The Day of Atonement

by David Liss

  “And what shall we live upon during our sojourn through Europe?” Eusebio demanded.

  “Our riches,” I answered.

  “What riches?” demanded Eusebio. “You think we are a bottomless source of wealth? The Inquisition took everything. We have no more riches.”

  “The Inquisition took everything from me too,” I assured him. “It took everything from Mr. Franklin. Before we leave this building, we are going to take it back.”

  “You are mad,” Eusebio said as we climbed the stairs. It was the fifth time he’d said it.

  “Maybe,” Franklin said, “but I think it is closer to daring than madness.”

  Eusebio’s doubts did not anger me, but they were beginning to irritate me. I turned to him. “What would you have us do?”

  Eusebio said nothing.

  Luis spoke up, perhaps not liking to see his son humiliated. “Robbing the Inquisition is dangerous.”

  “Being alive has become dangerous,” I said. “Lisbon is in ruins, and there are no laws, and we will have to be bolder than our enemies if we are to survive.”

  “You speak of enemies, but we have none,” Eusebio said. “If we leave this building, we are free. We don’t need to antagonize the Inquisition. This is but greed dressed up as something noble.”

  “You all know who I am and you know my story. The Inquisition took everything from my family, including the right to leave. My father spent his life laboring in the hope of someday having enough to free his family, and the Inquisition killed him so they could take his wealth. I am taking back what is mine. I intend to stop anyone who gets in my way. If you want my protection, you have it, but you must do what I say. And believe me when I tell you that you will need me. The moment the sun goes down, every renegado in the city will be out to slit throats and take what he can find. Every building left standing will be looted. If we don’t take this money, someone else will, and the difference will be that it does not belong to their blood.”

  “That hardly justifies theft,” Eusebio said.

  “I will not argue this with you.” I turned to face him. “Either go or join me and be silent.” I continued up the stairs, and Eusebio followed behind. I let out a little breath of relief. I could not say for sure that I would have left Eusebio.

  At the top of the stairs were five priests standing in a close huddle and speaking rapidly. When I emerged fully, I saw that there was a sixth person standing behind the priests—the old woman from Gabriela’s cell. She thrust a crooked finger in our direction. “That’s him. He’s the one behind it all.”

  One of the Inquisitors, a man of about thirty with hooded eyes and massive eyebrows, stepped forward. “Back to your cells,” he snapped. “Return at once, or you will face greater punishment.”

  I understood him to be the sort of man who threw in with the Inquisition because he enjoyed power and the freedom to harm others with impunity. In this crisis, he would naturally become the leader, and would prove ruthless in the execution of his duties. Such men were truly dangerous and so were best dealt with swiftly.

  I held up my hand, indicating that no one should move.

  The priest’s face began to redden. “Return to your cells, I say, and beg Jesus Christ to forgive you.”

  I struck him hard in the jaw, clipping the priest strongly enough to crack his teeth, but carefully enough not to seriously hurt my own knuckles. A perfect punch, just as Mr. Weaver had taught me. The man’s eyes rolled back, and he fell to the floor.

  Franklin lashed out at another priest. Franklin was neither swift nor skillful, but he was large, and his big hands carried a great deal of force. The man dropped.

  “It’s the mad Jew!” one of the other priests cried, pointing at Franklin.

  “He’s the mad Jew,” Franklin said, shaking the pain out of his hand. “I’m a mad Protestant.”

  I lunged at the priest who had spoken. I grabbed his head and pushed him hard into the wall. I turned to dispose of another priest, but saw the man already had the point of a blade emerging from his chest. Behind him stood Luis, yanking free the sword. I had hoped to avoid unnecessary killing, but clearly the elder Nobreza had his own plans. The man had lived in Lisbon all his life. He had his own debts to collect from the Inquisition, and I would not tell him to stay his hand. I nodded at Luis and grabbed the last priest, throwing him to the floor. “Where is the treasury?”

