The Eternal Jew’s Tale, #157, Inquisition, 1

In this episode a messenger arrives with a package.

The Eternal Jew’s Tale
Twentieth Era, Part 1, ~1435 C.E., Enrique’s Tale, 1

This were known, and little more:
One day Enrique disappeart. The convent nuns been much dismayed. A desperate few slipped off their frocks and melted into the city’s cracks, or trickled down to the pier and fled. But most of them clung to their habits and ways, afraid of the hostile world outside, and ever hopin’ Enrique would return. And they too soon been disappeart. The convent’s doors are now locked and chained, and all its windows boarded up.

Of this disaster not a word reached us here in Portugal. Til one bright day a man appears, askin’ for me. The twang of his talk has a Mallorcan ring to it.
“That Christian dame, Florita Miro sends this document to you. She says you’ll know what to do with it.”

He holds a package, burlap wrapped and sealed in wax. “Here,” he says.
I take it, but I demure,
“I know no woman by that name. You sure that I’m the one you want?”

“Be you the Jew, Saadia Mishon?”
Then lookin’ around to assure himself that we’re alone, he whispers to me,
“Reina Vallseca. You know that name?”
A flush of anxiety flares in me.

I carefully peal the burlap seal to find within a coarse-bound sheaf writ in a fine, professional hand, and titled,

“Document of the Court, produced by the Church’s Holy See:
“Interrogation of Enrique Nunez and his Confession and Guilty Plea
“And the Court’s Sentence and Punishment.”

Shocked, appalled, I look up at him.
“How did you get this? Who are you?”
Most courteous, he requests a seat.

How strange and unexpected the curves of this shadowy world and its fathomless Lor.
“I am the son of one of the Jews who lived in the convent overseen by Enrique. And I was a scribe for the church’s court. Was it God’s doing that they hired me? Many an inquisition’s report I recorded, including this one. Such horrors I daily had to endure in that evil court, and again at night rememberin’ all those terrors and tears. Florita Miro, that holy dame, was my only comfort in those awful days. And she’s the one who convinced me to steal this court record, and bring it to you. Thank God that’s done, and I’m free of it.”

How strained and uninspected the swerves of this Shaddai world and its phantomous Lor.
“Now what’s your plan? Where will you go? No doubt the church be pursuin’ you.”
“They say the Dutch are on the rise, and a man can be free there. So… Amsterdam.”

After he left, that manuscript sat like a cup of hemlock for me to drain. Finally I couldn’t put it off, but when I started to drink it down it made me vomit, blood and bile. On these pages the stain of it:

~~~~~~~~~~

In the next episode: the court’s record of Enrique’s trial.