Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) Read online

  “Our faith, most gracious Highness, has sustained us for nearly five thousand years. We offer our complete loyalty to the crowns of Castile and Aragon, yet we would be Jews, not Christians,” Abraham said simply, directing his words to the queen while he noted the king's expression from the corner of his eye.

  “This presents a problem, for now that the Moorish heretics have been driven from our lands, we would unite all the Spains under the banner of our Holy Faith,” she said, still seated ramrod-straight on her chair.

  “Ah, but have the remaining Muslims not been given forty years in which to be assimilated and promised they may practice their religion unmolested for that span of time?” Isaac asked, already knowing the answer since he was one of the chief negotiators of the terms of capitulation.

  “How much more worthy of such largess should your Jewish subjects be—they who raised the finances and served in the armies to defeat the Moors?” Abraham asked.

  “We would pay for our Spanish birthright,” Isaac said bluntly, cutting to the heart of the matter.

  Fernando smiled. “Let us discuss this.” He looked at Ysabel, waiting for her reaction.

  She sighed, always a realist in matters of state expedi-ence. “What would you be willing to pledge in return for a grace period such as our Moorish subjects now have?”

  “One hundred thousand ducats would greatly enhance the royal treasury after the costs of taking Granada,” Abraham said.

  Always loving to bargain, Fernando nodded in consideration. “Surely, if the Spains have been so good to the Jews, they can pay more.”

  Thus began the negotiations. After nearly an hour, it appeared as though accommodation would be made. Contemplating how soon he could again ask a renewal pledge, the king said with evident satisfaction, “The price for your continuing in our lands is set at three hundred thousand ducats then.” He looked at his consort, who nodded her approval.

  “Your majesties are most gracious,” Abraham said with a smile.

  Just then a noise at the end of the hall seized everyone's attention. The guards parted without the slightest hesitation. A white-robed friar in a long black cape stormed into the room. His rounded face twisted in furious outrage as he brandished a heavy ivory crucifix inlaid with precious jewels.

  “Three hundred thousand is it! Well met with the Jews,” Torquemada said with a feral growl. His yellow eyes fixed first on Ysabel as he raised the crucifix and held it like a talisman before her rounded blue eyes. She seemed to shrink back on her chair. Then the Grand Inquisitor whirled toward Fernando. “Judas Iscariot sold our Lord for thirty pieces of silver—are the Spains worth so much more? Three hundred thousand pieces? Sell Him then and be damned for eternity!”

  Torquemada hurled the heavy crucifix at Fernando's feet where it shattered, sending sparkling, blood-red rubies flying about the gleaming floor like an explosion of fiery stars. His voluminous cape flew about him like a raven's wing as he whirled away from the royal presence, given no more leave to depart than he had been given to enter. He vanished through a side door, leaving the Majesties and their two Jewish advisors stunned into silence.

  Abraham Seneor looked at his monarchs and knew he had lost. Ysabel once more sat straight, her receding chin amazingly resolute as she stared at her consort, forcing him to meet her gaze. The king was pale beneath his olive complexion as his dark eyes narrowed on the shattered religious artifact. Abraham knew all too well how his crafty, superstitious mind worked.

  “You will leave us now. We would confer on this matter...and I must pray,” the queen said with steel in her voice.

  “While we await your pleasure, royal highness, we may be able to raise yet more gold,” Isaac said, hoping that Fernando's cupidity would conquer his fears.

  “You are dismissed,” Ysabel said, rising.

  Abraham bowed, his long caftan sleeves brushing lightly against Isaac's as a subtle reminder that unseemly protest would only harm their case. Both men departed with leaden hearts.

  “We cannot take their bribe, my lord,” the queen said after they were alone. She turned and looked at her husband.

  He sat stroking his chin, still staring at the precious gems that surrounded the fragments of ivory and gold. “No, I warrant we dare not. The Prior of Santa Cruz has vast support the length and breadth of Castile, even into Aragon. The people scream for the banishment of the Jews.”

  “The Church demands it lest they corrupt the New Christians back into their ancient heresy,” Ysabel said, her voice rising ever so slightly.

