“Ah. So. An inquisitional court, is it? I’m sure this is all very… O, I was going to say ‘important,’ but perhaps that falls a bit short. I’m not a man of words.” He leaned to Soares. “Enough for the king’s purposes. Every Sunday a simple—very simple—homily. But as to questions of doctrine…”
“Salva me.” Pessoa dug his fingers into his scalp and ran them roughshod through his hair. Who sang so enchantingly in the jail below? Marta? Maria Elena? Certainly not her mother, for living coarsened voice and soul. “I cannot do this alone. You both must help. No matter what you think of the Holy Office. No matter what you think personally of me. I have two young girls and a matron languishing in an ecclesiastical jail—”
Soares snorted. “Not my fault, Manoel, that you went so far.”
“Had you stopped these angel stories in the first place, Luis, this would never have happened. I would choose my sins of commission over yours of apathy.”
“Go ahead, Manoel. Decide what judgment God should lay down, then pray inform Him of your decision.”
De Melo rose, hesitant. “Ah. Well, I see you have matters to discuss. I’ll just—”
“Sit!” Pessoa snapped.
“Pôrra!” Soares threw a cup across the room, and it hit the wall with a crash, clattering to the tiles in pieces. He crossed himself, muttered a tight-lipped “Mea culpa.”
De Melo sank as far as he was able into his straight-backed chair. The singer hushed, the thread of melody broken. Pessoa had been so suspended by it, he felt a jolt as time resumed.
“If you ask me heresy, Manoel,” Soares said, “I would let them all go. For I don’t see heresy, I see angels. I have looked into those creatures’ eyes and seen God there.”
Would she not sing again? “You and your flights of fancy. You have no discernment. Given free rein, Luis, you would see Christ in cats and the Virgin in puppies. You would find God in everything.”
“We are priests. Should we not?”
“But a murder? And all the town’s gossip? That potato field? What did you expect of me?”
De Melo clapped hand to cheek. “Murder?”
From Soares: “You say murder, Manoel.”
The girl needed to sing, for silence would forever after seem barren. “Now I say insanity.”
“Well, I say miracle.”
“Fine! May you choke on magic.” Pessoa strode the floor. “Let us say miracle, then, even though only logic can save the child. But take all the miracles, Luis. Say that angels lie with girls and beget children. Say that dragons stalk the land and cows fly. Now. The hour grows so late that even our mock interrogation will last well into the early morning. Let us call the first accused, shall we? And let us pretend to be civilized, and feign that we are stalwart warriors of the Church.”
Soares sat, chin in hand, expression miserable. “Those creatures are angels, and you jail them. What will God think? They come to us helpless, and this is the way we take them in? Manoel, I see no heresy here. I see salvation. I see mercy. We have known each other six years, and I’ve never spoken so freely to anyone. But now I admit that, as God is infinitely forgiving, I have always been troubled by this entire concept.”
“Heresy, Luis. Heresy is simple. Take the crown of thorns from off the crucified Christ, put a fool’s cap atop Him. Peek under the Blessed Mother’s skirts.…”
That jarred a scandalized titter from de Melo.
Then Pessoa noticed a golden stripe of sunlight down the wall. He whirled. The door of the inn was open, and an armed man was standing there, smirking.
“What would you see, father?” the man asked.
“Get out.”
The man tucked a gloved thumb into his sword belt and propped a hip against the doorframe.
“I told you: get out,” Pessoa said between clenched teeth. “Best be wary of me, my son. For I am an inquisitor for this district.”
“You?” The man laughed. “An ass-lick Jesuit?” Catching sight of Soares and de Melo, he ducked his head in shame. “O. Sorry, fathers. And a good day to you both. Well, so. You have a heresy in Quintas, do you? And three women jailed?”
Pessoa said, “None of your affair.”
“No. Not my affair. But I am sent by Monsignor Gomes, Inquisitor-General of Lisbon.”
Pessoa heard a mutter from Soares—a prayer? Lightheaded, he braced a hand on the table.
“The monsignor sends his regards. He bids you not disrupt your schedules for his sake. And he says he needs no ceremonies upon his arrival.”
