Torquemada (7 page)

“I become afraid in Spain,” Van Sitten said. “It's not a good feeling.”

“Fear is a crazy master,” Alvero said.

“So is death.”

“You are not facing death.”

“I think Spain is,” Van Sitten said. “I think Spain is dying. I think that if you had an ounce of sense, Alvero, you would ride with me.”

Alvero shook his head, but remained silent. They rode on together and Van Sitten continued to argue his point. He said that if only Alvero would come with him, he would wait until tomorrow and Alvero could make arrangements for his family. His fear was now on the edge of sanity and Alvero did his best to calm him. At last they came to a parting of the ways. The road to the north took a left-hand fork and the Priory of Torquemada lay a half mile to the right. They shook hands and said goodbye. Alvero sat on his horse and watched Van Sitten ride away. Once Van Sitten stopped and turned and looked at Alvero, and, in reply to his unspoken question, Alvero shook his head. Then Van Sitten rode on and presently a bend in the road hid him from sight. Alvero spurred his horse and rode toward the monastery.

The monastery stood on flat land, surrounded by great gardens of fruit trees, olive trees and grape vines. Their robes hitched up to uncover their legs to the knees, their sleeves rolled back, the brown-skinned, bald-pated monks worked in the gardens. They hardly glanced up as Alvero passed by, and he rode his horse through them as if he and they occupied separate planes of existence.

Alvero dismounted and led his horse towards the cloister, where there was a tremendous hitchstone with iron rings set in its side. He tied his horse and walked through the cloister to the wooden doors of the monastery. Just now, the place was inhumanly silent, the only sound being the scraping of the mattocks of the working monks as they dug in the soil. Alvero opened the heavy wooden doors and entered.

At first after he had passed through the doors, he walked in Stygian blackness. He stood for a while, waiting for his eyes to accustom themselves to the dark, and then he made his way on until, turning a corner, he found a long, shadowed passageway, lit by broad beams of light let in through glassless windows. He stood waiting there for a moment, the light playing over his hands and wrists, and then a monk appeared at the other end of the passageway and came towards him. The monk walked slowly through the passageway until he was a few feet from where Alvero stood. Then the monk waited in silence, neither questioning nor suggesting.

“I want to see Father Thomas,” Alvero said.

The monk appeared to think about this for a while. The monk was a bald, brown-skinned man with a thick neck and a flat, peasant face. He was of the type that is as old as the soil of Spain itself, and as fixed in perseverance, and as untroubled emotionally. After he had thought about Alvero's request sufficiently, he nodded and beckoned for Alvero to follow him, and then he led Alvero down the passageway to a door that was marked with a purple cross. The monk made a sign for Alvero to wait, and then he opened the door and went into the room. Half a minute later he was back and nodded for Alvero to enter; and after Alvero had entered, the monk, remaining outside, closed the door behind him.

Alvero found himself in an austere room, about thirty feet wide and some twenty feet deep. The door through which he had entered was placed at about the centre of the room's width. Facing the door, high on the wall, was a row of windows which were glazed in coloured glass. The strange light cast from these windows flowed across the depth of the room towards the door and gave the interior of the room an unearthly appearance. The walls were of stone, as was the floor, and at the far left, covering almost the entire wall, was a great crucifix, Christ's figure carved out of wood and hanging in a timeless and unendurable agony of pain.

The room was furnished with a long refectory table and, behind this table, facing the door, were seven high-backed chairs, each of them upholstered in black leather and each of them topped with a cross. On the table itself were two enormous brass sconces holding very thick candles. The candles were not lit now, the window light making any other illumination unnecessary. Also on the table was a large leather edition of the Vulgate Bible, a cross and rosary and some scrolls of parchment. In the centre chair Torquemada sat, his chin on his hands, his eyes fixed on the table in front of him. Alvero entered, and still Torquemada did not look up; so Alvero stood there for a while and Torquemada sat behind the table and stared at the table. Then very slowly Torquemada raised his eyes and met Alvero's gaze. Still he did not speak and Alvero said to him very slowly and precisely.

