Brian Kenneth Swain

Introduction 1492 was such a surpassingly bountiful year in world history that it’s a bit surprising more fictional stories haven’t emerged from the period. In fact the original idea for this novel sprang from the idea that Columbus departing Spain for the New World at precisely the same time and place as Isabella and Ferdinand were expelling the Jews in the midst of the Inquisition seemed positively rife with dramatic opportunity. Consider some of the events taking place at this time around the world: January 2 — Spain recaptures Granada from the Moors January 23 — “Pentateuch” (Jewish holy book) 1st printed March 31 — Queen Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon ...

Spent best part of past few days reading in Homza and Kedourie anthologies (raw docs and essays respectively) with much good new material found re. the inquisition.  I have already begun working original source docs into the manuscript, including testimony from interrogations, verdicts, etc. Much more of this sort of thing as I proceed. Once we get into the Columbus bit of the story, the same will occur except using his log entries, correspondence with the queen, etc.  All is properly sourced, though I don’t know the exact rules concerning use of lengthy quotes from other essays and source docs, especially when the docs are >500 years old. Still drafting Chapter 1, the interrogation of Lope Triana, Rodrigo’s uncle and a ...

scio enim ego quoniam propter me tempestas grandis haec super vos Iona Propheta I.12: I. John Bascomb took to the open seas As dawn awoke on an April morn’. And in his parlous mind was formed The germ of a powerful disease. Our triple-master crossed the mouth Of St. Francis Bay, as morning mist Embraced the crew in a farewell kiss, The gaff rigs swelled, and pulled us south. No man aboard could say for sure What made him sign with Bascomb’s crew. But every soul among us knew That fortune called from distant shores. For Bascomb told a proper tale Of a land that’d never had a name, Where the only thing ‘tween us and fame Was our will and the breeze in a canvas sail. It mattered not how oft’ we heard Of that land where rivers ...

Being the good industrious New England boy that I was, raised in the Puritan tradition of all-work-and-no-play-makes-one-a-Mainer, I began work—actual compensated work—at the age of eight. That would have made it 1965 or thereabouts, a couple of years after the tragic events of Dallas, and still in the early stages of what President Johnson was rapturously referring to as his New Society, a utopian age in which no one would want for anything nor be asked to do much to get it. There was only one problem with this incipient euphoria, at least as it related to my life. Johnson hadn’t spent much time in Maine, his only visit so far as I am aware, having taken him through the little borough of Topsham, which fact is marked to this very ...

I received a new reference a couple of days ago that ought to be quite helpful – The Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1614: An Anthology of Sources, edited by Lu Ann Homza.  It contains many original documents (though the elusive papal bull appointing Torquemada as Inquisitor General continues to evade my efforts).  Most interestingly, there are transcripts here of actual confessions, interrogations, etc., which I ought to be able to employ to great effect in supporting the veracity of the fictional accounts.  I have, as well, drafted a brief introduction to the novel, though I mean to do more with this, likely when the text is concluded.  What has already become particularly satisfying about this project is that it appears all of the ...

There is no such thing, nor should there be, as American “exceptionalism,” i.e. we are no better than anyone else on earth in any way, shape or fashion. And while we have a system of government that works reasonably well for us, that does not mean that it is “the right” system or that we should have as our mission imposing that system on others, particularly if they demonstrably do not want it. It is extraordinarily hypocritical to espouse democracy but to then fail to accept the wishes of those who exercise that privilege, simply because we don’t like who they elected. All capital punishment is wrong, without exception. Those who support and implement it are as morally ...

There would seem to be something inherent, perhaps even genetic, about the need to face in the direction in which one is traveling, i.e. forward. Some of us have occasion, once in a great while, to travel while facing in another direction, and having done it a bit myself, I find it not only unsatisfying, but actually borderline unnerving, in that same hard-to-explain-to-someone-else-without-sounding-like-a-lunatic way that walking up or down a broken escalator is unnerving. It’s as if there are certain mobility-related patterns that get more or less permanently implanted in our minds at a young age, which when countermanded later in life, lead to all sorts of discomfort. I don’t know why this is. I don’t even know why or if it is ...

I cannot say what put me of a mind to delve into this particular topic, fraught as it is with emotion and history. Suffice it to say that the subject matter has troubled me for ages and I feel the need to get something down on paper, if only to concentrate my thoughts and bring a bit more focus to how I feel about it. I accept as well that precisely the opposite may be the result and that I may come away even more hazy and uncertain than when I began—a risk I am prepared to take. I should state at the outset as well that it is not my objective to change anyone’s mind with this treatise, nor is it in any event a likely outcome, since the topic is one so firmly entrenched in each individual’s psyche, either positively or otherwise. It ...

At last, some actual writing. Just two pages, but the story is off and running. We begin with Miguel de Morillo (one of the original two inquisitors in Seville, appointed 1480, “questioning” Rodrigo’s uncle, a local craftsman and suspected converso organizer. The goal in the opening sections is to establish a tone of general terror throughout Seville, and introduce several main characters, notably Rodrigo (14 at this time), Morillo, and Torquemada, our main inquisitors. The uncle will survive this initial treatment, but will be damaged for life as a result, a fact that will become important later when we revisit him in 1492. ...

Spent eternity searching on-line for full text version of exigit sinceras devotionis affectus, Pope Sixtus’ edict authorizing the appointment of Torquemada as Inquisitor General for all of Spain. There is some inconsistency in the literature as to whether Torq’s appointment was the Pope’s or Isabella’s and Ferdinand’s, but this distinction is minutia and not critical to my narrative. In any event I would like to locate the original bull, if only to use portions of it in the story. I located as well a new source book that looks excellent – it is now ordered on Amazon (thank goodness they had it). It’s full of original documents and trial transcripts from the period. I added more details to the flow ...