The afternoon sun filtered through the Casagre jacaranda shutters, drawing stripes of light and shadow on the Persian rug. On the table, the Chinese porcelain set steamed with fennel tea, but the aroma that truly filled the room was that of secrecy. Yes. And Joana adjusted the volume of her silk skirts, her eyes shining with a curiosity bordering on obsession.
She leaned forward, lowering her voice so that not even the walls or the domestic slaves who circulated in the corridor could register her words. “It can’t be, my friend,” Joana whispered, gripping the handle of the cup. “Are you absolutely sure about this?”
Countess Maria, her longtime confidante and the province’s greatest source of scandal, let an enigmatic smile play on her lips before replying with cutting certainty. “Yes, I am. I heard it when I was crossing the back courtyard. It was the biggest I’ve ever seen in my life, Joana. Down there, under the curtains, it must easily have been bigger than a hand-width ruler.”
Joana felt a sudden heat rise to her cheeks, dispelling the aristocratic pallor she so carefully cultivated. The lace fan began to swing frantically in her hand. “Well, now I want to try it,” declared Joana with an audacity that surprised even herself. “They say these big ones are better, that the service is different.”
Maria’s eyes widened, setting down her cup with a metallic clinking. “My friend, have you gone mad? You won’t be able to bear it. What if your husband, the Baron of Alencar, finds out? He’s a ruthless man, Joana. If he even suspects you…”
“Go check these things out,” Joana let out a nervous but determined little laugh. She looked at the window, where the slave quarters cast their shadow over the fate of so many, and uttered the phrase that would seal her decision. “Well, Maria, is it that thing? Washed, it’s new? The baron will never know the difference.”
Night had fallen on the plantation with a suffocating weight, but for Joana, the silence of the room was the most deafening of screams. Lying under the French silk canopy, she heard the heavy, rhythmic breathing of the Baron of Alencar beside her. To the world, he was the absolute master of those lands. To her, at that moment, he was just an obstacle between desire and reality.
Countess Maria’s words repeated themselves in her mind like a profane mantra, longer than a ruler. Joana rolled to her side, her eyes fixed on the darkness. The heat of Pernambuco seemed to emanate from within her veins. She couldn’t get the image of Fernando out of her head, the slave she had barely noticed until then, but who now occupied every inch of her imagination.
How could a woman of her lineage feel so feverish for a man whom society said was nothing? But curiosity, that poison distilled by the boredom of the aristocracy, had already taken effect. “I need to check,” she whispered to the pillow, her voice disappearing in the rustling of the curtains.
The plan began to take shape with the precision of an architect. It couldn’t be in the Big House, where the walls had ears and the maids had lynx eyes. It would have to be in the old fabric warehouse, a secluded annex near the workshops, where the rolls of linen and imported silks were stored before being transformed into dresses. The place was moldy, dark, and above all, deprived.
At dawn, Joana didn’t wait for breakfast. With the authority of someone born to command, she summoned the overseer early on the veranda. “Sebastião,” she said, keeping her voice firm and her gaze icy to hide the trembling of her hands. “A new shipment of fine fabrics has arrived from the port of Recife. They’re haphazardly thrown into the warehouse. I need someone strong to move the heavy bales and organize the shelves under my direct supervision. I don’t want the pieces to get damaged.”
The overseer, a rough man who would never question his mistress’s orders, scratched his beard. “Of course, sir. I’ll send two boys right now.”
“No,” Joana blurted out too quickly, correcting herself with a sigh of annoyance. “I don’t want any trouble in there. One is enough, as long as he’s strong. Countess Maria mentioned a new boy, Fernando, I believe. She said he’s agile. Send him there at 2 pm, when the sun is strongest and everyone is at home in the sugarcane field. I myself will give the orders of where to place each roll of silk.”
Sebastião nodded, unaware that beneath that administrative order beat a heart of panic and ecstasy. The rest of the morning was an agonizing slowness. Joana chose her dress with morbid attention. Nothing too luxurious that would raise suspicions, but something that, at the first unbuttoning of buttons, would easily give way.
She looked at herself in the mirror, adjusting her hair, feeling like a criminal and, at the same time, like a woman alive for the first time in years. The anticipation was a fire that consumed her morals. She thought about the risk. If the baron found out, blood would run through the jacaranda corridors, but the danger only increased the lubrication of her desire.
