Inquisitor Dreams

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Only half of Don Felipe’s men complained within his hearing:

  The little scrivener Pablo de Maria had a great appetite, and his complaints ceased upon his first Calé meal.

  The grievance of the well-born familiar Don Enrique de la Santa Cruz ran deeper. Coming directly to the inquisitor, he complained that he was accustomed to rest where the company best suited his rank and birth.

  “The old castellan,” Don Felipe pointed out—sympathetically, as befitted Don Enrique’s loyal service—“is clearly too ill to play host, and I mislike the looks of his son.”

  Don Carlos Cascajo, the other gently born familiar of the party, who had ridden ahead with word of their coming and thus seen more of the castle people at closer hand, agreed with Don Felipe. “There is something unwholesome in the air of that place,” he said. “I feel it could well be what has settled in the humors of Don Alfons and made him sick. There is also, to a lesser degree, something unwholesome in the air of the village. For myself, I prefer the air in this quarter, encampment of outcasts though it is called.”

  His testimony, and the deference with which the Calé treated their guests, finally laid Don Enrique’s complaints to rest.

  The fiscal, Fray Giuliano de la Trinidad, had another concern. While he made no complaint of the place for living and working, he did come to his master with certain private reservations regarding the manners of their hosts. “Your Excellence, is not their great and scrupulous cleanliness in itself grounds for suspicion? Why, they even keep separate basins for washing their hands and their garments!”

  Don Felipe sighed. His fiscal was young, and learning. God grant he did not learn too much from those who scented relapse in every fresh-washed shirt. “In and of itself, Fray Giuliano, love of cleanliness is no particular proof of secret adherence to the Law of Moses. A person can enjoy being clean, and yet remain as good a Christian as Saint James. You may trust my word in this matter: I grew up neighbor to Jews and Moors—I know that there is much more to their practices than mere cleanliness. Or even than abstinence from pork. I commend your vigilance in the observing of detail, but habits of washing and diet must always be weighed in combination with other evidence, never used by themselves as grounds for suspicion or arrest.”

  The fiscal looked confused, as well he might be by the discrepancy between Don Felipe’s words and the actions of too many of his fellow inquisitors. (As who should know better than Felipe himself?) Nevertheless, having learned nothing if not obedience to his immediate superior, the young Franciscan bowed his head and accepted the penance of living and working, for the time, in comparative comfort.

  The last source of discontent was Gubbio, and his misgivings were most difficult of all to quiet. “You have made an enemy of that green shoot at the castle, my Don,” he muttered that night while heating Felipe’s wine, “and I give the old lord another six months at the longest.”

  “You have never told me, Gubbio, from which university you hold your degree in medicine.”

  The Italian grunted. “No more do I hold a university degree in statecraft, but a man hardly needs one to guess that being enemies with the castellan could prove less than convenient when one holds the churchly benefice in the same lord’s village.”

  “I should not worry about that, old friend. Whatever Don Gaspar may feel toward me after today, or I toward him, my vicar has obviously snuggled his way well under the young lord’s wing.”

  “Aye, that vicar of yours.” Gubbio snorted. “Does my memory miscarry, or is our Don Fadrique Osorio de Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Agapida something less and quite a bit more than that earnest young priest of the highest morals we set in place here thirty-three years ago?”

  “So long as that.” Don Felipe sighed. “The total lifetime on this earth of our Lord. How years speed on when one has been…abroad for fully one third of them! Well, my friend, which of us remains the youth he was so many years ago?” The inquisitor chose to overlook his servant’s use of the plural in mentioning who had appointed Don Fadrique. Possibly Gubbio had tactfully meant to lighten the responsibility for setting this unworthy fop—no, Felipe reminded himself, we do not as yet know anything of real gravity against him—to shepherd his own flock of simple Christian souls.

  “Some of us,” Gubbio was saying, “wear our old garments better than others. I am far more nearly the man I was when a stripling, only, I flatter myself, a little wiser, a little shrewder.”

