The Devils of Cardona (41 page)

“Thank you, Licenciado Mendoza,” she said.

Mendoza nodded. Gabriel was watching quietly from the shadows, and he waited till she had returned to her family before coming forward to greet his guardian.

“Everything all right, boy?” Mendoza asked stiffly.

“Yes, sir. So you were right about Corregidor Calvo. I'm glad Sergeant Ventura was able to get there in time.”

“So am I,” he said. “And now there is nothing more to keep us here.”

he next day Belamar finally began to bury its dead. Father García had already come from Cardona to conduct a purification ritual in the church, and that morning he held yet another funeral Mass for all the village's dead. The countess attended, accompanied by Susana, and Gabriel stood near the back of the packed church with Ventura and Mendoza and watched as the Moriscos attempted to join in the prayers and hymns that many of them hardly knew.

He wondered how many of them really believed that Jesus would return to judge the living and the dead and whether the dead were being buried as Moors or Christians. He wondered whether all countries were like Spain, where nothing was what it seemed to be on the surface and men and women hid who they really were and what they really felt or thought. He wondered if the king was aware of the corruption and injustice that pervaded his
kingdoms. And most of all, he wondered what kind of future awaited him in a country that he no longer belonged to. Now their business in Belamar was done, and the next day they would begin the journey back to Zaragoza and Castile, and he would return to his old life, except that his life could never be the same as it was, because he was no longer the person he thought he was.

In the past he had never understood why the boys at the
colegio
who bullied and taunted him had called him Moor. Magda told him that it was because he was cleverer than they were and because of his black hair and darker skin. She had reassured him that Spaniards had dark skin, too, and that he was as much a Christian as they were—and a better Christian, because he turned the other cheek. But now he realized that they'd sensed what he had not even begun to suspect until he came to Belamar.

These thoughts oppressed him as he followed the mourners down to the cemetery. The entire population of Belamar had turned out for the occasion, and there were tears and lamentations as the keeners wailed and moaned and tore at their shawls and waved their arms at the sky. Men, women and children wept openly as the bodies of their friends and relatives were laid carefully into the ground wrapped in white shrouds before the graves were partially filled and other bodies were laid on top of them.

At last the list of names came to an end, and Mendoza called Gabriel over as he went to speak to the countess. She was standing at the edge of the cemetery with Segura, Susana and Juana, and she had obviously been crying herself.

“I understand that you are leaving us tomorrow, Licenciado,” she said.

“We are, my lady,” Mendoza replied. “And before I leave, I would like to take down a formal deposition from you.”

“Now?” she asked.

“If I'm to consider the allegations you have made against Vallcarca and your father-in-law, I need a written statement.”

“Very well, then.” The countess accompanied them to Segura's study
and sat at the table opposite Mendoza while Gabriel took up his position behind his
escritorio
. She calmly repeated what she had already told him about her previous meetings with Vallcarca and her father-in-law as Gabriel wrote the conversation down. Afterward Mendoza looked her statement over. “Thank you for your time, my lady,” he said, “but there's one thing I am still not clear about. Why was Vallcarca so convinced that the Inquisition would arrest you? Was there anything he knew, or thought he knew, that could have been used against you?”

“There was nothing.” Her face showed no sign of emotion as she returned his gaze. “Nothing that you yourself don't already know.”

“Very well. Then I must ask for your cooperation in another matter regarding the prisoners you took from Belamar.”

“Rest assured that my courts will punish them with the severity their crimes warrant, Licenciado.”

“I don't doubt it,” Mendoza replied, “but the bandits and the
montañeses
are only pawns. The men who directed them must also face justice. I would like your magistrates to offer amnesty to anyone who can give them any information about these men—and to send any such information to me in Zaragoza.” Mendoza handed her a rolled sheet of paper. “And I want this read out in all the towns and villages of Cardona so that the offer of amnesty can be extended throughout the
señorio
. Otherwise there will never be peace in Cardona. I would also like an escort of twenty men to take my prisoners from Jaca to Zaragoza in three days' time.”

“So you mean to arrest Vallcarca?”

“Among others.”

“It will be done as you ask, Licenciado. I ask for just one exception—my father-in-law.”

“But if Espinosa was acting on behalf of Vallcarca, then he was also criminally responsible.”

“My father-in-law is a greedy fool, but he is not a murderer. I would like the opportunity to punish him in my own way.”

“Very well, then. As you wish.”

“And surely the carpenter Navarro and his apprentice can be released now?”

“There is nothing I can do for them, my lady. That is a matter for the Inquisition. But the two Moriscos were not innocent. They were ready to join the Redeemer.”

“But they weren't guilty of rape,” she protested.

Mendoza nodded. “Indeed. And I shall inform the Inquisition in Zaragoza of my findings and see if it may be possible to obtain clemency or at least a remission of sentence for them.”

“Then perhaps we will know peace—if His Majesty can be persuaded that we are not all heretics.”

