The Horse Healer

by Gonzalo Giner

  Diego watched him. He was aware he was entering into much darker regions of reality, at the hands of someone whose final intentions he didn’t understand.

  He had to admit that Efraím knew how to locate powers inside the most unbelievable objects, and that was as real as it was disturbing. Every time he asked him how he did it, the Jew attributed it to a conjunction of cosmic forces, material Diego knew nothing about. And yet he had seen him working with stones and firewood and getting utterly incredible responses from them. It was as if, thanks to him, objects discovered they had been made for other reasons. Something unbelievable for a mind like Diego’s.

  For example, he still couldn’t explain what had happened with Basilio, and nothing Efraím would tell him shed any light on that dark circumstance. Though six months had passed since then, he still asked himself if the potion had had any kind of effect on the death of that bastard, given how it occurred.

  Though he had serious doubts about the goodness of his magic, Diego was still interested in Efraím. For that reason, he tried to see him every week, on the banks of the Arroyo Grande, far from inopportune gazes and malicious commentaries.

  Diego wanted to know whether in any of his books there were descriptions of the diseases that had still not been explained. The Jew assured him there were and gave him, as an example, certain remedies, truly strange ones, that were described in them. According to him, every treatment needed a special touch, depending on which constellation was dominant during the cure, something very difficult to apply.

  Diego wanted to apply logic to his strange theories, but that always became an almost impossible task.

  One day Efraím initiated Diego into the fundamentals of magic, its key ideas, revealing to him that everything came from the power of the seven stars as they cast their light over the earth. According to the old man, the celestial bodies had the ability to influence the essence of each individual, the same way as they did with minerals and vegetation. In the middle of that strange theory, he defined the concept of a potion as a common tool among magicians, a mix of the three kingdoms present in nature unified to achieve a definite end.

  Many times Diego felt incapable of distinguishing when he was talking about the real or the imaginary, for he referred with equal mastery to both worlds.

  “The gallbladder is swollen.”

  Diego abandoned his thoughts when he saw how Efraím was separating the gland from the liver to show it to him.

  “This indicates to us something of true importance.” He handled it without restraint, and his eyes moved back in his head. “It tells me that one day, you will be a servant to the highest power, and that to him, you will offer your ears, your talent, all your wisdom …”

  Diego listened to him with skepticism but studied the remains of the liver, seeing three whitish lines on the upper lobes that he didn’t remember seeing on healthy livers.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying to me.” He pointed at the marks. “Do you see another message in those lines?”

  “Of course; they are another good omen. But now be quiet, I need to concentrate.”

  He put a finger on each temple and breathed in a forced way, no fewer than five times. When he finished, he spoke again.

  “The Sumerians employed a complex technique for seeing the future. Once they had looked at the liver, they burned it to interpret the effects of the flame upon it. I have only tried it three times, but I assure you the result has always surprised me.”

  “Are you going to burn it?”

  “Exactly.”

  Efraím extracted the liver from the lamb, cleaned it off, and placed it on a bed of dry straw. Then he made a fire and lit a twig. He brought it over to the straw and the liver, and that instant it produced a column of thick gray smoke, sticky, with an unpleasant odor.

  “From here forward, Diego, please memorize everything I tell you. Do it, because I will not be able to remember it when I awaken.”

  Efraím breathed in that smoke until he had filled his lungs and immediately closed his eyes while he pronounced some words with a hollow, rough voice. When he opened his eyes again, he focused his attention on the flames and explored their colors, the forms that evolved as they danced over the remains of the liver, and studied the twists of vapor that formed as it combusted. As if in a dream, he began to listen to the crackling of the fire over the straw. And without any warning, Efraím opened his eyes as wide as possible and a strange tremor possessed his lips, as if he was trying to talk but something prevented him. He sucked in more smoke and seemed to chew it. After all those preparations, he finally began to talk.

  “The mountain will weep blood, glory, and love.”

  Diego shook his hands in front of the man’s eyes and confirmed he was in a trance. It seemed useless to him to dive any deeper into that vision.

  The magician then brought his hand to his mouth and gave a startling cry.

  “A shout in the air … A minaret. You flee …” After he said that, his legs began shaking violently, and he scratched at himself. Diego looked at him, worried, without knowing what to do. Efraím continued:

  “A rope, wood, life, and death. Resist.”

  As soon as he’d finished speaking, he seemed exhausted, as if done with a long, strenuous job.

  Diego memorized the phrases with dedication; he didn’t want to forget.

  Once it was done, Efraím spit out a disgusting-looking black paste and fell on the ground as if dead. Diego ran to help him and pulled him unconscious from the flames, without understanding what had happened. It took the Jew a while to come to.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Well … more or less … I think that … it’s back …” He paused long between his words.

  Diego remained astonished. Soon he saw how the man again stared into the flames and heard him recite something that seemed like a prayer. Then he turned, aware of the moment’s importance.

  “I don’t pretend to know what I told you; I just want you to remember it for the rest of your life. Only you will know if those three prophecies finally come true.”

