He was afflicted by many pains, among those of the body, the most troublesome and inordinate was the gout, which caused him the most severe agonies in the separation the corrupt humor was causing in the knuckles and joints of his hands and feet, extremities which were most frightfully sensitive because of their lack of protective flesh, all nerve and bones that in rest tortured him without mercy, as his cries attested; and he was obliged because of the extreme tenderness of his feet to carry with him always a shepherd’s crook with which to steady himself. In addition, his gums were constantly inflamed, and his teeth rotting, and for these reasons he commanded and ordered that every sacred relic that existed in his kingdom, and even beyond its confines, be brought to him without consideration of costs or money matters, and one day in December twenty great crates of relics were delivered to him, closed and sealed with many seals and testimonies and wrapped in linen cloth so that rain or snow could not damage them. “As these are relics of very ancient saints and of that time when the sincerity and poverty of Christians shone forth in the Church, many of them are adorned very poorly and roughly, some are in wooden boxes, others in copper of the most elementary workmanship embellished with stones of glass or an occasional pearl of poor quality, all of which is a most faithful testament of the purity, reverence, and truth of those good centuries when there was so much Faith and so little wealth.”
So stated the folio delivered with the boxes, and although it was signed by a Rolando Vueierstras, the Apostolic Notary designated to attest and certify to the places from which the relics had been removed and assembled, El Señor thought he recognized a hand he had seen before.
Kneeling before the altar of his chapel and the Flemish triptych so zealously guarded behind its painted panels, El Señor spent entire days kissing an arm of St. Barbara and one of St. Xystus, the Pope, a rib of St. Alban, half of St. Lawrence’s pelvic bone, the thighbone of St. Paul the Apostle, and the whole serrated kneecap, complete with hide, of St. Sebastian, Martyr.
With delectation his thick lips caressed the shinbone of Leocadia, Holy Martyr and Virgin, who suffered torment in the dungeons of Toledo, it too still covered with skin and hide, very beautiful, and inviting a thousand kisses.
He carried with him to his bed of black sheets at night an entire jawbone of that thirteen-year-old child, stronger than all the giants of the world, that enamored lamb, Inés, Martyr, who when she died said that the blood of her spouse, Jesus Christ, flushed her cheeks with beauty, and now El Señor repeated those words, caressing throughout the night the jawbone of the Martyr: “Sanguis eius ornavit genua mea.”
Other nights he carried to his bed an arm of St. Ambrose, but what he most enjoyed was caressing, until he fell asleep embracing it, the head of the valiant St. Hermenegild, King and Martyr, martyred by his father, and to the head he would say: “Such an illustrious martyr would not wish a lesser tyrant and executioner.”
Heads abounded on the long list of tariffs paid on the relics brought there, and often El Señor slept with two of them, the very head of the one the Gospel calls St. Simon the Leper, who, they say, was one of the seventy-two disciples, and that of the most holy doctor, St. Jerome, a sane, mature, and grave head; and early one morning, as they carried him his breakfast of dried raisins, the servants were frightened to see beside El Señor’s head, resting on the same pillow, protruding like a living thing from between the black sheets, the head of St. Dorothy, Virgin and Martyr.
“And as my arms lack strength,” he said to himself, “I shall take strength from the strong, never twisted arm of St. Vincent, Spanish Martyr, native of Huesca, and that of Agatha, Sainted Virgin and Martyr, of noble blood, although according to her doctrine more noble still for being the servant of Jesus Christ.”
And he pinned those holy arms to his own sleeves and, with the strength they afforded, wandered interminably through the rows of sepulchers in the chapel.
He ordered that a table be set for dinner in the hall of the seminary, and that the nuns serve a copious collation, as in happier times, and he had placed upon tall chairs all the whole bodies listed among the relics, and with uncertain glances and trembling hands Sisters Angustia and Prudencia, Dolores and Remedios, Milagros and Esperanza, Ausencia and Caridad heaped high with geese and ganders, francolins and pigeons, the lead plates set before the motionless seated bodies of the Holy Martyr Theodoric, presbyter of the time of Clovis, of the glorious Martyr St. Mercury, of the valiant captain of the Holy Legion of Thebes, called Maurice, and that of St. Constant, martyred during the Diocletian persecution. El Señor presided over the table, but he ate only his raisins. And in the place of honor opposite him was seated the tiny, complete body of a sainted and innocent child, a native of Bethlehem, of the same tribe and descendancy as Judah, and he was so tiny he seemed no more than a month old.
