At that moment Ramón Salazar lifted his hand to touch Zarita on the head. And the manner in which he did this made me recognize something else.
Someone else.
She was the girl!
I put my knuckles to my mouth and bit hard upon them. It couldn’t be!
Was it her? Was Zarita the girl who had been with Ramón Salazar on the day of my father’s arrest? Was she the daughter of the magistrate? Almost eighteen months had passed. In that time I had changed beyond recognition. So might she. On that day the girl walking with Ramón Salazar had her face veiled. She’d been slight of build with beautiful long dark hair. Now Zarita’s figure was that of a woman, and her hair was almost completely covered.
I ran to find Rafael.
In the deepest recess of my spirit I knew that I didn’t need any verification. But I had to be absolutely certain. I waited while Rafael went to find out the answers to a series of questions I gave him. He came back in a state of high anxiety with the information.
‘Señor Saulo, I implore you, stay away from this woman. They say—’
‘Tell me what I sent you to find out!’ I shouted at him.
Rafael threw his hands up in the air. ‘The girl, Zarita, is from a small port in Andalucía called Las Conchas. She has recently adopted her mother’s family name, but before that she used her father’s, which is Don Vicente Alonso de Carbazón. He was the magistrate of the town until he died just before Christmas when his house caught fire.’
I gave a loud cry of anguish and fell onto my knees. I tore at my hair and beat my forehead on the floor. Rafael fled from the room. He had been right. This woman was dangerous – a courtesan of the most deceitful kind. She had caused me to forget my true purpose in being here at the court – which was not to ally myself with Christopher Columbus but to destroy the seed of the magistrate, Don Vicente Alonso de Carbazón. And not only had she made me forget, she herself was the very person on whom I sought to take my revenge! Now I believed utterly in witchcraft. She had placed an enchantment on me. She was a sorceress, a demon, a Circe who lured men to their deaths.
Needles of pain lanced behind my eyelids. Shock and disbelief became anger, and then outrage.
I knew what I had to do.
I would go back to her private courtyard and wait there until she had retired to bed. Then I would break into the apartment and kill her.
I would kill her tonight.
Chapter Forty-six
Zarita and Saulo
A MAN STOOD at the foot of my bed. In his hand there was a long knife. The candlelight shone on the blade, and I knew by the way he held the shaft that he’d used this knife before. He had killed with this knife. My breath thickened in my throat. On my tongue was the taste of my own fear.
She was very, very frightened. I could see her fear, smell it almost. And yet she did not flinch. She did not cower down, nor run to hide, nor edge away. She sat up and looked at me.
I rose up from the bed and faced him, conscious of being only in my nightclothes. It came to my mind that when he plunged the knife in, the colour of my blood would contrast vividly against the white muslin of my shift. His face was in the shadows, his eyes burning with a strange luminance. Familiar eyes. Yet I did not know him . . . ‘What do you want?’ I asked.
‘I come for my revenge,’ I said. ‘Should I stab you? Or take this as a rope to hang you with?’
With my free hand I ripped down the tasselled sash that held back her bed curtains. ‘I might string you up so that you can dance the same jig your father made my father dance.’
I moved nearer to her. There was a pulse beating at her throat under the golden skin, and her pupils were dilated. In one hand I held my dagger; in the other the length of silken rope.
‘It is your time to die,’ I told her.
I brought the knife point close to her breast.
‘Saulo?’ I whispered in terror. ‘Saulo? It cannot be you.’
Had I gone mad? Was I dreaming? Living in a waking nightmare, where I could see and touch an assassin who had come to kill me? Some demon who had taken the guise of the man I loved?
‘Saulo?’
‘He was hungry,’ I said.
‘Who, Saulo? Who was hungry?’
‘My father,’ I told her. ‘We were all of us starving, but I know that he would not have assaulted you. It was not in his nature. If he tried to snatch your purse, then it was to buy medicine for his wife, my mother, or to feed his son – me.’
