The Falcons of Fire and Ice

by Karen Maitland

  ‘I am so sorry that I have failed you, Isabela. I thought always to provide for you and your mother.’ I could hear the shame in his voice. ‘But promise me you will leave Sintra today.’

  ‘We can’t just abandon you here, Father,’ I protested.

  ‘My child, don’t you think my pain would be a thousand times worse if I knew you and your mother were suffering in prison as well? I can bear whatever they do to me, but it would kill me if I knew they were hurting you or your mother and I was powerless to stop them. If you want to help me, leave tonight so that at least I don’t have to fear your arrest too.’

  ‘But why should they arrest us? Father, listen to me, you mustn’t lose hope.’ I gripped his shirt. It was as wet as the walls of his cell. ‘They will find you innocent, I know they will. How could they not? Sebastian knows you’d no more kill the falcons than you would harm your own family.’

  My father closed his cold fingers gently over mine. ‘This is about something far more serious than the birds, Isabela. The gyrfalcons were killed deliberately, so that I would be blamed. I am sure of that.’

  ‘But I don’t understand, Father. Who would hate you enough to do that?’

  I couldn’t imagine that my mild, unassuming father had ever made an enemy in his life, and certainly not one who would plot to see him dead.

  ‘The Inquisition,’ my father said bluntly.

  ‘But –’

  ‘Please, child, just listen. There isn’t much time. There is something I should have told you long ago, but your mother would not allow us even to speak of it, and I was too much of a coward to challenge her. It seemed easier just to keep the peace. Isabela … I know your mother has always told you that we are Old Christians. I think she has really come to believe it herself, but it is not the truth.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ He had told me not to interrupt, but I couldn’t help it.

  He bowed his head as if he was ashamed. ‘I convinced myself that it would be safer if you didn’t know. You were always such an inquisitive child. Even if your mother had refused to tell you anything, you might have asked questions of old Jorge or me, and knowledge of the old ways is dangerous. But the truth is our grandparents, mine and your mother’s, were once Jews. Our parents were born Jews, though they were so young when they were converted they remember little of it. But it is easy for the Inquisition to find out these things, when it is determined to uncover the truth.’

  I couldn’t take in what I was hearing. Ever since I could remember, my mother had told me that we were Old Christians. She was so proud of it. And my own father had sat in the room when she had boasted of it, never once contradicting her. It made no sense. I’d seen the rosary which had belonged to my great-great-aunt, the abbess. I had held it, just as I had held the emblem of St Catherine that my father’s forebear had worn in the Crusades. How could they own such things if they were Jews? All my life, my mother had taught me that the Jews were the enemies of the Holy Church, and Marranos were worse for they were demons hiding among the good Christians. But now, if my mother and father were … if we were … But my father was still talking in a low urgent whisper.

  ‘Isabela, you saw at the auto-da-fé how the young king refused to light the bonfire? That very morning, those courtiers who stood with him had been whispering about how the king was showing sympathy for heretics. It’s no secret at Court that the Regent, Cardinal Henry, is determined to cleanse Portugal of heretics. But Henry’s influence over Sebastian will last only until the boy is old enough to take the reins himself. Kings have tried to limit the power of the Inquisition before, but Henry is determined that, once he is no longer Regent, the Inquisition’s power should rival, if not surpass, that of the sovereign. He was Grand Inquisitor before he was Regent and may well take up that post again once the young king is of age. He wants to ensure that nothing stands in his way then, certainly not a king who is sympathetic to the Marranos.’

  None of this made sense to me. I was still struggling to grasp the idea that I was not who I had always been told I was. My parents were not who I had always believed them to be. It felt as if I had awakened to find that the familiar solid floor of my house had suddenly turned to a bottomless lake. Words had suddenly reversed their meaning. They were Marranos, them our enemies, now suddenly Marranos meant us, me. Then who were the enemies now?

