by Shirl Henke
“You seem unmoved by the gravity of the charges brought against you, which are serious indeed, Don Benjamin,” Torquemada said coldly.
“I assure you, Fray Tomás, I am most concerned, especially for my family who have been unjustly imprisoned with me. My wife and daughter had nothing to do with my treating a Jewish patient,” Benjamin said, fighting to remain calm.
“You admit to breaking the law by succoring a Jewess after her expulsion, then.” Tomás leaned forward in his chair.
Benjamin shifted the cumbersome manacles that threatened to drag down his thin shoulders. “I am a physician. A woman fell by the wayside, great with child and about to be delivered.” He paused and a soft smile touched his lips. “Not altogether unlike the Holy Mother on her journey to Bethlehem. She, too, was a Jewess, Fray Tomas.”
Torquemada stood up, furious anger compelling him to cry out, “That is blasphemy!”
“It certainly was not intended as such. The young woman is a mere mortal and yes, Jewish, but she fell too ill to be able to leave Castile with her family. As a physician I was bound by my oath to treat her—I ask about no man or woman's religion before doing this.”
“You are a converso. To associate with Jews means backsliding into your old heresy,” Torquemada thundered.
“I did nothing to violate my baptism, but I am guilty of offering shelter to a woman who would have died had I not cared for her and her child. Let the royal justice judge me for this if it be a criminal offense. The matter is not subject to jurisdiction of the Holy Office. And whether I am guilty or not of aiding a Jew illegally, my wife and daughter had nothing to do with my actions. You have no right to hold them.”
“That is my decision to make,” Torquemada said arrogantly, stroking his fleshy chin.
“You have bitten off much, Fray Tomás. I am still physician to King Fernando. My family and I cannot simply vanish beneath the dungeon gates of the Inquisition as so many thousands of others have.”
Torquemada had always hated the tranquil assurance Torres exuded, but now he seized his opportunity to break the man. “Your royal appeal has been denied. You and your family,” he paused to let the words sink in, “are under the complete jurisdiction of the Holy Office.”
“On what charges?” Benjamin knew he was betraying fear for Serafina and Ana now. He fought to remain in control.
“You have attempted to corrupt a noblewoman from an Old Christian family, the daughter of one of my own Crossbearers here in Seville. Bernardo Valdés's youngest child, Dona Magdalena.”
“She, too, was my patient. I am not to treat Jewish women, and now it seems I am not to treat gentile women either. If my credentials to practice medicine are in question, that, too, is a matter for secular courts, not the Holy Office,” Benjamin argued. Serafina had warned him about Bernardo's spleen when he had befriended Magdalena. Pray God his wife and their Ana did not pay for his heedlessness. Bernardo Valdés was as ruthless as the man before him.
“There are other matters beside my foolish daughter's irresponsible behavior,” Don Bernardo interrupted. He was pleased when Torres turned in surprise as he entered the room. “There is also the matter of your daughter's behavior—such as lighting candles on Friday evenings at sundown, abstaining from pork, and overmuch washing. Your wife, too, seems to purchase little pork for your household consumption.”
“We do not keep the Jewish Sabbath, neither at my home nor at Ana's. Ask any of our Christian friends or our servants. As to eating pork, that is a medical matter. The heat of Andalusia engenders worms in it that cause a bleeding sickness in some. There is no rule in Christian instruction that enjoins us to eat particular meats, only that we eat none on Fridays or fast days. That we have observed.”
“We have servants in your daughter's home who say otherwise,” Torquemada said.
Benjamin turned from Bernardo to Tomás. “That is absurd! Ana is a good Christian. She has had her child baptized and will raise her as a Christian.”
“Some trustworthy Old Christian family will...I doubt Ana Torres de Guzman will live to do so.” As Benjamin paled visibly, the Grand Inquisitor felt a surge of triumph.
