The Quality of Mercy Page 2

  “Ye still have a chance! Ye still can make restitution to the cross by publicly confessing your errors and admitting them before man as well as God.”

  Don Henrique lights a torch and hoists it into the air.

  “Let the proceedings begin,” he says.

  The ordeal will last all day. The lightest offenders are dealt with first. One by one they are summoned before the Inquisitor, insulted and cursed, then assigned their punishment by the secular arm. Maria Gomez is fined for appearing unveiled in public against the wishes of her husband. Joao Dias is whipped for theft. Salvador Guterrias is imprisoned for life for unnatural fornication with his wife. They should know the real truth. In the dungeon he told me that he had fornicated with animals, that they were more satisfying to him than his fat, stinking wife. Had that bit of knowledge come to the attention of the Inquisition, he would have been sentenced to die.

  Name after name is called. We are forced to stand rigid during the proceedings. I worry about the girl next to me. I fear she will faint and then the guards will beat her. But she proves stronger than I had first thought. Yes, she sways on her feet, but her spine remains upright.

  The tribunal continues past the noon hour and chews up the afternoon until dusk spreads over the square. No conversation in the audience is permitted. Children who violate the rule are immediately silenced—first verbally, then with a sharp slap. Roving guards maintain decorum with stern demeanors and, for those who have succumbed to dozing, a rap on the head with a stout staff.

  Nightfall begins to darken the landscape, but the Inquisitor shows no signs of tiring. Do murderers ever tire of their lust for blood? As the torches are lit around the edges of the stage, Don Henrique points an accusing finger at the first of us condemned to death.

  “Fernando Lopes!” he cries out. “Come forward.”

  Lopes is an emaciated, hirsute man of thirty. His pale skin stretches over a large bony frame that once had been thick and muscular. I had known him before he was caught. He has degenerated very badly. His eyes, dulled by years of incarceration, seem mad now. They dart about aimlessly. His beard, once dark and handsome, is a gray nest of brambles, caked with spittle and blood. His hands are bound with leather straps, but his feet are untethered and bare. He is pulled forward by two guards.

  “Thou miserable, filthy wretch of dung!” the Inquisitor says. “Thou hast been accused of relapsing!”

  “No,” Lopes protests.

  It is useless to deny, but Lopes will do it anyway. He is that kind of man.

  “Quiet, sinner!” shouts the Inquisitor. “Thou knowest this to be truth! Thine own daughter confessed thy sins. Because her confessions were made under oath to the Holy Office, her life shall be mercifully spared. But thee…thou who wast warned in good faith—”

  “But I have done nothing, Most Holy—”

  “Still thou deniest what has been observed and verified by thine own daughter!” the Inquisitor screams. “Thou art to be eternally damned if thy confessions are not made before thy death. Make thy confessions, sinner!”

  “But I have done nothing—”

  Don Henrique addresses the audience, his expression incredulous. “What is to be done with this mongrel to save his soul? Must we show him the Devil’s way?”

  Turning to one of the sentries, he orders, “Shave this New Christian!”

  As two warders restrain Lopes, a third takes his torch and brings it to the struggling man’s beard. The whiskers catch fire and Lopes screams. I cannot watch anymore.

  Henrique says, “Confess thy sins, wretched soul, and allow the Savior to take pity on you!”

  “I confess! I confess!”

  “Thou will confess in earnest?”

  “Yes, yes, only please!…”

  I force myself to glance at the wretched man. Lopes is on fire—a human torch. His shrieks curdle my blood.

  “Douse the fire,” Don Henrique suddenly commands.

  A bucket of water is splashed into Lopes’s face. He gasps for air, his face a grotesque melting candle of dripping water, burnt hair, and charred skin.

  The Inquisitor accuses, “Thou changest linens on Friday. And thou concealest the treacherous act from thy servants by placing the dirty linens atop the clean, only to remove them before sunset on Friday. Admit it!”

  Lopes says nothing.

  “Still thou wadest in defiance!”

  “No, Your Holiness,” Lopes squeaks.

  “Speak up, Fernando Lopes!” the Inquisitor thunders. “Did thou change linens on Friday?”

  Lopes nods.

  “Dost thou admit to thy sin?’

