Iacobus

by Matilde Asensi

  “No, Don Galceran, I do not accept your proposal. I repeat, in case you didn’t hear me clearly the first time, that in addition to hereditary issues that are, at this time, resolved and that would be seriously altered, I do not have any children.”

  “But that’s not true!”

  “Yes, it is,” she replied firmly. “They locked me in here when I was fifteen and I am dead: The dead cannot do anything for the living. The first and last day that I crossed the threshold of this monastery, I knew that it was all over for me and the only thing left to do was await my eminent death. I no longer exist, I stopped existing when I professed, I am no more than a shadow, a ghost. You don’t exist to me either, neither does that child out there ….” She looked at me expressionless. “Do whatever you want, tell him who his mother is if it makes you happy but tell him he can never know her. And now, goodbye, Don Galceran. The ninth hour is approaching and I must go to church.”

  And as Isabel of Mendoza disappeared forever under the stone leaves and flowers that adorned the archway, the bells of the monastery rang, summoning the mistresses to prayer. And there remained the woman who had marked my life forever, as much as I had marked hers. Neither of us would have been the people we were then if we hadn’t known each other and fallen in love. In some way, her destiny and mine would remain intertwined, although from afar, and our blood would pass through the centuries together in Jonas’ descendants.

  Jonas …! I suddenly remembered. I had to get back to the inn right away.

  I left the monastery and was back at the Hospital of the King in no time. It was getting dark quickly and the crickets were chirping in the thicket. I found the boy playing in the courtyard in front of the building with a large, unfriendly-looking cat.

  “They’re serving dinner, sire!” he shouted when he saw me. “Hurry, I’m hungry!”

  “No Jonas, you come here!” I shouted in turn.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing! Come here!”

  He ran towards me with his long legs and was next to me in a flash.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to take a good look at the monastery of mistresses there in front of you.”

  “Does it hold a Templar clue to uncover?”

  “No, there is no Templar clue.”

  How could I begin to tell him …?

  “So?” he urged. “I’m really hungry.”

  “Look, Jonas, what I’m about to tell you isn’t easy, so I want you to pay attention and not say a word until I’ve finished.”

  I told him everything, without pausing for breath. I started at the beginning, and finished at the end, without leaving anything out or holding out on anything, without apologizing but apologizing for his mother, and when I had finished — by which time it was dark —, I gave a long sigh and said nothing, exhausted. There was a long silence. The boy didn’t speak or move. Everything around us was in suspense: the air, the stars, the high shadows of the trees …. Everything was still and quiet until, all of a sudden, Jonas unexpectedly jumped up, and before I had time to react, he ran like a wild deer towards the city.

  “Jonas!” I cried, running after him. “Hey! Stop, come back!”

  But I could no longer see him. The boy had been swallowed up by the night.

  I didn’t hear of him until the following afternoon, when one of the servants of Don Samuel, Sara’s relative, came looking for me to take me to the aljama. I knew from the start that he had gone to see the witch.

  Don Samuel’s house was the largest in the street and looked different from the rest, and although it was not apparent from the outside, its interior held luxuries typical of a Muslim palace. A multitude of servants were bustling in the halls I walked through before reaching the white patio where, sitting on a stone parapet of a well, Sara was waiting for me. Seeing her didn’t calm my nerves but at least it soothed my heart.

  “I didn’t want you to worry about your son, sire Galceran. Jonas is fine and is sleeping at the moment. He spent the night here and has spent the whole day locked in the room that Don Samual has given him on the top floor,” Sara explained when she saw me. I was very aware of how pale (her moles were more evident than ever, I noticed) and how tired she looked, as if she hadn’t slept for several days. “Jonas told me what happened.”

  “So there is nothing left for me to add. Now you know everything.”

  “Come and sit next to me,” said the witch, patting the stone and forcing a faint smile.

  “Your son is angry … But the truth is that he is only angry with you.”

  “With me?”

  “He says that you have been with him for two years without telling him the truth, treating him as a common squire.”

  “And how does he want me to treat him?” I asked, unfortunately imagining the answer.

