By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan
Estefan called upon some of the most important men in the region, the masters of the stone-makers’ and carpenters’ guilds, the city treasurer. Some confided they had nothing to do with the Inquisition and wanted nothing to do with it. Others, more cautiously, assured him they trusted the inquisitors to do what was right—and that he should, as well.
He returned to Santo Juanes to plead with Father Muñoz. The priest informed him that “the boy” had been transferred to Zaragoza. Gabriel was in good health, he assured him.
Luis had been vague about his plans. Estefan dispatched a messenger to his brother, in the care of the king, but received no reply.
Two Dominican monks carted Gabriel de Santángel to La Seo Cathedral in Zaragoza. They locked him in a bare room in the rectory. He slept on a hard bench as often as he could, day and night, if only to erase his present circumstances from the slate of his mind.
“My child, sit up.”
The air was fresh with the scent of morning. Gabriel heard a bird chirping. He opened his eyes. A man in a brown habit stood in front of him.
“It pains us grievously,” the man said, “to see a well-born boy like you reduced to this condition.”
He knelt before Gabriel. He took Gabriel’s hands in his.
“We know you’ve been judaizing,” Tomás de Torquemada said gently. “And we would like nothing more than to lead you back to the one true path. You’re still so young. You have so much to see and do in this world before moving on to the next. The best thing for you right now would be to unburden your heart.”
“Your words. What you’re doing to me.” Gabriel, his throat parched, spoke in a raw whisper. “I can’t make sense of it.” Why were they treating him like an infidel?
Torquemada repeated Gabriel’s words, turning them over in his mouth like a sweetmeat. “You can’t make sense of what we’re doing. Perhaps you can help me, though.” He reached into the pocket of his habit and produced the small, intricately adorned, silver hamsa hand that the monks had found in Gabriel’s jerkin.
Gabriel looked at the hamsa hand he had stolen from Felipe de Almazón’s home. He still had no idea what this object was or what it meant, but the queasy sensation he had felt in that closet of treasures returned when he saw the regretful look on the priest’s face.
“Why don’t you tell us who gave it to you? Was it your father? An uncle? An aunt?”
The boy shook his head. His mind turned, as so often since his arrest, to thoughts of his father. He was sure the powerful, universally admired Luis de Santángel would soon appear, fighting off his captors at the point of a sword, if need be.
“Who gave it to you?”
Gabriel turned his eyes back to him. “You’re a monk. You have a special relationship with God, no?”
“Each of us has a special relationship with God.”
“Do you talk to Him?”
“All the time.”
“Does He listen to you?”
“He certainly does.”
“Does He answer you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you ask Him where I got it?”
“God doesn’t need to save His soul through the purifying act of confession,” explained Torquemada patiently. “You do.”
“I’m hungry,” said Gabriel. “And cold.”
Torquemada smiled. “Do you like pear cake?”
The thought of pear cake appealed so much to Gabriel, it caused his stomach to twinge. “Please.”
“We’ll give you some, fresh and warm, with almond milk. And a robe. You and I shall talk in the morning.”
Gabriel watched Torquemada rise. He loomed above him like a demon or an angel, then swept out of the room, closing the door softly and locking it.
“You must keep in mind,” observed Torquemada as he led Gabriel de Santángel to the ecclesiastical prison of Zaragoza, “this jail isn’t administered by the Inquisition, but by the Kingdom of Aragon. And that is a most important distinction. The Holy Church never bloodies her hands with torture or death.”
In showing the prison to the chancellor’s son, he was not giving him special consideration; most prisoners of the Inquisition were granted a preliminary round through the facilities as a means of “moistening their lips.”
Torquemada pulled open the heavy door of the unremarkable stone building. “We are a Church of compassion,” he continued as he ushered Gabriel down the tight stairwell. “All we ask is that those who have erred confess and atone. Only if we cannot succeed do we send them here to the State. Even then, we do so with regret.”
The warden met them at the bottom of the stairs. “Spiritual Father.” He knelt to kiss the inquisitor’s robe. Torquemada lowered his head and continued through the small arch. Gabriel followed.
The excremental stench made the boy dizzy. His eyes adjusted to the obscurity. Filthy, long-bearded men and half-naked women slouched upon the dirt floor, some of them groaning, others sleeping. A man with a gouged-out eye reached toward him, mumbling. A small one-legged woman, her hands chained to the wall, her hair twice as voluminous as her head, implored Gabriel with mad eyes.
“This,” the inquisitor explained to the child, “is the fate we want you and your father to avoid.”
The inquisitor opened a small door. Gabriel crossed himself and followed him inside the torture chamber. This room was cleaner, unoccupied except for the machines of torment positioned around its walls. Torquemada explained how they worked.
