Inquisitor Dreams

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “Yet it is not entirely as strange as I might have expected,” he mused. “The Río Darro still flows through the city, like a thread of shining silver. The neighborhood on our right shows that they have respected their promise to the Moors; and they have respected the Alhambra itself.”

  “Look behind you,” said Rosemary.

  Obeying her, he gasped to see that much of the Moorish wonder of the modern world had been knocked away to leave a ragged, gaping hole.

  “Charles V decided to build himself a new palace right there,” Rosemary explained, “and then died before finishing it. They’ll make another effort pretty soon. We’re in 1610 now.”

  The bell began to sway, but its tolling sounded less like a bell than like the cry of a muezzin wailing his call to worshippers who could no longer either hear him or spread their carpets for prayer.

  “And that,” Rosemary added, jerking her head at the destruction to the Alhambra, “makes a fair symbol of how they’ve honored their promise to the Moors.”

  “I had forgotten.” Sighing, he turned to gaze again at the city.

  “This time we aren’t here to see blood, anyway,” said Rosemary. “Just symbols.”

  All about the city stood women clad in sanbenitos—heavy, garish, the garb of penitents on their way to an Act of Faith. At times these women seemed of ordinary size, so that it was wonderful how clearly he thought he saw them; at others, they seemed to tower above the highest roofs, so that they could hardly have taken a step without crushing anyone beneath their feet; and there were moments when he thought it was not the single city of Granada that spread out before him, but all the kingdoms of Spain.

  “Churches,” Rosemary explained with a nod.

  “They are our churches?” Looking more closely, he saw that each of them wore, not a single sanbenito, but layers upon layers of them one atop another, weighing each lady down like so much lead. Most of the women here wept like Rachel in Rama. A few of them, here and there, laughed. “It is this accursed new custom of hanging the penitents’ sanbenitos in their parish churches,” Don Felipe cried, “to the perpetual disgrace both of them and their descendants!”

  “‘Unto the thousandth generation,’” Rosemary said dryly. “Exodus, somewhere near the middle of the book. I did my homework.”

  “‘Unto the thousandth generation,’ was God’s promise of His mercy. Punishment was to be inflicted only unto the third and fourth generation.”

  “That was Yahweh’s idea, not the Inquisition’s. Not that it’d make much difference to mere children and grandchildren.”

  “You are Pagan,” said Don Felipe.

  “I honor Divinity in my own way. Which isn’t by clogging holy places up with souvenirs of alleged heresy.”

  A man wearing rich vestments recognizable as those of an archbishop in times of celebration could be seen now, striding joyfully toward one of the women—the tallest lady in Karnattah, who stood directly in Don Felipe’s line of vision, wearing on her head a crown with the inscription, “Ave Maria.” He remembered the tale he had heard, and been forced by his Christianity and priesthood publicly to applaud, of the Catholic captain who, creeping into the besieged city one dark night during the Glorious Reconquest, had nailed a banner with these words to the door of the mosque that had stood on that spot in Moorish times. Sure enough, by squinting hard, he could see blood still trickling down the woman’s brow from the Castilian captain’s nails. The banner, indeed, resembled Christ’s crown of thorns.

  “You had said this time we would see no blood,” he accused Rosemary.

  “Symbolic blood only,” she replied.

  “My bride!” the man in archiepiscopal vestments cried aloud to the cathedral-woman. “Strip thyself! He grants his permission!”

  “Archbishop Pedro González de Mendoza,” Rosemary explained with a nod. “‘He’ being Inquisitor-general Sandoval, who just consecrated him and gave permission to move all those sanbenitos out of the cathedral.”

  “Archbishop consecrated by inquisitor general!” cried Don Felipe. “It is as though the Holy Office were establishing itself as papacy of the Spanish Church!”

  But bells and laughter drowned out his words. Not only the bell beside him, but every bell, so it seemed, in all the city was pealing with joy, as the cathedral woman raised her head, her tears turned to laughter, and began to strip garment after sorrowful garment from her body, flinging them this way and that.

  Half of them fell upon a church-lady in the old Moorish neighborhood to Felipe’s right, who knelt weeping to arrange them over those that already burdened her down. The rest fell to a woman who stood—Felipe thought somewhere to his left—and she gathered them up and waved them above her head, dancing and exalting before draping them upon her shoulders.

