God's Fires

by Patricia Anthony

  “It is time,” he said. “We must go.”

  He sat down and waited for her to come to him, but although he waited a long time, she would not rise; and so when the captain called his name, and then called his name again, Afonso at last got to his feet and waved Jandira good-bye.

  As Pessoa and Soares walked to the jail the seculars stopped them. Pessoa told Soares, who was fretting about the time, to go on.

  Emílio leaned forward to whisper, “I have had word from the captain of the king’s guard.”

  Pessoa’s heart leapt, and lodged itself, pounding, in his throat. Dear God. Done. The message from Bishop Dias had arrived, and everyone was saved. I believe. Dizzy, Pessoa flung his hand out, grabbed the iron railing of Castanheda’s steps. Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem. He took a ragged breath, feeling such a gratitude that tears sprang to his eyes.

  But the looks on their faces. Why the distress that he saw? Emílio had said, had he not, that he had heard from the captain? What else but the message?

  Tadeo put an arm about Pessoa’s shoulder, and what pity was this? What pity when the message was come? He shrugged Tadeo off, for Pessoa was the giver of comfort, not the taker. Solace was his place, and he would accept sympathy from no one. Besides, this was a private matter: the message a promise between himself and God. Pessoa would make good on it. I believe, for He has seen fit to save them. God over Heaven and earth, mover of mountains. Factorem caeli et terrae, visibilium omnium, et invisibilium. Ruler of the visible and the not.

  “He has sent another after. Just a note,” Emílio said, “writ by him and in his own hand and sent to the regent begging that he stop this thing.”

  Tadeo said with frightening compassion, “Father? Are you all right?”

  Pessoa looked from Tadeo to Emílio, and Emílio was speaking, the words not important now, because Pessoa knew that hope was lost, that the messenger never made it back.

  “…likes him not, Gomes. He laughed to near bring the walls down when I told him that Gomes now fears to eat. Terrified of any food, that glutton! Can you believe? At any rate, the captain said he sent the second message last night when the storm blew off. Sent his best and bravest man, and on his stoutest horse.” He gave a sympathetic twist of his mouth. “Yet he could not beg of the bishop, as he does not know him. But he knows that Afonso’s brother is kindly, and owes much to the captain, and so I think…”

  Light dazzled on the damp tile roofs. Pessoa looked away. He gathered his alb so that it would not flutter, so that its lace hem would not catch the mud.

  “Father?” Tadeo called after.

  Pessoa walked and did not stop until he reached the jail. There, Cândido asked him a question, one which Pessoa did not hear, and so begged him to repeat it.

  “The thing’s gone wrong,” Cândido said. “Sending Guilherme up, and that poor Maria Elena and those imps with him. So, I’m asking to be released from your service, father, and no debt incurred. Don’t know where you’d get the money to pay me at any rate, as you’re left wretched as a two-legged dog.”

  “Yes,” Pessoa whispered. Ten stones were set into the arch above the old inn’s door. Ten stones, like ten sanbenitos needed. Ten, an Apocalyptic number. And just beyond, one of Gomes’s guards was holding a Trinity of pikestaffs. Twelve stones above…

  “Father? You hear me?”

  the fireplace. Twelve stones, a gathering of Apostles.

  “Father?”

  He reached out, patted Cândido’s arm. “Do not worry yourself. Everything will be right.” He walked inside, past the guards, and down the stair. In the men’s cell was an agitation. Three guards and Soares were gathered around the dead creature, and the prisoners already with their sanbenitos, Guilherme Castanheda looking absurd in the knee-length shift as he was meant to, for who cared when fools burned? Rodrigo was solemnly holding his father’s hand. And beside him stood the guards and Soares and the two straw effigies, only one of them dressed. The creatures looked foolish in their sanbenitos, too, and the dead one all sunken in.

  “I touched him,” Soares said. “I merely touched him. And the flesh liquefied.”

  A guard was trying to fit an arm into the shift, but the arm was warm wax.

  “I merely touched him,” Soares said.

  Pessoa straightened. He ordered a guard, “Go bring Cândido Torres to me straightaway. He was just outside. Tell him I have a need.”

