By Fire, By Water

by Mitchell James Kaplan

  For Annie

  The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease.

  —NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE,

  The House of the Seven Gables

  PROLOGUE

  Darkness in Zaragoza

  July 1487

  UNDER A SLIVER MOON, Luis de Santángel, royal chancellor of Aragon, trudged down a narrow street toward the center of the capital, his high boots softly clopping against the cobblestones. A silk surcoat covered most of his tunic and hose. Abundant chestnut hair, tinged with gray, fell to the top of his back. Beside him shuffled Abram Serero, shorter than Santángel, with rounded shoulders, a thick chest, and a close copper-red beard.

  They stopped before a stone building. Santángel pulled open the massive door. Fumes wafted out, cold, musty, rancid. Overwhelmed, Serero stumbled backward.

  At the bottom of the stairwell, the chancellor clanked a metal ring. A man coughed. A key rattled. The door grated as it swung open.

  The warden of the ecclesiastical jail, a dwarf in a formless robe, held a fat candle. Santángel handed him a pouch. “This is for your discretion. Show us to his cell.”

  The warden counted the coins. He raised his eyes and peered at the chancellor as if to discern his features.

  “Please refrain from gazing at me.”

  “Certainly, my lord. I meant no harm.”

  The two visitors lowered their heads and descended into the dwarf’s bedchamber. A jug of wine sat on the beaten-earth floor. A blanket dangled from the bed, a niche in the wall.

  The warden led them through another archway and down narrow corridors. He opened a door into a cramped cell where Luis de Santángel’s brother Estefan—his brother who was not, in truth, his brother—lay on the dirt floor, a gaunt and squalid heap. The chancellor fell to his knees. Estefan’s eyes, beneath their lids, twitched.

  “He is a brave man,” said the dwarf. “He didn’t give in.”

  “When did he last eat?”

  “I leave what I can. A piece of cheese. A crust of bread. But the rats finish it before he gets to it.”

  “Thank you.” Santángel glanced at Serero. “What are we to do? He can’t ask God for forgiveness.”

  “He need not ask for forgiveness. We can still pray. Perhaps he will hear.”

  Abram Serero began chanting softly, in a rich baritone, a prayer recited every year on the Day of Atonement. Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu, dibarnu dofi, hevinu. We have been guilty, we have betrayed, we have stolen, we have spoken falsely, we have caused others to sin.

  Luis de Santángel watched his brother’s face. Estefan, more than any other man, had witnessed the chancellor’s struggle, taken pride in his precarious triumphs, cringed before the demons that haunted both their lives. He had cautioned Luis about the perils of their secret identity. Yet he was the one held captive in this place. Luis de Santángel gathered his reeking, emaciated brother into his arms and rocked him gently.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Rome, Six Years Earlier

  A TURKISH SLAVE ESCORTED Luis de Santángel and his translator, Cristóbal Colón, through the wide marble hallways of the papal palace. “First, endeavor to put him at ease,” said the chancellor. “Speak of all you know and share. Then, as soon as he’s comfortable …”

  “I shall disappear behind the mask of my purpose.” As he walked, Colón pushed his wavy mane, the color of wheat mixed with ashes, back from his forehead. His face, lined and tanned, appeared to be a few years older than Santángel’s. At thirty, he was in fact two years younger.

  Their Turkish escort stopped at the door of the pope’s bedroom. Cluttered with candelabras, tapestries from Arras, sculptures of saints and angels by Luigi Capponi and Andrea Bregno, paintings of the Annunciation and the Nativity by Perugino, and a large gold birdcage filled with canaries and finches, this single chamber served as the pope’s throne room, dining room, and washroom. A food taster stood by his bedside to check each plate and cup for poison. A clerk sat at the desk, jotting notes on every word uttered. Two guards watched the door. Although the palace boasted more than a thousand rooms, the pope received cardinals, kings, princes, and their most influential advisors without rising from bed.

  “Luis de Santángel, chancellor of Aragon, and Cristóbal Colón, a ship’s captain, who will translate for him.”

  “Show them in.”

