The Debt of Tamar (2 page)

Reyna turned to José and shot him a pleading look with her big brown eyes.

“
Tia
,” he said sternly. “You should be very pleased. A royal prince will make a fine husband for Reyna.”

Doña Antonia rolled her eyes at this.

“
Tia
! She
wants
to marry, and in case you’ve forgotten, you’ve not much choice in the matter. You’re to give your approval in a month’s time.”

“Is that so?”

“It seems to be the case.”

“It was merely a request.”

“It was merely a direct order handed down to you by your Queen.”

“Suddenly so serious?”

“Only idiots and jesters wouldn’t take this seriously.”

“I think I’d prefer the jester. Sounds like more fun.”

“I’m sure it won’t make a difference, dear Aunt. Fools of all sorts have been known to end up with heads rolling. And what a large head it is too.”

“Stop it. Both of you.” Reyna interrupted. “I can’t put up with one more minute of this incessant barking.”

José failed to hold back an inverted grin. A moment passed before it infected both Reyna and his aunt with a kind of contagious laughter that simmered quietly for a moment before boiling over. They all three laughed until the heat of exhaustion overtook them.

The afternoon was quiet, with only the sound of trotting hooves and the occasional whinny of the stallions as they made their way home beneath the scorching sun. A low rumbling sounded from the town square. The noise grew louder until the carriage, having just turned a corner, was sucked into the folds of a drunken mob. The carriage came to an abrupt stop. José pushed aside the curtains to see what was happening. The charioteer had dismounted from his place and was elbowing his way through the crowd towards the carriage door. “Señora!” He removed his hat and tilted his head. “We must wait for the crowd to disperse. It’s impossible to move on.”

“José, What do you see?” Reyna sat forward and looked out the window. When her gaze caught the horrific scene beyond, she gasped, then backed away slowly.

There in the town square, hordes had gathered to witness a public execution.

“Swine! Heretics,” a filthy man raged. He turned and faced José directly. His eyes shone with a glint of madness. “Kill the pigs!” The vein in his neck bulged as he spat out the words.

In the courtyard, a public execution of the city’s unrepentant Jews was taking place. Tied to wooden beams, six condemned heretics wriggled obscenely while the flames of the Inquisition danced about their roasting flesh.

Inquisition guards stood smugly surrounded by fresh-faced district officials. José blinked in horror. His body temperature started to rise. His shirt began to cling to the sweat beads making their way down the length of his chest.

His eyes fell upon one of the condemned.

Her black tresses fell about her face and dusted the length of her waist and hips. As she cried out for mercy, tears and sweat ran down her cheeks and over her gaping mouth. Her body twisted like a caged beast while they set her legs on fire. For a split second, her wide eyes locked with his and when they did, a jolt of agony ripped through him.

“Don’t look at them!” Doña Antonia commanded. She grabbed hold of José’s collar and examined his pupils, one at a time, pulling back his lids for closer inspection. “The damage is done,” she whispered.

His eyes searched the carriage for some trap door that could transport him away from this nightmare.

Reyna was crying now, her head buried in her palms and her hunched shoulders trembling.

“We are witnesses,” he said after a long moment. “We cannot look away.”

José forced himself to turn back towards the crimes being committed. There were women he did not recognize. Old and young, none were spared. There were skinny young men in tattered clothes engulfed in flames that rose from glowing bundles of dry wheat secured by hemp chords tied around their ankles.

Just as the heat had become nearly unbearable, a wild fury overtook him. “Stop!” José lunged towards the carriage door. “Stop at once!” he shouted again before Doña Antonia leapt forward and grabbed the drenched fabric of his shirt with her bejeweled fingers.

“Sit down!” Doña Antonia pushed him back against the bench. Her knowing glare frightened him to stillness. A moment of silence passed in the carriage before she spoke. “Do not raise your voice again. You will get us all killed!”

His knees began to tremble as he sat in his place. “We have to do something.” He covered his face and shook his head in disbelief.

“Tell them who you are,” Reyna said suddenly. “They’ll listen to you, Mother. Make them stop!”

