CHAPTER XXII
El Conde de Castila
CASTILE formed no part of the new kingdom of Leon and was governed by its own lord. And here we come on a noticeable history of how the lion was added to the castle on the arms of Spain by the last Conde de Castila, Fernan Goncalze, the founder of the line of the present dynasty, as distinguished from that of the early Gothic kings, who died out in the person of Bernardo the Third, the last descendant of Pelayo, A.D. 999.
Now King Sancho the Fat, King of Leon, A.D. 955, noticeably a heavy and lazy man, leaving much in the hands of his mother, Doña Teresa, is jealous of the power of Castila, and has joined with her brother, the King of Navarre, in a conspiracy to divide it between them, for which purpose the count is invited to Leon to attend the Cortes, where vital matters concerning that never-ending strife between the Christians and the Moors are to be considered.
Fernan comes, but misdoubting Don Sancho’s good faith, brings with him so numerous a retinue of knights and men-at-arms that no open attack on him is possible. But the Queen Doña Teresa, like a wicked fairy, steps in.
“What matters,” says she to the fat Sancho, speaking within the recesses of the same Roman palace where Alonso prayed and fasted and Bernardo raged – “what matters how many he brings? We must befool him, flatter, deceive – thus you will take him. Make great show of favour to him, my son, cover him with false words, and unsuspecting he will send his people home.”
The Conde de Castila, say the ballads, was a very proper man, in the full bloom of manhood, tall, slender, and gay; he wore his mailed armour with a wondrous grace on a perfect form, the red plume on his casque gave him a lordly air, and that he was brave and romantic his history will show.
“Good, my kinsman,” says the king to him after many soft phrases, “you have brought with you to Leon the most perfect steed that ever I set eyes on. Methinks if I bestrode him in battle, I could laugh at the Moors.”
“Greatly it pleases me,” answers the Conde, “that my mare should win your praise; she is a noble animal; a cross with an Arab mare. I pray you to accept Sila for your own.”
“Nay,” replies the wily king, “that is not fair. Had you come with that intention, it might be otherwise; but, as I have induced you to so generous an offer, let us fix a just price, especially as the hawk you wear upon your wrist has greatly caught my fancy too. For horse and hawk we will settle thus: If the sum fixed on between us be not paid by this day year, it shall be doubled every succeeding one.”
“As you will, King Don Sancho,” the Conde makes reply. “I would have given them both freely to you; but so let it be.”
Showing in this most cunning answer that, great hidalgo as he was, he was not above accepting such moneys, as came in his way. Nor did the King of Leon disdain to make a bargain to his mind, which gave him both horse and hawk for nothing, seeing that he and his wicked mother did not intend the Conde to live.
Here they are interrupted by Queen Doña Teresa entering the chamber, preceded by her Jefe bearing a silver wand and followed by her dueña. A stately and commanding figure, even in middle age, and splendid in her apparel. The rings on her fingers are worth a king’s ransom; her widow’s coif is sown with pearls, and the edges of her long robe trimmed with a dark fur and jewels. A very imposing personage, Doña Teresa, who rules both her son and in the palace with a rod of iron. As Regent, she attempted to do the same with Castila, but the Gothic nobles and the Gothic church resisted, and put her down.
“How now?” says she, seating herself on a ponderous chair, heavy with carving, as the others rise and make low obeisance, her dueña, in a stiff starched black robe and high head-dress, standing behind her. “Your talk is of horses and of hawks, when such serious matter presses in the Cortes? Have you no better entertainment,” turning to her son, “for the Conde when Almanzor reigns at Cordoba, and harries us with his troops? Hakim, the book-worm, was an easy man, and spent his time in buying rare manuscripts and parchments; but this one is a fire-brand, and his generals, Ghalid and the Prince of Zab, take from us much booty and many towns. If God aid us not, we shall again become tributaries to the Moors.”
“Doña Teresa the Queen,” answers the Conde, bowing with the lofty courtesy natural to him, in reply to this somewhat rude and boisterous speech, “you cannot address one more of your own mind than myself. If Don Sancho and I discoursed on lighter matters, it is not that I am unmindful of the growing power of the infidels. For this cause I am come to the Cortes. By Santiago, do I not know that your royal brother, the King of Navarre, was lately brought to his knees by this same swarthy Almanzor, whom the devil blast! because one Moslem woman was harboured in his land?”
