Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  The notary records that they actually manifest pleasure at seeing one another.

  Ocaña now repeats his confession, and Yucé and Benito again go over theirs. The three agree one with the other, and it is now further eUcited that it was six months after the crucifixion, more or less, when they assembled between Tenbleque and La Guardia to give Benito the letter and the Host which he was to convey to Abenamias in Zamora.

  On October 17 there is another confrontation — of Juan Franco with Ça and Yucé Franco. In this each repeats what he has already confessed, which we now learn for the first time. Juan Franco admits that it was he himself who opened the boy’s side and took out his heart, and in this as in other particulars the depositions agree one with another.

  Juan Franco goes on to say that they next met in the cave some time after the crucifixion, and that his brother Alonso brought the heart and the Host in a box which he gave to Tazarte, who withdrew with them to a corner of the cave to carry out his enchantments. Later on they assembled between Tenbleque and La Guardia — at a place which, according to this witness, was called Sorrostros — and gave Benito a letter to take to Zamora, this letter being tied with a coloured thread.

  So far he is completely in accord with the other deponents; but now there occurs a startling discrepancy. He says that at this last meeting (which, we are told, took place some six months after the crucifixion), in addition to the consecrated wafer and the letter for Abenamias, they also gave Benito the heart to take to Zamora.

  Now all the other depositions lead us to suppose that the heart and the first wafer were employed — presumably consumed in some way — by Tazarte in the enchantment performed at the first meeting after the crucifixion, and that as doubts afterwards arose touching the efficacy of the spells performed by the physician, another Host was obtained some six months later, which they forwarded to Zamora.

  Is the explanation the simple one that Juan Franco is mistaken on the subject of the heart? It seems possible, because he adds that he did not actually see the Host (on this particular occasion), but that he understood that it was given to Benito. Similarly he may have understood — erroneously taking it for granted — that the heart accompanied it.

  And now you may see the confrontation bearing fruit, and yielding the results which we must suppose are sought by the inquisitors — the further incrimination of Yucé Franco.

  Juan de Ocaña is examined again on October 20 and questioned as to Yucé’s participation in the crime. He now adds to his former confession that Yucé and the others used great vituperations to the child, which vituperations were really aimed at Jesus Christ; he cites the expressions, and in the main they are those we have already quoted from the Testimonio*; these, he says, were used by Ça Franco and his two sons. He says that they all whipped the boy, and that it was Yucé himself who drew blood from the arms of the victim with a knife.

  [* Which was framed upon the sentence ultimately passed.]

  “Whence was the child?” they ask him.

  He replies that it was the dead Jew Mosé Franco who had brought the boy from Quintanar to Tenbleque on a donkey, and that, according to Moss’s story, he was the son of Alonso Martin of Quintanar.* From Tenbleque several of them, amongst whom were Yucé and his father, brought him on the donkey to the cave where he was crucified, and it was Yucé who went to summon the brothers Franco of La Guardia, Benito Garcia, and the witness himself.

  [* All this is contradicted by Juan Franco’s later confession that he himself procured the child from Toledo, and brought him to the cave. The name of the child’s father is as much a fiction as the rest of this vindictive deposition.]

  So that from having been a more or less passive spectator of the scene, Yucé is suddenly — by what we are justified in accounting the vindictiveness of Ocaña — thrust into the position of one of the chief actors, indeed, almost one of the instigators of the crime.

  On the same day Benito Garcia is re-examined. His former depositions are read over to him, and he is asked if he has anything to add to them. He has to add, he finds, that Yucé — whom he has hardly mentioned hitherto — had whipped and struck the boy, and that he was an active participant in all that was done, his avowed aim being the destruction of Christianity, which he spoke of as buffoonery and idolatry.

  On the morrow Ocaña is brought back to ratify his statements of yesterday. He is asked if he has anything to add that concerns the participation of Yucé, and his answer is so very much in the terms of the latest additions made by Benito that one is left wondering whether, departing from their usual custom, the inquisitors put their questions in a precise and definite form — founded upon what Benito has said — and obtained affirmative replies from Ocaña. For Ocaña, too, remembers that Yucé said that Christianity was all buffoonery and that Christians were idolaters.

  CHAPTER XXIII. THE TRIAL OF YUCÉ FRANCO — (Concluded)

  It might now be said that, thanks to the patient efforts which the inquisitors themselves have been exerting for close upon a year, the prosecutor is at last furnished with the evidence necessary to support his original charge against Yucé Franco.

  To this end he appears before the court on that same October 21, 1 491, to present in proof of his denunciation the entire dossier, as taken down by the notary of the tribunal. He begs that Yucé be brought into the audience-chamber to hear the additions which he has to make to the original charge. These additions are the matters lately extracted from Ocaña and Benito Garcia: that Yucé used vituperative words to the child when he was being crucified, and that these vituperations were really aimed at our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Faith; that he struck the boy many times, and that he drew blood from the boy’s arm with a penknife. Wherefore, he begs the inquisitors to abandon the prisoner to the secular arm, as is right and proper.*

  [* “ Boletin,” xi. , 331]

  He does not, however, add that Yucé’s brother had procured the child, and that Yucé was one of those who brought him to the cave and who summoned the Francos to attend — an omission which shows the credit attached to Ocaña’s statement and its lack of corroboration.

