By now my breathing had become fast and shallow. I could feel my stomach seizing at the thought. “Would you like to hear more, Baltasar?” the priest said. “We also have a rack in the other room. I’m sure you would like to hear about how that device works. We’ll attach you to the wood, and then we’ll crank it, little by little. First you’ll hear your bones start to pop, but that’s not all. We’ll crank it a little more until you —”
“Stop,” I breathed against my will. “Please. Stop.” I shut my eyes. My shoulders were sharply convulsing. I had heard rumors of the Inquisition’s foul methods, but never this. Never this.
The priest dug his own nails into the backs of my hands. “I will stop if you answer my questions, Baltasar! Your closest relatives. Tell me their names!”
I tried not to respond. I did my best, I swear. But when I saw the light sparking off the heretic’s fork in his hand, the words ran out of my mouth of their own accord: “Diego and Serena Infante. Please! Their names are Diego and Serena Infante!”
I had never before, and have never since, felt the amount of guilt that I felt at that moment. I thought I could feel my aunt and uncle’s souls pulling me down to Hell, and the feeling was so horrific I almost begged the priest’s forgiveness.
But for his part, his expression was blank. “Very good, Baltasar. I thank you for telling the, ah, truth. For I am certain you answered those questions with perfect honesty.” He leaned back against the giant stone block behind him and reexamined his parchment. “Unfortunately my records indicate that some of your answers are less than accurate. It appears our organization knows more about you than you know about yourself. I will go through the questions one by one. You will see what I mean.”
The priest trod softly around the room as he read from his paper. “Question one,” he read. “‘What is the accused’s full name?’ Your answer was ‘Baltasar Infante.’ That answer is correct — for all intents and purposes.
“Ah, but question two! ‘What are the names of the accused’s parents?’ You said, Abram and Marina Infante, killed in the Inquisition.’” The priest tut-tutted. “I’m afraid that answer is incorrect.”
The priest’s lips rolled into a frown — one that looked strangely like a smile. “And finally, question three. ‘What are the names of the accused’s closest relatives?’ You answered, ‘Diego and Serena Infante.’” The priest knelt in front of me, his lizard teeth gleaming like daggers.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Baltasar, but that answer is also incorrect.”
It took me a moment to understand what the man thought he was saying. Was he saying the Inquisition hadn’t killed my parents? That they were alive somewhere, and my aunt and uncle were fakes? It was impossible, part of the torture. The priest was lying — he had to be — trying to disorient me and loosen my tongue.
“So quiet, Baltasar,” my interrogator said. “Funny. Your priest — Father Joaquin, was it?” The priest took hold of the wooden cross I wore and with a swift jerk yanked it off my neck. “He told me you could talk all day. Always had a good story, he said.”
“Are we done here?” I said between my teeth.
The priest placed my cross on the block of granite behind him. “Soon enough. But there’s one question left for you to answer. The man licked the tip of his quill and held it at the ready over his parchment. “Question four,” he started, but I knew this question would not be like the others. Because slowly the priest’s plain face was transforming into that of a gargoyle. His beady eyes smoldered with torchlight, filled to the brim with a mix of glee and loathing.
And then, very carefully, he said four words I never thought anyone would ever ask me.
“Where is Amir al-Katib?”
I actually laughed. He had to be kidding. The Amir al-Katib I had heard of was long dead, killed last year by Spanish armies in Granada. And even if the man were alive, how would I, of all people, know where he was? The question made no sense. Absolutely no sense at all.
The priest’s eyes narrowed in on me. “This is no joke, boy. If you want to see morning, you will tell us where he is. Now.”
Good. The man was angry. That meant he was serious now, which meant I had leverage. “All right,” I said. “You want to know about Amir al-Katib? Untie these ropes, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
The priest instead motioned over his shoulder, beckoning his friend the soldier toward me. As the armored giant advanced in my direction, the edge of his spear caught the light of the torches, sending chills flitting down my arms and legs.
