OLD COURT
LIFE IN SPAIN

BY
FRANCES ELLIOT
AUTHOR OF “OLD COURT LIFE IN FRANCE,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED
———
VOLUME II.
———
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS IN PHOTOGRAVURE

ILLUSTRATIONS OTHER THAN PHOTOGRAVURE

Old Court Life in Spain

CHAPTER I
Fiesta of the Corpus Domini

HE time is early summer; the sky an unbroken sphere of blue, as deep and smooth as a turquoise, canopying the blanched domes and pinnacles of the cathedral and illuminating with ineffable splendour the elegant galleries of the Giralda tower. No shade anywhere, on plaza, patio, or river bank; nothing but a blazing sun, making golden motes; the thinly leaved palms scarcely leaving a reflection on the hot earth.

It is the Fiesta of the Corpus Domini. The whole city of Seville is astir, the procession is passing, Don Pedro following bareheaded, attended by Don Juan de Mañara, Ferran de Castro, Don Garcia Padilla, and many others, under a gorgeous canopy, and so delicately fair and flaxen-haired does he look, he is more like a young saint than a king.

Behind him walk the archbishop wearing a jewelled mitre, and the chapter in rich copes and robes, followed by the knights of the military orders of Santiago and Calatrava, the cross upon their breasts, armed cap-à-pie, with nodding plumes, each knight with his flag and cognisance borne by page and esquire; a magnificent procession, set off by the sombre background of monks, penitents, choristers, and chanting canons intoning the offices of the Church.

Now all who have seen a religious procession in Spain will understand the splendour of it. The mediæval magnificence of the robes, wrought in plaques of solid gold and incrusted with priceless jewels, the brilliant glow of sacred banners, the sheen of the steel caps and armour; and above all the amazing glitter of the gigantic dolls (or pasos), larger than life, dressed in the most gorgeous robes, representing the Saviour, the Virgin, and saints and martyrs. To the sound of trumpets, drums, and cymbals they advance in a blaze of tapers and torches, carried on platforms of wood, through the narrow streets, over which silken awnings are drawn from house to house, every soul present, from the king down to the last of los pobres, prostrate on the stones.

The Virgin first, diamond-crowned, of gigantic height, with deep-set glassy eyes, one big hand ablaze with rings, raised in benediction; San Fernando, habited in steel, his helmet raised to display his glistening visage, his royal mantle sewn with the emblem of the Nodo of Castile and Leon; the local saints, Justina and Rufina, who, refusing to worship the Phœnician idol Salambo in her temple in Triana, suffered martyrdom; San Tomas and San Lazarus, and the imaginary Santiago, as a heavenly knight, Protector of Spain, clad in the white mantle of his order, a broadsword by his side, and a glory round his casque, carrying the baton of command.

From the balconies and the miradores float damask draperies, striped Moorish stuffs, and wreaths of feathers and flowers; fans wave incessantly in the heavy air, and long black mantillas fall over eyes lustrous under meshes of coal black hair—to the wild ringing of every bell in the city, led by the boom of the Giralda, and petards exploding as of a city taken by assault.

As the procession passes the stone balcony of the Palacio del Ayuntamiento, Don Pedro’s mistress, Maria de Padilla, flashes forth, a dark vision of beauty, crowned with a regal circlet as though she were a queen, by her side her little son Alonso, dark-eyed as she is herself.

Such a sight causes the archbishop to tremble lest a speedy judgment should follow on himself. Yet, spite of the chanting and the prayer, the sacred pasos with their hard unearthly eyes reflecting, as it were, the horror expressed by the archbishop, Don Pedro at once arrests the procession, and with a gracious gesture signs to Maria to descend and take her place beside him. And so godless is he in the eyes of all men, he would insist, but for the confusion which ensues by the sudden stopping of such a crowd and the screaming and cries of those who were pressed together,—when, in the confusion, the glove which he carries in his hand, worked with the arms of Castile, drops on the ground.

Don Juan de Mañara, who is nearest to Don Pedro, rushes to pick it up, but is forestalled by one of the chapter, a stalwart young priest, by name Don Jaime de Colminares. As he is in the very act, on bended knee, of returning the glove, a youth all aflame with passion rushes forth and stabs him in the breast.

A gleam, a cry, a quiver, and all is over. Not a voice is raised, not a hand stirs. Even the archbishop is mute in presence of the king, but his pallid face and the terrified glances of the chapter say more than words.

Not so Don Pedro, who stamps his foot with wrath as he faces the assassin, the least moved among them all.

“Who are you?” asks the king, his voice trembling with rage, “who dare to assume my prerogative of life and death?”

“My name, my lord, is Emanuel Perez,” is the prompt answer as he meets Don Pedro’s furious glance with honest eyes.

“Why have you killed this man?” demands the king, maddened at his coolness, his hand on the hilt of a wrought dagger at his waist, while the archbishop and the chapter draw round to listen.

“My lord,” answers Emanuel, falling on his knees, for the majesty of the king has subdued him, “I had my reasons. Ask me not to speak evil of dignitaries,” and he gazes round at the rampart of glaring eyes.

“Speak,” answers the king; “the dead is silent, the living man must tell the tale. Speak, or tortures shall make you. Were it even myself you had to accuse, I command you, speak. The crime is public, so shall be the punishment. I live before my people.”

Cries of “Castila! Castila!” come from the excited crowd. Caps are flung in the air and loud vivas! come from the beggars and ruffians of the street.

Behind Don Pedro rises the Moorish arch of the Puerta del Perdon, a sheet of delicate carving, white as snow, framing his figure as in a picture. Above rises the cathedral, a gigantic pile of richly carved cornices and tier above tier of carved parapets and domes, the walls ornamented with innumerable niched figures, bosses, roses, and stars. On one side of the street lies the murdered priest in his sacerdotal robes, the painted dolls on the other, the stately form of the archbishop between, his hands folded, his eyes cast down in prayer, the affrighted chapter gathering about him in purple robes, and behind the populace eagerly pressing round the king.

Then Emanuel speaks: “Sire, my father is a zapatero (shoemaker); I follow the same trade. We are poor but honest, no one reviles us. My lord, I had a sister,” as the word passes his lips he quivers all over, and looking down on the canon’s blood, which has made for itself a little runnel among the stones, he savagely stamps on it, while at the word “sister” a cynical smile passes over the king’s lips and the majesty of his attitude relaxes.

“She was hermosa,” continues Emanuel, not noticing the change, “muy hermosa. Every one looked at her. She went to confession in the cathedral at the altar near the image of Santo Cristoforo, twice, three times—we could not think why she went so often—then she disappeared. We sought her everywhere, in the market, the stalls, the exchange, by the river, in the narrow alleys, and at the gates. No one had seen her. After some days her body was found in a deep ditch near the river. Then we knew the truth, and who had dealt with her. Of the foul deed and who had done it we spoke. Three days after, my father’s body was brought to us, stabbed to the heart. Then, upon the wounds of Christ, I swore an oath to kill the beast who wore the robe of God to defile it, and I have kept my word.”

In the tumult of his soul, Emanuel forgot the presence of the king, the crowd, the occasion, all but his passion of vengeance.

“And if the crime was so public,” asks the king, whose attention has deepened as he proceeded, “and your father talked so loud that he was stabbed for it, what punishment did the archbishop and the chapter impose on the canon?”

“His punishment!” cries Emanuel. “Ha! that is just it. His punishment! Por Dios!”—and such a volley of words comes he can scarcely articulate—“The chapter! Yes, the chapter held a court in the sacristy with closed doors, the villains! and condemned him not to say Mass for one year!!”

“Then,” cries Don Pedro, in his harsh voice and a bitter smile on his face, for the young man’s courage pleases him, and his honest eyes, “I condemn you, Emanuel el zapatero, to pass one year without making shoes.”

A loud shout of applause rises from the pobres. Those near the steps of the cathedral repeat it to others farther off, the people in the streets shout it to those at the windows, and these to the crowds pressed on the terrace-roofs, so that the king’s justice is known to all.

“Yes, my lord archbishop,” speaks the king, resuming in a moment all the dignity of the sovereign, as he turns to where he stood carrying in his hand the pastoral staff, a wonder of ancient workmanship—“yes, my lord archbishop, and most venerable chapter, from whose ranks so notable a light has been extinguished, I have spoken, I am El Rey Justiciar. Rich or poor, prince or beggar are the same to me. As to you, Emanuel,” turning to the young man, “I believe you are worthy of better things. From this day I name you a soldier, and attach you among the Alguazils who guard my person. Be as faithful for my honour as you have been for your own and you shall soon be promoted to a command.”

CHAPTER II
Don Pedro—Maria de Padilla—Albuquerque

N the upper story of the Alcazar is Don Pedro’s retiring room, overlooking the central Patio de las Doncellas below, the soft echo of ever-bubbling fountains and runnels mingling with the songs of birds hidden among the luxuriant foliage of palms and fragrant plants.

But little in keeping with the harmony without is the carved door by which the apartment is entered, still hung with the heads of four unjust judges placed there by the king as a warning to evil-doers. It is a small and secluded room, cut off from the state apartments of the upper story, appropriated to the use of Doña Maria del Padilla, panelled with cedar, broken by coats of arms in red, blue, and gold shields, portraits of kings of Castile and Moorish caliphs, emblems and badges, gilt “castles” and rampant “lions”; the ceiling rich in carved rafters, dividing into deep compartments, ornamented with bosses and lozenges in the same bright hues, by which the effect of the dark wood is greatly heightened; sconces for candles and circles for torches also on the walls, showing that it is the habit of the king to use the room by night as well as day. Little sun enters, and what does penetrate comes from lofty casements darkened by panes of painted glass, reflecting in turn on the deeply tinted azulejo tiles of the floor, always so noticeable a detail in Moorish chambers.

In a dark corner a secret stair descends to the caliph’s bedroom on the ground floor, an arrangement suited to the erratic habits of Don Pedro, who constantly comes and goes at all hours of the day and night and can thus enter without being observed.

He is seated on a high-backed chair with his back to the light, a mere youth in appearance—his stormy life ended before he was thirty—in which one seeks in vain for the murderous epithet of El Cruel. But as his face turns towards the light, the fair locks about his shoulders darken into a dull red and the blue eyes assume a strangely sinister expression. Opposite to him stands his great minister, Albuquerque. During two troubled reigns he has guided the helm of state through troubled periods of rebellion, Moorish wars, and conspiracies. At the death of King Alfonso he skilfully maintained Mary of Portugal—his first protectress—as regent for her son; a difficult task, for as long as he lived Alfonso treated his mistress, Eleanor de Guzman, as a queen.

Astute and ready-witted Albuquerque has long understood the inherent cruelty of the young king, as well as his obstinacy. He fostered his boyish fancy for his kinswoman, Maria de Padilla, the better to rule him, until it ripened into such an overwhelming passion that his own influence was undermined. With good cause he curses the day he brought her to Seville, especially since she has borne the king a son, and her enmity to him has grown into an open attack upon his authority. Now, with the knowledge of the queen mother, he has come with a proposition calculated greatly to curb if not to end her power.

Albuquerque is barely past the prime of life, but his thin, deeply lined face gives him a look of age. His black Spanish eyes are turned full on his master. Too cunning to betray the intense anxiety he feels, only a slight flush on his cheek tells of his emotion. Well he knows the perverse disposition of the royal youth before him, and that the very fact of a too great insistency will only rouse him to violent opposition, especially on a subject touching him so nearly as that which he has come to discuss. Still he feels that what he has to say is of such paramount importance to the state that, spite of himself, the tones of his voice deepen and his manner acquires a solemn earnestness.

“A disputed succession, my lord,” he urges, watching the effect of his bold words; “Maria de Padilla’s children conspiring in every corner of the kingdom, as do now the bastards of your father, Enrique de Trastamare, and his brothers Don Fadique and Don Telmo. Have they not read us a lesson in rebellion? God alone knows what an arduous task was mine to prevent his naming his favourite, Don Enrique, to the succession, and shutting you, my lord, up in a monastery for life. Is Castile again to endure the same evil from which I have freed it? Invoke not Nemesis again, my Lord. You have suffered enough from the same cause to know its bitterness. Think what blood has flowed from that infatuation of your father’s, and the death of Doña Eleanor still to be avenged by the great house of Guzman.”

But here Albuquerque is arrested by such a sudden glance of fury from the king, he wisely desists.

“Maria is my kinswoman,” he continues in another tone, skilfully changing his line of attack. “I brought her to Seville.”

Don Pedro listens in haughty silence. Dark passions gather on his brow as the well-chosen words fall from the lips of the great minister. At the mention of his children by Maria de Padilla he gives an indignant start and seems about to interrupt his smoothly flowing periods. But carried, spite of himself, by the weight of his arguments, he withholds himself; and, with darkly glancing eyes, silently assents, especially as the name of Enrique passes Albuquerque’s lips.

The concluding sentence as to the disinterestedness of Albuquerque in regard to Maria de Padilla he treats with evident contempt. It is clear that

sort of pretence does not touch him, for he well knows that it was Maria’s determination to throw off her kinsman, not consideration of the good of Castile, which led him to urge any measure which would weaken her influence.

“Keep to the matter in hand,” he says sternly. “I understand you press on me a royal marriage for reasons of State; you need not diverge from that point. It is an act repugnant to me. Why not open war and an alliance with England and the Black Prince?” he continues, passing his hands slowly through the meshes of his long fair hair. “I know the serpent’s trail is over Castile. I have crushed the mother and those with her, but the rest of the brood I could not reach.”

“But you did well, my lord,” answers Albuquerque with a dark smile. “A couple of Infantes more or less, ha! ha! Who cares whether they live or die but their mother, and she was dead? To wring their necks and send them spotless to paradise was a worthy deed. Would that their brothers lay as low as they.”

“Do not give me all the credit,” breaks in the king, mollified by this applause. “If ever minister acted for himself it was you. Who chose the guards? Who bribed the captain-general? Who? But let it lie. We will not quarrel over the spoil like low accomplices. The deed was done, and well done;” and with a discordant laugh he joins in the ghastly jest with a voice that freezes the blood by its merciless cruelty.

“Yes, my lord,” replies Albuquerque, “it is so. You will do well to rid Castile of the other traitor too. For if Don Enrique de Trastamare dies suddenly, or is killed” (here the astute minister pauses as if weighing in his mind by what means the happy consummation of his death could be accomplished), “there is his brother, the young Grand Master Fadique, who would at once take his place, backed by the knighthood of Santiago and Calatrava, and be upheld by all your enemies. It is the same blood, my lord, the same ambition then as now. ‘The throne! the throne!’ is the war-cry of the bastards, and France is ever ready to fan the flame.”

“True,” answers Don Pedro, “I am surrounded by foes. If I am a devil, they have made me so. From my birth, my life has been endangered by their machinations, I and my mother also. Fadique is the best. He has a soft face and winning ways. He says he hates his brother. He may be a traitor,” he continues, rising from his chair and pacing up and down the room with the uneasy step of a beast of prey. “What matter? I use him as a tool; though,” and he suddenly stops and falls into a muse, “there was a time, when my father was alive—we were boys then, playing in these gardens together—that he did somewhat win my heart, and I showed it. I was a fool then. But now, let us fight it out.” Then resuming his restless pacing up and down: “Can I trust Fadique?” he mutters.

“Tush!” cries Albuquerque, moved out of his calmness by this unusual sensibility; “he will stab you first and then succeed you. The treachery of the race, their greed of power, is patent everywhere. The people speak of it in the wine shops, the beggars make songs and sing them in the streets, and the soldiers——”

“No, by God! Not my soldiers!” cries Pedro, quickly arresting him. “I will not believe it. Not my soldiers! They are true! Fadique may or may not be false, what matter? I tell you” (impatiently) “I use him as a ‘tool.’ ”

“My Lord,” replies Albuquerque, lifting his deep-set eyes upon his master, “although young, I perceive you are already skilled in kingcraft. Nothing answers like diversion. You have dealt wisely in setting up one brother against the other. In making Fadique Grand Master of Santiago the jealous spleen of Don Enrique is fed and nourished. He has no position in Castile. But about that prophecy, my lord,” continues Albuquerque—seeking to return to the important matter on which his mind is set, which Don Pedro is obviously seeking to avoid—“of which I spoke to your Grace. Do you intend to verify it by the lack of rightful heirs? Pardon me, my lord, I speak in the interest of Castile. As far as your Highness’s pleasure is concerned, I have shown that I grudge not my own kinswoman Maria.” At her name the king turns paler than was his wont and reseats himself. “Were I ambitious, I might scheme for a crown on her head and on her son’s. But I appeal to your Highness if I have not ever preferred your honour to my own? But reasons of State and the unsettled condition of the kingdom demand not only that you espouse a great princess, but that her hand should bring a strong alliance.”

“And the princess is called?” asks Don Pedro, with a sarcastic smile. “Doubtless her name is ready.”

“Yes, my lord, the Lady Blanche, daughter of the Duke of Bourbon, and niece of the most Christian King of France. Repute says she is comely, and her great youth and motherless condition under a warlike father promises her submissive. What says your Highness?”

“And in my turn I desire to ask you a question, Albuquerque,” replies Don Pedro, who sits in deep thought as sentence after sentence falls from the great minister. “When do you intend afterwards to return to Seville?”

“I, to Seville, my lord? I do not catch your Grace’s meaning. Whenever the service of your Highness permits me.”

“I would advise you,” replies the young king, sardonically, “for your safety, to delay it as long as possible. If you affiance me to the Lady Blanche, you will find a warm welcome from Maria at your return. What her revenge may hatch, you best know. I warn you. You are a bold man, Albuquerque. Better face a lioness robbed of her whelps than an outraged woman.”

The grave Albuquerque laughs outright. “A woman’s fury is a small matter, your Highness, and court report says that you yourself hold it cheap. The welfare of my master is what I regard. If your Highness holds the obstacles as light as I do, we will have the espousals at the Alcazar, and Maria shall hold the new queen’s robe.”

“No, no, never!” cries Don Pedro, stung into real feeling by the remembrance of her he loved and the insult to be put on her. “If this is done at all, it must be distant and secret. She shall be spared the knowledge until all is over. I would rather lead a dozen campaigns against the French and Du Guesclin into the bargain in open field, than lend my hand to this matter. I a wife—a queen—a consort—what am I to do with her? Will she replace that other who nestles in my breast?” and a look of love comes into his eyes which softens them into real beauty. No one can tell what that hard face can express until that one chord is struck to which his whole being vibrates.

“The princess will bring France in her hand and peace in your councils. Your Highness is not bound to separate from——”

“Yes, yes, I understand; but would Maria’s proud heart accept it? ‘Peace in my councils and strife at my board!’ I cannot undertake it. An older man might do it, but, Albuquerque, I am young, and though men call me El Cruel, I am also El Justiciar. Now that is not justice. She has borne me children. She is like no other woman—I love her.”

“Leave my kinswoman to me, sire; only consent and I will answer for her. But, my lord, forgive me if I say that if you thus half-hearted enter into this scheme, you will bring more calamity on Castile, more war and misery than we have now to battle with. Women, my liege, are but cheap in your eyes as yet. But any wrong done to a royal princess such as the Lady Blanche, any insult, any dishonour”—the king looks up sharply—“would bring on us the whole power of France. Your Highness knows it,” he adds deprecatingly, watching the king’s grave face. “If done, it must be well done, or let alone.”

“And who says no?” answers the inscrutable young sovereign. “Who says that I shall not become, under the Lily of France, the most adoring of husbands; a very Hercules to his Omphale? Methinks the scene rises before me in the patio below—the daughter of France and I seated under the palms, Nubian slaves waving feather fans over us, lest any fly or insect touch her soft cheek, while your kinswoman Maria”—(here the king gives a discordant laugh)—“watches behind a screen, subdued and gentle.”

Albuquerque frowned. To this, then, had come all his wise reasonings, his statecraft, his far-seeing policy; a jest, worse than a jest, a scoff in the mouth of that sardonic youth whose service he held. Well he knew him, and that once in that mocking mood no more was to be done with him.

Raising his eyes to the cynical young face which faced him, a low laugh still on his lips, somewhat of the contempt he felt looked out, spite of himself, and Don Pedro marked it and for a moment yielded to the influence of his powerful mind.

“Albuquerque, I will consider your reasons and give you my decision,” he says, with a natural majesty of manner he knows well how to assume. “Until then, let this matter rest. As soon as I can ride I shall order my further progress towards Burgos. There we will hold a council as to the threatened rising of Enrique de Trastamare. He has many followers at Toledo and will endeavour to take the city and garrison. But my friends the Jews, headed by Samuel Levi, will take care of my interests.”

The haughty bearing of the young king strangely jarred upon the feelings of Albuquerque.

After all, the discussion of the marriage might be called (seeing his relationship to Maria de Padilla) almost a personal question, and that he had been and was acting magnanimously in the matter he felt to his heart’s core. The ill-concealed contempt of the king wounded and offended him as it had never done before. He reddened under the mocking glance of Don Pedro, his eyes half in jest, half in anger, fixed on him as if reading the embarrassment of his thoughts.

At length, with a silent dignity no ridicule could reach, he slowly gathered up his papers, and bowing low craved leave to depart. “God preserve your Highness,” were his words. “You need not to be told I hold your commands absolute, but, sire, as your servant, I once more crave you to remember the prophecy of which I spoke—‘To be stabbed and succeeded by his brother.’ The Gitano died for these traitorous words against your Grace, but still dying he persisted in repeating them.”

“An excellent joke, a capital pleasantry! Adieu, good Albuquerque, God have you in His holy keeping till we next meet and you bring me some new command,” are the king’s laughing words, to all appearance as light-hearted as a bird.

And as Albuquerque disappears under the shadow of the Moorish arches beyond the door, he laughs still louder.

“That parting shaft of his about the prophecy was not so bad,” he mutters. “All the same, I wonder if it will come true. A man can but die once, and that his worst enemy should kill him is but natural and just. Still, most noble bastard, Don Enrique, we will have a tussle for it ere it comes to that, and if the Lady Blanche strengthens my arm, why then, por Dios, we will marry her!”

How Albuquerque’s project prospered will now appear; the present upshot being that it was secretly arranged between the king and himself to despatch his half-brother, the Infante Fadique, “the Grand Master” as he was called, to Narbonne to ask the hand in marriage of the Lady Blanche, niece of the King of France.

A mission which prospered marvellously, seeing that within a month Don Fadique acted as his brother’s proxy at their solemn espousals in the Gothic Cathedral of St. Just, the darkly painted figures of saints and angels in the flamboyant windows of the choir casting down mystic shadows on the form of a pale young girl in the very bud of youth, kneeling at the altar beside a royal youth with the sweetest and softest eyes, his elegant figure set off by the magnificent robes of the Grand Master of Santiago, so stiff with gold embroidery and jewels, on mantle and justaucorps, that they stood up of themselves.

CHAPTER III
Blanche de Bourbon

HE Princess Blanche de Bourbon, sister to the Queen of France, wife of Charles V., lived in the old fortress of Narbonne, beside the sea, in those romantic days when ladies’ robes were sewn with fleur-de-lis and heraldic devices, dragons, and coats of arms—wore pointed shoes, long chains from the waist, and high coifs and head draperies incredible in our eyes.

She was young, only fifteen, small and delicate in stature, with a tender, beseeching look, as seeking for fondness and protection from those around her. By nature she was little fitted to command or to dazzle, but rather to creep into the heart of manly affection and nestle there.

The very name of the King of Castile gave her the horrors, and when called into the presence of her father and told she was to marry him, she lay three days on her bed without speaking. Imagine her feelings when she took courage to look at his proxy, of all his brothers the most like the king!

But Don Fadique was altogether cast in a slighter mould, fitted rather for a lady’s bower than the stern ranks of the battle-field. His address was soft and gentle, and no amount of provocation could call up on his features any resemblance to that tempest-torn expression that so often disfigured the countenance of Don Pedro. It is true that at the time of his mother’s death, when certain suspicious circumstances pointed to foul play, he had joined in the rebellion of his brother, Enrique, but he had rallied afterwards to the king, and was the only one of his family who gave him a loyal allegiance. As the nearest relation of Don Pedro, he was selected by Albuquerque as proxy for the king.

In such haste was the great minister to avail himself of the half-promise of marriage he had obtained—hastened by the ravages of the Free companies of France in the north—that he immediately despatched Don Fadique with a splendid retinue, without ever reflecting upon his personal fitness for the mission; fitness indeed as a consort, but not as a proxy, for he was specially created to please a lady’s eye. His large brown eyes had the sweetest expression, and there was a womanly softness about him, united to the manly bearing of a knight, that suited exactly his half-military, half-religious position as Grand Master of the order of Santiago.

Of all created beings Blanche was the simplest and the best; unselfish, trusting, relying on the faith of others, utterly inexperienced and easily impressed by kindness, of which she had not known much.

Her mother died at her birth. Her brothers were always away at the court, in Touraine, or in the camp. Her women and her friend, Claire de Coucy, were her only companions, so that when the brilliant cortège of knights and nobles arrived at Narbonne, and Don Fadique, Grand Master of Santiago, most becomingly attired in the splendid robes of his order, a great jewelled cross on his breast, and a heavy chain of gems sparkling around his neck, advanced to kiss her hand, so happy was she in the respite from the dreaded Don Pedro, so frankly affectionate in her sisterly confidence, that the very charm of her innocence became a fatal snare to him.

Not that Don Fadique nourished any thought of treason towards his brother’s bride. No plan or project of supplanting him had entered his brain when selected by Albuquerque as nearest of blood to the king. He had neither foreseen nor imagined the danger in which he was placed by reason of the manifold charms of the Lady Blanche, and that he would be more than man to resist them.

Alas for the fair-haired Grand Master! Hour by hour he yielded. Did she love him? was the question that rang through his brain day and night. On the answer his life depended. But how could he ask? Honour, loyalty, chivalry forbade. Yet the time must come when he would

have to know. Could he see this innocent creature delivered over a prey to his licentious brother without one word of warning? Without one devoted friend to shield her from the deadly intrigues of a court wholly under the spell of Maria de Padilla?

And that warning. What did it mean? Love to himself? Great Heaven! And if she did not love him in return? The doubt brought agony. A woman would have been more easily deciphered, but this royal girl was all simplicity and guilelessness. When her little hand rested in his as, attired with all the pomp of the Queen of Castile, and blazing with the rich jewels sent by Don Pedro, he, with a wildly beating heart, led her to the nuptial supper, it lay as trustingly in his as though he had been her brother.

Poor young Grand Master! How was he to know if that young heart fluttered alone for him, or if those pulses beat to the music of another voice?

A thousand good resolutions were formed when Blanche was absent. But they were all scattered to the winds when her soft eyes rested on his, with that appealing look that was so touching. After all, he meant no harm, only he must know whether she loved him or not. Life was intolerable without; and as the putting of this question grew more and more difficult as time wore on, he left Narbonne without asking it.