“It is true,” El Señor said to the child to initiate the conversation, “that the flesh, and even the bone, when they are those of one of such tender years, shrink and contract greatly over a long period of time…”
And as the child did not answer him, he directed himself to St. Mercury, whose body, with time and neglect in dust-filled shrines, looked worn and black. “Delight us,” he said to him, “by telling us of your suffering during Decius’s persecution, and how, after a few years, you were chosen by Our Lord to rid His Church of the evil of the apostate Julián, and to avenge the blasphemies he was uttering against God, and how he died by your hand, the result of a wound you inflicted with a lance…”
And as St. Mercury did not answer, and as the dishes were growing cold before his invited guests, El Señor chewed a few raisins and pointed toward the painted domed ceiling of the hall whereon was depicted the Most Holy Trinity seated upon a throne: he explained to his guests that the creatures on high were the angels; that slightly lower they could see the sun, the moon, and the stars, and in the lowest portion, the earth with its animals and plants:
“On that side you see the creation of man; on the other, how he sinned by eating from the forbidden tree, deceived by the envy of the ancient serpent, and how man is cast out of Paradise, and thus is summarized all that is written in the first part of the Acts of St. Thomas, whose chair and whose lecture room these are, and whose doctrine is here propounded. And one sees those two emanations that reside in God, which our theologians call Ad intra et ad extra. That of the two divine persons consubstantial ab aeterno, and those of all the creatures of the beginning of time.”
In these and other delightful Christian conversations was spent the dinner El Señor offered the martyrs. Then they were all returned to their crystal boxes and their coffers garnished with many gold flowers and ornamental gold braid; El Señor went to lie down with the grave head of St. Jerome, and the servants divided the cold victuals among the beggars.
And as to the miraculous St. Apollonia, patron saint of toothache, there came to the palace in two boxes two hundred and two teeth from her divine jaws, which El Señor esteemed highly as relief for his pain, placing them in golden vessels in the shape of ciboria.
On the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, a long document sent by Guzmán was delivered to El Señor. Felipe read it with avid repugnance, while in the chapel the obese and now almost centenarian Bishop, accompanied by deacons, acolytes, and choir, knelt, and removing his miter, sang the hymn “Veni, Creator Spiritus.” Guzmán related the news: the dream of the young pilgrim was true, the caravels had reached the very coasts described by the youth; they disembarked on the beach of pearls, they picked up pearls by the handfuls, some even swallowed them. They followed the route of the jungle toward the volcano. The native inhabitants did not know the horse, the wheel, or gunpowder; it was easy to frighten them, for they took the horsemen for supernatural beings, and the harquebuses and cannons for things of magic. They were living, furthermore, in a state of dissension, the weaker peoples subject to the stronger, and all to an emperor called the Tlatoani, whose seat of power was the city of the lagoon. Let El Señor have no worry: the power of arms was at the service of the power of the Faith. As they advanced, the vigorous Spanish forces tore down idols, burned temples, and destroyed the papyri of the abominable religion of the Devil. He had a complaint against Brother Julián, who was constantly intruding in an attempt to save both idols and manuscripts, and who pretended that these savages were as much the children of God as we, and also possessed souls. Guzmán took advantage of the resentment of the various tribes to incite them against the great Tlatoani; the city of the lagoon fell, thanks to the combined action of the Spanish forces and the rebellious tribes. The vast city sank into the swamp; its idols fell, the temples and royal chambers were stripped of gold and silver, the ancient city was leveled and upon it was begun the construction of a Spanish city of severe outlines, similar, Most Christian Señor, to the grid upon which St. Lawrence suffered his martyrdom. I hope thus to respect your intentions, which are to transmit to these domains the supreme virtues of Spain.