Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (11 page)

      
“On what charges?” Benjamin knew he was betraying fear for Serafina and Ana now. He fought to remain in control.

      
“You have attempted to corrupt a noblewoman from an Old Christian family, the daughter of one of my own Crossbearers here in Seville. Bernardo Valdés's youngest child, Dona Magdalena.”

      
“She, too, was my patient. I am not to treat Jewish women, and now it seems I am not to treat gentile women either. If my credentials to practice medicine are in question, that, too, is a matter for secular courts, not the Holy Office,” Benjamin argued. Serafina had warned him about Bernardo's spleen when he had befriended Magdalena. Pray God his wife and their Ana did not pay for his heedlessness. Bernardo Valdés was as ruthless as the man before him.

      
“There are other matters beside my foolish daughter's irresponsible behavior,” Don Bernardo interrupted. He was pleased when Torres turned in surprise as he entered the room. “There is also the matter of your daughter's behavior—such as lighting candles on Friday evenings at sundown, abstaining from pork, and overmuch washing. Your wife, too, seems to purchase little pork for your household consumption.”

      
“We do not keep the Jewish Sabbath, neither at my home nor at Ana's. Ask any of our Christian friends or our servants. As to eating pork, that is a medical matter. The heat of Andalusia engenders worms in it that cause a bleeding sickness in some. There is no rule in Christian instruction that enjoins us to eat particular meats, only that we eat none on Fridays or fast days. That we have observed.”

      
“We have servants in your daughter's home who say otherwise,” Torquemada said.

      
Benjamin turned from Bernardo to Tomás. “That is absurd! Ana is a good Christian. She has had her child baptized and will raise her as a Christian.”

      
“Some trustworthy Old Christian family will...I doubt Ana Torres de Guzman will live to do so.” As Benjamin paled visibly, the Grand Inquisitor felt a surge of triumph.

* * * *

      
Now that the Jews had all left Castile, Magdalena was finally allowed to ride again. The roads were no longer filled with the heart-wrenching refugees and she was considered safe from any temptation that might disgrace her family. Only a few days ago her father had returned home and announced that she was no longer confined to the dreary interior of their rural estate. Unlike the city house, the crumbling old stone fortress had not yet been restored. Magdalena no longer cared about the ill repair of her surroundings, only that she be allowed to feel the wind in her hair as she set Blossom flying across the marshes.

      
As she returned home, sweat-soaked and weary, she noted a strange horse tethered near the door. It did not belong to one of the odious familiars of the confraternity, nor did she recognize it as one from her neighbor's stable. Such a magnificent black Barb would not go unremarked about the area.

      
Curious, she dismounted and approached the horse, but knew that in her present bedraggled, filthy state she dare not show herself before a visitor of rank. She would go upstairs and order a bath, but first...she must learn if the visitor was worthy of note or not. She slipped into the courtyard and listened at her father's study window.

      
“All has gone according to plan, then?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

      
“Better than even your informants could have arranged for me. My spies found him hiding a Jewess and her newborn infant in his own home! Coupled with that and the stories your servants told, the Grand Inquisitor was well satisfied, as were the king and queen. It was a risk for me, you must understand, involving Magdalena's name in this. I will have at least ten thousand ducats from the estate when all is done.”

      
“You will receive your payment. Only be patient. Once Benjamin Torres and his wretched family are burned for judaizing, I will reward you.”

      
Magdalena crumpled to the ground as the earth spun crazily around her, a small pitiful cry caught in her throat, drowned out by the scraping of chairs as the visitor and Don Bernardo rose and quit the library. She fought waves of nausea and blackness. “I must be calm. I have to find a way to save them,” she whispered brokenly.

      
Serafina had always been kind to her, yet fearful because of her father. What had she done to this innocent family by merely associating with them? Had her friendship with Benjamin first brought him to the attention of the Holy Office? Did Benjamin think she had betrayed him?

