CHAPTER NINE

VISITORS

The next morning the sky turned a greenish black and there were shuddering claps of thunder and a good deal of lightning, then the storm quieted, but it rained for two days. Yonah’s uncle Aron and aunt Juana came to Yonah’s house and Juana said it was unusual for rain to fall so heavily in the month of Tammuz.

“But not unheard-of,” her husband said.

“No, of course not unheard-of,” Juana said, and nobody suggested it was a bad omen. The air was hot even though the moisture fell, and on the second day the rain lightened and then stopped.

*   *   *

Benito Martín had ridden through the rain on both days, carrying Helkias’s sketches rolled and wrapped against the wet in a piece of leather. He had unrolled the drawings at seven churches and two monasteries. By now, every priest and monk in Toledo had heard of the loss of the priory’s ciborium, but nobody offered any knowledge of what had happened to the reliquary after it had been stolen.

His last stop had been at the cathedral, where he had knelt and said a prayer.

When he finished praying he stood and saw that he was being watched by a tall friar with an extremely handsome face. Martín knew from common gossip that the people in the plazas referred to this friar as El Guapo, the Beautiful One, and that he was with the Inquisition, but Benito couldn’t remember his name.

He continued the business of showing the sketches to priests, of whom there was no shortage in the cathedral. He had shown the drawings three times, with the familiar lack of success, when he looked up and met the tall friar’s eyes again.

The man crooked a forefinger.

“Let me see.”

When Benito gave him the sketches he studied each of them at length. “Why do you show them to priests?”

“They are designs of a reliquary that has been stolen. The silversmith who fashioned it seeks to learn if its whereabouts are known.”

“The Jew Toledano.”

“… Yes.”

“Your name?”

“I am Benito Martín.”

“You are a converso?”

“No, Friar, I am an Old Christian.”

“Helkias Toledano is your friend?”

It should have been easy to say Yes, we are friends.

Benito was fond of the cathedral. It was his habit to visit it often, because the lovely vaulted place always made him feel his prayers could go straight up, into the ears of God, but this friar was spoiling the cathedral for him.

“I am a goldsmith. At times we have conferred about matters of our trades,” he said warily.

“Have you relatives who are conversos?”

“I do not.”

“Has the silversmith already left Toledo?”

“He is soon to be gone.”

“Has he spoken to you of Jewish prayer?”

“No. Not ever.”

“Do you know whether he has spoken of prayer with any Christian?”

“No.”

The friar handed back the sketches. “You are aware that Their Majesties have specifically forbidden any Christian to give comfort to Jews?”

“I have not given comfort,” Benito said, but the friar may not have heard, for he had already turned away.

Bonestruca, Benito remembered, that was the name.

*   *   *

The rain had stopped by the time he rode to the Toledano house.

“So, my friend,” Helkias said.

“So, my friend. Is it truly to be tomorrow?”

“Yes, tomorrow,” Helkias said, “whether or not the count of Tembleque returns so I can collect my money. If we wait longer it will be too late.”

Helkias told Benito they would pack the burros early. He and his sons were carefully separating the few belongings they could carry with them. “What we leave behind is yours, as you wish.”

“I thank you.”

“For nothing.”

Martín gave Helkias his disappointing report, and Helkias thanked him and shrugged: the results were not unexpected. Then, “You know the friar they call the Beautiful One, a tall Dominican?” Martín asked.

Helkias looked at him in puzzlement. “No.”

“He is an inquisitor. When he saw me showing the sketches he made me understand he disapproved of my errand. He asked questions about you, too many questions. I fear for you, Helkias. Have you had dealings with that friar—perhaps some difficulty or unpleasantness?”

Helkias shook his head. “I have never talked with him. But save your concern, Benito. Tomorrow night I will be far from here.”

Benito was ashamed that a friar could cause him nervousness.

He asked if he might bring Eleazar to the Martín house for the rest of the afternoon, so the child could say farewell to his beloved playmate, little Enrique Martín.

“He might as well stay the night, with your permission?” Martín said.

Helkias nodded, aware that the boys would never see one another again.

*   *   *

Yonah and his father had worked well into the evening by candlelight, completing the arduous details of their departure.

Yonah enjoyed sharing tasks with his father. It was not unpleasant to be alone with him, with Eleazar gone for the night. They made piles of their belongings, one pile composed of things they would leave behind, a smaller pile that they would pack onto the burros at dawn—clothing, foodstuff, a prayer book, a set of his father’s tools.

Before it grew late, Helkias put his arm around Yonah and ordered him to bed. “Tomorrow we travel. You will need your strength.”

But Yonah had only just fallen to sleep to the comforting sound of Helkias sweeping the floor when his father shook him, roughly and urgently. “My son. You must leave the house through the rear window. Hurry.”

Yonah could hear it, the sounds of many men coming down the road. Some were singing a fierce hymn. Others were shouting. They were not far off.

“Where?…”

“Go to the cave in the cliff. Do not come out until I come there for you.”

His father’s fingers dug into his shoulder. “Listen to me. Go now. Go at once. Let no neighbor see you.” Helkias threw half a loaf of bread into a small sack and thrust it at him. “Yonah. If I don’t come … stay as long as you are able, then go to Benito Martín.”

“Come with me now, Abba,” the boy said fearfully, but Helkias shoved his son through the window and Yonah was alone in the night.

He circled cautiously behind the houses, but at some point he needed to cross the road to get to the cliff. When he was beyond the houses he moved to the road in the darkness and for the first time he saw the lights approaching, terrifyingly near. It was a large group of men, and the torchlight glinted sharply on weapons. He was trying not to sob but it didn’t matter, because their noise was very loud now.

And suddenly Yonah was running.