“Truly I have cause to remember it,” is her answer, and an evil twinkle came into her eyes. “What say you, Conde, to a closer alliance among the Christians with Navarre, a marriage for instance, as a tighter bond? The Gothic nations can only hope to drive back our enemy by standing by each other. King Garcia has a daughter, very fair, and of singular courage and accomplishments. What say you, whom Nature has formed at all points to please a lady’s eye” – (at this compliment the Conde again bows low, and kisses the queen’s hand) – “to an alliance which will bind together the powers of Leon, Navarre, and Castile?”
In the king’s face, turned somewhat aside, first came a look of blank astonishment, succeeded by a smile so malignant that had Castila seen it he would certainly not have consented.
“By my faith,” are the king’s words, suddenly assuming an aspect of the most intense interest, “a very excellent proposal. Refuse it not, my lord. Men say in Leon that I rule, but that Queen Doña Teresa holds the reins of state. Who better? Follow my example. Her judgment is excellent.”
But the Conde saw not the matter in that simple light. With much misgiving he had come to Leon. Hostile to him, he knew, was the queen, and Don Sancho was ruled by her.
“You hesitate,” exclaims Doña Teresa, her visage forming into a dark frown; “better not to give good counsel than to have it cast in one’s teeth.”
“Nay, Doña the Queen, I did but consider your words. The matter is too important to be accepted offhand.”
“You bestow your own hand, I suppose, yourself?” she asks with a sneer.
Again the Conde bowed.
“Where else could you give it better? You are not already married, I presume, from a weariness in your mind at having so many who would claim the title.”
“It would not become me to say so,” put in Fernan, a genuine blush rising on his cheek.
“This alliance would certainly knit the Christians together,” urges the king, now speaking with a certain vehemence, “at a moment of great danger to us all. Almanzor is a leader of renown, backed by great riches.”
“Why not see the Infanta for yourself?” asks the queen. “Start from here on this joyous pilgrimage of love.” Again that strange look came into her eyes, as she fixed them on Fernan, and again the fat king showed his contentment by a hidden glance.
“To see the lady would indeed be my desire,” the Conde answers, all the same somewhat staggered by this insistence for his advantage in those he had good cause to know bore him no goodwill. He had hitherto little considered the subject of marriage. Still it was true; the alliance was for the good of all.
“The idea pleases me,” he says at last – (perhaps these enemies had come to a better mind). “Thank you, Doña the Queen, and my good kinsman, Don Sancho. This occasion also assures me of your friendship, which I have sometimes had in doubt.” Here deprecatory looks passed between the king and his mother, as under protest at such an assertion. “Indeed, at Leon, I am half-way on the road. I will go.”
Gaily Fernan set forth on his journey over the mountains to the Court of Navarre. Not followed, as he came to Leon, with a warlike train, but with gorgeously arrayed chamberlains, esquires, and pages, covered with silk and embroidery, and showy heralds with nodding plumes flying the pennon of Castile, all mounted on horses with fine and slender limbs, accoutred with saddle-cloths, and trappings as richly decorated as their riders.
He himself, as Doña Teresa truly said, “was formed by Nature to please a lady’s eye,” graceful, athletic, with light-brown hair curling on his neck and a short beard worn in the fashion of the day, partly concealing his regular features, expressive of a singular sweetness; with a voice, too, although well tuned to the tone of command, capable of modulating into the gentlest tones of love.
Thus he rode over the plains of Northern Spain and through the gorges of the mountains, up the rocky defiles where Roland’s blood was shed, to the ancient Roman city of Narbonne, standing on a rock over the sea, time-worn and rugged in aspect, as having borne many a siege, for the small kingdom of Navarre was ever industrious in war.
Don Garcia, the king, feigned great joy at the Conde’s arrival. His royal kinsfolk at Leon had put him on the track, but the redoubtable courage of the Conde called for great caution.
And the Infanta, Doña Ava? From the first moment his heart was won.
Entering from her bower chamber into the old hall of the castle of Navarre, where reigned an atmosphere of troubadours and song, he saw her taking her place at a banquet held in his honour.
A very Queen of Hearts she seemed to him, blandly sweet, with tender eyes of heavenly blue, under the curve of faultless eyebrows, a little dimple in her cheek, the very home of love, and smiling lips, curved like Cupid’s bow.
“By my faith!” muttered Fernan to himself, as he doffed his jewelled cap, and advanced to kiss her hand; “but she is fair enough to move St. Anthony himself. Methinks I have been most unjust in doubting the good faith of Doña Teresa in proposing to me so sweet a bride.”