  And that is what Diego did. He held them in his memory, feeling incapable of deciphering them. A mountain, blood, air, wood, rope … They could mean so many things that one day he decided to stop thinking about them and just kept them in the back of his head.

  Marcos seemed on the edge of fainting from pure exhaustion. He had just returned from Medina del Campo, where he had spent two straight weeks because of a commercial dispute with a minor noble who had hoped to cheat him on a costly order of wool. He’d had to split hairs repeatedly to get what was coming to him. And though he was satisfied in the end, those maneuvers had left him exhausted.

  “You’ve already taken over the markets of Tordesillas, Peñafiel, and now Medina. And you still want more?” Diego served himself a cup of cherry liquor and put wood on the fire. “What you really need is a woman and to settle down for once.”

  “I suppose you’re telling me because of the great experience you have of it,” Marcos replied sarcastically, but Diego didn’t take it personally.

  “What happened to Lucía, the daughter of the local lord? I’ve hardly heard you talk about her recently.” Diego took another sip of the smooth liquor, a gift from a sheepherder.

  “Uhmmm …” Marcos licked his lips when he remembered her. “She was a real joy, I assure you. The problem started when she began with the word marriage. And you know, I had to get serious.”

  “Right, but since then I haven’t seen you with anyone else. … And for you, that’s strange.”

  “I’ve always said it’s better to change, not to stick with just one. I’m not like you.”

  “You’re saying that because of Mencía.”

  “Not exactly. Now I’m thinking of Sancha, the one you’re taking care of.”

  “As far as what you’re th
inking, there’s nothing there. You know she’s a married woman.”

  “I know, but we all think it’s strange that you’ve been around her all these months without ever once trying her sweet charms, because even you’ll admit, she has them.” Diego didn’t want to give any sign of agreement. “Imagine … A lonely woman, no sign of her husband, waiting up for him so long. I don’t know. She must really be missing …”

  Diego stopped him before he said something vulgar.

  “I tried to help them, nothing more.”

  “People are talking.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They think you’re lovers, and some have even suspected you to be wrapped up in Basilio’s disappearance. Understand?” Diego looked away to not show his worry. If some time they discovered the body in that stable, they would definitely come after him. “And the worst is that the rumors of your supposed untoward relationship are reaching the highest ecclesiastical authorities.”

  “Let them worry about their own business.”

  “I understand, but besides there’s that strange Jew. … For them, that relationship smells even worse. You know perfectly well that people don’t like to see a Christian and a Jew, or a deicide, as they call them, mixing with each other. I don’t know what you see in him, but they’ve told me the man is accused of witchcraft and that elsewhere he was already been tried for demonic practices. Think it through, Diego; that is how the abbot sees it. You must know what you’re doing.”

  “I’m interested in what he knows, that’s all.”

  “That sounds fine, but remember that he’s being watched. Be careful where you go and be discreet. And please, stop going to see Sancha. She doesn’t need you anymore.”

  Marcos’s worry was not as disinterested as he made it seem. The suspicions people had about Diego could affect him too, and his business as a consequence. And he wasn’t about to let that happen.

  “I don’t know, Marcos. … We’ll see.”

  VIII.

  People were dying without knowing why.

  It wasn’t the plague, and it wasn’t cholera.

  Every day the number of the affected rose and no one knew how to stop the disaster.

  The panic ran through the town of Cuéllar and the surrounding villages while their citizens died. The churches were full, and the blessed walked through the streets trying to combat that unknown evil. There were too many bodies, too much pain and fear. Some even affirmed that it was the end of the world.

  Seeing the gravity of the situation, Diego presented himself to the town council, but they paid him no attention. On his own, he tried to investigate what could produce those symptoms, examine the lesions, and try to draw a relation between what he saw and things he’d read.

  The lord of the town, Rodrigo Bermúdez, asked one person after another what should be done. He felt worried by the gravity of the situation and disappointed at the lack of explanations or easy remedies.

  As the first delegate to the king of Castile, Don Rodrigo was the maximum authority in the region. His reach covered not only the town, but also a grand extension of lands conceded by King Alfonso VIII. A total of thirty-six villages made up the community of Cuéllar. Every six of them formed a group that sent a representative to the council. These representatives would meet on occasion to talk about the apportionment of pastureland, the punishment of certain crimes, and other themes of common interest, such as the present epidemic. Each man had a voice and vote at these meetings.

  Most of the inhabitants of the region were free men, many arrived from the north of Castile with the dream of gaining land and livestock for their families. In exchange, they assumed the risk of attack by the Saracens, since the reconquest of those lands was recent and they were still close to the frontier. As a recompense, they depended on neither nobles nor clergy, as was more common in the feudal lands to the north.

  Rodrigo Bermúdez resided in a preserve at the top of the hill, in a grand fortress, a citadel in the middle of the city. That was where the leaders of the community—the six representatives of the towns, four members of the clergy, and Rodrigo himself—would meet, in a great hall.

