by Ann Benson
The young Jew met his gaze steadily. He did not wish to be dishonest with Hernandez, for the Spaniard had proven himself to be a worthy companion. But until he could be sure that the Christian would not betray him, Alejandro intended to keep his secret about the murder of the bishop. He nodded again, leaving Hernandez to wonder what the nod meant.
He was surprised when the Spaniard roared in laughter and slapped him on the back, nearly knocking the wind out of him. “You’ve more lead in your pants than I thought! Let’s settle ourselves in!” They resumed their progress toward the inn.
The landlord showed them a room with two large straw beds, each covered with a rough but clean-looking woven blanket. The low table, set beneath the window looking out onto the square, held a basin and pitcher.
“Clean enough for a couple of vagabonds, eh, señor? We will be your grateful guests tonight. A bath before supper will do us both good. And please tell us how we may find a good tailor in this town.”
They went as directed, and Alejandro was measured for a shirt and trousers. Alejandro flinched as the tailor placed the end of the measuring string between his upper legs, noting with irritation the grin of amusement on Hernandez’s face.
“My young friend, you show your ignorance! How else can the tailor outfit you like a gentleman? Would you have your breeches so tight that you sing like a girl? Stand still, and let the man proceed.”
Embarrassed by his own timidity, Alejandro did as he was told.
“We must have this clothing first thing in the morning,” Hernandez said to the tailor.
“Señor,” the tailor protested, “that is not possible, there will not be enough light to complete the work in time! I must find the necessary goods.…”
Hernandez reached into his pocket and took out a gold coin, which he waved seductively under the tailor’s nose. “Perhaps this will buy the necessary cloth and candles,” he said. He saw the tailor’s greedy eyes drink in the sight of the coin, so he pressed it into the man’s hand and said, “There will be another in the morning when the clothes are ready.”
Having settled the matter of Alejandro’s new clothing, they returned to the inn and climbed the stairs to the room they shared. A partially full tub of water had been set between the two straw beds. There was a soft knock on the door; Hernandez grunted his permission to enter, and the landlord’s wife came in, carrying another heavy bucket of steaming water. This she added to the tub, after which she left, returning quickly with a large cake of green translucent soap and a loofah sponge. Hernandez motioned to Alejandro to use the tub first, saying he would go to the cantina for a draft of wine before he bathed himself. Once again he instructed Alejandro to mind his possessions.
Having properly attended to his duties as the young man’s escort, he disappeared out the door, closing it behind him. Alejandro slid the bar across, guaranteeing his privacy, and undressed carefully, ever mindful of his sore chest. The warm water was at first painful to the red skin of the circular wound, but as he grew accustomed to the temperature, he found it to be extremely soothing. After shaking the dust out of his clothing, he dressed again, and removed the bar from the door. Then he looked out the window and watched Hernandez stride with great bravado through the square, obviously having enjoyed his refreshment.
The great Spaniard was singing loudly as he mounted the stairs to their room. His jollity was contagious, and Alejandro smiled, liking the man more and more each day. He was glad to see him as he blustered through the door, just slightly drunk, and friendlier than ever.
“Ah, my boy, this bath will be a gift from heaven, I think.” He disrobed with great ritual, scratching lazily. He slapped away an annoying insect, then said, “Thanks be to God for this new baptism,” and guffawed at his own joke. Alejandro did not understand, but chuckled politely, entertained by the huge man’s childish antics.
Hernandez bathed with lusty ostentation, vigorously scrubbing the accumulated dust of the road from his body with the rough loofah. Having immersed his entire head in the water, he blew out his nose and rubbed his eyes, and scratched his ears with the smallest of his fingers, taking advantage of this rare opportunity to have all the parts of his body clean at once. The cake of soap was clearly diminished by the time he finished.
“The landlady will charge us more for that bar of soap,” Alejandro observed.
“Aye, and a worthy expenditure it will be!” Hernandez said. “I am gloriously clean because of it!”
