Inquisitor Dreams

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Don Felipe’s party arrived to find the Calé settlement empty of people, as of anything that could easily be carried away. Where tents had stood, only long-smothered places in the browning grass marked their former sites. As for the houses, some few were burned and still smoking, the rest ransacked, with heavy breakage. In the little courtyard of which Don Sagesse had been so proud, some columns were charred and others splashed with blood; some herbs dug up and others trampled down; and bones strewn around ash-covered spits showed where at least one pig and several fowls had been roasted and devoured, no doubt by the mob that had done the other damage.

  Sending Armiento and De Sotra to tell Fray Giuliano of his coming, and directing Gubbio to make thorough investigation of Don Sagesse’s caverns, the inquisitor hurried alone to Pilar’s little cave. He found it stripped and bare—gone were the carpet and cushions on which they had celebrated their love whenever he could come to Agapida these last two years, the blankets they had sometimes used to cover themselves and sometimes hung back upon the cavern walls, her little kettle and cups, and all her books—her Erasmus and every volume her husband had brought her to join it.

  He saw, however, that she must have taken all this away herself, for her little stack of firewood remained undisturbed, and her tiny lamp still rested on its flat rock. Nature had made this cavern difficult to notice from outside, which must have saved it from the mob.

  Wondering why she had left her lamp, he picked it up. It was dry, its oil drained out or burned away; but, in the dim daylight that seeped around the corner concealing the entrance, he saw that a small leaf of paper had lain beneath the lamp.

  He carried both items outside. The paper proved to be a page torn carefully from one of her books: a love sonnet of Francesco Petrarca’s, done into Spanish. He remembered the long afternoon when they had helped commit it to one another’s memory.

  She had found means to leave him one last message…in such a way that no one else who might find it first could know its meaning or prove anything from it against the priest. He kissed the paper and laid it up in the pocket nearest his heart.

  He must have lost himself then for some moments, for when next he became aware of time and the world, his face was wet with tears, his fist clenched painfully around the tiny lamp, and his servant standing beside him, softly calling him over and over by name.

  “Too late,” Don Felipe repeated. “We are too late.”

  “We would have been too late,” the Italian pointed out, “even if we had started the moment Pablo Savarres brought you the message from your vicar. Who could have foreseen that Don Gaspar would act as quickly as this? He must have been preparing his final orders even as Fray Giuliano sealed his letter and sent Pablo off to us.”

  “Only last night. They must have roasted their pig only last night. Fray Giuliano’s flock—my own parishioners, in God’s sight—the people I freed from the tyrannies of my first vicar—and they have done this…celebrated this driving out of those whom they should have welcomed as fellow Christians.”

  “They had to obey Don Gaspar, did they not?” said Gubbio. “You may shoulder the ultimate responsibility for their souls, but their secular lord still has some power over their poor bodies.”

  “And pig, I suppose, is good no matter where roasted and eaten,” Felipe added bitterly.

  After a pause, Gubbio asked gently, “Did you love her very much?”

  “She is my wife.” What reason, any longer, even to pretend to keep the secret from his lifelong servant? “She is still my wife. Ah, God!” He stared around, but the trampled ground and hard rock hid their trail. “Where have they gone?”

  * * * *

  Fray Giuliano greeted them with tears streaming from his own eyes. “Almost a full quarter of my flock, gone!” he almost babbled. “And they the best quarter! Forgive me, your Excellence. I could do nothing. Nothing! At least…at least there was no blood. They shed no blood. But who could have thought… Some of the best of my villagers were with that mob, screaming and throwing gobbets of mud along with the rest, even at these people who have been their fellow churchgoers for almost two generations! Thank God Pablo and his wife did not go out with them, nor Rodrigo de Sangrada, nor Maria and Isabel Pacheda… But so many! When Don Gaspar came with his soldiers and others from the castle, who would have thought so many of my own best people would fall in with the rabble?”