  Under a velour blanket, magenta and cream, the pope’s stomach protruded like a rat in a snake’s belly. His face, with its small eyes, long aquiline nose, and recessed chin, reminded Santángel of a falcon. The chancellor and the ship’s captain knelt at the pope’s bedside.

  “You have voyaged a great distance,” remarked the pope.

  “Tell him about yourself,” Santángel encouraged Colón, in Castilian. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk about me.”

  Colón turned back to the pope. “Voyaging great distances is my life. But my heart remains in Liguria, where I grew up, and where Your Holiness spent so much of his youth. My uncle Nicolo, he knew you, many years ago.”

  The pope frowned, searching his memory. “Colón …”

  “In Castile, yes, I’m Colón,” explained the captain. “But in Genoa, I’m Christoffa Colombo, son of Domenico, the weaver.” The two names, though similar in sound, were vastly different in meaning, as both men knew. Colón meant “colonizer,” while Colombo meant “dove.”

  “Ah, yes. Nicolo Colombo, the cloth merchant. A talented man. And honest, or so it seemed.”

  “Talented, yes,” confirmed the captain.

  “But not so honest, perhaps?” The pope’s eyebrows swam into his forehead.

  Colón glanced at the chancellor. “My uncle, he cheated nearly everyone. He borrowed my father’s inheritance, then lost it. The magistrate Giambattista Fregoso—”

  “Yes, yes, I knew his brother,” rasped the pope.

  “My uncle sold him wool for a coat. Fregoso found the same fabric down the street for a third of what he paid. But the magistrate, he was no fool, Your Holiness. He got his revenge.”

  The pope smiled, savoring the gossip. “How?”

  “In those days, the two men were seeing the same prostitute.”

  “Who?”

  “Donna Sofia, in the Gobbe.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “Let us say Fregoso paid her well. She gave my uncle a moment he never forgot.”

  The pope laughed heartily, his double chin wiggling. His face turned scarlet. Luis de Santángel was pleased to witness the warm feelings developing between the two.

  “And how is your father?” the pope resumed, to Colón. “I believe I met him once.”

  “I have no idea,” replied the captain. “Haven’t spoken with him in years.”

  “Why not?”

  “If you’ll pardon the expression, Your Holiness, he’s a goatish, addle-pated lout.”

  The pontiff’s laughter degenerated into a fit of coughing.

  “How can I help you, Chancellor?” The pope recovered, turning his eyes to Santángel.

  “Most Holy Father,” began the chancellor in Castilian with as much confidence as he could muster. “I hesitate … I hesitate to impugn an institution that was created by, or with, the sanction of the Holy Church.” He inhaled deeply, steeling himself.

  Colón translated fluidly. Glibly, perhaps, reflected Santángel.

  “And which institution might that be?”

  “The New Inquisition,” replied Santángel, “which Father Tomás de Torquemada has established in Castile, and which he hopes to import to Aragon.”

  “He hopes to?”

  “We have our cortes. Our legal councils. So far, we have prevailed. But without the support of Rome, we won’t prevail for long.”

  “Please, continue.
”

  Santángel noted the pope’s interest. He suspected the pontiff held little enthusiasm for Torquemada’s enterprise. Unlike the traditional Inquisition, the New Inquisition in Castile refused to divide its spoils with Rome, instead sharing them exclusively with Queen Ysabel.

  “As you well know, Your Holiness, this New Inquisition ignores almost all forms of heresy, except one—‘judaizing.’ And that one it pursues with a zeal we’ve never before seen.”

  The pope coughed into his fist.

  “Your Holiness,” resumed Santángel, “in Madrid, Segovia, and Cordoba, friends spy on friends, neighbors on neighbors, children on their parents. Even criminals lodge accusations.”

  He paused to allow his translator to catch up.

  “There’s no punishment,” pursued the chancellor, “despite the Ninth Commandment of our holy book, for bringing false accusations. If two men claim they heard another express heretical thoughts, that man’s conviction is assured. He’ll have to confess and pay penance, often everything he possesses, whether he be guilty or not. The man’s accusers will receive a portion of the spoils—a rich temptation, especially for criminals.”

