by Shirl Henke
Magdalena's head snapped up. “Sails? He is leaving Castile?”
“He sails in a fortnight with Cristobal Colon.” Benjamin felt her stiffen as he spoke. “Never fear. He will give you the Torres name before he departs. It may be many months ere he returns.”
So he had seduced her knowing full well that he was leaving on an adventure to carry him to the opposite side of the earth! She was only his last female solace before the long celibate months at sea! “I will not marry him!” Magdalena replied tightly, remembering Aaron's cruel accusations about her morals and her family honor.
Benjamin sighed. “He thought you no innocent because of the accident, the young fool. I can certainly put that to right, Magdalena. Have no fear.”
She stood up, clutching the combs until their sharp ivory tines pricked her fingers. “It is more than that. Much more. He thinks me to be one of my father's familiars—or a court intriguer such as my mother! Look around you, my friend, before you deny the accuracy of his accusations.” Her hand swept toward the newly whitewashed walls hung with Bergundian tapestries, lined with lushly upholstered couches and elaborately carved oak chairs. “My family is accursed! And I have stooped to their level, God and all the saints forgive me! My mother would be proud of how I stalked him. I am cut of the same cloth as she!”
Benjamin stood up and took her by the shoulders. “No! You did foolish things, yes, but you acted out of love, not avarice, to gain a husband, not political advantage.”
“I will not force him to wed me,” Magdalena said stubbornly.
“When came your last courses?” Benjamin asked her softly.
She turned, horror-stricken, then replied, “Last week.” Her eyes were enormous, glistening with tears.
Benjamin released a long, relieved sigh. “Thank heaven. You are not likely to be carrying his child. We can be grateful for that. But he has carried away your honor, Magdalena. He may be a fool, but he can be taught the error of his ways. In time I know he will love you.”
“Perhaps, but it cannot be forced at sword's point. Let it rest until he returns. We have both of us acted most unwisely.”
Benjamin studied the proud, lovely young woman before him. Never in his life had his intuition guided him this surely. Aaron and Magdalena were destined to love each other. As was the custom, he had arranged the marriages of Mateo and Ana. One had been for good, the other for ill, but in neither case had he felt this way.
Some instinct impelled him to act now and not wait for Aaron's return. Taking the heavy sapphire ring with the Torres family crest from his finger, he reached out for her hand. Unclenching her cold white fingers, he took the combs from them. Then he placed the ring in her palm and closed it.
“Keep this always as a pledge of betrothal between you and my son. He will sail home by year's end. I know it. Will you be waiting for him and give him yet another chance?”
Magdalena could not deny the look of entreaty in his eyes. “Yes, my friend, I will wait for Aaron, your son.”
Chapter Five
Magdalena could still see the old Jewish woman as she sat crumpled on the street corner. Her six-year-old grandson was fighting a valiant but losing battle as two older youths rifled through the meager pouch of goods his grandmother had hoarded. He cried and kicked as they threw a Hebrew Bible into the gutter and pushed him on top of it. The wizened face of the woman was beyond pain, dead to all expression, defeated. Magdalena had rushed from the courtyard into the street and driven the youths away with her riding whip. Then she took the ragged pair to the kitchens and offered them food and some coins.
Within a few hours word of her kindness had spread, and several other desolate refugees paused hopefully outside her courtyard. With Don Bernardo at Segovia having an audience before Torquemada, and Estrella at court, Magdalena was temporary mistress of the household. She had opened her gates to give whatever succor she could to these wayfarers on their journey to Cadiz, the major embarkation port of Andalusia.
Her efforts had been short-lived once word had reached Don Bernardo. Magdalena feared he had set some of those awful “Inquisitor's eyes,” the street scum of Seville, to spy on his own daughter. Within three days a threatening letter had arrived and today her father came in person, livid over her “judaizing activities.”
Bernardo Valdés looked at his youngest child, willful and spoiled but by far the most striking of Estrella's children. He could never be certain whether any of the four girls was his, but that was of no real significance. They were useful for political marriages...or other arrangements. This beautiful child-woman would be his best offering at the royal court. Magdalena's striking green eyes and mahogany hair would certainly catch the king's attention. But only if he could keep her free of the Holy Office.