The Spaniard shook himself off like a dog, head to behind. Alejandro jumped away to avoid the spray, marveling at the muddy color of the small amount of water remaining in the tub.
Having tended to their exterior needs, the two men went down the stairs, Alejandro clutching his precious saddlebag, and headed to the cantina for supper. The noise and intoxicating bustle were quite intriguing to him. He had been carefully kept away from the cantina in Cervere by his overly cautious parents, who feared the influence of gentile ways on their children more than almost anything else. Now he stood in the doorway of the forbidden place, afraid to enter, but enticed by its exotic mystery. Hernandez was well inside, being greeted by several new “old friends” acquired over the flagon of wine he’d had before his bath. Alejandro saw him playfully grab a rather plump and buxom woman, pulling her into a rough embrace, kissing her dramatically. She resisted, but not too much, with coy exclamations of modesty and chastity, like a shy maiden in her first encounter. When he entered, Alejandro could see, at closer inspection, that she was no maiden.
As the young Jew observed the scene from his place at the great table, what he saw was a group of harmless-looking people, engaging in harmless behavior. They laughed and drank, perhaps a bit too much, and toasted one another in loose celebration. Fantastic stories were thrown about, Hernandez revealing his past deeds of bravery and heroism to attentive listeners. The Spaniard entertained his new-made friends with all his heart and soul, captivating them with tales that went far beyond the common daily experience of their ordinary lives. The listeners appreciated the storyteller’s gift to them, for these things could not be known otherwise. The tales would be passed on to the relatives and children of those who had heard them here, and small legends would be born. Alejandro counted himself among the appreciators.
Soon Hernandez was too full of wine to continue, and after a brief lull the sounds of slurping and chewing were replaced by the voice of a young man who had been listening to Hernandez with great attention.
“I have a tale of my own,” he said, “ ’Twas told to me by a sailor in the port of Marseilles.”
“Then let us hear it,” Hernandez slurred. But unlike the crusty soldier who’d regaled the crowd before he spoke, the young man was not a natural storyteller, and he had to be coaxed into continuing.
“Perhaps a glass of wine will loosen your tongue,” Hernandez said, gesturing to the landlord to bring one around.
And after a few minutes it was plain that Hernandez had been correct in his estimation of the wine’s effects. The young man said, “The sailor was hovering about the docks in Marseilles, looking to join a merchant crew, for his own company’s ship was to be refitted and would be dry for a while. Having nothing else to relieve him of idleness, he took to laying about in the taverna, hoping for word of a ship in need of mates.”
The crowd, having heard the effusive Hernandez, looked bored by this ordinary tale. But fortified by another gulp of wine, the teller bravely continued. “I heard him one afternoon, talking about a galley that had drifted into port in Messina, anchoring well out. It was owned by a Genoese trading company, and was long overdue, so its safe arrival was heralded as a great blessing. But when the galley was boarded by the representatives of the compagnia, they found that all but six of the crew were dead, and the remaining six were dying.”
A hushed exclamation went through the crowd, their interest suddenly piqued. In a low voice, one man said, “A plague ship!”
“Aye,” agreed the teller, “and a plague like
none seen before, according to my sailor friend. The man told a tale of black necks, with swellings as if a melon were stuck in the throat!”
The listeners moaned, gesturing in disbelief, chiding the man for this fantastic story. Alejandro stood halfway up in his seat, raising his hand to quiet the crowd.
“Shhh! Please, I will hear this tale to its completion.”
The others regarded him quizzically, but his interference gave the storyteller the courage to continue.
“The sick ones had bruises covering their arms and legs, and their hands and feet were black like an Ethiope, and burning with pain. Not a one among them could bear to be touched, and all screamed for merciful death to deliver them from the misery of their awful afflictions. The foul smell of death and disease exuded from all their pores, and sweat drenched their garments until they nearly dripped. Of the fifty on board when they first cast oars to the water, all were afflicted, and only one survived. And now he is mad, unable to remember his own mother’s name.”
