2

TO REACH THE HIGH ROAD THAT RAN SOUTH FROM Segovia to Seville, one went from the house of Alvero through the town and up onto what was then known as the Jews’ Ridge. It was late twilight when Alvero and Juan Pomas and the peon Julio came through Segovia towards the high road. The two dons were mounted on fine Arab steeds – Alvero on a pure white thoroughbred, and Juan on a black horse, an Arab filly, slight, nervous and strong. Trailing behind them, Julio rode a clumsy cob and led a pack mule. Cobs were called British horses because, long ago, some of the original stock had come from that faraway island.

Alvero led them through the town at a walk, so that the small children already asleep would not be awakened and so that their mothers would not send the travellers on their journey with curses. At the far side of the town, a young man lounged against a gateway and serenaded a maiden who was unseen in the darkness. Alvero stopped his horse to listen and Juan and Julio closed up behind him. In a clear tenor voice the young man sang,

“And when I journey far away,

Who will care for my true love?

Night will lighten into day—

Who will care for my true love.”

“A Castilian song,” said Alvero. “When I was young, all the young men in Spain sang Castilian songs. What do they sing today, Juan?”

“They sing very little indeed,” Juan answered dully. His spirits were low. He felt no exaltation about a trip to Seville in the company of Prior Thomas de Torquemada, and yet he lacked the courage to withdraw. He was somewhat afraid of Alvero but he was much more afraid of Torquemada, and this fear was something that Alvero could understand. It often occurred to Alvero that in the strange land that Spain had become, one of the strangest things was his own friendship for the Inquisitor, Thomas de Torquemada. But friendship transcends fear. This was axiomatic, he thought to himself. He was a Spanish knight, and he had small patience with fear. Deep inside him he suspected that Juan Pomas was a coward, but this was something which he suspected and which he had not dealt with. Even in his thoughts he refrained from dealing with it – because he sensed a complexity that went beyond the simple premises of knighthood. Alvero recognized such complexities as the increment of age. The older he became, the less simple were the answers to problems, and the problems themselves were increasingly complex.

They had left the city behind now and, as they mounted the dirt track to the high road, Alvero saw Torquemada sitting on his horse at the lip of the hill and waiting for them. There he sat on his big horse, grimly and stiffly, wearing his monkish habit, the pearl-grey luminescent sky of twilight making a backdrop for him, and the last rays of the sun behind him. He was a firm and angry servant of God, and for some reason it pleased Alvero to see him cast in this light – while the sombre mood of the darkening twilight covered Alvero like a comfortable cloak and soothed his Spanish soul.

They all sat their horses together for a moment on the high road, looking back at Segovia beneath them – at the old Roman aqueduct looming over the city, disappearing into a hole of night; and then, in the city, like a single candle, a finger of light came into being. Alvero looked at Torquemada, who nodded.

“An act of faith,” Torquemada said. “A woman is being burned at the stake. I thought of it when I walked through the streets of Segovia this morning. They looked at me and they said, there is Torquemada who burns men and women at the stake. God help me if I burn their bodies. Their souls live naked and clean.”

“I would lie to you,” Alvero said, “if I did not tell you that I take no joy in the sight of what you call an act of faith.”

“Do I find joy in it, Alvero? And tell me, my friend, what do you call it if not an act of faith?”

Alvero shook his head and spurred his horse up to the road. Juan and Julio followed him and then, behind them, Torquemada.

An hour later they stopped at an inn. The landlord, a man whom Alvero had known for years, recognized Torquemada and out of this recognition the innkeeper became taciturn and withdrawn. They ate in the common dining room of the inn, but whispers walled them off from the other men who were present there. Alvero realized that it was the first time he had been together on a journey of any kind with Torquemada since the Prior had become an Inquisitor. He felt a curious pity for the priest – who ate sparingly and remained silent.

The following day was cool and sunny, with blue skies and a soothing wind. Alvero’s spirits revived and, together with Juan, he sang a song to his horse as they went. Torquemada listened and smiled. They stopped to eat at the roadside and made a meal of wine and sausage that they had brought with them from the inn. Then they continued along the road.

