Pessoa turned to Emílio. “And yet the creatures below in the cell. How do you explain them? Even I, as a Jesuit, cannot. You do not think demons, do you? Not with the leaking of the honey…”
“O no, no, no, father. We agree: no demons. We suspect the creatures of being New World animals which the Spaniards catapulted to us in order to cause a consternation.”
“Indeed,” Tadeo said. “Think of the timing. And the presence of the king. That cannot be coincidence.”
“Absolutely correct. Very suspect, the timing. And obviously, father, the catapult, or perhaps even cannon—”
“Ai, Emílio! Do not speak of such nightmare! I had not thought of huge Spanish cannon!”
“Perhaps…” Pessoa’s mind whirled. His heart sank. “Perhaps we should not dismiss the possibility of—”
“No, no!” Emílio said. “We don’t dismiss your theory altogether.”
Tadeo shook his head. “It would not be prudent. We must proceed very carefully, lest we ourselves commit a heresy.”
“Yes! I see a deadly danger.” Despite the cold, Pessoa was sweating. “And the girl, Maria Elena. She looks to me ill, and not fully possessed of her faculties. And Guilherme Castanheda, I think some acknowledgment should be made as to his suffering. It is not heresy he speaks, but anger.”
“O, I quite agree.” Tadeo and Emílio exchanged nods. “Yes, quite right. Those two should be released without delay, and Guilherme Castanheda’s goods restored to him. The Teixeira woman, though, and the Castanheda girl, well, heresy without doubt, and such a heresy which calls for relaxing to the state.”
Pessoa said, “Still, even their cases merit close consideration. Monsignor must give us more time.”
“Ah, time?” Tadeo looked doubtful. “More charitable for the condemned that it be over quickly. And I admit frankly, father, that I will be glad to return to Lisbon. My practice languishes, and I piss money.”
“The Holy Office does not pay well as a rule,” Emílio said, “and the monsignor pays even less.”
A glum moment of reflection. Into that silent pool, Pessoa dropped three pebbles. “There is gold.”
Pessoa watched the words sink. Tadeo blew on his hands. Emílio wiped his nose.
“A great deal of gold,” Pessoa said. “It lies in a Lisbon bank, but is easy for Guilherme to access.”
“Well,” Tadeo said.
Emílio bent and added more kindling to the fire. They watched it blaze cheerful yellow. Pessoa caught the clean scent of pine.
“Not that a little money is not welcome,” Emílio said, “but in this case…”
“Yes, father. I would say that in this case…”
The seculars’ eyes met, rebounded. Emílio cleared his throat. “To live to spend it…”
“Um. Yes. True. One must live to spend it, otherwise where is the good?”
“And Monsignor seems so taken up with this case.”
“Obsessed, no doubt.”
“We have discussed it, Tadeo and I. And we have come to the conclusion that he may be dangerously insane.”
Tadeo swept his hand to the side, a gentle and restrained gesture, like a nun’s. “Nothing we do here must be in question. Let him receive the brunt of the Holy Office’s displeasure. You and I and Emílio are out of harm, you see.”
Day had been misplaced. Not yet noon, and Pessoa sensed night assemble. The stone walls wept. “Not the Antichrist.”
He felt Tadeo’s icy hand on his own. “No. But neither can we bring ourselves to believe your story. To us, the earth is rounded not by wonders, father, but by sameness. O, one day Christ will certainly come again, but we do not believe that He has visited here.”
Pale ghosts had flown away, and demons were come.
They gamboled in the mouths of the dark alleys: they prated among the eaves. Bernardo hid himself in his cowl until his view was circumscribed to that pan of the world which lay before his feet. Quill box under his arm, he hurried toward the jail. He thought of the dove secreted in his rooms—waiting just for him—and the idea flared warm in his chest as a candle.
He hurried down a mud-slick road, past a trellised rose whose flowers were dropping their petals. The last of morning failed. He could barely see the cobbles. Bernardo felt a vertigo, as if he had been flung into an uncharted sea where day was not day, where sin had been turned upside down. He trembled, remembering Christ, the death, the darkening.
