The Accidental Heretic
The case that led me to start writing. It’s more than …ahem… years since I discovered a compilation of real-life Spanish Inquisition trials. I don’t mean summaries, I mean actual line by line clerically recorded transcripts, written live in the actual courtrooms as the actual trials unfolded (I am aware I have over-used ‘actual’ and make no apologies). A gift from the past, and the story of how they came to be available is just as fascinating as each case (a future novel perhaps). Reading these documents I could see and feel the space and the defendants, helpless in the face of relentless, bureaucracy marching on with Kafkaesque determination towards outcomes already decided (because the Inquisition cannot be wrong). This case, from 1756 happened against a particular political backdrop - reactionary conservatism flexing its muscle against the threat of progressive thought. History always has modern relevance. Most of all though, I wanted to bring Antonio to life, to see and hear what he made of his own plight, and that is why I began to write. I couldn’t not. I self-published this tale, because I wanted to understand the process beginning to end and also because I had harped on so much about the case that folk were starting to ask. So here it is. My first historical fiction darling.
In 1756, Enlightenment ideas sweep across Europe, and the Spanish Inquisition struggles to remain relevant. There are fewer prosecutions, but those that do occur are conducted as ‘a terror and example to others.’ Antonio Albrono, a man from a noble Genoan family, lands in Spain on a mission to recover a century-old family debt. But he is naive to the politics of the country, the enemies he may create, and what might happen if he offends the wrong people.
No surprise then, that Antonio fails and loses everything – including (he believes) Luisa, the woman he loves. Out of options, the self-named 'Lord of Lost Causes' enlists as a soldier in the garrison of Valencia. Popular, clever, and respected, when asked by his commanding officer to help uncover a thief, he devises a clever ruse. Too clever. The thief is dealt with leniently, but disaster follows for Antonio when he is reported to the Spanish Inquisition for necromancy, and falls into the hands of a powerful adversary. While Antonio is subjected to imprisonment, interrogations and trial, Luisa assembles an unlikely group of conspirators in a bid to save him - only realising too late that saving Antonio means exposing corruption at the heart of the Inquisition itself.
Quotes from The Accidental Heretic:
Sometimes he thought of life as a board game he’d played as a child: The Game of the Goose. A lucky throw of a die and he’d land on a goose and advance. An unlucky one and he’d meet a hazard, knocking him backwards.
So, if I plead innocent, and am found guilty, so is my lawyer?
A large bug scuttles before me, its hard carapace iridescent, antennae quivering. A scarafaggio. Raising one leg, it begins to clean itself. The creature has no fear of me and it can only be because I am dying. I may as well close my eyes and enjoy it.
Ruthless Luisa. This Antonio must be everything to you, that you fight so dirty.
I never anticipated the physical nature of fear, the way it hammers inside your chest bruising your heart and lungs, and the cold… Dio mio. The cold.
If only we planned as well as we loved.
How had the world become so small that six or seven well-fed men weighed a prank in a cellar against his life?
Get thee behind me, Satan. I will not save a body so you might take a soul.
And there were ledgers, there must have been thousands of pages listing assets seized from ‘heretics’, ‘conversos’, ‘masons’, and ‘sodomites’. Easy to see how the Inquisition made its money, and, looking at the opulent office with its mahogany desk and polished floor, they’d put it to use.
The die rolled and now he flew over rats, insects, a cell. Yet he prayed to be set down, even there, because he knew. Ahead were worse squares.
Had it really been so close all this time? How many times had he glanced that way when they brought him back to his cell? He’d had no idea hell was inside.
I do not want company. Yet they come: Marta, Rafael, Jean-Pierre, Enzo. An endless parade of solicitations and exhortations. Eat, Luisa… Rest, Luisa… Drink, Luisa… Walk, Luisa…
One foot in front of the other. As long as one can manage a step, one can manage the next.