by Shirl Henke
“You are wrong,” Benjamin said as calmly as he could, sensing the bitterness in the half-caste mercenary whose hold on him loosened involuntarily when the physician began to probe his wound. It was a long, ugly tear, doubtless from the jagged scrap metals used by the French artillery. Please, God, do not let him die ere Papa can be reunited with him, he prayed silently.
As he rummaged through his bag for clean linen, the physician continued, “Our father searched for you from the day you vanished from Española. We always believed you were sent to a far away Taino village. Your uncle Guacanagari sent emissaries across the island, even to Cuba and all the lesser outlying islands as well.”
Benjamin could see the cynical disbelief etched on his brother's face in spite of the ravaging pain Navaro endured so stoically. He probed the wound, extracting a small piece of iron.
“You called me Navaro. Is that my savage name? Tis not Castilian.”
“It is the Taino name given you by your mother—and Taino people are not savages. They possess more honor and dignity than most Castilian gentlemen I have met,” Benjamin replied, taking another jagged bit of metal from the open wound. “You withstand pain as if well used to such. How long have you been a soldier?”
“I was first blooded in my eleventh year,” he replied with an oath as Benjamin probed further. Dismissing the pain he continued, “You speak of these Indians as if you lived among them. Does my mother yet live?”
The physician's bright blue eyes locked on his face for a moment. “I am sorry. She died when you were but a few months old, in an uprising in Xaragua. That is a southwestern province of Española. Aliyah was wedded to a famous warchief and herself the sister of Guacanagari, the most honored of all caciques. You are descended from royalty,” Benjamin said, measuring Navaro's reaction.
That same cynically harsh smile slashed across his face once more, then changed to a grimace of pain. His vision grew fuzzy and he fought the loss of consciousness. “Taino,” he murmured, as if trying out the word on his tongue and finding it bitter.
“Your accent is Sevilliard. How came you to live there?” Benjamin asked, wanting to avoid further questions that would upset his brother. Obviously he had suffered much for his Indian blood.
“I was raised in Seville from my earliest memory, by a good family. Ysabel and Pedro de Las Casas had little in material goods, but they were kind to me, as was my foster brother, Bartolome. Twas not until I was older, a child playing in the streets, that I learned what my heathen blood meant. Only our unknown sire's blue eyes kept me from being sold into slavery, as were all the other primitives from the Indies.”
Benjamin wanted to laugh at the bitter quirk of fate that had returned his brother to the place from which their father had been banished. “Our father is from Seville.”
“Tis a large city. Little surprise that I never encountered any of your house. I resided in a poor neighborhood. You, Physician, look to be from more prosperous quarters.”
“We have no family left in Seville. My parents came to the Indies with the Colons. I was sent to Padua in the State of Venice to study medicine. Soon we will return home. Españöla is truly paradise, Navaro. Wait until you see it,” Benjamin said, recalling the lush Caribbean of his childhood.
“Do not be so certain I will choose to go with you. And my name is Rigo. Rodrigo de Las Casas, a captain in General Pescara's Imperial Army.”
As Benjamin pressed linens to the cleansed wound to staunch the bleeding, his patient finally lost consciousness. The physician swore as he saw red seeping through the compresses. He applied more pressure and briskly instructed the Argonese soldier to tear some of the excess linens in his satchel for bindings. When his helper proved slow and clumsy, Benjamin impatiently took over and quickly tore off several lengths with which to tightly bind the compress to the injury by wrapping it about Navaro's waist. Rigo, he corrected himself. Rigo de Las Casas, raised a Spanish Christian. What will be his reaction when he learns his grandparents were burned by the Inquisition as relapsed Judaizers? Benjamin thought grimly.
“What kind of surgeon are you?” the Argonese asked querulously. “You have not poulticed the wound with cow dung or feathers. Will you not have my men bring boiling oil to cauterize it?”
Benjamin sighed impatiently, “I have been trained by the finest physicians and surgeons anywhere—at the University of Padua. Placing filthy poultices on open wounds only causes putrefaction, which does not promote healing. As to cauterizing by using boiling oil, it kills more men than it saves. He is my brother; I will not let him die.”
