Only Sofia-Elisabete by Robin Kobayashi

Author:Robin Kobayashi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, Coming of Age, Romance, Magical Realism, Regency Historical Romance, Spanish Literature, European Fiction, Historical Regency Fiction, Romance Literary Fiction, Women’s Adventure Fiction, Women’s Historical Fiction, Historical eBooks of Spain & Portugal
Publisher: Robin Kobayashi

Candelas took my boots after I had tried twice to sneak away. He had already seized my knife and passports. He offered to protect me from other men, including bandits, but, in exchange, I must serve him, cleaning his shoes, rolling up his cigars, washing his feet, combing his long black hair and moistening it with oil and, oh yes, spittle, which is what they use here. If I didn’t obey and please him, he would deliver me to Don Fausto and collect a big reward.

What good were my fighting fists when Candelas owned a long sharp knife? I was in his thrall. “Santa Isabel, please save me,” became my fervent prayer.

That night, the unspeakable happened. Candelas forced me to sleep with him in the galera, where we shared his manta, a striped woolen blanket four feet wide. Lying so close to him, covered with his manta, I fretted that he would harm me. And when he pulled me underneath him against my will, his ardor heightened, I knew then he would devour me, to make me forever ruined, forever broken. But like Theodora in Handel’s oratorio, I would rather die than be a prostitute.

I sang out in a sad wobble, “Angels ever bright and fair, take, oh take me to your care—”

Candelas cursed.

“—speed to your own courts my flight, clad in robes of virgin white.”

He rolled off me, his ardor diminished. “Go to sleep then!”

The angels had saved me this time.

It didn’t make a difference to the others. The mayoral and his men whispered harsh things about me, about how I was Candelas’s girl, and they called me a lechuza, one of those low words for a whore. Their hungry eyes constantly wandered over me. Because of that, I stayed closed to Candelas, my protector and tormentor.

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