“And if it doesn’t?” asked Jonas, worried. “Life can also decide that we never meet again.”
“That won’t happen, my handsome Jonas,” promised the Jewish woman, brushing her hand against the side of his face. “Important people always come back. Everything goes around in the universe, everything spins, and on one of those paths we shall find each other again. I wish you all the best, sire Galceran,” she said, turning towards me. “It is very possible that I will not see you again.”
“It would be difficult, that’s true,” I agreed, trying to reject the truth of her words, “because when all of this is over I will return to my home in Rhodes. But if you ever go to the island, look for me at my Order’s hospital.”
“No, sire, I don’t think I will ever go to Rhodes. Using that as consolation would be absurd. Be happy. May Yahwey guide your path.”
“And may heaven guide yours,” I muttered sadly, turning around. I could feel how my heart was tearing, how my nerves tensed. “Let’s go, Jonas.”
“Goodbye, Jonas,” I heard Sara say, moving further away. “Goodbye, Sara.”
Shortly after passing through the gate of St. Martin, descending towards the Hospital of the Emperor — located close to the Hospital of the King —, Jonas spat out what he was thinking.
“Why did we have to leave her?”
“Because she loves a man in this city and we cannot interfere in her life.” I wanted to be on my own so as I could scream out the pain I felt in my chest. “If she prefers to stay in Burgos, that’s up to her, don’t you think …?” My voice was cracking in my throat. “We can’t drag her to Compostela. Anyway, you and I have our own matters to deal with in Burgos, so get a move on.”
“What matters?” he asked curiously.
“Something that is too important to tell you here.” We were now walking within the walled compounds of the Hospital of the King, along a wide path between tall trees that guided us towards a building that looked more like a fortress than a holy monastery for ladies.
Since we had started our journey, we had not rested in a place as luxurious as the Hospital of the King, where our false passes were opening doors for us everywhere. We stopped feeling like poor pilgrims and began to feel like courtiers of a long-established nobility: sumptuous chambers pleasantly warmed by good fires, soft canopy beds, tapestries on the walls, fine fabrics, bear and fox fur on the chairs, and large portions of well-prepared food, enough to feed the Castilian armies of Alfonso IX. The lay brothers who were looking after pilgrims like us, that is to say, noble people who had come from all parts of Europe, were clean, conscientious and attentive, not like the ones we had come across before and the most amazing part of all was that this praiseworthy mix of lavish charity and prayer represented only a small part of the Abbey of Las Huelgas Reales which also included numerous churches, convents, monasteries, shrines, villages, forests and meadows ruled by the iron hand of one woman: the almighty abbess of Las Huelgas, Madam, Superior and Prelate with absolute and quasi-episcopal jurisdiction.
After lunch, feeling a cold sweat all over my body, I made myself look as good as I could (I even cut my long beard with the help of Le Man’s dagger), left Jonas sleeping at the inn and went to the hall of the monastery which was the purest expression of Cistercian military art. The hall was a large nave whose elevated friezes displayed clarions carved along the edges, atauriques, and a long Latin text painted onto the plaster reciting verses from the Psalms. A low-level lay sister came to greet me with much fuss and great shows of respect.
“Pax vobiscum.”
“Et cum spiritu tuo.”
“What are you searching for in the house of God, sire?”
“I want to see the mistress Isabel of Mendoza.”
The old nun, whom I must have just woken up, looked at me in surprise from under her black wimple.
“The mistresses of this monastery do not receive visits that have not been authorized by the High Lady,” she said, referring to the abbess.
“Well, tell the High Lady that Don Galceran of Born, papal envoy of His Holiness John XXII, with authorization signed by the Holy Father himself to enter this monastery of mistresses and be received at any time by Doña Isabel of Mendoza, sends his respects and best wishes.”
