‘Indeed.’
‘If they have discovered this, then she is doomed.’
‘I cannot think that they have,’ she replied. ‘Only two others knew of it: myself and another nun whom I’d trust with my life.’ She began to pace the floor. ‘It was me who told Zarita to come to Granada. When the baby was born, I permitted her to come out of the cloister and attend the court. There was a family matter that needed dealing with – and I wanted her to see Ramón Salazar again.’
‘You allowed her to come to the court to form a relationship with a man like him!’
‘No. I allowed her to come for another reason, but also I thought it was time that our older, more mature Zarita met Ramón again and saw him for the weak, vain man that he is. Otherwise she might harbour a dream of a girlish romantic love that never was. So it was my idea, and it was I who encouraged her to leave the convent to come to the court.’
Sister Beatriz sobbed as she said this, and her face took on a stricken look.
‘I now believe that I sent Zarita to her death.’
Chapter Fifty-two
Zarita
‘ZARITA DE MARZENA, you are once again given an opportunity to confess.’
The hood of my habit rested on my shoulders and my veil was drawn aside. I could see the face of the monk in the black robes seated at the table opposite me and he could see mine.
‘Father,’ I said politely, ‘I do not feel the need to confess.’
The monk sighed. ‘I don’t wish a young woman, especially one with a connection to a religious order, to be put to any trial. But you must co-operate with me.’
‘Of what am I accused?’
‘You are accused of the most grievous sin against the Inquisition – that of heresy.’
I was to stand trial for heresy! Beatriz’s fears had proved correct.
‘When and how am I supposed to have committed this heresy?’
The monk picked up the paper in front of him and read from it. ‘You committed heresy in acts and sayings on various occasions while residing in the house of your father, the magistrate of the town Las Conchas, he being known as Don Vicente Alonso Carbazón.’
‘What!’ I almost laughed. ‘This is nonsense. My parents were devout people – especially my mother, who attended church almost every day of her life.’
The monk consulted the paper. ‘There is no reference to your mother here.’
‘Quote me the time and place of these incidents.’
Again he looked at his paper. ‘There is no note of them.’
‘Then where is your evidence?’ I demanded.
‘I cannot produce it here. It will be shown at your formal trial.’
‘You cannot produce it because it does not exist,’ I said firmly.
The monk’s face flushed in annoyance. He leaned forward over the table to glare at me. ‘I will tell you what does exist, my clever young miss. I have the means to make you confess. For, believe me, you will confess. In the end all our prisoners do. And I will remove any doubt from your mind about this. As you seem so keen on being shown evidence, then I will ensure that you are shown evidence that will convince you of what I say.’
He beckoned to my gaoler to come to him, and by gestures and whispering instructed him how to proceed.
The gaoler took me by the arm and led me off – not to my cell, but along a dank passageway that led down to the innermost area of the basement.
There he showed me the instruments of torture. The rack, and the pincers for removing fingernails. The hoist, and the pokers for burning the truth from the victim’s flesh. This latter had been used to break Bartolomé in spirit and in body.
We passed cells that contained those who had been put to the question. They lay huddled in a corner of their room, whimpering and crying. Then the gaoler took me to a communal area where people hung chained to the walls. The smell was rancid – the bitter scent of urine, the stink of excrement. He stopped beside a set of empty chains.
‘I am not to be left here,’ I gabbled, all my resolve and fortitude dissolving. ‘I was only to be shown what might happen.’
He looked at me sadly. I’d noticed that he smelled of alcohol and I wondered if he drank to excess to stop himself thinking of the sights he must see every day. With genuine regret in his voice he said, ‘I do as I’m told.’
‘No!’ I cried, my voice rising on a note of hysteria. ‘I have done nothing wrong! Nothing, I tell you!’
‘They all say that.’ The gaoler sighed as he unlocked the ankle- and wrist-cuffs and opened them up.
