The Falcons of Fire and Ice (6 page)

Dona Ofelia hugged me, beaming through her tears. ‘I swear even a stone would be moved by that dear man’s mercy. Isn’t he magnificent?’ she said, reaching out a trembling hand towards the Inquisitor-General as if she longed to caress his face. Then she suddenly blushed like a love-sick girl.

But the day was not yet over. There was still the little group of condemned prisoners to deal with. The king, the Regent, the Inquisitor-General and all the monks and priests processed out of the square and eventually, when the royal procession was far enough ahead, the rest of us were permitted by the soldiers to follow them in solemn procession to the huge square of Terreiro do Paço, in front of the royal palace. Dona Ofelia clung tightly to my hand lest she should lose me in the crush.

A second dais had been erected for the king and his great-uncle, but in front of it was no altar. Instead, on the far side of the square, furthest away from the palace walls, was a huge platform made from dried faggots of wood with a dozen or more posts rising up out of them.

It was dark now. Only the blazing torches on the palace walls illuminated the scene, sending snakes of red and orange flame writhing up into the indigo sky. Midges swarmed around the flames in great misty clouds and over our heads bats, drunk on moth blood, lurched in and out of the pools of light.

A twisting rope of candle flames wound down the street towards us. The candles were held in the hands of monks and the
castrati
who were singing a
Miserere
. The voices of these beautiful beardless men rose and wheeled like the flight of a merlin climbing higher into the heavens, until the very stars themselves seemed to vibrate with notes.

The crowd, restless and hungry after the interminable day, were prowling around like caged animals, and when they saw the condemned enter the square, they surged forward in a great wave, howling and shrieking in anger and disgust. It was all the soldiers could do to beat them back and stop them tearing the heretics limb from limb before they could even reach the pyre.

The condemned were hauled up one by one on top of the faggots of wood and dragged to a post, where they were chained facing the screaming mob. One of the black-hooded
familiaries
held up a flaming torch beside each man and woman so that those binding them could see clearly enough to fasten the locks. The Judaizers were still gagged for fear that they might cry out that they were innocent, or worse still, shout some desperate prayer to their Hebrew God.

Next to them on the pyre, the friars positioned the effigies of those who had fled rather than face capture. The wooden statues would help to burn the relatives and friends they had left behind. It was an irony not lost on the crowd, who repeated the joke loudly to one another.

Finally the boxes of bones were placed into the hands of some of the penitents spared the flames, who were driven forward to the edge of the pyre. Most carried the boxes without giving any sign that they knew what they held, either numb to any emotion now or so relieved to have escaped death they would gladly have kissed the feet of their jailers.

But one young girl began to sob so hard the sound rose even above the chattering people. Tears streamed down her face, and she clutched the box in her stick-thin arms so fiercely that the friars had to strike her with canes several times before she would set it down on top of the unlit pyre. Even then it seemed she could not pull her hands away from the box, as if her fingers were frozen to it. She clutched at it until she was dragged away.

‘That’ll be the bones of her lover or one of her family in that box,’ Dona Ofelia said with glee. ‘Now she’ll watch them burned to ashes so there can be no hope of resurrection for them, which is what all heretics deserve, don’t you agree, child?’

I smiled and nodded as vigorously as I could. Trying to look as if I couldn’t wait to see them blazing.

When all was prepared the crowd fell silent. A hush of expectation fell across the darkened square. Slowly and solemnly the Inquisitor-General stalked across the square towards his sovereign, his footsteps suddenly echoing hollowly in the darkness. The torches flickered, lengthening his shadow and sending it slithering towards the gaping crowd. As it crept close to them people stepped back, as if the mere touch of his black ghost would send the chill of death through their bones.

He bowed before King Sebastian, handing him a scroll of parchment on which were written the names of the prisoners, now released by the Inquisition into the hands of the king. For the Church could not execute anyone. The ultimate sentence of justice must be carried out by the State. The boy-king gingerly took the parchment in his hands, holding it as if he thought it would burst into flames.

