God's Fires

by Patricia Anthony

  Afonso returned to the hall, where a guard came to clanking attention. “Where is my brother?”

  “Gone to Mafra, sire.”

  A moan climbed Afonso’s throat. He slapped both palms to the guard’s breastplate and drove him into the wall. The man went down on his knees, babbling apologies. Afonso stumbled down the steps, pushing aside the chambermaids and footmen.

  He heard Jandira call his name. He didn’t stop. He knocked a char sprawling, sent a tide splashing from her bucket.

  Down a back hall, through the kitchens, through smells of coffee and onions and cinnamon and blood, past cages of squawking game hens and hamstrung, gutted stags. He ran awkwardly, staggering and panting. His own weeping blinded him. He struck hip against table, knocked shoulder against pots. As he passed, cooks screamed, chars fell to their knees. Butchers dropped cutlery.

  “Sire!” Jandira called.

  Afonso gave vent to an alarm that was more grief than name. Then out the shadowed archway, into the sunny cobblestone courtyard, past hills of carrots, mountains of cabbages, potatoes piled like stone cathedrals.

  And there was Pedro, astride his Barbary gray stallion. He was surrounded by soldiers and nobles, and Bishop Dias walked at his side.

  “Pedro!”

  In his saddle, Pedro turned.

  Afonso slid on the dung-slick cobbles.

  “Pedro! Wait!”

  The gray shied, tossed his head. Pedro drew in the reins.

  When Afonso reached his brother, he wrapped his arms about his leg.

  “O, Afonso. What are you doing out here in your nightclothes? It’s cold. Where are your shoes? Come, let go of me, and I promise I’ll get down. Jandira? What is he doing in his nightclothes?”

  Hands gently pulled Afonso back. When Pedro dismounted, Afonso fought free to kneel at his brother’s feet.

  Gasps escaped from the lips of the nobles. A surprised grunt came from the bishop. Even the honking geese hushed.

  Pedro tried to lift him. His voice was quiet. “Don’t. Don’t do this.”

  Afonso clung to his brother’s belt. “I will give you my kingdom if you stay.”

  “I pray you, my liege.” The bishop’s voice was strained. “Please get up.”

  Then Jandira was there smelling of vanilla. Her robes were a swirl of color, her face the hue of wet cork. “That’s right. We’ll pray, won’t we. Won’t we, bishop? We will kneel and pray for the king’s brother’s safe journey.” She knelt, took hold of Pedro’s tunic, and pulled him down with her. The nobles and equerries dismounted. All around the battlements, guards went to their knees.

  Bishop Dias looked confused until Jandira tugged the cuff of his wide sleeves and said, “Our Father…”

  Jandira made the bishop remember his prayer. “Ah, yes. Our Father, um… Our Father, protect Your son Pedro on his short—I must say very short—journey to Mafra, ah … and keep your servant the king safe from harm. Amen.”

  “And now Pedro may go,” Jandira said.

  Afonso grabbed his brother’s tunic. Pedro tore loose.

  Jandira put her arms around Afonso to stay him while Pedro leapt onto his saddle, agile as a cat. The nobles and equerries, too, took to their mounts. The bishop flung benedicto after benedicto at them as the courtyard echoed with Afonso’s shrieks.

  Afonso heard the clop-clop of horses’ hooves recede. He saw Pedro glance over his shoulder and wipe his eyes.

  Jandira was saying something, but Afonso was wailing too loudly to hear. He held his arms out to Pedro. He rocked back and forth until the stones rubbed his knees raw.

  “Did you hear me, my liege?”

  On the opposite side of the courtyard, gatekeepers sprang to the ready. The huge castle doors swung open. Pedro was merely a spot of color among the rest.

  Afonso rocked, keeping his eyes on the place where Pedro was disappearing, and taking world and light with him.

  “Listen to me, my king!”

  Afonso turned and looked at Jandira: the three decorative scars on her right cheek, the three on her left.

  “I said, tomorrow we can go on a quest to Mafra.”

  “O? O!” Strange how, as relief flooded him, his eyes streamed even more. “A surprise. Will we surprise Pedro?”

  She grinned. Between her lips he saw a flash of her white teeth. “By Mary and St. George, sire. I imagine we will.”

