Free Blood Secret by Kathryn Lasky

hanging in the air as Ruta said there were in Córdoba, but here I am in the church of Santa Catalina de la Blanca. There is blood on my dress and a streak of blood on Mama’s face. It is the blood of Don Solomon. Reyna too wears his blood. The mobs have taken us. We rode them like a wave to the church. We did not walk, no. We were seized and then told at sword point to march. “ Agua o espada ,” water or sword. We had then no idea what they were talking about. Mendez the apothecary, his wife, and two little ones rode the wave as well. And then there was the old man who sells pomegranates on the Street of the Levies, Señor Piñero. He died before they got him to the church. One of the mob snatched the lacefrom Mama’s stand. I thought she was taking it for herself, but this is strange; she is now coming up to me with the lace. She is babbling sweetly to me. It is almost baby talk. This same woman who kicked Don Solomon in the face as he lay dying on the floor of our house is now murmuring to me as if I am the most adorable child. She pinches my cheeks softly and coos at me. “La muchacha linda…pequeña querida…. Pequeña dulce …pretty girl…little cutie, little dear one, little sweetie.” Yes, little sweetie with violet sugar crinkles and blood on her face. The woman is taking the piece of lace that Mama made for the archbishop’s sleeve. It too has blood on it. She is placing it on my head and she is leading me to the altar.
    A man with a smile like a thin blade speaks. “ Niña, Bievenida a la fe verdadera ….” “Child, Welcome to the true faith.” I know who this man is, even though I have never seen him before. I know it is the friar, Friar Martinez. His eyes are pale brown, almost yellow. His skin bloodless. The yellow eyes peer at me over the beak of a nose as if he is looking at an insect. But there is something coiled within him like a snake. It is pure hatred. I see it.
    The woman placed the lace on my head and nowhe removes it and the woman puts it on my shoulders and he begins to mumble some words in a language I do not understand. There is a stone bowl of water on a pedestal. He waves his hands over it and then he pours some oil on his fingers. He presses his oily thumb to my head and my chin and then on each cheek. All the while he is muttering in the strange language. The woman hisses in my ear that each time she pokes me I am to say “ sí ”—“yes” to the friar’s questions. So I do. I feel her finger in my side, but I can see my mother. Her face is the color of the stone bowl. Reyna’s eyes are wide and fixed. It is like a death stare. He pours a cup of water on my head. He sprinkles some on the white lace around my shoulders, and finally he gives me a candle. I don’t know what to do with it. Then he says in Spanish, “Maria. Su nombre esta Maria ahorra. Uno buen nombre Cristiano…nombrado de la vir-gen bendecida Maria.” “Your name is Maria now. A good Christian name…the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
     
    And now it has been four hours since I was baptized in the church and Reyna and Mama as well. We had no choice. Agua o espada . Now we knowthe meaning. “The holy water or the sword.” The streets run with the blood of those who did not choose the water. Mama now takes that same piece of lace that I wore and she scrubs the tops of our heads. I want to cry. “No, Mama.” She scrubs so hard it burns. I shall have no hair left there. She does the same to Reyna. And then herself. Finally she throws the lace, which is tattered now, into a corner. The lace that has Don Solomon’s blood. Tomorrow, she says, we shall go to Toledo. There is nothing left for us here.
    This is the last night we shall ever spend in our house. Everyone is asleep now. But I cannot sleep, so I have come downstairs just to sit, I guess. There is this deathly quiet that lies across the quarter as thickly as the smoke from the gates that still smolder. I think I came downstairs really to see