The Errant Flock (2 page)

“I’ve been blind, but I now accept the error of my ways,” Luis said calmly after the long silence. “I’ve been a sentimental fool. At my father’s behest, I accepted you, honoured you, and allowed you to keep your position even after he died. I’ve shown you nothing but kindness. I put aside my own grief after your last two failures and gave you another opportunity to prove yourself to me … and you have failed miserably!”

“Your Grace, I...”

“Keep your mouth still. Your godless religion and your wretched, misguided soul have infected the duchess’s womb. I forgave you your ineptness after the death of my infant daughter and for the loss of the babe that dissolved to blood inside my wife’s womb. I was a fool to think you loved my family. You with your heretic rituals …”

“No, don’t say that. You will not call me a heretic,” Cabrera retorted, waving a bony index finger in Luis’s face. “I love God, as well you know. I am faithful to him and to his teachings. I am not a Christian, and I do not adhere to Rome’s laws or their definition of heresy. Your own good father understood my faith and accepted it as my right. The death of your child is a tragedy, but—”

“A tragedy … A tragedy, you call it? My son is dead because of you! Both he and the daughter my wife bore before him drew breath for just a few short moments and then died in my arms. They were delivered by your hand, yours alone … You have cursed my family, Cabrera. You seek to destroy my line. You hate Christians. Don’t deny it!” Luis nodded. He was surprised at just how much he agreed with the conclusion he had just reached. “Come closer.”

Watching the physician shuffle hesitantly towards him, he grunted with disgust at the downcast cowardly eyes refusing to look up at him. “Face me, you treacherous bastard. Look at me.” With a tight grip on Cabrera’s jaw, Luis forced the physician to look him in the eye. “What words of comfort can you give me? How will you defend the indefensible?”

Cabrera’s reddened eyes stared unwaveringly. “Your Grace, I tried to save the infant. I used every medical method known to me. I would gladly have given it my own breath. Sadly, I have concluded that your wife’s womb may be hostile. It appears to me that it was not able to give proper nourishment to the child. She may never give birth to a healthy infant.” He swallowed painfully and then added, “In both cases, the babes were not strong enough to breathe on their own.”

“Are you saying that my wife is at fault?”

“Not at fault, Your Grace. No blame should be laid at any door. I believe the duchess lacks strength. She eats like a small bird, pecking at slivers of bread. She told me herself that most food is sinful to the world and that she would rather abstain than eat it. She has an ailment of the mind that must be dealt with, and unless she takes better care, I fear we will see the same result every time she falls with child. Next time will be different. I will confine her to bed, and you must encourage her to eat.”

“There will be no next time for you,” Luis hissed at him. “Your flesh and bones will be rotting by the time I next plant a seed in my wife’s womb. Your breath will leave you this night. It will be ripped from you, and you’ll feel my children’s pain. And after you are dead, I will hurt your granddaughter …”

Cabrera gasped. Terror sat in his watery eyes, and his body shook uncontrollably. With clasped hands, he struggled onto his knees. “Your Grace, your grief is clouding your judgement. I know you. You don’t mean what you say. You must trust in God. It is through His will that your child died … I love your family. I have served Sagrat’s dukes for thirty years …”

“You killed my children. All of them!”

“No, no, I did not. I could not save them, but there is nothing I would like more than to see your line continue with strong heirs. Luis, I beg you to listen …”

“How dare you call me Luis! I am your duke!”

“And I am the physician who pulled Your Grace from your mother’s womb. I wiped your runny nose and cleaned your bloody elbows and knees when you fell.” Still on his knees, he begged again. “My granddaughter is all I have in the world. She doesn’t deserve to be punished for any sin you may think I have committed.” Then his feverish eyes widened. “I will have her baptised into the Catholic Church. She will convert and become a good Christian. Her devotion to you and to this town will be unequalled. I give you my oath.”

“Your oath means nothing to me, Jew.”

Cabrera tried again. “My family has lived in Sagrat for over one hundred and fifty years. I have seen my relatives born and die in service to this town. Please do with me what you will – but do not end my line. Sinfa is a good girl!”

