Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) Read online

  Aaron's eyes widened. So, his father had been in continuous touch with his uncle. He bitterly regretted his words earlier in the day.

  “The ill is the worst we feared.”

  “It is to be expulsion, then?” Benjamin said hopelessly.

  “I fear so, although I shall do everything within my power to stop it. We were wise to plant a foot in each camp. If I fail, you must succeed. Torquemada's power over the queen has grown alarmingly since the fall of the Moors. He rails at her night and day. Only Fernando's avarice keeps him in check. The Jews can always be counted upon to bleed ducats into the treasury.”

  “More might be gained in the short run if he simply expelled all Jews and confiscated their property,” Benjamin said thoughtfully. “Remember the laws of Castile prohibit anyone from taking gold or silver from the country.”

  “Just so. Of course, after a few years without his most vital civil servants to collect taxes, conduct trade and keep his accounts—not to mention treat his ailments—he will come to a sorry pass, but only time will prove that out,” Isaac replied with disgust.

  “Can you smuggle money from Castile across the Pyrenees into France?” Aaron asked.

  His uncle's smile was guileless. “A plan long afoot. We did not wait like sheep to be sheared.”

  Benjamin's face was bleak. “For a thousand years we have lived in Castile and Aragon. It will be hard to live in a cold northern clime.”

  “We fought for the Moors and they turned on us. We fought for the Christians and they, too, have betrayed us. Why must we ever be the dispossessed?” Aaron asked bitterly.

  “All the greater reason for you to join the Enterprise of the Indies. Colon is your friend. He will take you on. If you find riches in the East, it is yet another refuge for the House of Torres,” counseled Isaac.

  Aaron smiled, clasping his uncle's hand. “Yes, and perhaps a refuge in a warmer clime?”

  All three laughed a bit. They discussed the details of Aaron's trip to court to meet with Colon and join his expedition, then Isaac bade the youth go upstairs and seek out his Aunt Ruth, who longed to see him again. When Aaron had left the room, Benjamin faced his brother.

  “There is more,” he said bleakly.

  Isaac sighed. “Torquemada will expel the Jews at great cost in human misery for many, but we have made our plans. I will help all others I can. Many wealthy men of our faith are so pledged. It is for those we leave behind that I fear. You now fall beneath the Inquisition's power.”

  Benjamin sighed. “We have converted, Isaac, may God forgive us. We no longer keep the Law of Moses. We attend the mass and eat of the bread. The Inquisition's familiars can find no fault with us.”

  Isaac's expression was almost pitying. “When we agreed upon this course, I did so to spare you leaving Castile. But now...I fear your conversion has been in vain. Do you eat pork? Have you abstained from regular bathing?”

  “What has that to do with anything?”

  “According to the new instructions promulgated by Torquemada, everything. Not only do his spies watch on Saturday mornings to see whose chimneys do not have smoke coming from them to learn who keeps the Sabbath, but he even sends to the butchers asking who has not purchased swine in the past month. Also, reeking of sweat and garlic in stale filthy clothes is a sign of true piety. If your servants carry overmuch water indoors for bathing, or wash clothing often, it will all be written down. In time, someone will report even the most careful New Christian. When the Holy Office confiscates his property, the Crown, the Church and the spy all get their share.”

  “But that is monstrous! We have sacrificed so much. My elder son, so far away in Barcelona, my little Ana, wretched with a whoremongering husband...all of us abide by their rules.” Benjamin's shoulders crumpled, then he straightened up and pounded on the table. “No, by God, I will not let this befall my family.”

  Isaac looked miserable as he whispered, “I feared you would not see reason and leave now while you can.”

  “Castile has been our home for a thousand years,” Benjamin replied stubbornly.

  “Then so be it. But I am all the more eager for Aaron to sail with the Genoese for the Indies.”

  Benjamin smiled wistfully. “As if we could prevent it!”

