by K. C. Dyer
Darrell looked up at Kate and Brodie. “Do you see? He spoke to me about an assistant, too. And I think it must be Conrad!”
Kate shook her head. “I think it should be you in the madhouse, Darrell. How can you make a connection like that? What makes you think it was Conrad? It could have been anyone.”
“Look, I didn’t have time to copy out any of the part with the messy handwriting, but I feel sure it was notes taken by Conrad. Kate, I think he was there all along. It was 1506, right? That is only three years past the time when we left him behind in the fire. Don’t you see? He could still be alive!”
The study door closed softly behind them.
Brodie looked over his shoulder nervously. “Better keep your voice down, Darrell,” he said quietly. “You may be right, though it sounds more like a coincidence to me.”
“It’s no coincidence,” said Darrell. “You guys, I need to go back there. There has to be some meaning to these trips into time — otherwise why would this evidence just become available under our noses? It can’t just be coincidence.”
Kate jumped to her feet. “Look, Darrell, these notes could be about anybody. If it is Conrad, how did he end up in a madhouse in Madrid? He stayed behind in Florence. Italy is a long way from Spain.”
“It said in the notes that he had come from Florence!” Darrell slammed her hand on the table. “It’s him, I know it.”
“Okay, calm down, calm down,” said Brodie. “We can’t do anything about it right now, anyway. And keep your voice down, Darrell, or we’ll be explaining ourselves to the whole school, next.” He pulled out a blank sheet of paper. “How does this sound? We have to do research for Gramps’s project anyway, so let’s find out more.”
He started making notes. “We need to find out all we can about the Inquisition and also about the Protestant Reformation that followed it. Everything was changing in Europe at the time, maybe we can find the key to what was really going on.”
“Look — this isn’t going to get us any closer to finding out if Conrad survived the fire,” said Darrell impatiently. “I vote we just go back and take our chances. The portals through time have never steered us wrong before.”
“Are you kidding? You can’t just go back into that crazy time without knowing a bit more about it,” said Kate, her voice rising. “We got out of there just as two thousand people were about to be massacred in one day. In one day, Darrell! There’s no way I’m going back unless I know that we will be as safe as possible when we arrive, especially to find someone as unpleasant as Conrad.”
“Listen, you two.” Brodie pointed to his notes, his voice calm. “If Darrell researches everything she can find about the Spanish Inquisition, I’ll do the Portuguese, and Kate, you can look into the Reformation. It’ll help with our projects for Gramps and it will help us be more informed about what we’re getting ourselves into if we decide to go back.”
“When we decide to go back, you mean,” said Darrell pointedly.
“Okay, whatever you say, Darrell. I just don’t think we have enough information to make any decision yet.”
Darrell stood up. “We meet in one week,” she said quietly. “Then, information or not, I’m going back to try to find Conrad. Come on, Delaney.” She picked up her books and headed for the library, without a backward glance at the worried looks on the faces of her two best friends.
The rain continued to fall, and Eagle Glen School sat wet and shrouded in fog on its viewpoint high above the water. Darrell glanced at her watch as she sat in the late afternoon light of the school art room. She was putting the finishing touches on a streetscape in water-colours. At the bottom of the painting coursed the Rio Tejo and lining its banks were the crowded homes in the vivid Portuguese colours that she remembered from her quick climb through the hilly landscape of Lisbon. At the top right corner she had just sketched in the outline of the magnificent Castelo de São Jorge, St. George’s Castle. It was hard not to think of it as “the fortress,” Brother Socorro’s name for the place.
“Time to wrap things up, don’t you think?” Mr. Gill was washing brushes in the large sink.
“Uh — I guess so.” It always took Darrell a few minutes to come back into the real world after working on one of her paintings. She dragged herself out of sixteenth-century Portugal and smiled at her art teacher.
“That’s what I like to see,” he said heartily, “an artist who enjoys her work.”