  That first Friday in April of the year 1208, the matter that had brought them together was the gravest one to ever be discussed around that table. Those present argued heatedly in an atmosphere of great agitation. They were conscious that any of them could be affected.

  “I’m telling you, it’s witchcraft!” the abbot announced. He was a man of small stature, hunched, with a cold, hard stare.

  “Or a divine punishment,” the town representative from Navalmanzano said. Among the villages he represented were Sanchonuño, Zarzuela del Pinar, and Navas de Oro. “It’s not like anything we’ve seen before, and it doesn’t discriminate based on age, class, or religion. It seems like one of those biblical plagues. …”

  “And it provokes madness and hallucinations,” the representative of the southern villages added. “Just in my case, I saw this very morning one of my neighbors invoking Saint Matthew in a shout, while he rolled around on the ground like a pig in a mud pit.”

  The lord of the town dried the sweat from his hands on his vest without knowing how to solve that disgrace. The dead were already more than a hundred, and only two weeks had passed since the first victim was struck. The doctors didn’t know what caused it and could only fight against the symptoms. Desperation was absolute.

  “It’s also started affecting the sheep,” the representative from Montemayor said.

  The rest sat there without speaking. The population was most important, but if the livestock was also affected, the disaster was even worse. Sheep were the chief source of income for the area.

  The man explained that in the neighboring village of Rapariegos, a flock of sheep had been affected by a very strange illness.

  “They were turning in circles as if they’d gone mad, without stopping. Some hung their heads and ran crazily, running into everything and leaping about for no apparent reason. They all seemed possessed by the same devil. The strange symptoms and the terrible lesions they had led the owners to call the albéitar Diego to get his opinion.”

  “I don’t see how they keep giving work to a man who refuses to even hide his relations with that devilish Jew,” the abbot said, without letting the other man finish.

  “What are you talking of?” Rodrigo asked him.

  “It’s strange to me you don’t know. No one’s mentioned to you the albéitar who is frequently in the company of a wizard—or magician, it’s all the same—who goes by the name of Efraím?” Rodrigo shook his head. “Well, it’s true, and nothing could can come of a person whose job consists in telling fortunes or making strange remedies that confuse our parishioners. Behind his apparent benevolence, I assure you he hides a personality full of unspeakable secrets.”

  “And what does that have to do with our albéitar?”

  “It seems that he too has relied on the Jew’s remedies to cure some of his horses. I suspect he may have been contaminated by the black arts.”

  “Where I’m from, we know him well,” the representative of Hontalbilla said. “Diego can often be seen in the home of one of our neighbors, a beautiful woman named Sancha de Laredo who was abandoned by her husband not long ago. At this point, no one doubts he’s having relations with her, disregarding the good example the two of them should be setting for the poor daughters from that marriage.”

  “One more proof that the filthy Jew has got him caught up in his evil magic. …” the abbot remarked.

  “All right, all right, I see where you are going,” Rodrigo Bermúdez interrupted them. “I’m not a person to judge his deeds or who he spends time with. Diego de Malagón is the best at his job, and his opinion could be essential to us in these difficult circumstances.” He turned to the man who had mentioned the illness of the sheep.

  “The albéitar said it co
uld be worms.” They all looked at him, shocked. “Yes, he said worms in their brain. I had never heard of it before either.”

  “If it’s that, it’s not related in any way to our problem,” Don Rodrigo resolved. “Just today I found out that this week, two women have miscarried and we have another five about to die, eaten up with gangrene.” He stood up from his chair and looked nervously at those around him. “Does anyone have a suggestion?”

  “We should call more doctors. Maybe they will see something the others haven’t,” one of the churchmen offered.

  “I agree, and I will take care of it myself,” Don Rodrigo answered. “I will order all the sick people be confined to one parish.” The abbot began to protest, thinking it would be his own, but Don Rodrigo used his authority to silence him. “We will isolate them to prevent more contagion.”

  Everyone approved of the decision except for the abbot and the other churchmen who were aligned with him.

  “I propose we hold prayers tonight and tomorrow, given the ineffectiveness of the measures that have been taken thus far,” the abbot spoke again, conscious of the effects his words would have on Don Rodrigo’s prestige.

  The latter was indignant. Since he had arrived in Cuéllar, he had detested the attitude and personality of that man, though he tried to keep up appearances.

  “You pray, and I’ll dedicate myself to helping our neighbors in the meantime,” he answered viciously.

  “I will. Of course I will. … When man doesn’t find the necessary answers, he has to look for them in God. He will open our eyes.” He crossed himself devoutly.

  Veturia shook Diego to wake him up. She knew he had gone out the night before to oversee a mare giving birth, but it was already late, almost noon.

  “Señor Diego … that Jewish gentleman is waiting for you downstairs.”

  The servant cracked the windows.

  “He’s come with an awful-smelling package.”

  After washing his face and dressing, Diego went downstairs without losing a second. Efraím’s presence at those early hours struck him as odd.