The Errant Flock (33 page)

Chapter Sixty-six

The inquisitor winched and breathed deeply as his chamberlain eased the coarse tunic over the bleeding wounds criss-crossing his back. He shivered. The pain was excruciating, yet it brought him comfort amidst the chaos. Listening to the commotion outside his chamber, he could somehow picture exactly what was happening. His daughter was screaming at his men-at-arms, who were trying to lift her out of her bed. Other familiars, grunting with exertion, were currently removing her belongings from the castle. And Josefa’s ladies-in-waiting, crying with helplessness, were running away from their duties and their duchess.

He sat for a moment to pray and reflect. In a short while, his carriages and entourage would leave Sagrat. He had come to this town with high expectations for success. How could he not triumph? he’d thought. His son by law was the duke! He had expected exalted praise for his good works, yet here he was, leaving weeks earlier than planned, with a tarnished reputation and the memory of a failed mission. The auto-de-fé was supposed to have been a glorious occasion, the pinnacle of his career, but instead it would be remembered as the day the devil walked into Sagrat and stole God’s thunder. He would never recover from this humiliation.

Outside in the courtyard, De Amo stood by a carriage, saying nothing when Josefa was unceremoniously bundled into it, kicking and biting whatever flesh her teeth could find. Taking a long, lingering look at Luis Peráto’s castle, he forced back the anger and bitterness that twisted like a knife in his gut. His eyes went to the baby he cradled in his arms. His grandson would not become a duke, live in this castle, or be entitled to the king’s favours. No noble would forgive the Peráto family, not in his grandson’s lifetime. They would talk about Gaspar not as a duke’s son and grandson of Aragon’s inquisitor but as an imposter stolen from his rightful family.

Sitting in the carriage, he told his chamberlain to close the curtains. He would not look at the burnt streets or succumb to the suspicious gazes of common people judging him. They were judging him! Sinners, all of them! He was seething with resentment. Luis Peráto had destroyed his ambitions and had left him fighting to hold on to his position as inquisitor. An inquisitor did not lose over one hundred heretic prisoners and survive …

Militiamen set to work blocking the secret tunnel’s entrance and exit holes. The duke’s body had been taken to the castle’s chapel, where Father Bernardo intended to say a prayer or two later that day, before a couple of militiamen buried Pérato’s body in the family vault. No town council members, townspeople, or dignitaries had been invited to the burial ceremony, and to seal the duke’s disgrace, the viceroy had forbidden that a guard of honour be present.

              Tur stood on the battlements and looked out over the plain. Somewhere marauders were wandering free, too far away now to be caught and probably too clever to ever return to Sagrat. He was baffled. He would always be at a loss to understand exactly what had transpired in his town – why the marauders had not taken the two chests of coin and their reasons for killing the duke were two burning questions that would probably remain unanswered until the day he died - None of it made sense.

“Sagrat will heal now,” he remarked to Paco, who was standing beside him.

“The burnt tracts of land will scar this town for years to come, but yes, we will heal,” Paco answered. “What will happen to the militia?”

Without looking at Paco, Tur said. “We will become a provincial militia under the viceroy’s command. And we will continue to protect this town and its people, to the best of our abilities, although I don’t believe that we have proven ourselves worthy, these past few weeks.”

“I suppose we will never know who killed Sergio Garcia. Is that investigation closed?”

“It is.”

In silence, Tur watched the Inquisition’s caravan kick up dust on the plain as it headed south towards Valencia. His mouth spread in a rare smile, and in another rare gesture, he patted Paco’s arm.

“Morales, the Inquisition will return one day to terrorize and burn people in malignant displays of faith, but it would appear that this particular inquisitor is no longer interested in Sagrat’s errant flock.”

“What will happen to the incarcerated? Seventy escaped prisoners have been recaptured. Where will we house them?”

Tur shrugged. “In our very overcrowded prison. Where   else? I imagine they will remain there until the Inquisition returns  to deal with them.”

“That could be months from now … years,” Paco said angrily.

“Then we shall be patient,” Tur said.

Epilogue

Cartegena, Spain

June 1492

The port of Cartagena sat at the edge of a great plain and was bordered at the north and the north-west by pre-coastal mountain ranges. The town, limited by five small hills with an inner sea between them, was not affluent or pretty, and to the dismay of its people, had been allowed to fall into decadence and decay ever since the king annexed it to Aragon.

