The Jerusalem Diamond (23 page)

He wanted to hold his son and show him
. See, Isaac, the land where your father was born. They drove him away, but that is not the land's fault. Isn't it beautiful. Aren't these good Spanish onions?

They weren't as good as he had remembered. What they needed was impossible, a chunk of his mother's bread, torn from a still-hot loaf
.

They had called him Julio
.

That had changed when they had reached the low countries. His father, his capital left behind, had tried in vain to work as an ordinary
bootmaker, a glovemaker. The guilds would suffer Jews to buy from them, but not to join them. When his father died, his mother's brother had taken the responsibility for two foreign nephews. “Forget Julio. You must be Julius,” his uncle had said firmly. He had set the precedent himself, having left Italy as Luigi, studied mathematics in Paris as Louis and then, when he saw that a Jew would get no academic appointment, gone to Bruges to become Lodewyck, a diamond cutter
.

Vidal sighed. He drank from a brook to wash down the onions and then got back on the horse. The rain stopped and the sun came out, and in Victoria he was able to buy bread from three pilgrims who were walking to the shrine of St. James of Compostela. He may have been sufficiently different to arouse their suspicions; a short time after leaving them he was overtaken by Inquisition guards. He was numb, but the safe conduct from Torquemada drew respect
.

Twice again in the next four hours he was stopped by armed men to whom he showed his document. The third time, late in the afternoon, he had reached León and the soldiers were De Costa's. They escorted him in at a gallop. It felt strange to be one of the swift riders. He liked the sensation of scenery careening past and the sounds all around him. But animals and people scattered for their lives before the cruel and careless hooves
.

He was to be treated as a guest. They assigned him a large chamber that contained food and wine. He had forgotten about rose water. The Flemish used only soap, for which Anna saved ashes from the fire
.

That evening he was summoned. The Count was a large and slovenly man with a perpetual smug smile
.

Vidal knew about De Costa from refugees who lived in Antwerp. For years he had made a practice of testifying that certain wealthy
conversos
were secret Judaizers. Their estates were always confiscated and De Costa had bought a great deal of property cheaply. Isabella was particularly grateful to those who made her Inquisition work, since these profiteers were the only ones who paid her outlandish taxes without complaint. De Costa had been made a count in 1492, the year of the general expulsion of the Jews
.

Several years before, he had acquired the great yellow diamond and a good deal of land, the estate of a relaxed
converso
named Don Benvenisto
del Melamed. A “New Christian” shipbuilder who had made the mistake of allowing the crown to go deeply into his debt for ships of the fleet, Melamed had bought the great yellow diamond from the family of a knight who had plundered it from the great Acre Mosque during the Crusades. Instead of donating it to his Catholic Majesties or to his Church, the shipbuilder had made a final error. He had kept it for himself
.

Such selfishness was proof to De Costa of Melamed's fatal Jewishness, and he had been denounced anonymously on a variety of charges and subsequently burned for the purification of his Christian soul. The royal couple, with a giant debt suddenly cancelled, was well disposed when the holdings of the executed wretch were quietly picked up by their loyal and religious subject, De Costa
.

The Count showed Vidal through the great stone manor. Julius did not ask him about its previous owner
.

In a large room were artifacts of the Crusades which De Costa had assembled with a collector's passion—Saracen, Moorish and Christian swords, shields and armor of many nations, and an array of tattered battle banners
.

“
Here is my favorite,” he said. Fastened to the skirts of a heavy military saddle dangled what Vidal thought were dried human fingers until he saw that each was undeniably circumcised
.

“
Mohammedan pricks,” De Costa confirmed with a grin
.

“
How can you tell they were all Moslems?” he said faintly
.

The Count looked startled, as though the thought had never occurred to him. He roared with laughter and smacked Julius on the back for being a witty fellow
.

Next morning he was taken to a building in the center of León. It was one of the Inquisition's infamous secret prisons. From the street it could have been taken for an imposing residence. Inside were armed soldiers and Dominican monks
.

A friar who said he was
alcalde,
or keeper, studied his pass
.

“
Yes, the prisoner De Mariana is here
.”

He led the way down a series of corridors to a door. Beyond it someone was coughing. When it was opened, Vidal saw that the room was very small. The chamberpot stank, but otherwise the cell was clean. On the
floor were writing materials, a wash bowl, a thin piece of soap and a razor, and a three-legged stool. A spare, white-haired man lay on the cot, awakened by the keys in the locks. He sat up and stared. His pale face was clean shaven but his blue eyes were rheumy
.

“
I have come to help you
.”

The man said nothing
.

“
I am Julius Vidal, a diamond cutter from Ghent, in the low countries. I am told we are kinsmen
.”

The man cleared his throat. “I have no kinsmen
.”

“
My father's grandfather was Isaac ben Yaacov Vitallo
.”

“
I know of no kinsmen
.”

“
It is no trick. I have a skill they need. I think I can save you
.”

“
I am not damned, therefore I need not be saved
.”

“
I've come to save your body. You must take care of your own soul
.”

The man looked at him
.

He sat on a stool. “You know about your ancestors, the Vitallo family
?”

“
I descend from
conversos.
That's widely known, why should I deny it? My father died a good priest in Christ. And I have given my only child to Holy Mother Church
.”

“
A son
?”

“
A daughter. My Juana, a Sister of Mercy
.”

Vidal nodded. “Strange, that lives of kinsmen should be so different. My brother is a rabbi. We were born in Toledo, where thousands of Jews were killed, blamed for the Black Death. More than one hundred and fifty years afterward, we were always afraid
.”

