Then she beat with her hands on the stone walls, and she wept until she was exhausted and slumped down in her misery, her dark hair falling about her face so that she, la hermosa hembra, had the appearance of a beggar rather than of the onetime pampered daughter of the town’s richest man.
As she crouched there a man who was passing took pity on her.
‘Rise, my child,’ he said. ‘Whatever your sorrow, you cannot wash it away with tears.’
‘I deserve death,’ she answered, and she lifted her beautiful eyes to his face.
‘What crime have you committed?’
‘The greatest. That of betrayal. I have betrayed the one whom I loved best in the world, who has shown me nothing but kindness. He is in there and I do not know what is happening to him, yet some sense tells me that he is suffering greatly. I brought this suffering to him – I who have received nothing but good at his hands. That is why I weep and pray for death.’
‘My child, you should go home and pray for the man you have betrayed, and pray for yourself. Only in prayer can you find consolation.’
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘I am Reginaldo Rubino, Bishop of Tiberiades. I know who your father is. He is Diego de Susan, who has been guilty of plotting against the Holy Office. Go home and pray, my child, for he will need your prayers.’
A great despair came to her then.
She knew this man spoke the truth. She knew that a tragedy had come to Seville which made her own problems but trifles in comparison.
In awe she returned to the house; and although she believed that she had reached the very depth of despair, she was silent and no longer wept.
* * *
The day had come.
It was to be as a feast day . . . a grim holiday when all the people must go into the streets to see the show.
The bells were tolling. This was the occasion of the first auto de fe in Seville.
La Susanna had not slept for several nights. She had awaited this day with a terror which numbed her. Yet she would be there; she would witness the results of her treachery.
She listened to the bells, and she wrapped her shawl tightly about her, for she did not wish to be recognised. All Seville knew who would be the chief victims in today’s grizzly spectacle; and they would know who was the wicked one who had made this possible – the girl who had betrayed her own father.
But I did not know, she wanted to cry out. I did not understand. Did any of you understand what the coming of the Inquisition would mean to Seville? Once we were free. Our doors were left open and we did not dread a knocking on them. We had no fear that suddenly the alguazils would be among us . . . pointing at our loved ones. You . . . you and you . . . You are the prisoners of the Inquisition. You will come with us. And who could realise that that would be the last one saw of the dear familiar face.
For when one saw it again, the face would appear to be different. It would be unfamiliar. It would not be the face of one who had lived at peace for years among his family. It would be that of a man who had been torn from the family life he had once known, by a terrible experience of physical and mental pain and the brutal knowledge of the inhumanity of men towards their fellows. No, it would not be the same.
‘I cannot look. I dare not look,’ she murmured. But she must look.
There was the Dominican monk leading the procession; he looked sinister in his coarse robes. He carried the green cross high, and about it had been draped the black crape. This meant that the Holy Church was in mourning because it had discovered in its midst those who did not love it.
La Susanna looked up at the sky and asked herself: ‘Perhaps it is all Heaven that is in mourning because men can act with such cruelty towards other men?’
Here they were – the dreary monks, the familiars of the Holy Office; and then the halberdiers guarding the prisoners.
‘I cannot look, I cannot look,’ murmured La Susanna yet she continued to look; and she saw him – her beloved father, barefoot and wearing the hideous yellow sanbenito, and she saw that on it was painted the head and shoulders of a man being consumed by flames; there were devils with pitchforks, and the flames were pointing upwards.
With him were his fellow conspirators, all men whom she had known throughout her childhood. She had heard them laugh and chat with her father; they had sat at table with the family. But now they were strangers. Outwardly they had changed. The marks of torture were on them; their faces had lost their healthy colour; they were yellow – although a different shade from that of the garments they wore; and in their eyes was that look of men who had suffered horror, before this undreamed of.
The prisoners passed on, and following them were the Inquisitors themselves with a party of Dominicans, at the head of which was the Prior of St Paul’s, Alonso de Ojeda . . . triumphant.
* * *
Ojeda looked down on the prisoners as he preached his sermon in the Cathedral.
His expression was one of extreme fanaticism. His voice was high-pitched with mingled fury and triumph. He pointed to the prisoners in their yellow garments. These were the sinners who had defiled Holy Church. These were the men who would undoubtedly burn for ever in Hell fire.
All must understand – all in this wicked city of Seville – that the apathy of the past was over.
Ojeda, the avenger, was among them.
* * *
From the Cathedral the procession went to the meadows of Tablada.
La Susanna followed.
She felt sick and faint, yet within her there burned a hope which she would not abandon. This could not be true. This could not happen to her father. He was a rich man who had always been able to buy what he wanted; he was a man of great influence in Seville. He had so few enemies; he had been the friend of the people and he had brought prosperity to their town.
Something will happen to save him, she told herself.
But they had reached the meadows; and there were the stakes; and there were the faggots.
‘Father!’ she cried shrilly. ‘Oh, my father, what have they done to you?’
