Chapter 32
Minerva
The next morning found me on the steps of the back door to the kitchen, helping Sara scrape dog shit off the bottoms of her shoes.
Comandante was not alone—the other generals had also brought dogs, all shepherds with wolfish teeth and sloped shoulders nearly as high as my waist. They left gifts for the household staff all over the garden.
“I hate dogs,” Sara grumbled, her nose scrunched in disgust. “They scare me.”
I wiped the sole of her shoe once more on a wet rag, holding it up and squinting to ensure I got every last smudge of excrement out of the stitches along her sole. “This one smells clean.”
“Thank you, Minerva. You didn’t have to do that.”
I didn’t, but as I had returned from my conversation with Arnulfo and Ygnacio in the closet upstairs yesterday, Eugenia called for me—as the nearest maid—to clean up a broken vase in the music room.
Not the dogs, this time, but a clumsy general, likely unaccustomed to the sheer volume of decor.
By the time I returned to the kitchen, Sara had finished the rest of the silver.
I shrugged, as if this act came from the bottom of my heart and not a dark place in the back of my rib cage, where an inkling of anxiety dwelled, its fretting unrelenting.
“It’s better than going back inside and getting barked at.”
“The dogs are everywhere,” Sara agreed with a long sigh.
“I meant by Cosme.”
She released a clap of surprised laughter. She nearly dropped her cleaning rag on her snowy-white sock.
“Minerva!” a voice called from inside. “I require you immediately.”
That was, indeed, Cosme. I stood, sighed, and stretched out my arms and shoulders.
“What does he want?” Sara asked.
I shrugged. “Who knows.”
Carriages were due to arrive from the Capital any minute now. All the rooms were made up and waiting, but I was sure Octaviana would have found another task. The work was unending. It was hard to think past it all, to tonight.
It was a relief.
Sara laced up her shoes and admired her handiwork. She looked up at me, squinting through the bright morning light. Some hair had escaped her braid; shadows made the delicate skin beneath her eyes bluish. She looked exhausted. She scanned me from head to toe.
“Better go see what that’s about, then,” she said, and turned so that her back was to me.
Her voice had unexpected bite.
“Minerva!”
I knew better than to shout I’m coming! at Cosme. I knew better than to keep him waiting, not this long, not when it seemed urgent and like he wanted me specifically.
But I lingered, wondering, staring at Sara’s turned back.
Once I was inside, Cosme ushered me swiftly out of the kitchen.
“The Viceroy is with her,” he said. He offered no further explanation, leading me to put the pieces together.
Her was clearly Octaviana; we moved at a rapid clip to the sitting room with the large windows overlooking the garden, the room where Senora Encarnación died.
Why? The Viceroy had expressed grief in his letter about Senora Encarnación’s passing—perhaps he wanted to hear an account of it from the person who was present when she died.
But Octaviana had given me strict instructions to never speak of superstition. I would have to lie. I could say other things about Senora Encarnación, though. I could speak of her loyalty, her kindness, her—
“Speak when spoken to, and do not look him in the eye,” Cosme said. “In fact, do not look at him at all. Eyes lowered. Be demure. Say little. And if you must speak, be bland and polite. Do not upset la senora.”
“Understood,” I said, my breath coming short as we approached the door to the sitting room. “Why am I here?”
Cosme’s gray hair was mussed as if he had been running to and fro all over the house, which he probably had.
“I haven’t a clue,” he said. He examined me from head to foot, brushed some dirt off my apron, and then ushered me through the door.
I broke one of Cosme’s rules immediately.
The Viceroy sat directly before me, in the very chair where Senora Encarnación had died.
They had the same rheumy eyes, the clouds of cataracts belying their sharpness; his spectacles were the echo of hers.
The slump of his shoulders, the slight hump in his back.
Even his cane was an exact replica of hers—or rather, hers had been an exact replica of his.
Black polished ebony, crowned with carved gardenias, upon which rested one age-dappled hand.
We met eyes. His narrowed. I dropped mine.
It was then I realized that Cosme had retreated. I was alone with Octaviana and the Viceroy.
A click of metal behind me. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed a number of the Viceroy’s guards, stationed on either side of the door. I was so harried by Cosme that I hadn’t even noticed them when I came in.
Octaviana leaned back in her armchair. The movement drew my eye to her, and I caught my breath.
The way she looked at me slung a knife through my gut.
There was hatred in her eyes.
I realized—a very long moment too late—that I was not here to talk about Senora Encarnación’s passing.
“That’s her,” Octaviana said.
The Viceroy lifted a single finger from his cane.
And his guards descended upon me.