(Avila, Spain 1498)           

            Back in Avila emotions and fear were building. The Church was expanding its search from Seville out into more cities, villages, and rural provinces to stamp out this newly claimed war on heretics. These unfortunates were most numerously former Jews and Moslems who had falsely claimed to be converts of Christianity—the only lawful religion in the land. But they also included a growing number of women accused of having some clandestine dealings with the devil. 

            From Segovia, early in in 1483, a Prior of the local monastery by the name of Thomas de Torquemada had been appointed by the Crown and Church to be the new "inquisitor-general" of Castile. His chief job was to make the Inquisition more effective, and through more fear, brutality, investigations, and torture, to bring confessions and repentance from those who had strayed from the path of the Catholic faith. Bold individuals who held true to their errant convictions—who refused to repent for their waywardness were publically being burned at the stake in ever increasing numbers over the years. Entire families, called "Maranos" were being investigated for their secret adherence to Jewish worship, as were "Moroscos"—those Moors who kept to their Islamic religious ideas iin spite of claiming conversions. Both faiths, only years earlier, had been made illegal in the turbulent Iberian Peninsula, and there was a ruthless attempt to continue to "purify" the Spanish provinces of all belief systems but the Catholic Church. This was being carried out steadily by a cruel campaign of religious persecution and cleansing, to be known forever as the Spanish Inquisition.

            Tragically, the newest class of undesirable heretics to join them was female. These were invariably women whose peculiar behaviors, coupled with isolation, could bring suspicion upon them of being cavorters with Satan, and hence agents of his work. In short, these were the witches, or "brujas." Any woman young or old who was active in treating their communities with remedies or cures harvested from nature were looked upon with accusations by the masses. By simply using ancient practices of healing not in line with Church doctrine, was seen by the Inquisitors as suspect behavior—being in collaboration with the "dark one," who moves silently and destructively into peoples' lives and souls.

            At a recent "auto-de-fé" in Avila that year, before the gothic Cathedral del Salvador de Ávila, thousands turned out to see the spectacle of seventy-nine accused heretics being marched into the plaza amid a torch-lit procession. The victims of this tribunal wore the customary black hoods over their shaved heads. Many of them walked with difficulties, as their confessions were brought about—often falsely, by severe torture and or deprivation. Women as well as men stood and waited their being called forward to announce their admissions of guilt and hear their sentencing before an entertained public. As the accused dramatically took off their hoods and faced their accusers from the Church—standing before pious souls who whistled and mocked them, severe sentences were dealt out, including years in prison or abusive terms of labor. Those who insisted on their innocence or refused to accept contrition for their sins against this austere institution were kept for the finale of the evening. That is where they were tied to a post and burned alive.

            These were the very worries of Beatriz Ferrara as she tried to sleep in the little cabin on the outskirts of Torres that day. For this hellacious scene back in Avila was certain to be her own fate, were the "witch hunters" who had set out from that city to find her, to bring her back to trial. It was certain to be a victory for the Church if the celebrated "Bruja of Avila," which she had been so cruelly labeled, was brought back to her ancestral home in chains. 

            But laying in bed most of that day, following the evening with the hunter Diego, Beatriz tried to focus her mind away from her persistent fears which had griped her these months. Her fantasies centered more on this new and wonderful gift from the forest which had come to her in the form of the young man. Looking over her past life and the remarkable series of occurrences which she had been at the center of since a young girl, Beatriz could not help but think that perhaps she had even conjured up  his appearance as an imaginary form to diminish her torments. Perhaps she had at least directed the path of the young man to her aid  through her gift of  beneficium--benevolent sorcery. That she had actually intervened in her own suffering through her own powerful abilities was credible to Beatriz. Might it have come in the form of this handsome and kind young man, new to a village of which all of the residents she despised?

