The Errant Flock Read online

  Garcia bowed his head

  Luis gave him a scathing look and then dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Get out. Go do my bidding.”

  “Juan Sanz owes rent and taxes to Your Grace. What should I do?” Garcia asked tentatively as he was leaving.

  “Forgive him his debts. Let him love me.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Soldiers were dispatched to the Jewry. David lagged behind the others, not wanting to accept their condolences or listen to what they’d like to do with the whoresons who had killed innocent townspeople. As they marched in a two-by-two formation through the streets that led to the Jewish quarter, David questioned the need to demolish the perfectly good house that had belonged to the now-dead physician. Throughout the town, entire families lived, ate, and slept in one room. Destroying a property was wasteful and foolish.

  His eyes were glazed with tiredness, but as the men picked their way through the narrow streets, they didn’t miss the throng of people who had gathered in and around the area where he had murdered the couple and stolen the children. David stared at the grief-stricken frightened faces and wondered if the victims’ family were amongst the crowd. He would like to throw himself at their feet and beg their forgiveness, he found himself thinking. Instead, he peeled his eyes away and concentrated on his footing and the duty he was about to perform.

  At the very front of the line, Garcia sat like a proud cock on his horse, and every now and then, he turned to the soldiers with a portentous glare and gave them a telling-off for walking too slowly behind him.

  Paco, who was a few steps in front of David, slowed down until David was in earshot. “You need to pick up the pace, my lad, or he’ll have your hide.”

  “Let him try.”

  “David, I could weep for your loss, but I’m sure the lord treasurer cares not a whit.” As though a thought had just struck him, Paco then asked, “Why is he coming with us? He doesn’t usually get his hands dirty when we’re evicting people.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been to a Jewish eviction,” said David.

  “Did you see what happened to the old physician last night?”

  “No, I was with you,” David reminded him. “I heard what you heard and saw what you saw.”

  “Do you think he jumped? You know, killed himself?”

  David shrugged. The duke’s rage the previous evening had not been missed by anyone, David believed, but no one would dare speak of it aloud, nor would his men want to believe that he had killed his own physician. “We don’t get paid to think or to ask questions that don’t concern us. Anyway, what does it matter? If he jumped, he’s dead, and if he was pushed, he’s still dead.” The previous night, David had thought about the old physician on the way back to the town with his parents. The duke killed the Jew, he had concluded. He pushed Cabrera from the top of the wall.

  Paco asked one hurried question after another. “Why did the duke summon you last night? What did he have to say to you? He looked angry about something or other. Do you know what? Was it you?”

  Looking horrified, David retorted, “No! Why should he be angry with me? He didn’t even know my name until last night. God only knows what goes on in a duke’s mind. I doubt Luis Peráto has a care in the world compared to those of us less fortunate. He wouldn’t know real worries unless they jumped up and bit his noble arse,” David said, becoming irritated.

  “But why did he order you to follow him? What did he want from you?”

  “Paco, can you not still your tongue? Do I not have enough to think about without your interrogation? Leave that to the inquisitor when he arrives. The duke welcomed me to the militia – that’s all.” Though David regretted his harsh words, he didn’t offer an apology. Instead, he wondered how many more times people would ask the same questions of him today.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Paco said, interrupting David’s thoughts again. “You should be with your family … My condolences. Tur’s a swine for making you march up and down this hill today – and so is that arrogant Jew sitting on the horse.”

  “What Jew?” David asked.

  “Garcia.”

  “He’s not a Jew,” David said.

  “He might not be now, but he must have been at one time. Look at him. You can tell a league away just by his hooked nose and shifty eyes. Anyway, as I said, you shouldn’t have to be here. You should be getting ready for your brother’s burial.”

  David managed to stifle a sardonic snigger which would have been hard to explain away had it emerged from his mouth. He wanted to tell Paco that he’d tramped up and down this hill so many times in the past twelve hours that he was having difficulty marching with blistered feet. He’d also like to break the news that his brother was already in an unmarked grave on the plain and that he, David, had recited Jewish prayers before putting Juanjo in the ground. Imagine, David thought, if he were to tell Paco that.

