We followed the path to the monarchs’ tents. My heart began to flutter. The princess’s tent, shut tight against the bustle of the camp, was guarded by two slaves.
A parade of secretaries strutted by. I chose one, simply because he was shorter than the others. “Kind sir.”
He continued flouncing along.
I jingled the coins in the purse.
“Yes?” He stopped.
“Would you be so good”—I shook the purse again—“to ask the infanta if she has a moment for Paloma?”
“She does not.” But he turned and started toward the tent. A yard from the flaps, he held out his hand.
I put two ducats in it. “You are most gracious. Thank you.”
He went inside and reemerged quickly, looking as smug as ever. “In point of fact, she happens to be free to entertain you now.” He held a flap open for me.
My throat tightened. I knew what she would be thinking.
She met me halfway into the dim tent, lit by four candles, took my hands, and pulled me farther in. I smelled incense. Gracefully, she lowered herself onto a mound of cushions and tugged me down with her.
I almost never cried, but I began to sob. I hadn’t meant to—the tears just poured out.
Princess Isabella put her arm around my shoulder and held me close. “Cry, lovedy. Cry, sweet.”
She used the tone I reserved for the littles when they were in distress. She had no children, and maybe she wanted to be a mother as much as I did.
Finally, my sobs slowed and stopped.
“You wanted to see me. You have something to say?”
I hadn’t planned it, but what came out was an accusation. “You care about me only if I’m ready to be baptized.”
“Baptism is what I want for you because it’s best for you. I’ve wanted it ever since I sent for you to come to my tent, and there you were, plump and innocent as a satin pillow—smooth and without a mark on you.”
Like a sacrificial lamb.
“I was so happy you were the granddaughter of my parents’ favorite because I might see you again. I long to make you truly my sister. If you’re stubborn and leave Spain, know that you can return to me.”
I whispered, “We may not live to return.”
By we I meant the littles. If I died, I died.
She clasped my hands in hers. “You must not die!”
How could I persuade her to help us?
She went on. “All will be lost for you if you die.”
Because I’d be in the Christians’ hell. An idea arrived that I thought Belo would approve of. “You want to save our souls, but they’ll be lost to you when we leave. If we stay, the priests can continue to come to our synagogues and preach and persuade some of us, like my brother.”
She nodded. “That’s the part that troubles me—along with the agony that the stubborn will endure. But my good parents say we must help the souls that have already joined the flock, the New Christians. They’re in grave danger from Jews. I don’t mean you! You haven’t tempted them”—she looked mock stern—“have you?”
I shook my head.
My argument had failed, but I tried another branch of it. “There can be more disputations if we stay.” The disputations were debates between Jews and Christians about which religion was right. “I think Belo would welcome being part of one, and if the Christian theologians win, he might be one of the prizes.”
She looked thoughtful. “I lost my dear husband because God is angry with me. I wasn’t devout enough.” Her eyes swam. “He was the perfect prince, my Afonso.” She patted my leg. “Paloma, I know what it is to suffer. I’ll bring your proposal to Mamá.”
“Thank you!” I stood.
She stood, too, planted a kiss on my forehead, and held out her cheek to be kissed. “I’ll send a secretary with my good parents’ answer.”
Belo was still asleep. When he awoke and heard what I’d done, he was jubilant. “Loma, you may have saved the Jews. Like Queen Esther.”
I blushed with happiness.
But a secretary came in the evening with two messages. From the princess: alas, my ideas had failed to persuade. From the monarchs: audiences for Don Solomon and Belo would be granted the next day. I would be allowed to go with Belo.
He comforted me. “It was a valiant effort.”
The next morning, on inspiration just before entering the queen’s tent, I picked up a handful of the soil outside and closed my fist around it.
This was her bedroom tent, and it had an entire bed in it: bed frame, canopy, mattress. Smiling, she rose from her throne chair and held out her hands. She clasped Belo’s right hand and my left, the hand that wasn’t holding the earth.
