Finally we were allowed to pass beneath the central archway—flanked on either side by a pair of guards—into the prison, where the smell grew so foul I pressed a kerchief to my nose. Antonio seemed not to notice. A guard led us down a broad corridor with doors on either side. Clearly, the rooms had previously served as cells for monks, as the archways above the doors were painted with religious tableaus: the Nativity, the Crucifixion, the Assumption of Mary. But now the heavy wooden doors were fortified with black iron bars and padlocks.
Near the end of the hallway, one of the doors sat ajar. Here the guard stopped and gestured for me—but not Antonio—to enter. I felt a thrill of panic. What if I was being tricked—and being arrested now, at this moment?
My nerves weren’t helped by the fact that Fray Tomás de Torquemada was sitting behind a small desk, waiting for me; behind him—as if he needed protection from me, a mere girl—stood a burly man bearing a long sword.
“Come,” Fray Tomás said, in the warmest, most inviting tone he’d used yet. “Please, doña Marisol, come sit and talk with me.” He noted my reaction to the guard standing behind him and gave a short, insincere laugh, more like a bark, as the guard stepped around us to close the door behind us, leaving Antonio standing in the corridor. “Don’t let Ignacio cause you any concern. He’s simply here as a chaperone. Please, sit down.”
Reluctantly I obeyed and sat on the stool across the desk from him.
And he smiled at me, the penetrating, lipless smile of the serpent in Eden. I was surprised yet again by how ugly he was—his tiny eyes embedded in a face full of flesh that looked like a child’s clumsy effort to throw a lump of clay on the potter’s wheel; his nose thick, pockmarked, and shapeless; his head crowned by the coarse, curly silver and brown fringe encircling his grayish white scalp.
“I mean you no harm,” he said pleasantly. “You’re of far too much use to us to be in any danger.”
If he meant to reassure me, he failed; I was more concerned about someone else. “Where is my father, Fray Tomás? What have you done with him?”
“You’ll see him presently.” He leaned forward over the desk, and his homely features shifted from welcoming to subtly intimidating. “First, I have a few questions for you. Remember, I am questioning you as a member of the Holy Office of the Inquisition; if you lie, therefore, you are not only committing perjury, you are endangering your immortal soul.”
I sent up a quick prayer to God, asking that He would protect those I loved from any careless remark I might make, and then braced myself for questions about my family. But Torquemada’s first question caught me off guard.
“How well do you know Antonio Vargas, doña?”
I started, but controlled myself quickly; Torquemada missed none of it. “Not well at all,” I said, feigning more scorn and outrage than I actually felt at the moment. “We played together when we were children. But he went off to university and never communicated with me again.”
“Hmm.” Something I’d said caused a light to flicker in his narrow eyes. “I had heard that he had told you he would marry you when he returned from Salamanca…?”
“That’s true,” I admitted after a pause. “But he stopped writing me a few years ago. Long enough for me to realize that he was a liar.”
“So you have no feelings for him?”
“No,” I said emphatically, cursing my burning cheeks.
He rested his elbows upon the desk, hands folded as if in earnest prayer, and brought his face uncomfortably close to mine; his gaze was breathtakingly cold. “So if you believed him to be guilty of a crime against Mother Church and the Spanish Crown, you would report it to me at once?”
“Yes, of course,” I said, with an ease that made me proud. I neither flinched nor looked away but held his gaze fast, knowing at that instant that I could never do such a thing to Antonio unless he had also committed a heinous crime against humanity. My childhood friend had betrayed me, hurt me—but I had no intention of doing the same to him.
“And you would come tell me if you suspected anyone else of heresy?”
I nodded eagerly.
“Then why,” Torquemada pressed, his tone suddenly icy with contempt, “did you not report your own mother for your entire life?”
I stared at him.
“Her suicide—for that is what rumor says—is itself an admission of guilt,” Torquemada said. “Otherwise, what had she to fear from us? Why kill herself unless she was trying to hide something from us?
