ZARITA HAS CONFESSED to being a secret Jew!
It was Rafael who brought me this news early the next morning. I told him I must find Zarita’s aunt, who’d left me the previous evening to search for a chapel in which to pray throughout the night.
‘The nun already knows,’ Rafael said. ‘She spent the night in prayer on her knees outside the rooms of Father Besian. I was informed that he took great pleasure in telling her that her niece had confessed to heresy. It would seem that he bears Sister Beatriz ill-will and intends to punish her by destroying the girl she loves.’
I went and brought Zarita’s aunt to my own room.
‘Why would she confess?’ I asked her. ‘Have they tortured her? Has she gone mad?’
‘No . . .’ The nun spoke slowly. ‘No, Zarita is not mad. I believe she is thinking about things very carefully. Confessing to heresy means she will not be interrogated again. She knows that if they put her to the question then she will betray us all.’ She raised her head and looked at me directly. ‘Would you care if she were being tortured?’
The idea of Zarita being tortured drove me wild. Pain clawed inside me as if a series of barbed hooks were being dragged through my brain. I put a hand on each side of my head. ‘I cannot bear the thought of it.’
In a voice devoid of emotion Sister Beatriz said, ‘It is small comfort to know that, as she has confessed to observing Jewish rituals, she will avoid torture. Now they will burn her as a heretic.’
‘Burn her?’ I whispered.
‘Yes. It is the punishment for a converso who reverts to Judaism.’
‘For this they will burn her alive?’
‘That depends,’ the nun said woodenly. ‘If she chooses to recant, and she can do this even when the bonfire is alight, then mercy is shown by having the executioner strangle her quickly to save her the agony of death by fire.’
Sister Beatriz picked up a scrap of paper that was lying on the table and, leaning forward, brought the edge to the candle flame. It flared up and then descended into ashes. She contemplated these and then prodded them with her finger. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, half to herself, ‘I see why they choose fire. It leaves nothing behind . . . no evidence of any kind.’
She stared at the flame and went into what appeared to be a trance-like state, and I realized that she was meditating. Then she seemed to come to a decision: she raised her head and looked at me seriously. ‘I did petition the queen but, as I expected, my plea was rejected. As a mark of our previous friendship she has declared that, even though I am a relative of a heretic, I will escape arrest as long as I return to my convent and remain within its walls until I die. I’ve been told that I must quit the city before dawn tomorrow – though she will sign a special pass so that I may visit Zarita one last time. May I stay here for a while before doing that?’
I left the nun to rest on my bed and went to speak to Christopher Columbus. He was the only person I knew at court. I hoped he might have some advice as to what I could do.
‘Would that I could help you, Saulo,’ he said, ‘but I no longer have any status within the court. I am definitely leaving. It’s useless to wait on here. They are wasting my time as others have done before. I am so disappointed, for I thought they were interested enough to invest in me.’
We embraced, and I wished him well in his ventures. He tried to persuade me to come with him, or at least to leave the city, as he intended to do, before the execution took place the following day.
‘You may have been enamoured of this girl, but I urge you to go away now.’
‘I cannot.’
‘There is no hope for her.’
‘I believe you. Yet I cannot leave.’
‘You may put yourself in danger if you remain; if it becomes known that you sought out her company.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said.
‘Be careful, Saulo. I have heard that the monarchs are preparing a decree to expel all who hold to the Jewish faith. The Jews, and everyone associated with them, will lose their property and their goods. You risk being caught up in the purge.’
I thanked him sincerely for his patronage and support, and he made me promise to meet up with him some time in the future. So we parted, Christopher Columbus and I, he in anguish over his lost cause and me in anguish over mine.