* * * *
Now that the Jews had all left Castile, Magdalena was finally allowed to ride again. The roads were no longer filled with the heart-wrenching refugees and she was considered safe from any temptation that might disgrace her family. Only a few days ago her father had returned home and announced that she was no longer confined to the dreary interior of their rural estate. Unlike the city house, the crumbling old stone fortress had not yet been restored. Magdalena no longer cared about the ill repair of her surroundings, only that she be allowed to feel the wind in her hair as she set Blossom flying across the marshes.
As she returned home, sweat-soaked and weary, she noted a strange horse tethered near the door. It did not belong to one of the odious familiars of the confraternity, nor did she recognize it as one from her neighbor's stable. Such a magnificent black Barb would not go unremarked about the area.
Curious, she dismounted and approached the horse, but knew that in her present bedraggled, filthy state she dare not show herself before a visitor of rank. She would go upstairs and order a bath, but first...she must learn if the visitor was worthy of note or not. She slipped into the courtyard and listened at her father's study window.
“All has gone according to plan, then?” an unfamiliar voice asked.
“Better than even your informants could have arranged for me. My spies found him hiding a Jewess and her newborn infant in his own home! Coupled with that and the stories your servants told, the Grand Inquisitor was well satisfied, as were the king and queen. It was a risk for me, you must understand, involving Magdalena's name in this. I will have at least ten thousand ducats from the estate when all is done.”
“You will receive your payment. Only be patient. Once Benjamin Torres and his wretched family are burned for judaizing, I will reward you.”
Magdalena crumpled to the ground as the earth spun crazily around her, a small pitiful cry caught in her throat, drowned out by the scraping of chairs as the visitor and Don Bernardo rose and quit the library. She fought waves of nausea and blackness. “I must be calm. I have to find a way to save them,” she whispered brokenly.
Serafina had always been kind to her, yet fearful because of her father. What had she done to this innocent family by merely associating with them? Had her friendship with Benjamin first brought him to the attention of the Holy Office? Did Benjamin think she had betrayed him?
Struggling to stand up, she clawed her way along the wall until her heartbeat slowed and her head cleared. Then she raced for her room. She had a small fortune in jewelry her frivolous mother had cast off, a careless gift for her daughter's debut at court. Could it be enough to bribe the guards into freeing the Torres family?
Magdalena rode through the twilight, heedless of the dangers lurking on the Seville road. Once in the city, she went to the home of her old friend, Lucia de Palma, only to learn the auto de fe was to be held at dawn. Benjamin, Serafina, and Ana were condemned along with a host of other New Christians. All would walk in the horrible procession to the Cathedral, where a mass would be celebrated along with a sermon of thundering denunciation. From there they would be taken to the outskirts of the city to the meadows of Tablada, traditional grounds for the burning of judaizers.
Magdalena swore Lucia to secrecy and then left the house before first light, headed for the Convent of San Pablo, whose grim gray cells housed those doomed to die on this day. Bribing a jailer proved easier than she had believed. No Dominicans were in the dungeons beneath the court, which was staffed by the city's watch. Although the Holy Office condemned men and women to die, often after horrible tortures, the Church itself was never allowed to execute heretics. Once tried in secret, accused by witnesses they were not allowed to see, and judged guilty by their Dominican Inquisitors, the apostates were turned over to the secular authorities to be burned.
The
guard was a small, filthy fellow with narrow pale eyes that could freeze blood. God only knew what horrors he had witnessed while working in the dungeons. At first Magdalena feared he would refuse her, but the lure of a gold bracelet set with rubies quickly dazzled him. He sneaked her inside the convent and guided her along cold, dark passageways, leading ever deeper into the very bowels of the earth. At each twist of the labyrinth, a dim torch flickered in its iron wall sconce.
Magdalena tried not to look inside the rooms they passed. She had heard the stories of racks, iron boots, thumb screws, and water ladders. She had no wish to see those instruments from hell. This was hell. The sour odor of excrement and vomit mixed with the oily stench from the torches.
