The Jerusalem Diamond (24 page)

“
A Torah
?”

“
Yes, I did so openly. All my translations were obtained from a priest who was a Hebraist. For a time there was no problem. But I know more than most about the medicinal properties of herbs. My colleagues, my students—whenever someone felt poorly I was asked for a palliative. I am not a physician, yet I came to function as one. One day, within hearing of my botany class, a visiting bishop suggested that it was a peculiarly Jewish pursuit. I am a stern teacher, perhaps too uncompromising
…”

“
You were accused by one of your students
?”

“
I was arrested, cousin. My priestly translator had died. I was a New Christian who possessed a Hebrew scroll. They kept me in gaol, asking me to confess so I would escape hell
.

“
How could I confess? Finally they forced me to watch while others were tortured. There are three favorite methods. With the
garrucha
the prisoner is hung by the wrists from a high pulley, with heavy weights attached to the feet. He is raised slowly and allowed to fall with a sudden jerk that often dislocates arms or legs. With the
toca,
he is tied down. His mouth is forced open and a linen cloth is put down his throat to conduct water poured from a jar. When my turn came they used the
potro.
They tied me to a rack by cords wrapped about my naked body and limbs. The bindings were tightened each time they turned the cord.” He smiled mirthlessly. “I thought I could be a stalwart martyr for my Christ. Señor, two turns and I was confessing everything they wanted to hear
.”

It was silent in the cell. “What was your punishment
?”

“
I was dismissed from the faculty and ordered to walk in public for six Fridays, scourging my body with a hemp lash. And forbidden to hold public office or be a moneychanger or shopkeeper, or ever to stand as a witness. They told me if I fell again into the same error I would be condemned to the fire, and they gave me the
sanbenito
to wear for a year and six months. All monies spent for my support in gaol had been charged against my name, and my wife and I sold a small farm to pay the Inquisition what I owed
.”

Vidal cleared his throat. “Your wife is alive
?”

“
I believe she is dead. She was ill and old, and I brought her great suffering. When my sentence was over, under the law my penitential garment went to my parish church for permanent display with the
sanbenitos
of other convicted Judaizers. Her shame …” He sighed.
“There were other catastrophes, large and small. Even before it was completed, my herbal was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books
.”

“
You never finished it?” Vidal asked
.

“
It has been completed. I no longer needed the confiscated scroll, since I had my translations. I went back to my writing. I thought it might be published abroad. Or in Spain when the madness had passed
.”

“
You will publish it in Ghent, cousin
.”

De Mariana shook his head. “They will not let me go
.”

“
They have promised
.”

“
That they will release me
?”

“
That special leniency will be shown
.”

“
No, no. You can't understand. To them, special leniency may mean a quick strangling prior to the fire. They believe the flame is necessary to cleanse my soul for paradise. It would not be so hard if they didn't believe in what they do, señor
.”

Vidal began to feel nauseated. “One thing I cannot understand. If you were working at home and in secret, how then did you come to this a second time
?”

De Mariana half rose from the bed, glaring. His eyes were wild. “It was not my Juana who accused! It was not my daughter!” he cried
.

In his entire life Vidal had seen only three other truly large gemstones. The first was an irregularly shaped diamond owned by Charles the Bold, then Duke of Burgundy. It had been cut by Lodewyck before Vidal had become his apprentice. Some years later, when it was brought back for cleaning, Julius had been awed by the symmetrical faceting that completely covered the front and back of the stone. “How ever did you cut it, Uncle
?”

“
Carefully,” Lodewyck had replied
.

And successfully. The fire in the jewel, which had come to be called the Florentine, had told the wealthy and powerful that a Jew of Bruges had discovered the secret of turning small pieces of rare stone into shimmering wonder
.

Vidal had been an apprentice several years when his uncle finished a second large stone for the Duke. This was another unusual diamond, thin and long, weighing fourteen carats. Van Berquem had faceted it and set it in a gold ring which the Duke had presented to Pope Sixtus
in Rome, to be used at ceremonial functions. Julius had been permitted to do some of the grinding
.

Seven years later, when Burgundy had brought in another large stone, the apprentice was almost an artisan and in a better position to participate. They had cleverly cut the curious, misshapen gem in a triangular form, making the most of its natural design. Vidal and his cousin Robert had done the planning, under Lodewyck's careful direction, and all the faceting. They had set the polished diamond in a creation that was Vidal's alone, two clasped hands of gold, to make a magnificent friendship ring which Burgundy had given to King Louis XI of France as a pledge of his loyalty
.

Lodewyck and Robert had received 5,000 ducats and fame, but they had given Vidal sufficient credit to win him Burgundy's protection
.

Now he sat alone and unprotected, staring for hours at this yellow diamond the way he had studied the smaller triangular stone with his uncle and his cousin
.

He opened observation places in the rough skin, as Lodewyck had taught him. The deep Spanish windows behind him sent good light through the stone but it wasn't enough, and he held it up to the bunched flames of a dozen candles until his hand shook
.

Looking into it was like experiencing a dream, a world of brilliance in which countless candle flames exploded. But the golden beauty ended in a flaw so pronounced that he groaned when he saw it. The warm yellow clarity turned white, and near the bottom of the diamond the milkiness became ugly and dark. The imperfection was major and it troubled him sorely, but his responsibility lay only with the outer appearance—the shape and the faceting. To achieve a graceful form, the shoulders of the stone had to be removed. He examined the grain as if the diamond were a piece of wood, making ink lines along the places which would accept cleaving
.

It would be easy to ruin it
.

When the soldiers came to put the diamond away for the night, it was covered with ink marks. He turned from them to hide what was in his eyes
.

