by Matthew Carr
In addition, the aforementioned Segura had incited the Moriscos of Belamar and other Morisco places to revolt. He had conspired with the three Moriscos—Navarro, Péris and Royo—to acquire weapons and gunpowder from Navarre, which he had stockpiled in Belamar. He had rejoiced in the deaths of Fray Juan Panalles, the priest of Belamar, and the three Quintana brothers, the prosecutor went on, and had very likely been involved in them.
“I don’t like that,” Mercader interrupted. “Change ‘very likely’ to ‘certainly.’”
Ramírez crossed out the offending words. The accused Segura’s daughters had also assisted their father in his damned heretical practices, he went on. Juana Segura had helped her father write Arabic books. She was also a curandera—a folk healer who used sorcery in the course of her profession. Like her father, she consorted with the devil while collecting herbs and remedies in the forest, and the apprentice Juan Royo had observed her dancing naked and copulating with the horned beast. Segura’s eldest daughter, Susana, was also guilty of heretical practices. The carpenter Pedro Navarro had seen her naked in a tub in her father’s house, washing herself in preparation for prayer. Another witness had seen her perform the full-body guadoc in the Countess of Cardona’s own house and observed her regularly offering the prayers of her damned sect.
There were ten other names on the list, all of whom confirmed the many reports that the Zaragoza Inquisition had already compiled over the years. These charges, Prosecutor Ramírez concluded, were only the most visible manifestation of the conspiracy that had been allowed to fester in Belamar, which now threatened the Inquisition, the Church and the peace and security of His Majesty’s realms.
“Excellent work, Prosecutor Ramírez.” Mercader turned to his secretary. “I want this rewritten, copied and ready to send by the end of the day. Send copies to the inquisitor-general and also directly to the king.”
The two men bowed and left the room. Mercader remained sitting at his desk, admiring the interlocking geometrical shapes painted onto the wooden ceiling panels. Ramírez had done his work well. The charges were certainly serious enough to get Segura burned, and probably his daughters, too. Their interrogations would lead to other arrests, and it was only a matter of time before the heretic countess herself was brought to the Aljafería. When that happened, the Supreme Council and the king himself would know that Mercader was the man who had finally subdued the haughty Aragonese. He was still immersed in these pleasant thoughts when there was a knock on the door and his secretary reentered.
“Your Excellency. Familiar Pachuca has come from Huesca. He has a message from Commissioner Herrero.”
“Send him in.”
Mercader had not been expecting to see Diego Pachuca. Though Pachuca worked for the Inquisition, he was an unsettling presence, and Mercader was not always certain if his capacity for violence and cruelty was always directed toward God’s service or even whether it was on the right side of sanity. Pachuca came into the room, his long arms dangling toward his knees, with the heavy, loping stride that made Mercader think of a wolf. He was wearing his usual green, bearing the white emblem of the Cross of Dominic, but his cape and boots were covered with dust and his sour face was unusually animated.
“Your Excellency, I have news from Commissioner Herrero.”
“Oh?”
Pachuca bared his lips in an unpleasant gap-toothed yellow smile. “I think that Your Excellency would do well to leave for Huesca,” he said. “As soon as possible.”
Mercader did not appreciate being told what to do by his subordinates, and he was irritated by the faintly triumphant smirk on the lowly familiar’s face.
“And why is that?” he asked.
“Commissioner Herrero wishes me to inform you that he has arrested Pedro Segura.”
• • •
ON THE MORNING AFTER HIS RETURN, Mendoza summoned his men to the village hall and gave them new instructions. From now on, no one was to leave the village for any reason until further notice, even to work the fields, without authorization. Firewood, water and forage would be collected by organized teams with an armed escort, and all animals were to remain inside Belamar. Sentries and street patrols were to keep their braziers and torches burning throughout the night in order to deter any potential intruders and see that the streets were well lit.
These orders were proclaimed by the pregonero and only added to the collective mood of expectation, fear and dread in the village as the suppressed tensions and anxieties of the last month now found their outlet in the groups of neighbors who stood outside their homes seeking solace in numbers, listening to the latest rumors and sightings of bandits who could be seen moving across the fields or looking down on the village from the overhanging cliff as though they no longer even felt the need to hide themselves.
Mendoza spent most of the day ensuring that his orders were complied with. He was standing by the village wall looking over the ravine when he heard a trumpet sound from the tower. He immediately went to the lavadero, where Necker, Martín and a group of Moriscos were watching a man riding a mule who was being pursued across the valley floor by a larger group of riders, some of whom were shooting at him. The pursuers were gaining ground, and Mendoza ordered Martín to prepare to fire. The militiaman quickly ignited a fuse from the burning brazier and loaded the escopeta.
“Come with me,” Mendoza said. Martín, Ventura and the Moriscos followed him to the crest of the hill, till he had a clear view of the lone rider and his pursuers.
“Aim behind him,” Mendoza said. “Keep firing until I tell you to stop.”
“But, sir, they’re out of range.”
“Hombre, I don’t care if you hit anyone, just shoot!”
