Bridge of Fire, page 14
She began to strike the door with her fists. “Beasts! Beasts!” Tears streamed down her face, her hair tumbled to her shoulders, her fists turned bloody, and yet she went on pounding. Other prisoners took up the cry, and soon the corridor echoed with shouts, thumps, bangings, and whackings. Suddenly a shout could be heard above the tumult.
“Be still! Quiet! Or I’ll have the hides off your backs.” The sound of a cracking whip echoing along the corridor brought Francisca’s eye to the peephole. She saw a powerfully built man disappear into one of the cells, and a moment later she heard the agonizing cries of some poor soul paying for his fleeting outrage under the lash. When the warden reappeared, Francisca was horrified to realize that it was Gaspar. So he hadn’t drowned! What was he doing here, a servant of the Holy Office, a man as godless as any brownskinned pagan? She watched, mesmerized with fear, listening to the stinging crack of the whip and the bleating screams of the punished as Gaspar went from cell to cell.
When she knew she would be next, she got down from the stool. Smoothing her hair, she twisted it into a knot on her neck and stood in the center of the cell, waiting.
It took him a few moments, squinting in the gloom, before he recognized her.
“So it is you, Señora!” His face broke into a grin. “What a surprise! I was planning to pay you a little visit, and now you are here. What luck. What have you done? Blaspheme? Slept with your neighbor’s husband? Or are you a Judaizer?”
When she did not answer, he came toward her, slapping the butt of the whip in his hand. “Or could it be attempted murder?”
He had left the door open, and Francisca, dodging his bulk, made a dive for it. The whip snaked out and caught her around the waist before she could get a foot over the threshold. He laughed, his donkey’s laugh, yanking at the whip, pulling and dragging her back so violently, she lost her balance and fell at his feet. He brayed again. Then, while she lay panting, he stepped to the door and slammed it shut.
“Now We shall have the fun we missed at the canal. Remember?”
She untangled herself from the whip, scrambling to her feet, looking about wildly.
“You’re caught, my little pigeon,” he said, advancing slowly, reaching out to her. “No tricks to play here, eh?”
She dodged behind the table as if that flimsy, rickety piece of furniture could protect her. He was right. She had no weapon, not even an eating bowl she could fling at him. There was nowhere to run, no one to help her. She could scream and scream until her throat went raw, but in this hell, what was one more scream?
“I shall tell the judges,” she challenged. “They will not like it if I were harmed before they had a chance to question me.
“Easy enough to say that you tried to escape. You did, just this last moment. I can do with you as I please.”
He moved closer to the table, savoring her trembling fear, licking his lips in anticipation. She picked up the crude oil lamp and threw it at him with all her strength. His arm went up, an oath breaking from his lips as burning oil splattered over his face and hair. Then, diving forward, he dragged Francisca across the table, bringing it with her in a shambles of sundered wood.
The lamp’s wick, by freakish happenstance, floating in a tiny puddle of oil, had not gone out but gutted and wavered on the floor, giving enough light for Francisca to see Gaspar’s features contorted with rage. He held her, face-to-face, for a few moments, then turning her, threw her against the wall. Her forehead hitting it sent wave shocks of pain rebounding in her skull. Stunned, she clutched at the grimy plaster, her nails digging hard to prevent her from falling again.
“Bitch, bitch,” he muttered.
She heard the crack of the whip, and the next moment it was singing through air, striking her back, a razor-sharp agony that made her cry out. Again and again the whip slashed at her, ripping through her gown, laying the tender flesh bare, raising a bloody wetness along her naked skin. Pain engulfed her, a red mist, a scarlet lake in which she felt herself drowning, fighting for breath, clinging to a fast-ebbing consciousness.
Then suddenly the wick went out, plunging the room into darkness. Gaspar swore, cursing Francisca, lashing out at her again in the blackness. But she had slid along the wall out of reach. She could hear him stumbling about, uttering a string of maledictions, groping, searching for her. A crash and clatter brought a fresh flood of curses as he fell over the rubble of the upended table.