And the words flew out of my mouth before I could even think them: “Wait, I’ll tell you! Amir al-Katib. They call him the Eagle of Castile. They say he looks like a rukh. They say he can cut down fifty men in one swoop. And they say that —”
The priest’s fingernails cut into my forearms. “Don’t you play games with me, boy! That man is an enemy of Spain, a traitor fighting on the side of the Infidel! We know you know where he is! And you will tell us. Now!”
“How should I know where he is? I’ve never seen him before in my life!”
The priest dug his nails deeper into my skin. “You dare take me for a fool? Never seen him! Al-Katib was outside your house last night!”
And the night tumbled back to me in an instant. The smell of cinnamon and incense. Yellow eyes glowing in the window. Hameh.
I searched for a way out, any way. The one entrance was the one exit, and the cloaked man and soldier’s spear barred my path. Nothing more around here but those mysterious rectangular stones.
No. Not stones. Coffins.
Coffins. I was sitting in a tomb.
My heart rushing up in my throat, I raged against my bonds.
“Where is Amir al-Katib?” the priest demanded.
“I don’t know!”
“Where is Amir al-Katib?”
“I said I don’t know! He’s dead! He’s only a story! He’s not real! Please!”
By this point I was completely broken, and the priest must have realized it as well. With a wave of one finger he stopped the soldier from his slow path toward me.
“Enough,” the priest said to the soldier. “We’re done here. The boy is telling us the truth.”
I let out a breath that sounded almost like a sob. Finally. Finally, they believed me. Finally, finally, I could go home.
“Give me your torch,” the priest directed the cloaked man behind him. “The boy must not leave this place. We will burn him. There must be no evidence we were here.”
Burn! I squeezed my eyes shut. Serena. Diego. I had been so unkind to them earlier. Now I would never have a chance to apologize.
Oh, if only I had a golem now! It occurred to me that I really was a child, and that my uncle, eccentric as he was, had always been my protector, my golem. At this moment, the last moment, I yearned to be back home, safe in bed, protected by Diego and his stories. Stories that, like a golem, came to life with a single word.
It’s hard for me to explain what happened next. The closest I can get is to say I felt like some deep part of myself, somewhere beyond the backs of my eyes, was reaching toward another. As if the words “Diego,” “golem,” “protect,” and “word” unlocked something within me I didn’t understand. In front of my closed eyelids something was glimmering, and my eyes flicked beneath them like I was watching a dream. I felt warmth caressing my cheeks and fingers, warmth like a fire embracing you on a stormy day. And somehow, for an instant, I felt safe.
I opened my eyes.
A series of fiery letters in an unknown language flared before me. Though I had never seen those symbols before, the word ameth escaped my lips, and I knew they stood for truth. Several inches tall, the letters browned the atmosphere around them as if the world were nothing more than paper that could burn away to nothing. Around the edges of the symbols rebellious flames fluttered about, moths with fraying wings of charring paper.
The priest’s head twitched sideways so he could watch the flames. “It is as we
had feared. A lukmani.” He choked out the word with palpable disgust. “No matter. Your sorcery won’t save you today, boy!” He seized the cloaked man’s torch and swung it down to meet me.
But the room lurched, and his hand swept past its target. As the priest hit the ground the torch flew from his grasp and clattered, extinguished, across the floor. The room lurched again. The soldier and cloaked man grasped one of the stone coffins. I clung to the arms of my chair and waited for it all to end.
With a thunderous crash the entrance to the basement exploded. Dust and rubble filled my mouth, my lungs. My vision blurred — I felt weak. Beyond the dust I could make out the outline of a ten-foot-tall earthen beast. Its coal eyes blazed red as it barged through the exploded doorway. With a howl it shoved away the cloaked man and the soldier as if they were nothing more than toys.
The priest’s face flashed red as he scrambled to his feet. “Don’t think you’ve won, lukmani!” he screamed. “The Malleus Maleficarum doesn’t sleep! We will find you, lukmani! We will find you!”
