page, she scratched a description of the sticky brown mass. She pulled the cup of maté toward her.

If the Inquisition indicted Maria Santa Hilda, might they also take her? As a woman, she could be accused of sorcery for curing diseases.

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