The Quality of Mercy

by Faye Kellerman

  “Shakespeare was heated. Father said atrocious things to us. He never gave us a chance to explain.”

  “Suppose Miguel had heard what Shakespeare proclaimed loudly to your father?” the hag suggested. “How do you imagine Miguel would have felt?”

  Rebecca lowered her eyes. How would he have felt? Devastated. Miguel trusted her, and she had gossiped behind his back. It was inexcusable and she knew it.

  “But I love my Willy!” was all she could answer.

  “Is love a sufficient reason to embarrass Miguel?”

  Rebecca was silent.

  The hag studied Rebecca. She had that same look in her eyes that the old woman’s sister had once held—stubborn, willful. Love was all that mattered. Piss on that. The crone said angrily, “What else did you tell your Willy?”

  Rebecca was taken aback by the venom in the old woman’s voice. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Did you happen to leak out any other family secrets?”

  Rebecca blushed and said, “No.”

  “You lie in your throat, girl. What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing of any significance.”

  “By God’s sointes, Rebecca, what insignificant trifles flowed from the cracked dam of your lips?”

  Rebecca suddenly threw down her book and buried her face in her hands.

  “You told him, eh?” the hag said coldly.

  “No!” Rebecca started to cry. “Yes…I mean no. I told him nothing that would do us in. I swear to you, Grandmama, we mostly bespoke soft words of love.”

  “What did you tell him, for God’s sake?”

  “I…once I told him…twas the first time we were together in the city. I was drunk and spoke foolishly, I admit it. He…he thinks we’re secret Papists.”

  “Good Lord—”

  “It doesn’t matter to him.” Rebecca pulled a lace handkerchief from her purse and dried her tears. “Grandmama, the North is full of secret Papists. No one concerns themselves with the Catholics.”

  “No one?” the hag said, tapping her stick against Rebecca’s leg. “Only scarecrows were hung in ’sixty-nine?”

  “That was different,” Rebecca stammered. “The North…those northerners were in open rebellion against the Queen.”

  “So you did no harm by telling your Willy that we’re Papists, eh, Becca?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Rebecca said, frustrated. “I didn’t tell him we’re Papist. He assumed it because—” She stopped herself. The hag grabbed her shoulders and yelled,

  “Why did he assume it, girl!”

  “Calm yourself, Grandmama,” Rebecca begged. “Your face is flushed. My God, you’re trembling.”

  The old woman released Rebecca’s shoulders. She folded her skeletal hands into fists, tears streaming from her eyes. Rebecca held the old woman, feeling such deep love for her. She knew how much her grandam had suffered for her religious beliefs, how she’d been imprisoned in the Old Country. Rebecca could understand how such circumstances could permanently cloud her trust in the Gentile. But England was not Portugal, and she told the old woman this.

  “No one is going to burst into our house and arrest us because of our silent prayers!” Rebecca said.

  The hag pushed her granddaughter away.

  “And you believe that?”

  “Yes.” Rebecca kept her patience. No sense in becoming overwrought. “Our queen wouldn’t allow it.”

  “You think the English would show sympathy to the Jew?”

  “You’re twisting my words.”

  “At best, we would be deported, Becca. As Jews are not allowed in this country. At worst—”

  “The nobility knows our bloodline. They know that Solomon Aben Ayesh—the Jewish duke—is our uncle. The Queen entertains him royally. Many a lord has passed him in court and has wished him—and Father and Uncle Jorge—a good morrow. They don’t care what we do in private.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Your fear—this family fear—about being discovered is unfounded.”

  The hag’s eyes hardened. “Is that so?” she said. “And how do you know that our fear is unfounded?”

  Rebecca didn’t answer her.

  The hag said, “Mayhap it’s unfounded because you wish it so?”

  “Grandmama,” Rebecca said. “I pray you to believe me. Shakespeare can keep a secret.”

