The Quality of Mercy (69 page)

Rebecca felt her mother go slack. She gripped her soundly, dragged her to a chair resting on the landing and fanned air in her face with her shawl.

“Where is that treasonous dog!” screamed the same voice Rebecca had heard on the outside. She could barely make out his face. Big with a black beard. Or did it only look black in the night?

They were bounding up the steps.

“Where is your father?” demanded the black-bearded man. He said
father
as if it were an obscenity. He was close to her now. She could feel his hot breath, taste his spit. “Where’s your father hiding out, girl! I advise you to speak, else you’ll be arrested along with the traitor—”

“He’s dressing,” Sarah answered weakly. “I pray you, let him finish—”

“He’s here!” shouted one of the men from the top of the stairs.

“Drag him hence, the filthy dog,” ordered Black Beard.

“What are the charges?” Rebecca asked.

“Out of my way, girl!”

Rebecca felt the clip of his strong forearm against her mouth. It caused her teeth to cut through her lip. She held her mouth, then fell to her knees and grabbed Black Beard’s robe.

“I pray you, what are—”

Black Beard backhanded her across the face. Rebecca was stunned, her face burning with pain. She crumpled to the floor.

“Not my daughter, I beg you!” her father’s voice cried plaintively. “Anything but—”

“Silence!” Black Beard ordered.

Rebecca’s head was still ringing. She heard the word treason as the charges were read. Through blurry eyes she saw her father. He was flanked by two of the Queen’s guards, each one gripping his arm. Two others were binding his hands behind his back. Roderigo had on his hose and shirt, but no sleeves and shoes. Without thinking, Rebecca stood up and went to fetch his remaining garments and boots, but was quickly stopped by another blow to her face. Again she dropped to her knees, her head an explosion of pinpoint lights.

She heard the faint cries of her father’s protests, the sharp sound of flesh against flesh, the sickening crunch of broken bone.

Roderigo howled in pain. He looked at his wife, held out his hand to her, but was pulled away before they could touch. He gave a single glance over his shoulder as they dragged him away. Rebecca was holding her head, crying, the blood of her mouth mixed with tears.

“I love thee, Becca,” he shouted to her.

He thought he heard her shout it back. But he wasn’t certain.

It was known in the Tower as the Dungeon amongst the Rats. It lay adjacent to the water somewhere beneath the Cradle Tower, a cave twenty feet deep with no light. At high tide the clammy hole became infested with rats seeking shelter.

High tide was approaching. Esteban Ferreira de Gama could feel the icy rocks turn even colder. He could hear occasional squeaks, and whispers of scampering across boulders, make out the glow of red eyes. He could feel sharp paws tickling his ankles, scratching the soles of his feet, and knew it was only the beginning.

He reached upward — dear God, what a supreme effort that was — and tried to pull himself onto a ledge two feet above the floor of the cave. But he was too weak and the rocks were slimy and wet. He fell into a nest of squirming rats, his face burrowing in their dank, wet fur, their mouths licking his nose. De Gama held back a dry heave and stood up, brushing cold, wet noses off his legs.

He tried again, raw fingertips gripping the slippery rocks. One big hoist and he was up, resting uncomfortably on a small algae-covered table. His hands were tucked into the crevices of wet rock and helped support his weight. His still-swollen shoulders were in excruciating pain. His feet dangled a foot away from the floor. Yet for the time being he was safe.

What had he done to deserve
this
?

What did they
want
from him?

He had told them the truth almost immediately. Not all of it, but most of it. He had told them he was aiding the escape of hundreds of Spanish and Portuguese Jews doomed by the Inquisition. He admitted falsifying citizen’s papers, giving them to the smuggled so they might live legally in the Low Countries. But that was the extent of his clandestine involvement with Lopez.

He had expected deportation — to be sent back to Spain, or to the New World perhaps. A term of forced servitude in the Queen’s army. Or even prison. But never did he expect the rack, this dungeon… or worse, what lay ahead….

The rocks became colder, the cave echoed with piercing whistles. De Gama felt as if he were dangling from a gangplank, about to drop into a sea dappled with red dots of light. He dug his hands farther into the cracks between the rocks, scraping his knuckles in the process. A cool, slithery-soft glob of something sucked his fingertips. Startled, he withdrew his fingers.