  He swallowed to slow his speech, but the rush of thoughts and emotions propelled him forward. “And even after the suspect confesses, it won’t be enough. He’ll have to name other secret heretics, whether or not he knows any.”

  In the huge birdcage, one of the canaries warbled. The chancellor stopped. He had hardly begun to enumerate his grievances, but did not wish to tax his gracious listener.

  When Colón, in turn, ceased speaking, the pope nodded. “I sympathize with your confusion and pain. But I’m not sure I fully understand your reasoning.”

  “What can I clarify, Your Holiness?”

  “Do you deny that we must fight to preserve the integrity of our faith? Or do you feel that every man should feel free to think and act as he wishes?”

  Santángel stiffened. “That is not what I’m advocating.”

  “Let me ask you a question. Are you, yourself, a converso?” The pope knew the Spanish term, which designated one whose parents or grandparents had abandoned the Jewish faith and embraced the faith of Christ, usually under duress.

  “I am a Christian, Your Holiness.”

  The pope nodded slightly. “And how did you come to work so closely with the king and queen, in the conjoined courts of Aragon and Castile?”

  “My father was chief tax farmer of Valencia.” The chancellor spoke more cautiously. “Even as a boy, I was on familiar terms with royalty. Not only in Castile, but in Aragon as well. As you surely know, Holy Father, the project of marrying the realms of Castile and Aragon was the work of many minds.”

  The pope’s lips curled into a half-repressed grin. “And now, you feel trapped, serving a regime whose interest—particularly, whose zeal to confiscate the property of rich conversos—no longer corresponds with yours.” Again, he coughed. His taster handed him a glass of almond liquor.

  The pope resumed: “You can’t walk away from the coveted position you’ve created for yourself. You’d lose not only the power you wield over your subordinates, and perhaps a great deal of your wealth, but more importantly, you would lose your precious influence over the Crowns. Is that not so?”

  Still kneeling, Santángel gripped the bedrail.

  “You see,” added the pope, “in this corrupt world of ours, everyone must make compromises.” He glanced at his guards.

  Appreciating the pope’s honesty, Santángel followed his eyes. The two guards turned. It was a cue whose meaning was not lost on the chancellor. “Holy Father, thank you for hearing me.”

  From his pocket, he removed a leather box filled with gold coins. Upon the pope’s gesture, Santángel placed the box on the bedside table.

  Though owned by the Church, Civitavecchia bustled as brassily as any other port town. Standing in the open doorways of their brick-and-stone two- and three-story homes, merchants called out their wares.

  “Mussels, clams, sardines, still wiggling in their juices!”

  “Candles for your bedside! Iron fixtures I have, hinges, rods, door locks!”

  “From Perugia, the finest soap!”

  “Hot brew, step inside! Come, come!”

  In the heavy air, victuals, old urine, and spices blended into one pungent stench. Drunks loitered outside taverns. A child, brandishing a stick, chased a barking mutt down the street. Prostitutes in garish dresses competed for the gentleman’s eye. Santángel and Colón ignored them as they plodded toward the harbor.

  “Are we ready to sail, then?”

  “Just chasing a few stragglers,” replied the captain. “We’ll be off before long.”

  “We haven’t got a full crew?”

  “Don’t worry, Chancellor. These louts, when they’re not pouring ale down their gullets, they’re wasting their vigor in brothels. But we’ll find enough men. This town is full of sailors. They all get hungry sooner or later.”

  At the end of a narrow, dark alley, the sky and sea opened before them like an immense gate. Galleys and caravels, encrusted with barnacles, rigged with blackened, swaying ropes, their sails yellow-brown and patched, clustered about the docks like pigs at a feeding trough. Carpenters, blacksmiths, and caulkers hammered and sawed on the worn bulwarks. Sailors hauled crates up long gangways. Gulls circled and called in the tar-scented morning air.

