Bridge of Fire, page 18
The sky grew pale, then flushed with red and gold as the sun rose, glinting off the snowcapped peaks of Ixtacihuatl and Popocatepetl. It promised to be the kind of morning that made hearts hopeful of good things to come, and indeed, some of the men broke into cheerful song. And for a brief spell Francisca shared their mood, thinking that all was not lost, that her mother would by some miracle live, that Pedro and Juliana would be released, that Leonor would regain her sanity, and that she would be reunited with Jorge. If such happy wonders could come to pass, she thought, then her only wish would be that Miguel would love her again as he had once six long years ago.
She was thinking of him when Miguel fell into step beside her.
“How are you bearing up?” he asked of Francisca.
“Well enough.”
He was no more a muleteer than she was. The way he carried himself, head and shoulders above the other men, his easy step, his confident air, gave lie to his menial dress. Whatever he wore would seem like velvet and silk. The frayed palm leaf straw hat sitting cockily on his tawny head could have been plumed beaver, the kerchief tied at his neck, fine lace at his throat.
“When we reach the outskirts, you can ride,” Miguel said.
“Wouldn’t that seem strange? A muleteer riding one of his own beasts of burden? I can walk.”
“For how long in your present state? No one coming out of the Casa is in condition to make an eighty-league walk. It is not necessary for you to do penance. None of this was your fault. If your parents had brought you up to be a good Catholic—”
She turned to him, flushed and resentful. “I chose to be a Jew. Will you never understand that?”
He gave her a sharp look, then turned away. They walked on in silence, Francisca’s anger gradually ebbing. She regretted her outburst. He had done so much for her. She couldn’t expect him to change. Perhaps someday, but not now.
“Let us not have angry words between us,” Francisca said, swallowing her pride. “Please tell me about Jorge.” Miguel flicked his whip at the mule ahead, who seemed inclined to break out of line. “Jorge.” He paused, a frown creasing his brow. “You cannot know how difficult it is for me to speak of it even now.”
“Please,” she urged. “Don’t be angry with me.”
“Francisca, you mistake my reluctance for anger. It’s simply a painful subject.” He jerked at the mule’s bridle. “Where to start? At the beginning, I suppose.” He took a deep breath. “When I left you, I had no choice but to consult my friend Tomás, who has connections with certain members of the Inquisition in Mexico City. Bless Tomás. He asked me no questions, but in a day or two, acting discreetly, he found out that Jorge had been given into the care of a certain Antonio Flores and his wife.”
“Flores? I don’t know them.”
“He is a saddle maker, no longer young. Both he and his wife are devout. One daughter is a nun; their youngest is studying for the priesthood in Spain. Unfortunately, Flores and his spouse, together with Jorge, left for Zacatecas, a mining city to the north, where their son-in-law had established himself as a carpenter. Hindsight shows me how foolhardy it was to make the journey with only one companion, Alvaro.”
“Poor child,” Francisca said, thinking of Jorge’s face wet with tears. “What a wrench it must have been to be taken even further from his home.”
“I thought of that, too. Luckily, we met no misadventure on the way and made it in good time. Dressed as a Dominican friar, it was a simple matter to convince the Floreses by waving a forged document that I had the authority to bring Jorge back to Mexico City.”
“Was he well?” Francisca asked anxiously.
“Well and thriving.”
“Did he ask after me?”
“When I said I had come to take him to you—I did not tell him you were in prison—yes, he did.”
“And then?”
“We were preparing to make our return when we were delayed by a series of storms that flooded the rivers and churned the paths—there are no decent roads over those mountains—to mud. The waiting, the loss of time, irritated me, but on the other hand, it gave me a chance to get acquainted with my son.” He paused and smiled, not so much at Francisca, but at some memory that amused him. “He is so bright and clever. So quick. I thought it would be beyond his understanding if I were to announce myself as his father at once, so I told him I was closely related to you. And after we had been together five, six days, do you know what he said?”
