The Falcons of Fire and Ice (5 page)

But they rose just as quickly to their feet as the Dominican friars entered, and the pious prayers of the crowd turned to hisses and shouts of rage, for the friars carried ten life-sized wooden figures into the square. These were not hung with jewels or crowned with halos. The monks stood them in a neat straight row before the altar, like children lining up toy soldiers. Each crudely carved wooden figure had what looked like words inscribed on its chest. I leaned forward trying to read the letters, until I realized Dona Ofelia was watching me.

‘You recognize one of the names, child?’

I snapped upright. ‘No, I was … I just … the statues, they’re not saints, are they?’

Dona Ofelia closed her eyes and crossed herself. ‘Those are the likenesses of the wicked men and women who escaped before the Inquisition could bring them to mercy,’ she whispered in awed tones, as though running away to avoid arrest was too heinous a crime even to be spoken aloud.

I could see her lips moving, but whatever she was saying now was drowned out by the renewed hissing and shouted obscenities of the crowd as several more friars appeared bearing small coffin-shaped boxes.

Dona Ofelia thrust her face so close to me I could smell what she’d eaten for breakfast – spicy
morcela
blood-sausage, judging by the stink of her breath. ‘Those coffins contain the bones of the wicked heretics who died in the Inquisition’s dungeons,’ she bellowed down my ear, ‘and those who’ve been found guilty of heresy after their death. Their bodies have been dug up, so they can be punished. They needn’t think that dying will let them escape,’ she added with grim satisfaction.

As the tiny coffins were borne past, people began spitting and throwing clods of excrement and rotten vegetables at them. But they seemed to be exceedingly bad marksmen, for most of the missiles hit the friars instead of the coffins, much to the amusement of many young lads in the crowd, who whooped with delight and slapped one another on the back. The friars glared furiously, but could do nothing.

A sullen silence now descended as forty or fifty men and women limped and shuffled into the square, each one flanked on either side by two black-hooded
familiaries
, the lay agents of the Inquisition, who in some cases were virtually carrying the prisoner between them, for these emaciated figures could hardly stand, never mind walk. I felt my heart begin to race. This was the moment my father had warned me about. I dug my fingers into the palms of my hands and fought to keep my expression blank.

The prisoners were all dressed in the
sanbenito
, the uniform of the heretic. It was a broad yellow tabard reaching below their knees on which was painted the cross of St Andrew, with single, double or half cross-pieces according to the severity of their crime. On their heads they wore a tall hat, like a bishop’s mitre, painted with flames and grinning devils. Nooses of thick rope hung from their necks and in their hands they carried unlit candles. Some of these cowering creatures were aged, their hair grey, their faces the colour of a blade of grass that has been kept too long from the light. Others were as young as the boy-king himself, their cheeks sunken and wizened like tiny goblins who dwelled deep in the earth.

I told myself that I mustn’t look at the faces, but I couldn’t help it. They stood in a miserable huddle, some gazing around them at the other prisoners or at the crowd, desperately searching for a glimpse of their family members who had been arrested with them. I watched their eyes dart to the little coffins. I knew they were heretics and I should be glad they’d been caught. But I just felt so sorry for them, and then I felt guilty for feeling sorry.

The hissing in the crowd began again, like a fire racing across a field of grain. The final little group was dragged in. A dozen or so men and women, they too wore the yellow
sanbenito,
but their tabards as well as their hats were painted with leaping flames and devils. All of them had leather gags tied tightly over their mouths.

Dona Ofelia was on her feet, shouting along with the crowd –
Heretics, blasphemers, Jewish pigs, sons of the Devil!

She turned to me, her eyes glittering with excitement. ‘They’re the ones who are to be burned. There’ll be no escape for them. They’ll burn in this world as their souls will burn in hell.’

I glanced over at my father. He was staring anxiously at me. Our eyes met and he gave the briefest jerk of his head. I knew he wanted me to stand and join in the jeering. But I wouldn’t. The crowd opposite were howling and throwing every piece of dung and filth they could lay hands on at these broken, terrified wretches. And for the first time in my life, I felt my mother’s anger at Father’s timidity –
Behave like everyone else, don’t draw attention to yourself.
Why should I? The Inquisition couldn’t arrest you if you hadn’t committed a crime, and certainly not for refusing to behave like a savage ape.