  He waited, not daring to turn around. He could not bear to see her dressed to wed fantasy, her hands not gripping flowers, but an unlit torch—become a bride of ridicule.

  When Cândido came down the stair, Pessoa stared at the wall and said, “Take the boy Rodrigo to the rectory. Do not leave him. Do not put him in another’s care. I will come for him directly.”

  Rodrigo started to weep. “I want to stay with pen.”

  Cândido picked the boy up and left. Pessoa went to Guilherme and very quietly said, “I take as my penance the raising of your son. I will leave the Church and the kingdom. And also as penance, Guilherme, I will do as you begged me once. I will take your money.”

  Castanheda took a deep breath. He raised his head to the ceiling. Easier to leave his side now, having said what he must, yet a novena of bars across the window caught Pessoa’s attention. Nine. The ninth Station, in which Jesus falls for the third and final time.

  An inquisitorial guard called down for the prisoners, and the one below called up, saying that the dead creature was become a puddle, and then it was all too late, all gone too far now, for the guard atop was saying, “Monsignor’s ready for the Mass and will not be delayed! Bring him, anyway.” The man below flapping his arms and saying lamely, “But all that would hold him is a bucket.”

  Soares took Pessoa’s arm. “Manoel?”

  Too much sympathy in the touch, so Pessoa pulled away; and there she was in the other cell, standing in her sanbenito. Was that the way he would remember her? And yet she did not look the fool, but seemed small and lost instead—meeting no one’s eye. Berenice, drunk with her man of light. Pessoa, a man of dark nature, dressed in dark wool. How could he have imagined that she needed him?

  He clutched his missal as he watched a guard open both cells wide. Soares took up a staff-length cross and said that he was ready.

  Exiting in the order of their deaths: Senhora Teixeira, holding her unlit torch loose-handed, helping Maria Elena up the stair. Then Marta, who stood, but could scarce walk in her burnt and wounded feet, even with the guard come to her aid. Behind Marta came Guilherme Castanheda, as stuporous as the demented little Maria Elena. And as they went, the walls of the prison closed in. Soon Berenice would leave, and it would be best if she walked where he could not see her. Yet on the steps he looked back once, not Lot’s wife punished, but gifted instead, seeing Soares gently guiding angels.

  Upstairs, Maria Elena’s grip failed, and she dropped her torch. Pessoa got to her before the guard’s anger did.

  “Hold it tightly, Maria,” Pessoa told her. “Holding on to something will give you a comfort.”

  It seemed that she had not heard him, or at least that she had not understood; and yet she took the cold torch when it was handed her. Her bruises were healing. Six bruises. The sixth Station, Jesus meets with Veronica, and the “O Lord, imprint Your image on my heart, so that I may be faithful.”

  Berenice walking behind him, and he wanted to turn, yet he could not. Besides, it was not needed, for she had the bright fantasy to hold. But he… how could he see marigolds? How could he smell lavender? Never had he been unfaithful to her except with the Church. And why? He did not love it.

  It was a strange silent procession, with no chants, no banners, the condemned’s stocking feet on the cobbles. He walked shoulder to shoulder with Maria, Senhora Teixeira suspicious and peering back. “Agnus Dei,” Pessoa prayed. Maria, tractable as a lamb, responded. “Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.”

  From behind him came Marta’s voice, squeezed and breathless with pain. “Miser
ere nobis.”

  They went out of the prison and into the sunlight, where mercy was not. Townsfolk peered from behind lace curtains. He walked, hearing Malta limp and stumble and whimper behind him. He clutched his missal tight, for holding was a comfort; and soon they arrived at the praça, which should have been full of villagers and yet was empty. Empty, but for Tadeo and Emílio and a handful of inquisitorial guards. There sat the benches for the accused and the podium for the Mass. Atop it stood Gomes in his surplice and chasuble, the purple stole fluttering. De Melo was straightening the pall atop the chalice. Across the way, the young king was sitting, his captain standing beside him; and ringed all around, brilliant in their crimson, were ranks of king’s soldiers, nothing in their faces but duty, pikestaffs in their hands.

  Maria Elena, who might have remembered Spaniards, halted in her tracks. An inquisitorial guard barked an order, but Senhora Teixeira whirled about and seized her daughter’s hand.

