By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan
Gabriel and Estefan were last. Other than those worshipers who stood at the front of the crowd, no one heard the priest’s words. They saw him addressing the solemn young man in intimate tones. His air of humility and compassion moved them.
“Gabriel de Santángel,” he began in his gravelly, aged voice, “we understand you were led astray, out of the pasture of the faithful, but have repented and elected to return to the flock. Is that not so?”
“That is so, Father.”
“And the teachings of the Jews, denying the divinity of our Lord, Christ Jesus—were you exposed to that false and poisonous doctrine?”
“Yes, Father. But I never believed a word of it.”
“Have you accepted the Son of God, Christ Jesus, as your Redeemer?”
“Yes.”
“And the teachings of the Jews, denying His divinity, have you forever banished them from the territory of your soul?”
“I despise them.”
When the new canon offered the young man communion and they saw him taste the wafer of Jesus’s body and drink the wine of His blood, some had tears in their eyes. The canon stood again to address them, his voice now strong, “If another believer sins, rebuke him. Then if he repents, forgive him. Even if he wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, forgive him. Those are the words of our Lord. If God himself would forgive the sinner, the frail and fallible mortal who recognizes his error and kneels, begging for absolution, then who are we to judge such a man without mercy?”
Luis de Santángel watched, his overwhelming sense of loss tinged with relief that his son would survive. He tried to be grateful for Gabriel’s wisdom. Under his breath, he muttered a prayer that Gabriel remain a devout Christian and live free of suspicion.
The priest turned to the secular authorities, the soldiers of the Santa Hermandad, and pleaded with them to show clemency to Gabriel. “Yes, this young man has wandered from the path of righteousness. Yes, he has been exposed to the most pernicious of sins. And yes, let him wear the sanbenito for two years, in penance.” He turned back to Gabriel. “But if you stay away from evil, my son, your soul will be utterly cleansed. And we will do our best to protect you.”
Gabriel marched down from the platform, nearly as free as any citizen, his chin up, his posture stiff. He seemed not to notice the Dominican monks behind him, dragging his uncle toward the priest.
Estefan saw him, however. He, too, thanked God that his nephew had been spared.
“Just as young Gabriel shall be cleansed,” the canon of La Seo told the crowd, “so must we, gathered here today, cleanse ourselves of those who would pollute our ears, our minds, and our land. Therefore, let those whose mouths have spoken evil have their tongues stilled, that their wickedness not flow out upon us.”
Two guards dropped Estefan to his knees. Others pushed his head back, jerked his mouth open, and pulled out his tongue. They shoved a small wooden board under it and drove a nail through it, lest Estefan utter words of malice or black magic and thus arouse the crowd’s sympathy.
The tax farmer did not struggle, but closed his eyes, letting out a guttural cry as his body convulsed. The priest continued, “He who does not dwell in me is thrown away like a withered branch. The withered branches are heaped together, cast into the fire, and burnt. Those are the very words of the Holy Apostle John. That is why, Estefan Santángel, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ we have urged you, and begged you with all our heart to repent. If you had elected to do so, all the tortures that await you would have been your salvation. But you refused to repent, and therefore the bowels of the earth will vomit your bones, your image will be an abomination in the eyes of God, and your name in the mouths of mortals, forever and ever. Your damnation will be eternal.” He allowed his words to linger in the stifling, incense-infused air.
Wearing the yellow smock of shame, his arms tied behind his back, Estefan was not listening. His eyes and mind were elsewhere. Perhaps because he had suffered so long, or because his attempts at prayer had reached God’s ears, he perceived a glimpse, or the shadow of a glimpse, of the face of God. He had never imagined it quite this way, for the face of God was simply the world before him, denuded and rehabilitated. The priest in his blood-red vestments, the words falling from his mouth, the rapt crowd below, the guards and the scaffolding, the bright cerulean sky, Estefan’s own agony, and so much more—ineffable but utterly real, shimmering in the heat of the summer afternoon. He heard the whispering of angels and the quiet chanting of ancestral scholars. Behind it all, and within it, a warm, amber luminosity, a profound, simple and convincing reason, which could not be summed up or expressed in words, flowed through the texture of this world like grain in the parchment of a Torah scroll.
