"An unexpected guest..."

Private Journal of Contessa Maria Theresa Isabella Emilia Lucia Gabriella Rosalina Liliana Paloma

 At last, after endless days upon that restless, faithless sea, I have set my slippered feet upon the soil of Port Dominion. ¡Dios mío! What a strange thing it is, to descend from the deck of a Spanish galleon and find before me not the sacred banners of España, but the stiff and arrogant flag of England, fluttering as though it owned the very air itself. How the world conspires in its cruelties—yet here I am, not as a supplicant, but as mistress of my fate.

Today I have set foot upon English soil. English! Even as I write the word, it feels foreign upon the tongue. I have lived among their kind before — cold manners and colder smiles, where pride hides fear as surely as lace hides frailty. And yet, I must play my part again: the courteous Contessa, the grateful guest, the exotic ornament that these officers and their stiff wives will not know whether to admire or despise.

They do not yet know why I am here. Few ever do.

The Governor will pretend hospitality, as politics demand. The General will watch me with suspicion behind his cultivated civility. And the town — this small, humid place — will whisper its gossip before the ink of my arrival is even dry.

The wharf was a chaos of noise and motion, a storm of human clamor. Dockworkers shouted in their rough, guttural tongues, their brows dripping sweat, their hands calloused from crude labors. The air reeked of fish, of pitch, of wet rope, and of men who do not know refinement. And yet…within this coarse scene marched my procession, my little empire of trunks and crates, of carved Spanish wood, silks folded with care, jewels wrapped in velvet. How I trembled—half with fury, half with despair—as I watched those men hoist my mahogany cabinets, my gilded chairs, my precious tables carved in Seville, upon their backs like so many mules. If one leg be chipped, if one jewel-case be mishandled, I shall not forgive it.

Most of all, I prayed silently for the safety of my wines, my sangrias, my vintages of Rioja and Valdepeñas—those bottled rivers of Spain that carry with them the very soul of my homeland. To lose them upon this voyage would be to lose my last tether to the warmth of Castile’s sun. May God and Saint Theresa guard them, for I cannot live in this damp English island-world without that fire in my blood. The seas are unkind to such treasures; even now I wonder if some bottles are cracked, or worse, if some thief has taken liberty with the cargo. What is a Contessa without her wine? A parched soul in exile.

My new residence awaits me on the edge of town—a manor, they call it, though to my eyes it is but an austere English house, square and without soul. Where is the noble curve, the gilded flourish, the balconies draped in wrought iron? Where is the music of color, the dance of light and shadow? Still, I shall make it mine. With my fabrics, my jewels, my mirrors of Venice, and my servants’ hands, I will transform that cold house into a palace fit for a Contessa of España.

Already, I feel the eyes upon me. The wives in their dull muslins whisper like hens behind their baskets. The sailors stare openly, as though they had never seen a lady of rank, and perhaps they have not. “¿Quién es ella?” they murmur. Who is she, this woman wrapped in silks, her hair dark as midnight, her eyes unwilling to bow? Some say I am enchantress, some say noblewoman, some—already—whisper of brujería, of devilry, of Spain’s old Catholic shadows. Let them. Their gossip is the music of my triumph.

Soon, the Governor will send word. He will want to measure me, to ask why a Spanish Contessa has placed herself here, in his little outpost of empire. His wife, Lady Eleanor, I hear is sharp as glass. She will test me, sniff for weakness, and if she finds none, she may wish me for ally—or wish my destruction. She will either seek my friendship or seek my ruin. I must tread carefully with her.  I have played such games before, in greater courts than this. I know the look of envy, of curiosity, of suspicion. The English are stiff, but they bleed red as Spaniards, and their pride may be turned.

And there is the General, the reverends, the pompous gentry, the reverends with their prying eyes, the merchants with their greed; all of them with their false smiles.…all will seek to judge me, to name me, to draw from me some advantage. They do not yet know that I came here to be more than their curiosity. I came to reign in my own fashion.  Then there are others—the soldiers,  All will want something of me.

Let them. I have not crossed an ocean to live quietly in their shadow.

Tonight, when the last crate has been carried into my new walls, I shall uncork one bottle—if it survived that cursed voyage—and pour a glass as red as a Castilian sunset. I will drink to España, to the fire that is my blood, to the secrets I carry, and to this little colony that does not yet know how I shall alter its course.

May this island learn quickly: I am Contessa Maria Theresa Isabella Emilia Lucia Gabriella Rosalina Liliana Paloma. Too long a name for their pale English tongues, sí, but they will learn it—or choke upon it.

And may God spare my silks from their endless English rains. Nothing in this world is worse than the damp, and  I do not care to have my silks dampened by the English storms that they speak of so often.