Perhaps because Father Hacha had freely admitted that his wife had spied for the country of her birth, the Marques believed the lie about her faithfulness. He wanted to believe it. He knew, guiltily and secretly, that it had been a fault to marry her, but what man would not have wanted to marry the frail, lovely girl? He knew he had married out of lust, out of sinfulness, and he had confessed the sin a hundred hundred times. Now, it seemed, his prayers were answered and she wanted his forgiveness and his love. He would give both to her.
He would give them because the priest had laid before him this night a glittering image of Spain’s future, and a future, the Inquisitor had said, in which the Marques would play an eminent, a vital part. `You were always close to the old King, my Lord.’
`True.’
`His son needs you.’
Spain, the Marques had heard, needed him. This war against the French, the Inquisitor had said, was a mistake. True, it had been started by the French, but they now saw that their best interests lay in peace. They wanted to take their embattled armies from Spain, and only one obstacle lay before them; the British alliance.
The Inquisitor had spoken of the secret treaty. He had done it because he wanted this man’s trust. The Marques had listened. At first he had felt offence at the secret manouevering that would end with a broken promise to Britain, but as he listened more he felt the glory and excitement grow in him.
Spain, the Inquisitor had said, had been given its empire by God. That empire was the reward for defeating the Muslims in Europe. Now, because of the war against France, the empire was slipping away. The Spanish, the priest said, had a duty to their God to keep the empire. If there was peace with France then the army could go abroad as God’s warriors. The secret treaty that was being forged at Valencay would give Spain peace at home and glory abroad.
That appealed to the Marques. He had no love for the government that ruled that part of Spain not held by the French. It was, in his view, a liberal, dangerous government that would try to introduce a parliament and limit the royal power. Spain should be ruled by the King and the Church in consort, not by a shouting rabble of upstart ambition.
There was more. As he sat and listened to the Inquisitor, the Marques heard what the Junta in Cadiz now proposed. The liberals, who ruled the country in King Ferdinand VII’s absence, were trying to dismantle the power of the Church in Spain.
`Surely not!’
In answer the Inquisitor had taken from his pocket and handed to the Marques a copy of a new law, a law that had, within the last two months, declared that the Spanish Inquisition was abolished.
It still existed in French-held Spain, that body from the protestant nightmares of the sixteenth century; the Inquisition that preached God’s love with the fires of agony and the blades of torture. Now, bereft of their racks and burning irons, they were a moral police force to the Spanish people, granting licences of marriage to those who could prove they were of pure, Christrian blood; watching always those who were suspected of being Moors or Jews. They were the spies of God, the secret police of heaven, and their power was threatened. The Junta had dissolved them.
King Ferdinand VII, whose love of women was matched by his fear of God, did not agree that the Inquisition should be abolished. They might spy for God, but their reports came to the King of Spain, and no kingdom on earth had a more efficient body of informers than did the Spanish king with his loyal Inquisitors.
`If we restore His Majesty,’ the Inquisitor had said, `then we preserve our Church. Peace with France, my Lord, is Spain’s only hope.’
With which sentiments the Marques de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba agreed wholeheartedly. `So what do you want of me?’
The Inquisitor told his lie smoothly. `I want you to gain support among your friends, among the officers of the army, among your admirers, my Lord.’ He shrugged. `When the time comes, my Lord, the peasants will not be overjoyed.’