The Inquisitor's Wife

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  I stepped over to the window and drew the curtain aside. Across the street, my father’s house stood next to Antonio’s, the windows of both dwellings dark and unrevealing.

  I pressed a palm to the cool glass—hard, as if by doing so I could somehow break through the barriers that separated me from the two men I loved most—and let go silent tears. Physically, I was only steps from either, but I might as well have been a sea apart.

  * * *

  I was grateful that, for the next two days, Gabriel’s work preoccupied him; he left early before breakfast and didn’t return home until dark. We shared only one conversation at a late supper when he was clearly exhausted. Yet he was in good spirits, and after the meal, he asked me to sing for him, whatever I liked.

  I was a bit taken aback. “How do you know I sing, don Gabriel?”

  He dropped his gaze shyly, smiling. “You and your mother sang often out on the balcony. You have a very beautiful voice, Marisol.”

  I drew in a breath and began to sing an old ditty my mother had taught me, one that gave humorous advice to newlyweds. I sang only one verse, then paused because the second mentioned the marriage bed, a subject I preferred to avoid.

  Fortunately, Gabriel interrupted. “Do you play an instrument, Marisol?”

  I shook my head.

  My answer made him smile. “Oh, but a woman must learn an instrument! Then you can play for me when you sing.” His grin broadened. “You must learn to play the lute!”

  “If you wish,” I answered automatically. I averted my gaze, as the question made me think of Antonio’s serenade.

  “Then you will,” Gabriel vowed. There was an odd smirking playfulness in his tone and smile that I’d never seen before, but I thought no more about it.

  * * *

  Before the sun rose the next morning, Gabriel left for work, his carriage surrounded by mounted guards; he left word with Blanca that I was not to leave the house under any circumstances. By then, I’d been up for hours, unable to forget what day it was.

  Máriam and I said not a word to each other but dressed in silence, grim and distracted. The morning was warm for January, and when the sun first peeped over the horizon, I threw a light shawl over my shoulders and went downstairs. Máriam went with me, and together we paced rapidly through the scraggly courtyard with its mildew-stained fountain capped by the statue of Santiago, patron of the Catholic monarchs, impaling a Moor on his sword. The sky lightened quickly; it was blue and cloudless, and the sun was strong.

  We’d been striding aimlessly for almost an hour when we heard a shout coming from the cul-de-sac outside the house, from one of the guards keeping watch.

  “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

  Máriam and I shared a swift look and stole out the front gate. By then, the men-at-arms guarding the Hojeda house were all headed for the corner, where our little street intersected San Pablo’s broad thoroughfare. I followed them, but not without staring at my father’s house, where a coil of smoke coming from the kitchen chimney revealed the cook was already at work. Smoke rose from two of the chimneys at Antonio’s house; the sight brought fresh pain.

  We were not the only two hurrying to the intersection. The hunchbacked Lauro lumbered behind us, and Rosalina, my father’s stout, square-jawed chambermaid, hurried out of Diego’s house. A half dozen servants and I joined the men-at-arms, who stood with swords sheathed at their hips, their heads turned eastward toward the heart of the city. A cool brackish breeze came off the river, lifting dust from the cobblestones.

  Despite the guard’s calls, the eastern half of San Pablo Street was eerily empty on a weekday, but the rumble of wheels and clatter of horse’s hooves filled the air; the stones beneath my slippers began to vibrate.

  The soldiers, five abreast on fine horses, led the procession. They wore breastplates that glinted blindingly in the sun, and helmets with fine red plumes; each bore Isabel’s shield of the red lion against a white background—for the legend of the Lion King, and León—alternating with the image of a yellow turret against a red background, the symbol of Castile. These were the queen’s troops, and their horses rode side by side in perfect alignment.

  As they neared, I could see an apparently endless parade of open wagons behind them. A young rabbi in black, the red circle pinned to his breast, drove the first, his wife sitting beside him holding on to a squirming toddler. In the wagon bed behind them sat a pair of silent, frightened children amidst blankets, bedding, plain kitchenware, worn clothing, water and oil jars, and flour sacks, all bathed in bright sun. The wife’s face was lowered; she looked at no one but wept steadily onto the top of her impatient child’s head while her husband stared grimly ahead.

