Souls of fire -Witches of Zugarramurdi-

On the back of his horse, an inquisitor looked at me incredulously. I've seen his face somewhere else. I've always memorized people's faces. Of course, if I even differentiate my head of cattle one by one. But right now it is hard for me to remember, I am blocked by fear. I walk in a macabre procession after the Santa Cruz Verde de la Inquisición, entering a large square in the city of Logroño.

Through a corridor created among the crowd, I come across fleeting glances that exude hatred and fear. The most tense mob throws at us urine and rotten fruit. Paradoxically, the only merciful gesture has been that of that familiar face of the inquisitor. As soon as he saw me, he frowned, and I glimpsed his disappointment at finding me inside the line to the scaffold.

I already remember who it is! Alonso de Salazar y Frías, he himself told me his name when we had a particular encounter a month ago, during my annual transhumance from my town, Zugarramurdi, to the pastures in the Ebro plain.

This is how he pays me for the help I gave him the night I found him ill. His carriage was stopped in the middle of the road and he was leaning on the trunk of a beech tree, dizzy and decomposed. I healed him, I offered him shelter, rest and sustenance. Today he has passed in front of this ignominious parade of the damned, with his air of magnanimous redeemer. He has gone to the podium, where he will dismount his horse, occupy his strategic place and listen to our sentences prior to the executions and punishments.

I don't even have the strength to call him by his name, begging for mercy. I barely advance among this human herd resigned to its fatal fate. We wander regretfully, my labored breathing mingling with that of my ill-fated companions, some humiliated whimpering right in front of me and insistent desperate cries further behind me. I endure my anger, my sadness, my despair or whatever I feel, all wrapped up in an insomniac embarrassment.

The accumulation of sensations makes me forget the shameful coroza that slides from my head to the ground. Quickly an armed escort busies himself with putting it on me again, abruptly, cheered by the public.

Still walking in groups, the cold November wind cuts through the tough fabric of the sanbenito, cooling the sweat of panic that emanates profusely. I look up to the top of the green cross of the Holy Inquisition and, moved, I implore God to forgive me for my sins, if I have ever committed them.

I pray to God as a new Ecce Homo who bears the blame of others, with their shame and their animosity. I do not know who was the confidant who said about me the aberrations that I have heard in my accusation, I could never imagine how far the pettiness of my countrymen would go.

For a long time, the Inquisition's qualifiers had been around Zugarramurdi and other nearby towns, gathering information from some supposed covens that were held in the caves of my town. I should have imagined that after my most envied and therefore hated countrymen, I could go, a hardworking and prosperous rancher. When I was captured I learned everything that had been said about me.

According to the evil tongues that have pushed me here, I myself led my sheep and goats to I don't know what kind of satanic worship. I also learned how it had become known that he used an alembic to distill spirits with mysterious herbs. The only real accusation is that I used to read books, although not exactly cursed texts.

When I was a child, an old priest indoctrinated me in reading, and so I could enjoy instructing myself with the mystics Saint John of the Cross or Saint Teresa, I had the privilege of learning from the wisdom of Saint Thomas and I was moved by the epistles of Saint Paul. It matters little that most of my readings were not heretical at all. He could read, so he could be a witch.

The accusations of my own people were transformed into leading, tendentious questions, objectivity is not a value for the court of the Inquisition.

Don't you prepare potions with which you enchant people? No, all I do is take advantage of the wisdom of my ancestors to extract natural remedies from nature Isn't it true that you used your animals in pagan sacrifices? Without a doubt, I sacrificed a sheep, but it was to celebrate the big days with my family How is it that a pastor like you can read and write? A priest taught me precisely when he saw my interest in letters as a child.

To each of my denials, and of my consequent allegations, the whip came to my back, so that I would tell the truth as they wanted to hear it. In the end I declared that my potions and concoctions were blessed by my God, Satan, who sacrificed animals in his honor, and that in my usual covens I read cursed books in my role as master sorcerer. The whip, insomnia, and fear make the strongest testify. The few who admirably keep the truth on its immovable pedestal perish in dungeons.

Maybe I should have let myself be killed myself. A knot of anger now runs through my stomach at the thought of the last question, to which I also answered affirmatively after skinning my entire back based on hundreds of denials. They wanted me to accept that I had killed a child as a sacrifice to the devil, an accusation that I never imagined anyone could blame on me. I just tried to help him, the boy lay with intense fever in his bed, I tried to alleviate this fever with a mixture of corolla of poppy, nettle and linden, a home remedy that had worked many times for me. Unfortunately that poor angel was very ill and did not arrive the next day.

I look up, I am convinced that the important thing is that the cross knows the truth. I already have their salvation, because I am a good Christian, my companions also have salvation because they expiate improper sins, even the entire mob that surrounds us is free of faults based on their ignorance. The only sinners are these executioners of the Inquisition. My little sins are those of a poor shepherd, his are the ones that will be harshly judged by God, whose worship they have transformed into a true sect of witches.

Beyond the cross, the sky opens up over Logroño. Its immensity makes me feel small, my anger melts into a chill and with one of my last tears I think that this has to happen in a short sigh. With more faith than any of the clergy around me, I return to the trust in God and the hope in eternal life that the holy books relate.

I begin to smell smoke, under the view of the celestial dome and I contemplate in front how an executioner has lit a bonfire with his torch around one of the columns. That is where I am going to be laid back to secular justice. But there is no longer fear, the first flames do not threaten me but begin to oscillate like purifying fire, fanned by the bellows of a gentle breeze. Little remains for the time to consume me before thousands of people.