  “Not allowed,” the guard said. “You go to the Mass and then to the pyre by yourselves. Holding hands is not allowed.” He tried to separate the two women, but Senhora Teixeira pushed him back.

  “So burn me,” she cackled.

  Pessoa said to the guard, “The girl is frightened, can’t you see? And insane. She could cause a furor. Let her mother help.”

  The guard shrugged. All about, sun glinted off breastplates. There were too many soldiers to count. Pessoa looked up, saw the cloud white of Gomes’s surplice, the virginal white of de Melo’s alb: two ghost-pale priests. Two. And at the second Station, Jesus took up his cross.

  Somehow Senhora Teixeira was already seated and Maria Elena was genuflecting, passivity returned to her face. Soares whispered in his ear, “Up to the podium, for we will be altar servers, or so I’ve been told. Come, Manoel. Stand and look prayerful, and I will handle things.”

  The miracle of one foot and then the other, the ascension, Gomes turning to them, still wearing yesterday’s grief. Then it was time, and Gomes was kneeling and kissing the altar, then rising up and turning, his hand already uplifted. “In nomine Patri, et Filii…”

  The benches of the condemned were quiet. Motionless soldiers stood at the borders of the plaza. Time was waiting, its breath pent. The two creatures had dropped their torches, but no one seemed to care.

  “…Spiritu Sancti.”

  Pessoa saw the king say something to his captain, saw the captain bend down.

  All about them, soldiers said, “Amen.”

  No one told me they would burn angels,” Afonso said.

  The captain told him, “You must try to be quiet, sire.”

  It had not been much of a procession. Afonso had seen many which were better. And not many people were come to Mass. The fat priest was saying something.

  “God will not like it,” Afonso told his captain.

  The captain looked straight ahead, and together with the others in the praça he said, “Et con tuum.”

  Afonso was used to taking the Corpus Christi alone and hearing Father de Melo’s homilies. He did not know Mass well. Still, he stood when the others stood, he sat when the captain whispered for him to sit—which was a rare thing, for sitting was not much a part of it. Besides, only Afonso and the people in black had chairs. Afonso knelt as well, and much too often. No one had thought to bring his prayer cushion, and the floor was hard.

  He heard the fat priest say “Kyrie,” and Afonso knew to repeat it, too, as Father de Melo had taught him. The Kyrie, the Christie eleison, then again a Kyrie, and still they were not done. The Gloria, and sit, stand, kneel, sit.

  Afonso was tired. He was bored, too, and wanted to hold himself, but knew he couldn’t. He tugged on the captain’s tunic. “Does the fat priest know that God will not like us burning His angels?”

  The captain tapped his lips for silence.

  On the altar, the priests were busy with plates and cups and towels and the fat priest was washing his hands. Everyone knelt again. Afonso watched the fat priest play with the Host, lifting it up, bringing it down.

  He whispered to the captain, who was kneeling beside him. “Will it be over soon?”

  “Shhh, sire.”

  The fat priest took bread and wine for himself, and Afonso wondered if he would take all the bread, the way he had taken Afonso’s chocolates. The other priests took the Corpus Christi, one after the other, and Afonso had to kneel through that, too.

  Two men who were guarding the people in black finally got up from their knees, and Afonso started to stand as well. The captain pulled him down.

  “But they’re standing.” Did the captain not see how wrong it was for two commoners to stand while the king knelt?

  “Shhh,” the captain said.

  “My knees hurt,” Afonso said. “And it is not right.”

  The captain smiled. “Watch, sire.”

  Why? There was nothing to see, except that now there were three men who had gotten up and gone to the rail to take the Corpus Christi. A fourth stood, peered about, and then knelt back in his place.

  Would the whole world but priests forfeit the use of ass and feet? Afonso did not make courtiers or even commoners kneel so long.

  The fat priest gave the three at the rail the Corpus Christi. Then he waited some more.

  “He will never let us up,” Afonso said.

  The captain seized his arm. “O, but look at your men, my liege. Is that not fine?”

  Why fine? And what was there to see? The soldiers were simply kneeling. Everyone but the priests was kneeling, for the three who had taken the Corpus Christi had gone back to their places and, to Afonso’s dismay, had knelt again.