  “Let me tell you something about secrets, Becca,” Grandmama said angrily. “I spent eight years of my life in a Portuguese dungeon because my sister could not keep secrets. It happened Yom Kippur, of all days, and my spoiled sister did not desire to fast as ordained by God. In a tearful fit of anger at my parents, she informed her Viejo Christian lover that her family was forcing her to starve. She went on to explain our old customs to him. On our fast days we greased our utensils and trenchers to make it appear as though we’d eaten. That we secretly changed the bed linens on Friday day. Small things they were, eh? But it was enough to mark us as heretics—Judaizers. And you know what her drunken scum lover did? He went and reported us to his priest. We were all arrested, including my sister, who was shown leniency only because she’d borne witness against her parents. Ah, but God wrought a final revenge on her soul. She was forced to watch her parents sizzle on the stake—roasted and blackened like lambs on a spit. She spent the rest of her life living with that horrid image. All because she could not keep secrets!”

  Rebecca covered her mouth. Never had Grandmama spoken so openly about her wretched experiences in the Old Country.

  “Shall I tell you about my life in a dungeon, Becca?” the hag continued in a hoarse whisper. “What your father—whom you dismiss as revolting—had insisted I keep from you.”

  Rebecca said nothing. Her body began to shake. She knew she was about to hear something horrible.

  Grandmama said, “You’re a woman who has yearned to be a man. Now act like one and listen. I’ll tell you what your father and Uncle Jorge have told your brother and cousins.”

  Rebecca put her arm around the old woman and stroked the wrinkled cheek. Her grandam, so old and tired. “I never, never wanted to be spared for my own sake. I do want to hear your story. I need to hear it. It’s my history as well.”

  Grandmama nodded. She spoke softly as Rebecca rocked her. She explained that after her entire family was arrested, the men of the Holy Office tried to extract a confession of Judaizing from her. When she refused, they resorted to their torture. The old woman felt Rebecca tense. She took her granddaughter’s hand and kissed it. Rebecca had to know…she had to know. Otherwise, how could she learn the mind of a Gentile? Grandmama said,

  “First they tied my wrists behind my back, attached my bound hands to a strappado—a pulley—and hoisted me off the floor. Left me dangling like a cobweb on the ceiling for hours, Becca, for days, it seemed. Finally the men of the tribunal felt me ready to confess. They lowered me to the ground and brought over a scribe, urged me to admit my guilt before them and God. I spat in their faces and resisted. The Inquisitor—not the Grand Inquisitor himself, but a subordinate anxious to prove himself holy—grew very angry. He attached weights to my ankles and once again raised me to the ceiling. I hung there for…I don’t remember how long it was. Then a henchman lowered me to the ground with sudden jerks that uprooted my arms from their sockets, and pulled me up again.”

  Rebecca felt her stomach turn sour. She kissed her grandam’s frail little hand and begged her to stop. It was too hard on her. But the hag waved her quiet and continued her story. Again and again the torture was repeated but never to the point of death. A doctor closely guarded her life.

  “If I should faint, they’d lower me until the doctor brought me back to earth. His name was Dr. Sanchez and I remember him well. A fair-complexioned man with cold, cold eyes and a wet, fleshy mouth. He never smiled, never winced. Only did his job, Rebecca. His work was to revive the wretches so the Holy See could continue its torture. Often the men would wait a day or two before continuing their evil procedures. That w
ay our arms would swell and the strappado would be all the more painful. Then they’d start over again.”

  The old woman rubbed her shoulder, swaying as she talked; her voice had become high and strained.

  “They got what they wanted—my confession that I was a secret Jewess—but it wasn’t enough, Becca. They wanted me to implicate others as well—my cousins, my friends. I refused—unlike my witch sister.”

  The old woman began crying. Rebecca hugged her, her own face wet from tears. She was so proud of her grandam’s defiance, but the recollection was too much for the old woman. Grandmama had turned a ghostly gray.

  Rebecca said, “I pray you to stop.”

  But the old woman refused.

  “Your father did you much harm when he insisted we protect you. Aye, after losing your two sisters, he could bear not the thought of his precious little girl’s tears and sadness. But it was an error. You’re not a rose, child, and you’ll not drop your petals at the horrors I tell you.”

  “But this talk makes you weak,” Rebecca exclaimed. “Oh, Grandmama, I’m worried about your health.”

  “I’m not as weak as you think,” the old woman said. “I want to continue.”

