By Fire, By Water (10 page)

The chancellor, leaning over the parchment next to the scribe, scrutinized the characters as if facing natives on a foreign shore. “What is it? What does it say?”

In a slight shifting of Serero’s eyes, he perceived a tinge of concern, perhaps dread.

“I would need to spend more time with them,” said the scribe.

“Do you want to keep them, then?”

“Some of them, perhaps. Others,” he rolled up the ancient parchment, “no one would want lying around.” He tried to hand it back to Santángel.

“Please. Consider it yours.”

“This particular document, I could never consider mine.”

“Nevertheless, it’s surely safer in your care.”

Serero relented, placing the parchment back on the table. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” His face eased into a smile.

“There is one more thing.”

Serero waited.

“Señor Serero,” Santángel began again. “Suppose I wished to learn more about … about the faith of my grandparents.”

“Why?”

“Not in the interest of conversion, mind you, but so I can understand what it is I’m rejecting.”

“You’re asking whether I would teach you? I would not,” said Serero.

“And why not?”

“You said your objective would be to find fault with the tradition. What teacher would want such a student?”

“Suppose we were to make a financial arrangement. Not between you and me, but between the kingdom and the Jewish community of Zaragoza. I understand what a burden these war taxes represent. Perhaps we can find a way to offset them.”

An ember crackled in the fireplace. Serero knelt and pushed the logs with an iron poker.

The First Meetings

W
ITH
A
BRAM
S
ERERO
, Luis de Santángel explored ideas that had intrigued him all his life. He argued about the nature of truth, God’s role in history, justice, love. He came to feel an intellectual enfranchisement he had never felt before, invigorating and empowering. The freedom to navigate between the great ideas and sentiments of his own faith and that of his grandfather was a rare privilege.

Late at night, sometimes once a month, sometimes more frequently, the two men entered a concealed, arbored passageway behind the castle and walked to a private entrance that defied surveillance. Santángel let Serero into the apartments where King Fernando carried on his amorous escapades when in town. They sat amidst brocade curtains, oak trestle tables, large, painted crucifixes, canvases by Bartolomé Bermejo abounding in bright color and detail.

The king and his chancellor jointly owned the dwelling, and the neighboring residences as well. No one would ask what was taking place within these walls. Other than Fernando and Santángel, only the king’s steward possessed keys.

To their first session, Serero brought a small bag containing the seventeen maravedis his community owed the king. Santángel placed the pouch on the table. Late the next morning, realizing he had left the coin bag behind, he went back to retrieve it. The pouch was no longer there. To ask the king’s steward about it would be to raise uncomfortable questions. The seventeen maravedis were lost. Santángel cursed himself for his lack of vigilance and replaced them with coins from his own purse.

Jorge Bargos-Saucedo, steward of the royal palace of Zaragoza, wore his gray-streaked hair short, his moustache and beard full. During his ten years in King Fernando’s service, his belly had ripened like a melon. He balanced himself by throwing his head back and walking with his nose pointing upward, a hand behind his back, black robes hanging to his ankles. Thus he toured the palace and adjacent properties every morning, checking that chairs and books had not strayed from their places, that mice had not chewed into larders, that no brigand had violated the king’s privacy.

On a bright summer morning, in the great room of the Bermejo suite, Jorge discovered a small leather pouch. He loosened the cords of its mouth and poured silver pieces into his hand.

The door and its jamb were intact. Jorge knew that only two other men possessed the key. The king was away. The pouch must belong to Luis de Santángel.

Jorge found his way to the tiny office of Felipe de Almazón, the chancellor’s aide, who sat stiffly at his desk, writing with his left hand in a careful, deliberate manner. Usually left-handedness was a sign of deviousness. Felipe’s left-handedness, the steward knew, was different. His aristocratic family had raised him to fight on the battlefield, but an accident had injured his back and right arm, his javelin arm. The king, eager to strengthen the allegiance of Felipe’s father, had offered the young man a position in the chancellery.

“Good day, Señor de Almazón. Is your back acting up?”

The chancellor’s aide turned his head, as if unable to adjust his body. “It’s bearable. What brings you here, Jorge?”

“A small matter. I believe this belongs to Señor de Santángel.” Jorge held out the pouch.

“Where did you find it?”

“In the Bermejo suite.”

While Felipe de Almazón counted the coins, the king’s steward contemplated the wooden creatures that jostled for space on the walls. Haloed countenances of lions, oxen, eagles, and men, some with six wings, some with fewer. Some with multiple eyes. Some painted in gold leaf, lapis blue, yellow, red, or silver. Others, bare walnut, ebony, or gall wood.

“Thank you,” said Felipe.

The steward bowed.

“Please pull the door closed as you leave.”

Felipe spilled the coins into their sac. Seventeen maravedis. A familiar number. A note he had jotted two or three weeks earlier. He leafed back through his ledger books, hoping to refresh his memory.

