Aztec Blood - Jennings Gary (книги онлайн бесплатно серия .txt) 📗

I don't think even these judges were impressed with her tales, other than specifically noting the violation of the proscription on eating meat on Fridays.

Poor Juana could not have danced with her weak legs if the devil had propped her up, but I kept my mouth shut.

The next witness was another masked woman, this one well dressed. I knew her identity immediately.

Isabella had come to help nail down my coffin lid. From her well-kept appearance, she had not tasted the Inquisition's dungeon, but I had expected no less.

I cringed as I listened to her testimony because there was some truth to it.

"You call this metal tube a 'starscope'?" a judge asked.

"That is what Don Julio called it. I knew nothing of such things, of course. My belief is that this blackguard," she indicated me, "had brought the foul instrument from Spain, smuggling it by the officials of the Holy Office who inspect for such blasphemies."

"And you say that the purpose of the instrument was to spy on heaven?"

"Yes, that and many other evil things that I have no knowledge of."

No knowledge but she could testify to them? Like the birth of our Savior, was this Immaculate knowledge? I could tell from the testimony that the inquisitors had not found the instrument. I suspected that Don Julio, fearful that he could encounter problems in the city over the tunnel, had hidden his banned books and the starscope on the hacienda.

She was asked questions about Jewish practices, and she denied them for good reason—such practices would incriminate her, too. But she got a blow in against Don Julio in another way.

"He forced me to lay with him during times when I was with my monthly blood."

Engaging in coitus during a woman's monthly disablement was a sacrilege because conception could not be had at that time. It was generally believed that Jews and Moors conducted themselves in this manner to keep from fathering children that would necessarily be raised as Christians.

"You have no children, senora?" a judge asked.

"That is true. But it is not my fault. My husband was a brutal man with a terrible temper. I lived in constant fear of him."

I had to fight myself to keep from leaping out of my chair and going for her throat. If there ever was a man who walked with angels in his relationship with his family and friends, it was the don.

A book was shown to her.

"This book is one that you turned over to the familiars, is that correct?"

"Yes. I never saw the book before; but after my husband was taken into custody, I noticed it in the library. He had kept it in a secret place."

"The book sets forth the rites of the practice of Judaism," the judge said.

"I know nothing of that. I am a good Christian. The book belonged to my husband. I am certain it must be the book he used when he and his family, including this one"—I could feel her glare through the mask—"practiced their dark rites."

This time I leaped from my chair.

"That's a lie. The book does not belong to the don, and I can prove it." I pointed at it. "The don brands his books with his initials along the edge, as is the custom among book owners. There is no brand. The book is false evidence!"

They gagged me.

Isabella was deliberately incriminating Don Julio and me with false evidence. The woman was motivated in life only by money and vanity. The Holy Office seized the property of those found guilty. It took no imagination to conclude that an arrangement had been made by which Isabella received property back in exchange for her testimony. Or Ramon de Alva could be behind her, getting rid of his lover's husband and the threat of exposure on the tunnel project at the same time.

The third witness was a man who I could not identify. He stated he worked for Don Julio on the tunnel project and that he had observed Don Julio and me scoff when he said that we should dedicate the tunnel to San Pablo. That he had later seen us carry an object into the tunnel, a six-pointed star. The object had no significance to him at the time; but now that a fray had enlightened him, he realized that what we carried was a mystic Jewish symbol, the Shield of David, that Jews attributed magical properties to.

I had never been to the tunnel, had never seen this six-pointed star-shield, but I would not have taken exception even if my mouth wasn't sealed. The matter of my guilt, and that of Don Julio, was predetermined. Nothing I could do or say, no appeal to reason, would suffice.

My advocate never asked a question of any witness.

My gag was removed and a judge asked if I wished to speak about the charges.

"The charges are nonsense," I said. "This trial has the same validity as the trial of another Jew a long time ago."

"Then you admit you are a Jew," the judge said.

"The Jew I referred to is our Savior, Jesus Christ, whose name was chosen for me to bear. I now see why I bear his name. I am to be martyred by false witnesses as He once was."

The tribunal was not pleased with my response. I was returned to the blackness of my cell. I was only in the cell for the night. My door opened and I was escorted out to be burned at a stake, I was certain. But instead I was taken to a large, ground-level cell that held five prisoners, including one I knew well.

Ignoring his embarrassment, I gave my amigo a great hug. Mateo took me into a corner and spoke to me in whispers.

"You have escaped the stake, but not severe punishment. You will get a hundred lashes and sentenced to the northern mines."

"How do you know?"

"My cousin in Oaxaca, who made his fortune buying land from indios after getting them drunk, has paid the Holy Office for my sins. He has proof our family line has purity of blood. I will be taken to Acapulco and placed aboard the Manila galleon. The ocean crossing is rivaled only by Charon's trip across the river Styx. Many of those who survive the brutal trip are eaten by the natives.

"I asked an accommodation for you, and he was told you were a suspected marrano, so exile to Manila was not possible. But he discovered that someone had paid for your life. A sentence to the mines is hardly less painful than being burned at the stake, but at least you live another day and... who knows?" He shrugged.

"And what of the don? Juana and Inez?"

His face darkened and he wouldn't look at me.

"The stake. They will be burned at the stake? Santa Maria," I whispered. "Is there no way to ransom them?"

"Inez and Juana are marranos."

"I don't believe it."

"They had a book of Jewish rites Isabella found."

"It was lying evidence. The don's initials were not on the book."

"The book was theirs, not the don's. I saw it at the hacienda. I also know they commonly practiced the rites. I have seen them. That's why the don banished them to the hacienda. And he forbade them from bringing any of their Jewish instruments or books with them. They brought it to the city, and Isabella found it and used it against them. I was shown the book by the frays and denied I had ever seen it."

"I don't care if they're Jews. They're my friends."

"Not friends, Bastardo, they're our family. And while we don't care, there are many who do."

"Nothing can be done?"

"If they repent, they will be strangled at the stake before the fire is lit. Because they are women, they might elude the stake altogether by repenting, but they refuse. It's Inez. The nervous little bird is determined to die a martyr for her beliefs, and little Juana, I think, is just tired of living. The don will not permit his sister and niece to die alone, so he also refuses to repent."