16

The Christians’ war to win all of Spain from the Muslims continued. Belo and Papá wanted the monarchs to win. Papá said that the Jews would pay lower taxes if there were peace. Belo said there would be new wars but that God had given us these rulers, so we should be on their side.

I wanted the Christians to lose, as a sign that God wasn’t on their side.

In mid-August, Belo was summoned to the city of Málaga, which the monarchs had captured from the Moors. Papá argued against my going with Belo: the fighting was barely over; the soldiers would still be armed; I was too young.

Mamá alarmed me by wondering who would marry a girl as worldly as I would become, indeed already was.

Jento cried when I mounted my horse.

We traveled through the province of Andalusia, where no Jews had been allowed to live for four years. I looked for signs of God’s favor on this Christians-only land, but the olive trees and the grape vines, laden with fruit, were no heavier here. The sky was the same relentless blue, and the heat grew more oppressive as we rode south.

I begged for a sign. Show me, God, I thought. If Jesus is Your Son, show me, and I’ll convince Belo, and he’ll convince the whole family. We’ll be perfect Christians. The Inquisition will have no cause to accuse us.

We slept in tents in fields, since there were no juderías, but our tent was beautiful: on the outside, tan canvas; on the inside, brocade in green, coral, and ivory thread. Hamdun spread carpeting and smoothed out the bumps.

One night, I massaged Belo’s feet while he used his knife to repair his pen.

“Belo? Why do the Christians care if Muslims and Jews convert?” I worked in the clove oil Fatima had given me. The tent filled with the bracing scent.

“Christians push us to convert because they’re acting out God’s will. The Almighty sends tribulations to test us.”

I stopped kneading in surprise. “God makes them want us to convert?”

“Didn’t He harden Pharaoh’s heart?”

Did God make Yuda tell me his ideas about Jesus and Christians to test me?

No. I wasn’t that important.

“Please don’t neglect my left foot, which has to walk, too. Loma, why do you think our converso friends wish they could be Jews again?”

I changed feet. “Because of the Inquisition?”

“Why else? What do the priests tell us in synagogue every week?”

“That we’ll burn in hell.”

“Do we think they’ll burn in hell?”

“I don’t know.” Samuel’s books, which I’d read, were mostly about how to worship and what to do every day, like massaging Belo’s feet—not that his feet were in the Bible, but honoring parents was. “I haven’t read about hell in Torah.”

“Exactly. Keep thinking.”

“It’s good to be Jewish because we don’t believe in hell?”

Belo took another tack. “Do you like Sukkoth?”

I nodded. Everyone loved Sukkoth.

“Do you like the story of Esther? Do you like Purim?”

I nodded again and began to understand. “It’s more”—Was this the right word?—“enjoyable to be Jewish?”

“Yes! The law isn’t about staying out of hell. It’s about the way we behave and feel before we die. That includes joy. We don’t have to wait to be blissful until we’re dead and have entered their heaven—after torment in their purgatory.” He put his penknife away, reached for the folio on the carpet next to him, and began to write.

I hugged Belo’s words when I went to bed. It made people happy to be Jewish.

But I sat up with a new thought: Yuda wasn’t happy. The comfort melted away.

Early the next afternoon, we began to cross the hills that watched over Málaga, passing through forests of elm, juniper, and evergreen oak. Because the tide of people was against us, we proceeded in single file, a guard in the lead, then Belo, then me, then Hamdun, followed by the other guards.

Soldiers in loose groups trudged past us, this one with his arm in a sling, that one leaning on a crutch. I counted fifty-three soldiers and then lost track. Parties of nobles and their attendants trotted by on their destriers, the horses’ gay trappings dulled by dust. A squire in a red-and-gold doublet, the colors of Castile, carried out a tired pantomime: drooped in his saddle, jerked awake, rode erect, drooped again.

Occasionally, snatches of song broke out among the soldiers, but mostly they were a silent horde, grimly marching back to their interrupted lives. The loudest sounds were footfalls, hoofbeats, neighs.

I sensed our guards’ Jew badges, the bright red meant to draw Christian eyes. (I knew by now that Belo and Papá paid a fee so our family didn’t have to wear them.) Belo waved his hand in greeting at everyone. I kept swallowing my fear. The Christians stared but didn’t accost us.

In late afternoon, a pair of oxen filled the road ahead of us, with more oxen behind them. We swerved onto the grassy margin. The first pair went by, linked to the next by iron chains. More oxen followed. I began to count. Drovers walked beside the beasts, keeping the chains from tangling. What were they pulling?

After thirty pairs, a wooden cart grumbled toward us. In the cart was an iron tube big enough for plump me to slide inside. Belo told me later that the tube was a lombard—a cannon.

Behind the cannon were more oxen, pulling, as we discovered, another lombard. And more oxen after that. No wonder the Moors of Málaga had been defeated.

Late in the afternoon, we crested the final hill. Belo reined in his horse and held up his hand for us all to stop.

Below us spread the conquerors. A forest must have been chopped down to make room for this billowing, pulsing sea of tents, interrupted by aisles crowded with horses, mules, donkeys, people.

Past the tents stood Málaga itself, guarded by the Alcazaba, the city’s stone-and-mortar fortification, which glowed orange-pink in the sunset. It looked indestructible, with its high, sheer walls.

But, of course, it had been taken. Another sign of God’s favor toward the Christians.

Beyond the city sparkled the innocent sea.

I lowered my eyes to the scene nearby. “Are those prisoners, Belo?” I pointed at three corrals to the right of the tents—one enormous, one big, and one small, each holding people crowded together, with soldiers patrolling around them. From here, I couldn’t see the people clearly.

“Yes, Loma.” He pointed from the largest to the smallest. “Muslims, then Jews, and then, I’m guessing, conversos who went back to being Jews because the Moors let them.” He spurred his horse. I spurred mine; the guards and Hamdun followed. The stink of the camp engulfed us. My eyes stung.

Skirting the tents, we trotted to the corrals, low palisades of vertical sapling trunks. From one corral to the next, the prisoners looked the same. Most were women; all were skinny, with knobby arms and wrists, stick legs below their tattered robes, and cheekbones making holes in their faces.

I remembered what Ledicia had said. Papá wouldn’t have let me see the captives. Now was when I needed to be older than my age.

Among the prisoners were children but no babies, which I would have noticed no matter how old I was.

Babies aren’t hardy. Had they all died?