“Ah, that,” the guard was saying. “Put there to collect the honey. A hole in his side, here.” He lifted an arm, letting out a noxious cloud of body odor. “Just here. Didn’t see it before, seeing as how it was small. But that’s where the honey comes from. Look.” He proudly displayed his hand. “Burned myself with the lamp, and I picked up a drop of that honey on my finger and spread it on. Ended the hurt, O”—he tugged on an ear to underscore the efficacy—“just like that!”
“Um.” Goatee chewed at his lip. “Dead, yet no corruption? The water from him causing some small evidence of miracle? Mark that, please, Father Notary. Not direct proof of sainthood, but I suppose—”
“Yes,” Bernardo said. “I will make note.”
Scarecrow: “Frankly, I do not care for this at all. I know nothing about evidencing miracle. I am not trained in that.”
Goatee: “Might mean truck with the Holy Sea in Braga.” From Scarecrow a gloomy, “Or Rome.”
Goatee lifted his eyes to Heaven.
Scarecrow pointed to the cherubs. “And they don’t speak at all, man? They just stand about like that?”
“Pretty much,” the guard said.
Scarecrow asked Goatee, “Do you have a need to go inside there?”
Goatee said, “No. You?”
Scarecrow gripped the bars. “Ho!” he called out.
How could he not quail before those wise and immortal gazes? It was all Bernardo could do not to fall to his knees.
“You! Ho! We are with the Inquisition, sent to gather statements. Will you speak?”
Goatee: “At least tell us if you have hired counsel.”
Scarecrow: “You have a right to counsel.”
Bernardo felt himself drawn into that blackness, like Jonah, swallowed whole. Below, a glint of something opulent, afloat in the depths. He swam toward it, lost all memory he had of Earth. His lungs filled with the weight of dark water. He sank.
“Well!” Goatee exclaimed.
Bernardo popped to the surface like a cork.
The lawyers threw up their hands and, muttering among themselves, walked to the women’s cell.
Bernardo said, “The parish priest talks to them.”
They turned.
Part of Bernardo still drifted. His body felt dense and strange, his hands clumsy. The lawyers were staring at him. O Jesu. Miserere. He had just implicated Father Soares.
The guard chirped up. “Right, father! He does. Says they talk to each other through their eyes. The women, too—at least the Teixeira girl. Seen her looking out her cell into the other, and the cherubs all staring back. Kneels there for hours at the bars, and sometimes she cries.”
Scarecrow said, “The parish priest and the girl talk to them. Father Notary? Mark that.”
They put hand to the lock, and the guard sprang forward to open the cell. A solitary young woman looked up from her nest of blankets. In the corner, a matron held a bruised girl in her lap.
The lawyers bowed and swept off their hats. “Tadeo Vargas and Emílio Cabral, assigned as inquisitors to the Holy Office. Are you being treated well?”
The girl in the blankets was a pretty thing, and saucy. “Well enough for being in a jail, I suppose. I’ve never before been in one.”
“And you have food?”
She opened a large basket next to her. From it came the enticing scents of summer savory and garlic. “My father visits every day, and brings enough for the Teixeiras, too.” She inclined her head toward the other two women. “And he brings sweets for the guards.”
Scarecrow inclined his head to the matron. “And you, dona? No complaints?”
“None.”
Bernardo peered through his lashes at the girl the woman cuddled in her lap. The girl was hollow-eyed, as if the beating she took had pounded emotion from her.
“Good. Good,” Goatee said. “And do you any of you have counsel?”
The matron snorted. “As if that lout of a husband would buy us one.”
Murmurs of commiseration from the lawyers, pitying shrugs for the burden of husbands. The pair asked, quite genially, if the women had any statements to make.
There was a yes from the solitary girl.
“Just a moment, please.” Bernardo perched himself on a sill near the bars. He took out his writing devices and set them in order. He dipped his quill. “Continue.”
“I was called to come before the Blessed Mother,” the girl said. “Would the Inquisition wish me to ignore that summons? If you do not find miracle here, then you are blind.”
