On the night of August 17, 1687, at the hacienda San Jerónimo de Las Palmas, near Cartagena de Indias, in the viceroyalty of New Granada, someone discovered something that should never have been seen. The caporal Rodrigo Menéndez was walking among the slaves’ barracks.

 

When he heard a groan that was not of pain, but of something much more disturbing, he approached the window of the main house and what he saw made his blood run cold. Doña Catalina de Mendoza y Pimentel, daughter of the governor and fiancée of the Count of Turbaco, was in her room with Tomás, a black slave barely 22 years old. brought from Angola three months ago.

But it wasn’t a scene of violence or punishment, it was quite the opposite. She kissed him with a desperation that Rodrigo had never seen in a white woman, and her hands ran over the slave’s naked body as if it were the only thing keeping her alive.

The foreman backed away in silence, knowing that what he had just witnessed could trigger executions, scandals, and the destruction of one of the most powerful families in the viceroyalty. He had until dawn to decide what to do with that information. But what Rodrigo didn’t know was that it was too late for all of them.

Three months earlier, when the Slave ship docked in the port of Cartagena, Tomás went down in chains along with 40 other men and women. The smell of death, urine and salt permeated every inch of his skin. He had survived the journey from Luanda, something that only one in three achieved.

His real name was Ayodele, which in his language meant Joy has come home. But that name died the day he was captured. Now he was Tomás, owned by Don Fernando de Mendoza y Pimentel, governor of Cartagena and one of the richest men in the entire new kingdom of Granada. The San Jerónimo hacienda extended over more than 2000 hectares of fertile land.

They grew sugar cane, tobacco, and indigo. 300 slaves worked from before dawn until well after dark. The heat was unbearable, a moist heat that stuck to the skin like a second layer and made every breath an effort. Flies buzzed constantly around the sweaty bodies.

The smell of burnt molasses mingled with that of wet earth and manure. The main house was an imposing two-story structure with white columns that glistened in the Caribbean sun as if they were made of pure marble. The balconies were decorated with wrought iron brought directly from Seville. Red and purple sparklers climbed the whitewashed walls.

Inside, the floors were fresh marble, and the rooms were filled with mahogany furniture, Venetian mirrors, and Flemish tapestries. It was a paradise built on the hell of others. Don Fernando was a 58-year-old man with a sun-tanned face and a cold gaze who had seen too many things to be surprised by anything.

He had arrived in the Indies 40 years earlier as a simple soldier and had risen through a combination of brutality, cunning and convenient marriages. His wife, Doña Leonor, had died two years earlier of tertian fever, leaving him a widower and with only one daughter, Catalina. Catalina de Mendoza y Pimentel, was 23 years old. and was considered the most beautiful woman in Cartagena.

Her skin was pale, almost translucent, always protected from the brutal Caribbean sun by lace umbrellas and dark rooms. Her hair was black as the night she wore in elaborate hairstyles adorned with pearls and ribbons. His eyes were a strange green, inherited from some Irish ancestor that no one talked about.

But behind that beauty was something else, something that most people didn’t see or preferred to ignore. A voracious curiosity, a sharp intelligence, and a boredom so deep that it sometimes made her feel as if she were dying inside. Her life was an endless succession of masses, embroidery, courtesy visits and empty conversations with other women of her class.

She was betrothed to the Count of Turbaco, a 45-year-old man whom she had seen only three times and who looked at her as if she were just another object in his collection. The wedding was scheduled for December, 4 months from now. Tomás was assigned to work in the cane fields for the first few weeks. The work was brutal. Cutting cane under the midday sun with the machete weighing more and more in the numb hands, while the foremen rode on horseback with their whips rolled up.

waiting for any excuse to use them. Thomas’s back was soon marked by the scars of the whip, reddish and purple lines that crossed like a map of his suffering. But Thomas was different from the other slaves. In Africa he had been the son of a merchant.