“There. That is the last abode of the one known as the royal physician,” the guard said. He unbolted the door and it swung wide. “I will return in an hour's time when the friar has made his rounds. Be ready, else we are both bound for the same fate as your friend.”
Steeling herself for what she might find within, she nodded and entered the dark cell with only a small candle she had brought for light and courage. The heavy door closed with a sepulchral clang and the bolt slid into place.
Magdalena accustomed her eyes to the dim light and called out in a broken whisper, “Benjamin?” Was he maimed beyond recognition by those fiends? Had they tortured him?
“Magdalena, child, is that you? You should never have come!” Benjamin's voice was strong as he materialized from the shadows in the far corner of the narrow cell.
“I only last evening learned what had happened! I have brought all my jewelry to bribe the guards. I have fast horses, but I have no plan. You and I must—”
“No, child, no. Your heart is good, but your hope is vain. The guards would never dare let me escape, not for a million ducats, which somehow I doubt you possess in any event.” He was pale and unwashed, his hair a mat of tangles and his beard untrimmed, but he looked otherwise whole.
“What have they done to you?” she asked as he held her in a gentle embrace.
“Little enough but talk me into exhaustion.”
“Can you not confess—do whatever it is they ask to gain your freedom?” she asked desperately.
“Magdalena, my guilt in judaizing, such as it is, is based on fact. I was hiding a Jewish woman and her babe, but that is only a part of the whole. Someone wants me and my family dead and has used spies to concoct tales of our breach of faith that have reached from Castile to Catalonia. Even my son Mateo has been taken. Your father's spies could not have done that.”
“Oh, Benjamin, it is my fault! If I had not gone to your home so often—my father, accursed be his name for all eternity—must have set his familiars to follow me. I started this with my meddling.”
He stroked her back. “Don Bernardo was only a catspaw. You are in no way to blame, Magdalena. As I was questioned by Don Bernardo and even the great Torquemada himself, I pieced together bits of information. Fray Tomas himself is not the least of my foes. He has long hated me, perhaps because of my closeness to the king, and my brother Isaac escaped as you know. That alone was enough to mark me and mine. At least my grandchildren will live, Ana's daughter and Mateo's son. For that Serafìna and I thank God.”
“You, your wife, your son, your daughter, even your daughter-in-law, all will die and yet you can thank God! I scarce believe in Him any longer and I care not whether he be Jesus or Jehovah!” she whispered tightly, tears burning her eyes as she squeezed them shut.
“Believe in God, Magdalena. It matters not if he is Christian or Jewish. He is still God, the same God for all people, I think.” He smiled wistfully in the darkness as she stared up at his face.
“Isaiah said that over two thousand years ago. ‘My house shall be a house of prayer for all people,’ ” she whispered.
“Yes, we did discuss Isaiah's world vision once. Perhaps I am judaizing after all. Be most careful you never say such to anyone else, child. I want you to stay alive for Aaron, not end up in this place.”
“We can escape! Do not think to give up,” she said with renewed conviction. “Only let me—”
He stayed her hand as she fumbled for the jewel pouch. “There is only one piece of jewelry that will serve useful ends—the ring I gave you.”
Her fingers reached up and pulled the locket from beneath her cloak. “I have it hidden in here. I never take it off.”
He smiled as he took the garish locket with its Christian symbol and held it in his palm. “Keep it safe for Aaron. Keep yourself safe for my son. Swear this as you love us both, daughter,” he said with urgency in his voice.
“I swear, I swear,” she whispered in a tear-choked voice.
Chapter Six
The Atlantic Ocean, September 21, 1492
“I like it not, I tell you. These stinking green weeds are the devil's trap to becalm us so we go mad with thirst and drink the ocean's salt until our bellies bloat and we die!” A hulking seaman spat as he looked out at the huge unbroken green, grassy-looking morass the ships were nearing. It seemed miles wide, growing thicker against the horizon.