The priest addressed the crowd, “You, Estefan Santángel, whom our Mother Church welcomed into her arms. You, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died. You, whom He loved, and whom He favored with gold and all the privileges that befitted your station …”
“Death to the heretic!” shouted a man.
“Death to the marranos!” some in the crowd echoed.
The priest raised his arms. “My children, let us be calm. All these sinners’ destinies are in the hands of God.” He turned back to the tax farmer. “You, Estefan Santángel, who dared insult the servants of our Holy Church during your trial, though they sought only to save you. You, who laughed in their faces when they spoke of your Savior. You, who in the darkness of your cell, and even in the depths of sleep, so tainted was your soul, muttered the diabolical invocations of your people. You, Estefan Santángel, have shunned the love and protection of our Lord. Therefore, you shall know His wrath.”
Luis de Santángel tried to advance through the throng, desperate to get close enough to exchange one final look with his brother. When he jostled a big peasant, the man struck him. The royal chancellor, in the garb of a common man, stumbled backward.
“The Church of God can do nothing more for you,” the priest was telling Estefan, “Since you have abused. His goodness. Therefore, we throw you away like rotten wood, from which no house can be built, and abandon you to the secular justice. And we beg the secular justice to deliver a moderate sentence, without spilling blood.”
Indeed, the blood from Estefan’s tongue was minimal, and even this, though viewed as necessary, was anathema to the Church. She was forbidden, according to Her own principles and traditions, from spilling blood. Even the secular authorities, in most cases, burned heretics rather than impaling them or cutting them to pieces—except for those, like Felipe de Almazón, who died before their trials.
Three soldiers of the Santa Hermandad seized Estefan Santángel and dragged him down from the platform. The Church had done all She could to save his soul, but had failed. The awed crowd opened for the soldiers as they hauled him to one of several wooden stakes erected the night before, high above the people, far from the altar.
Again, guards forced Estefan to his knees. They applied a torch to his beard, which sizzled and spat small flames, blistering his visage. They raised him up again and lashed him to the stake, his pierced tongue still dangling from his mouth. Using strong ropes attached to a scaffold, they pulled this stake up over a heap of firewood, much of it fresh and green to slow the burning. They touched their torches to the dry twigs at the base.
If there was a God, Luis de Santángel at that moment hated Him. Estefan had been subjected to unimaginable humiliations and torments. Now he was dying, and the powerful chancellor could do nothing to stop it.
Estefan had believed in the intrinsic goodness of his fellow man. Christian, Jew, Muslim, rich and poor—they had all been the same to him. He had celebrated their common humanity. Luis, in contrast, had survived by trusting no one.
Suspended upon his stake, looming over the crowd, half-obscured by smoke and flames, neither alive nor entirely dead, his features no longer those of a man, he was less and less the Estefan Santángel of Luis’s memories. The Inquisition
Fumes of human char wafted over the transfixed assembly, blending with the odor of incense from the altar. The chancellor of Aragon felt he should be the one burning on a stake, the smoke of his transfigured body hovering over the people of his city, halfway to the skies, like a soul stranded in purgatory. He knew his proximity to the king had spared him so far, but all the royal friendship in the world could not soften his pain. To lose his son, to watch his brother die, was to lose a part of himself—whatever faith remained, whatever hope he had once held for this life, for this world. Overwhelmed, dizzy, he would have fallen to the ground had a peasant, standing nearby, not caught him in his arms.
Stinking of sweat and onions, unaware that he held in his arms one of the most influential men in the kingdom, the peasant whispered in his ear. “This is impossible to bear, is it not, señor?” He spat upon the ground.