  “Wiser, I question; and greater shrewdness than was yours already in youth would be difficult for any man to acquire. Somewhat greater familiarity and even looseness of tongue when alone with your master, that I grant.”

  “Hmmm. And if I may make so bold as to measure your Excellence, the years have considerably improved you.”

  “Who would not return from so long a pilgrimage with a sense of coming back to life?”

  “I would have said,” the Italian suggested, “calmer and quieter. Less easily tempted to any act of foolhardy heroism.”

  Don Felipe thought, As when I imperiled my own soul to save Jewish lives. He could remember no other grounds for his servant’s present veiled caution (unless the servant were aware that the letters taken to and received from his master’s bankers sometimes concealed private correspondence with Gamito). “Well, well,” he replied mildly, “I hope and pray that the years have not stolen too much of my youthful ardor in return for this greater calm and prudence you see in me. As for Don Fadrique and young Don Gaspar, we will do our work both warily and very watchfully.”

  * * * *

  Next morning they published the Edicts of Faith and of Grace, proclaiming it the duty of all good Catholic Christians to report any suspicions of their neighbors and promising benign mercy to all who would admit their own questionable doings within thirty days, which was customary, although three times as long as Don Felipe planned to spend here. After reading both edicts aloud at Mass, with all due solemnity, Fray Giuliano posted them on the door of Nuestra Señora.

  Then, having slept upon Don Gaspar’s argument that the villagers would hesitate long before trudging out to the Calé settlement, the inquisitor spent that day in the church itself, along with his fiscal and scrivener, waiting. And waiting. For informants who did not come.

  It was not that this had never happened before, as Don Felipe knew from his years of accompanying Fray Junípero on visitations, and from talking with fellow servants of the Holy Office. Occasionally a small and close-knit community would refuse to tattle on any of its members. Faced with such a situation, he himself would choose to do as his old mentor Fra Guillaume would doubtless have done, and bless the hamlet for its love and Christian charity. Had not Saint Paul himself admonished the Church that charity covered a multitude of sins?

  More often, however, the Edicts of Faith and Grace brought in a spate of gossip so obviously petty and malicious that the inquisitor and fiscal, having nodded over it gravely in the presence of the informant, could dismiss it after, at most, one interview with the accused and a parting sermon to the parish as a whole regarding the spiritual dangers of scandalmongering.

  Don Felipe would have guessed Agapida to be more the second type of village than the first. Yet no one came.

  Moreover, Don Gaspar, in his misplaced and mistaken eagerness to put some dubious ancient facilities of torment at the service of the Holy Office, had all but promised informants from among the castle people. Yet still no one came.

  “His young lordship may, in some fit of pique, have forbidden them to come to me,” the inquisitor remarked late that afternoon.

  “If so,” said the fiscal, “he himself may well merit investigation for obstructing the Holy Office in its pious work.”

  “Let us not act hastily,” Don Felipe replied. “I prefer no accusation at all to false or empty ones, of which I rather fear our lordling is preparing all too many against the Calé, intending to flood us with them after allowing us some few days to stew in idleness. My impression is that he imagines himse
lf a great manipulator, does young Don Gaspar de Agapida. Tomorrow, however, we wait in the cave, as I originally planned.”

  Fray Pablo said nothing, gently snoring as he was with hands folded over his honest belly and writing implements piled neatly at the foot of his chair.

  * * * *

  Don Sagesse Labaa had a niece, a darkly handsome woman of about thirty, born in Agapida and baptized in its church, being named Pilar after Nuestra Señora. Orphaned, widowed, and childless, she lived in her uncle’s tent almost as if still a young girl, although Don Felipe could see that she was accorded a certain affectionate deference, in keeping with her maturity and experience. She it was who served his supper.

  On the morning that followed the day of publishing the edicts, she came to Don Felipe in the outermost cavern.