For it was Diego whom she had just kissed that early morning and with whom she so enjoyed his warm conversation and long innocent gazes into her eyes. Lying in her back bedroom, sealed off from the world, Beatriz felt the pulsations and warm waves her body tried to reminded her of as she fantasized about the hunter soon returning to her there in the darkness—something he had promised to her he would do.

            Knowing that it might be many days and nights before this savior to her thoughts and passions would come back, Beatriz tried to arrange in her mind some plan as to how she could actually pass the time or take the bold step of seeking him out in the town. For it was indeed there where he had told her he and his sister Manuela had only recently located.

            These welcomed thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the neighing of a horse in the distance. When Beatriz got to her feet and tightly secured the door and shutters of the cabin, she waited to hear if this horse would sound more distant or near as the minutes passed. To her dismay she heard a second horse, and this time even closer. Peeking out of a small space between the slats of her bedroom shutter, she could see two riders come into view. They were dressed officially in black with the characteristic wide brimmed hats and doublets of officers of the Crown of Castile. She knew who they were and why they were there. From the sight of hoof-prints around her cabin they had come before, fortunately when she was out in the town, disguised as an old woman. 

For these were the investigators she had seen the signs of when she returned one evening. She had also seen men's boot-prints around the door and at each of the locked shuttered window. They had fortunately not broken in to the cabin, but from the looks of these signs, they had spent considerable time waiting for her return. It seemed they had done a thorough investigation of the premises, to ascertain if  the little forest house had any evidence of being lived in. But this had been several weeks before and Beatriz now hoped they were convinced through her careful and minimal occupation, that they would not suspect anyone to be there in the former Senora Las Casas' residence. They apparently had not been so convinced and were back for a second, more comprehensive check.

            Beatriz closed and locked the interior door to her small bedroom, then waited for their approach. She heard them dismount and the sound of their tired and hungry horses scraping at the ground for water and food. The men walked slowly around the perimeter of the house, pausing at each shuttered window to check it. She heard them suddenly bang loudly on the front door and wait for a response inside. Louder knocking was followed by a moderate effort to push it open, as they eventually did with each heavy shutter.

            Beatriz held her breath, as the men began to discuss their theories and options. One of them, who sounded old and seasoned as an inquisitor, said he could smell cooked food inside the house. The other laughed and told him he was just hungry and imagining things. Both men seemed a little frightened of the area and the house itself as one actually referred to the cabin as possessed by Satan. Other comments were made in reference to the earlier fact that the Senora "Vieja" was taken away and tried in Seville as a "bruja."

            It was then that the young woman from Avila heard the words she did no want to hear. The men spoke of returning to the town where their superior inquisitor was staying at the Inn. They pledged that they would get permission from him to return to the cabin the following day before darkness. They wanted to break into the house to investigate if someone had been, or was presently, staying inside. She heard them additionally discuss that the townsfolk had seen an elderly woman in a headscarf leaving the town with supplies a few times, and then head out into the forest which was obviously her on these occasions. She knew then that her disguise was no longer useful and would only identify her were these "witch hunters" to wait and look for her there.

            As the men walked back to their horses, their voices fading into the distance, Beatriz knew she would have to leave the cabin for good.  She also knew she could not return to the town of Torres—either as herself or as the old woman again. She could feel her capture was near at hand should she stay in the senora's cabin,  and no later than the next day.  As she heard the sound of the horses' hooves gallop away, Beatriz thought sadly of the small chance she would ever have now of seeing Diego again. Though her body and feelings told her to stay and wait for the young man's return—to realize the fantasy she had now longed for, her escape to further freedom was the more prudent choice. 

            All that day the mysterious senora from Avila thought about the hunter who had appeared to her and brightened her hopes of a more pleasurable life. And this she did as she donned her black clothing, packed her meager belongings and set out through the dense forest in a direction sadly opposite to the hunter's new village. She was uncertain where the direction would lead her, but knew somehow she would only be thrust into newer events to overcome. The persistence of her loneliness—and with it the hope of new company one day, and its ever possible charms of lust and love, guided her over the dusky hills like a lantern in the dark.

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