“You are aware,” the captain was summing up, “that the penalty for breaking into a convent is death.”
Don Francisco de Quevedo nodded but said nothing. He had made the introductions and then stepped aside, letting the visitors speak. Of those three, it was the older man who had led the conversation. He was sitting beside the table that held his hat, a jug of wine no one had touched, and the captain’s pistol.
“The danger is real,” the older man said. “But there is no other way to rescue my daughter.”
I later learned that his name was Vicente de la Cruz; he was from an old family in Valencia and only temporarily in Madrid. He was thin, with white hair and beard, and though he must have been over sixty years old, he was vigorous and erect in his gait. His sons, the elder of whom had yet to see twenty-five, looked very much like him. Their names were don Jerónimo and don Luis. The latter was the younger; already very poised, though not more than eighteen. The three men were wearing simple traveling or hunting garb, the father in a black woolen shirt and blue doublet, and his sons in dark green cloth with trim of the same color. Each carried a sword and dagger in an old-fashioned baldric. Their hair was cut very short, and they shared a candid expression that accentuated the family resemblance.
“Who are the priests?” asked Alatriste.
He was leaning against an exposed beam in the wall, his thumbs hooked into his belt, mulling it all over. His eye was more on Señor Quevedo than the visitors, as if asking him what the Devil he had got him into. For his part, the poet, at the window, was staring at the neighboring rooftops as if none of this had anything to do with him. Only from time to time did he send Alatriste a dispassionate glance—very much the bystander—or study his nails with unwonted attention.
“Fray Juan Coroado and Fray Julián Garzo,” don Vicente replied. “They own and run the convent, and Sor Josefa, the prioress, speaks only through them. The rest of the nuns either have thrown their lot in with them, or live in fear.”
Again Captain Alatriste looked at don Franciso de Quevedo, and this time he caught his eye. I am sorry, the poet’s silence seemed to say. You are the only one who can help me.
“Fray Juan, the chaplain,” don Vicente continued, “is the minion of the Conde de Olivares. His father, Amandio Coroado, founded the convent of the Adoratrices Benitas at his own expense, and is, in addition, the only Portuguese banker the king’s favorite can rely on. Now that Olivares is attempting to cease his dealings with the Genoese, Coroado is his ace card for getting money out of Portugal to fund the war in Flanders. For that reason, Fray Juan, his son, enjoys absolute impunity in the convent and outside it.”
“These are very serious accusations.”
“They have been proved time and again. This Juan Coroada is not some simple, credulous priest, like so many; not one of the Illuminati, not a mere petitioner, not a fanatic. He is thirty years old. He has money, position at court, and he cuts a handsome figure. He is a pervert who has turned the convent into his private seraglio.”
“There is a more explicit word, Father,” put in the younger of the sons. His voice trembled with anger, and he was almost stuttering; anyone could see that he was restraining himself out of respect for his father.
Don Vicente de la Cruz reprimanded him, frowning. “Perhaps. But as your sister is there, dare not be so bold as to speak it.”
The youth paled and bowed his head, as his elder brother, less vocal and more self-possessed, put a hand on his arm.
“And the other priest?” pressed Alatriste.
The light falling through the window illuminated the side of the captain’s face, leaving the other side in shadow. It highlighted his scars: the one over the left eyebrow and another, more recent, at the hairline in the center of his brow, a souvenir of the skirmish in the yard of El Príncipe theater. The third visible scar, across the back of his left hand, was also recent and also from a dagger. That had been acquired in the ambush at the Gate of Lost Souls. Unseen, covered by clothing, were four others, the latest being the wound that had mustered him out of the Battle of Fleurus, the one that some nights kept him from sleeping.
“Fray Julián Garzo is the confessor,” don Vicente de la Cruz replied. “Another admirable church leader. He has an uncle on the Council of Castile. That renders him untouchable, like his confrere.”
“In other words, two men to watch out for.”
Don Luis, the younger son, could barely contain himself, his fist squeezing the pommel of his sword. “What you mean is two dogs, two swine.”
He was choking on his repressed anger, and that made him seem even younger; that, and the blond, still unshaven, fuzz on his upper lip. His father sent him another frowning glance, demanding silence before he continued.
“The fact is,” he said, “that the walls of La Adoración convent are thick enough to silence all that goes on within them: a chaplain who veils his lasciviousness beneath a hypocritical mysticism, a stupid and credulous prioress, and a congregation of unfortunate women who have been convinced that they have celestial visions or are possessed of the Devil.” The caballero ran his fingers through his beard as he spoke, and it was obvious that acting with equanimity and decorum was costing him dear. “They are even told that through love for and obedience to the chaplain they may find the way to God, and that certain intimacies and unchaste acts proposed by the spiritual director are the pathway to perfection.”
Diego Alatriste was far from being surprised. In the Spain of our very Catholic monarch, Philip IV, faith was usually sincere, but its external manifestations often resulted in hypocrisy in the privileged, and superstition in the common folk. In that broad panorama, many clergy were fanatic and ignorant, a vulgar assemblage of ne’erdo-wells who wanted to escape employment or military service; some, ambitious and immoral, hoped to better their social situation, more devoted to their own good than to the glory of God. While the poor paid taxes from which the rich and the religious by profession were excluded, legal scholars argued whether ecclesiastic immunity was or was not a divine right. And there were many who took advantage of the tonsure to satisfy contemptible appetites and self-interest. The result was that side by side with unquestionably honorable and saintly clerics, one also found the vile and avaricious: priests who had concubines and bastard children, confessors who preyed on women in the confessional, nuns who entertained lovers, convents that were havens for illicit affairs. These scandals that were the daily, if not exactly hallowed, bread.
“No one has condemned what is happening there?”
Don Vicente de la Cruz nodded dejectedly. “Yes. I myself. I even sent a detailed reminder to the Conde de Olivares, the king’s right hand, but have no reply.”
“And the Inquisition?”
“They are informed. I had a conversation with a member of the Supreme Council. He promised to attend to my request, and I know that he sent two Trinitarian examiners to look into the matter. But between the efforts of Father Coroado and Father Garzo, and the collaboration of the prioress, they were convinced that all was in order, and they left with only good things to say.”
“Which is by all accounts strange,” interposed don Francisco de Quevedo. “The Inquisition has been keeping a sharp eye on the Conde de Olivares, and this would be a good pretext for harassing him.”
The Valencian shrugged. “That is what we believed. But no doubt they decided they would be spending too much good coin to protect a simple novice. Furthermore, Sor Josefa, the prioress, enjoys a reputation at court for being a pious woman. She devotes a daily mass and special prayers to Olivares, and the king and queen, of course, asking God to send them male heirs. That assures her respect and prestige, when in fact, except for a smattering of inconsequential knowledge, she is merely a foolish woman who has been sucked into the whirlpool of the chaplain’s charm. The case is not unusual, now that every prioress worth her salt must have at least five stigmata and exude the scent of sanctity.”