  Chapter Two

  The Valdés Estate, 1492

  The low plains were vibrant with life as the pungent tang of lavender and thyme gave way to the balmier aromas of late spring in Andalusia. The richly fecund scents of olive trees fertilized by horse dung and irrigated by estuaries of the Guadalquivir blended with the sweetness of jasmine and roses. Magdalena reined in her filly and surveyed the vastness surrounding her. In the distance, Seville shimmered on the horizon, gleaming white, gold, and green. She took a deep breath and savored the freedom of yet another forbidden ride.

  Remembering the consequences of her shocking escapade of last year, she had not ventured out alone over the winter. But now, Magdalena had other matters to occupy her attention since Diego Torres had returned to his dangerous life as a soldier. Her dreams of becoming a great lady at Queen Ysabel's court had been dashed by her mother. Dona Estrella wanted no daughter gamboling about her. Only last year she had married off Dulcia, the third Valdés daughter, preceded by Maria and Elena. Magdalena was to wait at least another year. Would Diego, covered in martial glory from the war, be married by then?

  She chewed her lip in vexation, realizing that neither Dona Estrella nor Don Bernardo would favor a marriage with a New Christian—especially not now that her father had joined a lay order of the Dominicans.

  “Odd, I never thought of Father as particularly religious. Mother certainly is not,” she murmured to Orange Blossom as she patted the filly's finely arched neck. Every possible obstacle seemed to stand in the way of her dreams, but with the bravado of youth, she brushed them aside. “Somehow I will go to court and catch Diego's eye.”

  Miralda would be frantic with worry, but the old servant would never dare tell her parents that she had let her charge slip away. Since Estrella spent so much time at court and her father was busy with local politics, Magdalena had been left in the care of servants and tutors much of her life. For her tutors at least she had been grateful, learning to read and write along with her younger brother, José. As was common among women of the Castilian nobility, Magdalena's mother and sisters had not learned to read. Her own highly unorthodox lessons had been opposed by her father, but when young José, always sickly and spoiled, refused to study without the company of his sister, Bernardo relented. Her lessons had stopped abruptly two years ago when José died of a summer fever.

  Always curious and willful, Magdalena stole books from her father's library and took them with her when she rode out on dreamy days like today. Ever since the German printers had come to Seville nearly twenty years ago, books on all manner of subjects were available—even that scandalous and utterly wonderful one on human anatomy! Of course Don Bernardo had not bought that one. Magdalena had borrowed it from her friend Lucia, who had sneaked it from her father's library.

  If truth were told, the Valdés family library fared about as well as their overall fortunes, ever on the decline for as long as she could remember. One look at the crumbling west wall of their ancestral estate indicated just how far the Valdés family had drifted into penury. The olive orchards surrounding them were sparse, the gnarled trees untended and diseased. The low stone walls of the main house and its outbuildings had been blasted by a thousand hot summer winds and scorched mercilessly by the Andalusian sun. Little had been done to repair cracked tiles on the roof or to rethatch the hovels of the Valdés peasants. There was no money for repairs.

  Magdalena rode up to the stables, passing several scraggly chickens pecking on the sandy ground. Flies droned sleepily about a pair of yoked oxen that stood patiently in the noonday sun waiting for their driver. She dismounted at the low, open front of the stable and smelled the perfume of sweet hay and horses, the usual smells of countryside in spring. Handing the
reins of her filly to an old groom, she looked across the weed-infested courtyard to the main house.

  A handsome gray stallion whose saddle bore the green cross of the Inquisition stood by the door with one of Fray Tomás de Torquemada's men-at-arms patiently holding the reins. Several dozen heavily armed guards leaned on their saddles beneath the low branches of spreading oak trees, the only shade in the noonday heat. Ever since her father had joined the confraternity as a Crossbearer, one who spied on his neighbors and reported any heretical lapses to the Holy Office, Magdalena had been frightened of Fray Tomás.

  She shuddered as the man holding the Grand Inquisitor's horse studied her with narrow, obsidian eyes.

  Instinctively she gave him a wide berth as she stepped from the low stone steps into the front door.