As the grandfather clock struck 1 p.m., Joana discreetly left through the back, holding a small bronze key that seemed to weigh kilos. The warehouse was waiting, and Fernando, she knew, should already be on his way. Thus she wasn’t just going to check out a rumor. She was going to cross the line of no return.
The midday sun beat down on the plantation floor, creating a mirage of heat that flickered over the courtyard. Joana walked under the protection of a lace parasol, accompanied by Countess Maria. The plan to meet him at the warehouse was already in place, but Joana’s impatience was like a hungry beast. She needed to see the merchandise up close before the clock struck 2 p.m.
“Are you sure he’ll be there now, Maria?” Joana whispered, feeling the sweat trickle down between her breasts, constricted by her corset. “It’s time for the corn ration distribution, Joana. They are all gathered together. Try not to look like you’re starving. Behave yourself,” Maria teased with a mischievous smile hidden behind her fan.
As they approached the edge of the slave quarters, the smell of sweat, packed earth, and rustic food reached the mistress’s nostrils. It was a world far removed from the lavender and roses of the Big House. As they moved forward, the murmur of the enslaved women dwindled. They made way for the ladies, but their gazes were not those of typical submission. There was an electricity in the air.
In the center of the courtyard, near a large cauldron, he stood. Fernando was standing with his back turned, lifting a sack of grain that would weigh twice as much as an average man. When he turned around, time seemed to freeze for Joana. His skin, as black as the deepest jet, glistened with a mixture of oil and sweat, reflecting the sun as if it were a suit of dark metal armor.
His shoulders were broad, so vast that they seemed to occupy the space of two men, and the muscles of his chest moved with a raw, rhythmic force with each breath. The other women around maintained a respectful, almost reverential distance. There was a mixture of fear and desire in the eyes of the maids. Fernando was not just a slave; he was a force of nature who intimidated by his mere presence.
Joana felt her knees weaken. Up close, the ruler Maria mentioned seemed like a timid estimate. Even beneath his coarse, worn cotton trousers, Fernando’s anatomy revealed a virility that Joana had never seen in her years of marriage to the frail and pale baron. Maria, noticing her friend’s shock, leaned towards her and nudged her arm with the handle of her fan. She exchanged a knowing glance with Joana, a look that said, “Didn’t I warn you?”
The countess’s eyes gleamed with confirmation of the scandal, while Joanna’s face burned with a blush that no makeup could disguise. Fernando looked up and, for a brief second, his gaze met hers. There was no averted gaze, as one would expect from a captive. He stared at her with a disturbing calmness, as if he knew exactly why she was there, scanning the courtyard with the eyes of a hunter.
“My God, Mary,” Joana gasped, closing her umbrella tightly. “He is not a man, he is a living sin.”
“And you, my dear, are about to confess this sin in the storeroom,” replied the countess, laughing softly. “Let’s go before the henchmen realize you’re devouring the boy with your eyes.”
Joana turned around, but her mind remained fixed on the image of that ebony giant. The desire, which had previously been just a mischievous curiosity, had now become a physical and urgent need. The meeting at 2 pm would not just be a plan; it would be the definitive downfall of the lady of the plantation.
The Baron of Alencar left at dawn. The sound of horseshoes and the barking of hunting dogs, moving away along the trails of dense forest, sounded like music to Joana’s ears. With her husband away chasing wild boars and deer, the lady of the plantation finally felt like the only authority within those walls of lime and stone. But it wasn’t political freedom she thirsted for. It was something much more carnal.
Joana was positioned on the veranda, her fingers pressing against her wooden chest until her knuckles ached white. She called the overseer Sebastião with a curt gesture. “Sebastião, I’ve changed my plans,” she said without looking the man in the eye. “The deposit can wait until tomorrow. However, the Baron’s library is a mess. Those solid oak bookshelves need to be moved so that the humidity doesn’t destroy the law books. I need someone with brute strength for the job.”
The overseer frowned, finding the sudden request for the most prestigious area of the house strange. “Yes. Oh, the housework is usually done by the maids.”
“And do maids happen to have the strength to move furniture weighing half a ton?” Joana cut him off with a voice that didn’t allow for any reply. “Send Fernando, the one I saw yesterday in the slave quarters. He seems to have the necessary skills for what I intend. Tell him to come up through the back immediately.”