Santángel looked at the man’s rough, tanned face, thick eyebrows, and wrinkled, dark eyes.
The peasant noticed Santángel’s tears. “You know him, don’t you?” He jerked his chin toward the pyre.
Santángel nodded.
“I am truly sorry, señor. This is a terrible thing that is happening. But even this will pass.”
Glancing back at the stage through the crowd and clouds of smoke, Santángel caught a fleeting glimpse of Tomás de Torquemada. The prior of Santa Cruz seemed to be looking directly at him.
As he wandered through the streets of Zaragoza, the chancellor spoke to no one. Those who greeted him, he ignored. In his mind’s eye, he watched his son repent, his brother smolder upon the stake. The acrid smell of roasting human flesh still pricked his nostrils. Numb to the world, to the past, and to the future, he looked up at the moonless sky and the bright stars as though seeing them in their distant coldness for the first time.
Inside his home, Iancu removed his coat. He looked around the zaguán, the entrance hall—its painted wooden ceiling, hanging candelabra, and tapestry-covered walls—as if this too were now unfamiliar. Sensing his master’s distress, Santángel’s majordomo dared not breathe a word.
The chancellor contemplated the table where he had shared soup and played chess with his son. For a brief moment, Gabriel was sitting there again, focusing on his knight or bishop, determined to prevail. And there he was, himself, Luis de Santángel, as he must have appeared to his son, swallowing a spoonful of broth, smiling at Gabriel with guarded pride—so controlled, so thoroughly determined to give to the world what it required of him.
The chancellor’s vision of himself ripped off its mask, its benign disguise. Underneath, a lonely, weak, frightened Jew cowered, covering his face with his arm.
Luis understood how his son had learned to live two lives. From the public Luis de Santángel, the courtier, Gabriel had learned how to present himself to the world. All the while, Gabriel was also learning how to despise the inner Luis de Santángel, the Jew. In the end, Gabriel had murdered his own daemon, his own inner Jew whose existence had never been recognized or mentioned.
Santángel took the chair in his hands, lifted it over his head, and brought it crashing down upon the table. Heavy and solidly constructed, the chair made a cracking sound but did not break. He hurled it toward the crucifix on the wall. The chair clattered and fell, taking the cross with it. As the ivory Christ hit the floor, it splintered.
Leaning forward, Santángel pressed his hands upon the marred table. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly, as if to expel his rage, his powerlessness. When he looked up again, his eyes met those of Iancu, who stood at the threshold of the dining room.
“You may … you may retire to your quarters, Iancu.” Santángel’s voice was broken.
“As you wish, my lord.”
Luis de Santángel pulled out another chair, fell into it, and rested his head on the table.
Late that night, the chancellor was half-asleep at the table, his head on his arms, when a hooded form entered the room. Santángel awoke with a start and was about to cry out, when the intruder spoke.
“Hush.” The man covered the chancellor’s mouth with his gloved hand.
As Santángel’s eyes adjusted, the trespasser slowly removed his hand and pulled back the hood over his bald head. The chancellor recognized Raimundo de Cáceres.
“I can only imagine how it must feel to be you, Señor de Santángel.”
Still groggy, Santángel blinked.
“And that is why, after all this, I hesitate.”
What additional evil could be forthcoming?
“Everything is known.”
“Everything … Please, Father …”
“Torquemada is making preparations. He has asked my master, the monsignor, for help. People will be arrested. Up to the highest echelons of government, they say. It is imminent.”
“That cannot be,” Santángel whispered. “I found the log. I watched it burn.”
“The scribe. The scribe who took down Felipe’s confessions.”
Santángel had feared this possibility. “That would put you in danger, as well,” he told the priest.
“I’m leaving tonight. It isn’t likely we’ll see each other again.”
Santángel stood and held the priest by his shoulders. “Where will you go?”