I looked around. The rest of the chained men and women hardly lifted their heads to acknowledge my presence. One’s mouth lolled open, showing gory stumps where there had been teeth. Another’s hair was matted with blood.
‘Please,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t even know what I am supposed to have done.’
‘You will be informed of that in due course,’ someone said behind us. The voice was unpleasant yet familiar.
I turned.
Standing in front of me was Father Besian.
Chapter Fifty-three
Saulo
HOLDING A LIGHTED taper before him, Rafael led the way up a narrow stone staircase. His hand shook and the light flared up, spreading our shadows on the bare wall as we passed. It had taken quite a few of my gold coins and much pleading from Sister Beatriz for him to embark on this venture.
To begin with he’d refused utterly.
‘No, Señor Saulo, I won’t help you spy on a tribunal of the Inquisition.’ He’d shaken his head. ‘It can’t be done. There is no way to smuggle you into the hall. You can’t disguise yourself as a servant, for they allow no servants in. Besides which, if you were discovered you’d be questioned. Under torture you’d reveal my part in it and then I would have no mercy shown to me. As a servant I’d be executed. If I was lucky it would take place quickly. But they have a particularly cruel Inquisitor here at the moment, so it would most likely be a long and painful death.’
At this point the nun had reached out and touched Rafael on the shoulder. ‘I will pray for the success of our mission,’ she told him.
‘With respect, Sister, praying will do me no good when they apply red-hot pokers to my eyes.’
I piled some coins on the table in front of him. ‘All of this,’ I said. ‘All of it is yours.’
He hesitated, for it was a goodly sum, much more than he could expect to earn in the course of several years.
‘The nuns of the convent hospital of Las Conchas will pray for your soul in perpetuity,’ said Sister Beatriz.
Rafael had scooped up the money and disappeared out of the door.
Now, standing before me at the top of the stairs, he glanced behind nervously. ‘After this point,’ he whispered, ‘we must be very quiet.’
We nodded, and again our shadows, like dark spectres, followed our movements. The cowl covering the nun’s head and the cloak I’d wrapped around myself made grotesque shapes beside us.
It had taken Rafael two whole days to find a tradesman who’d worked in the Alhambra Palace and knew all the rooms and passageways and some of the secret entrances and exits. He’d discovered that the Inquisition tribunal of Zarita de Marzena would be held today in the Sultan’s Hall, and that there was a place where we might be able to secretly watch the proceedings. The corridor that opened out before us had no windows and no doors and ended with a blank wall at the far end.
I stopped. ‘There’s no outlet this way,’ I said.
‘The artisan told me to look here.’ Rafael walked on and touched a wooden panel set halfway along the wall. The design was arabesque, with stylized flowers interlaced with geometric shapes.
‘There is nothing,’ I said in impatience.
‘Don’t you wonder that this wood panelling is so carefully engraved in a corridor where no one has reason to come?’ Sister Beatriz asked. ‘Why spend so much on beautiful carvings if they are never to be seen? Sometimes,’ she added, ‘as in the dress or t
he jewellery of a woman, the reason for an adornment is not to display, but to conceal.’
Her sensitive fingers ran over the wood. She traced one of the interlinking patterns, following the twists and spirals to its central point. There was a soft click, and the panel slid to one side to reveal a tiny balcony enclosed by draped curtains.
Rafael left us. The nun and I slipped inside and closed over the secret door behind us.
Little light penetrated the gloom, and there was barely enough room for two of us. The balcony had been designed to keep hidden a single person who might wish to spy on any meeting taking place below. The curtains in front of us were part of a hanging decorating the upper part of the chamber wall. Sister Beatriz adjusted the folds so that we stood within the heavy drapes and could hear and see what passed below us.
‘Listen! They are beginning to assemble. Be warned, Saulo, however awful this becomes, we must make no sound, nor cry out to reveal our presence here.’ But she herself started back as the officers of the tribunal, a priest and two monks, assembled below us. ‘I recognize the Head Inquisitor,’ she whispered in agitation. ‘It is the priest, Father Besian. He bears ill-will towards me and mine. If his hand is behind this, then he would not have pursued Zarita without being confident of proving a gross misdeed.’
