The Constant Prince

Fernando bowed with knightly courtesy, and, advancing, held his stirrup, as if it were a graceful service rendered by a younger to an elder noble; then looked up and smiled in his brother’s face.

Chapter Nineteen

Times out of Joint

“Commingled with the gloom of imminent warThe shadow of his loss drew like eclipse,Darkening the world.”

Nella Northberry was standing alone by the fountain in the hall of her father’s house. The oranges were ripe on the trees, their sweet blossom was passed, and she herself looked pale, sad, and sullen. She had scarcely known what made her heart so heavy when her father had told her that she was to regard Dom Alvarez as her betrothed suitor, receiving her girlish expressions of unwillingness with entire indifference. Spirited as Nella was, it could not occur to her to resist her father’s will, or think of disposing of herself in marriage; she knew that it was impossible, and the girls of her day had generally too little intercourse with the world before marriage to feel aggrieved at their absence of choice. Nella’s life had not passed quite in accordance with established rules hitherto, and the fetters galled her.

She stood looking down into the clear waters of the fountain, her tall slim figure drooping a little with unwonted sadness, and her thoughts straying tenderly back to England – England, which she should never see again now. She thought of the grey convent, the wide woodlands now painted with russet and gold, the fresh autumnal breezes, the cheerful barking of the dogs at the old Manor house door; and her heart went out to it all with a passionate yearning that brought the hot tears to her eyes.

“If Catalina were here, perhaps Dom Alvarez would have liked her best,” she thought, “and I might have gone home again.” And with this strange reason for missing her lost sister, the tears came faster, and she pressed her hands over her eyes.

“Nella?” suddenly said a voice beside her, “does your father tell me true? Are you indeed betrothed to Dom Alvarez?”

Nella looked up with a start, for beside her stood Harry Hartsed, with a pale face and heavy eyes, as if he had passed a sleepless night.

“Oh, yes, Harry, it is true!” said Nella.

She turned her head away and cried bitterly, while Harry was dumb for a moment; for if she had told him that she was married already, there would hardly have been a greater barrier between them.

It did not occur to Harry to ask her if she loved Dom Alvarez; but he said, passionately —

“I had hoped one day to go back to the old Devon tower, which must come to me; and though I never could have made you a great lady, Nell, you should never have been vexed or crossed, and have had your will always.”

“Oh, hush! hush!” said Nella, “hush!”

“Tell me one thing,” said Harry; “Dom Alvarez accuses me of a share in the treason that rained my beloved prince. Do you believe that of your old playmate!”

Nella turned round, her blue eyes flashing through their tears.

“I would as soon believe it of myself,” she said.

“Then I care for no one,” cried Harry; “and when my prince comes home, he will see me righted.”

Perhaps it was as well for Nella that her father at this moment came out of the inner room. She ran up to him, and grasped his hand.

“Father, Harry is no traitor! How dared Dom Alvarez utter such a falsehood!”

“Leave me to settle that matter, my daughter,” said Sir Walter, sternly, “and go you within. What have you to do with the disputes of these gentlemen? Your country-breeding makes you too forward, and too free of tongue.”

Nella blushed deeply, and withdrew; but as she curtsied to her father, she looked for a moment at Harry, and said quickly —

“I shall never believe it!”

In all ages of the world, it is hard for women to sit at home and wonder how matters are going in the world without, and Nella had no chance of asking a question as she prepared for her first interview with her suitor. She was very unhappy, and knew too well that she would not have been so had Harry Hartsed been in Alvarez’s place; but she submitted to her unusually splendid toilet with a sense that she was submitting to the inevitable. Only she felt as if the blue brocade weighed down her young limbs till there was no life left in them, and as if the strings of pearls were burning their way into her brain.

She waited long after she was dressed, growing more and more weary, till she began to wonder at the delay. Perhaps Dom Alvarez would not come to-day after all.

At last, hearing sounds without, she sent one of her maids to inquire if her father had returned, and in a moment Sir Walter came into the room.

“Alas! my daughter!” he said, “better a widow’s coif than all this bravery! Young Hartsed, whom I renounce for ever, has foully slain Alvarez!”

