Raymond Khoury - The Sanctuary

It hadn’t always been that way. The Reconquista — the retaking of Spain and Portugal from the Moors that began in the eleventh century — had resulted in a tolerant, multiracial, and multireligious society. Christians, Jews, and Muslims had lived, worked, and thrived together. In cities like Toledo, they had collaborated on translating texts that had been stored for centuries in churches and mosques. Greek learning that had long been lost to the West was rediscovered, and the universities of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford were all based on their efforts. It was where the Renaissance and the scientific revolution had truly begun.

But this religious tolerance had displeased Rome. The questioning of man’s blind faith in God and in one set of strictures had to be stopped. The monarchs of Spain used this intolerance to make their move. The Inquisition was set up in 1478, with Portugal following suit just over fifty years later. As was the case in all conflicts that were based on religious differences, the true motivation behind it had a lot more to do with greed than with faith. The Reconquista and the Inquisition were no different. They were essentially land grabs.

The enforced baptisms had begun straightaway. The peninsula had to be cleansed — and pilfered. The Jews and Muslims who remained in Spain and Portugal were given a choice of conversion or expulsion. The converts became known as Neo-Christos — new Christians. Many of those who elected to stay were landowners and successful traders. They had a lot to lose. And so they accepted the cross, some of them grudgingly embracing their new faith, others refusing to give up the religion of their birth or its rituals, following the strictures of their faith in the confines of their homes, and, in the case of some of the more determined Marranos, actually attending covert synagogues.

The prisons of the Inquisition soon overflowed to other public buildings. Those taken in for questioning were stretched on the rack and had their arms and legs wrenched off. The inquisitors also seemed to have a soft spot for the soles of their victims’ feet. Some were beaten with cudgels while others were cut open, the cuts smeared with butter, then held over open fires. Falsified court decisions and forged denunciations led to forced confessions. Those who confessed voluntarily were allowed to pay a fine and repent in an auto da fé , “act of faith” public ceremony of penance; those who confessed on the rack had their property confiscated and were sentenced to imprisonment, often for life, or burned at the stake.

The Neo-Christos sent envoys to Rome to beseech — and bribe — the pope and his cronies to reign in the inquisitors. The king spent even more in keeping Rome on his side. And while the money flowed to the Vatican, the Marranos continued to live in fear, having to decide whether to leave the country and lose everything, or risk facing the torture chambers.

Isaac had decided to stay. And the torture chamber that stalked him for years was to become his final home.

“I didn’t know, Isaac,” the young man told him. “I didn’t know they were after you.”

“It’s all right, Sebastian.”

“No,” he flared up, his voice faltering with emotion. “They say they found books in your possession. They say they have written evidence, admissions from some who know you and who confirm their accusations,” he lamented. “What can I do, Isaac? Please. Tell me something, anything that I can use to overturn this horrible injustice.”

Sebastian Guerreiro had followed the path of his lord with an open heart. He hadn’t expected it to lead to this. He had been in the service of the Inquisition for just over a year. The grand inquisitor himself, Francisco Pedroso, a charismatic and forceful man, had selected him for duty. But with each passing day, with each witnessed horror, the questions in the young man’s mind had multiplied until he was finding it impossible to reconcile the teachings he had so embraced with the actions of his mentors.

“Shh,” the old man replied. “You know that nothing can be done. Besides, the accusations are true. My faith was handed down to me by my father, as it was to him. And even if they weren’t, thirty hectares of Tomar soil would make them so.” Isaac cleared his throat and looked up at Sebastian. His eyes, glistening with life, belied his shattered body. “That’s not why I asked for you to be brought here. Please. Sit with me.” He patted the straw-hewn ground beside him. “I need to tell you something.”

Sebastian nodded weakly and joined him.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to ask you this for many years, Sebastian. It’s something I was always planning to do, but”—he sighed heavily—“I don’t think I can wait any longer.”

Surprise and confusion flooded Sebastian’s face. “What is it, Isaac?”

“I need to entrust you with something. It could be a monstrous burden to bear. One that could get you killed or see you end up in gilded surroundings like these.” Isaac paused, seemingly studying the young man’s response, before adding, “Should I continue, or am I mistaken in my faith that you are still the Sebastian you always were?”

Sebastian caught his scrutinizing gaze, then dropped his eyes to the ground in shame. “I am as you remember me, but I am not certain that I am worthy of your trust,” he said ruefully. “I have seen things, Isaac. Things no man should allow to happen, and yet I have stood back and said nothing.” He glanced up at Isaac, wary of the older man’s castigating stare. He only saw warmth and concern radiating back from the prisoner. “I have shamed my father’s memory. I have shamed you.”

Isaac reached out, his mutilated hand trembling as it landed on the young man’s arm. “We live in evil times. Don’t blame yourself for the vile actions of those who have it in their power to do otherwise.”

Sebastian nodded, his heart still suffocating with regret. “No burden would be too great, Isaac. Not after what I have been party to.”

Isaac seemed to weigh one last time his decision to tell Sebastian. “Your father wanted you to know,” he finally said. “I promised him I would tell you when the time was right. And I fear that if I don’t tell you now, I may never get that chance. And then it would all be…lost.”

Sebastian’s eyes lit up. “My father?”

The old man blinked a nod. “We found something, he and I, many years ago. Here, in Tomar. In the crypts of the monastery.” He fixed Sebastian with a fervent stare. “A book, Sebastian. A most wondrous book. A book that once might have contained a great gift.”

Sebastian’s brow furrowed. “‘Once’?”

“The monastery, as you know, holds a veritable trove of knowledge in its crypts, chests, and crates of old codices and scrolls dating back centuries, spoils of foreign misadventures and crusades, all of them waiting to be translated and catalogued. It’s an arduous and endless task. Your father and I were fortunate enough to be invited to work with the monks on translating them, but there are so many of them, and a lot of them are mundane records of disputes, personal correspondences of trivial importance…banalities.

“In a dusty crate, one book captured our interest the instant we saw it. It was lost among more worthy books and old scrolls. It was partially damaged by water at some point in its long history, and its last pages and its back were missing. Its cover, however, was relatively unscathed. On it was a symbol we had never seen before, that of a snake, coiled into a circle, feeding on its own tail.

“The book was written in an old Arabic, one that was rather difficult to translate. Its title, though, was clear.” He paused to clear his parched throat and darted a wary glance at the doorway, making sure they were not overheard. “It was named Kitab al Wasifa —the book of prescriptions.”