Her hand to her mouth, not daring to draw breath, Francisca waited for the sound of his movements. She heard his heavy breathing slowly ebb. Then silence. Had he been knocked senseless by his fall? On tiptoe, taking care not to make a sound, she inched toward the door. She was within reach of it when, with a sudden wild cry, Gaspar caught her skirts.
Flinging her to the floor, he fell over her, his suffocating weight grinding her face into the dirty straw. He straddled her, turning her over, chuckling, wheezing at her futile, weak struggles. She felt him fumbling at his breeches, his hardness bucking at her stomach. Then he was rucking up her skirts and petticoats over her thighs.
She tried to scream, but all that came out was a muffled groan. God help me, help me! her mind begged.
Then suddenly a burst of light angled across the cell as the door was flung open. Gaspar, blinking, turned. A black-clad figure strode into the room. Before Gaspar could get his dazed wits about him, he was lifted from Francisca. Without uttering a word, the intruder plunged a knife into Gaspar’s heart. Falling, he toppled over Francisca’s legs.
The black-clad figure kicked him free, then helped Francisca to her feet. Though her rescuer’s face remained in shadow, she saw by his habit that he was a Dominican friar.
“Did the jackal harm you?”
For a long moment Francisca could not speak. That voice…!
“I should have killed him long ago,” the friar said, moving to the door.
Francisca stood on weak and trembling legs, her hand at her mouth. Could it be? Or had she sunk into some kind of feverish dream. “Miguel?”
He turned on the threshold, his face in lull light. No dream. It was Miguel.
Chapter XII
“Jailer!” Miguel called from the doorway.
The little man with the bowed legs came running. “I want this cadaver removed.”
“But, Friar, where am I to put him?”
“It matters not. Throw him on a dung heap, for all I care. He has paid for a heinous crime, attempted rape under God’s roof.”
“Aye.” The little man peered past Miguel, his eyes squinching up. “I’ll need help. He’s a big one.”
“Get it, then, and be quick. And while you’re about it, fetch me a candle, a basin of clean—clean—water, and a cloth.”
Francisca, feeling weak, had seated herself on the stool and was distractedly fumbling with her fallen hair, trying to twist it into a knot at the nape of her neck. Stunned, in pain, she still groped for comprehension. It was all so confusing: Miguel’s sudden appearance, and in a Dominican’s habit. What did it mean?
“Did that dog harm you?” Miguel had turned from the door. The question was an echo of a similar one he had asked long ago.
“Only with the whip. Miguel…” The name felt odd on her tongue. He had his back to the light. She could barely make out his features. “Miguel, how came you here?”
“In a moment I shall tell you. Ah, here is our candle and water. Jailer, I am present on secret orders from the archbishop. Should you speak of this episode, you will answer to him. Do you heed me?”
The bowlegged man and his assistant, a tall, heavily bearded warder, nodded mutely, then each taking one of Gaspar’s legs, dragged him from the cell.
Miguel, setting the candle on the floor, knelt behind Francisca and silently began to wash the wounds on her back. His touch sent a shiver through her, but apparently mistaking her reaction for pain, he said nothing. His hands wiping the blood from her lashed back seemed impersonal, like those of a physician or Sister of Charity. The murmurs of sympathy she might have expected were not voiced. He had rescued her from rape, killed a man for her, and was now ministering to her wounds, yet he seemed strangely remote.
“The habit,” Francisca asked, breaking the silence. “Have you taken vows?”
“A disguise. It was the only way I could get inside the Flat House. The so-called secret orders from the archbishop were for the jailers’ benefit—a lie to buy their silence.”
He touched a welt that hurt worse than the others, and she gave an involuntary gasp.
“Am I too rough?” he asked, a warm question without warmth.
“No, oh, no.”
