By Fire, By Water (28 page)

“They took him,” Estefan raised his voice. “They took him because, as I said, they’re nothing but a pack of rabid mongrels.”

“Enough of this. I’m taking you home.” Horacio had never seen Estefan in such a foul mood. He rose and tried to pull him up. The tax farmer resisted.

Sancho Morales ceased picking on his lute. Juliana Méndez stopped dancing. Estefan barely noticed.

“No one is taking me home, Horacio. And I’m not going to pretend,” he was speaking to the entire room, now, “that I retain a shred of admiration for those splenetic choirboys, Torquemada and his minions. Not that I ever had much in the first place.”

“What are you trying to do, señor?” asked Ferran Soto, seated at the table with Sancho Morales. “Why would you insult a venerable Christian institution? Without it, this land would fall into chaos. Is that what you want?”

“All I want is for your friends to free my nephew,” muttered Estefan. “Whatever it costs.”

“If the Inquisition took your nephew,” said Soto, “they had their reasons. And your money won’t save him. Nor will it save you, if you don’t watch your tongue.”

“You don’t threaten me, Ferran.”

“They say Jews can’t hold a pint,” the stonemason put in.

Estefan turned to him. “If I am a Jew, then you are the son of a storm-beaten trollop.”

“Aye, a Jew tax farmer,” added a peasant Estefan had never before seen. “And a flayer of honest Christians.”

“Don’t listen to them, Estefan,” urged Horacio. “They’re just as besotted as you. Let’s go home.”

“They’re saying aloud what many think.” Estefan glanced around. “I’m a Jew,” he sneered. “And to think, I didn’t know!”

“As long as you believe in the virgin birth,” Ferran assured him, “and that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, let them say what they want.”

“Marrano,”
someone muttered, the double r’s scurrying from his mouth like cockroaches. The word, derived from “swine,” signified a
converso
who practiced Judaism in secret.

Estefan looked in the direction of the voice. A peasant sat drinking in the shadows. “I know you,” said the tax farmer. “I’ve flayed you once or twice, haven’t I.”

“Aye, so you did, and told me you didn’t believe.”

“Didn’t believe what?” asked Ferran.

“He said the Holy Mother of God was not a virgin.”

The tavern erupted in indignant mutterings.

“I said that?” Estefan challenged him. “Since when do I discuss theology with illiterate peasants?”

“I know you believe in the virgin birth,” Horacio urged the tax farmer. “Why don’t you tell them?”

Estefan turned to him and opened his mouth. No words came out.

“And that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, too. You always said it. Just tell them.” Horacio nodded encouragingly.

“You’re a good man, Horacio,” Estefan said finally.

Ferran Soto and Sancho Morales exchanged glances. “Horacio is right,” said Ferran. “Go home, Estefan. I don’t want to arrest you. I don’t want to work tonight.”

“Ah, threatening me again. Don’t you see? I no longer care about your lances—or your pyres.”

“You will care when you feel them.”

“Ah, so I shall feel them.”

“Yes, you will, if you don’t stop insulting the Holy Inquisition.”

“I don’t need to insult her,” said Estefan. “She insults herself, every time she arrests an innocent boy. Every time she murders men like me.”

“She does so to protect the Holy Church,” Ferran insisted.

“The Holy Church.” Estefan snickered.

“That’s enough.”

Estefan drew a deep breath and quietly confessed, as if talking to himself, “I used to believe it. At least, I tried my damnedest. But now, with what’s being done in His name …”

The fire crackled in the hearth. A mug softly smacked a table.

“Where’s the mercy?” Estefan asked, looking around. “Where’s the other cheek?
Where is He?
”

Ferran reluctantly nodded to Sancho Morales. Two Hermandad soldiers lumbered over to Estefan’s table, stretched his arms around their shoulders, and pulled him out of the inn.

    
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

B
ABA
S
HLOMO REACHED UP
from his bed and squeezed Judith’s arm: “That diplomat from Zaragoza, what was his name?”

“Santángel.” Judith was surprised to learn that Baba Shlomo had been thinking of the chancellor as well.

“Yes, yes, Santángel. He showed up here for a reason.”

“Why do you think he came?”

“First, give me some tea.”

Judith held a cup to his lips. When he finished sipping, she dabbed his chin with a towel.

“I’d like to visit my parents’ graves.”

“In Zaragoza?” Judith could hardly imagine such a journey.

“It will be a pilgrimage.”

“How long a pilgrimage? A month? Two? With no income?”

“Maybe two months,” Baba Shlomo agreed, “at a leisurely pace. You’ve had little work, lately.”

Although Judith had not spoken with him, recently, about her work, she could hardly deny that ever since the Christians had captured Velez-Malaga, commerce between Granada and the rest of the world had all but halted. Local residents, too, were spending less.

“Zaragoza still has a Jewish quarter,” said Baba Shlomo. “We may find new clients. What other hope do we have?”

Judith offered him another sip of tea. “It would be dangerous.”

“I survived it. I was a child, fleeing, with nothing. Things here are becoming impossible, anyway.”