  Everywhere he looked, they were all laughing, both the cathedral who disrobed herself until she stood straight and unbowed in her simple shift of stainless white, and all of those who did nothing save witness; but none rejoiced more exuberantly than she who gathered up half of the discarded sanbenitos, and none still wept save she upon whom the other half fell.

  “Who are these?” Felipe asked his guide.

  “San Salvador in the Albaycin,” said Rosemary, nodding to the weeping one, “who has to take the Moriscos’ sanbenitos. And Saint James, who gets to keep those of the Judaizers, and who happens to be the Inquisition’s own local church.”

  The cathedral-woman spread her arms, and the new archbishop rushed into her unencumbered embrace.

  “But why?” cried she of the Albaycin, and in her voice Don Felipe seemed to hear again the wail of the muezzin and the accusing tones of an El Santon. “Why cannot we hurl them into the sea, bury them in the earth, burn them in a pyre, unburden ourselves of them completely? Why cannot we all stand as pure and unfettered as his Grace Mendoza’s own bride?”

  “Lest the world forget!” the Inquisition’s local church crowed in reply. “Because we must never forget! The world must never be allowed to forget!”

  “Why the hell not?” Rosemary grumbled.

  The bells pealed more loudly yet, and Don Felipe awoke, hardly knowing whether to rejoice or to mourn, nor why he might wish to do either.

  Chapter 23

  The Oldest Sacrament

  The priest’s house was far otherwise than it had been during the residency of Don Fadrique Osorio. No more toys, cards, nor any other traces of either women, children, or gamblers. Of even such luxuries as were permissible under God’s Law, few enough could be found in Fray Giuliano’s habitation, and those few had been allowed to remain from Don Fadrique’s time, no doubt for the sake of visitors. The closet in which Fray Giuliano himself slept had been converted, as Don Felipe saw with a glance, into as near a semblance as possible of a monastic cell according to the strict rule.

  Clean and well kept, that the house was indeed. “Isabel Garate serves me as housekeeper,” Fray Giuliano explained, “with her husband to assist her. They come on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and—to cook only—Sundays.”

  On Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, no doubt, the Franciscan indulged to the limit his taste for fasting; Don Felipe hoped he got himself at least one meal on each of those days. Today being a Wednesday, the older priest was glad he had brought his own good cook Diego Sos, along with his personal secretary Don Martin de Villaréal, two guards, and of course Gubbio. This time there was no question but that they would stay in the vicar’s house.

  Surprisingly, this life seemed to suit the strict Franciscan. He looked happier and healthier, if very slightly thinner, than when he had served the Holy Inquisition as Don Felipe’s fiscal.

  “How do you find pastoral work?” Felipe questioned his new vicar as they walked in the courtyard.

  “I find it better, perhaps, than befits me. I had some trouble, at first, with those who had fallen into the habitual sin of gambling in this house. And the castle is a great thorn in our side—because of young Don Gaspar, I should explain. Poor old Don Alfons,
his father, must be as sure of Heaven, I think, as any man in this life, but neither he nor his personal chaplain has strength to preserve much more than their own virtue. Still, all in all, it is good work. Most of the flock seem to trust me.” He hesitated before going on: “Indeed, I fear that your Excellence had best find someone to replace me soon, before my soul grows too attached to Agapida.”

  “You do not believe that your true vocation might lie here?”

  “My vocation lies in the cloister, your Excellence,” the Franciscan answered, regret in his voice. “Or in the Holy Office, if obedience to my superiors places me there. Here…I am too much my own master.”

  “Your Blessed Poverello was a friar, not a monk,” Don Felipe pointed out. “As I remember the story, Saint Francis preached directly to the people whenever he could. And the work of the parish comes first. Without a healthily nourished Christian people, there would be nothing for the Holy Office to defend.”

  “All this is true,” the younger man argued, “and yet it is also true that my own first allegiance was conventual.”

  “As to that, perhaps we should inquire whether this area might prove suitable for a Franciscan house,” Don Felipe said, and was rewarded by seeing new light in his vicar’s eyes.