  “In his words,” and Sara deepened her voice to imitate Jonas. “‘In line with the dignity that my lineage deserves’.”

  “That son of mine is an idiot!”

  “He’s just a child …,” said Sara. “Just a fourteen year-old boy.”

  “He is a man and a fool at that!” I exclaimed. I was outraged and angry! “Neither a Born nor a Mendoza: He’s an ass, just an ass! Is that the only thing that concerned him?” I asked furiously. “Is that why he ran like a hare in the middle of the night to come and find you?”

  “You don’t understand at all, sire Galceran. Of course it’s not that triviality that’s hurting him but since he doesn’t know how else to express himself, he says the first thing that comes into his head. I suppose that over the last fourteen years, he must have wondered about his background many times, about who he was, who his parents were, whether he had any siblings … You know, normal things. Now, all of a sudden, he finds out that his father is a knight with noble lineage and that his mother is no less than a woman with royal blood. Him, poor novicius Garcia, abandoned at birth, son of Galceran of Born and Isabel of Mendoza!” Sara’s eyes were lined by heavy, dark circles and I noticed that her eyelids were slightly red and swollen, and even though she spoke with the same finesse as always, it was obvious that it was a great effort for her to string her words and thoughts together. “Add to the mix,” she continued, “that you, his father, have spent two years at his side without saying a word, when it was obvious that you had plans for his life, given that you took him out of the monastery, you took him with you to travel the world and it seems that you told him important secrets. You did everything but tell him the truth which for him, would have been the most important thing of all.”

  “Have you seen Manrique of Mendoza?” I asked abruptly.

  Sara said nothing. She ran the palm of her hand over the stone of the well and then, looking up at me, brushed it on her skirt.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. The servants at his house informed me that he, his wife Eleanor of Ojeda and his newborn baby were resting in their palace in Bascones, about seventy miles north of here.

  “He has wed and has a legitimate child?” I stammered.

  “That’s right. What do you think about that?”

  There was no end to my amazement. I already knew that, following the dissolution of the Order of the Temple, some Aragones and Castilian frieres had opted to stay close to their old commandries instead of fleeing to Portugal, either as monks in nearby monasteries or as knights without a penny to their name who lived off the money given to them by my Order, or, more commonly, as the people they were before they professed, being totally free of their religious vows when the Order disseminated. So it was logical that freire Manrique, having regained his secular position, had wed, although it still surprised me to a certain point since it was obvious that all those previous Templars who were working as gatekeepers — guardians, advocates and holders of property, treasures and secrets —, were, in fact, being faithful to their Rule. Nevertheless, it was now easier for me to understand Isabel’s decision to not recognize her son and I understood those ‘her
editary issues that are, at this time, resolved and would be seriously altered’. Manrique had a legitimate heir and would in no way allow his sister to bring a bastard into the family.

  “I’m sorry, Sara, really,” I lied. In fact, I wasn’t sorry at all.

  “Even if his marriage was one of convenience,” she reasoned, “I wouldn’t agree to have anything to do with him. I don’t like sharing the man I love, or see him jump from one bed to another, especially if I am the other. If someone else can cope with that, that’s fine but I can’t.”

  “Maybe he still loves you …,” I pointed out, wanting to see how deep her feelings ran and how sure she was of not going back to him. “You know that love doesn’t decide who marries who.”

  “Well, I’m very sorry but as far as I’m concerned, three is one too many. I came here looking for him, I traveled many miles to see him again, and I didn’t care whether he was a freire, a monacus or the Pope of Rome himself. But with another … Not with another!”

  “So you respect marriage,” I said, evilly; I wanted her to be enraged with Manrique, furious.

  “What I respect is my pride, sire! I refuse to settle for half of the whole I came here looking for. I’m not that cheap.”

  “That would be in the case that he still loves you because he may love his wife.”

  “Perhaps,” she muttered, lowering her eyes.

  “And what are you going to do? You can’t go back to France. Maybe Don Samuel could help you to buy a house in this aljama at a good price.”