  Himself so greatly in need of comfort, Don Felipe sought to comfort his vicar. “In part, it is fear that drives them, fear for their own safety if they should seem to go against their prince of this world. God will forgive them.” He felt his jaw harden. “It is Don Gaspar de Monsecore y Tequilador de la Castel de Agapida who has led these little ones astray.”

  “I warned your Reverence we would have trouble with him,” Gubbio remarked.

  Without turning, Don Felipe told him: “Go and make sure our horses are being well stabled.”

  As Gubbio left them alone, Fray Giuliano repeated, “Almost a quarter of my flock! Forgive me, my lord—if your Excellence had been here—”

  “Tell me what you can about this new companion of Don Gaspar,” the inquisitor cut in. “This middle-aged man he has brought back with him…from Sodom, I take it?”

  “He is called Pedro del Niño. I have seen him only once—a man with the face and the belly of a tavern sot, for all that he wore silk and velvet in the company of his new patron.”

  * * * *

  Fray Pablo and the Dominican fiscal arrived that evening, bringing with them four good familiars and also Don Martin de Villaréal, Don Felipe’s personal secretary, who after carrying out his master’s instructions had felt too anxious to wait at home.

  Don Felipe took them all in his entourage, along with his two personal guards, vicar, and manservant, when he went to the castle that night by torchlight and demanded entrance.

  They had to shout twice before a guard responded. “My master has ordered us to admit nobody after dark.”

  “The Holy Inquisition orders you otherwise. Man, it is a matter of Faith!”

  Results were not immediate, but Don Felipe allowed them the space of a Miserere; and by the time his murmuring lips reached “Amen,” the portcullis was inching upward.

  The dozen men rode through into the castle courtyard, but did not dismount until Don Gaspar’s soldiers came to hold their stirrups.

  “Who…” The officer in charge coughed nervously, bowed to the inquisitor, and tried again. “Who have you come for?”

  “We will begin by speaking to Don Gaspar himself.”

  The mutters that rose from Don Gaspar’s men had the sound of involuntary protest against an anticipated blow. Who in Agapida, village or castle, could fail to know of the inquisitor’s friendship for the banished Calé?

  “Your Reverence,” said the officer, “forgive me—I cannot, in loyalty—”

  “You must choose, man, between mere human loyalty and loyalty to Holy Mother Church!”

  “I…” The officer fell to his knees before Don Felipe. “May your Reverence forgive me , I…” He bent to kiss the inquisitor’s foot. Almost, Don Felipe might have pitied him, but for thinking of what part he must have played in helping drive the Calé from their home. Had he relished carrying out his orders last night? Struck any of Pilar’s—of Don Sagesse’s people? Knocked them into the dust, stolen their belongings before their eyes? Even—oh, God!—attempted to rape…

  “Up, you cringing coward!” It was Don Gaspar’s voice, but the young lord himself remained invisible until some of the familiars moved forward so that their torches pricked out his face, his long-fingered hands, and the shining of his jewels, where he stood on the steps to the keep. “I will see them,” he went on, his words filled with smug defiance, “in my great hall. All of you, come with them!”

  “Follow!” Don Felipe told Micer Garcias and Don Enrique de la Santa Cruz, whose torches were those that had illumined Don Gaspar. They obeyed, and the inquisitor strode after them, leaving the rest
of his people to fall in behind. Caught between awe of the Holy Inquisition and fealty for their secular lord, the men of the castle flanked them with careful, almost completely silent respect.

  On the dais, Don Gaspar already sat at his ease in the high-backed chair, with arms and cushions, that had been his father’s and grandfather’s before him. Two wax candles in tall holders dropped their light on him, one from either side, and he kept his fingers idly occupied in toying with a tiny, delicate knife. As they entered the hall, he began, as if permission were his to grant them: “Come, my reverend lord. Speak to me.”

  Stepping between Garcias and Santa Cruz, Don Felipe closed the distance, to stop a pace or two from the dais and level his forefinger at the young lord. “Don Gaspar de Monsecore y Tequilador de la Castel de Agapida, you are under grave suspicion.”

  Don Gaspar looked up, a flicker of surprise seeming to cross his face. This was not, apparently, the attack he had expected. “Am I indeed? Of what? In what way does cleansing my land of wandering rogues constitute heresy?”

