burrows. Occasionally, they came across ancient walls and the traces of an ancient Roman road, but, as they neared the city, Roman roads appeared more frequently.
They may have known that in the early history of the church, a young girl, St. Eulalia, the celebrated virgin-martyr of Spain, had, by the use of these roads, trudged into Merida eager for martyrdom. During the Diocletian persecutions (c 304 AD), she had presented herself to the judge, Dacian, and had reproached him for attempting to destroy souls by compelling them to renounce what she considered to be the one true God. Dacian at first tried to flatter and bribe her into withdrawing her words and into observing the edicts. He then threatened her, showing her instruments of torture, and saying, “These you shall escape if you will but touch a little salt and incense with the tip of your finger.” Instead of acceding to his wishes, however, she trampled on the cake that was being laid for the sacrifice, and spat on the judge. Thereupon, two executioners tore at her body with iron hooks, and lighted torches were applied to her wounds. The fire caught her hair and she was burned alive. Legend has it that, following her death, her spirit, as a white dove, flew out of her mouth and soared into heaven.
The Robledo party also saw Roman ruins, including an immense circus formerly seating 30,000 people, and an amphitheater of 14,000 seats. They eventually came upon the Milagros Aqueduct, made of stones shaped and finished so skillfully as to require no mortar. Over 1,000 years old, at the time they saw it, it was doubtlessly good for a thousand more.
The Robledos also saw the 81-arched Roman bridge built across two arms of the wide valley of the Guadiana, a river celebrated for its underground course. The bridge, a half-mile long and the longest ever built in Spain, was repaired by the Visigoths in 686 AD. The members of the mule train knew that these structures were very old, and, although they did not identify them as Roman, they marveled at their construction.
On the morning of 14 April 1577, the mule train set off again with, as the Robledo journal states, “the sound of a distant bell carried by the wind.” They were unaccompanied now but on a road heavy with traffic. Along this road, which was little more than a muddy track scattered with rocks, there were relay stages for the royal mail placed approximately two to four leagues apart. By the use of these stages, the riders of the royal mail could cover up to 30 leagues a day. It was by the use of roads such as these that the king’s letters and special dispatches were carried from Madrid to Seville and to the principal towns of the kingdom. The Robledos made use of the corrals, draw wells and stone troughs of these stage stops to refresh their mules on two occasions, but otherwise stayed at various ventas or slept in makeshift shelters which they built for themselves along the road.
As they neared Almendralejo, they came upon a site recently abandoned by a band of gypsies usually called gitanos bravios, meaning wild or nomadic. The gypsies had camped alongside a stream in the valley below the road the mule train traveled. From the top of the trail, the members of the mule train could see a large wooden wash tub and piggin. They were to find these poorly constructed, their staves of white oak loose and rattly. There were, in addition, a number of other items strewn about which suggested that the encampment had been abandoned with some urgency. Although Pedro told his family that they would not have had anything to fear from these people in terms of their lives, he would have recommended that they remain clear of them because the gypsies were known for stealing and might have made off with their property.
“The gypsies,” Pedro told his family, “entered Europe about 150 years ago and at first posed as pilgrims. The tale they told,” Pedro said, “was that they were from ‘Little Egypt’ and were on a seven-year odyssey to pay for the sins of their forefathers who had turned away the Blessed Virgin with the Child Jesus. Now they’ve dropped this pose and call themselves Greek, but they refuse to go home. That, in fact, is the rub. They don’t have a home, nor do they seem to want one. Their language,” he continued, “is not like ours. It’s said to be Indian, although they’ve apparently lived in Hungary for many years. They’re intelligent and incredibly clever. They learn the language of the people among whom they travel so as to enter their homes, their stores, and their markets. I hate to make generalizations about a people for most often there are as many who don’t fit the label as those who do. However, in this instance, the generalizations are largely true. They make their living by telling fortunes and by predicting what will occur in a person’s life, and then, after they’ve lured you with their psychic ‘gifts,’ they steal from you. Women who’ve gone among them—my mother included—have even had pieces of their dresses cut off.
“When they first entered our country,” he continued, mopping his brow with a well-used linen, “they were given offers of safe conduct and were even provided with alms. However, it wasn’t long before they, and the people with whom they ran, were being paid to stay away.2 It’s unfortunate,” he said with a shrug, “for they have skills as smiths, musicians, and soldiers. However, they’re not to be trusted. No,” he repeated, “best to stay clear of them. We may camp here now that they’re gone, but, should they return for their washtub or these other things, we’ll abandon this camp.”
They took the camp the gypsies had deserted and Catalina, who had begun to brighten in her general demeanor, made use of the tub to disinfect the few items of clothing they had found, some of which fit the children. As she worked at her washtub, she assured herself that every fold and seam was thoroughly scrubbed in the boiling water. Looking over their encampment as the sun slowly sank behind the valley’s western wall, she examined the sky and watched a bird circling at great height in the cloudless heavens. There was something about the evening, perhaps the color of the light as it filtered through the pines, that reminded her of home. She thought back to the bathing time they had been forced to keep secret and to a conversation she had had with Pedro.
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It was at their home in Carmena and she had been helping Pedro as he secured their house prior to taking their forbidden baths. How was one to deal with such a concept, that warm baths were illegal? These were not ritual baths or baths of purification such as those that must be taken in the water of a rushing stream. These were only baths which created and intensified a sense of cleanliness and self-respect and the Cortes had decreed them illegal!
Surely, Catalina had insisted to anyone who would listen, that law of 1567 was intended for the Moriscos—the name given to converted Moors—and had nothing to do with them. Some of these followers of Mohammed were still wearing their shapeless pants, turbans, and white linen trappings, were still speaking Arabic, and were probably still Muslims beneath their forced conversions. The Moriscos were calling attention to themselves, she feared, and, like the dreaded gypsies, might not survive until this law, as with most laws in Spain, became a dead letter. In any event, she had insisted, if any Spaniard followed these insane laws, citizens could easily revert to a time when it was illegal to sit on the wall of a house and dangle one’s feet, or to lead an animal to water by chains. Clothes left hanging outside their home might still be confiscated, but no one was going to decree that here behind her own walls she could not give her children a bath!
Pedro and Catalina talked as they completed preparations for the family’s bathtime.
“‘I’m glad she’s gone,” Catalina said, in reference to their housekeeper, Ama. “God help me, Pero there are times when she drives me crazy, absolutely crazy,” she added, displaying the frustration she experienced at dealing with the 12-year-old.
“What’d she do now?” Pedro asked, steeling himself to hear a new absurdity while taking a caldron of water from the wrought iron rod of their stone hearth, the floor of which extended into their firelit room. He held it by its bail, placed it on top of an old hearth stool whose seat had been blackened by similar objects, and replaced it with another as she had continued with her lamentations.
“Oh the things she comes up with!” Catalina had said while wrapping her hair in a turban, her auburn curls revealed at its edge. “The things she tells the children, Pero,”