“
He is worse,” the
alcalde
said
.

When Vidal entered the cell he saw with dismay that his cousin's
gaze had gone hollow and his mouth and nose were covered with running sores. Vidal bathed the flushed face and asked the
alcalde
to summon the physician
.

De Mariana spoke with difficulty. “Part of my manuscript. Hidden. Will you bring it to me
?”

“
Of course. Where is it
?”

“
Garden house. On the grounds of my home. I shall draw you a map.” But his fingers were too weak to guide the quill
.

“
Never mind. You need only tell me how to get there.” Vidal wrote down the directions, pausing now and again to ask a question
.

“
In a green box. Under earthen pots on the north side.” The phlegm rattled in his lungs
.

“
I'll find it, don't fear
.”
But he hesitated. The errand would take hours. “I'm not sure I should leave you
.”

“
Go. Please,” De Mariana said
.

He never whipped or spurred his horse, but now he had to fight the temptation. During most of the long ride he held the gelding to a canter. Several times while crossing through forest he turned the horse off the road into the trees and waited. But he was not being followed
.

When he came to De Mariana's village, the door of the church was open. As he rode past he could see inside; a row of
sanbenitos,
the sleeveless garments worn by penitents who had been accused by the Inquisition, hung over the pews like clothes on a washline. He wondered which of the
sanbenitos
had been De Mariana's
.

The property made him realize for the first time that De Mariana was a wealthy man. It was an estate of good size, but there was a general air of neglect. No peasants worked the land and the pastures were empty of animals. A large house in the Moorish style was set well off the road. The curtains in the windows were drawn. Vidal was unable to tell if it was inhabited
.

The garden house was where his kinsman had described it, a long, low-roofed shed. Inside, amid a profusion of materials and containers, a table bore skeletal remains of plants that had died for lack of watering. A comfortable chair faced groves and meadows to the west, and the place was loud with birdsong. A man would like to sit there and watch the sun set over his own land
.

He found the papers after some searching. The box was not locked. The top pages appeared devoted to various forms of thistles, and he found them of little interest
.

He rode to the house and sounded the knocker. Presently a manservant opened the door
.

“
The Señora De Mariana
?”

“
You wish to see Doña Maria
?”

“
Yes,” he said, glad she was alive. “Tell her I am Julius Vidal
.”

The old woman walked slowly and with difficulty. She had a thin-nosed fine face
.

“
Señora. I am a relative to your husband
.”

“
My husband has no relatives
.”

“
Señora, he and I share ancestors. The Vitallos of Genoa
.”

The door closed in his face. The house was silent
.

In a little while Vidal got on the horse and rode away
.

A terrible anger was building in him. But when he arrived at the prison in León, there were other things to concern him. For the first time, they did not honor his pass and allow him inside. He waited until the guard summoned the
alcalde.

“
He is no longer here. He has died,” the friar said
.

“
Died?” Vidal stared at him stupidly
.

“
Yes. In the middle of being bled.” The man turned away
.

“
Wait
. Alcalde,
where are his things? There were papers. Writings
.”

“
There is nothing. Everything already has been burned,” the keeper said
.

Outside the prison a group of De Costa's soldiers met him and escorted him back to the house. With his kinsman dead and no longer a hostage to his services, he had become more a prisoner and less a guest
.

When they left him with the stone he opened his bags and laid out the vials, packets and instruments, but when he reviewed his computations he groaned, wishing his uncle had chosen him to be the rabbi and Manasseh to be the apprentice
.

Faced with a larger surface than he had ever provided with facets, in his desperation he had divided the diamond with imaginary lines, treating each section as if it were a single small stone and arranging the
clusters of facets so they would interact with one another, as if they were single facets in a smaller stone
.

What if the final result lacked fire
?

Lodewyck, you bastard. Tell me what to do.

But Lodewyck would never again give him the answers. Finally, he softened resin and used it to fix the diamond firmly to the end of a wooden holder, or dopp. The dopp was placed in his vise and he grooved the diamond lightly, making shallow marks where he thought the chisel should be placed. But he couldn't pick up the mallet and make the cuts. His fingers wouldn't obey his mind
.

He became aware of a bustling outside. Through the window he saw that the road had become crowded with passing people
.

“
What is it?” he asked the guard outside his door
.

“
They come to observe the spectacle, the Act of Faith. It is something to watch.” The young soldier looked at him hopefully. “You would not be interested to see it, señor
?”

“
No,” he said
.

He went back inside and fussed with the stone. He wasn't certain if he changed his mind because he felt there should be a witness to evil or because something poisonous bubbled within him, responding to evil as strongly as any of the people he despised. He returned to the guard. “We shall go and see it,” he said
.

The procession assembled at the Cathedral, led by civilians armed with pikes and muskets
.

“
The coal merchants,” the soldier told him. “They are honored because they furnish the wood with which our criminals are burned.” The guard was in high spirits. He had not expected to attend the
Auto da Fé.

Estabán de Costa, the Count of León, led a contingent of nobles and carried the standard of the Inquisition. A body of Dominicans came next, bearing a white cross. Then some twenty prisoners, men marching apart from the women. Their feet were bare and they wore yellow
sanbenitos
on which crosses had been drawn, front and back, in red paint. After them shuffled two men and a woman, the condemned, dressed in white
sanbenitos
on which devils and flames had been drawn. The woman, wild-haired and middle-aged, stared glassily. She could scarcely walk. A youth, barely a man, wore something in his mouth like a bit in a horse's
bridle. The third prisoner walked with his eyes closed, his mouth moving
.