Hammer of Witches (5 page)

Down and down we went. We descended into gloom and
finally blindness. From out of nowhere, it seemed, the cloaked man lit a torch, a burning parody of the fire back home in Aunt Serena’s kitchen. The thought of it put a half-smile on my face, but the smile trembled under its own weight and shattered.

I was going to die here.

A dim orange light throbbed below us now, leading us to our destination. The narrow throat we had been traveling through gave way to the expansive bowels of the monastery’s underworld. To my relief the torches on this basement’s damp walls revealed no shackles, no metal spikes, no open-mouthed skeletons. Only huge stone blocks cowering in neat rows over the floor, each roughly the size of my bed back home. Nothing more in this cellar but a single chair and its shadow, which shifted spectrally under the torchlight.

There was a priest, too — or at least, a balding man in the garments of priest. Above his long robe and short cape was a plain, pudgy face that might have been pleasant if it didn’t try to smile. But it did, and the sight of the man’s lizard teeth churned acid through my gut.

The soldier removed the rope from my worn wrists, shoved me into the room’s only seat, and tied my arms firmly to the chair. “There is no need for roughness,” the man dressed as a priest said. His accent sounded German — quiet, high-pitched, and lyrical. “Allow me to apologize, Baltasar. Normally we wouldn’t have arrested you this way or brought you to such a
distasteful place as this one. But due to the lack of insight of the current Inquistional administration, we are nowadays forced to do our work, shall we say, underground.”

The frigid air of the basement clutched at my lungs, and my head was still ringing with pain. Through the agony and the wheezes I was somehow able to mutter, “Who are you? Why did you bring me here?”

The priest rifled through a pile of papers sitting on the massive stone block behind him. “There is no need to worry, Baltasar. This is not a trial. You are not under arrest, officially. I will simply be asking you some questions, that is all. Now where is that — ah, yes.”

The priest reached a ringed hand into his robes and removed a roll of parchment sealed shut with red wax. An image of a hammer was imprinted on that seal — printed on the diagonal, as if ready to strike. As the priest opened the scroll I noticed the golden signet ring he wore bore the same symbol. He plucked a quill from the block of granite behind him and dipped it into the inkwell next to his papers.

“But first we must handle some paperwork,” the priest said. “So if you don’t mind, please state your full name for the record.”

He had to be joking. “But you already know my na —”

The priest cut me short by taking my swollen jaw in one hand and crushing it in his fingers. The pressure of his grasp sent pain stabbing through the insides of my teeth.

The priest knelt in front of me and shook my head lovingly. “Oh, Baltasar, Baltasar! There is no time for arguments! Do you realize that at this very moment your country is in grave danger, and that you, my dear boy, are the only one with the information to save it? And I’m sure you’re in a hurry, too, to leave this place. So please. State your full name.”

He let go of my face, and I cracked the pain out of my jaw. “Baltasar Infante. Are you happy now?”

The priest must have been; his quill frolicked across his paper as he scribbled down my response. “Very good, Baltasar! I thank you. And what are the full names of your parents?”

It was the wrong question to ask me — definitely the wrong one. “Parents!” I hissed. “You know who my parents were! My parents were Abram and Marina Infante, converted Jews from Palos. And the Inquisition killed them!
You
killed them!”

Fourteen years ago a man like this had captured them, stolen them away from me. I glared up at the priest with a sharp desire to murder him, too, to crack open his stupid face and watch the blood spill from his blubber.

Unfazed, the priest scratched some more words into his parchment. “As I said before, Baltasar, we are not part of the Inquisition. But I thank you for answering my question. And would you please tell me the names of your guardians? Your closest relatives?”

As quickly as my hatred took me it set me loose. Uncle Diego. Aunt Serena. Had they been captured too? Were they trapped in their own dank cellars, being tortured by their own
awful priests? I had to escape, somehow, find them, save them! We could flee to Portugal, maybe. Genoa! Or to Constantinople, where my father and uncle had lived in their youths.