In answer the rocky monster let loose another primal roar. Lifting both arms above his head it ran at my interrogator. But I didn’t get to see any more — the beast’s last monstrous step sent another tremor surging through the ground. My chair and I crashed and tumbled past the stone coffins. Then pain smashed into my shoulders, my knees, and my head as they collided with the floor. I lay sideways, trying to hang onto consciousness, but my last bits of energy drained out of me with every breath.
It was then that I realized this might be the last thing I ever thought. But my last thought wasn’t about the pain or my family or even Amir al-Katib. No, my last thought was a plain and simple one, full of a plain and simple wonder.
I don’t know how I did it, but somehow, I’ve created a golem.
I dreamed the golem heaved me onto his shoulder and bounded from hill to hill over the Spanish countryside. Or maybe that’s what really happened — I’m not sure. The next thing I remember was my uncle’s voice: “Say you release him, Baltasar. Quickly.”
“I release him,” I think I mumbled.
When next I awoke it was around dawn, and I was stunned to find myself in my own bed. My uncle was sitting next to me, poring over my bruises with an expression of dire worry etched into his face. “I’m sorry to wake you again, Bali. But they will be here soon. Can you sit?”
This man who looked like my uncle but spoke with such heartache was unknown to me, but I did as he asked. Were those tears in his eyes? No. No, they couldn’t be.
“So a golem, Baltasar? And here I thought you’d had enough of my ‘boring old stories.’”
Oh, right. That. “Uncle, I am so sorry. I was such an ass. I just —”
My uncle put up a hand. “As much as I appreciate your groveling, there isn’t time. And I expect you’ll have plenty of questions to ask about this.”
To my surprise my uncle raised the priest’s parchment, the one with all of those dreadful questions in it. The document crackled as my uncle flattened it against my covers, revealing hundreds of lines of script flowing crisply across its surface.
“Where did you . . . ?”
“The golem brought it along when he dropped you here. Quite a smart one you made there. I’d always thought they were all fools with heads full of clay and dirt, but life would be no fun if nothing could surprise you.”
I swear I almost leaped through the ceiling. “You mean you knew that golems were real?”
Twining his fingers together my uncle said, “‘Real’ is a relative term, Baltasar. Quite the tricky word you have there.”
I opened my mouth and shut it again. “You’re mad.”
“That’s another relative term, Nephew.”
My gaze trailed across the parchment lying in front of me. Amir al-Katib . . . last known sighting near Alhambra Palace, Granada . . . known accomplices currently operating under the aliases Diego and Serena Infante. . .
“‘Relative’?” I said, breathing heavily. “All right: let’s talk about that word, ‘relative.’ Question three: ‘What are the names of your closest relatives?’ Sounds like an easy question, doesn’t it, Uncle?”
“Baltasar.”
“That’s what I thought, but it’s not so easy, is it, Uncle? ‘Who are your closest relatives?’ I said, ‘Diego and Serena Infante.’ Or was I wrong about those names?”
“Bali.”
“So I have a question of my own, Diego! Question one: Who the hell are you?!”
By this point the room was cartwheeling around me, so I sank back, drained, against my pillow. With calm hands Diego brought my quilt over my torso.
“Bali, there’s a story about this. And believe me, this is one you’re going to want to pay attention to. All right?”
I took a breath and smelled the remains of Serena’s stew in the kitchen, the vinegar on Diego’s hands. Those were real, still. I was real. So I nodded at my uncle, and he began his story.
“A long time ago — well, not that long ago — I lived in Constantinople, in the East. Back then the city was much like Palos once was. It was a Christian city, but many Jewish families lived there too. Even some Muslims lived there — or Moors, as you call them. Not everyone got along all the time, certainly, but it was a good place to grow up, and full of history.
“Then when I was about your age a group of Moors known as the Ottomans laid siege to my homeland. The siege lasted for nearly two months, a terrible time. No food was allowed in from the countryside. Many people died of disease and starvation, including most of my family.