“
I was never afraid as a child,” De Mariana said, as though proving a point. “Toledo is said to have been founded by Jews. Did you know that
?”

“
Yes
.”

“
I think it is a Jewish lie,” the old man said shrewdly
.

“
The name comes from
Toledot,
Hebrew for ‘generations.' A beautiful city. My father's house was near the synagogue
.”

“
It is now a church. I know Toledo well
.”

“
Perhaps you refer to the Church of Santa Maria Blanca, in the former synagogue near the Tagus River,” Vidal said. “That one was already a church when we lived there
.”

“
The newer synagogue also is a church now. I myself have attended Mass in it
”

“
Does the Jewish graveyard remain
?”

De Mariana shrugged
.

“
In summer while our father was in the synagogue my brother and I played on the graves. I used to practice reading Hebrew on the epitaph of a fifteen-year-old boy. ‘Asher Aben Turkel. Died in 1349
.

This stone is a memorial

That a later generation may know

That 'neath it lies hidden a pleasant bud,

A cherished child.

Perfect in knowledge,

A reader of the Bible,

A student of the Mishna and Gemara.

Had learned from his father

What his father learned from his teachers:

The statutes of God and his laws.' “

“
Lord help me. I begin to believe in you. How is it a Jew is here and alive
?”

“
You may believe in me, cousin.” Vidal patted the other's hand and found it extremely hot. “You are ill. You have the fever,” he said anxiously
.

“
It is the dampness here. With no fire, sometimes my clothing becomes moist. It will pass. It has before
.”

“
No, no. You shall have treatment.” Vidal went to the grate and shouted for the
alcalde,
telling him when he came that the prisoner was ill and required a physician's services. To his relief, the surly keeper nodded
.

“
I had best leave you to receive care
.”

“
Return. Return, even if you are a deception,” De Mariana said
.

Outside, old men sat and sunned in the square and children shouted and chased a barking dog. There was a small and pleasant marketplace. He was hungry and he paused at a booth where a woman sold stewed beans
.

“
Do they contain pork
?”

She looked at him with contempt. “You expect meat for such a price
?”

He smiled and bought a portion. They had a flavor he had almost forgotten. He ate with enjoyment, squatting in the warmth of a wall that was covered with notices. An
Auto da Fé,
or Act of Faith, would be celebrated in several days' time. A milk cow, ready for rebreeding, was for sale. So was a sheep dog, and fowls plucked or alive. There was an Edict of Faith asking the populace to contact the office of the Inquisition Tribunal
…

… If you know or have heard of anyone who keeps the Sabbath according to the law of Moses, putting on clean sheets and other new garments, and putting clean cloths on the table and clean sheets on the bed on feastdays in honor of the Sabbath, and using no lights from Friday evening onwards; or if they have purified the meat they are to eat by bleeding it in water; or have cut the throats of cattle or birds they are eating, uttering certain words and covering the blood with earth; or have eaten meat in Lent or on other days forbidden by Holy Mother Church; or have fasted the great fast, going barefooted that day; or if they say Jewish prayers, at night begging forgiveness of each other, the parents placing their hands on the heads of their children without making the sign of the Cross or saying anything but “Be blessed by God and by me” ; or if they bless the table in the Jewish way; or if they recite the psalms without the
Gloria Patri
; or if any woman keeps forty days after childbirth without entering a church; or if they circumcise their children or give them Jewish names; or if after baptism they wash the place where the oil and chrism was put; or if anyone on his deathbed turns to the wall to die, and when he is dead they wash him with hot water, shaving the hair off all parts of his body …

When he finished eating, he looked at weapons. He had never carried a sword and would use it clumsily. But
Der Schneider
would have little trouble with a smaller blade. He bought a short dagger of Toledo steel and strapped it to his waist. At a skinner's booth he searched through hides until he found a well-cured sheepskin. He carried it back to the prison to discover that the physician had come and gone. De Mariana's
chest had been cupped and he had been bled. Now he lay weaker than before, scarcely able to speak
.

Vidal tucked the skin around him and went to face the diamond
.

De Costa placed it on the table and smiled
.

“
It is special,” Vidal managed. It was so much larger than anything he had attempted to finish
.

“
How long
?”

“
I work slowly
.”

De Costa stared with suspicion
.

“
It is too important for speed. The greatest precision is required, and planning demands time
.”

“
Then you must begin at once.” Obviously, he expected to watch
.

“
I must be alone where I work
.”

De Costa showed his disgust. “Will you require special materials
?”

“
I have everything,” he said
.

But when he was alone, it was worse
.

The stone sat there like an opulent egg. He had hated it on sight. He hadn't the slightest idea how to treat it
.

Next day De Mariana appeared to be no stronger than after the bleeding, but glad to see Julius
.

He was flushed and constantly wracked. The coughing had begun to produce a gray phlegm
.

Vidal resolved to be cheerful. “You shall recover swiftly once I take you to Ghent, where a Jew at least may breathe free
.”

The blue eyes impaled him. “I am a Christian
.”

“
Even after
… this?”

“
What have they to do with Jesus
?”

Vidal regarded him with astonishment. “Then, my learned Christian, what was the nature of your Judaizing
?”

De Mariana asked him for some of the sheets of paper piled on the floor. “My life's blood
. An Herbal of Known Flora.”
He showed Vidal that each page contained diagrams of plants, as well as text that gave Latin and vulgate names, habitat, varieties and their usefulness to man
.

“
I was preparing a section on the plants of the biblical period. Translations are poor. To make accuracy a certainty, I purchased a scroll
.”