Torquemada (2 page)

“She is very much in love, Father Thomas.”

“So I felt, so I sensed. Love is a holy thing, a holy thing that fills this good house—”

His curious, almost violent declamation in praise of love was interrupted by the shouts of stable boys and the clatter of horses' hooves. Catherine rose expectantly and a moment later her father and her betrothed lover came into the room. Her father, Alvero de Rafel was a tall, good-looking man of about forty-seven – his broad face and wide-set eyes giving him an appearance of forthrightness and inspiring confidence in the beholder. His eyes were dark blue under his straight brows and, unlike so many of the Spanish dons of his time, he was beardless. A little behind him, Catherine's lover – Juan Pomas, a handsome, thin-faced, young man of twenty-three. Like Alvero, Pomas was dressed for the road, booted, spurred, cloaked and wearing sword and dagger. The two of them made a gallant and impressive sight as they strode into the room. Catherine ran to them – to be embraced by her father and to have her hand kissed by Pomas, who was immediately uneasy in the presence of Torquemada.

However, for Alvero, there were no barriers and after he had kissed his daughter he took the Prior's hand with warmth and eagerness. They were old friends and they shared the voiceless communication that old, close friends can engage in. While they exchanged their greetings Maria came to her husband and kissed him gently and evenly upon the cheek, making Torquemada wonder how much there was left between these two, who had come to this formal and precise relationship out of all the fierce fires of their youth. That youth was not so far away that Torquemada could not recall it exactly and totally. Such memories were only yesterday for him and sometimes he wondered whether perhaps he was exempt from the normal passage of time. He came to himself to hear them talking about the journey and to listen to Alvero's pleasure in the fact that he, the Prior, would be with them. Old Julio brought wine. There was a special, heavy and sweet wine that agreed with Torquemada's taste. Alvero poured it into goblets and said to him,

“God speed our journey. You will drink with us, Father Thomas?”

“I drink with you and I ride with you. If you will have me.”

Alvero handed a glass of wine to his wife and said to her,

“If we will have him, now listen to that, Maria. If we will have him.”

He turned back to Torquemada. “Thomas, old friend, let me tell you this, we will have you. You will deal with the Devil and we will deal with the thieves.”

“Put less faith in my competence,” Torquemada said. “I trust you with thieves. Don't trust me with the Devil. Have doubts about me, Alvero.”

“Impossible. I have no doubts. Look at them.”

He nodded to where Juan and Catherine were walking toward the farther end of the room.

“Why are they so impatient? They have time enough.”

“But better use for it than we have, my husband,” Maria said.

“I suppose so.” Alvero nodded; and suddenly Torquemada had the feeling that the warmth in his host's mouth and in his heart had become cold and tasteless. Alvero struggled loose from this momentary depression. He raised his glass and gave them their health.

“Salut!
Good family and good friends.”

The others drank with him. Alvero stared at his glass, then suddenly he turned and hurled it into the hearth where it shattered. Torquemada watched him curiously.

Himself now, Alvcro said quietly,

“I ask for no greater happiness. That glass is sacred. No one else drinks from it. That's a small passage of wisdom, don't you agree with me, Thomas?”

“I agree,” Torquemada replied, watching Alvero thoughtfully.

2

TO REACH THE HIGH ROAD THAT RAN SOUTH FROM
Segovia to Seville, one went from the house of Alvero through the town and up onto what was then known as the Jews' Ridge. It was late twilight when Alvero and Juan Pomas and the peon Julio came through Segovia towards the high road. The two dons were mounted on fine Arab steeds – Alvero on a pure white thoroughbred, and Juan on a black horse, an Arab filly, slight, nervous and strong. Trailing behind them, Julio rode a clumsy cob and led a pack mule. Cobs were called British horses because, long ago, some of the original stock had come from that faraway island.

Alvero led them through the town at a walk, so that the small children already asleep would not be awakened and so that their mothers would not send the travellers on their journey with curses. At the far side of the town, a young man lounged against a gateway and serenaded a maiden who was unseen in the darkness. Alvero stopped his horse to listen and Juan and Julio closed up behind him. In a clear tenor voice the young man sang,

“And when I journey far away,

Who will care for my true love?

Night will lighten into day—

Who will care for my true love.”

“A Castilian song,” said Alvero. “When I was young, all the young men in Spain sang Castilian songs. What do they sing today, Juan?”

“They sing very little indeed,” Juan answered dully. His spirits were low. He felt no exaltation about a trip to Seville in the company of Prior Thomas de Torquemada, and yet he lacked the courage to withdraw. He was somewhat afraid of Alvero but he was much more afraid of Torquemada, and this fear was something that Alvero could understand. It often occurred to Alvero that in the strange land that Spain had become, one of the strangest things was his own friendship for the Inquisitor, Thomas de Torquemada. But friendship transcends fear. This was axiomatic, he thought to himself. He was a Spanish knight, and he had small patience with fear. Deep inside him he suspected that Juan Pomas was a coward, but this was something which he suspected and which he had not dealt with. Even in his thoughts he refrained from dealing with it – because he sensed a complexity that went beyond the simple premises of knighthood. Alvero recognized such complexities as the increment of age. The older he became, the less simple were the answers to problems, and the problems themselves were increasingly complex.

They had left the city behind now and, as they mounted the dirt track to the high road, Alvero saw Torquemada sitting on his horse at the lip of the hill and waiting for them. There he sat on his big horse, grimly and stiffly, wearing his monkish habit, the pearl-grey luminescent sky of twilight making a backdrop for him, and the last rays of the sun behind him. He was a firm and angry servant of God, and for some reason it pleased Alvero to see him cast in this light – while the sombre mood of the darkening twilight covered Alvero like a comfortable cloak and soothed his Spanish soul.

