VOYAGE OF STRANGERS (11 page)

Another day, I returned late from Jerez de la Frontera, not far from Cadiz. I had started out before dawn, and I expected to find all asleep on my return, but Rachel had waited up for me.

“The Inquisition is everywhere!” I said, flinging my weary body onto a bench and tearing into a loaf of bread I found on the table, for I had eaten nothing all day.

“Diego!” Rachel wrung her hands. “What happened? Were you questioned?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean to alarm you. My tale would be amusing, were the Inquisition a fit subject for jokes.” Recovering from her fright, Rachel poured ale from a pitcher to a tankard and handed it to me, then set before me a fist-sized lump of golden cheese. “Thank you, I am indeed hungry and thirsty.”

Rachel sat down beside me on the bench and leaned her elbows on the table.

“Tell me.”

“You know I was sent to Jerez today to see about the wheat that Don Juan has ordered from two dozen different sources, since we will have so many mouths to feed, and also to visit the bakers who are charged with making biscuit for the voyage.” I wiped my mouth and cut off a piece of cheese with my dagger. “Fonseca fears that we will be cheated if a close eye is not kept on all these folk, from farmers to millers to bakers. But I was not needed. The Archdeacon told me that he already had a man in place, and that I must present myself first to him. He didn’t tell me that his overseer is a Holy Inquisitor! This Fray Alonso has all well in hand, and he seemed very confident that none would dare lie to him or offer him short measure or weevily flour. Considering his office, he is probably right.”

“Why did he choose such a person to be in charge of flour and biscuit?” Rachel asked.

I shrugged.

“Don Juan is a churchman himself. I suppose he naturally thinks of colleagues in his own trade, as would Papa or Don Francisco in the same position. This Fray Alonso was pleasant enough to me, knowing me only as the Archdeacon’s emissary. But I am glad he stays in Jerez and not Seville. Having marked me once, he might take a second look and start to wonder.”

Once the search for likely ships began, I was sent often to Cadiz. I refrained from requesting the Espinosas’ horse for these excursions. But when I told Don Juan that I had access to a mule, he at once recruited it.

“It shall be returned to its owner once the fleet has sailed.”

He regarded me benignly, as if certain I would appreciate his generosity. I reflected that if he had ever met Doña Marina, he would know that without a doubt the mule would end up in its own stall in the Espinosa stables.

So I rode my old companion back and forth between Seville and Cadiz, sleeping on the floor of the expedition’s quarters on the docks as often as in my comfortable bed at the Espinosas.’

In the first week of July, Columbus arrived at last. He expressed pleasure at seeing me, praised my industry, and promptly commandeered me, leaving Fonseca short a secretary. Nor would he tolerate any but himself passing judgment on the vessels to be selected.

“Ships are not like beans,” he grumbled to me after an acrimonious meeting with Don Juan. “They are not all alike, with as many as possible to be crammed into a barrel. Equipping a fleet is no job for a bishop!”

Then he must inspect every inch of rope that Fonseca had acquired and pace the deck of every vessel already assembled, with me scurrying, like as not, at his heels, making note at his command of every seam in need of caulking or bit of brass that wanted polishing.

The Admiral also allowed me, at my request, to return to my task of tending the Indians. I was eager to see how they had fared since my departure. To my dismay, some had died, and I found the rest weaker and more discouraged than I had left them. Cristobal still coughed, the worse for the Admiral insisting on taking a more mountainous route to Seville so that he could pause at the monastery of Guadalupe and fulfill his vow to pray before an image of the Virgin there, in exchange for safe passage home on our previous voyage.

“I did all I could for them,” Fernando told me. “But once their novelty had worn off, most lost interest in them. I believe Her Gracious Majesty cared only to see them baptized and thus deemed their purpose served.”

He cast a quick glance around him. We lived in an age when all knew it was best not to be heard criticizing the Sovereigns, however mildly. I had invited him to drink at my expense in a pleasant tavern off the Calle Sierpes, to thank him for taking on my task at short notice, without even my sense of personal connection with the Taino to lighten it. He believed that the Admiral had sent me ahead to serve as his eyes and ears in Seville. He knew nothing of Rachel. 
             

We soon fell to talking of the ships, as we had a keen interest in both their seaworthiness and their comfort.

“The chief vessels are bigger than last time,” I told him, “for we carry many men and more cargo than you can readily imagine. But the Admiral has also insisted that some be of shallow draft, so that they can sail close along the shore without running aground like the poor Santa Maria. Most are caravels, but the few small barques are very light indeed.”

“What of the flagship?”

“A beauty. She is called the Santa Maria like our old ship, but the seamen already call her Mariagalante. I hope we will both draw berths on her, for if we do, I don’t think we will have to sleep on coils of rope again. Also, the Admiral has hired a cook.”

Fernando laughed.

“We may expect to see little enough of the dishes served to the Admiral.”

“We can hope.” I smiled. “Guess what vessel will be found among the caravels.”

“Not the Niña?”

I nodded, grinning.

“It is she who should be named Galante.”

“She brought us safely home through terrible gales,” he said.

“May whatever ship carries us this time do the same,” I said, “and all the fleet as well.”

“God willing.”

Fernando crossed himself, and I made a vague gesture that I hoped appeared the same to him without offending Ha’shem. He had kept His hand under me so far, and Rachel too, and I hoped it would please Him to continue to do so.

Chapter Fourteen

Seville, July 16, 1493

“No, Mama!” Aldonza said. “I will go. I am well enough.”

“You were short of breath again this morning, my angel,” Doña Beatriz said, casting an anxious look at her youngest child. “And please don’t try to tell me that you slept well last night, for I see blue shadows under your eyes.”

“She didn’t,” said Graciela, who shared a bed with her. “She tossed and turned all night, trying to catch her breath, and this morning the bedclothes were damp with sweat.”