José took his aunt by the wrist and opened the carriage door. “You must end this!”

“There’s nothing we can do!” She yanked her arm free of his grip only to have him reach out and grab her even more forcefully.

“You have to speak up. Tell them you have just come from the Queen. Tell them who you are! You can stop this!” He kicked open the carriage door and dragged her to the street below.

Above the barbaric cheers, the determined voice of the Inquisitor General announced the names and sins of the condemned. The stench of roasting flesh crept through every pore of his being. José squinted to shield his eyes from the char and dust and dirt. The ashes of the condemned were tossed about in the wind. “Do something!”

Doña Antonia folded to the ground collapsing into sobs. A dirty shoe kicked her in the gut as the stampeding crowd unwittingly began to trample her. José shoved them aside and gathered his aunt in his arms.

He stood there in the center of the piazza, his aunt in his arms and the stench of charred bone suffocating him. In the corner of his eye, flames danced and whole bodies cried for mercy. He turned his gaze upward as though trying to escape into an empty swatch of sky. Could it be the same sky he had gazed upon earlier that morning? All he saw was smoke. All he felt was pain. With his head tilted towards the heavens he let out a long, piercing cry. For just a moment, he had silenced the world.

Without warning, they were then swept away by the violent mob like twigs in a river’s current. José held onto his aunt so tightly, he nearly suffocated her. “Don’t let go,” he told himself over and over again as they were pushed and prodded along. He tried his best to shield her from being smashed and smacked by elbows and knees and boots. He dropped her at least once but managed to lift her back up quickly. Eventually, they were spat out at the far corner of the piazza.

She was choking for air when they finally emerged from the mob. He laid her on the earth a safe distance from the crowd. She pulled him close and nearly poured the words into his ears. “We are them!” She was sobbing so heavily, he was not sure he heard her correctly.

“What do you mean,
Tia
?” He shook her when she did not answer. “I don’t understand you.”

Her tears fell against the dirt and moistened the parched earth as she tried to speak. “Your parents did not die of the fever.”

“What?” He was more baffled than ever before.

“We are them!” she cried out angrily.

“No.” He nearly choked. “No.” Was she just being cruel with her words? He could not decipher what kind of tale this would be. In his periphery, he could see the podium where the victims were still screaming, still alive. “No.” He shook his head as though the forceful, sweeping motion might be enough to sweep away the reality. “It can’t be!”

Her words came as gently as the tears that were now streaming down his cheeks. “They were Jews.” She squeezed his hand as the world he knew came crashing down. She tried to lift her head but fell back against the earth. “
I
am a Jew,” she added quietly.

He gazed at his aunt not quite believing the words that were coming out of her mouth. “But you are a respected, Catholic noblewoman!”

She took his hand in her own, closed her eyes, then shook her head limply. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” she whispered.

In that moment, he realized the dire situation they faced. His parents had been secret Jews. His aunt was one too. If she was discovered, they could all be executed. He reached out and let his fingers clasp the diamond cross that lay flat against her chest. His thoughts turned to the parents he never knew. He squeezed his eyes and felt his hands tighten around the warm metal. The smell of fire filled his mind. The fog of smoke clouded all his memories. Suddenly, he heard a snap. Upon opening his eyes, he discovered that he had ripped the thing from around his aunt’s neck. A bright red scratch showed against the side of Doña Antonia’s neck where the chain had come apart. He squeezed the cross in his palm until his flesh turned raw.

Soon, all was burnt to ashes and the last screams were silenced. Doña Antonia sat up, her lace dress muddied and her hair matted with sweat and dirt. “You are the Señor of the house now,” she said quietly.

He looked down at his hands. They’d never seemed this big before. He turned the cross about in his palm, looked up and nodded.

They sat not speaking for some time before José lifted his aunt in his arms and made his way back to the carriage.

That evening, Doña Antonia and José sat in the candlelit parlor of their home not uttering a word to one another. A thousand thoughts and sights and sounds were careening through him. The tilted axis of his mind was spinning beyond control. In this devastated chaos, he was silent. He searched for words but found only the fury of screams.

