‘All of you? How dare you suggest—?’
‘I may be old and weak, but I’m not stupid. Neither the Church nor the scribes need to smuggle in such quantities of paper. Rumour has it that the paper is of poor quality and comes from Valencia. The mule-driver the Morisco questioned was from there, so it’s not the sort hidalgos use to write with, nor a publisher for printing his books.’
Hernando puffed out his cheeks. ‘Can’t we find out who this Morisco is?’
‘If the Valencian mule-driver returns some day . . . but I doubt he will, knowing that someone is asking awkward questions. If you could find him there, in his own land . . . but don’t waste a second,’ the mule dealer advised him.
‘Boys!’ shouted Hernando putting his left foot in the stirrup and swinging his right leg easily over the horse’s back. ‘We’re going.’ He lifted them on to the horse one at a time. ‘If you hear anything else . . .’ he added to Juan. The mule dealer nodded with a smile that showed his gums. ‘Azirat isn’t well,’ he told Francisco when he complained about cutting short their ride. He felt the pressure of Shamir’s hands on his ribs, as if he didn’t believe the excuse given to his little brother. ‘You don’t want him to get worse, do you?’ Hernando insisted, trying to calm Francisco.
In the stables, while the children helped the stable lad unbridle the horse, Hernando warned Abbas of what had happened. Then he ran to Calle de los Barberos.
‘I don’t want to see a single sheet of paper in this house!’ he ordered Fátima, his mother and Hamid – especially Hamid, pointing his finger at him. They met in one of the upstairs rooms away from the children, and he heatedly explained what Juan had told him. The old scholar tried to argue, but Hernando would not let him: ‘Hamid, not even one, understand? We can’t put ourselves at risk, not us, not them,’ he added, gesturing towards the courtyard, where they could hear the children’s laughter. ‘Nor any of the rest of us.’
Fátima was the one who protested: ‘What about the Koran?’ They still kept the copy that Abbas had given them.
Hernando thought for a moment. ‘Burn it.’ All three stared at him in astonishment. ‘Burn it!’ he insisted. ‘God will not hold it against us. We work for Him and it would be little use to Him if we were arrested.’
‘Why don’t you hide it somewhere else?’ Aisha suggested.
‘Burn it! And clear up the ashes. From now on – from the moment you have burnt everything,’ Hernando corrected himself, ‘I want the front door left open. Suspend the children’s classes until we see what is going on. And you, Fátima, hide the necklace where no one can find it. And I don’t want any marks in the walls pointing to Mecca.’
‘I can’t remove them,’ Hamid complained.
‘Then make more, lots more, in all directions. I’m sure you’ll always remember which is the right one. I have to go to the mosque, but we also have to warn Karim and Jalil, especially Karim.’ He studied the three of them. Could he trust them to obey his instructions? Would they try to hide the Koran they had spent so many nights reading? ‘Come,’ he said to Fátima, holding out his hand for her to take.
They left the room and leant on the gallery railing. The children were playing by the fountain below. They were laughing, running around and trying to catch one another and throwing water. The couple stood watching them in silence, until Inés sensed their presence and lifted her face to them, revealing the same black almond eyes as her mother. Francisco and Shamir did the same. As if they understood the significance of the moment, the three children held their parents’ gaze. Ascending like the scent of the flowers intermingled with the coolness of the courtyard, a current of life and joy, of innocence, flowed from them to the upstairs gallery. Hernando squeezed Fátima’s hand as his mother, standing behind him, laid hers on her eldest son’s shoulder.
‘We’ve suffered hunger and great deprivation before reaching here,’ said Hernando, breaking the spell. ‘We mustn’t fail now.’ Suddenly he pulled himself together. Of course he should trust them! ‘Get on with putting the house in order,’ he commanded, turning to Fátima and Aisha. ‘Father,’ he added, turning to Hamid, ‘I trust you.’