  As the rabbi’s wagon rattled past us, the crippled Lauro shrieked, with such volume and ferocity that I started.

  “Filthy Jews!” he screamed. “Child killers!”

  “Go back to the Devil and never return!” one of the men-at-arms shouted. This caused a second guard to cup his hands around his mouth and call:

  “Good riddance, Jewish scum!”

  None of the Jews reacted at all, even though some of them walked alongside wagons that were too full to allow passengers. A youth my age—short and thin, his eyes wide with shock—marched past us on foot, flanking a wagon in whose center sat a very old hairless man, his skin gray from illness, his mouth open and drooling; I’d never seen eyes so frighteningly vacant.

  At the instant the youth walked by us, barely two arms’ lengths away, Lauro leaned forward, ignoring the scattered mounted soldiers that policed the edges of the parade, and spat at him.

  The wad of mucus struck the young man’s cheek and clung, glistening, on the coarse dark hairs of his sparse beard. His eyebrows rushed together as it struck; outrage rippled across his features, but instead of turning to look at his attacker, he shut his eyes. When they opened again, they were blank and fixed firmly on the road ahead of him. Unwilling to acknowledge his tormentors, he didn’t wipe the spittle away, but trudged onward.

  One of the queen’s soldiers monitoring the perimeters of the procession saw the incident and cantered up behind the youth; his hand on the hilt of his sword, the soldier gazed fiercely down at Lauro.

  “Someone tell this idiot there’s to be no violence!” he called, and rode off.

  The second he was gone, Lauro and the men-at-arms began to shout at the next wagon, so laden with personal belongings that the owner led the pair of horses by the reins. He too looked to neither side of the street—now lined on both sides with onlookers—but kept watching those directly in front of him.

  A beautiful young Jewess flanked the wagon on our side of the roadway. Dressed and veiled in deep blue cloth shiny from wear, she bore herself elegantly, proudly, despite the swaddled infant in her arms. A crease of stark determination had formed between her black brows, and although she had carefully fastened her eyes on the horizon, her dark, intelligent eyes were narrowed with hate, her delicate mouth a taut line that tugged downward at each corner.

  I couldn’t help but stare. Though small of build, she was voluptuous and full breasted, with features so like my mother’s that grief caught me unexpectedly.

  “Don’t ever come back!” Lauro screamed beside us, so loudly that I grabbed Máriam’s hand out of fright.

  Beside him, one of Gabriel’s men-at-arms hooked his little fingers in his mouth and let go a piercing, derisive whistle at the sight of her.

  It was noisy, given the crowds, the rumbling wheels, the clattering horses, and her young husband, walking ahead of her, didn’t hear. But the Jewess did.

  She lifted her handsome chin and looked on the whistler with such defiance and scorn that I drew in a breath, terrified for her safety. But our guards only laughed raucously, pleased to have gotten her attention. As she shifted her attention from them, her gaze caught mine and lingered there. The fury faded immediately from her expression; disbelief took its place, followed by astonishment, then pity.

  Pity at
the sight of me—at my dark, unruly Semitic hair and features, at my dark eyes. As if she knew that she had already lost everything of value but was managing to escape Seville alive to go to a place where she would be free; as if she knew that her misery was almost over, but mine, a conversa’s, had yet to really begin. My sheltered sense of reality crumbled. I, a heretofore insistent Christian, could no longer deny that there was no difference between us, no right or wrong religion, no good or evil save that found within the human soul.

  The Jewess averted her eyes and moved on. I suddenly remembered my mother’s hopeful story about Sepharad. The last lines repeated themselves in my head:

  Can the Lord God move through a woman?

  Surely He moved through Queen Esther. And perhaps He can do so with Queen Isabel, who made us weep with joy when she wrote the Jews of Seville, saying: “I take you under my protection and forbid anyone to harm you.”