He had learned to read and write in Portuguese. Thank you to the Jesuit missionaries who had passed through your village. He had a sharp mind and an extraordinary ability to observe and understand people. He knew when to speak and when to be silent, when to show his mission and when to reveal his intelligence. And above all, he had learned something fundamental during the voyage on the slave ship, that survival was not a matter of physical strength, but of adaptation. One day, Don Fernando was supervising the arrival of a shipment

of books from Spain, when one of the drawers broke and the books fell to the muddy floor, none of the slaves moved to pick them up because they did not know what they were or were afraid to touch the master’s belongings. But Thomas went forward, picked up the books carefully, wiped the mud from the covers with his shirt, and laid them in order.

Don Fernando noticed that the slave looked at the covers with something similar to recognition. “Do you know how to read,?” asked Don Fernando with a mixture of curiosity and distrust. Tomás hesitated. Revealing that you could read could be dangerous. Educated slaves were considered a threat. They could organize rebellions, forge documents, communicate with the outside world, but they could also be more valuable. Yes, master.

The Portuguese parents taught me in my land,” Tomás replied with his head down. His voice is barely a whisper. Don Fernando studied it for a long time. He then ordered Thomas to be transferred from the fields to the main house. Her new job would be to help in the library, clean and organize the books, and occasionally read aloud to Don Fernando when his tired eyes could no longer bear the small print.

That was how Thomas entered the White House with the columns gleaming and that was how he met Catherine. The first time Catherine saw Thomas was on a September afternoon. She had gone down to the library looking for something, anything that distracted her from her deadly boredom. The library was her father’s refuge, a place she rarely entered, because Don Fernando did not approve of women reading too much.

It makes them think of inappropriate things. she used to say, but her father was in Cartagena attending to the governor’s business and she had the house almost to herself. He entered the library and found Thomas standing in front of a bookshelf with an open book in his hands. I wasn’t cleaning it up or organizing it, I was reading it.

“What are you doing?” she asked, and her voice sounded louder than she intended in the silence of the room. Thomas immediately closed the book and placed it on the shelf, lowering his head in the gesture of his mission that all the slaves had perfected. Excuse me, miss, I was arranging the books as the master ordered. He said in a neutral voice. Catherine came over and took the book he had just saved.

It was a copy of Fernando de Rojas’s Celestina. “Do you know how to read?” she asked. And there was something in his voice, a spark of genuine interest that Thomas recognized immediately. “Yes, miss,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the ground. Look at me when I speak to you, she ordered.

And when Thomas looked up, their eyes met. It was only a second, maybe two. But in that brief exchange something happened that neither of them could explain later. She saw in his eyes not the empty, submissive look of a broken slave, but that of an intelligent, proud man who was playing a part to survive.

And he saw in her not a spoiled, indifferent princess, but someone equally trapped, equally desperate for something real in a world of falsehoods. Lee ordered, pointing to the book. Read aloud. Thomas obeyed, opened the Celestina, and began to read in a clear, polite voice that made Catherine open her eyes in surprise.

His accent was strange, a mixture of Portuguese, Spanish and something else, but his diction was perfect. read the passage where Callisto declares his desperate love for Melibea, where desire is confused with adoration and obsession with love. When he finished, Catherine was sitting in one of the leather chairs, staring at him. “Do you understand what you’re reading?” she asked. “Yes, miss.

It is the story of a love that destroys everyone it touches. Thomas replied, and there was something dangerous in his words, something that went beyond the simple answer. Come back tomorrow at the same time, Catherine ordered. My father will be away all week. You will read to me. And so it began.

For the next few days, Thomas read to Catherine every afternoon. She had discovered that the library had books she had never seen. Works that her father kept hidden because they were considered inappropriate for women. erotic poetry by Ovid, philosophical treatises by Erasmus, even forbidden copies of Protestant texts that Don Fernando kept as heretical curiosities.

Jumás read everything she asked for and between readings they began to talk. At first they were brief, cautious conversations. She asked about Africa, about his life before he was enslaved. He responded carefully, revealing just enough to keep her interested, but not so much that he seemed dangerous.

But gradually the conversations became deeper, more honest. She told him about her boredom, about how she felt like a decorative object in her father’s house, meant to be given to another man as part of a business transaction. “Sometimes I think I’m no freer than you,” she said one afternoon. And there was a long silence after those words.

With all due respect, miss, Tomás finally replied. You can think, talk, move, you can choose what dress to wear, what to eat, when to sleep. I can be sold, whipped, or killed on a whim. We are not the same. His words were harsh, but not disrespectful. And Catherine realized that it was the first time in her life that someone had told her the truth without embellishments or empty courtesies.

