Pessoa shoved his hands into his pockets before Gomes could see them clench.
A curt “Well? Have you? Or say you angels still?”
“We will all know the truth before the Throne, will we not, Monsignor?”
“I don’t take your meaning.”
“Of course you do. You could not be so dense as to not. There is such unearthly marvel here, and such diverse opinions among the inquisitors themselves, that we cannot be certain of anything. In any case, I would prefer to err on the side of mercy. If we vote to execute these creatures, and they are indeed sent of God, I would think such a murder worthy of God’s full ire, and I would not join you in Hell.”
“Ah…” Emílio held up a hand. “I myself have never suggested the creatures’ punishment.”
Tadeo said, “Notary? Will you take that down, please? Emílio and I voted against their punishment.”
“I will cut that crooked lying Jesuit tongue from out you!” Monsignor said. “Do you forget your vow of obedience? Can you not answer a question straight? Yes or no, man! Yes or no! Think you these creatures angels?”
“It’s hard to know the nature of anything.”
Gomes slapped the arms of his chair. “You speak the nonsense of John Locke, sir! I ask you once more: do you believe the creatures divine? Answer, before I bring the executioners here and put your feet to the coals—or would you like that? Would you be a martyr for debate! Hah! I think you have not the stomach. Soon I’d hear you warble, as I did that cheeky wench with her Marian apparitions.”
Down to truth, then; and it would have to out, for truth was an unavoidable sort of thing. Pessoa said, “They do not look like angels such as I would imagine. I have never myself, personally, felt a divinity from them. And that is the end of my statement, and it must suffice or you yourself be damned. Put my feet to the coals and I will say the same. Never having seen such creatures before, I cannot—like you—make absolute claims as to their nature.”
Pessoa, expecting rage, was unprepared for the crafty smile. “But not certain of their holiness?”
O, dear God. Gomes was more clever than Pessoa had realized. He had fashioned a snare to trap men of conviction—and Pessoa was not one of those. “No,” Pessoa said, leaving the seven to their fates. “Not certain.”
A commotion at the door brought in a blustery draft and the smell of rain. The guards entered, shaking the wet from their cloaks. And then came Soares, frail and sodden and confused.
“It has been decided,” Monsignor said, “that the creatures are not angels at all, at least not holy angels. And so to declare them holy now would be a most grievous heresy.”
Soares paled. Pessoa started forward to steady him, but the old Franciscan backed to a chair and collapsed into it.
Then Tadeo was on his feet, and saying with false cheer, “Father! Let us have you sit closer to the fire. Good, good, that is it. Isn’t that better?” With an encouraging smile and a pat on the back, he exclaimed, “Look how wet you are! Give me that damp cloak before you catch your death. What an afternoon, is it not? And indeed, an entire season disturbed, summer too soon turned winter. Guard! Bring the father something dry to wrap himself in. And a coffee with brandy.”
Pessoa watched the guard march out with the wet cloak, and then looked to where Soares sat, trembling and bewildered. Pessoa’s eyes sought the refuge of the snapping hearth. Behind him came Monsignor’s abrasive voice. “Father Soares, I have called you here—”
“Mary and Joseph!” Emílio cried, standing up of a sudden. “Where is that dry cloak? Guard! Are you deaf! Guard!”
Like spark to tinder, Emílio started up heat and action. Servants bustled in. Guards came. A cloak was brought, and Soares wrapped up in it. A servant put a porcelain coffee cup into the Franciscan’s hand.
Porcelain, thin as eggshell. How much would that cup have cost? The green marble and gold clock atop the mantel? The silver coffee service? And then Monsignor was saying, “Father Soares? I ask you, do you still believe the creatures cherubs?”
They would take the house and its riches, but Pessoa would let the Holy Office have aught else. “Luis!” He caught Soares with his mouth open to reply. “I think you should know how the tribunal decided today.”
Monsignor snorted. “How is that germane? Let him answer and hold your tongue.”
Tadeo shouted, “No! Let Father Pessoa speak! Learn to hold your tongue yourself! Can you not? Can you not do that?”
Into the shocked quiet, Pessoa said, “The tribunal was unanimous in a relaxing to the state of two.”
Cup rattled against saucer. “Who?”
