Carlos Fuentes - Terra Nostra

From his tall charger El Señor accused the aged serf of having shirked in his obligations as a vassal. Pedro said that was not the way of it, that according to the old laws he was to turn over to the Liege only part of the harvest and that he might keep some part to feed himself and his family and some to sell in the marketplace. As Pedro spoke he glanced from the blazing roof to his Lord seated astride the dun-colored horse, its skin freckled and wasted. Pedro’s skin was like that of the horse.

El Señor asserted: “There is no law but mine; this is an isolated place, you may not invoke a justice long out of use.”

He added that Pedro’s sons were to be carried by force into his service of arms. And the next harvest must be delivered in its totality to the castle gates. Obey, said El Señor, or your lands will be turned into ashes and not even weeds will grow upon them.

Pedro’s sons were bound and placed on horses and the armed company galloped back toward the castle. Pedro was left standing beside the blazing hut.

THE HEIR

The falcon struck blindly against the walls of the cell. “He’ll pluck out my eyes, he’ll pluck out my eyes,” young Felipe repeated over and over, shielding his eyes with his hands as the disoriented bird swooped in flight, striking against the walls only to launch itself again into a darkness it believed was infinite.

El Señor opened the door of the cell and the sudden light increased the frenzy of the rapacious bird. But the Liege approached, holding out his gauntleted arm to the hooded bird, which settled peacefully onto the greasy leather, and as he caressed the warm wings and lean body, he guided the falcon’s beak to the water and food. El Señor glanced at Felipe with an aggrieved air and led him to the great hall of the castle, where the women sat embroidering while minstrels sang and a jester cut his capers.

El Señor explained to his son that the falcon requires darkness for his rest and for his feeding, but not so much darkness that he believes he is surrounded by the blackness of infinite space, for then he feels he is master of the night, his bird-of-prey instincts are awakened, and he swoops off in suicidal flight.

“You must know these things, my son. It will be you who will one day inherit my position and my privileges, and the accumulated wisdom of our domain as well, for without that wisdom the privileges are but vain pretension.”

“You know, Father, that I am reading the ancient writings in our library, and that I am a diligent student of Latin.”

“The wisdom to which I refer goes far beyond the knowledge of Latin.”

“I will not disappoint you again.”

The conversation between the father and son was interrupted by the cavorting of the jester, who came toward them with abroad, smudged smile, saying in a low but at the same time grotesquely high voice — for this comedian also had about him something of the ventriloquist — we buffoons know secrets, and he who would hear more, let him open his purse. He danced away but at the height of his next leap fell, choking, bluish bubbles bursting from his lips, and died.

The music ceased and the ladies fled, but Felipe, guided by an impulse, approached the jester and stared at the malignant face beneath the belled cap. He thought he saw something decidedly disagreeable, disfigured, and degraded in that scarlet mask-like visage. Kneeling, Felipe embraced the jester’s body, recalling the moments of pleasure he had afforded his father’s court. Then he grasped the clown by the buckle of his belt and dragged his body through the passageways. He imagined how it had been, the jester doing things he did not want to do, mimicking, capering, juggling, rhyming couplets, offering secrets in exchange for money: whom was he imitating, whom was he deceiving, whom was he despising as he fulfilled his role with such ill will? For, yes, his inner life was revealed in death: he was not a likable person.

The two sons of the serf Pedro had been lodged in the jester’s rooms, so that Felipe found them there as he dragged the body into the room and deposited it upon a wretched straw pallet. But the two youths believed, as they looked upon his well-cut clothes and graceful, almost feminine features, that Felipe was a castle servant, a page surely, and they asked him whether he knew what fate El Señor had in store for them. They spoke of escape, telling Felipe that some men lived in freedom, without masters, openly traveling the roads, singing, dancing, making love, and doing penance so that this world might come to an end and another, better one begin.

But Felipe seemed not to hear them; beside the body of the buffoon he had heard an infant’s high-pitched cry. When the heir looked more closely he could see the body of a babe-in-arms, wrapped in coarse bedclothes and half buried in the straw beside the jester’s body. He had not known the jester had a newborn son, but he did not wish to ask further, for fear of betraying himself before the two who had taken him for a servant.

“Let’s escape,” Pedro’s first son said. “You can be of help to us since you know the ways out.”

“Help us; come with us,” said the second son. “The millenary promise is close at hand, the second coming of Christ.”

“Let’s not wait for Christ’s return,” said Pedro’s first son. “Let’s be free; once away from here we’ll join the other free men in the forests. We know where they are.”

THE FALCON AND THE DOVE

The tall Augustinian monk, his skin stretched taut over prominent bones, addressed the group of students in red felt caps, tranquilly repeating the consecrated truth: man is condemned before his birth, his nature corrupted for all time by the sin of Adam; except with divine assistance, no one can escape the limitations of this truth; similarly, grace may be obtained only through the Roman Church.

Ludovico, a young theology student, arose impetuously and interrupted the monk. He asked whether he had considered the beliefs of Pelagius, who judged that God’s grace, being infinite, is a gift directly accessible to all men without the need for intermediary powers; and also whether he had examined the doctrine of Origen, who was confident that God’s charity is so great it would pardon even the Devil.

For an instant the monk stood stupefied; in the next moment, he pulled his hood over his head, preparing to leave.

“Do you deny the sin of Adam?” he asked the student Ludovico with compunctious and ominous fury.

“No, but I do sustain that, as he was created mortal, Adam would have died with or without sin; I also sustain that Adam’s sin hurt only Adam and not the human race, so that every child born of man is born without offense, as innocent as Adam before the Fall.”

“What is the Law?” the tall monk exclaimed.

Raging, when his question met only silence, he himself answered: “The Synod of Carthage, the Council of Ephesus, and the writings of St. Augustine!”

Then the students, who had obviously prepared for the scene, simultaneously loosed a falcon and a dove. The white dove alighted on Ludovico’s shoulder, while the bird of prey swooped, struck the monk’s chest, then flew away over his head. The students laughed with pleasure as the monk fled the hall, his head splattered with the bird’s droppings; this seemed a propitious moment to break a few windows.

THE WOMEN OF THE CASTLE

The two women had not yet finished dressing; they had been distracted by the bitch’s whelping. They crouched beside the beast, the young girl caressing the pups as her duenna looked from the bitch’s gaping and bleeding wound to the chastity belt shackled heavily between her own thighs. She asked the girl whether she felt well. Yes, the girl replied, well enough, no worse than any other month. But the duenna grumbled, saying it was woman’s lot to bleed, to whelp like animals, and to have smothered beneath padlocks what the poets were wont to call the flower of the faith; well, so much for flower and so much for faith, lily she might be, but withered, called Azucena now more from custom than because she was baptized so, and her soldier of the faith, a poor smith of these parts, had turned the key on her and gone forth to fight the Moors, or maybe only to the offal heap to shit, begging the girl’s pardon, the only certain thing being that a long absence breeds forgetfulness.