Lopez! Ye Gods, only an hour on the rack and he had given them
Lopez
! What a coward he was! But it wasn’t enough. Essex had wanted more. Much more than de Gama had to give. The lord had wanted to know how Lopez had intended to murder his mistress. De Gama hadn’t known to what he was referring.

So they took him to the torture chamber. It was a ten-foot-square stone cell, lit only by a torch hanging in a wall sconce. It smelled of rot and garbage, of human excrement and blood. It was dank and cold, the ceiling covered with cobwebs. They put him on the rack. The frame was six feet long with three rollers of wood within it. His back lay on a middle roller studded with iron teeth. His ankles and wrists were stuffed into tight iron cuffs, his stretched limbs fastened by ropes to rollers at opposite ends. Essex repeated the question: How had Lopez planned to murder his mistress, the Queen?

“I know not what you mean!” de Gama protested.

The beefeaters turned the end rollers a quarter of a revolution. Sharp points of iron dug into de Gama’s back. He felt his arms and legs reach their limit; every muscle in his body grew taut.

“Tell me how Lopez plotted to poison the Queen,” Essex said calmly.

De Gama frantically explained: “Lopez paid King Philip to look aside on conversos that he smuggled out. He said nothing about a scheme to murder his mistress!”

Essex sighed and nodded to the yeoman warders. Another quarter revolution. Pain! Ripping muscles! Hot joints!
Agony!
He began to breathe rapidly.

“Tell me about the pearls, musk, and amber letter.”

De Gama lay there, his body coming apart.

“Tell me about the letter,” Essex repeated.

“I know nothing about a letter,” de Gama had choked out.

Another eighth turn; his arms were tearing from their sockets. He screamed.

“Wh-What do you
want
to know?” he cried. “I’ll say anything.”

“Lopez wrote a cryptic letter under the name Francisco de Torres to your agent in Amsterdam, David, did he not?” said Essex.

De Gama nodded. “Yes, yes! Anything you say!”

“In this letter he mentioned pearls, musk, and amber,” Essex continued.

“Yes! Oh God, the pain—”

“Lopez asked David to find out the price of pearls, aye?”

“Yes, yes!” howled de Gama. “God in heaven, help me!”

“Loosen the wheel, my good warders,” said Essex.

The jailers did as told.

“Better?” Essex asked de Gama.

De Gama nodded.

“What meant Lopez by ‘the price of pearls’?” Essex said. De Gama was breathing more calmly. But agony still pierced his shoulders and inner thighs. He answered, “Pearls were the price of the Spanish Jews. How much Lopez was willing to pay to redeem Spanish Jews… Spanish conversos.”

Essex looked displeased. “Pearls meant the price charged by Lopez to murder his mistress, Her Majesty!”

“No—”

“Warders! Another turn!”

De Gama screamed.

“Lopez was paid by Philip to murder Her Majesty, the Queen of England!”

“No!”

“Lopez was planning to poison her as he had planned to poison Don Antonio, his former master.”

“No!”

“Warders!”

“NOOOOO!”

“Then tell me the truth!” Essex shouted. “Lopez was planning to poison his mistress!
Pearls
was a code word for the Queen!”

“No—”

“Warders, another—”

“NOOO. Aaaahhhh!”

“Lopez was trying to poison the Queen!” Essex screamed.
“Admit it!”

De Gama felt his head going numb, drool ooze from his mouth. His vision turned black.

“Admit it!” Essex ordered.

Before he fainted, de Gama heard one of Essex’s men storm into the chambers and talk excitedly about a ring.

When he woke up, he found himself in the infamous rat dungeon. Last night had been horrible. He hadn’t known what to expect. But now he was prepared.

He hoped.

The rocks turned still colder. The red sea of eyes thickened. A wave of seawater was encroaching upon his feet. The rodents were climbing atop one another, feverishly trying to escape the water that had covered the floor of the cave. Wriggling little crimson pinpoints, smelling of disease and scum. The stink of muck from the Thames saturated the cave. The stench was overwhelming, yet de Gama could not even hold his nose. He needed his hands to support him upon the ledge. The rats were entering the dungeon in droves now. Eyes upon eyes, building their own quivering tower of rodent bodies, their tower of evil in a cave underneath a tower of evil.

