The Last Song

ended with the transfer of a few coins from Sofia’s pocket to the butcher’s hand and satisfied smirks on both of their faces.
    As the butcher dropped the mutton and hens into Sofia’s basket, white and black feathers fluttered up into the air. I tried to catch one, but I wasn’t quick enough. The wind blew it away.
    With a sigh, Sofia sank to the bench beside me. “How do you feel?”
    “A little better.”
    “Garcia is a thief but no worse than the others,” she said. “Your lady mother will be pleased. The meat is very fresh and will make a wonderful stew. Pork would be even better.” She scratched her head. “I don’t understand why my lady won’t let me buy pork. It’s less dear and more tender than the old hens and the mutton the butchers peddle.”
    “Mama says that pork disagrees with her. It gives her pains in her stomach.”
    “But I could …”
    Her words were drowned out by the sounding of trumpets. The crowd parted and formed lines on either side of the cobbled street, making way for a procession that had just turned the corner.
    “The holy Inquisition!” said a man standing next to me.
    His companion crossed herself.
    Sofia put down her basket on the ground and both of us stood on the bench to see. In the excitement, I forgot about my queasy stomach. A standard bearer carrying a flag and trumpeting heralds in their crimson and gold were followed by a tall, gaunt man dressed in the white habit and black cloak of a Dominican monk. He was staring straight ahead, holding the green cross of the Inquisition up high.
    Sofia bobbed a curtsy as the man passed us.
    “Who is he?” I asked. “I’ve never seen him before.”
    “Torquemada.”
    I shuddered. All of Spain knew his name. His holiness, Fray Torquemada, was the Inquisitor General of the holy Inquisition and the confessor of our beloved queen.
    Torquemada was followed by four priests clutching crucifixes in their hands and chanting solemnly.
    Behind the monks walked a long row of dirty, wretched prisoners. First came a group of women with matted hair and bare feet, dressed in ragged yellow sackcloth tunics – sambenitos. Each sambenito garment had been painted with a crude red cross, front and back.
    Next came women in black sambenitos paintedwith images of flames pointing downward and grotesque pictures of the devil. They all carried unlit tapered candles in their hands and had tall miters on their heads. Their tall hats should have been comical, but the sight of them made me want to cry.
    Behind the female prisoners followed a group of male prisoners, also dressed in yellow and black sambenitos.
    A long row of the Inquisition’s familiars, its officers, in black clothing trailed the procession.
    “Heretics!” cried a woman in front of us. “The pox on you!”
    “May your souls rot in hell!” an onlooker taunted the prisoners.
    A painfully thin young woman in a black sambenito flinched at his words and pulled the crying baby in her arms closer to her chest. The cheek of the infant rested against the face of the devil on her tunic. The woman’s tears intermingled with the tears of her child. I felt my own eyes filling up.
    At the front of the group of the male prisoners walked an older man whose dignity shone through his degradation. He held himself straight, as would a soldier leading his men into battle. As he passed us, the butcher Garcia hoisted a bucket of blood and flung it into the man’s face. The man wiped his eyes with hissleeve and walked by his tormentor silently, not even glancing at him.
    “Heretics!” someone shrieked. “Beg the forgiveness of our Lord and his blessed mother!”
    “These poor prisoners,” I said to Sofia. “There are so many of them. How can there be so many heretics?”
    She looked around carefully. “Hush! You don’t want to be overheard asking such questions.”
    Somebody in the crowd threw a rotten pomegranate at the prisoners. A boy picked up a stone from the ground and pitched it at an old woman in a black sambenito passing by him. Before long, the air was thick with flying stones. The angry barrage did not subside until the procession left Butchers’ Row.
    Sofia picked up her basket and we set out for home.
    “I’ve seen such a procession once before, when Mama and I went to visit friends. Mama wouldn’t answer my questions about the prisoners we saw. She would only say that they were heretics being punished by the Inquisition. She told me to stop asking questions about