When he finished with that note, Bernardo stopped writing. No. She was far too haughty to be a messenger of the Blessed Mother. Mary had been female perfection itself: mild of voice and meek of act. The two lawyers waited courteously.
Her cheeks flushed. “And … and if I were you, I think I would not make Heaven so angry.”
Scarecrow nodded. “Thank you. Is that all? Yes? You’re certain? And you. dona?”
“Must I make a statement?”
Bernardo wrote at the top of a new page: TEIXEIRA. It confused him to see impudence in the matron, too. How could God choose these: two bitter women and a battered child?
“Not unless you wish,” Goatee said. “But it is customary to ask the prisoners if they have searched their hearts, and if they have, if God has pressed them to make a statement.”
“Once I thought I understood God,” she said. “Then my daughter was ravished by angels. They got her with child against her will. What’s worse…” She shot the cherubs a look of such venom that it made Bernardo lose the flow of the script. The word child came out deformed. “They took the baby away, and would not give it back. And they took her maidenhood with it, for she was intact until the birth. Now no man will marry her.”
Bernardo stopped writing. Beata virgo. The look in that girl’s face. No. He was wrong. It was not blankness at all, but so calm a serenity that other emotion was laid waste.
“She was intact?” Scarecrow asked. “Until when?”
“Seven months heavy with child, and virgin.”
Goatee drew in a quiet, but interminable breath. “Are there any witnesses you would like us to call?”
The mother stroked her daughter’s hair as if, through the touch, she bestowed what she knew of love. “Her own father felt of her. Bring him before you, and even though he doesn’t believe angels, he will tell you her maidenhood certain enough.”
From Scarecrow, a disappointed “Her father. Well. Would there be anyone else?”
She said, “That herbalist, and she is better at midwifery than any, and knows more medicine than any bearded doctor.”
“Um. And her name?”
Bernardo heard her say it, and he wrote it down. The name she spoke was all lush hungry mouths and moaning sweated bodies. He looked down at his journal, and it surprised him that the letters he had scripted had not trembled.
Call Berenice Pinheiro.
Afonso closed his eyes. Tent and bed drifted like God did through the void. Sailing that emptiness, he felt Jandira tuck the coverlet about him.
He heard the captain’s hushed voice. “Asleep?”
And hers. “I think so.”
Today after the fat priest left, Afonso had visited God. And once inside, he saw that His colors had stanched their bleeding, and that, although God still did not remember, He was no longer afraid.
“You needn’t trouble yourself with what happened today, my lady. We remember when the monsignor plotted with Spain against the Bragança throne. We don’t fear Gomes. And it matters little to my soldiers whether sun moves or earth or moon. As far as I am concerned, I know not what the acorn is, but I think it goes beyond the Inquisition’s authority to decide. And my men don’t believe it demonic, either. They saw how holy water struck the acorn, and yet did not make it vanish in flame and smoke.”
Afonso heard a rustle of clothing and smelled vanilla. An edge of the bed sank, spilling Afonso into the night. He fell far, and he fell gladly, tumbling pa
st the blue-white ball of earth.
Through the abyss, he heard Jandira’s low “And Castelo Melhor?”
An even quieter answer. “He is no Bragança.” Then: “But you will be safe enough here, my lady, even if war rages about us. It was a luck, in fact, that we are not in Lisbon. The count would be pulling him one way, his brother another. Bless him for the sweet-natured soul that he is. Love and duty would rend him in two.”
She said, “Yet if the count sends a message, you will tell me?”
A sad “Ah. It depends on what is said. For I warrant, Pedro and his sister will usurp the throne. Yet if the count sends word for me to join him in battle, I cannot obey. I made an oath to King João that I would not fight any of the house of Bragança; not Afonso, not Pedro.”
Pedro rose up in the darkness, gleaming. Afonso put his hand out and felt the warm grip of his brother’s fingers.
I have brought you a present. See?
In Afonso’s hands rested a statue of Don Quixote, holding a little velvet banner and a tiny silver sword.
Tell me all about the windmills, Pedro said.
The captain’s voice trembled. “But I swear before God, I will let no one harm him.”
