Edward Gross
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Captain Balthasar de Alaman——lover of war, hater of Jews, Muslims, and homosexuals——is falsely imprisoned for heresy by the inquisitor of Toledo, his own brother. Facing trial, torture, and possibly the galleys or burning at the stake, Balthasar escapes from the Spanish Inquisition’s prison, adding murder to the heresy charge in so doing. His plan: flee Spain and become a soldier of fortune in Italy. But to become a condottiere, he must first obtain the necessary money and arms. Accordingly, he attempts to rejoin the army of Ferdinand and Isabel besieging Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Spain. His perilous journey is marked by pursuit, a bloody confrontation with a pack of wolves, a life-threatening infection, convalescence in a libertine monastery, the battle for Granada, and a near-fatal bludgeoning and robbery. His odyssey becomes a philosophical journey when he is saved from death, first by a homosexual comrade-in-arms, then later by a compassionate Jewish family. Both rescues batter his entrenched prejudices which are further pummeled by an encounter with a sympathetic heretic: a Moor. But it is the Jewish family’s comely Elisheva who causes him the greatest turmoil as the pair’s feelings for each other smash against the seawall of religious incompatibility. Only at the end of his harrowing odyssey does Balthasar finally learn the nefarious secret behind the false charge of heresy and his brother’s role in it, forcing him to choose between saving his own life or his father’s.
Born 1938 in the Bronx, Edward Gross received a B.S. degree in biology from the City College of New York and a B.A. in journalism from Ohio State University. While in the Army with the 101st Airborne Division, he worked as a reporter on the post newspaper at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. After serving in the military, he had two freelance articles published: one entitled Starving to Health in the Sunday supplement of the Columbus Ohio Citizen Journal and the other a humorous piece entitled Kicking the TV Habit, published in Minutes magazine. Based on what he had learned after visiting Mayan sites in Mexico and Central America, he wrote an historical novel entitled Warrior of the Sun, published by Dell. He has also worked as a staff writer for the American Chemical Society News Service, as a writer/editor for Science News magazine, and as a Federal Register writer/editor for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., where he is currently employed.
April 1491
Encamped around a heavy, oak table in the dining room, the wealthy Alaman family ate a luxurious midday meal. Serving the five Alamans: the family servant Brianda. Only 42, the matronly servant looked haggish, prematurely aged from toiling long hours cooking meals over a smoky hearth, hoisting heavy kettles, traipsing daily to market and back carrying the day’s larder, fetching well water, arduously laundering bent over a tub, hanging clothes to dry, and finally enduring the never-ending, countless bee stings of housework: making up beds, putting fresh mulberry branches under them to ward off fleas, emptying chamber pots, delousing the family, tending to the fires, mending, repairing, and finally, catering to the needs and wants of her husband in the evening.
Fortunately, her drudgery had been eased recently thanks to a 15-year-old Moorish slave girl brought into the household three months ago. Standing alongside Brianda near the table, Zoraida awaited orders in the quiet sadness of captivity.
Señor Tenorio de Alaman, the 62-year-old paterfamilias, sat at the head of the table. To his right, his elder son Gabriel——Toledo’s new chief inquisitor just arrived from Rome yesterday; next to Gabriel, Señor Alaman’s younger son Balthasar. Completely dissimilar in body and temperament, the two brothers could have sprung from different parents. One brother: a tonsured, 35-year-old priest, a scholar with delicate features, pasty complexion, and long, soft eyelashes fringing narrow, gray eyes. The other: 10 years younger, a bear whose curly, red hair stylishly covered the nape of his neck while revealing his missing left ear. A trim beard partially covered a long scar on his right cheek. Hard-muscled with hardhearted blue eyes, he bore the warrior’s stamp. To Señor Alaman’s left sat his 17-year-old wife of one year, Beatriz: slender, girlish, dark of hair and eye. Beside her, his bony 12-year-old daughter Lucinda, still far from womanhood, showing no sign of when or how much she would blossom. The family dog listlessly panhandled for food scraps around the table.
As was the custom indoors, the family was informally dressed. Señor Alaman in puffy-sleeved silk shirt, tight hose, and long pointy-toed pattens resembling a jester’s shoes. Balthasar, the same, except for the rounded-toe patten then much in vogue, replacing the elder Alaman’s unfashionable, pointy shoes. Even Gabriel lounged comfortably in shirt and loose breeches.
Brianda and Zoraida with their heads wrapped in turbans wore the cote, a low-waisted, long-sleeved, long-skirted dress. Only Beatriz displayed any elegance, wearing a long-sleeved velvet and ermine-trimmed surcoat over her expensive cote. Befitting her position as mistress of the house, she wore her hair plaited and rolled up on each side of her head over her ears in a crespine, or net, making her look somewhat older than 17.
As Gabriel finished eating the slice of roast lamb held in his fingers, Señor Alaman signaled Zoraida to clear the dinner plates, while Brianda fetched the brandied peaches dessert from the kitchen. As the girl passed by Balthasar, he casually let his hand drop, hoping that she might inadvertently brush her thigh against it. The trap didn’t go unnoticed.
“You are in an unusually playful mood today,” Señor Alaman said sternly.
“Why do you say so?” Balthasar questioned, his bass voice booming from the cannon of his large body.
“You deploy your hand, hoping to ambush Zoraida’s leg.” The girl blushed before hurrying off to the kitchen with the plates.
“To sugar life by sprinkling a little fun on it does no harm,” Balthasar replied smiling, his grin revealing two missing teeth.
“Except when fun becomes a sole occupation. You show no interest or talent for business, study, or any enterprise that engages the higher faculties. When you were a child, I hired the best tutor in Toledo instead of sending you to a church school, but you squandered that priceless education, preferring to take up pleasure and war instead.”
“True, my impatient temperament will not let me sit for hours at some gentlemanly trade or scholarly pursuit, but over the years, I have derived satisfaction fighting for their Catholic Majesties Fernando and Isabel.”
“A professional soldier,” his father said disparagingly as Zoraida returned with the finger bowls, followed by Brianda carrying dessert. “Not a very profitable enterprise since capitáns depend on war booty to compensate them, and you have seen little of that. You may be a good soldier, but if war is your business, you are a terrible businessman——showing a debit of one ear but no commensurate profit in ducats.”