Luis de Santángel sat at his desk, reading correspondence. His aide requested permission to enter. “Yes, yes. Come in, Felipe.”

Felipe closed the door and sat down. The chancellor turned from his work to see his aide staring at the ground, hands clasped in his lap.

“What is it?”

“May I speak honestly?”

“I wouldn’t ask less of you.”

“I know of your meetings.”

“What meetings?”

Felipe raised his eyes. “Your meetings with the Jew.”

Santángel regarded him blankly. He had always thought Felipe worthy of trust. His aide had long ago mastered the twin arts of discretion and respect for authority, requirements for any position in the chancellery.

“No one else knows,” he reassured Santángel.

“What, precisely, did you wish to discuss, Felipe?”

“I want to attend them with you. The meetings.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think they’d be working so hard to suppress it—Torquemada, Pedro de Arbués—if it didn’t hold some truth. Some power.”

The chancellor forced himself to smile. “I’m afraid these meetings aren’t what you think. They’re nothing but philosophical discussions. If you’re looking for religious instruction, you’ll have to search elsewhere, although I would not recommend it.”

“Whatever they are, Chancellor, I’d like to participate.”

Santángel saw determination in Felipe’s clenched jaw. For the first time, his aide was challenging him.

“That is all,” concluded Felipe. He rose, bowed, and turned to leave.

Santángel stopped him. “How did you learn?”

Felipe reached into his pocket and produced Abram Serero’s coin bag. “This was found in the Bermejo suite.”

He handed the pouch to Santángel, who looked inside. Seventeen maravedis.

“Who else knows?”

“Jorge found it, but he knows nothing about the Jew.”

“Thank you.” Santángel waved his apprentice out and tried to return to work, but preoccupations hindered him.

He had either to end his meetings with the scribe or invite Felipe to participate. To continue holding the meetings without including him would be to invite disloyalty. His aide would feel shunned, perhaps resentful. Such sentiments made spies even of close associates.

After several days of deliberation, Santángel stepped into Felipe’s office. “Those meetings you referred to. If they ever took place in the king’s apartments, they will cease.”

Felipe’s lips tightened. A small crease formed above his chin.

Remaining in his aide’s office, the chancellor closed the door. He fished in a pocket and lowered his voice. “This is a key to the back door of my house. Come by tomorrow evening if I can’t persuade you otherwise. Just after Compline. Climb the stairs to my private study, the first door on the left.”

The crease above Felipe’s chin vanished as he broke into a grin. “Thank you. Not just for inviting me. For having the courage.”

“Courage? There’s nothing wrong with these meetings,” said the chancellor. “They’re entirely legal. We’re permitted to discuss ideas, even with Jews. It’s the New Inquisition that is illegal, here in Aragon.”

“Unfortunately, Tomás de Torquemada doesn’t agree.”

“Let him confront us, then, in our
cortes
. I would welcome the opportunity.” Santángel handed Felipe the key.

The Sixth Meeting

F
ELIPE DE
A
LMAZÓN PROVED AS EAGER
in the ad hoc classroom as he was in King Fernando’s treasury. “Father Serero,” he began on more than one occasion.

“Please don’t call me ‘Father.’ I’m not a rabbi. And even if I were, I wouldn’t be your father.”

“Forgive me, Señor Serero.”

“What is it you wanted to know?”

“Angels.”

“Why?”

“Nine years ago,” said Felipe, “I was thrown from a horse. They say I appeared dead, but they didn’t bury me. I was breathing. It lasted three days. Then I woke.”

“Did you dream of angels?” asked Santángel.

“I felt a presence. In my cousin’s castle, near Tarazona. In my very room.”

“A presence?” asked Serero. “A warmth? A breath? Voices?”

“I just know it was there. And it still is there. Here. In this room. As we speak.”

“Do you believe angels saved you?”

“I don’t know if angels saved me. But I do think they’re guiding me. Not just me. All of us. I’ve done some reading.”

“What have you read?”

“St. Dionysius, the Areopagite.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” said Serero. “But I find it strange that a Christian saint would have the name of a pagan god.”

“It’s just a name,” said Felipe.

“A man’s name,” said Serero, “is important. Take for example our chancellor. Santángel.
Holy angel.”

Santángel smiled.

“Much of Dionysius’s thought derives, or so he says, from the Hebrew Bible,” said Felipe.

“Tell us, then, what you’ve gleaned from this pagan Christian expert on Judaism.”

“He describes the celestial choir,” said Felipe. “Nine species of angels. Seraphim, cherubim, seven others. Some have six wings, some have four, some two. Some have eyes all over their wings. Some have the faces of oxen, lions, or eagles. Some burn as they sing. He goes into great detail.”

“The sculptures in your office,” remarked Luis de Santángel.

“Yes, Chancellor. For me, carving angels is like praying.”