I made no sign. I just lay there as though sleeping. He watched me for some minutes. Then silently he went away.

I lay listening to his receding footsteps. My heart was beating wildly. I felt a certain exultation. Our relationship was beginning to change. Faint stirrings of a desire was in me—not for love but for revenge.

Honey’s time was near and the midwife came to settle in.

I went to Felipe’s escritorio ostensibly to thank him for what he had done for Honey, but in fact to speak to him and see if I could sense any change in his attitude toward me.

He had returned on other nights, but not every night. I would never know when he was coming and would lie awake listening for his steps. I was angry when he came and angry when he did not. I could not understand myself.

He rose from his desk as I entered and stood courteously.

Then he indicated a chair.

I sat down. “I have come to thank you. The midwife is here. My sister will have need of her shortly.”

He bowed his head.

“It is good of you to treat us as human beings.” I injected a little sarcasm into my voice, but he did not seem to notice it.

“It is no fault of hers that she is here. Certainly she must have attention. She will bring a good Catholic into the world.”

“I have a strong suspicion that I am with child.”

“Suspicion is not enough. I must have certainty.”

“How soon shall I leave when it is known?”

“That is a matter which will have my consideration. Your sister will not wish to travel for a while. Your maid, I hear, is also soon to give birth.”

I was not going to tell him who the father of Jennet’s child was.

I said: “She was raped by one of your sailors.”

“That is deplorable,” he said.

He half rose in his chair, the gesture of dismissal.

I went on: “We are kept as prisoners here. Are you afraid that we will find our way to the coast and swim home?”

“There is no reason why you should be kept prisoners. Once you are with child you will have more freedom. You are kept in seclusion because the child must be of my giving.”

I flushed hotly. “And you think I am a woman to take lovers here and there from your Spaniards of La Laguna? You are offensive, sir.”

“I ask your pardon. I meant no such thing. Your serving woman was taken against her will. There is a strangeness about you … a foreign look … which might put you in danger. I might not be at hand to protect you.”

“I trust soon that I shall be beyond your protection.”

“You cannot wish for that more than I do.”

I thought of his coming to me and how he had watched me and how he responded when I laid my fingers on his lips.

I had imagined the whole thing. There was no moving this strange silent man.

Honey had a long labor and it was day and night before her child was born—a puny girl, small but living.

It was not to be wondered at after all she had endured.

She lay back in her bed, looking unbelievably beautiful with her dark hair flowing loose and the maternal look in her lovely violet eyes.

She said: “I shall call her Edwina. It’s the nearest to Edward. What do you think of that, Catharine?”

I liked the name, but I was so relieved that Honey had come through the ordeal safely that anything would have sounded good. There had been times when I had begun to fear for her and then I realized how much she meant to me. I had gone over our childhood together in the Abbey and wondered what my mother was doing and whether she was thinking of us—her two daughters lost to the Spaniards.

The baby occupied our time and our thoughts. Its arrival was a turning point, I think. I had to rejoice when I looked at those miniature fingers and toes, and the child became the center of our lives. We ceased to think of revenge and home while we asked ourselves how much the baby had grown since yesterday.

A week or so after the birth of Edwina I was sure that I was pregnant.

Triumphantly, I faced him in the escritorio.

“There is no doubt,” I said. “I have seen the midwife. Your unpleasant duty is finished.”

He lowered his head.

“Now is the time for us to return home.”

“You shall do so at a convenient time.”

“You said this is all you wanted of me. You have defiled me, humiliated me, impregnated me with your seed. Is that not enough? Am I not free now?”

“You are free,” he said.

“Then I wish to go home.”

“You will need a ship.”

“You have ships. You sent for me, now take me home.”

“There is no ship in the harbor at this time.”

“Yet you sent the galleon.”

“It was convenient to do so.”

“Then pray find it convenient to keep your bargain.”

“I made no bargain with you. I made a vow to the saints.”

“You have promised that I shall go home.”

“In due course you will sail for your barbaric land and you can tell your pirate lover what you have seen here. You can tell him of what happened to a noble lady and what has happened to you. You can tell him that he ruined her life and that I have had my revenge on him. You will take your bastard to him as he left his here with me.”

I stood up. “So when a ship comes, I shall go?”

“It shall be arranged,” he said. “But I want to be sure that there is a child.”

“He never saw his. Why should you see yours? Is that in the vow?”

“His child was born,” he said. “I must be sure that mine is.”

“You have not gained your revenge completely,” I said. “I am not as Isabella. You have insulted and humiliated me, but you have not robbed me of my reason. Your revenge is incomplete.”

“You will have this child,” he said. “You will not leave this island until that child is born. I will make sure that there is a child and then you shall be taken back.”

I walked out of the escritorio. I thought: He said that I might leave when I was with child. But he does not wish me to go. I laughed exultantly and I thought: He is vulnerable. When I can discover how vulnerable I can have my revenge.

Revenge is sweet, there is no doubt. It gives one a reason for living when life becomes too tragic.

I was beginning to understand Felipe.

Our lives had undergone a change; it was due mainly to the fact that he no longer came to me; I felt as though I was in complete possession of myself again. And the fact that there was a baby in the household was not without its effect.

A certain normality had come upon us. Strangely enough we had settled down, which was something I now and then marveled at. But such is human nature that it can become accustomed to anything however extraordinary. One adjusts oneself—or at least we seemed to.

I now had the bedroom to myself—and a pleasant room it was. Since it was no longer the scene of my nightly humiliation my feelings changed toward it. I could enjoy the tasteful, yet somber decorations: the tapestry which hung on one of the walls; the heavy arras which shut out the light; the arch with the curtains across it which led to the toilet room with its sunken bath. There was an Eastern touch about it and I learned later that Felipe’s family had lived in that part of Spain which was dominated by the Moorish influence.

Perhaps it was because I was pregnant that a certain serenity had come to me. I had noticed this in both Honey and Jennet though with Jennet it was a constant attitude. I was surprised that I was excited by the thought of bearing this child which had been forced on me. But already I was forgetting the means of its begetting and was conscious only that a new life was stirring inside me and that I should be a mother.

I would dream of my child and be eager for its arrival … not only because it meant that when I had it I should go home, but because I longed to hold it in my arms.

We were allowed to go into the town. Honey left the baby in Jennet’s care and she and I set out riding on mules, accompanied by Richard Rackell and John Gregory, who, because they spoke English perhaps, had been made our guards.