From nearby there were mozarabs, Spanish Christians with Arab blood in their cheeks and Arabic words lisping through their prayers. On this Good Friday of April 1137, the cathedral was crowded as usual with pilgrims of a dozen different nations, from sober English to peacock-gaudy Sicilians. That would not be for some hours yet, however, and there were other worshippers to attend to. William, duke of Aquitaine, was showing the right degree of respect by coming to die here, and Saint James intended personally to set his feet on the trail of stars when the man's soul departed his body. He loved lights, did Santiago Matamoros, Saint James the slayer of Moors, and, like most saints and spirits, he appreciated a proper show of respect from the mortals whom he had chosen to honor with his presence. Here at the western end of the world he presided over the land of the dead and the trail of stars where the new-dead souls set out on their journey. All of which Saint James approved, for he was not only a Christian saint but also the Lord of the Far Country.
It was Good Friday, a day of mourning, and the high altar was shrouded in black but there were green branches strewn about the pavement, to remind men that death was only a passage to a fairer world, and there were candles and incense and the twinkle of gold and silver, jeweled reliquaries and gold-plated altar frontals and statues bright with new paint. Saint James of Compostela looked down approvingly on the glitter of candles about his cathedral.
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