The red cloths, however, were what dug claws into her heart. Draped over the windows and doors, the colorful fabric flapped gently in the breeze—a sign the red plague festered inside those walls.
Still, she couldn’t ignore these children, with their hollow cheeks and patched-up clothes. Had she been back home in Aragon, no one could’ve stopped her from raiding her trunks and the kitchens to help them. Here, she had a betrothed to answer to, and he’d made it clear she was not to give charity in the form of dinheiros or food. He’d said that she had butter for a heart and needed to harden it if they were to marry, for what good would a princess be if she bankrupted the kingdom with her short-sighted charity?
Under her mantle, her fist tightened. Chin high, she skirted Vasco and kept a hand on top of Lucas’s head to still him. “Tell you what,” she said to the children, “if you take me to Senhor Davide’s home, I’ll give you the bread and cheese Vasco is hiding.”
“That’s reserved for you,” he protested.
“You’re right. It’s reserved for me to do as I see fit,” she chimed back with the full, haughty stubbornness expected of royalty. Lower, so the children couldn’t hear, she whispered, “This is what you get for trying to bring me back to the castle to eat when you have a satchel of food hiding under that mail.”
The pursed line of Vasco’s lips disappeared under his mustache, but when he let out a long sigh and turned back to the children, she knew she’d won. “You heard the princess. Lead the way, but don’t touch us.”
“We don’t have the plague!” spat a little girl. “We’ve been sleeping at Nana’s and bathing in the springs every day so we wouldn’t catch it.” She was as stick thin as the other, dull and limp black hair stark against the bright fury in her dark eyes.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not risking the princess’s health.”
There was a collective pout, but the children soon recovered, leading them along the beaten earth that served as a road. Yzabel hiked up her mantle and skirts to keep the worst of the dirt off the fine embroidery, pushing through another wave of nausea and exhaustion that clung to her more heavily than the furs on her shoulders.
Vasco offered his arm—silently this time—and she gladly took it, letting him support her for the rest of the way.
“Careful with what you say to Davide,” Brites muttered. “I think the king’s having someone follow us again.”
It wouldn’t have been the first time Denis had sent someone to spy on Yzabel to ascertain whether she was out spending her dinheiros. When she’d arrived on Portuguese soil with her coffers almost empty, the king had taken it upon himself to save her from bankruptcy without even bothering to ask if she wanted to be saved from it. What good was money when it sat untouched in a trunk and not in the pockets of those who needed it most?
Vasco nodded. “Noticed that, too. Whatever you do, Yzabel, try not to speak too loudly. As far as they know, we’re only delivering medicine. Let’s keep it that way.”
They came to a halt, and the girl pointed at one of the houses before them with red cloths over its window. “Tio Davide lives in that one. But we are not allowed too close because you know…” The girl threw Vasco a grimace of pure, sassy revenge. “We don’t have the plague and don’t want to catch it.”
Brites laughed, loud and heartily. From one of her apron pockets, she produced a bundle, and from within that, several small slices of cheese. “For that alone, you’ll get extra.”
“What, now you’re carrying food, too?” Yzabel gasped, her voice sounding small amid the shrieking children, who pounced on Brites’s offering. Though Yzabel had known about Vasco’s constant stash, Brites’s was news, and the kind that felt like a personal betrayal.
Looking at those tiny nibbles was enough for the magic to awaken, to burn under her skin and demand she touch it. She closed her fist tighter, nails digging deep in her palm, drowning her curse with pain.
Pouch in hand, the children scampered off, and as soon as they were out of earshot, Brites turned to Yzabel. “I promised your mother I’d help you with your magic, remember? Since I’ve failed, she made me promise something else.” Her hands fell on Yzabel’s shoulders. “I’m to keep you alive. For as long as I’m able.”
“You place too much worth on me. The world won’t end if I die. Or if I don’t marry Denis.”
“True. We could find another princess,” Vasco said. “And we’d be all the poorer for it.”
“Why? You know about”—she lowered her voice—“the curse. To be honest, Vasco, I don’t even understand why you still wanted me to be your princess after you found out. Why you stuck around tutoring me for five years while I wither and waste—”
“Because no one else would do this,” Vasco cut her off, tone strong and steady. “As many headaches as you give me, Yzabel, no other possible contender would tread in the mud, walk in a neighborhood infected with the red fever, to hear out a man who’s known to be a drunkard just because he told your lady’s maid the harvests they worked all spring and summer on have suddenly vanished.” He paused to raise her jaw with his forefinger and make her look into his brown eyes. “No one else cares. Not as much as you do. Denis needs someone like you. We need someone like you.”
Why did he act like her common decency was an otherworldly trait, and not the bare minimum?
Vasco hugged her, and his strong palm held the back of her head for a long minute before kissing the top of it and backing away. “Now, let’s do what we came here to do.”
Yzabel nodded while Brites drifted closer to the window to call Senhor Davide. Moments later, the door creaked open and a man emerged. Brown skin marred with scars and dotted with old age stretched thin over his bony frame; wrinkles deep, eyes sagging, slumped shoulders drowning in the sheep’s wool capote. He shambled forward, the tanned hide of his shoes so worn there was no inch that hadn’t been mended. Pants, vest, and shirt of threadbare cotton, the black faded to brown from too much use.
“Your Highness,” the man said, voice wispy in an almost-toothless mouth, rough like the song of broken sugarcanes whistling in the wind. He knelt a few paces from Yzabel, the oil in his hair gleaming in the sunlight. “You came. Brites said you would, but I…”
“Of course I came, Senhor Davide. And please, rise.” She made a motion to help him, but Vasco kept her back, his furrowed brow reminding her not to chance a touch. The red plague was so contagious the clothes themselves could carry the virus.
The old man’s knees trembled as he obeyed, and it was only when he had to brace himself on his thigh that she noticed his left arm ended in a stump just above the wrist. “Sorry I can’t invite you into my home.” He gestured to the red fabric hanging over the door to his eerily quiet home behind him. “The youngest are all down with the plague. Sores just started opening on some of them. Already giving them Saint John’s Wort, but you know how this is.”