the sun began to tip the horizon, and the landscape in all directions became clearer. While riding, they began to see the harsh uplands long-celebrated in the annals of Spanish history. Streams interlaced the area of scrubby brush, rock rose, heather, and cork oaks, while in the heights, deer, foxes, lynx, wolves, and wild boar were to be found. A single cloud, like tufted cotton, was ridged against the sky as they headed toward a distant hill.
Riding through the area, Pedro thought of how, during visits to their grandfather’s home, the children had begged to be taken to see the local wonders. Scattered throughout the area were numerous prehistoric sites, all boasting megalithic ruins composed of huge stone monuments and tombs. Also in the area was an ancient ghost town once protected by a fortress, while odd stone boars or bulls—verracos—decorated nearby castles. Each of these sites had presented the possibility for an excursion and a chance to enjoy life in the open air but would have required a long day’s ride. Therefore, instead of visiting one of these, he had last taken them to Galiana’s Palace and the clypsedra, or water clock, which had been one of the wonders of the Moorish world. The water clock, which lay among the ruins of a Moorish palace, or alcazar, on the banks of the Tagus River, had once consisted of two large stone basins that filled and emptied themselves of water every lunar month in time with the waxing and waning of the moon. It was said that in 1085, some 50 years after the Christian re-conquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI, Alfonso VII, his grandson, curious to learn how the clock worked, had it taken apart. Unfortunately, his craftsmen, as skilled as they were, had been unable to reconstruct it. Pedro had presented the story to them as an allegory. “Sometimes,” he had said to his children, his blue eyes seemingly reflecting the late winter sky, “it’s best to accept things as they are, to enjoy them, to marvel at them, or to suffer the pains of their sorrows without question. However, at other times, it’s best to search for meaning.”
To accept things as they are, he thought to himself as they rode by the palatial ruin. His hallmark had always been his cheerful acceptance of life in its simplest and most sublime terms—with all its tragedy and all its enveloping mystery. Now, however, he, too, searched for meaning in the family’s recent tragic events and could find none.
* * *
As the members of the mule train rode to the brow of a rounded hill, a little beyond where they had once dismounted for their walk to Galiana’s Palace, Pedro reined in his mule. Here he turned to look back for the last time at the city of high walls which ascend and descend and enclose the small hill ringed by the river. On their right was the deeply carved bed of the Tagus still veiled in drifting mists and shadows. On their left were hills, rocks, and low scrub, all of which were half-shrouded in a dusty gray. The southern mountains under the early April sky were dimly visible in the distance. Toledo, its neutral tones broken only by shadows cast within its gigantic walls, its roofs dominated by the magnificent towers of its cathedral and its alcazar, was barely visible on the distant horizon. Without comment or command, Pedro took Diego and Lucia from their mules and lowered them to the ground. Catalina, however, asked to be left where she was. The children and their father then sat in the grass beside her litter while their train waited on the road above them.
The river was beautiful in the morning light with the sun glinting off the blue and yellow waters of the stream. Above them, just before the crest of the hill, Pedro and his children could see some crumbling walls. Below them, on the slope of the hill, were live oaks, ilex and olive trees. The olive trees’ delicate, silver leaves parted to reveal clusters of small, black fruit that had refused to be beaten from the branches at harvest. Pedro, who refused to look at the river, sat there bareheaded and motionless as he strained to see the home of his father-in-law on the hill beside the cathedral. He imagined that he could see both the house and its exterior balcony. As they gazed, Pedro, Diego and Lucia were enclosed in their own thoughts of Alonso’s home, the ancient city behind them, and all that they had lost, until Pedro decided that it was time to go. Again, without a word being spoken, for they had all learned to suffer in silence, Pedro placed the children upon their mules. Then, seemingly as an afterthought, he reached into one of the panniers that were slung across the croup of his mule, took out a leather-clad book, and returned to his seat on the hillside. With a final look at Toledo, which was but a smear on the distant horizon, and a last search for the balcony, he began to write.
The first week of April has been filled with such sadness that I have pushed aside my journal and can, now, only cobble it together from memory. It might seem meaningless that I do so. However, I follow the dictates of my teacher who made me believe that who we are and what we experience as a family—and as a people—are important and deserve to be preserved. The dates now seem unimportant. Suffice it to say that this has been the most tragic period of our lives.
He stood up, re-wrapped the journal in its oilskin, and, with a brief prayer rendered to St. Tobit, patron of travelers, said, “We must go.”
To Newer Lands
The plan, as Pedro had outlined in his journal before the family’s departure from Toledo, was for the family to follow the swift-flowing Tagus to Puebla del Mont. Here, they were to ascend the Rio Torcon to the village of Navahermosa. From this point, they were to follow an ancient track across the southward-looking slopes of the Sierra de Guadalupe, to Puerto de San Vicente, Logrosan, and, finally Merida. This track would take them overland through broken, mountainous country whose twisted trees and undergrowth of flowering gorze, blackberry and bilberry sheltered an assortment of wild animals. Here, the woods would be full of animals of every description even if they did not see them. It was this portion of the trip through the mountains of Central Spain that most concerned them. They would be at the mercy of the weather and of the bandits who preyed upon small parties such as theirs. At Merida, they would turn south towards Seville, and from there, they would reach the sea. With luck, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, they would reach the banks of the olive-bordered Guadalquivir River at Seville within three weeks.
Pedro had much on his mind as he let his beast select its own route up the forested trail. He followed the lead mules of their mule train as they slipped and stumbled in mire and muck from melting snow and on the stones and boulders that defined the thorny track. They were following a narrow valley of wood and cork trees with small villages scattered here and there along the way.
* * *
As they passed their days in travel Pedro worried abut what lay ahead. Although there were ventas, or inns, along much of the route, it was impossible to find one that provided both board and lodging. Despite the fact that the inns were filthy, especially the kitchens, which belched thick, black smoke, Pedro and his family continued to stay in them when the opportunity presented itself, for their only other recourse was to set up housekeeping in the fields. The general good appearance of the family often resulted in their being given the best room, but, although they often had the room to themselves, the children’s parents refused to allow them to sleep on the beds, which were little more than lumpy quilts infested with fleas and bedbugs. Instead, and in a guestroom with a chamber pot as their only luxury, they slept on mud floors and on bedding that they carried with them. While the family was accommodated within the inns, however, their muleteers, in the rude manner of the day, slept in the stables on nothing but the panniers and the coverings of their mules all thrown in a heap.
Although the initial portion of their trip was not very difficult, Catalina and Pedro had suffered a catastrophic blow in the deaths of their two children and of their nephew and would have had to be harder than diamonds not to have been brought to their knees. As a wife, aunt, and mother, Catalina had been vitally stricken and was to wear mourning much of her life. As for Pedro, the wound would always be there. But suffering is the essence of being Spanish, and rest a commodity they could ill afford.
For the children, at least, the journey provided distraction. Sleeping each night in a different place and sharing a room and candle with their parents as they had at their home in Carmena, made the trip seem like a grand adventure. That sense of adventure ended when they arrived at the forest.
* * *
Generally, the mountains of Spain have a harsh and lonely appearance. Many are rough, craggy, steeply sloped and forbidding. They have surprisingly