  “Yes, Your—” Lopes swallows. “Yes, Your Holiness.”

  “And to thy sin of refraining from the consumption of pork?”

  “But Your Holiness,” Lopes protests feebly, “pork makes me ill—”

  “Still thou retainest the Devil’s obstinence?”

  “Truly my stomach is ill-bred for its consumption.”

  Don Henrique turns to the galleries.

  “Must we continue listening to the lies of this filthy Jew? Must we prove our intent to save his soul once again? Light the beard.”

  “No!” Lopes screams. “Yes, I confess. I did abstain from the consumption of pork.”

  “Thou art a Judaizer. Admit it, Jew!”

  “Yes, yes, it is true!”

  “And who else was involved in thy crimes? Thy wife?”

  “No! Verily, she is an honest Christian!”

  “As thou art an honest Christian,” Don Henrique mocks.

  “No, no! She knows nothing of my sins—”

  “Admit it, dog! Thy wife is also a sinner—”

  “But it is not true!”

  “Light his beard.”

  “No,” Lopes pleads with anguish. But this time he refuses to speak further. His cries are put to rest when again Don Henrique orders his beard to be drenched.

  “Fernando Lopes,” says the Inquisitor, “dost thou repent for thy wicked ways?”

  “Yes,” Lopes whispers.

  “Dost thou embrace the cross and pledge an oath of faith that Jesus Christ is thine only chance for salvation in the Hereafter?”

  “Yes.”

  Don Henrique walks over to the condemned man and holds out his crucifix.

  “Embrace the cross, Fernando.”

  Lopes does as ordered.

  “Pledge thy faith to Christ the Lord,” demands the Inquisitor.

  “I pledge my faith to Christ the Lord.”

  “That He is thy Savior.”

  “He is my Savior.”

  “And thy salvation in the Hereafter.”

  “And my salvation in the Hereafter.”

  “Thou art a wretched sinner, but thou dost make penitence on this day for all thy previous sins.”

  “I am a wretched sinner, but I do make penitence on this day for all my previous sins.”

  “And pray for the mercy of Christ.”

  “And pray for the mercy of Christ.”

  “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”

  “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”

  “Fernando Lopes,” cries the Inquisitor, “for thy free confessions, thou warrant mercy. Thou shalt be relaxed to the secular arm for punishment, but shalt be garroted in a swift manner as a reward for thy free confessions and thy pledge of oath to the True Faith.”

  The guards unbound the prisoner’s limbs and lead the limp, burnt man over to an open iron collar attached perpendicularly to a metal post. As the collar is clamped shut around his scrawny neck, Lopes begs for his life, but his whines are cut short at the first turn of the screw.

  The collar tightens. Lopes gasps and clutches at the metal band constricting his throat.

  The screw is turned again.

  Lopes’s pasty face takes on the blue tinge of strangulation.

  The screw makes a final revolution, and Lopes’s arms, legs, and bowels relax.

  The crowd roars at the sight of
the lifeless body.

  A few minutes later a warder loosens the screw and removes the collar. Lopes tumbles to the ground, a pile of dead bone and skin. The body is dragged by the hair to a pyre. After securing the corpse to the stake, the sentry notices that the head is dangling precariously from its broken neck. He grabs a handful of Lopes’s hair and ties it around the stake. The head is now sufficiently upright, dead eyes gaping at the galleries. Satisfied, the sentry walks away to join his ranks.

  The corpse will be burnt at the conclusion of the ceremony—the grand finale that serves as a caveat for those who contemplate straying from the catechisms of the Church.

  Don Henrique turns his attention to the woman next to me. She, like me, is a relapso—a converso found guilty of Judaizing. She admits her guilt freely. She begs for another chance, not for her, but for her unborn child. Her pleas, though acknowledged, merit her no special favors. She makes a final effort to save her baby. Let her be punished by death, but cannot the tribunal wait until after the baby is born?

  The answer is no. She is garroted after reaffirming her faith to the cross.

  Three more men are placed in the iron collar—two for Judaizing, one for sodomy with his stableboy. Two more women. Another man. Another woman. Deep into the night until Don Henrique eyes the last victim—me.