The lay sister was alarmed. After giving me a long, suspicious look she disappeared behind a carved oak door which her weary hands pushed open with difficulty. Shortly after she reappeared, accompanied by another Reverend with a refined, stately look to her. Given their duties, they must have both have been free from confinement.
“I am Doña Mary of Almenar. What do you want?”
I knelt on the floor and ceremoniously kissed the beautiful crucifix on the rosary hanging from her girdle.
“My name is Don Galceran of Born, my mistress, and I bring an authorization from Pope John XXII to enter this monastery and meet with Doña Isabel of Mendoza.”
“Can I see those papers,” she said politely. Whatever that nun’s origin, she was definitely a woman of high standing. By her manners I could tell that she had spent most of her life in the court.
I held out the documents and after looking over them she disappeared behind the same door that she had come through earlier. This time her return took longer than it should have. I suspected that a turbulent discussion was taking place behind those walls and that the High Lady must have been looking for comparisons to the signature left and right, fearing a hoax or a forgery. However, in that specific case, and despite the fact that lying is my great specialty, the authorization I had given her was completely authentic, signed and sealed by John XXII himself on the night he entrusted me with the sacred mission that I was carrying out for both him and my Order along the Camino de Santiago.
Doña Mary of Almenar returned with a grim expression on her face.
“Follow me, Don Galceran.”
We went out into a large, beautiful cloister which we quickly exited, turning left twice along a path that took us to another smaller cloister that looked much older.
“Wait here,” she said. “Doña Isabel will be out in a minute. She will meet you in the part of the monastery we call ‘The Claustrillas’. It was the ancient mansion’s recreational garden which the kings of Castile used to escape the problems of the kingdom. This is why the monastery was called Las Huelgas, or The Repose.”
I wasn’t listening to her and didn’t notice her absence when she left. Staring at the flowerbeds, I was busy trying to slow the rate of my beating heart. I was just as afraid, if not more, than during my long-ago days of battle when, armed to the teeth and covered in armor, I galloped towards the enemy following the path of my gonfalon. I knew that I had to kill — and die if need be —, but my legs and my hands didn’t shake as much then as they were now. I would have liked to have been wearing new habits, to have a clean beard and combed hair, to be armed with my sword and covered by the Hospitallers’ long white cloak with the black octagonal cross. However, unfortunately I was just wearing the clothes of a poor pilgrim, and that wasn’t much for a mistress like Isabel of Mendoza.
Isabel of Mendoza … I could still hear her childish laughter echoing through the corridors of her father’s castle and see the glow of the flames reflected in her beautiful blue eyes. Unfortunately, I could still remember the velvet touch of her young skin and the shape of her body, and without trying too hard, I could relive those times when she gave herself to me, both of us caught up in the passion of youth. On one of those scarce times, we were caught by her old nursemaid — she was called Doña Misol, I will never forget her name —, who ran off to tell Isabel’s father, Don Nuño of Mendoza, a great friend of my father’s, whose house I was serving in as a squire. That could have ended my chances of being knighted (Don Nuño asked the Bishop of Alava for a judgment of honor against me) but thanks to my father’s intervention, I was lucky enough to be able to profess in the Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. I was separated from Isabel and from my family and sent to R
hodes at the age of seventeen, without anyone ever telling me about the birth of Jonas.
“Sir Galceran of Born …,” said a voice from behind me. Was that the voice of Isabel? It could have been but I wasn’t sure.
Fifteen years had passed since the last time I had heard her and this voice sounded more high-pitched, more strident. Was it Isabel who was behind me? It could have been but I couldn’t be sure until I turned around, and I didn’t have the strength to do it. I felt suffocated. With a strong will, I managed to subdue my fears and turn around.
“Lady Doña Isabel …,” I managed to say.
Blue eyes were looking at me with curiosity and awe. Surrounding them was the stout oval face of a stranger, although distantly similar to that of Jonas’, framed by thin, plucked eyebrows on a large forehead and sharp cheekbones that I did not remember. Large quantities of make-up, powders and colors distorted her appearance. Who was that woman?