‘Ah,’ I whimpered. ‘Now I know who you are. You are the son of the beggar. I knew that one day I would face a judgement for what I did that dreadful afternoon. I thought it would be in the next world, not this one.’
‘The day has come, Zarita,’ I said. ‘For I was here an hour or so ago and saw you with Ramón Salazar and recognized you.’
‘Did you know who I was from the beginning?’ she asked me. ‘Was everything we did, was all you said to me . . .’ And here her voice wavered. ‘Was all of it a lie?’
‘It was you who lied,’ I said hoarsely, ‘when you falsely accused my father of assaulting you.’
‘I didn’t lie. I didn’t accuse him of assaulting me. He touched me, it’s true, but his fingers only brushed against mine—’
As she began to speak, I held up my hand. ‘Silence! I don’t want to hear excuses. You have already bewitched me enough to addle my brain.’
But Zarita would not be silenced.
‘You are right, Saulo, when you say that your father did nothing. He was blameless. It was my fault; my stupidity, my foolishness. It wasn’t wickedness – that I can say truly. Not for hope of any mercy from you, but for the sake of truth, for you should know of the last act of your father, that he was an honourable man. And I believe he tried to save you.’
‘Your words have no meaning for me,’ I told her.
‘To begin with,’ she persisted, ‘when he ran from the church, your father was only desperate to get away, to lose himself in the alleys and streets leading off the square. So he ran forward. But then he saw you, and he veered off towards the sea to take them away from you, his son. I was some distance behind and I could see the whole scene. Many times over the years I’ve thought about those events. I’m convinced that when he caught sight of you, he altered direction towards the docks so that you wouldn’t be caught up in whatever happened; so that you would not be punished as he knew he would be.’
A clear recollection came to me.
My father had seen me. I could visualize him now, racing towards me in the square and then changing tack. Away from safety, towards a closed-off route – to save his son.
Tears were in my eyes. I dashed them away. ‘None of this will save you from my vengeance. Do not think to ask for mercy.’
As I spoke, a shard of another memory sliced through my mind and I saw a girl pleading for mercy. Not for her life, but for mine. Zarita had knelt before her father and stopped him when he’d been about to hang me.
Saulo hesitated.
Why?
He’d come to my room intent on murdering me in revenge for the death of his father by my father’s hand. Yet now he seemed unsure.
I should call for aid. But if I did so, Saulo would be arrested, and without doubt executed.
‘You must leave,’ I told him. ‘Lest you be discovered here. I wouldn’t want your blood on my hands, for I already have your father’s death on my conscience.’
‘As I have yours,’ he replied abruptly.
There! It was said! Now she knew!
‘You . . .? My papa . . . Oh! Oh!’
Zarita covered her face with her hands and sank down upon the bed.
‘Oh! I understand! That is why the tree outside my home was poisoned. It was you who set fire to the house. It was you Papa was running from when his heart gave out!’
Zarita raised a harrowed face to mine and moaned in a wretched voice. ‘Such dreadful outcomes from one deed!’
There was a sudden cry of alarm, and then a
thunderous knocking on the inside corridor door. For a second I thought that in some way she’d secretly summoned help. But she was as surprised as I was.
‘I should answer them,’ she said, her voice distraught. ‘Señora Eloisa takes a strong sleeping potion each night. It will take her several minutes to wake up.’
‘Ask them who they are and why they disturb you at this hour,’ I ordered her. ‘But do not move from the doorway of this room.’
I stood behind her as she opened her bedroom door. ‘Who are you?’ Her voice was unsteady as she spoke.
No reply came. Only an increased hammering on the corridor door.
‘Ask them again,’ I instructed her.
She called out again in a louder voice. ‘Name yourself! I will not unlock the door unless you do so!’
‘You will do as we say!’ came the reply. ‘Open up this door in the name of the Holy Inquisition!’
Chapter Forty-seven
Saulo
THE COMMOTION SUCCEEDED in wakening Señora Eloisa.
We heard her coming from her room to open the door into the corridor.