  He glanced at Paco, who was waving to a friend. When they had passed the man, he said, “I’m a converso. I was a Jew, and I don’t have a hooked nose or shifty eyes.”

  “I won’t hold that against you,” Paco said with a grin. “You’re a handsome lad, Sanz.” And with that, they marched on in companionable silence.

  David’s axe struck the house’s wooden floor with more force than any other tool being used by the soldiers to destroy Saul Cabrera’s house. In his imagination, he saw every blow strike the duke, Garcia, and the scar-faced marauder.

  Glancing every so often at Garcia, he was disconcerted to see the treasurer staring back at him. Paco’s question surfaced. Why was the treasurer here? And why was he intent on having every single wooden plank in every room raised from the ground?

  The soldiers had begun their work in the opulent family room, removing or destroying every piece of furniture, decoration, and ornament beyond recognition. David had noticed the rich tapestries, glass and gold goblets, fine lace curtains, silk cushions, and luxurious couches the minute he’d set foot inside the home. He had never seen such wealth, not even in the duke’s private chamber.

  Beside him, soldiers looted what they could carry. They hid small objects underneath chain mail vests and tucked them inside their tight red hose. Larger items were thrown into the cart which had followed them from the castle, carrying tools. Paco, who was fervently thieving alongside the rest of his comrades, laughed at David’s shocked face and then told him off for being a naive, raw recruit who had much to learn.

  “If we don’t take the stuff, the neighbours will, and why should they have anything when we’re doing all the hard work?” Paco explained.

  David grimaced with the effort it was taking to wield the axe. His muscles were aching, his mood was as black as the inside of a wolf’s mouth, and his thoughts were constantly returning to his homeless parents and his dead brother. “All we’re doing here is destroying lives. I wouldn’t call that worthwhile work or a mission deserving of this treasure,” he said bad-humouredly.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The sun had risen, and unlike the previous day, it was beginning to cast warmth into the air. The clear blue sky and bright sunlight hurt Sinfa’s tired eyes, and she shielded them with her head shawl, drawing it down as far as the tip of her nose. She shivered, muttered insults under her breath, and swore to despise most of her neighbours for the rest of her life. Then she smiled gratefully at the handful of faces waiting for her to lead the procession back to her house and vowed to look after them until the ends of their lives.

  “Most of my grandfather’s oldest friends and neighbours have refused to give him the burial he deserves,” she said to those brave enough to stand with her. “We know he didn’t end his own life, and I promise you that I won’t stop looking for answers. Someone will eventually tell me the truth.”

  “You’ll never find the truth,” her neighbour Rebecca said sadly. “I doubt you’ll even get to speak to the duke. He’s got no time for us Jews now.”

  Sinfa sighed, too tired to argue. She looked once more
at the grave and scowled. It had been dug some distance away from all the other tombs in the graveyard, signifying that Saul Cabrera had been given a sinner’s burial and would lie in the ground in shame, for all to see and for all eternity. There had been no eulogies or praise for the man who had devoted his life to caring for others, and Rabbi Rabinovitch, who had stood just outside the graveyard gates, had left before the first handful of soil was thrown onto the body. “I’m ashamed of my own people for believing such nonsense,” she said, turning away from the grave.

  The small group left the graveyard and walked in silence towards the Jewry. For the first time in her life, Sinfa was alone. There would be no outpouring of kindness or offers of charity from the Jewry’s streets, as her grandfather would have wished. She’d seen nothing but disrespect from those who had lined the way with their backs to her grandfather’s burial procession, and she knew exactly what she’d be walking into when she got home.