“You’re right,” she admitted, “but don’t you think there are different kinds of prisons, two kinds of slavery?” Perhaps, Thomas replied, but some prisons have whips and chains, others have silk and pearls. It’s not the same thing. That conversation changed something between them. Catherine began to see him not as a slave, but as an intellectual equal, someone with whom she could have the conversations she could never have with the women in her social circle or with the men who courted her. And Thomas, for his part, began to see in her not only his

oppressive, but a complex human being, trapped in his own kind of golden cage. The tension between them grew with each encounter. There were times when their hands brushed as they passed a book and they both froze as if they had touched fire.

There were looks that lasted too long, silences loaded with things not said. One day in October, after a particularly intense reading of Garcilazo de la Vega’s love poems, Catalina asked a question that would change everything. Have you loved anyone? Thomas. He closed the book slowly, considering her answer. Yes, miss, in my land. Her name was Amara. We were going to get married. What happened to her? I don’t know.

The day I was captured, she was in the market. I never saw her again. She’s probably dead or enslaved like me or married to another man trying to survive. Her voice was flat, but Catalina could hear the ocean of pain beneath those words. “I’m sorry,” she said and for the first time in her life she really felt it.

It was not the automatic courtesy he had learned in the salons of Cartagena, but a genuine sorrow for the suffering of another human being. “And you, miss, do you love the Count of Turbaco?” asked Tomás. And the question was daring, dangerous, but at that moment both had already crossed so many invisible lines that one more didn’t seem to matter. No, I don’t even know him. It’s an arrangement.

My father receives political influence. The Count receives a beautiful young wife who will give him heirs. I receive a prison change. And if I could choose, Thomas insisted. If there were no consequences, if I could have the life I wanted, what would you choose? Catherine looked at him for a long moment. The afternoon sun streamed in through the windows, creating patterns of light and shadow in the library.

He could hear the distant sound of slaves working in the fields, the singing of tropical birds in the trees, the beating of his own heart. I don’t know,” she finally replied. “I’ve never thought about it because it’s never been possible, but I think I would choose to feel something real, even if it was dangerous, even if it was destructive.

I would choose to feel that I am alive rather than be a beautiful ghost floating through empty rooms.” Thomas stood up and walked to the window with his back to her. His shoulders were tense under the rough cotton shirt. “Miss Catherine,” he said and it was the first time he had said her name. This is dangerous.

What we’re doing here, these conversations, if anyone would listen to them, if her father would ship. “I know,” she interrupted, “but I can’t stop.” “Neither can I,” he admitted, turning to look at her. The air between them was electric, charged with a tension that had been building for weeks. Catherine stood up and walked toward him.

Every step was a decision, a point of no return. When he was in front of him, so close that he could feel the heat emanating from his body, he raised a hand and placed it on his cheek. Thomas froze. Every muscle in his body on alert. This wasn’t just dangerous, it was suicidal. If anyone came in at that moment, he would be tortured and executed.

She would be locked up in a convent or worse, but neither of them moved. I feel like I’ve known you for years, she whispered, as if you’ve been waiting for me all my life. This cannot end well, Tomás said. But his voice was barely a whisper and he did not depart from his touch.

I know, but right now I don’t care. And then she leaned over and kissed him. It was a tentative kiss at first, as if they were both tasting something forbidden and delicious. But it quickly deepened. He became desperate, hungry, months of loneliness, of repression, of living lives that were not his own. Everything exploded at that moment.

His hands wrapped around her, pulling her closer, and she pressed herself against him as if she wanted to melt into his body. When they finally separated, they were both trembling. “This is madness,” said Thomas, his forehead resting against hers, “the most beautiful madness I have ever experienced,” Catherine replied.

And so began their secret relationship, a relationship that defied all the laws of God and men in that time and place. For the next few weeks they met whenever they could. Catherine had discovered that there was a side door in the library that led to a small private garden hidden from the rest of the house by thick poodles and mango trees were found there after dark, when everyone on the hacienda was sleeping or too busy to notice. Their encounters were intense, desperate.

