The Apprentice's Masterpiece

by Melanie Little

  than burning alive.

  But death is sacred, I think.

  No one deserves

  that kind of last shame.

  So,

  I’m doubly glad that,

  when I went there

  to rat on señor,

  they sent me away.

  Yet,

  something nags.

  Before the clerk said

  to return in two weeks

  he asked me my name.

  I did not see him write it.

  Or,

  I might have.

  Did I?

  My mind is a haze

  of panic

  and regret.

  Pledge

  Bea says that for making a pledge,

  there’s no better time than the worst.

  I think that means

  she might love me.

  I must meet her this Friday.

  The cathedral courtyard.

  We’ll bind our friendship

  (as she calls it)

  by exchanging gifts.

  Might this be the time to come clean

  that I’m poorer than mud?

  She reads me. “I don’t care what it is—

  just make certain it’s the best

  thing you have.”

  I’m relieved.

  That lasts for a blink.

  “Don’t disappoint me, Ramon.

  Lots of boys with blood purer than yours

  would jump in the Guadalquivir

  for the chance to be mine.

  “You don’t want to see

  my side that’s not sweet!”

  Doctor

  That doctor calls Señor Ortiz

  our “patron.”

  He is sure we’ll be happy to hear

  our patron will be fine.

  Just a case, very common, of too much black bile.

  Had we noticed he’d been melancholy

  of late?

  Señor Ortiz has never quite been

  what I’d call jolly.

  Papa shrugs. “But the Pox?” Mama asks.

  Nothing more than a rash on his hands,

  likely brought on by not washing.

  “It seems your patron has the Old Christian

  distrust of water,” he smiles.

  Do his eyes dance

  as he says it?

  We merely thank him and nod.

  “One more thing. I’m sure I don’t need—”

  His words are so calm,

  but his face betrays fear.

  I quite like this man.

  Papa surprises me, then, with his passion.

  He takes the man’s hand in his own.

  But the doctor looks grateful, not shocked.

  “You’ve nothing to fear, good sir,” Papa says.

  “As far as we four swear and know,

  you were never here.”

  Summons

  There’s pounding at the door

  before the sun’s up.

  My heart slams its cage.

  The Office can’t even send

  a messenger boy

  without spreading fear.

  Now I thank God

  for my new sleeplessness.

  I hear it before

  anyone wakes.

  The message itself

  is brief enough.

  My visit was noted.

  The Inquisitors wonder

  where I have been.

  I stammer out something

  about being ill.

  I’m given a summons,

  a paper as coarse as the face

  of a witch.

  I lay the fire.

  This page will burn

  before it is seen

  by my parents.

  But I can’t ignore it.

  It’s for this Friday.

  I’ve no choice but to go.

  One Life

  If I tell,

  will I sentence

  our landlord to death?

  And that dancing-eyed

  doctor—what would happen

  to him?

  I think of that line

  Papa once taught me.

  The man who saves one life

  saves the whole world.

  I wonder, then—

  is the reverse

  also true?

  What if you take one—or cause it

  to be taken—to save several others?

  If you do this, are you

  just a rung on a ladder?

  A ladder that leads

  to the death of the world?

  Conflict

  The Office and Bea

  have ordered I come

  on the very same day—

  the very same hour!

  Is that some kind of sign from above?

  I can’t think of that now.

  I must fix this.

  “I will not,” says Amir.

  “I’ve washing to do. Food’s much

  more important than some

  bossy girl.”

  I can’t tell him the truth

  about where I must go—

  or why this appointment with Bea

  must not be shrugged off.

  In the course of a week,

  I’ve come to fear her.

  The light in those eyes,

  the warmth of that hand,

  made me trust her.

  But when she implied

  that my blood wasn’t pure,

  I quailed.

  Wouldn’t you?

  She might not go out of her way

  to denounce us.

  But what will she say if her papa,

  that lapdog of the Office,

  asks about me when she’s angry, or slighted, or

  just in her frequent foul mood?

  My green face for pork

  would be more than enough

  to arrest us all.

  Now do you see

  why I’m scared of her wrath?

  He must go.

  He must!

  Gift

  Now—what should I give her?

  The best thing you have.

  My mind goes first

  to my masterpiece.

  But what would a girl who can hardly read

  want with a door-stopper about Hercules?

  What would she think is the best thing I have?

  I’ve got it. My knife

  from Toledo.

