Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (10 page)

      
The magnificent Torres crest ring winked at her. It was easily the most splendid piece she owned, but the monetary value was nothing to her. Some premonition made her feel the need to hide it. Even possessing the only key to the cask was no safeguard. Since her father had joined the confraternity, all in their household lived in fear. No servant was reliable anymore, she thought sadly. Pulling a large locket from the jewel box, she pried it open and took the small muslin spice bag from inside the garish bauble. The pomander was an amulet against diseases, but not noxious smelling, thank heavens.

      
Magdalena pulled the tiny pouch open and hid the ring inside, then quickly replaced it in the locket. She fastened the gold chain about her neck and let the locket with its precious content nestle between her breasts. “From now on I shall surely be free of all illness, for I will never part with my locket.” The irony of the locket's design did not escape her. It was embossed with a pearl cross.

* * * *

Palos, August 2, 1492

      
“We have been blessed,` my friend, in spite of a multitude of tribulations,” Cristobal Colon said quietly when he had finished his simple mealtime prayer in the small tavern.

      
Aaron's face quirked in a grim parody of a smile. “I can not but envy your faith,” he replied with a sigh, picking up his wine cup and downing a stout draught of the bitter red liquid, waterfront swill in a small isolated port. He grimaced, looking with distaste at the overcooked mutton and slab of coarse brown bread on his plate.

      
The older man smiled. “Not the elegant fare you are served at home, but far better than the ship's biscuit you will be eating in the weeks ahead.”

      
“I have downed far worse during the war,” Aaron replied, attacking the greasy mutton with his knife. “And you are right. We have been blessed—or lucky. I know not which, but without the timely appearance of that old seaman who sailed for the Portuguese, we would never have recruited the men now aboard.”

      
Colon's pale blue eyes were alight as he replied, “Pedro Vásquez was sent as a sign, a man who was within sight of the golden island of Cipangu and then lost it in the fog.”

      
Aaron scoffed, “The fog of his imagination, I suspect. He was, by your reckoning, off the Irish coast.”

      
The Genoese's face betrayed a glint of humor tempered with the seriousness that always pervaded his nature. “But it matters not that he was mistaken in his sightings—or imaginings. What he did, I as a foreigner could not do—he convinced these skeptical sailors of Palos to sign on the Enterprise.”

      
“You are disliked as a Genoese, but I as a
marrano
am hated far more, in my own land,” Aaron said softly, studying the enigmatic man seated across from him.

      
Colon looked at the youth's bitter face. “Do not be so certain Jewish blood makes you more despised than Genoese blood. All my life I have been a stranger in other men's houses. I have sailed the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Greece and the Atlantic from the icy seas above Ireland around the hot, still curve of Africa. Everywhere I was a stranger. My wife died in Lisbon and my sons...Diego left in a monastery, Fernando and his mother alone in Cordoba, while I pursue my quest. There have been times when I doubted, my young friend, even as you do now.”

      
“Yet you never abandoned hope.”

      
“Have you?” Colon's eyes searched Aaron's face.

      
The younger man sighed. “I abandoned my faith, my heritage, my identity when I followed my family's bidding and converted. I am not a Jew, but I am a poor Christian. Is there hope for such as I? Look you at the misery along every roadside, in every port. Thousands dispossessed, impoverished, fated for death—yet they, like you, still have hope. By comparison, I must seem mean-spirited indeed,” he confessed in perplexity.

      
“You will find what you seek. Perhaps in spite of their suffering, they will, too. And you may be the instrument,” Colon said enigmatically.

      
Aaron looked at him curiously. “My uncle Isaac is in France. He has saved many lives and given hope to the immigrants, but what can I do?”

      
“Open the riches of the East—vast and exotic lands filled with diverse men and cultures. Once we bring Castile in contact with such as lies across the Atlantic, how much less menacing will your Jewish kinsmen seem? How much more room will there be for them to live and work? Think of it, Diego. The whole world, one, finally linked in harmony.”

