By Fire, By Water Read online

  The sailor was aware that despite the life of privilege Medina-Celi enjoyed, he often felt lonely and dejected. “It is my private melancholy,” the duke sometimes complained. “I was born with it.” He shared his home with the Genoese sailor to distract himself from his aching solitude.

  “Yes, they all do take the saddle, sooner or later,” agreed Colón. “He’s a beast of burden, after all.”

  “Are horses so very different from you and me, my dear Cristóbal?”

  “No, not so very different. You’ll ride him ten, fifteen years, then he’ll die, or Your Lordship will die, but nothing much will have changed in this sorry world.”

  “And suppose I never did saddle him? Suppose I let him canter off into the hills? What good do you imagine would come of that?”

  “A horse doesn’t ask why God put him in this world,” replied Colón. “The good Lord didn’t endow animals with the faculty to pose such questions. A horse’s life has no purpose, other than the purpose we give it.”

  Before Medina-Celi had a chance to respond, his eunuch rode up to the corral.

  “What is it, Fadrique?”

  “The table is set, my lord. The players are here. The chancellor of Aragon has arrived.”

  “Thank you.” The duke called out to one of his stable hands: “Gonçalo, put him back in his pen, will you? He isn’t ready.” He began walking toward the house. Colón followed. Neither said another word until they reached the door, but Colón was fuming inside. It seemed the duke thought of him the way he thought of his favorite horses: as palliatives, to reduce the anguish of his spiritual isolation.

  They found Santángel in the front room of the duke’s manor house. “Ah, Chancellor, such a pleasure.” Medina-Celi bowed. “I see Chronos has been ignoring you, you handsome bastard. If I’m not mistaken there’s even a new spark of youth about you. What’s your little secret?”

  “I have no little secrets, Medina-Celi, as you well know.”

  “Of course not, only monumental ones. Little people have little secrets.”

  “You haven’t aged, either, my dear friend.”

  “You’re well versed in the art of deception,” riposted the duke. “But I’m no fool. Look at these crow’s feet.” Medina-Celi sighed. “Ah, well. Our time here is fleeting. Perhaps it’s just as well.”

  Santángel turned to Colón. “And you, Captain. Still carousing in Rome?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Colón bowed. “Chancellor, if you don’t mind,” he added breathlessly, “do you recall a certain leather pouch?”

  “Ah, your little gift. How can I thank you?”

  “You have it, then.” Colón broke into a smile of relief. “God heard my prayers.”

  “Perhaps we should ask God who put it in my trunk.”

  “Dumitru packed your trunk as well as mine. He must have thought it belonged to you.”

  The chancellor doubted Colón’s explanation, but decided not to challenge him.

  “Did you find out what those documents meant?”

  Santángel glanced at the door. Medina-Celi, always alert, pulled it closed. The chancellor cleared his throat. “I’ll try to summarize.” He told Colón what Serero had taught him about the texts: that Abraham’s passage from Ur to the Holy Land was a spiritual journey, as well as a geographical one; that before the People of Israel returned to the Holy Land, corruption and decay would infect Rome. He spoke of the war against the Jews and the great rainbow, as fresh as a bride. He stopped himself, however, before mentioning the other manuscript, the ancient rolled-up parchment that Abram Serero had refused to discuss—the text that, according to the scribe, had caused so many Jews to be murdered.

  “Is all that of some use to you?”

  “It is, most certainly. I cannot thank you enough,” replied Colón. “The decay of Rome. The great rainbow. The war against the Jews. Now I know what to look for.”

  “When you go to Jerusalem, Señor Colón, you won’t need to know what to look for. You’ll see it before your eyes.”

  Colón beamed. “Thank you, Chancellor. Thank you.”

  “Cristóbal,” interjected Medina-Celi. “We are being somewhat earnest, are we not? You know how exhausted he must be, our friend, the chancellor.” He turned to Santángel. “We’ve prepared an evening of entertainment in your honor.”