“My dears,” she said, pulling us in, “sit.” She gestured at two cushions. “Speak and I’ll listen.”
Belo sat, but sprang up as soon as he began. He paced back and forth as if he owned the tent. “Majesty, you want to save us, and we’re grateful. We know that toward us, you’re moved by love.”
Queen Isabella nodded. “And toward all my Jews.”
“But they won’t be entirely yours if they become Christians. They’ll belong first to the Church and to the towns.”
“Christ will reward me for the sacrifice.” The queen’s tone was dry. A royal joke.
Belo launched his first argument. “Everywhere I go in the juderías, the people ask about you and your children. They believe themselves to be your flock, and they want their shepherdess to be happy and healthy. They are as close to you in spirit as your rings are to your fingers.”
The queen shook her head, spraying tears. “It’s hard to fast, as you know, Don Joseph—not easy to do without. But Christ asks me to do without your beloved people as long as they persist in error.”
Belo stood still. “It’s perilous, what you do.”
He hadn’t rehearsed this in my presence. I was squeezing the soil in my hand to clay.
His voice deepened. “You may discover by a sign, by the coming of the true Messiah, by the end of all, that you’ve built on the sands of a lie, and the truth has been lost to you.”
He was threatening her! She could kill us right now!
But she laughed. “You’re suggesting I become a Jew?” She laughed harder. “Imagine my husband’s face!” Even harder. “Imagine Fra Torquemada’s!” She finally controlled herself. “It’s always a delight to be with you, Don Joseph.”
I smiled uneasily.
Belo smiled, easily. “I have another argument along the same lines, but more serious.”
“I’m prepared to hear it.”
Belo folded his hands behind his back and swayed a little. “It’s futile to try to wipe us out. You know that we’re meant to be on earth at the end of days. Pharaoh’s reign is over, Caesar is dust. But we remain, stubborn as ever. Why do something that will harm many, hurt Spain, and in the end fail?”
She shook her head. “It is the same argument, and by its logic, too, we should all become Jews, but you know that’s impossible. We believe that since Christianity came from Judaism, we are the new chosen, who will remain until the end.”
“I’ll never go to the baptismal font, Majesty, nor will any in my family who has not already done so.”
She came and sat on the cushion that Belo had left. “Paloma, you won’t?”
“No, Your Majesty. Your Majesty? My abuela of blessed memory told me when I was a little girl that Jews had been in Spain for a thousand years.” I opened my hand. “This is Spanish soil, and there are Jewish bones in it.” I wondered if that could be true. “Please don’t tear us from the earth we belong to.”
She was weeping again! She hugged me, let me go, and looked up at Belo. “Don Joseph, in truth, God has put this thing into the heart of the king. If I wanted to, I couldn’t change it.”
But she didn’t want to.
Outside, a chilly wind blew. April in southern Spain was usually mild, but we were being thrust into the cold, and the Almighty had sent weather to prove it.<
br />
Don Solomon’s renewed monetary arguments failed, too. In early afternoon, we sat in his tent with a dinner none of us wanted spread before us. I sat between Don Solomon and Belo, who took up the end of the bench. Hamdun sat on a cushion near the tent flap.
Belo recounted our conversation with the queen. “We’ll leave in the morning. There’s nothing more to be done.”
Don Solomon said he would go, too. “Ferdinand and Isabella must have agreed between them what to say to us. He said Christ had told Isabella the Jews should be expelled.” Don Solomon had gained useful information along with his failure. The expulsion would be proclaimed across Spain between April 29 and May 1. All Jews had to depart by July 31.
Just three months!
We couldn’t take gold, silver, or horses with us. Anyone who remained would have to convert or would be killed.
“But you, my friend,” Don Solomon said, “are permitted to take two thousand gold ducats, and everyone in your family may take one thousand. You may all take jewelry with you. I should give you the letter now, before I forget.” He went to a leather file case that was propped against a pile of cushions near the tent flap. Groaning as he crouched, he picked up the case and brought it to the table. “Here.” He took out a paper, folded in half and closed with the royal seal.