      
Aaron knew his friend and commander believed in his own words. Would there truly be a place for the Jews in the vast new world of the Indies? “I must believe in this, must I not? What else is there but to hope?”

      
Cristobal smiled. “Yes, now I see the old Diego I first knew at La Rabida, the stout youth who befriended my frightened young Diego. You have been a rare blessing to this enterprise. The merchants and mariners have proven most stubborn in the light of my royal commission. Your help with them has been invaluable.”

      
Aaron replied drily, “I think the good citizens of Palos, especially the Pinzón brothers, mislike the royal command to give over two fine caravels. You did some impressive talking to convince that Basque to give us his
nao
.”

      
Colon shrugged his thin shoulders expressively. “Convincing Juan de la Cosa to join us with his
Santa
Maria
was far simpler than dealing with the Pinzóns. I like not the wallowing pitch of his
nao
. Another caravel like Nina would be better.”

      
“The Admiral of the Ocean Sea deserves a
nao
, not merely a caravel,” Aaron said, echoing Colon's gentle good humor. “
Santa Maria
is the flagship.”

      
“The Admiral is first of all an explorer. Those who would chart the Indies' unknown waters need caravels with shallow draft, not grand flagships.” Cristobal's eyes gazed out the narrow window to where torches danced like golden sprites at the river bank.

      
“To sailing at first light!” Aaron raised his cup, echoing the words with a toast, and Cristobal joined him, returning the salute.

      
August 3, 1492, dawned gray and calm in Palos. Carried out with the morning tide, a
nao
and two caravels set sail in search of a dream.

* * * *

      
“Bring water and linens, quickly. I must stop the bleeding else she will die and the babe with her.” Benjamin's voice was calm but firm as he issued orders for the servants, who scurried off to do his bidding.

      
Serafina and Ana stood outside the treating rooms at the front of their home. Both women were grave and pale as they watched the activity inside. “Come, Mother, we can do nothing here. You are shaking. Sit you and rest beneath the orange tree while I fetch a cooling draught of wine for you,” Ana said, guiding Serafina into the sunny patio.

      
“Do not bother with the wine. I am not in need of refreshment, only company,” the older woman replied. “If only your father had not sent to the apothecary for those herbs. Now José de Luna will know Benjamin treats a pregnant woman.”

      
“That is scarce a rarity, Mother,” Ana said, trying to sooth her agitation.

      
“But this is a Jewish woman who should have been on board ship with her family yesterday. If Luna decides to report what he knows to the familiars...” Serafina shuddered.

      
“If Father had not kept her here, she would have died on that awful, filthy boat with no physician to attend her. Even with his skills, the birth is going to be difficult,” Ana said gently. “Would you expect my father to do otherwise and violate his oath to save lives?”

      
“Of course not,” Serafina replied with a sigh. “We must find a way to smuggle her and the babe from Seville to Cadiz as soon as possible, though. She must leave Castile or face a terrible death.”

      
“I can surely help by taking them to my estate. Twill be a simple matter to arrange passage on a safe ship to Fez.” In the past years, Ana had grown into a resolute young woman.

      
Serafina nodded but said bitterly, “For a Jew, there is no safe passage to North Africa. The Muslim slavers take them from the ships, or worse yet, thieves from the slums slit their bellies open believing they have swallowed their gold to smuggle it from Castile.”

      
“I, too, have heard such tales, but we can make safer arrangements. I only fear what may have befallen the girl's husband and parents by the time she arrives.”

      
“If she arrives,” Serafina echoed doubtfully. Just then a loud banging on the front gates was followed by a cry from without and the sounds of a scuffle. Serafina and Ana leaped to their feet and walked swiftly from the courtyard toward the entry.

      
“Yield in the name of the Holy Office of the Inquisition!” A man in a distinctive black robe with a white cross emblazoned on its front led a dozen armed civil militia into the house. “We seek Benjamin Torres,” the familiar said to the two quaking women.