The order had been given. The invitation was disguised under the guise of domestic necessity, but the air in Casagre seemed to change its intensity the moment Sebastião walked away. Joana entered the library. The smell of old leather and yellowed paper was suffocating. She began to close the heavy green velvet curtains, letting in only a sliver of light, illuminating the dust that danced in the air.
Each beat of his heart was a reminder of the danger. If a slave saw, if the baron returned early because of a sudden rain, if Fernando didn’t understand what was happening, she looked at herself in the small, gilded mirror above the cold fireplace. She was pale, but her eyes were burning. “Are you the lady of this house?” she repeated to herself, trying to reclaim the aristocratic arrogance that desire was attempting to melt away.
Heavy footsteps echoed in the stone corridor. They were different from the light steps of the domestic slaves or the hurried walk of the baron. They were slow, steady steps that made the wooden floor creak under an enormous weight. The door creaked. Fernando stopped at the threshold. He was shirtless, as was common for field slaves, carrying with him the heat of the sun and the smell of the earth.
In the enclosed and refined environment of the library, he seemed even larger, an ebony giant surrounded by a civilization to which he did not belong, but which he was about to dominate. “So, did you send for me?”
His voice was deep, resonant, vibrating in Joana’s chest like distant thunder. Joana felt her throat go dry. The fear of being discovered and the sinful desire waged a violent battle in her stomach. She walked slowly to the door and, with trembling hands, turned the key. The crack of the metal echoed through the room like a mercy killing to her morals.
“Yes, Fernando,” she whispered, drawing closer to him until she felt the warmth emanating from his skin. “The work is arduous, and I demand total dedication.”
The tension had reached breaking point. There was no turning back. The forbidden invitation had been accepted in the silence of that gaze. The click of the key turning in the library lock sealed Joana’s fate. In the dim light of the room, where the smell of old books mingled with the masculine and earthy scent emanating from Fernando, the outside world, with its laws, its titles of nobility, and its baron, ceased to exist.
Joana turned slowly. Fernando remained static in the center of the room, an ebony column that seemed to support the roof of the large house. He did not lower his head. His dark, intelligent eyes followed the lady’s every movement with a calmness that disarmed her. “Forget the bookshelves, Fernando,” she said, her voice faltering for a second before becoming an authoritative whisper. “What I want to check is not the furniture.”
She approached, and the difference in stature was intimidating. Joana, a woman of elegant bearing, felt like a child before that brute force. With her hands trembling, she reached out and touched his chest. His skin was warm and firm as stone, and she felt his heart beating at a calm rhythm, contrasting with her own, which seemed like a desperate bird in the cage of his ribs.
When her hand moved down to the waistband of his thick trousers, Fernando took a step forward, closing the final distance. What Joana discovered next made her eyes widen and her breath catch. Countess Maria, with all her stories and precise measurements, had been modest. The reality was overwhelming. Faced with this revelation, Joana felt an initial shock bordering on terror.
It was something that defied logic and her own resistance. It was far greater than any fantasy she could have cultivated in her nights of solitude. “My God!” The whisper escaped her lips, not as a prayer, but as an acknowledgment of her own doom. The hesitation lasted only a heartbeat. The instinct of possession and the desire accumulated over years of a cold marriage spoke louder, ignoring the potential pain, ignoring the scandal and the very morality that defined her as a woman of respect.
Joana surrendered to her senses. She guided Fernando’s large, calloused hands to her own waist, feeling the strength of those fingers unravel the structure of her silk dress. When he lifted her, Joana felt herself floating and, at the same time, subjugated by a power that no man of her class could ever offer.
At that moment there was no mistress and no slave. There was only flesh, heat, and the discovery of a satisfaction that Joana considered impossible. She ignored the risks, ignored the fact that she was in her husband’s library, and surrendered to a wild ecstasy, feeling that she had finally found something too great to be contained by the walls of that plantation.
The conference was over, and Joana’s conclusion was definitive. She would never again be the same woman she had been before. Chapter 5. Ecstasy and Risk. Life in the Big House. Before, a desert of boredom and protocols had transformed into a field. Overwhelmed with sensations, Joana was no longer the same. The experience in the library hadn’t been just a meeting; it had been a baptism of pleasure that had left her addicted.
What had once been a curious encounter had become a daily necessity, a hunger that Baron Alencar, with his cold manners and constant absences, could never satisfy. Fernando was summoned under any pretext: an imaginary leak in the guest room, a heavy trunk that needed moving in the attic, or the inventory count, which only she could supervise.
