ONE:
BEFORE
Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants..
Deuteronomy 32:02, NIV
They say there are three types of sin; Commitance, Omission, and Ignorance. Although my life has always been one of faith, with each sunset of my life coming hand-in-hand with my prayers, I lived a fairy tale life, one full with ignorance. Running through open fields, carefree and unburdened, while the very countryside around me shook with tension, an archer on the verge of firing a very deadly arrow. To this day, my ignorance then sickens me.
The battles of the Reconquest raged across the country – my world, my very universe. The Muslim invaders, the Moors, were gradually being forced back by the duel efforts of the Spanish Monarchs of Aragon and Castile, defeated but never utterly destroyed. In Spain they remained, in their isolated and far-between settlements. The battles were bloody, the land won back slicked with gore of both friend and foe. My youth aside, what if there was something I could have done, some small thing to aid my fellow Spaniards? In omission, be it as it may sprung from ignorance, my sins may have cost the live of someone’s brother... someone’s father.
The reclaimed territory, such where I grew up, was as a sapling rose. The thorn that never ceased to spawn hatred on all sides was the inter-religious mingling that ensued. Muslims bartered their goods with Conversos, Catholics rubbed shoulders with Apostates.
My father – Catholic, of course – never tolerated this religious diversity. It was from him I learnt the curse Marrano, as the converts are known behind their backs. Titles aside, their only true name was traitor. For around the same time that the Inquisition came into power, There was a Decree that effectively exiled all Jews from Spain. Desperate to remain in Spain, the most devious of the Jews saw an obvious loophole in the Alhambra Decree, to convert to Catholicism. Overnight a whole new race of people were born: the “Catholic” Conversos.
Suddenly everyone was being judged. Was a Converso any more trustable than a Jew? Were they still practicing their Jewish rituals in the dark alleyways and dank basements of our affluent townships? By converting, these people rendered themselves un-trusted by Catholics and Jews alike. The hate of vigilant Jews, however, was of little concern, for they were quickly rounded up and herded from Spain over the northern mountain range, the Pyrenées.
If anything, the courage to stay must be a virtue, the best I would concede to the hated converts.
Throughout all this, my family and I stayed vigilant in our faith, a faith deemed orthodox by the Monarchs and Inquisition. Father was our rock, our holy foundation. And yet, my memories of him dwindle, a climber in distress of falling from my hilltops of consciousness. The brightest light, indeed, burns out the fastest. My mother is still there, her plainly beautiful face ever in the backdrop of my childhood memories. But alas, for not all of them are as carefree and unburdened as a child could hope. As long as I live, I will never forget the day Inquisitor Hernando found me, not long past my tenth birthday. The day my life changed forever.
“Roland! Are you even up yet?”
My eyes were lead. How the sun could pierce such a veil was beyond me. But then, clear thinking so early was as much anathema to me as the chores that, as my mother would never let me forget, impatiently awaited my attention.
Calling out in dreary response, I rolled onto my feet. Maybe my memory is appeasing my sense of irony, but I clearly remember thinking, just another day. Oh, how one’s mind plays with its host.
And yet for most of the day, it was just that, a day like any other. Dispatching some hay for the cattle, feed for the chickens, leftovers for the pigs. A homespun system of wooden fences separating all the animals from each other and us. Funny how such a thing could allude safety and security.
The sun beat down on me, almost sufficient to make one collapse. But I raised my head high and smiled. Young abandon aside, I knew how lucky I was to be so free, and the begrudgingly tolerated chores were a meagre price to pay. The nearby townships we sometimes visited seemed clustered to burst with people. Out here, one could spread one’s wings wide.
I loved the endless blue by day, and the incomparable stars of the night. But everything around me was amazing as well. The earth beneath me, the people I called kin and neighbour… Everything.
I don’t recall falling, but I was on my knees. Few times since have I been struck down with such thankful awe.
Somewhat like a soldier’s last peaceful breath, I suppose.