  “I had scarcely dared hope…” Fray Giuliano murmured, “…but, with your Excellence’s support…already I know of two Agapidan lads who appear called to the Franciscan way of life, and three or possibly four girls and women—would it be premature to contemplate a sister house?”

  Gubbio interrupted them, coming into the courtyard with a message. “Your Reverence is summoned to the castle.”

  Don Felipe stood still, contemplating his servant. In Gubbio’s mouth, this summons seemed, to say the least, high-handed; yet Gubbio’s own prejudices might have colored it. “I am summoned by whom, and for what reason?”

  “Heresy, I gather,” the Italian replied with a yawn. He often yawned when hungry; and dinnertime approached. “It must have become urgent when they heard of your arrival.”

  “Heresy?” Relieved—he had feared that old Don Alfons might have need of some stronger priest than his ancient chaplain—Don Felipe turned inquiringly to his vicar.

  Fray Giuliano spread his hands and looked perplexed. “I know of no such pestilence among my flock. Unless it is another complaint about the Calé. As far as I am aware, no new matter for complaint has arisen since we investigated them together when you visited Agapida as inquisitor, but discord, alas, still continues between the Calé, the castle, and certain of the villagers.”

  For a moment, Don Felipe stood and pondered. He disliked truckling to cruel young Don Gaspar, and yet if the Calé were concerned… He had intended to visit them again in any event—if on no other pretext, to try persuading Don Sagesse once again to accept appointment as one of the Holy Inquisition’s familiars…and there was the Calé count’s niece, the lady Pilar.

  That dark-eyed, slim-fingered presence had haunted his thoughts, through the months since his first visit here, as no other woman had ever done—no, not even Morayma…whose face he feared he would no longer recognize even had her portrait been painted at the age she was when he saw her, no more than twice or thrice, all those years ago in Alhama de Karnattah.

  If the Calé were concerned, it would be good to learn as much as possible, to be able to warn them. “Tell the castle’s messenger,” Don Felipe instructed Gubbio at last, “that this time I am here, not as representing the Holy Office—else I should have forewarned them and expected the customary welcome—but simply as holder of the benefice of Nuestra Señora del Pilar, come to examine the welfare of my parish. I have brought with me neither colleagues nor records of the Inquisition, and can officially perform none of its business. Nevertheless, as a favor, I will come to the castle this afternoon, after dinner and siesta, and hear whatever they have to say to me.”

  * * * *

  He took his personal secretary, his two guards, and the ever-inquisitive Gubbio, leaving his cook behind in the vicar’s house, happily preparing supper.

  Don Gaspar could have done Don Felipe the courtesy of meeing him and his party in the castle courtyard. Instead, they saw no one save pages and servants until they stood in the chapel, whence they had been ushered with bowing deference, but the offer of not so much as a cup of cold water.

  “I wonder,” Don Felipe murmured to his secretary, “if Don Alfons knows of even our presence in Agapida, let alone of my summons to his castle.”

  “I doubt it,” Gubbio grumbled, overhearing.

  At least they had not long to wait before Don Gaspar made his entrance. A slim woman of medium height accompanied him, one white hand resting as lightly as its encrustation of rings would allow on the crook of his arm. Her gown appeared cut from the same bolt of crimson brocade as Don Gaspar’s own doublet, and her hair showed golden beneath her black veil.

  “My young lord,” Don Felipe addressed him, taking one step forward. “Why, of all the offices and withdrawing-rooms your father’s castle has to offer, have we been brought here to the chapel?”

  As if ignoring his question, Don Gaspar said: “My lady, allow me to present the venerable inquisitor of whom I have told you. Doña Violante, his Reverence Don Felipe de Nuestra Señora. Don Felipe, the most pure and excellent Doña Violante de Raíz y Silvestro de Barcelona.”

  “Doña,” the priest replied with a stiff nod. It was not lost on him that Don Gaspar had presented him to the lady, and in such a way as to emphasize the greater importance such an introduction presumed to be hers. Her sex rendered it difficult to challenge this presumption without violating the rules of chivalry, and yet Don Felipe suspected that Violante de Barcelona was neither more nor less than her consort’s leman. He repeated his initial question.