“It is your duty, Marisol, to tell us why your mother felt she had to die.”
A clever man, Torquemada. In only a minute, he’d brought me to the edge of tears.
“She drowned accidentally. But of course, anyone with Jewish blood would be afraid of the Inquisition. Her parents were killed by Old Christians.…” The minute the last sentence was out of my mouth, I regretted it.
Another sudden spark in the tiny hazel eyes. “And her parents’ names would be…?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I don’t know. I only know they died violently.”
“A pity,” he responded, in a tone so devoid of feeling it would have been infuriating if it hadn’t been so chilling. “Be that as it may, let me suggest a course of action to you. It seems that Francisco Sánchez has taken a sudden liking to you. That he invited you to his home. Is this not true?”
I became aware of my rapid heartbeat and forced myself to draw a deep breath. I meant no harm to don Francisco or his family, but it was very possible that a spy—even Antonio, despite Torquemada’s attempt to cast suspicion on him—had witnessed the warm exchange between don Francisco and me at the queen’s palace. Or worse, had somehow learned of my visit to his home that very morning. And so I was forced to tell the truth, in hopes of playing along for a little while.
“Yes,” I told Torquemada.
He leaned back, and the ghost of a smile crossed his features.
“I would suggest, doña Marisol, that you consider denouncing don Francisco in order to save your father’s life. We have more than enough evidence to convict your father and sentence him to death. But you could change that—and save your own skin as well—by gathering evidence against don Francisco.”
I struggled to keep my tone from sounding ragged. “What sort of evidence?”
The friar didn’t hesitate. “That don Francisco engages in crypto-Jewish practices. More importantly, that he is funneling large amounts of gold, silver, and gems belonging to himself and other conversos out of Seville. And helping fellow conversos escape. All these are mortal crimes against church and Crown, punishable by death.”
I forced myself not to flinch; I’d heard enough as a girl about the terrible Inquisition just to the north of Spain, where hundreds if not thousands had been burned alive at the stake—a slow, hideous death.
And then I realized it could actually happen to my father if I wasn’t willing to make don Francisco die.
I lifted my gaze to see Torquemada studying me with an intense predatory but pleased expression; no doubt he’d read my thoughts all too well.
He signaled to the guard. “Ignacio. Would you bring the prisoner in, please?” His tone was faintly gloating.
Ignacio obeyed, and when I heard the door creak open, I couldn’t sit still but jumped up and turned around to face the open doorway, where my father stood.
Flanked by Antonio on one side and a tall, wiry guard on the other, my father seemed barely recognizable. Don Diego’s shoulders had always been strong and square, but now they had buckled and his head had bowed beneath the weight of shackles on his wrists and ankles. He shuffled into the room like a man thirty years older. As he neared, I could see that the skin around his pale eyes was taut and quivering; that, along with his tense posture revealed the severity of his physical suffering. Always clean-shaven, he now sported all-silver bristles on his face; there was a streak of pure white in his uncombed light brown hair, which hadn’t been there the day before.
I wanted to run t
o him but managed to hold myself back. My father croaked emotionlessly, “Don’t touch me. I have lice.”
He showed no joy at the sight of me; his gaze was so guarded that he showed no reaction at all. For a fleeting second, I was hurt by his rejection, but then I understood why he had married me off to Gabriel and had pretended to disown me, why he would not look in my eyes now. It was all calculated to protect me and to refuse to give Torquemada joy at the sight of our torment.
For the first time since my mother’s death, I felt pride and uncomplicated love for my father. And because I wanted him to take pride in me, I straightened my shoulders the way that he could not, banished all emotion from my features, and turned from him. I retook my place on the stool across from Torquemada and forced myself not to look at my father’s face.
Torquemada scowled first at my father, then at me.
“You show little interest in your fate, don Diego,” he said. “Are you still determined to be burned alive at the stake, or will you take pity on your daughter here and give us the names we want? Else she will join you soon.”