Half of the life of Spain flowed along that road from Seville to Segovia. They met merchants with long trains of pack horses and with armed guards, five men in light armour to guard each pack horse. They met monks and priests and friars and once a bishop, riding in great majesty with over thirty attendants gathered around him on horses and donkeys and mules. They passed tumblers and jugglers – and once a party of two hundred of the King’s men who were riding to hold a part of the border against the Moors.

They all fell into the pace of the journey. They became easier with each other and easier with their words and, bit by bit, the hard mask of Torquemada softened. He sat with them when they roasted their food over a fire at the roadside. He stretched his legs in the inns and listened to the talk and to the stories, and the farther they got from Segovia, the fewer were the people who recognized him. He and Alvero talked a great deal about the old days and Juan listened to them respectfully.

And then one day they topped a rise in the road and saw before them the walls of Seville.

The following day Alvero and Juan dressed themselves in their best clothes and walked through Seville to the palace of Ferdinand and Isabella. In hose and doublet, wearing light half-armour of polished steel, chased with gold, the two men made a handsome sight. They were fine-looking Spanish gentlemen, and when they came to the palace they were recognized and greeted warmly by Don Louis Alvadan, who was Queen Isabella’s private secretary. He had been waiting for them and watching for them so that they would not lose themselves in the bustle and turmoil of the Court. Juan had never been to the King’s Court before and he watched the press of knights and ladies and diplomats and merchants and dukes and counts with excitement and delight.

As Don Louis led them towards Isabella’s chambers, he explained to Alvero that their arrival was particularly fortuitous. The Queen, Don Louis said, had been discussing a matter of some importance with a Genoese sailor by the name of Christopher Columbus. Columbus had a notion of opening up some new and possibly very profitable trade routes for Spain. There were those who supported his ideas and those who thought him entirely mad. They entered Isabella’s chamber now and Don Louis dropped his voice and then cut short his explanation. He stood just inside the doorway, waiting, Alvero and Juan beside him.

Alvero looked about the room and at his Queen with curiosity. The palace itself had been so recently conquered by the Spaniards that they were hardly settled there – almost like people at an inn. Isabella’s chamber had high-arched ceilings in the Moorish style, Moorish pillars and archways. The stone walls were draped with the banners and rugs of the House of Castile, and a wooden platform had been built so that the Queen might have a chair above the level of the floor. On this platform there were two chairs and a table – and the Queen herself was bent over the table, staring at maps. The man called Columbus stood next to her. In his late thirties, Columbus was tall, almost cadaverously lean, with deep hollows in his face that gave him a curiously aesthetic look. He could not restrain or conceal his passion, even in front of the Queen.

It was two years since Alvero had seen the Queen. She was thirty-four now, a strange, reserved, imperious and almost sexless woman, who could nevertheless be curiously tender and very charming. Alvero knew that she had noted their entrance. Nevertheless, she did not raise her eyes; and her imperious voice, nagging and petulant, filled the chamber.

“Why, why, why, Signor Columbus? You arc becoming my own personal devil. You plead with me until your voice troubles my dreams. Why, why do I need an empire? Spain is large enough and never forget that part of this Holy Land is still held by the Moors.”

“My Lady, I abase myself,” Columbus answered. “I despise myself because I must disagree with you. Still I must say to you, my Queen, can you imprison a man’s dreams?”

“Do I stop you from dreaming?”

“The dreaming is nothing, your Highness, the doing is all. You are the Queen of a great country. I offer you a world. I offer you an empire and you will be an Empress.”

“I have discussed this matter with my learned men, so many learned men, you know that.”

“The learned men!” Columbus cried. “God above us, what do the learned men know? Have you discussed it with sailors, with fishermen? My noble Lady, I abase myself – still I must say to you that sailors have known for centuries that the world is round. This is not a new idea. Have you ever heard of the expression – hull-down on the horizon – a ship with sails showing but body hidden by the curvature of the earth? Have you never heard of that expression? I abase myself before you. You are the Queen of Spain. I am nothing. Nevertheless—”

Isabella looked up deliberately and decided to notice Alvero. She clapped her hands with pleasure. “Alvero – my dear, good friend! To come so far and so quickly for a woman who doesn’t know her own mind! Alvero, come and rescue me. This man is destroying me. This man is Columbus. He is a madman. Come to me, Alvero.”