  … We look to our Visigoth queen with hope and pray for her success and the time when we can raise our voices again in the streets of Seville.

  I looked again at the soldiers’ shields and the images of the lion and the castle tower. Surely Isabel, the most pious ruler in all Christendom, was simply unaware that her orders were bringing about such suffering; surely she would have wept had she learned of my mother’s unnecessary death, and would weep now to see the pain in her Jewish subjects’ eyes.

  I swallowed hard at the abrupt, unwanted welling of tears, knowing they would make me an outcast among the Old Christian hecklers. Behind the young Jewess, the parade of human suffering stretched to the horizon; in it, I saw the enormity of my cruelty toward my own mother and broke.

  * * *

  The next afternoon, Fray Hojeda arrived at the mansion, his stern visage bright with anticipation. Gabriel conferred privately with him in the sitting room for a few hours, during which time I was obligated to remain in my quarters. Supper was served late as a result. When I came down, Gabriel informed me that I would need to be ready to go with him the following morning for what he described, with a furtive smile, as a “surprise.” His little smile seemed ingenuous enough, but Máriam and I trusted him not at all.

  The next morning, I had Máriam lace me into the nicest of my mourning gowns and together with her went downstairs to meet my husband with feigned enthusiasm. His grin, as he wished me a good morning, was as forced as my own.

  “Are you ready for your surprise?” he asked in a strangely playful tone.

  I could only nod, wide-eyed and solemn.

  Ever since the Edict of Grace had been read in the city square, Gabriel rode in the carriage surrounded by men-at-arms each time he went out. That morning was no different, and when our carriage turned west toward the river, I tensed; Gabriel’s preoccupied silence during the ride did little to ease my dread. By the time we slowed in front of the Church of San Pablo, I felt a cold thrill, and when we passed behind the walls surrounding San Pablo’s monastery, I clasped my hands in my lap to still their trembling. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Máriam, who was surely just as terrified. Was Gabriel taking us to be questioned by the Inquisition?

  Our carriage rolled past a vast brick dormitory three stories tall, one that was rumored to serve as a prison for those arrested on suspicion of heresy, although only those who had been inside knew for certain. Its windows were shuttered, its delicate turrets unrevealing; built centuries earlier under Islamic rule, its once-smooth stone exterior was pitted with age. The lower floors featured rows of slender archways with beveled stone edges, mullioned windows, and a half dozen armed guards standing watch at each entrance; the upper floors featured lacy wrought-iron balconies covered in rust, and three-dimensional spirals of tiny bricks that bloomed in magical bas-relief from the stone walls. It was warm that day, and the breeze through our open carriage window carried the stench of overstressed latrines.

  I put a discreet hand to my nose to block the smell as the carriage came to a stop in front of a nearby outbuilding, a small, one-story rectangle of wood and plain, whitewashed stucco that had probably once served the Dominicans as a storage facility. Gabriel instructed the driver to take us around to a back entrance, one hidden from the larger building’s view. Once we rolled to a stop, he turned to me.

  “Are you ready?” he asked. His manner and voice were pleasant, but his eyes held strong emotion; anger, I thought at first, but it was something more complex.

  “For what?” I asked, almost too shaken to speak at all.

  “Your lesson,” he admonished, as if it had been obvious. “With the lute, of course. Remember?”

  “Oh.” I gaped at him an instant. When he seemed irritated by my hesitation, I quickly added in a more cheerful tone, “Oh! What a wonderful surprise, don Gabriel!”

  “I’m glad you’re pleased,” he answered tersely, in a tone that said he was not. “Stay in the carriage; I’ll be back in a moment. There are monks and priests inside who would be unsettled by a woman. I’ll make sure the way is clear.” He moved, stooping, as the driver opened the carriage door; as Gabriel’s hand caught the edge, he looked back over his shoulder at me.

  “Remember, my brother and I have been kind to you: I offered my house and protection to you, to save you from Old Christians who are not as fair-minded as I am.”

  “Of course, I’ll remember,” I said, confused.

  “Lower your veil. There are monks inside,” he said.