  A square-rigged caravel had come in. Crewmen lowered its jib sail and reamed its scuppers, the drains that channeled water off the main deck. On the quay, a grizzled merchant-sailor harangued a motley crowd of shopkeepers, guildsmen, farmers, and loiterers. Portly, with tight leggings, a laced linen shirt that must once have looked extravagant, sagging jowls, and wet hair the hue of charred driftwood, he injected every word with a ragged, grim earnestness. His human cargo slouched and slumped behind him, a sorry assortment of outlanders exuding sweat, fear, and defiance, chained together at the ankles. Their bruises testified to a harrowing voyage.

  As Santángel and Colón approached, the slave merchant pulled forward a captive. “This miscreant, his wife, poor thing, passed on during the crossing. What a feisty, wild animal she was. Her husband’s eyes, as you see, gentlemen, they’re still brimming with tears.”

  The slave was a burly man with a thick moustache and curly, shoulder-length hair the color of mud. The raw, red stripes of a recent lashing streaked his chest and arms. He directed his murky regard somewhere in the distance.

  “But his boy, here,” the merchant tugged a child forward, “not more than ten, and as pliant as clay. He’ll grow big, like his father. Raise him right, you’ll have a sturdy laborer.”

  The boy’s father drew his son to his chest, shouting something incomprehensible. The crowd answered with hoots, yelps, and laughter. Luis de Santángel found no humor in it. He, too, had lost his wife and had been left raising a son alone.

  “Six silver lire,” a man in a hair tunic called to the slave merchant.

  The merchant ignored this insulting offer. “Let me tell you another secret about this fellow. We put him to work on our caravel. Yes, we did.” He turned to a member of his crew. “How good a sailor was he, Giovanni?”

  The sailor spat and answered, “Real good.”

  The child was now sobbing, his bare stomach contracting in spasms.

  “Why don’t we bid on them?” Santángel asked Colón. “We need sailors, don’t we? The boy can be our steward. Purchase them both.”

  Colón called out an offer. Others began increasing their bids. In the end, Colón won the father and the boy. The price Santángel paid for them, the captain found not merely excessive but outrageous. How any man could blithely cast away so many of the same gold pieces that Colón labored and sweated endlessly for, on stormy seas and in freezing ports, he could not fathom. Luis de Santángel, the royal chancellor of Aragon, was reputed to be astute, haughty, and guileful; but these epithets, Colón sensed, hardly sufficed to define him.

  Santángel’s eyes d
rank in the immensity of the Giustizia, a resplendent man-of-war, a hundred and thirty feet long, twenty-eight across, its carved hull painted in ocher and gold leaf, radiant under the cobalt sky. For Santángel, the procurement of this warship represented a triumph. With Colón’s assistance, he had transformed a perilous investment, silver and ivory from the Southern Continent, into a windfall not only for himself, but also for the Crown of Aragon.

  “All fitted-out to meet your king’s desires.” Colón stopped, pulled tight the cord around his linen smock, and corrected himself: “Our king’s desires.”

  At present, Colón was living in Lisbon, where his brother was a mapmaker, but he intended to resettle in Spain. He wanted those close to the king and queen, and especially Santángel, to think of him as a Spaniard.

  Santángel stepped back to view the ship better. He ran his palm over his cheek. “She is splendid.”

  “Let me show you.” Placing a hand on Santángel’s back, Colón guided him to the main deck, past rope cages that held pigs, chicken, and sheep. He led him up narrow stairwells to the forecastle and the poop castle, fitted with swivel guns and cannons. He escorted Santángel down to the galley and the hold, where barrels stacked three-high contained gunpowder and ammunition, extra sails, pickled beef, olive oil, diluted wine, and fresh water. He ushered Santángel into a small room below the gun deck all the way aft, dimly lit through a narrow, rectangular porthole.

  “A stateroom to yourself, Chancellor.”

  The chancellor grabbed hold of a post, adjusting to the ship’s slow up-and-down motion, and glanced about the tight, oaken chamber. Tar-filled floor planks, a hay mattress, covered with a dusky linen cloth, two candles in a wrought-iron lantern. “And the sailors, where do they sleep?”