I slipped behind the bedroom door as soldiers entered the apartment, and I hid as they arrested her: Zarita, daughter of the magistrate, Don Vicente Alonso de Carbazón.
She maintained her bearing as the captain of the soldiers unfurled a parchment, announced her name and made the declaration of her arrest. And then, as they came for her, she took a tiny step forward and opened her bedroom door to its full extent so that I was better concealed behind it. She chose not to reveal that a person who had vowed to kill her was lurking there. There was a gap between the door hinges and the wall, and I saw the scene as it happened. Zarita was calm but her hands were shaking.
‘This is a mistake!’ Señora Eloisa’s voice was shrill.
‘No mistake,’ said the man who was in charge. He showed her the warrant. ‘The woman known as Zarita, of Las Conchas, is to come with us, tonight, and at once.’
Señora Eloisa begged them to give Zarita time to dress, but they refused, so she took off her own long dressing gown and threw it over Zarita’s shoulders. The soldiers seemed to treat Zarita with some respect as they laid hands on her, but everyone in all Spain knew that as soon as the doors of the Inquisition dungeon closed behind the arrested person, a different set of rules applied.
‘I will petition the queen! I will send for your aunt! I will, I will.’ Señora Eloisa collapsed in a chair, weeping.
Just before they led her off, in a voice of great command Zarita said, ‘I have something I wish to tell you.’
Ah, now! Her true character is revealed! I gripped my knife, expecting her to cry out and tell them where I was hidden. I thought: She’s had a chance to think on the situation and, as she herself is in no immediate danger of death, it might stand in her favour if she betrayed a would-be assassin to the authorities. It will be her way of ensuring I am punished for causing the death of her father.
I heard Zarita speak up in a loud voice.
‘It may be that I am not afforded the opportunity to make a statement. I wish to say that any ill I ever did to God, or man, or woman, was not by cruel intention; rather it was by thoughtless foolishness. I ask forgiveness of those I have wronged, and I freely forgive those who may have caused me offence.’
The soldier in charge made a click of impatience in his throat. It wasn’t an odd thing for a prisoner to say. He’d probably heard similar declarations as he dragged protesting prisoners away to be tortured. But I knew for whom it was meant.
It was for me.
Chapter Forty-eight
Zarita
I DIDN’T KNOW if Saulo was still there.
I prayed that he’d taken the chance to get clear, yet I also hoped that he’d remained long enough to hear my declaration. Whether he had heard or not, it was said. And as I was taken away I was glad I’d said it.
Some courtiers gathered to point and stare as they marched me down the corridors, but most dropped their gaze or stood back and turned their faces to the wall.
Such was the terror of the Inquisition.
I was taken to an underground basement near the soldiers’ barracks. I was surprised, but in no way comforted, to find that many of the rooms there were already full of prisoners.
A black-robed monk sat behind a long table. I stood before him, shivering, my feet bare on the stone floor, as he wrote down the details of my name and age and place of birth and family information. When he’d finished he raised his head. ‘Do you wish to confess?’
‘My arrest is a mistake,’ I replied, for at that point I really thought an error had been made. ‘I have nothing to confess.’
‘Everyone has something to confess. It is better that you make your confession now, voluntarily, than . . . later.’
I shook my head. ‘I have done nothing wrong.’
‘Then you have nothing to fear.’
This interview lasted only ten or fifteen minutes before I was taken to a windowless room with a cot bed. As I lay down on it, my first feelings were of relief. The priest was right. I had nothing to fear. I was not like Bartolomé, who had appeared to ridicule the clergy, or the women who had sinned with their bodies. For almost five months of the previous year I’d lived the life of an enclosed nun, so there could be no offence on my part against Church or State.
Also, it was known that there was a limit to the number of times a suspect could be questioned by the Inquisition. Therefore I should only have one or two more sessions like that and I would be free to go.
I lay on the cot that night, not sleeping, and tried to convince myself that this was how it would be.
