LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

turned the pages of a small volume, pretending to read; but his conscience thrust itself between his eyes and the print as if every serif were a thorn, and if ever he were aware what author it was whose work he gazed at, he immediately forgot it.

      And yet, he kept repeating to his conscience, how does God work, in the daily course, if not through human beings? How can I know but that God, Whose secret this is to keep or to reveal, chooses to reveal it, not through miracle, but through my weakness—that I have been predestined, like Judas Iscariot, to commit grievous sin that greater good may come of it?

      At last Fra Guillaume snorted, woke, and gently shook himself. “Now!” said he. “Let us go where we may more fittingly examine this information that you bring.”

      They went into the audience chamber, which served Fra Guillaume’s tribunal also as council room. Toeing aside one soft lump of dust, Don Felipe mused briefly upon an audience chamber in stark black and white, awesome in its unfrayed cleanliness, where no flocks of dust lambkins grazed the floor; and a council room completely separate, with warm hangings on its walls and cushions on its chairs.

      Feeling less like a bishop’s Ordinary than an unfortunate under investigation, Don Felipe moved his chair opposite that of the inquisitor, sat some moments hesitant to broach the matter he had been fretting to speak of since making his decision, and finally, beneath Fra Guillaume’s mildly expectant gaze, began:

      “My witness—who claims the strict rule of secrecy—saw three young lads heretically re-enacting our Lord’s Crucifixion upon a fourth boy, this Good Friday just past, near the cave where Estevan del Quivir’s body was found.”

      It gave him some satisfaction to see that even an experienced and sleepy inquisitor could still on rare occasion be shocked. Fra Guillaume’s eyes first widened, then blinked. His hands, clasped before him on the table, tightened until the knuckles turned pale.

      At length the Dominican asked, “Did your witness recognize these lads?”

      “One definitely: Pedro Choved.”

      “And the others? Were they truly Estevan del Quivir and his elder brothers?”

      “So my witness thought.”

      The old man drew a long breath and splayed his fingers over the dusty wood of a table left always in place. His nails whitened as he pressed down, holding his hands steady. “This…would change the aspect of the case. Holy Mother! I am not sure that Estevan even merits the title of martyr, if this can be proved.”

      “How willing or unwilling was the victim’s involvement, who can say?” Guessing at Fra Guillaume’s thoughts, Don Felipe shook his head. “No, brother, in my humble opinion, we need not worry ourselves over the cultus that will inevitably grow up around our Holy Child. Whoever actually killed him, they who reverence him as martyr surely do so in all orthodox good faith. But must we not investigate this case of his brothers and their friend?”

      “Certainly, certainly.” The heaviest of sighs. “The witness came to you, my friend. Let the bishop’s court investigate this case.”

      No! thought Don Felipe. I cannot act alone—I am known to be Gamito’s friend. And to perjure my soul yet again, in repeating, as if I had the right to repeat it, what came to me under the Seal of Confession…

      Aloud, he argued, “Think, Fra Guillaume! If you should fail to represent the true Inquisition in examining such a notorious case as this, will we not give them one more pretext for forcing their new Castilian Inquisition into our diocese…into Aragon?”

      The old inquisitor pondered slowly, sighed again, and nodded. “You are right. It was, perhaps, for this very hour that our Lord put me in this place. But…you will act with me?”

      “To do otherwise, would be to turn my back upon God.” Uttering these words, Don Felipe half expected God to strike him dead for compounding sacrilege with hypocrisy. But no—had He not left Judas to hang himself?

      “Well!” Fra Guillaume leaned on the table for support as he got to his feet. “If we are to look into it, we must do so quickly. Let us go at once.”

      * * * *

      The merchant who owned the house wherein Fra Guillaume kept his tribunal had among his servants a former soldier, one Luis Albogado, still strong and sturdy in his sixtieth year. This former soldier the merchant had placed at Fra Guillaume’s disposal whenever the Holy Inquisition should need a man at arms in Daroca, which had not happened for many years. Attended only by Luis Albogado, inquisitor and Ordinary made their way to the house of Don Enrique Choved’s widow. No more than a Gloria after Albogado’s announcement of “A matter of Faith!” accompanied by his three firm raps, the door was opened by a young maidservant, wide-eyed, pale, and breathless, who immediately shrank back like a frightened fawn out of their way. Poor creature, thought Don Felipe, our errand cannot touch you…except as it touches this entire household.

      The widow of Don Enrique stood midway down the stairs. “Fra Guillaume,” she acknowledged, inclining her head to the inquisitor. “Don… Forgive me, my memory does not hold many names. Who in this sad house has sinned against our Holy Faith?” Her glance went in the direction of the poor maidservant, as much as to say, “If one of my servants…my servant no longer!”

      Don Felipe took it upon himself to step forward and answer the widow as gently as possible in so stern a matter. “Doña Beatriz, we have cause to suspect your son, and him alone in this house.”

      “My son Enrique is in Granada, fighting his king’s holy war against the infidel Moors.”

      “It is your younger son, Pedro, whom we have cause to suspect.”

      Pressing her lips together before speaking again, she answered at last, “If guilty of sinning against our Faith, he is no longer his father’s son, nor mine.”

      “He is still God’s son, Doña,” Fra Guillaume told her, in a voice between mercy and sternness, “and he has still a soul, which must be saved at any cost.”

      She descended the stairs and stood to one side. “Save it, then. He is on the floor above us.”

      They went up, Luis Albogado leading and Don Felipe, as the younger priest, next. Pretense it might be, as if a bodyguard were needed against a ten-year-old boy; and yet this ten-year-old boy was under grave suspicion of having taken part in the heretical murder of a friend.

      They found Pedro sitting on the floor between bed and window, staring up at the intruders, a bowl of nutmeats, pile of whole nuts, and two or three heaps of broken nutshells surrounding him like toy fortifications.

      Luis repeated the dread words: “A matter of Faith!”

      The boy leaped to his feet, dropping his knife and the nut he had been holding, as if his guilt consisted of shelling nuts on Easter Monday. Knife and nut fell with a clatter, the nut rolling across the floorboards to catch in a knothole near Don Felipe’s toe.

      “Remember, Pedro Choved,” Fra Guillaume intoned, “that our first concern is for your immortal soul, and that He Whom you must fear is not us, but God, and God alone, Who sees all. Bear ever in your mind that it is worse than useless to lie to the Lord our God, and answer the questions of your bishop’s Ordinary as if you were already answering God Himself upon the Day of Judgment.”

      Wondering when it had been decided that he should be the one to do the questioning, Don Felipe began, “Well, Pedro, is this your room, where you sleep?”

      The child nodded.

      Don Felipe said to the former soldier: “Search it thoroughly. I will question the suspect in the courtyard.”

      “Yes, my lord. What should I search for?”

      Exchanging a glance with the inquisitor, the Ordinary replied, “Perhaps Fra Guillaume will deign to oversee your findings.”

      “If you fail to discover anything here,” Fra Guillaume added, with—Felipe thought—some relief, “we must see the rest of the house searched

Скачать книгу