  I am nineteen, with gray eyes that used to shine like newly pressed coins. Once my hair was beautiful. It is now a cap of untamed dusty curls that fall past my waistline. My face is covered with sores, my lips cracked open, oozing blood. My teeth are gone, having been rooted out with tongs as punishment for biting a jailer. My nude gums are uneven nodules of angry red flesh.

  A guard gags me. I fight viciously against leather restraints that bind my arms and legs. Two guards are holding me in place, but the sweat on their faces bespeaks the intensity of my struggles.

  “Teresa Roderiguez!” the Inquisitor announces. “Filthy wretch of a daughter. Have thee anything to say in behalf of thy defense?”

  I nod.

  “Remove the morgaza,” orders Don Henrique.

  As one of the sentries pulls off the gag, I yell,

  “A pox on thee!”

  Don Henrique stiffens with rage. I am glad. He shouts, “Wretched, filthy dog! Save thy soul!”

  I spit in his direction.

  The Inquisitor raises his fist and cries, “Thou shalt burn in Hell continuously lest ye make confessions!”

  I say, “I piss on thy confessions!” I spit again.

  “Putrid agent of the Devil—”

  “I am a Jew! I shall die a Jew!”

  “Aye, the witch dost admit her heresy!” Don Henrique says to the audience. He faces me. “Thy ghastly, bull-dunged body shall be a playmate for the Devil lest thou make thy confessions to Christ—”

  “I shit on thy Christ! Shma Yisroel, Adonai—”

  “Silence! Gag the filth!”

  The rag is stuffed back into my mouth.

  “Light the dog’s feet!”

  A torch is held under my soles. The flames tickled, then burned the callused flesh, causing it to blister and wrinkle like roasted chestnuts. I scream. The agony causes me to buck harder than before.

  “Have thee something to say now, Teresa Roderiguez?”

  I nod.

  “Remove the morgaza,” the Inquisitor says.

  A sentry sighs and pulls the rag out of my mouth.

  I scream, “Shma Yisroel, Adonai—”

  “Replace the morgaza! For thy obstinance, bitch, shalt thou burnest. To the quemadero shalt thou be placed alive, and there shalt thou be raped by the Devil for eternity!”

  The guard pulls me to the stake. I fight him, attempt to land blows and kicks with my bound arms and legs.

  It is useless.

  As I thrash, they strap me onto the pyre and the Inquisitor offers his torch to King John. His Royal Highness rises, straightens his cape, then takes the arm of his Queen. Both monarchs step down from their thrones and, heavily guarded, walk to the pyre where I am jerking and twitching. The torch passes from the Inquisitor to the King, then again from the King to the Queen. With the help of her husband, the Queen grazes the torch against the bottom layer of the pyre and the wood erupts into flames.

  As the fire creeps upward, toward my feet, the crowd begins to stir. Smoke soon envelops me, the hot breath of the stake erupting into an open conflagration of skipping plumes. I howl in pain, then cry out a single word—Adonai.

  I hear the crackle of flames, the screams and cheers of the crowd, the bleating of goats. I smell my own burnt flesh….

  I am going.

  I am gone….

  London, 1593

  Chapter 2

  As the last bits of dirt were shoveled over the grave, William Shakespeare arose and dusted clots of mud and loose earth from his stockings. He looked down at the fresh soil, still stunned by the sudden loss of his mentor, his best friend, Henry Whitman. What villain had done such a foul deed, slaughtered a man on the open road? Shakespeare shuddered as he pictured Whitman dying in that muddy sheep’s cot, his bones cold and stiff from the chilled northern air. The body had been found by a shepherdess, the rapier still embedded in Harry’s back. It had pierced his heart.

  Dear God have mercy upon his soul and rest be to his ashes.

  Harry’s demise. A surprise attack from a hidden enemy or a madman? The culminating act of a heated quarrel? Always clever—even when sorely drunk—Harry had been an expert improviser, had talked his way out of many tense situations.

  A good player must be creative, Harry had told him once. If the book is less than perfect, it’s up to the man on stage to make amends.

  Poor Harry. Performing his final scene without an audience. The ultimate insult for an actor. In life, periods of solitude were blessings. Dying alone was a bitter curse.