The crowd were trying to surge forward now and vent their fury on the prisoners. The guards fought to hold them back. Then suddenly a young boy in the first group of penitents seemed to recognize one of the condemned. Before his two
familiaries
could stop him, he had dropped his unlit candle and stumbled towards the group, his arms held out. ‘Mother! Mother!’

For an instant a woman lifted her head and her arms jerked forward as if she was reaching out to him, then they dropped back by her side, and she turned away. The
familiaries
grabbed the child and led him back to his own group. I thought he would cry, but he didn’t. He didn’t even look at the woman again. He hung between the two men like a frayed rag, as if the last spark of life in him had suddenly been snuffed out.

The crowd fell silent once more as the Inquisitor-General donned his bishop’s mitre and climbed up to the altar. He was a thin, lean man with a long, straight nose, made longer and sharper by the upward tilt of his chin.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen.

When the High Mass was ended the Inquisitor-General took up his staff of office and, descending the altar steps, solemnly strode across the square towards the diminutive figure of the king, closely followed by a young altar boy staggering under the weight of a huge leather-bound and jewel-encrusted copy of the Holy Gospels.

As the Inquisitor-General approached, little Sebastian edged so far back into his throne I half-expected him to crawl out of the back of it. The Inquisitor-General took the massive book and held it out towards the king. At the urging of the two Jesuits behind the throne, the boy placed his right hand on the book and in a shrill, quavering voice, promised to ‘support the faith and the Inquisition and do all in my power to extirpate heresy’. He stumbled over this last phrase and it took three attempts to get it right. Sebastian glanced fearfully up at his great-uncle, Cardinal Henry, but he received only a stern frown by way of reassurance.

Dona Ofelia produced a finely embroidered handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. ‘Ah, bless him, the little lamb. Such a pure, innocent child, he has no notion what wickedness there is in this world.’

One by one those penitents to be spared death were dragged forward to have the name of their sin proclaimed to the crowd. As each crime was announced, Dona Ofelia, fervently clutching at the silver and ebony rosary that hung about her neck, gave an exaggerated gasp of horror as though she was about to swoon at the wickedness of it all. Some of the penitents had confessed to being Lutherans, witches or adulterers, or had broken the law by neglecting to display an image of the Virgin Mary on the walls of their houses. But Dona Ofelia reserved her greatest shrieks of outrage for those who were accused of Judaizing – relapsing back into the Jewish faith.

‘I knew it,’ she said, as each was dragged forward. ‘You can tell he’s a Jew just by looking at him.’

If Mother had been with us, her horror would have been even greater than Dona Ofelia’s, for according to my mother and our parish priest, Judaizing was the most unforgivable crime you could ever commit against Christ. Father Tomàs reminded us of the list of thirty-seven signs of Judaizing almost every Sunday at Mass. He said that if you saw a friend or neighbour showing any one of these signs it was your duty as a faithful Christian to report it at once. Did your neighbour wear a clean shirt on a Saturday? Was he seen giving fruit to a friend in September near the time of the festival the Jews called the Feast of the Tabernacles? Was there no smell of pork fat in the smoke from his cooking fire? Had the fishmonger remembered that they had never bought eels from him? Did you see a mother wash her infant too soon after it had been christened? Even a person cutting their fingernails on a Friday might be a sign that they were practising their Jewish faith in secret.

Father Tomàs assured us that the accused would never learn who had reported them, so no one need fear retaliation from the accused’s family or have cause to worry about being cursed by these heretics. On the contrary, whoever denounced their masters or their servants, their neighbours or even their own parents, would be blessed by the Church and God for their piety and devotion in helping to rid Portugal of this evil. My mother would nod emphatically in agreement each time Father Tomàs reminded us of this. For our family could trace our Catholic lineage back almost to St Peter himself, even counting abbesses and bishops among our forebears, so she was constantly vigilant for any suspicious signs among our neighbours, proud and eager to play her part in purifying Portugal.