      
Struggling to stand up, she clawed her way along the wall until her heartbeat slowed and her head cleared. Then she raced for her room. She had a small fortune in jewelry her frivolous mother had cast off, a careless gift for her daughter's debut at court. Could it be enough to bribe the guards into freeing the Torres family?

      
Magdalena rode through the twilight, heedless of the dangers lurking on the Seville road. Once in the city, she went to the home of her old friend, Lucia de Palma, only to learn the
auto de fe
was to be held at dawn. Benjamin, Serafina, and Ana were condemned along with a host of other New Christians. All would walk in the horrible procession to the Cathedral, where a mass would be celebrated along with a sermon of thundering denunciation. From there they would be taken to the outskirts of the city to the meadows of Tablada, traditional grounds for the burning of judaizers.

      
Magdalena swore Lucia to secrecy and then left the house before first light, headed for the Convent of San Pablo, whose grim gray cells housed those doomed to die on this day. Bribing a jailer proved easier than she had believed. No Dominicans were in the dungeons beneath the court, which was staffed by the city's watch. Although the Holy Office condemned men and women to die, often after horrible tortures, the Church itself was never allowed to execute heretics. Once tried in secret, accused by witnesses they were not allowed to see, and judged guilty by their Dominican Inquisitors, the apostates were turned over to the secular authorities to be burned.

      
The guard was a small, filthy fellow with narrow pale eyes that could freeze blood. God only knew what horrors he had witnessed while working in the dungeons. At first Magdalena feared he would refuse her, but the lure of a gold bracelet set with rubies quickly dazzled him. He sneaked her inside the convent and guided her along cold, dark passageways, leading ever deeper into the very bowels of the earth. At each twist of the labyrinth, a dim torch flickered in its iron wall sconce.

      
Magdalena tried not to look inside the rooms they passed. She had heard the stories of racks, iron boots, thumb screws, and water ladders. She had no wish to see those instruments from hell. This was hell. The sour odor of excrement and vomit mixed with the oily stench from the torches.

      
“There. That is the last abode of the one known as the royal physician,” the guard said. He unbolted the door and it swung wide. “I will return in an hour's time when the friar has made his rounds. Be ready, else we are both bound for the same fate as your friend.”

      
Steeling herself for what she might find within, she nodded and entered the dark cell with only a small candle she had brought for light and courage. The heavy door closed with a sepulchral clang and the bolt slid into place.

      
Magdalena accustomed her eyes to the dim light and called out in a broken whisper, “Benjamin?” Was he maimed beyond recognition by those fiends? Had they tortured him?

      
“Magdalena, child, is that you? You should never have come!” Benjamin's voice was strong as he materialized from the shadows in the far corner of the narrow cell.

      
“I only last evening learned what had happened! I have brought all my jewelry to bribe the guards. I have fast horses, but I have no plan. You and I must—”

      
“No, child, no. Your heart is good, but your hope is vain. The guards would never dare let me escape, not for a million ducats, which somehow I doubt you possess in any event.” He was pale and unwashed, his hair a mat of tangles and his beard untrimmed, but he looked otherwise whole.

      
“What have they done to you?” she asked as he held her in a gentle embrace.

      
“Little enough but talk me into exhaustion.”

      
“Can you not confess—do whatever it is they ask to gain your freedom?” she asked desperately.

      
“Magdalena, my guilt in judaizing, such as it is, is based on fact. I was hiding a Jewish woman and her babe, but that is only a part of the whole. Someone wants me and my family dead and has used spies to concoct tales of our breach of faith that have reached from Castile to Catalonia. Even my son Mateo has been taken. Your father's spies could not have done that.”

      
“Oh, Benjamin, it
is
my fault! If I had not gone to your home so often—my father, accursed be his name for all eternity—must have set his familiars to follow me. I started this with my meddling.”

