Against Yucé Franco and the other prisoners there was at this stage no charge beyond that—serious enough in itself—of having induced Benito Garcia to re-Judaize. But the disguised friar now pressed him with probing questions, asking him what he had done to get himself arrested.
Yucé—who did not yet know what was the charge—entirely duped, and believing that his visitor was a Rabbi of his own faith, replied that “he had been arrested on account of the mita of a nahar, which had been after the manner of Otohays.”[171]
We have left the Hebrew words untranslated to illustrate the unintelligibility of the phrase to the general.
Mita means “killing,” nahar means “a boy,” whilst Otohays—literally “that man”—is startling because it is identical with the term used in St. Luke (xxiii. 4) and in the Acts of the Apostles (v. 28) to designate Christ.
Yucé begged the false Rabbi Abraham to go to the Chief Rabbi of the Synagogue of Segovia,[172] a man of very considerable importance and influence, and to inform him of this fact, but otherwise to keep the matter very secret.
The Dominican repaired to the inquisitors who had sent him with this very startling piece of information, which was corroborated by the physician, who had remained well within earshot during the entire interview.
By order of the inquisitors Frey Alfonso Enriquez returned to Yucé’s prison a few days later to attempt to elicit from the young Jew further particulars of the matter to which he had alluded. But the lad—probably considerably recovered by now, and therefore more alert—evinced the greatest mistrust of the physician Avila, who was hovering near them, and would not utter another word on the subject.[173]
The matter was of such gravity that we are quite safe in assuming—and we have evidence to warrant the assumption—that it was instantly communicated to Torquemada, who at the time was at his convent of Segovia, practically upon the spot.
We know—as will presently transpire—that it was by order of Torquemada that Yucé Franco and the others came to be in the prison of the Holy Office at Segovia, instead of in that of the extremely active Inquisition of Toledo, within whose jurisdiction the accused dwelt and the crime had been committed. We are unable to give an absolutely authentic reason for this. But we gather that the examination of Ça Franco, or of Ocaña, or perhaps of Benito himself—who had said “more than he knew”—must have yielded disclosures of such a nature that upon learning them the Grand Inquisitor had desired that the trial should be conducted immediately under his own direction.
The Sovereigns, who had been in Andalusia since May of the previous year, about the war upon Granada, now wrote to Torquemada—in July 1490—bidding him join them there.