  It was indeed a low Mass, with everyone on their knees, with the fat priest not doing much of anything. But then Mass started up, the fat priest speaking, and only a little while later Afonso heard the Dominus vobiscum.

  He remembered his “Et con tuum.” His knees hurt. The day had been long, and Afonso was ready for cakes and coffee. He turned to the captain and said, “I would like to go now.”

  The captain looked hard into his eyes, so hard that Afonso became troubled by it. “Yes, sire,” he said. “Now we go to the pyres.”

  Gomes walked in front, head bent, requiem-purple stole fluttering. Behind him came the executioners, even more frightening today—three big men, faceless in their masks. As he walked, Pessoa took hold of Maria Elena’s hand. She smiled as if somewhere, either beyond or inside him, she had seen something beautiful.

  “Maria Elena?” He inclined his head to her, and in that one act, Pessoa banished all else. There were no soldiers, no executioners, no approaching pyres, just himself and the girl, her need and the sunlight.

  “Yes, father?”

  He squeezed her fingers. “Would you care to repudiate your sin and beg God’s forgiveness? Would you like to do that now?”

  “I have a sin, father.”

  He leaned closer, so close that her hair tickled his cheek. She smelled of the sanbenito’s paint, and of the straw she had lain in. “Yes?”

  “I do not know what it is, father. But still, it caused me to lose my baby, and I am very sorry for it all the same.”

  He made the sign of the cross over her. “I want you to say a good Act of Contrition now, Maria Elena. And in a little while, when you are asked if you abjure, I want you to say that you have, and have begged pardon, and have asked me to intercede in your behalf. Do you understand?”

  Behind him, Marta began to sob. He turned to see that she had stopped. The entire procession had stopped there in the narrow street where the women had swept their porches and the litter gatherer had collected garbage for his pigs. Above them was a lace-bordered window and pink geraniums, with a single pallid face looking down.

  Little red footsteps trailed a path down the cobbles. Marta was weeping. “I can’t.”

  An inquisitorial guard pushed Guilherme Castanheda back. “Don’t touch her!”

  Another guard came, appraised Guilherme’s size, and clapped his ha
nd to his sword.

  “Walk! Walk!” the first guard ordered.

  Marta said, her voice small, “I can’t.”

  “We will walk slower,” the second guard told her. “Sit down for a while if you must.”

  She could not manage that, either, and so the guard helped her down to the cobbles. He turned to Guilherme. “No one cares to see her cry, but there are rules, sir. And she must do it alone. We will walk if it takes all day; and if she must sit down every few meters, we will do that.”

  Two guards stood by the two condemned. Four altogether. The fourth Station, in which Jesus meets his mother. Grant me a tender love.

  Suddenly Tadeo was there, shoving both guards back. Emílio plucked the torches from out Marta and Guilherme’s hands. “God! Where are your hearts! Can you not let her father carry her!”

  Marta was a small girl, no challenge to lift. Pessoa himself could have done it. Beyond the father with the daughter snug in his arms stood the two creatures, Soares holding their torches. Next stood Berenice—too hurtful to look at.

  The procession started up again. Pessoa walked quickly to catch Senhora Teixeira.

  “Maria Elena abjures,” he said.

  She grunted. “Good. For I would have asked her to if you hadn’t, and so she would have done.”

  They rounded the corner. Ahead were the pyres, a stark and pitch-laden black against the azure sky. He could leave now. Nothing held him. He could walk away today, for tomorrow he surely would. It was best not to see this. Then he could live in England happy, imagining that the message had come.

  The crooked smile on Senhora Teixeira’s face surprised him. “We have had our disputes,” he said.

  She laughed.

  He said low enough so that neither executioners nor de Melo could hear, “But I beg you now, whatever hatred you harbor for God or for me, say that you abjure your sin, and sincerely repent, for otherwise you will be burnt to death in your daughter’s sight.”

  She said, “Hatred for you, Father Manoel Inquisitor? Not anymore, and no hatred special, except for your manhood. All I regret is having to die first, without watching you lose that prized dignity when you send your own bitch to the fire. Or will you even then?”