I look around, to both sides. Above the heads of the people you can already see the stands full of nobles and lords ready for the captivating spectacle of the auto-da-fe, the celebration of redemption, the ostentation of death. But not only are they present, God is also present, and shows himself on our side, welcoming us to the open sky.

Yes, in front of the dark mentality of the Inquisition, the sky shines more than ever, dressing Logroño with its golden sparkles, radiating its light that passes through the windows, which makes its way through the corridors of the portals of this great agora.

I keep my face up and I give the crowd a smile that is born sincere within me, devoid of sarcasm or fear. I am not a witch, I will not escape at the last moment astride my broom. I will rise after the fire burns my body, I will reach the blue sky. My soul will fly free from the burden of this world.

Holy God! What an outrage! A good Samaritan accused of being a witch. The world upside down. This poor shepherd, whom I just discovered behind the Green Cross of the sentenced, is Domingo Subeldegui, I met him by chance very recently. I was traveling by carriage to Logroño and, when there were still hours to go, I ordered the driver to stop. They must have helped me down, because everything was spinning me. I had stretched the trip as long as possible, but my stomach had finally said enough. The afternoon was falling and my body could not stand another league without resting.

In my state of indisposition, I even believed that I imagined the sound of cowbells in the distance, but it was not a matter of imagination, the herd and their shepherd soon became visible. He introduced himself as Domingo Subeldegui and offered me the chamomile paste that recomposed my stomach. I told him that I was a clergyman, and I concealed from him that I was traveling to this city, premiering my status as Apostolic Inquisitor of the Kingdom of Navarra. My discretion was appropriate because my first case was full of substance, nothing more and nothing less than evaluating the preparations for this auto-da-fe, for which they had already been collecting information for several years.

As the dark night fell on us, Domingo Subeldegui invited me and my assistants to rest in a nearby shelter, deriving our meeting to a pleasant evening in the heat of the fire. We were lost in the deep forest, but with that wise pastor, I talked as if I were before a bishop sitting in his chair.

We talk long and hard. Theology, customs, philosophy, livestock, laws, all were areas of his talk. So at ease I was by his side that perhaps the gathering comforted me even more than the concoction he prepared for my stomach. He was certainly a better talker than a cook. Although I tried to keep forms and distances, I had to give in to the evidence that I was parliamentary with an equal.

I feel great dismay remembering every detail of that night, because my host in the forest is going to be burned today, like a sorcerer. I had read his name on the indictments and thought it could only belong to a namesake. Now that I have seen with my eyes that he is advancing among the accused, I could not believe it. Undoubtedly the rancor and slander of his countrymen have led him to perdition.

But worst of all, is that I do not believe in other cases of witchcraft. In the short time that I have been playing my role in the Inquisition, I already think that we have exceeded the limits of our ecclesiastical justice, entering to quench the desire for control and power, instilling faith and fear as if both were the same thing.

I can agree that the New Jewish Christians, who continue to observe the Sabbaths, and the apostate Moors are punished. Moreover, I entered the Inquisition considering appropriate the punishments to these impious. In our presence they all repent, receive their lashes and are sent to jail, or to row galleys, without pay. The indoctrination of the people towards the light of Christianity seems necessary. But all this of the autos-da-fé, with human sacrifices, is detestable.

But I can do little today before the votes, contrary to my will, of Dr. Alonso Becerra Holguín and Mr. Juan Valle Albarado. Both maintain their firm conviction of the origin of this auto-da-fe. The court has already passed judgment.

The torture that has been inflicted on these poor people is not enough, five of them have already died in the dungeons, beaten by our executioners. Victims who, for greater dishonor, will also end up with their bones on fire. The inquisition wants more and more, the public act, the demonstration of power over consciences. The autos-da-fé have become a clear example of human monstrosity.

Honestly beats me. I don't see the relationship between our devotion and this nonsense. Less rationally do I understand that, people like us, trained, graduated in canons and in Law, we assume that it is correct to weigh the lives of many people based on the testimonies of disturbed, fearful or simply envious people. To later elicit parallel statements with the truth about open meats.

They are accused of bad harvests, of carnal celebrations with innocent virgins, of orgies and unspeakable vices, of flying over populations in the dark nights. They are even accused of killing children! As is the case with my poor pastor friend.

I know that Domingo Subeldegui would be incapable of such an aberration, in light of his reason and his values ​​that I myself witnessed that night in the forest. If only for the memory of this poor pastor, for whom I can do little when heinous accusations hang over him, I will investigate and clean his name and that of the other accused.

I will get an edict of grace, time will restore your reputation, not your life. But to be consistent with myself I will have to do more, I will be able to change all this, with strong arguments. I will find irrefutable evidence with which to promote the abolition of the death penalty for many other innocents like these.

Unfortunately, this auto-da-fe has no turning back. I have no other option but to stoically endure the reading of the sentences extracted from the chest that the acémila carries.

If indeed the condemned: Domingo Subeldegui, Petri de Ioan Gobena, María de Arburu, María de Chachute, Graciana Iarra and María Bastan de Borda were witches, if indeed these five who are to die had those powers that are attributed to them, they would fly away without hesitation above our heads, escaping death. None of this is going to happen, although I do trust that at least, after the suffering of the fire, their souls will fly free.

Note: In 1614, thanks to an extensive report by Alonso de Salazar y Frías, the Council of the Supreme and General Inquisition issued an instruction practically abolishing the witch hunt in all of Spain.