“It is a pleasure to see you again after so many years,” she said dryly, with her tone belying her words of welcome. Her black robes, in line with the Bernadine rules (covered, though, in beautiful jewels), and the wimple that hid her hair threw me off balance. I didn’t recognize her. Older and larger, she looked nothing like my lovely Isabel. No, I didn’t know who that elderly mistress with the sour demeanor was.
“Likewise, ma’am. Indeed, many years have passed.”
As if by magic, my fears, my worries and my pains disappeared. All of my anguish went up in smoke.
“And what is the reason for your extraordinary visit? You have really stirred up the monastery, and the High Lady doesn’t really know what to think of you and your documents.”
“Let the High Lady know that the documents are authentic and in order. It was very difficult to acquire them but it was worth it.”
“Let’s walk, Don Galceran. As you can see, Las Claustrillas is a peaceful place.”
I could hear the sound of water coming from a fountain and birdsong in the background. Everything was peaceful and serene, even in my heart. We began by walking through the galleries, whose arches, sober and devoid of ornaments, rested on twin columns.
“Tell me, sir, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“To our son, Doña Isabel, the young Garcia Galcerañez, abandoned at the Monastery of Ponç de Riba a little over fourteen years ago.”
The mistress suppressed her shock, covering her confusion with a dry smile.
“That son does not exist,” she lied.
“He does exist. And what’s more, he is currently resting in the neighboring inn of the Hospital of the King, and I can assure you that nobody in their right mind could deny the obvious: He has your face, accurately reproduced by nature down to the tiniest details. The only similarities to me are in his nature, his voice and his build. I found him, ma’am, not long ago in the place that you had ordered for him to be left.”
“You are wrong, sir,” she refused obstinately, although the shaking of her ring-covered hands gave her away. “We never had a son.”
“Look, mistress, I’m not in the mood for this nonsense! Three years ago,” I explained, “a poor beggar, devoured by leprosy, was brought to my hospital in Rhodes. He didn’t have many hours left to live and I ordered for him to be transferred to the room of the dying. The man recognized me as soon as he saw me: It was your servant, Gonçalvo. Do you remember him? He was one of the swineherds at the Mendoza castle, the youngest. It was Gonçalvo who told me of the birth, at the beginning of June 1303, who told me that Doña Misol and yourself had handed the boy over to be taken to the faraway Monastery of Ponç de Riba, in exchange for which he obtained his freedom (I assume your father was behind the matter), and who told me that you had professed as a Bernadine mistress at this monastery in Burgos.”
“It wasn’t me who gave birth that day!” she said passionately. Her voice was very high-pitched, a sign that she was terribly upset. “It was Doña Elvira, my lady in waiting, the one that made you laugh with her wit.”
“Stop lying, mistress!” I bellowed, stopping and staring at her. “The boy who was abandoned by Gonçalvo at Ponç de Riba was wearing a jet and silver Jewish amulet around his neck in the shape of a fish that I gave you that night, do you remember? I had always worn it under my clothes from the time my mother had put it on me on the day of my birth until you insisted on having it because it had dug into your skin while you were with me. And what name did you ask for him to be baptized with on the note left next to him? Garcia, the same name you secretly called me because you had fallen in love with it after hearing a poem whose hero was named as such.”
Isabel, who had been looking at me with sad, wet eyes, suddenly calmed down. It seemed as though a cold gush of air had passed through her body, calming her mood and leaving ice crystals in her eyes. Her lips curved into a sneer that was meant to be a smile and she looked at me with contempt.
“So what? What does it matter that I gave birth to a son? What does one bastard more or less in this world matter? I wasn’t the first and I won’t be the last to bear an illegitimate child. The High Lady also had a child with a count before professing and nobody comes to remind her about it or throw it in her face.”
“You haven’t understood anything,” I muttered sadly.