  As the sun went down, he escorted the chancellor and the captain to his great room. A fire crackled in the stone hearth. A wide array of foods, artfully displayed, awaited them—pheasant, turnip soup, an apricot pie, a salad of boletes, milk cap, and Judas Ear mushrooms.

  The duke’s eunuch bowed. “A troupe of players, en route to Madrid, for your amusement and instruction.” The troupe entered. The duke raised his hands and applauded with the tips of his fingers against his open palm.

  While the duke, the captain, and the chancellor dined, the itinerant troupe performed a suite of songs arranged around a loose story. The characters had names like “Fortune,” “Charity,” and “Desire.” Their silk raiment, in gold, white, and burgundy, reflected these identities. They sang of love, patience, and suffering. In their passions, they resembled real people rather than figures of allegory. Their melodies were woven together and bridged with rhyming narration, almost forming a unified drama. A eunuch played the young woman. A handsome tenor portrayed the male suitor. This type of theater, drawn from the emotions of common men and women rather than from Bible stories, was a new and bold experiment. Luis de Santángel, charmed, rewarded them with a few coins. The tenor pulled off his pointed cap, releasing long hair, and picked up his lute. He slid closer to Santángel and crooned a ballad for him, the tale of a lonely falconer.

  That night, as he drifted off to sleep, Luis de Santángel thought again of the woman he had met in Granada—her pensive expression as she listened to Baba Shlomo, the way she held her wine cup, the graceful unrobed body Santángel had glimpsed. He closed his eyes and once again smelled the sweet, heady scent of jasmine growing in her garden.

  Judith was no noblewoman, he reminded himself. She seemed simple, straightforward, touchingly provincial. Yet, despite himself, Santángel wondered whether she was not precisely the kind of woman he would marry if he were living in another time, another world. She was clearly as compassionate as she was intelligent and strong-willed. She had taken responsibility for another woman’s child and elderly father.

  But she was a Jewess. Even if she accepted baptism, the choice of such a companion would cast a cloud over the sincerity of Santángel’s faith and destroy everything his grandfather, his father, and he had achieved. His beloved son’s future would be compromised.

  As his mind glided downward over the darkening slope of somnolence, just when it could fight his heart no longer, he admitted to himself he had to see her again.

  In a dining nook adorned with hunting-scene frescoes, Santángel, Colón, and Medina-Celi enjoyed a midday meal of dried sardines, fresh grilled prawns, flat bread, and wine. Santángel thanked the duke for his hospitality. “As always, my dear Medina-Celi, you’ve shown me unmerited warmth and generosity.”

  “In that case,” replied the duke, eyeing a sardine that he held up by its tail, “perhaps you can help our friend Colón, here. He desires an audience with the Crowns.” He dropped the sardine into his mouth.

  “For what purpose?” asked Santángel, taken aback.

  Medina-Celi looked at the captain.

  “The chancellor well knows,” said Colón in his most dignified manner, “how my ambitions could bring glory to the conjoined kingdoms of Castile and Aragon.”

  “Your route to India? Jerusalem?”

  “Indeed.”

  “I’m afraid my captain will never become a landlubber,” said the duke. “It was all a vain dream.” He looked at Colón questioningly. Colón shook his head, laughing.

  Santángel dipped a grilled prawn in spicy sauce. “The king and queen are quite busy with this war of theirs.”

  “They’re always busy with one thing or anot
her, aren’t they,” said Medina-Celi.

  “I suppose something could be arranged,” said Santángel.

  “Thank you,” replied the duke. “Now we have a gift for you.” He opened the door and waved someone in.

  The man who entered, a large fellow dressed in the sober livery of a high-ranking servant, bowed. Santángel recognized the full moustache, the murky eyes of the slave whose freedom he had purchased in Civitavecchia.

  “Iancu.”

  The Moldavian’s arms, legs, and neck had thickened. His curly hair was now short; his face weathered. “You’re no longer a sailor?”

  “A sailor I still am, my lord,” Iancu replied mysteriously. “But I live now on firm land.”