  I wanted to scream at my father, demand to know why he had lied to me all these years, yet even as the rage boiled up in me, he shifted himself in the filthy straw, trying to ease his cramped limbs. I heard the clank of heavy chains and the gasp of pain as the sharp iron collar bit into his neck, and I understood with sickening clarity why he had kept the truth from me.

  I touched his hand. It was as cold as a gravestone in winter. I tried to speak softly.

  ‘But, Father, I don’t understand what the Regent has to do with the gyrfalcons. I thought they’d arrested you because of the birds, not because …’

  I was still too shocked to say the word, as if uttering it aloud would make it true.

  ‘Cardinal Henry knows how much young Sebastian loved those birds, and anyone in the king’s service will have told him how many hours the boy has spent with me, how close we have become. Henry was bound to want to find out all he could about a man who could potentially have so much influence over the child. In my heart I knew the danger, but I refused to admit it to myself. I should have discouraged Sebastian from coming so often to the mews, but I didn’t have the heart to turn the boy away. The poor little lad was so lonely and the falcons were his only refuge from his uncle and those Jesuit tutors who never give him a single kind word. And the truth was, I loved the boy’s company. He was the son I never …’

  He trailed off, and squeezed my hand apologetically.

  ‘I don’t know if Henry gave the orders himself or if it was the Jesuits, but I’m sure one of them came up with the plan to kill the gyrfalcons and to make it appear that I had done it. They wanted to poison the young king’s mind by letting him think a Marrano had betrayed him and murdered the creatures he held most dear. Nothing could possibly hurt the boy more or make him feel more betrayed than if he believed the man he trusted the most had slaughtered his falcons knowing how much the birds meant to him. It would be easy then to persuade the boy that all Marranos were treacherous and wicked. He would not falter again when it came to lighting the next bonfire, he would be begging to do it.’

  ‘But, Father, Sebastian worships you and he knows how much you loved those birds. He’s watched you tend them a thousand times. He could never believe that you would harm them. Can’t you ask to see him, explain?’

  ‘I have seen him,’ my father said, with such despair in his voice that I found my eyes stinging with tears. ‘But the young king was not alone. I could see Sebastian didn’t want to believe the tale. But I had never confessed to him I was a New Christian, why should I? It was never something he asked or even thought to imagine. But clearly others had already persuaded him that I had deliberately concealed the truth from him and so there was already a seed of doubt in his mind. If I had hidden that much from him, what other lies had I told him?

  ‘And even if he believed me, he is just a child. How can he stand up to adults around him? How can he argue with them, especially his uncle and his tutors? He’s terrified of them. Little Sebastian did the best he could. He tried to say he didn’t believe I was guilty, and when one of his advisors told him he must sign the papers for my execution, he stoutly refused … that is, at first.’

  ‘No, Father, no!’ I clapped my hands over my mouth and moaned.

  With a great effort he lifted his hand and pressed my cheek. The heavy chain clanked.

  ‘Please don’t cry, child … I need you to be strong … you must or you will not survive this. My time is not come yet. When Sebastian refused to sign, one of the Jesuits proposed a test. He said that if I was innocent and a good Catholic, God would prove it to be so by bringing the birds back to life. Sebastian is a bright lad. He sai
d that the birds had already been buried for more than three days, and not even Jesus had been that long buried. The Jesuits were furious. One of them looked as if he would strike the boy, king or not.

  ‘But Dona Ofelia’s husband quickly stepped in to smooth things over. He suggested that Sebastian simply demand that I should replace the dead ones by producing a new pair of gyrfalcons. He said it as a joke and everyone laughed, for they knew that to be impossible. Where would a falconer find that kind of money, never mind be able to lay his hands on a pair of white falcons? But the young king didn’t laugh. He seemed to grasp at the idea as if it was a way out of his problem. He waved his hand for silence and then formally announced that I had a year and a day to produce a new pair of white falcons. If I did, he would pardon me.’

  At my father’s words, my heart felt as if it would explode with relief.