Countess Maria, true to her spirit of adventure and scandal, had assumed the role of sentinel. While Joana and Fernando lost themselves in feverish encounters, Maria positioned herself in the corridor or the garden, pretending to read a book or embroider, always alert to any approaching shadow.
“Are you playing games with the executioner, Joana?” Maria would warn, fanning herself after one of these sessions. “Your eyes are different. You shine as if you’ve swallowed the sun. Anyone with two brain cells will notice.”
And the traces began to appear. Recklessness is the favorite daughter of passion. One day, a very fine linen handkerchief embroidered with Joana’s initials was found by a maidservant lying near the entrance to the slave quarters. Another afternoon, the overseer Sebastião was surprised to find the door of the wine cellar ajar, hearing only the heavy silence and the echo of a panting breath that ceased as soon as he touched the corridor.
But the most dangerous sign was Joana herself. She could no longer maintain the mask of severity. Her cheeks were permanently flushed, her lips fuller, and she no longer complained about her husband’s absences. On the contrary, she encouraged them. The baron, although focused on his business and hunting, began to notice that his wife’s silence was no longer one of submission, but of a secret satisfaction that he had not provided.
Risk was a drug as potent as Fernando’s touch. Joana knew that every minute in that man’s arms was a step towards the abyss. But feeling Fernando’s strength and remembering that ruler that was now her reality, she simply couldn’t stop. The sugar mill whispered, the walls watched, and the time of luck was running out.
Twilight tinged the sky a blood-red when the clatter of horses echoed in the courtyard of the big house. Baron Alencar had returned three days earlier than expected. The sound of spurs striking the cobblestones was like thunder that interrupted Joana’s reverie, who at that moment was touching up her hairstyle in front of the mirror, still feeling the warmth of her last encounter with Fernando on her skin.
Upon entering the main room, the baron did not have the smile of someone who had a successful hunt. His small, icy eyes swept the room until they met Joana’s. “An unexpected return, my husband,” she said, trying to force a naturalness that her racing heart belied.
“The hunt was scarce, Joana, but I feel the atmosphere here at the plantation is heavy,” he replied, throwing his leather gloves onto the rosewood table.
Countess Maria, who was sitting in the corner, maintained an excessive silence, her eyes fixed on the embroidery. For a woman known for talking a lot, that sudden silence was a cry of guilt. The baron noticed. He walked to the veranda, observing the movement of the slaves who were gathering their tools.
“Strange,” commented the baron, his back to them. “Sebastião told me that the new slave, this Fernando, has been spending a lot of time inside the house. Library and pantry duties. I didn’t know he had such domestic talents.”
Joana felt a chill run down her spine. The baron began to observe Fernando from afar, his gaze narrowed as he watched the ebony giant cross the courtyard. There was something in Fernando’s posture, a new dignity, a gaze that didn’t lower, that betrayed that something had changed.
That night, the baron didn’t go to bed. He stayed on the veranda. Smoking his cigar, a silent shadow watched every figure that moved between the Big House and the Slave Quarters. He began questioning the trusted servants, planting seeds of fear to gather information. The net was closing in. The man who had previously ignored his wife now studied her as if she were prey in the forest. The shadows on the veranda were no longer just the end of the day, they were the prelude to a storm that threatened to destroy them all.
Breakfast was served in a sepulchral silence, interrupted only by the clinking of silver spoons against the porcelain. The Baron of Alencar, after wiping his lips with a linen napkin, announced what Joana most wanted to hear. “I need to leave for Recife this afternoon. Urgent matters with the Board of Trade regarding the export of sugar. It should take two days, maybe three.”
Joana tried to contain the gleam of triumph in her eyes, maintaining a mask of aristocratic boredom. The Baron bid her farewell with an icy kiss on her forehead and departed on his way. A carriage, followed by two of his most cruel henchmen. But what Joana didn’t see was that less than 3 km from the entrance to the sugar mill, the carriage veered onto a secondary trail in the dense forest.
There, the Baron and his men abandoned the vehicle and returned on foot, camouflaging themselves among the trees surrounding the property. The predator was just waiting for its prey to feel safe. Feeling like she owned the world, Joana wasted no time. Maria called her, finding the countess in the garden. He left.
“Today there won’t just be a quick meeting. I want a celebration.” Joana organized what she called the last clandestine celebration before they decided how to proceed with this madness. The chosen location was the west wing of Casagre, an old and rarely used part, full of thick carpets and velvet vanities. She had port wine and fruit brought in.
