“They are heretics,” he said.
“They dared to think differently from you. They worship the same God but with a difference; therefore, they are condemned to the flames. Did not Jesus Christ tell you to love your neighbor and is this not your neighbor?”
“You have seen today what happens to heretics. I ask you to take care.”
“Because I am a heretic. Must I change my faith because I fear the cruelty of wicked men?”
“Be silent. You are foolish. I have told you there may be those to overhear. What you have seen today is a warning. I want you to understand the danger in which you could be placed. You waste your sympathy on these heretics. They are doomed to burn for eternity in hell. What can twenty minutes on earth matter?”
“They will not go to hell—those martyrs. It is the cruel men who have gloated on their misery who will go to eternal damnation.”
“I have tried to save you.”
“Why?”
“Because I wish to see the child born.”
“And when he is born he and I shall leave your hateful land. I shall go home. I long for that day.”
“You are overwrought,” he said. “Rest awhile. I will send them up with a soothing draft for you.”
When he had gone I lay there thinking of him; it was relief to stop brooding on that terrible scene; and I marveled at his tolerance toward me. I had said enough to condemn me to the questioning and the torture by the Inquisition; yet he was gentle with me. He had given me little Carlos … and when I thought of that child and the one not yet born I despised myself for giving vent to my feelings. I must be careful. I must preserve myself … for them. I must do nothing to imperil my position. I should be grateful to Don Felipe for showing me the danger into which I could so quickly fall.
I listened to John Gregory. I could say the Credo. I could answer the questions he put to me. I was making progress.
We talked a little now and then. He was a sad and haunted man and I was certain he regretted having taken part in that operation which had brought me here.
One day after the instruction I said: “You would have a story to tell if you would but tell it.”
“Aye,” he agreed.
“You are sad sometimes, are you not?”
He did not answer and I went on: “You, an Englishman, to sell yourself to Spanish masters!”
“It came about in such a way that I could have done no other than I did.”
And gradually he told me his story.
“I was an English seaman,” he said. “I sailed under Captain Pennlyon.”
“So you did know him?”
“I was fearful when we came face to face that he would recognize me; and he did know me. I was terrified that he would realize who I was when he saw me in Devon.”
“He said that he believed he had seen you before.”
“Aye, he had, but in different garb. He knew me as an English seaman, a member of his crew. This I was and this doubtless I should have been to this day, but I was captured. We had come through a storm, great seas lashed about us. Nor should we have expected to live through it but for our Captain, Jake Pennlyon. To see him roaring up and down the deck, giving orders, promising those who disobeyed him that damnation in hell would be preferable to the punishment he would give them, was a grand sight to weary frightened sailors. There is a legend among sailors that the Pennlyons are invincible.”
They were not wrecked, which seemed somehow due to the skill of Jake Pennlyon. They needed to limp into port though to refit and while they were there John Gregory with others of the crew set off in a pinnace to explore the seas to discover what manner of place they were laid up in.
“We were boarded by a Spaniard,” said John Gregory, “and we were taken back to Spain.”
“And there?”
“Handed over to the Inquisition.”
“There are scars on your cheek and wrists … on your neck … and there are doubtless others.”
“There are. I have been tortured as I never thought to be. I have been condemned to the flames.”
“You have come near to terrible death, John Gregory. What brought you back from it?”
“They realized that they could make good use of me. I was an Englishman who had embraced their religion under duress. I asked that I might become a priest. They had tortured me, remember. I knew what it meant to die a horrible death. I recanted. And I was given my freedom. I could not understand why. They were rarely so lenient; and then I realized that I was to be used as a spy. I made several trips to England during the last Queen’s reign. And then I was put into service with Don Felipe and he sent me on this mission.”
“Why did you not stay in England when you had the opportunity?”
“I had become a Catholic and I feared what would happen to me if I ever fell into their hands again.”
“What if you had been caught spying in England?”
He raised his shoulders and lifted his eyes.
I went on: “And Richard Rackell?”
“He is an English Catholic working for Spain.”
“And Don Felipe sent you over to help him complete his revenge. And you were willing to come!”
“Not willing, but knowing no alternative. For the sake of your child you will forget your pride and your principles. So it is with the others. My life is precious to me. Remember that I suffered torture at the hands of the Inquisition. Because of that I changed my faith. I worked against my own countrymen to save my body from further torture and that I might go on living.”
“The temptation was great,” I said.
“I trust you will think a little less hardly of me.”
“Suffice it that I understand your dilemma. It was your body to be saved from torture, your life from extinction.”
He breathed freely.
“I have wanted to tell you for so long and as we sat there on that afternoon in the plaza I determined that I would.”
I nodded and he rested his chin on his hands and looked back … far into the past, I imagined, before he had entered the prison of the Spanish Inquisition, before he had come to England and abducted three innocent women; long before, when he was an innocent sailor under Captain Jake Pennlyon.
I went to the Cathedral; I confessed my sins to the priest who was in residence at the Hacienda; I lit my candles to the saints and sprinkled myself with Holy Water.
I would feign to do what was expected of me until my child was born.
I longed for the day. I talked of little else. I yearned now for the long months of waiting to be over.
Don Felipe now and then invited me to sup with him. I looked forward to these encounters. I knew that he was not as indifferent to me as he would have me believe, or why invite me to sup with him?
I was now heavy with child. The summer months had passed and I expected my confinement to be in January. The midwife visited me regularly. It was on the orders of Don Felipe that she did so. She used to laugh and shake her head. “This child is to have everything of the best,” she said. “Don Felipe’s orders … none less.” She was proud of her English and liked to air it. “It was a different matter when that other poor infant came into the world.”
She meant Carlos and I wondered what had happened when the poor mad Isabella was expecting her son. And it seemed ironical that the child of his wife should have been so ill received while mine was to be ushered into the world with everything to ease his coming.
His pride again, I thought, for after all, this child is his.
A new relationship had sprung up between us.
He told me now and then what was happening at home, always with a biased flavor which I learned to ignore. Our suppers were an escape from the company of Honey and Jennet. Not that I sought to avoid that. Honey’s serenity, Jennet’s delight in her situation were a continual solace to me. Carlos had taken to them too. Jennet adored him. He was only second to her own Jacko; and indeed the two boys were growing more alike every day. It made me laugh for the very incongruity of it. Two sons of Jake Pennlyon were here with us and he did not know of their existence.