He arrived at the cathedral before vespers had finished. Organ music and the chants of the novices who studied with the Jesuits filled the building, flowing between the mosque’s thousand columns. The full cathedral chapter took part in the singing. All its members were obliged to attend every service, and their seats in the choir were arranged in order of hierarchy. Hernando was struck by the smell of incense: coming after the fresh scent of the plants and flowers in his courtyard, that sickly sweet air reminded him of why he was there. He joined the congregation taking part in the service. When it was over he spoke to an attendant, asking him to find Don Julián and let him know that Hernando was waiting.
He waited in front of the iron grille to the library, which was undergoing some rebuilding work. After the death of Bishop Brother Bernardo de Fresneda and with the position unfilled, the cathedral chapter had decided to convert the library into a new and sumptuous sacrarium, in the style of the Sistine Chapel, as the one in the Chapel of the Last Supper was no longer large enough. Part of the library was moved to the bishop’s palace; the rest would coexist with the building works until a new one was built next to the San Miguel gate.
‘Good,’ said the priest, trying to calm Hernando after listening to his passionate explanation. ‘Tomorrow morning I will order them to move our books and papers to the bishop’s palace.’
‘To the bishop’s palace?’ Hernando was astonished.
‘Where better?’ smiled Don Julián. ‘It’s his private library. There are hundreds of books and manuscripts and I am the one in charge of them. Don’t worry about it, I’ll hide them carefully. No matter how many books Brother Martín tries to read, he will never get to ours. Besides, in this way, when the situation calms down we will be able to continue with our work.’
Could I also, thought Hernando, take advantage of Don Julian’s ruse and hide my Koran in Brother Martín of Córdoba’s library?
‘It’s possible I still have a Koran and some lunar calendars in my house . . .’
‘If you bring them to me before prime—’ Don Julián broke off to return the greeting of two passing deacons. Hernando bowed his head and murmured some words. ‘If you bring them to me,’ Don Julián repeated when the priests were out of earshot, ‘I will deal with them.’
Hernando scrutinized the old priest. His composure: was it real or merely a façade? Don Julián guessed his thoughts.
‘Nerves will only lead us to make mistakes,’ he said. ‘We have to overcome this difficulty and continue with our work. Did you ever think this would be easy?’
‘Yes . . .’ Hernando admitted hesitantly after a few moments. It had certainly seemed so lately. At the beginning, when he had gone to the cathedral, he had noticed how his muscles tensed and he jumped at the slightest noise, but then, little by little . . .
‘We must never become over-confident. We should always be on the alert. We have to find this spy before he finds us. Karim will know the Valencian mule-driver. We have to find him and discover who it was that questioned him.’
Karim had been responsible for everything. The others had tried to convince him he should let them help, but the old man refused, and they had to admit that he was right. ‘One person running the risk is enough,’ he maintained. Karim took it upon himself to acquire the paper and deal with the Valencian Moriscos and mule-drivers. He made sure the paper reached Hernando and Don Julián, and it was he who received the books and documents when they were copied. After binding them with the help of a press that he kept in his house, he distributed them around Córdoba. With the exception of the sporadic meetings they held, which would prove little or nothing, no one would be able to link the other members of the Morisco council with the production and sale of copies of the Koran.
They left the cathedral by the San Miguel gate. It was already almost completely dark as they headed u
p Calle del Palacio. Like almost all the Córdoba clergy, Don Julián also lived in the parish of Santa María, in Calle de los Deanes, just round the corner from Hernando. At the junction of Deanes with Manriques, where there was a small square, they were accosted by a brawny-looking man. Hernando’s hand went to the knife that he carried at his waist, but a familiar voice stopped his movements.
‘Calm down! It’s me, Abbas.’ They recognized the blacksmith. He did not beat about the bush. ‘Members of the Inquisition have just arrested Karim,’ he told them. ‘They’ve searched his house and found a couple of copies of the Koran and other parchments. They’ve been seized, together with the press, the knives and the other equipment he used to bind them with.’
