Then—bracing himself, back straight—he walked out of the study and toward the door. He would hide the bags in the rectory and tell Castanheda of his plans tomorrow. He would give him at least that hope. Too, he would take the boy to the jail for a farewell. Everything must be done properly, for Pessoa intended to be a good father.
What do you know of milk puke?
Nothing yet, but Pessoa would learn.
He put his hand to the doorknob. “Why are you here?” Monsignor’s voice boomed from the stair.
Pessoa turned, his pulse in a fright, his thoughts turned vapor.
He saw a fat hand on the banister, and watched a huge form descend into the entranceway’s light. “I asked why you have come.”
“Clothes.”
Monsignor stopped. “But the boy’s room is up top.”
“Something of his father’s.” Pessoa, fumble-fingered, opened the saddlebag, brought out the sash, and offered it up.
Monsignor took the sash, opened it. He stared down at the medal. “Looks like gold.”
The lies were like walking along a precipice—a miracle of one foot, then another. “Won in battle. I thought the boy should have it. Given by the queen’s regency after João died.”
Monsignor grunted and handed the medal back. He came down the rest of the stairs and walked past Pessoa to the dining room. “Come with me.”
Nothing to do but follow. One foot, then the other, through the dining hall and into the warm kitchen, where the hearth fire was still lit.
“I have declared a day of fasting and prayer, but yet we may have a coffee,” the man said. “Sit.” He gestured to a rough table, scarred by the cutting of game and potatoes. The table where the servants dined.
Pessoa took a three-legged stool and put his saddlebags down, O so carefully, beside him. Monsignor stoked the fire higher. He rummaged among the shelves until he found the coffee. He pried off the top of the box and sniffed. “Brazilian.” He smiled, and held the box out to Pessoa. Dutifully, Pessoa lowered his nose to it. “I like Brazilian coffee,” Monsignor said.
The man made coffee in the country way, dumping a handful into a pot of water and putting it on to boil. The Monsignor stood, his back to Pessoa, watching the flames. “Buried?” he asked more softly than Pessoa thought possible.
“A pretty spot with apple trees and a board fence.”
The broad back bent. He leaned an arm on the wall. “Flowers come spring.”
“I would think so. Buttercups and primrose.”
Monsignor took in a long breath. He whispered, “Bernardo was my best boy. Best boy.”
That odd heartfelt eulogy, one which, without Monsignor ever realizing, skirted the edges of disdain. “Best boy.”
The water began to boil. The room filled with the smell of coffee. Monsignor pulled the pot a little off the flame and let it simmer.
A knife rested on a peg. A butcher’s knife, broad at the base for sawing bone, narrow at its end, but stout. Pessoa could kill with such a knife. Anyone could. And the servants not home.
“I had had other secretaries, you know. But none so utterly willing.”
A hatchet, too, chicken blood still on it. A hatchet. And only an arm’s length away.
“He was a somewhat intense-natured boy, Bernardo was, but dedicated to service.” Gomes was staring sadly at a ham that was sitting on a marble sideboard. “I shall not find another like him.”
For an ice-bellied moment Pessoa thought the man would ask, and that the tribunal in Mafra and the Holy Office would agree, and that he would be sent to Lisbon for a life of candle-weakened eyes and ink-stained fingers. But no, he would to England, would he not? For he had the money. And the boy. He must not forget the boy.
Monsignor had turned and was peering at him sharply. Miserere mei. The man had asked a question.
“I’m sorry?” Pessoa said.
“I asked if you did not find that that which we love the most often destroys us?”
That hatchet—which had already tasted blood. If not for Berenice, then for six others.
“The boy so loved his angels. A bit God-struck. I thought ill of him yesterday, and accused him, and I bear the guilt of that today, for thinking that he meant to hurt me. But it was an excess of affection, bringing me food and yet more food, and that was not good for me, true; but when I was in distress, he would ever rub my back. He would read to me. Who will be there now to see I get the poppy? I tell you: there was not another like him. Did you know him well?”
