God's Fires Read online

  “The count means that she is dead to the country. She married England, and you are friends with France. He speaks in riddles sometimes, and thinks he’s clever. You know that.”

  Everyone but Afonso was clever. “Why should I love France? What does France or England matter, unless they bring presents?”

  Pedro threw his arms around him and put his lips against his ear. “I promise I’ll come back.”

  Afonso held on to his crotch with both hands. He held himself until the good feeling stopped, until the ache that replaced it was as good as forgetting.

  Pedro rocked him. “It’s only for a while.”

  If Pedro went, the ground would open and Afonso would drop through the hole left in the world. “It is me you must obey, Pedrinho. I am the king.”

  “I know.”

  Afonso rested his head in the warmth of his brother’s shoulder. “There are windmills in the Alentejo.”

  “Slay one for me,” Pedro said.

  When Pessoa arrived at the rectory, he found Father Soares tending cabbages in the twilight.

  “Damn you.” Pessoa let Felicidade’s reins drop. He whipped off his broad-brimmed hat and slammed it to the ground. “Damn you for a Jew, Luis!”

  The gaunt old Franciscan looked up, terrified, blinking fast. “I… I…”

  Pessoa snatched up his hat from the clump of turnip greens where he had thrown it. “Why didn’t you send word? Do you expect me to receive divine knowledge? Have a vision myself? God in Heaven! Well? What do you have to say for yourself? Is there any dinner left?”

  Still blinking, Soares pointed to the cottage. “Boiled potatoes—”

  “Bloody Hell,” Pessoa muttered, and walked inside.

  Soares called after, “I’ll see to your mount!”

  “My ass!” he shouted back.

  A candle sat guttering on the table, the perfect metaphor for Rome’s lux perpetua: the Church, its light failing.

  On a plate sat boiled salted cod, the fish so rancid that it brought back queasy memories of Inez. In a black three-legged pot, Pessoa discovered what the notoriously insatiable Soares had overlooked: a pair of mealy potatoes. Pessoa found a clean plate, a wooden spoon, and fished his dinner out.

  “Cabbage with that?” Soares stood in the doorway, a bouquet of fresh-picked leaves in hand.

  Pessoa gave him a dark look. He sat down so hard on the bench that his sore buttocks nearly sent him bolting to his feet again.

  “Wine, then?” Soares asked.

  “Yes, and may you die before my eyes of indigestion. Yes. Thank you so much. I’ll have some wine.”

  Soares filled an earthenware jug from the cask. He brought that, and two fine black pottery mugs to the table.

  Pessoa drank. “I come into town, and everyone is talking of crosses in the sky. Visions of Mary.” He gave a puh of disgust. “I tell you, when children—children of cristãos novos, mind—order you to confess your sins…” Sensing the danger, he stopped himself. “You always have good wine.”

  “Mm. The best of the village. They coddle me, you know. The cheese they bring! Quejo fresco, white as lilies, and so moist that it quivers. Four entire quejo frescos I ate with my dinner. And the sausage—I must confess that it is beef sausage—probably the Olivieras keep to their Jewish ways … but, O Manoel, the sausage! They brought me two fine ones, their casings stuffed so full that when you roast them, they pop.”

  Pessoa took a deep breath and thought he could smell a lingering odor of sage and cured meat. His mouth watered. His stomach growled in anticipation. “Sausages? Quejo fresco? Where’s the food you saved for breakfast?”

  “All gone.” Soares studied the crucifix on the wall. “Mea culpa.” He spied the plate of codfish. “Ah! The bacalhau! Kitty, kitty, kitty!” Picking up the plate, he toddled to the door.

  Through the doorway came a flood of cats. So many that, in awe, Pessoa stopped drinking. “More than last time.”

  “They multiply.” Soares patted the striped, arched backs. “They go forth, yowling. Who am I to tell them no?”

  Exhaustion made Pessoa’s ears hum. He ate the final overdone potato and poured himself more wine. “How long has this been going on?”

  Awash in a sea of cats, Soares looked up. “The kittens?”

  “The heresy.”

  Soares stiffened. The plate was licked clean of fish, the cats already milling from boredom. “Who’s to say it is heresy? Who’s to say that the Castanheda girl is not another Teresa d’Avila?”

