I started to become more curious about my housemates. I had just begun to see them as a pack that worked together, each with a purpose, each performing his or her part with an ease that came from having done a job many times. Flushing out prey, distracting the quarry, running the unfortunate victim to ground, whether it was the club-footed young man or an easy mark at a card game. The three were like hounds held in check on slip collars; Adair had only to loose them and they were off, each confident of what he or she must do. I was the fourth hound, new to the pack and unsure of my role. And, well-tuned instrument that they were together, they were reluctant to make room for me, sure that I would trip them up and detract from their cold grace and efficiency. It was just as well to me: I had no desire to join them.
I expected a backlash from the others regarding Adair’s fondness for me and was surprised when there wasn’t any. After all, I must have displaced one of them as Adair’s favorite and confidante. But none of them was upset. There wasn’t a spark of jealousy in the air. In truth, except for Alejandro, they had little to do with me. Now, all three gave me a wide berth but without malice. They skirted both me and Adair, except for when we traveled to and from parties, and during those times there was an air of forced joviality hanging over us like a fog. When Tilde and I caught sight of each other, for instance, I sometimes noticed the grim set of her mouth combined with a slight furrow to her brow, but what I saw did not seem like jealousy. The three of them drifted through the house like ghosts, haunted and powerless.
One night I decided to ask Adair about this. After all, he was more likely to tell me the truth than were they. I waited as Adair found a bottle of brandy and goblets to take to the bedroom, while the servants helped me slip out of my skirts and bodice and unpinned my hair. As Adair poured the drink into our glasses, I said, “There is something on my mind that I have been meaning to raise with you…”
He took a swig from his drink before handing a glass to me. “I expected as much. You’ve been distracted lately.”
“It’s… the others,” I started, unsure of how to continue.
“Don’t ask me to send them away. I won’t. You may want us to spend all our time with each other, but I can’t have them wandering loose. And besides, it’s important that we stay together. You never know when you will need one of us to come to your aid, someone who understands the obligation. You’ll understand someday,” he rushed to say.
“I don’t want them to be sent away. I’ve just been wondering, Adair, which of their hearts has been broken now that you spend all your time with me? Which of them most keenly feels the loss of your attention? I see them and feel sorry for-Why are you laughing at me? It wasn’t my intention to amuse you.”
I’d expected him to smile at my question, chide me perhaps for my foolish sensitivity and assure me that no one resented me, that the others had each had their turn as his favorite and knew that this pleasure wouldn’t last forever, that the harmony of our household was intact.
That wasn’t the reaction I got from Adair, however. His laugh wasn’t one of appreciation: it was mocking. “‘The loss of my attention’? Do you think they’re upstairs, crying themselves to sleep at night, now that they no longer are the apple of my eye? Let me tell you a bit about the people with whom you share a home. You have a right to know since you are bound to them for eternity. It’s best to keep your guard up around them, my dear. They’re not going to look out for your best interests, not ever. You have no idea about them, do you?”
“Alej has told me a little,” I murmured, dropping my eyes.
“I wager he’s told you nothing of consequence and certainly nothing to make you think badly of him. What did he tell you about himself?”
I started to regret that I had brought this up. “Only that he comes from a good family in Spain…”
“A very good family. The Pinheiros. You might even say a grand family, but you will not find any Pinheiros in Toledo, Spain, today. Do you know why? Have you ever heard of the Inquisition? Alejandro and his family were rounded up by the Inquisition, by the grand inquisitor himself, Tomas de Torquemada. Alejandro’s mother, his father, his grandmother, his little sister-all were thrown into prison. They were given two choices: they could confess their sins and convert to Catholicism-or they would remain in prison, where they would likely die.”
“Why didn’t he convert?” I cried out. “To spare his life, would it have been so terrible?”
“But he did.” Adair poured more brandy for himself and then stood in front of the fire, his face lit by a flickering flame. “He did as they asked. He would have been a fool to refuse them, under the circumstances. The Inquisition was proud of its ability to break a man: they made it a science. They kept him in a cell so small he had to tuck into a ball in order to fit, and he had to listen to the screams and prayers of the other prisoners until the sun came up. Who would not go mad in these circumstances? Who would not do anything they asked, in order to save himself?”
For a moment, there was only the crackle and spit from the fire, and in my heart, I begged that Adair would not go on. I wanted to keep the Alejandro I knew, sweet and considerate, and remain ignorant of whatever evil he kept hidden inside.
Adair tossed back the last of his drink and stared again into the flames. “He gave them his sister. They wanted someone they could make an example of, evil in their midst. A reason to rid the country of Jews. So he told them his sister was a witch, an unrepentant witch. In exchange for his fourteen-year-old sister, the priests let him go. And that is when I found him, gibbering like a madman for what he’d done.”
“That’s horrible.” Shivering, I pulled the sable blanket around my shoulders.
“Dona handed over his master to the authorities when he was arrested for being a sodomite. The man who had taken him in off the street, fed and clothed him, painted his likeness on the walls of Florence. A man who adored him, truly adored him, and Dona gave him up without a second’s hesitation. I’d be a fool to expect any better treatment from him.
“And then there’s Tilde. She’s the most dangerous of all of them. She comes from a country very far north, where there are days in the winter when the sun is out for only a few hours. I came across Tilde one of those frigid nights, on the road. She had been doused with water and turned out in the cold winter evening by her own people. You see, she had set her heart on a rich man in the next village. There was only one obstacle in her way: she was already married. And how did she decide to solve her problem? By killing her husband and her two children. She poisoned them, thinking no one would ever figure out what she’d done. Only, the people in her village discovered her plot and put her to death. She was meant to freeze to death, and by the time I found her, she was already half frozen. Her hair was solid ice, her eyelashes and her skin were frosted with crystals. She was dying and yet she still managed to glare at me with an expression of pure hatred.”
“Stop,” I whimpered, burrowing completely under the heavy blanket of pelts. “I don’t want to know any more.”
“The true measure of a man is how he behaves when death is close.” There was a sneer in Adair’s voice.
“That’s not fair. A person has a right to do anything to survive.”
“Anything?” He raised an eyebrow and snorted. “In any case, I felt you had a right to know that sympathy is wasted on them. Beneath their beauty and their manners, they are monsters. There is a reason I chose each of them. They have their place in my plans… but not one of them is capable of love, except of themselves. They wouldn’t think twice about giving you up if there was something to be gained in the bargain. They might even ignore their obligation to me, if they thought they could get away with such treachery.” He slid beside me into the bed, cupping my body against his, and I fancied I felt a strange neediness in his touch. “That is what I find fascinating about you, Lanore. You have a great capacity for love. You long to give your heart to someone, and when you do, it is with impossible commitment, inexhaustible loyalty. I think you would go to any lengths for the man you love. It is a very lucky man who will win your heart one day. I would like to think that even I might be so lucky.”
He petted my hair for a while before drifting into sleep, leaving me to wonder how much he knew about Jonathan, just how precisely Adair might have read my thoughts. The entire conversation gave me the shivers; I couldn’t see the purpose of giving eternal life to such undeserving people, to surrounding himself for eternity with cowards and murderers, especially if what he sought was loyalty. His plans, for I didn’t doubt he had them, eluded me.
And the worst part, the part that I couldn’t bear to face, was the question of why he had chosen me to join his perverse family. He must have seen something in me that told him I was like the others; perhaps it was written on my soul that I was selfish enough to drive another woman to take her own life in order to have the one she loved.