  An unladylike grunt left her mouth. Rabbi Rabinovitch and Guillermo were traitors. They were a couple of backstabbers who had showered her with sympathetic words and were then too afraid of public opinion to be seen at the graveside with her. They’d be waiting for her, like a couple of vultures picking bones. They wouldn’t be too ashamed to demand her inheritance and her property. Guillermo would seek her hand, even though he loved another woman and had hidden that from his father for more than two years. “You’re getting nothing from me,” she mumbled under her breath, “not even my friendship.”

  Sinfa’s thoughts were interrupted by loud crashing noises coming from the Jewry. Her belly twisted in a knot, and heat coursed through her body. Many times she’d watched and heard Jewish properties being knocked down after their occupants had left or died. Her grandfather had told her once that this was the duke’s way of making sure no other Jew ever moved into Sagrat or a vacant house. “If they get rid of Jewish houses, they get rid of Jews,” he’d stated.

  The Jewry was an ugly neighbourhood now. Its buildings were desecrated, with some dangerously clinging to weakened foundations caused by untidy demolition in connecting houses. They were pulling her house down, her instincts screamed, and by the time she got home, everything of value would have been taken or left in ruins.

  She broke into a run, forgetting mourning traditions and ignoring how she must look with her dress revealing bare ankles and her head shawl wrapped around her neck. It couldn’t be her house, she tried to convince herself. It was a beautiful building … Why would they destroy such a landmark?

  As she ran, she saw images of all she owned being smashed into the ground, but these images disintegrated as another dreadful thought came to mind. Fear and panic spread through her and left her legs shaking. She looked towards the far end of the Jewry’s wall and gasped when she saw the plumes of dust rising above it. They were going to find the money. The house would be ripped apart, and they’d come across the sacks of coin in the shallow hole in the hallway! “They can’t have it,” she groaned. “It’s mine … Oh dear God, they mustn’t find it!”

  Sobbing, she ran through the Jewry’s open gate and passed the marketplace and fish market, which opened only on Fridays. She inhaled the smell of fresh fish brought from the port and felt nauseated as it filled her nostrils. A small queue of people stood patiently waiting for their turn. Sinfa knew most of the women there and glanced fleetingly at the faces as she bolted past them. Angry voices shouting after her all the way down the street upset her further, and she choked loudly on a cry that ripped from her throat.

  “Don’t run! Has your family not shamed us all enough?” She heard various versions of such things being screamed at her. She ran on, remembering that today was the start of Shabbat. Her public display of grief would not be tolerated tonight, but she would grieve all the same, she thought defiantly.

  The house’s ornate front door was already lying on its side against a neighbouring house’s wall. A couple of soldiers stood outside beside a cart loaded with the house’s valuables. Pieces of furniture were stacked in the street, the neighbours greedily eying them, probably hoping that the militia would leave some behind. Window shutters were smashed and unhinged from their brackets. Cracks zigzagged across the entire length of the house’s front facade, and half the street was covered in a cloud of grey fog.

  She ran into the dust-filled house panting for breath and with her mind frozen in fear. Her black gown was dirtied at the hem, lightened by dust, and half covered by a shawl trailing on the ground. But the dress was not as untidy as her hair, partly secured in a coiled braid but with so many loose tendrils hanging around her face and down her back that it looked like a wild horse’s mane.

  At first, she stood in the centre of the hallway with a sense of helplessness and resignation, in the same way she had seen evicted neighbours do before her. But when her eyes began to sting and fill with grit, she felt the full force of her rage rise to the surface. She had to protect what was rightfully hers. This was barbaric. It was a sin!

  Her eyes flashed dangerously at the soldiers on their knees, pulling up the floorboards and seemingly uninterested in her arrival. The noise was deafening, so loud that she could barely think. She stared at the ground and then glanced at the stairs leading to a second floor. Just in front of the arch under the staircase was the money, every real, maravedi, and ducat her grandfather had ever saved during years of service and hard work. They would be upon it within minutes. It would be a grand day for the duke’s coffers, she thought.