Now Blanche is at Valladolid, in the Gothic palace, with its dark patio and big angular casements, which still jut out over the street just as they did then.

She is expecting the king, who is to arrive that very night. Need I say that she is quite beside herself with terror? Resistance is vain; as well might the helpless lamb resist the butcher’s knife.

The dreadful hour has come when she is to be eaten up by the royal ogre, and she can only lie and sob in the quaint painted chamber prepared for her. Claire de Coucy, quite unconscious of what is really breaking Blanche’s little heart (for she has kept her own counsel in all but hatred of Don Pedro), is busying herself about her, with many entreaties not to make herself look a fright. Even if she does hate the king, is there not Don Fadique, and all those other splendid Sevillianos, specially Don Juan de Mañara, whose fame has reached Narbonne, as the boldest lover in Spain?

“Surely it is not so hard to be a queen, and live in sunny Seville, in the beautiful Alcazar!” says Claire, turning over the marriage ring all the time, an uncut emerald of priceless value, which Blanche has flung on the floor and, unlike her gentle self, stamped on.

There lie the marriage gifts. The jewelled diadem and sceptre, as Queen of Castile; the Oriental combs and bracelets, cut in antique silver, the collar of sapphire, the solid links of sequins, the rare Tunisian lace and Algerine embroideries, jewelled fans, and veils of rarest lace of such delicate texture, no one had ever seen the like before. All sent in perfumed chests of sandalwood, covered with royal crowns.

To Claire, who is just out of a convent, and has never seen a marriage or a bride, it does occur that Blanche is strangely still and sad; but she supposes it is the proper thing, and that Blanche knows best, so she goes on turning over the marriage gifts with little exclamations of delight, as each fresh object seems to her more lovely than the last.

But when, all in a moment, as Claire is winding round her waist a light Moorish scarf, worked in a perfect kaleidoscope of silken thread and pearls, Blanche (unable any longer to keep silent) staggers up and falls upon her neck, sobbing as if her heart would break, it is the most astonishing event her small experience has ever conceived.

Much more, when Blanche, putting her rosy lips to Claire’s shell-like ear, whispers in a voice choked with tears: “I love him, I love him! I cannot go to Don Pedro. I know he will kill me. I hate him. I won’t go! Be kind to me, Claire, and help me, for I love him!”—her astonishment turns into terror, for she thinks Blanche is gone quite mad.

“Love whom?” she gasps, feeling cold all over, and letting the scarf drop to support the quivering form of Blanche.

“Who? Why, Don Fadique to be sure,” she answers, blushing all over. “Why—you must be blind, Claire, not to see it—at Narbonne. Who else could it be?”

And Blanche’s fair head, covered with small child-like curls, drops upon Claire’s friendly neck and buries itself there, as she clings to her tighter and tighter.

“Oh, Blanche!” was all Claire could say, being too utterly staggered to remonstrate. “Don Fadique! Why, he is your husband’s brother? Oh, Blanche, do you mean what you say?”

“Yes, I do,” falters out Blanche, in an almost inaudible voice “I love him, oh, I love him!”

The very uttering of these words gave her courage. The secret had passed her lips. The spell of silence was broken.

“Don Fadique!” exclaims Claire. “Why, he must be the greatest traitor in the world.”

“He does not know it!” returns Blanche, reddening to the roots of her hair. “He does not guess it. He is an angel.” As she speaks, a quick, warm light comes into her eyes, a soft flame rises on her cheeks, kindling up her whole face with an inexpressible glow. Even her slender figure seems to gather strength and height. “No! no! you must say nothing against him! He is perfect.”

Claire, who was very pious, and just out of a convent, where the nuns had taught her all men were dangerous and to be avoided, actually recoiled. That a wife should love her lord and receive presents from him and letters was admissible, even among the nuns—but another man!

Her pretty hands dropped from Blanche’s waist, and for some moments she could not speak.

“What!” she exclaims at last. “Holy Mary, what a horror!” at which the poor little queen takes courage to reply:

“A husband, Claire, why you seem to forget I have never seen him. How can I love a man I do not know? I have seen Don Fadique. That makes a great difference. If Don Pedro is what they say, and strangles women, I do not see how I can ever love him. So I told my father. I did say that, Claire. I suffered very much. You know it, you cruel girl. I was brought here against my will. I shall die when I see the king, I shall die,” she repeats shuddering. “Besides, why did he send Don Fadique to marry me in his name? If I had never seen him, I could not love him.”

A sweet pout came over her childish face as she gazed into Claire’s eyes, confident that these arguments must convince her.

But Claire only shook her head, and continued to stand aloof. The teaching of the nuns still held her. Was it not better that Blanche should die and be buried, sooner than not love her husband? Yet the gentle little queen had used a mighty weapon in talking of her death. Death was so awful, so far away from the fresh rosy life of Claire, that with the charming inconsistency of youth, Claire, impetuous and ardent in all things, in a moment forgetting all about the nuns, flung her arms round Blanche’s neck.

“Dear, dear princess,” was all she could utter, “don’t talk of death. I know it is very wrong, but I love you too well to chide you. Promise me that you will not speak to Don Fadique any more. Say an Ave when he comes near you, and make the sign of the Cross when you feel his eyes. Remember, whether you like it or not, you are Don Pedro’s wife. No! no! don’t push me away. It is true. Great princesses and queens must learn to command themselves more than other folk. My father said so, before I left Navarre, and that I was not to follow what you did, because you were of royal blood.”

Then Blanche and Claire, fully reconciled, sat down side by side to talk under the shadow of the Gothic casement, which lit up the room; the freckled colour of the painted glass falling upon them in patches of glowing light, as the trees outside swayed to and fro; Claire going on about her duty to her husband and to her new country. She was quite eloquent, and repeated all the fine things which had been taught her out of history. Not only Aves and crossings, but fasting and penance were suggested by the ingenious Claire, as helps against temptation, until poor Blanche, quite stupefied, took up a lute which lay upon the seat and hummed a French love song; and Claire, remembering there was a string of pearls loose in the wedding robe in which Blanche was to appear before the king, kissed her and went out.

CHAPTER IV
Don Fadique’s Declaration of Love

HILE Blanche sat all alone, the arras gently lifted and Don Fadique stood before her. Not gay and triumphant as she had seen him at Narbonne, but pale and grave and habited in a grey justaucorps with a simple hood—more in the guise of a penitent than a gay young knight.

“My princess,” and he kissed her hand, carefully looking round to assure himself that they were alone, “I am come to ask you a last favour before the king arrives. Already his presence is signalled on the outskirts of the city.”

At that dreaded name, Blanche, whose soft face had broken into the sunniest of smiles as Don Fadique entered, trembled and sank back against the wall. At that one word, “the king,” the soft glamour her imagination had conjured up, vanished. She was the bride of the cruel tyrant all men hated. He was at hand to claim her. She burst into tears.

“Sweet Blanche,” and Don Fadique’s eyes melted at her distress, as taking her tenderly by the hand, upon which he impressed another fervent kiss, he knelt on the floor before her, “be comforted, and listen to me. The time is come when we must part. For a moment, it seemed to me a dream of heavenly bliss, and that, standing in my brother’s place, I could claim you for ever. But now I am less than nothing in your eyes. Tell me, oh, tell me,” and a sigh broke from him, so deep, his very soul seemed poured out in it, “tell me quickly, for our time is short. You will not quite hate me?”

Some wild words were on Blanche’s lips, but remembering the expostulations of Claire she checked them, blushed hotly over brow and neck, hesitated, and said nothing.

“Your pity is all I dare ask,” he continues, drawing nearer and leaning over her, as she shrinks away among a pile of embroidered cushions, anxiously turning her eyes towards the drapery behind which Claire had disappeared. “Of all men I am the most wretched. There is one whom I love more than anything on earth, and I am nothing to her. If it were not so——”

He broke off abruptly, but there is something so bitter and hopeless in his tone that, spite of an involuntary pang of jealousy, Blanche’s eyes turned on him full of sympathy.

“I am so sorry,” she replies, simply. “I think all the world should care to please you. But”—the jealous feeling is growing spite of herself—“if any one——”

At this moment Don Fadique stooped and grasped her arm with such a wild look that she stopped. “If,” lowering his voice, “if this lady,” and he paused to touch her hand, “loved me—could love me at all; if I could hold her for an instant as mine own—though the whole kingdom of Spain were between us——”

Blanche’s gaze has grown dreamy. This was love then. Simple as she was she understood it. Oh! Claire, Claire. If he felt so, what would she think of her, and her face paled and her lips quivered.

“Do I know the lady?” she asks, then pauses to steady her voice, while Fadique gazes down at her with a swift searching glance, terrified by one word to shatter the rapturous conviction which her trouble gave him.

“Yes, you know her well,” is all he says, and he seizes her hand and covers it with kisses. “Do you love me?”

No word comes to her blanched lips, but she bows her head and softly answers to the pressure of his fingers. On the imprisoned hand is the diamond ring of her espousal. It would gleam out, though she tries not to see it. Oh! where was Claire? What would she say to her? Alone with Don Fadique, she feels all her good resolves melting.

For nearly a minute Blanche let Fadique hold her hand. There was no sound below in the patio to distract them, only the chiming of the great bells of San Pablo close by across the square, the beautiful flamboyant portal reared against the sky.

Blanche lay quite still while Fadique covered her little hand with kisses, even the lace ruffles she wore at her wrist he kissed.

A moment before no words could express how she dreaded the king, but with her hand in his, listening to his muttered words of love, the earth seemed to melt away, and she was suddenly transported to some unknown paradise, full of infinite felicity.

She knew she was doing wrong and that Claire would bitterly reproach her—perhaps go away in disgust and leave her.

But for all that she could not help it; and after all, what was a crown, or Claire, or Castile, or France, or the most Christian king, her kinsman, or her father, compared to the lover with angelic eyes kneeling before her?

It might be that they never should be alone again, and that she might not be allowed to speak to him, for Don Pedro was, they told her, a devil of jealousy—that she could readily believe—and that he possessed every vice human nature can compass. If this was indeed the last time, would it not be too cruel to be cold to Fadique in this one hour when his heart spoke to hers?

Blanche was but a child, cause and effect were unknown to her; but love, first love, that blessed light direct from heaven, had transformed her

whole being, and from a simple, tranquil-hearted girl, content to pass her days joyously as the birds do, without thought, she had become a sensitive, anxious woman, trembling beneath that terrible prescience that comes with the first lesson of life; and when Fadique, after a long silence, asked her again: “Are you sure you love me? Say it once more, Blanche, and that you will never love another man,” in a low voice she answered earnestly: “Yes, I love you. I did not know what love was, until you came to Narbonne,” and then, unable to bear the strain upon her, she hid her pale face on his shoulder. “What will Don Pedro do to me?” she cried, trembling all over with a sudden revulsion. “What will he say to me? I feel so treacherous and wicked, and yet it is not my fault.”

“No,” answers Fadique, pressing her slight form to his and still holding her imprisoned hand. “It is the fault of those who forced you into such a marriage. That is the sin; but remember, my own Blanche, though silent, I am ever near you at the Court. One heart at least bleeds for you.”

“I am sure I hear footsteps!” cries Blanche, starting back and standing upright listening—“What will Claire say? Am I indeed such a sinner?”

“Claire? By Santiago! what has she to do with us? Claire? Ah! do not look at me so, Blanche, or you will break my heart.”

“Oh, that mine was broken too, and I were dead!” she sobs.

“Then let us die together,” replies Don Fadique.

They are standing hand in hand, backed by the high Gothic casement. The fretted frame, filled with devices, crowns, and coats of arms, casts a pale reflex on them. The sun is setting behind the castellated towers of San Pablo, opposite, and soft fragrant shadows gather in the chamber. Both in their hearts are longing that this moment may last for ever.

Deeper and deeper the shadows fell, engulfing the two young figures in its gloom, save where a shaft of vivid light fell upon them like a sword, the point turned towards them.

“My love,” murmurs Don Fadique, passionately, “do you hear me?”

As Blanche moved in response, a sudden light was in her eyes that had never been there before—a Moorish scarf Claire had placed around her fell from her waist.

“This shall be my talisman,” cries Don Fadique, stooping to pick it up, “the token of your love, and my safeguard in battle. You will not refuse me?”

“Oh! hide it, hide it,” whispers Blanche under her breath. “Claire may come in and miss it.”

Then there was a dead silence which neither of them broke.

Suddenly, with a crash like thunder, the clatter of horses’ feet rises up from the patio; the clang of armed men is in the air, the roll of cumbrous equipages, and the shrill voice of drums and clarions. Now a single horseman rides in and challenges the guard. Then there is the sound of marching of many feet and the far-off blare of trumpets.

Blanche rose to her feet, speechless with terror. Was the king already there? Where could Claire be?

Then comes the echo of many steps in the antechamber, and Claire rushes in through the arras as Don Fadique disappears by a door on the other side.

Following Claire appears a tall and stately jefe, holding a white wand of office, with many crosses and decorations on his breast, and a high plumed hat in his hand, which he doffs, bowing low.

“Madam, the Queen,” says he, in a sonorous voice, again inclining himself to the ground, “it is my duty to apprise your Majesty that the king is now passing the drawbridge outside the city. A royal page bears his greeting to your Grace.”

“Claire, oh, Claire!” sighs Blanche, casting herself into her arms. “Oh! why did you leave me?”

CHAPTER V
Marriage at Valladolid

HE ancient city of Valladolid lies on low ground and is watered by the Pisuerga, a broad river for this waterless land.

Although so far in the north, Valladolid was at this time considered the official capital of Castile, and therefore it was there that Blanche had come to meet her much dreaded bridegroom.

A more uninviting city does not exist in Spain, as we see it now, and although it suffered cruelly from the invasion of the French in the Peninsular War, uninteresting it must always have been. No charm leads one’s thoughts lovingly to Valladolid. The cathedral is hideous. Only the front of San Pablo and the Collegiata de San Gregorio, a magnificent gift of Cardinal Ximenes, dwell in the mind.

Of course, with the exception of San Pablo, these buildings were erected centuries after Don Pedro’s reign, and one asks oneself what Valladolid could have been then?

There are no environs. The river flows through flat banks with no timber except long lines of thin poplars, the poorest of all trees, and beyond, the eye wanders over endless plains towards Burgos and Salamanca to the borders of Portugal.

But now, forgetting the present aspect of the city, we must go back to the 3d of June, 1375, the day on which Don Pedro was to arrive to meet the new queen, espoused in his name by his brother, the Grand Master of Santiago, to be kept as a great festival, for which thousands had assembled from all parts of the kingdom. For indeed, in those days of perpetual warfare, a fiesta was well esteemed, as they were very rare, especially in the north, inhabited by a more serious and impassioned race of hardy men than the lighthearted southerners of Andalusia.

Now this occasion had been seized as a gift from heaven, especially as it was to take the form of a tournament, in which the Infante Don Fadique was to take part, as well as the Infante of Aragon, and Don Juan de Mañara, known in all ages as “Don Juan,” the favourite of the king, gambler, reveller, and seducer, and that graceful but treacherous knight, Don Garcia de Padilla, brother of Maria, both being in attendance on the king. The queen-mother, Doña Maria of Portugal, had also journeyed from Seville to welcome the young queen, and Albuquerque followed her, full of alarm for the result of the alliance he had brought about.

Much had been heard of the strange qualities of the young king, about whom men’s minds were divided. Such mysterious crimes were attributed to him, such unheard-of brutalities, that it was generally supposed he acted under the influence of magic spells, wrought on him by his mistress, Maria de Padilla, held by the populace as a witch accursed by God and man.

Those who had not seen him, and they were many, and the women especially, who had heard harrowing tales of his misdeeds, crowded into Valladolid, where, accommodation not being easily obtained except for the rich, the season being summer, had built themselves huts of branches along the river, and camped out there, as near as possible to the green vega where the tournament was to be held.

And a wonderful sight it is, and almost beautiful to behold, under a heaven one sheet of unbroken blue, golden lights resting on the gaudy colours within the enclosed space, carpeted with grass; lofty gateways, making the four entrances, adorned with coloured tiles in blue and gold; tents of variegated rich stuffs, luxuriously fitted up for the convenience of each knight about to take part in the tilt; galleries hung with brocade and cloth of gold; turreted towers in silk striped black and yellow, from which hang banners; fountains furnished with bowls of silver to refresh the knights, over which court pages keep guard; stands for the musicians, covered balconies for the ladies, where the sparkle of dark eyes and rounded arms peep out of delicate draperies; and in the centre, the gaudiest of all, the royal pavilion, “as high as three lances,” blazing with cloth of gold, trimmed with feathers and flowers, the flag of Castile and Leon floating overhead, beside the emblazoned Nodo of Castile, and the French lilies impanelled on the same shield—the interior protected from the sun by tinted awnings, under which rise three crimson thrones, for the king, queen, and queen-mother, “Matrique” to the bride, and all around the soft whispering of leaves, the cooing of doves and pigeons, brought, Moorish fashion, in cages, and the splash of abundant waters.

The time fixed for the tournament was at the setting of the sun, but from the earliest dawn the populace had crowded into every available space, and been entertained with seguidillas and zambras danced by bronzed gitanas to the clink of castanets, and there were races of tame elephants with silken howdahs, jumpers and tossers of ball, and Moorish jugglers whose tricks were wonderful and set all the peasants agape with joy.

It was known that the king’s brother, the Grand Master, would break a lance, and it was thought that the young king himself would run at the ring in honour of his bride. But this was said only by those who did not know, for in the first place Don Pedro, a young warrior full of conceit and constantly risking his life in battles, disdained all these courtly pageants; and in the second place, he had arrived at Valladolid in so bad a temper that his attendants feared to approach him.

Never was a royal bridegroom so ill-disposed for mirth as Don Pedro when, habited in a royal mantle draped over a crimson surcoat trimmed with fur, and wearing a helmet encircled by a crown, panached with snowy feathers, he took his seat on his throne in the centre of the pavilion, Albuquerque, his padrino or god-father, behind him, to the cry of “Castilla! Santiago! Santiago! Viva el Rey Justiciar!”

Beside him, on a less elevated seat, sat his mother, Queen Maria.

As the bride-queen, white as her name, and trembling in every limb, advances to place herself on a chair of state on his right hand, the king—who now sees her for the first time, having purposely delayed his entrance into Valladolid until the last possible moment—rises to salute her; when, at the aspect of terror depicted on her face, in evident wrath he suddenly turns to address Albuquerque, pointing contemptuously to the poor princess who sinks back into the arms of Claire.

“Sangre de Dio! Signor Conte,” mutters the king, loud enough to be heard, “a pretty consort you have chosen. I am not wont to be considered an ogre in ladies’ eyes, but doubtless the Lady Blanche, spite of her baby-face, has met some damoisel at her father’s court whose remembrance turns me to a monster in her eyes. By my Patron Saint (if I have one), before the day is over I will assure myself who is the cuckoo who has soiled my nest.”

“My lord, these are most unworthy suspicions,” returns Albuquerque, with that calm dignity of manner before which the king’s petulant humour so often yields. But not so now. Surrounded by those who have fostered his evil passions, he knows that his every look and movement will be duly reported by her brother, Don Garcia, to Maria de Padilla.

From this moment to the end of the pageant he hardly addresses himself to Blanche or turns towards her, but with an angry scowl, his steely eyes wander unceasingly over the crowd of brilliant knights who, singly or together, gallop past the royal estrado to salute him and the queen.

Spite of herself, Blanche, revived by the strong essences Claire used to restore her, begins to be attracted by the brilliant show. She is the chief figure in this mimic war; the noblest dames of Castile are there to do her homage; the queen-mother comforting her with gentle words, and when Claire, who stands behind her chair, whispers into her ear, “Do you see him, there under the flag-staff in the centre? He wears a long white mantle over his armour, and your scarf upon his arm. Oh! is he not charming?” a mist passes before her eyes, the tell-tale colour mounts to her cheeks, and forgetting Don Pedro and all her fears past, present, and to come, she leans forward, a wild look in her eyes, towards the spot where Don Fadique has reined up his charger, to head the knights of Santiago preparing to salute the king and the new queen. This passed in an instant, but not before Don Pedro had noted it, and his naturally pallid face grows white with rage.

“Madam,” says he, addressing Blanche for the first time, who, at the sound of his harsh voice, starts back aghast, “it seems that the favour you deny me, you accord to my brother. Happy youth! Doubtless he will know how to profit by it.”

Utterly unable to reply, Blanche shrank back, as if about to faint, but terror so far gave her strength that she found voice to reply that at Narbonne it was her duty towards his Grace to receive his brother well.

“I doubt it not, madam,” answers Don Pedro with a bitter sneer. “Yes, at Narbonne you made good use of your time, doubtless. I was a cursed fool to send him there,” he mutters. Then, turning his back upon her, he addresses himself to Don Juan, the big tears streaming slowly down poor Blanche’s cheeks.

Alas! alas! This insult seems the last drop in her cup of misery. Poor little queen! her heart is bursting, and nothing but her horror of the king, whose cold eyes follow her wherever she turns, prevents her sobs from being heard by all the court.

At this moment, amid the blare of trumpets, the roll of drums and clash of cymbals, the chimes of all the bells of the city clashing, and the frantic shouts of the mob, pressing forward at every point where they can find standing room along the barriers, a gallant company of knights, attended by their esquires, galloped into the centre of the field in a general mêlée; the Knight of the Dragon, Don Juan de Cerda—who, could he have foreseen the future, would then and there have forfeited his fealty to a recreant king; the Knight of the White Rose, Don Diego de Guzman; the unknown knight, his turban protected by chains of finest steel interwoven with the folds of dazzling white, and white his tunic and mantle, on his left arm a shield, in his right hand a slender lance, mounted on a raven-black charger, and attended by two slaves in Moorish dress, black from casque to toe, his visor down—said to be the Moorish king of Granada, Ben Hade, come in disguise, to break a lance with the Christians; the two Medinas, Celi and Sidonia, a tribe of Aguilars, every man of the name a hero in the track of war, the de Cuevas, Cipuntes, Cabras, Perez del Pulgar, and the great southern noble, Ponce de Leon, arrived from the plains of Xeres, where he ruled more powerful than the king; the judges of the lists, stranger knights, marshals, swordsmen, bowmen; pages, gorgeous in silk and samite, heralds in gold and embroidered tabards; and last, and chiefest, in splendid armour, the Lord of the Tournament, the Grand Master de Santiago, attended by the knights of his order in the absence of the king.

Small of stature, but light and elegant, his heavy accoutrements can not conceal the grace of every movement, or the mastery with which he manages his horse, a fiery chestnut, curveting and prancing, as he takes his place in the centre of the lists amid cries of “Plaza! Plaza por los Infante! Santiago! Santiago!”

Conscious that Blanche’s eyes are upon him, and knowing nothing of what has just passed between her and Don Pedro, and that her poor little heart is melting in fear, he takes advantage of every opportunity to place himself before the royal pavilion, thirsting for one look of her sweet eyes, a gesture, a sign, to feel the assurance of her love; but he looks in vain.

Many tilts are run. The stranger knight unhorses several riders. When called on by the herald to raise his visor he courteously declines, rides three times round the field, displaying his colours, the Moorish cognisance of yellow on a black ground, then vanishes through the open gates, his black slaves after him. Many sharp blows are then exchanged and wounds inflicted in this mimic warfare, to the delight of the king, who rises to his feet loudly laughing and clapping his hands as the vanquished knights are carried from the field.

Then, to the cries of Dios y España, four cavaliers ride forth, with violet surcoats over their coats of mail, and run a Moorish tilt with reeds instead of lances, an elegant pastime of Granada worthy of the courtly Moslems with whom Don Pedro is so much in league, while stringed instruments strike up a joyful measure, and castanets are played by the gitanos who dance a seguidilla before the king.

Many of the great nobles, offended at the insolent bearing of Don Pedro, have not, as yet, taken their lances out of rest, but have only ridden round at the opening of the lists, at which great wonder is expressed among the spectators, and much discontent amid their followers.

Now, all are in honour bound to break a lance, in the Grande Mêlée, with Don Fadique, who takes his place in the centre of the field. Whether it is out of courtesy to his youth and royal rank, or that, by a kind of miracle, his lady-love being present, his arm is strengthened to do wonders in her eyes, many a famous noble has the worst of it, at which wild cries are again heard of “Santiago! Viva el Gran Maestro! Viva el Infante!”

A grand procession ends the tournament, around the golden pole set up in the centre, from which depends a laurel crown woven with pearls, which, according to the rules, ought to be presented to the victor by the young queen. But Don Pedro, in savage mood (for the success of his brother has deeply angered him), has willed it otherwise.

With his large eyes fixed in a disdainful stare he gives no heed to the tilting, and scarcely responds to the salutations of the noble knights who gather under the pavilion.

When Don Fadique stations himself in front to salute him and the two queens, Don Pedro—who at that moment is talking eagerly with the Lord of Monteney, from time to time turning towards Albuquerque, as if to inform him of some important fact—turns and fixes his eyes upon him with such a glare of rage that Don Fadique never advances at all to claim the guerdon he was to receive, and retreats to his tent, the king at the same time suddenly rising, and signalling to the gaudy herald, displaying his particoloured costume in the last rays of the sunset which light up the west, to the delight of the townsfolk, to approach.

Like all the world the herald dreads the king, and comes riding as fast as his horse can carry him.

“Vain knave!” says Don Pedro surveying his brilliant garb, “can you find nothing better with which to fill your time, than serving as a popinjay to the people? Break up the lists. I have had enough of it; and see you do it quickly.”

And now, slowly, as the day falls, along the river bank under the shade of the poplar avenues, passes the procession, winding into the deep and narrow streets of Burgos.

Before the cathedral, public tables are spread with highly flavoured viands such as Spaniards love, to be washed down by strong Xeres wine served out of great earthen jars, so big it seems as if thousands could be satisfied.

Don Pedro would have ridden alone into the city, but for the remonstrances of Albuquerque and of his mother, who, with tears implored him not to rouse the suspicions of his subjects by such a disregard of royal custom as to allow his bride to return alone.

Thus while all the citizens wait beside the tables (none caring to fall to until the king’s return) a flourish of clarions and trumpets suddenly announces his presence, preceded by a troop of men-at-arms in the low cap and close-setting jerkin of that warlike time. Don Pedro himself mounted on a coal-black war-horse, the jewelled reins held by two great nobles, the Lord of Bertrayo and the Sevillian Don Enrique de la Cerda, husband of Doña Maria de Coronel.

Beside him, but somewhat in the rear, rides the queen, her bridal veil enveloping her like a shroud, and it is well so, for her ashen cheeks and sunken eyes would tell a tale of suffering no words could express.

Following after her comes the queen-mother, mounted on a white mule shod with gold, her eyes cast down, and with a visage full of sorrow.