Chapter Forty-nine
Saulo
THE FATE OF the girl Zarita de Marzena was of no interest to me.
That’s what I told myself. True, she had not betrayed me to the soldiers of the Inquisition as she might have done, but it didn’t mean that I owed her anything. Or that I cared for her at all.
But . . . what could she possibly have done that the Inquisition would feel compelled to investigate?
I’d hardly reached my room when there was a light tap on the door. Cautiously I opened it up. Rafael was there. Slipping under my arm, he came quickly inside.
‘My apologies for disturbing you, señor.’ He was out of breath and very agitated. ‘I thought you’d want to know what’s happening in the palace tonight.’ He looked at my face anxiously.
I nodded.
‘The woman Zarita has been arrested by the officers of the Holy Inquisition!’
I put my hand over my mouth and chin to conceal my face, for I found that I was biting down upon my lip.
‘She’s been taken to one of the secret rooms in the basement where she’ll be interviewed by the Inquisitors. I came as soon as I could to warn you.’
‘Warn me? Why should I need warning? What’s it got to do with me?’
‘Señor, perhaps because you have been travelling at sea, you are not familiar with how these investigations are carried out. The people associated with the arrested person often fall under suspicion too. At the very least they can be called upon to be a witness, to give testimony against the accused.’
Ah, now! That would be a fine thing indeed! I could go forward and speak out against the magistrate’s daughter as she once spoke against my father.
‘You must get away, sir,’ Rafael went on. ‘Earlier this evening the girl had supper with the nobleman, Ramón Salazar. His servants woke him in the night to tell him what was happening. Señor Salazar and his bodyguard went immediately to the stables, took their horses and left. He declared that he was going to his family estates in the east to sort out some emergency. But from there he can easily get across the border into France and take refuge until this investigation is over.’
So her childhood friend had run as soon as he thought himself in any danger. I should be glad to hear that. I was glad, I told myself.
‘Not that she had any regard for him,’ Rafael cont
inued. ‘The servant who cleared their food plates and tidied the room after he’d gone let me know that the girl told her chaperon she wanted no more to do with him. Both of them thought him vain and foolish and self-centred.’
‘Well, he has proved that to be true,’ I said, thinking as I did so: Zarita had dismissed his attentions. Had I misjudged her manner when I’d seen her stand close to him and he’d raised his hand to touch her hair?
‘Her chaperon, Señora Eloisa, has sent messages to the queen – at least a dozen of them. She has also paid for a fast rider to go to the coast with a letter for a convent in Las Conchas to ask a relative to come to the court as soon as possible. Señora Eloisa then collapsed and a doctor was called to attend to her. She is quite ill.’
This relative in Las Conchas would be the Aunt Beatriz that Zarita had told me about. The chaperon must consider the circumstances grave to summon an enclosed nun from her convent!
‘So you see how things are,’ said Rafael. ‘As I tried to tell you earlier, señor, deadly danger surrounds that woman.’
‘You did, Rafael,’ I said. ‘And I thank you for it.’ I put a coin in his hand and then added a few more. He’d obviously been staying alert to garner information for me, and probably had to bribe the grooms and household staff so that they would keep him up to date with anything of interest. I went to the door and began to open it for him. I should have been rejoicing at this news of Zarita’s downfall but my head was throbbing and I felt sick in my stomach. I wanted to be alone.
‘No, no, señor.’ Rafael pushed the door closed. ‘This time you should listen to me. You too must leave. I have contacts in the stables. I can arrange to have your horse saddled and waiting by one of the quieter outside gates. It would be best to do this now, before dawn. I will’ – he coughed – ‘need some money to pay for this to happen.’
‘You think the situation is as desperate as that?’
‘Where the Inquisition is concerned it’s best not to take chances. If a fairly important nobleman like Ramón Salazar flees the palace, then he must have been given an indication of how her trial will turn out. By reason of his position he will have access to more information than I do. I’d take it that the charges against her are very serious.’ He paused. ‘Serious unto death.’
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