They made love on the garden floor on blankets that Catherine stole from her room, surrounded by the smell of night flowers and the sound of crickets. He taught her words in her native language, names of things for which Spanish had no equivalents, types of love, types of sadness, types of longing.

She told him about the books she had read in secret, about her dreams of traveling to places where no one knew her, where she could be anyone. But it wasn’t just sex, although that part was transcendental for both of them. It was the first time that Catherine had experienced desire and pleasure without shame or obligation. It was the first time Thomas felt that anyone saw him as a complete man and not as property or a tool.

They talked for hours about philosophy, about religion, about the nature of freedom and justice. Thomas told him about the religions of Africa, about gods who were not the Christian God, but who also demanded love and sacrifice. Catherine spoke to her about the contradictions she saw in colonial society, how the same men who spoke of Christian virtue and love of neighbor could torture and kill other human beings without batting an eyelid.

My father considers himself a good Christian,” she said one night as they lay together under the stars. He goes to Mass every Sunday, prays the rosary, donates money to the church, but has 300 slaves. How can you reconcile that? He doesn’t, Tomás replied. Most people don’t reconcile anything, they just keep the different parts of their lives separate like rooms in a house.

In one room they are pious and kind, in another they are monsters and never open the doors between them. “Do you think God will forgive us for this?” asked Catherine, referring to their relationship. What God? Replied Thomas, the God of your father who apparently approves of slavery.

The God of the priests who bless the slave ships? Or the God Christ spoke of who loved the marginalized and the rejected? I don’t know, she admitted. But if there is a righteous God, how can He condemn something that is the only real and true thing I have ever experienced in my life? Tomás had no answer for that. Sometimes, in the quietest moments, when she slept in his arms and he looked at the stars through the leaves, he thought about how this would end.

Because it would end. That was inevitable. There was no possible future for them. They couldn’t run away together. They would be hunted down and captured and both would suffer fates worse than death. They could not go on like this indefinitely. Eventually someone would find out and when that happened, he would die. That was also inevitable.

The only question was what would happen to her, but even knowing all that, she couldn’t stop. It was as if they had become addicted to each other. Each match made them crave the next one with more desperation. Catherine began to neglect her social duties, refused invitations, pleaded headaches, spent more and more time locked up in her room or in the library.

The other women in Carthaginian society began to murmur, worried that she was sick or that something was wrong. Don Fernando noticed the change in his daughter, but attributed it to prenupsial nerves. It’s natural for her to be anxious about the wedding, she told her friends. Women are sensitive creatures, they are easily upset, but what Don Fernando did not know was that his daughter was changing in fundamental ways.

The conversations with Tomás had awakened something in her, a critical conscience that could not be ignored. she began to question the whole structure of colonial society, the role of women, the morality of slavery, the hypocrisy of the Church. One evening, during a dinner with prominent families from Cartagena, the visiting bishop was talking about the importance of maintaining the social order established by God. Each person has their place,” said the bishop.

His pompous voice echoing in the dining room. The Spaniards to govern, the mestizos for intermediate jobs, the blacks for physical work. It is the divine design. To question it is to question God himself. Catherine, who would normally remain silent during these conversations, felt something burst inside her.

With all due respect, Your Excellency,” he said, and his voice cut through the murmur of agreement that had followed the bishop’s words. “How do we know that it is God’s design and not simply the design of the men who benefit from this system? The silence that followed was absolute. The women looked at their plates in horror.

The men tensed. Don Fernando turned red with anger. Catalina, said in a controlled voice that promised consequences. You will apologize to His Excellency immediately. But before she could answer, the bishop held up a hand. It is not a valid question for a young mind. Let me explain, dear girl.

And he proceeded to give a long theological explanation that basically boiled down to why I say so and I have authority. But Catherine was no longer listening. She had seen everyone at that table look at her as if she had committed unforgivable blasphemy simply for asking a question.

And he realized that this was exactly what Thomas was talking about, the separate rooms in the house of morality. After dinner, Don Fernando took her to his study. What the hell is wrong with you? He demanded to know. To embarrass myself like this in front of the bishop and our guests. Have you gone crazy? I only asked one question, Catherine replied, standing firm, though her heart was pounding. A question.