As the young queen passes, the word goes round that she is an unwilling bride. “And no wonder, poor soul,” answers a richer burgher, who has pushed himself forward and looks into her white face, “if she knows the sort of husband she is espousing. He kills all who come to him.”

“An ill-omened couple,” whispers a fat countrywoman into his ear. “Look at the king, he never turns his eyes on the poor young thing, but rides straight on, and so fast her horse cannot keep pace with him. Why does he marry her? It is plain to see he hates her. I wonder how the young queen will like his harem? They say he lives like a Moor, and keeps a whole bevy of slaves shut up in the castle of Carmona.”

“Poor soul, I would not be in her shoes, and have to face his mistress, Maria de Padilla,” says another woman; “and after all, why should the king flout her if he likes a pretty face?”

“Belike some one has cast a spell on him,” observes a little man in a black capa and mantle, the city medico.

“Aye,” is the reply, “a jealous woman has overlooked her.”

And so it came to be understood among the crowd that the king had been bewitched and never would care for his girl queen.

“God grant he may not murder her,” are the last words of the fat countrywoman as they all move on to where the tables are spread.

The king meanwhile is hurrying in the most unseemly fashion, indifferent to the discomfort he causes to those behind, especially to the Lady Blanche, who with her two royal rein-holders, the Grand Master Don Fadique and the Infante of Aragon, not daring to look up, is now separated from him, which greatly mars the effect of the pageant.

The knights, having changed their armour while Queen Blanche was in her retiring room, reappear in fanciful suits of many-coloured silk and brocade, their helmets replaced by graceful caps, ornamented with gems and pearls, in readiness for the nuptial banquet.

Don Juan de Mañara is most conspicuously attired in the excess of the mode, of no great beauty, but with so bold an eye, it is said of him he fears neither the living nor the dead. In all his wildest excesses Don Juan is the king’s companion, but never for murder, injustice, or spoil. No wantonness is too great for him where women are concerned, and woe to the wife or maid who takes his fancy.

No one can rival Don Juan in the jewels he wears except the southern lord, Ponce de Leon, whose robe of pale silver tissue is covered with uncut stones, and his head encircled by a wreath of orient pearls taken from a Moorish emir whom he has slain.

Don Enrique de la Cerda, the king’s favourite before Don Juan, but so much better than he that the people of Seville call him jeeringly El Santo, is attired in a dark velvet suit quite at variance with his usual magnificence. It is rumoured that he is out of favour on account of his beautiful wife, Doña Maria de Coronel, upon whom the king has cast eyes of love, a distinction which, contrary to fealty and allegiance as understood in those times, Cerda has not appreciated, and has not only shut her up in his castle of Cerda, but is inclined to listen to the overtures of Enrique of Trastamare and forsake the king altogether.

The board blazes with flowers, Moresque porcelain, and glittering plate; precious candelabras of sculptured silver shed a soft light, and jewelled vases and golden cups give it back in intensest colours, as the king and queen enter to the sound of trumpets and take their place in the centre, beside them the royal princes and the Infante of Aragon, the ministers of state, and such ambassadors and envoys as have been invited to the tournament.

Wonderful to relate, Blanche is wreathed in smiles. This is Claire’s doing. She has contrived to convey to her a message from the Grand Master, promising an interview for the morrow, when the king rides to Segovia. As the brother of the king, Don Fadique sits at her side. For an instant their hands meet, and such a thrill of pleasure shoots through her little heart as gives her courage to face every mishap. Child as she is, she clings to happiness. The future is an unveiled mystery. Why despair?

From Don Fadique her eyes wander to Don Pedro, placed on her other side. He has the same smooth face as his brother, but sterner and loftier, and a majesty of expression all his own. He is not frowning now, and the change is marvellous. No one could compare the two brothers.

“Who knows,” Blanche begins to ask herself, peeping at him from under her long eyelashes, “if he really is such a monster as report gives out? Can anything be more perfect? His long wavy hair hanging in heavy curls.” At this moment he is leaning over her in conversation with Don Fadique. No shade of displeasure is on his face, as he casts on her such a glance as brings blushes to her cheek. Alas! alas! could she but read the treachery of his heart as he plays with the lace tissue of her robe, and lowers his voice to a soft whisper as he addresses her, she would flee from the hall, the city, and the land.

Little did the light-hearted daughter of Navarre understand the passions, deep down and fierce, of the Spaniards. Not voluble and capricious like the French, but sullen, silent, sinister, hiding all emotion under a mask. This she did not understand, nor that she had mortally offended Don Pedro, who but dissembled his revenge, storing up each word and look she thoughtlessly addressed to Don Fadique.

Poor Blanche!—her bright little head, encircled with the regal diadem—let her enjoy her brief moment of triumph. Little by little her heart is yielding to the fascinations of Don Pedro, the most brilliant cavalier she could have conjured up even in her dreams, and she feels that if he would but take her to his arms, she would tell him all her tale; how every one has frightened her, and that now she is ready to love him for ever and aye. It is all right now, and she feels so happy, she talks incessantly to Don Fadique in the pauses, telling him all she feels, which makes him inexpressibly wretched, and he casts on her the most longing glances, as a precious treasure he has lost, and heaves great sighs as he raises his eyes to her laughing face—at which she is really grieved, trying by all possible means to console him.

Don Pedro looks on with a strange, fixed smile. Now and then he even joins in the conversation with a loud harsh laugh, which, to say the truth, frightens Blanche, but, delighted at the change in his bearing towards herself, she interprets it all as “men’s ways,” and hopes in time to grow accustomed to him. Every one could not be so gentle as the Grand Master, who, after all, was half a priest, so Claire said; and of the two, ignorant Blanche said in her heart, how much more she admired the rough blunt ways of the king.

Once indeed, when talking with Don Fadique, she turned round quickly to address Don Pedro, and met his eyes riveted on her with such a cruel stare, she grew cold all over. And it was strange that when he gave the signal for the company to separate, instead of leading her to the bridal chamber, as she had been told he would, he made her a low bow and retired attended by Don Juan de Mañara and Don Garcia de Padilla.

“I wonder if I have offended him,” she whispers to Claire, who is in waiting behind her chair. “I am afraid something must be wrong. Surely he ought not to have left me on our wedding night? What have I done? In the morning he was wroth without a cause, to-night he is gracious with still less reason.”

“You might have spoken less with the Grand Master,” is Claire’s reply. “I cannot abide Don Pedro,” Claire says, when they have reached the solitude of the queen’s apartment. “I am sure he has some secret chamber where he hangs up those who do not please him, like Blue Beard in his castle. For the sake of your life be on your guard, my queen. You may depend on the Grand Master, but the king is not to be trusted.”

“Oh, dear Claire, I am sure you are mistaken! Now I am as unhappy as ever, just when I thought all was coming right! Why did not the queen-mother come to the banquet? She is kind and gracious. I could have taken courage to consult her. I have no friend but Fadique, and now I am afraid even of him.”

And once again the tell-tale tears gather in her eyes, as she buries herself in Claire’s arms.

“Mind, Claire, we must not meet Fadique to-morrow. It might anger the king. And oh! he is so charming, I would do anything to please him.”

“Who?” asks Claire, leaning down to where the queen’s curly head rests on her arm.

“Why, Don Pedro, of course,” is the answer. “No one can compare to him! Terrible but beautiful! Oh! if he would but love me! Alas! why did he go?” So, murmuring to each other, the queen calls in her tiring women, and prepares for rest.

CHAPTER VI
Cloister, Valladolid.—Castle of Talavera

LL sleep, save that within a most lovely cloister of Gothic arches, over which the clustering branches of many vines tremble in the night air, comes the sound of voices, now near, now far, as the speakers pass and repass from opposite sides along the marble floor, and the echo of a harsh, discordant laugh breaks the silence.

“Por Cristo! I will go!” cries a loud voice, desecrating the fair night by its rough accent, as three muffled figures emerge for a moment into the light, where a lofty portal opens into the centre of the cloister, filled with the graves of monks, who even in death cling to the sacred precincts.

“I will go, and no man shall hinder me! With me shall come my trusty Don Juan and our brother Garcia. Ha! ha! Mañara,” addressing the tallest of the three figures, “you are always ready. How many ladies expect you in Seville at the Calle near the Lonja? See how sober a man is your sovereign. One lady love is all I claim. One, ineffable, divine! Now, I ask in all fairness, and I appeal to you, Mañara, can Albuquerque here (who has limed me like a falcon) reproach me if I fly back to the nest of love, after I have seen the baby-faced traitress he has chosen? Sangre de Dio! The thought of Maria makes me mad.”

His speech was succeeded by a dead silence. Don Juan did not answer. There was a brutal coarseness of expression in the king which, as a knight and a caballero, he disapproved. Not so the third figure, Don Garcia de Padilla, standing a little aloof, as waiting to be addressed, who bowed to the ground, then further retreated into the gloom cast by the shadow of the clustered columns.

Then the grave voice of Albuquerque responds: “My lord, you have no just cause of suspicion against the queen. She is very young, and could be moulded like wax in your hand.”

“That is my affair!” answers the king, whose choleric temper is rising. “As facile as a dancing-girl. Nay, more so, for aught I know—for those devils of gitañas have a code of honour of their own. I have proved her. Even in my presence she could not conceal her love for the cursed bastard. I never wanted a wife; you forced her on me. But such a one as this is not worthy to mate with our jester. We will duly dispose of her, were she a thousand times cousin to the King of France.”

“Beware, my lord, what you do,” interposes Albuquerque, with the unhesitating frankness he alone dared use.

But Don Pedro continues without heeding him: “There is a prophecy about me, you say, of which you think much, ‘I must kill or be killed.’ Excellent reasoning! We will see to it by-and-by. For the present, the Lady Blanche shall spend her honeymoon in the strong castle of Talavera, and the Grand Master may find the air of exile favourable to his health.”

To all this, spoken in a hard, grating voice, with the incessant and uneasy movement which always marked Don Pedro’s bursts of fury, Albuquerque, his arms folded under his mantle, listened in silence.

Whether Don Pedro had expected some violent reproaches and was angered that they did not come, or whether, knowing the madness of what he was about to do, he had laid himself out to combat argument and reason, the effect of enraging him was all the same. He trembled with passion, and struck upon the pavement with his heel.

At length, unfolding his arms, Albuquerque speaks: “My liege, I have guided the councils of your kingdom in the time of your father, called ‘the Wise,’ and in the regency of your mother, called ‘the Good’; I have been your own pilot in many a stormy sea. Now I resign these gracious powers with which you have invested me into your hands, much worthier than mine. But before taking my leave, allow me to remind your Highness that the truce with Aragon is expired; that by divers hostile acts you have angered your old ally, the King of Granada, and that Enrique de Trastamare, with his army, is marching on Toledo, where he has many and powerful partisans. His alliance with His Most Christian Majesty was known to me, and therefore I wrought on your Grace to espouse the Lady Blanche, which would have traversed this scheme, and brought France to your aid; but as——”

“Have you done?” thunders the king, so loud as to send a flight of night birds scudding across the sky.

“No, my lord, I have not done. Behind all this is His Holiness the Pope—long angered by the favour you show Mussulmen and Jews—seeking a cause to place you and Castile under an interdict; the Lady Blanche of Bourbon will serve him well for this. And as to your Castilian subjects, I warn your Highness to proffer no offers of advancement to Cerda, husband of Doña Maria Coronel. To my certain knowledge he is engaged in treasonable practices with Don Enrique; and the lady, my lord—here a cold smile for an instant lit up Albuquerque’s face—will never yield!”

“To hell with them and you,” roars Don Pedro, beside himself with rage. “You too, as report says, hold your papers in the hands of my brother, and will meet other traitors at his camp. Cursed hypocrite and treacherous counsellor, begone from my presence! Tread not Castilian soil again, I warn you.”

“Except as a conqueror,” is the calm reply. “May your Highness raise the glory of Castile as high as my desire, and you will win the world.” And the great minister passed down the dark aisle as tranquil as on a gala day, the shadow of the light vine-trellis clinging to the groined arches striking upon his mantle—the sound of his footsteps growing fainter and fainter, until finally they were lost in the murmurs of the night breeze.

Spite of his passion a spell of silence sat upon the king. The voice of his guardian angel rose within him, and on his lips was the cry, “Return, return, Albuquerque;” but the good impulse promptly vanished, and with a mocking laugh he turned to Don Juan. “Have the horses saddled and the escort ready, I ride at break of day.” Then, striding down the aisle, he disappeared.

Poor Blanche! Her dream is over. She awoke to find Don Pedro gone—Don Fadique fled—and a bench of bishops appointed to consult upon her supposed misdeeds. Proof there was none against her—not even of witchcraft, which was the popular accusation at times when all others failed. But, for all that, the bishops were much too terrified at the king not to pronounce her guilty.

The Duke of Bourbon, her father, and the most Christian king, her brother-in-law, by the mouth of a herald sent to Seville, storm and threaten—but what could be said against the judgment of these holy men?

Both justice and knowledge in those days lay in the Church, and Don Pedro had managed so cunningly, and Maria de Padilla had so carefully spread abroad diabolical accusations, that Blanche was held to be guilty of incest.

If the marriage by proxy common among kings and great princes were not respected as a point of chivalrous honour, by the person selected by the husband to represent him in the sacred rite, no crowned head would be safe. It was usual for a man of mature years to be chosen on such occasions, not a gay young infante like Don Fadique; but, on the other hand, his near relationship to the king was deemed sufficient guarantee for his honour, and knightly honour in those days was much more considered than either virtue or religion.

Thus this accusation against Blanche appealed to the most violent prejudices of the time. She was supposed to have offended against that unwritten code which is the safeguard of kings.

No one cared for details. Degraded into a criminal, laden with contempt, she was sent under a strong escort to the castle of Talavera de la Reina on the Tagus, not far distant from Toledo; and Don Fadique saved his life by flight into Portugal.

Vainly did the queen-mother warn her son of the risk he ran in thus offending a French princess, and endeavour to procure for Blanche some gentler treatment. Don Pedro mocked at her as he had mocked at Albuquerque. He told her plainly that if she importuned him she should follow Blanche into a prison. “There were plenty of castles,” he said, “in Castile for troublesome queens, as there were cords and daggers for traitors!”

Had Claire not been left her, Blanche would have died. Her horror of the king returned greater than ever. “He will kill me! He will kill me!” she kept repeating, “with a Moorish bowstring. His cruel blue eyes pierce me like a knife. Oh! Claire, I wish it were over!”

Then she raved of Navarre and Narbonne. Called on Don Fadique for help, and implored Claire to carry her to the convent, and bury her out of sight.

For two days they rode over the plains, avoiding the steep defiles of the Guadarrama Mountains, expecting death at every halting-place. The faint hope of a rescue haunted the mind of Claire, but she did not speak of it to Blanche. Where were the Grand Master and all the noble knights of Santiago? Surely they would not allow such a crime? But no white-mantled horsemen came galloping over the plain; no flag of knight or esquire fluttered in the grey atmosphere. The same dull lines seemed endless.

At length they descended into the gorges of a deep treeless valley, through which the broad Tagus flows by rocky boundaries, very different from the laughing river which runs by the leafy groves of Aranjuez, and reflects that bright and elegant palace of the Bourbons in its crystal flood.

On a height, to the right, rose the castle of Talavera de la Reina, built of small bricks faced with stone, an irregular fortress of Gothic times.

As the portcullis was raised to admit Queen Blanche, Claire, whose eyes were everywhere, was delighted to observe that it was in a ruinous condition, having lately sustained a siege, and that it appeared slenderly garrisoned for a royal fortress. A wild hope of escape possessed her, especially when the governor, who advanced to hold the queen’s bridle on bended knee, appeared in the person of a gracious young cavalier, wearing on his breast the cross of Santiago.

Even Blanche roused herself to bestow on him a sweet smile, and graciously replied to his words of welcome.

Conducted by him, and followed by serving-men and seneschals, Blanche casting uneasy looks around, mounted the narrow turning stair, which led to the dreary suite of rooms known as “the royal chambers.” At every door stood a man-at-arms, halberd in hand, immovable as a statue.

“It seems I am considered a dangerous prisoner,” she said, turning with a winning smile towards the governor, who walked at her left hand. “What care two poor women require to keep fast locked up! A good watch-dog, such as we have in Narvarre to guard the sheep, would be sufficient.”

“Madam, I grieve in aught to displease your Highness,” is the reply; “but I act under strict command, as the king’s officer. The presence of armed troops near Toledo gives some alarm——”

“Armed troops!” interrupts Claire, arresting Blanche’s progress with her hand; “and who commands them?”

The governor hesitated. Claire’s eyes, a pair of brilliant orbs with glancing Gallic fire, were turned full upon him.

“Oh, tell me, is it the Grand Master of Santiago?” cries Blanche, thinking that Don Fadique might be near. “You are not bidden to imprison our souls.”

“Madam,” answers the young governor, bowing to the ground, “I dare not refuse the command of the Queen of Castile. The armed bands I speak of are the skirmishers of Don Enrique de Trastamare, who is advancing from the north on the city of Toledo. It is said that some French mercenaries are with him.”

“Oh! thank the blessed Virgin for that,” ejaculates poor Blanche, clasping her hands and uttering a silent prayer. “They have thought of me at last. Oh, the dear French; it seems to me I could embrace the roughest of the soldiers! Oh, that I were with them, and had never left that pleasant land! Are they far off? Can I see them pass? Is there no tower or battlement from which I could wave a greeting to them? Oh, say——?”

“Madam,” answers the governor, gravely—Claire finds him extremely sympathetic, with his dark moustache and pointed beard, small aristocratic head, and dark black eyes, capable of saying so many things—“I have already overstepped my duty. Your Grace must be merciful, and press me no further. Believe me, madam, did it depend on me, not only this wish of yours, but all others, would be met even before expressed. I, too, come of French blood. My mother was from Bayonne.”

“Your name?” asks Blanche. “The king is happy in possessing so loyal an officer.”

“Alvarez de Varga,” is the reply. “As a boy, I was reared at Seville, as one of the pages of the queen.”

“What queen?” asks Claire, hastily. “Not——”

“No, madam; my gracious mistress was Mary of Portugal. I was chosen among many as the companion of Don Pedro.”

“Oh! the Saints protect me! then you love him?” exclaims Blanche, shrinking back against the wall.

“Not more than is set down in my duty, madam,” is his quick reply. “In my hands you are as safe as in the palace of Narbonne. Rather would I sever limb from limb, than that harm should come to your Highness under my charge.”

“Thank heaven!” was all that Blanche could murmur, for her lips had turned bloodless from terror.

“Tell me, Don Alvarez,” asks Claire, who never let a propitious occasion slip, “did you know Don Fadique, the Grand Master, at the Court?”

“Right well; he is my master. We were playmates together, until the death of his mother scattered the Infantes far and wide. Don Fadique,” he adds, reading the breathless interest expressed in both the fair ladies’ eyes, now riveted upon him, “is of a temper to attach all who approach him. Even the queen, with so many causes of displeasure against the children of Doña Eleanor de Guzman, who led away the fancy of her consort, always cherished him.”

“Tell me,” says Claire, in her eagerness placing her hand upon his arm, “does Don Fadique ride with his brother, Don Enrique, against the king? Will he join in the siege of Toledo?”

“Noble demoiselle, whom I account French from her accent,” answers Don Alvarez, again bowing low, a great admiration breaking into his face as his eyes wander over Claire’s tall and supple form, “your zeal for your royal mistress touches me to the soul. But, by my faith, I do not know where the Grand Master is; but if I did, it is not my place to tell.”

“Oh, say not so, Sir Governor,” answers Claire, “you are our only friend. We are of all ladies the most dejected. Do not treat us prisoners who as have done ill, but as innocent sufferers consigned to your care.”

“Such is my conviction, fair lady,” is Don Alvarez’s answer, “but prisoners you are. In all that I can, count on me as your slave. Will it please your Grace”—addressing Blanche—“to pass up to the second storey, and view the apartments which have been prepared for you?”

With a deep sigh, Blanche followed him. Her arms fell to her side. To be so near rescue, yet bound within these walls!

As to Claire, the affairs of state did not affect her at all. She was fully occupied in considering what advantage she could take of the evident admiration of the governor.

Discreet as he meant to be, he could not control his eyes; one look had betrayed him to the astute pupil of the nuns, whose zeal for Blanche wanted no stimulating.

“I will make the governor love me, and free the queen,” was her thought, and as, step by step, she followed Blanche up the stairs, passing by narrow lancet windows that let in the light, the whole project simplified itself so marvellously in her brain that already they were careering forth upon the plains on two fleet Spanish barbs, accompanied by Don Alvarez, to the outposts of Don Enrique de Trastamare.

CHAPTER VII
Don Pedro and Maria de Padilla

HE inner patio, on the left hand, as you enter the Alcazar, where trees of magnolia and pomegranate wave together among hedges of red roses, has always been called the Patio de Maria Padilla.

It is known that her royal lover raised rooms on the flat, Moorish roof, and decorated them magnificently for her use.

Charles V. took his chapel from them, and his comfortable bed-rooms where he could at least, with convenient surroundings, encounter his formidable attacks of gout.

Maria’s tiring-room, with its long range of miradores (windows), immediately over Don Pedro’s gorgeous portal, is not only a capital post of observation, but a wonder to behold. The walls, a snowy mass of lace-work cut in stone, are relieved by encrusted tiles of a deep and ruddy colour. Beneath the golden cupola of fretted stalactites, a perfumed fountain sheds clouds of spray, and banks of flowers and myrtle scent the air.

On each of the four sides are recesses for divans, on which lie piled up cushions wrought in the looms of Granada, the walls covered with Eastern stuffs, stiff with gold and tissue, Gothic characters wrought into borders and tessellated edgings, each recess supported by pillars, round which twist serpents of gold and enamel, with eyes of enormous emeralds giving a life-like glare. Behind screens of golden trellis, woven with the brilliant blossoms of fresh flowers, are the heavy draperies which shroud the doorways, bearing the royal monogram and nodo, and in one corner a hidden entrance leading into the apartments of Don Pedro. But one step of her light feet, and Maria is in the presence of the king!

So lived for years this terrible beauty—a fan her sceptre, and love’s seat her throne!

Some are born queens; others achieve greatness. There are peasant princesses and baseborn empresses; sultanas of the buskin, and kadines of the lute; modest violets, born in the purple, and imperial beauties like the rose, unapproachable and supreme; but if ever a woman was created to reign, it was this haughty and cynical tyrant who, under the most enticing form, concealed a will of steel, remorseless, fearless, merciless, and cold.

Maria has been called a witch, and her power over Don Pedro attributed to magic, but she dealt in no charms save those that nature had bestowed on her, and an intelligence far above her age.

Now she sits desolate, the pillared miradores are closed, the heavy curtains drawn. Not that it is night, for the summer sun blazes over the city, and such as are abroad in the streets seek the narrow Moorish alleys and the shadow of deep patio gates to breathe.

But the lady of love is sorrowful. A heavy presentiment of evil is in her soul. She has long known through her spies, that Albuquerque is engaged in a conspiracy against her. What it exactly is she has been long in finding out. Like Damocles’ sword it hung over her head, and now she knows it! And a mad fury possesses her which she no longer cares to control.

Not only has she overwhelmed Albuquerque with accusations, but she has branded him as a traitor and renegade against the king.

Up to this time outward observances of courtesy have been observed between them, especially in the presence of Don Pedro, but now words of direct menace have passed, received on the part of Albuquerque in dignified silence, as the paltry onslaught of an enemy he disdains.

It is war to the knife between the cool-headed minister and a passionate woman, blinded by a sense of wrong to herself and the children she has borne the king. Many weeks have passed since she has seen Don Pedro, who left her in displeasure anent the burning question of his marriage. He was going to hunt, he told her, in the mountains of Segovia, in obvious subterfuge, for he had not been there at all, nor can she learn for certain whether he is at Burgos or Valladolid, nor when he will return. And this treatment from a lover, whom she has hitherto swayed with absolute power!

As the name of Pedro rises to her lips, she raises herself and sits upright.

“He dared to talk to me of marriage,” she cries, clenching her hands until the henna-tipped fingers mark the palm. “Alliance with France! Before, it was I who was to wear the crown; I, whose beauty he said was to work miracles upon the people; I, whose craft was to sway his councils; I, Maria de Padilla, to crush out rebellion, and now he would bring in a stranger to put me to open shame—me and the son I have borne him! Oh, Pedro! Pedro! Was it for this you lured me to you? No, no! This wrong does not come from you, but from that crafty knave, Albuquerque, who has been bribed to ruin me!”

As she spoke, all her tears seemed in an instant to dry up. Her face grew dark, as she put back the long black hair that veiled her cheeks, and gathered herself together where she lay.

“If it is a duel between us two, I accept it. One must fall. It shall not be Maria de Padilla. To dare to bring a wife to Pedro. A wife! ha! ha! Blanche of Bourbon! She shall never reign in Castile! I will prevent it! Alliance, indeed, and marriage! I will light up such a war that they shall curse the day they named her. What? Come into Spain to rob me of my Pedro? Never! No, not if I call Beelzebub himself to help me!”

As she sits there, her widely opened eyes fixed on the shadowed splendour of the walls, the gold, and the panels, the waving filagree work, and the arches, she looks like a beautiful demon.

Then a flood of tender recollections comes to her. She thinks of the first days when she came a young girl to her kinsman’s house in Seville, how Albuquerque threw her in the king’s path as a humble flower he was invited to pick up. The glory of his love, the triumph of her power, almost a queen—more than a sultana—the crown within her grasp—and now, fallen so low that he has left her without a word. Yes! He has sacrificed her to his ambition; what more has she to hope? By this act Albuquerque’s ascendancy is proclaimed. This royal marriage is a proof of it. Pedro has many enemies—Aragon, Navarre, France, brothers and ambitious nobles. Slowly the truth comes to her, and again she flings herself back in an agony of despair. Again the fountain of her tears is poured out. “Pedro! oh, Pedro!” is all she can utter.

As the king’s name passes her lips, a mailed hand puts back the arras which hangs before the door, and he himself stands before her, the dark steel helmet on his head, and the loose auburn locks worn long making his naturally pallid face look whiter. Save for his breastplate, he is in complete armour, travel-stained and mud-besplashed as one who had ridden long and furiously. Nor does his countenance denote a mind at ease. Every feature in his face betrays an anxiety and care seldom seen there. Instead of that upright, masterful bearing which strikes fear into his enemies, his manner of entering is hurried and agitated.

“You called me, Maria,” he says tenderly, gathering her prostrate form into his arms, “and I am here.”

But ere the words have passed his lips, Maria has sprung to her feet.

“What, my lord!” she cries, with a mocking laugh, “so soon from Valladolid? Where is the Lady Blanche? Have you tired of her already? Is Albuquerque with you, listening behind the arras? If he is a traitor to me, you are a greater.”