That explained the way this priest had stared at Zarita when leaving the royal reception rooms two days ago. It must be he who’d arranged her arrest and imprisonment.
They brought her in. Zarita stood almost directly beneath us in the hall. I could see the straight angle of her shoulders, the sweep of her neck, and a curl of her hair which had escaped the confines of the coif around her head.
And my heart and soul reached out to her.
Chapter Fifty-four
Zarita
‘ZARITA DE MARZENA, daughter of Don Vicente Alonso de Carbazón, you are accused of heresy, of performing certain heretical acts in your home in Las Conchas.’
‘This is a false accusation,’ I stated in firm voice.
‘Do you deny the charge?’
‘I do,’ I replied. ‘Bring forth the person who has accused me of this and I will deny it to them also.’
‘The denouncement is in the form of a letter.’
‘Written by whom?’
‘Your stepmother, Lorena.’
Lorena!
‘Let it be a matter of record,’ Father Besian formally told the monk acting as secretary, ‘that Lorena, wife of the magistrate of Las Conchas, one Don Vicente Alonso de Carbazón, wrote to me some months after I had conducted an Inquisition in the town.’
‘What did she write?’ I looked at the expression of gloating triumph on the face of Father Besian and my voice faded.
‘Lorena said that she was afraid for her soul and that of her unborn child because of certain practices she’d witnessed taking place within the household of her husband. I offered immunity for herself and that of her child, and complete claim on the family property and goods, if she would put in writing what she knew.’ Father Besian picked up a sheet of paper and waved it in the air. ‘This is her reply. She stated that you and your father regularly engaged in Jewish rituals.’
I managed to smile at this ludicrous statement. ‘Why on earth would we do that? Our family has no connection to the Jewish faith.’
‘Not so!’ Father Besian stood up. ‘I too was suspicious when I visited your house. It was obvious that there was a lack of devotion in your person. While your stepmother attended to her religious duties, you preferred, with your father’s approval, to study books. I took an opportunity to look at these books. They were neither religious nor devotional. Some of the texts were very suspect indeed. Then your father came and pleaded with me to be merciful to the man, the converso, found guilty of reverting to Jewish practices. This alerted me to your Jewish sympathies. Upon receiving your stepmother’s first letter, I researched your ancestry. On your father’s side there is a grandfather who turned from Judaism to Christianity. It is clear that you and your father reverted back.’
This explained why Papa had seemed anxious at the appearance of the officers of the Inquisition in our house. I recalled the words Father Besian had spoken concerning people who had things to hide, and Papa’s reaction to this statement. This was why Beatriz had advised me to have pork served for our evening meal as Jews did not eat pig meat – something I’d neglected to attend to as it had been the day of Bartolomé’s arrest. And finally I understood Papa’s intense stare in my direction as the Jew converso was burned to death. I thought of the fear that must have been churning through his mind at that time. He would have been praying for me not to cry out in a protest that might bring me to investigation and torture. My papa had tried to protect me.
But he was no longer here and I must speak up for myself.
‘What Lorena has written is not true. This letter—’ I broke off.
The letter!
It was this letter that Lorena had spoken of on her deathbed. Her final words to me . . .
Zarita, you will burn . . . the letter.
Lorena had warned me. I thought she meant me to burn some letter that was among her papers, but in fact she was trying to tell me of the letter she’d sent to the Inquisition accusing me of heresy.
Zarita, you will burn.
Lorena had meant that I would burn.
‘Go on.’
‘What?’ I looked up.
Father Besian was gazing at me intently. ‘You were about to say something?’