They all sat their horses together for a moment on the high road, looking back at Segovia beneath them – at the old Roman aqueduct looming over the city, disappearing into a hole of night; and then, in the city, like a single candle, a finger of light came into being. Alvero looked at Torquemada, who nodded.

“An act of faith,” Torquemada said. “A woman is being burned at the stake. I thought of it when I walked through the streets of Segovia this morning. They looked at me and they said, there is Torquemada who burns men and women at the stake. God help me if I burn their bodies. Their souls live naked and clean.”

“I would lie to you,” Alvero said, “if I did not tell you that I take no joy in the sight of what you call an act of faith.”

“Do I find joy in it, Alvero? And tell me, my friend, what do you call it if not an act of faith?”

Alvero shook his head and spurred his horse up to the road. Juan and Julio followed him and then, behind them, Torquemada.

An hour later they stopped at an inn. The landlord, a man whom Alvero had known for years, recognized Torquemada and out of this recognition the innkeeper became taciturn and withdrawn. They ate in the common dining room of the inn, but whispers walled them off from the other men who were present there. Alvero realized that it was the first time he had been together on a journey of any kind with Torquemada since the Prior had become an Inquisitor. He felt a curious pity for the priest – who ate sparingly and remained silent.

The following day was cool and sunny, with blue skies and a soothing wind. Alvero's spirits revived and, together with Juan, he sang a song to his horse as they went. Torquemada listened and smiled. They stopped to eat at the roadside and made a meal of wine and sausage that they had brought with them from the inn. Then they continued along the road.

Half of the life of Spain flowed along that road from Seville to Segovia. They met merchants with long trains of pack horses and with armed guards, five men in light armour to guard each pack horse. They met monks and priests and friars and once a bishop, riding in great majesty with over thirty attendants gathered around him on horses and donkeys and mules. They passed tumblers and jugglers – and once a party of two hundred of the King's men who were riding to hold a part of the border against the Moors.

They all fell into the pace of the journey. They became easier with each other and easier with their words and, bit by bit, the hard mask of Torquemada softened. He sat with them when they roasted their food over a fire at the roadside. He stretched his legs in the inns and listened to the talk and to the stories, and the farther they got from Segovia, the fewer were the people who recognized him. He and Alvero talked a great deal about the old days and Juan listened to them respectfully.

And then one day they topped a rise in the road and saw before them the walls of Seville.

The following day Alvero and Juan dressed themselves in their best clothes and walked through Seville to the palace of Ferdinand and Isabella. In hose and doublet, wearing light half-armour of polished steel, chased with gold, the two men made a handsome sight. They were fine-looking Spanish gentlemen, and when they came to the palace they were recognized and greeted warmly by Don Louis Alvadan, who was Queen Isabella's private secretary. He had been waiting for them and watching for them so that they would not lose themselves in the bustle and turmoil of the Court. Juan had never been to the King's Court before and he watched the press of knights and ladies and diplomats and merchants and dukes and counts with excitement and delight.

As Don Louis led them towards Isabella's chambers, he explained to Alvero that their arrival was particularly fortuitous. The Queen, Don Louis said, had been discussing a matter of some importance with a Genoese sailor by the name of Christopher Columbus. Columbus had a notion of opening up some new and possibly very profitable trade routes for Spain. There were those who supported his ideas and those who thought him entirely mad. They entered Isabella's chamber now and Don Louis dropped his voice and then cut short his explanation. He stood just inside the doorway, waiting, Alvero and Juan beside him.

Alvero looked about the room and at his Queen with curiosity. The palace itself had been so recently conquered by the Spaniards that they were hardly settled there – almost like people at an inn. Isabella's chamber had high-arched ceilings in the Moorish style, Moorish pillars and archways. The stone walls were draped with the banners and rugs of the House of Castile, and a wooden platform had been built so that the Queen might have a chair above the level of the floor. On this platform there were two chairs and a table – and the Queen herself was bent over the table, staring at maps. The man called Columbus stood next to her. In his late thirties, Columbus was tall, almost cadaverously lean, with deep hollows in his face that gave him a curiously aesthetic look. He could not restrain or conceal his passion, even in front of the Queen.

It was two years since Alvero had seen the Queen. She was thirty-four now, a strange, reserved, imperious and almost sexless woman, who could nevertheless be curiously tender and very charming. Alvero knew that she had noted their entrance. Nevertheless, she did not raise her eyes; and her imperious voice, nagging and petulant, filled the chamber.

“Why, why, why, Signor Columbus? You arc becoming my own personal devil. You plead with me until your voice troubles my dreams. Why, why do I need an empire? Spain is large enough and never forget that part of this Holy Land is still held by the Moors.”

“My Lady, I abase myself,” Columbus answered. “I despise myself because I must disagree with you. Still I must say to you, my Queen, can you imprison a man's dreams?”

“Do I stop you from dreaming?”

“The dreaming is nothing, your Highness, the doing is all. You are the Queen of a great country. I offer you a world. I offer you an empire and you will be an Empress.”

“I have discussed this matter with my learned men, so many learned men, you know that.”

“The learned men!” Columbus cried. “God above us, what do the learned men know? Have you discussed it with sailors, with fishermen? My noble Lady, I abase myself – still I must say to you that sailors have known for centuries that the world is round. This is not a new idea. Have you ever heard of the expression – hull-down on the horizon – a ship with sails showing but body hidden by the curvature of the earth? Have you never heard of that expression? I abase myself before you. You are the Queen of Spain. I am nothing. Nevertheless—”