The Horse Healer (44 page)

XII.

T
he gallows was built over four thick pillars of wood, with a trapdoor in the center that opened when the bailiff gave the order for the sentence to be carried out. The hangman pushed a lever, and the accused hung in the air till he choked to death.

Bruno was released from the cell some time before Diego and promised to be in the square to accompany him on his final journey.

People crowded the place where the sentence was to be carried out. In this case, the person convicted was known by everyone, and everyone had heard he was guilty of the worst nightmare Cuéllar had ever lived through.

When Diego appeared, escorted by two soldiers, the people greeted him with insults. They spat at him and cursed his name as he passed. He saw hate in their stares, lust for vengeance, and they seemed happy to witness his martyrdom.

Diego bore it all with resignation. Some of the ones now cursing him had sung his praises when he'd cared for their animals. Maybe they didn't really feel what they were saying; maybe it was just that insane atmosphere contaminating them.

He was struggling for breath. The unbearable pressure of their gazes weighed heavily on him. He was innocent and his face reflected worry and fatalism.

When he looked at the scaffold, he saw another man already hanging, swinging from a cord that would soon be wrapped around his Diego's neck. It was his friend Efraím, he saw sorrowfully when he came closer. While he climbed the steps to the platform, he looked into those swollen, lifeless eyes, which seemed to stare back at him. Efraím's neck was twisted, and his face showed the marks of his long agony. Diego had heard that some hanged men took longer than normal to die and that seemed to be the case with the Jew. At that moment, Diego prayed for his soul and out of respect, he continued to look at him until they took him down, without the least consideration. His body fell, striking the wood, but no one seemed to care. A man, hunchbacked and filthy, approached the body and pulled it by the wrists to drag it to the edge of the platform where an open wagon was waiting to cart it off. He failed in his first attempt, and the crowd laughed when the corpse plunged to the ground. As if it was a dog, the man stomped on the body, angry, and threw it over his shoulder to dump it into the wagon. Diego swallowed, feeling the hole that had been carved inside him. At that moment, he remembered the prophecies Efraím had made to him. “A rope, wood, life and death. Resist.” Now he understood what it meant. Resist. But how would he resist his own death?

When he stepped onto the platform, the people clapped enthusiastically. Some avoided his gaze, perhaps ashamed, while Diego tried to understand their thoughts, not knowing where their bottomless rancor could come from. He was shocked by that enormous thirst for collective revenge.

At one end of the square, he could see Bruno de Oñate wave at him. That was the only thing that calmed him even slightly.

Beside him he found Sancha, completely destroyed by sorrow, with her daughter Rosa. He caught her eyes. Diego smiled at her tenderly and she said good-bye silently amid tears, thankful for all he had done for her and her daughters. In her eyes he saw friendship, love, the longing for one last kiss.

The hangman examined the knot and passed the noose over Diego's neck, tightening it until it scratched his skin.

“Please forgive me.” Clear blue eyes could be seen through his hood.

“I do. …”

The bailiff asked him if he wanted his head covered. Diego said yes, so no one would see him. From then on, each word he heard seemed worse than the lashing of a whip. There were few, just enough to spell out the death sentence.

“Are you ready, then, to receive your punishment?”

Diego nodded his head and tightened his muscles, all of his body, waiting to hear the last words.

“Any final requests?”

“The blessing of a priest.”

The bailiff made a sign for a man of God to step up to the platform.

Diego lowered his head when the priest put his hands over the cloth and made the sign of the cross on his head, reciting a prayer in a soft voice. When he finished, the accused thanked him for his words.

“Soon you will be free, like all of God's sons,” the priest said in parting.

“God bless you, Father. …”

“Everything is ready to carry out the sentence.”

The bailiff made a signal to the hangman and he grabbed the lever that pulled the trapdoor.

Then some women broke into shouts, begging for clemency. Others drowned out their shouts, asking for vengeance and death. They seemed soulless beings, hungry for agony, for blood.

Diego couldn't see them under the cloth, but he could smell the scent of a wish for punishment in the air, and with it, his own panic. He waited to hear the bailiff's fateful words, and when that happened, he felt himself fall into the void until the rope around his neck stopped him with incredible, fatal brusqueness.

The people shouted, impressed when they saw him kicking, those last attempts to hold on to life. Others applauded joyously. They were comforted, for once more justice had managed to uproot evil and that thought eased their conscience.