She wondered about his apparent coolness. But there were more troubling questions. Why, for a man who had connections in high places, was it necessary for him to wear a disguise in order to gain admittance to the prison? Why was he here?
Then, as if in answer to her unspoken question, he said, “Francisca, I am going to find a way to bring you out. At present I have no plan, but I will think of one.”
“Take me out? Oh, Miguel, is it true?” Francisca’s mind spun. She could hardly believe her ears. He had come to free her. She never dreamed that Miguel, who had been the cause of her imprisonment, would be the instrument of her release. Why was he doing this? If he hated her as a Jew, why should he want to interfere with the trial and judgment of the Inquisition? Was he a spy?
“I don’t understand,” she went on, perplexed. “The last time we met you were repelled because I was a Judaizer. I haven’t changed.”
He got to his feet and looked down at her. “No. I suppose you haven’t. We won’t discuss it now. I must hurry, Francisca. If I linger too long, they will suspect something. Where is the boy?”
“I don’t know. They took Jorge from me and said they would give him to a Christian family.”
“Which family?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated, her hand kneading her skirts, the agonizing memory of her parting with Jorge suddenly washing over her. She saw and heard it all again: the fear in Mariana’s eyes, the hooded familiars on the stairs, the constable’s implacable face, her sister’s mad laughter, her father’s pleas, and her child’s anguished cries.
“Oh, Miguel.” She looked blindly up at him, immersed in that terrible vision as if she could still smell the stale, sweaty odor of her captors. “I promised to protect him, and I failed. The look on his face when the familiar pulled him from me—” Her voice broke, and for a few moments she could not speak past the constriction in her throat. “I shall never forget it. He wept, Miguel. He’s only five. He didn’t understand. He cried, and it was all my fault.”
If Francisca expected Miguel to reassure her, to say that she was blameless, she was wrong.
“You have no idea where they took him? No clue as to whom he was given?”
“None. They tell me nothing here.”
“I must find him. I was hoping that you would know. I have friends in the city—but to question openly is dangerous. Still, I will have to run that risk. Somehow I’ll manage it.”
“My freedom will mean little unless I have Jorge.” Francisca clasped her fingers tightly. When he remained silent, she continued.
“Miguel, much has happened. My husband was the first to be imprisoned.” She paused, then went on in a rush. “I was at my parents’ house when the bailiffs came after us. Leonor broke under the strain and went mad. She was carried from the house, to where I do not know. My father and mother…” She bit her lip. “I saw my poor mother pass in the corridor; I heard her cries from the torture chamber. Better…” She swallowed, trying to gain control, and failed. Oh, Miguel, she wanted to sob, why did you do it? What made you inform on people who never did you harm?
“Francisca—I cannot tarry.”
“Wait—you say you will free me. I am grateful, but I cannot leave without my mother and father and my husband.”
“Your husband is dead.”
Francisca stared into Miguel’s eyes, her own wide with shock.
“He died under torture.”
“He…died…You are certain? God help us! Such a fine, decent man.”
Miguel’s jaw stiffened, a hot blue light flared up in his eyes, then faded, leaving them empty of expression, but she was too distraught to notice. She had not loved Ruy, but he had been more than kind. He had been solicitous and caring, even as her father had been. She had only to express a desire for some trinket, a rug, a necklace, or a book, and it was hers. When she was pregnant he had urged her to remain in bed of a morning, dismissing her maid, waiting on her, with his own hands bringing a tray with her breakfast of chocolate and comfits, cosseting her, a woman who was carrying another man’s child.
“To the last he refused to recant,” Miguel was saying, his voice empty of emotion.
“He was steadfast? God bless him! I thought under duress he might implicate us further.”
“My informant tells me that he tried to protect you.”
She pressed her hand to her mouth. Tears stung her eyes, clung to her lashes. Poor, poor Ruy. To die in horrible pain with his lips sealed. “He was not a strong man physically,” she said in a muffled voice. “But no weakling when it came to courage.”
Miguel gave her a sharp look. “You have my condolences. You must have loved him very much.”