  “If I tell you, you will kill me,” the priest said.

  I turned to Franklin. “I wonder if it is possible to force information from a man, even if he knows he will be killed after he speaks. Some kind of torture perhaps?”

  “Do you know who can answer this?” Franklin said. “An Inquisitor. Let’s put one to the question.”

  The priest swallowed hard, and then pointed down a long corridor. “The door is at the end. I know not who has the key.”

  Franklin and I began to walk in the direction the priest had pointed.

  “He’s helpless,” Gabriela said behind us. “You cannot kill him in cold blood.”

  I turned and saw that Luis had taken out his blade once more and was raising it over the fallen priest.

  “If we don’t, he will get help and they will try to stop us,” Luis said. There was no eagerness in his expression. He showed no signs of relishing the violence. This was grim necessity.

  “There is a hallway full of butchered priests,” she answered. “Do you think it won’t occur to them to check the treasury?”

  I eyed the prostrate priest thoughtfully, and then stomped upon his knee and heard something break. The man cried out.

  “That will slow him down,” I said, and began to walk toward the treasury. Luis sheathed his blade.

  Gabriela hurried to walk beside me. “Are you going to allow the freedom offered by the quake to turn you into a fiend? What have you become?”

  “The Inquisition turned me into a fiend,” I said. “I will be what they made me if that helps me protect my friends.”

  “You do not have to be cruel,” she said. “You used to be kind.”

  “When we have what we’ve come for, and we escape, I shall not do these things any longer. But we are in the heart of the palace of the enemy, and I cannot afford to show mercy to those who least deserve it.”

  “No,” she said. “I suppose not. But I wish you were someone who could find a way.”

  Not surprisingly, none of the keys on the chain opened the entrance to the treasury. The heavy wooden door, however, was cracked from the building’s shifting weight. Franklin and I found large stones, loosened from the wall, and began to take turns smashing them against the door. I feared the stone would crumble, but it was solid. The door was not. Three blows, and it cracked further. The door soon turned to splinters. I used my boot to clear the path, and then we entered.

  There was a brief stone hallway before the room opened up. There were no windows, but with Roberta’s torch we could see inside the chamber, and it made us gasp. It was not a huge room, but it was large enough, with rows of shelves lined with sacks of coins and boxes of gold bars. There were cases of jewels and stacks of fine clothes and silks and bags of spices. There were silver dishes and candlesticks and picture frames. There were gold necklaces and earrings and rings. There were riches beyond imagining. Kingdoms could rise or fall upon such wealth.

  Then I caught a glimpse of something in the flickering light. It was a leather envelope I recognized. I grabbed it, looked inside, and then handed it to Roberta. “This is yours.”

  Roberta looked at the notes and then met my gaze. “This doesn’t give me back what I’ve lost,” she said. “Do not think this undoes your crimes.”

  “Nothing can undo my crimes, but this gives you money.”

  There were other stacks of notes, and I chose to concentrate on these, examining papers to make certain they were negotiable. There were thousands of pounds there—I could not guess how many, and I did not wish to take the time to count. Whatever the amount, it would have to suffice as my r
evenge.

  “Take as much as you can in large notes,” I said, “but we need coins and gold and jewels to pay for what we need upon the road. Do not overburden yourselves, and pick small coins if you can find them so we won’t draw attention to ourselves. Be quick. We mustn’t stay longer than we have to.”

  When we had finished collecting as much as we could reasonably take—a literal fortune, I supposed—we began to head for the exit.

  “Where shall we go now?” Gabriela asked.

  “We will find a place for you to take shelter for the time being. I am not done in this city. I must find Mariana Settwell.”

  “And then?” Roberta asked.

  “Then we flee.”