Darrell joined Mr. Gill at the sink and started to wash the paint off her hands. He was right — she did enjoy her work. She enjoyed it not only for the creativity it allowed her to channel onto the canvas but also for the break it gave her from the worries that haunted the rest of her life. She’d spent the last week studying everything she could find about the Inquisition. It was a terrible time and set the stage for much of the change that was to sweep through Europe in the subsequent centuries.
And yet ... If I know about all the most dreadful events and I deliberately stay out of the way, why can’t I go back and find one person — one small, insignificant person — a person who doesn’t belong there anyway? Why can’t I find him and bring him home?
She finished cleaning up and waved an absent goodbye to Mr. Gill. Delaney padded after her, a purple daub on one furry ear, as she hurried down the hall to meet her friends.
Brodie looked over at Darrell’s pile of books and grinned. He pulled a slim file folder out of his backpack. “It’s all here,” he said, flipping open the file.
“I don’t think so.” Kate raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I’ve managed to open fourteen separate computer files just on Martin Luther alone. How did you condense the whole of the Spanish Inquisition down into a single file?”
“Not only a single file,” Brodie said smugly, “but a single page. It’s all in the note taking, Kate. Really, you should pay more attention in class — it would save you so much time.”
He held up his folder just in time to deflect the eraser Kate threw at him. “And it’s good for defensive manoeuvres as well,” he said, his eyes twinkling at Darrell.
“Quit teasing her and tell us what you’ve got,” pleaded Darrell. “Every day we dawdle around here at Eagle Glen means finding Conrad is going to be that much harder.”
Kate stopped throwing things. “We are never going to find him, Darrell. You have to just get used to the idea that Conrad is gone for good.”
“For good? What’s good about it? I feel like I condemned the guy to some kind of hell on earth.”
Brodie sighed. “Darrell, we’ve been through this before. What happened to Conrad was not your fault. It was his poor decision-making combined with simple bad luck. You had nothing to do with it.”
“I know, I know. I just wish I could talk things out with Professor Tooth.”
“Now that is weird, come to think of it. She’s still not back,” mused Brodie. “I’ve gotten kinda used to Gramps.”
“I’ve gotten used to Paris tormenting Gramps,” said Kate. “The sorry thing is that the old fellow doesn’t even seem to notice.”
“I’m going to notice when I get Paris’s mark on my report card and he gets mine,” said Brodie glumly. “Gramps still hasn’t figured out who I am.”
Darrell tapped Brodie’s file folder with her charcoal pencil. “Can we get on with this, please? Tell us what you’ve got.”
“Okay, here goes.” He cleared his throat. “There was a lot of messing around between the kings and queens and the church, basically a big power struggle that lasted for generations. In the end, royalty decided that they were answerable only to God — it was called the ‘Divine Right of Kings.’ So if you were a king or a queen, you got to make all the rules. As you can imagine, this didn’t sit well with the common folk. But it was like we saw in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: religion was still a big part of everybody’s life — even royalty. They all believed that God was on their side.”
Darrell nodded. “Remember how often the people prayed during the time of the Black
Plague? They were in church two or three times a day.”
“Okay, but that was just Europe, right?” said Kate. “What about everywhere else? Not everyone was a Christian.”
“No kidding,” said Brodie. “Try half the world. And, not surprisingly, that was the source of a lot of strife. Almost right from the start, European Christians were running off on crusades, trying to convert the heathen.”
“Except the people the Christians called heretics and barbarians were not always ready to agree to convert so easily,” said Kate.
“And that’s what happened in Spain,” continued Brodie. “When Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile it was a big deal, because the two of them were both heir to huge kingdoms. Their marriage basically solidified Spain into a country for the first time. Since they were both strong Catholics they decided to make it the religion of all the people.”
“Is this where the torturing comes in?” said Kate, shuddering.
“Sort of,” admitted Brodie. “Isabella had her own personal priest, and she appointed him head Inquisitor. The Catholic Church had been supporting the conversion of Jews, Muslims, and people of other faiths for centuries. Isabella just gave her priest the right to speed up the process in Spain. His name was Tomás de Torquemada.”
