The Errant Flock (7 page)

How swollen with pride he’d been, conceited and thickheaded to believe that the Sanz family, who had lived in Valencia for almost two hundred years, would be left in peace just because they had become Christians. The great Juan Sanz had refused to abandon his measly patch of dirt and dilapidated house and had forced his family to become conversos. None of the other family members had wanted to give up their Jewish faith. Isa had fought with him, and his children had not understood why they had to lose their traditions and rituals just to have the privilege of living in an old hovel in a field. “Life was good when we were Jews,” Isa had remarked only recently. “We wanted for nothing. Now look at us – we want for everything. We are Christian beggars in a flock we don’t belong to.”

He hadn’t listened to her objections, not in the past and not in the present. The family had been baptised and accepted into the Catholic Church. They’d relinquished their holy book, the Torah; Judaist ceremonies; and diet – and all because he wanted to be a farmer instead of a saddle maker. “I’m so sorry, my son. Forgive me,” he begged.

Diego’s blackened face was full of rage. “Papa, I told Juanjo to run away from the house. I grabbed his arm and pulled him along, but he wanted to go back and save the mule and goat. Mama was terrified, and I couldn’t leave her, even when I saw Juanjo struggling to free the mule’s tethering. Then the animal panicked and reared up … Juanjo fell, and the mule stamped on his face and chest. Papa, I couldn’t get to him in time. He was a stupid boy!”

Isa said, “Son, those men would have killed you too!”

“Mama, if they had wanted to slaughter us, they would have!” Diego shouted. “Why didn’t they kill us?”

Diego was wrong, Juan thought, continuing to rock Juanjo in his arms. The mule didn’t kill Juanjo. His youngest son was dead because of the bastards who seemed to enjoy terrorizing innocent people. As he listened now to Diego’s crying, he was also wondering why their lives had been spared and, more importantly, why David believed that the attack was his fault.

Chapter Eleven

Exhausted, David dropped to his knees and crushed his tearful mother to him. Over her shoulder, he saw Diego holding the child and Juanjo lying against his father’s chest with his head tilted downwards and his hair blowing wildly in the wind. “No!” he cried out, and then he grew strangely quiet. He stared at Juanjo’s wound, sickened by the gaping hole and sight of blood. His brother, sweet Juanjo, who was so fond of weapons and dreams of soldiering, lay dead, bloodied like a boar!

The marauders could have come from anywhere, David thought. They had borne no markings of allegiance, but they’d been well armed, like an army. Why had they not used their blades on the family? They hadn’t even bothered to get off their animals’ backs to steal meagre possessions. Their sole intention, it appeared, had been to destroy his father’s trees and buildings. He looked across the plain in the direction of the town and wondered if the town would be next.

Focusing his eyes on the surrounding area, David saw in the distance two more fires lighting up the sky. “We weren’t the only ones to get burned out,” he said miserably. He wiped his sore eyes, sniffed loudly, and squeezed his lips together tightly in anger. One thing was clear. He would take revenge on the attackers. His brother’s murder would not go unanswered.

Although the flames were still high in a couple of places, Juan ordered the family to move closer to the house. The fire would keep them warm for a while, he suggested.

David and Diego carried Juanjo between them. Juan helped Isa, who was holding the little girl … No one had asked who she was or why David had brought her to them. Isa still wept, and every few minutes, Juan blurted out, “The foolish, brave boy.”

David shivered nervously as he watched his mother’s efforts to settle the girl, who was gasping in short breaths between loud cries for her mama and papa. He wanted his confession over and done with. But when the child was eventually soothed, it was Juan who spoke, not David.

“We must bury our Juanjo here with a fitting Jewish ceremony. My son should go to God hearing words from the Torah. No one will ever find out.”

“We can’t,” Isa said shakily, tears streaming down her face.

“We can, and we will. He should be buried next to his grandparents in the Jewish cemetery. That’s where we should take him.”

“But we’ll be punished as heretics if we take him to the Jewish burial ground,” Isa pointed out.