Then her mood changes, and tearing herself away from his outstretched arms she flings herself back upon the divan. “Oh, you are cruel, cruel!” she sobs. “For years you have enjoyed the treasure of my love—all I could give you. Who swore to make me his queen before the Church? to name my child his successor? And now you have wedded, stealthily, secretly, treacherously, and Albuquerque has helped you! Oh, Pedro, you have broken my heart! Go to your white-faced princess. She will deceive you, as you have me. Let me go!” she shrieks, as the king endeavours to draw her closer to him, and the sound of her voice echoes in the painted vestibules as she struggles to free herself. “Touch me not. Not with a finger. You shall not stay me; I will die as proudly as I have lived in this palace where I have triumphed. Here, on this pavement our feet have pressed so long together; within these halls where you have so often dallied with me!”

Then, by a sudden movement flinging back the curtains, she rushes forward into the open gallery of the mirador, but in an instant the strong arms of Pedro are round her.

All that tenderness could devise he essays to calm her. Slowly and sadly she yields to his touch, and listens to his entreaties for forgiveness. No one could have recognised the cruel Pedro in this impassioned youth. Truly it might be said she had bewitched him!

“Maria,” he whispers, covering her with kisses, as she lies faint and exhausted in his arms, “believe me, if I am married, it is for your good.”

“ ‘My good,’ false one? What good can come to me by losing you?”

“By making you greater than the queen!” answers, Pedro, looking down with glowing eyes upon the lines of her exquisite figure, and that royal contour of neck and brow that marks her supreme among women.

“But I am queen,” she answers, looking up at him, as the colour returns slowly to her cheeks. “Your queen. There is no other. Why did you listen to Albuquerque and put that woman between us?”

“Ah! sweet love, why?” sighs the love-sick Pedro, his whole soul melting as he gazes at the enchantress.

Who is like her? Who? By heaven, this black-browed Andalusian would put the pale daughters of the north to shame, were she but a beggar!

“Yes, Maria, I hate Blanche of Bourbon as much as you! She shrank from me with loathing. Not a smile, not a word—all were for Fadique, the treacherous boy. Por Dios! he shall be stripped of his honours, and your brother Garcia shall take his place as Grand Master of Santiago. By this time Fadique is on his way to Portugal. I have rooted out the viper, and scorned the royal demoiselle. Mark that, Maria, scorned her, and left her. Your voice called me and I am here. And I am glad of it. Come what may. Let Du Guesclin and the French avenge her. Kings, queens, and powers—though the whole world stands before me, I will have none of her, I have sworn it on the Gospel.” And in a passion of newly awakened love, he strains Maria to him in a wild embrace.

“But how can I trust you,” she whispers, her eyes meeting his. “You have deceived me once, you may again.”

“But you are not the only one, Maria. I am also deceived, cajoled. Por Dios! my vengeance shall fall on more than her. Don Fadique—” He paused.

“Away with these half-words,” cries Maria, the feeling of power coming to her again as, eagerly seizing the king’s hands, she draws him to her and brings her glowing face close to his. “What of Fadique? How could you trust him?”

“Yes,” answers Pedro slowly. “The Judas! It was Albuquerque who insisted on sending him as my proxy, ‘devoted to me,’ he said. Ha! ha!” and he burst into a harsh laugh. “He met her at Narbonne, and passed the nuptial ring on her finger. Let God judge the hand that smites her, for smitten she shall be for her treason, and that speedily.”

“What?” cried Maria, her dark eyes kindling with light. “Do you really mean——?”

“I mean what I say,” answers the king, sullenly. “The Queen of Castile and Leon is not as a trump in a hand of cards to be passed from brother to brother. It is a foul crime on my throne and person. At Valladolid I saw it at a glance. So I took horse, and I am here. At least one woman is true to me, and that is you, Maria.” And again he clasps her to his breast. “Lie there, sweetheart, it is your home.”

“And Don Fadique?” asks Maria, her face hardening as she remembers how the handsome Grand Master has always treated her with scant courtesy. “Is he long to taste the bliss provided for him? Methinks that the sons of Eleanor de Guzman live but to play tricks upon your Grace.”

“Would that they had but one neck,” roars Don Pedro, “that I could finish them at a blow! Maria, I know you have a grudge against Fadique; console yourself. A choice revenge awaits him and the Lady Blanche shall pay for all!”

A gleam of hate passed into his eyes, and was reflected in those of Maria, who, breathlessly listening, drank in every word.

“Some day, who knows? Life is short. A draught of Xeres wine—a silken thread—even the too heavy pressure of a scarf. All these kill well (accidentally of course) and may send the soul of Blanche to heaven! God rest her soul! Do you say Amen, Maria? Ha! ha!”—how hollow and mocking is his laugh!—“Are you happy now?” he asks, twisting her long fingers in his own, and gazing at her with his full merciless eyes. “All your enemies have fallen Maria; I wait but to strike sure.”

“And shall Blanche really die?” again whispers Maria, her eyes glittering like a snake. “Die by some swift death? Swear it to me, Pedro.”

He did not speak, but smiling down on her as he held her in one arm, with his right hand, he unsheathed the jewelled dagger he wore beneath his girdle, until the steel, catching a ray of sunlight imprisoned in the dark room, flashes with a dangerous reflex.

“This shall settle all, love,” he answers. “Now let me go to the bath to refresh me. See how the dust lies on me for I rode hard. I have done sixty miles without drawing rein, with relays of

horses, to come to you. Let me go,” as she clings to him as though terrified to lose him. “We will meet anon in the gardens, and the Moorish slaves from Granada shall dance to us.”

One more embrace, and he had picked up his plumed helmet and placed it on his head, and down the narrow steps of the private stair his mailed feet clanked.

Maria stood erect before the fountain which seemed to sing in the marble basin to a wild rhythm as the spray fell, and such a murderous look came upon her face as would have turned to stone all who were in her power. Then, sounding a golden whistle, her slaves came running in, and with a gesture she commanded that the curtains before the mirador should be withdrawn.

Like a conqueror, the setting sun comes blazing in, engulfing all the gorgeous tints of wall, dome, draperies, and pavement in its rays, while cythers, flutes, and viols make harmony without—she, moving to her toilette, as one whose thoughts are far away, while the long locks of her ebon hair are delicately smoothed with golden combs before a silver mirror, ere she descends to the garden to join the king.

CHAPTER VIII
Don Fadique Goes to Seville

HE Grand Master Don Fadique was not with his brother Enrique. In the first moment of his flight from Valladolid he had crossed the frontier into Portugal.

There, among goatherds and shepherds, for awhile he lay concealed, and when reflection came to him in this solitude, his conscience sorely pricked him for his disloyalty to the king. Whatever punishment his brother and sovereign inflicted on him he felt would be his due. It was not that he mistook Don Pedro’s mind in his treatment of the Lady Blanche, nor did his love and pity for her suffer any diminution, but he could not rid himself of the conviction that he had been a traitor. Blanche’s innocence alone had preserved him from a crime.

His upright and loyal nature revolted against the thought, and in his flight, as he struck the rowels into the glossy sides of the sorrel jennet on which he was mounted, causing it to rear and prance, he felt he could not put distance enough between himself and the dear object of his love.

Poor Blanche! Sweet Blanche! Where was she now? How fared it with her? Did she love him still? And then he checked himself for these guilty thoughts, and drawing from his doublet his jewelled rosary, he vainly tried to drown his thoughts in prayer.

Arrived within the strong fortress of Coimbra, on the coast of Portugal, he heard that his brother Enrique was advancing, at the head of an army, on Toledo, while Don Pedro lingered inactive at Seville. This seemed most strange!

There were rumours that he was waiting for the advance of the English to support him against the French king, furious at the imprisonment of Blanche in the castle of Talavera on the Tagus.

At length a royal messenger arrived at Coimbra direct from the king, an honourable messenger, wearing the noda and banda, the bearer of a letter from Don Pedro.

“Come to Seville,” he wrote, “dear brother, and let us live at peace. I am about to hold a tourney and tilt of reeds on the plains of the Guadalquivir, near the city, and I can ill lack the absence of the Grand Master of Santiago among my knights. A friendly greeting to you, and a safe conduct on the road. Your quarters are at the Alcazar at Seville, from whence I write.—Pedro.”

“And I will go!” cried Don Fadique. “It may perhaps give me the occasion to help the queen. Perhaps Pedro has come to a better mind; he changes suddenly. Or it may be that at this time of risings and rebellions, he may desire the support of the knights of Santiago and the presence of their Grand Master.”

Those of his friends and attendants at Coimbra strove vainly to dissuade him from putting faith in the friendship of the king. It was, at best, they represented, a rash resolve, especially to go to Seville and the Alcazar. If he would join him, let them meet in the open camp, not put himself into danger within a palace inhabited by Maria de Padilla.

At this Don Fadique grew wroth. “What!” he answered, “do you take me for a craven that cannot defend himself? Maybe, surrounded by enemies, he may think of me more kindly. Read the gracious words. Look at the royal messenger, whom we all know as a man who would not lend himself to fraud or treachery. My brother generously sets me free, and I can use that freedom as well at Seville as at any other place. Let Maria de Padilla do her worst. Rather than consume my life in this fortress, I would face the devil himself. Enrique may join with the enemies of Castile and bring Du Guesclin’s free lances to spoil the land, but my place is by my brother in tournament or battle—I will go!”

Buckling on his richest suit of armour, over which he wore the short crimson mantle of his order, with the cross of Santiago embroidered on his breast, he set forth, accompanied by a goodly band of followers hastily armed; also with him he took a little page, his foster-brother, who had never left him, and loved him with the affection of a child.

On the eighth day from his departure he reached the banks of the Tagus, at an old town called Castel Bianco, where he rested.

Now the tale runs, and I will neither deny nor assert it, that the Grand Master received here a message from Queen Blanche, informing him how near she was, and that at night he went out disguised, and, taking a boat, dropped down the river to Talavera, and there saw the Lady Blanche, thanks to the complaisance of the gallant governor—who was so wildly in love with Claire, he could refuse her nothing. This is said, and that a plan of escape was formed by which Blanche could reach Toledo, on which the French were advancing to reinforce the army of Don Enrique el Cavalier, and that Don Fadique at Seville should apprise her of Don Pedro’s movements by means of the little page.

Speaking personally, I do not believe that the Grand Master ever went to the castle or saw Blanche at all, after the remorse he had felt and the confessions he had made, to say nothing of the danger to the queen if Don Pedro found it out. And Don Pedro did find out everything in the most extraordinary way, as people said, by black magic, and that Maria de Padilla looked upon a crystal and saw all she desired to tell the king.

CHAPTER IX
Murder of Don Fadique

N the fifteenth day from his departure from Coimbra, Don Fadique beheld the domes and pinnacles of Seville—proud Seville as it is called—the Empress of the Plains.

The weather is dark and stormy. Even in the sunny South such changes occur, especially towards the equinox, to which the time approaches. As far as the eye can reach black clouds drive angrily before a northern blast, rushing as it were to bank themselves together towards the sea, and the wind rattles among the windows of the few pleasure-houses which stand outside the walls, swaying the fronds of the palms and the bamboos as if to tear them from the ground.

By the time Don Fadique, riding faster and faster, has reached the fork in the road beside the Hospital del Sangre, the heavens look like a second Deluge.

“Cover yourself well, my boy,” said he to the little page, as he drew his own dark manto over his armour. “The hurricane will be soon upon us. We shall be fortunate if we reach the Alcazar in time.”

As they passed what are now the boulevards, such trees as there were swayed and bowed to the fierce blast, and quickly succeeding thunder was heard among the hills. Not a sound reached them as they struck through the streets to where the beautiful cathedral stands, consecrated as a Christian church by Fernando el Santo, and as yet but little altered from the mosque it was before.

It was part of Don Pedro’s policy in all things to favour the Moors. Indeed, there were times in his strange moods when he swore he was a Mohammedan himself.

As the herald sounds his trumpet-call before the gate of the Alcazar, waiting for the portcullis to be raised, an aged pilgrim in tattered raiment rises up suddenly before Fadique.

“Turn back, my son. Turn while you may,” and he lays his hand on his horse’s bridle. “Take warning by the heavens! The elements are at war. So is man. For the sake of your dead mother I speak. Enter not the Alcazar. Warned by a vision, I girded up my loins, and have walked from the Sierra Morena here. As the blood of Eleanor de Guzman was shed on the stones of Seville, so shall be yours.”

“I heed you not, old man,” answered Don Fadique, shaking him off impatiently, provoked at his insistence in barring his progress. “Hie you back whither you came. My brother has bid me to Seville, and I am come,” and with that he spurred his horse forward; but the noble animal, as though scenting some evil influence in the air, pranced and plunged, and with the utmost difficulty was prevented from turning back.

Again the trumpet sounds a shrill blast. In vain! The Alcazar seems turned into a castle of the dead. No guards are upon the walls, no soldiers on the lookout in the Moorish towers which flank the portcullis. To the summons of the men-at-arms no response is given; the royal standard is not lowered as to an Infante Grand Master of Santiago, nor is there any answer to the reiterated knocking of the little page with the hilt of his sword upon the thickly barred panels of the door. Dismally does the blue-eyed boy look up at his master, a whole soul of love in his eyes, as if gazing at him for the last time, and loudly do his followers murmur to each other at the strange lack of welcome.

Nor can Don Fadique account for it. Growing impatient as the rain begins to fall, he looks about him on all sides. There is no preparation for the tournament of which the letter of Don Pedro spoke. No line of tents along the river bank with rich devices, or pinnacles of silken pavilions dressed with colours and flags breaking the long lines of the Huerta. The streets are silent and empty as the rain now pours down; the vast mosque stands isolated and solitary, veiled by rising mists. No eager crowd gathers round the Puerta del Sol or in the court of the Naranjos, as when festivals and ceremonies draw strangers to Seville. The howling of a dog alone breaks the silence.

At length, with no outward sign, the portcullis is slowly raised, and Don Fadique, spurring his horse, gallops in, but rapidly the great panels sink again, shutting out all his train. As the clink of the iron bolt is heard falling into the staples, a shrill cry of agony rises in the air. The hand of the little page who followed him on foot has been severed from the wrist as he hung onto Don Fadique’s bridle, and lies upon the stones before him.

Don Fadique is alone; no return is possible; his heart sinks within him at the sight, but he can neither help the poor page shut outside, nor liberate himself. It is too late.

Within the Patio de la Monteria the shadows of the Moorish arches rise black in the darkness of the storm, all save the portal of Don Pedro, which blazes out tier upon tier up to the gilded dome.

More and more astonished, Don Fadique dismounts and fastens his horse’s bridle to an iron hook in one of the pillars, and looks round, the glossy-skinned animal giving a whinny of delight as he passes his hand mechanically over its sleek neck. It is the last token of affection he is destined to receive!

Suddenly a burst of shrill laughter from the long row of miradores over the portal arouses him to a full sense of his danger. That he has been betrayed by his brother is certain.

As a drowning man is said in an instant to review all his former life, so Don Fadique recalled the many warnings of evil which had come to him, renewed even at the gate of the Alcazar.

Still his gallant heart did not fail, but when he saw above at the mirador a dark-haired lady leaning out with lustrous eyes, a chill shot through his veins. He felt that his end was near.

Then in the midst of the rattle of the storm, the roll of the thunder, and the quickly succeeding flashes of lightning, there arises a sudden uproar, the clash of weapons, and the heavy tread of mailed feet. Nor has Don Fadique long to wait to assure himself of the welcome Don Pedro has prepared for him.

From under the glowing shadows of the golden portal, a band of armed men rush forth, who drag him forward through tapestried doorways to dimly gorgeous ante-chambers with deeply sunk cedar ceilings overhead, into suites of halls lined with painted panels and azulejo tiles darkly resplendent in escutcheons of castle, lion, bar, tower, and that mysterious nodo which clasps Aragon with Spain,—into the precincts of the great Patio de las Doncellas, so purely beautiful in the whiteness of its lacy arcades.

There, upon the Caliph’s burnished throne, sits Don Pedro, a canopy of gold over his head and damascened draperies behind. A terrible frown knits his brow and his eyes are dilated with rage, but Don Fadique does not heed. Forcing back the guards, he flings himself upon his knees before him.

“Brother! brother!” he cries, “what means this hostile array? I have come upon your word. Tell me that you have not deceived me!”

“Stand off, bold traitor!” answers the king savagely, casting him from him. “Have you forgotten your perfidy at Narbonne? Do you think I did not know that, and all else? Were you fool enough to imagine that I loved you?” and as he speaks he breaks into one of those fiendish peals of laughter, ever so terrible a climax to his wrath. “Surely, if the Lady Blanche is your leman, you are ready to shed your blood for her sake?”

Before this burst of passion the Grand Master stands as if turned to stone.

“What!” continues Don Pedro, ascribing his silence to fear. “Does your heart fail you in my presence? If so it is well,” and he arises as if about to rush upon him.

“Do with me as you list, brother!” answers the Grand Master, “but I swear to you, by this symbol of the living Christ”—and he raises the jewelled cross of his sword high in the air—“for me, the queen is as pure as when she left her mother. Let him who says other stand forth.” With that, tearing his mailed glove from his hand, he flings it upon the floor, the scales of the metal ringing on the marble. “Don Pedro of Castile, will you cross swords with me?” he asks, advancing to the foot of the throne where Don Pedro has seated himself, his eyes gleaming with fury. “By my faith!” and scorn is in Don Fadique’s voice, “you do well not to defend so vile a charge. Blood enough has flowed—my mother’s, my little brother’s, and now my own, whom you have lured here treacherously to slay. Oh! shame and disgrace of knighthood!”

“Miscreant!” roars Don Pedro, wounded to the quick at this reproach. “Prepare to die! On earth your time is short, and, por Dios! you deserve your fate, you smooth-faced hypocrite! Better to be an open foe like Enrique, than a caitiff conspirator! Out on you, you bastard! I will not cross swords with you!”

Stung by his insolence, Don Fadique is rushing upon him, when Don Garcia de Padilla interposes from behind and holds him back.

“Señor Infante, Grand Master of Santiago, you are my prisoner,” he says, laying his hand on his shoulder, and the men-at-arms move forward from the entrance to where he stands.

“I am no man’s prisoner!” cries Don Fadique, putting his hand on his sword. “If all were as faithful to the king, he would have truer followers than he has. Nor shall you take me, vile instrument of a strumpet’s vengeance,” turning to draw his weapon upon Don Garcia, but the hilt of the sword had become so entangled in the embroidered scarf he wears, taken from the queen at Valladolid, nothing will move it.

“Officers,” commands the king, rising from the throne and passing on through the gilded arches into the Hall of the Ambassadors beyond, with that majesty he knows so well how to assume—“do your duty.”

But the guards held back, spite of the order of the king. Don Fadique was an Infante, a great caballero, almost equal to Don Pedro, the Grand Master of Santiago, and moreover, though unarmed, boldly facing them.

“Traitors!” exclaims Don Garcia, drawing his rapier, “do you hesitate?” Then they all fell on Don Fadique, and a struggle for life ensued.

“God and Santiago to my aid!” cries Fadique, rushing from side to side of the open patio pursued by the men-at-arms, Don Garcia all the while standing in his place, and Don Pedro from behind the arches suddenly appearing, and shouting out: “At him! At him! Traitor and bastard! Kill him!”

At last, one of the officers—Hermanes by name, excited by the anger of the king, and seeing that the others were but half-hearted in their attack, touched by the desperate defence of an unarmed man—struck Don Fadique such a blow on the shoulder as felled him to the ground, with his face downwards, the rest falling on him until he died, his long auburn hair, clotted with blood, making a glory round him where he lay.

From the depths of the patio Maria de Padilla appeared, her taper fingers clasping the pearl embroideries of her long robe with such force, that as she moved she strewed them on the floor. She had seen all, hidden by the panels of a Moorish door.

Not for an instant had Don Fadique escaped her, from the moment he entered the Court of the Monteria until his mutilated body lay before her. He was her prey. Now she could assure herself that life was gone. In the calm of death he was beautiful, the last agony only marked in the widely open eyes, full of defiance, and the bloodless lips parted as with a groan.

So like was the dead face to Don Pedro, that for an instant Maria’s heart melted, and she turned away.

“What, Maria,” exclaimed Don Pedro, sneeringly, “fear you to look on the face of a dead enemy? Rather tremble before a living one! The boy is dead; all traitors deserve to die”; and advancing from where he stood in the archway, he spurned the body with his foot, laying bare the pool of blood in which it lay.

And strange to say, after the lapse of five centuries, the stain is there on the marble pavement still, close under three clustered pillars of green porphyry, supporting a richly worked Moorish arch.

But before Maria can reply, a shrill cry rises from the white pillars that makes the patio ring, and an ancient dame hurries forward, and with her stick puts back the guards who stand around.

With a horrified glance at the upturned face of the dead Grand Master, she turns upon the king:

“What bloody work is this, Don Pedro? I have a right to ask, for I reared you both at my breast. Oh! my child, my child!” sinking down beside him on the ground, and tenderly gathering the dead form in her arms. “Oh, my Fadique, my little one. So much you were alike, the queen-mother only knew you from the crown embroidered on Pedro’s robe. Even the queen loved the boy.” Then with a piercing shriek she raises herself from the ground, and her sunken eyes travel round upon the group, first on the king, then on Maria de Padilla. “Let the hand that struck him be accursed!”

“He was my enemy, and I killed him,” answers Don Pedro, but he did not chide her, nor question her right to speak.

“It is that accursed woman!” and the nurse raises her bony fingers and points towards Maria as her tall figure disappears in the deep shadow of the arches. “May Satan take her! And that soon! She has falsely accused him. Oh, Pedro! I loved you as much as him. Now I curse you, you cruel king! By the same bloody death shall you also die. The witch!” shaking her fist towards the spot where Maria has vanished; “a thousand such as she may be found in Spain, but who will replace the true brother that you have lost?” As she speaks, a strange fire shines in her dim eyes, and her wrinkled face is transfigured with a sudden light. The voice in which she speaks seems not her own, but strong and vigorous, as though a wave of youth had passed over her.

“I have spoken,” and she fell prostrate on the body of Don Fadique as the captain of the guard drew his sword, as if to smite her, and his men made a circle round.

“Ask the king if I shall die,” turning to Don Pedro, who has covered his face with his hands. “I care not, but let me lay him on my breast. Oh! child of my love, the youngest and the best!”

“Harm her not, Ruy Gomez,” orders the king, “and let her go.” And in deep thought he turns away.

In his general contempt for all mankind, the king held his nurse in great esteem. When he was sick or wounded she tended him, and in his darkest moods she could approach him when others fled.

But for his promise to Maria de Padilla, he would never have slain a brother who came in peace, under his roof, and now another is to die likewise; he had given her his word. Thinking of all this his brow grew dark as he mounted the secret stair which led into his retiring-room, with the skeleton heads of the four unjust judges hung over the door.

No one dared enter, and for three days and nights he lay there in darkness.

CHAPTER X
Don Pedro—Alcazar—The Queen-Mother—Maria de Padilla

HE Hall of the Ambassadors, literally a blaze of iris hues and gold, is crowned by a lofty dome, and sheeted with a Moorish mosaic of mother-of-pearl and crystal.

Around range the medallions of the ancient Gothic kings, over four golden-barred balconies breaking the richness of the wall, dividing triply-grouped arches, light as dreams, resting on pillars of green and red porphyry, so tall and slender it seems as if a breath would shatter them.

From an open portal is disclosed a palace garden flushed with roses, and bordered by blossoming orange-trees, set in large porcelain pots. Butterflies flutter round delicate fountains banked up with tropical plants exquisite in perfume, and long vistas of bowery walks exclude the sun.

A warm and genial air beats in from without, and permeates around. Nor is the fairness of the earth less than the brightness of the sky—intensely blue, not a cloud visible; and although the Alcazar stands in the midst of a noisy city, the silence and solitude are complete.

Everything in this apartment is disposed for the king. He is greatly changed. A mortal illness has seized him, and he has barely escaped with his life. As he moves feebly along the marble floor, he is supported on either side by Don Juan de Mañara and Garcia de Padilla, then sinks exhausted upon a pile of eastern cushions prepared for him on an estrado. Naturally the two favourites, who tend him with anxious care, hate each other with the deadly bitterness of rivals, ever on the watch to turn every word and action against each other; especially Garcia de Padilla, a coarse likeness of his beautiful sister, always on the lookout for his own interests, and ready to pander to the basest vices of the king.

It would really seem as if the prayers and litanies offered up for Don Pedro’s life (especially by his Jewish subjects, whom he greatly favours) have been efficacious in saving his life.

Pale and feeble as he now appears, the steely hardness of his blue eyes is even more remarkable than in health, and the harsh intonation of his voice comes with a strange vigour from one so weak.

As he sinks exhausted on a divan, a waft of music comes from the patio without, a twanging of guitars deftly handled, and the silver tone of viols, with the clapping of hands of the Nubian slaves who swarm in the palace; the music ever and anon broken by the soft tones of a lute, played with infinite skill by a Moorish captive, whose nimble fingers mark and accentuate the rhythm.

“What do the fools mean?” demands Don Pedro, as burst after burst of music penetrates into the hall.

“Rejoicing, my lord,” answers Garcia, “at your Highness’s happy recovery.”

“Recovery—por Dios! and it was time, unless I was to chant the rest of my life in purgatory. Is it true that, counting on the report of my death, the bastard Enrique has had himself crowned at Toledo, and struts at the Alcazar like any peacock? Can it be possible my brain is weak? or was it a dream in my delirium?”

A silence follows, which neither the supple Garcia nor the politic Don Juan cares to break. Absolute quiet has been enjoined. Yet it is as much as their heads are worth not to reply.

“If you do not find your tongues quickly, my friends, the axe shall silence them for ever. Ho! slave,” and with a loud sound, he strikes with a handle of iron on a plate of steel.

In an instant the music ceases, and a gigantic Nubian, perfectly unclothed, appears armed with a marble-hilted javelin.

Something in the sudden apparition of this grotesque figure, as if the earth had opened to cast him forth, so strikes the fancy of the king that he laughs aloud.

“Begone, Hassan,” he says, “I did but jest; the necks of my loving companions are precious. But, amigos mios, I counsel you, trifle not with me. I am patient at no time, and now that my reason is scarcely settled from the disturbance it has had, I am dangerous to play with.”

“Play with!” replies Don Juan, who cares little for threats of any kind. “God forbid! Your Grace knows I fear nought. You shall judge of my faithfulness, for I am here ready to answer all you please to ask.”

“How here?” asks Don Pedro, reddening with a sudden flush. “Where else should you be?”

“Why, with the new king at Toledo,” promptly answers Mañara, nettled at the mention of the axe. “The new king, who is crowned by right and authority of the Holy Father, Urban V.; Don Pedro of Castile being legally and civilly defunct, by reason of the ban of excommunication pronounced against him, it is the fashion now to cry, ‘Long live El Rey Enrique el Caballero.’ Perhaps your Grace did not know that you were already dead?”

