The Barefoot Queen by Ildefonso Falcones

Author:Ildefonso Falcones [Falcones, Ildefonso]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-8041-3949-6
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2014-11-24T16:00:00+00:00

MILAGROS HAD kept them hidden and surprised Caridad with them before leaving for the church, after La Trianera and the other three gypsy women allowed her father and her friend back into the apartment: a coral necklace, a little gold bracelet and a mantilla of black satin patterned with colorful flowers that she had borrowed for the wedding. The girl’s mouth widened into a smile when she entered the Santa Ana church and saw Caridad, seated in the front row beside her father, trying to remain as erect as the gypsies who surrounded her. She was wearing her red dress, the mantilla over her shoulders and the jewels on her neck and wrist. What the girl didn’t notice was how forced the smile Caridad gave her was: the morena sensed that after she was married, their friendship would wane.

“Will we still be friends after the wedding?” Caridad had dared to ask her, in a trembling voice, after a long circumlocution plagued with throat clearing and stammering, a few days before the wedding.

“Of course!” declared Milagros. “Pedro will be my husband, my man, but you will always be my best friend. How could I forget what we’ve been through together?”

Caridad stifled a sigh.

“You will live with me,” Milagros had then assured her.

The gratitude and affection in her friend’s little eyes was so deep that she couldn’t admit that she hadn’t even broached the subject with Pedro.

“I love you, Cachita,” she whispered instead.

Nevertheless, it was true that they had been growing apart. Milagros hadn’t sung in the parish again, or even in the inn, after the Christmas service. Once in a while Rafael García would hire her out for private parties in the homes of nobleman and illustrious Sevillians, which made more of a profit than the paltry coins she got from Bienvenido’s customers. Caridad had been excluded from those parties by order of La Trianera. With that money and more that the parents of the bride and groom had borrowed, they could pay for the pageantry of a three-day-long wedding; there wasn’t a gypsy family in Spain that didn’t spend their last dime when celebrating a marriage.

In the fleeting exchange of glances, Milagros couldn’t tell that her friend’s smile was faked: her attention was focused on Pedro García; the young gypsy was a magnificent presence, dressed in a short purple jacket, white britches, red socks, square-toed shoes with silver buckles and a montera hat in his hand, and filled her with confidence as he reached her side, before the altar. Was she that lovely and elegant? she wondered.

Pedro stretched out a hand and her apprehension over her appearance vanished amid a thousand sparks, as if the embers of the largest forge in Triana had burst around her. He squeezed her hand as they turned toward the priest and Milagros blocked out everything that wasn’t the touch of his hands, his scent, his thrilling closeness; she hadn’t been able to sense all that in the whirl of the gypsy ceremony they had

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