“Rot in hell,” a woman shouted.

The echo sounded out across the plaza; maybe Diego heard it too.

And then there was silence.

The hangman shoved his body to be sure it wasn't moving. He untied the rope and Diego fell to the ground. They all saw him, Bruno de Oñate too.

He shoved through the crowd to escape that horrendous square as soon as possible, with a tense expression.

Before he got on his horse to leave through the city's gates, he said aloud: “Diego de Malagón, you just did your part, now it's our turn to do ours.”

Part V

Lands of Danger

In 1208, the Navarrese Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada is named archbishop of Toledo. Thenceforward he becomes the main counselor to King Alfonso VIII of Castile and the chronicler of the incredible events that take place in the borderlands.

Ximénez de Rada establishes, as objectives for his mandate, convincing the pope to consider the reconquest of Al-Andalus a Holy Crusade, and attempting to restore the primacy of the bishopric of Toledo.

Once the treaties with al-Nasir are broken, the campaigns of siege and conquest against the Saracens begin, such as the one led by Alfonso VIII to retake Jaén and Baeza, and the Calatravans' battle for Andújar in 1209.

Encouraged by his counselors, the Almohad caliph decides to move to Seville to organize a definitive strike against the Christian kingdoms of the north. In his citadel, not far from the Aljama or Great Mosque, in the shadow of its towering minaret, an exact replica of the one in Marrakesh, a transcendental battle begins.

I.

T
here are secrets that stay buried with their possessor and never come to light. In fact, they die with that person.

But that wasn't Diego's case.

“Officially, I'm dead,” he roundly affirmed.

“That's right, Diego. That is what we're saying.” Bruno de Oñate patted his back to knock off the bits of straw and filth that still clung to him. He was pleased by his plan's success.

“In theory, you no longer exist.”

Diego had just appeared in the company of his hangman, who was none other than one of the Calatravan knights who had come with Bruno de Oñate.

Not long before, they had left the cemetery in Cuéllar after spending the night hidden inside a storeroom on the cemetery grounds. A generous quantity of money had been enough to distract the warden there for a few hours, so that no one would witness how a sack of dirt had been placed in the tomb instead of one that should have harbored the body of Diego de Malagón.

The unfamiliarity of the place and the tension he had lived through over the past few weeks kept Diego from sleeping all through the night, and he had time to think through his life, not without some bitterness. He thought of how he had lost all the people he had loved and how that must have been his fate: his family, Galib, Marcos … Through that endless night, over and over, he saw himself on the gallows, hanging by the neck, apparently dead, and he sweated from the anxiety.

First thing in the morning, his false hangman, Tomás Ramírez appeared to pick him up and to leave the place. Luckily no one saw them, not even when they galloped to the spot they had agreed on, an abandoned grazing field half a league from the town of Carbonero, on the edge of the Eresma River.

When he got off his horse, the first thing Diego asked was for them to take off that thick leather collar, thanks to which he had managed to resist the rope without dying. On its front was an enormous Greek cross engraved with fire, and on the back, Diego felt a solid eyelet, also of leather, well hidden, where the hangman had looped the rope to prevent him from being choked.

“We had to get it ready fast and almost without any tools.” While he talked, one of the knights took the collar from his hands and tested its strength. Then he shook Diego's hand energetically. “My name is Pinardo Márquez and I am the one who made this device.”

“When I felt the rope around my neck, I had my doubts, believe me. Now I have to thank you.”

“We didn't have time to organize it …” the last knight added, the one Diego had still not met. “My name is Otón, Otón de Frías.” He brought his hands together devoutly and falsified his voice.

“Find peace in Christ, my son. … Do you recognize me now?”

Diego immediately knew who it was.

“The old priest who received me on the gallows … the same one who put the collar on me ‘to feel Christ's cross closer to my heart and relieve me of my sin.' Isn't that what you said?”

“Exactly. It seemed like the only way we could manage to get it on you.”

“And if the bailiff had prevented it or had seen the eyelet in the leather?”

Diego felt goose bumps when he thought of it and almost preferred not to hear the answer.

“We usually have a second plan,” Pinardo interrupted, not sounding convincing.

“Don't tell me what it was; we'll leave it as it is. The first one worked out fine.”

Bruno interrupted them, looking nervous.

“We can't lose more time in these parts; let's leave now. It's a long road to Salvatierra.”

