Aztec Blood - Jennings Gary - Страница 121
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My mind and body were strangely calm. True, I felt panic pull in my heart, but my thoughts were for Don Julio and his family, sweet, delicate little Juana and the nervous bird, Inez. Poor Inez. She had waited all her life for a terrible disaster to happen and now it came to her door in the middle of the night.
No concern stirred in me for Isabella. I was certain she would find a way to avoid the Inquisition, perhaps even collect a reward for turning in Don Julio. With her connection to Alva, no doubt she had already given a statement to the Inquisition. One did not need an Aztec diviner to fathom that, if it would help her, the don's wife would have told the Inquisitors we were devil worshippers who ate the flesh of Christians.
The coach rumbled on cobblestone streets, rain beating on the roof. I rocked back and forth in my seat and kept up questions in the hopes of learning something about the don's fate. The silence was not ignorance, but intimidation. Each unanswered question generated more anxious questions, more fear, and that was the intent. Fray Antonio had told me about his own experiences with the Inquisition, about the silence. But to have heard about it happening to someone else was different than experiencing it yourself.
I wanted to tell the men beside me that I knew what foul creatures they were. The secret army of the green cross. The hounds of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Men in black who came in the dark of night to drag you from your bed and take you to a place where you might never see the sun again. I wondered if "Don" Jorge was among them. If he identified me as the printer of profane books, they would burn me at the stake twice.
The heavy downpour stopped, and my world of sound became the heavy breathing of a man beside me and the hiss of water beneath the carriage wheels. I knew we had entered the main plaza when the sound of the carriage wheels changed. The dungeon of the Holy Office was not far.
The carriage stopped and the door opened. The man on my right got out and pulled me out after him. As I tried to cautiously step down, he gave me a jerk, causing me to miss the step. I twisted sideways as I fell, smacking the street stones with my left shoulder.
Silent hands lifted me up and directed me through a doorway. The floor suddenly was not there and I started falling, crashing against a wall. Hands grabbed me again and stabilized me. I was on a stairwell. Starting down it, my feet went out from under me and I began to stumble. I fell against someone in front of me, breaking my fall. I hit the steps, banging my head, and slamming down on the same shoulder that I had injured on the cobblestones.
Jerked to my feet, I was half dragged down a stairway. When we reached a floor, I was guided against a wooden frame. My hands were untied and retied, my doublet and shirt removed, so I was naked from the waist up. The hood came off. I was in a room, shadowy, almost dark, with large candles burning in the upper corner of two walls. The wood frame I was tied to was the notorious instrument called a rack. The room was a torture chamber.
The walls of stone glistened wetly. Water ran in streams on the floor. It made the dungeon atmosphere more gruesome. Even in normal weather conditions, the city's water table was so high that graves filled with water before the dirt was thrown in. The dungeon defied the tendency of any hole to fill with water more than a few feet deep. No doubt the Inquisition had the funds to construct a room that did not flood. Or, as the bishop of the Holy Office probably claimed, God kept the room from flooding so the inquisitors could do their work.
When I was securely tied, my mouth was gagged. The sound of struggling and Mateo cursing came from an adjoining room. The sounds stopped and I assumed he was gagged also. I wondered how many of these little chambers of horror were in this hellhole.
The familiars conferred across the room with two frays. The frays wore dark robes with hoods. I could not hear exactly what was being said, but again I made out the word "marrano."
The familiars left and the two frays slowly approached me. There was nothing hurried about their movements. I felt like a lamb staked out with jungle beasts about to rip out its guts.
They stood in front of me. The hoods went over their heads but did not completely cover their faces. Behind the edges of the cowls, their faces were as vague as fish in dark water. One pulled down the gag enough so that I could speak.
"Are you a Jew?" he asked. The question was asked in a very gentle tone, a fatherly tone, a father asking a child if it had been bad.
The kindly tone caught me by surprise and I stammered out a response, "I am a good Christian."
"We shall see," he murmured, "we shall see."
They began removing my boots and breeches.
"What are you doing? Why are you taking my clothes?"
Silence greeted my questions. The gag was pulled back over my mouth.
When I was naked, my legs were tied to the frame. The two frays began a minute examination of my body. One stood on a bench and parted my hair to view my scalp. They slowly moved down my body, looking at each mark, not just only scars, but moles and blotches, the shape of my eyes, even the few wrinkles on my face. Each carefully traced the lines on my palms. As they silently worked, one would gesture to the other to double-check a blemish or wrinkle.
They were looking for a sign of the devil on my skin.
The silliness of their actions struck me. I started to laugh and choked on the gag. The indignity of what these two priests were doing, touching my body, examining my skin, hair, even my virile part. Is this what they became priests for? To find the devil in a mole? To see demons in a wrinkle of skin?
As they examined my virile part, I realized that I was fortunate that the Aztec gods had stolen a piece of foreskin. The frays believed I was a Jew—with their twisted logic, had I not appeared circumcised, they would have concluded that as a Jew, I had been earlier circumcised and Lucifer had restored my foreskin so I could disguise myself as a Christian.
When they finished in front, the rack was swiveled so they could examine my backside. Ay! Did they think the devil was hiding up my back door?
They handled me like two butchers deciding how to carve a side of beef. No conclusions as to whether I bore the mark of the devil were stated to me.
Working my jaw, I slipped the gag far enough down my chin to mumble. I asked again, why I was being held, what the charges against me were.
The two frays were deaf to all but their own utterances and whatever messages they believed God whispered to them.
"The girl, Juana, has she been seized? She has special needs; her body is fragile. God would punish anyone who harmed a poor sick child like her," I threatened.
The mention of God's punishment got the attention of one fray. He looked up from checking for the devil between my toes. I could not discern his hooded features, but for a brief moment his eyes met mine. His eyes were black, blazing fire pits, dark flames in a fathomless well, a brooding wrath that invited me... nay, tried to suck me in. His eyes shared the same macabre madness of Aztec priests who tore out throbbing hearts and fed on blood like vampires.
After they had finished their examination, they unfastened my arms and legs and gave me my shirt and breeches to put back on. I was taken down a few steps to a stone corridor of cells behind iron doors with Judas windows. It was wetter at this level and my feet splashed in water above my ankles. Moans escaped through one of the judas windows as I walked by. An agonized voice came from another.
"Who's there? Please tell me, what is the date? The month? Have you heard of the family of Vicento Sanchez? Are they well? Do my children know their father still lives? Help me! For the love of God, help me!"
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