It was this type of detail, this repulsive lasciviousness at a place of death, that convinced Geoffrey that whatever motivated the Inquisition it was nothing to do with God. If Christ were here, He would surely have stepped forward to protect these suffering ones, even if it meant He had to die in their place. But Christ was not here. Only Geoffrey Cotesford, weak, cold, ashamed.
There among the huddle of women was Agnes. Geoffrey was surprised she could walk at all. She carried her candle in one hand, for her other arm hung limp. The shoulder looked dislocated; the pain of it, weeks after her first punishment, must have been agonising.
He couldn't help but call, 'Agnes!'
She looked around dimly. Her eyes seemed unfocused.
He didn't know what to say. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'll pray for you. I can't help you-'
'I can, though.'
The voice in his ear was startling. It was Abdul Ibn Ibrahim, and he was grinning. He held a bundle of documents.
'Abdul? What are you doing here?'
'Being my deceitful, conniving, conspiratorial self.'
'I don't understand.'
'The Inquisition,' he said, 'is the logic of our times – of your times, of this age of Christendom. The Reconquest and all your crusading has militarised Christianity, which was once a faith of love. Frightened and ignorant, terrified by the march of infidels, stirred up by holy fools and greedy monarchs, you fall willingly into the thrall of these perverted prelates. Well, there's nothing I can do about the flaws in Christian souls. But perhaps I can save one helpless woman. Come.' And he strode forward, boldly approaching Ferron.
Geoffrey, confused, could only follow.
Abdul stood right in front of Ferron, forcing the whole procession to stop. The situation couldn't have been more public, with the inquisitors, the brothers, the crowd, even the condemned looking on.
Ferron glared at Abdul and asked him why he was here.
'It's a matter of grave concern,' Abdul said. He tapped his sheaf of documents. 'I must discuss it with you.'
'What, here? Now?'
'There is no time to delay. Please, brother. It is a matter of death, or life.'
'Whose life? Whose death?'
'Yours,' said Abdul.
Ferron stared. Then he allowed Abdul to draw him aside, but he waved the procession forward. As the brothers made the condemned kneel before the posts, he snapped, 'Make it quick, mudejar.'
Abdul indicated the sheaf of papers. 'A witness has come forward. To testify against you, brother. He has the testimonies of others to back him up.'
Ferron stiffened. 'And what is his allegation?'
For answer, Abdul held out his hand. It contained a round sliver of bread, a communion wafer. 'This was found in your office.'
And Geoffrey immediately understood.
At the heart of the crimes routinely alleged of conversos, supposedly lapsing from Christianity to Judaism, was the theft of consecrated wafers. It was easy; when fed it by a priest you could just slip a wafer under your tongue and keep it there, unconsumed. But, once consecrated in the Holy Mass, its substance had been transformed into the flesh of Christ, and so the wafer held potent magic. For example, some years back there had been a rumour of a conspiracy to spike the water supply of Seville with communion wafers and the mashed-up heart of a Christian boy, a blasphemous toxin that would drive Christians insane.
There was fear in Ferron's eyes; it was well known he was of converso blood himself, and this was a silent accusation of a very grave crime. 'Who gave you this?'
'Well, you aren't entitled to know that,' Abdul said. 'Strictly speaking, by the rules of your Inquisition, I shouldn't be showing you this evidence at all, for you don't have the right to see it. And of course you are presumed guilty once an allegation is made. Have I got that right?'
'It's a lie. An evil, devil-spawned, malicious lie.'
'I'm glad to hear it,' said Abdul heartily. 'Then the processes of the Inquisition will have no difficulty establishing exactly that fact. But perhaps it would be better to save everybody the trouble of putting you to the question.'
'What is it you want, mudejar?'
'Agnes Wooler.'
Ferron stared at him, and then looked at Geoffrey. 'I nearly broke this girl seeking answers about her conspiracy. But those answers were staring me in the face, all the time. If I ever see you again-'
Abdul grinned, and he held up his fist, enclosing the host. 'Threats are so ugly.'
Ferron turned away. He walked onto the quemadero, grabbed Agnes by her good arm, and marched her away from her stake. Another inquisitor flapped after him, muttering about irregularities, but Ferron waved him away.
He brought Agnes to Abdul and Geoffrey. She looked grotesque, her feet and hands blue with the cold, her nipples hard as pink pebbles. Her bruised face was empty.
Abdul dropped the communion wafer into Ferron's hand. In return Ferron released the girl. She stumbled, and Geoffrey took her thin, shivering form in his arms.
Ferron glared at Abdul and Geoffrey. 'This isn't over.' He turned away.
Geoffrey nodded. 'So the battle for the future is joined.'
'But for now,' Abdul said, 'we must concentrate on the needs of the present.' He took off his thick Moorish cloak and wrapped it around Agnes's bare shoulders.
XXIII
AD 1491
James loved to climb into the hot, silent air over Granada, to escape the squabbles of mankind and the conundrums of morality, to ascend into the realm of birds, and clouds, and stars, and God. The clean, harsh breeze of Spain was even more conducive to supporting his flight than the soggy air over England's green hills. And in long hours of practice he had learned to coax his machine ever higher into the sky, even after the elastic energy of its launching crossbow was exhausted. The trick was to seek out rising masses of warm air, invisible fountains in an atmosphere like an ocean, that would lift him up like a leaf on a breeze.
And, that bright October day, he had never seen anything quite as extraordinary as Granada, the last Moorish kingdom, and the Christian military city drawn up before it.
The Alhambra was like a vast ship stranded in the middle of the land, like the Ark fallen on Ararat. Somewhere in that fortress poor Boabdil was holed up, perhaps the last emir al-Andalus would ever know. The city of Granada was a splash of grey around the Alhambra itself, studded with the glittering gold of mosque roofs. The air over the city was brown with smoke this morning, for Granada was swollen with refugees. And he could make out a thin black line of caravans and mule trains heading south, Muslims fleeing further towards the Strait and the welcoming lands of Africa.
As he wheeled away from the fortress James flew over Santa Fe – 'Holy Faith', the Christian city-camp set out on the plain before Granada. Within a circle of walls and ditches it was a crucifix of buildings, with a glittering pile of weapons where the crucifix's upright and crosspiece intersected. Santa Fe looked solid, centuries old, and yet it had been thrown up virtually overnight when the monarchs had brought their armies to within sight of the Alhambra. The speed of the construction had bewildered the Muslim defenders, but it was another of Fernando's ruses; the 'city' was more wood frame and cloth than stone.
So at last the war had come to Granada itself. It was now two years since the final defeat for El Zagal, the Valiant, brother of the dead emir Muley Hacen. Now there was only Boabdil, an emir so hapless that the Christians