  Rebecca nodded, feeling utterly helpless to stop her grandmother’s pain. The old woman resumed her narrative. Her voice had turned low-pitched and flat.

  “When the strappado could not bring out from me the evidence against my friends, the Holy Office tried the aselli. I was laid naked upon a trestle table that had running across it sharp-edged rungs…. Not rapier-sharp blades, but the metal was…sharp. They cut slowly, first into the shoulders, then the arse, then the thighs and calves, finally the back almost to the spine. I still bear the scars, girl…. My head…It was bound in place by an iron bar. My ankles and wrists were clamped to the table with metal cuffs and tightened until my fingers and toes first tingled, then went numb.”

  Rebecca covered her face and trembled. The hag lay her bony hand atop her granddaughter’s shoulder.

  “They forced open my mouth—one of the men was named Marcos, I still remember that. He had a very curly beard and never stopped smiling. I see him now when I close my eyes.” The old woman shivered. “A group of them…they stuffed a rag down my throat. I gagged, coughed, felt my head go black, but the doctor adjusted the rag until it was in my windpipe yet I could still breathe—though with much labor. Marcos picked up a jug full of water and poured water slowly into the rag until it became soggy, saturated. It expanded with water and I could feel myself drowning. Of course, I blacked out, then I was revived—by the doctor, it must have been.”

  She turned to Rebecca.

  “They used four jugs of water on me, Becca. With each jug they poured, they simultaneously tightened the bands that held my wrists and ankles. My body felt like a cow’s udder filled to utmost capacity—remember how you and Thomas and Miguel used to play with udders, fill them with air or water, then prick them with a pin until they burst?”

  Rebecca nodded.

  “My body was that cow’s udder. I thought they would cut me with a knife and my innards would explode.”

  “Merciful God!”

  “They chose not to do that, of course. Twould have killed me.” The hag broke into a spasm of coughs.

  “I beg you to stop now,” Rebecca pleaded. She patted the old woman’s back.

  “Aye,” the hag said, clearing her throat. “I feel very weakened.”

  “I’ll help you back to your room, Grandmama.”

  But the old woman refused to get up. She grabbed Rebecca’s shoulder with incredible strength. “Eight hundred years our people lived in Iberia, Becca! Eight hundred years! The great Maimonides was born in Cordoba! And now our ways, our houses of prayer, are gone! Destroyed! And those who try to secretly practice our old ways are ferreted out and burnt. Our mission is one of the few hopes they have left. We provide them a route of escape, with papers and a country willing to accept them. And even once they settle elsewhere, they, as secret or open Jews, are never safe.

  “Oh Becca, you are so naive! To think we are safe in England, that you can speak freely to anyone! Iberia has the Inquisition, tis true. But England has its Star Chamber. The Queen’s henchmen have nothing to learn from the Spanish about torture.”

  Rebecca nodded solemnly.

  “We reside here in England and live as secret Jews only to help those in Iberia escape from the jaws of the Holy See,” the hag continued. “The men in our family work continuously, put their lives in great peril, sneaking on ships, working countless hours to accumulate gold that is given to the monarchs to keep them fat and satisfied—and quiet. You must do your part and cause your father no more pain.”

  “As God is my witness, I’ll be a dutiful daughter.”

  “It’s amusing to dress as a man, to come and go at liberty. Go with Miguel if you want to dress as a man. Enjoy the plays, the bear and bull fights. Take pleasure in hawking and hunting. Drink at the fashionable alehouses. But do them with your family—with Miguel. He’ll cosset you. His heart is molded from solid gold.”

  “It is,” Rebecca said.

  “And this Shakespeare. I believe him to be an honest man, very much taken with you—aye, he’s foolish enough to get himself killed for your honor. But you belong to another and so does he. More important, he’s an outsider. You must swear off of him.”

  Rebecca was silent, tears falling down her cheeks.

  “I…can’t.”

  The hag raised her eyebrows. “You’ve convinced yourself that you love him.”

  “I do love him.”

  “What you feel, girl, is what my sister felt for her lover—lust, excitement, passion at what is forbidden.”

  “It is love!”

  “My sister loved her man as well. Only a matter of time before Shakespeare betrays us.”

  “I’ll tell him nothing about our ways.”