A mad humming pressured Pessoa’s ears, and through that din he heard de Melo’s querulous “Arrival?”
“Indeed, father.” the man said. “I expect him sometime near dinner. He was quite anxious to speak to the king concerning the theories of Galileo, and to see those fallen angels of yours.”
They were waiting outside the acorn just as he had left them, as if Time had caught the soldiers up in a breath and, when Afonso emerged, had gently let them out. Jandira came and put her arm through his. “You seem weary, sire.”
He rubbed his eyes. “God made me sleep. He told me a story, and He showed me Heaven.” He slipped his arm from hers. Alone, he walked down the hill, through the camp, and into his crimson-and-yellow tent. He sat down on the edge of his bed.
Her shadow fell across the tent’s carpet. “Are you hungry, sire? The midday meal is long past, and you sequestered in the acorn.”
He nodded, and her shadow went away.
She brought back a meal of rabbit and rice. With a golden spoon, he chased a broad leaf of basil through sauce.
Jandira’s warm hand dropped to his knee. “What is it, my good liege?”
His chin quivered and would not stop. A tear escaped and rolled down his cheek. “We will all die.”
“No, no, sweetling.”
Suffering in violet, dread in amber. “We all die.”
“No, love. Not for a long, long time.”
When his grip loosened on the plate, Jandira gently took it from him and set it aside.
“I went on a quest, Jandira, but I was so stupid that I could not even find my brother, not even with a whole company of soldiers. I found God, and that was stupid, too. For the sun and moon are going to fall, and the seas turn to dust, and what good is that, when I had gone to save all Portugal and instead ruin the world?”
Jandira’s voice, when he closed his eyes, was all hues of brown and saffron. “God does not punish you, sire. Despite what Father de Melo says.”
“God talks to me in the acorn, Jandira.”
“I know, sire. He talks to me, too. He whispers through the grass. He sings in streams. Priests are tone-deaf. They can’t hear quiet voices like that.”
She put her arms about his neck. He leaned his head on her breast, and let her rock him. “God is dying,” he said. “And then the earth will die.”
“Shhh. The God of the acorn becomes one with the earth, sire. Do you not see? He merely fell from Heaven where the priests put Him, to the place where He belongs.”
“But He bruised himself when He fell, Jandira. And He hurts.”
“Of course He does. Every seed cries when it bursts to seedling. The worm aches itself into butterfly. To make child turn adult, they cut my face. These are the truths that my mother’s people taught me—it always hurts to become.”
He hurt, too, all through his chest. He hurt as if he was supposed to be holding something, and yet found his arms empty. “God misses Heaven. I don’t know how to make Him better.”
“Let Him have His memories, sire. Don’t think to cure Him of that.” Her fingers traced his face. “It is like when you travel to some beautiful place; and when you come home, you are glad, but you think of the other place sometimes. I will tell you how things are, sweetling: true people walk upon the earth unshod.” Jandira leaned him back into the pillows, and they lay curled together like a pair of cats. “True people are fed God through the soles of their feet. Monkeys cannot be as smart, because trees take in Go
d at their roots, but forget him by their branches. So how can priests see God when they look to the sky? And here is the best kindness: since priests could not see Him, He came down, that’s all. God came down to teach you of His nature, all you who wear shoes.”
Afternoon rocked and jolted into evening. Out the carriage window all was darkness but for solitary lamps in isolated farmhouses. While Monsignor ate a traveler’s meal of cold roast lamb and pears, Bernardo looked into the glittering sky and counted a rosary of stars.
The carriage bumped to a stop. Monsignor poked his head out. “What?”
The driver called, “King’s camp.”
Bernardo looked out the other window to see a hillside of tents, their lamps lit, and each glowing like a deep-wicked candle. Around campfires, soldiers laughed and ate and scratched themselves. That confounded Bernardo—for them to see all that they had seen, and yet sense no lingering grandeur.
Monsignor rapped his walking stick on the wall by Bernardo’s head. “Go on, driver!” The carriage lurched into motion. “I tell you, Bernardo, I’m far too travel-weary for obsequious bendings of knee and smiles—salva me. The smiles. Good to see you, Your Majesty? I pray Your Majesty has been well. And all the time that idiot boy looking past you, or up into the rafters, or into his own pants.”