‘No, nothing.’ I shook my head. What could I say? I could not repeat a deathbed confession. Even if it had been proper for me to do so, who knows where that might lead? I would have to betray the circumstances in which I’d heard Lorena say it – during the birth of her baby. Then it would all come out – God forbid! – the presence of the Jewish doctor attending a Christian woman in childbirth, examining her. They could find me guilty of heresy for that offence alone. And they would arrest everyone who’d been in the room at the time – perhaps everyone working in the convent. It would please Father Besian very much to have an excuse to close down my aunt’s hospital and disperse her order of nuns. He would discover that I’d had contact with the Jewish doctor previously because I had met him when he’d attended Saulo’s mother. Dear God! Saulo! Saulo would be taken! They’d find out who he really was and he’d be sent back to the galleys or worse. And there would be others implicated: Serafina, Ardelia and Garci, who’d helped me with Lorena, and Bartolomé. I thought of poor scourged Bartolomé.
I was weeping now, not only through fear for myself but for my beloved, my family, my friends, for all mankind . . . the whole world.
The monk who was scribing the records said gently, ‘My daughter, perhaps you have strayed so far from the truth that you cannot see the devious paths down which you have gone. You should say all you know.’
‘As Lorena, the wife of the magistrate, is now dead, then we can have no more information from that source.’ Father Besian was addressing the other members of the tribunal. ‘It’s obvious that this woman has things that she chooses not to tell us. Putting her to the rack might make her consider her answers more carefully. A racked prisoner does tend to speak out more fully at the subsequent interrogation.’
His colleagues nodded in agreement.
Nausea rose from my stomach and my body went icy cold and then hot. I bent my head and held my hands to my face. There was a drumming in my ears and I saw the tiled floor rush up to meet me.
Chapter Fifty-five
Saulo
BELOW ME, AS Zarita began to sway, I leaned over involuntarily.
Swiftly her aunt placed herself in front of me to block my lunge forward, but for the first time she lost her own composure. At the mention of the rack she put her hand to her face. Now she gripped her fingers over her mouth so that her knuckles gleamed white.
‘This man, Besian, had her condemned before trial.’ With difficulty I kept my voice muted. ‘It won’t matter what Zarita doe
s or does not confess to. He intends to find her guilty.’
Sister Beatriz let out a quiet sob of torment. ‘What can we do? Saulo, what can we do?’
As they half carried her from the hall, the sun fell on Zarita’s face. She raised her gaze to its light and dragged her feet and I thought I sensed why. Her cell would be dark so she was trying to remain in the sunlight for as long as possible. She attempted to straighten up as the soldiers hustled her from the chamber.
I turned to go.
‘Stay,’ Sister Beatriz quietly but forcefully commanded me.
For what? I wondered. The scribe monk had finished writing in his book, the other gathered some documents, then, with the head of the tribunal, Father Besian, they stood up to leave.
‘The queen and king are using this hall for their conferences,’ Sister Beatriz whispered to me. ‘If I had insight into Isabella’s current mood, it would help me to judge how much, if any, sympathy she might show me.’
I thought about this woman, Isabella, Queen of Castile and Aragon and would-be Queen of all Spain. I recalled that she’d ordered the creation of the town of Santa Fe, hewn out of solid rock so that the siege could remain in place through the winter. I doubted if she was capable of showing mercy to a young girl accused of heresy.
We didn’t have long to wait before Queen Isabella, King Ferdinand and their retinue arrived. Among the latter I recognized some of the advisers who’d been present at the session I’d attended with Christopher Columbus. The discussion began. It concerned the proposal to officially expel the Jews. The name of one of their chief financial advisers was mentioned, a Jew called Isaac Abravanel, who’d appealed to the monarchs not to issue the edict of expulsion. He’d offered to pay surety for the Jewish people to remain in Spain.
‘Isaac Abravanel has worked very well for us and the good of Spain,’ King Ferdinand declared. ‘He helped to raise funds for the army. Now our siege here at Granada has been successful and the war is almost over.’
‘Therefore we have no more need of him,’ pointed out a sly courtier.
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