“I know that, so I’m asking if you will pray with me now. Will you allow me to give him a Jewish burial?”

“We have no oils to bathe him or robes to dress him in,” Isa said.

“Then he’ll go to God with just our words to guide him. These, and our love, are the only comforts we can give him.”

“We have nothing to dig with, and the soil is caked,” Diego said.

“We’ll find something to cut through the ground.”

David had never seen his father look so defeated. Carrying Juanjo to a patch of hardened soil, like deep red clay, he laid him down and then rapped the ground with his knuckles.

Isa shook her head, horrified. “No, I refuse to bury him here. He’ll be all alone. Can’t we carry him to Sagrat and give him a Christian burial?”

“No. Christians killed him!” Juan exclaimed to his wife. “He’s staying here. I will not have a Catholic priest pray over him. These Christians accept us and our conversion and then they slaughter us!”

David, who had been weeping for Juanjo, said, “You’re wrong, Papa. Look around you. Do you not see the other houses burning in the distance? Those are Christian houses. Marauders don’t care about religion. They save their adulation for gold.”

“I’m not convinced, David. Everything is about religion,” Juan answered. “One of these days, sneezing in the wrong direction will get a man thrown in prison for heresy. You just wait – not one new converso will be safe in Spain … No, this happened because we were Jews.”

David wouldn’t argue further. His own nagging suspicions were growing louder in his mind.

“David, go to the hut and look for a pick, axe, or a sickle that’s not burnt to cinders. I don’t care what you come back with. Just find something we can use to dig deep. And, son, after we’ve buried your brother, you will tell us who this girl is and why you brought her to my house.”

The dying night sky looked even blacker as the bright glowing fire finally dissolved into smouldering waves of smoke hovering above the ground. When Juanjo was laid to rest and prayers had been spoken, the family sat on the ground, shivering with cold and lost in sorrow. For a while, no one spoke. The shock had worn off, leaving only grief. David’s cloak was wrapped around Isa’s slim body. The girl, shielded within its folds, was once again asleep and blissfully unaware of the horrific scenes she had witnessed.

Diego, dressed only in a nightshirt, did not complain about the biting wind that blew through the thin linen cloth. His eyes were dead, like two black stones, but it seemed that his questions could no longer be contained.

“David, does this little one have anything to do with what happened here? Did you know those men?”

“No, this had nothing to do with the little girl, and no, I’ve never seen those men before,” David answered defensively. Looking at his father, mother, and finally Diego, he wondered if they would ever speak to him again with love in their hearts. He suspected they wouldn’t. “I’ve committed terrible crimes tonight,” he began. “I don’t expect your forgiveness, nor do I deserve it, but you have a right to know the truth about me … and this poor child.”

Chapter Twelve

When David had finished telling the whole story, he felt strangely calmer. No one interrupted him, although his father and mother’s gasps of disgust had made him stumble over his words a few times. Sharing what he’d done had been a bit like confessing to their priest, Father Bernardo, he thought. He wasn’t cleansed, and he never would be, but at least he had admitted his sins and was now ready to face the consequences.

“I’ve told you everything. I am a murderer, and I’ve put your lives in danger, just by telling you about what I did. Come morning, the entire town will hear about these killings and the missing babies and you will not be able to breathe a word of this to anyone.”

Juan’s eyes blazed with anger. “What were their names? Do you even know who you killed?”

“No, I don’t. I’d never met them before tonight,” David said, unable to look at Juan. “Papa, the treasurer, Garcia, hinted about doing terrible things to this family if I didn’t do as I was ordered. I was forced to do as I was told to keep you all safe.”

At first, shock and anger sat in Juan’s eyes, but slowly his expression changed to repugnance. “My youngest child is dead. How dare you talk about us being kept safe!” he snapped at David. He was sickened by what his son had done, yet he was even more disgusted at the duke. A man who orders a slaying is just as guilty as the hand that does the slaying, he thought. The Sanz family had never had much in the way of possessions, but they were good, respectable people. The duke, for all his noble blood, was worse than a bloodsucking varlet living off the poor, and now he had killed the poor for their baby!