Alvero strode to the platform but stopped short of it and kneeled on the floor. He genuflected with real humility. This was a game he played with Isabella, yet he did not object to it. There was a strange relationship between the two of them. Isabella came to him and drew him to his feet. She instructed him to kiss her hand and he did so dutifully, and then, in a whisper in his ear, she asked him about Juan.

“Who is he, my dear Alvero? He is good-looking but he seems to have no character.”

“My daughter’s fiancé.”

“Well, I think your daughter could do better. Is she a pretty girl?”

“Very beautiful, your Highness.”

“Then she could certainly do better. Anyway, bring him here to me.” The Queen pointed to Juan and crooked her finger. “Come here to me, young man. No, don’t stand there like a fool, come here to me. Come over here and kneel down in front of me, the way your father-in-law did,” and then to Alvero, “I am afraid he is a fool, Alvero.”

Juan came to the Queen and knelt down at the edge of the platform as he had seen Alvero do; but the Queen decided that she had lost interest in him and she took Alvero’s hand and led him up onto the platform and introduced him to Columbus. Alvero was pleased to see that if Christopher Columbus of Genoa was mad, he at least had a sense of humour. His mouth twitched and he shook hands firmly with Alvero. They liked each other. They both of them felt that. Isabella began to whine, explaining once again to Alvero that this was Signor Christopher Columbus of Genoa in Italy and that he plagued her. He had driven her to a point where she could not exist with him and she could not exist without him.

“He is willing to become a good Spaniard,” she cried petulantly, “but he cannot swear his allegiance to a Queen, no, no, no, Alvero, he must make us an Empress and find us a mighty empire in the Indies.”

“I know of no woman more suited to be an Empress,” Alvero began.

“I would have you whipped, you stupid man,” Isabella cried. “You think to flatter me? Every primping, strutting male in Spain practises the flattery of his Queen. Only it doesn’t become you, Don Alvero. Talk sense. You are a merchant – I think the most intelligent merchant in Spain. That’s why I sent for you. He wants a fleet of ships. Where shall we find ships or the money to buy them?”

“Ships, my Lady? The way to the Indies by ship is closed.”

“Eastward, yes,” Columbus said, “but, Señor Alvero, I propose to sail westward around the earth.”

Both Columbus and the Queen watched Alvero’s reaction. He was staring at Columbus, less surprised than intrigued by the man’s notion. It was hardly a new notion. As Columbus said, a good many people, as a practical matter, knew that the world was round. Isabella now explained that it was his obsession. “The earth is a ball,” she said. “He insists on that. So I sent for the wisest man, in Spain.”

“Do you agree with me, Don Alvero?” Columbus asked.

“Tell us, Alvero,” the Queen prodded him. “Do they stand on their heads in the Indies?”

“On their heads, no, my Lady,” Alvero answered slowly. “Yet the earth is a ball. Travellers have known that for many years—”

Don Louis had re-entered the chamber while they were talking. He moved about obsequiously, here and there, from one side of the platform to the other, until Isabella burst out in annoyance,

“I told you we were not to be disturbed, Don Louis.”

“The King is impatient.”

“Then let him remain impatient. He can wait, his Inquisition can wait and this Torquemada can wait. I have no desire to see this man Torquemada.”

“You promised his Majesty, my Lady.”

“Oh, I will punish you, make sure of that,” Isabella cried. “You stupid man. I will have you whipped, drawn and quartered!” and then to Alvero, “No, don’t look at me like that. I don’t mean a word of it. He’s stupid.” Then she sighed and said to Don Louis, “Very well, bring them here.”

Don Louis left the room and Isabella demanded to know what kind of a man this Torquemada was. Her manner fascinated Alvero. She had changed so since he had last seen her. Imperious, whining, petulant, pleading, her mood and manner shifted incredibly from moment to moment. Alvero wondered how anyone could live with this woman or be with her – and yet the entire Court revolved more around her than around her husband. He began to tell her of Torquemada, and then suddenly she interrupted him to dismiss Columbus. She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “Get out of our sight, Italian,” she said to him. “We have had enough of you. Now leave us!”