Bernardo sat up straighter. Down the road clustered warmly lit houses. The evening air smelled of moss and cookfires. He dug his fingernails into his palm to quell his excitement. Yet…
The coach’s matched pair of bays walked at too slow a gait. He caught glimpses of town lights between turns of the dark hills. Quintas. The sky here should be different, the very earth should be changed.
Another jarring halt, and a voice called from out the night ahead. “Ho!” Bernardo looked out the other window and saw a rider with a lantern.
“Ho! Driver! Do you bear Monsignor Gomes?”
Monsignor leaned out the window. “Here!”
A snaffle jingled. Bernardo heard the leisurely clop of approaching hooves. “Alfredo Pires of the Marquis de Paredes’s service come to greet you, and to say that all the tasks you gave me have been done.”
“Yes, yes’ As to lodgings?”
“Arranged, Monsignor. But more interesting news than that: as I arrive in Quintas, I discover a local inquisitor already there, finding heresy and jailing accused.”
“And the cayenne, my son? You did remember the cayenne?”
Too long a hesitation; too curt of an “Arranged.” Somewhere in Quintas a shopkeeper was bound to be roused. “Do you know the inquisitors from this district, Monsignor? This one, Pessoa, had already gathered a consulta, a strange one.”
“Um.” Monsignor raised an eyebrow at Bernardo.
Bernardo had already taken out the white ledger. He trimmed the carriage’s lamp and flipped pages. “Father Manoel Pessoa…” The next notation stopped him: S.J. No. If Monsignor did not remember, the end of a long and tiring trip was not the time to tell him. “Degree in ecclesiastical law, University of Coimbra; degree in civil law, University of Evora. In service to God these”—Bernardo hastily subtracted dates—“eighteen years. Called to the Holy Office from his post as instructor of law at Evora, ah, nine years ago, and attached to the provincial inquisitorial tribunal at Mafra. Interesting. There is a notation here that he has chosen as his mission to ride circuit.”
“Circuit?” Monsignor snorted. “Good God, is Mafra deranged? A circuit ride is money down a rabbit hole.”
A note scribbled on the margin caught Bernardo by surprise. “And he travels year-round, it says. Even during harvest and planting and in winter.”
Alfredo had ridden closer. He bent down to the window. “You neglected to say that he is Jesuit.”
The only sign of displeasure was Monsignor’s grunt.
“Would Monsignor care to see the strange creatures that were fallen?” Alfredo asked. “I can take you. They are just ahead here, in the jail.”
“Imprisoned?” The word burst from Bernardo so abruptly and with such heartfelt dread that Monsignor blinked. “But Monsignor…” Bernardo clutched his rosary so tightly that the apex of the cross cut him. “No. They cannot have.”
Monsignor waved his hand, shooing the protest away. “Really, Bernardo.” Then he leaned out the window again. “And the lodgings?”
“In the jail, as I said.”
“No, no, my son. My lodgings. You have obtained my lodgings, and they will be comfortable enough? You are certain?”
“Very adequate, Monsignor.”
“Adequate.”
Bernardo could scarcely restrain his panic. “Monsignor? Perhaps we should ride by the jail and examine the creatures, for if they are angels—”
That won him a lifted eyebrow and an admonishing series of tsks.
Alfredo was speaking again. “Your Honor, I know not if this is important, but I found them all together, meeting in secret, The Jesuit and the parish priest and the king’s confessor. I heard some of what they planned, but not all. And they would not tell me the rest. Thinks himself above everybody, that Jesuit.”
Monsignor sighed. “A house?”
“What?”
“My son, did you rent us a house?”
“O well, there was no house, sir. Only the inn. But it is quite warm and spacious and—”
Monsignor closed his eyes and muttered darkly, “Inn.”
“I’ll take you. It’s really very nice.” Alfredo, more subdued, called to the driver. The carriage lurched ahead.