      
He stroked her back. “Don Bernardo was only a catspaw. You are in no way to blame, Magdalena. As I was questioned by Don Bernardo and even the great Torquemada himself, I pieced together bits of information. Fray Tomas himself is not the least of my foes. He has long hated me, perhaps because of my closeness to the king, and my brother Isaac escaped as you know. That alone was enough to mark me and mine. At least my grandchildren will live, Ana's daughter and Mateo's son. For that Serafìna and I thank God.”

      
“You, your wife, your son, your daughter, even your daughter-in-law, all will die and yet you can thank God! I scarce believe in Him any longer and I care not whether he be Jesus or Jehovah!” she whispered tightly, tears burning her eyes as she squeezed them shut.

      
“Believe in God, Magdalena. It matters not if he is Christian or Jewish. He is still God, the same God for all people, I think.” He smiled wistfully in the darkness as she stared up at his face.

      
“Isaiah said that over two thousand years ago. ‘My house shall be a house of prayer for all people,’ ” she whispered.

      
“Yes, we did discuss Isaiah's world vision once. Perhaps I am judaizing after all. Be most careful you never say such to anyone else, child. I want you to stay alive for Aaron, not end up in this place.”

      
“We can escape! Do not think to give up,” she said with renewed conviction. “Only let me—”

      
He stayed her hand as she fumbled for the jewel pouch. “There is only one piece of jewelry that will serve useful ends—the ring I gave you.”

      
Her fingers reached up and pulled the locket from beneath her cloak. “I have it hidden in here. I never take it off.”

      
He smiled as he took the garish locket with its Christian symbol and held it in his palm. “Keep it safe for Aaron. Keep yourself safe for my son. Swear this as you love us both, daughter,” he said with urgency in his voice.

      
“I swear, I swear,” she whispered in a tear-choked voice.

Chapter Six

The Atlantic Ocean, September 21, 1492

      
“I like it not, I tell you. These stinking green weeds are the devil's trap to becalm us so we go mad with thirst and drink the ocean's salt until our bellies bloat and we die!” A hulking seaman spat as he looked out at the huge unbroken green, grassy-looking morass the ships were nearing. It seemed miles wide, growing thicker against the horizon.

      
“I have heard of this weed. It is a sign of land to the west, nothing to cause fear but rather to hearten us on,” the admiral pronounced in a loud, clear voice that was calm and authoritative. Standing on the quarterdeck of the
Santa Maria
, his voice carried to the small cluster of grumbling men below on the main deck. The sighting had just been made by a man high in the rigging.

      
For over five days they had seen clumps of the stuff called sargassum. Only mariners who sailed far out into the Atlantic encountered it. Except for the admiral, none of the men aboard the ships of the enterprise had sailed anywhere but south to the Canaries and thence to the coasts of Africa. Colon knew the weeds did not entrap ships, no matter what the myth.

      
“It does look intimidatingly thick, like a green porridge,” Aaron muttered low, standing close to Colon's side so none but the admiral could hear.

      
Cristobal's lips quirked in the tiniest hint of a smile. “I assure you it is edible, but it will not eat us.”

      
“Do not speak of food,” Aaron said grimly.

      
“The water is calm. Look you how smoothly the bow slices through the sargassum. Surely you cannot suffer from this swift, gentle motion.” Colon's faded blue eyes regarded the sun-bronzed face of his young companion.

      
“I fear I will never make a sailor,” Aaron confessed ruefully. “My head still pounds like the siege cannons before Granada. That is sufficient to make a man suffer, even if he is no longer retching over the rail.”

      
“You are as good a sailor as ever I was a soldier. Take heart,” his friend said with fatherly toleration.

      
During the first leg of the voyage when the ship had sailed south to the Canary Islands to take on final supplies, Aaron had found to his shock and chagrin that he was seasick! A number of gentlemen aboard had been in even worse straits, being violently ill while he suffered, less visibly, from a continual headache. After stepping ashore on Gomera, the misery immediately departed, only to return once they sailed west into the Atlantic on the eighth day of September.