39
HIS NAME was Cristóbal Escandalet and he had emigrated from Mérida to Córdoba a few years previously, together with his wife and three young children. He was a buñolero by profession. The delicious buñuelos were Morisco fritters made of a flour mixture and deep-fried in oil. He wandered the city offering many different varieties of his wares; light round buñuelos de viento, the dense buñuelos de jeringuilla, elongated and compact buñuelos soaked in honey. Hamid found the house where he lived, crowded in with four other families in the poor district of San Lorenzo in the extreme west of the city, close to the Plasencia gate.
Hamid had been following him for a couple of days. He studied the way he talked and how he interacted with people. Cristóbal had great charm, and used it to win over potential customers and then hoodwink them; he treated old and new Christians alike. He was about thirty, of average height, lean and wiry. He always moved slowly, laden down with the equipment for frying the buñuelos. Hamid noted the shiny new frying pan. The pastry bag for forming the buñuelos was also new.
The price for betraying Karim! he thought to himself. He watched from a short distance away how Cristóbal proclaimed the excellence of his pastries. It was market day and he was in front of the cross of the Rastro, where the Calle de la Feria met the banks of the river Guadalquivir.
A woman passerby turned round and Hamid held her gaze coldly until she went on her way. Then the holy man returned his attention to the buñolero, to his sinewy arms and his thick strong neck. His throat had to be cut and he, Hamid, had to do it! Only he could do it! That was the sentence for a Muslim who had broken his law. For Cristóbal there was no possibility of repentance: he had betrayed his brothers in faith. As soon as the traitor’s name was known the death sentence had been pronounced, but how could a weak, unarmed old man carry it out?
The Córdoban Morisco community was rocked by the news of Karim’s arrest and confinement in the Inquisition’s prison within the Christian monarch’s fortress. For days there was no other topic of conversation, and some speculated as to the traitor’s identity. A dark shadow fell over the entire community. Karim was a respected old man and many knew of his activities: those who watched the house during the council’s meetings; those who bought copies of the Koran, the prophecies, the lunar calendars or the polemical writings; those who used their travels to work in the countryside to carry books out of Córdoba and distribute them to other Morisco communities in the kingdom. Suspicion ran rife and there were many who had to defend their innocence from sidelong looks or direct accusations. The council members, not wanting to spread even more mistrust, decided not to make public the news that it was indeed a Morisco who had questioned the Valencian mule-driver. However, they were also unable to take any steps to discover his identity. Karim was inaccessible in the Inquisition jail, and his wife was old and shattered by the events, which had come as a complete shock to her. She could tell Abbas nothing when the blacksmith finally managed to see her after Inquisition’s officers had completed the inventory of Karim’s few belongings for requisitioning by the Holy Office.
Denunciation was by far the most disgraceful and abominable of all the crimes a Morisco could commit. Since the time of Emperor Charles V, the role of the Spanish Inquisition had been acknowledged by royal decree and supported by papal bulls. Both the King and the Church were conscious of the inherent difficulties in the so-called conversion of an entire people who had been forcibly baptized. They could not deny that there weren’t enough suitably qualified priests prepared to carry the task through to a satisfactory conclusion. Given this situation, the Church was also acutely aware of the extremely high numbers of relapses, all of whom should clearly end up being burnt at the stake. However, the numbers would be so high as to render the punishment both meaningless and ineffective as a deterrent to others. So it was that for a century the Church had tried to accommodate Moriscos who would simply confess and repent, although in private and without the knowledge of their brothers. The Church was even prepared to extend forgiveness to habitual offenders, offering rewards such as not confiscating their belongings.
However, there was a condition attached to these confessions: the individual also had to denounce other members of their community who practised heresy. None of these offers of clemency were successful. The members of the Morisco community did not betray each other.
On the other hand the people hated the Moriscos. Their industriousness contrasted starkly with the attitude of the Christian artisans, who tried to emulate the nobles and gentlemen in their aversion to any form of work. The people were infuriated to see how the Moriscos, once they had overcome the upheaval of their deportation, prospered once more; little by little, ducat by ducat. The populace also made numerous complaints to the royal councils because of the Moriscos’ fertility. Despite producing such large families they were not called upon to serve in the royal armies, unlike the peasants and Spanish townspeople, whose numbers were decimated year after year.