  Don’t drink water atop a bad head from wine. Pessoa knew that, but he had been thirsty. Now the wine from the night before was making him drunk anew. Early in the Catechumens, sometime after the Gloria, he dozed off. He snapped awake just in time to hear that Soares was reading from Ezekiel.

  Pessoa drifted. Vaguely he heard Soares’s voice and the response from the congregation. He opened his eyes, hoping he had looked prayerful. It was time. He stood and made his way down the altar, stopping to genuflect. That’s when Berenice’s foreign spices hit him. Nausea sapped the strength from his legs.

  Behind him feet shuffled, clothing rustled. There was a scattering of coughs.

  With a mighty surge of will, Pessoa braced himself and lunged to his feet. He pulled the altar cloth off square, nearly knocked over the chalice. A well-trained altar boy stepped forward to discreetly catch his elbow.

  Pessoa turned, breathed deeply, and staggered up the three stairs into the pulpit. “Friends…” he said, and spread his arms. A wave of vertigo struck. He gripped the carved sides of the pulpit. The church pitched like the sea.

  In the front row sat Dona Inez and her moles: Pater, Filius, et Spiritas Sanctus. Marta’s love-starved fantasies would disappear once she married. Pessoa would see to it personally that Berenice was satisfied. But Inez … O, Inez. Even if called to serve, he could not.

  God help him. He was going to laugh.

  He ducked his head, took the Edicts from the sleeve of his alb, and began hurriedly to read. “The Holy Office in Braga calls upon all obedient Christians to seek out heresy. Here are the signs: those among you who do not eat pork or shellfish, those who bathe and change their bed linens before feast days…”

  The church was overly warm. He fought a yawn. “…who are engaged in the smuggling of books which are on the Index, who read of such books…”

  He rushed headlong toward the Credo, muttering as fast as a petitioner reciting a novena. Every year the Edicts grew. When he had started his rounds, they took fifteen minutes. Now they could last an hour. And then he would have to sit through General Intercessions, co-celebrate the Eucharist, and assist with Communion. What if he told everyone “Ite, Missa est”? Would the congregation rise like good sheep, and leave?

  Pessoa skipped fifteen pages, neatly editing superstition and adultery, to read the final sentence. “So I bid you, stand and say.”

  In his six years through Quintas, only two people had ever stood, and they stood at the same time: Magalhães, to admit having said that adultery was no sin; and Magalhães’s wife to accuse her husband of the same crime. In fact, it was Magalhães’s sanbenito that Pessoa’s eyes locked on as he raised his head. The linen shift, red cross already fading, hung from a rope at the back of the church.

  Below it, Gregorio Neves stood, scratching his cheek.

  “Do you have a confession?”

  He shook his head.

  Pessoa’s heart sank. No. Not Berenice. “Then do you have an accusation?”

  Another shake.

  Pessoa took a steadying breath. “Then why are you standing, my son?”

  The farmer shifted his weight to his other foot and mumbled something.

  “You must speak up, Gregorio.”

  Neves shrugged. “Well, I don’t know that it’s confession, exactly. Or an auto da gra$a. I don’t even know that it is important, father.”

  “Yes?”

  “But I was reminded of it by the reading today.”

  “Go on.”

  “And I thought, well…”

  “Say it!”

  Neves grinned broadly, nodding around at the congreg
ation. “Ezekiel’s wheel set itself down in my potato field.”

  Bernardo fingered his rosary as he walked; careful to step around last night’s garbage and a fresh pile of dung. The street was narrow, packed with wealthy, jostling mourners.

  “Behind the horses,” Monsignor whispered. “That Jesuit planned this.”

  Bernardo lifted his eyes. Ahead of the wood-and-glass hearse and the matched black geldings with their ebony plumes, he caught a glimpse of Dias’s miter, the upheld cross, and a white thread of smoke. Beyond, he saw startled faces in windows, heard the noise of hurriedly slammed shutters, heard the warning cry move from house to house, “Funeral! Funeral!”

  “He’s laughing at us, Bernardo.”

  A clean whiff of incense ran a gauntlet of garbage, perfume, and body odor to reach him.

  “Well he may play with us.” Monsignor nodded at a stray noble and a woman in rich widow’s weeds. “But Dias would do best not to tease our count. That boy is wicked,” he said with relish.

  A well-fed, smug hog—that’s what Monsignor resembled. True piety was the contorted face of the crucified Christ, eyes raised to heaven. Holy pain uplifted the soul. Bernardo sometimes saw it happen on the potro; and for a lucky few who found God when their feet were put to the coals.