As he speaks an ashy pallor spreads over the king’s face, and out of his bloodless lips the words come thickly:

“So, so, at Toledo!” he gasps, clenching his hands in the cushions at his head. “Crowned? My brain turns. It was not a dream?”

“By my faith, no, an army is encamped outside on the Tagus, a garrison within. The troops a little mixed in nationality it is true, but the promise of the support of the great companies under Du Guesclin, to be sent to restore the Lady Blanche——”

“Restore the Lady Blanche? Why, she is locked up in the castle of Talavera, out of which no woman ever came alive. It is you, Don Juan, who play the fool!” exclaims Pedro, raising himself up, and seizing him savagely by the shoulder. “By the living Christ! your life is in my hand.”

“I care not,” is the retort, shaking off the king’s hand, who, weaker than he deems himself, falls back muttering curses. “Your Grace has questioned me, I tell the truth. Don Enrique holds Toledo, the Lady Blanche is with him. Here is Don Garcia, ask him, if you doubt me. The queen, your mother, had no power to march troops against the Conde de Trastamare while you lay between life and death.”

As he speaks, a sullen fury falls on the king. He sits perfectly motionless, his head pressed between his hands.

“Call hither the Lady Padilla,” he says, in a voice so veiled it is scarcely audible.

So quickly did her presence answer the summons it would seem as though she had been hiding near at hand. Her dark face shone out against the glitter of the many-hued hall. A long white robe falls to her feet, and she waits until the king addresses her.

“In my sickness, Maria,” says Don Pedro, in a voice that still sounds unfamiliar to those around (Maria starts with an alarmed glance and looks at him), “you tended me night and day. Why were you silent on what touches me so nearly as the advance of Enrique upon Toledo and the escape of the queen?”

“Because,” answers Maria, her eyes softening into a glance of ineffable love, “your life was dearer to me than all else. What did it matter if the Bastard reigned from the Pyrenees to the Pillars of Hercules if my Pedro died?”

“There spoke the true woman!” exclaims the king. “Now, by my faith, you have conquered me, Maria, quite.” Then taking her hand, he draws her down upon the seat beside him.

“Listen to me, Juan and Garcia,” turning to them, “you know me, I am El Rey Justiciar. In evidence of the love I bear this lady, and to put to rest once for all any questions which might arise by reason of the many traitors around me, at my death, I declare as successor to the throne of Castile, the Infante Alonso, Maria de Padilla’s son. At the earliest moment our ministers shall ratify the act, and call on my nobles to do homage to him as my heir. Are you satisfied now, sweet one? This will seal the bond,” and he draws her face, glowing with triumph, towards his own, and impresses a kiss on her warm lips.

“And Blanche?” whispers Maria in an undertone, but not so low but that both Don Juan and her brother hear.

“Ah, Maria, will you still keep me to my bargain?” answers Don Pedro, with a sigh.

“Yes,” quickly responds Maria, “I do, especially now that she is at large.”

“At large? I cannot believe it. But, Maria—Blanche, divorced and dishonoured, cannot harm you. I shall never set eyes on her again.”

“Yes, sire, but as long as she lives, she will raise up France against you.”

“And if she dies, do you think they will let me bide?”

“My sister,” puts in Don Garcia, “leave the matter to the judgment of the king. Urge him no more, I pray you, at a moment he has, by such a signal act of favour, named your child successor to the throne.”

“Truly, I love not Blanche,” says Don Pedro, “I will speedily take Toledo, and imprison her where she shall not escape. But her life——”

“Yes, her life!” cries Maria, rising from the estrado. “It is mine, you promised me. I claim it.”

“Now, por Dios, Maria, but you press me sore. Is it that you seek to be queen yourself?”

“Perhaps,” she answers, carelessly. “What if I do? Have you not told me a thousand times I was born to wear a crown?”

“This is no time for trifling,” answers Don Pedro, sternly. “I have made your son a future king. Let that suffice. The blood of Fadique clings to me still. I saw him in my fever, there, outside, in the patio, where he fell bathed in blood. And now another ghost will haunt me in that pale-faced demoiselle. So nearly had I passed into the silent land beyond the grave that to my weakened brain shadows came to me as real. I fain would add no more to that dim company which rise up in the silent night to curse me.”

As the words pass his lips, a page, fancifully attired as an Eastern slave, appears between the golden pillars of the hall, and, after prostrating himself on the ground, raises his arms aloft in Moorish fashion, and announces: “The queen-mother.”

Hastily advancing, Mary of Portugal stands before her son. On her face are the signs of deep emotion, almost of terror, as she hastily observes the impression her presence has produced.

“My son,” she says, in a low voice, “my son,” and as she speaks the words she stretches out her arms to embrace him. Then raising her head, her eyes fall upon the figure of Maria de Padilla, erect in the shadow behind, and in a moment the words she was about to utter die on her lips, and a tremor passes over her.

“You here!” her face flushing crimson, “you—Jezebel—that come between my son and me. I might have guessed it. I came to speak of mercy, before you who live by blood. Of honour—to one who never knew the word. Well do I know you and the current of your thoughts, and that you would prompt my son to an act of cruelty that will shake his very throne, and place him in the certainty of an alliance of vengeance.”

Silent, inscrutable, stands Maria, but Don Pedro interposes: “To what action do you allude, my mother?” he asks.

“What!” answers the queen, exasperated by his manner. “The intended murder of Blanche, in order that she may reign.”

“And if so,” comes from Maria, in a deep-toned voice, “Doña Maria, the Queen, what is that to you?”

“I speak not to you,” is Mary’s answer, her passion waxing hot. “I am here to address my son. Think you, sire, the Queen of France will hear unmoved that her sister’s life has been sacrificed to her? That the alliance on which you count, of Aragon and Navarre, will stand when the hosts of France, led by Du Guesclin, shall scour Castile? Already a new king has risen in Toledo who rests his title on this royal lady’s name whom this false woman would lead you to sacrifice. Restore to Blanche her rights, and the league against you will fall asunder.”

“Madam,” answered Don Pedro, “I am the guardian of the crown I wear. Meanwhile, I warn you,” and he broke off to give one of those strange discordant laughs, “that, like my sainted father, your husband, beauty with me is paramount. She whom nature crowns is queen. Behold her here,” taking Maria by the hand. “I command you, therefore, Doña Maria, my mother, in my presence to treat the Lady Padilla with the respect her many charms command. To me she is the brightest jewel in my crown, and I will prove it, too, shortly to you and all the world.”

As he paused, the queen’s countenance fell, and her whole attitude changed. Exposed to the full battery of Maria’s insolent eyes, it was she who appeared the suppliant, and Maria the queen.

“My son,” she says, speaking in a very different tone to that she used on entering, “will you not grant me the same power of speech you accord to the least of your subjects?”

“Have you any more to say, madam?” he asks, turning wearily from her. “If not, the audience is ended. When I stood in need of help in my fever and lay between life and death, you feared to enter.”

“Oh, Pedro,” cries the unhappy mother, the tears streaming down her face, “believe it not. On my knees I entreated that fiend who rules you to let me pass, and she barred my access by the guards, whom she had the insolence to command to arrest the mother of their king! It was I, as self-appointed regent, that have kept the realm together when it was believed that you were dead! That you find any troops or treasure is due to me.

“Ah! Pedro,” she continues, advancing to where he lay, and seizing one of his unwilling hands, “let us speak together alone. I would convince you that in sparing the life of Blanche you insure your own;” and she turns such an imploring glance at him, that it touches even his hard heart.

“Will it please you, fair lady, to give place for a short space to the queen-mother?” says Don Pedro, addressing Maria, whose attitude has never changed.

“Whatever your Grace commands shall be my duty to obey,” is her answer, the submission of her words contrasting strangely with the dark scowl which knits her brow.

“Be it so, sweetheart. I have that to say touching yourself, which will surprise her. It were best said in your absence.” And rising feebly upright, he leads her by the hand into the inner patio, and lover-like kisses her hand.

At this moment, Garcia de Padilla, who has remained an unobserved witness of the interview, rushes forward, and, with effusive courtesy, offers his arm to the king to assist him to his seat, bows to the ground, and is lost to view among the pillars.

Then, resuming the conversation with the queen: “You forget, my mother,” says Don Pedro, as he places her beside him (it is said, he never was more dangerous than when he assumed a gracious air), “that this demoiselle of France, who bears my name, has been convicted of incest with my brother Fadique by a council of bishops appointed for that purpose, and that, far from being a prisoner, she is at this moment free, in the city of Toledo, under the chivalric custody of my rival and successor, Enrique el Caballero. You forget I am superseded, dishonoured. Ha! ha! Yes! dishonoured by these bastards, whom you had not the sense to wring the necks of, when they were young.”

“Yes, Pedro, but I am confident all this will be set right. I have received such assurance during your illness, from Toledo, that I know you will overcome your brother whenever you take the field. As to Blanche——”

“Yes, madam,” interrupting her, “but as yet I am too weak to wield a weapon. I think you can have little to say to me,” he adds coldly, “that the Lady Padilla could not hear. It is her son I have named my successor, and the lady declares she is my lawful wife. What if I proclaim her such to the assembled Cortes?”

“Mother of God!” cries the queen, clasping her hands, a look of absolute horror on her face, “give me patience! To be so mocked at by my son! Such madness is impossible!”

“Not a whit! Not a whit!” he exclaims, facing the infuriated queen. “Now, by the heavens above, Blanche of Bourbon shall die! And speedily too! My mind is made up.”

Alas! The strain upon the unhappy mother is too great. As the king utters these words, she staggers backwards, a deadly pallor overspreads her face, and with a wild cry of “My son! My son!” holding out her arms in the vain hope of his support, she falls fainting on the floor, and is borne away by her ladies waiting without in the Patio de las Doncellas.

CHAPTER XI
A New King—Enrique de Trastamare

GAIN we are at Toledo, on the banks of the dark Tagus, a river full and strong, flowing for three hundred and seventy-three miles from the lonely mountains of Biscay to the port of Lisbon.

The wild and melancholy Tagus! A very river of fate, now darkly rushing beside blackening rocks, now meandering sweetly by the meadows of the Huerta del Rey, whispering by the Baths of Florinda under King Wamba’s old palace, or turning the Moorish mills which still supply the city with corn.

Many and many a tale could old Tagus tell of races come and gone since the Jews fled to Tarshish when Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, but black and silent it goes its way under the walls of the stuccoed palace of the Taller del Moro, where all the guests bidden to a festival were slain; the Gothic-towered church of San Juan de los Reyes, with its masses of votive chains hung outside, and the ancient synagogues of La Blanca and El Transido, trellised with honeycombed carvings on the walls, the Holy of Holies shrouded by eastern veils. An arch-ancient river, as one may say, looking into streets so narrow that Roman consuls and Gothic kings had to pass on foot or in litters.

Hebrews, Romans, Goths, and Moors have possessed Toledo, but of all it is the Moor who has most left his mark. Moorish is the Puerta del Sol by which you enter, a magnificent Arab arch blazing in the sun, and Moorish is the Alcazar which crowns the hill with its long façade of miradores and towers.

Here the new king, Enrique de Trastamare—by his own election—holds his court, accompanied by that great minister, Albuquerque, who has turned against his late master, Don Pedro, and the powerful northern noble, Don Rodrique Alvarez, who devotes his riches and his weapons to his cause.

From the first, Enrique wisely threw in his chance with the northern powers, and now the repudiation and imprisonment of Queen Blanche has given a new strength to his alliance.

The ire of the French king is greatly roused by the ill-usage of his sister-in-law; Navarre is with him to a man, and Aragon friendly.

To many, Enrique has come as a saviour to a much-tormented land. No one was safe from the attacks of Don Pedro, and his own discontented subjects appealed to the Pope, who has placed Castile under an interdict.

If Don Pedro dies, his brother will undoubtedly succeed him. If he lives, he is strong enough to fight him. As yet but a few of his allies have joined him, but report says he is speedily to be reinforced by Les Grandes Compagnies under the Constable Bertrand du Guesclin, so that the bold step of marching on Toledo was not so foolhardy an enterprise as it appears.

The adjacent hills are white with his tents, and squadrons of horse are posted low down on the banks of the Tagus to guard the bridge and the Moorish mills which supply the city with bread.

His flag—a tower on a red ground—proudly floats over the city, and men-at-arms, bowmen, soldiers, knights, and that promiscuous rabble which follows a camp, pass and repass through the narrow streets, where, side by side with the rich fruits and products of the land are locksmiths and workers in steel blades as thin and fine as a needle, yet more fatal than an axe, the heavier scimitars and broadswords in common use, and hamps and chains and locks; painters who expose gaudy likenesses of saints and madonnas; moulders of Moorish azulejo tiles, the deep rich colour lighting up the dark holes which serve for shops; skilled wood-carvers of roofs and spandrels, crests and medallions; workers in brass with forge and file; and carpenters with planks of wood and heaps of shavings—all these different trades piled pell-mell on each other.

In hot weather an awning is stretched across the calle, where a big tree leans out, serving as a lounge for Asturian porters, ready to bear any weight, close to a blank wall, with an elaborate doorway sunk into the soil, and green with mildew, leading to a synagogue up a narrow alley.

In front a paseo, or plaza, is planted with rows of trees, overhanging the gorge of the Tagus, and rough benches are set, on which two Jews are seated engaged in earnest talk.

Although under the rule of Don Pedro the Jews are in such favour that it is said by his enemies he has adopted their faith, they still, from habit, wear their national dress, a long, loosely-fitting gabardine with a girdle, long yellow boots lined with fur, and a high, square cap of a peculiar cut.

Such is the costume of the two men; the elder, Father Isaac, with the aquiline nose and piercing black eyes of his nation, his thin features ending in a long beard; the younger, Cornelius, of the same type, but ruddier and stouter, and with far less distinction in his coarse physiognomy.

“By the God of Abraham, El Caballero Don Enrique shall rue it!” speaks this one in a louder tone, seeing that the plaza is utterly deserted for the street, the hum of which reaches them dimly, broken by the continual chiming of the bells from the cathedral close by. “His entrance into the city was a surprise. Without that renegade Ben Hassan’s help, he could not have kept his unruly troops together—already the Aragonese had threatened to go back. And now he is safe in the Alcazar, and refuses to meet the bond. ‘He will pay when he is at Seville,’ he says,—very fine!”

“At Seville he will never be,” answers the elder Jew in a lower tone, a gleam of hatred lighting up his deep-set eyes, “at least, while Don Pedro lives. At no better interest can we place our gold than to maintain him who is the rightful king and the friend of Israel. Ben Hassan is a traitor, and deserves to die as a scapegoat for his people.”

“You speak well, Father Isaac,” is the rejoinder. “Think you that Don Pedro will ever forgive our tribe? His spies are everywhere; and he is sure to know, though he now lies sick at Seville.”

From long habits of caution, to this direct question the old Jew for awhile did not answer; then, with a cautious glance round to see that no one lurked among the trees, replied:

“A trusty Hebrew is on the way to Seville, to offer the king the supplies he may require; also charged with rich presents of jewels, and a crown of fine gold to Maria de Padilla. Were she queen, Israel would return to its ancient glory in the land.”

“They say Blanche of Navarre has escaped, and is in sanctuary in the cathedral. Is this true, Father Isaac?”

“I know not, for certain; but if she expects help from France, by the body of Moses, son Cornelius, before it comes Enrique will not be here.”

“I understand the will of our nation is to expel him, Father Isaac; but have they the power?”

“Gold, my son, gold is the axle on which turns the world. By this the humble Israelite is often stronger than kings. Our only danger is lest the destroying angel strike Don Pedro dead. While he lives, the protector of the Hebrews shall be richly furnished for his enterprise, and we of the tribe of Levi within this city will spread ducats broadcast to pave the way. Had it not been for that renegade Hassan (whom the Almighty consume in Gehenna), our conspiracy were already ripe.”

“And do you think this great outlay of our hard-won substance needed?” asks the younger Jew, a hungry look in his eyes, like a dog robbed of his bone. “Father Isaac, Don Pedro is not sure. May not Samuel Levi have misreckoned? A man who turns against his own blood and dabbles with Moorish superstitions is little to be counted on.”

“Impossible,” answers the elder man, his black eye lighting up with the fire of youth. “By the great Jehovah! let no such miscalculation mar our action. The oppression of ages on our nation has made us cowards. A craven race we are. We will—and we will not—if it costs us gold. Now our very existence in this land of Castile hangs on Don Pedro; Don Enrique hates us. The French will torture us and spoil us, as do the hunters for the soft fur that wraps the bosom of the hapless hare. Once let us have news from Samuel Levi that the king is recovered, and has marched from Seville upon Toledo, these hands of mine,” and he holds up his pointed, delicate fingers, “shall open to him a postern.”

“There will be much bloodshed,” answers Cornelius, thoughtfully, “and our dwellings may be sacked.”

“Bury our treasure, then, son Cornelius, we must bear that. The Hebrews in Toledo, once masters before the Moors, are still numerous. Our foes are divided. All is prepared. The bribes are ready. He can raise no gold. Already the ground is mined under his feet, and then”—and he stretches forth his hand and points to the vast expanse of river, mountain, rocky gorge, and undulating plain, the white tents of the pretender visible through the foliage—“this alien camp shall give place to the royal standard, and the Hebrew name again be raised high among the nations. Then, son Cornelius, we shall receive what interest we choose to ask for our gold.”

“But blood will flow in rivers, my father, before that comes; who knows if not ours?”

“Speak not of it, my son,” answers the older man, veiling his face with his hands, “I love neither danger nor poison. If Blanche dies”—but what he was about to say is drowned in a tumult of voices rising from the street, and soon a rabble of boys and men fill the paseo, while below, the music of trumpets and fifes thunders through the close alley, as a gallant body of knights, attended by their esquires, march towards the old square of the Zocodover (restricted as to size, as is all else in Toledo), where the lists have been prepared for a passage of arms between the chief officers of Aragon and Navarre.

CHAPTER XII
Don Enrique and Albuquerque in Council

HE scene changes to the Arab court of the Alcazar, where, under lines of granite columns, knights and courtiers, heralds and pages, pass in and out. Nothing speaks of a city entered by surprise, and held on chance.

To look at the radiant scene, on which a fierce sun shoots down, no one would imagine that, but a few weeks since, Don Enrique was wandering over Spain, an outcast and a rebel.

Presently a burly, thick-set noble appears, wearing a dark velvet manto, high fur-edged cap, and Cordoba boots, provided with spurs which clank as he moves. His presence instantly impresses silence on those around; for Don Jaime Alvarez is as rough in his manners as are his native Asturian mountains; not a man to be trifled with at home or abroad. He at least clearly estimates the dangers of the present position, and casts a grim scowl on the frivolous idlers loitering about.

As he leans over the balustrade, halfway up the sculptured marble stair, his eye wanders round as if in search of some one, and again he frowns as he notes the careless bearing of the sentinels who guard the entrance, and the peals of laughter which break from time to time from the undercurrent of talk below.

But he has not long to wait. His satisfied glance shows it as a dark figure emerges from the crowd and he is joined by Albuquerque, much changed since his last interview with Don Pedro in the cloisters of the church of San Juan at Valladolid. The great minister, disgusted by the ingratitude of his master and the insults of Maria de Padilla, has changed sides, and is now attached to the varying fortunes of Don Enrique. He is thinner, and slightly bent, and his once commanding eyes are dimmer and sadder.

As he approaches Don Jaime, an audible sigh passes his lips. Now, instead of at once settling the affairs of state with the unruly Don Pedro, who bears more respect to him than to any one else, he must consult with a colleague who naturally regards him with suspicion as a renegade, who from a bitter enemy has become a doubtful friend.

“Shall we sit apart in the gallery?” Albuquerque asks, after ceremonious greetings have been exchanged between the rival counsellors, as they mount the steps together to the upper gallery, supported by slender pillars rising from a carved balustrade of singular richness in scroll work, stars, and arabesques; “or shall we enter the apartments?”

“The heat is great,” is the reply, “let us remain here.”

“Have you informed Don Enrique of the news?” anxiously asks Albuquerque, eyeing doubtfully the set face of the man before him. “I myself have not seen him this morning.”

“If you mean his Grace the king, I have not either,” answers Don Jaime drily, his naturally ill-favoured countenance darkening into a most unpleasant expression.

“But he must instantly know what has happened,” returns Albuquerque.

“His Grace, as I understand,” replies Don Jaime, “is somewhat indisposed, and has not yet risen.”

“Nevertheless, let us go to him instantly,” urges Albuquerque, “the greatest results depend on what has occurred.”

“I scarcely view the matter in that light,” answers the other coldly. “We conquer or we fall by the fortune of war. It is not a struggle in which a woman more or less——”

“A woman!” breaks in Albuquerque; “but this is a queen, who carries in her hand France and Navarre. She is here, in sanctuary within the cathedral. The importance of her presence cannot be underrated.”

“It is natural that you should think so,” retorts Don Jaime, with a sneer. “You brought her into Spain to establish alliances for Don Pedro. Now these have failed, you would use her on the other side.”

“But, my lord, while we are here bandying unseemly words,” replies Albuquerque, unmoved by the covert insult implied, “time flies. Let us at once crave an audience of Don Enrique, and expose to him our views.”

“His Highness King Enrique, you mean, I presume,” replies Don Jaime, greatly nettled. “This is the second time I have corrected you, my lord minister. You, at least, should not question the title which your abandonment of his brother’s cause so greatly facilitated. This, and the excommunication of the Pope of Rome which legalised it.”

But Albuquerque was not to be drawn into further discussion on so dangerous a subject. He simply bowed and made way for the Asturian noble to pass first under the carved portal which led into the royal rooms.

In a small but lofty chamber, wainscotted with wrought walnut wood and lighted by one of those high casements which run along the front of the Alcazar and give so much dignity to the noble façade, sits Enrique el Caballero.

Quite young, but older than Don Pedro, this son of the unhappy Eleonora de Guzman has already braved death again and again with dauntless valour. In person he is tall and fair like his brothers. The same well-cut features, and chestnut hair lying in crisp, close curls under a velvet cap, thrown back on a broad, clear brow, and a skin so delicate that the choice lace collar worn at his neck is not more white.

It is not for nothing that Enrique is named El Caballero. A suave gentleness, almost feminine, is the characteristic of his face. Frank, firm, and courteous, he charms all who approach him; but when offended, like a true Spaniard, he can be both unforgiving and vindictive. A certain mobile expression about his mouth tells of strong passions ill-repressed, but the gracious smile so readily called up is as a mask to his feelings. Altogether, a man capable of the tenderest benevolence and of the bitterest hate.

Of all the children of Eleonora de Guzman, Enrique is the cleverest and the best. Often wandering alone in the mountains, and only saved from starvation by the shepherds of the grassy Biscayan valleys—fighting with the freebooters who lurk on the frontiers, escaping into Navarre, where he vainly pleads for help, or despatching unavailing offers to the French king of firm alliance and support if he places him on the throne—Enrique has ever maintained himself orthodox to the Church, and as such is openly favoured by the Pope.

Thus, little by little, he has collected a band of followers about him; and now, confident of help from France, and strengthened in his claims by the report of Don Pedro’s death, he has entered Toledo.

As he sits at a table covered with papers, a sheet of heavily-embroidered drapery at his back, a more gallant young prince would be hard to find, as, doffing for a moment his jewelled cap, he signs to Albuquerque and Don Jaime to be seated.

“To what good fortune,” he asks, “am I indebted for this early visit?”

“My lord,” replies Albuquerque, as he places himself beside the table, “I am already late in imparting the important intelligence. The Lady Blanche of Bourbon has escaped, and is now within the cathedral. Your brother, Don Pedro, is restored to health, and is advancing on this city.”

In a moment the smiling face of the young prince changes to an expression of gravest thought.

“By the bones of Santiago, this is a wondrous change!” he exclaims. “My brother, though still civilly deceased, rises from a bed of death to fight me, and the lady comes to aid me. Is she alone?”

“As far as we know,” is the reply, “one female attendant only is with her. The Lady Blanche is invaluable as a hostage.”

“In what sense?”

“Your Highness may at once dictate peace to Don Pedro by giving her up.”

“Never!” cries Don Enrique. “Even to speak of it is a crime. My lord,” rising and turning sharply on Albuquerque, “you forget whom you now serve. The perfidious policy of my brother never shall be mine.”

“I do not advocate perfidy,” is the dignified reply of the unmoved statesman, “but it is my duty to point out your Grace’s present advantage.”

“Away with such proposals!” exclaims Enrique, his cheeks reddening under the waves of chestnut hair. “By the Queen of Heaven! I hold you a poor counsellor to advocate such crooked means. As a sister I greet her and will protect her. Her youth and hapless fate touch me deeply. Poor Fadique! how well he loved her! It cost him his life.”

After this brief passage of arms between the new king and his former enemy, Enrique reseats himself, his face still aglow with emotion, and signs to Albuquerque, who has also risen, to do the same. It is the minister who speaks first, with the imperturbable composure of a man who cares no more for the chances of life than for the throw of dice upon a board.

“Your Grace is sure of the support of the Great Companies, if you can hold Toledo until they arrive.”

“If,” quickly rejoins Don Enrique. “If, where is the doubt? Look out beyond,” and he points to the opposite hills over the dark gorge through which the Tagus flows; “are not those our tents glistening in the light? Are not those our standards flying in the wind? The lances of our gallant squadrons of horse catching the sun? Below our body of archers, whose special charge it is to guard our person? Does all Spain show a company of men more gallant? Every one of them would die

rather than harm come to me! Listen to the trumpet-call ringing on the heights! Hark! it is answered from the garrison within the city. Are these not more than enough to keep possession of what we have?”

A long silence follows.

“God forbid, your Grace,” Albuquerque replies, while the triumphant glances of Don Jaime seem to shame the coldness of his manner, “that I say aught to arrest the natural ardour of so chivalrous a prince. But there are many dangers which make me venture to suggest a peace. Your Highness entered Toledo by surprise; a strong party, especially among the Jews within the city, favours your brother. Your army is made up of many ill-assorted elements. The Castilian hates the Aragonese; the men of Portugal are jeered at for their coarseness by such French mercenaries as have joined your standard. Toledo is a large and straggling city, ill-calculated to resist a siege without a much larger garrison than you possess. And as to his Grace, my late master, who knows but that his sickness is but a feint to put you off your guard? True that the Lady Blanche is here, and that both France and Navarre may send reinforcements, as soon as time allows, but they are not here. Besides, our funds run low. The devil take the Hebrews in this city! The interest they demand is so exorbitant I know not where to find money to pay the troops, who are already clamouring for pay.”

