By Fire, By Water (36 page)

This solution seemed pragmatic enough. For a small fee, she would prevent Colón from peddling his theory elsewhere. What the queen did not know, however, was that Colón had already laid out his thinking in every court to which he had gained access, with no regard for concepts dear to her such as allegiance or loyalty. Every one of those courts had failed to find a hint of merit in it.

“And when shall I report to you again?” asked the sailor.

“After the Moors are soundly defeated, we will again take up your proposal, Señor Colón.”

Elsewhere in the alcazar, servants and retainers of the royal couple shivered on the floor. In the royal bedchamber, a blaze crackled in the fireplace. Ornate tapestries from Flanders hung on the stone walls. Thick Ottoman rugs covered the floors, trapping the fire’s warmth. A velour canopy and curtains surrounded the monarchs’ bed, ensuring privacy when servants added wood to the fire or removed the chamber pot. Their bed was a flaxen bag of feathers and woolen blankets backed with ermine. Nevertheless, both the king and the queen slept in long nightclothes.

The queen had given the king five children. Only one, Prince Juan, was male. At nine years of age, he was prone to frequent illness. Although Ysabel had proved that a female sovereign could rule as firmly as a male, she hoped to produce at least one more prince to ensure their succession. She had asked her seamstress to sew a hemmed slit into the crotch of her night pants. In a gesture of pride and courtesy rare even for a queen, she always bathed before entering the sleeping chamber.

Fernando never thought of reciprocating. All the unguents and perfumes in the world, Ysabel mused, could not camouflage the robust bouquet of the king’s earthbound hide. His shoulder-length hair smelled like the coat of a dog.

“My husband,” she said softly, “let us endeavor to produce another heir.”

King Fernando, half-asleep, turned toward her and opened his eyes. She was not an ugly woman, but to his mind, she was plain. He had never, even on his wedding day, found his wife attractive. This circumstance was of little importance, however, since in the darkness of their tented bed, he saw little more of her than the glistening of her eyes and teeth.

Without a word, he lowered his pantaloon, pulled her legs apart, and found the hemmed passageway. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer. She did not forgive his grotesque appetites or his faithlessness. Despite her royal attributes, she possessed neither the power to offer forgiveness nor the will to withhold it. That was the function of priests—whom Fernando, unfortunately, seemed to hold in little esteem. She saw no point in allowing the king’s slovenliness to rule her passions. When she had married him, she had made a vow to love and serve him, regardless of the vicissitudes of life; regardless, even, of Fernando’s deficiencies.

The royal coupling ended nearly as quickly as it began. The queen shuddered as some of her husband’s seed trickled out. King Fernando turned onto his side and fell asleep within minutes.

The queen closed her eyes. A stream of images filtered into her mind like fog into a wide valley. She was walking over a barren, parched field, naked, as the sun set. Under a wispy canopy of rippled clouds, orange, yellow, and blue, a dark bevy of songbirds floated toward the horizon, softly whistling. At her feet, she felt a liquid, moist and warm. She looked down and saw blood seeping up from the cracks in the hard earth.

This blood spattered the ankles and calves of her children, Ysabel, Juan, Juana, María, and the two-year-old Catalina. They danced in a circle nearby, shouting and laughing, Ysabel holding Catalina in her arms. The queen called to them, but the children seemed not to hear or see her. Their dance grew wild, their faces, distorted.

“Madness and death.” The words of the lanky lunatic echoed in Ysabel’s mind as she struggled to open her eyes and emerge from the disturbing reverie. Perhaps this man had been neither a sophist nor a fool, but an utterer of imprecations. Perhaps his words had not been prophecy, but a curse. If so, then by listening to him Ysabel may have doomed her own progeny. The more she reflected upon this possibility, the more she felt convinced, with a shudder of unruly, lawless terror, that she had erred. In the morning, she would make sure the wretched poet was put to death.

    
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A
N AUTO-DA-FÉ WAS GRAND THEATER
, and it was costly. In the Plaza de la Seo, carpenters constructed a massive stage, seats for the highest Church officials, tall torches, funeral pyres, barriers to separate the crowd from the clergy, the aristocracy, and the accused. Weavers spun rich brocades for the priests’ vestments and cloths of thick flax for banners and canopies. Tailors, guards, and city officials all contributed time and work. To offset the costs, the Inquisition created a contest, inviting each of Zaragoza’s largest guilds to donate funds. The organization that raised the most money would lead the procession.