Diego looked around and saw no other horses than those of the four men. He felt profound grief for abandoning Sabba, but he understood it was impossible to go back for her and it would be insane to propose it. In Cuéllar everyone thought he was dead and buried.

Then he heard a whinny coming from nearby and his face lit up. He ran to look, and there he saw her. It was Sabba. The mare came over with her head lowered and a chorus of snorts and neighs expressing her joy.

“I figured you wouldn't want to leave her behind,” Bruno de Oñate said as he came over. “Believe me, it wasn't easy getting her.” He showed a bite mark on his arm, and Otón a large bruise on his leg.

Diego caressed her head and mounted Sabba blissfully.

“Now we can go. …”

For three days, they galloped without rest until they reached the outskirts of Guadalajara, where they made a longer stop. There Bruno needed to meet with someone.

They chose an inn close to the city walls and without stopping to rest, he asked Diego to come with him into the center so they could talk a while on their own. Diego kept up with Bruno despite his enormous strides.

“You'll have to adapt to a way of doing things very different from what you've known before. So it's reasonable if you feel confused for a while, but I want you to know we have chosen you for your abilities. For some time, we've been looking for someone who spoke Arabic and who could pass for a Saracen. When I met you in that cell and I heard your misfortunes, the route your life had taken, your experience and your merits, I saw you could be the right man. That's why I chose you.”

Diego tried to listen attentively. He was still stunned by the sharp turn his life had taken in such short time; one day he was afraid for his life and the next he was riding alongside knights.

Of all that had happened in those anguished hours, it was what Marcos had done that provoked the most bitterness. Diego felt deeply deceived, wounded, cheated by someone he had considered more than just a friend. He couldn't understand what might have happened to make him betray him at his darkest hour. It made his soul bleed, almost as intensely as when he lost Mencía. He felt alone. He was still alive thanks to those knights, but he was dead inside, with no hopes and no dreams. And moreover, he didn't know what they wanted with him.

“What can a mere albéitar do for you?”

“When we get to Salvatierra, you'll understand. It is like an island in the middle of enemy territory, just six leagues from the border with Castile. We live surrounded by Muslims, ready to kill us at any second. Its strategic importance is related to its location, because it's right at the foot of the Muradal Pass, the most frequent route for traffic between Al-Andalus and Castile. Our main objective consists of knowing what our enemy is doing at every moment, their plans, where they're going, what are their weaknesses and strengths.” They arrived at the door to a building and Bruno introduced himself to one of the guards. “But anyway, I'll explain better once we're there.”

They entered a palace next to a beautiful church. They left behind them a rectangular courtyard with a fountain in its center and climbed a set of stairs till they'd reached the third floor. Going right, they passed through an open gallery and arrived at a door flanked by two soldiers. Diego noticed they wore the arms of Castile on their tunics.

One of them let Bruno through.

“You stay outside,” he said to Diego. “I won't be long.”

Once he entered, Bruno went to a man of modest stature who was reading beneath the light of a broad window. He saluted him.

“Most Reverend …”

“I'm very happy to see you, Bruno, but leave aside the formalities and listen. I have direct orders from King Alfonso for you, and I assure you they are of great importance.”

“How is the king?”

“He is more excited than ever and wants to see the Almohads defeated, just as I do. The truce with al-Nasir is about to expire, and our king has no desire to renew it. From now on, the strategy will change. We have an idea that, if it works, will completely turn the situation around.”

“What are you referring to?”

“As your responsibility is for the maintenance of our intelligence services, I suppose it's not necessary to remind you that our conversation must be absolutely secret.” Bruno nodded his head. “Good, then I shall explain. We are trying to get the pope to declare our war against the Saracens to be a Holy Crusade. As the archbishop of Toledo, I will go to ask him in person. If I manage it, I will pass through the neighboring countries to preach it.”

“Of course. … That way the reconquest of Al-Andalus will become a collective enterprise. Then no one can see it as simply the ambitions of Castile, and if it is not carried out, it will bring direct sanctions from the pope, correct?”

“Excommunication. A very serious penalty for any of our monarchs who still have not united their forces with Castile, such as León, Navarre, and Portugal. I shall not speak of Aragon, since they have been on our side for some time now.”