He cleared his throat and placed his hands across his widening paunch. “Not only have you been giving unlawful aid to the Jews, but you have been sneaking away unescorted to visit that accursed physician, Torres. Miralda told me he even came to our house to visit you this past week. I will not have you putting this family in jeopardy.”
“I could not watch people who have been our friends and neighbors start their journey with nothing. What I did was an act of Christian charity, not ‘unlawful aid.’ My friendship with Benjamin Torres should not upset you. He is a converso and the king's own physician, high in royal favor.”
“Marranos can never be trusted, no matter how high their rank. And his own Jewish brother fled Castile with a fortune, a direct violation of royal decree.”
“Since the roads are filled with Jews being forced to leave, I do not blame him for escaping with what property he could take before this tragedy unfolded!” she replied, her hand sweeping to the window. The streets of Seville were clogged with Jewish men, women, and children, carrying what few pitiful possessions they could on their own backs, denied even beasts of burden to bear the meager loads.
Bernardo's eyes narrowed until they glinted like cold gray metal. “You will no longer associate with the marrano. And to keep you from succoring any more stiff-necked Jewish swine who fall by the roadside, you will go to the country—if I have to have my men bind and gag you and tie you onto a cart! Once this messy business is over, you will be grateful that I have saved your reputation. Then you will go to court and serve the queen.”
Magdalena saw the look of arrogant determination etched on his florid face. He would do as he threatened if she did not acquiesce. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “I shall pack my clothing, although I see not what it matters if I am to be locked away in the country.”
“You will await my summons to court. Miralda will assist you with packing,” Bernardo added with oily solicitude, having won his way. He had instilled a terror of the Holy Office deeply in the dueña. The stupid old hag had reported his daughter's every word to him.
Hurt by Miralda's betrayal, Magdalena refused her help in packing. As she folded the soft woolens, rustling silks, rich brocades and cloth-of-gold gowns, she wondered with what blood money her father had purchased the clothing. Once she would have danced with glee for such lovely things, for a lavishly decked-out home, for all the trappings noblewomen of distinguished families expected. But not this way. Never at this cost, she thought in horror, squeezing her eyes closed and crumpling a silver embroidered cape in her hands. She had been so foolish, so selfish as to think her life bereft when Aaron casually had taken her innocence and sailed away. Her broken heart would mend, but the very fabric of the lives of entire families had been irreparably rent by the expulsion. Their broken hearts would never mend!
If only she could get word to Benjamin before she left. Magdalena tossed the cape into her trunk and looked about. Miralda was still downstairs receiving her father's last minute instructions. Good. She stole over to her small jewel chest and unlocked it.
The magnificent Torres crest ring winked at her. It was easily the most splendid piece she owned, but the monetary value was nothing to her. Some premonition made her feel the need to hide i
t. Even possessing the only key to the cask was no safeguard. Since her father had joined the confraternity, all in their household lived in fear. No servant was reliable anymore, she thought sadly. Pulling a large locket from the jewel box, she pried it open and took the small muslin spice bag from inside the garish bauble. The pomander was an amulet against diseases, but not noxious smelling, thank heavens.
Magdalena pulled the tiny pouch open and hid the ring inside, then quickly replaced it in the locket. She fastened the gold chain about her neck and let the locket with its precious content nestle between her breasts. “From now on I shall surely be free of all illness, for I will never part with my locket.” The irony of the locket's design did not escape her. It was embossed with a pearl cross.
* * * *
Palos, August 2, 1492
“We have been blessed,` my friend, in spite of a multitude of tribulations,” Cristobal Colon said quietly when he had finished his simple mealtime prayer in the small tavern.
Aaron's face quirked in a grim parody of a smile. “I can not but envy your faith,” he replied with a sigh, picking up his wine cup and downing a stout draught of the bitter red liquid, waterfront swill in a small isolated port. He grimaced, looking with distaste at the overcooked mutton and slab of coarse brown bread on his plate.