  “And your little boy, Dumitru?”

  “Little, he is not. A boy, he is not even. He is taller than me.”

  “Is he living on firm land, as well?”

  “He doesn’t like the sea. But it is his salt and bread.”

  “I understand your majordomo passed on,” Medina-Celi told Santángel. “The plague, no? Sevilla?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve trained Iancu. He’s quite good.”

  The chancellor shook his head in disbelief and gratitude. He had thought he would never find someone to replace his majordomo, a man of rare loyalty and discretion. Iancu, who owed the chancellor his freedom, as well as his son’s, was as good a bet as any.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  FAR FROM HIS TUTORS, his servants, and his games, Gabriel de Santángel grew bored and restless. Before departing for Cordoba, his father had taken his hands: “This will be a respite. No tutors, no assignments. But don’t let your mind rot. Read Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. You haven’t read it, have you?”

  “Too boring.”

  “Well, I can’t claim I have, either. That’s why I need you to write a summary. It will sharpen your understanding—and mine. Will you do that, my trusted knight?”

  “I prefer the arena to the library.”

  “A great knight,” Santángel instructed his son, “knows how to fight with his mind as well as his sword.” He kissed Gabriel and left.

  Two months passed without word from Gabriel’s father. Despondent, Gabriel sat on the stairs inside Estefan’s house. Gabriel had read a few sentences of The Nicomachean Ethics, then given up, finding the material impenetrable. Uncle Estefan had been too busy to play chess. Gabriel felt weary and confined. “If I can’t be with my father in Cordoba, I’d rather be back in Zaragoza.”

  “Knights have to learn patience, Gabriel,” answered Estefan.

  “Knights don’t stay cooped up. Besides, I’m not a knight.”

  “To go back to Zaragoza … It wouldn’t be safe, just now.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll just have to believe me.”

  “Can I go out for just a few hours? I want to explore Valencia.” Estefan shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry,” Gabriel echoed resentfully. He stood and walked out, pulling the front door loudly closed.

  The tax farmer cherished the boy’s impertinence. Growing up as the putative younger brother of Luis de Santángel, he had displayed plenty of impertinence himself.

  His parents had tried to enforce rules that made no sense. Before every meal, if the meal was taken inside their home, adults and children were required to wash their hands with fresh water. But if they dined in another’s home, they ignored this rule. On a certain day every fall, a day whose exact date changed from year to year, one was not to eat—unless one was invited by a nonrelative. It was acceptable to eat pork outside the home, but not in the house, except for servants, who were allowed to eat pork anywhere. All this the young Estefan Santángel found confusing and incomprehensible, and when he came to understand as an adult, he remained perplexed by the risks his parents had taken.

  When Estefan was thirteen, just months older than Gabriel, Luis discovered him sitting in the garden with a servant, chewing on hog jowls. The older brother said nothing, but there was no mistaking his powerful contempt.

  Gabriel needed to go out from time to time, Estefan decided. He needed to make mistakes, too. If Gabriel made a mistake, he would learn important lessons about the world, far better than through any instruction.

  Béatriz responded to Gabriel’s gentlest cues, communicating with movements of her head and changes in her gait. On the muddy road into town, with open fields on either side and no one to slow him, Gabriel rode as he had not in many months: fast, his hair blowing in the cold wind. The unfamiliarity of his surroundings combined with the wild scent of the horse’s sweat made him feel unfettered, free, invigorated.

  In Valencia, it was the day of the monthly fair. Farmers, craftsmen, merchants, musicians, jugglers, beggars, ragged dogs, pickpockets, goats, chickens, and pigs crowded the center of town. Gabriel tethered his horse outside the market square. On his hip he carried the pouch of coins his father had given him. While purchasing a thick slice of headcheese and a rye-bread roll, he decided his stay with his uncle could still be an adventure, after all.