  He studied her for a moment and his old air of confidence seemed to return as he asked, “Do you fear for my soul, beloved? After all, I am one of those with Jewish blood.”

  She snorted testily. “No, your Jewish grandmother is not what can cause your downfall—it is your desire to keep their council and their wealth. We do not need their council—we have Fray Tomás and many other learned Christians to give valuable advice. Anyway, why need we stoop to accept their petty bribes when by expelling the Jews, we may seize all they own for the glory of the Holy Faith?”

  “And for the glory of a united Spanish Empire,” Fernando added slyly.

  “Do not be impious,” Ysabel scolded sternly, then relented, reaching out to touch his richly embroidered sleeve rather like an infatuated young bride. “I shall pray for us and for our realms, my lord. Have the royal scribes make copies of the edict for our signature.”

  “As you wish, my queen,” Fernando said dismissively, already turning over the mechanics of how he would apportion the confiscated wealth of the refugees to his best advantage. Deep in thought, he did not see the hurt in her watery blue eyes as she cast down her thin, pale lashes and silently quit the opulent room.

  * * * *

  “It is official. I have seen the privy seal on copies signed by them both. The Edict of Expulsion will be promulgated by the end of the month,” Lorenzo Guzman said. His pewter-colored eyes glowed, changing to an icy white. His narrow face was lit with triumph, making even his sallow complexion take on a ruddy hue. He stood up and paced restlessly across the shabby room. Long and gangly in build, he nonetheless possessed surprising strength for one used to the lavish life of a courtier. The slight paunch protruding above his tightly fitted hose was the only fat on his otherwise gaunt frame. “I am certain you can do much with this information.” He waited expectantly.

  Bernardo Valdés rubbed his hands nervously. “If the expulsion is to be so soon, we have little time. Seville is filled with marrano families who will be unable to deny their Jewish relatives succor. Some Old Christians, too, will become embroiled to help save Jewish neighbors.”

  “You, of course, must be the one to spy these things out. As a Crossbearer to the Holy Office, you have ample means at your disposal. I am only interested in one thing—the fall of the House of Torres,” Lorenzo said as he stroked his pointed beard with long, thin fingers.

  Bernardo looked at the younger man, anger compressing his lips. “I take the risks while you reap the profits, it would seem.”

  “I am the nephew of Castile's most preeminent ducal house. I have brought word from court well in advance of the edict—you will profit well enough here in Seville and elsewhere,” Lorenzo replied with steel in his voice. He loomed over the short, fat Valdés. Looking around the room, he gestured to the torn velvet on Bernardo's chair, then to the splinters on the library table's well-used surface. The carpet was threadbare and faded where once it had been a thing of plush grandeur. “You will gain excellent compensation—enough to refurbish this shoddy city place and rebuild your ancestral estates as befits the old nobility.”

  Bernardo shuffled papers on the table nervously. “Why do you risk so much? You married the Torres daughter and received a goodly settlement. As New Christians of great influence at court, your wife's family might stand free of involvement in judaizing.”

  Lorenzo's eyes narrowed and he spun on one booted foot, his heel grinding down on a cockroach unfortunate enough to have
scuttled across his path. “Have you any idea how much more wealth is possessed by the House of Torres besides my little Ana's portion? Old Benjamin, my esteemed father-in-law, has grown rich as court physician. And the largest shipping firm that plies the Mediterranean is owned by his elder son and his Old Christian wife in Barcelona.

  “There is more to it than the money, anyway,” he added tightly. “My family arranged that disaster of a marriage—me and a puerile, scrawny Jewess who follows me about like a damned lap dog. Fidelity! She had the unimaginable gall to come sniveling to me of fidelity. She even expected me to bed her when she grew fat and misshapen with child.” He shuddered at the memory of Ana's tear-filled blue eyes and bulging belly when he had banished her to his country estate. God's balls, how he wanted her out of his life forever! Her and her whole accursedly lucky family.