Darrell dropped her pencil with a clatter. “Brother Socorro mentioned him,” she said quickly. “He said something about Torquemada being a quick route to the flames.”
Brodie nodded. “Yeah, well, that was his preferred method of conversion. If someone was accused of practising another religion — usually Judaism — in secret, they were sentenced to be burned at the stake. However, they were given a chance to be baptized as a Christian before being burned. If they chose to convert to Christianity, their sentence was commuted.”
“So they would live?” asked Kate.
“Nope. They got their heads cut off first, though. Considered a much more merciful death.”
Darrell winced. “Quicker, anyway.”
“No kidding. And the people who refused to kiss the cross were burned to death at a stake surrounded with green wood, so that it took longer to consume them in flames.”
Kate put her hands over her ears. Her skin had gone stark white. “And this is where you want to go traipsing back to find Conrad?” she whispered. “You think that he would have survived in such a barbaric time?”
“Oh, but you’ve got that wrong, Kate,” said Brodie. “The Christians did not see themselves as barbarians. They were purifying everyone else’s barbarian souls through fire.” He turned over his page. “It didn’t hurt that the Spanish needed money to finance the wars against the Moors, either. So in 1492, ten years after he had taken over as head Inquisitor, Torquemada introduced the great expulsion.”
“I know about that,” interrupted Darrell. She pulled out the book her uncle had given her for her birthday. “This is just a novel, but it tells a lot about a family who escaped from Spain during the expulsion,” she said, and flipped through the dog-eared pages. “Like, here’s a section where they talk about climbing through the mountains to Portugal ...”
Kate snorted. “And a lot of good that did them,” she said. “The king of Portugal started his own Inquisition just a few years later.”
“It’s weird,” said Darrell slowly. “Everyone seemed to think that theirs was the only way to heaven. The Islamic Moors fought the Christians and the Christians slaughtered the Jews.”
“Kinda like watching the eleven o’clock news today,” said Brodie gloomily. “I never know who the dead bodies belong to, but they almost always belong to one religious faction or another.”
“Okay, you guys, we’re getting off track here,” said Darrell impatiently. “Kate, what did you find out about Martin Luther?”
Kate flipped open the lid of her laptop and tapped a few buttons. “Well, like I said, there’s a lot of stuff out there about him. But it all comes down to this. He was a priest in Germany and he got pretty fed up with the Catholic Church, primarily for selling indulgences, which were kind of a get-out-of-jail-free card for the rich. According to what I read, they could pay the church for an indulgence, which would guarantee them or a member of their family a place in heaven.”
Brodie laughed. “Hey, I’d like one of those!”
Kate grinned. “Anyway, he wrote down all his complaints — ninety-five of them — and nailed them onto the door of a church. This was pretty much the start of the Reformation movement in Germany.”
“So after all the violence of the Spanish Inquisition and with a lot of corruption everywhere in the Catholic Church, people started protesting against the church all over Europe,” said Brodie. “In France, the protestors were called the Huguenots.”
“And in Scotland, a guy called John Knox started protests, too.”
Darrell flipped open one of her books. “But that wasn’t until the middle of the sixteenth century,” she said impatiently. “That’s too late. We need to figure out where Conrad is based on what we know about things at the beginning of the Reformation. Here’s what we know.” She began counting off items on her fingers. “One: Socorro was helping people escape from the Inquisition, right? Mostly Jewish people, but probably a few others as well. Two: he had a helper of some sort whose name he wouldn’t tell us. And,” she waved three fingers in the air, “I found that book, which looked like a ledger, but with long lists of letters. I think they were initials of the people that Socorro helped. And in the back of that book was a diary — and I am sure part of it was written by Conrad.”
“Okay, Darrell, if you’re making lists, here’s one for you,” said Kate. “One: Conrad hated school and hated writing. He’s the last person in the world who would keep a diary. Two: even if it was Conrad’s diary, the last we saw of Socorro was as he was being taken away by guards. He probably didn’t survive the night. And three: finding a person lost in time is harder than finding a needle in a haystack.” She sat back in her chair. “We should just leave well enough alone.”