* * * *

      
Fray Tomás de Torquemada felt every one of his seventy-two years that evening. He had ridden from Granada's mountain fastness across the river plain to Seville with his retinue of two hundred and fifty armed guards. He was saddlesore and exhausted. Yet it was far from a commonplace occurrence to have King Fernando's personal physician brought up on charges of relapsing into judaizing ways, hiding a Jewish woman and her newly delivered infant in his own home. The cursed brother, that crafty Isaac Torres, had escaped with his life and wealth, but the falsely converted Benjamin would not mock God thusly.

      
Torquemada knelt before the small alter in his quarters, made the sign of the cross, and clasped his hands tightly to pray. Always before interrogating a prisoner he went through the same ritual, praying for the extirpation of heresy and the destruction of all who clung to their vain belief in the Law of Moses. Except for a few chosen, such as himself, men with Jewish ancestors could not comprehend the beauty of the one true faith.

      
Often he feared for the king, whom he knew placed dynastic and political matters before his immortal soul. But Fernando could be ruled in this by the combined efforts of the queen and the Grand Inquisitor. He prayed fervently for almost an hour, then stood unsteadily. His knees ached so painfully that he had to allow the young friar who attended him to assist him in walking to the long dais where he would sit when Torres was brought before him.

      
Grunting as he sat down on the hard oak chair, Fray Tomás motioned for the friar to usher in the accused. He watched the tall man with graying blond hair and austerely chiseled features approach him. Benjamin's calm assurance evoked jealousy in the inquisitor, as did his physical appearance. For all Fray Tomás's fasting and secret flagellation, he could never seem to lose the slight corpulence that bloated his body. He, of a noble Castilian house, had the coarse features of a butcher, while this Jew possessed the lean elegance of a duke!

      
“You seem unmoved by the gravity of the charges brought against you, which are serious indeed, Don Benjamin,” Torquemada said coldly.

      
“I assure you, Fray Tomás, I am most concerned, especially for my family who have been unjustly imprisoned with me. My wife and daughter had nothing to do with my treating a Jewish patient,” Benjamin said, fighting to remain calm.

      
“You admit to breaking the law by succoring a Jewess after her expulsion, then.” Tomás leaned forward in his chair.

      
Benjamin shifted the cumbersome manacles that threatened to drag down his thin shoulders. “I am a physician. A woman fell by the wayside, great with child and about to be delivered.” He paused and a soft smile touched his lips. “Not altogether unlike the Holy Mother on her journey to Bethlehem. She, too, was a Jewess, Fray Tomas.”

      
Torquemada stood up, furious anger compelling him to cry out, “That is blasphemy!”

      
“It certainly was not intended as such. The young woman is a mere mortal and yes, Jewish, but she fell too ill to be able to leave Castile with her family. As a physician I was bound by my oath to treat her—I ask about no man or woman's religion before doing this.”

      
“You are a
converso.
To associate with Jews means backsliding into your old heresy,” Torquemada thundered.

      
“I did nothing to violate my baptism, but I am guilty of offering shelter to a woman who would have died had I not cared for her and her child. Let the royal justice judge me for this if it be a criminal offense. The matter is not subject to jurisdiction of the Holy Office. And whether I am guilty or not of aiding a Jew illegally, my wife and daughter had nothing to do with my actions. You have no right to hold them.”

      
“That is my decision to make,” Torquemada said arrogantly, stroking his fleshy chin.

      
“You have bitten off much, Fray Tomás. I am still physician to King Fernando. My family and I cannot simply vanish beneath the dungeon gates of the Inquisition as so many thousands of others have.”

      
Torquemada had always hated the tranquil assurance Torres exuded, but now he seized his opportunity to break the man. “Your royal appeal has been denied. You and your family,” he paused to let the words sink in, “are under the complete jurisdiction of the Holy Office.”