As Hernando had thought, Fátima and Hamid had not consigned the Koran and the other documents to the fire; they had hidden them beneath the flagstones in the courtyard.
‘Fools,’ he chastised them after finally getting the truth out of them. ‘The Inquisition’s officials would easily have found them.’
Hernando burnt everything except the Koran. He spent the night awake, terrified of hearing the echo of official footsteps heading for his door. Before dawn he concealed the divine book in his robe and headed for the cathedral, following Don Julian’s instruction that he arrive before prime.
Hernando walked down Calle de los Barberos and Deanes and reached the Perdón gate. It was cold, but he carried his robe folded over his right arm, with the Koran pressed against his body. He shivered. With the cold? Only after passing beneath the great arch of the Perdón gate did he realize that the shivers were not caused by the cold. What was he doing? He hadn’t even thought about it. He had just picked up the book to take to Don Julián as if it were perfectly normal and now here he was, in the cathedral garden with a Koran under his arm, surrounded by priests heading for morning prayers. Apart from the bishop, who used the ancient bridge that joined the cathedral to his palace, the rest passed through the Perdón gate; the other council dignitaries, identifiable by their rich robes, and more than a hundred canons and chaplains together with organists and musicians, choirboys, altar boys, wardens, sacristans, guards . . . Suddenly he found himself immersed in a steady flow of priests and all manner of cathedral workers. Some chatted but most were half-asleep, walking in sullen silence. He shuddered. He was in one of the holiest places in all Andalusia with a Koran under his arm! He came to a halt, forcing three choirboys to make their way round him. He pressed the book to his body and, feigning an indifference that he in no way felt, checked it was still covered by the robe. He watched how the stream of men in black habits and birettas converged on the gate of the Bendiciones arch, and passed through into the cathedral itself. Then he made up his mind, and turned to get out of there. He would hide the Koran on some other—
‘Eh!’ Hernando heard the shout behind him and trusted it was not directed at him. ‘You!’ He looked ahead and quickened his pace. ‘Stop!’ A sudden cold sweat broke out and ran down his back. The Bendiciones arch was only . . .
‘Halt!’
Two gatekeepers blocked his way.
‘Didn’t you hear the inquisitor calling you?’ Hernando stammered an excuse and looked to the other side of the gate, towards the street. He could run. He tried to decide: escape? But they would have recognized him and before he could get to Fátima and the children . . . ‘Don’t you understand?’ shouted the other gatekeeper.
Hernando turned towards the garden. A tall, thin priest was waiting there. He knew that one of the canon seats on the cathedral chapter was reserved for a representative of the Inquisition. He hesitated again. He felt the gatekeepers’ breath down the back of his neck and yet . . . the canon was alone; no members of the Inquisition or bailiffs were with him.
He calmed himself and took a deep breath. ‘Father.’ He inclined his head in greeting, walking back to the inquisitor. ‘Forgive me, but I could never imagine that Your Grace would address me, a simple—’
The inquisitor interrupted him, offering his limp hand for Hernando to make the appropriate genuflection. Instinctively he went to take it, but the book under his right arm . . . he took hold of it over the robe with his left and clutched it to his chest as he sank down almost to his knees to ensure that nothing was seen. The inquisitor urged him to get up. Hernando folded the robe over his arm to prevent even the presence of a book being detected. The priest looked him up and down. Hernando pressed the Koran to his chest. The divine revelation was contained there! It should be this book inside the mosque, guarded in the mihrab, and not all those Christian priests with their chants and their statues! There was a warm glow where he held the book, next to his heart, and it spread like a wave through his entire body. Hernando stood up straight and tensed his muscles. By the time the inquisitor finished his inspection, Hernando felt strong again, trusting in God and His word.
The Hand of Fatima Page 48