  It’s something a knight

  might give to his lady.

  They say steel from Toledo

  never misses its mark.

  I wonder if that includes

  girls with hard hearts.

  Go!

  He pretends to forget

  what I’m talking about.

  My heart sinks. I don’t

  have the time to fight with Amir.

  “What does Papa say?” he asks, haughty.

  “I don’t think he’d approve

  of me being seen

  with that girl.”

  My blood heats, not just

  at this slagging of Bea.

  What is this talk

  of Papa?

  I roar at him.

  “My papa wants you to listen

  to me!”

  He makes himself taller.

  (How I hate this habit of his!)

  “Perhaps Papa should know

  you’re a spoiled, lovesick ass!”

  “You’re the slave of that ass, so do

  what you’re told!”

  That stops him cold—

  for a moment. But he starts up

  again.

  “Papa—”

  “He is not your papa!” and

  I hit him, hard,

  with the back of my hand.

  “I order you! Now!

  Obey me.

  Get out.”

  I throw the knife in its scabbard

  down at his feet.

  He hesitates, but he takes
it.

  Now I must hope

  he won’t use it on me.

  The Holy Office

  I’d been expecting monsters, men

  like the fire-breathing dragons from

  Merlin’s tales.

  Ready to burn me to ash

  with one insincere Buenas dias.

  But the guard who has led me

  into this room is just a young man,

  barely older than me.

  We don’t speak.

  I regard him.

  He’s normal as stone.

  No skulls are laced

  into his belt.

  His fingers are grimy, but don’t

  end in claws.

  Our eyes meet,

  only once.

  What had I hoped for?

  A smile? An offer of friendship?

  Some small sympathy?

  All that is there

  is a flicker of joy—

  that I am I,

  and he has fortune enough

  to be he.

  Communion

  It sits on the table directly between us

  like bread to be shared.

  My masterpiece.

  But my Inquisitor

  is not hungry to see

  what talent I have.

  He reads me instead.

  I’ve told him I write Spanish well,

  and also a few basic Arabic words.

  That sparked his regard for a moment.

  But he doesn’t trust me.

  He points at my book.

  Did you know, young master,

  that this Hercules is unlawful?

  That it is now on our List

  of Heretical Books?

  I look astonished.

  It’s not pretend.

  “Well,” he asks,

  “what should be done

  with your masterpiece?”

  I rise to the challenge. I’ve come this far.

  “Why, burn it of course, Holy Father,” I say.

  “The Church knows best in all things, I believe.”

  “But all that hard work—”

  He is testing. “Each page

  testifies to your art.”

  Two can play at knowing

  the right words to say.

  “I hope, Reverend Father, to fill

  many more pages than that

  in the course of my service

  to you.”

  Looking for Work (2)

  “Is this really what you came for?”

  The friar leans close.

  I can smell the remnants

  of lunch on his breath.

  What choice do I have?

  I say yes.

  I have no love for Señor Ortiz.

  But the eyes of that doctor

  dance through my conscience.

  And the warm way he and Papa

  shook hands.

  So I’ve said what I say

  at every strange house.

  A talented scribe,

  sadly out of work.

  I came to them, after all.

  If I don’t pretend

  that a job was the reason,

  the Office will never

  leave us alone.

  Questions (2)

  I was so calm when I woke up

  this morning, so determined

  to ferry this plan.

  Now that it’s done,

  my mind roils with questions.

  How will I tell Mama and Papa,

  and even Amir?

  (Will I tell them?)

  Then, in two, too-short days,

  when I start, how will I bear it?

  (Will I bear it?)

  Priests tell of men, desperate men,

  selling their souls to the devil.

  Is that what I’ve done?

  Whose words will I put

  into parchment and ink—

  the denouncers? Or, perhaps,

  the denounced?

  And which would I rather?

  I’d rather be

  underground.

  TWO

  Amir

  Cordoba, Castile and Malaga, Granada

  1486–87

  Falcon

  Like a fool, I go.

  Or, like a falcon.

  Let me explain.

  Young boys

  believe falcons are noble.

  They are, after all,

  kept by kings.

  But here’s how they train such a bird.

  Tie its feet to a stick.

  Strap leather blinders upon its poor eyes.

  When these come off,

  it has forgotten the whole notion

  of freedom.

  Ramon has commanded I go

  to his “lady” as if I were still

  his little slave boy.