  “Father,” she addressed him carefully, after making her reverence to all three of them, “I wish to make my Confession to you.”

  “I am not your father confessor, Doña. That would be your own parish priest, Don Fadrique Osorio. Nor have I come to hear sacramental Confessions.”

  “You are also the true priest of Nuestra Señora, are you not?”

  “I hold the benefice, true. Nevertheless, it is Don Fadrique, my vicar, who stands to you as parish priest and father confessor.”

  “There are reasons, Father, why I do not wish to confess to that one, ever again.”

  Don Felipe exchanged a glance with his fiscal before turning back to the lady. “In that case, Doña, are you sure that it is a sacramental Confession you wish to make?”

  “It is,” she answered in a calm and steady voice. “I have not washed my soul for several years. I would seize this chance to bathe it clean.”

  “I see. Perhaps you would prefer that we went to the church, as the place best befitting the sacrament?”

  She shook her head, causing her lustrous black hair and light veil to ripple a little, her gold earrings to send forth a tiny, bell-like clicking. “I would prefer here, in my uncle’s cave, among my own people.”

  “I will hear your Confession,” Don Felipe decided, directing Fray Giuliano and the little scrivener, with a glance and a nod, to leave them alone.

  Fray Giuliano looked back shrewdly and inquired, “Shall we retire to the far side of this cavern, your Excellency?”

  Don Felipe would actually have preferred it; but the cavern was small. Trained brothers of unquestioned piety though they were, he desired as little chance as possible of their accidental overhearing; his own ancient fall from grace had made him exceptionally scrupulous about the secrecy that must surround the Sacrament of Penance. “Wait outside,” he answered. “I shall want you to prevent anyone else from entering.”

  With yet another long glance, the fiscal left, drawing Fray Pablo out with him by one sleeve.

  “Your last words,” Doña Pilar said softly, her dark eyes fixed on Don Felipe’s. “You meant them in honor and innocence?”

  “In all honor and innocence.” He met her gaze steadily. “My companions remain within call, as do your uncle and the rest of your people. You have only to raise your voice at need, but there will be no need. Doña, my sole concern is for the sanctity of your Confession.”

  “Not every priest is so honorable.”

  He sighed. “Do you think we of the Holy Inquisition suppose otherwise? Do you think that my fiscal and even my scrivener have failed to understand the full implications of your refusal to confess your sins to Don Fadrique?”

  “How else could I have said it? To catch you alone, at any other time, would have looked still worse to gadje eyes, would it not?”

  “‘Gadje’?”

  She hesitated, as if searching for words to explain. “Foreigners,” she said at last. “Strangers. Other people.”

  “Such as the other folk of Agapida?”

  “You will leave again, Don Felipe,” Pilar told him. “You will leave, and bit by bit, small sin by small sin, my soul will grow dirty once more. But your vicar will still be our priest, well enough to sing the Mass—when he remembers to sing it—to marry people, baptize their children, and bury them when that time comes. I would not make him more my enemy than he is now. What your fiscal and your—scrivener?—may do with what they have already heard, I think that I cannot be blamed for that, pressed as I am.”

  “They have guessed, Doña, but even so, all that you said before the three of us remains insufficient for drawing up an accusation. Other interpretations could be placed upon it. Gossip might even say, however improbably, that you had dark designs upon my virtue.”

  “My own people would never say that. They know me, as I know our customs.”

  “I do not doubt this. I merely point out that you have not given us enough to shape into a formal accusation. Nor can anything you tell me under the Seal of Confession be so used. Indeed, to deliver any charges you may have against Don Fadrique to me as part of your sacramental Confession would render it all the more impossible for me to act upon your testimony to the relief of my parish. Doña, let me beg of you now, at once, if you have charges against my vicar, bring them to the Holy Office as a formal accusation.”

  She stood awhile in silence, as if stirring his words through her brain. “The Seal of Confession, Father,” she said at last. “Does it not bind me, also?”