The Coal Merchants’ Guild had offered the most impressive gift. Its members wore soot-besmirched smocks and tricornered hats as they solemnly wound through the streets to the main square, stopping at the cathedral where the abominable murder had occurred. In many places, the coal merchants had to knock down onlookers to clear a path for themselves and those who followed: the soldier-priests of Saint Peter Martyr, armed with pikes and harquebusiers, with crosses sewn on their habits; a contingent of altar boys in white, holding high the banner of the Inquisition, an unsheathed sword crossing an olive branch; the aged sexton of La Seo, ringing his bell; Monsignor Pedro de Monterubio, in the red chasuble of martyrs’ masses, plodding slowly under a red-and-gold canopy, which four priests held aloft; a troop of soldiers of the Santa Hermandad in steel helmets, carrying lances; Gabriel de Santángel, no longer a boy but a solemn young man, leading the twelve accused, who shuffled forward in cone-shaped hats and yellow sanbenitos, smocks of penitence adorned with flames and devils; on either side of each heretic, Dominican monks, shouting in their ears, “The flames of hell await you! Repent, and be saved!” And, bringing up the rear on black-caped mules, the inquisitors themselves, flanked by knights bearing lances and crosses.

The last of these inquisitors, occupying the place of greatest humility and not riding a mule, but walking, was Tomás de Torquemada. As he passed, the crowds knelt, crossed themselves, and reached to touch his habit. He ignored them, for like every other man, he was a sinner. Only the humble would survive death.

Estefan Santángel limped forward, supported on either side by monks who shouted in his ears: “The mouth of hell is gaping! Turn your eyes upward, foul creature, or be forever fallen!” Hardly able to support the weight of his own head, the tax farmer stared at the ground.

They had tortured him with water, cords, and whips. He had slept. This morning, they had plunged his ravaged body into an icy bath. They had fed him wheat mush to strengthen him for today’s ordeal.

The people spat on him. They shouted curses and shook their fists. The black-draped platform ahead swam above the cobblestones.

They seated him with the other accused judaizers on the platform. Straw effigies of those who had fled before their trials, also wearing sanbenitos, grimaced down at the crowd. A wooden fence and dozens of armed guards surrounded the accused. Estefan searched beyond them, into the mass of faces below.

Pedro de Monterubio, under the red-and-gold canopy, recited Mass. Estefan knew the words by heart. Mixed with the odors of altar incense, they echoed through memories of happier Sundays.

He noticed his hands. They trembled. The skin clung to his smallest bones. His nails were filthy, broken.

He looked down at his red, swollen feet, with open wounds in which white worms twisted, where rats had gnawed his flesh. He brought his fingers to his head. His hair was a filthy mat. He pulled a few strands down before his eyes. Much of it had turned white.

How many days, weeks, months, years had passed?

His eyes, unable to adjust to the blinding light, fell closed. The preacher’s words hung in the air, then dissolved like salt in water.

Luis de Santángel stood in the midst of the rabble, some distance from the stage, dressed in rough linen. Gabriel had grown tall and thin, almost bony. Surely, Torquemada had not deprived his protégé of care or sustenance. Just as surely, he had taught Gabriel a different way of thinking about food, pleasure, and life, the way of the ascetic.

They would never again meet. Gabriel could not risk visiting him, even if he wanted to. If Luis de Santángel happened to pass his son on the street and exchange a nod or a smile, that very act could endanger Gabriel’s life. No—Gabriel would pretend not to see him, quickly moving across the street. Although Gabriel’s evasive gesture would break Santángel’s heart, he could only approve of it. His son had chosen self-preservation. It was a choice the chancellor understood well.

He knew Estefan would not hesitate to exchange a regard with him. But Estefan’s eyes were focused on his feet, if they were focused at all. If Luis turned and walked away from this ghastly passion play, Estefan would never know. But he wished to be near his brother and son as long as possible. He told himself to pay no heed to his own agony.

The crowd was crying for vengeance. Vengeance for what crime? For the murder of Pedro de Arbués? In part, but also for the blood of their Savior. For the privileges the
conversos
enjoyed. For the taxes Estefan Santángel had wrested, sometimes with the help of armed accomplices, from their near-empty hands. The taxes that Luis de Santángel had utilized on behalf of their king.

When Mass ended, Dominican monks began the tedious process of dragging one suspect after another to the stage. The new canon of La Seo lectured them, occasionally questioned them, but just as often ignored them, reading lengthy inquisitorial decisions to the crowd. The sun beat down relentlessly. Santa Hermandad soldiers pushed the condemned to their stakes, one after another in a long, slow procession of death.

Gabriel and Estefan were last. Other than those worshipers who stood at the front of the crowd, no one heard the priest’s words. They saw him addressing the solemn young man in intimate tones. His air of humility and compassion moved them.