  Chapter 29

  Anyone who has ever dared to imagine hell has probably summoned a picture very like Lisbon on that day. Buildings lay in ruins. People wandered the streets, bloody and wounded. Both men and women wailed and huddled upon the sidewalk. All around us fires gave off heat and belched smoke, and the sky was already dark with ash, falling back upon the earth like rain. Roads that had been open for centuries were now blocked off.

  Roberta and Franklin and I had seen it earlier, but the Nobrezas stared in open horror. The world was broken, and no words would suffice.

  “We must go now,” Eusebio said, his voice shrill. “Why must we wait?”

  “I will not leave yet,” I said. “My responsibilities are not fulfilled.”

  “I have no further responsibilities here.” Eusebio turned to Gabriela. “You will come with me. We have money and we will have our freedom.”

  Gabriela shook her head. “We dare not go without him,” she said, keeping her voice low. She stroked his sleeve. “There will be thieves and murderers. How can I be safe among so many desperate people? We need Sebastião.”

  I turned away, but her moment of intimacy with her husband did not sting. The pain was not there. Stepping forward, I put a hand upon Eusebio’s shoulder and drew him away from the others. I did not care for Eusebio’s hurt pride, but I wished to keep the man from quarreling with me at every turn. “You have skills, and I have skills,” I said quietly. “It happens that mine are better suited to surviving in a ruined city. Let me protect you and your wife and father and see you safe from this nightmare. You will then take the money you carry, and your own skills will serve you well in London or Amsterdam or Paris. There you will thrive.”

  Eusebio took a step back. “I will trust you for now, but I do not like it.”

  We continued walking east, toward the Alfama. The streets were still full of the wounded and the lamenting, but here there were more houses standing.

  “I know this street,” Roberta said. “Is it not where your friend Settwell lives?”

  I nodded. “That is where we are going.”

  Roberta stopped. “I shall not enter his house.”

  “There is no time for that,” I told her. “There can be no grudges now. All of you will go where I say and do what I say. In return, I will get you out of here alive if that can be done.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Everything that has happened is because of him. I lost everything, and it was his doing. Rutherford would be alive if Settwell had not deceived you.”

  “I know,” I said. “I don’t ask you to forgive him, only to tolerate him. Once, long ago, he did something for my father. He saved me. Nothing can erase his crimes, but for the debt my family owes him, I must try to help him.”

  Roberta brushed a loose strand of hair from her soiled face. In that instant, she looked, if only fleetingly, as she had before her life had come undone. “I don’t understand you, Mr. Foxx. Your loyalties will destroy us all.”

  “They have kept me alive all my life. I won’t abandon them now.”

  We found Settwell huddled in his parlor, sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, his arms around his knees. The house seemed strangely undamaged. The same could not be said for Settwell, whose complexion was pale, and whose thin hands trembled like those of a man with a palsy.

  Roberta stared at him but said nothing. He appeared not even to notice her, nor the others in our little band. He looked only at me.

  “The city is destroyed,” Settwell said. “It is gone, like a sand castle, washed away by the waves.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Mariana is out there somewhere,” Settwell said. “She may be dead. I was such a fool.”

  “You can lament your mistakes and resolve to do better when you and your daughter are safe. In the meantime, I believe I know where to find her.”

  “I don’t deserve your help,” Settwell said.

  “No,” I agreed. “But Mariana does.”

  I checked the house to make certain there was food and drink, and then took what I needed to replenish myself. I rested for a little while, not wanting to go out until I felt prepared. Then I rose. I told the others to bar the door and light no lamps. “Kill anyone who tries to force his way inside,” I said.

  Settwell came and stood beside me. “Take me with you. I can help you.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t think you are made for such things.”

  “Is this because you don’t trust me?” Settwell asked.

  “In part,” I told him. I waved Franklin over. “Do you have any interest in giving the Inquisition even more reason to hate you?”

  He grinned. “This is better than robbing the treasury all over again.”