  Gabriel lingered in the doorway, watching until I covered my face.

  My world grew darkly filmed, visible only through gaps in the black lace cutwork. I could make out only one of Gabriel’s pale eyes and part of his sunburned nose; I listened to his stern voice as his invisible mouth said, “Stay here until I come for you.”

  I obeyed. Máriam and I were too tense to utter a word until Gabriel returned a few minutes later and led us into the small building. The smell of refuse and urine grew stronger as I climbed from the carriage; I held my breath as I glanced at the prison windows, unrevealing in daylight. Once we stepped over the threshold of the smaller edifice, I took in the smell of fresh whitewash and sawdust.

  Happily, the hallway was empty and very narrow; to my right, unpainted wooden walls had been hastily erected to create small, separate rooms in what had once been a large open area. Gabriel led us to the closed door of the room nearest the back entry, knocked, and motioned for us to enter ahead of him. I stepped inside, with Máriam close behind.

  And there was Antonio.

  He stood alone at a reading pedestal, staring down intently at a sheaf of notes. Beside him, stacks of papers rested on a brand-new desk equipped with wooden compartments for holding files. The office was small, with one tiny window overlooking the kitchen gardens filled with parsley, bright green from the rains. Although the wooden interior walls were new, the exterior ones were old, with dust-covered spiderwebs veiling the corners of the ceiling.

  Antonio glanced up as we three entered. Once again, his deep-set eyes stole my breath; they were the dark, impossible blue of lapis, startling against the contrast of his pale skin and generous red-gold brows. His lips remained tightly pressed together; they didn’t part in astonishment, as mine did beneath my veil. He scarcely glanced at me but instead exchanged curt nods with Gabriel.

  We hadn’t seen each other in almost two years, but it may as well have been a decade: Antonio was only twenty years old, but his dark, solemn air made him seem far older, as if his father’s death and other sorrows of life had aged him too soon. The light streaming through the open window caught the first lines in the pale, delicate skin at the corners of his eyes, where they crinkled when he smiled. But Antonio wasn’t smiling now. His expression was sad and darkly serious; whatever he was reading made him sadder. His tunic and leggings were black, as if he were in mourning or a priest or monk; the color was too harsh for his coloring and made his skin look chalkier than it was.

  I stared at him—at his broad turned-up nose, his generous lips, and oval clean-shaven face, all conspirin
g to make him neither too pretty nor too plain, but pleasant to regard. He wore his golden red hair brushed straight back now, revealing his fair forehead and a widow’s peak; thick waves fell against his long neck to just below his collar and curled around the backs of his ears.

  At once I was swallowed by the memory of the kiss we’d shared the day of his father’s burial. He’d seemed so childlike then, so lost, although he fought to master his grief. At the funeral, he had wept openly, his arm around his frail mother’s shoulders. Later that afternoon, he and I met alone beneath the huge olive tree in my father’s yard. His eyelids were swollen, the rims red, but by then he had spent his tears and was dry-eyed, if dazed.

  I had put my hand on his shoulder and let him talk. He didn’t look at me, but instead stared out toward the river, at the distant horizon.

  “I failed him.” His voice was naturally musical and soft, and that day, it was even softer, almost a whisper. “I was gone too long without visiting.…”

  “You were at university,” I said, caressing his shoulder. “You were doing what your father wanted you to do.”

  “You don’t understand.” His lips stretched thin and then began to twitch; a grimace passed over his features as he struggled to contain himself. “My father suffered. He suffered greatly for a long time, and I wasn’t there. And by the time I came to him, I couldn’t help. There was nothing I could do.…” His voice trailed; he lowered his head and closed his eyes. “I wanted only to ease his pain.” A tear spilled onto the sunbaked earth.

  “Oh, Antonio.” I slipped my hands beneath his arms and embraced him, pulling him toward me, and nestled my head in the hollow of his chest.

  To my surprise, he gently lifted my chin with his finger. “Life goes on,” he murmured. “I know only one thing, Marisol: that I want to spend it with you.”