The priest prodded my chair with a velvet shoe. “Baltasar. I am becoming impatient. I thought we agreed it was in your best interest to answer my questions as quickly as possible.”

But I couldn’t answer them — I wouldn’t! — and the man’s mouth wrinkled sternly at my silence. “Very well. I wish it hadn’t had to come to this, Baltasar. But time is running out, and if you will not help us . . .”

The priest raised his roll of parchment up near his face so the cloaked man and the soldier could see it more clearly. “I do not wish to use torture, Baltasar, but all I need to do is sign this warrant before two witnesses to use it. Do you know that upstairs we have a device made of ropes and pulleys that allows us to hang you by your arms and rip your bones from their sockets?” The priest picked up two wooden blocks from the stone behind him and shook them before my eyes. “And did you know that we can place your feet within this contraption and smash nails through each of your toes?”

My own toes cringed inside my shoes, but I thought of my aunt and uncle and said nothing.

“And if that method fails, we will move on to the heretic’s fork.” The priest replaced the pieces of wood on the stone behind him and picked up a long metal object with a twopronged fork at either end of it. It clanged as its tip bounced off the edge of the stone, and it burned red and gold under the
torchlight. With one end of the metal tool he poked me lightly above my collarbone, pricking my skin with dots of cold. “We will bend your head back and stick the bottom prong through your flesh, here.” The priest then flicked up the heretic’s fork so it chilled the underside of my chin. “The other end we will thrust through here, taking care to avoid splitting the tongue.”

By now my breathing had become fast and shallow. I could feel my stomach seizing at the thought. “Would you like to hear more, Baltasar?” the priest said. “We also have a rack in the other room. I’m sure you would like to hear about how that device works. We’ll attach you to the wood, and then we’ll crank it, little by little. First you’ll hear your bones start to pop, but that’s not all. We’ll crank it a little more until you —”

“Stop,” I breathed against my will. “Please. Stop.” I shut my eyes. My shoulders were sharply convulsing. I had heard rumors of the Inquisition’s foul methods, but never this. Never this.

The priest dug his own nails into the backs of my hands. “I will stop if you answer my questions, Baltasar! Your closest relatives. Tell me their names!”

I tried not to respond. I did my best, I swear. But when I saw the light sparking off the heretic’s fork in his hand, the words ran out of my mouth of their own accord: “Diego and Serena Infante. Please! Their names are Diego and Serena Infante!”

I had never before, and have never since, felt the amount of guilt that I felt at that moment. I thought I could feel my
aunt and uncle’s souls pulling me down to Hell, and the feeling was so horrific I almost begged the priest’s forgiveness.

But for his part, his expression was blank. “Very good, Baltasar. I thank you for telling the, ah, truth. For I am certain you answered those questions with perfect honesty.” He leaned back against the giant stone block behind him and reexamined his parchment. “Unfortunately my records indicate that some of your answers are less than accurate. It appears our organization knows more about you than you know about yourself. I will go through the questions one by one. You will see what I mean.”

The priest trod softly around the room as he read from his paper. “Question one,” he read. “‘What is the accused’s full name?’ Your answer was ‘Baltasar Infante.’ That answer is correct — for all intents and purposes.

“Ah, but question two! ‘What are the names of the accused’s parents?’ You said, Abram and Marina Infante, killed in the Inquisition.’” The priest tut-tutted. “I’m afraid that answer is incorrect.”

The priest’s lips rolled into a frown — one that looked strangely like a smile. “And finally, question three. ‘What are the names of the accused’s closest relatives?’ You answered, ‘Diego and Serena Infante.’” The priest knelt in front of me, his lizard teeth gleaming like daggers.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, Baltasar, but that answer is also incorrect.”

It took me a moment to understand what the man thought he was saying. Was he saying the Inquisition
hadn’t
killed my parents? That they were alive somewhere, and my aunt and uncle were fakes? It was impossible, part of the torture. The priest was lying — he had to be — trying to disorient me and loosen my tongue.