The limpid blue eyes stared at him calmly, but Mendoza sensed the anxiety behind them. She really did have the face of an angel, he thought. It was difficult to gaze on such loveliness and believe that it was capable of deception. Yet she had lied again and again, just as Segura and the Moriscos had lied, and if he failed to report what he knew, then he would be complicit in the lies they'd told. In that moment he thought of his Morisco childhood friends, many years ago, when they had played games of Moors and Christians at the Alhambra palace and taken turns on each side. He thought of Galera and Lepanto and the other battles he'd fought in. He thought of the Lutheran nun on the Inquisition pyre and all the other persecutions of men and women who only wanted to worship their own gods in their own way, and it seemed to him that the countess's lies were necessary, that they were honorable and even benevolent, in comparison with the lies of Vallcarca, Calvo and Villareal.

“That is a matter for the Church and the Inquisition, my lady,” he said. “My investigation in Belamar is concluded, and I do not propose to advise His Majesty on matters outside my jurisdiction.”

The countess looked visibly relieved. “Then I have one other favor to ask you.”

“And what is that?”

“I intend to appeal directly to His Majesty to change the Cardona statutes so that my daughter, Carolina, can inherit my estates.”

Mendoza looked at her in surprise. “Forgive my impertinence, my lady. But do you yourself not intend to marry?”

“I have . . . other plans. My lawyers inform me that the king is sometimes prepared to grant such exceptions and allow the inheritance to be passed down through the female line in special circumstances. Particularly when the petitioners have done him great service. I believe that I have served His Majesty well these last few days.”

“You have indeed, my lady. Without your intervention we would all have been killed and the War of Cardona would only be just beginning.”

“Then it would be of great assistance to my appeal if you could mention this in your report to His Majesty.”

“Of course.”

“Then I thank you. And I and the people of Belamar will always be grateful to you—and also to your companions.”

•   •   •

S
HE
SMILED
BENIGNLY
AT
G
ABRIEL
, who ushered her downstairs to where Susana was waiting. The four of them accompanied the countess to her carriage in the main square, and Gabriel stood next to Mendoza and bowed as she looked out the window and waved to them. Afterward he drifted over to the medieval wall and looked disconsolately over the terraces that had only recently been strewn with the dead. He was still sitting there when Ventura came and sat beside him.

“You're looking very down in the mouth, boy,” he said. “I hear that my cousin told you about Galera.”

“He did.”

“And that's why you're walking around looking as if a dog just ate your supper?”

“How should I feel, now that I'm the child of Saracens? Happy?”

“Why not?” Ventura laughed. “It doesn't matter what you were. It's what you are now that counts. And anyway, being the son of Moriscos from Galera is nothing to be ashamed of. They were brave men and women who fought for their homes and families—just as the Moriscos here did.”

“They were heretics.”

Ventura pulled a face. “Let me tell you something, boy. When I was a child, I saw my father—your guardian's uncle—wear a sanbenito because someone said he was a Jew. He had to wear it for three months, every time he went out into the street. He mostly stopped going out at all, but the shame was on his face even when he was in the house. The shame didn't come from him—others put it there. That damn rag still hangs in the church to remind me that I share in his sin. But you know what? I don't care if he was a Jew or not a Jew. I don't care if a man is a converso or a Marrano or a Morisco or a Saracen, and you shouldn't either. Because the only thing that matters in this life is that men behave with honor. And your guardian is an honorable man. Anyone else would have left you in that house to die. But he brought you up and educated you as if you were his own son. He gave you a life, and tomorrow you will be going back to it.”

“To spend the rest of my life pretending.”

“Everybody pretends, boy. This is Spain! Priests pretend to be holy. Women pretend to be virtuous. Jews and Moors pretend to be Christians, and men without a drop of blue blood in their veins buy titles and pretend to be nobles so that they can pay no taxes and have other men bow and scrape to them. So stop feeling sorry for yourself. And I believe there's someone you need to say good-bye to.”

He nodded in the direction of the church, and Gabriel looked around just in time to see Juana turn away. He had not talked to her properly since the battle. Even when they worked together in the hospital they hardly spoke, and since then he'd been busy writing letters and proclamations.
Now the realization that he would never see her again added to his gloom. He continued to sit by the wall after Ventura had gone, his mind swarming with gallant and heartfelt words, before he finally mustered up the courage to go look for her.

He found her in the village hall, scrubbing the floor with the women who had helped her, while the stretcher-bearers carried out the straw and mattresses. He immediately offered to help them, and before anyone could say yes or no, he took the bucket from Juana's hand and went down to the
lavadero
to fill it. For the next hour, he emptied buckets of bloodied water over the terraces and went to the
lavadero
to bring replacements. By early evening the cleaning was completed and he had still not said a word to her and she had not tried to speak to him. He no longer had any reason to be there, and he went back to the dispensary in a mournful mood to wait for supper in his room.

Mendoza's room was empty, and Gabriel lay on his own bed staring at the ceiling. He had not been there long when he heard a faint knock on the door. He hadn't even heard anyone coming up the stairs, and he opened the door to find Juana standing barefoot with an empty bucket in her hand, looking at him accusingly.

“So, scrivener, you were going to leave me without saying good-bye?”

“No, I wasn't, I—”

Before he could finish, she reached out and pulled him toward her and kissed him on the lips for a long time with her eyes closed. There was no need for gallant words now as he squeezed her to him and rested his hands on her slim hips. All the fear and death of the last few weeks were gone now, and his heart soared as he held the slight, eager body of the first girl he'd ever felt anything for tightly in his arms, and then he heard the sound of his guardian's stick on the stair, and she pulled away from him and extricated herself.