  “Luck. Damnable Jewish luck. That is what the Torres possess. Even the upstart pup of a younger son drew high honors from the king for his valor in the wars. While I, of the most noble house of Medina-Sidonia, have been reduced to beg crumbs from a Jewish table! But that luck will change. I will see them all crawl! Set your spies to work and report to me within a fortnight.”

  Bernardo nodded unhappily, afraid of the spleen of this volatile and crafty courtier. Guzman quit the room, slamming the heavy oak door. The old man watched through the front window as Lorenzo seized the reins of his waiting horse from an old groom and hurled himself into the saddle. Yanking savagely at the gelding's bit, he dug his spurs into the sides of the frightened mount and rode off without a backward glance. Valdés decided he would tread very warily around Lorenzo Guzman.

  Chapter Three

  Seville, April 1492

  Magdalena rode westward through the narrow, twisting streets, heading her white filly away from the Alcazar gardens toward the open air of the Guadalquivir River. The morning breeze was cool and redolent with the fragrance of orange trees and rose bushes. Tradesmen and vendors stirred, but handsomely dressed young women of noble family were a rare sight so early in the day. Her restless spirit craved an open space where she could let her horse run freely, leaving her groom and her elder sister, Maria, far behind. Just as she sighted the Gold Tower by the river's edge, the steady stream of creaking carts laden with olives, pomegranates, and freshly butchered pigs for the markets thinned, revealing a long, clear stretch of road. Its rain-washed cobblestones gleamed golden in the morning light.

  “I'm going to ride to the Church of Saint Stephen at the edge of the river,” she called out to Maria, attempting to placate her sister's sense of matronly propriety.

  Magdalena urged Blossom into a canter, leaning low over her neck, weaving the small filly gracefully between heavy, wooden-wheeled carts and plodding oxen, a fairy sprite flitting amid earthbound mortals. Her frustrations seemed to fade with her sister's protests. She had spent a week riding by the elegant Torres palace, watching for Diego and his family at the Cathedral on Sundays, strolling in the market to purchase cloth and trinkets she did not want.

  Her mother remarked on her piety, sitting through mass three times in one week, while her father complained at her shopping excesses. Still she did not encounter Diego. She had seen his mother in church and his father leaving the house to attend a patient one day, but their son seemed to be in seclusion—or absent from Seville.

  She had learned from her mother's sources at court in Granada that he had left King Fernando's army after the city had fallen. Where had he gone? Surely not into exile with his Jewish uncle. The story of the king's most trusted and honest adviser leaving Castile under mysterious circumstances had been retold for weeks. Some said Isaac Torres was on a secret mission to the Majesty's brother-in-law, King João II of Portugal. Some said he had taken all his vast wealth and fled to the south of France, bribing the king to allow him to send gold abroad in spite of laws which forbade it. As she rode, Magdalena crinkled her brow in vexation, praying Diego had not accompanied Isaac.

  Magdalena had wheedled a sizeable sum from her miserly father for lavish gowns and jewels, secretly hoping to impress the worldly soldier who had grown up at court. Of course her parents had plans for her other than allowing her to marry into a New Christian family, no matter how wealthy. Since the Expulsion Edict had been promulgated last month, all Jews had until the end of July to dispose of their property and leave the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile. This cast a pall over anyone of Jewish blood, especially recent converts such as the House of Torres with near kindred who had remained in their old faith. No, the Valdés family would wish their youngest daughter married more securely to someone with political power. That was why Don Bernardo had allowed her the extravagance of the new wardrobe in preparation for her debut at Queen Ysabel's court.

  “I will marry where I choose,” she murmured willfully beneath her breath as she turned the plan over in her mind once more.

  Of course, it would work only if Diego were here in Seville, not abroad somewhere with Isaac Torres. With the bravado of a spoiled sixteen-year-old, she dismissed that idea as unthinkable. This would be a beginning. Diego's father was the king's personal physician and a renowned healer. Meeting him would forge the first link between her and his son. For days she had turned the matter over in her mind, deciding to fall ill of a fever before she realized that such a ruse would easily be detected and scorned by Benjamin Torres. For over a week now she had watched him leave his home each morning at daybreak to attend patients in various parts of the city. One elderly man lived on the river's edge at the outskirts of the old Roman wall.