“Papa, I’m sorry,” David said again.

Talking to no one in particular, Juan said, “We Sanzes have always survived by abiding by the law, not making enemies, and keeping our own council. Before me, the Sanz men were indebted to no one, and even when they were Jews, they enjoyed good friendships with Christian neighbours. My father and grandfather were wonderful leather makers. They produced saddles, bridles, leather belts, and dagger sheaths for noblemen from Sagrat to Valencia. I could have carried on the family business had I not had dreams of farming the land. So I’m at fault too, you see ... I have brought you to this.”

Juan closed his eyes, unable to look at his family. He’d failed miserably. His possessions and tools handed down by his great-grandfather had been sold these past three years. Any money he’d put aside had been spent on rent and supplementing income lost because of bad harvests and wrong decisions. And now his eldest son was a criminal, an assassin, and a marked man.

Glancing at Isa, Juan thought,
Her world has just crumbled.
He knew that look on her face. He’d seen it once before, when her parents and sisters left Spain for Portugal. He’d given his solemn oath to her father on that day. “I will care for Isa. She’ll never go hungry or want for anything,” he’d said with the blustering pride of a young pup. Look what he’d done to her … to all of them.

Finally, Juan stared at David, who was brave enough to return his gaze. “Don’t ask your mother, brother, or me for forgiveness. You’ll have to ask God for that favour.”

“I won’t ask. I prayed it wouldn’t be necessary to tell you what I did …”

“Well, you did tell us, and now we are party to a terrible secret.”

“I had to get the child out of Sagrat, Papa.”

Isa said meekly, “He did save the little girl, at great risk to himself.”

“Does that wash away the sin of murder?” Juan asked her.

“No, of course not, but David would be dead now had he disobeyed the duke.”

“You can’t know that. Anyway, better David be dead than alive with the stain of murder on his hands!” Juan sneered.

“Juan Sanz, don’t you dare wish your son dead!” Isa spat at him.

“I didn’t mean it, my love … My apologies, David.” Ashamed of his words, Juan squeezed Isa’s hand, and then looked tearfully at David. “So what are we supposed to do with the child? We have no home to hide her in. No food to feed her with. We have nothing! We’ll have to seek shelter and beg for alms in Sagrat. Do you expect us to take her with us?”

              David hung his head. “No, of course I don’t. It was never my intention to leave her with you for any length of time. I was going to ask you to look after her until I returned in a day or two. She can’t go back to Sagrat, but I have to be back at the castle and in my barracks before my watch begins.”

“What about us? What should we do – sit here until we freeze or starve to death?” Juan snapped.

“I’ll keep you safe. I’m a militiaman. The duke will provide you with a house. He has to.”

“That tick on a donkey’s back won’t do anything for us!” Juan shouted, scorning the idea. “The man has no morals. His heart is a sewer, and he has piss for blood! Why did he order
you
to kill? Did he see badness in you?”

“I don’t know,” said David.

“Juan, how can you say that about your own son? He hasn’t a bad bone in his body!” Isa berated him.

Juan said. “Isa, I can barely bring myself to look at him. The sight of him makes me feel sick to my stomach.”

“Papa, please …”

Juan ignored David. “It galls me to say it, but the real villain is the duke. He ordered the killings and then threatened our family, and that makes him even less of a man than my son is.”

“Thank you, Father,” David said stupidly.

“Don’t thank me, and don’t you go thinking
he
will allow you to parade around like a proud peacock in uniform! He’ll have you killed, lad!” Juan’s eyes flashed dangerously. “You’re a fool if you think he won’t try to silence you.”

“God forgive you for saying such a terrible thing. The duke would never harm his own soldiers,” Isa sobbed.

“Isa, are you not listening? Have you not been paying attention. He ordered the slaughter of three of his citizens tonight!”

“I know … I know. I don’t know what I’m saying. Oh dear God, what’s to become of us?”