  “No. It does not. The penitent is the one person who remains free to repeat all that passes in Confession.”

  “The priest’s words and deeds as well as my own?”

  He nodded.

  “This is not what Don Fadrique has told us.”

  “If my vicar told you other than what I have just told you, that compounds his sin. But you must report it to us formally, outside the Seal of Confession, before we can act upon it.”

  “Ah! So I remain free to speak of it—all of us to whom he has done it remain free to speak of it?”

  “‘All of you’?”

  One lock of hair had escaped from beneath the side of Doña Pilar’s veil to tickle her left cheek. Lifting her long-fingered hands to tuck it back, she explained, “I suspect that there are many of us whom he has used so—or tried to use so, for I will tell you, Father, here where there would be no need to hide it were it otherwise, that he did not succeed with me. Nor, I think, with other Calé, for it is many years now since any of us have gone to him to confess our sins. Yet some of the villagers still confess to him, and once he excommunicated Isabel Garate for a year, for telling her husband what had happened when she went to confess. Don Fadrique said in his sermon, when he excommunicated her, that it was for lying slander, but even if it had been true, it would have been a greater sin for her to reveal anything that happened in Confession.”

  “Wait!” said Don Felipe. “Your parish priest, my vicar, has taken it upon himself to excommunicate one of his flock? And for no other sin than slander?”

  “For myself,” Pilar replied, “I do not think that it was slander. I think that Isabel Garate spoke truth, but he must punish her for breaking the secrecy of Confession, to keep others from speaking. And now you tell me that she had the right to speak of it, after all.”

  “Doña, you must make formal accusation of these things!”

  Once again she stood pondering. “And if I do this, and no one else does, what then? With Isabel Garate, he merely excommunicated her for a year, and no one else suffered anything. With me… I am Calé, and he and our lord Don Gaspar might make all my people suffer for my speech.”

  This woman, Don Felipe thought, marveling, has already in her thirties as much shrewd caution as it has taken me more than half a century, and eleven years of that in prison, to learn. Aloud, he assured her, “It is true, Doña Pilar, that in such cases the Holy Office can rarely act upon a single accusation, for Scripture admonishes us that there must be at least two witnesses. But I myself will preach a sermon this Sunday to tell all the people here the truth concerning whom the Seal of Confession actually binds and whom it does not bind. And at worst, if no one else comes forward
to accuse him, your report will lie privately buried in the secret records of the Holy Inquisition. I promise you this, Doña. If we cannot accumulate evidence enough to remove an unworthy pastor, then he himself need never know of our efforts. And, again at worst, as his benefactor I hold the right to remove him myself, stating no reason for it, and replace him with a better.”

  After another moment of thought, Pilar nodded slowly and knelt before him. “I will do as you ask, Father. But later. First, if you will, I would confess my own sins to you. Mine, not his. His, I will save for my formal accusation.”

  * * * *

  She must have spread the word among her people, for within two days five more Calé women and—to Felipe’s horror—one young boy came into his cave to make formal accusation against Don Fadrique Osorio. The boy’s charge involved outright rape at about the age, as nearly as he could state his own age, of six. Three of the women, like Doña Pilar Labaa, stated that the priest had failed in his assault on their virtue; Don Felipe did not press the other two for exactitude on this point, but simply accepted as much as they chose to reveal in the presence of his fiscal and scrivener, to whose curiosity he afterward made it clear that they were to assume, if the erring pastor had indeed succeeded, it was without the women’s own will or consent. In any case, the Inquisition was to protect these witnesses and guard their privacy with as much strict care as it protected and guarded all its other informants. Neither their own people nor Don Fadrique—especially not Don Fadrique—was ever to know from any servant of the Holy Office the identities of any of his accusers. Although, Felipe began to fear, Don Fadrique would prove able to name them all simply by naming every woman and too many boys in his flock.