Belo put it to the side of our empty bowl. “And they’ll keep the rest. You can take more with you, yes? You’ve been in their service the longest.”
Don Solomon helped himself to a ladle of goat stew and said the blessing. Then he stirred and stirred his bowl without eating. “I’m going to convert. I told His Majesty.”
A fly buzzed over the stew. I waved it away. Had he said he was going to let the priests baptize him?
Belo put his head down next to our bowl and pounded his fist on the table in a slow rhythm. Don Solomon just stirred his bowl.
Why hadn’t he told Belo that he was thinking about converting? Was he thinking about it during all the planning of the appeals? Might he have tried harder if he was going to stay a Jew? Might we have succeeded?
Cowardly old man! Deserter! Traitor!
Belo looked up and stopped pounding. “They didn’t win until now. Jews all over Spain will say, ‘Don Solomon is our leader. He’s setting an example for us. If the wise Don Solomon—’”
“I’m eighty years old. I’m not Moses. I don’t want to die in the wilderness.”
“Loma? Do you think Solomon is wise?”
I abandoned my fear of discord. “He’s foolish or evil. His children’s children and their children will be real Christians, even if he won’t be. They’ll do to the Jews what Christians have always done: imprison us, terrify us, kill us.”
Don Solomon blanched. “It won’t be that way.”
Belo said, “My friend, my dearest friend, think of what you lose—the law. Think of your descent.”
“I’m not a Talmud scholar like you. My real love is for my fellow Jews, which will be my loss, which will leave me longing forever. But I’ll serve the Jews better by staying in Spain. The exodus won’t be easy. I’ll help.”
Belo took a ladle of stew for himself and me.
He began the prayer. “Blessed are You, Eternal One our God, Univerrrsall Ruuull—” The right side of his face drooped. Before I could save him, he toppled off the end of the bench.
Hamdun ran to him. Between us, we carried him to a chair, where he continued to slump, his left eye closed, his right half open, no expression in it. But he was breathing.
“He’ll be better soon,” I said. “He always is.”
This time, he wasn’t.
31
Don Solomon sent Hamdun to find a physician. While we stood over Belo, I began the prayer, since Don Solomon didn’t.
May the One Who blessed our ancestors—
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah—
bless and heal Belo.
Don Solomon joined in.
May the Holy Blessed One
overflow with compassion upon him
to restore him . . .
When we finished, he said, “I wouldn’t have told him if I’d thought . . . I wanted him to hear it in my own words.”
I said nothing. We watched Belo in silence. Eventually, Don Solomon sat again.
After half an hour, the Duke of Medinaceli himself and his personal physician, Don Miguel, entered the tent, followed by Hamdun.
The duke embraced Don Solomon. “Your decision delights my heart.”
The physician was a tall, middle-aged man in a yellow-and-white silk overgown and a pointed green hat that added almost an extra foot to his great height. He put down a linen satchel and looked thoughtfully at Belo for a minute or two before he touched him. Then, as Don Israel had, he took Belo’s pulse, and I approved of how carefully he lifted Belo’s wrist. “Thready. How old is he?” He looked at Don Solomon.
“Much younger than I am!”
The duke looked at me, but I said I didn’t know, either.
“I’ll bleed him.” He smiled at the duke. “Bleeding works best in spring.” He untied the strings of his satchel. “I have other remedies, too.”
Don Miguel spent more than an hour with Belo, bleeding him, applying a mustard plaster to his forehead, and putting herbs on his tongue. Don Solomon sat, but the duke and I stood nearby. Hamdun hovered a yard away. I kept holding my breath, looking for a sign that the treatment was having an effect.
Belo stirred once, opened his left eye, and seemed to see us. He said something I couldn’t understand. Saliva stood in the corner of his mouth.
“What, Belo?”
He said more, also incomprehensible.
Finally, the doctor put his things back in his satchel. “The first treatment often fails when later ones sometimes succeed. I’ll return tomorrow morning.”