  Left to run reckless and unattended in the country, Magdalena was an expert rider and had taken many a fall from ponies and horses since early childhood. How difficult could it be to throw herself from Blossom onto the roadside just as Benjamin Torres emerged from the home of his patient? A few scrapes and bruises would be necessary to make her accident convincing, but Magdalena had suffered far worse.

  Because of the cool morning air, she had worn a heavy velvet gown of pale yellow. The color was becoming, but more importantly, the fabric would protect her from overmuch damage—she hoped! Flinging her mantle impatiently across her shoulders, she felt it catch the wind, pulling at the topaz broach that held it fastened at the high neckline of her bodice. Magdalena caught sight of her quarry. Benjamin emerged from the arched doorway of the house and was climbing into his cart. His driver moved the horse into a slow trot when she sped past, seeking a curve in the road where Blossom could be pulled up short and she could fall. A small swale off the cobbled road was overgrown with the weeds that flourished in the rain-dampened earth. She turned Blossom toward it as she rounded the corner, then reined her filly in sharply.

  The startled horse reared and Magdalena let loose a shriek, then made to slide clear of her mount. She had kicked free of the stirrups with her soft kidskin boots, but the stubbornly strong velvet of her gown caught on the pommel of her saddle, and with it her right leg. As she slid backward, her body and left leg were flung down while her right leg was held for a terrifying moment by the rearing horse's saddle. Then with a hissing rip, the cloth gave way just when Magdalena was certain she was being torn asunder. Merciful Mother, she could be killed! The thought flashed in her mind just as oblivion overtook her.

  Benjamin saw the young woman ride past, noting her rich dress and splendid mount, wondering at the boldness of a noblewoman unescorted on the streets of the city. Then he heard a scream and the sounds of a frenzied horse just past the turn of the road. By the time he reached the girl, she lay in a crumpled heap and her small white filly stood grazing a few yards distant. Reaching for the pouch with his medical supplies, he rushed to her side and knelt to examine her just as a groom and a very distraught young woman rode up.

  Maria cried and crossed herself, terrified of what their father would do if Magdalena were seriously injured. As an elder married daughter, she had been entrusted with chaperoning her far lovelier sister. “Who are you, sir, and what has happened to my sister?” she asked
in her most authoritative voice, which squeaked in spite of her resolve. Plump and breathless, Maria dismounted and rushed to Magdalena's side.

  “I am Benjamin Torres, physician to the Majesties Fernando and Ysabel,” he replied, not sparing her a glance as he calmly examined the girl, who was moaning as she regained consciousness. “She fell from her horse, which she was riding far too fast.”

  Maria was agog at meeting someone so close to the royal couple, for she had married at age fifteen and had never been to court with her parents. In spite of her provincial life, she knew the Torres name. “Can you heal her?” she asked in an awe-filled voice, impressed by his calm manner, but still afraid of her father's wrath.

  “I must see if there are internal injuries after she has regained her senses and can speak.”

  Magdalena's eyes fluttered open and looked into the unsettling blue of Benjamin's eyes, so like his son's. Gentle hands restrained her when she tried to sit up.

  “You must lie still a moment. Are you dizzy?” His fingers worked and probed lightly about her head, then up and down each arm with practiced ease.

  “No, my head is clearing. I think I had the breath knocked from me.” She looked down, needing to find some superficial injury, yet grateful to be alive and whole. Carefully, with Benjamin's assistance, she sat up, ignoring Maria's hysterical weeping and scolding. The moment Magdalena moved her legs a sharp pain lanced up from her groin into her belly and she bit back a scream, then fainted.

  She awakened in a strange room, richly appointed with mosaic designs on the domed ceiling and heavy embroidered silk hangings on the walls. Thick Persian carpets covered the marble floors and the bed she lay upon was sinfully soft and piled high with cushions. A small crucifix hung on one wall, seeming as out of place as a pine tree in an orange grove. Instinctively she knew she was in the palatial city house of the Torres family.