It was late in the afternoon now, my mouth was dry and my stomach was growling with hunger. Sitting in the full glare of the merciless sun, the penitents must have been crazed with thirst, but they were herded to kneel before the great altar to repeat after the Inquisitor-General phrase by painful phrase the lengthy public abjuration of their sin.

The sentence for most was to be seated upon a donkey, the women bare-breasted, and flogged with two hundred lashes through the town.
The shame
, they called it. Children were taken from their parents to be re-educated in the Catholic faith. Then, after the shame, most of the penitents would be taken to the secular prison, there to remain for the rest of their lives. Those lucky few who, after their ride of shame, were set at liberty would have to appear in public in the
sanbenito
for the rest of their lives, so that all decent Christians would know what they were and shun them.

‘What a pity your mother could not attend today,’ Dona Ofelia said suddenly.

She vigorously fanned her deep puckered cleavage, down which rivulets of sweat ran from the great mounds of her breasts like melting snow from mountain peaks.

‘She’s ill,’ I told her. It was the excuse Father and I had agreed upon.

‘But witnessing the
auto-da-fé
is a pious act. Why, I have known people brought here on their deathbed to witness the procession who have leapt up and walked home on their two feet, cured by God for their faith.’

‘She has a contagion.’

Dona Ofelia looked at me suspiciously as if I was one of her maids she had caught out in a lie. ‘Do convey my sympathies to her. She must suffer a good deal from poor health. I seem to recall your father saying she was unwell on the last occasion too. But perhaps she does not understand how important it is to witness the
auto-da-fé
, for you seem to know so little of what occurs. Has your father not shared with his family the mercy of the Inquisition? Perhaps he does not altogether approve?’

‘Of course he does,’ I protested hotly. ‘My father doesn’t talk much, but there is no one who is more loyal to the Inquisition than he is, and my mother is constantly –’

She reached across and patted my hand. ‘Don’t get upset, child. I’m sure you’re right. It is just that there has been some talk. You know how gossip spreads through the Court, not that I ever listen to it myself, naturally.’

‘What have they been saying?’ I demanded, furious that anyone should question the loyalty of my parents. We came from one of the oldest Catholic families in Portugal, probably a great deal older than hers. How dare she?

Dona Ofelia’s eyes flashed. She was not accustomed to being addressed in such a tone. I knew it was dangerous to offend a woman with her husband’s influence.

I tried to swallow my temper. ‘Forgive me, Dona Ofelia, I was worried that people were saying things that were untrue.’

‘I’m sure I must have misheard and they were talking of someone else. It is nothing for you to worry about, child. Forget I even mentioned it.’

She smiled soothingly, but I knew I had ruined any chance I had of finding out more. She turned her head firmly in the direction of the altar as if she was riveted by the stumbling words of the penitents. But I couldn’t forget. She knew they had been talking about my father, but what could a man as quiet and self-effacing as he ever have done to provoke gossip? I glanced uneasily over at him, but his gaze too was fixed on the Inquisitor-General.

The public abjuration had at last drawn to a close and thick shadows stretched out their dark fingers towards the centre of the square where the penitents knelt. Over the rooftops, the sky blazed gold and purple and blood-red as the fierce sun sank from view. The notes of the choir rose into the evening air. The castrati’s high-pitched voices rang out like angel song over the square and stilled the restless crowd, sending shivers of awe up my spine. Even a few of the penitents raised their haggard faces as if they thought the light of heaven was descending upon the town.

A priest stepped forward to light the candles in the penitents’ hands as a token that they had been brought back to the light of Christ. The penitents gazed in wonder at the tiny, fragile flames which sprang up in their hands. The Inquisitor-General raised his arms, his deep voice booming out in exaltation and triumph through the unearthly soaring of the castrati’s song as he pronounced the Absolution.

Then, with a conjuror’s flourish, the Inquisitor-General swept away the black cloth, which all this while had covered the altar, to reveal the rugged green cross of the Holy Order of the Inquisition, the sign of God’s mercy, love and forgiveness. The Church had triumphed over heresy and God once more would turn the smile of His countenance upon Portugal. The crowd roared and cheered and stamped their feet as if a vision of Christ himself had appeared over the altar.