Led him into temptation. Murdered him with ideas. He remembered the desolate sound of Bernardo’s corpse falling into the wet grave and how the grave cloth had flapped open—I am the Light of the world—the dull thud of clay clods, and the sight of a pale boy, his eyes closed, fast asleep in a low and narrow bed. “No.” Pessoa said. “Not well.”
“He would not do such a thing—hurt a child. Not Bernardo. It is this place which ruined him.” To Pessoa’s shock, tears welled up in those pitiless eyes. “I should not have brought him here, for he was a sweet boy and ever besotted with angels.”
Monsignor looked away quickly, took the coffee from off the fire, and found cheesecloth and cups. The wink of the blade. In the back and of a sudden, so that pleading could not stay the blow. But then it was too late, and Gomes had turned, and had set a cup by Pessoa, and had sat on a stool across the table.
He blew on his cup. “I know that you do not credit it… What is your given name again?”
“Manoel.”
“Yes. Manoel. Just so. I know that you do not credit it, but I defend God here. I alone, for God has set me that burden. And so I take the sin and the blame from off your shoulders, do you not see that at least? For I am not so dull-witted as to think that the Holy Office will not censure me. Neither am I all abandoned of kindness.”
No. Pessoa could not kill him, even though it meant saving seven innocents, even though he doubted the murder would count as sin. Instead, he sipped his coffee and found it surprisingly good.
“Quiet, is it not?” Monsignor asked, and it seemed that something in the silence frightened him.
“The storms are over.”
“Over,” Monsignor said. He put the cup down on the table. Unseeing, he stared at the wall. When Pessoa arose, he did not seem to notice. He did not try to stay him when he took up the saddlebags and walked out the door.
DAY 13
They came in the morning, the cook’s boy and two footmen. They dressed Afonso in his black and rested the circlet of gold on his brow. When he was fully dressed and very splendid, Afonso put Mario’s dagger in a silken cloth. He placed five gold pieces in it and tied the ends. Then he ordered that a scribe come to the tent, for he wanted someone to take a letter down.
“Tell Mario that I thank him very much,” Afonso said. “Tell him that his dagger was nice, and that I liked it. Tell him I should have returned it before, but that I remembered him by the dagger and so did not wish to give him up.” Afonso asked the scribe to sign the letter and to see that it was delivered. Then he put on his cloak and walked outside.
The sun was a brightness, the sky a wide deep blue. The camp was in a clutter, with banners fallen, and tents collapsed, and soldiers working to set it aright.
Afonso splashed his fine black boots when he walked, but he did not care. He walked to where he thought the acorn should be, but it was there no longer. Down the hill was a lump of earth where soldiers were planting grass. In a crevasse between two hills was wedged the splintered remains of a wagon and two dead horses.
The captain came to him and bent his knee. He looked like a noble, in his cobalt velvet and gold chain. “I ask you to come, sire, and stand by me, for I have selected those guards who will accompany us, and I mean to address them. I think that you should hear what I have to say.”
Afonso followed. When he arrived in camp he saw that yet another group of soldiers had assembled; and they looked handsome, too, with their uniforms brushed and clean, their swords and brea
stplates polished to a dazzle.
The captain helped Afonso up onto the bed of an open wagon, then he climbed up after. The captain called out to his men, “At midday, we ride into Quintas, there to attend what I am told is an illegal auto-da-fé. There will be a Mass before, with all the priests in attendance. The Host will not be offered to your king. And, as the Inquisition means to thus shame him, I will refuse the Eucharist when it is offered. I may not ask so of you, for I would never require aught which might imperil your souls. But it seemed to me, days or weeks or years later, men, when you are asked if you attended this auto, it would be good to say that you had, but that you did not participate, nor did you lend any aid in the murder of innocents, except to do that which was ordered directly by the Holy Office. When we reach Lisbon, I will stand together with those inquisitors who have argued for clemency. As God is just, I will see the inquisitor-general jailed.”
The captain thanked his men and dismissed them. When they had wandered away, he helped Afonso down from the wagon. “Will you have something to eat, sire? Best that you eat now, rather than later.”