  Down the hall in her father's library, Magdalena could hear his voice and that of his guest rise and fall in conversation. Her curiosity won out over her repulsion. She slipped into the open courtyard in the center of the large rectangular house and walked along the shaded portico to the open window where the conversation was taking place. Magdalena eased down onto a rough pine bench beside the window. Inside the clipped voice of Fray Tomás spoke.

  “You have done well, Don Bernardo, bringing the Muñoz family's judaizing to the attention of the Holy Office. Old Pedro Muñoz confessed to eating meat on Fridays and blaspheming against the statue of the Holy Virgin.”

  “His lands then all stand forfeit?” Don Bernardo asked tentatively.

  “Since the mysterious murder of his sons last summer, his only heir was his daughter. She, too, has confessed to her father's sins.”

  Magdalena stiffened in disbelief. Pedro Muñoz and his children were licentious and brutal, but judaizers! They had not enough scruples to be Christians, far less to observe the Laws of Moses.

  “Here is the money from the sale, ten thousand maravedies,” Torquemada said, answering Magdalena's unfinished question.

  “Only ten thousand?” Bernardo said stiffly.

  “You have received the two orange groves and the sheep pasturage by the river where the Muñoz estate adjoins yours. That is additional compensation enough for your testimony,” Fray Tomás replied with finality in his voice. “You have done the Holy Faith a service. That alone should suffice.”

  Although Magdalena had ample reason to dislike the Muñoz family, she felt her gorge rise at her father's treachery. She knew her old and noble house had fallen on evil days, but this was not the way to mend family finances—by selling family honor and consorting with a madman like Torquemada!

  Magdalena slipped behind a large water urn and leaned against its cool smooth sides for a moment. Then she walked slowly to her quarters, remembering Aaron Torres' scornful attitude when she had told him her family name. Small wonder he was contemptuous. Would that cool disdain turn to icy terror when he, as a New Christian, learned of her father's power with the Holy Office? Somehow she knew that a man who still used his Hebrew name so boldly would not fear the Inquisition. But he would despise her for being the daughter of a Crossbearer.

  “Perhaps if I cannot get Mother to take me to court in Granada this spring, I can at least use some of Father's ill-gotten wealth to travel into Seville and have a new wardrobe made,” she murmured, thinking that the Muñoz brothers owed her that much after their foul attack! She felt the tightening of her old cambric shift across her breasts, which had grown considerably in the past year. Even her looser woolen overdress no longer hid her lush curves. If she had beautiful gowns with low-cut embroidered necklines and grand trains like her mother wore, she would soon catch Diego's eyes. She must remember to call him by his baptismal name. Even if he disdained the power of men like Fray Tomás, she did not dismiss it lightly.

  The Torres family had a palatial residence in town, far grander than the modest city home of her family. Perhaps Diego would return to it when his military duty was done. She could learn of his plans if she could get to Seville. Magdalena entered her sleeping quarters and looked about the shabby room. Whitewash peeled off the smoke-stained walls, and dust lay thick on the bare wooden floor. She began to pull up her woolen gown, discarding it on her rumpled bed. Then the cambric shift followed it as she called Miralda.

  “Where have you been?” the fat old maid said, wiping her hands on a none-too-clean linen apron. “Your mother wants you to meet her cousin, Doña Luisa.” She sniffed and said accusingly, “You have been out riding again.”

  Magdalena shrugged as she unplaited her waist-length mane of dark red hair. “So I have. If I am to eat midday meal with Dona Luisa, you must fetch me bath water else I will stink of horses. Mayhap I should go before her like a serving woman. She is only here to see if I am comely enough for her son Gilberto.” She laughed, knowing the family was far too obscure for her father to consider a marriage alliance. “I itch with sweat. Bring the water, Miralda!”

  The old woman went in search of a serving boy to fetch water, muttering beneath her breath, “Fah! Watch lest you be accused of judaizing with all your washing!”

  * * * *

  The Alhambra, Granada, March 15, 1492

  Isaac Torres walked with Abraham Seneor toward the enormous audience room where the sovereigns they had so ably served were holding court. The sun-splashed Courtyard of the Lions, with its ornately worked arcades, glittered with all the vanquished splendor of the last Moorish dynasty to rule in Iberia. As they entered the incredible splendor of the interior hall, neither man paid heed to the surroundings. Far more pressing matters weighed on them.