There was the clap of hooves. I slowly stood to watch them approach our dwelling. Laden with bags, the two strangers appeared to be somewhat travel-worn, but were certainly not low-life travellers. They looked almost regal, the dust and dirt of the road failing to hide the fine cut of their garments.
How odd, how out of place they looked, I thought. I made to return to the task at hand, but just as the stubborn weeds I struggled to remove, the thought of the men clung to my mind. So unlike the actual sky, a cloud of trepidation hung over me, and my curiosity began clawing at me hungrily. I thought little more of the possible consequences as I abandoned my chores.
Upon the front steps, I began to open the door. The slight creek made me jerk back. I struggled to stay my suddenly thumping heart. This felt… wrong. Abandoning my jobs, for a curiosity?
I made to leave and return to my jobs, when voices wafted through the ajar threshold. The first of them was unfamiliar.
“…for if you don’t you could be in serious danger. They’ve been spotted repeatedly in this area.” A voice like cold steel, but as steel used for an implement for not ill, but good.
“How serious?” That was my father, voice like a rough-worn garment, but with underlying strands of concern hidden deep within the weave.
“You could be killed.”
“They wouldn’t,” my mother spoke up, a pure weave of worry. “We’re no threat to them.”
“What would you do if they just passed by?”
“Report their presence to the nearest authority, of course.”
“They know you would, madam.” Someone started pacing, boots knocking on the timber floor. “They wouldn’t risk it.”
“But where have we to go?”
“I would recommend you make contact with your next of kin, make residence in a township.”
“We will not leave.”
“What of your child? What use is all you have when the Moors take that and more?”
“We have faith. Nothing can take that.” My father sounded almost uncertain, cowed.
“Of what use are deceased followers?”
“The Martyrs-” father began.
“Martyrs die publicly, not by slit throats in the dead of night. Compare yourselves to them not.”
“We are bound to stay; this truly is all we have. But for Roland…” Father trailed off.
A low hiss slid under the door, like a spider. “Inquisitor Hernando noted this… Roland, praying in the fields as we approached…”
The dread Inquisition! My whole body tensed. What business had they here? Had I been praying correctly? Was a field an unfit place for such an act? My panic drowned out the conversation for a moment.
Father was speaking, I realised, his loud tones of concern cutting through mine silent and of panic.
The strange voice replied, “If he stays as you do, he will but share your fate.”
“But you would?”
“As one of our own, we would.”
My heart thumped a drum, and I only just realised my palms were sweating. Footsteps encroached on the door and, having no idea what to expect and no inkling of what I should do, I hastily wiped my hands on my tunic. Maybe trying to look my best, for early was it that I learnt that first impressions do count.
The door before me swung open. I winced as if the wooden threshold were the very gates of hell. A black-haired man stood before me, glaring down on me as one might at a cockroach. Hypocritical of him, I thought, for he was a praying mantis, with harshly angular features and beady black eyes. His shin-high boots were of thick black leather, straps fastened tight to keep the huge ungainly things to his thin legs. He spoke, “Him?”
“Yes… him,” replied a disembodied voice, not unkindly. I could imagine a smile twitching across his lips.
Then the gangly man was gone, like an insect in a hurricane. Although nothing touched him, he swept aside as if pushed, moving against his will. Within the hearth stood the Inquisitor – Something told me the insect man would never answer to ‘Inquisitor Hernando’ – and my parents.
The fire, quietly crackling within the same wall and almost dead, painted him in dull hues of red-black. Flames silhouetted the Inquisitor. He moved in and out of distinct visibility as he paced. Just before shyness sunk its steely claws into me, such was my first glimpse of Inquisitor Hernando, outlined in fire and already deep within my hearth.
There I stood, statuesque, in the threshold, gaze unbreakably earth-wards.
“Roland, it’s ok,” mother soothed, her expression and tone starting to crack like ice. “Just come inside now, it’s all going to be ok…”
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