  “Get out! Leave my house immediately!” Her eyes narrowed. She couldn’t let them take it. She’d be destitute. “You have no right to do this!” She heard herself scream the words, and instead of shutting up, she found her protests growing. “How dare you destroy the physician’s home on the very day he is buried! Have you no decency? Stop this at once or I’ll flay the lot of you!”

  “Silence!” The roaring voice came from the doorway between the family room and the hallway. It was so gruff and loud that it made Sinfa jump and halt her ranting and raving. She stared at the appearance of the stocky dark-haired man dressed in black finery and with a condescending smirk on his flushed round face, and she took an involuntary step backwards.

  She flicked her eyes from soldier to soldier, frozen where they knelt and stood, with tools unmoving, but she was far too angry to feel afraid of what they might do to her.

  “Who are you to silence me in my own home?” she shouted at Garcia.

  “Who are you to order the duke’s men out of here?” Garcia parried back.

  “I am Sinfa Cabrera, and you are trespassing. This house is under the protection of the duke, and I live here with his grace and favour.”

  “Is that so?” Garcia sneered. Walking across the hallway, dodging men and holes of deep red soil, he came to stand only inches from Sinfa’s face.

  Sinfa felt the heat of his breath on her skin and recoiled at his nearness. Her throat was dry and filling up with dirt and wood dust. She coughed nervously in the strange silence that seemed to be lasting forever.

  “So you think you have the right to live here after what your grandfather did?” Garcia asked. “Do you honestly believe that any good Catholic nobleman would allow his property to be despoiled by the family of a self-murderer?”

  “He didn’t kill himself, Your Honour. It wasn’t suicide, and I’ll tell the duke that if you take me to him,” Sinfa retorted.

  “You, see the duke? No, wenches like you don’t stand in the presence of nobility.”

  “Don’t you dare call me a wench – and don’t presume to speak for His Grace. My grandfather was a loyal servant to the Peráto family. I don’t believe the duke thinks his physician capable of such a terrible deed, and you can’t tell me he does. Anyone could tell you that my grandfather wasn’t physically able to get up these stairs without hanging onto both banisters, so how do you think he managed to climb onto the top of a wall that was probably just as tall as he was? The soldiers lied, and you’re lying too!”

&nb
sp; Sinfa glanced Garcia’s arm just as it shot out, but she was too slow to react. The blow to her head forced her neck to twist to the side. It was such a jolt that she thought she might have broken it. Straightening herself, she stared at him with tears in her eyes and said, “Only cowards hit women.”

  The next backhanded blow to her face knocked her off her feet. She felt her body falling to the side but was too unbalanced to right herself in time to stop herself from falling over. Looking up dazedly from the floor, she saw a soldier standing over her and blinked away her tears. His eyes shone with sympathy and kindness. He helped her up, and she thanked him.

  Staring again at Garcia, she knew all was lost, yet she was not ready to give up. She looked at the soldiers. They were scowling with disapproval at the man who had hit her. “You have already destroyed this house, but by law everything inside it is mine. You have no right to take my belongings,” she said respectfully. “May I ask Your Honour to leave me alone for an hour so that I can collect my possessions? After that, you can finish your destruction of a perfectly good home. I won’t protest further.”

  Garcia laughed and wiped the trickle of blood running down the side of her mouth with his thumb. “No, you’ll leave now,” he told her. “I don’t have time for any more of your nonsense. Go on – get out of my sight.”

  At last, Sinfa’s tears flowed, along with her disgust for the man whose name she didn’t even know. “You’re a swine! I’ll take my complaints to the highest office. I’ll see you lose your position for this injustice!” Her chin jutted in defiance, but she knew she must be looking like a pathetic child, with tears running down her cheeks and barely able to see through the curtain of hair covering her face. She ran her fingers through her heavy mane and pushed it away from her forehead. Staring once more at the soldiers, she was comforted by the pity present in their eyes. “The duke won’t be happy about this,” she said as a last-ditch effort to save her inheritance.