  Yucé’s answer is a denial of all that is alleged and added by the Fiscal, the lad protesting that he never did or said anything beyond what he has, himself, confessed.

  Guevára, thereupon, petitions the court to permit him to submit his proofs of the matters of which he accuses the prisoner, and the court having accorded him this petition, he puts in as evidence the entire dossier from which we have drawn these pages on the subject.*

  [* “Boletin,” xi. .]

  Five days later both parties are again before the court, Guevára now petitioning their Reverend Paternities to pass to the publication of witnesses, that the trial may be brought to its conclusion. Dr. Villada announces his readiness to do so, but accords the defendants three days within which to lodge any objection to any of the matter contained in the depositions.

  Yucé begs through his advocate that copies be given him of all the depositions of those who were present at the crucifixion, with the name of each hostile witness and a statement of the day, month, year, and place in which anything alleged against him is said to have taken place.

  But Guevára immediately objects, urging that in the copies of the depositions to be given defendant, no names shall appear of any of the witnesses who had deponed, and no circumstances shall be included which might enable Yucé to conjecture the names. It seems a purely formal objection; for after the confrontations there have been it appears to serve very little purpose. But some purpose it does serve, because those confrontations after all were limited to Ocaña and Benito, and from the moment that it was not considered necessary to proceed to confrontation with any of the other prisoners it would seem that they had needed no such spur to drive them into depositions hostile to Yucé.

  However, the reverend inquisitor replies loftily enough that he will do what justice demands, and he orders the notary to deliver to Yucé copies of all the de
positions against him. But from Yucé’s advocate’s plea on October 29 — upon the expiry of the three days appointed — it is plain that the particulars claimed have been withheld.

  From the fact that the advocate San9 has drawn up so strong an objection on behalf of his client, it is perfectly clear that even at this date Yucé’s guilt of heresy cannot be considered as established. If that were the case, Sang, in obedience to the oath imposed upon him when entrusted with the defence, would have been compelled to lay down his brief and withdraw.

  Yucé denies all the allegations against him which charge him with having taken any active part in the crucifixion of the boy, and he protests that he is unable properly to defend himself because the copies of the depositions supplied him do not mention time or place of the alleged offences nor yet the names of the witnesses by whom these allegations are made. Upon the assumption, however, that these deponents are Benito Garcia, Juan Franco, and Juan de Ocaña, he proceeds to answer the charges as best he can.

  This answer consists of a repudiation of those depositions as inadmissible upon the grounds that they do not agree one with another, and that each refers to a separate circumstance, no two confirming any one particular accusation, and all being contrary to what the same witnesses had stated in confrontation with the defendant, when each had acknowledged that Yucé’s relation of the events was the true one. Hence it is established that on one or the other of these occasions they must have lied, from which it follows that they are perjured and unworthy of faith.

  Further, he claims that they may not be admitted as witnesses because they were, themselves, participators in the crime committed. Finally, he declares that their implication of himself is an act of spite and vengeance upon him. It is his full and faithful confession which has placed the inquisitors in possession of the facts of the case and the names of the offenders, and the latter are determined that since they themselves must die, Yucé shall die with them — out of which malice and enmity they have accused him.

  Upon these grounds, and insisting that he has told them the utter and complete truth, and that he himself was no more than a witness of the events, and in no way a participator, Yucé bases his defence, and begs that the depositions should cease to weigh against him.*

  [* “Boletin,” xi. .]

  Guevára’s answer, if it inclines to the grotesque, is quite typical, and is certainly more to the taste of the court.

  He denies that the witnesses are inspired by any such animosity as Yucé suggests, and he asserts that they have deponed “with devout zeal of faith, and to deliver their souls from peril.” And amongst these, be it remembered, was Benito Garcia, who conceived that the worst thing he had ever done in his life had been to get himself baptized a Christian, and who continued firm in his resolve to die a Jew at all costs. Only at the very stake itself — as we shall see — did he recant again, that he might earn the mercy of strangulation. Yet Guevára does not hesitate to say — what he must know to be untrue — that these men have confessed “with devout zeal of faith.”

  On these grounds Guevira urges that the depositions must be admitted as made in good faith and as proof; and since the said Yucé Franco would not spontaneously confess all that he had done, their Reverend Paternities should put him to the question of torture, as by law prescribed in such circumstances as the present.*

  [* Ibid. .]

  The court agrees with its Fiscal and proceeds to draw up a list of fifteen questions to be put to the accused.*

  [* Idid. .]

  With this list the inquisitors Villada and Santo Domingo, accompanied by their notary, go down into the prisons of the Inquisition on November 2, and order Yucé Franco to be brought before them.