They were a finger span away from the soles of his feet.

The grating whisper of tiny paws clawing fuzzy bodies. His nostrils became congested with rat fur, his eyes watered, his ears reverberated with high-pitched squeals. The rocks reached their final level of chill. De Gama felt a wet nose brush against his little toe, a paw tickle his heel.

He shook them off, kicked them away, but it was only temporary. Soon came another wave, another wet nose, and another, and another.

He kicked his legs furiously, but there were too many of them. They were climbing too fast. He closed his eyes, clenched his jaw, and waited for the tide to recede.

De Gama was screaming with delirium when the jail warders brought him into the torture chamber the second time. Most of his clothes had been eaten away, leaving the converso dressed in tatters that barely covered his chest and groin. His once-thick frame had turned pitifully limp. His cheeks were gaunt, covered with a sickly pallor. The skin of his body was raw and red and covered with rat and flea bites.

He eyed the rack and went berserk — screaming, sobbing, his arms and legs flailing about.

But this time the jailers passed up the frame of torture and let him stand in the corner unmolested.

What horrors awaited him this time?

Essex entered the chamber and gave de Gama a stern glance. The prisoner knew by the look in the lord’s eyes that the rack had just been the appetizer to a full-course banquet. May God let him live through it all. Please don’t let him die. He began to pray:

Shma Yisroel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Ehad.
God have mercy upon my soul!
God have mercy upon my soul!
God have mercy upon my soul!
God have mercy upon my soul…

“Have you visited the daughter lately?” Essex said blithely to de Gama. “The Scavenger’s Daughter, that is. Let me introduce you to her.”

De Gama kept praying. Essex smiled, strolled over to a stone wall and patted an implement of iron hanging upon a large hook.

“It appears harmless does it not?” Essex said.

De Gama stopped his supplication to the Almighty and glanced at the instrument. It resembled a set of four-foot-long tongs. And it did appear harmless. But at first glance the rack seemed nothing more than a set of rollers. Whatever this was, it was not something commonly used in the chambers in Spain. The Spanish had their own devices — the ropes, the water jugs, fire…

All of them had been used on de Gama. He’d been so strong back then, withholding names regardless of the agony. And God had rewarded his silence by letting him live. He’d been sentenced to burn at the auto-da-fé in Toledo and would have died if Teresa Roderiguez hadn’t saved him. She’d been sent to him by the Almighty for being strong. Now, as surely as an angel of life had saved him for his fortitude, so would an angel of death strike him for his weakness. But he couldn’t stand any more pain.

Essex said, “Let me explain to you, de Gama, how our good English Daughter works. Or better yet, let me demonstrate—”

“No,” de Gama whispered.

“No?” Essex asked.

De Gama began to pant.

“Have you something to tell me about Dr. Roderigo Lopez?” Essex said.

“I…” de Gama tried.

“Yes?”

“I… I know nothing about his scheme to poison the Queen.”

Essex slapped de Gama across the face. “Insolent mule!” The lord turned to the warders. “Place him in the—”

“No!” De Gama cried.

“Place him in the Scavenger’s Daughter!”

The top part of the tongs were recessed to go around de Gama’s neck. His palms were forced together, his lower legs pushed to his thighs, the thighs to the belly, all locked into position with two iron cramps. He lay on his back, compressed like a dead fetus after a miscarriage.

“Tell me about Lopez’s pearls, musk, and amber letter,” Essex began.

De Gama tried to talk calmly. But his voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper. He said, “
Pearls
was Lopez’s code word for Spanish Jews—”

“Warders, tighten the cramps.”

The tips of de Gama’s fingers and toes turned red from the pressure.

Essex repeated, “Señor Esteban de Gama, tell me about Lopez’s pearls, musk, and amber letter.”

“It—” De Gama stopped and tried to think.

Tell him what he wants to hear!

“It was written by Lopez,” de Gama started out. “He used the name Francisco de Torres.”

“Good,” Essex said. “Very good.”

“It was written to David, Lopez’s agent in the Low Countries.”

“Go on.”

“I… I pray you, m’lord, loosen the cramps,” de Gama implored. He began to cry.

Blood had leaked out through his fingertips.

Essex said, “If you cooperate and confess freely, we will take you out of that ungodly device, señor.”