He could not have heard her cry; yet it seemed to her that his eyes were on her. It seemed that for a few seconds they looked at each other. She could scarcely recognise him – he who had been so full of dignity, he who had been a little vain about his linen – in that hideous yellow garment.
‘What have they done to you, my father?’ she whispered. And she fancied there was compassion in his eyes; and that he forgave her.
The fires were lighted. She could not look. But how could she turn away?
She heard the cries of agony. She saw the flames run up the hideous yellow; she saw her father’s face through the smoke.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘No!’
Then she slid to the ground, and knelt praying there, praying for a miracle while the smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils.
‘Oh God,’ she whispered, ‘take me . . . Let me not rise from my knees. Strike me dead, out of your mercy.’
She felt a hand on her shoulder and a pair of kindly eyes were looking into hers.
It was the Bishop of Tiberiades who had spoken to her outside the Convent of St Paul.
‘So . . .’ he said, ‘it is La Susanna. You should not have come here, my child.’
‘He is dying . . . cruelly dying,’ she moaned.
‘Hush! You must not question the sentence of the Holy Office.’
‘He was so good to me.’
‘What will you do now?’
‘I shall not go back to his house.’
‘All his goods will be confiscated by the Inquisition, my child; so you would not be able to stay there long if you went.’
‘I care not what becomes of me. I pray for death.’
‘Come with me.’
She obeyed him and walked beside him through the streets of the city. She did not notice the strained faces of the people. She did not hear their frightened whispers. She was unaware that they were asking themselves whether t
his terrible scene, which they had witnessed this day, could become a common one in Seville.
There was nothing for La Susanna but her own misery.
They had reached the door of a building which she knew to be one of the city’s convents.
The Bishop knocked and they were admitted.
‘Take care of this woman,’ said the Bishop to the Mother Superior. ‘She is in great need of your care.’
And he left her there, left her with her remorse and the memory of her father at the stake, with the sound of his cries of anguish as the flames licked his body – all of which were engraved upon her mind for ever.
* * *
In the Convent of St Paul Ojeda planned more such spectacles. They had begun the work. The people of Seville had lost their truculence. They understood now what could happen to those who defied the Inquisition. Soon more smoke would be rising above the meadows of Tablada.
Seville should lead the way, and other towns would follow; he would show Torquemada and the Queen what a zealous Christian was Alonso de Ojeda.
He sent his Dominicans to preach against heresy in all the pulpits of the city. Information must be lodged against suspected heretics. Anyone who could be suspected of the slightest heresy must be brought before the tribunals and tortured until he involved his neighbours.
There were friars at St Paul’s whose special duty it was on the Jewish Sabbath to station themselves on the roof of the convent and watch the chimneys of the town. Anyone who did not light a fire was suspect. Those whose chimneys were smokeless would be brought before the tribunal; and if they did not confess, the torture could be applied; it was very likely that, on the rack or the hoist or subjected to a taste of the water torture, these people would be ready not only to confess their own guilt but to involve their friends.
‘Ah!’ cried Ojeda. ‘I will prove my zeal to Tomás de Torquemada. The Queen will recognise me as her very good servant.’
And, even as he spoke, one of his monks came hurrying to him to tell him that plague had struck the city.
Ojeda’s eyes flashed. ‘This is the Divine will,’ he declared. ‘This is God’s punishment for the evil-living in Seville.’
* * *
The stricken people were dying in the streets.
‘Holy Prior,’ declared the Inquisitor Morillo, ‘it is impossible to continue with our good work while the plague rages. It may be that men who are brought in for questioning will sicken and die in their cells. Soon we shall have plague in St Paul’s. There is only one thing we can do.’
‘Leave this stricken city,’ agreed Ojeda. ‘It is the Divine will that these people shall be punished for their loose living; but God would not wish that we, who do His work, should suffer with them. Yes, we must leave Seville.’
‘We might go to Aracena, and there wait until the city is clean again.’
‘Let us do that,’ agreed Ojeda. ‘I doubt not that Aracena will profit from our visit. It is certain that it contains some heretics who should not be allowed to sully its purity.’
‘We should travel with all speed,’ said Morillo.
‘Then let us leave this day.’
When he was alone Ojeda felt a strange lethargy creep over him; he felt sick and dizzy.
He said to himself: It is this talk of the plague. It is time we left Seville.
He sat down heavily and tried to think of Aracena. The edict should be read immediately on their arrival, warning all the inhabitants that it would be advisable for them to report any acts of heresy they had witnessed. Thus it should not be difficult to find victims for an auto de fe.
One of the Dominicans had come into the room; he looked at the Prior, and his startled terror showed on his face.
He made an excuse to retire quickly, and Ojeda tried to rise to his feet and follow him, but he slipped back into his chair.
Then Ojeda knew. The plague had come to St Paul’s; it embraced not only those who defied the laws of the Church but also those who set out to enforce them.