No one spoke. Hernandez drunkenly crossed himself, and others followed suit, some invoking the name of the Virgin to come to their protection. Against such a malady there was no other defense.
Somehow, Hernandez managed to regain the attention of the silent crowd, and brought them back to revelry. The Spaniard did not notice his traveling companion, lost in his thoughts, in a mood quite apart from that of the others. Later Alejandro grilled the news bearer for more details of the rumored disease, but the man had little more to relate, and Alejandro finally let the inquiry go.
That night, by the light of a single candle, Alejandro wrote in his book the details of the story they had heard in the cantina. As he scribbled furiously, Hernandez snored, grunting and tossing in his straw bed. He was glad for the dearth of other travelers, for the two might have been forced to share a mat, and Alejandro paled at the thought of the drunken Spaniard’s flailing limbs crashing down on him like sacks of flour in the night. Clean, full of food, his head brimming with the evening’s news, he fell asleep clutching his bag to his belly, soon to dream of Carlos Alderón.
In his dream the giant blacksmith was even larger and more imposing than in life. He came to Alejandro in the light of day, dead but still walking, each limb separately wound with the coarse fabric of his shrouds, his unshrouded chest a mass of cuts and slashes. The hands and feet that protruded from the wrappings were as black as the cast iron of the shovel that was used to disentomb him. Carlos shrieked out grisly accusations at the doctor who had failed to cure him, blaming his death on Alejandro’s desire to later exhume and dissect his body. He came closer, reaching out his arms, but just before he was overtaken, Alejandro jolted awake. He lurched violently to a sitting position, trembling, with cold sweat dripping from every pore. He rubbed his face hard with one hand while supporting his shivering body with the other, and turned aside to see Hernandez sleeping peacefully, untouched by the sense of dread that had awakened him.
The tailor bowed and nodded his way backward out the door, clutching the gold coin Hernandez had pressed into his hand, grinning in disbelief at the fantastic sum he had been paid for such simple work. After settling their bill with the innkeeper, the Spaniard and the Jew headed to the bakery, where Hernandez bought several loaves of the day’s first batch of bread, stuffing the long thin loaves into every available crevice in his clothing and packs.
As he was about to mount his horse, Alejandro said, “This shirt is heavy from so many coins!”
Hernandez laughed heartily. Unsympathetic to the young man’s enviable plight, he said, “May God burden me with the affliction of having too many coins! And may I never be cured!”
They traveled intently until midday, when they reached the small town of Figueras, still well inland on the coastal road. They left the horses at a stable, where a small boy wiped and watered them well.
The cantina was dark and cool, a welcome interlude in the day’s blazing heat. They ate heartily, Hernandez washing his meal down with rather copious quantities of ale. Alejandro was again quite subdued as his companion regaled the locals with his heroic tales and war stories.
“Enough of my lies,” he concluded. “I am tired of boasting. Who bears news worth hearing?”
Reports of various harvests were made. One man described in great detail the passing of a sumptuous wedding train, which bore a young noblewoman from far away to her waiting bridegroom in Castile. He entertained his rapt audience with tales of the lavish excess of the wealthy, barely imaginable to the peasants who surrounded him.
Ever mindful of his fugitive status, and not wishing to draw attention to himself, Alejandro remained quiet, his disinterest rapidly turning to boredom. He and Hernandez had managed so far to outride the news of the bishop’s murder, and he fervently hoped they would continue to do so. He had not yet found the trust to tell Hernandez what he’d done while the Spaniard awaited him outside the monastery, but he assumed that the older man knew it was not his purpose to thank the prelate for his charitable treatment.
It was not until a ragged pilgrim began speaking of the plague ship that Alejandro sat up attentively. The man had been sitting quietly in the corner, making short work of his bread and cheese despite an apparent lack of teeth. Gray stubble covered his chin, and his rank smell hinted that he had recently been in close company with mules.