  “I don’t want to stay in Burgos!” she said enraged. “The last thing I would do would be to stay in Burgos! I never want to see Manrique of Mendoza again, not even by accident.”

  “So?”

  “Let me carry on traveling with you and Jonas until I find a place to stay!” she begged. “I won’t ask any questions. I won’t get involved in your dealings. You have already seen that even with something as serious as the events in San Juan de Ortega I have not made the mistake of inquiring. I will be blind, deaf and dumb if you let me go with you!”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said sadly.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because traveling with you in this state would be hell. You would be falling over and tripping all the time.”

  And I laughed so loudly that it could even be heard in the street. For the first time, I had managed to beat the witch!

  Very early the next day we left Burgos, headed towards Leon, and soon spotted the town of Tardajos. Even though there was only a few miles separating this town with neighboring Rabe, as we crossed the marshes we understood the truth behind the saying:

  From Rabe to Tardajos,

  won’t be easy.

  From Tardajos to Rabe,

  release us Domine!

  What wasn’t easy was coping with Sara and Jonas that day: The boy didn’t speak, didn’t look and almost wasn’t even there, and the Jewish woman, with a dark cloud hanging over her head, seemed lost in dark thoughts. I was glad to see that her expression wasn’t one of sorrow, and that there was no pain or sadness in her eyes when she looked at me. It was more like contained fury, outrage. And for me, released from a weight that I had carried for years, that seemed a magnificent thing. I felt good, happy, satisfied, walking into an unknown destiny with that unrefined son of mine and the most surprising woman in the world.

  Following a desolate and endless plateau, we reached Hornillos, with the splendid Hospital of St. Lazareth at the entrance and further on, after a rocky stretch, the village of Hontanas. The sun was setting and we had to start looking for somewhere to spend the night.

  “There are no inns around here,” said a villager, brandishing his staff ata herd of pigs. “Carry on until Castrojeriz. It’s not far. I’m sure you’ll find somewhere. But if you want my advice,” he mumbled, “don’t follow the road today. Tonight the St. Anthony Monks receive the sick and the Camino passes right by the front door. There will be many of them around the monastery.”

  “There’s a St. Anthony monastery around here?” I asked in disbelief.

  “That’s right, sir,” confirmed the swineherd. “As much as those of us who live here dislike it, in addition to the lepers and those people on a pilgrimage to Compostela seeking forgiveness and health, every week, on this day, those damn people suffering from the disease of St. Anthony’s fire come in the hundreds.”

  “Antonians, here!” I snorted. It couldn’t be, I told myself, confused. What were they doing along the Way of the Apostle? Relax … I had to think clearly and let my surprise stop me from thinking. In fact, if I stopped to think about it, the real question was: Why was I surprised to find the strange Tau monks along a path that was strangely full of Taus? Until now, the ‘Tau-Aureus’, the sign of gold, had appeared in the statue of St. Orosia (in Jaca), on the wall of St. Oria’s tomb (in St. Millan of Suso) and in the capital of St. John of Ortega, always indicating the presence of hidden Templar treasure. Now, all of a sudden, it was presented in the most disconcerting manner: a monastery of Antonians located halfway between Jaca and Compostela.

  The swineherd moved away, hitting the legs of his pigs with his stick, and Sara and Jonas looked at me puzzled while I stood stock still, as if I had grown roots.

  “It seems as though the presence of those freires has upset you,” said Sara, scrutinizing me with her eyes.

  “Let’s walk,” I ordered dryly by way of response. Not once since we had found Manrique of Mendoza’s message had I associated the Tau with the Antonian monks. For me, their existence was too seperate from the plot, even though there was nothing more logical than them being connected. Although neither rich nor powerful, the Antonians shared the fundamental knowledge of the inscrutable secret with the Temple freires and some say that they had been appointed as direct heirs to the Great Mysteries. They appeared to be the inferior brothers of the powerful milites Templi Salomonis, those second-class members that every family, for lack of a better legacy to leave, gives to the Church, and they stand out for their prudence, shrewdness and effectiveness. They had just five or six congregations distributed between France, England and the Holy Land which is why I was surprised to discover their unexpected presence in Castile. For some strange reason that I didn’t understand, they wore black habits with a big blue Tau sewn onto the chest.