  ‘Blessed Virgin, thank you!’ I breathed. ‘You see, all is well, Father. We’ll find the money. You said you had hidden a little, and I have some necklaces I can sell. And Mother has rings and clasps. There will be other things. At least he has given us plenty of time to raise the sum we need, but I promise we will do it as soon as we can, so that we can get you out of here. We can borrow –’

  ‘No, Isabela. That’s not why I sent for you. You must take the money, every valuable thing you have, and leave tonight. The king has bought me … us a little time, and I am grateful for that. But the Jesuits would never let a mere child get the better of them, even if he is the king. It’s not in their power to make a king change a proclamation, but they did force him to add another condition. If I fail to produce the new birds, they will have me executed, but not just me alone … you and your mother will die too, and the execution they have planned is not … merciful. And I believe it will not end there. They will try to track down other members of our family too. My sister and her children … no member of our family will be safe. All of us will pay a terrible price for this crime. So you see, you and your mother must get away tonight. I’m sure that they are planning to arrest you both in the next day or two and hold you until the time has elapsed, in case you escape them. You must not be found. You must get word to your aunt also, but only once you are safe.’

  I felt as if my blood had turned to ice. It was well that I was already sitting on the ground, for I was sure my legs would have collapsed under me. The vision filled my head of those prisoners tied to the stake, the flames leaping up around them in the darkness, the mob screaming for their blood. But this time when I saw that scene it was me staring out at them through the heat and smoke, straining in vain against my chains as flames crept towards me.

  I forced myself to speak, but my voice was shaking, though I tried to sound confident. ‘But it won’t happen, because we won’t fail, Father. We will get the money somehow.’

  ‘It’s no use hoping for miracles, child. Even if you could raise the fortune it would cost to buy the birds, where would you buy them? The gyrfalcon is a royal bird. The king possessed the only pair in Portugal. If it was a lanner falcon or an eagle, you could easily buy another. There are many traders bringing them in every year. But the gyrfalcon comes only from the frozen lands of the North. And the kind of gyrfalcons which are the largest and whitest, like the ones Sebastian owned, are only found in Iceland. That land is ruled by the Lutherans. They’ll never permit their royal birds to go to a Catholic king, particularly not in a country where the Inquisition holds sway, for the Inquisition murders the Protestants as fervently as they do the Marranos. No child, you must promise me that you will –’

  My father stiffened as we heard footsteps hurrying down the passage towards us. The key grated in the lock and the door creaked open.

  The flickering orange torchlight from the passage was obscured by the massive bulk of the soldier who had brought me.

  ‘Hurry, the guard’s finished his breakfast. I saw him from the window. He’s gone to the latrines for a shit, but he’ll be back any minute.’

  He grabbed my wrist and yanked me to my feet, tugging me back out through the door. I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to my father, never mind hug and kiss him.

  As the soldier pulled me along the slippery passage towards the stairs, I heard only a single word follow me. Promise!

  I did not go home. I couldn’t. I didn’t even want to look at my mother, much less be forced to talk to her. The cold, damp stench of the dungeon still clung to me and I couldn’t bear the thought of being inside any building, even my own house. I needed to be outside in the fierce, hot sunshine, breathing in pure, sweet air. I climbed high into the pine forest, wading through the ice-cold streams and scrambling past the great moss-covered boulders. The thick, sinuous roots of the trees had grown around and over the great stones. And even where the trees had fallen in a storm, or stood dead and blackened, the roots would not relinquish their stranglehold on the boulders, as if they had become rock themselves.

  I was so intent on getting as far as I could from that stinking dungeon that I didn’t even pause if my skirts became entangled on branches. I simply strode on, letting them tear as I pulled them after me. The sound of ripping fabric was almost a relief, I needed to rip and break, to hurt and smash.

  I was so frightened for my father and so bewildered by what he’d told me. Last night I prayed to the Blessed Virgin for him, certain of who he was and who I was, and in a single hour all that had been swept away. I was one of the despised, a Marrano, a Jew, and yet I could no more enter their world than I could return to the world of my childhood, for that door had been slammed shut and sealed for ever.

