By Fire, By Water (4 page)

That morning, residents of the town had celebrated the Fiesta del Pilar, commemorating the day when the Virgin Mary appeared atop a pillar in the center of Zaragoza, ushering Christianity into the Iberian Peninsula. Parades had wound through the cobblestone streets. Peasants and guildsmen had danced together in the plazas. In many homes, festivities would continue into the night.

In honor of the holiday, celebrants had festooned La Seo with ribbons, clay figurines of the Virgin, crudely painted wooden icons, and field flowers. At this hour, late in the afternoon, the worshipers had gone home but their offerings remained. A few churchmen hovered in the corners, muttering.

Santángel strode to the back of the cathedral and knelt facing the bloody crucifix. He wanted not only to attempt sincere, wholehearted prayer, but also to be seen praying. “Dear Lord,” he closed his eyes, “thank you for protecting me and bringing me home safely. Please bestow your blessings and protection on my only child, Gabriel. I pray that my late wife is watching him from a place of repose. Please also protect King Fernando and Queen Ysabel. Open their hearts to the sufferings of those worthy of their compassion. Bring us success in our war against the kingdom of Granada. Let us be victorious, but let us not abuse our victory.” He waited for more such earnest thoughts. “Bring us clear sight, Lord,” he concluded, “of what is good and what is evil.”

He opened his eyes and peered at the wounded, twisted statue of Christ. He tried to visualize the real Christ standing before him, the God made flesh and blood who came to die for man’s sins, the God of forgiveness and redemption. Try as he might, he could not see God. He could only see a man. He had seen those same eyes, that gaunt face a year previously, at an
auto-da-fé
in Sevilla. On that day, in the name of the Lord, the Inquisition had burned fifteen heretics, fifteen
conversos
. Among them, four women and three boys barely out of childhood.

When those poor souls, who had endured starvation and torture, stared down at the spellbound crowd, it struck Santángel with the force of a nightmare that one of them looked just like the Lord Jesus Messiah. He remembered a painting he had seen in Barcelona, a depiction of Jesus reaching out to help as Saint Peter attempted to walk upon water. That pale, absent,
undone
expression. The chancellor, shocked, had crossed himself. The others around him, entranced by the spectacle of human agony, seemed not to notice.

He examined the statue again, hoping to perceive something of its divine mystery. To his chagrin, another prayer came silently to his lips, a prayer his mother had taught him when he was nine years old, a secret heritage. He thought he had forgotten. He should have forgotten, for his own sake and for that of his son.

Shema Yisrael
… “Hear, Israel: the Lord, our God. The Lord. One.”

One. Abstract, impalpable, unseeable, even unknowable. The God of Santángel’s grandparents, so distant, so silent, so inaccessible. Santángel crossed himself, lonelier than ever, and rose to leave.

As he walked back through the nave, he caught sight of Pedro de Arbués, the canon of La Seo Cathedral, speaking in the shadows with Pedro de Monterubio, the monsignor of Zaragoza. A mountain of a man, swathed in white and gold vestments, the canon listened with his fleshy face slightly lowered, looking up at Monterubio.

“With your new responsibilities, Father, surely you won’t have time to lead the Mass or take confession.”

“On the contrary,” insisted Arbués, “Even as Chief Inquisitor of Zaragoza, I remain the humble shepherd of my flock.” Hearing Santángel’s footsteps, he glanced down the nave, then back at the monsignor.

Santángel slowed his pace.

Monsignor Pedro de Monterubio, thin, gray, and frail with age, pleaded with the canon as though he ranked lower in the hierarchy. “Father Arbués, I beseech you. Please avail yourself of our assistance.”

Perhaps the monsignor, too, feared the encroachment of the Inquisition, reflected Santángel, and wished to plant eyes and ears within Arbués’s office.

Arbués turned again to face the chancellor. The two churchmen ceased speaking.

His heart pounding, Santángel stepped into the plaza. Dusk was approaching. A wood seller, pushing a cart, saw him and spat onto the cobblestones.

Santángel grabbed him by the shoulders. “Wood seller, why did you spit?”

“My lord, forgive me. I meant nothing.”

The chancellor held him. “You saw me. You spat. Why?”

The woodsman coughed and swallowed. Santángel released him and climbed onto his horse.

He dismounted at his stable, entered the courtyard, and paused. Beyond the high windows on either side, candles and a hearth fire lit the front rooms. Music stung Santángel’s ears, staccato, droning, sinuously melodic. He peered inside and felt his face grow warm.

A young, round-faced woman with pale skin, curly black hair, and dark, mournful eyes stood by the stone fireplace, singing in a high-pitched voice. A few scruffy town-dwellers accompanied her on organistrum, rebec, pipe, tambourine, and castanets. Others—some just emerging from youth, some ragged with age—danced with their arms stretched skyward, stomping their feet, clapping their hands, punctuating the lively pastorale with chirps and yelps. Santángel recognized among them his cook, his stable boy, even his son’s tutors. Señora Gómez, a blowzy peasant’s daughter who worked in the kitchen, pranced around the middle of the room, a bright red scarf over her shoulders, reaching out as she jiggled and swayed. The greatest affront of all was a bull of a man, in a luxurious cobalt blue doublet, fitted pants, and calfskin boots that looked too dainty to support his prominent gut, who strutted through a raucous
jota
with her, holding one hand behind his back and spinning the servant with the other. Estefan.