In the dead of night, Fernando was led by Maria through the dark corridors. The atmosphere was that of a forbidden banquet. Joana was dazzling in a silk nightgown that barely covered her. She hid it. Maria, laughing at the danger, served the wine, while Fernando, majestic and imposing, occupied the center of the room.
“Today the time is ours, Fernando,” said Joana, approaching him with a glass in her hand, ignoring that outside the window, between the slats of the blinds, two eyes full of hatred and blood observed every detail. The Baron of Alencar watched the spectacle of his own dishonor. He saw Joana’s touch, heard the countess’s laughter, and, above all, saw the figure of Fernando, the man who possessed what the baron’s money could never buy, the true desire of his wife.
The trap was set. The baron drew his double-barreled pistol, the metal gleaming under the moonlight, and signaled to his henchmen. The entrapment was complete. What would follow would not be a conversation, but a massacre. Countess Maria’s laughter was cut short as if by a razor.
The bang did not come from thunder, but from the brutal impact of… Baron Alencar’s boot slammed against the oak wood of the west wing door. The lock gave way, shattering into pieces, and the air in the room was suddenly filled with the smell of gunpowder and the chill of the night. The baron entered like a ghost, his bloodshot eyes gripping his double-barreled pistol. Behind him, two henchmen armed with machetes and pistols blocked the only exit.
The scene inside the room was definitive proof of dishonor. Joana, with the silk of her nightgown slightly open, was in Fernando’s arms. Countess Maria, with a glass of wine in her hand, froze, her face as white as linen.
“So, this is the hard work of the library?” The baron’s voice came out like an animal growl, vibrating with a hatred that seemed ready to explode the walls. Joana let out a stifled cry, trying to cover herself, but the baron lunged forward, grabbing her hair with a force that threw her to her knees. His gaze turned… For Fernando.
The Baron’s hatred was fueled not only by betrayal, but by the sight of that man who, even in the face of death, maintained a posture the Baron would never possess. “Kill him!” the Baron yelled, pointing at Fernando. “I want that animal’s head hanging in the mill’s courtyard before dawn.”
Fernando tensed, his muscles leaping like steel ropes, but the henchmen were already cocking their weapons. The Baron then turned to Countess Maria, who was trying to hide behind a divan. “And you, noble friend,” he spat the words, “will pay for every sip of wine you drank while plotting my ruin. Execute the Countess too. Blue blood or slave blood. The ground of this mill accepts anyone.”
Maria let out a desperate sob, falling to the ground. Joana, sobbing at her husband’s feet, heard the final promise that chilled her soul. “For you, Joana, death would be a gift. I will keep you alive in the dungeons of this place, until you forget your own name and beg never to have been born.”
Chaos ensued. The baron raised his pistol, pointing it directly at Fernando’s chest. Time seemed to stand still. The crime was committed, the death sentences proclaimed, and blood was about to wash the floor of the west wing. The hammer of the baron’s pistol clicked in the silence of the room, but fate had other plans.
In the millisecond that the first henchman advanced with his machete raised, Fernando moved with lightning speed. He was not just a man of strength, he was a man driven by the instinct of someone who had already survived impossible ordeals. With a roar that seemed to shake the foundations of the big house, Fernando intercepted the aggressor’s arm, breaking the man’s wrist as if it were a dry twig.
Before the second henchman could fire his pistol, Fernando used the first henchman’s body as a human shield, throwing him against his accomplice in a clash of flesh and blood that threw them against the stone wall. The baron, blinded by fury, turned the barrel of his gun. “Die, you bastard!” he shouted, his finger tightening on the trigger.
But Joana, who until then seemed like a fallen shadow at his feet, acted on an impulse of pure adrenaline and survival instinct; she rose. Her hands gripped the heavy silver candelabra that adorned the side table, its candles still burning and dripping hot wax. With a scream that mixed hatred and despair, she delivered a precise blow to her husband’s temple.
The sound of the metal hitting the baron’s skull was dry and heavy. The man staggered, his vision blurring, and the pistol fired harmlessly against the ceiling, shattering the crystal chandelier. The baron collapsed onto the Persian rug, stunned and bleeding, his authority draining from his face along with the dark blood.