“What do I have to understand? That you have come here with our son to take me away from here, that you want to start an old age family? That’s it …!” she spat in my face. “You want a wedding between a monk and a nun, with our bastard as the boy-Bishop!”
“That’s enough!” I shouted. “Enough ….”
“I don’t know why you’ve come here but whatever the reason is, you won’t be successful.”
“You weren’t like this before, Isabel,” I said sadly. “What happened to you? Why have you become so mean?”
“Mean?” she said surprised. “I’ve spent fifteen years of my life, the age I was when I arrived, locked inside these walls because of you.”
“Because of me?” I asked astonished.
“At least you were sent overseas. You traveled, you got to see the world and you studied but what about me? I was confined to the force of this monastery, with my only entertainment being prayers and my only music the liturgical chants. Life isn’t easy in here, sir … My time is split between gossiping, chatting and back-stabbing. The thing that entertains me the most is creating alliances and enemies whom I take advantage of when it suits me. Everyone else does the same, and life passes us by with these empty tasks. With the exception of the High Lady and her closest sisters, and the forty lay sisters who run the house, the rest of us don’t have much to do. And that’s how it is, day after day, month after month, year after year.”
“What are you complaining about? Your life wouldn’t have been any different outside these walls, Isabel. If our lineages had been on par and we had married, or if you had married someone else, what would you be doing differently?”
“I would have brought the best minstrels in the kingdom to listen to next to the fire during the winter nights,” she began to list, “I would have ridden horses through our land, like I used to ride my father’s horses, and I would have had many children with you to occupy my time. I would have read all the books, and I would have convinced you to do pilgrimages to Santiago, to Rome, and even,” she said with a laugh, “to Jerusalem. I would have run your house, your farm and your servants with a firm hand, and I would have waited for you every night in bed ….”
She stopped abruptly, with a lost look on her face, leaving her sentence in midair.
“We could not have foreseen that Doña Misol would discover us,” I muttered.
“No, we couldn’t have but the fact is that she did, and she separated us, and you didn’t do anything to stop her, and nine months later I bore a child who they took from me, and then they brought me here and here I remain, and I will be here until the day I die.”
“I couldn’t have fought against your father and mine, Isabel.”
“Reall
y?” she asked with contempt. “Well, if I had have been you, I would have.”
“And what would you have done?” I wanted to know.
“I would have taken you away!” she said, without a shadow of a doubt. How could I explain to her that her father had flogged me to near death, that he had locked me up in the castle’s prison-like tower and kept me there, without bread or water, until lifeless and deprived, he had handed me over to the men of the Hospital? At the end of the day, our lives were past repair but there was one life that could be saved and that was the reason I was there.
“I should have taken you away, yes …,” I agreed sadly. “But I beg you to think of the fact that you had no option and neither did I. But the future they robbed us of, Isabel, we can give to our son.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked bitterly.
“Let me tell Garcia where he really comes from. Give him legitimacy letters as a Mendoza and I will give him those of Born. I didn’t want to tell him the truth without your approval. My father could adopt him if I ask but your lineage is superior than mine and, as you can image, I would like him to have it. You won’t be losing much (you and your brother are the last Mendozas and neither of you have legitimate offspring) and he would get his birthright. When I go back to Rhodes I will leave him in the care of my family to be knighted when he turns twenty. He is a wonderful boy, Isabel. He is good and intelligent like you and ever so handsome. In Paris, someone who knew your brother, Manrique, quickly made the association with your family. He is perhaps too tall for his age; sometimes I fear that his bones will come out of joint because he is so tall. And he already has stubble on his face.”
I couldn’t stop talking. I wanted Isabel to feel affection towards her son. But unfortunately, I wasn’t successful. Maybe if I had used a ruse, a ploy, I would have managed to do it but the thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I am a liar and a perjurer, that’s true but there are some things that my conscience won’t allow.
Iacobus Page 23