Miguel’s voice had softened, and he looked at Francisca with that proud smile again. “He said, ‘You are like a papa to me.’”
Francisca laughed, a laugh close to a sob. “He is a very loving child.”
“And manly. Even at five, already manly. We tarried a week. I got to know Jorge well. I had always wanted to sire a son, but I had never known, never anticipated, the feelings of a father. Francisca, when I sat him on a horse, a princeling could not have had a more regal bearing.”
Francisca, her voice bursting with pride, said, “He is good at everything he tries. We had bought him a pony, just before—” And she stopped, suddenly remembering. What was the use of this exchange when the beloved object of their conversation was lost to her? “But you haven’t told me what happened.”
“Alvaro and I, with Jorge in front of me on the saddle, started out as soon as the weather had cleared. We were a day out of Zacatecas when we were ambushed by a band of Chichimecs.”
“Ambushed? Dear Lord! I had thought the Chichimecs had been subdued.”
“Not so. Other tribes have been tamed, given villages, land, promised immunity, many persuaded to work in the mines. But the northern branch of the Chichimecs has proved elusive and troublesome. One moment we were trotting along, descending the trail into a wooded canyon, the next we were surrounded by savages, their faces painted in hideous rainbow colors, their bows drawn. Alvaro and I pulled out our guns, and if it weren’t for the boy, I would have commenced shooting, killing as many of the heathens as I could. But something, an instinct, made me order Alvaro to hold his fire. It was strange, but the Indians sat their horses, waiting for their chief to give the signal to attack. And he didn’t give it.
“He motioned to us to dismount. Jorge was very quiet; he did not seem afraid. I murmured a few words of encouragement to him as we swung from the saddle. And he stood beside me, tall and brave. So brave. The chief also dismounted and, to my amazement, began to speak to us in broken Spanish. The gist of his speech was that he wanted Jorge.”
“Wanted Jorge?”
“Yes. All the while I argued with him, I was looking around for some way out of our dilemma. There were fifteen of them, effectively surrounding us, boxing us in. They are good bowmen, Francisca, never missing a target even at twenty feet. I had very little choice except to talk my way out. I told him that the boy was my only son.
“‘You lie,’” the chief accused. ‘Christians who wear black and white vestido and cross not allowed to have sons.’ I was still wearing my Dominican habit, and nothing I said would persuade him that I was anything but a friar pledged to celibacy. Finally, losing patience, he said he would kill us all. I knew he meant it. Francisca, I would have died for Jorge, but I was not willing for him to die, too.”
“They took him,” Francisca said dully. “Why should they want him, a white child?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps this savage had no son of his own. Perhaps he had had one that died. My heated queries were answered with a shrug, a pretense that he did not understand. The motion of his hand on the bow pointed toward Jorge decided me that it was futile to argue any further.
“When they had gone, Alvaro and I went back to Zacatecas. We managed to raise a band of a dozen men. We went from village to village, searching house to house, but never found the cursed Indians who had taken Jorge. I would have gone on looking, but I was aware of your danger, Francisca. That you might be put to the rope and rack was a possibility…Well, I had to come back. Do you see why?”
“I do. But I wish it weren’t so. Can we do nothing?”
“The Holy Office in all likelihood is on our trail now. They will guess that our destination is Veracruz, and their agents will be questioning travelers and innkeepers on the road. The one thing in our favor is that they do not know who I am. Beatriz was the only one who could tell them.”
“Yes, of course. But how came you to Beatriz?”
“When I returned to Mexico City, Tomás told me that the Inquisition was looking for your aunt Juliana and cousin Beatriz. A little bribe here and there, and I found out where they had gone. I was too late for Juliana, but Beatriz had come back to Mexico City and was supposedly hiding in the home of some people named de Sosa. I say ‘supposedly’ because Beatriz, as we both know now, was a spy of the Holy Office. Like a fool, I never suspected. I told her of my plan to rescue you and your family. That night I was attacked on the street by two masked men. I managed to dispatch them both but did not connect my assassins with Beatriz until later.”