The older man smiled. “Not the elegant fare you are served at home, but far better than the ship's biscuit you will be eating in the weeks ahead.”
“I have downed far worse during the war,” Aaron replied, attacking the greasy mutton with his knife. “And you are right. We have been blessed—or lucky. I know not which, but without the timely appearance of that old seaman who sailed for the Portuguese, we would never have recruited the men now aboard.”
Colon's pale blue eyes were alight as he replied, “Pedro Vásquez was sent as a sign, a man who was within sight of the golden island of Cipangu and then lost it in the fog.”
Aaron scoffed, “The fog of his imagination, I suspect. He was, by your reckoning, off the Irish coast.”
The Genoese's face betrayed a glint of humor tempered with the seriousness that always pervaded his nature. “But it matters not that he was mistaken in his sightings—or imaginings. What he did, I as a foreigner could not do—he convinced these skeptical sailors of Palos to sign on the Enterprise.”
“You are disliked as a Genoese, but I as a marrano am hated far more, in my own land,” Aaron said softly, studying the enigmatic man seated across from him.
Colon looked at the youth's bitter face. “Do not be so certain Jewish blood makes you more despised than Genoese blood. All my life I have been a stranger in other men's houses. I have sailed the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Greece and the Atlantic from the icy seas above Ireland around the hot, still curve of Africa. Everywhere I was a stranger. My wife died in Lisbon and my sons...Diego left in a monastery, Fernando and his mother alone in Cordoba, while I pursue my quest. There have been times when I doubted, my young friend, even as you do now.”
“Yet you never abandoned hope.”
“Have you?” Colon's eyes searched Aaron's face.
The younger man sighed. “I abandoned my faith, my heritage, my identity when I followed my family's bidding and converted. I am not a Jew, but I am a poor Christian. Is there hope for such as I? Look you at the misery along every roadside, in every port. Thousands dispossessed, impoverished, fated for death—yet they, like you, still have hope. By comparison, I must seem mean-spirited indeed,” he confessed in perplexity.
“You will find what you seek. Perhaps in spite of their suffering, they will, too. And you may be the instrument,” Colon said enigmatically.
Aaron looked at him curiously. “My uncle Isaac is in France. He has saved many lives and given hope to the immigrants, but what can I do?”
“Open the riches of the East—vast and exotic lands filled with diverse men and cultures. Once we bring Castile in contact with such as lies across the Atlantic, how much less menacing will your Jewish kinsmen seem? How much more room will there be for them to live and work? Think of it, Diego. The whole world, one, finally linked in harmony.”
Aaron knew his friend and commander believed in his own words. Would there truly be a place for the Jews in the vast new world of the Indies? “I must believe in this, must I not? What else is there but to hope?”
Cristobal smiled. “Yes, now I see the old Diego I first knew at La Rabida, the stout youth who befriended my frightened young Diego. You have been a rare blessing to this enterprise. The merchants and mariners have proven most stubborn in the light of my royal commission. Your help with them has been invaluable.”
Aaron replied drily, “I think the good citizens of Palos, especially the Pinzón brothers, mislike the royal command to give over two fine caravels. You did some impressive talking to convince that Basque to give us his nao.”
Colon shrugged his thin shoulders expressively. “Convincing Juan de la Cosa to join us with his Santa Maria was far simpler than dealing with the Pinzóns. I like not the wallowing pitch of his nao. Another caravel like Nina would be better.”
“The Admiral of the Ocean Sea deserves a nao, not merely a caravel,” Aaron said, echoing Colon's gentle good humor. “Santa Maria is the flagship.”
“The Admiral is first of all an explorer. Those who would chart the Indies' unknown waters need caravels with shallow draft, not grand flagships.” Cristobal's eyes gazed out the narrow window to where torches danced like golden sprites at the river bank.
“To sailing at first light!” Aaron raised his cup, echoing the words with a toast, and Cristobal joined him, returning the salute.
August 3, 1492, dawned gray and calm in Palos. Carried out with the morning tide, a nao and two caravels set sail in search of a dream.