There was the scourge, a whip with multiple lashes, “like the ones the Jews used upon our Lord,” Torquemada explained, “as He stumbled to his crucifixion.” There was the rack, a wooden bed with gears and attachments at either end, for pulling a man’s limbs apart. Torquemada demonstrated how it could be adjusted for a person of any height. There was the brazier for coals and the pincer, which, when glowing red-hot, warmed the soles of the feet, burned off hands, and tore flesh. There was the strappado, a pulley that suspended sinners mid-air and jerked them downward, with weights attached to their feet.
“All this, my son, I’m showing you in the hope that you and your father will avoid it. Because all the torments around you are nothing compared to the eternal agony of Hell.”
That word father resounded in Gabriel’s mind. Where was his father?
He looked up at the inquisitor and, despite himself, began weeping. Torquemada patted him on the back, pleased to see that young Gabriel understood the seriousness of his predicament. He was growing more and more confident the boy would be spared all but the mildest forms of torture—sleep deprivation and questioning.
“Come,” offered the monk. He turned to go, but Gabriel’s sobs seemed to prevent him from moving. Torquemada lifted him and carried him out of the chamber. As he continued up the stairs, Gabriel lowered his head onto the monk’s shoulder.
Estefan Santángel lay awake on his bed, his wool jerkin wrinkled, his hair a tangled skein. He had rounds to make through the countryside, but found himself unable. He had not risen in days. His head throbbed. Casting his eyes about the room, he spied a half-empty jug of wine on the floor.
He sat up, leaned against the wall, and drank deeply. “I’m not riding into those stinking fields,” he told himself, “to wrestle with angry peasants. Not today, and not tomorrow.” He drank again.
Hours later, still rumpled and unwashed, Estefan trudged to the inn he had visited on the day of Gabriel’s arrest. The room was dusky and clamorous. The air stank of beer and sweat. A fire blazed on the hearth.
A group of his drinking companions waved him to their table. Horacio, a rat catcher by trade, beckoned the innkeeper. “Another ale for our friend!”
Estefan plodded over and fell onto the bench.
Horacio noticed his unkempt appearance, dark orbits, and unbrushed hair. “Where have you been dragging that beefy rump of yours, Estefan?” Although Horacio earned his keep in the company of vermin, he was a prosperous and respected citizen.
The innkeeper plonked a mu
He had not eaten, and the spirits affected him at once. “My beefy rump, as you so poetically put it,” he told Horacio, “has been loath to raise itself from a horizontal bearing. Which is to say, I’ve been lying abed and would indeed still be there, had I not consumed all the wine on hand.”
“Lying abed?” asked a stonemason, “at the height of tax season? Hardly sounds like you, Estefan.”
“I am hardly myself these days.”
“And the taxpayers thank you for it,” bellowed Gustavo, the blacksmith’s son.
Estefan turned to him. He had never much liked Gustavo, but he agreed. “It is a despicable, loathsome, and thoroughly deplorable way to earn one’s beer, is it not?”
“What else can you do?” Gustavo comforted him. “You came into it honestly enough.”
Estefan reared his head back and peered down his nose at him. “Just what do you mean by that, my good man?”
“Your father was a farmer of taxes, was he not? It’s not like you inherited a blacksmith’s shop.”
“And what are you implying?”
“Why, nothing. What is the matter with you?”
The tax farmer drew a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what’s the matter. They took my nephew. A mere boy. God knows what they’re doing to him.”
“They? Who?” asked Horacio.
“The so-called Holy Inquisition. A bunch of louts.”
The innkeeper refreshed mugs all around. “As you know, Señor Santángel, I hold you in high esteem. But I’ll have none of that talk in my establishment.”
“Then stay away from my table. You have other guests.” Estefan closed his eyes, leaned back in his seat, and gulped more ale.
Across the room, Sancho Morales, an officer of the Santa Hermandad, picked up his lute and began plucking. What he lacked in skill, he made up for in vigor. A few others joined in, banging on mugs and tables. Juliana Méndez, the sultry young widow of a cobbler, known about town as a hussy, danced gaily. Others clapped, whistled, and stomped. The ruckus drowned Estefan’s conversation, providing him with an excuse not to talk. He attacked his third mug.
A few young men danced by turns with Juliana. As she whirled past, she reached for Estefan’s hand. He ignored her. Juliana insisted, calling him with her fingertips. Estefan closed his eyes and leaned back into the wall.
“You’re not going to dance, Estefan?” Horacio seemed baffled.
Estefan ignored him, too.
“It’s a Jewish holiday,” Gustavo remarked.
The tax farmer half-opened his eyes. “And what do you mean by that, Gustavo? Must I dance, to be a good Christian?”
“Gustavo was jesting,” said Horacio. “You’ve had too much drink, Estefan.”
“You should know, you incorrigible souse.” Estefan drained his mug.
“What was your nephew up to? Why did they take him?” Gustavo vigorously cleaned his ear with his little finger.
“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
BABA SHLOMO 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.