“So she came to the Flat House dressed as a Dominican thinking you had already died?”
“Exactly. Fortunately, the de Sosas, who are inclined to be less than sympathetic with the Inquisition and who claim they can smell an informant a mile away, had doubts about Beatriz. When they told me they had discovered the habit of a Dominican monk under her bed, I guessed what she was up to. I changed my disguise and, by good luck, arrived in time. Now you see why I had to kill her?”
Francisca, tired and footsore, had not protested when Miguel lifted her onto the back of a mule. She rode, fighting sleep, her lids heavy, her head lolling forward, then jolting upright when the mule stepped into a hole or stumbled over a tree root. They were climbing a mountain on a tortuous path that snaked upward around rocky outcroppings, skirting deep, river-threaded canyons, the surefooted mules, their bells tinkling, plodding along to the urgent cries of “Mula, mula, mula, mula!”
Miguel walked beside her. It had been some time since he had spoken. Thus far there had been no speech between them that could be construed as tender or amatory, nothing said that hinted at the passion they had once known. Yet Francisca felt his vital presence. At intervals he would grasp the mule’s bridle, his sleeve brushing her knee, and she would feel the blood suddenly quickening through her exhausted body. Every step reinforced her certainty that her feelings for Miguel had not changed. But how did he feel about her? Perhaps Juliana’s words had killed any love he might have felt. Yet he had risked his life to save her. Why? Not his conscience, for it was Beatriz who had betrayed the family. The challenge? Some grudge he had developed against the Inquisition since she had last seen him?
Thinking back, she could see now that she had angered him when she refused to answer his direct question as to whether she loved Ruy. Naturally he had assumed she did. And his assault in the weaving room—had it been made out of anger and lust or was there some remnant of love still lingering in his heart?
They reached Puebla at sundown. A good-sized city of ten thousand inhabitants, it was seated in a low, pleasant valley, overlooked by a snowcapped mountain. Here, in addition to stopping for the night, the muleteers would pick up five more mules carrying cloth that the Pueblans claimed rivaled that of Segovia in Spain.
They put up at the Posada del Alba, an inn near the main market frequented by muleteers. It was a two-story building of rough-hewn logs built around a courtyard, where the mules were corraled for the night. The del Alba was a noisy place, the common room’s floor littered with the refuse of past meals, the straw bedding dirty, the air reeking with the smell of dung, over which hung clouds of flies. Because a fair was being held the next day, the inn was crowded, and Francisca and Miguel had to share a bed with two others in the sleeping loft.
For Francisca it was a miserable night. Her neck and back stiff from the day’s jolting, she slept in her clothes, wedged between Miguel, who fell asleep the moment he stretched out, and one of the muleteers, whose unwashed body stank and who mumbled and cursed between loud fits of snoring.
The next morning it was still dark when the muleteers descended to the patio below to load their mules for the next lap of their journey. Francisca was picking the straw from her clothes by the light of a fitful candle set in a sconce next to the window when the sound of unusually loud voices above the braying and cursing drew her attention to the patio below. Torchlight illuminated muleteers swinging panniers across the backs of restive mules, tightening buckles and riatas. In the center, ringed by this bustle, were three men dressed in dusty black robes arguing voluably with the innkeeper. When one, the tallest, turned his face so that the full light of a torch fell upon it, Francisca’s hand flew to her mouth.
It was the hawk-nosed prosecuting attorney, Señor Lopez.
The Inquisition had caught up with them.
Chapter XV
Miguel came bounding up the ladder, carrying a length of rope looped over his arm.
“Francisca—”
“I know,” she said weakly, her heart pounding with the same cold, sweating terror she had lived with these past few months. “I’ve seen.”
“They have questioned the muleteers and are asking to search the place. Do you think they would recognize you?”
“The tall man with the hawk nose is Señor Lopez, the prosecuting attorney.”
“He must want you badly to join a constable and familiar in their search.”