He hurried faster. Father Manoel would be at the jail amid the happy patter of the seculars. No. It could not happen now, not happen yet. Tuba mirum spargens sonum. Wind blared its trumpet and thunder rolled like Apocalypse at his heels. Ah, God. Per sepulcra regionum coget omnes ante thronum. Bernardo did not want to be alone when graves disgorged their dead.
And then he was within sight of the jail. Borne on a bluster of wind, fiends plucked at him, demons caught at his hem. He rushed, splashing through puddles, his breath coming fast.
He burst inside the building, swept past curious guards, and hurried to the room where the trial was held. Father Manoel and the seculars looked up suddenly. They stepped apart. Something in their faces…
“Good morning, father.” Scarecrow said, bowing.
Goatee inclined his head. “We were just discussing you, that we should verify the statement of the accused Marta Castanheda, now she is no longer under burden of torture.”
O, how dark the day was, as if light would never come again. Could they not see it? Jesu, Jesu, confutatis maledictis. Monsignor had set all Hell into motion, and nothing could be done to stop it.
Father Manoel asked gently, “Bernardo? Are you well?”
“Monsignor has ordered nine sanbenitos, black, with flames at the hem.” Truth was out before he could stop it, but it did not matter now. Nothing mattered. “The End Time has come. He means to burn the angels.”
Afonso wailed to see the soldiers take up shovels and begin the hole. “God is sad! He is taking the colors away.” He lifted his head and watched morning darken.
A few soldiers put their shovels down. The captain called to pick them up.
“Whose orders do we obey?” came the response. “Yours? Or God’s?”
Father de Melo held up his lantern. Thunder muttered through the hills. “Do not be afraid, my sons,” he told them. “A storm is coming, that’s all. You’ve seen storms before, haven’t you? It is by the orders of the Holy Office that you labor here. And the Holy Office is the protector of the Church. Dig! Dig for what is right! God gives strength to your backs.”
Afonso wanted to warn God what was happening, for he thought how frightening it would be to suddenly find dark earthen weight all around. Father de Melo held him back.
When Afonso pulled loose, it was the captain this time who stayed him. “O sire, please. You must not protest. Pedro reigns now, and you have become aught but a useless bother to the Inquisition.”
“I want Pedro,” Afonso cried. “I want Jandira.”
The captain fell to his knees and caught Afonso’s arms. He shook him hard, which startled Afonso very much. “Listen to me, sire. Listen! Your position is all of a danger now. I will keep you from that acorn if I must imprison you myself. For you to hold to this heresy will mean that Pedro is forced down with you. The Inquisition has never been friend to the Braganças or to Portugal. Let the acorn go, Your Majesty, and save your kingdom.”
Afonso raised his face to the mist. He knew then that Jandira was not coming back, for the earth in Portugal was not the earth of Brazil. That soil was rich and warm and tasted of coffee; the soil of Portugal was all cabbage and cod. And he knew that God was not becoming; He was dead. Dew collected in Afonso’s open eyes and slid down his face. He watched clouds mass, watched the sun disappear.
“Come, sire,” the captain said gently.
Afonso would not leave. He would stay by the grave his soldiers opened, and then watch God be put in it. Afonso would stand until the rain stopped, and the seas dried, and stars fell all around.
&
nbsp; Gomes came in from the gloom of Bernardo’s End Time. As if a single muscle, Pessoa felt the entire room tense.
Tadeo prodded the fire in the brazier. “Past midday, Monsignor Gomes.”
Gomes whipped off his hat. “Yes. It was dark out.”
Pessoa saw Bernardo lift his head and look Gomes full in the face. How could the man not shrink before that naked contempt?
“Notary? Are you ready? We will to the tribunal now. Marta Castanheda’s verification next, I think.”
Emílio looked away, muttering. “Already done.”
And Bernardo, shy once more, was needlessly consulting his journal. “She repeats her confession of yesterday.”
“Good, good.” Monsignor rubbed his hands briskly and looked about the sparsely furnished room, never catching sight of resentment.
“If we are to decide judgment,” Tadeo said, “we might find someplace warmer.”