  “Bah!”

  “We speak love to each other, not the mission.”

  “No doubt,” the old woman said disgustedly. “I’m sure you two have passed your nights in blissful harmony, swearing worthless vows beneath the inconstant moon.”

  Tears welled up in Rebecca’s eyes. “You mock me.”

  The hag softened her expression. “I don’t mock you, girl. But you must stop thinking about your heart and think about what I’ve told you. Otherwise you’ll end up like my sister and cause harm to your family.”

  “Never would I do what your sister had done!” Rebecca said.

  “Then prove to me your iron will and bid Shakespeare goodbye.”

  “Ask of me anything save what you ask now.”

  “Tis no test of strength to fight a dove, Becca. Your feelings for Shakespeare are strong. Because they are so powerful, I’m now able to examine the fortitude of your convictions.”

  “And if I refuse to stop seeing Shakespeare?”

  “Then you refuse.”

  “Would you tell Father if I continued to dally with Shakespeare?”

  “Never.” The old woman stood up, feeling unburdened. She’d told Becca everything. Now it was up to her granddaughter. “You’re no longer a child, girl. But know this. You have choices to make, Becca. Important choices that have consequences. Then—as with my sister—I’ll know where your loyalties lay.”

  The hag patted the young girl’s hand, then left.

  Chapter 26

  The proper art of knavery was best conducted in packs, Shakespeare discovered. So many good cons could be done with an accomplice, and Rebecca, being clever and fleet-footed, would have made the perfect one had she been a man. But she was a woman—aye, most definitely a woman—a black-hearted fiendish creature more unpredictable than the specter who stalked him.

  Shakespeare sat at his desk and cringed as he thought of her.

  She had bid him adieu without apologies. Her voice had been steady, her words carefully and painfully well chosen. The night they were caught was regrettable, she said. Most regrettable. But now she had
no choice but to obey her father’s orders and never see him again.

  Shakespeare understood her need to be a dutiful daughter. But what he didn’t understand, what he couldn’t forgive, was her aloof attitude toward him as she said her farewell. No tearful kisses, no final words of love. Only a simple good-bye. How Rebecca had changed from the girl he’d brought home the night of the attack, her stomach and head still sick from drink, her nerves loosened and raw with fright.

  That fateful evening was followed by three weeks of bliss. Then they were caught. Gods, what a monster her father had been. But then again, hadn’t Shakespeare—the interloper—also allowed anger to helm his senses? Choleric words had been blown forth by wind-driven tongues, and for a while tragedy had seemed inevitable—a most spleenful night.

  Yet even in the wake of anger and distrust, Rebecca still managed to sneak into town and see him. She swore her love for him.

  Then that sudden, icy good-bye.

  The Devil with her.

  Shakespeare sighed and pushed the memories out of his brain. He dipped his quill in his inkpot and planned his future.

  Perhaps Rebecca’s sudden change of heart was a sign from Providence. During the last month he had made no effort to find Harry’s murderer. Though he had spent his waking hours flying on love’s wings, his hours asleep were tortured images of a soul exiled to eternal unrest. While his love for Becca blossomed, his conscience wept with despair.

  Harry. Always on his mind.

  Help me, Whitman’s ghost had pleaded in Shakespeare’s dreams. The images. A wispy specter with no face standing before the crucifix, a candle in its diaphanous hand. Blood from its eyes. The stigmata.

  Help me, Willy.

  Ghastly images.

  Perhaps it was all for the best. With time a plentiful crop, Shakespeare renewed his efforts to find his mentor’s slayer. Now was the moment to blot Rebecca from his mind.

  As if it were possible.

  Concentrate on that plaintive voice.

  Help me.

  Shakespeare tapped his quill against his desktop and thought how he could get to Mackering.

  Whatever thievery he dared would have to be executed alone. Petty cheating would merit him no reputation among the rogues and might well earn him a month in the stocks at Tyburn. If he wanted to attract Mackering’s attention, he’d have to be known as a cheat of much wit. The easiest way to procure such a dubious title was to cozen in grand fashion—con the thief instead of the coney. Take from the cheats who worked for Mackering, thereby filching from the uprightman himself.