  “I’m to say.” Pessoa sat back. “Besides, you’re gullible. If a rooster crows tomorrow, you’ll think God caused it.”

  In the Franciscan’s look was a hint of a smile. “Won’t He?”

  “Don’t. I’m not in a mood. Did you encourage that girl?”

  “No. Yes. Well … who knows? It might have been the Blessed Mother, Manoel. It’s possible. When Marta speaks of it, she convinces me. She is so transported. Have you seen her?”

  “Girls get transported all the time. I transported a few myself when I was younger.” Ripe little Marta. Angels with glowing paus. The thoughts brought on an unwelcome stirring, and he redirected his lust to where it belonged. “How is the Pinheiro woman?”

  “The witch!” Soares waved a hand in annoyance. Cats bounded away. “She is possessed of the evil eye. Besides that, I hear she’s well. From time to time she asks of you. I speak as a friend now: lie with her if you must, but don’t look her in the face.”

  Pessoa propped his elbows on the wooden table. “All right, all right. To business. Let me point out the pitfall in Marta Castanheda’s story: holy visions normally cause trees to bloom.”

  Soares looked crestfallen.

  “We have a blighted tree, Luis. A withered circle of grass. So either this is a demonic apparition—which I would rather not investigate—or we have a lightning bolt, and a question I can leave to science.”

  “Um. I remember the night. A terrible storm.”

  “Good. And warn that father of hers to keep the girl silent. Can’t he marry’ her off? She needs to be less transported, I think.”

  The last cat wandered away, tail proud and straight as a mast. Soares came and sat down on the opposite bench. In the hearth, the fire popped. Day died outside the doorway, and the air turned chill.

  Pessoa scraped his spoon across the gritty, empty plate. The sound it made sent a shiver through him. “Listen to me carefully. I don’t mind finding a little heresy, but this is dangerous.”

  A quick nod from Soares.

  “This doesn’t involve the penitence of sanbenitos. What I’ve heard today would call for relaxing to the flames. I’d rather not conduct such an auto.”

  “Agreed. More wine?”

  The jug was empty. Soares rose to fill it again. Pessoa wiped his mouth. His hand felt awkward. His lips were numb. Suddenly the world seemed brighter. “O, well. The visions are probably just a summer malady,” Pessoa said. “Don’t you think?”

  Soares poured his mug to the brim. “Yes. Drink up. I’m sure they’ll be gone by winter.”

  In the dusk outside, swallows sang evensong; sparrows chittered as they flew to roost. Pessoa yawned. “Something amusing I wanted to tell you. What was it? Something … o, yes!” Pessoa took a sip of wine.

  Eager, Soares sat forward.

  “So I arrive in town.” Pessoa lowered his voice. “And a penitent gives me an auto da graça. I’m not sure how it happens, but it turns into confession. And there we are, seated to either side of St. John. Should I take notes? Jail her? Shrive her? Come to think of it, I never told her to make a good Act of Contrition.”

  “Auto da graça,” Soares decided.

  “Then we’ll say auto; but to be safe, I’ll think confession. Now. The sin was fornication. Fornication from someone I knew… well, granted, if it was confession, she is therefore anonymous—but let me tell you I’m sure no one would fornicate with that, at least no one not possessed or blind or lacking the sense of smell. And she adm
its to fornication with angels! I prayed to God, please, please don’t let me laugh, and by His mercy, I controlled myself.”

  “Deo gratias. More wine?”

  Pessoa belched—a belch that tasted of boiled potato. He slid his mug across the boards toward Soares.

  Soares let slip “What else did Dona Inez say?” the instant before his eyes flew to Heaven and he crossed himself.

  Pessoa clamped a hand over his mouth. Laughter began as a tickle in his belly—effervescent and scintillating as new wine. Then Soares snickered. Pessoa whooped and slapped his knee. They laughed until they were damp-eyed and gasping.

  At the window, the last glimmer of light failed. Pessoa was light-headed; tired, but restless. Glowing paus of angels. Marta Castanheda groaning beneath him. In his groin burned man’s corporal and highly irritating ignis aeternus.

  He stumbled as he got up. “I think I’ll walk a bit before retiring.” He needed quenching, but Marta was too young, far too devoted.

  Soares lifted his mug with his left hand, tossed a sloppy but sincere blessing with his right. “Don’t look her in the eye,” he said.