Gomes grunted. “One more accused.”
Pessoa looked about. “But who?”
“If you will take your seats.” Gomes waved toward the tribunal table. “Grievous heresy. A deadly one. Should not take long, I think.”
Pessoa watched the two seculars and Bernardo trudge listlessly to the table. He caught the sidelong glance Gomes threw him as he passed.
“Whom do you call?” Pessoa knew the name before it was said, knew it from Gomes’s smile, had known it forever, really. Certain stories, however pleasing, were destined for bad endings.
“A liar and a fornicator and a heretic,” Gomes said. “Do you stand to be judged along with her?”
And there she was, coming through the door, so small between the huge terror of her guards. The room shrank. Mist darkened the edges of his vision. Through that new gray world resounded the deafening and labored pounding of a heart that seemed about to stop. Pessoa sensed someone standing at his left shoulder.
Tadeo. “Come. Sit at the bench. You do her no good standing here.”
BROUGHT before the tribunal, Berenice Pinheiro, herbalist, accused of the heresy of saying that she had died and come back from the grave, an accusation that the prisoner denied. Msgr. Gomes then asked the prisoner to search her soul, for accusation was made by none other than the king himself, and did the prisoner dare to call the king a liar. The prisoner said that the king, being distraught at the death of his slave, had mistook her meaning. Msgr. Gomes asked if the king’s confessor had mistook as well, for Msgr. Gomes had interviewed him, and the confessor attested to the king’s accusation.
The witness stated that she had never been buried, nor any rites read over her. She related a story of having lain deathly fevered in her twenty-first year, without water or the means to get it, or any neighbor to fetch. She told of noticing suddenly that she stood in the middle of her room, yet could not recall rising from her cot. She told of being flung through a dark cave and of seeing a light at the other end which resolved itself into the figure of a man. She said that the man of light greeted her and told her that he knew her life had been lonely. The man then told her that he loved her, and asked if his love would not be enough. He asked, knowing that, could she not now go back and learn the lessons of charity? The witness began to weep and, upon being asked why she was weeping, said, “Because he was so kind to me. No one had ever been so kind. And that’s why I know he was sent of God, for he had no expectations nor demands, and would have loved me just the same if I had told him no.”
A secular admitted that he was very much moved by the story, and he asked how she came to live again. She said that she came back to the cot with a great jolt, and that she awoke thirsty and sweated, for her fever had broken. She said that she crawled out of bed, since she could not walk, and made her way to a nearby puddle, where she lapped up water like a hound. She said that, as it rained that day and the next, she was able to set a pot outside and gather the rain, and that some days later she was strong enough to rise and make her way about.
Msgr. Gomes then asked the prisoner if she believed she was a Christ, since only the Savior had the power to be raised from the dead; to which the prisoner replied that Lazarus had been raised also. Msgr. Gomes asked if Christ was present in the room to raise her, and the prisoner replied that it was her belief that He had been; that indeed, Christ was forever present, for did He not promise that He would be with us always? Then the accused looked out the window at the day, which was unusually dark, and said, “Even unto the end of the world?” at which the guards became very agitated and began crossing themselves and loudly uttering prayers, and Msgr. Gomes was forced to order them into silence.
As it was seen that the day had darkened even more, more lamps were ordered to be lit, and one of the jailers under the command of Fr. Pessoa’s familiar began to weep and ask if he could go home to his family before the graves vomited up their dead, at which time Msgr. Gomes harshly admonished the man to silence, lest he be charged with a heresy himself. Fr. Pessoa told the man that he might go to his family if he feared the approaching storm and thought his wife and children might have need of him, at which time the jailer bent his knee, thanked the tribunal, and left.
Msgr. Gomes chastised the prisoner, charging her to witness what superstitious rebellion she had started up, to which a secular replied that quotation of scripture was to him no superstition, and the tribunal should accept as valid her assertion as to death and resurrection, for the prisoner’s answer had been not only humble but elegant, and pointed to no heresy at all.