Luis lifted the physician to his feet and pulled him closer to him, until their noses were almost touching. Then he stretched his arms beneath Cabrera’s cloak and clasped the neckline of the physician’s woollen tunic. Gripping tightly, he pushed the physician towards the wall and then heard the old man’s back thump against it. He stared into the physician’s eyes, which were welling up with tears. God could not be blamed for his son’s death, Luis thought again, but Cabrera could.

With one swift movement, he lifted Cabrera off his feet and swung him up and onto the wall’s merlons. The physician’s shoulders and head dangled off the outer edge of the wall. One buttock balanced atop a block, a leg hung down the inner wall, and the other was wedged in the crenel between two merlons.

Luis held him there. Should he release his grip on the physician’s tunic, he’d plummet to his death, he kept thinking. He wanted him to die and to feel life being sucked out of his body. His pain would ease and grief would lessen if he killed the old man. He just needed a few seconds more to stare at the fear visible on the Jew’s face.

Cabrera looked at the precipice that met a rocky floor some fifty feet below him. “Please don’t do this … Don’t allow murder to corrupt your soul. Have compassion for me!” He attempted to swing the top half of his body upright and grappled with air. In a desperate attempt to find something to grab on to, his arms flailed, but then his hands managed to find Luis’s cloak chain. “Dear God, no!”  

The back of Luis’s neck strained against the force of the pull on his cloak, but he allowed Cabrera’s frenzied attempts to cling on to him go unhindered for a few seconds. Gazing into Cabrera’s terrified eyes brought Luis feelings of neither pity nor regret. His son was dead, killed by this Jew, his mind screamed, utterly convinced of it … With unflinching eyes, he grabbed three of the physician’s fingers and then bent them backwards in a sharp tug. He felt great satisfaction when he heard the bones crack loudly. He wanted this over with now.

Cabrera screamed in agony and loosened his grip on the chain. His tear-filled eyes stared once more at the rocks far below and then went back to Luis, “Murdering me will not ease your grief. May God forgive you,” he choked.

At the mention of God, a flash of guilt crossed Luis’s eyes, but his voice was soft and steady. “You conspired with the devil against my family, and I will now bring God’s wrath down upon your line. You can go to hell and burn there.”

Luis held on to the physician with one hand gripping the throat. His free hand pushed Cabrera’s legs towards the outer edge of the wall. One side of Cabrera’s body balanced precariously in the air, whilst only a buttock and one leg remained on the merlon block and in the crenel. Cabrera’s body was as stiff as a poker and as still as a statue. Luis grunted loudly and pushed the body, watching it slip off the wall and plummet down the precipice on its outer side.

Mesmerised, Luis watched Cabrera’s body tumble like a straw doll. In the darkness, he was not able to see the figure strike the rocks below, but he heard a loud thud and the sound of breaking bones. Grimacing, he imagined the bloody head looking like a smashed chicken’s egg. He shuddered involuntarily and thought that Cabrera deserved such a death.

After stumbling down the stairs, Luis adjusted his cloak’s skewed position. Was the physician guilty of the accusations laid against him? Probably not, but the physician had been a religious man devoted to God. His sanctimonious conscience would have found it impossible to keep the infant’s death a secret from its mother, her ladies, and the Jewry’s rabbi. No amount of persuasion or monetary bribe could have dissuaded him from telling Sagrat’s entire population that the heir to the dukedom had died. The old man had to be silenced, and that was the truth of it.

Luis opened the doors and came to stand in front of the guards waiting in the passageway inside. His mind was working keenly and quickly. Grief seemed to be heightening his senses. Looking at the men, he thought,
I need to choose someone I can manipulate; a militiaman who will obey my orders without question or one who will be too afraid to disobey me.
He searched the faces looking at him furtively and discarded those he knew were experienced soldiers. No, a seasoned man-at-arms wouldn’t do, at all … He was looking for a fresh face. With a pensive expression, his eyes finally settled on the tallest soldier there. He’d not seen this young man before.