Because the captain wanted him to, he sat outside in the sun while his tent was set in order. He ate a loaf with ham. The captain sat with him and ate an apple with cheese.
“It will be hard, this thing,” the captain said. “But I will not leave your side. Has Father de Melo explained what is to happen?” The captain stared hard at the table as he spoke. Afonso leaned down to catch his eye and wriggled his fingers at him.
The captain raised his head. “Well, sire? Did he?”
“He talked of a Mass and those dressed in black who would be set afire, and so I do not think I will like it.”
“No, Your Highness,” the captain told him. “I think that you will not.”
The day was far too bright, the sun hurtful. Pessoa walked to the square and found the podium ready. In his alb, Father de Melo was laying the corporal atop the three altar cloths, white on white on gleaming white: falls of tepid, sacred snow. Pessoa stopped, but de Melo was intent on his work, and did not see him.
Pessoa walked on, following the path the condemned would take, down a wide street, then a narrow lane where housewives were sweeping steps. The litter gatherer, as he always did, was scraping up the night’s garbage for his pigs. Sunlight sparkled on the cobbles, and heat chased the damp.
He walked past the last of the houses and around a corner until the sight of the pyres stopped him—four were already built, and they stood stark and black against the gaiety of the morning. Yet there was an everyday bustle about the place: hammering carpenters, soldiers bearing pitch, the three executioners barking orders.
He should not have come here, not seen this. He hurried back the way he had come, hurried so fast that he stumbled, not knowing where to seek for safety. He rushed past the square, and de Melo at the altar. Head down, he went past the jail, then to the church, and yet that was not good enough, either, and so he went on; by the old rectory, through the muddy meadow, past the wattle fence, until he was at Soares’s cottage. There, in the refuge of its shadow, he stopped.
Yet it was a shock to hear Soares’s voice raised in anger. To hear someone else, too, shouting beyond that closed door.
“…care not for this!” Soares cried. “And you may leave my presence!”
Magalhães’s reedy “He will not pay! So someone has to, don’t they? And me with nine sanbenitos!”
Pessoa put his hand to the stucco wall. Nine. The wrong count, and Bernardo never corrected it. Nine. He had the wild, senseless hope that, for lack of a sanbenito, Berenice would be saved.
“Take them all back on account and have done with it.”
Magalhães was outraged. “Gomes seized them. He had those king’s guards there, and those Inquisition guards, and he seized them! Said as to illegality, the Holy Office might charge enough crime on his head for a lifetime in prison, didn’t he? So punishment for such a petty debt would give him no terrors. He said as how I should go begging for it. Me! Go begging! When I fair put my eyes out painting those flames. So… no! Don’t turn away from me, father, unless it is to get the strongbox. I saw how money was taken up this morning, and I mean to have it.”
Pessoa put his hand on the latch, and then heard Soares say, “I will go to Gomes with your heresy.”
Such a soft reply issued from Magalhães that Pessoa could not distinguish the words.
“Think you I will not?” Soares asked. “For you laughed at her, and said even as I chastened you, that a rape of a witch was no sin. That would be two of the same, my son—like the heresy which got you a sanbenito. A statement well worth a burning.”
Angry footsteps approached the door and Pessoa shrank back against the rectory wall. Not Castanheda. No one handsome or of importance. No one she could love. He saw the door open and Magalhães emerge, a man not of a grand ugliness, but only a sad mediocrity. To ever have such beauty, he had to force his way. And the shame of it—Magalhães seeing no closer than the end of his cock—the rape’s pathetic nature. He imagined Magalhães throwing a cloth over her face and forcing her down, flinging himself atop her, hurrying, breathless, terrified and excited all at once, hurrying it, fast and over with as quick as a rabbit, no romance, no kisses, lest someone see what he was doing and tell the wife. Magalhães, not Castanheda, shoving his old and wrinkled worm inside.
The tailor glanced to where Pessoa stood, and the man’s eyes widened. He started away, but Pessoa caught him.