Bruno had known the recently crowned archbishop of Toledo and counsel to the king, Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada, whom he was speaking with now in the palace, since childhood. He admired his talent and ability, as well as his demonstrated loyalty toward the Castilian king. The archbishop spoke several languages perfectly, Arabic among them, and had been educated in Bologna and Paris. Their families were friends, though not neighbors: Bruno was from Oñate and Ximénez de Rada from Navarre.

“Do you think we'll need the Ultramontanes to defeat them? I don't.”

“Bruno,” Don Rodrigo answered him, “think it over. Strength is not what we most need. What we are trying to break, once and for all, is the idea that our conflict with the Saracens is a matter of borders, of neighbors who don't get along, who want to recover long-lost territories, as it has been for the last four hundred years.” He looked into his eyes sagely. “Now it's not about that. This war has to involve more global intentions. We want to force a grand battle, a definitive one; to face off, without half measures, one religion against the other, so that the supremacy of the Catholic faith will be imposed in all the territories that once belonged to the Visigoth kingdom.”

“When I hear you speak, my spirit grows. What can I do to help in this cause?”

“We know the efforts you're making to get men to the south of Salvatierra, and the information they have gathered is valuable, but from now on we must think on a much larger scale. It's urgent that you infiltrate deeper, get more men into Seville, the capital, where the military actions against us are decided. I understand the difficulties this request involves, but at this moment, it is vital that we be informed before we put any other plan in place. Therefore, you should rethink all your priorities and dedicate yourself to this task. Everyone's success depends on yours.”

“You may tell Your Majesty he can count on it,” Bruno affirmed without a flicker of doubt. “We will plunge into their very entrails, and from now on, nothing that happens in Seville will escape our attention.”

At the inn, Otón and Pinardo were waiting for Bruno and Diego with two jugs of wine emptied and a third one started. Only Tomás, the false hangman, was missing. They explained that he had just left with a bit of bread and milk to feed the dove he always traveled with.

On the way back from that mysterious interview, Diego had tried to wheedle some detail out of Bruno about what his future job would be. But once more he'd been told that he would know in due time, when they reached their destination.

Over the two days following, the group covered the fifty leagues that separated them from the fortress of Salvatierra. Diego knew that the last six would be inside Muslim territory, where they couldn't stop for an instant and would have to press their horses on to the maximum.

It was then when he understood the usefulness of that dove that Tomás fed and cared for with such attention. The false hangman wrote a tiny letter and tied it tight to one of its feet.

“This is one of the best ways we have to pass information back and forth. In Salvatierra we live isolated and surrounded by the enemy. Thanks to these doves, we know what's happening to the north and south of our positions. I will show you my dovecote soon.”

“Is it certain they will arrive at their destination, the castle, I suppose?”

“Of course. They never fail.” He had the dove in his hands. He scratched its head and said something before letting it loose. The dove looked at him nervously and took flight right after, circling a few times before heading south as fast as possible.

“Well done, girl.” Tomás watched the bird until he'd lost sight of it.

“What information does she have?”

“I let our brothers and the knights know we will be there soon. They will get ready to receive us. You'll see …” he answered in a mysterious tone.

Once they had set foot in Al-Andalus, just four leagues from Salvatierra. Bruno ordered his men to surround Diego and to speed their horses up. They had a long esplanade ahead of them, open, with no forest to protect them or ravine to take cover in. For that reason, they needed to get through there quickly. Only that way would they reach the walls of the fortress.

None of the five men wanted to talk at that moment. They kept watch in front of them, to the sides, behind. They knew that at any moment, an encounter with the enemy, with death, could be waiting for them.

“Otón, to the right!” Bruno shouted.

Two Almohad warriors had just spotted them and came toward them on horseback. Otón took out a bow and aimed at one. He tensed the cord until his fingertips hurt and shot a first arrow, missing. He tried with a second and felled the rider's horse. Tomás rode over to him and together they subdued the second.

“Nobody relax. This moment is critical. It's do or die now. We will face the greatest danger when we top this next hill, where they usually wait for us.”

“Sir, if we travel so close together, we'll be easy prey to their arrows. We should separate. … That way we'll disperse them and we may run fewer risks.”

“That's not a good idea, Pinardo,” Bruno answered. “We need to protect Diego, understand?”

The three knights obeyed him without any objection.

When they passed over that hill, they could see the magnificent fortress a half league in the distance. But they also saw, to their left, a large group of Saracens, and as soon as they looked back, they began to shout and ran for their horses. The first arrows weren't long in coming.