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maidens. Some achieved a religious mysticism that in its most extreme seemed to the priest, God forgive him, indistinguishable from madness. Others gave alms with abandon. A beggar in the right place at the right time might receive ten thousand or even twenty thousand pesos. A white beggar, that is, with nothing to recommend him but his white face. Yet the city’s pillars of generosity paid their mita Indian workers only ten pesos a month, barely enough for food. From these meager wages they had to buy their own tools, even the candles they carried in the mine. Nothing was left to feed their families.
    A rock of disgust weighed in the priest’s stomach. Sins piled up like the slag beside the mine openings in this miserable and wonderful city.
    As the agitated crowd in the plaza dispersed, Pilar Tovar approached him. He whispered a prayer he knew would be in vain that she would not raise again her pleas for justice for that dead miner.
    He greeted her warmly and received her greetings. Just as she began making her demands, Mother Maria Santa Hilda and Sor Olga descended the steps of the cathedral and also approached. He interrupted Pilar’s words with a greeting to the sisters. Of the two difficult tasks these women asked of him, the Tovar woman’s was by far the more frustrating. He had made an effort to findout from the workers in the Corpus Christi lode any word about these mysterious documents that Santiago Yana had supposedly hidden in the mine, but the Indian’s fellow barreteros denied any knowledge. And since none of them was literate, it seemed impossible they could have understood what the papers, if they existed, could have meant. And where would he go with suspicions that Yana had been murdered? The powerful men in the city were not likely to redress the grievance of an Indian’s widow.
    He much preferred to leave off this subject and speak to the Abbess about Inez de la Morada. He stood by while the sisters and Pilar exchanged pleasantries and Doña Tovar withdrew.
    As Inez’s confessor, he was responsible for the well-being of her soul. Beyond that, he had great hopes for her. He saw in the spirited girl a powerful intelligence and an irresistible energy of character that were the makings of greatness. If he could mold these gifts, he might guide her toward a spirituality that one day might rival even Maria Santa Hilda’s. If this was ever to be so, Inez needed to remain—as she was now—removed from her father’s influence. No doubt Alcalde Morada loved his daughter, but he treated her too much like a son, involved her in worldly pursuits. If she was going to turn her considerable talents to godly interests, she must remain in the sphere of the holy women of Los Milagros.
    A few minutes ago, he had seen Alcalde Morada’s footman hand the Abbess a note. It must concern Inez. The padre was curious to know its contents.
    “What do you think of the proclamation?” the aristocratic Abbess asked immediately.
    “If the money is devalued, it will ruin this city. If Potosí’s coins are rejected, we are nothing but an imitation Spanish city in the most desolate spot on earth.” A sigh he would have preferred to suppress escaped him. “The poor will suffer far, far more than the rich.”
    The wizened Sor Olga gave a knowing grin. “You are always thinking of your Incas.”
    He forced a smile in response to hers. She was just an old woman. She did not mean to be unpleasant. She just enjoyed sparring with him. But it annoyed him that she called the Indians Incas and trivialized the distinctions among their tribes. And that she called them his, not only because he defended them, but because he was a Criollo—a person born on this side of the Atlantic. He did not bother to remind her that despite the location of his birth, he was not a Mestizo. His mother was not an Indian. Though she lived in Hispaniola, she was as Spanish as Sor Olga’s mother in Andalusia had been. It irked him that she ignored his pure