How did doctors know then if a woman can conceive? The doctors insert garlic into a woman's vagina before she sleeps at night. Early the next morning he makes her exhale into his nose. He sniffs at her breath. If he detects the aroma of garlic in her breath then that means her passageways are clear and can accomodate the journey of a man's seeds towards wherever it is that babies are formed inside a woman's body. But if there's no garlic in her breath then that means the "receptive channels" of her body are blocked and she may not be able to bear children.
That was the gynecology in Spain during the mid-16th century when this novel is set. Cipriano Salcedo is born long after his mother had passed the "garlic test." An only child, his mother dies giving birth to him. His father somehow blames him for his wife's death and calls him a "small parricide." Infant formulas not having been invented yet, his rich father gets the services of a teenage girl, Minervina, who has just given birth to a dead child. Little baby Cipriano greedily sucks the girl's teats for milk. He grows strong with the nourishment and care she provides. She becomes like a real mother to him whom he learns to love more than his distant father.
When Cipriano becomes an agile teenager, thin but very strong, his surrogate mother, Minervina, is still in his father's employ, very much still attractive at age 30 or so. His subconscious probably still hankers after her breasts and he feels the urge to suck them again like when he was still a baby. Minervina lets him. They end up having sex. They become lovers. His father, who has also been lusting after her, goes ballistic. Minervina is banished from the household. Cipriano tries to look for her but fails.
That is not the only salacious subplot in this novel. But it is not in sex where its charms lie. Here, you will be transported into 16th century Spain and see how people then lived. You will be like a silent companion to Cipriano, who had lived in Valladolid, Spain (pop. 28,000 souls), from the time of his birth, to his boyhood and teenage years, to his adulthood, up to his death where he is barbecued alive in an auto de fe, watched by many like it was a town fiesta, with the following equally-condemned companions whose punishments were read to them in this order:
Beatriz Cazalla: confiscation of property, death by garrote, and consignment to the flames;
Juan Cazalla: confiscation of property, life imprisonment, perpetual wearing of the sanbenito, with obligation to take Communion on Christmas, Easter and Pentecost;
Constanza Cazalla: confiscation of property, life imprisonment and perpetual wearing of the sanbenito;
Alonzo Perez: degradation, death by garrote, and consignment to the flames;
Juan Sanchez: to be burned at the stake;
Cristobal Padilla: confiscation of property, death by garrote, and consignment to the flames;
Isabel de Castilla: sanbenito in perpetuity, life imprisonment and confiscation of property;
Pedro Cazalla: degradation, confiscation of property, death by garrote and consignment to the flames;
Ana Enriquez: will leave the prison wearing the sanbenito and carrying a candle, she will fast for three days and nights, she will return to the prison and, once there, be set free;
Antonio Herrezuelo: confiscation of property, burned at the stake;
Juan Garcia: confiscation of property, death by garrote, and consignment to the flames;
Francisca de Zuniga: sanbenito in perpetuity and life imprisonment;
Brother Domingo de Rojas: degradation and to be burned at the stake;
Carlos de Seso: confiscation of property and to be burned at the stake.
Their collective sin: believing in some Protestant tenets like that there is no Purgatory and that Christ, alone, suffices for salvation. For 16th century Spain was a country under the Inquisition. They have this so-called Holy Office and an official called the Inquisitor General who were on the constant look-out for anyone within the Spanish territories who would say something, or think or act not in accordance with Roman Catholic dogmas. They catch them, try them using evidence which are inadmissible in courts today (including those elicited from torture), then mete out the punishments via autos de fe.
Cipriano was burned at the stake on May 21, 1559 according to the novel, as narrated by Minervina who had watched her "son" die bravely in the flames. But I had to enumerate Cipriano's companions here since they are relevant to the next review I will write immediately after this, that of the book: "The Spanish Inquisition" by Henry Kamen. Coming soon in the computer screens near you.