* * * *
“Bring water and linens, quickly. I must stop the bleeding else she will die and the babe with her.” Benjamin's voice was calm but firm as he issued orders for the servants, who scurried off to do his bidding.
Serafina and Ana stood outside the treating rooms at the front of their home. Both women were grave and pale as they watched the activity inside. “Come, Mother, we can do nothing here. You are shaking. Sit you and rest beneath the orange tree while I fetch a cooling draught of wine for you,” Ana said, guiding Serafina into the sunny patio.
“Do not bother with the wine. I am not in need of refreshment, only company,” the older woman replied. “If only your father had not sent to the apothecary for those herbs. Now José de Luna will know Benjamin treats a pregnant woman.”
“That is scarce a rarity, Mother,” Ana said, trying to sooth her agitation.
“But this is a Jewish woman who should have been on board ship with her family yesterday. If Luna decides to report what he knows to the familiars...” Serafina shuddered.
“If Father had not kept her here, she would have died on that awful, filthy boat with no physician to attend her. Even with his skills, the birth is going to be difficult,” Ana said gently. “Would you expect my father to do otherwise and violate his oath to save lives?”
“Of course not,” Serafina replied with a sigh. “We must find a way to smuggle her and the babe from Seville to Cadiz as soon as possible, though. She must leave Castile or face a terrible death.”
“I can surely help by taking them to my estate. Twill be a simple matter to arrange passage on a safe ship to Fez.” In the past years, Ana had grown into a resolute young woman.
Serafina nodded but said bitterly, “For a Jew, there is no safe passage to North Africa. The Muslim slavers take them from the ships, or worse yet, thieves from the slums slit their bellies open believing they have swallowed their gold to smuggle it from Castile.”
“I, too, have heard such tales, but we can make safer arrangements. I only fear what may have befallen the girl's husband and parents by the time she arrives.”
“If she arrives,” Serafina echoed doubtfully. Just then a loud banging on the front gates was followed by a cry
from without and the sounds of a scuffle. Serafina and Ana leaped to their feet and walked swiftly from the courtyard toward the entry.
“Yield in the name of the Holy Office of the Inquisition!” A man in a distinctive black robe with a white cross emblazoned on its front led a dozen armed civil militia into the house. “We seek Benjamin Torres,” the familiar said to the two quaking women.
* * * *
Fray Tomás de Torquemada felt every one of his seventy-two years that evening. He had ridden from Granada's mountain fastness across the river plain to Seville with his retinue of two hundred and fifty armed guards. He was saddlesore and exhausted. Yet it was far from a commonplace occurrence to have King Fernando's personal physician brought up on charges of relapsing into judaizing ways, hiding a Jewish woman and her newly delivered infant in his own home. The cursed brother, that crafty Isaac Torres, had escaped with his life and wealth, but the falsely converted Benjamin would not mock God thusly.
Torquemada knelt before the small alter in his quarters, made the sign of the cross, and clasped his hands tightly to pray. Always before interrogating a prisoner he went through the same ritual, praying for the extirpation of heresy and the destruction of all who clung to their vain belief in the Law of Moses. Except for a few chosen, such as himself, men with Jewish ancestors could not comprehend the beauty of the one true faith.
Often he feared for the king, whom he knew placed dynastic and political matters before his immortal soul. But Fernando could be ruled in this by the combined efforts of the queen and the Grand Inquisitor. He prayed fervently for almost an hour, then stood unsteadily. His knees ached so painfully that he had to allow the young friar who attended him to assist him in walking to the long dais where he would sit when Torres was brought before him.
Grunting as he sat down on the hard oak chair, Fray Tomás motioned for the friar to usher in the accused. He watched the tall man with graying blond hair and austerely chiseled features approach him. Benjamin's calm assurance evoked jealousy in the inquisitor, as did his physical appearance. For all Fray Tomás's fasting and secret flagellation, he could never seem to lose the slight corpulence that bloated his body. He, of a noble Castilian house, had the coarse features of a butcher, while this Jew possessed the lean elegance of a duke!