  “Why, what more fitting place than the chapel,” Don Gaspar countered with a show of innocence, “to entertain a priest inquisitor come upon a matter of holy business?”

  “I have not come here today as a priest upon the business of the Holy Inquisition, but as a gentleman paying another gentleman the courtesy of a requested visit.”

  “Ah,” Don Gaspar said with a mock sigh, “that we could all shed our skins so lightly! Of course, there is no need of your servants to remain kicking their heels here. We could set out wine for them in the great hall.”

  “I choose to keep my men with me,” Don Felipe replied. “Nor have I myself either the need or the desire to hear you while fasting. Let us all go together to your father’s great hall.”

  Don Gaspar hesitated a moment, then smiled and bowed. “As your Reverence wishes, so be it.”

  The great hall was little if any improvement on the chapel. Where the former had been small, bare, and cheerless, the latter was large, echoing, and equally cheerless. Where the former had been reasonably clean save for its layer of dust, the latter was strewn with rushes that smelled of moldy decay, and three of the tables had been left upon their trestles between meals. Where in the chapel one might, with effort, remember the physical Presence of God, in the great hall one could sense only the hollow echoes of worldly vanity. Still, Don Felipe had carried his point, and that meant something. Sampling the sherry Don Gaspar caused to be brought for him and his secretary, and deciding it was good enough to accept without complaint, but not to merit compliment, he waited for Don Gaspar or Doña Violante to broach the matter Gubbio had guessed lay behind the summons. Give them the satisfaction of inquiring about it himself, he would not; if they did not speak of it now, he was determined to treat his coming here as a mere visit of courtesy.

  Lingering some paces away, Gubbio and Don Felipe’s two guards drank ale, ate hard little pears, and muttered with some of their host’s soldiers of rolling dice, but did not bring any forth. Gubbio, of course, would have one ear as much as possible on his superior’s conversation, even more than Don Felipe had half an ear on his servant’s while waiting for his host to say something of moment.

  It was the woman who first let he
r mask slip. “Don Felipe,” she said at length, “is it true, or is it not, that to tell fortunes is heresy?”

  “Sometimes it is,” he answered warily, “and sometimes it is not.”

  “But in any case,” Don Gaspar thrust in, “it is always forbidden, is it not?”

  “It is not smiled upon by Holy Mother Church. We are speaking, you must understand, only of actual prognostication of future events. Astrology as it is used to treat illnesses and understand character is of course permitted.”

  Violante de Barcelona drew her breath in sharply. “Well! There is a woman among the Calé who tells people’s fortunes by tossing beans down into circles she draws on the ground.”

  “Indeed?” Don Felipe responded quietly. “Has she promised you long life and many children, Doña?”

  “Do you accuse me of such sin, your Reverence?” Flushing, Violante darted a glance at Don Gaspar.

  The young lord’s lips twitched as though he relished such jests even when aimed at his mistress, but he spoke chivalrously enough. “If this is how your Reverence pleases to treat all your informants, small wonder so few of them come to you.”

  “Enough come to keep my humble branch of the Holy Office well occupied. But again I remind you, Don Gaspar, I am here this week, not as inquisitor of Ainsa, but as simple beneficiary of Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Agapida, come to see to the affairs of my parish and nothing else.”

  “And when will your Reverence return on the affairs of the Inquisition? Does time hang so heavily upon you that you prefer to make many trips where one might serve? Or is the work of the Holy Office, which you yourself call of such vast importance, to be set aside for the concerns of one humble parish? Do you intend to come back to us at all, if it means investigating your beloved Calé on charges of heresy?”

  With cold care, Don Felipe set his sherry down, barely tasted, upon the unwiped table, and looked Don Gaspar in the eye. “Are you yourself so competent a steward of your father’s castle, that you dare cast stones at any man devoted to the service of Holy Mother Church? Learn your own business first, my young lord, before venturing to question that of anyone else. And, the next time you invite guests, I would advise you to set out a better vintage for them. Esteban! Ramon! Gubbio!” he called to his men, as if they needed to be alerted beyond what their own ears must already have told them. Then, turning to his secretary, “Come, Don Martin, let us end this profitless visit.”