Within a few days Ojeda was dead; but the Quemadero – the Burning Place – had come to stay; and all over Castile the fires had begun to burn.
Chapter VII
THE BIRTH OF MARIA AND THE DEATH OF CARILLO
Christmas had come and Isabella was enjoying a brief respite from her duties, with her family. It was rarely that they could all be together, and this union made the Queen very happy.
She could look back over the years of her reign with a certain pride.
There was peace in the kingdom. Alfonso of Portugal had died in the August of the previous year. He had been making preparations to resign the throne in order to go into residence at the monastery of Varatojo, and was travelling through Cintra when he was attacked by an illness which proved to be fatal. He had caused her a great deal of anxiety and she could only feel relieved that he could cause her no more.
She had punished criminals so harshly that she had considerably reduced their number; and she now proposed to punish heretics until none was left in her country.
She saw her friend Tomás de Torquemada infrequently now; he was obsessed by his work for the Holy Office. Her present confessor was Father Talavera, who was almost as zealous a worker for the Faith as Torquemada himself.
She knew she must not rest on her triumphs. Always she must remember the work that was left to be done. There was yet another great task awaiting her, for the setting up of the Inquisition, and the ridding her country of all heretics, was not all. There, she told herself, like a great abscess on the fair form of Spain, was the kingdom of Granada.
But for this Christmas she would indulge herself. She would be as an ordinary woman in the heart of her family.
She went to the nurseries to see her children.
As they stood before her and curtsied she felt a sadness touch her. She was a stranger to them, and she their mother. She suppressed a desire to take them in her arms and caress them, to weep over them, to tell them how she longed to be a gentle mother to them.
That would be unwise. These children must never forget that, although she was their mother, she was also their Queen.
‘And how are my children this day?’ she asked them.
Isabella, who was eleven years old, naturally spoke for the others. ‘They are all well, Highness; and they hope they see Your Highness in like state.’
A faint smile curved Isabella’s lips. What a formal answer to a mother’s question! But it was the correct answer of course.
Her eyes dwelt on her son – her little three-year-old Juan. How could she help his being her favourite? Ferdinand had wanted a boy, because he had felt it was fitting that there should be a male heir to the throne; and for Ferdinand’s sake she was glad.
And there was little Juana, a charming two-year-old, with a sparkle in her eyes.
‘I am very happy, my dears,’ said Isabella, ‘because now your father and I can spare a little time from our duties to spend with our family.’
‘What duties, Highness?’ asked young Juana.
The Infanta Isabella gave her sister a stern look, but the Queen said: ‘Nay, let her speak.’
She sat down and lifted her youngest daughter onto her knee. ‘You would know what the duties of a king and queen are, my child?’
Juana nodded.
The Infanta Isabella nudged her. ‘You must not nod when the Queen speaks to you. You must answer.’
Juana smiled enchantingly. ‘What must I say?’
‘Oh, Highness,’ said the Infanta Isabella, ‘she is but two, you know.’
‘I know full well,’ said Isabella. ‘And now we are in our close family circle we need not observe too strictly the etiquette which it is necessary to maintain on all other occasions. But of course you must remember that it is only at such times as this that we can relax.’
‘Oh, yes, Highness,’ the young Isabella and Juan replied together.
Then the Queen told her children of the duties of king and queen, how they must travel from place to
place; how it was necessary to call a Cortes to govern the country, how it was necessary to set up courts to judge evil doers – those who broke the civic law and the laws of God. The children listened gravely.
‘One day,’ said Isabella, ‘Juan will be a King, and I think it very possible that you, my daughters, may be Queens.’
‘Queens?’ asked young Isabella. ‘But Juan will be King, so how can we be Queens?’
‘Not of Castile and Aragon, of course. But you will marry, and your husbands may be Kings; you will reign with them. You must always remember this and prepare yourselves.’
Isabella stopped suddenly. She had had a vivid reminder of the past. She remembered those days at Arevalo where she and her young brother Alfonso had spent their childhood. She remembered her mother’s hysteria and how the theme of her conversation was always: You could be King – or Queen – of Castile.
But this is different, she hastened to assure herself. These children will ascend thrones without trouble. It is not wild hysteria which makes me bid them prepare.
But she changed the subject abruptly and wished to know how they were progressing with their lessons. She would see their books and hear them read.
Then young Isabella read and, while she was doing so, the child began to cough.
‘Do you cough often?’ the Queen asked,
‘Now and then, Mother.’
‘She is always coughing,’ Juan told his mother.
‘Not always,’ Isabella contradicted. ‘At night sometimes, Mother. Then I am given a soothing syrup, and that makes me go to sleep.’
Isabella looked grave. She would consult the Infanta’s governess about the cough.
The two younger children were clearly healthy; she wished that Isabella did not look so fragile.
‘Highness,’ said little Juana, ‘it is my turn to read.’
‘She cannot,’ said the Infanta Isabella.
‘She points to the page and pretends to,’ Juan added.
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