“Marisol is strong,” my father answered tonelessly, “and I will not dishonor her or her mother by becoming a liar this late in my life. I denounce no one—for I know of no one guilty of your charges.”
“You married a Judaizer!” Torquemada thundered. “For that alone, you deserve to die. But we will spare you if you confess”—and now Fray Tomás’s ugly gaze fixed itself on me—“or if your daughter confesses.”
“I am innocent and have nothing to confess,” my father breathed. “And I am ready to die. As for my daughter, she has no business being involved in the matter, as she is entirely innocent and naive.”
I wanted to beg him to do precisely as Torquemada asked. But he was honorable, like my mother, and truly did prefer death to causing the slaughter of innocent others. I couldn’t force him to go against his own conscience.
“Doña Marisol,” Fray Tomás snapped, clearly irritated with both of us. “Remember: Your answer could save your father’s life. Was your mother a crypto-Jew? Did she pray on Friday nights? Observe Passover?”
“No,” I said, with a vehemence that made Torquemada lift his grizzled brows.
“Well, then, have you nothing to say to your father?”
“Yes,” I said. “I wish to tell him that I love him.” Despite all my efforts, my eyes brimmed and a single hot tear spilled from my cheek into my lap.
“Love him enough to help save him?”
“Yes,” I whispered, and Torquemada gave another smug grin.
My father spoke dispassionately. “I wish to tell my daughter that I love her no matter what she chooses. And I bid her farewell.”
Torquemada jerked to his feet.
“That’s enough from you, don Diego! I’d hoped the sight of your daughter would bring you to your senses, but that’s clearly not the case. Ignacio, take the prisoner back to his cell.”
My father allowed himself one brief, longing glance at me before the guard caught his elbow and forced him to turn his back to me and shuffle from the room. Only after he was gone and the door closed behind him did I notice that Antonio was standing in a corner, busily writing notes on our conversation.
“And now, Marisol,” Torquemada said, once he was settled again on his stool, “I will offer you a second chance to save your father’s life. Will you befriend don Francisco and gather enough evidence—quickly, in a matter of two days—against him for us to convict him of smuggling valuables and conversos out of Seville?
“Otherwise, doña, enjoy your performance tonight for Her Majesty, as the next time I allow you to meet with your father again … it will be in the torture chamber. Perhaps that will change both your minds.”
I looked to Torquemada, to the unreadable Antonio, and couldn’t find my voice.
Fray Tomás repeated the question about gathering evidence against Sánchez, this time with far less patience.
I drew a long breath, feeling as though I were sinking fast beneath the weighty waters of the river. I couldn’t bring myself to betray the entire Sánchez family at that moment—but I feared, as the time grew shorter for my father, that I would do exactly that.
“Yes,” I said at last, avoiding both men’s eyes. “Yes, I’ll get your evidence.”
Sixteen
I rode home in the carriage, but I didn’t see the fine leather appointments, the black silk drapes; nor did I see the dormitory receding behind us, or the Church of San Pablo, or even Gabriel’s house when the coach finally stopped in front of it. Instead, I saw my mother, dipping her spoon into her soup bowl, asking, Has don Diego told you I am under investigation by the Inquisition? I no longer wanted to cry; instead, I was caught in that horrible moment of futile rage, when my mother was drowning and Gabriel held me back.
I hated Torquemada now as I hated Gabriel then, yet I could not in good conscience turn in don Francisco, any more than I could bring myself to turn in Máriam as a morisca, a Muslim heretic.
I saw only one possible way out: to speak to the queen.
After I returned home, while Máriam unlaced my bodice and helped me into my housedress, I did my best to answer her concerned, discreet questions. But I could only reply in the tersest sentences.
I was home barely an hour when yet another carriage arrived for me. This one had the royal insignia painted on its glossy black doors and bore doña Berta, who insisted on remaining in the coach until Máriam finished helping me dress yet again. I put on the same dark blue velvet dress—my finest—that I had worn the night before to the palace, but I felt no anticipation, no excitement or anxiety over my upcoming performance.