  “Wandering rogues?” With difficulty, the inquisitor kept his voice calm. “These people are your fellow Catholic Christians, who had lived quietly among you for two generations—”

  “My father was in serious error to allow it!” the young man cut in. “They were those same wandering Egyptians against whom our laws warn us.”

  “Your discourtesy toward a servant of the Holy Office has not gone unmarked,” Don Felipe resumed. “Nevertheless, I will tell you this much: your cruelty to fellow Christians does not constitute the most serious charge laid against you.”

  “What, then?” Don Gaspar seemed genuinely puzzled, though strangely unworried. “We are all of us sinners, but I have always been true and devoted to Holy Mother Church in all my sinning.”

  “I do not wonder that you hesitate to confess so heinous, secret, and unnatural a crime in the presence of your own soldiers.” Ordinarily, no competent inquisitor should have given even this much hint of the nature of the charge; but he was desperate to learn as much as he could, as quickly as he could, of the Calé’s enforced departure, and where they might have gone.

  Don Gaspar’s frown cleared suddenly. He laughed. “Ah, is that it? Well, Don Inquisitor, you are off the scent completely. Grant me a private interview, and I will soon show you your error.”

  “Speak here, or I order your arrest at once.”

  Their eyes locked, old inquisitor and young castellan. Another tense silence filled the hall. At last Don Gaspar said, as if swearing some casual oath, “By the Holy Child of Daroca! If your Reverence truly wishes to discuss these things so openly, let us call in all the village and hold a public debate.”

  Don Felipe stiffened as though struck. Pedro del Niño…why had he never suspected until this moment? Struggling desperately to hide his emotions, he said in tones of measured command, “God Himself prefers mercy wherever possible. I will grant you your private audience.”

  “Your Excellence—” began the fiscal. Don Felipe stilled him with a wave of his hand.

  “We will need one torch to light our way,” Don Gaspar observed with mock courtesy. “Let your Reverence choose the bearer.”

  Don Felipe glanced around at his people and beckoned Gubbio, as the one man among them who had already been with him during his days as Ordinary to the bishop of Daroca, and who had proven his ability to keep secrets when he chose. The Italian nodded, took Ramon Armiento’s torch, and stepped forward. The fiscal put his hand on little Fray Pablo’s sleeve and made as if to follow, apparently assuming that as officers of the Inquisition they were to be included in the audience; but Don Felipe motioned them back.

  At Don Gaspar’s directions, Gubbio lit their way through muffled passages and up drafty stairs to a windowless door. Its hinges were obviously on the inside, marking it as a door that could be barricaded against invaders rather than one fashioned for a prison cell. Discerning some seepage of light from beneath this door, Don Felipe instructed his servant, “Wait here outside.”

  Don Gaspar lifted the latch, stepped aside, and, with a bow and a smirk, waved for Don Felipe to enter.

  He found eight wax candles burning at once—one at each corner of the bed, and one in each corner of the room. In this prodigality of light, a figure sat sprawled on the bed: a man with the belly of a tavern sot, his boots still on his feet, a goblet in his hand, and a bottle gleaming beside him on the bedclothes.

  Don Felipe stood regarding him in silence. Was this truly the same person who had remained in his memory all these years as a guilty and terrified young boy?

  From behind the churchman, Don Gaspar spoke with smug satisfaction. “He flinched at my mention of your Holy Child.”

  The man on the bed, who had been staring back at Don Felipe, his eyes shiny smears in the candlelight, nodded and took a long drink from his goblet. “I knew him again,” he said on lowering it. “He has not changed so much. Would you have known me again, Bishop’s Ordinary of Daroca? Pedro del Niño, who was Pedro Choved in his boyhood, before his last living parent disowned him.”

  Don Felipe replied, “I do not think that I would have known you again, not even in daylight. Man, man! Are you not ashamed to have squandered the discipline given for your penitence and wholesome correction?”

