LITMIR.BIZ

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him downstairs, past his mother’s frown, to the courtyard below.

      Here they stood in silence, facing the fountain, while Don Felipe repeated two Paternosters in his mind. At last he said, “Look at that water, Pedro. It ought to remind you of your holy Baptism.”

      The boy said nothing.

      “Not that you can remember the actual event,” the man went on, “but you know, by virtue of having been taught, what an indelible mark of grace was bestowed on you that day.”

      A slight tremor seemed to pass through the little body. That was all.

      “Are you not deeply ashamed to have so blotted out and disgraced the holy purity you received that day, as God’s sacred gift to you?”

      Still Pedro said nothing.

      “Speak, boy!” Felipe exclaimed in exasperation and bafflement, shaking him by the shoulder.

      “Sir,” the boy answered dully, “what do you want me to say?”

      “It is for you to confess! But know this: your sin did not pass unseen.”

      “Who saw us?” He must finally have panicked, to blurt it out like that.

      “The One Whose displeasure you ought to fear above that of any earthly court. God, Who sees all things!” (Even as He sees my own sin at this moment, the priest thought heavily, His Holy Mother help me!) He finished aloud, “This is not to say that you went unseen by mortal eyes, as well.”

      “No!”

      Don Felipe drew a deep breath. What was one more lie in comparison with the sin already on his soul? “Your accomplices have already confessed.”

      “No! They would not! Never!”

      “Confess, Pedro Choved, or it will come to the torture.”

      “No! Not here! Not in Aragon! Our fueros—”

      “The fueros of proud Aragon mean nothing before the sacred duty of the Holy Inquisition!” Don Felipe said with mock assurance. “Do you know what torture is, boy? Do you know what it is to cause another human creature cruel and deliberate—”

      “No!” Breaking away from his grip, Pedro fled across the courtyard—to come face to face with his mother, who had just entered on that side. Hands tight on the silver cross she wore round her neck, she frowned down upon him without speaking. Turning at bay like some hunted animal, he cried, “We were all in church! Together! Everyone saw us!”

      “Do you know what it is to hear screams brought forth by the work of your hands?” Don Felipe continued, seeing his advantage and—hardening his heart for Gamito’s sake—relentlessly pursuing it. “Do you know what it is to see the face writhe up beneath your ministrations? To feel the warm blood—”

      “No! No! No!”

      Heavy footsteps interrupted them. The inquisitor’s bodyguard appeared, followed by Fra Guillaume. In his left hand, Luis Albogado held before him half of a linen sheet, thickly stained with blood.

      * * * *

      “I do not understand,” Gamito remarked, some weeks later and some distance beyond the town, “why he kept the bloodstained sheet.”

      “They still hoped, I believe,” Felipe replied, stroking the neck of his mule, “that the Holy Child’s blood would form into his image. In any case, whether or not they hoped for a miraculous shroud, they had the true relic of a martyr.”

      The two friends were effectively in private, as they had not been since before Passover. Having chosen Zaragoza as his destination, Gamaliel Ben Joseph, the “foreign Jew,” had ridden forth from Daroca alone except for Don Felipe, who brought only Gubbio and Luis Albogado to attend him. The Italian, for once showing some deep sense of delicacy, was hanging behind, engaging the former soldier in a conversation of their own, near enough to guard their master but not to overhear him talking.

      Gamito rode another moment in silence before adding, “But why hide it so carelessly?”

      “Ah, my friend! For Estevan’s brothers to have kept it, knowing that their house would surely be searched as matter of course even while the boy was still merely missing—that would have been to hide it carelessly. As for keeping it in the bottom of Pedro’s chest, how could they expect blame to fall anywhere else than upon your people?” Don Felipe spoke with a heart made all the heavier by the secret knowledge that, had it not been for his own actions taken upon information given, received, and given again under the strict Seal of Confession, the boys would have been safe in their expectation. “Even those children themselves,” he went on bitterly, “knowing their own guilt, saw nothing wrong in allowing the blame to fall on Jews! This is not the world as we knew it under the infidel Moors of Karnattah, old friend.”

      “I fear,” said Gamito, “that it will grow worse yet. We may live to see more such massacres as those of our grandparents’ days.”

      “And you, Gamito? Would it not be better for you to join your brother and his wife in Rome?”

      The Jew shook his head. “I will not abandon my people as long as need remains here.”

      “There are still those who cling to their belief that you caused the Holy Child’s death, who refuse to believe in the guilt of his brothers and their playfellow. Rumor may point you out even in Zaragoza.”

      Gamito shook his head. “It is a large enough city, I hope, for me to live quietly in its Jewish quarter, unseen by any save my own kind.”

      “And if our monarchs force Aragon to accept their new Inquisition?”

      “Old friend,” said Gamaliel Ben Joseph, “I no longer so greatly fear the Inquisition. Is it not thanks to your Inquisition that I am free? No, it is the mob that I most fear now, and not the Inquisition that holds it somewhat in check.”

      Far back though his servant and the former soldier were, Felipe lowered his voice. “Then never allow yourself to be baptized, Gamito—not, at least, without feeling true conversion in your heart,” he added, prudent even in their privacy. “And never, even if asked, speak a word concerning your beliefs to any Christian, for that might be called proselytizing. Avoid these things, and you should remain safe even from this new Inquisition.”

      Gamito nodded, and they rode on.

      Not that the investigation of local inquisitor and bishop’s Ordinary had been enough, Don Felipe thought with some anger. No, it had been necessary after all to appeal to the Justicia on behalf of Gamaliel Ben Joseph and Nathaniel Ben Solomon. The Justicia was a man able to weigh evidence, and pardons for both Jews had come, along with a document ordering the Christians of Daroca to keep the peace and withhold hasty judgment as regarded their Hebrew neighbors. Alas, not even this had crushed out the earliest opinions concerning the death of Estevan del Quivir. Nathaniel the Silversmith had already traded his house for mules and taken his family across the mountains to France. Certain others of Daroca’s Jews, even though never accused by name of this crime, had followed his example.

      Another half hour, and Gamito said, “There is the inn where two of my brethren from Zaragoza are to meet me. Farewell, old friend. Peace be with you. I shall not risk either of us by writing letters.”

      Swallowing hard, Felipe brought himself to say, “Except in need, Gamito. If need should press you, let me know of it.”

      Because of the servants behind, they ventured nothing more, save that halfway to the inn, the Jew turned back briefly and gave the Christian a single wave of one hand.

      Felipe returned it, then sat and watched until Gamito reached the inn. His friend would never know how much he had sacrificed—the peace of his own conscience, perhaps the very salvation of his soul—for the sake of friendship and justice.

      Gubbio and Luis eventually came up to him and sat in silence, awaiting his pleasure and meanwhile leaving him to his own thoughts, which had turned back to the three boys: victims, in some sense, of his own sin.

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