“I met a man who said that Spain was dying.”

“And you came to tell me.” Torquemada nodded.

“No,” Alvero said. “Once I would have come to you – not to tell you – but to ask you a great boon. I would have genuflected. I would have pressed my lips against your knuckles and said to you, give me faith to face such a thing.”

“A man makes a foolish statement and you would ask for faith?”

“There is sometimes more truth in fools than in wise men.”

“And sometimes more foolishness.” Torquemada smiled. “A land does not die because a man says so. Shall I give you faith, Don Alvero?”

“We were friends once. When did it stop?”

“Did it stop, Don Alvero?”

“The time came and it stopped.”

Then Torquemada said, “Tell me when, Don Alvero, tell me when that time was.”

Alvero nodded and said, “If you wish me to, I will tell you. The time came when you knew what you must do – when you became a righteous man, Father Thomas.”

“That says nothing, Don Alvero, except that you are quite clever. You specify then that I became a righteous man. You are a very clever man and I never underestimated you. Evidently you would commend a priest who lacked righteousness. That is most interesting indeed. But is it to tell me this that you come here without waiting for me to send for you?”

“I am a tortured man, Thomas. Is that a sign of cleverness, to be a tortured man? I admit to it. I am also not very clever. What game are you playing with me?”

“No game.”

“What then?”

“Do you desire to confess yourself?” Torquemada asked softly.

“To the priest or to the Grand Inquisitor?”

“Both are the same man.” Torquemada shrugged.

“I think not. I knew the priest.'”

“But I still know you, Don Alvero,” Torquemada said dryly. “I know you better than you imagine.”

“Better than I know myself?”

“It may be, it may well be that I know you better than you know yourself. I know many things, Alvero. I know, for example, that the Rabbi Benjamin Mendoza came to your home today.”

“You waste no time to spy on me, Thomas!” Alvero cried.

“The Holy Inquisition does not spy,” Torquemada replied quietly. “It sees. Who else will open his eyes to see? Would you do away with the Inquisition and let us all be blind? Has it never occurred to you that if Spain is dying, it is the Jew who chokes the life out of Spain?”

“I have always been taught that the Holy Inquisition is a churchly court and not concerned with Jews.”

“That is pure sophistry, Don Alvero, and hardly worthy of you. The Holy Inquisition is concerned with Christians who are not Christians except in word and we are deeply, deeply concerned with the souls of these Christians who Judaize, who practise the Jewish rite in secret and who put their immortal souls in terrible jeopardy. As for the Rabbi Mendoza, I know why he came to you.”

Alvero listened and asked himself whether he was afraid. He said to himself, how much fear have you, Don Alvero de Rafel? You are a Spanish knight and yet the horror of fear is all over you. You are a Spaniard and a stranger here and what will you say to this man, Thomas de Torquemada?

Aloud, Alvero replied, “His synagogue is very old.”

“Are those your arguments, Alvero?” Torquemada asked, raising a brow. “Do you plead for antiquity and the virtues of antiquity? The synagogue is old but so is the Jew, very old indeed. To destroy the one, you must destroy the other. So long as there are Jews, Christians will Judaize. Did you come to plead with me for the synagogue?”

With a sudden and impetuous earnestness arid forth-rightness Alvero said, “I haven't that much courage, Thomas. I am afraid. There is my confession. A Spanish knight pleads fear and horror. But tell me, who is there in all of Spain today who will plead for the survival of a synagogue?”

Smiling suddenly, Torquemada shook his head. “Alvero, Alvero – you surprise me.”

“Answer me,” Alvero insisted stubbornly.

“Answer you? Who will plead for a synagogue? The answer is obvious, Alvero. A Jew.”

“Which I am not!” Alvero cried.