“Marta Castanheda, to be strangled. Amalia Teixeira, to be burnt.”
Soares blew out a breath. He held on to the saucer with both hands. The cup clattered and danced.
“However,” Pessoa went on, “it is Monsignor Gomes’s decision, over the advice of the rest of the tribunal, that all seven prisoners be relaxed.”
Coffee splashed down Soares’s brown robes. The saucer hit the carpet safe and intact, but the cup fell atop and shattered it. Soares lowered his head. “Domine Deus. Is there aught that I can do to make this right?”
“Yes, Luis,” Pessoa told him. “You may forswear in your belief that the creatures are holy, for everything is lost for those seven, but I would not lose you.”
“Now let him answer,” Gomes said. “Father Soares, do you believe the creatures cherubs?”
Soares’s fingers plucked at the chair arms.
Gomes’s voice rose. “Have you caught the stubborn Jesuit disease? Answer me! Do you believe the creatures cherubs?”
Damn the man. Damn them both. Pessoa was nearly split asunder by frustration. “Luis!” he shouted, and still the Franciscan would not raise his head. “Luis, I beg you to tell him. Tell him, please, for God will know your heart.”
Gomes pulled his bulk out of his chair. His tone was dangerously calm. “Father Soares, I am weary of your silence. I require an answer of you.”
“Please, Luis,” Pessoa said. “Please. When you peer into the cell where the creatures are … and I beg you to answer very carefully … when you peer into that cell, what do you see?”
Soares raised his head to the ceiling and squeezed his eyes shut. He whispered, “Nothing.”
An icy pandemonium of stars clattered down. Rain came in blustery washes, like water thrown from a basin. Rivers ran the camp. Tents collapsed.
Afonso sat in his tent beside his bed and imagined Jandira with him. “I’m scared,” he said.
He imagined that she laughed. Why should you be frightened, sweet ling, since you are not out in it? The way she laughed scared him, too, because it sounded like a different Jandira; and Afonso wondered if she had swallowed Portugal’s cabbage-and-codfish earth, and if that had made her bitter. He thought perhaps she was becoming something he did not want to know.
“God is dead, isn’t He?” Afonso asked.
God all the time was dead, she told him. And I did not see it.
Thunder sent volleys booming through the hills. He tucked his fur-lined cloak more tightly about and put his booted feet closer to the brazier. He watched the damp lanterns smoke.
He was dead in Brazil, the new Jandira said. He was dead when the white men orphaned me and the white fathers in their black robes captured me. He was dead when they brought me to Salvador de Sá. And then she said, Do not ring your bell any longer, sire, for I am free, and do not choose to come.
“I love you,” he said, and hoped that would stay her, for he knew that the jungles called and that she longed to go. He wished that she would let him ring the bell, for it had a pretty sound and made him not so afraid of the thunder and the stars falling and the rain. But he knew that it was he who had always liked the bell; and she had liked it not at all.
“Don’t leave me.” But the tent was empty. He ducked his nose into the fur. It smelled warm and clean, and he thought that he could smell vanilla there, too.
The captai
n came in from the rain and sat down beside him. He took off his gloves and warmed his hands at the brazier. “Bad night,” he said.
“How far is Brazil?” he asked. “How long a trip?”
“O, I imagine two, three months or so, sire.”
Would she find it? Afonso lifted his head. “Do you smell vanilla?”
The captain wiped rain from his beard. “Don’t worry yourself, sire. The storm should be off soon. It never blows like this for long.”
The side of the yellow-and-crimson tent bent. The rope supports twanged. The captain looked up dubiously at the tent’s ceiling.
“I smell vanilla,” Afonso said.
The captain slapped his gloves together. “Damn. Where is that priest?” Then: “Sire, I beg you. Please. I have not the skill for this.” He cried out to the standing guard, “Bring me that priest!”
Father de Melo came, shivering and dripping. Before he could shake all the water from his cloak, the captain shouted, “You leave the king in such a state? Look at the boy! Look at him! And you without a care, traitor that you are, since his brother assumes dominion.”
I love you betimes, Jandira whispered into Afonso’s ear. For you were passable kind and not like the others.
“Don’t leave me,” Afonso said.