“How?” said Nella, in a tone of utter amaze.

“He attacked and challenged him in the public street; they fought, and Alvarez is wounded well-nigh to death; while Hartsed is put in ward during the king’s pleasure. Now we see his treason plain enough – he sought to be rid of the witness of it.”

“Do not all men fight those who call them traitor?” said Nella, in a low clear voice.

“Your lady is distracted with the fatal news,” said Sir Walter, hastily; “she knows not what she is saying. See to her, ladies, I have no time to spare.”

With desperate hands Nella unfastened the jewels from her hair, and helped to cast aside her gay attire; then she sent all the ladies away, and alone awaited further tidings.

These were not long in coming. Dom Alvarez was severely wounded, but it was thought that he would recover in time; and after a very hasty inquiry into the matter, the king sentenced Hartsed to banishment from Lisbon. It was ill for them all that his strength was failing under sorrow and suspense, and that Dom Enrique had started on his unhappy embassage to Arzella.

As it was not thought suitable for Nella to visit the court during the severe illness of her betrothed, she was not aware of the king’s increasing indisposition, and was not present at Dom Enrique’s sad return, yet she dimly hoped that he might take up the cause of his brother’s favourite. But the news he brought stirred up the whole nation to a pitch of fury, and preparations for a renewal of the war were begun on a much larger scale, and with lavish expenditure. The pride of Portugal was touched to the quick, and the king reduced his private expenses, and gave all he could save to the common object. The winter and spring passed in arming and planning the campaign. Nella’s affairs were in abeyance. Harry Hartsed was gone, no one knew whither; and Dom Alvarez, on recovering from his wound, left Lisbon for change of air, and was to join the army with Sir Walter. All the talk was of hope and revenge, only the king’s face was unchangeably sorrowful.

One evening, shortly before the expedition was to start, Duarte was lying on a couch in his private room, resting from the fatigue of a long day in council. Beside him sat Enrique, who, with João, was to command the army, Dom Pedro being needed at home in the king’s weak state.

“Enrique,” said Duarte, breaking a long silence, “ere we part, I would tell you my mind on certain matters.”

“I will never cross your will again, my brother,” said Enrique, humbly.

“I have thought much and long,” said Duarte, with his grave gentleness. “This war is good, – justified by the conduct of the Moors to our beloved one. But, if it fails, I have written in my will that Ceuta must be ceded to them, and, to my thinking, it was our duty to have abided by our word. I was slow plainly to see this, but in this long sickness my eyes have grown clearer. Our Blessed Lord knows the souls in Ceuta which are His own, and would guard them through the fiery persecution which the failure of our arms would have brought on them. Maybe He would have allowed us to deliver them from it. It shows the faith of the blessed Cross in a poor light to the heathen when Christian men break plighted faith. And yet, Enrique, though as I lie here on soft cushions, with all things easy round me, I seem verily to feel his rough usage, taste his hard fare, it goes harder with me to pluck that jewel out of my father’s crown, and give it back to the darkness whence he won it, than to see my Fernando win a martyr’s crown.”

“I shall never raise my voice against your will,” said Enrique. “Daily, with prayer and penance, I entreat that Ceuta and Fernando both may yet be saved to us. If Ceuta goes, there is nothing for me who lost it but to vow myself to a life of penitence, and till Fernando is safe, there is no joy on earth for me.”

“Take heart, my Enrique,” said Duarte, tenderly. “If you have risked Ceuta, you have won wide lands to Portugal and to the Church; and remember, it is to you and Pedro I confide my son.”

“Alas, Duarte, there would be no hope for church or country without you at the helm.”

“As God wills,” said Duarte, and words and tone vividly brought Fernando before Enrique’s mind.

And before many days were over the stroke fell; and, as some say, of an attack of the plague, which he was too weak to resist, as others tell, of the long strain of grief and responsibility, the just and gentle Duarte died, of whom all agree that he never uttered a harsh word, nor committed an unrighteous action.

“A selfless man and stainless gentleman,

Who reverenced his conscience as his king.”