  Bernardo himself was still exalted by the Lassus motets. He felt so light, in fact, that it seemed his feet barely touched the cobbles. A rebellious grumble from his stomach brought him back to earth. He had skipped breakfast and his midday meal: a whisper in God’s ear.

  “Wicked,” Monsignor said again.

  Up the cobblestone streets they went, around corners so tight that the pretentious four-horse team had to be led. Wooden shutters banged like cannon. A whore mistress in a bawdy house shrieked more loudly than the funeral drums, telling her girls to get up, get on their feet, before Death mistook their sleeping.

  “The English disease,” Monsignor said in an aside. “That’s what he died of.”

  Bernardo nodded.

  “Died stark, raving mad, they say. And blind. No telling how many he gave it to. Our beloved slave merchant Villas enjoyed boys and women both. Traveled to Brazil, to Africa, to France. Spread his joy about; although it must be understood, Bernardo, that he never confessed to me.”

  “Completely understood, Monsignor.”

  “The same amorous leanings as our count, I might add. I should not be surprised if Castelo Melhor has much mortality to ponder today.”

  Just behind the spire of Dias’s miter was a flash of polished steel, a blood spill of velvet cloak. Bernardo wondered if the count had cleaned the crust of sauce from his armor.

  “Too bad we need that boy. He simply cannot keep it from rising to attention.”

  Monsignor’s face was puffy. The almonds had evidently kept him awake. Yet his eyes were sharp; and although Bernardo had bound him tightly just prior to Mass, he had yet to exhibit discomfort. Robust health, a society funeral, and an opportunity for gossip. The inquisitor-general was having a good day.

  The procession wound through the iron gates of the cemetery, past plain Romanesque crosses and graceful Baroque angels. Monuments rose in ranks like the spears of a quiet, marble army. At the Villas crypt, they stopped. Family wept as pallbearers took hold of the coffin. Amid the obligatory mourners—the acquaintances and business partners and non-celebratory clerics—quiet chatter droned.

  Bernardo watched the knot of black-robed activity at the crypt: the sway of a censer, the sign of the cross. He spied only one spot of color: Castelo Melhor, his breastplate shining, plumed helmet in hand. Dias was accustomed to the practices of the elite. He spoke the graveside service so quietly that he didn’t disturb the background of subdued babble.

  The bishop suddenly raised his head. His voice rang over the gathering. “…good man here interred. He should be remembered for his generosity. His kindness. Roberto Villas truly gave unto others….”

  A strangled noise. Monsignor hid his face in his kerchief. When time came to make the sign of the cross, he was still snickering.

  Then the ceremony was over. “Such a tragedy,” an elderly and distant cousin of the House of Bragança said, shaking Monsignor’s hand. “A man struck down unexpectedly in his prime.”

  Monsignor made sympathetic noises. Bernardo fingered his beads. By the crypt, Castelo Melhor and Bishop Dias were talking. The bishop was smiling; the count was not.

  The royal cousin left just as an attractive woman seized Monsignor’s hand in a death grip. “A blessing that his suffering is finally over.” Her voice, Bernardo noticed, held a vibrato of anxiety and a falsetto grief.

  Monsignor murmured agreement. The crowd began to disperse. Bernardo watched Castelo Melhor stalk over, pulling at a mustache.

  “Do you know what that traitor Jesuit said?” the count demanded as he reached them.

  Mourners turned, expressions eager. Monsignor told him, “Keep your voice down.”

  The count raised a French pomade shaped like a black chrysanthemum. The stick was wound with purple ribbon, and trailed appropriately funereal streamers. Bernardo could barely credit it: the breastplate’s sauce stain was intact.

  Castelo Melhor sniffed loud and long. “The pig! He said Afonso told him what I call him in private. He looks at me, all wooden-faced, and asks, since he wrote up the peace with Spain, and I say he is a whoremonger—what does that make me?”

  “Mm.”

  “Too brazen. They’re hatching something. And have you heard that Afonso knelt at his brother’s feet this morning, and offered him his kingdom?”

  Offered the kingdom? That flew in the face of God’s order. Bernardo wanted to hear more, but Monsignor’s attention drifted.