“The chance of war, the chance of war!” cries Don Enrique, chafing under these prudent considerations. “Fortune favours the bold. Had I reasoned thus on the rugged slopes of the Asturias, I should not be sitting now within these walls. What say you, Don Jaime, ever so faithful to me in all changes?”

“I say that your Grace is born to reign.”

“Yes,” is the reply, “there is something within me that tells me so. No matter what happens, my star will prevail. The throne, the throne, nothing but the throne!” As he speaks an almost glorified look shines on his face, in which all the charm of the expression is brought out by a radiant smile, as he gazes over the expanse of city and plain to the snow-tipped range of Guadarrama, dim in the distance.

“Does he see visions, this boy?” thought Albuquerque, gravely observing him and but little impressed by this outburst of youthful confidence. “Pardon me, my lord, if I recall you to the present time. You will surely at once visit the Lady Blanche, and free her from the discomforts of the cathedral; the worthy chapter will be at a loss how to entertain so delicate a princess.”

“Yes, yes, I will at once proceed to the cathedral to offer her such hospitality as a soldier can command. Call the jefe of my household, and cause the state apartments to be prepared as are fitting for her, and such attendants as have escaped with her.”

“And what is far more important,” adds Albuquerque, “I will send off instant despatches to the most Christian king, informing him of the presence of his kinswoman, and urge on him the need of quick support.”

“May the Christian king not chance to remember that it was you, Albuquerque, who brought her into Spain? The sight of your name may raise suspicion. But no matter,” observing the frown which rises on his face at the ill-timed jest. “By my faith! I would not be in the shoes of the Governor of Talavera, who has favoured the queen’s escape; for favour her he must, else she never would have passed the gates of that invincible fortress. Pedro will invent new tortures to punish him; what say you, Albuquerque?” and more than a touch of irony betrays itself in Don Enrique’s voice as he recalls the sufferings the policy of Albuquerque have entailed on him. “Your kinswoman, Maria, too, will have a new grudge against me, and work some diabolical charm. Methinks I see myself in effigy, burning upon a blazing pile, my life-blood ebbing as, drop by drop, the wax falls into the flame! Ha! ha! If it were only with witches and warlocks I had to do! But God is with the just! and the Holy Father’s blessing is potent.”

No answering look of mirth responded to his words; a sad expression was on the fallen minister’s brow as he gravely saluted and quitted the chamber, leaving Enrique and Don Jaime to arrange the preparations for his immediate visit to the cathedral.

CHAPTER XIII
Queen Blanche in Sanctuary

HE bright morning which broke so auspiciously at the Alcazar has darkened. The deep shadows of gathering clouds press up from the horizon and veil the city in a soft mist. The many towers and domes of the Cathedral rise up like landmarks on a shadowy sea; the delicate tracery of the gilded spire, capped by a crown of thorns, catching some latent sunbeam hidden in the lining of a cloud, alone stands out apparent in the gloom.

Like the Cathedral of Seville, the original Gothic church, in which the Wambas and the Witicas had worshipped according to the Gothic creed from the earliest ages, had become a mosque under the Moors, to be again consecrated by San Fernando, who, smelling blasphemy in the very walls, pulled them down and laid the foundations of the present church, finished two centuries later, in the florid style of that barocco union of the east and west so common in Spain.

Nothing can be worse than the situation. It stands absolutely in a hole. But it is within that this shrine of marble is wonderful. The clustered pillars of five vast naves, a marble space in the centre as wide and long as a hippodrome, the solid bulk of the retablo a blaze of gold, separating the high altar from the nave; the sculptured semi-circle of the absis broken by chapels, niches, shrines, and tombs sunk in the deepness of shadow, where kings and archbishops repose; the superb pavement in marble, lapis lazuli, porphyry, and agate lighting up the floor, rare pictures on the walls, statues, carvings, and huge bronze doors leading into the choir, the double pulpits coated with gold, the glorious screen in alto relievo, and the superbly painted windows casting down warm shadows as of ruby, emerald, and sapphire on the floor.

Deeper and deeper fall the shadows, and more and more solemn gathers the half-light, save for a glimmer far in the distance where a dim lamp burns before an altar of most delicate tracery flanked by two lofty windows, the front shut in by a brazen rail, while a lacelike shroud of exquisite stonework rises behind, reaching as with giant leaps to the heavily groined roof.

In the farthest corner, crouching beside the altar, sits Blanche, her feet resting on an embroidered cope, brought by the pitying priests, Claire close beside her. Both are so still in the waves of gloom outside, that they might pass for statues on a tomb, pressed close together, habited in hood and cape as Carmelites.

“I shall die,” whispers Blanche, “if no one comes before night,” and a cold shudder passes over her.

“Dear Blanche, keep a good heart, after all we have gone through. Here at least we are safe. I wish to heaven,” adds Claire, “he were, who has staked his life to bring us here.”

“Ah, Claire, you are in love, and that comforts you. I have no one to care for me since I parted with Fadique, God grant that he is saved. But, Claire, are you quite sure that the priest understood he was to inform the Conde de Trastamare that I am here?”

“Yes,” is the answer; “what a miracle it was that he is in possession of Toledo. Had it been Don Pedro, he would have broken the sanctuary as sure as fate.”

“I should like to see this Enrique de Trastamare,” whispers Blanche, her white face lighting up for an instant at the thought of a possible protector. “I am sure he is good, because he fights against that horrible monster Pedro. After all, I am a queen; the King of France will rescue me. You remember the Governor of Talavera said the French were marching on Toledo, and that was why we were to come here. For my part I would have rather gone in quite another direction, towards Navarre. Ah! how I tremble when I think of it all, and that mule that kicked me off, just as we were leaving the castle by the narrow path! I wonder I was not killed; I am sure I am bruised!”

“And our danger,” adds Claire, glad to see Blanche’s mind disengaged from the continual terror she endures, “when we passed the outer tents of the encampment, in our Carmelite disguise (how clever of the governor to think of it), and those soldiers asked us so rudely if we would absolve them! Oh, how I shake when I think of it. All seemed over with us; and so it would have been, if that handsome Aragonese knight had not come up, and perceived from our accent that we were French, and conducted us across the lines,” here Claire breaks off with a heavy sigh, and Blanche kisses her tenderly and inquires what ails her.

“Can you ask? When you know I cannot tell if he is safe across the frontier, my valiant Raoul! Alas! alas! if he falls into Don Pedro’s hands! Oh, the noble heart!” and she puts her hands before her eyes to shut out the horrid image her fancy has called up. “When he gave his love to me, I told him he must save my queen, else I would never look at him!”

“But this is a fearful place!” cries Blanche in a louder voice, peeping out into the nave, the desolation of her position coming over her. “Do you hear that noise!” as a sudden echo rebounds from aisle to aisle. “I am sure there are spirits here,” and trembling all over, she clings to Claire.

“Be comforted, my queen. Some one will come. The priest who serves us is very kind, and he assured me of the favour of the chapter. Believe me, we shall not be forgotten. Collect yourself, dear princess. You know what Raoul said of Don Enrique?”

“Oh, I am dead of cold and fright!” answers Blanche, bursting into tears. “I care not if I die—one stab and all is over! I dream every night of Don Pedro, a dagger in his hand, and just as I am about to escape, the point falls here,” and she lays her hand upon her neck. “I know it will end so. All die who offend Don Pedro.”

“See!” cries Claire, as the darkness enveloping the lengthening lines of the gigantic pillars lifts, and a glint of light strikes like living fire on the famous statue of the Virgin, recovered from the Moors by San Fernando, seated upon an altar on a silver throne, and glittering with jewels, an exquisite canopy of fretted pinnacles of saints shrouding it, “See! the Holy Mother herself has come to comfort us.”

CHAPTER XIV
Don Enrique Welcomes Queen Blanche to Toledo

OURS pass, struck out from the Giralda tower in many-toned bells, each bell with its own name and recognised by its tone. Figures had glided in and out, dwarfed to pigmies by the vast size. Groups had formed at distant shrines, to vanish as they came. Veiled women had knelt on the marble pavement, and a crowd had gathered round a preacher in a far-off aisle.

At length, when hope seemed dead, the shrill blast of trumpets and the clatter of horses’ feet came to the ears of the ever-watchful Claire, from the direction of the Puerta de los Leones, dull at first, and low, but marvellously distinct.

Then steadily advancing footsteps are heard approaching, the heavy tread as of a company of armed men whose mailed feet fall heavy on the marble pavement.

With beating hearts Blanche and Claire start to their feet to await their doom.

The glare of many torches is thrown forward, calling up fantastic shapes; an armed figure emerges, clearly defined against the light, a long Castilian sword at his side, and a mailed hand is stretched forward.

“Welcome to Toledo, madam,” says the voice of Enrique de Trastamare. “Never could we have esteemed ourselves more happy in the fortune of war than by your presence.”

As he speaks Blanche throws herself at his feet; her veil falls back. She weeps, but her tears do not mar the fresh beauty of her face.

“Save me, my lord!” she cries. “Save me, for the love of God.”

She clasps her hands, as if addressing a deity. Her sobs drown her voice, which still murmurs, “Save me! Save me!”

Enrique’s eyes fill with tears. He stoops and raises her, imprinting on her cheek a royal kiss of welcome.

“You will not betray me to Don Pedro?” she whispers, seizing his mailed hand.

“Betray you!” he answers, greatly moved. “Rather die! If I am a crowned king, I am no less a belted knight. There is no right of chivalry more precious than the succour of distress, especially that of a royal lady allied to us by marriage. Our entrance into the city of Toledo was by surprise; there are here no noble ladies to form your court at the Alcazar; but such rough welcome as a soldier can afford is yours, fair queen. I pray you to honour our quarters with your presence, where I have already ordered such preparations to be made as are possible.”

Something in the voice and aspect of Enrique so powerfully reminded Blanche of Fadique, that she remained utterly speechless, to the great distress of Claire, who whispered into her ear, “For the sake of the Virgin, who has sent him, thank him as he deserves.”

Enrique, quickly penetrating the sense of the words, saluting her graciously, replied:

“I desire no thanks from the queen. If I did, I much mistake me if the noble demoiselle with whom I speak could not as fittingly reply as her mistress.”

At this compliment, spoken with all the charm of Spanish gallantry, Claire blushes deeply, and holds down her head.

“Pardon me, my lord,” and Blanche stops suddenly as Enrique draws her gently forward in the direction of the portal, “if I ask of the welfare of your brother, the Grand Master?”

Her voice trembled as she named him, and her face grew ashy white. Instead of answering her, Enrique paused abruptly and laid his disengaged hand on her shoulder, as if to support her. His silence, and the care with which he bore her up alarmed her. Slowly she turned her eyes upon his face, clouded by grief, and a faint cry escaped her.

“Is he dead?” she asked, in a voice almost inaudible.

“He is,” was the answer.

“By whose hand did he fall?”

“By that of my brother, Don Pedro. He called him to the Alcazar, and smote him in the Hall of the Ambassadors at Seville.”

Exhausted by the long ride from Talavera, the vigil in the cathedral, and the agitation of meeting with Don Enrique, this cruel blow was too much. Ere he had spoken Blanche fell into a swoon so death-like that as Claire knelt before her under the glare of the torches, she asked herself if life would ever return?

Great was the compassion of Don Enrique as he looked down on her fair young face.

“Let the nearest leech be summoned instantly,” he commands, turning to an attendant. “Meanwhile, ask the good fathers if they have no strong waters to sprinkle on the queen, or no relics at hand which, by their virtue, will bring the dead to life. Even I, a soldier, have heard in camp of the virtue of Santa Leocadia, whose bones lie in the Sacristy. Let every means be tried. Madam,” turning to Claire, vainly trying by every art to revive her mistress, “my royal sister is happy indeed to possess such a friend; I will myself remain and assist you.”

The strong waters brought by the priests effected no immediate cure. No relics were forthcoming. It was not deemed meet that Santa Leocadia should be removed from her consecrated shrine at the command of a newly-made king, not sure of

his title. For, be it noted, the appearance of the Pretender, Enrique de Trastamare, in the cathedral, and his determination to carry away the Lady Blanche was most unwelcome to the chapter, who were thus deprived of their sanctuary dues, the actually reigning sovereign alone having the privilege of recompensing them.

At length a leech arrives in the person of an aged Jew well-known in her city at the beginning and end of life. Quickly he opens a vein, and as, drop by drop, the blood flows over the delicate skin, her eyes open, and again she breathes.

No sooner has consciousness returned to the queen than it is Claire’s turn to give way. Tottering backwards she seems about to fall. But the brave girl, ever faithful to her charge, forces herself to overcome the passing weakness and tend her mistress, on whose pale cheeks a faint tinge of colour has stolen.

“Dear Blanche, hear me!” cries Claire, passionately seizing her hand and carrying the cold fingers to her lips. “On my knees I conjure you to live, for yourself, for me! For France, our pleasant land, where we shall return. Rouse yourself, Blanche. Sit up,” and she essays to raise her in her arms, while Enrique, with looks of the tenderest pity, assists her.

At length, more dead than alive, she is placed on a litter bearing the device of “the Castle” (the same as was used by the pious Queen Berengaria when she came to Mass), and is carried from the cathedral up the hill to the square of the Zocodover, on her way to the Alcazar.

CHAPTER XV
Taking of Toledo by Don Pedro—Death of Queen Blanche

ITHIN an incredibly short time Don Pedro marched from Seville with a well-disciplined army and gained possession of Toledo, principally by the connivance of the Jews, Father Isaac himself with his own hands opening the postern of the Gate of San Martino. Many of the citizens who had believed the king to be dead or dying, at the news of his approach joined themselves with the Jews in a close conspiracy in his favour, greatly strengthening his cause.

The siege was short and rapid. Don Enrique had only time to escape by night from the Alcazar in disguise, with his most faithful adherents; his showy but inefficient army, comprised, as Albuquerque had reminded him, of so many heterogeneous elements, ill-paid and ill-fed, melted away before the disciplined troops of his brother, and Blanche, poor Blanche, was seized in the Alcazar and sent far away from all hope of succour into Andalusia to the castle of Xeres.

But this is not enough for Don Pedro. After the most solemn promises of pardon to those citizens of Toledo who had acknowledged his brother, no sooner had he manned the walls and floated the “Castle and the Lion” at the four towers of the Alcazar, than every one of his brother’s adherents was denounced.

In this, Father Isaac did cruel service, gratifying the private vengeance of his nation under the pretext of treachery to the king. A terrible massacre followed; head after head was struck off in the presence of Don Pedro, until the executioners rested from sheer fatigue.

“I am El Rey Justiciar,” are his cruel words, “let my enemies feel there is no mercy for traitors.” One of the accused, an old caballero, who had refused to pay an exorbitant interest to a Jew, a friend of Father Isaac’s, was a venerable citizen of good repute, who had taken no part in the insurrection. His son rushed forward and implored the king to spare him. “Take my life, my lord!” cried he, “not his!” and he flung himself upon his knees before him in an agony of supplication.

“Not a whit, not a whit!” answered Don Pedro commanding his guards to drive him back. “If you so love death, share it together,” and the father and son both fell under the axe.

The barbarous death of Doña Urraca de Osorrio at this time has become historical. When Don Pedro learned that her husband, Alvarez de Guzman (the son of Guzman el Bueno, who saved Spain from the Moors at the siege of Tarifa), had gone over to his brother in the siege of Toledo, he caused her to be seized and burnt alive in the public square of Seville before the Ayuntamiento. Her maid, Leonora Davilo, was with her. As the wind was high at the time, Doña Urraca’s clothes were displaced, and her body exposed to the jeers of the brutal Sevillianos, when the faithful Leonora leaped into the flames, and casting herself as a veil on her mistress was burned with her. Thus they are both represented on Doña Urraca’s monument in the church of San Isidoro at Santa Ponce, a short distance from Seville, built by Guzman el Bueno, with little idea that his own daughter-in-law would be interred there under circumstances of such horror.

And now the great name of Albuquerque is heard for the last time. Faithful to the cause of Don Enrique as he had been to that of Don Pedro, he met his former master, at his particular request, at the ancient town of Toro, lying in the open expanse of plains between Salamanca and Zamora, in order to endeavour to negotiate better terms for his new master.

Of what passed between Don Pedro and his great minister there is no record, but the sudden death of Albuquerque immediately after the interview is not without suspicion of foul play.

The southern district of Spain, within the bounds of Andalusia, extending from Seville to Cadiz, is still a mystery as in days of yore. Great open alluvial plains, utterly treeless, stretch into boundless perspectives, the home of the wild bull in its pristine ferocity. The Guadalquivir flows onwards in a torpid tide among canals and open trenches down to the sea, a most unpoetic river in all but the name. All is grey, misty, and desolate, a “no man’s land,” to which even the waves of the Mediterranean bring no delight, for the shallow beach sends back the water so far it barely covers the sandy shore.

On these shores the old Continent of Europe seems to die out, to make place for the youthful splendour of Africa opposite, visible in the line of the picturesque Atlas range rising across the straits; old Europe worn out, and melting into the sea before the defiance of its stalwart rival.

Xeres de la Frontiera is the only town on this low marshy coast. The Xeres of that day—not famed for wine and commerce as in our time—was a small fortified place taken from the Moors, enclosed by walls; and precisely because the Xeres of that day was desolate and lonely, it was selected for the place of the queen’s imprisonment.

Blanche—oh! so changed! her young face drawn, her delicate cheeks marked with fine lines, her childlike eyes dim, her slight figure bowed as if by age, her flaxen curls streaked with grey, although she has scarcely reached the years of womanhood—is indeed an object of compassion! All hope gone, knowing that she must die. And so living day by day as the months roll on and she measures the dull routine of sunrise and sunset across those cruel plains, which cut her off from all humanity.

One image haunts her, the gallant young Infante who dared to love her. And from him her thoughts wander to his brother, El Caballero, who was about to send her to Navarre with an escort when he was surprised at Toledo, and is now almost as helpless as herself; in her enfeebled brain the lineaments of the two brothers become mingled, and the gentle Fadique seems to live again in the gracious Enrique, whom all men love.

What matter? She is doomed. Incapable of hate or love; no passion is left within her. Even the craving for liberty is gone. She feels she could not use it, were it hers; and thus she sits, day after day, on the summit of a castellated tower, under a low wall, hand in hand with Claire.

That she has loved or been loved seems so impossible, a feeble smile rises on her lips as she thinks of it. That she has been born to pomp and greatness is equally incredible in her abject condition. To hold a flower in her hand, to scent the perfume of herbs borne by the breeze, to watch the flight of sea-gulls which skim across the plain, to note the accidents of the seasons, golden autumn breaking into grey winter, then passing to the glad garments of the spring, on the shadowy outlines of the mountains of La Mancha, is to her mind as a never-ending wonder that the world should thus go on. It is she alone who is dead, while all nature lives triumphant!

The entrance of the old crone who performs such menial offices as she requires is a boon as something human, yet even she scowls at her with envy because she is a queen.

“What devil’s deed have you in your mind?” she mutters, as she sweeps the floor, casting malignant glances at Blanche, seated beside Claire. “Are you expecting a saviour, mistress? Ha! ha! None will come to Xeres. You do not answer? You can weep, therefore you can speak.”

“We are French,” answers Claire, speaking for Blanche. “We mean you no offence by our silence. But, for the sake of mercy, tell us, good mother, is there really no means of escape from this prison?”

“None,” answers the woman, pursing up her thin lips as if it gave her a certain satisfaction. “Think not of it. From hence you go to the gates of death. I can tell you that. Misfortune is the road to a better world. It comforts me to think you are as wretched as I am myself. Fare you well, ladies, till to-morrow. There is not a chamber in the castle nor a step on the stairs that is not slippery with human blood. They die, every soul of them, who come here.”

As she speaks she turns her back to go, when Blanche rushes after her. Roused from her torpor by these horrible words, she seizes the old hag by the shoulders and looks wildly into her eyes.

“Richly, richly would my father requite you, did you save me.”

“Your father?” retorts the woman. “Where is he? Meanwhile they would wring my old neck, and you be no better. No! no!”

“Stay! stay!” cries Blanche, keeping hold on her. “It consoles me to hear another voice and not always to listen to the owls hooting outside, or the ticking of the death-watch in the walls.”

“Let go,” answers the old woman, extricating herself rudely from her weak grasp, “or you shall serve yourselves, mistresses. I cannot help you. When I was young I could not protect myself. Here, not the Holy Virgin herself can save you.” As she speaks she bars the door and disappears, a sneering smile upon her face, furrowed with wrinkles.

Except this woman, no one but the governor enters. He is a stern, morose Castilian, eliminating all expression from his face as he looks at Blanche, yet with a certain kindliness of expression and gesture he cannot altogether disguise, which pains her, for she would gladly think that the world is as dead and buried as she is herself. Not even Claire can comfort her now—Claire, her whole soul in her eyes, watching her every movement, while her own thoughts turn to the fate of the lover who, at her command, risked his life to liberate the queen.

One evening, sitting together at sunset on the tower, the sound of horses’ feet galloping rapidly on the grass rouses them. A white terror is in Blanche’s eyes as she fixes them on Claire, who, leaning over, can perceive a little company of men-at-arms rapidly approaching, bearing a flag with the king’s badge.

No word is said, but when the governor enters, as is his custom, to serve their evening meal, Claire, standing behind her chair, observes his eyes, at moments when he thinks Blanche’s attention is distracted, fixed on Blanche with a glance full of pity.

No word is said, but below, in the courtyard, comes the sound of a loud harsh voice; the step of sentinels louder and quicker, and around an unwonted stir.

Blanche, sitting listless, pays no heed, but Claire goes and comes in the narrow tower, peering through the small arched slits which serve for light, listening to every sound. Then all dies away as night closes.

“For to-night we are safe,” is her thought; but suddenly in the darkness, to her sharp ears comes that same harsh voice with which she seems familiar. She has heard it at Valladolid. Can it be the king? One purpose only could bring him here, the death of Blanche. Ah! how can she save her? If to give her life, how gladly she would be the sacrifice! A thousand wild schemes whirl in her brain; but she says nothing, and Blanche,

save that she has turned deadly pale, has not spoken.

But when the moonlight comes, and Claire is unbinding the long tresses of her hair and combing out those childish curls, now half grey, which lent so sweet an expression to her innocent young face when she came to Valladolid, a knock is heard at the door, and lo! a priest enters.

Now as, from time to time, Blanche has been allowed to confess, this does not startle Claire as much as it might seem; but when the priest says, entering the vaulted chamber and addressing Blanche, “My daughter, have you prayed?” she knows that her hour has come.

A piercing scream escapes from Claire as she falls on her knees beside her mistress, but Blanche rises up with the aspect of a queen.

“My father,” she answers, “I pray always, for I have died out of the world.”

“It is well, my daughter,” and the priest raises his hand over her in benediction as she kneels before him; but there is a tremor in his voice he cannot suppress, and old as he is and practised in the ways of death, tears stand in his eyes as he looks at her young face.

A solemn silence follows neither cares to break.

It is the priest, who speaks first in a voice which trembles spite of himself.

“It is not without reason, my daughter, that we are enjoined to pray. We know not when God may see fit to call our souls to him.”

“I understand,” answers Blanche in a voice so low it can only be heard by reason of the great silence, “you mean I am to die.”

“My daughter,” and now, unable to command his grief, sobs shake his words, and poor Claire, clinging wildly to her mistress, as if by her loving arms she could keep her in life, utters the most piercing cries.

“My sister,” and Blanche turns to her, “for such you are in love, disturb not my last hour with your grief, but rather rejoice with me that I am leaving a world in which I have suffered so much. I wonder I have been allowed to live so long. But, my father,” addressing the priest, “listen to me before I die: I am innocent of the crime imputed to me. I was condemned unheard. But there is a tribunal above, before the living God, to absolve me. There I summon my husband, the King of Castile, to appear. We shall meet shortly. By the sword he has lived; and by the sword he shall die. It has been revealed to me.”

“My daughter,” replies the priest, taking her hand in his, “such invocations are wicked. Leave vengeance to God.”

Blanche bows her head in obedience. But the prophecy is uttered, and the dark spirits which keep watch over human life have heard and noted it.

Then calling for paper, which Claire, gathering herself up from the floor, gave her with trembling hands, hanging over her the while as if each breath she drew was precious beyond life, Blanche wrote some words addressed to Don Pedro, and bound the paper with a black ribbon from her neck.

“I pray you, my father, to hold what is here written as sacred. Deliver it in person to the king. Tell him you saw me die.”

So calm is Blanche and her voice so clear, as she fixes her large eyes steadfastly on the priest, as if looking beyond him into another world, that neither he nor Claire dare trouble her with words.

Then she confesses, kneeling on the stones, and at the conclusion, taking the priest’s hand in hers, she meekly kisses it, and begs to be interred at Xeres.

“For else,” she says, “they may dispute the possession of my body in death as they have done in life, and the king’s mistress, Maria de Padilla, might do some dishonour to it, which is not meet, seeing that I am of royal blood, and the rightful Queen of Castile.”

And even in the agony of her grief Claire wondered to hear Blanche speak with such dignity and judgment, for, up to that time since they had left Toledo, her senses had seemed dulled, and she had said nothing of all that was in her mind.

Anon the low door creaks on its hinges and a figure appears, completely shrouded in black. The head is covered by a cowl with slits for eyes; in one hand is a torch, which throws a glare in the chamber like blood; the other lies concealed in the mantle.

At this horrible sight Blanche loses all her composure. She shrieks aloud, and burying herself in the arms of Claire clings closely to the stone walls.

But the priest exhorting her with holy words, she speedily regains her courage, and turning to the executioner speaks with a gentle voice.

“Friend, I pardon you. You must obey the king, who sends you, as I do in dying here.” And rising to her feet, a kind of glory gathers on her face; all her young beauty comes back to her again, such as she was when, as a happy girl, she left Narbonne a bride.

“I am but eighteen years old, and I am about to die, a virgin, as I have lived. The crown which was put on my head was one of sorrow; I hope to find a better in another world. My father,” turning to the priest, who is bowed down with grief, “if it be possible, commend me to my sister, the Queen of France, and to my father, and tell them I have not disgraced them by any act.”

And with these words upon her lips, she kneels down, the executioner seizes her, and passes the fatal bowstring round her throat.

According to a legend of the time, Blanche of Bourbon was interred in the old cathedral at Xeres, but as an entirely new building was erected in 1695, no record of her burying-place remains.

CHAPTER XVI
Death of Maria de Padilla—Don Juan de Mañara

OREMOST in the fighting at Toledo, when Don Pedro drove out Don Enrique de Trastamare and took Queen Blanche prisoner, was his favourite, Don Juan de Mañara, an historical profligate of no small fame in poetry and music, and dreaded by husbands and fathers.

Vainly did they lock the gates of their patios and put iron bars over the windows; he penetrated everywhere. The Commendatore whom Don Juan killed in a duel about his daughter Doña Anna, was but one of the many whom he had injured, only the Commendatore cursed him, and the curse cleaved to him, although it is not true that as a statue, he invited him to supper, as he does in Mozart’s opera, and was dragged down to hell.