“So quiet, Baltasar,” my interrogator said. “Funny. Your priest — Father Joaquin, was it?” The priest took hold of the wooden cross I wore and with a swift jerk yanked it off my neck. “He told me you could talk all day. Always had a good story, he said.”

“Are we done here?” I said between my teeth.

The priest placed my cross on the block of granite behind him. “Soon enough. But there’s one question left for you to answer. The man licked the tip of his quill and held it at the ready over his parchment. “Question four,” he started, but I knew this question would not be like the others. Because slowly the priest’s plain face was transforming into that of a gargoyle. His beady eyes smoldered with torchlight, filled to the brim with a mix of glee and loathing.

And then, very carefully, he said four words I never thought anyone would ever ask me.

“Where is Amir al-Katib?”

I actually laughed. He had to be kidding. The Amir al-Katib I had heard of was long dead, killed last year by Spanish armies in Granada. And even if the man
were
alive, how would I, of all people, know where he was? The question made
no sense. Absolutely no sense at all.

The priest’s eyes narrowed in on me. “This is no joke, boy. If you want to see morning, you will tell us where he is. Now.”

Good. The man was angry. That meant he was serious now, which meant I had leverage. “All right,” I said. “You want to know about Amir al-Katib? Untie these ropes, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

The priest instead motioned over his shoulder, beckoning his friend the soldier toward me. As the armored giant advanced in my direction, the edge of his spear caught the light of the torches, sending chills flitting down my arms and legs.

And the words flew out of my mouth before I could even think them: “Wait, I’ll tell you! Amir al-Katib. They call him the Eagle of Castile. They say he looks like a rukh. They say he can cut down fifty men in one swoop. And they say that —”

The priest’s fingernails cut into my forearms. “Don’t you play games with me, boy! That man is an enemy of Spain, a traitor fighting on the side of the Infidel! We know you know where he is! And you will tell us. Now!”

“How should I know where he is? I’ve never seen him before in my life!”

The priest dug his nails deeper into my skin. “You dare take me for a fool? Never seen him! Al-Katib was outside your house last night!”

And the night tumbled back to me in an instant. The smell of cinnamon and incense. Yellow eyes glowing in the window. Hameh.

I searched for a way out, any way. The one entrance was the one exit, and the cloaked man and soldier’s spear barred my path. Nothing more around here but those mysterious rectangular stones.

No. Not stones. Coffins.

Coffins. I was sitting in a tomb.

My heart rushing up in my throat, I raged against my bonds.

“Where is Amir al-Katib?” the priest demanded.

“I don’t know!”

“Where is Amir al-Katib?”

“I said I don’t know! He’s dead! He’s only a story! He’s not real!
Please!”

By this point I was completely broken, and the priest must have realized it as well. With a wave of one finger he stopped the soldier from his slow path toward me.

“Enough,” the priest said to the soldier. “We’re done here. The boy is telling us the truth.”

I let out a breath that sounded almost like a sob. Finally. Finally, they believed me. Finally, finally, I could go home.

“Give me your torch,” the priest directed the cloaked man behind him. “The boy must not leave this place. We will burn him. There must be no evidence we were here.”

Burn! I squeezed my eyes shut. Serena. Diego. I had been so unkind to them earlier. Now I would never have a chance to apologize.

Oh, if only I had a golem now! It occurred to me that I really was a child, and that my uncle, eccentric as he was, had
always been my protector, my golem. At this moment, the last moment, I yearned to be back home, safe in bed, protected by Diego and his stories. Stories that, like a golem, came to life with a single word.

It’s hard for me to explain what happened next. The closest I can get is to say I felt like some deep part of myself, somewhere beyond the backs of my eyes, was reaching toward another. As if the words “Diego,” “golem,” “protect,” and “word” unlocked something within me I didn’t understand. In front of my closed eyelids something was glimmering, and my eyes flicked beneath them like I was watching a dream. I felt warmth caressing my cheeks and fingers, warmth like a fire embracing you on a stormy day. And somehow, for an instant, I felt safe.