The Quality of Mercy. Faye Kellerman

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СКАЧАТЬ answer is no. She is garroted after reaffirming her faith to the cross.

      Three more men are placed in the iron collar—two for Judaizing, one for sodomy with his stableboy. Two more women. Another man. Another woman. Deep into the night until Don Henrique eyes the last victim—me.

      I am nineteen, with gray eyes that used to shine like newly pressed coins. Once my hair was beautiful. It is now a cap of untamed dusty curls that fall past my waistline. My face is covered with sores, my lips cracked open, oozing blood. My teeth are gone, having been rooted out with tongs as punishment for biting a jailer. My nude gums are uneven nodules of angry red flesh.

      A guard gags me. I fight viciously against leather restraints that bind my arms and legs. Two guards are holding me in place, but the sweat on their faces bespeaks the intensity of my struggles.

      “Teresa Roderiguez!” the Inquisitor announces. “Filthy wretch of a daughter. Have thee anything to say in behalf of thy defense?”

      I nod.

      “Remove the morgaza,” orders Don Henrique.

      As one of the sentries pulls off the gag, I yell,

      “A pox on thee!”

      Don Henrique stiffens with rage. I am glad. He shouts, “Wretched, filthy dog! Save thy soul!”

      I spit in his direction.

      The Inquisitor raises his fist and cries, “Thou shalt burn in Hell continuously lest ye make confessions!”

      I say, “I piss on thy confessions!” I spit again.

      “Putrid agent of the Devil—”

      “I am a Jew! I shall die a Jew!”

      “Aye, the witch dost admit her heresy!” Don Henrique says to the audience. He faces me. “Thy ghastly, bull-dunged body shall be a playmate for the Devil lest thou make thy confessions to Christ—”

      “I shit on thy Christ! Shma Yisroel, Adonai—”

      “Silence! Gag the filth!”

      The rag is stuffed back into my mouth.

      “Light the dog’s feet!”

      A torch is held under my soles. The flames tickled, then burned the callused flesh, causing it to blister and wrinkle like roasted chestnuts. I scream. The agony causes me to buck harder than before.

      “Have thee something to say now, Teresa Roderiguez?”

      I nod.

      “Remove the morgaza,” the Inquisitor says.

      A sentry sighs and pulls the rag out of my mouth.

      I scream, “Shma Yisroel, Adonai—”

      “Replace the morgaza! For thy obstinance, bitch, shalt thou burnest. To the quemadero shalt thou be placed alive, and there shalt thou be raped by the Devil for eternity!”

      The guard pulls me to the stake. I fight him, attempt to land blows and kicks with my bound arms and legs.

      It is useless.

      As I thrash, they strap me onto the pyre and the Inquisitor offers his torch to King John. His Royal Highness rises, straightens his cape, then takes the arm of his Queen. Both monarchs step down from their thrones and, heavily guarded, walk to the pyre where I am jerking and twitching. The torch passes from the Inquisitor to the King, then again from the King to the Queen. With the help of her husband, the Queen grazes the torch against the bottom layer of the pyre and the wood erupts into flames.

      As the fire creeps upward, toward my feet, the crowd begins to stir. Smoke soon envelops me, the hot breath of the stake erupting into an open conflagration of skipping plumes. I howl in pain, then cry out a single word—Adonai.

      I hear the crackle of flames, the screams and cheers of the crowd, the bleating of goats. I smell my own burnt flesh …

      I am going.

      I am gone …

       Chapter 2

      As the last bits of dirt were shoveled over the grave, William Shakespeare arose and dusted clots of mud and loose earth from his stockings. He looked down at the fresh soil, still stunned by the sudden loss of his mentor, his best friend, Henry Whitman. What villain had done such a foul deed, slaughtered a man on the open road? Shakespeare shuddered as he pictured Whitman dying in that muddy sheep’s cot, his bones cold and stiff from the chilled northern air. The body had been found by a shepherdess, the rapier still embedded in Harry’s back. It had pierced his heart.

      Dear God have mercy upon his soul and rest be to his ashes.

      Harry’s demise. A surprise attack from a hidden enemy or a madman? The culminating act of a heated quarrel? Always clever—even when sorely drunk—Harry had been an expert improviser, had talked his way out of many tense situations.

      A good player must be creative, Harry had told him once. If the book is less than perfect, it’s up to the man on stage to make amends.

      Poor Harry. Performing his final scene without an audience. The ultimate insult for an actor. In life, periods of solitude were blessings. Dying alone was a bitter curse.

      Rubbing his gloved hands together and tightening his cloak, Shakespeare stared off into the gray landscape. The cemetery was four miles from Bishopsgate, an hour’s walk from London—a long walk when the heart was heavy with sadness. He turned to his right and spotted an incoming funeral train about two hundred yards to the north—a long line of mourners holding banners, torches, and scutcheons. Squires, bearing the family’s coat-of-arms, were followed by blue-gowned servants. Evidence of a man of much means: the deceased had been a gentleman. The casket, draped in black, plodded through the fog as if it had been cast into choppy waters. The funeral party soon came into sharper view. Beyond the staff there were very few mourners. Very few had shown up at Whitman’s funeral as well. A day for small funerals.

      The incoming party passed to the right of Harry’s grave, steadily crunching wet grass underneath leather soles. Shakespeare returned his eyes to the grave, almost expecting Whitman to pop his head up and claim his entire demise was jest. When that didn’t happen, he began to walk away.

      He hadn’t gone more than ten feet when he felt the presence of eyes upon him—an eerie, intangible touch that crept down his spine and grabbed his legs. He spun to his left, in the direction of the gentleman’s funeral, and saw a motionless, veiled woman appearing to stare at him. Transfixed by her image—a black icon enveloped by shimmering air—he stared back. Delicately, she lifted her veil and regarded him further. She was young, Shakespeare noticed immediately, and beautiful. Her eyes were steely gray, yet burned like coals afire. Her complexion was flawless—milky white with a hint of blush on high arches of cheekbone. Her lips were full and slightly parted, emitting small wisps of warm breath. Her brow and most of her hair СКАЧАТЬ