Martín fired twice. As Mendoza had hoped, the horsemen immediately slowed down, and the realization that they were being fired upon made them reluctant to come closer, so that their quarry was able to regain lost ground. The militiaman fired two more shots before the horsemen turned back, and the rider raced into town. The Moriscos clustered around him as he nearly fell from the saddle.
“It’s Galindo, the miller’s son!” one of the Moriscos cried.
Mendoza pushed his way through them. “Where’ve you come from, Galindo?” he asked.
“From Las Palomas, señor,” Galindo replied hoarsely. “I was visiting my sister when they came to the village and attacked it.”
“Who attacked it? Give the man some water!”
One of the Moriscos poured from a pitcher into a clay cup, and the miller’s son drank it gratefully. “Bandits and mountain men,” he said. “The montañeses are killing any Moriscos they find and looting their homes. Many houses have been burned. Many people in Las Palomas are dead. My sister and her children escaped to Cardona, but her husband was killed. They say the Inquisition has arrested Dr. Segura, sir. And now the Old Christians are going to destroy Belamar.”
“Segura has been arrested?” Mendoza asked. “How? Where?”
“I don’t know, sir. But they say he’s in Huesca. And Inquisitor Mercader is coming to take him to Zaragoza for trial. Sir, you have to leave Belamar. Everyone must leave or you’ll be killed. Cardona is on fire! There are hundreds of them coming. It’s like an army!”
“You’re a brave man, Galindo,” Mendoza said. “Go and see your family now.”
He gazed back down the road. He did not know how Segura had been arrested, but it was now clear that no help would be forthcoming. And as improbable as it seemed, Mendoza realized that his investigation was temporarily suspended and that for the time being he and his companions must prepare for war.
• • •
“DO YOU KNOW ME, Dr. Segura?”
Segura stared back at the thin little man who was sitting on the opposite side of the table watching him with a faint and almost playful smile that seemed at odds with the sorrowful expression on the statue of Christ in his thorns that was ha
nging from the wall directly behind him. He knew Commissioner Herrero, who was standing next to the table and wearing a cassock, with his hands folded just below his waist, his tonsured head illuminated by a shaft of light that descended from the high window like a halo. He knew Diego Pachuca the familiar, who had accompanied Herrero to Belamar the last time arrests were carried out there. But he did not recognize the little man with the face like a hatchet, and he did not understand how he had come to find himself sitting in an Inquisition jail with his hands chained behind his back, because his memory of the last two days was still hazy.
He knew that he’d done everything Mendoza had suggested and that it had worked out well. He concealed himself in the woods and watched the bandits ride past toward the Huesca road. He then threaded his way through the forest toward Jaca, taking care to avoid the road, and made his way directly to Corregidor Calvo’s office. He told the corregidor about Péris and Sánchez and the bandits who had killed the king’s special constable and tried to kill the licenciado himself during their return from France. He passed on Mendoza’s request to call up the militia, and Calvo promised to send out messengers that same day.
At that point he was eager to return to his family, but Calvo insisted that the roads were not safe and that he would do better to return to Belamar with the militia the following day. This was sensible advice, and the corregidor had kindly given him money to pay for food and accommodation at the pilgrims’ inn. He remembered eating supper at a local tavern and stepping out into the darkened street to return to the inn, which was only a few minutes away. He remembered how his legs seemed suddenly to turn to water and the street began to roll beneath his feet.
He remembered thinking that he must have been ill or eaten something that did not agree with him, as he held on to the wall to keep himself upright. But soon the walls, too, seemed to be shifting, and he felt himself falling, and there was nothing he could do about it. That was the last he’d seen of Jaca. Sometime later he found himself lying in a cart, covered with straw, his hands and feet tied, a gag around his mouth and a bag over his head. He remembered struggling to free himself, and then someone hit him hard on the head with a stick and he passed out again.
It was not until they untied his feet and dragged him from the cart that he returned to consciousness, but even then they had to hold him up, because his legs were too weak to carry him. They took off the gag and removed the bag, and he saw Pachuca and the warden for the first time and knew that he was in the hands of the Inquisition. He wanted to ask them questions, but his tongue would not even form the words as they dragged him down the stone steps and along a torchlit corridor where they unlocked a heavy door and chained him to the wall of a cell that smelled of urine and dank straw.
That was two days ago. And since then he had not seen anyone except the jailer, who brought him food twice a day and did not speak to him. He had spent his time in darkness, unable to stand or even lie down properly or do anything except kick out at the rats that scuttled around his feet and pray to Allah to suppress the terror that threatened to turn to hysteria. From time to time, he fell into something like sleep, until the cold, the discomfort or the rats woke him. In his worst moments, he felt as though God had abandoned him, and he did not know why. And it was only now, on the afternoon of his third day in captivity, that Pachuca and the warden had come to his cell and chained him up and brought him back up the stairs, to face the pale official with the thin-lipped smile.
“I don’t know you,” Segura said finally. “But I think you are Inquisitor Mercader of the Inquisition of Aragon.”
“‘His Excellency Inquisitor Mercader’ to you, Morisco,” Herrero corrected him.
“Well, you may not know me, but I know a great deal about you,” Mercader said. “In fact, I have been looking forward to this meeting for a very long time.”