Monsignor flapped Castelo Melhor’s message so energetically that it seemed it might take flight. “As you love God, the fool says!” His voice boomed through the inn. “As you love God! Were I to do my best by God. I would hand over that drooling Bragança to be burnt. And—I promise you. Bernardo—if Pedro is successful in his endeavors, I shall write the relaxation order myself!”
Bernardo prudently shut the door.
“You should have been there! Face-to-face with evil, and yet I did not shrink. Entered where none else but the idiot—who obviously knows no better—dared go. Like a warrior I went inside, only Holy Mother Church as my cross and shield. O, the horrors I saw! All anarchies of form and color, so that I could tell not what. His soldiers, mind you—his soldiers ordered to bury the thing. Yet they stand all agape, obtuse as that king himself. I tell you, it breeds a foul-smelling wickedness.”
“Yes, Monsignor.” Bernardo pulled back the coverlet to dust the sheets with cayenne. The cotton was already speckled with red, both crimson fresh blood and rusty old—a certain sign of fleas. He shook the bottle harder. Cayenne rose up in a cloud, and he sneezed. The bed stank of a long and varied succession of unwashed bodies.
Monsignor hoisted the message up in his fist. “Give me your blessing, Castelo Melhor says! Frightened, is he? All the nobles in arms against him? Give me your blessing, indeed! Ha, ha! May he fall down and kiss my feet. I promise you, Bernardo! I will see him do so before this thing is ended. Well? Don’t just stand there! Call the marquis’s two lawyers. Now! I want them here and now, Bernardo! Be quick!”
Bernardo put down the cayenne and hurried to their room. He found the pair seated on their bed, cards in their hands, a pile of silver coins between them. Breathless from his run, he told them that Monsignor was calling. The lawyers let drop their cards; they abandoned their coins. All together, they hurried up the stairs and down the corridor, turning right to Monsignor’s room.
They found him sitting glum and motionless in the shadows, watching the sunset. His anger had vanished, and some quietness in the room had possessed him. “Rain coming soon,” Monsignor said.
The lawyers, chests heaving, stood by the door.
A dreamy “You can smell it, can’t you? The rain?”
Castelo Melhor’s message had been dropped forgotten to the planks. Bernardo came forward, picked it up, slipped into his pocket. He lay his hand on Monsignor’s shoulder. “Monsignor? The lawyers have come.”
Ah. The uncanny emptiness in those eyes. “Lawyers?”
“The Inquisition-trained lawyers, Monsignor. The ones who were sent by the marquis.”
A nod. A whispered “Then get your quill and ink, boy, for we have much to do.”
Bernardo gathered both journal and foolscap. He uncorked the ink, dipped his quill, and waited.
Staring fixedly into the twilight, Monsignor motioned the lawyers to his side. “Come look,” he said. “This is order. Do you not see? Each day the sun rises and sets over the selfsame hills.”
Bernardo sat, quill poised, above the blank page. Scarecrow and Goatee exchanged troubled frowns.
“Tomorrow,” Monsignor said, “we will begin an inquisition. I have gone over all the notes and familiarized myself with the case. I would have the Teixeira family first—all of them. Have one of the marquis’s guards see to that. Then the herbalist. Then the Castanhedas. From their testimony, we will see if there are any others.”
Bernardo’s quill scratched across the page. He hurried to keep pace.
“We will end it quickly,” Monsignor said. “Whatever happens outside this place, whether war or revolution or invasion, we will not move until our work is finished. Further…” Monsignor met Goatee’s eye. “What happens remains a secret among us. Notation will be made, of course. But I will decide later whether the pages are to be burnt together with the heretics.”
Scarecrow rocked back and forth, toe to heel, toe to heel. He shook his head. “This is highly irregular.”
Monsignor came out of the chair so quickly that Goatee stepped back.
“I think we should take this up with the provincial seat in Mafra,” Scarecrow said. “There is a process to a tribunal, and it must be followed.”
“Indeed, sir.” Goatee nodded. “One can’t simply take the bit in one’s teeth, go off, have an inquisition, and ignore the law.”
Monsignor’s eyes had narrowed, his cheeks were mottled. Bernardo knew storm was coming, and put down his quill.