He died, and with his life all the preparations for war fell to pieces, and came to an end. Portugal was plunged into a wild chaos of dispute and mis-government; the three remaining princes passed out of the clear following of clear aims that had marked their youth, into the wretched conflict, half-good, half-evil, of hand-to-hand fighting, with the necessities of every-day, till they hardly knew for what they were striving. There were miserable differences and cabals between the widowed Queen and Dom Pedro, who yet strove to act honourably by her; wild, mad accusations against these loving brothers of having poisoned Duarte, for whom either of them would gladly have died, a world of wrong and worry, from which they could not escape.

With the rights and wrongs of that unhappy story, a sadder one perhaps than the fatal siege of Tangier, we have now no concern; but some strange change must have passed over the mind of the nation, for no other effort was ever made to rescue Fernando. To all seeming, his country forgot him, as Harry Hartsed was forgotten. But Enrique, when in the intervals of his wretched life at court he went to gaze over the wide Atlantic, and plan how to penetrate its mysteries, prayed for the unknown suffering of his beloved brother, while Nella Northberry added to her prayers the name of another loved and lost one.

Chapter Twenty

Darkness

“For there is no way out of pain and trouble but only to endure them.”

A party of travellers had come to a halt in the shade of a clump of trees, which pleasantly varied the monotony of the rough, sandy plains, covered with long grass, through which the road lay between Arzella and Fez. A weary journey, under the blasting winds and blazing sun of a North-African May. The sun was sinking now, and the wind was calm, and the Moorish cavalry, with their white turbans, flashing weapons, and beautiful steeds, brought to a halt on the small spot of grass, stood out picturesque and bright under the dear, rosy sky, a subject for a picture; the foil to these splendid soldiers being the coarsely-clad prisoners, or perhaps slaves. Prisoners, for how could they escape from their well-mounted guards? Slaves, for they ran hither and thither, fetching and carrying, rubbing down the horses, and bringing them water from a spring at hand, their steps, if lagging, hastened often by blows, and their answers, if sullen, met by rough jests or curses. And very various was their demeanour. Some fierce, and evidently stung to the quick, glanced up at their tyrants with muttered curses, and eyes of wrath and scorn; some sulkily did as little as they could; some stumbled through their work in utter weariness and pain, others hurried over it with officious readiness, humbled into an effort to avoid offending their terrible masters. It is not noble blood alone that can give a man patience, dignity, and courage, when called to lead the life of a slave.

One there was who, a little apart from the rest, was tending a splendid charger, black as jet, and with large, gentle eyes. The beautiful creature stood patient and still, as slowly, as if from fatigue and weakness, but with no apparent reluctance, and with more than one gentle word and caress, his delicate-handed attendant washed the sand from his hoofs, and gave him food and drink. As the prisoner turned somewhat feebly to lift a heavy skin of water, one of his fellow-slaves flung down his own burden, and, lifting the skin, held it to him on his knee, kissing the hand that took it.

“My lord, my lord, to see you serving that accursed brute?”

“Nay, my friend; thanks for your help; but do not call the good horse names. My brother, the king, has none such in his stable. I think I have something of his love for noble horses,” said Fernando, with a smile. “But finish your own task, Manoel, or Moussa-ben-Hadad will give you the rough words you like so little.”

“No matter, if I can aid your highness.”

“I have finished,” said the prince; “and our hour of rest is coming.”

As he spoke, a tall Moor came up and struck young Manoel a rough blow, bidding him not to linger, but to bring him the water for his horse at once. Fernando did not interfere; perhaps experience had taught him that it was useless; but his brow contracted, and he bit his lip hard.

A little later, and while the Moors were taking their evening meal, the Christians, with whom of course they might not eat, sat together apart, eating the coarse black bread provided for them. It was their most peaceful moment, for they could then talk freely with each other.

The prince was one of the last to join them, and as he came up slowly and wearily, several sprang up to meet him, trying to form a couch for him with their rough garments, and offering to bathe his feet, which were bruised and dusty.

Fernando accepted their services gently and gratefully, asking them how they had fared during the day.