“I have no idea why.”
“I think you do,” Mercader insisted. “And there will be an opportunity for us to talk about that. But it will save me a great deal of trouble if you confess.”
“Confess to what?”
“Come now, Moor. I’m not someone to play games with. Tell me what I want to know and you may also be able to do something for your children before you leave this earth.”
Segura looked at him with alarm. “What have my children got to do with this?”
“Tomorrow I will go to Cardona,” Mercader replied calmly. “I will arrest the countess and your daughters Susana and Juana, and your two eldest sons. I shall read out the Edict of Grace that your protectors tried to prevent. And then I will cleanse the stain upon the kingdom and remove every trace of your damned sect from Belamar. But if you confess freely to all your crimes, I promise you that your children will not be put to the fire.”
“Before God I have committed no crime!”
“You dare to mention your God in my presence, Moor?”
“There is not my God or your God,” Segura insisted. “Only the same God who judges us all, with a different name.”
Mercader looked at him with disgust. “You damned heretic. Do you think that we don’t know what happens when His Majesty’s back is turned? Did you really expect that we would allow you to remain in our lands and continue to foul our Church forever? Our Christian martyrs were prepared to die for their faith, but you Moriscos only lie and dissemble for yours, while you dream of some Redeemer who will come and save you. But no longer. We will wipe you out. Every one of you. Till one day there will be no trace of Moor in Spain and no stink of the whoremongering prophet that your ancestors enforced on us.”
“You tell me about force?” Segura exclaimed.
“I do,” Mercader said. “And I promise you that the next time you see your children, Dr. Segura, it will be at the auto in Zaragoza. You will be gagged so that you will not be able to speak to them or say good-bye to them. And then you will burn. There is nothing you can do to prevent that. But you can at least save your children. Confess and you have my word that I will be merciful. If you don’t, I will make certain that they burn before you do. And that will be the last thing you ever see.”
Segura stared back at the cold, hateful eyes. “I will confess only to Allah. Not to the Christian bloodhounds who insult his Prophet.”
The warden raised the baton and brought it down hard across Segura’s collarbone, hard enough to hurt him yet not to break it. But Mercader was almost smiling as he ordered the prisoner to be returned to his cell, because he and Segura knew that the mayor had already begun to make the confession that would soon be extracted from him.
• • •
FROM WHAT THE MILLER’S SON had told them, Mendoza guessed that they had at least one day before they were attacked. He immediately dispatched the town crier to summon the population to the main square and sent his men around the village to spread the same message. Within an hour of the pregonero’s call, the square was so tightly packed that some people were forced to climb onto the overlooking roofs while others crowded into any available windows and balconies. Others clogged the surrounding streets, where excited children who had not grasped the reasons for the congregation ran around laughing and shouting excitedly, as if they were celebrating a village festival.
Some of the Moriscos were carrying bundles of their possessions and were clearly poised to take flight, and as soon as Mendoza appeared in the upstairs window of the town hall, the crowd fell silent. Until that moment he had not really thought about what he was going to say, and as he looked out at the anxious, expectant faces, he remembered the speech that Tacitus had placed in the mouth of the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus and of Cortés telling his soldiers to burn their ships.
“People of Belamar!” he shouted. “Tomorrow you will be attacked by men who want to destroy you! These men are your enemies, and they are also the enemies of your mistress and of His Majesty. They have already shown that they will kill without mercy. You all know what happened t
o the del Río family. Now they have destroyed Las Palomas, and they will destroy Belamar if you allow them to enter it.”
For a few moments, it was impossible to continue, as the Moriscos began shouting at him and also at one another. Mendoza raised his arms and demanded quiet.
“All of you know that I came to this village as a representative of the king’s justice,” he went on. “And I have found myself in a village without justice, where men who disgraced the Church have exploited and oppressed you. I know you have no reason to trust me. Some of you may know that Dr. Segura has been arrested by the Inquisition. I assure you that I had nothing to do with this. And let me tell you now that I speak to you as a former soldier in the king’s armies. There is no escape from what is about to happen. Belamar is already surrounded. The roads are cut off. Try to run and they will hunt you down in the mountains and kill you, and you will also make it easier for them to kill those who are left behind. No one can help us. Your survival depends on your willingness to fight for your families and your homes and to remain calm and obey my orders.”
The crowd was absolutely silent now as Mendoza explained how the village was to be defended. A barricade was to be erected in front of the main entrance by the end of the day, and additional barricades were to be established farther back on the streets and in any available entrance to the town, using carts, church benches or whatever else was available. Stones, bricks and anything that could be thrown were to be carried onto rooftops and the wall overlooking the ravine, and firing positions were to be selected as soon as they knew how many guns and crossbows were available.
The village hall was to serve as a field hospital, and he needed volunteers to gather water and mattresses, plus shirts and cloth that could be used for bandages. All men who were able to fight were to get their weapons, return to the main square and report to Constable Necker and Sergeant Ventura. Women and the elderly were to take shelter in the church. The neighbors in every ten houses were to form work details and assign a foreman to direct them. Work on the village’s defenses was to continue throughout the night.