Juan was still kneeling as Columbus backed out of the room and Isabella looked at him with disbelief.

“Get up off your knees, you stupid man,” she said. Juan rose to his feet. Isabella turned to Alvero and said that she supposed Juan would have stayed there, kneeling on the floor all afternoon if no one had told him different. “Was it that way when we were young, Alvero? I mean the young men that were you and your friends? No, don’t bother answering. We were talking about Torquemada. What manner of man is he?”

“I have known him all my life,” Alvero said.

“He is a friend?”

“Yes, he is a friend.” Alvero nodded.

“Then how can you judge him?” the Queen asked. “Do you know my husband is going to make him Chief Inquisitor? Yes, exactly, the head of the Inquisition all over Spain.”

“God help him,” Alvero whispered in spite of himself. It was at that moment that Ferdinand, the King, came into the room, Torquemada walking behind him.

Ferdinand was a skinny, nervous man, slight, smaller than his wife and increasingly a victim of an incurable illness. He had a hacking cough and he was as alert and as sensitive as a bird. He feared people and he was jealous of his wife. He saw Alvero standing beside her and he was jealous. He saw Juan, a younger man, and he was jealous. His jealousy was anxious and free-floating. He feared, he envied, he hated. He hopped up to the wooden platform and examined the maps and then cried out aloud that the world was not round. He knew Alvero but had not the courtesy to greet him; but, instead, went into a harangue about the shape of the earth. He hated Columbus. He expectorated superstitiously and crossed himself and then went into a long, disjointed explanation to Torquemada concerning Columbus and what Columbus believed and what Columbus desired. Like his wife, Isabella, he fell easily into a pattern of whimpering, and now he complained to Torquemada,

“Heresy, Prior, heresy, heresy. Don’t you agree? Yes, you must agree, of course.”

“Sir, my husband,” Isabella burst out. “You’re acting like a pig. Do you hear me? Like a pig! Here’s Alvero de Rafel and you have not so much as nodded to him. Where is our royal dignity, our reputation?”

Ferdinand expectorated on the map in front of her. He wiped his spittle with his fingers and then demanded again of Torquemada whether or not the mere statement that the world was round should not be considered as heresy.

Torquemada replied that it was certainly idiocy but that all idiocy could not be marked as heresy. Alvero had a feeling that, in front of him, Torquemada was pleading for approval – for friendship – perhaps even for hope. “He is already the Grand Inquisitor,” Alvero said to himself. Torquemada was stiff, very much self-contained, and Alvero sensed his agony. “How he must suffer,” Alvero said to himself.

Ferdinand clenched his fist and pounded on the table, on the map, and cried out, “He’s a Jew!”

“Who, sire?” Torquemada asked.

“The Italian, Columbus.”

“But a Christian now, from all that I hear,” Torquemada said softly.

“But a Christian now!” Ferdinand burst out, “but a Christian now! Oh, I tell you, that’s fine talk from a man I have just appointed Chief Inquisitor. Here is a Jew-Christian tied up in a big, fat knot and the Chief Inquisitor argues with me!”

His voice soft and legalistic, Torquemada said rapidly, “If he Judaizes, we can take action against him. But there must be some proof, legal proof. At the very least, we must have an accusation—”

“They all Judaize!” Ferdinand shouted, “including that one.” He pointed at Don Alvero, and with great calm and without raising his voice, Torquemada said.

“He is no Jew, sire, not even a converted Jew.”

“They are all Jews up there in Segovia!” Ferdinand shouted. “Every one of them with that bastard taint in his blood. Every one of them, every one of them—”

Isabella took Alvero’s arm and led him off the platform. “Go out of here, my friend,” she whispered to him. Alvero nodded at Juan. They paused at the doorway. Isabella began to cry, and Alvero could not help thinking how odd it was to see her in tears. Suddenly it brought to mind, very forcefully, the fact that she was a woman. The actual fact of it was that no one ever thought of a Queen as a woman. Juan said this after they had left the palace. “Suddenly she became a woman,” he said to Alvero. And without replying, Alvero thought to himself, “God help her.”