When I was finally ready and let the driver take my elbow to help me up inside the carriage, doña Berta sat, her protruding belly draped in aubergine silk, a waist-length sheer lilac veil covering her coiled ash-and-white braids. She lifted a hand heavy with amethysts and diamonds and gestured, saying in the courtliest Castilian, “Of course, you know your neighbor, Antonio Vargas.” She giggled suddenly like a child, breaking the formality. “He certainly looks handsome today, doesn’t he? Almost, I dare say, as much as you look beautiful.”
I started a bit when I saw Antonio sitting across from doña Berta. It only made sense, of course—he must have come home to change clothing, and lived across the street—and had I not been so distracted by thoughts of my father and Torquemada, I might have been flustered by his handsomeness. He wore a silk tunic of an amber hue that made his bright hair and lapis blue eyes come alive. I caught myself staring at him—as much out of hatred for his participation in my father’s humiliation today as out of lust.
“What a handsome couple you two make!” Berta said. “Her Majesty will be so pleased. She asked for you again, as she wishes to be entertained before her supper. No crowds tonight, only her immediate court. I thought we would bring you early to the palace so that you could rehearse with Her Majesty’s musicians and learn a few new songs.”
Antonio managed a politely interested smile as Berta chattered on, giving instructions, repeating herself. I doubt my wan effort at a smile was anywhere as convincing; my heart was with my father and the curiously kind don Francisco.
* * *
Once again, as I rode through the streets of Seville—this time southeastward, toward the Real Alcázar, I failed to notice the sights and sounds, including doña Berta’s near constant droning. I remained lost in memories: My father embracing me joyfully as he returned home from work; my mother teaching me to hold the fine paintbrush, the one for creating eyes and lips, for the first time: Just so, my darling, between your little thumb and forefinger …
When we finally rattled onto the property of the Royal Palace and through the Lion’s Gate, our carriage came to rest in front of King Pedro’s Palace. I exited the carriage first, then drew doña Berta aside as we waited for Antonio to descend.
“Please,” I whispered, “I desperately need to speak with the queen privately today. Would it be possible?
”
Berta’s expression remained kind, but she studied me cagily. “The queen isn’t holding audiences today.”
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, “but it has to do with my father’s life.”
Her pale, nearly invisible eyebrows lifted. “In that case, perhaps … but it depends on the subject matter.”
Fully emerged from the coach, Antonio stepped off to one side and allowed us a bit of privacy.
“My father has been wrongly accused of a crime,” I said.
Berta laid a jeweled hand on her large, crepey bosom. “Oh, dear. But what crime has he been accused of?”
“Heresy. He’s being held by the Inquisition.”
Berta slowly lowered her hand; the pity in her eyes cooled to distrust. I may as well have admitted to having the plague.
“I will speak to her,” she said stiffly, “but it depends on her mood, you understand.”
“I understand,” I said. “Thank you.”
* * *
I couldn’t allow myself to yield to fear at Berta’s cold reaction; I stubbornly decided that Queen Isabel, being far more pious, would also be far more compassionate and open-minded.
With Antonio beside me, I met the other musicians. They were three permanent courtiers, all from the north, like their queen: a mandolin player, a flutist, and a drummer. No doubt they thought my pained, distant smile arose from the same type of disdain they felt toward outsiders. But Antonio won them over and managed to cheer even the mandolin player, a woman who was enormously jealous over the fact that I would be singing the solos.
Our repertoire was to be different that evening. There would be no lusty tavern songs, no love ballads with earthy innuendos. When we went at last to perform for the queen, I understood why: She was surrounded by a sea of black and white, all Dominican priests, monks, and nuns. The long dining hall had been decorated with tapestries depicting scenes from the life of Christ, giving the sense that we were in a chapel or monastery, not a pleasure palace. The effect was enhanced by the fact that all the diners faced us, as if in a Last Supper tableau, and Isabel herself sat at the very center of the long dining table.
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