“I have recovered now,” Aldonza protested. “It is my duty.”

“Our standing is high enough,” Don Francisco declared, “that no one will take it amiss if you are not well enough to attend.”

“But all must witness it,” Aldonza argued, “even the King, if he should happen to be in Seville. I would not be remiss or appear less devout than the rest of you.”

“Let her come, Mama,” Paquito said. “If she feels unwell, one of us can take her home.”

“I will be glad to do so,” Rachel said.

The entire family was assembled in the courtyard, where all habitually gathered for a morning repast of bread, fruit, and coffee. The golden morning sun fell on the animated faces of the Espinosas, grouped lovingly around Aldonza. Rachel and I sat apart, in the shadows. Since the present discussion had started, she had gripped my hand hard enough to make it ache, but I did not remove it from her grasp. Her distress was no greater than mine.

“There, it is settled,” Aldonza said triumphantly. “We shall all set out together, and if I feel unwell, Rachel will escort me home.”

“The crowd may get boisterous,” Doña Beatriz fretted. “Two girls alone might be accosted.”

“I will accompany them if need be, Beatriz,” Doña Marina said. She sat straight-backed on a stone bench in the lacy shade of a lemon tree with some fine embroidery in her lap, though she had not put needle to cloth since the beginning of the conversation. “You need have no fear for them.”

The younger boys, excited by the prospect of the day’s pageantry, were feigning swordplay with only air for swords. Faustino, pursuing Leon around the fountain, paused and turned to us.

“Have you ever seen an
auto da fe
, Rachel?”

“No,” she said, poking my thigh with our joined hands in a covert plea for help.

“There is no tribunal in Barcelona,” I said. “Nor on the Ocean Sea.”

This raised a laugh. Rachel released my cramped hand. I rubbed at it to get the blood flowing again, glad to have diverted their attention.

Although it was the law that all attend the ceremonial burnings of so-called heretics, my parents had always found an excuse to spare Rachel this terrible sight.  Being older and a boy, I was not so lucky. I did not look forward to the screams of the victims as the flames consumed them nor the smell of burning flesh. The victims were likely to be
marranos
like us. Above all, I feared to learn that one of the poor souls tied to the stake with quick-burning faggots heaped around his feet was a friend.

I remembered my first burning, at the age of ten. My father stood beside me, not flinching or turning away, though the penitents, as they were called, had visited our home and broken bread with us on Shabbat. His big hand, warm and steady as the kiss of God, had never left my shoulder.

“Look, Diego,” he had said. “Look and remember.”

I had been ready to vomit at the sight of their agonized faces and the smell of roasting meat, but had managed not to, determined not to shame my father or my people.

“Papa,” I had whispered, “is it for this that we were Chosen?”

“No, son,” he had replied. “We are Chosen to be steadfast in our faith in God, no matter what evil befalls us, even this.”

We set out in a body, joining the throng flowing along the Calle Sierpes toward the Plaza like a river of bright colors and cheerful cries, for to the Christians, the
auto da fe
was a festival. Having made up their minds that heretics and Jews were evil, indeed hardly human, they were not troubled at the prospect of watching them die in agony. Even the Espinosas, kindest of people, perceived it as a holy rite, like the sprinkling of babies in baptism or the anointing of the dying. It never occurred to them to wonder whether their own souls were damaged by finding entertainment in the pain of others.

The fire lay ready for lighting before the great doors of the Cathedral. The victims were forced to walk in procession to their doom. We could hear the deep chanting of the monks before they came into sight. The buzz of the crowd grew louder as they appeared, eight unfortunates, each flanked by two black-clad priests. The penitents were swathed in yellow robes with pointed caps. Their faces were hidden under hoods. None would be moved to pity by the spark of humanity in their eyes or to horror by their cries, for cloths had been stuffed into their mouths to gag them.

The priests screamed at them, “Repent! Repent! You may still be saved!” above the cries of vilification from the crowd. The priests didn’t mean that if they repented, they would be spared, but only that if they accepted the
fuego resuelto
, they would be strangled first and thus avoid the cruel pain of death by fire. I imagined the terror they must feel, alone in misery and dread. They could not even see the sky as they stumbled or were dragged toward death, feeling, perhaps, abandoned even by God. I felt a grim satisfaction in remembering, from my studies of Christianity at the time of our feigned conversion, that their Jesus had had such a moment of doubt while nailed to the Romans’ cross. The priests claimed that he had suffered it so that mankind would be spared such suffering in the future. This didn’t seem to be borne out by today’s festivities.

Behind us, I heard a woman say, “These heretic Jews were foolish not to have left when they could.”

“
Marranos
are easily detected,” a man replied. “Their neighbors have only to observe that their chimneys don’t smoke on a Saturday.”

“They shun pork,” the woman said. “It is comical, when one remembers that we call them swine.”

“So if their kitchens never smell of frying bacon,” another man put in, “their neighbors may inform the Inquisition.”

“If they don’t like the smell of burning pork,” the first man said, “they will be most unhappy a short while from now.”

They all laughed heartily, as my gorge rose and I feared I would be unable to refrain from retching.

The victims were bound to the stake. The fire was lit. The crowd fell silent, so all could hear its crackling breath as the flames leaped upward. I heard Rachel’s gasp and turned to look at her. She was white as a sheet.

“Don’t look,” I said.

I put one arm around her shoulders, and with the other, pressed her head against my chest. She wept, her shoulders shaking and the damp of her tears soaking into my shirt. As the first screams of pain burst out in spite of the gags, Rachel cried out.

“No! No! Stop them! It is wicked, wicked!”

“Hush, Rachel,” I murmured in her ear. “You must be silent. Do you want us to join them in the fire?”