“Which you are not,” Torquemada agreed dryly, nodding. He reached for one of the scrolls, opened it and stared at it for a while. “But you have a business associate, one Hans Van Sitten, a Hollander – with enough Jewish blood in him to confess to all things. Here in Segovia he entered the synagogue when the Jews were at prayer. Did you know that I have four reputable witnesses who will swear that he Judaizes?”

“I don't believe that!”

“Reputable witnesses,” Torquemada went on, “Spaniards, and they will swear to this and you tell me you don't believe it?”

“He is a Hollander.”

“Will you bind the immortal soul around with national lines? Does being a Hollander exempt him from God's will? He is a friend of yours, yet will you keep him from the only thing that could purify him, that could give him hope – not in his moment here on earth but in all time?”

“What thing?”

“The stake,” Torquemada said. “You are horrified?”

“Yes, I am horrified,” Alvero admitted.

“Do you think it is easy to bury a human being alive? But, my dear Alvero, I am more horrified at the thought of a soul imperilled. Do you agree?”

There were no words left for Alvero. He stood there, silently staring at Torquemada.

“You spoke of friendship before, Alvero. I will open my arms and my heart but shall I weaken my faith for you?” He lifted one hand and directed his finger at Alvero. “I tell you this. Bring me proof that Van Sitten is a heretic. Denounce him before the Holy Inquisition. Then I will open my arms to you. Then I will listen to you. Then I will heed your requests, your pleas.”

Still silent, Alvero stared at Torquemada, who said.

“I ask you only to prove yourself a Christian.”

Alvero swallowed. He summoned the words and forced them to the surface and managed to whisper, “I must prove that to you?”

“Not to me. To God,” Torquemada replied.

7

ALVERO CAME OUT OF THE MONASTERY AND STOOD AT
the door for a few moments, breathing deeply. It was late afternoon now and a great flight of herons, on their way to the heronry, winged across the sky. As Alvero watched them, a hawk broke up their formation and he wondered whether, somewhere, gentlemen were out hawking. How he envied them! He felt that such thoughts were odd, when another part of his mind was so deeply depressed.

Then he walked through the gardens towards the hitching stone. He passed among the monks, who continued with their work and paid no attention to him. In this silent place he was a silent and invisible person and still silent he stood by the hitching stone. Then he mounted and walked his horse away from the monastery.

The silence became even more enormous. It lay upon the fields and upon the dusty hills in the distance. Alvero opened his shirt and, from under his shirt, brought out a silver chain. On this chain there was a cross and a tiny cylinder of silver. Each nestled against the other. He fingered them curiously, let them lie in his palm for a moment and then put chain and cross and cylinder back into his shirt. He was on the road that runs north from Segovia now, but of this fact he was hardly conscious. His horse walked slowly, the reins dangling loosely, and on the horse Alvero sat, bent over in his own thoughts. His thoughts sheltered him, encased him in a second ampule of silence within the greater silence that stretched around him in every direction. The road took an upward slope and the horse walked more and more slowly. At the top of the slope the horse came to a halt and still Alvero sat there, unmoving in the burning afternoon sun.

His eyes were on the stretch of road that ran north from where he was, and while he saw the road, he also did not see it. Two men in armour appeared upon the road, riding slowly towards Alvero. They were hard-faced men, wearing cuirasses and thigh-plates and they rode heavy-footed horses. Attached to the pommel of the saddle of one of them, there was a rope. The end of the rope was fastened around the neck of Van Sitten.

As they came closer, Alvero saw them—as if, sitting in a theatre, the curtains were suddenly drawn apart – he saw them and he recognized Van Sitten. Van Sitten's hands were tied behind his back. His clothes were torn and from head to foot he was covered with dust and blood. Every so often the horseman to whose pommel the rope was tied would whip his horse up into a sharp trot. When this happened, Van Sitten would try to run and keep pace, but he would fall and be dragged by his neck, clutch the rope with his hands, stumble to his feet, run again, fall again and run again. Each time, when Van Sitten was at the point of being choked to death, the horseman would stop and wait for him to recover himself.