“I am most relieved to hear that, as I prize my captain highly,” a cultured voice with a Neapolitan accent interrupted smoothly. “Fernando Francisco de Avalos, Marques de Pescara, at your service, Physician.”
Benjamin turned to inspect a small, well-built man dressed in battle armor. Behind him an aide held his headpiece and gauntlets. Pescara's keen black eyes, set in a harsh, angular face, studied him intently, then moved to his unconscious officer.
“Your captain is gravely injured. Have you no better place for him than this filthy sty?” Benjamin asked.
“After a month of fruitless siege in which the French are far better supplied than the Imperial Army, we count ourselves fortunate to find any shelter from heaven's inclemency,” Pescara replied bitterly. “Rigo and I have both slept in the open since this folly was begun by our illustrious Count of Provence, the Due de Bourbon.”
“Then you will lift the siege?” Benjamin asked hopefully. If he could but get Rigo into Marseilles, to their uncle's home, his chances of survival would be far greater.
Pescara shrugged. “I am done with feckless carnage. There is no profit in it. Whether Bourbon will agree, we shall see. In any case, there is no safe town where we can take him within a day's journey.” The marques looked at the younger man with a shrewdly assessing gaze. “What means this amazing resemblance between you and Rigo?”
“He is my brother,” Benjamin replied simply, debating how much it would be safe to reveal to this Spanish-Italian nobleman.
“Aye. That is plain enough. Yet I warrant you did not have the same mother. Rigo was born in the New World of a cast-off heathen mistress. You have the look of pure blood about you.”
Benjamin fought the urge to laugh at the grim irony. Purity of blood—in a Spanish Jew! “My father's family is from Seville, but he and my mother live on Española. I and my younger brothers and sisters were born in the New World. I would return your captain to his birthright. But first I must save his life. How much do you value him?”
“We have campaigned the length and breadth of Italy together. I hold him as dear as a brother.” The marques' eyes did not waver.
Benjamin decided on a desperate gamble. “What if I were to tell you I have friends within the city walls who would welcome me and my brother?” He held his breath beneath the scrutiny of those unnerving black eyes.
Suddenly Pescara gave a sharp bark of laughter. “So, you were shipwrecked with the wrong army! Yet you speak Castilian like a Sevilliard.” He shot a quick glance at the Argonese and said, “Wait outside and repeat nothing of what you have just heard or it is worth your life, Alonso.”
The soldier bowed smartly and did as he was ordered. Pescara waited a moment and studied Benjamin, then said softly. “Jews. You are Jews, are you not?”
“Marranos is the epithet of preference, according to my father. I plan never to set foot in the country of his birth.”
Pescara nodded. “Having no other way to save his life, I will trust my eyes and let you take your brother to Marseilles. Tend him well, Physician. What is your name? In case I am ever fallen ill while journeying through Provence again,” he added with wry humor.
“Torres. Benjamin Torres, from his Imperial Majesty's colony of Española,`' Benjamin replied.
The general bowed smartly. “Tell Rigo I wish him well in his new life. But if he tires of it, he can rejoin me in driving Frenchmen from Italy.” He quickly ordere
d quill and ink, then wrote a pass for Benjamin and Rigo. After handing it to the physician, he quit the hovel and issued orders for escorts to carry Captain de Las Casas and obey his physician.
Benjamin carefully instructed the litter bearers who carried Navaro from the Imperial encampment. As they walked slowly past the filthy, ragged besiegers he studied their faces, grizzled German mercenaries, young Argonese drummer boys, haughty Castilian noblemen. All listened with rapt attention as Pescara's voice carried across the warm autumn air.
“My children, the Marseillaise have spread a fine feast for their visitors these past weeks. If you are aching to sup in paradise tonight go forward with Bourbon. If, like me, you have no such craving, follow me back to the plains of Lombardy, for it is ripe for plucking!” The murmurs of approval drowned out any lingering dissent from Bourbon's Provencals.