  Monsignor inquisitor-general Gomes came to a halt in the middle of his study. He wore a meditative look, one which in another man might have signaled piety; but young Father Bernardo Andrade recognized it for what it was: precursor to “Take a letter,” or—

  There. The second choice. A fortissimo fart that stank of that afternoon’s onioned pork roast. Bernardo inched the incense brazier closer.

  Then he noticed, with some alarm, that the pensive expression on Monsignor’s face had not vanished.

  “Take a letter,” he said.

  Bernardo chose the red leather journal. He dipped his quill into the ink pot.

  “To His Grace Archbishop Vasquez of the Holy See, Seville, my fellow Dominican and esteemed brother in Christ, blah, blah, blah, I beseech your favor—insert some pathetic groveling here, Bernardo. You’re so good at it—for it has come to my attention that Rome punishes Portugal’s Holy Office due to the misguided allegiances of the Jesuits—”

  A small, very small, voice at the door. “Monsignor?”

  Bernardo looked up from his work. Monsignor whirled, all three chins uplifted and quivering.

  The Cistercian friar was woeful. “I do so hate to interrupt, Monsignor Inquisitor-General, but Count Castelo Melhor has arrived and requests—”

  “Tell him to wait!”

  “Yes, Monsignor. Thank you.”

  “Get out, and close the door.”

  The friar’s tonsured head bobbled. “Thank you, Monsignor. Thank you, I shall do so immediately. Thank—” He shut the door on his own apology.

  In one swift move, Monsignor lifted his habit. “Quick. Bindings.”

  Bernardo put the quill down and retrieved a long strip of linen from a rosewood case. He knelt beside Monsignor’s right thigh, and started the wrap where the tip of Monsignor’s cock peeked shyly from under his prodigious stomach.

  “Tightly, Bernardo,” he said. “That young fool only respects power. It’s the fashion, you know. God is unimportant. Secular power is all.”

  “Shocking.”

  “Always ‘force of arms,’ ‘force of arms,’ as if the boy alone defeated Spain, and God had nothing to do with it.” He emitted a grunt as the linen compressed his solar plexus. “Busy following his own whimsies, with no guidance from the Church. He will burn in Hell for it.”

  “Yes, Monsignor.” Bernardo wrapped Gomes upward in corpulent billows. Above the bindings, Monsignor’s chest swelled with excess flesh. Then a frown of concentration. Bernardo stepped away just as Monsignor’s rear gave an onion-scented bleat.

  Bernardo held his breath. “Done,” he pronounced.

  Monsignor waved the smell away with his hem, then let the habit fall. “Announce him.”

  When Bernardo opened the door, Castelo Melhor, handkerchief pomade providentially in fist, mustaches a-quiver with indignation, pushed him aside. In passing, some sharp edge on the count’s breastplate snagged the loose folds of his wool sleeve. Metal scratched his arm. Head lowered, Bernardo kept an obedient silence. The count, too far above Bernardo’s station for sympathy, never looked back.

  Castelo Melhor reached the center of the room and dropped to one knee. “Your servant.”

  Ah. Here at last was Monsignor’s attempt at a pious expression: the eyes ostentatiously sweet, the mouth smug and as tight and pink as an asshole. With languid hand, he sketched a benediction. Before it was complete, the count bounded up. “Why did you use the potro on that French wine merchant?”

  The sign of the cross became gesture. The monsignor pointed to the polished table and a burdened silver tray. “Candied orange? Sugared chestnut?”

  Bernardo backed up and merged with the shadows. He sat down at his desk and pulled the green leather journal closer, opening it to a back page. He took up his quill. Under an illuminated MP for Monsignor Peccati, he drew flames.

  The count slammed his helmet onto a mahogany sideboard, and the noise startled Bernardo so that his hand shook. Ink dropped off the quill tip to form a messy blot on the page. Three flames lost. Bernardo felt sick at heart. In penance, he offered a silent gloria Dei.

  The count was ranting, “…all because he carried with him a few pages of Hobbes.”

  “What do you care for a wine merchant?”

  “The man is third cousin to Louis’s second-favorite mistress. France has complained, and rightly so. Louis asks why we can’t control our clerics.”

  “Then ask why he can’t control his Huguenots.” Much to Bernardo’s horror, Monsignor began furiously eating sugared almonds. Above the three unsalvageable flames of pride, Bernardo drew a tongue of flame for gluttony.