“I have heard of this weed. It is a sign of land to the west, nothing to cause fear but rather to hearten us on,” the admiral pronounced in a loud, clear voice that was calm and authoritative. Standing on the quarterdeck of the Santa Maria, his voice carried to the small cluster of grumbling men below on the main deck. The sighting had just been made by a man high in the rigging.
For over five days they had seen clumps of the stuff called sargassum. Only mariners who sailed far out into the Atlantic encountered it. Except for the admiral, none of the men aboard the ships of the enterprise had sailed anywhere but south to the Canaries and thence to the coasts of Africa. Colon knew the weeds did not entrap ships, no matter what the myth.
“It does look intimidatingly thick, like a green porridge,” Aaron muttered low, standing close to Colon's side so none but the admiral could hear.
Cristobal's lips quirked in the tiniest hint of a smile. “I assure you it is edible, but it will not eat us.”
“Do not speak of food,” Aaron said grimly.
“The water is calm. Look you how smoothly the bow slices through the sargassum. Surely you cannot suffer from this swift, gentle motion.” Colon's faded blue eyes regarded the sun-bronzed face of his young companion.
“I fear I will never make a sailor,” Aaron confessed ruefully. “My head still pounds like the siege cannons before Granada. That is sufficient to make a man suffer, even if he is no longer retching over the rail.”
“You are as good a sailor as ever I was a soldier. Take heart,” his friend said with fatherly toleration.
During the first leg of the voyage when the ship had sailed south to the Canary Islands to take on final supplies, Aaron had found to his shock and chagrin that he was seasick! A number of gentlemen aboard had been in even worse straits, being violently ill while he suffered, less visibly, from a continual headache. After stepping ashore on Gomera, the misery immediately departed, only to return once they sailed west into the Atlantic on the eighth day of September.
Several of the gentlemen were still in the grip of violent nausea and could hold down little food. All things considered, Aaron decided he had been fortunate at that. “I know you have been short-reckoning the leagues we have covered each day so as not to frighten the men with how far we sail west, but how long until we can stand on solid earth again? I promise to bear up,” he added, forcing a smile.
Colon chuckled now. “At first you feared you would die. Now you fear even more that you will not. That is common among young men when first they go to sea. As to how soon we reach landfall—with good fortune and faster winds,” he paused as Aaron groaned, “it should be a fortnight, no more.”
“Then let us hope we sail directly into the golden harbor of Cipangu.”
“Would you rather not pause for respite on the small islands that dot the waters of the Indies first?” the admiral asked. “In truth, I know not if we
can reach the land mass first. My charts are greatly at variance and the accounts of overland travelers do not give much detail but to say there are many islands, large and small.”
“Perhaps I shall purchase a camel, or if fortune smiles on me, a fleet horse and ride home overland once we reach the mainland. It only took Marco Polo twenty years,” Aaron added hopefully.
“I have need of your skills aboard Santa Maria, my young friend. There are few enough men I can trust. As marshal of the fleet, you must keep discipline among the crew.”
“The estimable captain of Pinta, Martin Alonzo Pin-zón gains adherents,” Aaron said, scratching his bearded chin in consideration. “He is over-eager to reach the prize first and thence sail back to the Majesties and heap all the glory on himself.”
Colon snorted in disgust. “Pinta is a far faster ship and he a good sailor, I give the devil his due. Nina can keep up with her, but Santa Maria is a wallowing giant, not their equal in Atlantic waters. We must endeavor to keep the Pinta with us. Perhaps Martin will not desert his brother Vincente Yañez, aboard Nina. I trust Vincente far more than Martin, but I rely on you, Diego, to watch both Pinzón brothers closely.”
Aaron grunted. “I will keep an eye on the Pinzons.”
Colon observed the weathered look of the young soldier, now bare-footed and bearded as were all the men while at sea. There were no facilities for the niceties of toilettes. Razors were reserved for landfall. On the slippery wet decks, bare feet gripped far more surely than boots. The court officials on board were aghast at such unseemly habits, but when the royal butler nearly washed overboard one night, he too grudgingly shed his elegant high-heeled slippers.