He was not a large man, but he was strong, and Berenice so ill. No one there to love her. Dying, and no one there to bring her water. Pessoa whispered, “A very dangerous heresy, José Filipe,” and saw the tailor go fishmouthed.
Magalhães tried to pull away. He stood tiptoe and Pessoa felt the urge to batter and to squeeze, a craving so strong that it felt like lust. He hungered for savagery. He wanted to tighten his fingers and watch that face go purple.
The tailor must have seen murder in his eye. He panicked and began to flail. They staggered, locked in eerie silence, until they fetched up against a low stone wall. There, Pessoa knocked Magalhães to his knees. He pummeled him again. Struck him, struck him until blood spurted.
He should kill him. Right here, right now. Leave the judgment of Gomes to God, but this? This was a small thing. A thing not worthy of continuing.
“No, father!” Magalhães was bleeding from the nose and mouth, all hopeless and weeping. “I have a family, don’t I? What will my children do?”
Pessoa had not counted on his begging, had never expected that. He had not counted on his own sympathies, either, for his hands felt incapable, yet still impassioned, as when lust fails.
The tailor crawled away, sliding in the mud, whooping for breath. Pessoa watched him go. When the man reached the end of the rock wall, Pessoa called after, “An hour, José Felipe, and I will go to Gomes. He will not have to pay for the sanbenitos then.”
The tailor staggered up and fled, arms windmilling in alarm. Pessoa sat in the wet grass and watched the sun climb the trees. He sat, and had still not tapped his rage. Left inside, it would burst him, like a cask of green wine. He began tearing the wall apart, stone by deliberate stone. He worked until he was bathed in sweat and his body trembled.
He raised his head to the sky. The sun was nearly overhead now, the stone wall a ruin, like a fortress that had been sacked. Trembling and exhausted, he went into the cottage.
Soares was seated at the table, his elbows propped, his fingers interlaced, already dressed for Mass. He said blandly, “Best to change cassocks. The alb won’t hide all that.”
Pessoa looked down at himself, at the streaks of mud, the sweat, the bruised and bleeding knuckles. Arms and back aching. Pessoa stripped off his cassock. He washed himself as well as he could in the basin.
When he heard Soares’s voice again, he heard the wry fondness in it. “Something I’ve noticed in you, Manoel: a morning ill-temper.”
At noon, the captain came, leading Doçura
. “Are you ready, sire?”
Afonso said, “They are packing the tents.”
“Yes, Your Highness, for when the auto is over, we will start for home.”
The way the captain said it, Afonso knew he was left with no choice. And perhaps the captain was right; it was time to leave the meadow.
Afonso stood straight as a king and nodded. “Then I will go to God’s grave and say good-bye. I will ring my bell once more for Jandira.”
He walked to the rise where the acorn had once been, and where only a pile of dirt and a pair of dead horses were now. He looked down at the grave. He told God, “You look very ugly, but I suppose the grass will fill in. For now, though, You are all molting, like a fledgling bird.”
He could not see the light under the bank of dirt, but he felt the light’s vibration. You look very fine, God told him.
“I must look fine,” Afonso told him. “For I am the king. They will make paintings of me, and tile murals, and I will be shown holding a sword, although I did rarely; and I will be astride a rearing horse, although horse never reared for me, either.” He looked at God’s grave this way, then that. “It’s all right, really. The grass will probably grow in.”
God asked politely, Do I know you?
“Yes. For I came to visit You often while You were becoming. Now’ that You have become, You seem not to know much of anything.”
I am sorry that I do not remember.
Afonso said, with the courtesy one monarch shows another, “Well, think no more on it. All in all. You did not know me well.”
He should have gone straightaway back to camp, but instead he walked the long way around it, kicking his fine boots in the dirt, ringing his bell; and when he rounded the hill and looked down into a ravine, he saw an arm.
It was the same color as the clay it rested upon—the hue of Portugal’s codfish earth. The linen grave cloth they had buried her in had gone sad and dull as well. It trailed away in dirty ribbons where she had tried to burst her brightness through.
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