Monsignor flipped open the basket and selected a sausage, a bite of cheese. “I tell you, Bernardo. It is a mark of the Holy Office’s desperation that they would take a Jesuit. And, I must point out, he was given his post the year before I received mine. Not my fault they made a Jesuit into inquisitor. Suspect, the lot of them. On the verge of apostasy themselves. No wonder the provincial tribunal sent him off on a circuit-riding mission—undoubtedly praying that he would lose his way. Look where Jesuits have led us! Rome furious at their meddling; Portugal independent, yes, but with an idiot for a king. And a dearth of bishops in all of Portugal, that they die and Rome refuses to replace them.”
Hunched in his robes, Bernardo shivered. Imprisoned angels. O fools. Father, forgive them.
All the time they rode, and even when they reached the inn and Bernardo was left alone with Monsignor’s majestic dismay at the surroundings, he could think of naught else but bright winged beings, mild-tempered, and caged like doves. When Bernardo had lit the room’s hearth fire, he said. “If you will permit me a speculation, Monsignor: perhaps it is because this inquisitor is Jesuit that he fails to understand.”
Monsignor meditated upon the room’s cheap pottery lamp. “Um?”
“For Jesuits are more bound by logic than others, and thus cannot imagine miracles. If I may be so forward, Monsignor, it is my opinion that if the mind is forever clamoring questions, it cannot hear the quiet whispers of the soul.”
“Um.” Monsignor pondered the straw bed. “Will he bring the cayenne soon, do you think?”
At the knock on the door, Monsignor said. “Good, good. I long for bed, but will not lie down with fleas.”
Bernardo went to answer. A woman stood without—tall and haughty, almond-eyed and dusky-skinned. She reeked of vanilla, of exotic tropics and lust. “Monsignor,” she said.
He gave her a glance through his lashes, and a shrewd smile. “A moment,” he told her, and closed the door.
Monsignor’s curiosity had been piqued. “Who?”
“That ginger-skinned slave who belongs to the king.”
“Misericordia.” Those ruddy cheeks paled. “Have her in. Quickly, Bernardo! Quickly.”
Bernardo opened the door. She entered, gaze too brazen, chin too high, stride too free. She gathered her silken robes and knelt at Monsignor’s feet, kissing his hem.
“You should not have come.” He pulled himself away and took a chair.
She sat, attentive as a hound, on the floor beside him. �
��No one saw me, Your Honor.”
Bernardo discreetly looked away. “More news?” he heard Monsignor ask.
The husky answer: “Always news. Many messages. All scribed by my hand and fixed with the king’s seal. Are you not pleased?”
“Bernardo, bring my purse.”
Head lowered, he brought it, put it into Monsignor’s hand. He watched the blunt fingers extract one gold coin, then hesitate and take out another.
She said, “But it is absolution, not money, that I require, Your Honor; for I have taken what you said to heart. It is hard for me to understand the catechism, seeing as I am only small part Portuguese and the greater part savage. But I have learned my prayers, and I say them every night.”
The coins went back into the bag; the purse strings were tugged tight. Bernardo reached down, retrieved the bag, and took it away. At his back, he heard her say, “And I say the prayers with the king as well, but he talks of the movement of planets and of speaking with God. Still, you needn’t worry for Portugal’s sake, Your Honor, for I have him tell all to me, and no one else. I keep the king’s secrets.”
Monsignor sounded skeptical. “Um. And you wish nothing else?”
“Hear my confession,” she said.
In the shadows of the corner, Bernardo could not help but turn. The two were looking at each other, her scrutiny far too intimate. He would have left then, but Monsignor sat forward in his chair, put his elbow on the rest and his head into his hand. She said. “Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It has been six months since my last confession.”
Bernardo knew he should turn away. Amazement held him.
Monsignor’s quiet, “A long time, my child.”
A cold thrill ran Bernardo’s spine when she touched Monsignor’s arm. “But as I am informer for a great and noble cause, I cannot tell my sins to any other, even protected by the seal of the confessional. And, since my duty is to lie, and I cannot promise to end the lying, no one else could shrive me.”
Monsignor gave a surprised grunt. “Well considered. Go ahead, child.”
God's Fires Page 15