And the Infanta loved him; and her treacherous father, Garcia Sanchez, tempted by the prize to be attained, of half of the kingdom of Castile, by all means encouraged their frequent meetings in bower and hall, in hawking, falcon on wrist, when they rode together in the woods, or when the troubadours tuned their lyres to sing cancioneros when the sea-winds were still.
How can words tell of the raptures of the Conde? His greatest enemies had procured his greatest joy! He had only to stretch out his hand to clasp a jewel without price. Tender delusions of youth! alas! why should fate shatter them?
One moonlight night they had wandered together on the battlements of the castle into a pleasaunce of ancient elms, interlacing in thick arches overhead; the dueña, who never left them, disposing of herself apart at a discreet distance.
Below the sea lay calm and still, wrapped in deep shadow, save where wave followed wave, gently catching the moonbeams for an instant, then falling back into an endless rotation.
“Oh, love, how fair is the night,” says the Infanta, with a happy sigh, casting her eyes round on earth and heaven. “Methinks I have nothing more to wish.”
But Fernan answers not. His gaze is fixed on her; the pale tresses of her golden hair shining through the meshes of a jewelled veil, her eyes melting with fondness, the soft outline of her face and that adorable dimple – from the first sight of which he dates his present transports – intoxicate his sense, and forgetting that she is an Infanta, daughter of a king, in a moment of passion he clasps her in his arms.
“See, sweetheart,” says he, still holding her in his embrace, “how the moonlight flickers on yonder trees.”
“Yes,” is her answer. “Yet, did I not know we were safe, I could almost believe some one was watching behind the trees. Let us go back to the castle.”
“I can see nothing but you,” he answers, looking down at her. “You are the very goddess of the night!”
“But it is late,” she urges, rising to her feet; “if I stay longer I shall have bad dreams. Let us go.”
“Oh, Ava, my Infanta!” he murmurs pressing her in his arms, “I could stay here for ever! Tell me again you love me! Repeat it a thousand times!”
The language of love is the same in all ages. This was said nearly a thousand years ago, and has been repeated since, millions of times, but what matter? When soul speaks to soul, however fervently, language has limits, therefore there is a certain sameness in the expression.
While the hot words of love are on his lips, the branches of the trees are parted by unseen hands, a group of dark, muffled figures rush out, daggers glitter in the moonlight, and before he can draw his sword he is mastered. Cords bind him hand and foot, a mask is placed upon his face, and he is hurried below into the deep dungeon of the castle.
The treason is so vile, the act so base, for awhile it seems to him like the glamour of a dream, but the weight of the heavy fetters pressing into his flesh, the dark and narrow cell where light barely penetrates, the damp cold that chills his blood, the shame, the loneliness, the silence – these are no dreams!
“Ah, Ava! Ava! you never loved me!” he cries in his anguish. “Your baneful charms served but as a bait. Now God forgive you, lady! my heart will break, and by your act! The Moors will rejoice, as they pour over the land, that my hand is shortened and I cannot strike! Alas! falseness is in your blood! Who could guess that those heavenly eyes were but as nets to lure me? Ah, King Don Garcia, is this the honour of a Christian knight? Fool, madman that I was, I knew they were traitors, and for the sake of a woman I am trapped, like a page seeking butterflies!”
Thus did the unhappy Conde complain, returning ever to the name of the Infanta. Her treachery was the deepest wound of all.
Now it is that the romanceros take up the tale of his captivity, and thus they sing:
“They have carried him into Navarre, the great Conde de Castila, and they have bound him sorely, hand and heel!
“The tidings up to the mountains go, and down among the valleys!
“To the rescue! to the rescue, ho!”
And the Infanta? Need I say that charming princess did not deserve his accusations? But she was forced to dissemble, lest his life should be taken by her father, as cruel and remorseless a parent as ever figured in fairy tale or song. Such monsters were frequently met with in the olden time, and the nature of their characters and motives are hard to read by the light of modern times. It is possible indeed such may still exist, but now they snare their daughters’ lovers by other means than poison and iron chains, though, perchance, they leave them as husbands as disconsolate as before.
CHAPTER XXIII
Doña Ava
AT a great festival given by Don Garcia, Doña Ava sat at the board. The jewels that decked her coif and neck but increased the paleness of her eyes. No love-dimple dented her fair cheek; it had vanished with the presence of Fernan, and the white lips he had so boldly kissed gave utterance to secret sighs. She spoke no word as she sat in the light of the torches fixed on the walls, nor took any heed of the company of guests, but leaned back, lost in dismal remembrance of the night when her lover, with soft brown hair, who had ridden across the mountains to ask her hand, was beside her.