“They say he never loses a prisoner.” She pressed her chill, damp hands together. “Can you trust the muleteers?”
“I wish I could be sure. They have been paid well to hold their tongues until we safely reach Veracruz, but with the agents of the Holy Office interrogating them, they may have second thoughts.”
“Then we must leave at once,” she said, struggling against panic. “Is there another way out except through the patio?”
“There doesn’t seem to be.”
“None? You are sure? God in heaven!” Again wild fear leaped and bounded with the rapping of her heart. She should have known that escape was only an illusion. She would be caught like a rat in a trap. Dragged back to prison, the dark, stinking cell, the stark audience room, the torture chamber with its instruments of pain and terror—all to be faced and endured again. And at the end a horrible death. She wanted to scream, “I can’t! I can’t!” And for one blind moment she thought of begging Miguel to take her in his arms, to soothe, to kiss, and tell her he would never allow them to have her.
But she couldn’t. He would think her weak, childish, and rightly so. She remembered Ruy and her mother, her father, and her son. She owed it to them to face what she must with courage, even if that courage was half sham.
When she spoke again, it was in a steadier voice. “You are armed; perhaps you could—” she hesitated—it was still hard for her to use the word kill “—do away with them.”
“I cannot, much as I would like to,” he said. “Nor can Alvaro, who was unrecognized and remained below. Too many witnesses, and Lopez and his men would immediately be replaced by others. Puebla swarms with clergy. No, we must elude them.”
Outside there was an imperceptible paling of the sky. Taking the candle from its wall holder, Miguel prowled the room, inspecting the ceiling.
“Ah…the trap door!” Miguel pointed. “There is no ladder, but if I place you on my shoulders, do you think you could open it?”
“Yes! We must hurry!”
They could hear steps, a loud voice in the common room below, asking, “Is there anyone in the sleeping loft?” And then a muffled reply.
Miguel lifted Francisca, hoisting her to his shoulders, holding her by the ankles. Swaying uncertainly, her nervous toes curling and uncurling, she groped with sweating hands for a way to open the trap door. It must have a catch or a bolt, but where, oh, God, where?
At the foot of the ladder the loud voice that Francisca recognized as belonging to Señor Lopez proclaimed, “Then we shall see for ourselves.”
Under her, Miguel, fixed as a rock, whispered, “Feel to the right.”
A sudden wave of dizziness overcame her, and for a moment she thought she would fall.
Miguel took a firmer grasp of her legs. “Steady, steady!” Recovered, she went on with her search, perspiration streaking her forehead, her hands sticky with cobwebs. Suddenly she touched a latch. She pried at it, then pried at it again. It refused to give.
From down below, voices were still in conversation. Señor Lopez said, “I have my duty to perform; that must come first. We have two dastardly criminals. One a female, a Judaizing heretic, the other a murderer. A prisoner who saw them says they were dressed as familiars. He could have been wrong—he is not quite right in the head. On the other hand, there might be some truth to his ravings. A tall man, he said, with a copper-colored beard. You say you haven’t seen one by that description? But three men in the yard claim that one of the muleteers had such a beard. And he has vanished? I must search every nook and cranny, landlord. Then I shall accept your kind offer to have a glass of wine.”
The landlord said, “But surely you can take a moment?”
“Later,” the attorney stubbornly replied.
Desperate now, tearing at the bolt with bloodied fingers, Francisca finally got it free. Lifting the door, she felt the cool rush of air and glimpsed a handful of glimmering stars. She grasped the edges at the opening. Miguel gave her a shove, and up she went, using elbows to lever herself onto the roof. Once out, she quickly fastened the door open by means of a long rod that hooked into an iron ring. Then she lay flat on her stomach, reaching down. Miguel threw the rope to her.
“You can’t hold my weight,” Miguel whispered. “Is there something you can tie this to?”
“Yes.” With fingers straining for steadiness, she looped and knotted one end of the rope to the iron ring. The other end dangled far short of where Miguel stood.