“He was a hard man to dislike.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. Now was not the time to go into the niceties of like and love. So much tragedy, so many things to weep bitter tears for.
“And what of my mother?” she asked, her throat raw with grief. “Please God, she isn’t dead, too.”
“I know nothing of your mother. But I will try to find out what has happened to her. Your father also.”
“I cannot leave this place without them.”
“I will see what can be done, Francisca. I go now. When I have found Jorge I will be back with a plan. I’m sure you realize how important it is to say nothing of this visit.”
“Yes…and Miguel—”
“Francisca, there isn’t time to talk. One last word of advice. If the inquisitors question you, perhaps it would be best to admit you have erred, that—”
“No! Never!” she interrupted in a choking voice. “Admit and have Ruy’s death on my conscience? Never!”
Again she wanted to ask why he had come, but he was at the door, impatient to leave. “What day is this?” she asked.
“Tuesday.” And the door closed behind him.
Tuesday, she thought dazedly. I must keep an account of time, a mark, a tally of some kind. She took a pin from her hair and scratched a slash upon the wall. How many of these would she have to make before his return?
She sat down on the stool, clasping her knees. It was difficult for her to believe that Miguel had been here in this dismal, dank dungeon, Miguel in the flesh come to rescue her. It all seemed so unreal. Perhaps it was because he had acted like a stranger. The Dominican garb, the cool, impersonal voice. Except for cleansing her wounds, he made no effort to touch her. Not one intimate word had been spoken. Her tears for Ruy had only elicited an impersonal “My condolences.” There had been no apologies for his former behavior, no explanations, nothing said that referred to the past and what they had once been to each other. She had not realized until now how much she had wanted him to take her in his arms, how she had longed to lay her cheek against his strong chest, to hear him whisper soothing words.
If only he had said, “I’m sorry, I still love you.” But he hadn’t. She must take comfort from his promise that as soon as he found Jorge, he would make plans to rescue her and her family. Why he should make such a dangerous effort, she did not know. It puzzled her. If he had informed on Ruy, putting them all in jeopardy, then why had he suddenly decided to save them from the Inquisition, which he, and all nobles like himself, had sworn to uphold? Second thoughts? An uneasy conscience? Some faint remnant of love. Whatever his reasons, she prayed God that he would succeed.
Yet behind her reasoned self-assurance a thought kept nagging like the dull ache of a sore tooth. The abyss that separated her from Miguel remained unbridged. He was still a devout Catholic, she a secret Jew.
A week went by. The tiny slashes on the cell wall marking each morning grew from seven to fourteen. And still no sign of Miguel. Francisca, impatient for his return, took to pacing her cell. Back and forth, ten steps to one dirt-blackened wall, ten to another. What was taking so long? She tried to learn from her jailer what was happening to her parents, but the little, bowlegged man turned mute on her again.
Then one morning, after her jailer had delivered her breakfast of tortillas and water, two familiars entered her cell.
“Come with us.”
The commanding voice, the sight of the sacklike livery sewn with the Inquisition’s hated green crosses, put a cold finger on her spine.
“Where are you taking me?” Francisca asked in a firm voice that gave no hint of the sudden lurching beat of her heart.
“The judges wish to question you.”
Francisca threw a ragged shawl about her shoulders to cover her torn gown. Then, head erect, she went out between the two familiars, marching down the corridor with one on either side. They walked in silence, past closed doors behind which voices groaned or sobbed, then up a short flight of stairs.
She was ushered into a large room lit by torches and gray daylight streaming in from a high, barred window. Two judges dressed in dark, loose garments and wearing brimless, high-crowned hats sat with a scribe at a table placed on a dais. In front of them was a brass casting of Christ on the cross. Another man, beak-nosed with small, piercing eyes, sat a little distance from the table under one of the four posted arches that supported the ceiling. There was something about him that seemed vaguely familiar to Francisca, but she could not remember where she had seen his face.