  I was struggling to remember everything I knew about them, searching for some forgotten information that could link them to my mission, when Sara, who was walking on my right, asked me why those monks bothered me so much. I would have preferred the curiosity to have come from Jonas but he was still locked in his stubborn silence. Nevertheless, I wanted him to pay attention to what I was saying and put the pieces together himself, because with Sara there, I couldn’t do it for him.

  “The Antonians,” I began, “are a small monastic Order whose origin is shrouded in a thick fog. The only thing known about them is that more than two hundred years ago, nine knights from Dauphine (43) (nine ring any bells?),” Sara nodded without understanding to encourage me to keep speaking, and Jonas raised his gaze from the ground for the first time, “left for Bizancio in search of the body of Anthony the Hermit, the Egyptian anchorite, canonized as St. Anthony Abbott and also known as San Anton which was in the possession of the Eastern emperors after being miraculously discovered in the desert. Upon their return, the relics were placed in the Sanctuary of La Motte-Saint Didier and the nine knights created the Antonian Order, placed under the dedication and the patronage of the hermit saint and the anchorite saint, Mary of Egypt, who hid in the desert for forty-six years until she was discovered by Monk Zosimus.”

  “St. Mary of Egypt?” said Sara, surprised. “Do you mean to tell me that the Christians have canonized a witch?”

  Jonas, whose bad mood had been overshadowed by the news of the Antonians, was about to burst with curiosity and he could not continue to force his isolation.

  “Who is a witch?” he asked.

  “St. Mary of Egypt.�
��

  I smiled to myself.

  “Why?” he continued to ask.

  “Because St. Mary of Egypt,” I explained, getting ahead of myself, “was in fact the beautiful Alexandrian prostitute Hipacia, famous for her brilliant intelligence, founder of a powerful and influential school where, among other things, they taught mathematics, geometry, astrology, medicine, philosophy ….”

  “As well as necromancy, alchemy, thaumaturgy, magic and witchcraft,” added Sara.

  “Yes, that as well,” I agreed.

  “And why did they sanctify her?”

  We could begin to see a great glow in the distance, among the far away shadows. The walk was pleasant, the moon shone, waning, high above, and the descent was steep, making our feet move faster.

  “In actual fact, they didn’t sanctify her. The truth is that Hipacia found a fierce enemy in St. Cyrus, whose irate homilies turned the mob against her. That happened in Egypt at the end of the fourth century. Little is known about what happened but it seems that Hipacia had to flee to the desert to avoid death and forty-six years later (or at least that’s what the legend says) she was found by the blessed man, Zosimus. The Roman Church, in an effort to explain the miracle of her unlikely survival, of the strange powers she had, and of her miracles, renamed her Mary and consecrated her on the alters. In other words, they invented a new person.”

  “What strange powers?”

  “She could read the thoughts of others, remain motionless for days and weeks without eating food and without breathing, move objects without touching them and perform prodigious healings.”

  “Us witches,” added Sara, refusing to give up her her patron saint and teacher to Christianity, “use many of her ancient formulas in our magic today.”

  We had gotten quite close to the source of the glow and it would be difficult to forget the image we saw before us: a building so tall that its peak was lost in the dark night, with awesome shapes, whose sacred ornamentation, full of spires, steeples and gables looked like it was designed to scare souls rather than calm spirits, and was frighteningly illuminated by the flames of hundreds of torches carried by those suffering with St. Anthony’s fire. Some of them, most of them, made their own way on foot with greater or lesser difficulty, leaning on a staff but others could only do it with the help of relatives who carried them on their shoulders or on stretchers. From the distance, we could see an endless river of fire that slowly moved around the monastery, driven by a mysterious force. But the weirdest thing was a strange blue light that was pouring out through the tall, narrow windows, which was most likely due to the stained glass. In any case, whatever was creating that glow, the result was chilling.