“At the end of May, the Ottomans began their final assault. Our armies were small, and though I was just a boy, I was sent to the front lines. The Pope had sent aid in the form of soldiers from across Europe, but it was not enough to defeat the Ottomans. The city fell to the Moors. I was left without a family, without a home. With nothing.”
I considered the story. It was the same one my uncle used to tell me when I was a child. But back then it had been a tale of adventure and excitement, of swashbuckling heroes and daring escapes. “This story was different when you used to tell it,” I murmured.
“Yes, I admit I may have . . . embellished things slightly. But one part about those old stories was true. During the war I met a young man not much older than myself, a foreigner who had answered the Vatican’s call to protect Constantinople. And although he, like the Ottomans, was born and raised a Muslim, to him the conflict wasn’t about religion. It was about what was right and what was wrong.”
I remembered the story. “You’re talking about Amir al-Katib. He saved your life.”
“And gave me a new one. When the war was over, he said, ‘You will come with me to Castile, my brother, to my home in Palos de la Frontera.’ I didn’t have any reason not to, so I did. It didn’t take long for me to make a new life here. I began speaking Castilian, and I apprenticed myself with a bookmaker. Before long I met your aunt and we married. The two of us were very happy.
“The same couldn’t be said for al-Katib. The man was a traveler. The people of Castile sometimes call the Moors the mudejares, ‘the ones who stayed.’ But it was against Amir’s nature to stay in one place for long. He would disappear from Palos for years at a time, only to return like a lost dog. Your Aunt Serena had a solution to the problem. ‘You need to get married!’ she’d say. She’d actually grab the books from his hands and throw them out the window. ‘You’re not going to find a wife in there!’ You know your aunt has never been scared of anyone, warrior or not.
“Just when we were beginning to think it was hopeless, al-Katib met a woman. It was amazing to see this warrior’s heart slain by such a creature. They were fiercely in love, but it had to be secret, as were many loves at the time, for she was Christian and he a Moor. They soon had a child, and I have never seen a man — and a warrior, no less — dote so on an infant. But it was a child of his old age, so I supposed I could not fault him.
“Back then many secret marriages were perf
ormed, and few were persecuted for such loves. But that was before the Inquisition, and before the Malleus Maleficarum.” Uncle Diego took a deep breath and shook his head. “Al-Katib and his wife were among the first to be captured.”
There was that term again, that “Malleus Maleficarum.” But something about what Diego said bothered me even more. “That doesn’t make sense, Uncle. Al-Katib couldn’t have been captured. He was seen at Granada last year.”
“I said ‘captured,’ not ‘killed,’ Baltasar. And he was not killed, though sadly his wife was.” Diego paused and said, “Do you remember that story I told you when you were a boy? The one about the hameh and three Arabian brothers? Al-Katib told me that story the day I met him in Constantinople. He said it was a story about men from his family who lived centuries ago, and it was passed down to him through a thousand generations. Al-Katib told me the story was about the evils of revenge, about how hatred can turn you into a monster. But the night the Inquisition killed his wife, he showed up at our door with blood splattered over his clothes and a black bird with yellow eyes sitting on his shoulder. And that night, Amir wore a look so desperate and hateful that I feared he had turned into a hameh himself.
“He said to me, ‘I must go, old friend. I don’t know when I will return here again.’ He thrust something into my arms and said, ‘I leave this in your care, my brother.’ Before I could ask him what had happened or where he was going, he dashed off like a madman.” My uncle’s meaningful stare pierced right through me. “Dashed off, leaving a child in my arms.”
By that time in my life, I’d heard enough fairy tales to know what a sentence like that meant. Until then, though, I’d never known what it felt like to be part of such a story. The end of my uncle’s tale was so obvious, so inevitable, and yet I could hardly believe the words. I said — or maybe I didn’t, I don’t know —“Amir al-Katib is my father?”
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