Near the Roman amphitheatre, where the sea met the land, a gathering of Jews prayed with soft voices and with one eye open for the militia, who wouldn’t waste a minute in scattering them. The noisy port behind their backs was congested with boats of every type, from basic punts which moved with agility even in shallow water to the larger, more imposing merchant ships with trapezoid sails that navigated the open seas.

Cartagena was also congested with Jews being exiled from Spain. The expulsion decree, issued on the last day of March in Granada, had been made public less than three months after the Catholic monarchs’ victory against the Muslims in Granada. The Jews had half expected the announcement. The Christians had defeated the Moors, and now they wanted to get rid of the Jews and unite Spain under one faith.

David stood amongst the congregation celebrating a brief Shabbat service, which would be, for some of them, the last they would ever attend in Sefarad, the Jews’ name for Spain. He wondered what the congregation was thinking. Were they concentrating on the prayers or were they, like him, swathed in sorrow and still trying to come to terms with the cruelty being directed against the their race?

He would never forget that terrible day in April, when he, Diego, and Sinfa had happened upon a public reading of the king’s edict regarding the fate of all Spanish Jews. The memory of the callous words read by a rabbi barely able to speak, and with grief drowning his voice, would haunt him until the day he drew his last breath.

Forgetting where he was for a moment, he grunted with disdain and then quickly snapped his mouth shut in embarrassment. The Jews, given only four months to convert to Christianity or leave the country, had been promised royal protection and security until the day of their departure. That had turned out to be the king’s first false pledge, David thought.

Looking at a wealthy Jew he’d met only that morning, standing with head bowed next to the rabbi, David wondered how the man would take to a new life without money, servants, or familiar comforts. Jews, in accordance with Their Majesties’ declaration, were being allowed to take their belongings with them, with the exception of gold, silver, minted money, and other things prohibited by the laws of Castile and Aragon. In other words, they could take nothing of value.

Listening to the rabbi speak brought vivid memories of his earlier life in Sagrat, when Shabbat was as important as avoiding the fish stalls at the end of a hot day. Life was full of ironies, he thought, glancing at a woman who reminded him of Sinfa. On the journey south, Sinfa had repeatedly refused to convert to Christianity, preferring exile from the country of her birth to baptism. But when Diego had pointed out that he would not leave Spain or return to the Jewish faith, not even for her, she had cast aside her reluctance and had been baptised in the next town they had come to.

Standing there amongst Jews reciting prayers from the Torah, David accepted that the three years in which he had lived as a Christian now felt like a fleeting experience, one he wouldn’t miss or regret losing. Smiling at a little girl tugging at his tunic, he believed that it mattered not that he was a Jew again. No one knew him here. They cared not a whit, who he was or where he had come from. Being part of a religious body was one of life’s necessary evils. Cities destroyed, countries fractured, and lives lost to hatred were what religions had offered the world, as far as he knew. But the Jews had shown him kindness since leaving Sagrat. They had been more benevolent that any Christian spouting pious devotions whilst killing members of their flock. Although he didn’t truly believe in God insofar as the way organized religion depicted Him, the Jews made him feel that he belonged. 

Turning his head, David glanced briefly at the waves lapping against the harbour’s stone wall. An image of Diego and Sinfa waving goodbye to him one week previously at the water’s edge rushed into his mind with such clarity that he felt as though they were with him. He would never see his brother or Sinfa again. After a disagreement about which route they should take next, Diego elected to remain in the fishing town of Los Alcazares, sitting less than three leagues north of Cartagena. Sinfa was tired of journeying, Diego had pointed out. It was time for them to settle down. Feeling alone and defeated, David had watched them walk away. Yet some part of him was relieved. Their path was not him. It never would be.

His parents would have been proud of Diego, had they seen him become a man on that journey. But they had not been in Los Alcazares. They had disappeared into thin air, like the smoke that had hovered over Sagrat. Looking at the people praying, he forced himself to believe that the Inquisition had not recaptured them. Many of the penitents from the auto de fé had been found wandering or hiding in houses, according to some people he had met along the route. Yet others had been sure that only a few had been led back to prison after that great escape in Sagrat.

Thinking about the long journey he, Diego, and Sinfa had taken brought David a mixture of sadness and relief. For months, they had travelled southwards, using their instincts and gut feelings to guide them. They had searched for their parents in every port and town they had passed through, and not once did they give up hope of finding them alive and well, until that day at the water’s edge, when they had said goodbye.