  A group of children danced in a circle to music played on panpipes, a tambour, a Jew’s harp, and a zither. As Gabriel approached, swallowing his last bit of bread, a girl—whirling, with a flowered wreath in her hair and long chestnut locks—reached out for him. Gabriel took her hand and joined in the revelry, spinning, running to the center of the circle, clapping hands, tripping, laughing. He lost the girl, rejoined her, lost her again.

  When he finally returned to his horse, exhausted and elated, two monks with brown tunics and short swords crossed the street to stop him.

  “Excuse me, young man. Where did you get that jacket?”

  Gabriel glanced down at his oxblood-and-blue striped jerkin. “Why do you ask?”

  “We have our reasons.”

  “What kinds of reasons?”

  “Important reasons. If you don’t tell us where you got it, we’ll have to arrest you, and then you’ll have to confess to someone else.”

  Gabriel de Santángel stared at the monks with contempt. Who did they think they were, speaking to him in this manner? He was the son of the chancellor of Aragon! Ignoring their threat, he began mounting his horse. They pulled him down roughly and wrapped ropes around his wrists.

  “Let go of me! Put me down, you donkeys! My father will have you whipped!” He struggled, kicked, tried to bite them.

  Estefan Santángel asked his servants to arrange the boy’s belongings and straighten his room. He directed his cook to prepare a meal for two: leek soup, a chicken-breast cake with crushed almonds, Majorcan cheese, and quince pie.

  As midday approached, he worked in his study. When Gabriel failed to return, he hoped the boy was being capricious. As afternoon stretched into evening, he grew worried.

  He rode into town, where he walked his horse through alleys and squares, asking whether anyone had seen Gabriel. He stopped at the small inn where Ferran Soto, the local chief of the Santa Hermandad, often drank with friends.

  “Ferran, my good man, have you heard anything about a boy, so high, wearing a striped leather jerkin?”

  “Do you know him?”

  “It’s my nephew. He’s disappeared.”

  Ferran Soto furrowed his brow. “I’ve heard about him, Estefan, and so has everyone else. It wasn’t our doing.” The official was so drunk he could hardly stand. “The Holy Inquisition. They’re the ones who took the child and his horse. What a pity.”

  “Took him? Where? Why would they seize a child?”

  Ferran Soto shrugged. “He probably witnessed something.”

  “What could he have seen? The boy went to the fair! And why did no one notify me?”

  “I don’t know, Estefan. This is a crazy world. You might ask at Santo Juanes.”

  The church of Santo Juanes was quiet and empty. The priest emerged, a tall, wiry man just five years out of the seminary, with whom Estefan had taken confession many a Sunday morning.

  �
��Father Muñoz, the Inquisition took my nephew. My brother, Luis de Santángel, the royal chancellor of Aragon, entrusted the boy to my care.”

  “You needn’t worry, Estefan,” the priest assured him. “No harm will come to the child.”

  “Allow me to visit with him.”

  “That I cannot do.”

  Estefan pushed past him to an inner door and shouted, “Gabriel, can you hear me?”

  “Please, Estefan. In times like these, one must rely on one’s faith.”

  “What does my faith have to do with this? This is about my nephew.”

  Two constables entered.

  “Please, Estefan,” the priest urged him. “God will answer your prayers. And mine.”

  “Gabriel,” the tax collector shouted. “We’ll get you out of here!” The constables took him out.

  Estefan could hardly work or eat. He drank himself to sleep, then woke hours later, terrified. He had betrayed his brother’s trust. His nephew, a spirited and intelligent child, was in danger. He returned to the church every day for a week, pleading with Father Muñoz, calling to the boy. He hoped Gabriel would find courage in his uncle’s voice.

  At the Iglesia Mayor, the cathedral of Valencia, he asked to speak with the priest, Rodrigo de Borja, a man widely admired for his compassion and wisdom. Like Father Muñoz, Father de Borja listened, nodding sympathetically. “In the realm of Castile, today, as you know,” this priest told him, “the Inquisition … How shall I put this? The Inquisition doesn’t take orders from priests like me. But I shall inquire. I shall see what I can do.”