Msgr. Gomes asked if the prisoner believed that death enabled her to see colors in things and tell illness from those colors; and the prisoner said that it was so, that the dark red and purple over Monsignor’s right side told her of his excess of gall; that a yellow on one of the secular’s wrists told her that he had begun a rheumatism in it, and that he should drink parsley and juniper tea each day upon arising. The secular was very surprised at this, but that he indeed of late had had a pain and swelling there, and said that it was not so much that he would complain. The prisoner assured him the pain would only worsen should he ignore it, at which time the secular requested that the notary take down the tea’s recipe. Msgr. Gomes spoke very sharply to the secular, and said that an Inquisitorial tribunal was not the place for a medical consultation, and then he asked the prisoner if she remembered telling the king’s slave that ghosts lead the dying away. She said that she had, that often the dying see in the room those who had died before. She said that the dying would often call the names of the dead, and it seemed to give them a great comfort. Msgr. Gomes asked if the prisoner was saying that the Angel of Death was not sent to harvest souls; and she said that the Angel was perhaps not what we had thought, and not to be feared. She said that the Angel was husband or wife, father or mother, beloved sister or brother, and that the harvest of souls was a thing of joy. Msgr. Gomes then asked if she had been present at a death when a priest was not yet come, and she replied that she had had patients slip away of a sudden, before Fr. Soares could reach them. Msgr. Gomes asked if any of those had imagined seeing spirits in the room and thus had died happily, and she said that many of them had. She was asked if she often told the dying to look for a spirit and she said, if the dying were awake, she told them to search the room, for seeing the loved one calmed their fears. At that, Msgr. Gomes sat back and in a loud indicting voice asked the prisoner if she believed that those who died in sin received the same welcome as those who died shriven, and she replied that she was not one to tell sinner from saved, but that she saw joy on most faces. She was asked by Msgr. Gomes once more if she instructed the dying to look for ghosts, and a secular warned that she consider her answer. The prisoner replied that she saw no harm in it, and where was the harm? She was asked by the other secular to please answer, at which time Fr. Pessoa spoke up and said that he was of the opinion that the prisoner was not fully rational, that her illness had so damaged her eyes that she saw colors and so damaged her brain that she had fallen into delusion. A secular said that in his opinion the prisoner
was lucid. Then the secular again charged her to reply to the question: did she instruct the dying to look for ghosts who would lead them into death? The prisoner said that she did, and asked once more where was the harm?
Fr. Pessoa said that the prisoner did not understand what she had said. He stated that she was lonely, having been shunned because of the villagers’ superstition. He said that the prisoner’s loneliness had caused a morbid yearning for company in her, which was why she had created in her mind the man of light. He said that, as her confessor, he had noticed that she clung to any sort of attention given, and that she was more pathetic and needy than heretic, and begged the tribunal to show mercy, for her life had been dreary and sad. He admitted that her sin had been partly his; and he promised, now that he had been made aware of it, he would teach her how to patiently wait for a priest. He said that he would exhort her, if she needed to speak any words of comfort to the dying at all, to tell them to trust in Christ.
Msgr. Gomes said that in his opinion such precautions came too late. That the prisoner had talked many into apostasy and thus into Hell. He said that because of her heresy there were souls, even now, suffering unbearable torment, and that she should be severely punished for it. Then he ordered that the prisoner be taken away to a cell, thus to await with the others the decision of the tribunal. A jailer came forward and led her away.
MSGR. GOMES declared that guilt or innocence of the prisoners should be decided without delay, at which point a secular objected strenuously, saying that Msgr. Gomes ordered them to be ready at mid-morning, when Msgr. Gomes was not come until midday. The secular said that he, like the other members of the tribunal, was hungry and cold. He said that even though Msgr. Gomes had most probably dined, he saw no reason not to delay decisions until after the rest of the tribunal had eaten. The other secular spoke up and said that he was further of the opinion that deliberations as to judgment should be held in a place that was warm, that he and the other secular and the notary and Fr. Pessoa had had plenty enough of the chill of the day, and that he himself was so frigid that his brain was sluggish, and he could stand a brandy to warm it.
God's Fires Page 29