The wood floor-panels creaked and José turned to find Reyna standing in the doorway. Her smooth hair fell loose to her elbows, two dark rivers glistening against her cotton night-dress. She stepped forward and moved across the parlor barefoot then sat beside José. Taking his hand in her own, she frowned although her intent had been to offer a smile.

A warm breeze wafted through the open shutters and José turned his gaze to the dark sea beyond. Outside, the moonlit waves crashed against the rocks and splashed up towards the billowing canopies spraying the elevated marble pavilion with salt and sea and sand. “All my life, I believed a fever had taken my parents’ lives.” He began after some time. “I can’t pretend today didn’t happen. I know what I saw.”

Doña Antonia closed her eyes. The room was quiet except for the faint tick of the grand old clock and the quiet thrashing of the sea. They all three waited quietly and knowingly.

Doña Antonia’s eyes darted throughout the room as she assessed her surroundings. She examined the clock. It was several hours past midnight and though the staff had long ago been dismissed and were sleeping soundly in their quarters, there was still a lurking sense that the walls had ears.

It took some time. The hands on the clock inched forward with steady determination. Moments passed like lifetimes—violently, steadily, silently.

But time did pass. And then, quite suddenly, she spoke. Doña Antonia’s words came in an eerie flood of pulsating sound. They were hushed words that traveled in baritone waves, boldly masculine, without the cowardice of whispers. Like a small tremor, her words rippled throughout the room.

“We were given the option to convert or leave the country.” Doña Antonia turned to her daughter. “Your father was so sick, he would have never survived the journey.” After a long, deep breath, she continued. “There was nowhere to go anyhow. Europe is no place for Jews.” She shrugged pathetically, then looked over to José. “They came for your parents.”

José’s eyes narrowed as he tried to tap into memories passed.

“You were just an infant,” she continued gently. “Of course you don’t remember.” Her eyes seemed to retreat into some dark, faraway memory. “They wanted to make an example—” She froze mid-thought. “Your parents refused to convert.” The words came cautiously as though treading through a dimly lit place in her mind. “They took them, and they were gone.” Her fingertips made their way to her temples. “We had the two of you to think of, so we converted. I chose to give up my religion, but to give up my faith,” she looked at her daughter, then back at José. “That was not a choice I have ever had.” She waited for either of them to respond. When they didn’t, she turned her attention to Reyna. “I was young and alone when your father died, raising two small children on my own. I did what any mother would. I professed to be a worshiper of Christ. I donated huge sums of money to the church and to the Queen and soon fell under her protection. She took it upon herself to guide me in my new life as a devoted, Catholic noblewoman, and in return the donations never stopped. In my heart, I have never forgotten who I am. Reyna, you must understand that my reluctance surrounding your marriage was never a matter of age.”

Reyna’s eyes wandered around the room as though examining the parlor for the first time. “It was a matter of faith…” Her voice trailed off as she finished her mother’s thought. Reyna blinked slowly, as though the weight of her lids had become a burden. “It’s been a long day,” she said quietly, then stood from her place. “I’m very tired.” The hem of her white gown hovered just above the floor as she glided away, quiet as a ghost.

“My parents died for something,” José said once her silhouette had disappeared into the dark corridor. “They chose their faith over me. They chose this faith over their own lives. And for what? I want to learn.”

Doña Antonia frowned then shook her head. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Better die standing than to die kneeling.”

“Careful,
niño
. Your tongue runs faster than your wit.”

“I need to know why they left me.” His voice began to crack and Doña Antonia was still for a moment.

“The risks are too great.”

“Then why do you choose to live this way?”

“I never had a choice.”

“This is the life
you
chose!”

“You fool, you don’t choose your faith. Your faith chooses you.”

“I want to learn.”

“No!” She rose to her feet.

“I’m not here to ask your permission.” He stood and was suddenly towering over her. “Only your blessing.”

Doña Antonia scoffed. “I am your guardian and I will decide what’s best for you.”