“What’s your name, soldier?” he asked gruffly.

“Sanz, Your Grace. David Sanz.”

“How long have you served me?”

“Three weeks, sir.”

Luis nodded his approval. “Come with me.”

The duke walked down the passageway and then turned abruptly back to the remaining militiamen, now some distance behind him. “There has been an unfortunate occurrence. My physician has taken his own life,” he told them. “A few moments ago, I watched him jump from the wall. Retrieve his body. You’ll find it lying on the rocks beneath the tower. Take him home to his granddaughter in the Jewry … and treat his body with respect. He was a loyal servant.”

Chapter Two

The duke and duchess’s private residence inside the castle consisted of six interconnecting chambers guarded by the militia day and night. No one but ladies-in-waiting, the physician, the duke’s valet, the chamberlain, and the town treasurer were allowed to enter without a summons, and no one left without the duke’s or duchess’s permission. The castle’s most private areas were known as the solace. They were hidden from view by one set of ten-foot-tall, five-inch-thick wooden double doors at their entrance and another set of similar doors standing at the end of a long stone passageway, which stretched the length of the castle.

David Sanz, standing outside the doors of the chambers, felt an uncomfortable heat on his skin under the door guards’ curious stares, and he nervously adjusted his leather sword belt. He wore a loose form of military garb, yet it was an untidy ensemble which had not yet found a cohesive uniformity. It consisted of a hooded white woollen over-tunic emblazoned with a red cross, back and front, with sleeves tight at the top but flaring out widely from the elbows. On his legs were tight hose, red in colour, and covering his feet were mid-calf boots. A sallet helmet sat on his head, hiding most of his thick wavy black hair, which curled up at the edges. The sides were drawn forward at the bottom, covering his cheeks and chin, and the rear was curved out into a flange to protect his neck. He wondered if he should remove it or wait until he was ordered to do so.

He shifted from one foot to another, trying to calm his racing pulse. The burning question in his mind was why
he
had been summoned. The duke had never spoken to him directly or asked for his name before tonight. He couldn’t recall a single instance when Luis Peráto had actually looked at him, never mind summoned him. He was the youngest and most inexperienced soldier in a militia comprised of forty men.

David felt his excitement stirring. He’d been reaching for his goals since boyhood. When he had turned twelve years old and was almost as tall as the average grown man, he’d managed to persuade the castle’s blacksmith to take him under his wing. To this day, old Pépe was one of the finest sword smiths in Valencia. There was not a blade he could not forge or an axe he could not mould to perfection.

David had gone to Pépe’s forge every day for weeks, begging for work, and he’d been sent away with a slap on his ear many times before the old man finally allowed him to watch and learn the trade. David’s greatest thrill in those early days was the moment he first used the lifting tongs and forging hammer. On that day, he became a man, and a short time after that, he was allowed to practice the turning of soft iron into steel. He made his first attempts at shaping weapons and tools with the use of an anvil and chisel.

Getting as close as possible to the soldiers, knights, and cavalry who had used the forge’s services had been his aim, and he’d achieved it. At the age of fifteen, one of the old duke’s militiamen presented him with the opportunity to work in the armoury. He’d jumped at the chance to be around weapons, master swordsmen, buckler men, longbow men, and crossbowmen. He remembered those days well. Every night after the fires had been doused and the forge’s stone floor cleaned of metal shards, he’d practiced swinging a blade and shooting arrows. During his training, he’d displayed passion, determination, and a rare gift for sword fighting, and before long, some of the militiamen were offering to parry with him. They taught him how to hone his skills and the best way to strengthen muscles and build stamina. For years, he worked hard to prove himself worthy of service, and three weeks ago, he’d donned the uniform for the first time.

Even so, he had done nothing to deserve the duke’s attention this night, he thought again. There had been no notable act attributed to him. He hadn’t committed a crime. His duties were fairly menial compared to those of the cavalry and the master swordsmen. He was a good Catholic and had no foes, as far as he knew.