A Moor with a chest as broad as an ox took up his place behind a condemned woman chained to the first post on the pyre. His features, like those of the
familiaries
, were concealed beneath a black hood. He was stripped to the waist and the thick corded muscles of his ebony arms gleamed with a sheen of sweat in the torchlight.

The prisoner cringed away as far as her chains would allow. She was a small, hollow-cheeked woman with long grey hair that hung in tattered shreds from beneath her hat. One of the
familiaries
loosened her leather gag. As soon as the gag was removed, she began to sob and scream. She was crying so hard that her words could hardly be distinguished, only the odd phrase torn from her parched throat filtered through her tears –
repent … abjure … abjure … I abjure.

It was enough. Before I even realized what he was doing, the Moor had placed an iron chain around her fragile neck. Fear contorted the woman’s face as he pulled the chain tight in his great fists. She struggled desperately for breath as the chain bit deeper and deeper into her throat, then finally her head lolled sideways and her body sagged limply from the wooden post, a look of abject terror frozen for ever in her bulging eyes.

The crowd screamed and howled, half-excited by the death, but at the same time frustrated that in repenting she had cheated them of the spectacle of her writhing in the flames. The executioner removed the iron chain and moved to stand behind the next prisoner. And so they worked down the line of the condemned. As one by one their gags were removed, a few shouted their repentance so there could be no mistake they wanted the mercy of the garrotte. But through fear or pain or raging thirst, most could do no more than whisper their confessions to the friars, who declaimed them theatrically to the square. As the garrotte crept agonizingly slowly down the line towards them, the waiting prisoners trembled and tried desperately to pull themselves out of their chains. One lad pissed himself in fear, and the crowd jeered and whooped with delight.

When they came to the sixth man, they once more untied the leather gag. He was old, his hair white, his cheeks caved in as if all his teeth had gone, eyes sunk so deep into their sockets they looked like two black holes in his skull. The soldier lifted the blazing torch higher over his head, ready for the executioner to do his work. Up to then I hadn’t seen the old man’s face clearly because of the gag. But as the light fell full upon him, I realized with a jolt there was something familiar about the way he held his head, something about the mouth … the eyes … but why? Why did I think I’d seen him before? Then horror shuddered through my frame as I finally realized who the old man was.

‘Senhor Jorge! No, not him!’ The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

Dona Ofelia turned a startled face to me. ‘Did you say something, child?’

I tried to smile, even though I was trembling so much I was certain I was going to vomit.

‘I thought … I … I saw a friend in the crowd.’

She smiled. ‘I expect you did, dear, half of Lisbon is here. But you said, “No, not him.” ’

‘Did I?’

Mercifully, before I was forced to think of an explanation, Dona Ofelia’s attention was captured once again by what was happening on the pyre. Unlike the other prisoners, Senhor Jorge had said nothing when his gag was removed. The
familiaries
and friars jostled around him, urging him even now to recant and be spared the agony of the flames. But as if he’d heard me cry out, he ignored them and, turning his head, stared directly at the spot where I stood. He opened his mouth and in a hoarse, cracked voice, proclaimed, ‘You Christians are all idolaters; you bow down before idols and worship a man instead of God …
Shema Yisrael …
’

It was all he could get out before they forced the gag back into his mouth. With a single bellow of fury, the enraged mob rushed towards the pyre, determined to tear him apart with their bare hands, and the soldiers had to beat them back. Several people fell to the ground, bleeding and senseless, before the soldiers could regain control of the crowd.

When they were satisfied that the gag was tied so tightly around his mouth again that not a single word could escape, the friars and the executioner moved on down the line. But Senhor Jorge stood quite still with his chin lifted, his eyes staring up at the starry sky above, as if he was back in his own flower-filled courtyard in Sintra. And just for a moment I was sitting there with him again, crouching on a stool at his feet, a wide-eyed little five-year-old, listening entranced to his stories, stories his Spanish grandmother had once told him when he was a small boy long, long ago. Jorge would sip his wine and lean back in his battered old chair, peacefully contemplating the heavens.