  But I knew I had to return home eventually. Where else could I go? The sun was already low in the sky when I entered the kitchen. My mother was sitting at the table, her head resting in her hands. I had never come into the house before without seeing her bustling about, engaged in her ceaseless war against dust and dirt. Now her neat hair was dishevelled and her eyes red with weeping. She raised her head and stared at me as if I was a corpse risen from a grave. Then, with a little cry, she threw herself at me, hugging me so tightly I thought my ribs would crack.

  ‘What happened? What did they ask you? Did they hurt you?’

  I felt the wetness of her tears on my cheek and heard her breath coming in heaving sobs. And for a moment I felt a twinge of guilt, as I realized that all this time she had thought that I’d been arrested and was chained up in some prison somewhere or worse.

  ‘Have they released your father too? Is he with you?’ she asked eagerly, peering over my shoulder as if she thought he was going to walk through the door behind me.

  I felt a coldness come over me, a sudden hatred of this woman. My mouth was so dry I couldn’t answer her. I pushed her away and crossed to the big clay water jar in the corner, dipped in a beaker and drank it in a single draught, refilling it several times before my thirst was slaked. I sank down on the bench where only a few days before my father had retreated to eat his breakfast of sardines, while she had told us why poor old Jorge deserved to die. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

  I told her all that my father had said, with a brutal harshness, sparing her nothing, not even the fact that my father had paid for me and not her to be brought to him. I knew I was hurting her, but for the first time in my life I didn’t care. I refused to play the game of pacifying her any more.

  She stood pale-faced, her hand gripping the crucifix around her neck so tightly I could see the whiteness of her knuckles. I wanted to tear it away from her throat, just as I was ripping away the whole necklace of lies she had so proudly worn throughout her life.

  ‘All those foul things you said about poor Jorge and the other heretics, yet all the time you were saying them, you knew that we were exactly the same as them.’

  ‘We are not,’ my mother spat. ‘We’re not like them. They’re filthy Jews and always will be. There are no Jews in my family, nor in your father’s. We’ve always been Catholics. Always! Your father doesn’t know what he’s saying. Goodness
knows what they’ve done to him in that place. It’s enough to turn anyone’s wits. They’re making him confess, but it’s not true. It’s all lies. We are Catholics, do you hear? Good, decent Catholics.’

  A horrifying thought struck me. ‘Were you the one who reported Jorge?’

  She flushed a dull scarlet and I knew it was true.

  ‘Why?’ I screamed at her. ‘Why would you do that? Don’t you see that it was as unjust as what they’ve done to my father?’

  ‘I am a good Catholic. I did it to prove I am a good Catholic. Your father wouldn’t do it, so I had to. Father Tomàs had been asking questions, asking if we knew Jorge, how long we had known him, how often we went to see him. I knew that meant they suspected him. Someone had to protect our family. You have to prove you are loyal. You see what happens if you don’t. You see what they’ve done to your father, because he refused to denounce Jorge.’

  I felt the anger drain out of me. I saw now what my father had long understood, that arguing with her was hopeless. Even after all I’d told her she still wouldn’t accept why her husband had been arrested. I don’t believe that even the Grand Inquisitor himself could have made her admit the truth. She had lived the lie for so long, that like the tree roots and the rocks, she and the fantasy she clung to could not be separated.

  ‘We have to leave tonight,’ I said dully. ‘We must start packing.’

  ‘Leave here? But we can’t just go. This is my home. What about all my things, my furniture, my pots and linen? It will take weeks to pack. Besides, they’re bound to release your father soon, when they realize it’s all been a mistake.’

  ‘Mother! Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? They are not going to release him. They are going to kill him, kill us all, unless I can give them a pair of gyrfalcons in exchange for our lives.’

  ‘And just how do you propose to do that? You think we have the money to buy such birds?’