You questioned the social order in front of the highest religious authority in the region. Where do you get these ideas? Don Fernando studied it with half-closed eyes. Have you been reading inappropriate books? Has someone been filling your head with dangerous ideas? Catherine felt a shiver of fear. Did you know? Sos? I’ve been reading the books in your library, Father, the same books you read,” he replied, which was partially true.

Then I’ll stop reading until you learn to control your thoughts, Don Fernando said. “And you will stay in your room tomorrow. You need time to reflect on your behavior.” He confined her to her room for 3 days. They were three days of agony for Catherine, but they were worse for Thomas. He didn’t know what had happened, only that Catherine had suddenly disappeared.

He feared the worst, that they had been discovered, that she was being interrogated, that at any moment the guards would come looking for him. But when Catherine finally managed to send him a message through a trusted domestic slave, he felt an overwhelming relief mixed with a new concern. She was risking too much, becoming careless.

Her relationship was changing her in ways that made her visible, vulnerable. We have to be more careful,” he told her when they were finally able to meet again almost a week later. Or we have to stop. Catherine looked at him with eyes shining with tears and fury. I can’t stop. These days without seeing you were like being buried alive. You are the only real thing in my life, Thomas.

Everything else is theater, a lie. Then we have to be smarter, he insisted. Your father is beginning to suspect, not of us specifically, but that something is changing in you. If you keep investigating, I know. She interrupted him. I know, but I also know that I only have two months left before the wedding.

Two months before I’m locked in another cage. This time for good. I’m not going to waste that time being cautious. Catherine, he began, but she silenced him with a kiss and despite all her survival instincts, despite knowing that this could only end in disaster, he kissed her back because she was right.

What good was survival if it was a life without it? But the universe has ways of forcing resolutions when people refuse to face reality. And the resolution came in the form of Rodrigo Menéndez, the foreman who had seen them that night through the window. Rodrigo had been struggling with his conscience for days.

On the one hand, his duty was to inform Don Fernando about what he had witnessed. It was a monstrous transgression, a violation of the entire social order. A black slave touching a white woman of the highest society was not only a sin, it was an abomination that threatened the very foundations of colonial society.

But on the other hand, Rodrigo had been in the Indies long enough to know how these stories ended. The slave would be tortured to death, probably in public as a warning to others. And the woman, well, the options were limited and all terrible. She could be locked up in a convent for the rest of her life. it could be sent back to Spain in disgrace or it could be quietly eliminated if Don Fernando felt the scandal too great to risk leaking out. Rodrigo was not a particularly moral man.

He had done terrible things in his life. He had participated in brutal punishments. He had raped slaves. He had tortured captured maroons. But there was something about this situation that troubled him. Perhaps it was the way he had seen Catherine look at Thomas, not with gross lust, but with something that seemed dangerously close to love.

Or perhaps it was the knowledge that to destroy this would be to participate in a tragedy that would benefit no one. So Rodrigo did something that even he himself didn’t fully understand. He went to see Tomás. She found him in the library arranging books after Catherine had retired to her room.

“We need to talk,” Rodrigo said without preamble, closing the door behind him. Thomas froze, instinctively knowing that this was bad. Yes, Caporal, he replied in the neutral voice he had perfected. “I saw them,” Rodrigo said directly to you and Miss Catherine. A week ago I know what they are doing. Tomás’ world stopped. This was the end. Tomás said nothing.

There was no point in denying. There was no point in begging. If Rodrigo had decided to betray them, he was already dead. It was only a matter of time. You already told the amu, he finally asked, his voice surprisingly calm. Rodrigo did not answer and Tomás looked up abruptly, unable to hide his surprise. Why not, he asked.

Rodrigo sat down on one of the chairs in the library, rubbing his face with his hands. Because I have seen enough blood in my life and because this will end in a bloodbath that will not benefit anyone. Don Fernando will execute Tomás, he will destroy his own daughter and in the end nothing will change. The world will remain the same rotten place.

“So what do you want?” asked Thomas, because he had learned that no one did anything without wanting something in return. “I want you to end this,” Rodrigo said. “Now before anyone else sees them, stay away from her. I know it’s hard, but if you really love her, you’ll let her go.” Thomas let out a bitter laugh. And if she doesn’t want me to let her go, then convince her, because the alternative is that they both die.