* * * *
Isaac Torres felt every one of his seventy-nine years as he stood over the unconscious man, studying his features with a mixture of dismay and amazement. “Tis like a mirror image caught in a dimly lit room.”
“There can be no doubt he is my brother,” Benjamin said softly. “When he regains consciousness you will mark the Torres eyes.”
“If he regains consciousness. He burns with fever. Perhaps twould be as well if he did not recover.” At his great-nephew's look of horror, the old man placed a gnarled hand on his shoulder gently and said, “I know he is Aaron's son, but you yourself have said it. He was raised by Spanish Christians, a lower-class family, doubtlessly superstitious, illiterate—”
“He was well spoken and I found books in his pack. He is not uneducated or ignorant,” Benjamin said heatedly.
“Given his upbringing, I have no doubt he has a fervent hatred for all Jews,” Isaac countered.
“He is of Jewish blood himself. Once he learns of it, how can he hate it?” Benjamin argued reasonably.
Isaac shook his head. The thick, iron-gray hair of middle age had now given way to snowy, thinning locks, but his wizened face was still strong, bluntly chiseled and shrewd. His keen blue eyes, the only feature that he shared with his handsome brother's children, fastened compassionately on Benjamin. “You are so like your grandfather of blessed memory, for whom you are named. He was always inclined to optimism. I, on the other hand, having been a politician for too long, am a realist. Navaro might well not greet the news of his Jewish heritage with any measure of joy. He is a mercenary, a hired assassin, one of the rabble who have laid waste to all of Provence. Like locusts they again invade Italy.”
“Our father was a soldier in the Moorish wars. He, too, fought for the Spanish monarchy.”
“And look at his reward! His parents, brother and sister burned at the stake by the Holy Office, the rest of the family fortunate to escape Castile and take uncertain refuge here in Marseilles. This man was raised by the sword—the Christian sword. Best beware, Benjamin, that he does not turn it on you.”
“I know he is bitter. He thinks Papa deserted him, but I can convince him of the truth—how Papa searched for him, never abandoned hope. You know what finding him will mean to my father, Uncle Isaac? It would break his heart if Navaro died when we finally have found each other.”
Isaac threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “All I can do is caution you. We shall just have to—”
A sharp rapping on the door to the large bedchamber interrupted him. Isaac had the servant enter. Bowing before the master, he said, “His honor, Judah Toulon, and the Lady Miriam are below.”
Benjamin's eyes lit a brilliant blue. “Miriam! It has been months since last we met. Weeks since I received a letter.”
Isaac chuckled. “At first light this morning I sent them word of your safe arrival. I knew how worried Judah and your beloved have been since the shipwreck. Tis a miracle you were not drowned. Go, reassure your betrothed that you are safe.”
Benjamin turned a worried eye on Navaro once more. “Perhaps I will ask her opinion about treating his wound and fever. She has read some old Arabic and Hebrew commentaries that are in disagreement with Galen about how to proceed.” He addressed the servant, saying, “Watch over my brother, Paul. Call me if he becomes restive. I will return shortly.”
“You cannot go much longer without sleep or you will tend no one. Go and assure Miriam that you are indeed safe and well, then get some rest. I will have your betrothed prescribe for him in your stead. She, too, is a magister” Isaac said as they walked across the thick Turkish carpet to the open door.
Benjamin's haggard face was alight with mirth. “And I know how much stock you set by 'doctoresses,'” he replied with mock gravity.
“I will never understand why a sensible man like Judah Toulon allowed his daughter to journey to Padua to study medicine,” Isaac said, shaking his head.
“Perhaps because she is his only child and he, like me, dotes on her to distraction,” Benjamin said glibly, as he began to descend the wide stone stairs, several paces ahead of his elderly great-uncle.
Isaac only chuckled at the impetuosity of youth and followed sedately.
Miriam's wide gray eyes took in the unshaven, gaunt face of her beloved as she rushed into his embrace. Her father stood back, looking past the young couple toward Isaac.
“Oh, Benjamin, we feared you drowned when word came the ship was lost in the storm! How ever did you get through the Imperial lines?” Miriam asked, making a swift inventory of his appearance. Although obviously exhausted and disheveled by the harsh elements, he seemed otherwise unharmed.