On the raised dais was a pilgrim knight with a red cross on his breast, arrived from Normandy, and riding through Navarre to cross swords with the Moors at Saragoza. But who he was, or on what special errand he had come, he did not reveal even to the king.
The Infanta took little heed of him, but as the feast proceeded and the gold loving-cup passed round from hand to hand, and each guest quaffed the red wine in honour of the king, she looked up and saw his eyes earnestly fixed on her.
Then a whisper came to her ear, so low that the voice did not ruffle a hair of the delicate locks which so beautified her face and neck.
“Fernan still loves you,” said the voice, “spite of the little kindness you have shown him. I have visited him in prison; I bribed the Alcaide with many golden bezants; you might do the same. Bethink you of the curse which will cleave to your name – worse than Don Julian’s daughter, La Cava– if his life be lost. For your sake he came into Navarre. It is for you to set him free!”
As the pilgrim spoke Ava’s cheeks grew red and white by turns. She trembled, hesitated, while silent tears rose in her eyes, and fell one by one on her rich robe. At length, with faltering voice she whispered back again, watching the moment when the king had turned aside in earnest speech with some nobles from Leon, quaffing to their health in a cup of Cyprus wine taken in the last foray with Almanzor in the North:
“I promise you I will. Tell me who you are and whence you come. Happy is the prince who possesses such a friend.”
Then the stranger explained that he was no pilgrim from Normandy, but a trusty Castilian knight come from Burgos to find his lord, and that so well had he acted his part that he had deceived the whole court and discovered him.
The dungeon into which the Conde de Castila had been borne by the slaves of Don Garcia (for so much did Moslem habits prevail at that time, it was common for Christians also to have Nubian and Ethiopian slaves) lay at the foot of many steep flights of stairs in the very foundations of the castle. Overhead the sea boomed against the walls in ceaseless waves, bellowing with thundering uproar.
He had at first been callous to his fate. In the immediate expectation of a violent death, life and its interests had faded from his thoughts. The image of the Infanta was ever with him, but as a bright phantom from another world with whom he could have no concern, rather than as the reality of a mortal love.
Was she true or false? That lay in the mystery of the past. As a dying man he had no past. He forgave her, even if she were false. Whither he went she could not follow. He must die, and leave revenge to his people. Soon they will know the treachery of the king. His faithful subject, the seeming pilgrim, will ride straight to Burgos, call together the Cortes, and declare war. But little will that help him when he is dead! Alas! all fails!
Day after day he waited for some sign from the friend who had risked his life to find him. None came. He was forgotten, and he longed to die!
In the dead of night he had thrown himself on a rough couch of ox-hide, and, hiding his face in his hands, groaned heavily. At length a feverish sleep had come to his relief, when, starting up, it seemed that the silence was broken by a sound of footsteps.
“Now, by the wounds of Christ, my hour is come,” he told himself. “King Garcia will take from me that life he dare not attempt by combat in the field,” and he rose up to meet death as became a man.
The footsteps came nearer and nearer and now there is the dim glimmer of a light.
“They come, they come; but how cautiously. Is it that the assassins would strike me while I sleep?”
Plainer and plainer were the steps, and brighter and brighter shone the light which fell across the floor. Now they are at hand, close at the door. Deftly and noiselessly the heavy chains are loosed. The door opens. A figure, dim in the shadow, stands before him. He strains his eyes in the darkness. Great God! Can it be true? It is the Infanta! She is alone.
“Ava, my princess!” cries Fernan, and such a transport of rapture possesses him the words will scarcely come, “you are not false,” and he clasps her to his heart.
Then she explains to him how, following the counsel of the pilgrim knight whom he had sent to her, she bribed the Alcaide with all the jewels she possessed.
“And could you, Don Conde,” says she, gazing up into his face from under the folds of the heavy mantilla which concealed her features, “could you doubt my honour and my faith? Out on the base thought! Shame on your weak love! I waited but the occasion, and it came.”
“Oh! let me hear your voice,” sighs the love-sick Conde, “though it rain curses on me! Forgive my unworthy doubt, or that in aught I misjudged you. I am sure you pleaded for me. Have you softened the king’s heart?”
“No, not a whit,” answers Ava, with a sigh. “His enmity but grows more dangerous as the time wears on for him to depart to Burgos to meet King Don Sancho and his mother.”