‘That is Lilith’s star, Isabela. You watch, over the next few nights she will grow dim and then bright again, like a great eye winking in the sky. Lilith … now, did I ever tell you of her? She was the most beautiful creature who ever lived and she used to boast that she could make any man in the world fall so hopelessly in love with her that he’d give all he owned for one night in her arms. But the angels said there is one man on earth who is too wise ever to fall in love with you, and that is the great King Solomon.

‘Lilith was determined to prove them wrong. So she disguised herself as the queen of Sheba and went to visit the wise old king. And he did find himself falling in love with her, just as she said he would, but he decided to test that she really was who she claimed to be. So he built for himself a floor of glass, sat down on the other side of it, and sent for Lilith to come to him. When she drew near, she saw the glass shining in the sun and thought it was a pool of water, so she raised her skirts to wade through it and then King Solomon saw to his horror that instead of human legs she had the hairy legs of a goat. And he knew then that she was no mortal woman at all, but a wicked demon sent to tempt him.’

Seeing my mouth open wide with amazement, Jorge popped a sugared almond into it and laughed.

Gentle, wise old Jorge, how could he be here in this vile place, chained on that pyre? All his life he had been a physician and had done nothing but help and heal both neighbour and stranger alike. What had he done to make the Inquisitors think he was a Judaizer? Who could have reported him? Which of our neighbours would have done that? I wanted to scream out they had arrested an innocent man. But he wasn’t. Those words he shouted out before they gagged him again meant he wasn’t innocent at all. He was a heretic. But even though I knew that, I still couldn’t bear to see him punished. I tried to look somewhere else as my father had warned me to do, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from him. I felt as long as I kept looking at him, I could keep him alive. I could will him to live.

By the time the Moor reached the end of the line of prisoners, three of them remained alive – Jorge, a woman and a young lad. All had refused to confess their guilt and renounce the faith of Abraham. The friars were still standing beside them, urging them to repent in the hope that their courage would fail them and in their terror of the flames they would finally throw themselves on the mercy of the Church and its swift garrotte. The Church wanted no martyrs for another faith.

All heads now turned to the royal dais. The two Jesuits standing behind the king’s throne prodded little Sebastian to rise. The crowd drew in their breath as he descended the steps. They watched the slow progress of their tiny king as he marched alone across the dark square, his cape trailing after him in the breeze. The gold coronet about his brow turned to blood-red in the light of the torches.

When Sebastian drew level with the Inquisitor-General, the commander of the soldiers stepped forward and with a low bow handed him a blazing torch almost as long as the boy was high. The officer respectfully pointed to the place on the edge of the pyre where Sebastian must light the pyre. The sticks at that spot glistened in the dancing flames. They had been coated with tar so that they would catch fire at once. The Inquisitor-General stood to one side, his head bowed. It was up to the king, not the Church, to light the fire that would burn the living and dead to ashes.

The child held the burning torch awkwardly, recoiling from the heat of it. He stared wide-eyed at the flames, holding the torch as far away from himself as he could, as if he feared that the flames would set light to his hair. But he was not tall enough to balance the heavy weight at arm’s length. He advanced a couple of steps, then he lifted his head and looked up at the figures above him on the pyre. His gaze seemed to rest upon the young lad, who stared directly into the little king’s face. The leather gag masked his mouth, but his eyes were as large and liquid as those of a fawn.

For a moment the boy-king and the young prisoner just stared at each other. Then the officer, perhaps fearing that Sebastian had forgotten where he was to light the pyre, bent down to whisper to him. Sebastian whipped round, his chin jerking up defiantly, his brow creased in anger. Then he turned and hurled the torch as far away from the pyre as his strength would allow. It crashed on to the flagstones and continued to burn there, as Sebastian stalked back to the dais.

The crowd gasped. For a moment no one moved. Finally the officer retrieved the torch and looked helplessly at the Inquisitor-General, plainly uncertain what to do next. The Inquisitor’s face was a portrait of undisguised rage. For a moment he looked as if he was going to wrench the torch out of the officer’s hands and light the pyre himself. You could see he was itching to burn these heretics, but that was the one thing he did not have the power to do.