Darrell jumped up. “You’re wrong, Kate,” she said furiously. “But you are welcome to stay here. There is a reason that portal took us back to the Portuguese Inquisition. I believe the reason was for us to meet Brother Socorro. And at the bottom of those steps in the secret passage there is a tunnel full of portals. If I have to explore all of them to find out what happened to Conrad, I will.”
Brodie reached out and pulled Darrell back down into her chair. “Just calm down for a minute, willya?” he said quietly. “How much of this is really about Conrad, Darrell?”
She turned on him furiously. “Now what does that mean?”
Brodie shared an uneasy glance with Kate. “It means — uh — well, it means that you lost your dad when you were really young, and in a horrible way.” His words came tumbling out before she could object. “You lost your dad and you lost your foot, and I think you put Conrad into the same category and you feel like you’ve lost him, too. But the truth of the matter is,” Brodie stopped and took a deep breath, “the truth is that none of these things are your fault, Darrell. You have to quit trying to fix things and quit blaming yourself. Maybe you just need to let it all go.”
Darrell felt ready to explode. She opened her mouth to roar at Brodie, but suddenly closed it instead. She dropped her face into her hands and stayed that way for several long moments. When she sat up again, her face was calm.
“Maybe you’re right, Brodie. I’ve had a pretty crazy life so far. Maybe I just need to let things look after themselves for a while.”
Kate’s jaw dropped and she let out a whoop. “I don’t believe it. Way to go, Brodie! I never thought you’d get her to see the light!” She turned to Darrell and hugged her. “This is the right decision, Darrell. You need to spend some time worrying about your art and your school work. Just be a normal kid for a while.”
Darrell nodded. “Yeah. And my Uncle Frank offered to take me shopping in Vancouver over the weekend, so maybe I’ll take him up on it. Just give myself a
break.”
“Nobody deserves it more,” beamed Kate.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Atinny beeping sound in her ear woke Darrell, and she sat up, feeling groggy and disoriented. How had she fallen asleep? She’d been so worried she thought it would be no trouble to stay awake. So much for taking a break. She’d take a break when she’d managed to find Conrad and bring him back to Eagle Glen where he belonged.
She reached down and felt around beside her bed for her prosthesis. Everything else she needed was bundled into a spare pillowcase on her bed. She adjusted her leg and then piled the bedclothes into a lump that she hoped would resemble a sleeping figure. It wouldn’t matter anyway — she’d covered any questions by giving everyone the line about Uncle Frank taking her shopping. Everyone knew he was an early riser. She’d just say she left before anyone woke up. That gave her two full days to find Conrad, which meant a lot of time in the strangely condensed world of the past. More time than she’d ever need.
An almost full moon shone through the curved glass of the window, with Venus gleaming brightly beneath and both reflected back on the countless waves below. Delaney’s tail thumped once on the floor, but Darrell had remembered to bring up a few biscuits to bribe him into silence. It was a happy dog, licking his chops, that followed the shadow of a girl down the quiet school hallway towards the library door.
The school was old and full of its own noises in this first hour of a February morning. It creaked and shivered like an old man dreaming, and Darrell jumped and hid in a doorway more than once, only to find it was just the old building, settling in its sleep. She closed the library door behind Delaney with a sigh of relief. All abed and none the wiser — just the way she wanted it.
“I think we’ll just skip the lights, okay boy?” she whispered to Delaney. “Don’t want to attract attention now that we’re in the clear.”
Delaney dashed to the back of the long room ahead of Darrell, and she made her way more cautiously along one of the lengthy corridors, running her fingers along the spines of the books to guide herself through the dark. She could hear Delaney snuffling happily near the hidden entranceway, and she reached into her cloth bag for a small flashlight. When a light shone into her face and blinded her, she continued to muddle around in the bag for a moment, thinking she had somehow switched it on.