The captain squeezed his arm. “No, sire. I promised your father as he lay dying, and I promise you. Naught but death can send me away.” To Father de Melo he said, “Shame upon you that you leave him thus. I’m a soldier, and rough-tempered, and no good with such things. Sit down, damn you, before I cut your legs off and make you sit.”
Father de Melo found a blanket, wrapped himself up in it, and brought a chair to the brazier. “I know not what to talk to him about, captain. I’ve fair given up my arguments. I was never very good at it, not like that Father Pessoa, but then he is Jesuit-trained and used to such. I talk and talk myself into a state, and the boy does not learn.”
You learn, Jandira told Afonso. You have learned how brittle life is. How delicate is God.
“He weeps for the slave, and I know not how to comfort him.”
Father de Melo shrugged. “As he is apostate, I know not how to comfort him, either.”
Soon after dinner, Monsignor called for him. Bernardo went, head lowered.
Such a friendless place Monsignor had made for himself. All about lay an ocean of dark, the solitary lamp an islet. It seemed to Bernardo that there were spirits there, but forlorn ones. The bed curtains were pulled to. Outside, branches lashed against the eaves. Hail clattered and rolled down the tile roof.
“Monsignor?”
The low howl might have been the wind.
Bernardo came closer. “Monsignor?”
The bed curtains twitched. Bernardo pulled them aside. Behind the velvet, Monsignor was plucking fitfully at the covers. His brow was pale and sweated. “The stone,” he said.
Bernardo brought the lamp and set it by. He trimmed the wick and put back the tide of dark. “Better, Monsignor?”
Monsignor clawed at his belly. He stared fixedly at the ceiling. “I ate all the lamb you gave me for supper. You filled my plate and filled it, and now I die.”
“I’ll make the tea.”
Before he could turn away, Monsignor trapped his hand. “Have the cook fix it. Do not leave me. Do you think this the stone come, Bernardo?”
Bernardo pulled away, went to the door, and called down to the guard to have the digestive tea prepared.
A weak summons: “Bernardo.”
He went to the bed and looked down. He saw pain, yes, but no uplifting transformation. He wondered if, agony continuing, transformation might come; or if some pains, like some souls, were stillborn.
“I feel such a cramping that it squeezes me, front to back. Do you think that this is the stone moving? O God, Bernardo. Do you think I die from it?”
“No.” Bernardo found a chair and brought it to the bedside. He sat and regarded Monsignor. “You have felt the front-to-back pain before. You know that. And you have experienced pain worse than this.”
“Yes. Yes, I have felt it before, have I not? Good, Bernardo. You are my perspective. There are no stones in the body. What are we, geese? Hah. I eat no stones, so where would they come from?”
A soft knock at the door. Cook came in with a tray and put it on the fruitwood table. Bernardo set Monsignor’s pillows so that he might sit up and drink.
“Nonsense, really.” He accepted the cup with both hands, blew on the top, and took a sip. “She was a lying witch, and deserving to be burnt. I’ll think no longer on it.”
Bernardo sat and watched him drink. Finally, through the noise of the tempest came a loud bleat of passing wind. Monsignor’s jaw relaxed. “Yes,” he said. “Just as I thought: easing now. Lauda Dei. Yes. Much better. Stones. What gibberish. Frightening tales for children. Quite right, Bernardo. I’ll think no longer on it.”
Bernardo poured him another cup of tea, and seeing that he was drowsy, started to the door.
Monsignor’s whisper stopped him. “Think you so ill of me that you turn away?”
“Did you wish me to remain?”
Rain cascaded from the roof. A sapling battered itself against the side of the house.
That solitary room, that needy voice. “Not unless you want for company.”
Bernardo put his hand to the knob.
“Bernardo?”
“Yes, Monsignor?”
“Will you not even look?”
Hand on the knob, Bernardo turned.
Monsignor was regarding him, sad-eyed. “Can you not understand that I am become a God-struck prophet, and not of my own choice? Jesu pie. I thought that you, out of all the world, would understand.”
Bernardo asked, “Will that be all, then, Monsignor?”
After a silence Monsignor said, “Yes,” and turned his face to the wall.
Tadeo’s pear brandy made Pessoa deaf to the lashing wind and impervious to the pelting rain. It caused him to lose his footing in the rectory yard. He slipped and fell into Soares’s young fig tree.