“Now!” Joana shouted, her voice hoarse, her eyes fixed on her fallen husband. “Fernando, Maria, if we don’t leave now, we’re dead.”
Countess Maria, who was huddled in tears streaming down her face, she felt Fernando’s firm hand grasp her arm, lifting her off the ground with a single pull. The giant looked at Joana with a newfound respect, having just sealed her own sentence of betrayal to save them.
“Through the back,” Fernando ordered, his voice the only pillar of calm amidst the chaos.
They had no suitcases, no jewelry, no future. They had only the seconds it would take the Baron to regain consciousness and the shouts of the henchmen who were beginning to get up. Joana cast one last glance at the man she had been married to for years, dropped the bloodstained candelabra, and ran into the darkness of the hallway. It was their only chance of escape.
From that moment on, the plantation owner’s wife was a fugitive from the law. The night air cut across Joana’s face like blades of ice. They didn’t have time to saddle the animals with the usual luxury. They mounted at a gallop, clinging to the manes, while the horses neighed, sensing the riders’ panic. Fernando led the group, blazing a trail through paths that only those who know freedom through fear can find.
Behind him, Joana and Maria followed like desperate shadows under the silvery moonlight that betrayed their every move in the sparse vegetation. “Don’t look back,” roared Fernando, his voice muffled by the frantic gallop. But the sound Joana feared most soon began to echo. Far away, deep within the Casagrande estate, the sugar mill’s emergency bell began to ring violently.
Baron Alencar had woken up. The baron’s fury knew no bounds. With his face smeared with blood and his pride shattered, he didn’t wait for the bandage. Shouting, he mobilized the entire plantation guard, henchmen and overseers, promising a reward in gold to whoever brought him the dead slave and his wife alive for his own reckoning. “I want the dogs. Release the hunting dogs,” ordered the baron, mounting his black chestnut horse. “They will not leave this province breathing.”
The hunt became relentless. Flames from torches began to dot the darkness behind the fugitives, like fiery eyes chasing them through the dense woods. The sound of dogs barking in the distance made Maria’s blood run cold. She confessed that before she only worried about the temperature of the tea, now she clung to the horse so as not to fall into the oblivion of death.
They crossed streams to lose the scent trail and galloped through thorn bushes that tore Joana’s expensive silks. The province’s border was the only hope, an invisible line that promised, if not peace, at least a moment to breathe away from the baron’s clutches. With each kilometer, fatigue weighed heavily, but fear was a whip that kept them moving.
Joana gazed at the moon and realized that her old life was left behind, buried beneath the silver candelabra. Now, she was just a woman fleeing for love and for life, while the man she once called her husband was right behind her, bringing hell in his reins.
The sound of the turbulent waters arose even before they could see them. The River of Souls, known for its treacherous currents and smooth rocky bottom, was the last natural barrier separating the lands of Baron Alencar from Liberdade. Behind them, the barking of the dogs grew closer, and the glow of the pursuers’ torches already illuminated the treetops.
“We have to cross now!” shouted Fernando, dismounting and gripping the reins firmly. The waters were murky and turbulent due to rainfall in the headwaters. Joana hesitated, but the sound of a pistol shot echoing through the woods dispelled any remaining doubt. They went into the river. The force of the current was brutal.
Midway through the crossing, Countess Maria’s horse stumbled on a submerged rock, throwing her directly into the icy whirlpool. “Help, Joana!”, Maria cried out before being swallowed by the dark water. Without thinking twice, Fernando let go of the reins and dove in. Joana watched, paralyzed by terror, as the ebony giant battled the river’s fury.
Fernando emerged a few meters ahead, grabbing Maria by the collar of her dress and swimming with superhuman strength towards the opposite bank. Joana tried to follow them, but her horse got scared. In the midst of the chaos, the small velvet pouch she carried, containing the Alencar family jewels and the gold coins that would secure their future, slipped from her waist. She tried to reach it, but the bag was swallowed by the current in the blink of an eye. All his possessions, the gold that bought him silence and comfort, now belonged to the riverbed.
Fernando dragged Maria, exhausted and trembling, to the dry land on the other side. Soon after, Joana emerged, dazed and breathless. They were alive, but the price had been high. “The jewels, the money!” Joana sobbed, falling to her knees in the mud. “We have nothing left, Fernando. Nothing.”
