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stumbled toward the nursery, past pikemen standing guard in the halls, past a gray cat stalking its prey. I was hurrying along the stone arches of the arcade, the edges of Papa’s ruby cutting into my knotted fist, when it occurred to me.
    Since when did Mother make confessions at night?

3.
    29 May anno Domini 1493
    I t was the day after Colón had finally left Barcelona to put together his fleet, after weeks of milking Mother for praise and concessions. The morning was as sunny, new, and fresh as only a morning in May can be, even in quarters where dogs were kept and blacksmiths’ fires burned and piles of manure attracted lazily buzzing flies. I had gone to the kennels upon hearing that Juan’s favorite mastiff bitch had recently whelped. I wished to see the pups. Even though it was hardly proper for a king’s daughter to wander about a service courtyard, Beatriz and I would not be there long enough for it to matter.
    Hens were strutting among the doghouses as I gently separated a squeaking pup from its mother lying in the straw. Beatriz stood by absentmindedly, fingering the skirts of her plain gray robes—she dressed like a nun although she belonged to no order. She was reciting Horace in her head, I supposed. She would have been absentminded regardless of what I was doing, for the previous evening she had received another visit from her betrothed, and she always came away from such distant and distracted. My sister María, romantic that she was, felt sure this was because Beatriz was yearning to wed this gentleman, Francisco Ramírez. He was one of Mother’s young secretaries, very handsome and charming, always handy with a jest for us royal children and quick with his broad white smile. Mother had approved of the marriage in reward for Beatriz’s tutoring services, or perhaps Beatriz, nineteen and beautiful, with a doe’s liquid brown eyes, had been given to him in reward for his secretarial duties. I did not know which. Nor did I know why they did not go ahead and marry, though I was glad that they had not. I knew from experience that my next keeper would not likely be as tractable as Beatriz.
    I was cradling the whimpering pup, Estrella prancing at my feet, when Beatriz stiffened, her gaze pinned upon a doghouse.
    “What is it?”
    “I don’t . . . know.”
    I glanced at the blacksmith in a bay behind us, his pincers to the fire. In another bay of the arcade, a carpenter and his assistant planed a plank of wood. A hen tugged at something in the dirt near the hem of my gown. Nothing seemed amiss.
    I put down the pup.
    In that instant, a man burst from the doghouse and grabbed my arm. I screamed, then, seeing it was one of Colón’s Indios, screamed again. He held on, crying out in his tongue.
    The carpenters dropped their tools and ran, but before they could reach me, a page in Juan’s livery sprang from the shadows of the arcade and attacked the Indio.
    “Don’t hurt him!” I cried, even as the page threw the Indio to the ground. The poor creature rolled in the dirt, cradling his arm.
    “Are you well?” the page asked me.
    With a start, I recognized Diego Colón. “Yes! He was not hurting me.”
    “And that is why you screamed?”
    To the gathering crowd of workmen, Beatriz announced, “Her Highness Doña Juana de Castile!” as if I were favoring them with a Royal Visit.
    The smith bowed, dripping sweat. “Do you need assistance, Your Highness?”
    I smiled with all the dignity one could muster when one’s slipper was sinking into a pile of dung while an Indio moaned at one’s feet. “No. Thank you. Please do not let me keep you from your work.”
    The men backed away, glancing at one another, then returned to their tasks.
    “Is he hurt?” I asked Diego Colón. Regaining my senses, I realized that it was the Indio named Juanito, after my brother, Juan. Mother caused him to be baptized, along with the five other Indios, in the cathedral four days after Colón’s arrival in Barcelona. He was