“The disease is no longer confined to the crew of the ship,” he said, stunning his listeners. A hushed murmur went through the inn’s occupants. “The representatives of the compagnia waited a few days, then sent out a crew to bring the ship’s cargo ashore, much against the wishes of the Messina harbormaster, who has vowed to take the matter before the magistrate for adjudication.”
Alejandro was surprised at the man’s articulate speech, expecting it to be more in keeping with his rough appearance. The man continued, embellishing his account with precise detail of the disease’s progress.
“Within a few days several members of the unloading crew had fallen ill, their first complaints being tender necks and scratchy throats. Soon, they were all feverish, their tongues swollen and white. One by one they took to their beds, and not a one rose again.”
The occupants of the cantina were all paying strict attention, horrified by the man’s story. “After several days one man’s extremities turned blue, then black. The swelling in his neck became an apple-sized lump, filled with thick yellow pus, the whole area surrounded by blue-and-black mottling. The same vile eruptions soon came forth in his groin and armpits, and he was in constant pain. A doctor was called in by his family, and the huge boils lanced.”
The rest of the crowd moaned in revulsion, but Alejandro paid strict attention, considering carefully the possible diagnoses. He heard the traveler describe delirium and sweating, periods of unconsciousness, then bouts of shivering as if the victim were on ice. The teller told of the poor man’s inability to retain any bodily fluid or solid, and how his appearance rapidly became skeletal as the body consumed itself in its final attempt to survive. The man’s last indignity, the teller said, was deep despair, followed by a thrashing convulsive death.
Forgetting for the moment his reluctance to speak, Alejandro questioned the pilgrim. “Did you see this with your own eyes?” he asked.
“No, sir, I did not, for the story was told to me by another traveler from Messina. But I have no doubt that he spoke the truth.”
Nor did Alejandro, but it was not the firsthand account he had hoped for.
All were silent now, reflecting on the frightening tale they had just heard. The news bearer returned to his supper, dipping his remaining bread in a cup of ale and gumming it resolutely. Even the normally effusive Hernandez seemed somber and reserved. He reminded Alejandro that they still had a long journey ahead of them, and that it would be wise to take advantage of the remaining light to reach the next village before nightfall. They set off at a fast pace, heading for the coastal town of Carbere.
The deep cerulean blue of the Mediterranean gleamed
with the reflection of the last light of day, the sound of waves caressing the shore soothed the weary pair, who by now had heard quite enough of the sound of pounding hooves. Not since he had journeyed back from his years at medical school in Montpellier had Alejandro seen the ocean, and it was a welcome sight.
In Carbere they’d refilled their water flasks and had bought some steamed fish wrapped in large leaves, and now they sat quietly on the beach just before sunset, enjoying their fish, which would be followed by one of Hernandez’s innumerable loaves of bread.
Unlike Hernandez, Alejandro was not sobered by the rumors of plague, but agitated and excited. He speculated about its cause, worrying out loud about the difficulty of treating such an affliction.
“I have never,” he said, “even in my time at medical school, come upon such a ghastly set of symptoms. Surely the stories have been exaggerated in the repetition—I simply cannot believe that anything so hideous could just appear out of nowhere.”
Hernandez had seen plenty of typhus and cholera in his warrior years. “Despite my glorious tales,” he told Alejandro sadly, “the truth is that war is seldom a glorious occurrence. These stories of mine often help me forget the misery by keeping the honor of victory in the front of my mind. Were I to remember the blood and pestilence as often, I should lose my sanity from the burden of the sorrow. Many die, as many from the sword of disease as by the sword of the enemy.”
Alejandro knew that these thoughts must weigh heavily on Hernandez, for his usual lighthearted manner was replaced by grim silence. As the sun was leaving the sky, the old warrior rose and gathered up some dried beach grass, then lit a small fire to give them another hour of light.