  Pedro del Niño laughed coarsely and refilled his goblet from the bottle by his side. “Wholesome correction! You call it wholesome correction for a boy to be disowned and banished from his home, turned out to live on his own?”

  “Neither Holy Church nor the secular arm did that to you, Pedro Choved, but only your widowed and outraged mother.”

  “I loved her.” Del Niño drank again. “Once.… Listen to me, Don Priest. I have had years to think of it. You told me there were witnesses. You lied. I swallowed your lie when I was a frightened child, but now I am a grown man, and you cannot frighten me again. For years I have searched my memory, and there were no witnesses. We had made sure of that. No mortal eyes saw us. No, there was one way and one way only anyone else could have known. Some holy churchman broke your so-called Seal of Confession.”

  Don Felipe heard a sharp indrawing of breath. It was his own.

  Del Niño lowered his goblet the better to frown at the churchman. “It must have been that damned old Franciscan. But stand there and deny to my face that you were the one who came acting on what he told you, you and old Fray Potbelly, or that you knew he broke the famous Seal in telling it!”

  To say anything at all would be to renew, even compound the old sin still further. Don Felipe stood silent. Unfortunately, his very silence revealed his awareness of the justice in Pedro Choved’s accusation.

  Don Gaspar said, “He thought he could threaten us. He thought that you and I…” A laugh. “…were playing at sodomy!”

  Pedro del Niño looked at the inquisitor again and chuckled, showing a mouthful of blackened teeth. “Then we must find us a new woman or two, eh? Well, Don Priest, and if I had ever done such things, do you think I would confess them to any of you lying priests? As soon go to an honest alcalde and confess cutting throats!”

  “Then you have cut yourself off from the sacraments,” Don Felipe said in great bitterness of spirit. “You cast off every hope of salvation—”

  “What will you do to him, Don Inquisitor?” Don Gaspar cut in sarcastically. “Will you arrest my good friend for heresy and hear us cry aloud to all the world how it came to be known who killed the Holy Child of Daroca?”

  Don Felipe saw himself defeated. In committing mortal sin so many years ago to save one innocent people, he had condemned another, equally innocent people—for had this weapon not fallen into Don Gaspar’s hands, would even the new lord of the castle of Agapida have braved the inquisitor’s displeasure? He had thought the punishment due for that sin paid in full by his eleven years’ imprisonment, but now he saw that when he risked his soul to save his friend, he had planted the loss of his wife. Was he to win her back at the cost of yet more souls?—all thos
e humble souls, their faith but recently restored in the sacrament of Confession after Don Fadrique’s abuses, who would be shaken to the very roots of their faith and perhaps lost forever were they shown proof of even one solitary instance in which the Seal of Confession had failed to hold.

  Toward Pedro Choved he had no right to feel anything else than deep and guilt-ridden grief. Don Gaspar, however… Ah, cursed wretch! to rend two whom God had joined together! Swallowing his rage, he turned to the young lord. “Tell me, at least, where they have gone.”

  The young lord waved his hand. “Over the mountains to the north. I think I heard some of them talk of trying their welcome in French lands again. Will your Reverence abandon everything to chase after them?”

  Salvaging what dignity he could, Don Felipe replied in as even a tone as he could muster, pretending not to notice the younger man’s mockery: “My work lies here. You have satisfied me for now that your sins, though scarlet, are not heretical. See that you give me no notorious cause to suspect either of you again.”

  What Pedro del Niño had already said concerning his disbelief in the sacrament of Confession would have given any other inquisitor grounds for suspicion if not accusation—Don Felipe was asking only that the pair of them avoid any scandal so open and obvious as to force the inquisitorial hand. They knew it, and smirked; but, having won, allowed him to retreat quietly, pretending to the world that they had merely succeeded in laying his suspicions to rest.

  Secretly, he found his defeat all the more bitter in that, even had he won the interview, he could probably have learned nothing more. Chances were that Don Gaspar had stated, for nothing but the simple asking, as much as he knew about where the Calé had gone. Having found in Del Niño his weapon for defying the inquisitor and achieving his old aim, why should he not have told this discouraging truth?