  “Very lovingly and humanely” they admonish him to tell the whole truth of the things known to him that are the business of the Holy Office, and particularly in answer to the questions they have prepared. These questions being summed up amount to the following: Whence was the child that was crucified? Whose child was it? Who brought it to the cave? Who first set on foot this affair?

  They promise him that if he makes truthful answer they will use him as mercifully as the law and their consciences permit.

  Yucé has cause to mistrust any such promises. His first confession was made three months ago under a promise of pardon, and he has every reason to suppose that it has been the ruin of him.

  He says, however, that being in the cave on the occasion when they foregathered there for the enchantment — about fourteen days after the crucifixion — he heard Tazarte Inquire whence was the child, and Juan Franco replied before all that it was from a place whence it would never be missed, “as stated in his confession.”

  (When last asked this question — at the time of making his confession — he had attributed these words to Tazarte.)

  He protests that he can remember no more than he has already confessed.

  Their Reverend Paternities deplore his stubbornness. They tell him that since he will not speak the entire truth of what he knows — as they have proof — they must proceed to other measures. They summon Diego Martin, the torturer, and into his hands they deliver the prisoner, with orders to take him to the torture-chamber, strip him naked, and bind him to the escalera — intending, if necessary, to proceed to the water-torture.

  This is done, and Yucé is stretched naked and cruelly bound with ropes that bite into his flesh as a foretaste of the garrote by which his torments will commence. The inquisitors enter — possibly after a delay sufficient to allow the mental torture of anticipation to terrorize the patient into a more amenable frame of mind.

  Again they admonish him for his own sake to speak what he knows, and they even point out to him that it is his duty as a God-fearing Jew to speak the truth. Again they promise to deal mercifully with him if he will answer their questions fully and truthfully; and lastly they protest that if his blood is shed in the course of what is to follow, or should he suffer any other harm, or mutilation of limb, or even death, the blame must fall entirely upon himself and nowise upon their reverences.

  Fully intimidated by this skilful accumulation of terrorizing agents, Yucé implores them to repeat their questions, which he will do his best to answer.

  “Whence,” they ask him again, “was the boy who was crucified at La Guardia?”

  “Juan Franco,” he replies, “brought him from Toledo.” He adds that Juan Franco announced this before them all, and told them that he had kept the child concealed in La Hos de La Guardia for a day before bringing him to the cave to be crucified.

  SANBENITO OF PENITENT RELAPSED

  From Limborch’s “Historia Inquisitionis.”

  What is not to be explained is why Yucé should have waited until he was strapped to the escalera before making this statement. Why did he not make it when the question was asked him at his last examination — if not in his original confession? It cannot be pretended that he was endeavouring to screen Juan Franco, because he has very amply betrayed him in other ways. Is the explanation that under fear of torture he felt the need to invent an answer likely to satisfy the inquisitors? It can hardly be that, because Juan Franco himself is to admit — as we shall see — the truth of this detail. It only remains to be supposed that the lively fear of torture had sharpened the young Jew’s memory. But that again seems hardly satisfactory as an explanation.

  “Where,” they ask him next, “is La Hos?”

  “It is,” he replies, “a meadow by the River Algodor,” and he goes on to explain that Juan Franco had told them all that he had taken a load of wheat to Toledo to sell, and that, having sold it, he went to an inn, and later on he found the boy in a doorway and coaxed him away with nuégados (a sweetmeat composed of flour, honey, and nuts — nougat). Thus he got him into his cart and brought him to La Guardia.

  Yucé doesn’t know who were the child’s parents, nor in what street of Toledo he was taken by Juan Franco, as the latter did not mention those particulars.

  “Who were the firs
t to propose the affair? Did the Jews engage the Christians in it, or the Christians engage the Jews?”

  He answers that the Francos of La Guardia, fearing the Inquisition, performed an enchantment in the first instance with a consecrated wafer, as he has already confessed (October ii), and then repaired to Tazarte asking him to do something more efficacious, as the sorcery with the wafer had had no result. Tazarte agreed, and bade them procure a Christian boy for the purpose. When Juan Franco brought him, it was decided to cut out his heart, that with this heart and a wafer a stronger enchantment might be performed.

  “Why was he done to death by crucifixion rather than in any other way?”

  Yucé believes that the crucifixion was preferred in vituperation of Jesus Christ. But again he protests that his own share was no more than he has confessed already.

  “What were the particular vituperations used to the child, and by whom?”

  His answer to this question incriminates all those who were present at the affair; the vituperations which he tells the inquisitors were employed were rather indecent, and include a scurrilous version of the Incarnation which would, no doubt, be current at the time among Jews and other enemies of Christianity in Spain and elsewhere — a story, it is needless to add, entirely idle and foolish, and rather the obvious thing to be conceived in those days against any historical character who might be detested.

  He says that Tazarte was the leader in all the vituperations (which sounds likely enough, as Tazarte was the celebrant), that the others uttered them after him, and he admits that he himself said some of the things which he has mentioned, but he doesn’t enter into particulars.