Fernando looked at her, his chest rising and falling forcefully, and then at the bank they had just left, where the baron’s first henchmen appeared powerless before the width of the river. “We do have life,” he said, his voice as firm as steel. “And we have freedom; the baron’s gold stayed in the river. From now on, we only take what we are.”
They rose, their clothes torn, without a penny in their pockets, but with their hearts beating freely for the first time. The sacrifice was made. The nobility of Joana and Maria had died in those waters. What remained were three fugitives ready to disappear on the horizon. The red dust of the backlands now covered what was once silk and lace.
After weeks of walking and sleepless nights under the starry sky, the trio finally reached a region where the ground was cracked and the sun unforgiving, but where the name of the Baron of Alencar was nothing more than a non-existent echo. There, between the gray of the scrubland and the silence of the mountains, they found anonymity, the only safe haven against the gallows.
Joana looked at her hands. Her nails, once impeccably polished, were broken and dirty with earth. She was no longer like that; the haughtiness she used to command slaves had been replaced. Driven by a survival instinct she didn’t even know she possessed, for the first time in her life she washed her only change of clothes in the stream and prepared the flour over the open fire.
“Joana, come and eat,” Maria called. Countess Maria had also transformed. The frivolous woman who lived on gossip now carried kindling to the fire without complaint. Necessity had extinguished titles. There were only three souls trying to deceive fate. The dynamic between them changed drastically. Fernando, who had once been Joana’s secret, became the central pillar of that new world.
Without the shackles of slavery or the orders of the big house, his natural leadership flourished. He knew the land, knew how to hunt, identify edible roots, and build a wattle-and-daub shelter that could withstand the dry wind. He was no longer the slave Fernando, but the protector, the man of the house, the guide.
On those hot nights in the backlands, around the campfire, the hierarchy of the sugar mill seemed like a bad joke from a past life. Joana sat beside him, not as a lady who grants a favor, but like a woman who admires the man who saved her. Maria, once an accomplice in forbidden adventures, was now a sister on the journey, sharing what little they had with a deep respect for the man who carried them when their legs gave way.
“No one will find us here,” said Fernando, gazing at the vast horizon. “Here you are neither countesses nor ladies. It’s just Maria and Joana, and I’m just Fernando.”
Joana rested her head on his shoulder, feeling the warmth of his skin that had addicted her. But now she felt something more. Peace. Luxury had been exchanged for scarcity, but freedom tasted much sweeter than any banquet at the Baron’s table. They were disappearing from the world, but finally they were finding each other.
Chapter 13. The new horizon. The valley was a verdant sanctuary hidden among the folds of an imposing mountain range. There, the sound of the whip had been replaced by the song of birds and the sound of the hoe cutting the fertile earth. Months had passed since the bloody night at the sugar mill, and time, like a generous river, had washed away the scars of the escape.
On the small property with white walls and thatched roof, life pulsed at a new rhythm. The Baron of Alencar, according to the rumors that rarely reached him through the muleteers, had given up the search for Recife society. Thus, Joana and Countess Maria had died in a tragic shipwreck or kidnapping. The scandal was too great to admit. For the Baron, it was easier to maintain the lie of mourning than the shame of having been replaced by one of his own captives.
Joana went out onto the earthen veranda, carrying a basket of corn. She saw Fernando in the distance, tending to the crops. He was shirtless, and his ebony skin shone under the afternoon sun. The sight still quickened her heart, but now it wasn’t just desire that moved her. It was the gratitude and complicity of those who had rebuilt a world from scratch.
Maria appeared in the doorway, drying her hands on a rustic apron. She smiled at Joana, a silent affection that united the two women, who had once lived on appearances and now lived in truth. Fernando approached the house, wiping the sweat from his brow. He stopped before Joana and placed his large, protective hand on her shoulder.
Joana looked at him, then at the mountains that protected them, and felt a peace that the luxury of the big house had never given her. She remembered that afternoon tea with Maria, the laughter about the forbidden size, and the phrase that at the time seemed like just a cheeky joke.
“You know, Fernando?” she whispered, leaning towards him. “I once said that if you wash it, it’s as good as new.”
Fernando let out a deep laugh, the kind Joana could now hear every day without fear. “Is it really, Joana?” he asked, pulling her close.
“More than new,” she replied, smiling. “It’s free.”
The past was a burned page. There, far from the shackles, the unjust laws, and the empty titles, Joana, Maria, and Fernando found their horizon. Life was simple, the work was hard, but love and freedom were finally their ultimate reality.