“As ill as usual, my lord,” said one sulkily; “and small prospect of anything better at Fez. But the infidel dogs might beat my brains out ere I would consent to fawn and crouch and feign compliance, as Dom Francisco did but now. I scorn it!”

“Scorn will not give us a better supper than black bread; see, here are dates, to flavour it,” said Dom Francisco, while the first speaker, an older man, snatched the gift from his hand and flung it away; and there was a disproportionate outcry of annoyance and vexation. Worn-out nerves and tempers were easily raffled, and the men who had resigned themselves to lose their freedom could ill bear the loss of a handful of dates.

“Ah, hush, my friends,” said Fernando; “worse than blows without are quarrels within.”

“Now, now, my sons,” said Father José, who had come up unperceived, “that was ill done. Now, if my lord of Viseo will not fling them away, here are oranges and a piece of dried goat’s flesh, given me by that lad in a green caftan, who has, methinks, a less hard heart than the rest. And it has struck me, my children,” proceeded the good father, “that the blessed Paul and Silas would not have converted their jailer had they bickered with each other, or grumbled at the prison fare, instead of singing Psalms in the darkness of the night. Wherefore, as singing causes the Moslems to blaspheme, I propose, while we divide the goat’s flesh, to recite a portion of the Psalter.”

Father José was a powerful though elderly man, and as he had never been accustomed to a luxurious life, he was able to endure the privations and hardships of his captivity better than most. He was good-tempered, too, and cheerful, and was without the heart ache that almost all the others carried about with them for near and dear ones, lost, it seemed, for ever. And, more than all, his faith was strong and clear, and a real support to the failing hearts of others.

Fernando’s weak health caused him to suffer far more physically than any of his companions: he had been very ill at Arzella, and was even now hardly able to bear the fatigue of each day’s journey. Nor did the blood either of Avis or Plantagenet run so tamely as to make insults easy of endurance; he pined for his brothers, and felt every trouble of his comrades as if it were his own. But then, too, he was able to feel the comfort of their love and devotion. As he lay on the ground, too weary to eat or take much share in the conversation, his face, worn as it was, had not its old restless look, and his eyes as they watched the sunset, were full of peace. It was not only that he had lost the sense of an unfulfilled desire; not only that he felt that his sufferings did serve the cause that he loved so well; better still than this, the passionate will that could see but one way of serving had learnt to submit at last, till he could take each trial patiently as it came from the Hand that sent it, and – completest victory of all – accept also each alleviation. The evening air and the fair landscape, the interval of rest and quiet, were really soothing to him, and there was something in this peacefulness which drew all his comrades to his side, each with his tale of trouble, or with the offer of some little service as comforting to himself as to the prince.

“We are still together,” was a consolation even in the midst of their suffering.

Alas! it was soon the only one left them. Too soon they looked back on that hard journey as a period of comparative happiness. When they reached Fez their masters changed. Whether the sea-port towns had been considered as too unsafe in case of a siege, or whether the African Moors had been enraged by the strong representations of the Moorish king of Granada – that, under all the circumstances, the heavy ransom ought to have been accepted, – Zala-ben-Zala sent his prisoners into the domains of Abdallah, the young king of Fez, whose prime minister was named Lazurac, and was one of the most savage monsters of history.

The unhappy prisoners were driven, with stripes and curses, through the streets of Fez, the dark-faced Moors flinging rude words, and even stones, at them as they passed.

“One bore His Cross through a raging multitude, and for us!” said Fernando to Manoel, who was near him; but as he spoke they came close under the frowning towers of the Darsena, a kind of castle, which guarded the town. Here they hoped at least for rest and shelter; and it was with almost a sense of relief that they were driven through the gates and into the inclosure of the castle, and on – through a long passage, down – down a sort of rough slope, through some great doors, which were locked and barred behind them, leaving them, in an utter blank of darkness, they knew not where.

Utter darkness – not a ray of light penetrated their prison. As they sank down, wearied, they could not see each other; when they put out their hands they could feel nothing near; all was silent and black as the grave.

“Let us pray,” said Father José, and began, “Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord.”