  Chapter 30

  It was growing dark, and night would be a far more dangerous time. We could not be the only ones who had realized Lisbon was full of wealth for the taking. Some of the fires that had raged before had burned out. Others had spread. There was no knowing which perils would grow and which would abate. The time to act was now.

  We made our way upward once more, ignoring the suffering that we could not alleviate. We did not speak. We kept our heads down and skirted the fires and the rubble. We found the way around closed streets and avoided alleys. As we walked, the city began to shake again. The grinding and the screams struck up in what was now a familiar chorus, but the rumble was less terrible. Everything that could fall already had.

  Franklin and I stood in the middle of a street, sticking our arms out for balance until the quake passed, and then continued on our way.

  It is disorienting to travel in a city whose landmarks have been obliterated, so the gates of the Conceição dos Cardais appeared unexpectedly as we trudged up the hill. It was a small and unexceptional Carmelite convent, but because it remained standing, it appeared a palace. Bricks and tiles had come dislodged, and statuary had collapsed, but for the most part the building and the grounds were unharmed, and the gardens looked calm and beautiful. Birds fluttered in the standing trees. Outside, Lisbon was hell, but this looked like paradise, safe and tranquil.

  Inside, the nuns must be thanking God for sparing them. They must be wondering what they had done to deserve mercy when so many others had received none. I myself asked the same question.

  I was tempted to speculate that it was the presence of Mariana, an innocent. But then were all who had been crushed and burned and trampled and drowned and torn apart by the sea evil? Was this earthquake the work of an avenging God, or was its joy and misery distributed merely by random chance? I had to believe the latter. The idea of a God that would wipe out an entire city—a city of vile Inquisitors and fidalgos, yes, but also one of beggars and children—was too dark to contemplate. I wanted no part of such indiscriminate violence. I much preferred the idea of justice narrowly delivered.

  The door of the main building was unlocked. It was dim and cool inside, and even if it was not the finest convent in the city, I marveled at the beautiful wood carvings, the detailed paintings with their frames of gold. While most of Lisbon starved, here were grand staircases and elaborate tilings. Here were rich furnishings and tapestries. Everywhere I looked, I saw gold and silver and velvet and silk.

  “Lovely place these nuns have,” Franklin observed.


  “In two days it will all be worth less than a loaf of bread.”

  Franklin nodded with some satisfaction. “The earthquake is leveling in more ways than one.”

  A nun in her drab Carmelite habit came toward us slowly, arms folded in her sleeves, head slightly lowered. She was an older woman, perhaps fifty, with olive skin and a face that would have been considered ugly in her youth, but now gave her a distinguished appearance. Her habit was filthy and streaked with blood, and her face was covered with soot. “What is it, my sons? Are you hurt? Do you want shelter?”

  I took a step back in surprise. Given all I had seen and done in the past twenty-four hours, nothing could have shocked me more than a nun offering kindness unbidden and with no motive but the desire to do right. I had forgotten such people existed within the Church.

  “Your convent is open to all?” I asked.

  “We have been spared this terrible destruction,” the nun said. “God has preserved us for a reason. I pray you do not abuse our charity, for we wish to serve as many as we can.”

  “You believe God preserved your convent? Do you then think God destroyed Lisbon for its crimes?”

  “I cannot know the answer to that,” she said, now studying me with skepticism. “It serves me nothing to ponder God’s plan. I can only ponder His plan for me. Senhor, there are men who will choose to take advantage of the chaos in the city. If you are one of them, I beg you leave. There is gold enough to be dug up from the ruins. Let us be to tend the sick and feed the hungry as long as we can.”

  “I would never keep you from that task,” I said. “We do not need help, however. I seek someone within, the mother of the Jesuit Pedro Azinheiro.”

  The nun looked startled. “Sister Juana Maria? What do you want with her?”

  “She has something that does not belong to her.”

  “What is that?”

  “A child,” I said.

  The nun, to my surprise, took a step forward. “You sound English. Are you her father?”