work of fiction, the thoughts and dialogues I have attributed to figures in the narrative are based on research and on my understanding of the relevant people, places and events. There are certain scenes in which I have used my imagination, based on research, to create a thought process or even a conversation in order to give the scene its full expression. This seems totally legitimate as one can infer a thought process from a record of behavior. Archival records, however, are insufficient for helping us know New Mexico’s ordinary colonists. We have little information about them beyond their origins, and the physical description of the men and of their participation in some the colony’s leading events. Therefore, I have drawn New Mexico’s colonists to represent individuals from all aspects of Spain’s Third Estate, its ordinary people.
In many respects, the questions posed in this narrative echo questions about contemporary life. The year 1598, like 1998, was a banner year of optimism and confidence, the staging period for entree into a new century. Yet, despite this unbridled optimism and confidence, the apparent initial results of the colonial enterprise were abject failure, disintegration, and abandonment. I hope that the characterizations I have made regarding the colonists in respect to their participation in and contribution to this debacle have done no one a disservice. It is unfortunate that some of the colonists’ behaviors appear aberrational, startling, or even criminal, but they seem to be supported by research.
In the final analysis, may I say that I have the utmost respect and admiration for the achievements of these colonists. In individual drive, stubborn will, and indefatigable courage, they were the match of any people, and this is their story.
—Donald L. Lucero de Godoy
Dartmouth, Massachusetts
PERIOD I
THE KINGDOM OF CASTILE
The Tribunal
March 28, 1577
The sound was merely that of a hurried tap made with the butt of
the knife he carried to raise the occupants of the small house but
no one else. There was no answer.
The windowless house, which faced a stonewalled lane, looked like little more than a heap of puddled stone all gathered together. The man who had come up the cobblestone path stepped away from the doorway and looked up to see a whisper of white smoke, the remnant of a cooking fire, which rose from the stone chimney. He returned to the doorway, pressed his ear against the upper hinge and listened with every fiber of his being before continuing.
“Pedro,” he whispered as he slapped at the door with an open palm, his knife now replaced in its leather sheath beneath his dark clothing. “It’s Adan,” he said. “I pray I’m in time.”
Within the house, Luis, who had been sleeping before the open hearth, rose and moved to the poor bed where his aunt and uncle slept. Gently, he touched his uncle’s shoulder. “Tio,” he said, “there’s someone at the door.”
Pedro stirred, ran his fingers through his matted hair, and, dressed only in a nightshirt, rolled out of bed. Both he and his nephew appeared at the door where they were confronted by Pedro’s workmate.
“Pedro,” Adan said breathlessly as he stepped over the stone threshold, “they’re coming to get you. At first light, Pedro,” he warned, “they’re coming for you.”
“Who?” Pedro asked as he peered around the open door before closing it. “Who?” he asked again, as he struggled to put on his trousers and his boots.
“The Holy Office,” Adan answered as he assisted in closing the heavy door, the three of them lifting it so that it would clear the threshold. “They blame you for the prisoner’s escape and now he’s been killed.”
“Killed!” Pedro asked incredulously. “How? By whom?”
“A posse sent looking for him by the Inquisition trailed him to a robber’s cave, and he was killed by them before he could reveal his secrets regarding additional backsliders. They say you ruined years of work by allowing him to escape.”
“How could he be responsible?” asked Catalina, who was now standing behind her husband in the candlelit room. “Pedro is a scribe only,” she defended in her peculiarly soft and sweet voice. “He’s not responsible for prisoners.”
“The prisoner was de los Santos,” Pedro replied as a way of explanation, “one of those betrayed to the Holy Office by the wife of Alonso de Maya. She was the one I told you about, Catalina. What is it now . . . eight years ago? Elvira del Campo, who was charged with practicing Judaism in secret . . . not eating pork and with putting on clean clothes on Saturday. The Edict of Grace1 had been published, and the Term of Grace2 had passed, and the poor woman was being required to confess. You should have heard her, Catalina,” Pedro said. “I was working in the room next to the chamber where she had been taken and where she was being told to tell the truth. She was subjected to the jarra (jug)3 and then to the tying of the arms. ‘Senores,’ she screamed, over and over again ‘remind me of what I have to say for I don’t know it!’ A cord was applied to her arms and twisted and she was being admonished to tell the truth. ‘I did it!’ she screamed over and over again. ‘I did what the witnesses say. I don’t know how to tell it.’ I went next door to plead for leniency, but they wouldn’t allow me to enter. It was obvious that they wanted her to confess and that there was some proper way for her to say it. She was given 16 turns of the cord until it broke. She would have done anything—said anything—to end her torture,” Pedro said, “denouncing and perhaps even inventing the names of others whom she claimed were guilty of lighting special lamps on Friday evening, observing the Day of Atonement, or some other trivial action performed absent mindedly or by mere force of habit. Who knows of what, if anything, de los Santos was guilty!” he exclaimed. “I was merely being asked to escort him to the old Castle of Maqueda. We were within sight of the towers, Catalina. I could see them in the mist—four towers, plain and severe. We were almost there when his mule tumbled over the side of a ravine and he was gone!”
“It doesn’t matter, Pedro,” Adan said. “Someone’s got to be the scape-goat and this time it’s you. The calificadores will find ample justification for further action, and your punishment will be severe: the frame, the funnel and the water, Pedro. If you survive the torture and are convicted, you’ll be sent to the galleys. You’re done here, Pedro,” Adan said in resignation. “Perhaps you can make your plea to authorities in Toledo, but in Torrijos and Carmena, you’re done. We must go!”
“How go, Adan?” Pedro asked while looking at his wife as though seeking an answer. “Carmena has been our home for generations. How can I be made to leave?”
“You have no choice, Tio,” Luis said, as he gathered his uncle’s cloak from its place on the wall. “Go with Adan, Tio, go!”
“They’re right, Pero,” Catalina added using his pet name. “You can go to my papa’s home in Toledo. He’ll hide you. We can join you there.”
Adan, who had been standing before the open hearth, now moved to the oaken table where he sought to help Pedro gather his belongings. “That may work for awhile, dona Catalina,” he said, “and it’s good that you have a place to go. But they’ll follow you and compel Pedro’s return. He has a few days—perhaps a few weeks at most. Maybe your father can help you get to the coast where you can make use of the license for overseas travel you obtained a few years ago. That license may be your ticket to freedom. Anyhow,” Adan said, “we’ve no time to talk. They’ll be here at first light. Take only what’s required.”
“Go, Pero,” Catalina begged. “We’ll follow you.”
“They won’t let you,” Pedro replied. “That’s how they’ll get me to return.”
“We’ll find a way to get them out,” Adan promised. “We’ve done it before, and we can do it again. I’ve got mules waiting below the walls.”
“Go, Tio,” Luis urged while putting a comforting arm around his aunt’s shoulder. “We’ll