Father San Miguel is a Black Jesuit posted to the Fort of the Federal Star and the Palace of Mud on the Rosista frontier of Santa María de Torregrises (1838), possibly one of the long-lived Jesuits who cross the frontier without aging.
| Type | Character (Jesuit) |
| Era | 1838 |
| Posts | Fort of the Federal Star; Palace of Mud |
| Spanish entry | Padre San Miguel |
Description
Well-mannered, with a mustache that seems to belong to a portrait of another century — the first incongruity anyone notices. He reads French and Latin effortlessly and writes with an ease few at the fort can match. He neither confesses harshly nor harasses the soldiers; he performs his duties with a kindly distance that disconcerts those who expect from a frontier priest either rigor or complicity.
Role
The men of the fort feel an unease they cannot articulate. A rumor, recorded in at least one testimony of the party, holds that certain Jesuits carry a hundred and fifty years or more, with proof. His tie to the ex-Jesuit Clavijero and the shadow of the enigmatic Bertrando — captain or agent of some unidentified power — place him at the darkest knot of the clerical conspiracy running beneath the war of Federals, Unitarians and Albions.
Open questions
- Whether he is one of the long-lived Jesuits.