He constantly thought about Captain Tur and the militia. Was Tur successful in bringing the duke to justice? Or was he languishing in prison? Was he, David Sanz, a fugitive in Aragon, or had his name not been mentioned?  Maybe one day, he would hear talk of what had transpired in Sagrat.

Sighing softly, he shifted his weight from his right to his left foot and at the same time shuddered with apprehension for the future. He, Diego, and Sinfa had been fortunate on their journey. They had sold the mule, cart, and horse early on, after deciding that food was much more important than the comforts transportation could bring. But knowing that Jews were being expelled, the buyers had offered a pittance in money. Everywhere he looked, he saw Jews trying to sell their worldly possessions to unscrupulous people taking advantage of Jewish vulnerabilities and their need to sell everything they owned quickly.

Studying the worn-out faces around made him think about the struggles he and his travelling companions had overcome on their way south. They had suffered cold, hunger, and had been lost at times. But they had also met hundreds of Jews along the way and had been touched by their generosity.

Recalling an incident which had occurred a few weeks previously brought a smile to his face. They had been travelling along a particularly difficult road that had no rivers running by it or vegetables in the fields bordering it. Starving, parched with thirst, and moving like snails, they had come across a carriage with a broken wheel. He and Diego had repaired it for the wealthy Jew who owed it, and afterwards the man had been charitable, allowing Sinfa to travel on the carriage beside the driver and sharing his food and water with all three of them.

At another stage on the journey, they had wandered onto someone’s land and had managed to remain there for weeks after they were employed to plough and seed the soil for the elderly farmer. Yes, they had been fortunate, but there had been times on that journey when he’d wondered if they would ever get to their destination in one piece. There had also been times when he thought his heart would break. Watching Diego hold Sinfa in his arms, her loving gaze when she looked at Diego, and the stolen kisses between them, had been torturous to see.

Gazing absently at the Jews praying with him, he couldn’t help but recall some of the conversations he’d overheard in the past few days. Fleeing Jews were being murdered. Rumours of Jews swallowing gold and diamonds had spread like a plague, and many had been stabbed to death by brigands hoping to find treasures in their stomachs, some Jews had openly stated, convinced that they spoke the truth. And earlier that day, he had listened to a Jewish husband and wife who had just returned from North Africa. Their account of what happened when they arrived in the Maghreb had filled him with so much fear that he’d thought about running all the way back to Diego and Sinfa, farther up the coast, and to hell with being a Jew again!

“We arrived in North Africa and were pillaged before we had even left the dockside,” the traumatised husband told a crowd of Jews at the port. “Two men who had been travelling with us on the overcrowded boat had their throats cut. Others were dragged away alive. We had coin hidden on our persons, and they stripped us of all our clothing and took everything of value from us. It would seem that God’s hand was against us. He allowed some of our brothers and sisters to starve, be killed by the sword, and sold into slavery … How could anyone witness the sufferings of the Jews and not be moved?” David had asked them what they were going to do. The man had answered resolutely. “We are going to the nearest church to ask for baptism and to be accepted into the Christian faith. That’s what any sane person should do, and that’s what I advise you to do.”

Staring at the array of ships at anchor, David wondered which of them would take him across the water. The Maghreb was not a great distance by sea, yet it was, according to many, a strange new world ruled by Muslims and Ottomans, who didn’t seem to be much more enamoured by Jews than the Spanish Catholics were. Sensing the little girl’s eyes on him and feeling her pull again at his tunic, he looked down at her and was amused by her earnest expression.

“You should be praying,” she whispered, craning her neck to look up at him. “You will be in big trouble.”

“I
have
been praying and thinking and wondering,” he said, smiling. He then squeezed her hand.

He was not alone, he thought just then. These people were going across the sea with him. They would all be strangers in a new country. They would need each other. And if there really was a God, he would forgive the past. He, David Sanz, a sinner, a man who had done unspeakable harm to people and who’d caused suffering to those he loved most in the world, had been punished – maybe not enough in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but in no small measure. He had no family by his side, and no Sinfa. They had been taken from him forever, and not one day would pass that he wouldn’t wonder what had happened to them or where they were … That had been God’s wrath ... giving him an insurmountable grief.

Yet, he could not fear the future or the dangers it might hold, he thought, gazing out to sea again. The future existed in this moment, ever evolving with each breath taken and with every thought passing through his mind like a river rushing downstream. He was alive and well, and he
was
fortunate. He had been given a second chance, and he was not going to waste it, not one minute of it.