The stage Don Giovanni is a very elegant señor, with fine feathers, bright clothes, golden chains, velvets, and lace; but the real man clothed himself as plainly as his master, Don Pedro, in a dark doublet, with a leather capa, or head-piece, quite innocent of gew-gaws, and as heavy a mantle as a Castilian can wear.

Living in warlike times, when men rapped out their swords on every occasion, Don Juan was ready for whatever adventure might befall, giving no quarter and receiving none; little given to vanity of any sort, or smoothness of speech in the passages of the duelo or on the battle-field, spending his leisure between the dice-box and the wine flagon.

In person he was dark-featured, too bronzed and weather-beaten for actual beauty, but with plenty of that dash and bravery which please a lady’s eye. Careless, remorseless, sensual, neither God nor devil had terrors for him, but he never shed blood wantonly, and was incapable of butchering women, like his master, or of treacherous assassination or murder of any kind.

How he remained in favour so long, spite of his outspoken comments on Don Pedro, was due to his well-tried devotion. His contempt for the whole family of the Padillas was notorious, specially for Don Garcia, whom he qualified as a base flatterer and parasite, ready to sell Don Pedro like Judas Iscariot.

Don Pedro had few friends; revolt and hatred had thinned his party, and the followers of Enrique de Trastamare were continually increased by the horror of some new crime.

Had the king given heed to Don Juan he would never have sacrificed Doña Bianca or the Grand Master Fadique to the jealous fury of Maria de Padilla. Every mishap which had been foretold by Albuquerque and the queen-mother had followed, as was indeed apparent, after these cruel deeds.

At this time his life and his throne were in jeopardy and he knew it. Not only had the death of Blanche moved France to the core and allied Charles V. with Enrique, but it had so profoundly offended the Castilian sense of honour that a formal remonstrance was drawn up by his own nobles, an insult at which his fierce temper flamed out, and but for the certainty of coming war a bloody punishment would have been the result.

“The throne! the throne!” is the war-cry of El Caballero, who, no longer a fugitive, has constituted himself the avenger of the queen; and word has come to Seville that Aragon and Navarre have declared in his favour, as well as many of the cities in old Castile, and that Blanche’s kinsman, the Comte de la Marche, of the royal blood of St. Louis, has joined Du Guesclin and the Grande Compagnie despatched by the King of France, now marching south to join them.

Hitherto prosperous in his wickedness, since Blanche’s death a curse cleaves to Don Pedro. Has he read her letter and does he know that she has summoned him to appear at the heavenly tribunal, where neither lying nor hypocrisy will avail him? Who can say? Dead or alive, Don Pedro is inscrutable.

At this time Maria de Padilla falls suddenly sick of a mortal malady. Stretched on an Oriental couch of purple stuff, within her golden-walled chamber she lies longing for the return of Don Pedro, far away battling in Aragon. Plunged in the torpor of a sudden fever, her hand vaguely wanders among the meshes of her glossy hair, still sown with the pearls she had placed there overnight. From whom does she shrink, this terrible beauty, gathering herself together until her henna-tipped fingers sinking into her flesh, she cries loudly for Don Pedro, and shriek after shriek comes from her as she flings herself into the arms of her slaves?

It is an evil death, haunted by phantoms. No priest comes to soothe her dying moments. She is held to be a witch, in league with the Evil One. The sacraments of the Church cannot be brought to such as she. But on Don Pedro’s return to Seville she is laid to rest in the cathedral under the dome of the Capilla Real, beside the sovereigns of Castile, and such regal titles as were refused her in life are given to her in death.

The Cortes are assembled, and Don Pedro solemnly proclaims her his lawful wife and her children, one son and three daughters, legitimate. No one believes it, though witnesses are called as having been present at the ceremony, but no one dares to deny it and Maria de Padilla is buried as she has lived—a queen.

Whatever Don Pedro feels at the loss of the woman he loved, he conceals it. This is no time for grief. Furious at the growing success of El Caballero, Don Pedro signs a hasty peace with Aragon, and threatens to attack his ancient allies, the Moors.

Much alarmed, they send an ambassador to Seville, in the person of Mahomed Barbarossa, the Rey Bermejo, charged with rich presents to appease him.

In the midst of a superb procession rides the Red King, the accoutrements of his horse set with jewelled fringes; on his head he wears the green turban of the followers of the Prophet, and in the centre, conspicuous among a galaxy of gems, three enormous rubies are set, the middle one, known as “the Balax,” big as a pigeon’s egg. When he beholds Don Pedro in royal robes, standing on the threshold of his gorgeous portal, surrounded by such of the brilliant Castilians who as yet are true to him, the dusky emir is moved to smile, and as he dismounts to kiss Don Pedro’s hand, the Balax gleaming like fire on his head, his steely blue eyes fix on it greedily, and it is clear to Don Juan who stands behind, that strong passion of some kind moves him.

Long he contemplates in silence the turban of the Moor; then, turning abruptly to Don Juan, he whispers: “What right has the Infidel to wear such gems? While my treasury is empty he comes here to flaunt them in my face. Mark me, amigo mio, I will have that Balax before the day is old. It is worth a king’s ransom and will some day stand me in good stead.”

“I pray your Grace not to contemplate so villainous a project,” is Don Juan’s reply. “You have enemies enough, methinks, without making more. I will not help you. I am willing to second you, as my liege and sovereign, in the field or the duelo, to the death, but by St. Helena or any other male or female saint, I cannot stand by you in a matter of open spoiling of your guest.”

“No, but the gems, the gems,” returns the king in the same whisper. “I never saw the like! I cannot take my eyes from them!”

“That may or may not be. It is no concern of mine, my lord. I am no merchant to adjudge their value; nor do I care for such toys except on the bosom of the fair, where I would be before your Grace in plucking them. Otherwise, let every man and every Moor, I say, possess his own; and if the emir likes to deck himself like a peacock he is free for me.”

As the day falls and the bells of the Giralda tower and of all the towers in the churches of Seville have ceased their clang, a sumptuous banquet is spread in the Hall of the Ambassadors.

Darker and darker grows Don Pedro’s brow as the feast continues, and more and more anxiously his eyes turn towards the entrance leading into the Patio de las Doncellas.

As the innumerable courses of pilaus and curries, conserves and sweetmeats are served in honour of his guests, with the finest wines of Xeres and Malaga, and golden basins with perfumed water and embroidered napkins are offered between each course, Don Pedro can scarcely master his impatience.

A stony silence falls on all the company from the grim humour of the king. Don Juan is absent, but Don Rodrigues with the other familiars are there, and Emanuel El Zapatero, now captain of the body-guard, stands behind his chair, and as if conscious that something is about to happen, never takes his eyes from his master’s face.

But the strangeness of the position reaches its climax when the emir, rising from the gold-embroidered divan on which he is stretched to pledge the king, Don Pedro neither moves nor responds in any way, but sits with his eyes fixed, as if fascinated, on the Balax in his turban.

Suddenly, at some secret sign given by Emanuel, he strikes the table with his fist, and from each of the pillared openings the hall is filled with troops, armed to the teeth, and behind his chair arises, as if by magic, the naked figure of a Nubian slave bearing an axe.

Ere one can draw breath he falls upon the Red King, who, taken unawares, has not even time to draw his dagger. At the same moment each Moorish knight is seized from behind by a Castilian trooper and dragged into the outer court of the Monteria, where he finds his horse, arms, and slave, receiving at the same time stern injunctions to cross the frontier of Castile before sunrise.

Alone in the hall, Don Pedro advances to where the unhappy Red King lies dead upon the floor, hard by the spot where the blood of Don Fadique stains the marble.

“Dog, and son of a dog!” he exclaims, “did you think to come to Seville to rival me? Dead or alive, I will have the rubies,” and, stooping down with his own hand he plucks them from his turban. “Such a stone as this,” he says, reflectively, holding up the Balax to the light, as if unable to detach his eyes from it, “I never saw, though I am cunning in gems. It is unequalled. It may save my crown. Who knows? Till then I will cherish it as a lover does his mistress. In my bosom I will place thee, wondrous stone, next to my heart of hearts.”[A]

Don Juan, though wholly disapproving these barbarities as useless and uncivilised, instead of falling away from his master like the rest, applies himself to strengthen his cause. To the dissipated and the young he holds out the prospect of unlimited license; to the ambitious, power; to

the covetous, domains. Nothing is left undone that can determine the wavering and secure the doubtful. “The ultimate success of the pretender of Trastamare,” he says, “is an event utterly improbable; and even should he come, it would only be to enrich his own followers by a fearful reckoning among those who have opposed him.”

Subtle arguments these, and admirably suited to the temper of the times, when men’s minds were swayed either by venal and selfish motives, or by the terror of ruin and massacre.

Don Juan lives in a narrow street, a stone’s throw from the gate of the Alcazar. His house still remains, a curious monument of the times; a small, low building with a quaint projecting attic and casements guarded by rows of low Saracenic arches.

Of course there is a fountain in the small pillared patio where he received his friends. If it is the same little pillar of spray as in Don Juan’s time hummed and splashed through the long summer days, I cannot say, or if he was served by the identical Leporello we know so well, and scolded by the shrewish wife Doña Elvira, who always sings in “alt.” But it is certain that the low door of his house gave access nightly to crowds of rollicking guests and fair masked señoras, and that the king in disguise often stepped across the street from the Alcazar to take part in the revelry.

The real Don Juan lives in evil times. Seville is growing desperate with the tyranny of the king. The name of Enrique el Caballero is whispered everywhere as a saviour to an oppressed people. It is said indeed that he has again been proclaimed king at Cahorra by his followers, at the head of the Grandes Compagnies, and that Charles V. of France treats with him as friend to friend.

The priests despise Don Pedro because he lies under an interdict, and no masses can be said in the churches; the libertines hate him because he judges them severely and gives such large measure to himself; and the lovers and husbands because no woman is safe.

No two men are of the same mind in this divided city. The houses are barricaded, the towers turned into fortresses, the iron lattices of the windows, where true lovers whisper, into loopholes for pikes and arrows; the black crosses in the plazas are stained with blood, and the dead often lie unburied in the calle. In all these disorders Don Juan is a leader, cutting down the king’s enemies like dogs, and anathematising all rebels to his cause. “Let us make merry ere we die,” is the cry of the Sevillianos, not knowing what may befall; and so they pass the time in the certainty of coming warfare between Don Enrique and the king, in rioting and profligacy.

The very priests live like gallants, and the nuns trail silken gowns. Merry-makings and orgies are held even in the churches, and drinking and dancing are common among the graves, much to Don Juan’s delight as a scoffer and a blasphemer, who gaily foots it to a rattling measure with the bones.

From dancing the citizens get to fighting; a few cry for Don Pedro, but more shout for El Caballero and thus from bad to worse the evil days pass along.

There is a homely proverb which says, “The devil will have his own.” This is proved in the history of Don Juan de Mañara. During an orgy, at which another noted gallant and profligate, Don Santiago de Augebo, is present, a gitana of great beauty slips in to sell flowers to the noble señors lounging in drunken mirth among the wine-cups.

Impudent gitana! Swords are drawn and a free fight for her possession instantly ensues, Don Santiago getting the upper hand and seizing on her, spite of her screams.

“Now, by all the saints and devils!” cries Don Juan, touched by the genuine terror of the girl, “give us also a chance, Señor Caballero,” and as the other opposes him, although in his own house, he draws his rapier and falls on him with such thundering blows that Santiago sinks insensible on the floor.

The gitana, somewhat above her class, and very beautiful, kisses Don Juan’s hand, which he returns by raising her and pressing his lips to hers. Then plunging his hand into the depths of his doublet he pulls out a well-filled purse, which he gives her with a glance out of his wicked eyes, such as the stage Don Giovanni bestows on Zerlina and with like effect, much to the amazement of the company, who rise up to shout and laugh as he conducts her with mock solemnity to the gate of the patio—especially Don Santiago, by this time recovered, and swearing secret vengeance on Don Juan.

To the Leporello of that day, by name Gesuelo, Don Juan secretly issues his commands to find out all he can about the gitana, which is done by the ready-witted knave, who tells him her name is Caritad, and that her father abandoned her mother at her birth.

But next morning, with the fumes of last night’s wine the image of Caritad vanishes, and he orders a great supper in honour of Don Pedro, to which all the gallants of Seville are bidden.

“Death to the king’s enemies” is the toast, and Don Pedro himself graces the board with his presence. But a cloud of care rests on his young face. All looks dark. The Black Prince, on whose help he has so firmly relied, has not responded to his repeated calls for help, while Enrique is supported by the presence of the redoubtable Du Guesclin or Clayquin as he is called in contemporary history. Now they have entered Spain, and actually Toledo, Burgos, Salamanca, Palencia, and other cities of the north are with them. The King of Portugal is doubtful in his allegiance, the passes of the Pyrenees swarm with French adventurers and rebels, tramping down to join Enrique’s camp at Logroño; and worse than all, his little son, Alonso, Maria de Padilla’s child, his only male heir and successor, is dying. Ever since the death of Blanche the horrors of a violent and speedy death possess him. Do as he will, curse, carouse, murder, and blaspheme, he cannot shake off the sinister foreboding. The murder of the Rey Bermejo has alienated the Moors, and Seville, his own Seville, is wavering.

As the banquet proceeds and the heads of the guests begin to turn under the effect of the choice wines of Andalusia, passed round in golden cups and goblets, Don Juan suddenly rises and drinks the health of the hereditary ally of Castile—the hero of Crécy and Poitiers—Edward, the Black Prince—now lying encamped in Guienne at Bordeaux; extols his prowess and generosity, and cunningly passing on to vaunt the respect and affection he bears to his master the king, announces his speedy arrival in Spain with the flower of the English chivalry unrivalled in the world.

Don Juan knows this is a lie, and that the Black Prince has shown no sign, but that matters little if only he can succeed in impressing the company with the belief that he is on the road to fight Don Enrique. Indeed, to do this is the principal aim of the banquet, and he takes care to bring forward the intelligence at a moment when no one is in a condition either to canvass or to dispute it.

The name of the Black Prince is coupled with those of the English knights who accompany him—Captain de Buch, Thomas of Canterbury, Montfort, and the gallant and elegant Chandos. The feats of arms performed in the taking of Toledo by Don Pedro are remembered, and also the ugliness of the women, except indeed the Jewesses. The humiliating particulars of Don Enrique’s flight are detailed, and loud laughter ensues at his sham coronation at Burgos. But no one dares to mention that the Grandes Compagnies have entered Castile commanded by the Comte de la Marche, of the royal blood of St. Louis, and Du Guesclin, and that with Don Enrique they are marching upon Seville!

At the mention of his brother’s name the king’s passion blazes out; he clenches his fist and the veins swell on his forehead. Starting to his feet, his blue eyes travel round the room, as if he would read on each countenance the bias of the mind within. Then, seizing a jewelled cup, which he holds on high, he drinks: “Death to the bastard, and by the Holy Cross of Compostella may he burn in Hell!”

There is a pause. No one echoes this savage curse of brother to brother. Even the well-seasoned profligates around are sobered for an instant by the unnatural toast.

In the general silence which follows, Leporello or Gesuelo makes his way to his master with a musk-scented letter in his hand, bound with a blue ribbon.

Cutting the ribbon with his dagger, Don Juan (like a man accustomed to such missives) glances at the signature, then lets it fall. What matter? It is signed Amina. Who is Amina? He has already forgotten!

When the king rises to depart, Don Juan accompanies him to the portal of the Alcazar, followed by the soberer guests. The open letter lies upon the floor. It is perceived by Don Santiago who, raising it on the point of his rapier, reads these words aloud: “Come to me, false one, come ere I die. Amina.”

Shouts of laughter follow, and deep draughts of wine are drunk to speed her parting soul to purgatory; not forgetting the health of the gitana Caritad, with whom Don Santiago swears he will cut out Don Juan.

Meanwhile Don Juan wanders on from the Alcazar into the dark streets. A vague notion possesses him he is going to visit some one, but if it be his new love Caritad, or his ancient flame Amina, of whom he has long lost sight, or both, he cannot clearly define. From the streets he turns into the Plaza de San Francesco, and perceives a light in a house opposite the Palace of the Ayuntamiento (the first floor still remains, all miradores, like the wooden houses in England). On approaching, a silken ladder appears attached to the balcony.

“By St. Anthony! a public tryst!” Don Juan mutters. “Which of the fair ones I seek thus openly hangs out the signal?”

Then he falls into a deep cogitation as to the owner of the house. But Gesuelo has the list of the three hundred and three noble ladies he loves in Seville, and such peasants too who are worthy of his attention, and it was thus he came to know Zerlina, and gave such trouble to that poor fool Masetto. For the life of him, he cannot now remember who lives here, but in a confused way he recalls the letter which he feels for in his vest and misses.

“Confusion,” he mutters to himself. “Into whose hands has it fallen? Meanwhile, here goes!” he cries aloud, “Caritad or the Devil; it is all the same to me, so it be a woman,” and he vaults on the rounds of the ladder and swings himself up to the bars of the balcony.

Within he pauses. All is dark. Somehow, the abundant moon shining outside does not penetrate into the room. To see clearly he must remove his mask, when he discerns from an inner chamber the glimmering of a taper.

Drawing his sword he rushes forward and finds himself before a couch closely shrouded. With haste he removes the draperies and beholds a lady sleeping. Stooping to observe her more closely, with a beating heart he removes a veil, and his eyes fix themselves on the hideous aspect of a corpse festering in its shroud! This is his first warning.

Later, at midnight, in the ancient quarter of the Macerena, Don Juan falls in with a funeral procession, with torches, singing, and banners. It is some grandee of high degree, doubtless—there are so many muffled figures, mutes carrying silver horns, the insignia of knighthood borne upon a shield, a saddled horse led by a shadowy page, and the dim forms of priests and monks chanting death dirges.

Don Juan can recall no death at court or among the nobles, and this is plainly a funeral of quality. Nor can he explain a midnight burial, a thing unknown except in time of war or plague; so, advancing from the dark gateway where he stood to let the procession pass, he addresses himself to one of the muffled figures and asks: “Whose body are they bearing to the Osario at this strange time?”

“Don Juan de Mañara” is the reply. “Will you follow, and say a prayer for his sinful soul?”

As these words are spoken, the procession seems to pause, and one advances who flings back the wreaths of flowers which lie around the face, and lo! Don Juan beholds his own visage in the coffin!

Spellbound he seems to join the ghastly throng which wends its way to the Church of Santa Iñes. Here other spectral priests appear to meet it and carry the bier into the nave, where next morning he is found by the nuns, coming into matins, insensible on the floor! This is the second warning.

After this the name of Don Juan was heard no more at court. Whither he went, no one knew, not even Gesuelo. At length he was discovered in a monastic dress, living in a hospital he had founded for the old and bedridden, on the banks of the Guadalquivir, opposite the Golden Tower where Don Pedro kept his treasure,—a quaint old building which still remains close to the custom-house. You cannot pass a day in Seville without remarking it as you follow along the wharf crowded with merchant ships and steamers, placed a little back but conspicuous by its whiteness.

On an ancient portal, much ornamented in that barocco style into which Seville fell when ceasing to be Moorish, are graven these words:

Sancta Caridad
Domus Pauperum
Scala Cœli.

On one side are the high windows of a Gothic hall, where aged men sit, so shrunk and old one seems to think death has forgotten them. A low iron-bound door leads you farther into the nave of a noble church, supported by twisted pillars such as Raphael loved to paint as the background of his frescoes.

It is very still and rather dark, for red blinds are drawn over the windows, but you plainly perceive the high altar, gay with coloured marbles, and on the highest step where you plant your foot there is a monumental slab let into the pavement, engraven with these words:

Cenizas del peor
Nombre que ha habido
en el Mundo,
Don Juan de Mañara.[B]

The disappearance of Don Juan from the stormy scene was little heeded by Don Pedro in all the confusion of civil war. He was but a bolder sinner than the rest, and that he had turned from the devil to the priest was a contemptible proof of weakness.

No gallant rode down the bank of the Guadalquivir without launching a sneer at the old Gothic pile where, habited in sackcloth, he tended the sick and the dying to the last day of his life.

A riotous band still remained about the king for midnight adventure, to spoil churches, sack convents, waylay travellers, fight duels, and guzzle good Val de Peñas within the gilded walls of the Alcazar. But even the terrified nobles by-and-by fall away from Don Pedro, who has hardened into such a tyrant men fly from him as from a fiend.

CHAPTER XVII
Don Enrique again Crowned King—Flight of Don Pedro

HE time has now come that Don Pedro knows not where to turn. All Spain is divided by civil war. Seville, his own Seville, is full of conspirators, awaiting the arrival of Don Enrique to declare for him; and the Black Prince, on whom he so confidently reckoned, remains absolutely deaf to his appeals.

Even were he willing to repent, he is for ever shut out from salvation in this world and the next. No church is open to him; no priest, however base, dare shrive him for his sins. He is as one accursed.

What those words were, traced by the dying hand of Blanche, no man yet knows—not his closest friends, and they are few; but ever since a strange gloom clings to him which never lifts, and in his sleep he wrestles as in throes of agony.

Events succeed each other with dramatic rapidity. His ally, Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, alarmed at the passage of the French, breaks the alliance and joins with the King of Aragon against him.

Enrique, worshipped by his followers, is again solemnly crowned within the ancient capital of Burgos, in that lovely cathedral, embroidered like a state robe, lately completed, his padrino and godfather being the great warrior Du Guesclin, the first commander of the age, although it is said he can neither read nor write.

The Comte de la Marche, cousin of Blanche, and also of the House of Bourbon, represents the King of France, and stands on his right hand on the steps of the high altar, under that glorious window which floods the space with light, along with marshals and generals, Castilian and French, condes and great lords of Aragon, and a lordly show of knights and caballeros from Leon and Andalusia.

The troops are, as usual in such levies, mixed in nationalities and wanting in unity and discipline, but commanded by Du Guesclin who dares contemplate defeat?

“Remember, most valiant constable,” had said to him his master Charles, the King of France, son of the unfortunate John, prisoner in England, “I shall owe you more than if you gained me a province, if you destroy the murderer of Blanche.”

Nor should this command be forgotten in Du Guesclin’s justification later on; Charles was his liege lord; he had issued his orders, and in the feudal spirit of the age, at any price Du Guesclin is bound to obey.

Open and generous, Enrique makes gifts to all, forgetting he has as yet nothing to bestow. Condes and princedoms drop from his hand on all around (real châteaux en Espagne). There is no end to his largesse, and so successful is this method that in twenty-five days he holds the south and marches on Toledo, where he is received with cries of “Long live Enrique the merciful, who comes to save us from our enemy, Don Pedro.”

Again Enrique is at the lordly Alcazar overlooking the everlasting plains, from whence he was so ignominiously driven by Don Pedro and the Jews. Again behold him, the very picture of a young king whom fortune favours, as he descends the stately flights of stairs and moves once more among the magnificent ranges of colonnades which hold up the great patio, to receive the salutations of long lines of knights and nobles who have flocked from all parts to his standard.

What a tossing of feathers and flash of arms around! True lovers’ knots on shields and shoulders, helmets shaded with waving plumes, lances bound with gaily-embroidered scarves, the inlaid handles of swords and falchions sparkling with gems, and corselets and breastplates bound in with glittering girdles.

Enrique comes in war but he wears the dress of peace, as one at ease, certain of success. Let Pedro flaunt the morions, casques, shields, bucklers, and weapons of conflict, Enrique has already assumed the débonnaire air of a well-established monarch sure of his subjects’ love. (That he is a bastard with no legal right to the throne is forgotten in the general triumph.)

Graceful and polished in his manners as becomes El Rey Caballero, the personal charm he exercises over all who approach him is unbounded, especially when compared to the morose cynicism of Don Pedro, who mocks ere he destroys.

Sir Hugh Calverley and many English knights and esquires of the free companies which have overrun France in the late wars are with him during the present inactivity of the Black Prince at Bordeaux, and his old friend and loyal supporter, the Asturian noble, Don Jaime Alvarez, rules his counsels as heretofore. Pope Urban V., incensed at the blasphemies and profligacy of Don Pedro, subsidises and blesses him. Even the rough warrior Du Guesclin yields to the fascination of his address, an influence destined soon to lead him to the commission of a crime by which his good name is for ever tarnished.

No female element fills in the frame of this chivalrous court. He has a wife, her name casually occurs, but there all information ends. At all events, no woman takes a prominent part in his career, as with his brother Don Pedro.

Meanwhile the king, warned by his ministers that he is no longer safe in Seville, rides out of the gates guarded by a small troop of men-at-arms, commanded by the faithful Emanuel, and accompanied by his chancellor, Fernando de Castro, Don Martino Lopez de Cordova, Grand Master of Alcantara, Don Diego Gomez, Don Mem Rodrigues, a warlike captain who has taken the place of Don Juan de Mañara in his confidence, and some others.

You may count his adherents on your fingers they are so few. Even that pampered villain Garcia de Padilla has forsaken him since his sister’s death, and gone over to the winning side, and along with him are Orosco, Mendoza, and La Vega.

The three daughters of Maria de Padilla accompany him, young girls whose names leave no record on the page of history—Costanza married John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of Edward III., and thus established a claim, often asserted but never seriously entertained, to the throne of Castile; and Isabel, the younger, espoused his brother Edmund of Cambridge.

But, dearer than child or friend, Don Pedro carries with him his treasure and the famous ruby (Balax) of the Moors hid in his bosom.

The outlook is not cheerful. Spite of his constant boast of close alliance with the English, the Black Prince at Bordeaux as yet has made no sign. It is true that his daughter Costanza is at this time affianced to her cousin, the Infante of Portugal, and Don Pedro rides straight over the Sierra Morena to the frontier, certain of the protection of his uncle the king.

Don Diego Gomez is sent forward from Talavera, where he waits, to hasten the marriage. The Infanta is ready; with her she brings the crown of Castile, the jewels of her mother, Maria de Padilla, and such dower as is required; anything he has, even the Balax, so that Costanza is wedded!

It is a matter of life or death. All depends on Portugal. An uncle, an ally, a natural protector—it is impossible he can fail.

Don Diego returns. The King of Portugal will not receive him. He declines the marriage with Costanza for his son, the visionary crown, treasure, all—and warns Don Pedro sternly from crossing the borders of his kingdom upon peril of his life.

Many of his followers now forsake him in his need. But the chancellor, Don Fernando de Castro, is faithful, and Mem Rodrigues and Emanuel are ready to offer up their lives.

An absolute fugitive, Don Pedro craves from his uncle a safe conduct into Galicia, the only province in Spain, except Murcia, which still acknowledges him as sovereign.

