The Familiar

The first trial is to be held at once, and they enter a large room of the palace. Luzia notices the secretary’s seal or impresa, a centaur within a labyrinth. The first trial is a demonstration of proof, and the second, a proof of purity, will be administered by the Vicar of Madrid.

Luzia feels that eating the pomegranate has changed her and changed something between her and Santángel. Hualit gives her a rosary of garnet and ivory, but Luzia is aware that all the finery around her is like a trap. She tells Santángel she enjoyed a hot bath and describes what she would do with a fortune. He identifies the other competitors: Teoda Halcón, the Holy Child; Fortún Donadei, the olive farmer; and Gracia de Valera, the Beauty.

Pérez enters and makes a speech that Spain is the greatest empire in the world and has a duty to subdue heretics. He seats himself in the center of the room to watch Gracia, who has asked to go first. She raises the curtain on Luzia’s stack of goblets and smashes them. A mist descends, and then the goblets appear, all intact. Santángel says it is fakery, but she has performed Luzia’s trick.

For her performance Luzia smashes the goblets again, then makes the glass dust float in the air, forming the constellation of the Pleiades above Pérez’s head. Santángel realizes Luzia read his letter about the astrological sign Pérez was born under.

Luzia mends the broken glasses, and Pérez confronts her. She is introduced as Luzia Calderón Cotado, with her mother’s name, “Blanca Cana, daughter of scholars, pruned from Luzia’s family tree” (156). She knows Santángel will think she deceived him, but when she stood on the stage, “[s]he had felt the pull of the magic that had split her tongue, like a door begging to be opened, escape waiting on the other side” (157). The Holy Child relates a secret to Pérez, then predicts it will rain. The Prince of Olives plays a vihuela and makes birds appear. Luzia is moved by his music.

They are seated at a feast, and Luzia eats little but makes sure to taste all the pork dishes. She is shown to her own room, where she has a maid, Concha, to attend her. Hualit helps her undress, then Santángel comes to the door. He wants to know why she lied and Luzia says she didn’t; she just let him assume that she was stupid. She asks what he is and he says, “In another life, in another world, I would be called a familiar. My gifts are not my own. They exist only to serve others” (165). He asks, but she can’t explain the language of the refranes. A scorpion emerges from Luzia’s hairbrush, and Santángel picks it up and puts it in a jar. She says that is his impresa, El Alacrán, but he says someone else chose it for him.

The next morning, Luzia finds it strange to sit idle. She feels as if “her working self and her dreaming self were meeting in the quiet of this place, and they had absolutely nothing to talk about” (170). Don Marius, who visited the stables, is given a cup of chocolate, and he shares it with Valentina. Quiteria Escárcega sips her own chocolate and tries to write a play despite being bored by her lover. The king wakes in his palace and writes a letter.

Hualit visits Luzia to say that one of Gracia de Valera’s guards was found murdered, seemingly by a scorpion. Luzia meets Santángel and is annoyed to realize he looks even more handsome now that he is healthier. He tells Luzia to find out what she can about the other contestants. He explains that Pérez is out of favor because he was responsible for the murder of Escobedo, secretary to Don Juan, the hero of Lepanto. The king does not like Pérez’s ambition.

Luzia goes to the terrace where the contestants are having sketches made by an Italian artist. Luzia talks with Teoda and tries the chocolate drink. Fortún joins them. Teoda admits that she is troubled by the palace and Fortún says he does not like being kept by the marquesa. Luzia is glad to make friends.

Santángel found out who tried to harm Luzia and made sure the man was punished. He discusses what Luzia learned and warns her that Spain’s empire is weak because it builds nothing, and merely spends its riches on war and conquest. He warns her against trusting the other contestants. Luzia was told that, in the second trial, she will face the devil.

The stage is laid for a puppet show. Hualit has a drink of wine and lemonade that is called matar judíos. Víctor sits in the audience beside his wife. The playwright, Quiteria Escárcega, notices Valentina. Luzia is nervous; she realizes that if she wins this torneo, the king will make her his weapon. She is summoned before the Vicar of Madrid and fears he will detect her Jewishness.

Luzia reminds herself that Santángel told her to fear nothing. The assembled churchmen demand that any of the contestants confess if they have dabbled in witchcraft or heresy. Víctor introduces Luzia to his wife, Doña Maria, who is blonde and beautiful. She is pious and thinks Luzia is an instrument of God; she is also waiting to have a child. Santángel tells Luzia that she is the reason he is growing stronger.

The play will be about the life of Christ, and Luzia will be called upon to pray aloud, even while she recites the refranes in her head. She believes she can do it because “[t]his was a skill she’d learned at her mother’s knee and practiced her entire life. She had always been two people with two faiths, neither of them whole” (205).

The play begins with the birth of Christ. Fortún, when called upon to protect the Christ child, plays music and summons a lamb out of the trees. When a dragon threatens, Gracia produces an icy wind and snow, which Teoda said was done with ice and a bellows. Puppets appear of the English queen, Elizabeth, and her advisor, John Dee. When Luzia is called upon, she kneels and recites a Latin prayer, but her real prayer is, “Hear me. Save me. Grant me comfort. Let me be held in the arms of a mother once more” (208).

A rose barricade grows up with thorns facing the dragon, but then shadows grow from the puppets and leap off the stage. Luzia feels one on her back and throws it aside. She helps Gracia, who is weeping and confesses she only came to the torneo to find a husband. Luzia is attacked by another demon, then lifted by Santángel onto a horse. He says she must stop the demons and she finds the words.