  Monsignor was saying, “My dear count. Hobbes is on the banned Index. Haven’t you read him?”

  “Enough.”

  “How much, exactly?”

  With a flourish, Castelo Melhor lifted his pomade and sniffed. Bernardo noticed a crust of sauce on the front of the man’s steel breastplate. Did the man actually dine with his armor on?

  “People explain it to me.”

  “Don’t listen to rumor. Read the book. You think Hobbes legitimizes you, but in fact he legitimizes anyone with the strength to take over a country. So Cromwell had the right to behead Charles and, ten years thereafter, Parliament had the right to restore the monarchy. Think about that.”

  Castelo Melhor fell into a nearby chair, propped an elbow on the armrest, and nibbled on a fingernail. Bernardo noticed that it was a stalwart and much-bloodied soldier of a fingernail. Things did not go well at court.

  “The French feel that we have used the wine merchant badly.”

  “Badly? Perhaps. But justly. Always justly. Bernardo!”

  Bernardo came alert. “Yes, Monsignor?”

  “Read the transcript.”

  The yellow book. Bernardo flipped pages. “Ah, yes. Here. Wine merchant Michel François Millet. I read, ‘… then he is ordered to be put on the potro. At the first tightening, he says, “Let me down, sirs, for I have done nothing.” He is told to confess, and he says, “Of what am I accused?” At the second tightening, he says, “O stop. Have mercy. My arms hurt beyond bearing. Help me. Someone help me.” He is told to confess, and at the next tightening—’ ”

  “Yes, yes, yes.” A brusque circling gesture. “More toward the end.”

  Bernardo flipped pages. “…Have pity, et cetera, et cetera, ah here… ‘The doctor pronounces him fit, and states that the questioning may continue. The prisoner then cries out, “Something in my luggage. But I had nothing but clothes.” He is asked to confess. He says, “Was there something in my luggage?” At the next tightening, he says, “The pages with the writing. But I only kept them to wipe myself with, sirs. I was indisposed, and used the pages to wipe myself, for I cannot read.” The questioning is then halted. The inquisitor orders the secretary to write on a paper the words in French: “YOU ARE ORDERED BURNT,” so that t
he inquisitor may show this to the prisoner. He does so, and when the prisoner does not start or pale, he is ordered released and the record noted that he abjured de vehementi.’”

  Monsignor poured sherry.

  Castelo Melhor gulped his down. “The man can hardly walk. He can’t sit on a horse.”

  “There was a doctor present. Two jurists. Myself, my secretary, the state executioner. What more do the French want? Had the idiot told us in the beginning that he was illiterate, it never would have gone as far. And you might warn your Sun King to read his Hobbes more carefully.” Monsignor’s eyes suddenly glazed: a visitation of sugared nuts. “Well, my son. I must to prayers, and you must to running the country….”

  Distracted, clutching his empty glass, Castelo Melhor got up. “I’m sending that little idiot Pedro to Mafra. I’m beginning to hear some gossip. I can’t kill him publicly, unless I have proof. His sister would press England to invade. And I fear for my soul if I kill him privately. Or do you think I could be appropriately shriven for that?”

  Monsignor’s pious expression was gone. In its place was desperation. Bernardo sat up straighter. With a stouthearted attempt at nonchalance, Monsignor clapped the count on the back. “Remember that life is natural order, my son, from the hierarchy of heavenly hosts, to church, to king, to people. Only evil confuses things.”

  Castelo Melhor looked confused. He set his glass down, and Bernardo ushered him out.

  When the count was gone, Monsignor put his hands on the tabletop, leaned his weight against it. His voice was strained. “Merciful God. Get me out of these bindings.”

  Bernardo came to his aid. He worked quickly, loosening the linen, hurriedly but neatly folding it, settling it in its case.

  Behind him, in Monsignor’s direction, came a loud agonized wind noise, followed by a series of tight squeaks.

  “Shall I finish the letter, Monsignor?” Bernardo turned. The room stank of onions and sulfur.

  The inquisitor-general stood, head down, in a near swoon. “Miserie meum,” he whispered. A dreamy look. Another horn blast, one that rose at the end, like a question.

  Bernardo bent, picked up his books. “Will that be all, then?”