In this miserable plight he arrives in the fruitful valley of beautiful Monterey in a most disconsolate condition, at the very moment that Don Enrique and Du Guesclin enter the city of Seville.

Yet even now the track of blood follows Don Pedro. As he passes through Santiago, the holy city of pilgrimage, where lie the relics of the Protector of Spain, after dining in company with the Archbishop, he calls him to the gate and has him murdered before his eyes, as well as the Decano or Dean, within the precincts of the cathedral.

Express after express flies in swift-rigged boat across the Bay of Biscay to Bayonne, addressed to the Black Prince and to his ally, that arrant traitor, the King of Navarre, who is with him at Bordeaux.

No answer comes. At last, driven to despair, Don Pedro himself rides forward to the coast, fits out a galley at La Groyne, and sets sail for Bayonne, escorted by all the vessels he can find, to plead his cause in person before the Prince of Wales.

CHAPTER XVIII
Don Pedro Appeals to Edward the Black Prince to Replace Him on the Throne

HE Black Prince—so named from the dark colour of his armour, and only fifteen years old when he was made a knight on the victorious field of Crécy by his father Edward III., and named by him Duke of Guienne and Seneschal of Aquitaine,—is the most notable figure of his day. Fabulously brave and romantically merciful, his modesty and generosity are only equalled by his military skill. Bearing in the field the device of the King of Bohemia, killed in the battle of Crécy, three plumes erect, with the motto “Ich dien,” his sword has never known defeat.

Three years have now elapsed in peace, during which time he has resided in royal state at Bordeaux with his wife, “the fair maid of Kent,” a period of inaction as irksome to himself as to those stormy spirits about him.

Nothing therefore could be more welcome to him than the news that Don Pedro had actually disembarked at Bayonne to solicit his help to regain his crown. As yet the policy of England had been undecided; now his father must take a side, and the prospect of war fills him with joy.

Promptly he despatches the Lord of Payme and other nobles to welcome him when he lands, and to bring him with all honour to Bordeaux.

The sumptuous pavilion prepared for their meeting lies outside the city, among pleasant meadows by the banks of the wide Garonne, that noble estuary which cuts into the land with the importance of an inland sea.

It is shaped in three compartments, the central one occupied by the Black Prince, that to the right assigned to Don Pedro, and that to the left to the King of Navarre, at the present moment paying his court to Prince Edward as holding the winning hand.

The interior is lined with rich tissues and brocaded silks, the draperies of cloth of gold held up by swords and lances, battle-axes and steel helmets—giving a warlike aspect to what would otherwise have been simply a luxurious and splendid bower.

Skins of animals killed in the chase cover the floor and are also attached to the lower portion of the pillars which support the light roof, adorned with flags and banners, the standard of St. George conspicuous in the front. Beneath, on a table, lies a glancing axe, ready, if needful, for all emergencies.

Outside, the building is covered with silken curtains under ranges of feathers, tassels, and streamers flaunting in the light breeze, and at the tented entrance are placed two large shields, one bearing the cognisance of the Black Prince, the other the arms of England quartered with the fleur-de-lis of France.

Around gathers a brilliant court. Seneschals bedecked with chains of gold, chamberlains in rich robes, worked with the escutcheons of England and of Aquitaine, pages, warriors, the captains of companies who have followed Edward in all his wars, hoary soldiers grown grey in many battles, nobles arrayed in historic armour come down from generations of warlike ancestors, bearing great names, Gallic and English, illustrious in themselves and enhancing the greatness of their master. The two younger brothers of the Prince of Wales, John of Gaunt, as brilliant as a popinjay, to be ever known in history as “Time-honoured Lancaster,” his younger brother, Edmund, Duke of York and Cambridge, a gallant young prince—both wearing the blue badge of the new Order of the Garter at their knee, and emulous of attracting the notice of Don Pedro’s young daughters, of whose beauty report says much. The two Marshals of Aquitaine, Sir Guiscard of Angoulême and Sir Stephen Coffington; Beauchamp, Lord of Abergavenny, Lord Ralph Neville of Warwick, Clayton, Sir John Tyrrell, Sir Hugh Hastings, the trusted ally of England Jean de Montfort, and, though last, not least, the manly figure of Chandos, of whom in these wars one hears so much—politician, tactician, and constable of all the provinces of France. Others may assume various modes and fantastic changes in dress and accoutrement, but Chandos never changes and always appears in armour of proof, arrayed to take the field.

In the centre, backed by the fanciful outline of the gay pavilion, stands the Black Prince, ready at the first imitation of Don Pedro’s arrival to advance and welcome him to his domains.

To suit the occasion, he is attired in a costume equally recalling the court and the camp. A loose surcoat of blue velvet, heavily embroidered with the arms of England, partly conceals the light suit of chain armour which clings to his form; at his waist is a girdle to which an axe and sword are attached, and on his head a cap edged by a jewelled coronet, from which rise the three heron’s feathers of his device.

Lofty in nature is the prince, square and solid in limb and chest, his hair cut short as convenient for his helmet, his upper lip, after the Norman fashion, covered with a thick moustache which mingled with his beard, light brown in colour, and long and luxuriant. Somewhat prominent large hazel eyes look out of a well-moulded face remarkable for mildness of expression, his whole personality singularly engaging, an impression only heightened as the fine curves of his lips open with the candour of a natural smile.

“Our ally tarries on the way,” he says, scanning

the bare expanse of the sandy track before him, bordering the Garonne, broken by the lines of vineyards in the more cultivated lands. “Perhaps he would make us feel that we have been remiss in replying to his various messages. Nothing but absolute obedience to my father’s order would have kept me so long silent, in face of the news of his great need.”

The prince addresses himself to Chandos, who stands immediately behind him, his wrinkled countenance already showing marks of the hard life he has led in camps and battles, but, as he speaks, he lays his hand lightly on the shoulder of his brother Lancaster, looking out with eager eyes in the same direction as himself.

“How now, my young gallant, are you impatient to behold the Spanish beauties? Who knows if you do not lose your fickle heart to one? These señoritas of Andalusia must surely inherit some of their mother, Maria de Padilla’s boasted charms.”

The downy cheeks of young Lancaster turn to a rosy red at general attention being thus openly called to him. He turns aside, somewhat annoyed that his curiosity has been detected by his brother, and mutters something about a leveret of a certain breed which he expects from Spain. The excuse is received by the prince with a light laugh, and in a lower voice he continues his conversation with Chandos.

“I confess that nothing but the king’s actual presence on English soil would have decided me to look with favour on the expedition he comes to propose.”

“I agree with you, my lord,” is the answer of Chandos. “A campaign in the centre of Spain is a dangerous venture with a nation of enemies at our back.”

“Yet,” adds the Black Prince, and a serious expression comes into his eyes, “the personal appeal of an allied prince is difficult to refuse, especially under the present circumstances of his arrival. But much as I should rejoice once more to draw the sword, I can bind myself to nothing but an interchange of courtesies at present.”

“Right, my lord,” answers Chandos, “I am of the same mind as your Grace. Besides, it appears to my humble judgment that a sovereign rejected by the whole nation cannot have an altogether clean chronicle to show. Report, at least, is not favourable to Don Pedro, who has gained the nickname of El Cruel.”

“Tut, tut,” answers the prince impatiently, “subjects must obey their masters. I myself have no patience with these Castilian nobles who call in a bastard in place of their lawful king. Until I see cause to change, my sympathies are all with Don Pedro.”

“But your Highness will promise nothing, I trust, without direct permission of the king, your father?”

“Of course not,” answers the prince. “Have I not said so? My powers, as yours, are limited to our provinces of Guienne and Aquitaine. A descent into Spain altogether exceeds my instructions; but I shall much marvel if the king, my honoured father, and his ministers do not share my feelings in the matter of our ancient ally, driven to such straits as personally to present himself with his daughters, a suppliant at our court.”

Chandos bowed but made no further observation. It was clear his mind was against Don Pedro, of whose wanton acts of cruelty and bad faith he had heard so much. As far as his counsels were concerned, he would have the King of Castile bound down so strictly that he could not escape from his engagements. He knew that the loyal nature of the prince was too ready to take every man at his own value, especially at a time when he and his young brothers were longing to take the field.

At this moment the King of Navarre appeared, coming from the interior of the pavilion, a ready smile on his lip little indicative of the treachery within.

“Will your Grace join us,” asks the Black Prince, receiving him with the gracious courtesy so natural to him that it was felt alike by all, “in a descent into Spain, which undoubtedly will be the purport of the king’s visit to us here?”

Now, as the King of Navarre has secretly sworn upon the Sacrament an alliance with Enrique de Trastamare, giving him and the Grandes Compagnies of Du Guesclin passage over the Pyrenees at the same moment that he is joining with the Black Prince in the friendly reception of Don Pedro—this question, so frankly put, is difficult to parry. Before the open gaze of Edward his keen eyes drop, and with some hesitation he is understood to say that where the hero of England leads he will gladly follow, but that the smallness of his kingdom, placed between two great powers, will prevent his personal interference in the war.

Turning from him with a frown, the prince again anxiously directs his eyes to the path along the banks of the river by which Don Pedro is to approach. This time he does not look in vain.

In the track of a vivid sun ray, which bursts from a mass of clouds on the western horizon, the brilliant colours of flags and banners break among the green branches of a low avenue of willows, to be caught up and reflected in the broad current of the Garonne; the dark forms of mounted horsemen on caracoling steeds are followed by lords and attendants standing out on the grey landscape, in all the bravery of those romantic times where embroidered devices, crests, arms, and mottoes form a necessary part of dress, along with richly inlaid arms and costly robes edged with fur.

First rides Don Pedro, mounted on a Spanish barb, caparisoned with velvet housings; but as a fugitive and a suppliant he has rejected all the pompous display prepared for him, and appears in a dark cap and sombre mantle which covers his high black boots worn to the thigh.

Close beside him appear Emanuel and Mem Rodrigues, whose watchful eyes never leave him, among friends or foes. Whatever he may be to others, he is dear to them, and they well know in what continual danger he lives.

Behind him come his three daughters, the youngest but a lovely child, each mounted on easy-going jennets, his chancellor, and the few of his court who have not forsaken him on the road.

The mournful appearance of Don Pedro and the consciousness that he has been wanting to his royal guest in the attention due to an ally, so move the warm heart of the Black Prince that, bowing to the ground, he advances rapidly to embrace him, while Don Pedro, who has at once dismounted, would only have kissed his hand.

“Welcome, sire, to the territory of England,” cries the prince, addressing him in the French tongue, which both speak fluently. “I esteem myself happy to offer my personal homage to your Grace in my own name and in that of my royal father.”

“I thank you,” is Don Pedro’s laconic answer, turning upon him a curious gaze in which something of the bitterness of the disregarded suppliant appears. That he, an anointed sovereign, had been forced by the prince’s coldness to journey here, raises in his breast a wave of bitter pride which, in his revengeful nature, may in part explain the perfidy of his subsequent conduct.

“And you, fair flowers of Spain,” continues the Black Prince, turning to the Infantas, who had also dismounted and who gather timidly round the prince to make obeisance, “I would welcome you also, and express my deep regret that my consort, the Princess of Wales, to whose tender care I would have consigned you, has by reason of her condition not been able to leave Angoulême to meet you. Meanwhile, my brothers of Lancaster and York, nearer of your age and therefore more apt than myself in judging of your needs, will take her place in all necessary courtesies.”

John of Gaunt bashfully advances to take his place among the young princesses with his brother, both much encouraged by the glimpse of the lovely eyes of Doña Costanza, glowing like stars under the folds of a black mantilla which descends almost to her feet, while Don Pedro gravely acknowledges the salutations of the warriors and the court, and expresses his thanks for the magnificence of the courtesy with which he has been received.

“Can the stricken heart of a sovereign know comfort,” he says, in his high and trillant voice, singularly unpleasant after the agreeable intonation of the Black Prince, “against whom his people and those of his own blood have turned traitors, it is alone at the hands of your Grace. This moment of meeting with you, most illustrious Prince, is the only instant of consolation I have enjoyed since I left my rebellious country, given up to the horrors of civil war. I come in the guise of a beggar, but it is to one who can replace me on the throne.”

Whether Don Pedro, from long habits of hypocrisy, really believed what he said is doubtful, but he had at least the art of convincing those whom he addressed. This faculty of deceit, his specious flattery, his royal air, even under the modest garb he wore, at once fascinated the frank and open-hearted prince, overjoyed at the prospect of a speedy campaign to reinstate him.

As they pass into the pavilion where a sumptuous collation has been prepared, Edward himself, spite of the protest of his guest, not only offers to the king the golden embossed salver of scented water to wash his hands, but during the first course stands to serve him, behind his chair, before taking his own seat at the board.

“I know my place as a subject,” are his words, “and I pray your Grace not to impede me in the fulfilment of my duty.”

Not so Chandos, who observes Don Pedro at his ease, and marks with suspicion the sinister expression of his young face, and the falseness of the smile he calls up in answer to the hearty greetings of the prince.

Adversity and dissipation had already scored with hard lines that yet boy-like countenance. The faultless mould of feature is still there, as we see it perpetuated in the bust at Seville, but a perfidious glance mars its beauty.

Small and thin in stature, Don Pedro is entirely overtopped by the English prince, who sits erect and strong as a young oak beside the willow-like suppleness of his Spanish guest.

Much discussion of ways and means takes place between them after the collation, the Black Prince lending a willing ear to the representations of Don Pedro and his reiterated promises to reinstate the English king in such subsidies as should be advanced to him in order to raise a fighting army to take the field.

From Bordeaux Don Pedro passes to Angoulême with his daughters—in the same state, accompanied by the Black Prince, his young brother, the King of Navarre, and the Duke of Lancaster, in whose young heart the girlish beauty of Doña Costanza has made a serious impression—to salute the princess, who is daily expecting her confinement.

The reticence of the Black Prince alarmed Don Pedro. No decision of any kind as to the support he had come to seek could be extracted from him; open-hearted and honest almost to a fault, he had been so earnestly implored by Chandos to enter into no semblance of an engagement before he had obtained the assent of his father, Edward III., that he absolutely put a bridle on his lips whenever Don Pedro sought speciously to approach the subject so near his heart, until he had received the royal sanction. That such sanction would come he felt convinced, the very idea of an open attack upon royalty (in those feudal times held so sacred and inviolable) would probably have sufficed to ensure the consent of King Edward, but more amply so when united to the political advantages ensured by a close alliance with Castile.

Not only is a formal permission demanded by the Black Prince himself to march into Spain, but it is backed by the official protest of Don Pedro against the manifold wrongs and injuries inflicted on him.

Of gifts the Black Prince will have none. To him jewels and treasures come as ignoble bribes; but in the meantime at least it is open to Don Pedro to lavish presents on the Princess of Wales as an indirect mode of gaining her goodwill. A table of curious workmanship, set with priceless gems, is presented and long preserved in England, and, though last not least, the precious Balax, destined so strangely to find a central place in the English crown.

Nothing could exceed the lavish promises of Don Pedro. The lordship of Biscay, which, as close to Guienne, is important, is conferred on the Black Prince and his heirs for ever, signed with the seal of Castile, a curious state document which remains in England to this day—Pedro binding himself also, by the most solemn oaths, to pay large subsidies to the English troops, and equal parts of the general cost of the war to the Prince himself; a rich dower to the Infanta Costanza, forthwith affianced to the young Duke of Lancaster, already languishing in a not hopeless passion which is, he thinks, to insure to him the crown of Spain—she, in the meantime, as well as her two sisters, to remain at Bayonne as hostages for her father’s word.

All this was concluded in the presence of Charles of Navarre, surnamed “the Bad,” who, having secretly largely facilitated the passage of the Grandes Compagnies into Spain against Don Pedro, now receives from him the grant of the provinces of Guipuzcoa and Alava, the town of Vittoria, and any other he may choose to claim, upon condition that he will serve in person in the coming expedition against Don Enrique.

As to the Black Prince, the martial ardour within him is already at fever heat. There is something inexpressibly attractive to him in the prospect of meeting his ancient rival, Du Guesclin, in the field. The constable had good reason for extolling the magnanimity of the prince in the matter of his brother Oliver, taken prisoner in the battle of Poitiers by Thomas of Canterbury—and though ready to engage against each other in battle, their feeling is of friends.

In these days of mercenary warfare no shame was felt in passing from one side to the other if the pay was good. “To live by the sword” was a noble profession, and the needy knight or commoner must go where battle leads.

From the Black Prince downwards, every English trooper and archer was enthusiastic in the cause of Don Pedro. Even the calm Chandos was infected, if not convinced, in the face of such constant denials, and specious explanations on his part. Like his master Plantagenet he grudged every day that detained him inactive in Guienne until the authority of Edward III. was received.

As a preliminary, heralds were at once sent into Castile to summon the English and Gascon knights who had taken service with Don Henry the Bastard (so was the brilliant Caballero designated in these state papers) “to repair to the prince’s standard with all speed,” an order instantly obeyed by Sir Hugh Calverley, Sir Eustace d’Ambrecourt, Walter Hewitt, and the Lords of Devereux and Neville, to the considerable weakening of Don Enrique’s army.

At length the long-desired decision came from the council, assembled at the Court of Windsor, 1366, which set forth that it was “noble and honourable, as well as just and advantageous, to assist Don Pedro, King of Castile and Leon, in his legal rights,” and that his Highness Edward Prince of Wales, was authorised to march with the forces he might think fit to effect the same, under the command of Lord John Chandos, High Constable of Aquitaine, Sir Guiscard d’Angoulême, Sir Stephen Coffington the great standard-bearer of St. George, Lord Beauchamp of Abergavenny, Neville, Clayton, Tyrrell, Hastings, Cheney, Boteler, Willoughby, Felton, Loring, the prince’s grand chamberlain and bannister, besides his foreign followers, De Buch, D’Armagnac, D’Albert, and others.

CHAPTER XIX
The Black Prince Defeats Don Enrique and Reinstates Don Pedro.—Don Enrique Murders Don Pedro.—Death of Don Enrique.

E are in a romantic age of youth and fanfaronnade. Our dramatis personæ are overflowing with the sap of life. Of the three Plantagenets, the Black Prince is in the prime of life and fame, his two young brothers in the heyday of valour and love. Don Pedro, little past thirty, a professed lady killer and seducer, and Enrique de Trastamare, the ideal Caballero, a few years older. Add to these those who have vanished from the scene, Blanche of Castile, but fifteen when she was married, and Maria de Padilla, dying in the flower of her days, there results a circle of youth, beauty, and romance unparalleled in history.

As for a tournament these ardent spirits prepare for battle. Only Du Guesclin is wise and old, also Chandos, who endeavours to allay the universal ferment in men’s blood. But what is their influence against the spirit of the age?

When Don Enrique finds himself on the 3d of

April, 1367, face to face with the Black Prince, he has but one idea, to rush on him at once and make an end! Strategy and prudence are cast to the winds. “Let us fight like true knights and carry the crown upon a lance!” is his idea.

Envoys arrive from France and entreat him to avoid a general engagement with the English chivalry, the finest in the world, led by the Prince of Wales, but he will have none of their advice. He will fight at once, and even shifts his advantageous position, against the counsel of Du Guesclin, on the other side of a small river which divides the camps—to deal his blows nearer.

“Your Grace will be beat,” says Du Guesclin, scanning with well-practised eye the battle-field.

“I tell you that this very night I shall be either dead or a prisoner.”

“I shall win!” cries the enthusiastic Caballero. “Santiago and Spain are with me. But as the Prince of Wales is a valiant knight, and my brother a lying traitor, that he may know the realm is mine, and that I am fighting in support of my right, I will send him a cartel to tell him what is my intent.”

“I well perceive,” said the Black Prince, more prudent in his councils, but as enthusiastic as the rest, when informed of this intention, “that the bastard Enrique is a valiant prince and shows good courage; so, not to be behind him in courtesy, I will also address to him a letter in which I will call on him, according to the laws of honour, to relinquish the crown which he has unjustly seized.”

Upon which—always following out the idea of a knightly encounter in which each side sets forth their right by the voice of a herald or trumpeter—Enrique replies: “To the most puissant Edward, Prince of Wales, Duke of Aquitaine and Guienne: that King Don Pedro has not, as he pretends, and as the prince imagines, governed his kingdom well, but as a tyrant and a traitor, verily giving orders to murder the Lady Blanche, his lawful wife, and Doña Leonora d’Aragon, his aunt—also his cousins of the royal blood—and Doña Bianca de Villena for her goods; that also he killed his three brothers, Don Fadique, Juan, and Pedro, as well as Martin Gil d’Albuquerque his minister, Don Juan d’Aragon and others; and that neither did he respect the wives and daughters of divers nobles, or the rights of the Pope and the Church,—for which cause and others too long to be detailed, and having no allegiance or followers in the kingdom, his subjects, to deliver themselves from so dangerous a ruler, have been pleased to name us his successor with universal acclamation.”

But this royal exchange of courtesies did not deter the Black Prince from fighting desperately. A complete victory was gained at Navarrete. Enrique lost all his train and equipage, the great Constable Du Guesclin being the victim as he had foretold, and taken prisoner.

Prostrate on his knees, Don Pedro thanks the Black Prince, who modestly replies as he raises and embraces him:

“Not to me, but to God, who has given us the victory, give praise.”

This happened on a Saturday. Next day Don Pedro formally requested the Black Prince to allow him “to put to death all his rebellious soldiers, so that they might raise no more disturbance in the kingdom against him.”

“Never, by the blood of Christ!” cried the indignant Plantagenet, horrified at his bloodthirsty ally; “I did not come into the kingdom of Spain to act as your Grace’s headsman, but as your defender.” And from that moment their cordial relations ceased, and the germs of that coolness and suspicion were sown which so soon led to a formal breach between them.

“You will find that the King of Castile is not worth the trouble you have taken to reinstate him,” observed Du Guesclin to the Black Prince, who, treated him, as his prisoner, with every kind of distinction and soon after set him at liberty without ransom.

“I begin to think you are right,” was the prince’s answer, deeply moved at Don Pedro’s cruelty.

Nor did he in this only show the cloven foot. The subsidies he had promised for the troops were unpaid; all his engagements were broken. As soon as he found himself once more safe in Seville and reinstated in his rights, incessant expresses were sent to Burgos, where the prince lodged, in the ancient monastery of Las Huelgas, outside the gates, still remaining a most interesting monument of that chivalric time, and to Valladolid where he moved later—but no money.

Nor was the province of Biscay ever ceded to him. In fact the only item that was fulfilled of the agreement was the marriage of the ardent young Lancaster with Costanza de Castila.

At length, after the delay of many months, disgusted and disillusioned, the Black Prince led back his army to Bordeaux, bearing the germs of the fatal malady of which he died soon after.

Again the scales of fortune turn in this strife between brother and brother. Deprived of the support of the English, the monstrous cruelties of Don Pedro again alienate all his subjects, and Don Enrique, supported by France and Aragon, in company with Du Guesclin, again leads an army into the field.

“I swear, by the cross of Christ,” cries the romantic Caballero, so apt a prototype of that fantastic time, “that alive I will never again leave Castile!” And by a succession of events too complicated to detail, he does again possess the kingdom, and Don Pedro, defeated and driven at bay, finds himself blockaded in the castle of Montiel, Don Enrique and Du Guesclin holding the country round.

The castle of Montiel lies on the side of an escarped and precipitous rock, amid the rugged flanks of the Sierra Morena, that lofty barrier which divides Spain from Portugal. It is a fortress of no great size, but at that time it was surrounded by strong walls, and from its position deemed impregnable.

Beneath open dark caves, the refuge of hunters and shepherds, emerald breasted valleys musical with streams, and arrowy peaks known only to the eagle and the heron; the black defiles of the Despeñaperros break between where the dead bodies of Moors once carpeted the soil—and beyond the bare corn tracts of La Mancha open out, and smiling vine terraces purple with fruit.

(Dear to the modern mind is the name of the Sierra Morena, as Don Quixote’s country, where you may follow him as a living man between Montiel and Toledo. The Cueva de Montesino, where he sojourned with Sancho Panza, the Posada de la Melodia, where he cut the necks of the wine-skins for Moors, the Venta de las Cardenas, where Dorothea and her lover were wounded, the scene of his penance in the mountain cleft, and Sierra Nueva, where he liberated the slaves.)

Below, in the Campo de Montiel, beside the bare shores of a chain of lakes bordering the course of the river Guadiana, Don Enrique and Du Guesclin are watching in their tents. How can they seize the king?

This question is asked twenty times a day. No one answers; and, if they seize him, what will they do with him? To this there is no answer either.

There are no traitors in the castle of Montiel. Mem Rodrigues is with the king, along with the faithful Emanuel, and the governor, Garcia Morano, is a true man.

Now it happens that Mem Rodrigues is very friendly with Du Guesclin, in that in-and-out fashion common between foes who drink out of the same wine cup to-day and run at each other’s throats to-morrow.

Hearing that he, Du Guesclin, commands a detachment of the troops below, Rodrigues sends him a message, requesting a private meeting, which Du Guesclin willingly grants, along with a safe conduct.

Within his tent they meet and exchange mutual compliments. Mem Rodrigues does not affect to deny the straits in which his master lies, or Du Guesclin his determination to take him.

Then Mem Rodrigues, in a casual way, observes to the great leader, who sits in deep thought, leaning his forehead on his hand at a table with weapons ranged at his touch: “That whatever reward Don Enrique may have offered him in treasure, titles, or lands, the dukedom of Soria for instance (an entire province lying under Navarre, almost a kingdom in itself), my master, Don Pedro, will make good and more, if you will let him go.”

Encouraged by the silence of Du Guesclin, who has never moved, Mem Rodrigues continues: “Surely, it will redound more to your honour, Señor Condestable, to release so great a king, rather than to set up a pretender.”

As if touched by a scorpion, the burly Breton starts, his rugged features darken, and a dangerous glitter lights up his deep-set eyes.

“By my troth, Sir Knight,” he answers, clenching his fist and letting it fall heavily on the table, causing the arquebuse and daggers on it to rattle ominously, “do you take me, Bertrand Du Guesclin, for a knave or for a fool, to act such a traitor’s part? Speak to me no more on such a subject, if you desire to continue my friend.”

So Mem Rodrigues says no more, and returns to the castle discomfited.

Of all this Don Enrique is informed. “I thank you, gallant Du Guesclin,” is his answer, “for this and all other marks of your regard. Methinks, all the same, I am better able to reward your service than Pedro, without a rood of land, now for the second time driven forth by his people. Further pleasure me now, I pray you, in this matter, by informing your friend Mem Rodrigues, that you will do all you can to forward his desire if he will prevail on the king to come to your tent to arrange means of escape.”

Now the drift of this speech was plain to the Breton leader, neither wanting in cunning nor foresight. He had sent back Mem Rodrigues with an angry denial, now he is bidden to call him again, and eat his own words in a treacherous message. Can he doubt the purpose of Don Enrique?