“Tis a long tale, quite amazing really, for we had safe conduct through their forces from General Pescara himself,” Benjamin said. “The army is on its way back to northern Italy. The siege is lifted.”
“Praise be to God,” Judah intoned.
Isaac proceeded across the shiny pink marble floor of the vast entry hall and greeted Judah Toulon formally. Longtime business competitors, they found themselves now joining in cooperative ventures more frequently as their families were soon to be joined through the marriage of Benjamin and Miriam. “Come, Judah. Let us leave these young people to discuss how they have survived their months apart. Only yesterday, I received word that one of your ships from the Sublime Porte had arrived safely in the harbor.”
“How do you always seem to learn things so quickly? Yes, yes,” Judah said, ignoring his own rhetorical question as the two men strolled toward a large open room where a servant awaited them with fruit and wine. ”I have bolts of the most exquisite cloth of gold tissue, even rare spices—sweet saffron and savory pepper...”
As the voices of the two old men faded, Miriam reached up and touched Benjamin's face with her long, slim fingertips. “Oh, Benjamin, I was truly frightened.”
“You have never been frightened of anything in your life,” Benjamin remonstrated as he took her in his arms and gave her a most thorough kiss.
After a moment, she gently but firmly freed herself. “You are exhausted and in need of rest.”
“And this is too public a place. Come,” he cajoled, pulling her by the hand.
Together they walked toward the library, which was their own special place to talk in private. Once inside Benjamin poured two goblets of watered wine and handed her one. “I have something I must tell you,” he said, both grave and exultant at the same time.
Miriam's wide mobile mouth curved up as she sipped delicately and replied, “Why is it I knew you and Uncle Isaac were holding something back from Father?”
“I have found my brother Navaro!”
Her eyes rounded in amazement. “The...the half-caste boy that vanished in the Indies before you were born? Here?”
“He was with the Imperial army.” Benjamin quickly related the details of his shipwreck and subsequent treatment of Pescara's captain, ending with their arrival at the Torres city house the previous evening.
“Twas a wonder the night watch did not kill you,” Miriam said tightly, horrified at Benjamin's near brush with death.
“I used my b
est Provencal, believe me, but twas the retreating lines of the whole Imperial army that swayed them to open the gates.” His face, too, turned sober as he added, “His wound is grave, Miriam. I fear he may not survive.”
“How can you be so certain this Rodrigo de Las Casas, a Spaniard, is your brother?” she asked skeptically.
“Come,” he said, setting down his goblet and taking her hand. “I will show you.”
When they entered the sick room at the end of the long hallway on the second floor, Benjamin dismissed Paul and then took a heavy silver candelabra from the table by the door. He crossed the room to where Rigo lay in a drugged sleep and drew back the bed hangings.
Miriam's gasp echoed in the still, cold silence as she stared at Rigo's face, then at Benjamin's.
“Now you can see why I do not doubt,” he said softly. “Even the eyes, Miriam, are Torres eyes, so very blue in that swarthy face.”
Just then the subject of their perusal moaned in his sleep. Miriam reached out and touched his brow with professional detachment, then moved her fingertips deftly to feel the pulse in his neck. “He is burning with fever. You have given him something to make him rest calmly.”
“Tincture of poppy juice—more than I prefer to use, but the wound is still open and I fear to have him start bleeding afresh with thrashing. I need your help Miriam,” he said earnestly. “That woman who was gored by the wild boar during a hunt last year.”
“The Comtesse De Blois? I was summoned to her villa miles outside the city. Twas a wonder she survived; it took them so long to fetch me.”
“You told me you sewed the slash, much as one might mend a ripped tunic—I believe those were your exact words?”
“Yes, but that was my patient, a woman who was injured in a hunting accident. I know nothing of battlefield injuries except what I have read from Hippocrates and the Arabs. The usual method of cauterizing in extreme wounds is to seal off bleeding with boiling oil.”
“Which kills more men than it saves,” he said forcefully.