This May afternoon in1593, Zaldua squats in the dust of a woodland track drawing track lines with a broken stick. He is six years old, a thin, large-boned child. His wide forehead and small chin set him apart from the Basque people he lives among, as do his pale skin and light grey eyes. He has tied earlobes, a genetic curiosity exaggerated by inbreeding. Although his clothes consist entirely of grimy rags, his feet are enclosed in slippers which reach above his ankles. Should he be caught barefoot, the soles of his feet will be branded with white-hot metal to teach him his duty, because his neighbours believe that the grass will shrivel and die if touched by his naked foot. Zaldua may be kicked, cursed or spat upon with impunity, for he is an Agote, and his race is cursed.
Zaldua and his people live in hovels, banished to the outskirts of this village which they call home though they are not permitted to enter its public areas. They may not worship with others, nor enter the church by the main door, and when they are suffered to clebrate Mass, the Host is extended to them to them on a stick. Sick, or dying, no priest will attend them, and they may marry none but their own people.
Zaldua has already had a glimpse of the Transcendent. One silent harvest afternoon, his sister Dolore hoisted him up to peer into silent purity of the interior of the forbidden church. She hitched him up on her hip and pointed to the altar.
‘That is Our Lord Jesus,’ she told him, ‘who died to save us.’
He had stared at the collapsed figure hung from the cross. Our Lord Jesus seemed an unlikely defender, quite different from his majestic Uncle Aitor, who raged like a bull and could blow smoke from his nostrils. Zaldua’s eyes had strayed to the side of the altar and he gasped and pointed. There they met with a revelation. Raised up until her head was almost level with that of the Saviour himself, waist high in flowers, her head aureoled by golden clouds, her robe, the deepest blue of the sky, embroidered with gold, her lips and her cheeks crimson, and a tiny baby beneath her chin like a rosebud, was the Madonna, smiling, radiating light, and with her arms stretched out in loving welcome.
‘She is the Mother of God,’ his sister said, ‘she watches over children. Her name is Mary. Look, she is so beautiful.’
Will she watch over me? he had asked, and his sister Dolore, who was dead in childbirth before a year had passed, was so ignorant as to promise Yes, though there was little sign of it in her own case, considering the attentions of Uncle Aitor and the sad consequences thereof. But the glamour of Mary has fixed itself indelibly on Zaldua’s mind, especially as he has no mother, and now no Dolore; Zaldua will never in his life gather together enough of the threads of his genealogy to discover who his real parents were and so he chooses his own spiritual mother, the enchantedO, figure of the mother of God herself, who is dedicated to his protection. Mary guides his steps and takes his hand in the dark; she is his comfort and his friend; he would do anything for her.
It is the Madonna he now inexpertly traces with his stick in the dust. Absorbed in his work, he does not at first notice a distant roaring and the thunder of cartwheels until he looks up to see that fifty yards down the track, the Hermanderos are pursuing a family of gitanos. Among this race of nomads, whose fecklessness and criminality are an established fact, lives a number of Moslem people who would be honest citizens if they were permitted to follow their faith in peace; but since the Spanish Inquisition has been set up to ensure that they do not, they have submerged themselves in this deep pool of the exotic and travel with them as camouflage.
No stranger to cruel and random violence, Zaldua recedes into the trees. He sees a wooden wagon lurching between the ruts and potholes. A youth whips the angular horse into exertion and two young women, flying bundles of gaudy rags, run gasping alongside. An older man, bearded and dark, tugs at the bridle. He curses the horse in Roma; Zaldua eyes him apprehensively. This man would give him a thrashing just for the fun of it. The wooden axles groan and the girls weep with exhaustion; the thin brown horse throws its head up in despair, and as the Hermanderos gallop into view, the wagon hits a stone and, with a tearing crash, collapses onto the dusty path. A wheel rolls into the undergrowth.
The Hermadneros are surprised into a disorderly halt, and in the dust and confusion, the girls and their brother dart into the forest and disappear. The older man, however, attempting to do the same, finds his way barred by a solid wall of horseflesh. Its rider takes his ear.
‘So, gypsy,’ he inquires, giving the ear a twist, ‘what have we got in the wagon?’
The gypsy glowers and turns his body. His face is lined and scarred; he has the high arched nose of a hawk. He spits noisily on the ground.
‘Morisco,’ says one of the brotherhood.. He drives his fist into the man’s stomach, and for good measure, puts a knee into his groin. The gypsy doubles up silently. Zaldua can see the blood coming from his mouth as they chain him to the wagon. There’s nothing in the wagon but the trash of destitution, which the riders are now tossing onto the dusty path, where it lies in pathetic heaps; ragged blankets, patched cooking pans and tawdry garments. Then a shout of triumph, and one of them drags out a girl, slender, olive-skinned, about nine years old.
‘You filthy, theiving, gypsy bastard!’ says the man triumphantly. The girl now joins him in protest, accusing the gypsy in high, excited Castilian. Her hands are tied behind her. She was taken from her uncle’s house, she says, she is Isabella de Castres Gonzales, third daughter of Guillen de Castres who died in the wars, died for the King, she says; she is not crying, but shrieking. They believe her; her speech is cultivated and her soiled dress was once fine. Her screech, though, rising to hysteria, is beginning to annoy them. Nobody has bothered to untie her hands.
‘That’s enough, now,’ one of them says shortly.
The child is too far gone; she can’t stop. A month’s anger and terror stream out of her. One of the Hermaneros is obliged to strike her. From his hiding place, Zaldua gasps. The girl subsides, a red weal on her cheek. She sobs silently.
‘Bastard gypsy,’ says the man as if a new idea was dawning on him. ‘Bastard gypsy kidnapped a little girl. Bastard gypsy beat her to keep her quiet.’
All the men stare at him.
‘Beat her and God knows what else,’ he says. He draws his forearm across his mouth.
Their shouts, from a distant clearing, are louder than her screams. Zaldua smells the waggon burning. The gypsy man is shouting himself hoarse. He looks up to see a silent, grey-eyed child standing before him. Hope revives as the smoke billows and flames roar.
‘Help me!’ he pleads, his mouth ringed with blood.
Zaldua shakes his head.
‘I won’t hurt you.’
Zaldua knows this is a lie. Everybody hurts him.
‘I’ll give you something. Get my knife, look, cut me free and you can keep it.’
Some chance, thinks Zaldua. The man’s pleas grow more desperate. The flames are beginning to warm him. The child remains motionless.
‘I’ve got something for you,’ shouts the gypsy, ‘round my neck. A gift from the Queen of Spain. You can sell it for a lot of money. Take it and set me free.’
The smoke and stench of the fire, the man’s red face, his cries of terror all frighten Zaldua more than he has ever been frightened before. Still, a sudden impulse of curiosity makes him approach. It is a fearsome novelty to go so near a grown man without fear of a beating or a stoning. He sees, astonished, the face of his protectress, the Virgin herself, looking up from the gypsy’s throat.
‘Help me!’ the man cries, despairing. ‘Take the locket from round my neck! It’s yours, but set me free!’
Overcoming his fear, Zaldua stretches his arm to the utmost to grasp the chain around the man’s neck. He can feel the heat of the flames on his cheeks. His hand closes on the chain and he pulls. The man howls for release. But there is no other human near, and the boy’s retreating footsteps are silent on the mossy woodland path.