Behind him Tadeo and Emílio snickered and then shushed each other so loudly that they sounded like an entire flock of geese.
Pessoa thrashed about in the branches, wet leaves slapping him. Emílio, trying to help Pessoa, fell down as well.
“Shhh.” Pessoa tried to tap finger to lips, but the night was too dark, so he tapped his nose, and all too painfully.
Pessoa and Emílio tangled limbs with each other, with the fig. Branches broke. Then somehow Pessoa was free of impediments. He fought his way upright. “This way,” he hissed, and in the rain-driven darkness, ran into the rectory wall.
“This way, but without haste,” he told them. Together, they felt their way along the wall. Pessoa found the front latch. He opened the door and they stumbled their way inside.
Soares was seated at the table, sobbing.
“O Luis,” Pessoa said. Soares’s weeping took the heart out of the seculars’ merriment. It embarrassed Pessoa; it tore him in two with pity. How dare he cry? He who had never loved her, never kept private cameos of memory, never looked her full in the face.
Tadeo said, “Be of good cheer, father! We have a solution!” and he took the brandy bottle from out his cloak and set it on the table.
The rectory was for a while all wet cloaks being thrown off and cups being brought. Soares rose and quietly stoked the fire.
“Have some of my pear brandy, father.” Tadeo poured them all a generous cup. “Well, not that it is mine, exactly, but belongs to Senhor Castanheda, who would no doubt give me an entire cask as reward.”
The seculars toasted each other. Pessoa nudged Soares’s cup closer to his hand. “Pay no heed to Gomes’s decisions today, Luis. Marta and Senhora Teixeira are to be given to the state, of course, but the rest will be rescued.” The brandy awakened some manic imp in him. His chest shuddered with repressed laughter, his lips twitched, and he clapped hand over mouth to still them.
Emílio reached into his pockets and withdrew a piece of foolscap. The paper came out so wet and so tattered, and with a piece of fig leaf stuck to one edge, that he went to holding it up to everyone’s faces and shaking with breathless mirth.
Soares rose and fetched paper and quill. He set them on the table, and Tadeo took a seat there, dipping quill and scrawling. “ ‘To his Grace, Bishop Gastão Otávio Dias, greetings.’ ” He looked up, all a-squint. “What now?”
Emílio sat beside him, peering at the handiwork. “‘We write you in—’ ”
“No, no! Not that,” Pessoa said. “ ‘It is our sad duty to inform you.’ ”
“Sad duty!” Tadeo cried, gleeful. “Exactly so. Upon reading it, he will believe he is sent news of someone he cares for, and then upon seeing the rest of the message, he will leap with joy. Brilliant, father. Absolutely inspired.” Then he looked up, all of an anticipation. “And next?”
Emílio: “Um. ‘That Monsignor Gomes is become an asshole.’ ”
“Dear God! Will you not bend your mind to the task?” Tadeo complained. “I nearly put that down.”
From Pessoa: “ ‘That Monsignor Gomes has, ah … surrendered to a loss of reason.’ ”
“Ah! Good!” Tadeo dipped his quill again.
Emílio: “ ‘And we, as devout guardians of the Church and the Holy Office, find no choice but to’ … Um. What do we find no choice but to do?”
“ ‘Write you,’ ” Tadeo suggested. “ ‘Write you to warn of…’ ”
“ ‘A grave injustice,’ ” Soares said.
Cries from both seculars of “Excellent, father! And now?”
“ ‘We beg you to recall Monsignor Gomes without delay,’ ” Pessoa said, “ ‘for if you do not act immediately, Your Grace, many innocents will die.’ ”
Tadeo wiped his nose with his sleeve. Emílio considered the foolscap.
Into the sudden pensive quiet, Pessoa went on: “ ‘He acts against all law, Your Grace, and overrides the dictates of the tribunal. The auto is to be held this Monday, thus time is not sufficient to beg help of Rome. We petition you, in your authority, to stay Monsignor Gomes’s hand until we ourselves may win from the Holy Office a mercy for the unfairly condemned. We remain your servants, Tadeo Vargas, inquisitor, Emílio Cabral, inquisitor, and Manoel Pessoa, S.J., inquisitor.’ ”
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