It was the deep indeed – the very depth of misery; and as they began to recover from the fainting weariness of their terrible march the horror of the darkness struck them more forcibly, and they were afraid to move, lest they should lose each other in unknown depths, till Fernando proposed that the least exhausted should try in a body to reach the wall of their prison, but never going beyond easy recall from himself and one or two others, who were completely spent.

They found that their dungeon was of considerable extent, but they were afraid then to penetrate all across it. It was damp, too, and bitterly cold, and no provision of food or drink seemed to have been made for them. It seemed like the intentional ending of their sorrows; and numb, stupefied, and utterly hopeless, they crowded together on the cold floor of their dungeon, unknowing whether minutes, hours, or days passed over them, till suddenly their door was opened, and a man with a basket and a dim lantern in his hand was allowed to enter.

“Prisoners,” he said, in broken Portuguese, “I am a Majorcan merchant, and am allowed to sell bread to the prisoners.”

“For the love of Heaven, a light,” cried Manoel, “that we may see our misery.”

The merchant came towards them, and turned his flickering light on the face of Fernando, who lay, almost senseless, in Father José’s arms.

“We have no money to buy of you, good friend,” said the priest; “but if of your charity you could give us a drop of wine for our dear Lord – ”

The Majorcan knelt down, put his lamp into the hand of Manoel, and pouring out a little wine, held it to the prince’s lips; and as it touched them he opened his eyes and looked round, as if bewildered. The merchant had a good grave face, and, when they repeated that they could not buy of him, he smiled and said, “Still, he came there to trade with prisoners,” and put his provisions down beside them; and he also left them the means of making a light; but this he advised them to use secretly and at rare intervals, as for that he had no leave. He showed them the extent of their prison, and left them two or three sheepskins to form a bed. Whether at this time Lazurac really cared if his prisoners perished or not, or whether he intended to force the prince into entreating his brother to deliver him at any cost, certain it is that the few visits of this good Samaritan were all that kept hope, nay, life itself, in the wretched prisoners. The hopeless darkness, the terrible inaction, and the damp, dark atmosphere, broke down both health and spirits. Some, to add to the misery, were seized with fever, and lost their senses, raving wildly; and though Fernando was saved from this, he was never able to raise himself from the ground, and suffered terribly from pain and weakness. But through the three long months of that terrible trial he never uttered a complaint, save of his companions’ sufferings; and little as he could do for them, there was an influence of peace in the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice. There were times when, treated like brutes as they were, the animal nature awoke within them, and they were ready to tear each other to pieces in the bitterness of their despairing fury; other times, when they sought a kind of relief in wild ribald jests, and many long intervals of sulky, faithless despair; when even Father José’s prayers and encouragements were unavailing. Then the voice that was always gentle, the words that were always pure, the faith that saw beyond the dungeon walls, would woo them to a better mind; and the love they bore him helped them to hold to the love of God; and when, now and again, by the faint light of their little lamp, Father José took of the good Majorcan’s bread and wine, and celebrated the Holy Eucharist, as long ago it had been celebrated by martyrs and confessors in dens and caves of the earth, they felt the power of that Holy Presence, and attained to something of the martyr’s spirit as well as the martyr’s fate.

Chapter Twenty One

The Feast of Flowers

“Go, bring me showers of roses – bring.”

Flowers – flowers everywhere; one blaze of colour through the royal gardens of Fez. Was not the young King Abdallah about to marry the Princess Hinda, daughter of a neighbouring potentate, and had he not vowed that since she loved flowers better than anything in the world, flowers she should have, specimens of every flower in his dominions! Lazurac might rule over people and prisoners as he would, but he must provide flowers for his boy sovereign, and workmen to plant, deck, and wreathe his gardens within the space of a few hours with every flower under heaven. Round every column and arch were twined ropes of roses, oleanders, and arums, in limitless profusion. Crowds of girls tied the wreaths, while the slaves brought them by hundreds and festooned them from tree to tree. And so, because hands were short, or perhaps to insult them still further, the Portuguese prisoners were released from their dungeon and brought out once more into the light of day, to hang up rose-wreaths for the king’s fête.