And believe me,, the death that awaits you will not be swift or merciful. There was a long silence. Finally, Tomás spoke. How much time do I have? A week, Rodrigo replied. In a week, if they’re still doing this, I’ll have to tell don Fernando, I can’t carry this secret forever and I can’t risk someone else finding out and thinking I was covering up.

But I’ll give you a week to finish this cleanly. After Rodrigo left, Thomas was left alone in the library, surrounded by books that promised knowledge and wisdom, but offered no answers to his situation. I knew Rodrigo was right. To continue was to sentence them both to death, but the idea of never seeing Catherine again, of never touching her again, of living the rest of his life as an empty slave on this estate, while she withered in marriage to the Count, was almost worse than death. That night, when Catherine came to the

In the library for their usual meeting, Tomás told him about Rodrigo’s visit. She turned pale, but she didn’t cry. “So, we have a week,” he finally said. “No, Catherine, we have to finish this now,” Thomas replied. Rodrigo is right. If we continue, they will kill us both.

“Then let them kill us,” she said with a vehemence that surprised him. I’d rather have a year with you and die than 50 years with the Count living a lie. Don’t say that. You don’t know what it’s like to die. You don’t know what it’s like to be tortured. Tomás said his hard voice. I have seen men skinned alive. I have seen women being raped to death. It’s not romantic, it’s not noble.

It is pain and terror and humiliation and in the end it does not change anything. So what do you suggest? she asked. And now the tears were beginning to fall. Why not that we are bound to God and pretend that none of this happened, that I marry the Count and spend the rest of my life, but I was too cowardly to fight for it. I suggest that you survive, replied Thomas, that you marry the Count, that you have children, that you live a long life. Maybe it won’t be the life you wanted.

But it will be a lifetime. That’s more than many have. I don’t want to survive, Catherine said, her voice breaking. I want to live and only with you do I feel like I’m alive. Thomas took her in his arms, feeling her tears soaking his shirt. He wanted to be strong, he wanted to do the right thing, but to feel her tremble against him shattered any resolve.

It’s okay,” he finally whispered. Okay, “we’ve got a week, let’s make it count.” And during that week they lived as if every moment was their last. They met every night in the secret garden making love with desperate intensity. They talked until dawn, memorizing each other’s every detail, every expression, every word.

Catherine taught her to dance the formal dances of the Spanish court and he taught her the dances of his people in Africa. They laughed and cried, sometimes at the same moment, aware that every second that passed brought them closer to the end. On the fourth day, Catherine had an idea. We could go, she said suddenly.

Tonight we could go to Palenque de San Basilio. I’ve heard it’s a town of freed slaves who have their own community. We could live there. Thomas had heard the same stories. San Basilio was a palenque, a settlement of slaves and browns who had escaped and established their own community in the mountains.

It was true that it existed and it was true that the colonial government had been forced to recognize its autonomy after decades of guerrilla warfare, but I also knew that getting there would be almost impossible. Catalina, your father would put every soldier, every slave catcher, every militiaman in the viceroyalty looking for us and you, you wouldn’t survive the journey.

It’s a days-long trek through the jungle, with no adequate food, no shelter. There are snakes, jaguars, diseases. And that’s assuming we found the palenque, that they accepted us, that your father didn’t send an army to attack the town, just to get you back. I don’t care, she insisted. I’d rather die in the jungle with you than live in a golden cage without you.

And if they capture you, do you know what they’ll do to you? asked Thomas his harsh voice. They won’t kill you. That would be too merciful. They’ll lock you up. Maybe in a convent where the nuns will treat you like a sinner and a shame for the rest of your life. Or worse, your father might decide you’ve been possessed by demons and call an exorcist.

I’ve heard stories about those procedures. They’re not pleasant.” Catherine was silent, but he could see in her eyes that she wasn’t convinced. “Promise me something,” said Thomas, taking her face in his hands. “That you won’t do anything impulsive, that you won’t try to run away alone or do anything that puts you in danger. Promise me.” She hesitated, but finally nodded.

I promise, but Thomas should have known that Catherine was not the kind of woman who accepted her fate without a fight. On the sixth day, when Don Fernando returned from Cartagena with news that the Count of Turbaco would arrive in three days for a week-long prenupposial visit, Catherine knew that her time was up.