  Rubbing his gloved hands together and tightening his cloak, Shakespeare stared off into the gray landscape. The cemetery was four miles from Bishopsgate, an hour’s walk from London—a long walk when the heart was heavy with sadness. He turned to his right and spotted an incoming funeral train about two hundred yards to the north—a long line of mourners holding banners, torches, and scutcheons. Squires, bearing the family’s coat-of-arms, were followed by blue-gowned servants. Evidence of a man of much means: the deceased had been a gentleman. The casket, draped in black, plodded through the fog as if it had been cast into choppy waters. The funeral party soon came into sharper view. Beyond the staff there were very few mourners. Very few had shown up at Whitman’s funeral as well. A day for small funerals.

  The incoming party passed to the right of Harry’s grave, steadily crunching wet grass underneath leather soles. Shakespeare returned his eyes to the grave, almost expecting Whitman to pop his head up and claim his entire demise was jest. When that didn’t happen, he began to walk away.

  He hadn’t gone more than ten feet when he felt the presence of eyes upon him—an eerie, intangible touch that crept down his spine and grabbed his legs. He spun to his left, in the direction of the gentleman’s funeral, and saw a motionless, veiled woman appearing to stare at him. Transfixed by her image—a black icon enveloped by shimmering air—he stared back. Delicately, she lifted her veil and regarded him further. She was young, Shakespeare noticed immediately, and beautiful. Her eyes were steely gray, yet burned like coals afire. Her complexion was flawless—milky white with a hint of blush on high arches of cheekbone. Her lips were full and slightly parted, emitting small wisps of warm breath. Her brow and most of her hair were shadowed by hat and veil, but several loose tresses streamed alongside her cheeks and gleamed as black and silky as the fur of a witch’s cat. Statuesque but hazy, as if chiseled out of the clouds that surrounded her, she seemed but a dream.

  “Rebecca,” a distant voice said.

  The woman didn’t respond.

  The voice suddenly took the shape of a man. An elderly gentleman with a sizable belly and a comely red beard, dressed in a knee-length physician’s gown. T
he cloths of his vestments were not wool or linen, but silk and velvet, the leather of his boots polished to a high shine.

  “Rebecca,” he repeated. “Grandmama needs your help.”

  Immediately, the woman lowered her veil and caught up with the rest of her party.

  Shakespeare felt a tap on the shoulder and jumped. It was only Cuthbert. His eyelids drooped with fatigue, his hazel eyes were red and watery. Like his famous brother, Richard Burbage, Cuthbert was well developed, with thick lips, high cheekbones, and a bulbous nose. The main difference between the two was their voices—Richard’s was deep and melodious, Cuthbert’s thin and tinny. He wasn’t much older than Shakespeare, yet he always walked with a stoop reserved for men twice his age. He placed his hand gently on Shakespeare’s shoulder.

  “Your roving eye shows no respect for the solemnity of the occasion,” Cuthbert said kindly.

  “Reproach me not,” said Shakespeare. “It was she who engaged me.”

  “Who was she?” asked Cuthbert.

  “I know not.”

  “Save that she is beautiful.”

  Shakespeare smiled. “My eye isn’t alone in its wanderings.”

  “I admit it to be the truth,” Cuthbert said. “She was a lovely spirit amid all this death.” He paused, then said, “Harry’s death is a great loss for all of us. But I know what Whitman meant to you, Willy. I’m sorry.”

  Shakespeare said, “Whitman was a drunk, a braggart, and a carouser. He constantly floundered in a sea of mischief, coming periously close to drowning until someone—usually me—had the decency to rescue him. This time I wasn’t there. Whitman was a millstone about my neck.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Cuthbert said.

  “Don’t I?”

  “You’re angry with him.”

  “How can you be angry at a corpse?”

  But he was angry. Enraged! And guilty! If only he had been there. In the early days it had been the other way around—Harry the nursemaid, he the baby. Shakespeare had been nineteen at the time, void of any marketable craft. A convicted poacher, he’d been expelled from his native shire of Warwick because he hadn’t been able to pay the stiff fine and had been too full of pride to ask his in-laws for help. He packed a bag and bid good-bye to Anne and the children, swearing to send them all his money just as soon as he was hired by a troupe. But after living on the streets for six months, his only income pennies for lyrics he’d written for troubador songs, Shakespeare had become despondent. No one would hire him as a player, no one was interested in reading his playbooks.