  What he doesn’t know:

  Papa (I call him that at his bidding)

  gave me my freedom

  three months ago.

  Yet I am sent off

  like a clever pet. To make

  Master’s excuse to a spoiled,

  shallow girl.

  Break

  You’re not supposed to speak up.

  For centuries the emirs of Granada

  —Muslim kings—kept their bitter mouths shut.

  They paid for the privilege of staying

  in al-Andalus, the land they once proudly

  called theirs.

  When the collectors came calling from up in Castile,

  the proud Southern Muslims paid up.

  But every such story must end

  with a change.

  Our break in the chain was Abu al-Hassan.

  When the King’s envoy came to him for the tax,

  al-Hassan sent him away.

  “We do have a mint here,” smiled the emir.

  “But the weaklings who used it

  to make coins for Christians are all dead and gone.

  Today our mint makes only

  scimitars’ blades.”

  Since then, war’s been brewing.

  The Christian army—

  led by Fernando, the King—

  has many new toys and is eager to play.

  I bet, were I the emir,

  I’d have paid peace’s price.

  Watch how I’ll be with Ramon, in a day:

  all too glad to forgive and make nice.

  How?

  Still,

  how can I go back?

  It’s not just Ramon.

  It’s also this fact:

  it’s better I’ve gone.

  If I stick around,

  that Señor Ortiz will never relent.

  He will chase them from there

  as sure as the lion

  chases the stag.

  The Cathedral of Santa María

  I wait.

  This jewel of Cordoba

  wasn’t always a church.

  Muslims came here

  from all over al-Andalus

  to say Friday prayers.

  As a child in Granada

  I heard of it often.

  They’ve kept its lacework of pillars and arches.

  Its splendid mosaics iced in pure gold.

  But they’ve ruined its balance,

  its simple form.

  The Christians have plopped a vast choir pit—

  pompous wood benches, cold, tomb-gray stone—

  right in the middle. To the Christians,

  it’s progress. But to us few Muslim faithful

  who still haunt these streets, it’s

  a blight. Like rouge on the face

  of a ten-year-old girl, glowing without it,

  just as she was.

  Even the Christians don’t seem to respect it.

  Its courtyard, where Muslims once washed

  before prayers, is famous these days

  for trysts between lovers.

  It is said that the mosque once contained magic.


  Even filled up with thousands of the faithful,

  there still felt like room for ten thousand more.

  It seemed to be made,

  so the chroniclers say, out of shadow and light.

  Now it’s no more than dead marble and stone.

  Lady

  I’ve been lost in these thoughts.

  So I jump when I hear boots on the tile.

  A clipped, low laugh.

  Not the voice of a girl.

  Then, she arrives.

  Swoops onto the scene like a lady at court.

  Willing all eyes upon her.

  Can’t this girl be discreet?

  Once more I think, What does he see?

  Then I recall how angry I am.

  She and Ramon are made for each other, that’s all.

  Will she not use her head? Stand in a less glaring spot?

  If a Muslim is seen

  with a Christian girl of her class—and alone…

  Perhaps her honor is not dear to her.

  But I like my head attached to its neck.

  Now she’s humming, if it

  could be called that. Have I really found things

  too quiet these days?

  The voice of this girl could scare dragons

  from out of their caves.

  A Little White Square

  That low laugh again. I look: there.

  A clutch of young men in one corner. They ooze

  trouble.

  I don’t know what they’re up to.

  But I don’t need Hafiz to guess

  they aren’t here to pray.

  If they see me with Bea—

  But I can’t wait all day!

  I stride right toward her.

  Why should I fear those common thugs?

  She looks up at me like I’m a boil

  filled with pus.

  “Ramon’s very sorry,” I say.

  “He had an engagement, and so

  could not come.”

  She stands there, confused.

  You’d think I’d just said,

  “Ramon’s grown three heads.”

  The men in the corner are quiet.

  Eavesdropping, of course.

  I must be polite.

  “Señorita Alvarez,” I begin,

  “I’ve been asked by Ramon

  to give you a gift.”

  “Oh, let’s get it over with,”

  snorts our heroine: it’s hardly becoming.

  And she thrusts something at me.

  It’s either a token wrapped

  in a white handkerchief

  or else the hankie itself is the gift.

  These chivalrous rites are ludicrous.

  With this worthless square,

  a woman pledges her heart!

  I am just reaching into my sack

  to pull out her gift

  when it happens.

  For not the first time