  “What are you able to offer if they will negotiate?” Isaac asked bluntly. “I only wish they had given us time before this summons. I like it not.”

  Seneor grimaced. “Not giving warning so we could rally our supporters and raise money is exactly the plan of the queen.”

  “You mean of that slavering madman who stands behind her throne,” Isaac replied.

  “We can raise enough to send Fernando into fits of such rapturous rapacity that even the healing arts of your brother Benjamin might not rescue him,” Abraham replied with grim humor. “You are correct though, a quarter of a million ducats would not move Ysabel or Torquemada.”

  “The Prior of Santa Cruz has not been about the palace of late,” Isaac said hopefully. “Only pray he stays away until the matter is settled.” He paused and said, “You truly believe we can gather a quarter of a million ducats so quickly?”

  His companion shrugged. “Five years ago I ransomed nearly five hundred of our people when Malaga fell. The cost was dear to everyone who contributed. How much more so is the fate of all Jews in the Spains?”

  “If only we had time to contact banking houses in Genoa and Naples,” Isaac said tightly.

  Abraham Seneor's face, thin and assertive, split in a surprisingly beatific smile. “We can always bluff now and raise the money later.”

  Isaac's short, thick frame shook with a tension-purging chuckle as he threw back his head to laugh. “Yes, my friend, let us bluff. The Trastamaras were ever good at the game when they had nothing but the backing of a handful of towns to face down all their rebellious nobility.”

  “Their towns and their Jews, let us not let them forget that,” Seneor added gently as they approached the guards standing before the door of the audience room with their crossed halberds gleaming evilly.

  Both richly garbed courtiers nodded ever so slightly to the guards and the halberds were pulled back, a signal for them to enter. The royal Jews were expected.

  Isaac Torres had always been taken with the incongruity of the king and queen, who ruled with such singleminded precision yet looked such exact opposites. Fernando was swarthy and slim, with a pretty, almost effete handsomeness that might deceive a casual observer into thinking him a peacock, but the cunning in his narrowed eyes measured everyone.

  Ysabel was short and plump with an elongated face that was as painfully plain as her husband's was handsome. Her nose was long and bulbous and her neck rippled with sl
ight rolls of fat that were accentuated by a sadly receding chin. Faded red hair stuck out in wispy strands from beneath a woefully old-fashioned turban headdress. Yet, in her watery blue eyes a light of keen intelligence burned that was, in its own way, the equal of Fernando's.

  The king sat back, his long, beringed fingers splayed calmly on the rich black velvet doublet he wore. Fernando Trastamara had always affected black clothing except for state occasions. Ysabel sat forward on her ornately carved chair, her small, blunt hands holding a parchment, the heavy antique material used only for official proclamations.

  “We give you leave to enter,” Fernando said with deceptive indolence, waving Seneor and Torres forward across the gleaming marble floors.

  They made their bows formally, since Ysabel was particular about such matters. When Isaac's eyes met hers, her look was grave and nervous. As if she actually finds this distressing. The thought surprised him.

  “You have our leave to read this. The decision is a sad one, but God's will must be done,” she said quietly. Her voice was firm, yet he thought he detected a hint of uncertainty in it.

  Both men sat at the low brass table across from the dais where the Majesties were ensconced and quickly perused the proclamation which—significantly—had not yet been signed. So they did want to bargain. Isaac's eyes met Abraham's. The old rabbi spoke first. “Expulsion of all your Jewish subjects would bankrupt the nation, gracious Queen.”

  Ysabel's mouth firmed. “There is, of course, always the alternative Holy Mother Church so freely offers. Be baptized and know the one true faith,” she replied with soft fervency in her voice.

  “Do you find that so unreasonable?” Fernando asked, stroking his cleanly shaven chin as he watched the two men like a cat contemplating a pair of fat canaries.

  Ysabel looked at her consort and her pale eyes flashed angrily. She was here to save souls, not bargain to increase the royal treasury.