Judith heard the clop of a man’s mules. She looked up. Isaac Azoulay, in his indigo silk robes, stopped at the doorway.

“We were waiting for you,” said Judith.

Isaac knelt at Baba Shlomo’s bedside. “We’ve missed you in synagogue,” he told him. “We’ve been praying for your health.” He examined the color of the old man’s skin.

“And what went on that was different from any other week?”

“There was a heated discussion.”

“On what subject?” asked Baba Shlomo.

“Granada’s destiny. Our destiny.”

“What did they conclude?” asked Judith.

The physician turned to her. “Our rulers will fight valiantly, but our kingdom will fall. Maybe next year, maybe in ten years. As for us, it’s anyone’s guess. They say Fernando and Ysabel have been protective of their Jews.”

Judith put down Baba Shlomo’s cup. “Would you care for some tea?”

“No, thank you.” Isaac pulled down the lower lids of Baba Shlomo’s eye, looked at his sclera, felt his pulse.

Most illnesses involved a disproportionate blend of the four humors, the vital liquids that flowed through human bodies. While conversing with Judith and Baba Shlomo, Isaac tried to determine whether the old man felt slow and indolent, due to an excess of phlegm, or melancholic, with too much black bile. In making his diagnosis, the physician also took into account Baba Shlomo’s eye color and skin temperature.

He asked Judith out to the courtyard. “Let’s not be naive. Baba Shlomo has lived a long life. I’ll prescribe an infusion of verbena and peony, which, if properly mixed and depending on astrological conditions, may cause his symptoms to subside. It’s also important that he walk or at least sit up every day. To lie down is to welcome Death. And make sure he eats meat.”

“Thank you, Isaac.”

He nodded and turned to leave.

Judith stopped him. “He wants to travel. He can’t get out of bed, but he’s talking about journeying all the way to Zaragoza. A pilgrimage, he calls it.”

Isaac smiled at the folly of it, but then said, perhaps in jest, “If it gives him a reason to rise from his bed, it might be of benefit.”

Judith watched Isaac exit her courtyard. She wondered whether the streets of Zaragoza resembled the narrow, steep alleys of Granada. Her own great-grandparents, on her mother’s side, had lived there. She wondered how far the chancellor resided from the Jewish quarter.

“Third generation,” he had said. The grandson of an apostate. He carried himself like a nobleman, with all the impassivity and smugness the highest titles can bestow. She remembered his glances, that evening, his unflinching eyes.

    
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A
LIGHT RAIN FELL
on Valencia. Returning to his brother’s home with Iancu, after an absence of almost four months, Santángel saw from a distance that the gates were closed. He rode closer and noticed the heavy chains. Slowing his horse, he tried to quiet his racing mind. He dismounted, pounded on the doors, and rattled the metal links.

“Estefan!”

Only the wind answered.

“Gabriel!” He shook the gates a second time. He leaned against them, breathing hard, his eyes darting about for clues.

A peasant hummed a simple tune as he drove his mule up the street. Santángel hailed him: “My good man. This property, do you know anything about it?”

The peasant stopped and bowed. “My lord?”

“This gate, why is it chained? Does no one live here?”

“No one lives there,” confirmed the peasant.

“Are you familiar with the goings-on in this street? Or do you rarely come this way?”

“I walk down this street every morning, and up it every evening, my lord.”

“The owner of this house,” insisted Santángel. “Do you know him?”

“Know him? Me? Oh, no, señor.” The peasant laughed, shaking his head. “But I have seen him.”

“How long has the house been empty? How long has this gate been chained?”

“Maybe a month.”

“They moved out?”

“They moved out.”

“They moved out, or they were taken out?”

“People say they took him to Zaragoza,” he said at last. “I don’t know more.” He waved a fly from his head. The peasant continued on his way.

Iancu came closer, searching the chancellor’s crumpled face. He waited, then began in a quiet voice, “On the ocean crossing, my wife. They … they insulted. They raped. They laughed. Like an old rug, they threw her overboard.” He stopped, his face twisted. “They tied us—me, Dumitru—in hold. No light. But we heard. We heard her screams. My boy. He heard his mother’s screams.” He clenched his jaw and stared beyond Santángel. “If I may.” The former captive spread his arms and hugged the chancellor tightly.

No one unrelated to Santángel had ever ventured such intimacy. Finding consolation in their shared misery, the chancellor allowed the burly foreigner to hold him.

Since relocating to Zaragoza, Tomás de Torquemada had discovered he preferred the calm of La Veruela Monastery to the noise and bustle of La Seo Cathedral. Tonight, however, all was not quiet. Waking well before matins, he heard voices and rose from bed.

“Señor Santángel,” one of the inquisitor’s guards was saying, “allow me to remind you that this edifice belongs to God. The Holy Church is obligated to protect it. We have the power to arrest noblemen, as well as servants of the court, even in Aragon.”

“No, my good man,” came the voice of Luis de Santángel. “You do not have that power.”

Torquemada was pleased that the chancellor had finally deigned to pay him a visit, but he did not approve of his sentry’s tone. Now that he had the chancellor in his territory, Torquemada saw no reason to insult him.