One night she went to the library with a determination that Thomas immediately recognized as dangerous. “I’ve been thinking,” she said, without preamble, “there’s a solution, one we hadn’t considered.” “Which one?” asked Thomas cautiously. “We could kill my father,” she said, and her voice was utterly serious. Thomas stared at her, unable to believe what he had just heard.

What? Think about it, she continued, speaking quickly, as if she feared that if she stopped she would lose her courage. Without my father I inherit everything. The hacienda, the slaves, the properties in Cartagena. As an unmarried widow, I would have control over my own properties until I married. And I could choose not to marry the count.

I could say that I need time to mourn my father and you could set you free. We could go to another city, to another part of the viceroyalty, where no one knows us. You could pass yourself off as a free man of color. I could. Catherine stopped, Tomás interrupted, her firm voice. Listen to yourself, you’re talking about killing your own father.

My father who treats me like property, she replied, her voice rising. My father who owns 300 people and treats them worse than his horses. My father, who sold me to the highest bidder without even asking my opinion, why should you feel loyalty to him? Because even if you manage to kill him without being discovered, even if everything works out as you plan, you’ll never be able to live with yourself, Tomás said.

I’ve seen what murder does to people, even when it’s in self-defense or in war. It changes you, it empties you and I don’t want you to become that for me. So what? Catherine screamed and tears of frustration ran down her face. We just give up, let them separate us without a fight. Thomas pulled her to him, hugging her as she stirred against his chest.

“Sometimes fighting means knowing when to retire,” he said softly. Sometimes love means letting go. I can’t, she cried, “I can’t let you go. You are the only person in the world who really sees me, who speaks to me as if I were a complete human being and not a decorative doll.

And you are the first person since I left Africa, who treated me as a man and not as a beast of burden, Thomas replied. That will never change no matter how far away there is between us. That’s real, that’s eternal. They stayed like this for hours, clinging to each other until the sky began to clear with the first signs of dawn.

“Tomorrow is the last day,” Catalina finally said, “The day Rodrigo will tell my father if we haven’t finished this.” “I know,” Tomás replied. “Then tomorrow night will be our last time together,” she said, “and then I promise I’ll be strong. I promise that I shall marry the Earl and live the life that is expected of me.

But this last night I want it to be just ours, no fear, no tears, just us.” Thomas nodded, unable to speak because of the lump in his throat, but neither of them knew that Rodrigo was not going to wait until the seventh day, because that very morning another domestic slave, a woman named Joan, who had been abused by Catherine years before, when she was younger and more cruel, had seen Catherine and Thomas in the secret garden.

And Juana, full of resentment, and seeing an opportunity to get revenge on the woman who had once slapped her for breaking a plate, went straight to Rodrigo. “Black Thomas and Miss Catherine are meeting secretly,” he said. I saw them last night in the garden, they were together. Rodrigo felt his stomach sink. I had hoped that Thomas and Catherine would have the common sense to end their relationship before anyone else saw them. Now it was too late.

Juana would not keep this a secret and if Rodrigo did not act, she would go directly to Don Fernando and then he would be accused of complicity for not having informed before. That afternoon Rodrigo went to see Don Fernando. My lord, there is something you must know, he began. His deep voice is about Miss Catherine.

Don Fernando looked up from the documents he was reviewing. What about my daughter? She has been compromised by one of the slaves. The transformation in Don Fernando’s face was instantaneous. The color drained from his face. Then he returned in a red tide of fury. What did you say? His voice was barely a whisper, but there was more threat in that whisper than in a thousand screams.

The slave Thomas, the one who works in the library. “I have received reports that he and Miss Catalina have been having an inappropriate relationship,” Rodrigo said, choosing his words carefully. Don Fernando stood up so abruptly that his chair fell backwards.

How long did it take? I am not sure, my lord, but Joan, the housekeeper, saw them together last night in the garden. And I myself had been suspicious for some time, but I expected to be wrong. And you waited to tell me? Don Fernando’s voice was dangerous. I was afraid of being wrong, of making accusations without evidence and causing unnecessary trouble. Rodrigo lied.

