Night had fallen by the time Robert Locke reached his tent, perched upon a grassy knoll just outside the main Aragonese army camp. Every part of his body ached and groaned for rest, but his mind was still racing with all that he had done and seen during the last few days.
With a sigh he sat down in front of his tent to clean the cinders and splinters out of his badly lacerated feet. After pouring olive oil over the worst cuts and bandaging his feet to the ankles, he looked into his box of provisions and frowned at the paltry selection.
He finally chose a chunk of dried and salted meat to gnaw on while inspecting the rest of the damage to his body. Once he satisfied himself that none of the damage was permanent, he foraged back into his tent for his smoking pipe and snuff canister. Almost as an afterthought, he grabbed his full water canteen as well.
After draining the canteen in a single long gulp, he tossed it back inside the tent and went to work packing and eventually lighting the pipe. He leaned back in the cool grass and puffed on the pipe just often enough for it to stay lit.
His thoughts wandered far and wide, even back to England and his troubled childhood. He watched the stars and moon emerge from behind a cloud while thinking disdainfully about his drunkard of a father, who had lived just long enough to drive his mother to madness.
He thought of his two sisters, both of whom had succumbed to the plague.
He remembered Tyler of Bristol, the privateer that had taken him on as a sailor and introduced him to the adventurer’s life. Those were the days when he had learned to fight and fence, to sail and to survive.
Yet even Tyler had betrayed him when it suited his own needs.
Robert Locke had learned early to rely upon himself. He acted alone, making no commitments and bearing no regrets.
He pulled a long toke from his pipe and heard the sizzle of resin that let him know the bowl was nearly exhausted. Finally feeling his own exhaustion of mind as well as body; he slowly exhaled, turned around, and slid inside his tent where he fell asleep almost instantly.
*
Locke awoke to the commotion caused by hundreds of Spanish soldiers on the move.
“What is happening?” he asked one of the nearby Spaniards.
The man shrugged, adding only, “Some kind of announcement is coming…”
Not having any pressing matters to attend to, Locke followed the crowd back into Granada. The city had been Christianized, at least visually, with incredible efficiency.
Every crescent moon had been torn down and replaced with a cross. The mosques had been renamed with makeshift signage. And to Locke’s horror, a great bonfire had been set, fuelled entirely by books that had been deemed heretical.
“Who decided which books should be burned?” he asked a young priest that was monitoring the fire.
The priest looked confused and answered with the question, “Of what books have we a need, save for the Holy Scriptures?”
“I suppose we shall never know,” Locke said in disgust before walking away toward the city center.
The priest ignored him, staring into the flames as if in a trance.
In Granada’s main plaza, Locke came upon an enormous crowd gathered around a wooden grandstand that had been constructed overnight. Soldiers and citizens were packed in so tightly, that he had a difficult time getting close to the stage.
A herald blasted a long shrill note through his silver trumpet and the throng instantly grew quiet. After a momentary silence, the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada rose up and spread wide the arms of his crimson robe.
“Good Christian men,” he began with a strong and silky smooth voice that carried easily to the ends of the plaza, “Our Lord has blessed us greatly this day! For where once there was evil, there now is good. And where once there was war, there now is peace!”
A roar of approval went up from the crowd, and the Grand Inquisitor basked long in the thundering adulation.
“For eight long centuries and generations beyond counting, our people have fought and died in order that hope, purity and righteousness might be restored upon this land. We, above all the generations before us, have been favored by God with the honor of witnessing the fulfillment not of our own will, but of His and His alone!”
Again, Torquemada let the crowd give long and loud voice to its collective feelings of pride and accomplishment.
“Yet think not for a moment, my little lambs,” Torquemada droned on in a fatherly tone, “that we have reached some end, or that our work is in any way done. For the expulsion of the dark Moorish overlords was only the first of our tasks. And now that the enemy from without has been driven back, now my lambs, we must turn to face the enemy within!”
The crowd was suddenly quite reserved.
“Look into your own hearts!” the Grand Inquisitor challenged. “Ask not whether you have prayed, but have you prayed with sufficient fervor? Ask not whether you have fasted, but have you fasted unto sufficient agony? Ask not whether you have paid your tithes and offerings, but have you paid them with sufficient joy?
“And then, and only then my dear children, look around you. Look upon your neighbors, your brothers, your sisters, your sons and daughters. For yes, we are indeed our brother’s keeper. And yes, indeed it is fitting to admonish a brother. And better to face admonishment, is it not, than to be cast into hellfire? And is it not more favorable to face correction than to lose one’s soul for all eternity?”
A smattering of applause came forth, particularly from those closest to the grandstand.
“Moreover,” Torquemada continued, “we must seize upon this moment to finally rid ourselves of a plague that has festered too long in this land, a pestilence that the Moorish overlords tolerated all too readily. You know of whom I speak! By the authority given to me by God, through the grace of our King and Queen, I hereby declare that the rotten and creeping Jews, those who murdered our very own Lord and Savior, are hereby expelled from this land!”
The crowd found its voice again, and the cheering went on for so long that Robert Locke had to steady himself against the waves of nausea he felt.
“Yet did Our Lord not teach us to be merciful?” Torquemada finally motioned for quiet. “Did he not instruct us to repay evil with good? That is why I ask of you, my lambs, to inflict no violence upon the Wandering Jew this day. Rather you shall grant them safe passage by road or upon the waves until midnight tomorrow. Show them the mercy they denied our Precious Christ, and allow them to depart our lands in peace.”
The crowd murmured indecisively.
“And one final matter…” the Grand Inquisitor scanned the crowd. “In our grace and mercy, we shall grant the departing Jews the clothes upon their backs, the sandals upon their feet, and provisions for their journey. Yet extend not this mercy to encompass the gold, silver and other wealth they have hoarded through their trickery and deception. Rather pray my children, that by returning these treasures into the bosom of Mother Church, we may purchase for these lost and wandering souls some glimmer of hope for absolution in the sight of Our Lord. Through me, your Lord God has spoken to you. Go forth now in peace and brotherly love for one another.”
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