“Three of them sit there. When he comes in they say nothing. They wait for him to speak, then when he does speak they ask him who he is as if they don’t know his name, as if he is intruding on them. What is his business with them, they say. When he asks what offence he has committed to be so used, they tell him first to confess the faults he is aware of. When he says he knows no faults, they order him back to his cell. Knowing what that means at best another six weeks in a dungeon he stays there and offers to confess his sins. So in silence they sit and listen while he stumbles over a few irregularities which he has contrived to please them: he has lit candles on a Friday evening, he has changed his linen on the Sabbath that sort of thing. It does not please them. Now for six hours he is examined before them, promised mark you promised pardon if he confesses. So he has confessed to his judges, knowing there is no other way, he has repented and recanted of crimes he has never committed! “
“Well, it is the only way you know that. Once you are accused … I imagine his penalties will not be light “
“Light! … On three Sunday festivals he is to be stripped and scourged from the city gate to San Clemente. He is to abjure the eating of flesh meat, eggs, cheese and wine for ever. He must take a vow of chastity, though only 33. He must hear Mass every day of his life. And on one day in every month for a year he must walk barefoot in penance from his house to his parish priest in San Clemente. This is what we have come to “
“Hush, man, keep your voice down. Lorenzo is out, but one does not know who “
“Ah, who may be his creature! Who may not! A child is encouraged to betray its father, a wife her husband; no one is safe …”
“Well, that’s the way of it. I am no more happy about it than you.”
“There is a new torture now, practiced in Toledo. Have you heard, it is called Tormento di Toca. A thin cloth is thrown over the victim’s mouth and nostrils so that he is scarcely able to breathe, and then...”
That night I lay awake for a long time. Did not Henry of Navarre turn Catholic to preserve and consolidate his kingdom; was I more at fault to try to preserve my life? What was my great-grandfather but a Catholic? Was he condemned to everlasting torment for that, when the new religion did not exist? So Ralegh had argued once at Arwenack.
That week I said I was ready, and went with Father Lorenzo to the church of San Pedro and met two other priests who questioned me for four hours.
First I had to say in Latin Our Father and the Creed and the Salve Regina. Then I was examined closely on matters of the new religion. What were my parents and how had I been brought up? How had I been told to regard the Roman Catholic faith? What had I first been taught of the Mass and what did I now believe? What of sacramental confession? What concerning the orders of friars and nuns such as I saw about me in Spain? What of the intercession of saints? What of Purgatory? What of the eating of meat on prohibited days? What of fasts and disciplines? What of the salvation of the soul? So it went on all through a shining spring morning. At noon a glass of water was brought and then all began again.
At the last I was asked to take a solemn oath, and here almost threw off the whole thing. Yet at the end I dared not.
“I, Maugan Killigre,w, on the 29th April in the Year of our Lord, 1597, being in sound mind and body and under no duress, do solemnly declare that the church of England is not a church but rather the synagogue of the Devil, and that neither in her, her creed, or matters pertaining to her, can one be saved; and that I, Maugan Killigrew, as a person now received in the Catholic truth of the Roman church, confess that the said new religion of my country is bad, and in her and all her opinions and ceremonies lies the soul’s perdition; and I detest and abominate them and sever myself from them and from the said religion and recognise that the true faith and the Catholic religion is that of the Roman Church in which I have now been instructed, and in which I promise to live and die, never severing myself from her. And I ask with great humility, submission, and obedience and fear of God, to be received by this my conversion into the holy Catholic Church. In the name of the Father …”
On the morning following, in company with the other servants, I took the sacrament in the old faith.
May came and with it the first heat. We watered the garden each morning but the searing sun sucked up the moisture within the hour. Plants wilted, eddies of dust moved with the least breeze. We rose at four instead of five but took three hours siesta in the afternoon heat. With my acceptance of the old faith came some enlargement, and I was allowed to wander about the house. From the upper windows one could see over the town, and in those first hot days the domes and Moorish towers and arches became part of a mirage shimmering and unreal, some imagined city on a river’s edge existing only in the spray of a waterfall’s rainbow.
Nothing more was seen of de Soto, and I scarcely ever saw Captain Caldes; but one evening Enrico Caldes came into the garden with another naval captain. As I left the garden the newcomer said he was just back from Brest, so when it grew dark I made an excuse of needing easement and stole out again.
They were still talking, and about England. A spy had just come to Brest from the Court with the latest news. Ralegh was back in favour at last; it was thought he would soon be allowed to resume his old position as Captain of the Guard. He and Essex and Cecil were now working together in great amity. This meant, they agreed, that Cecil’s peace party had been overborne and that for the time he had thrown in his lot with the advocates of an intensified war. Another raid on Spain was therefore likely. Much more now depended on the Armada at present being prepared at Ferrol. It was essential that England should be conquered this year.
The naval captain was convinced that both countries were nearing exhaustion in this long drawn out war, and that the one which struck hardest this year was likely to win. Conditions were far more favourable now than in ‘88 for an Armada; it remained only to prepare it and send it at the right time. He was himself returning to Brest next week with big reinforcements.
He had served under the Adelantado at Lepanto and had a great admiration for him; a cautious but determined veteran, he said. It would be a very different story from last time.
Just then the bell in the prison clanged, and I shrank into the shadows and picked a stealthy way back to the house.
On the twentieth of May some decision was at last come to regarding my future.
Captain Caldes said: “You are still on oath not to escape, Killigrew. You have sworn that you will keep this city as a prison and not leave it either on foot or otherwise in any manner whatsoever. That is understood?”
“That is understood.’,
“Then within those limits you may go where you wish. I have arranged for you to have a room of your own in this house until you move to Cadiz.”
I stared at him, wondering if peace had come.
“You will be given money, sufficient to live and to buy yourself new clothes. My cousin will see to your needs. Please tell him what you want.”
I think I must have looked as stupid as when first brought before this man. “Thank you … I should like a barber … And some soap.”
Enrico Caldesgot up with a friendly smile. “Come, Killigrew, I’ll show you the city.”
He showed me the city.
We went to a bull-fight: a wild and noisy pageant in which the leading aristocrats of the city took part, played out under a blazing sky the colour of unpolished steel; we saw the great cathedral of Santa Maria de la Sede and watched the solemn dance of the choir boys performed with castanets before the High Altar; we were shown over the Jesuit college, we attended the Eucharist together at San Pedro; we walked the city walls; we sat at night gatherings where guitarists sang and danced the sad trembling songs of Spain.