“To Burgos, my capital?”
“Yes, they will divide your kingdom, and then march against Almanzor. Fernan, you have no friend but me!”
“Now may the foul fiend seize them on the way!” cries the Conde. “Oh! that I had a sword to fight! Castile and Burgos in their hands! The dastards! And I am bound here like a slave!”
“But I am come to free you!” replies the Infanta, with such courage in her voice that already the fresh air of freedom seems to fan his cheek, as with deft hands she loosens his fetters. “The door is open, before you lies the way.”
“And you, dear Ava,” clasping her willing hand “are we to part thus?”
At this question she hung her head, and a great blush mounted to her cheeks.
“Ah, my lord,” she whispered, and the little dimple came back again, forming near her lip, “I fain would fly with you. For this I came, never to part again.”
“Then,” says the ballad, “he solemnly saluted the Infanta as his bride on brow and lip, and hand in hand they went forth together into the night.”
Had there been court painters in those days, they might fitly have depicted the Conde, flushed with hope, the Infanta at his side, feminine and sweet, as one of those blonde images adored on altars pale amid the perfume of incense, caracoling through the greenwood on their way to Burgos.
The geography of the Conde’s progress is rather loose, but we will figure to ourselves a forest glade of wide-branching oaks, which had perhaps sheltered the advance of the Roman legions from Gaul. Athwart rambles a rocky stream, a gentle eminence lies in front, crowned by a group of olives.
As they address themselves to the ascent, the figure of a priest appears, mounted on a mule, equipped in a strange fashion, a mixture of cassock and huntsman, a bugle round his neck and a hawk upon his wrist.
“Now stop you. Stop you,” he shouts, placing himself full across the way; “Castila knows you both, fair Infanta, and you, Lord of Castila. I have seen you at the castle. What unlawful game are you after? Dismount, Sir Conde, and give account to me, the purveyor of these forests for the king.” And the bold priest presses his mule close up to them.
“By the rood! Conde or no Conde, I will dismount to please no man,” answers he. “Nor shall the Infanta, as you say you know her. Remove yourself, I pray, Sir Priest, from our way, or your tonsure shall not save you from a whipping.”
“That is at my pleasure,” is the reply. “But as the Infanta seems to have yielded willingly to your blandishments, Conde de Castila, I stay you not if you pay me a fitting ransom.”
“A ransom!” quoth he, “that is a most singular demand from a consecrated priest, who ought to be saying his prayers, instead of hawking in the greenwood. No ransom will I pay.”
“Then I will teach you a lesson,” and the vagrant churchman raises his bugle to his lips. “A note from my little instrument and you will soon lie again in chains.”
“Do your worst, craven,” shouts the Conde in a rage, spite of the whispers of the Infanta, seated behind him on a pad of the broad saddle, her arms clasped round his waist; “it shall never be said that Fernan Gonzales yielded to a pilfering clerk.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than, reddening with rage, the priest blew a long loud blast, among the ancient oaks. At this the Infanta could no longer keep silence.
“Help, help!” she shouted, “for the Conde de Castila,” and Gonzales, though embarrassed with her weight, rode fiercely forward raising his hand to strike, for he had no sword. But the treacherous priest, setting spurs to his mule, galloped down the glade at headlong speed, sounding his horn. The noise he made was heard by others – the rattle of horses’ hoofs came rapidly in the wind, and a company of horsemen advanced with threatening aspect.
“Ah, now is our time come!” cries the Infanta, “the vile priest has done for us. We cannot fly. Alack! alack! the evil day!”
“Nay, comfort thee, sweet one,” answers Fernan, “I will face them, though I die.” At which the tears stream down Doña Ava’s face, and she clasps her arm tighter around him.
“Now, by the heaven above us,” exclaims the Conde, “what miracle is this? It is my own dear standard – the banner of Castile! There is ‘the castle’ as large as life on its gold ground. Long may it flourish, the blessed sign. Draw near, draw near, my merry men! Behold, my sweet Infanta,” – stealing a hidden kiss – “these are my own true subjects! Castile, Castile to the rescue! Look, how bright are their lances! How the sun shines on the blades! Every sword is for my Ava; every sword gleams for her! Ah! there is my trusty knight, brave Nuño Ansares, who visited me in prison,” addressing the leader of the troop. “Never did vassal better serve his lord! The horn of that robber-priest, instead of harming us, has saved our lives. Now to Burgos ride, ride for our lives!”