But now that Joan has seen them too, she could not remain silent. Don Fernando walked to the window, looking out over the fields where slaves toiled in the brutal sun. His mind was working at full speed, calculating, planning. Bring the slave Thomas here now and send Catherine to her room. I want two guards to be stationed at his door. You should not go out for any reason.

“Yes, my lord,” Rodrigo said, relieved to leave the room. As he walked to the library to look for Thomas, he wondered if he had done the right thing. He had probably sentenced a man to death, but the alternative would have been worse for everyone. found Thomas in the library as usual. The master wants to see you, he said simply.

Tomás knew immediately from Rodrigo’s tone what had happened. You told him, Juana asked. He saw them. I had no choice, Rodrigo replied. I am sorry. Thomas nodded slowly. There was no fear on his face, just a kind of resigned calm. Hey, Catherine, she asked, “She’s being confined to her room.

Don Fernando does not yet know whether to believe the accusation completely. He’ll probably question you first.” When Tomás entered Don Fernando’s study, he saw in the older man’s face everything he needed to know. This would not be just an interrogation, it would be a death sentence.

Kneel,” Don Fernando ordered, “his voice like ice.” Thomas obeyed by lowering himself to both knees. “Is that true?” asked Don Fernando. “Have you touched my daughter?” Tomás considered lying. Maybe if I denied everything, if I blamed Juana for making up stories, I would have a small chance. But he looked Don Fernando in the eye and knew it wouldn’t work. and he was tired of lying, tired of pretending.

“Yes,” he replied simply. Don Fernando closed his eyes for a moment, as if the pain were physical. When he opened them again, there was something dead about them. “Did you force it?” he asked. “No,” replied Thomas. it was mutual. That mutual word seemed to infuriate Don Fernando more than anything else. There is nothing mutual between a slave and his mistress, sorcerer.

You seduced her, you corrupted her, you used your proximity and her innocence to contaminate her. She is not innocent,” Tomás said calmly. She is an intelligent woman who made her own decisions. It was a mistake. Don Fernando crossed the room in two strides and struck Tomás with the back of his hand, with such force that he threw him to the ground.

“Don’t you dare talk about her as if you knew her,” he shouted. Don’t you dare suggest that she chose this. You are a property, a thing. She is my daughter. Thomas sat up slowly, feeling the taste of blood in his mouth. With all due respect, sir, your daughter has her own mind. And yes, I know her.

Better than you know it. That almost cost him his life. At that very moment, Don Fernando grabbed a pistol from his desk and pointed it directly at Tomás’s head. His hand trembled with fury. “Give me a reason,” he whispered. “Give me just one reason why I shouldn’t blow those off right now. Because then he will never know the whole truth,” Tomás replied.

You’ll never know how it started, how long it’s lasted, if there’s anyone else involved, and you’ll never know if your daughter actually participated willingly or if there’s anything that can be saved from this. Don Fernando stared at him for a long moment, the pistol still pointed firmly. Finally, he slowly lowered the gun.

Rodrigo, take him to the warehouse,” he ordered, “Chain him. Tomorrow at dawn he will be publicly flogged and then hanged. I want all the slaves on this farm to see what happens when they forget their place.” Yes, my lord,” Rodrigo said, grabbing Tomás by the arm and pulling him out of the studio.

As he was dragged to the cellar that served as the hacienda’s makeshift prison, Tomás thought of Catalina. Did he already know what had happened? Would he understand that this was the end? The cellar was a dark, damp, and sweltering space under the main house. It smelled amoo and decay. Rodrigo chained him to an iron post that was embedded in the stone floor.

“I’m sorry,” Rodrigo said quietly as he secured the chains. “I tried to give you time.” “I know,” Tomás replied. “Thanks for trying.” “Is there anything I can do for you?” asked Rodrigo. “One last meal, water, something? Can you take a message to Catherine? Tomás asked. Rodrigo hesitated. I can’t. There are guards at your door.

Don Fernando has ordered that no one speak to her until he interrogates her personally. Tomorrow Tomás nodded. I hadn’t expected anything else. So, just one thing. When I get hanged tomorrow, make sure the knot is done properly. I’ve seen executions where the man is slowly strangled for 20 minutes. I don’t want that. Rodrigo looked at him with something akin to respect.