By Fire, By Water (26 page)

“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 another, 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

F
AR 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.