Changing the topic slightly, David said, “The duke’s physician was killed tonight. He was with the duke at the wall. The guards on watch were told to leave, and when we next saw the duke, the physician was dead. I think the duke killed him.”

“That man is the foulest of turds of the lowest scum,” Juan said. “He’ll burn in hell, but he’ll bask in good fortune until he goes there. You mark my words.”

Diego who’d been silent until now said, “I’ll be truthful, Papa – had the duke ordered me to kill, I would have if it meant keeping you and Mama safe.”

“Then shame on you too. We’ll never be safe,” Juan repeated. “David has seen to that.”

“We have to leave Valencia,” David said quite calmly.

Juan shook his head violently and threw David a scathing look. “Don’t be stupid, lad. We have no ducats or maravedis between us, unless we miraculously find some lying around in these charred ruins. How far do you think we’d get on foot? We have no blankets, bread, or alms of any kind. We have nothing. Your mother is in her nightgown, for God’s sake. No, we will not run.” He looked then at Diego. “Diego, you are this family’s last hope. I want you to leave now. Get on a ship and don’t get off it until you’re outside this realm.”

“No, I’m not leaving you and Mama behind.” Diego looked from one face to the other. “No! I’ve lost one brother tonight. I’ll not lose another!”

“You must,” David said. “Would you rather Peráto used you as a weapon against me? I can’t protect you.”

“Diego, listen to your brother,” Juan pleaded.

Isa said, “Son, you should go. I fear you’ll come to harm if you remain here. Don’t worry about Papa and me. We’ll get by.” She then looked at David. “You have committed sins that will stain you forever, but you’re not a bad man. Let the duke believe us ignorant. Your father and I will not breathe a word to anyone about what you did. We’ll take this terrible secret to the grave with us.”

“Your mother’s right,” Juan agreed.

“Heed my words, son,” Isa insisted. You must carry on and do whatever it takes to make that unholy monster believe he can trust you. And if you think for one minute that your life is in danger, you must run. Don’t come for Papa or me. Just leave. Give me your word.”

“You have it,” David told her.

Diego, who’d been mainly silent, stood nervously and then began to pace up and down. “Maybe I
should
leave. I’ll be one less worry for David, I suppose.” He nodded, clearly coming to a decision. “I’ll take the little girl with me, and when I get to Valencia, I’ll leave her in a public place.” He looked at David’s shocked face. “It’s the best we can do for her.”

“You’ll barely make it to the port dressed like that, never mind Valencia,” Juan said.

“There will be carts travelling along the main road, Papa. There always are. Some kind soul will take us.”

“My poor children … This poor babe,” Isa said, her lower lip trembling.

“Going with Diego is her only chance of survival, Mama,” David said.

Juan’s eyes strained to keep tears at bay. “Go somewhere where the duke’s power can’t reach you.”

Isa said tearfully, “Your father’s right. The duke cannot be trusted to keep his word to David.”

“I pray I’d been killed instead of Juanjo,” David said truthfully. “Had I died, Peráto wouldn’t have a reason to threaten your lives.”

Isa rose to her feet and stood over David, hands on hips and with an angry scowl on her face. “You will stay alive, son, if only to repent and make good of your life!” she commanded.

Juan gazed at Isa with pride and love. He’d adored her since she was a girl, and at thirty-nine years old, she was still as beautiful to him as she had been on the day he married her. Her dark flowing hair blew around her head, having come loose from its long plait. Her ash-smeared face didn’t completely hide her olive skin or dark blue eyes, almost the same colour as a Spanish summer sky. Her strong cheekbones and defiant pointed chin further enhanced the straight upturned nose and thick lips on a mouth that smiled often. That was a perfect face, he’d always thought.

He knew she was a strong, determined woman. His children had rarely seen this side of her, but he had, many times. They would leave this place now and never return. He would seek work in Sagrat and protect his family until his last breath. God help them all, he thought. A powerful enemy had pulled them into a web of deceit, and he prayed that at least some of them would survive what lay ahead of them.