  “If Afonso would only consummate his marriage,” the count said. “Get a son by her. Yet they lie together, and he is limp, and when he is told what he must do, he weeps. Why, the girl’s not so repulsive as the Flemish royals I’ve seen. Perhaps I could—”

  That snagged Monsignor’s roaming interest. He raised an admonishing brow.

  “Or perhaps not.” Castelo Melhor lifted both pomade and nose skyward. His expression turned so thoughtful that Bernardo wondered if he was passing gas. Suddenly he looked down. “Hm. A piece of interesting news. Some of my soldiers in Setubal say they have seen shields in the sky, with angels standing on them. My men said they sing with odd voices, like crickets. A chorus of angels, as if God has put a blessing on our undertaking. What do you think of that?”

  Bernardo’s heart stopped. Sanctificatur nomen tuum. He clutched his beads so tightly that his nails dug into his palm. O. He would do anything to see God’s angels. To hear that singing.

  “It means you should limit your men’s wine.” Monsignor huffed. Clutching his missal to his chest, he turned and started down the hill. “Really. Bernardo. Soldiers seeing shields in the sky. Hearing angels sing. As though God would speak to just anyone.”

  Pessoa planned a quiet after-Mass trek to the potato field and then a well-earned nap; but Marta Castanheda caught him leaving with Neves.

  “I am to go with you. The Blessed Mother told me to stand witness,” she said.

  Pessoa, who had struggled against misery all morning, relinquished the battle. His forced smile drooped. “No, Marta. You cannot. I think the Virgin knows what happens without your having to tell her.”

  Their discussion caught the attention of some who were leaving the church. Magalhães and his wife drifted over. “Put on your hat, father,” the tailor said. “The sun is bad for the head.”

  Pessoa’s head pounded; but wine, not sun, was the culprit. In the bird-loud morning the congregation milled, chattering and laughing, freed from the long-winded ritual of the Edicts. From a nearby hill came the clank of goat bells, the baaing of sheep.

  Duarte Teixeira and his family stopped at Pessoa’s shoulder. “A good reading this morning, father,” Teixeira said, as if he had not, as Pessoa longed to do, dozed through the entire Mass.

  “Merely the
voice to God’s words.”

  Teixeira’s handshake was excruciatingly earnest. He squeezed so hard that bone grated bone. He pumped in rhythm with Pessoa’s headache. “You keep us in line, father. I listened well: adultery, fornication, superstition.” Abruptly Teixeira leaned forward to eye him sharply. “Do you listen well?”

  “Sorry?”

  “The stories, father. Appearances of the Virgin. Crosses in the sky. Can angels visit women and get them with child? Tell me. Is that superstition or not?”

  Teixeira’s wife snatched the hat from off the head of her eldest daughter and batted her husband with it. “More respect,” she hissed.

  And that’s when Pessoa noticed the girl’s swollen belly. Misereri nobis. To see signs in the sky was one thing, but to declare a birth ex virgine…

  Marta fingered her rosary. “Would that I had been the one so visited.”

  “Wait!” Pessoa held up a warning hand.

  No use. Teixeira’s voice rose. “Visited. Yes. The girls are visited by the boys in the next village, and cannot keep their skirts down. Then you, Marta Castanheda, help them make up angel stories about it.”

  “I only tell you what the Blessed Mother tells me, Senhor Teixeira. I did not get your daughter with child. God did.”

  Time for a quick addicere. “Well, well, well,” Pessoa said, lacing his fingers. The grip prevented him from slapping Marta’s too accessible cheek. “Perhaps you are right, Marta, since He is Lord of all, and any birth, therefore, would be truly His. But let us calm ourselves, shall—”

  “Blasphemy.” Teixeira was red-faced. Maria Elena, gravid with God or with shame, was sobbing.

  They had attracted a crowd. At its periphery stood Senhor Castanheda and his eight-year-old son, both looking as if they had heard this all before, and knew where it would end. Near them stood the useless, if apparently sympathetic, Soares.

  “Silence! No more!’’ Pessoa said. “You cannot judge what is blasphemy. Marta is a young girl, Senhor Teixeira, and zealous. In her zeal, it is perfectly understandable that she thinks she talks to the Virgin Mother, and the Blessed Mother to her. Is that not the case, Marta? But I must admit to you, my girl, that out of everyone in all the world, the living saints, the nuns, even those born into authentic Christian homes, I find it hard to believe the Mother of God chooses little Marta Castanheda as her messenger.”