An earsplitting “Law?” Another shout of “Law?” One that shook the walls. “You dare talk to me of law? I have gone eye to eye with evil. I fought Satan armed only with the word of God.”
“With all due respect, Monsignor,” Scarecrow said, “the law is law. You cannot change that. It is as eternal as those hills there. You yourself hold a degree, and more than twenty years in court. That I must point illegality out to you is quite—”
“God Himself speaks to me!”
The lawyers again exchanged glances.
“And God has shown me my mission: to restore order in this place. For from this very spot comes such an anarchy that it will end the world.”
Goatee nodded. “Ah.”
Scarecrow said, “Compelling argument.” Then a meek “Perhaps Monsignor might care to give us a note absolving us for any consequent suits brought? Otherwise, I don’t see how…”
“O, indeed. Such an honor, sir. But I don’t see how we can afford to serve.”
“Yes. If it was found that we conducted so illegal a tribunal, well … Damage my reputation with the Holy Office, no doubt. For I travel, as you must understand. Evora, Braga. All the Holy Sees use me. Without some written guarantee, I must—although with a heavy heart, I assure you—plead to step down from the case.”
“Also, this might cost more than was originally settled on,” Goatee said.
“Um. Yes. Expensive, this sort of thing.”
To Bernardo’s intense surprise, Monsignor clasped his hands behind him, and walked to the window. “Write up whatever document they wish, Bernardo. I will sign.”
DAY 9
In those blue-black hours when bats whisk through the sky like leaves—that time when owls navigate the landward wind—Pessoa awakened. Lying swaddled by night and the warmth of his bedclothes, his first thought was of the jailed women. And he believed that worry had pulled him from sleep until he heard the sound.
Pessoa sat bolt upright, letting blankets fall. The room was cold. The hearth fire had gone out. He peered about, sightless. “Luis?”
His own heart beat as loud as the stirring, and yet…
“Luis?”
A rustle of straw came as answer, then a creak of wood and leather, then breathing that was too unsteady, too akin to pain. Pessoa got up so fast that he upset his cot. Hi
s flailing toppled something and sent it skittering through the dark. He fumbled for flint, for candle. When he struck light, he saw the old priest hunched over the edge of his cot, his face pale and strained, his hand pressed to his chest. He was laboring for breath.
Pessoa’s own heart felt as if it would stop. O Mater Dei. No. The chill of the room was nothing to the deathly cold between his ribs. Berenice. He would get Berenice. She would know what to do. He took a step and halted, picturing the old man alone, dying, calling for extreme unction. He pictured himself alone, watching a friend slip from life. At the door, Pessoa danced a jig of indecision.
Soares’s hand reached out, grappled for air. “What?” Pessoa came to his side. “What is it you need?”
Soares coughed, his lungs phlegmy, his chest rattling. “Water.”
“Yes. Certainly. Right away.” Pessoa trembled so hard that he spilled half the jug. He brought the cup and knelt beside him and helped him drink. “I will send for Berenice.”
“No.” Soares’s cheeks were drawn, his voice weak. “A dream.” He drank, then set the empty cup down. He patted Pessoa’s arm. “Go back to sleep.”
On impulse, Pessoa put his palm to Soares’s forehead. Warm, but not fevered. Or was it? Soares regarded him curiously and with mild amusement.
“Go back to sleep. I’m sorry I awakened you.”
“More water.” Pessoa filled the jar from the bucket, drenching the hem of his nightshirt, his feet. When he came back, Soares had pulled his blankets around him.
“Cover yourself, Manoel. You’ll catch your death.”
“Yes, yes. Just a moment.” Shivering, teeth chattering, he knelt and filled Soares’s cup.
“Not to be critical, Manoel, but you wet yourself more than you do the cup. And to be quite frank, your legs are not so handsome that you should go about in your nightshirt.”
Pessoa looked up. Soares was smiling.
“I’m not dying, Manoel. Gratia Deus. And thank you for your efforts. Now get back into bed before you get a gripe and find that I make as clumsy a nurse as you.”
God's Fires Page 21