Casting his mind back to the wall an hour earlier, he pictured the duke pushing his soldiers out of the way and then striding angrily towards the watchtower. The physician also came to mind. What had occurred between the two men? Did the physician kill himself in front of His Grace? What could be so terrible in life that would make a man jump to his death? David also wondered about the physician’s physical capabilities. When he’d seen Saul Cabrera, he’d looked like a frail old man, unable to climb onto the top of the merlon blocks without a helping hand to hoist him up. David shrugged. He’d probably never find out what really happened to the Jew.

Staring down the length of the passageway and at the thick stone walls, he reminded himself again of what a great honour it was to be in this part of the castle. The militia was used to defend Sagrat from marauders; quash any civil unrest; guard important caravans loaded with coin, travelling to or from Valencia; and to perform ceremonial duties when dignitaries visited. But only a chosen few stood outside these doors.

Since becoming a militiaman, his duties had been mainly confined to the prison, which stood outside the castle’s walls beneath the south-east gate. It was rare to see the light of day when on watch in those miserable dark caves. The building didn’t look particularly big from the outside, but inside the prison was a maze of tunnels stretching for almost a thousand paces across the hill’s underbelly. After being on duty for days on end, he felt as wretched as the prisoners he guarded. He suffered the same smells, rotten food, and foul and stale air. He barely experienced a moment of peaceful silence amongst the despairing, moaning, crying, and maniacal laughter of those who had gone from despair to madness.

Occasionally, he was allowed out of the castle’s bowels to perform other duties, such as tonight, when he’d been sent to the wall. It had felt good standing guard and defending his town instead of transporting its citizens to prison and watching their misery. The militia hated prison guard duties, which were still predominately civilian occupations. There was an unpleasantness in arresting respected businessmen, young sweet-tempered women, and old men terrified of rumours, started by people who had travelled widely. According to some, the Inquisition was coming to the town, and they locked up, tortured, or left prisoners to rot for crimes that didn’t even make sense.

David believed the rumours. There had certainly been a noticeable increase in arrests. Townspeople were being detained without charge, and after being incarcerated for weeks and months, they were told to be patient. Be
patient
! David had scoffed at the magistrate’s idea of a reasonable request.

The guards knew most of those in the prison cells. There were no strangers in Sagrat, for at one time or another, most people shared a processional line on feast days, a water bucket from the town’s well, a cup of wine in the taverna, or a bath in the nearby river.

He turned and stared impatiently at the closed doors behind him, willing them to open. How long was he to stand there with his gut knotted like hemp cord? Yes, he was honoured. Yes, he was excited at the prospect of speaking to the duke. But he’d had such wonderful plans for this night. His watch was coming to an end. At the eleventh bell he’d begin his two days’ leave, which he would spend with his parents and brothers.

For the first time in their lives, the Sanz family were going to eat wild boar, thanks to the duke’s generosity. Once a year, on the day of the Immaculate Conception, which fell on the eighth day in December, His Grace provided four wild boars to the militia. A lottery was used to choose who got the beasts, but one boar was always reserved for the militia’s latest recruit.

David smiled, thinking about his good luck. Being the youngest and newest soldier in the duke’s forty-man army had its privileges. He’d been presented with the wild boar this morning, and within minutes he’d sent it home in the back of a cart after paying the driver and promising him some leftover meat.

If only he could see his parents’ faces at the very moment the beast arrived at the farm. But it mattered not how long he had to wait here, he thought in retrospect. This night was going to be a grand affair for the Sanz family, with or without his presence. The boar, when cooked, would be shared amongst his mother, father, and two brothers. Every slice of flesh, devoured. Organs would be boiled along with bones to make a thick broth for the coming days. Even the boar’s tongue, genitals, and ears wouldn’t go to waste.

He felt his belly flutter with pleasure. He was happy. Despite his family’s troubles, this was a glorious period in his life. He was nineteen years old, yet he had transformed almost impossible dreams into realities. His hard work and perseverance had led him here. Who would have ever thought that he, David Sanz, would be standing right outside the duke’s private chambers? He was the most fortunate of men.