RACKED.
I was to be racked.
Put to the question as Bartolomé had been. To be made to confess to something I didn’t do. I recalled his screams of agony the day I’d run to the barn to find him dangling from the rafters with a rope tied to his wrists. I saw again before me the old man led to his execution at the stake, staggering as he walked, his body like a loose-limbed puppet.
I could not bear it. I could not. I did not possess the courage of a martyr. I knew this now for certain. Even the prospect of being shackled in irons and hung from the wall had reduced me to such a fainting condition that my gaoler had to support me when taking me back to my cell.
I remembered what had happened when they’d tortured Bartolomé – the townspeople panicked into betraying each other, myself included. I was responsible for the two women being stripped and scourged, for I had pointed the Inquisition in their direction. This would be much worse. The pain would be so great that I would tell them anything, everything.
I thought of all I might say.
There was my aunt’s collection of medical books depicting surgery upon the human body. They would deem these texts heretical, and brand her a heretic too, for she was studying Arabic and Hebrew in order to read these learned works. They would arrest her, and Father Besian would be glad to do it for he considered her presumptuous.
And what of the convent where my aunt had constructed her own rules to return to the true spirit of the first holy men and women of the Church? The remarks she’d made regarding this could be interpreted as heresy and double heresy. Her sisters would be brought for trial before the Inquisition.
I would betray the doctor who’d attended Lorena. He would be punished for daring to lay hands on a Christian woman even to save the life of a child. I would tell about the child. I would tell who had fathered him. It would destroy Ramón. And although Ramón was foolish, he was not wicked and didn’t deserve to have his life ruined. And it would mean the child too would be at risk. Perhaps they would decide that the Jewish doctor had exchanged the baby for a different one: the innocent babe, now enjoying being spoiled by Garci and Serafina and Ardelia, would suffer too. The immunity that Lorena had been promised for her child in exchange for betraying me and my father would not withstand this damning evidence. As the relative of a heretic, the child would lose his inheritance.
And then there was Saulo. I would say that he wasn’t an independent mariner and man of fortune. I would denounce him as the son of a hanged beggar, who had been sentenced to slavery.
I saw how this would go on and on and on, and it would never end, but consume all Spain.
I must remain silent.
God, let me die now, I thought, let me die tonight. If I had the means I would kill myself. For I believe in the goodness of God and He will give me mercy as He sees fit. I can only do what my conscience directs me to do. And if I died, then it would be over.
And then I thought, in truth, I do not care to live any longer in this life. Saulo, whom I love, does not love me. He hates me. He came to my room to kill me. So the happiness I’d anticipated with him was impossible. The life I’d begun to hope to live on this Earth was dust in my hand.
I stayed awake that long night until my eyes burned in the darkness. When I heard the gaoler stirring in the corridors outside, I knew what I must do. I had the power to stop up a small part of the flood of destruction.
And there was only one way I could do this.
I went to the door and called to my gaoler. ‘I would like to speak to Father Besian,’ I said. ‘I wish to confess.’