Sometimes?
He didn’t know that Belo, like me, was stubborn, though he didn’t look stubborn now, sagging in the chair, breathing noisily.
The duke thanked the physician and stayed with us after he left. When Don Miguel must have gone far enough not to be able to hear, His Grace said, “The king and queen will know soon—in an hour or two—that Don Joseph has been struck. Queen Isabella will take it as a sign from God and will baptize him. Paloma, if you want him to remain a Jew and want to remain one yourself, flee!”
The breath rushed out of me. How could I take him? Where would we go? Would I ever see the littles again?
“But”—the duke gripped my shoulders—“if you let them baptize him, he’ll get the best care, wonderful care, and he’ll be safe. He’ll be more likely to recover. The monarchs love him.” He let me go. “And I’m very fond of you. I hate to think of your uncertain future as a Jew.” He stepped back. “What will you do? You mustn’t hesitate.”
I didn’t need to. “If Belo wakes up and finds himself a Christian, he’ll have another spell.” And die cursing me.
But how would we leave Spain? I fought back tears. Would Belo die anyway?
Don Solomon pushed himself out of his chair. “I can’t go with you. I have to organize the departure. I have to send people ahead to Portugal, visit . . .”
Whatever else he said, I didn’t hear. I’d never traveled without Belo or Papá.
But we had Hamdun and guards. I started for the tent flaps. “We have to get ready.” I needed a cart for Belo, who couldn’t sit a horse. Hamdun followed me.
Don Solomon said, “Wait! The road will be watched.”
“Queen Isabella,” His Grace said, “will think it her holy duty to find him and bring both of you into the fold.”
Don Solomon added, “Her people will persist until they succeed.”
I turned back. We had to go and couldn’t leave.
“I’ll hide him.” Don Solomon surveyed his tent. “I don’t know where.”
He’d give us up soon enough. I touched Bela’s pendant.
She sent the thought, or God did. “Can we be disgu
ised?”
No one answered. I supposed they were thinking.
A sensible, planning part of me took over. “People don’t notice the poor.”
Both of them were smiling at me.
His Grace said, “Don Joseph’s prodigy. I have two donkeys.” He chuckled. “The poor ride donkeys.”
Belo couldn’t sit a donkey. I looked at him to see if anything had changed, but nothing had.
Hamdun coughed.
I nodded at him.
“Don Joseph can ride with me.”
Ah. Hamdun would prop him up.
The duke and Don Solomon approved the suggestion. In a few minutes, all was arranged. His Grace would give us two donkeys and three shabby, hooded cloaks from his servants, cloaks without the badges that would mark us as Jews. Don Solomon would send the guards after us with a cart. Beyond the camp, when we came to a deserted spot, we would wait for them to catch up. Then we’d all turn off the road until night.
I sent Hamdun to tell the guards and gather what we needed from our tent.
His Grace took my hands. “May luck travel with you.” He kissed Belo’s forehead. “I wouldn’t have dared do that if he was awake.” He left.
I’d found my way home when I was kidnapped. I’d visited Pero without telling anyone. I said to Don Solomon, “We’ll go to Málaga.”
“When you get there, find a ship for Lisbon. The aljama will welcome you.”
I nodded, but I’d already decided to go to Naples, where Bela’s sister and her family lived. No need to tell Don Solomon, the traitor, where to find us.
I wasn’t thinking clearly and didn’t see my mistake.
A short while later, Hamdun returned and gave me the saddlebag full of ducats from our tent. A servant came with the cloaks. He said the donkeys were waiting outside.
Hamdun stood Belo up, and he managed to keep his feet though he teetered. I wrapped a cloak around him.
When we were cloaked and hooded and our finery hidden, Don Solomon hugged me. I stood stiffly, but then I thanked him. Would I ever see him again? Would he be a Christian if I did?
Hamdun draped Belo’s arm over his shoulder. “I have you. Never fear.”
“The letter!” I took it off the table, glad I remembered.
A Ceiling Made of Eggshells Page 17