“North. Past the Pyrenees. An old, quiet monastery in a secluded valley. He can’t reach me there. And you?”
“There’s only one place for me to go. Granada, where the king is handily winning a war, which I financed.”
“No one ever accused you of lacking courage,” whispered Cáceres after a moment. “But what do you have to gain?”
“Nothing, except to deny Torquemada the satisfaction of exiling me. Of destroying what little I have left.”
“That is, indeed, what we’ve been attempting from the first. But I fear we’ve failed.”
“We have, in many ways. What of Abram Serero?”
“It is he who betrayed Felipe de Almazón.”
The chirping of crickets filled the pause. “It cannot be.”
“They threatened him,” Cáceres explained. “They threatened his entire family. Arbués wanted to make an example of him. He was to be a warning to any Jew who dared teach the conversos in Zaragoza.”
Santángel thought of all Serero had done for him. The secret meetings. The visit to Estefan’s cell, at the risk of his life. “Someone lied to you, Father.”
“He had to give names,” Cáceres added. “He decided to sacrifice only one of us. He chose Felipe. Felipe wasn’t just talking, he was practicing Jewish ritual. That put us all in jeopardy.”
“Serero gave up the only one of us who practiced his faith? How do you know this?”
“Please, Chancellor.”
Santángel remembered Serero’s words to Felipe. “Your life is holy. Created in the image of God. I wouldn’t want to feel responsible if you lost it.” The scribe’s solicitude now took on another meaning.
“Where is he?”
“He, his wife, his children, all of them have fled. It was part of the arrangement.”
Torquemada did not arrest Luis de Santángel that night. Time, he felt, was on his side. The chancellor’s demise was inevitable. All that was required now was to accumulate testimony and evidence, piece by piece, until the weight of proof was irrefutable. The king of Aragon would finally offer his support. The arrest of the chancellor would free Torquemada to carry out the last element in his plan for the theological unification and spiritual redemption of the Iberian Peninsula.
He did, however, order the arrests of many, including Raimundo de Cáceres. It grieved him more than anything else, when a man who had taken vows turned his back on God. Felipe de Almazón’s memory, as transmitted through Pedro de Arbu?
Ever since the night Pedro de Arbués had appeared to Torquemada, bloody and imperious in the nave of La Seo, the inquisitor had been meditating upon his words: “Those who have turned toward the Light, and now wish to crawl back into the shadows, must be helped.” Clearly, the canon had been speaking of the conversos, retreating from the Light of Christianity into the shadows of Judaism. Torquemada understood the deceased canon’s message, but he was at a loss to understand exactly what God expected him to do.
“Eliminate the darkness from their world.” Was Arbués asking him to erase all vestiges of the ancient Hebraic rite? The inquisitor wondered how this could be accomplished. Even when seeking out traitors within the Church, he encountered resistance. How was he to extend the reach of the Inquisition beyond its native community?
But if the Jews were conspiring to lure conversos back to their former, erroneous faith—if the Jews, represented in Felipe’s testimony not only by the Hebrew scribe Serero but also by the physician, Buendía, who had treated Felipe’s wounded javelin arm—were actively recruiting powerful conversos in Aragon and Castile, then action would have to be taken against them. Against their entire community.
Santa Hermandad soldiers searched the judería for the evidence mentioned in Felipe’s confessions. They emptied the synagogue of its Hebrew texts. They carted them to the rectory of La Seo for Torquemada to inspect with the help of three visiting scholars.
Most of the recovered documents were already familiar to the Church and Torquemada: fragments of the Talmud, that maddening compendium of lies and calumny; the Hebrew Bible; the writings of Maimonides, Rashi, and other scholars. Torquemada instructed his monks not to waste time on these tracts, but to search for other documents, secret texts the Jews had managed to hide from the Church through the centuries. Documents that would demonstrate their hatred of Christianity and their devil-inspired schemes to overturn its dominion.