Estefan was the son of Santángel’s uncle and a sturdy, strong-willed, blond-haired peasant whom Santángel’s parents had regarded as an
extranjera
, a “foreigner” to the family, its social class, its traditions. The girl had died while Estefan was still an infant. Estefan’s father had remarried. His well-bred, haughty second wife had resented the child, so Luis de Santángel’s parents had taken Estefan into their home and raised him as Luis’s brother. Estefan’s thinning, sand-colored hair and heavy-set build belied his
diferencia
.

By allowing commoners into the chancellor’s residence, Santángel feared, Estefan had also invited inquisitiveness and envy. By celebrating the miracle of Mary’s apparition in such an ostentatious manner, Estefan was calling attention to questions of faith. Perhaps, too, he was exposing Santángel’s son to similar scrutiny.

The chancellor threw the door open. “What in God’s name is going on?”

The clapping, stomping, and swaying ceased. Señora Gómez stopped dancing. The musicians quit their plucking and banging. Estefan slowly turned to face the man who had always called him brother. “It’s the Fiesta del Pilar, Luis. A day of revelry, debauchery, and God-fearing zeal, honored by all good Zaragozans since time immemorial. Why don’t you join us?” He reached out a hand.

Luis stared. He had to distance himself from Estefan’s behavior, if only in the minds of his staff.

“What harm is there in celebrating?” Estefan challenged him.

“Need I justify myself?” returned the chancellor frostily. “This is over.”

After the last of the revelers shuffled out, Estefan approached his brother. “Luis, you wear your importance, your position, your affluence, like …”

“You’re drunk, Estefan.”

“… like a mask. A mask so snug it prevents you from smiling.” He tied his coat. “A mask that has become your jail.”

“And you, your conviviality, your … vulgarity,” Luis shot back. “Is that not a disguise, as well? A prison of some sort?”

Estefan responded with a wistful smile.

The chancellor shook his head. “I know there’s more to you than that, Estefan, far more. But you don’t know it, yourself.”

The two men glared at each other like wrestlers, each searching for an advantageous grip. Estefan started to leave.

Luis gently took his forearm. “Stay. Another moment, please.”

Taking note of his brother’s changed tone, Estefan turned back. As quickly as the tensions had arisen between them, they both let their choler slip away. The love and trust they shared, with their parents and wives long gone, flowed deeper than their differences. “Your voyage. Rome. You didn’t …?”

“I bought a warship. Magnificent. The
Giustizia
. King Fernando will be pleased.” Luis sat down astride a sturdy oak chair, backward, his hands clutching the top of the chair’s back as if holding on to a rail in a storm.

Searching Luis’s face, Estefan took a chair. “You didn’t achieve all you hoped for.”

Luis shook his head. “The pope made no commitment.”

“He refused your gift?”

“He took the gift, but questioned the arguments. And in my absence, they made inroads. They appointed an inquisitor for Zaragoza. Pedro de Arbués, the canon of La Seo.”

Estefan knew of his brother’s obsession with the New Inquisition. He leaned forward and placed a comforting hand on Luis’s shoulder. “Of course,
they
made inroads. And they’ll continue making inroads. Our only hope is to proclaim loud and clear that those old traditions hold no water for us. That is why I dance and sing with the common folk, Luis. If I drink with them, if I carouse with them, I’m a good Christian. It’s as simple as that. And if they love me, if they feel I’m
of their kind
, then Torquemada loses his power over me. Don’t you see?”

Luis shook his head. “No, I don’t. Drinking doesn’t make you a good Christian. Drinking, drinking to excess, only makes you a pitiful
converso.”

“A
converso?
I don’t even know what that means.” Estefan snickered scornfully. “A few words of a language that’s all but forgotten. A few rituals whose meaning was lost generations ago. Why should such things weigh us down? Our parents, wherever they are, would rather see us survive.”

Although Estefan presented a face of gaiety to the world, the chancellor perceived sadness in his soft, slightly crossed acorn-brown eyes, in his small, down-turned mouth. “Why hold these worn-out, hand-me-down traditions in our hearts?” Luis replied. “Because …” But he found himself unable to complete the sentence.

“No one cares a straw what you believe, Luis.” Estefan sat back into his chair. “No one cares what I believe, in the black dungeon of my heart. That’s the outrageous joke behind this madness. They care about your estate, your powerful friends, your elegant mistresses, your fine horses. They care about your power, or the power they
think
you wield over
their
king. They care about your … your remoteness. They care about the conspiracy they see, or believe they see, between you and all the other New Christians, and all the Jews you may or may not consort with. But if you’re
one of them
, ostentatiously, deliriously, and, yes, hedonistically,
one of them
…”

Luis shook his head. “You think you’re one of them, Estefan. But neither you nor I shall ever be one of them, no matter how much we drink or dance or take confession.” He drummed his fingers on the back of the chair. “What they call arrogance is nothing but caution. And a well-earned caution, I might add. Where they see a conspiracy of New Christians, I see …” He paused to find the word. “History. Shared history. And history, memories, how can you escape them?”

“It’s late, Luis. You’ve been away four months. Nothing is going to happen tonight. Get yourself a goblet of wine. I’ll fetch you one.”

Upstairs, Santángel crept into his son’s bedroom. Gabriel’s unblemished face lay on the pillow, wild strands of long black hair sweeping over delicate features like rivulets of water streaming across an unperturbed beach. Startled by the flickering light of his father’s candle, Gabriel bolted upright, brandishing the foil he kept at his bedside. “Who goes there? Are you an evil sorcerer?”

“I am but a humble pilgrim,” replied Luis under his breath.