The Spanish Brothers

Why then had he not sought information, which might have proved so deeply interesting to him, directly from Losada himself, his friend and teacher? Several causes contributed to his reluctance to broach the subject. But by far the greatest was a kind of chivalrous, half romantic tenderness for that absent brother, whom he could now truly say that he loved best on earth. It is very difficult for us to put ourselves in the position of Spaniards of the sixteenth century, so far as at all to understand the way in which they were accustomed to look upon heresy. In their eyes it was not only a crime, infinitely more dreadful than that of murder; it was also a horrible disgrace, branding a man's whole lineage up and down for generations, and extending its baleful influence to his remotest kindred. Carlos asked himself, day by day, how would the high-hearted Don Juan Alvarez, whose idol was glory, and his dearest pride a noble and venerated name, endure to hear that his beloved and only brother was stained with that surpassing infamy? But at least it would be anguish enough to stab Juan once, as it were, with his own hand, without arming the dead hand of the father whose memory they both revered, and then driving home the weapon into his brother's heart. Rather would he let the matter remain in obscurity, even if (which was extremely doubtful) he could by any effort of his own shed a ray of light upon it.

Still he took occasion one day to inquire of his friend Fray Fernando, who had received full information on these subjects from the older monks, "Was not that Rodrigo de Valer, whose sanbenito hangs in the Cathedral, the first teacher of the pure faith in Seville?"

"True, señor, he taught many. While he himself, as I have heard, received the faith from none save God only."

"He must have been a remarkable man. Tell me all you know of him."

"Our Fray Cassiodoro has often heard Dr. Egidius speak of him; so that, though his lips were silenced long before your time or mine, señor, he seems still one of our company."

"Yes, already some of our number have joined the Church triumphant, but they are still one with us in Christ."

"Don Rodrigo de Valer," continued the young monk, "was of a noble family, and very wealthy. He was born at Lebrixa, but came to reside in Seville, a gay, light-hearted, brilliant young caballero, who was soon a leader in all the folly and fashion of the great city. But suddenly these things lost their charm for him. Much to the astonishment of the gay world, to which he had been such an ornament, he disappeared from the scenes of amusement and festivity he had been wont to love. His companions could not understand the change that came over him – but we can understand it well. God's arrows of conviction were sharp in his heart. And he led him to turn for comfort, not to penance and self-mortification, but to his own Word. Only in one form was that Word accessible to him. He gathered up the fragments of his old school studies – little cared for at the time, and well-nigh forgotten afterwards – to enable him to read the Vulgate. There he found justification by faith, and through it, peace to his troubled conscience. But he did not find, as I need scarcely say to you, Don Carlos, purgatory, the worship of Our Lady and the saints, and certain other things our fathers taught us."

"How long since was all this?" asked Carlos, who was listening with much interest, and at the same time comparing the narrative with that other story he had heard from Dolores.

"Long enough, señor. Twenty years ago or more. When God had thus enlightened him, he returned to the world. But he returned to it a new man, determined henceforth to know nothing save Christ and him crucified. He addressed himself in the first instance to the priests and monks, whom, with a boldness truly amazing, he accosted wherever he met them, were it even in the most public places of the city, proving to them from Scripture that their doctrines were not the truth of God."

"It was no hopeful soil in which to sow the Word."

"No, truly; but it seemed laid upon him as a burden from God to speak what he felt and knew, whether men would hear or whether they would forbear. He very soon aroused the bitter enmity of those who hate the light because their deeds are evil. Had he been a poor man, he would have been burned at the stake, as that brave, honest-hearted young convert, Francisco de San Romano, was burned at Valladolid not so long ago, saying to those who offered him mercy at the last, 'Did you envy me my happiness?' But Don Rodrigo's rank and connections saved him from that fate. I have heard, too, that there were those in high places who shared, or at least favoured his opinions in secret. Such interceded for him."

"Then his words were received by some?" Carlos asked anxiously. "Have you ever heard the names of any of those who were his friends or patrons?"

Fray Fernando shook his head. "Even amongst ourselves, señor," he said, "names are not mentioned oftener than is needful. For 'a bird of the air will carry the matter;' and when life depends on our silence, it is no wonder if at last we become a trifle over-silent. In the lapse of years, some names that ought to be remembered amongst us may well chance to be forgotten, from this dread of breathing them, even in a whisper. Always excepting Dr. Egidius, Don Rodrigo's friends or converts are unknown to me. But I was about to say, the Inquisitors were prevailed upon, by those who interceded for him, to regard him as insane. They dismissed him, therefore, with no more severe penalty than the loss of his property, and with many cautions as to his future behaviour."

"I hold it scarce likely that he observed them."

"Very far otherwise, señor. For a short time, indeed, his friends prevailed on him to express his sentiments more privately; and Fray Cassiodoro says that during this interval he confirmed them in the faith by expounding the Epistle to the Romans. But he could not long hide the light he held. To all remonstrances he answered, that he was a soldier sent on a forlorn hope, and must needs press forward to the breach. If he fell, it mattered not; in his place God would raise up others, whose would be the glory and the joy of victory. So, once again, the Holy Office laid its grasp upon him. It was resolved that his voice should be heard no more on earth; and he was therefore consigned to the living death of perpetual imprisonment. And yet, in spite of all their care and all their malice, one more testimony for God and his truth was heard from his lips."

"How was that?"

"They led him, robed in that great sanbenito you have often seen, to the Church of San Salvador, to sit and listen, with the other weeping penitents, while some ignorant priest denounced their heresies and blasphemies. But he was not afraid after the sermon to stand up in his place, and warn the people against the preacher's erroneous doctrine, showing them where and how it differed from the Word of God. It is marvellous they did not burn him; but God restrained the remainder of their wrath. They sent him at last to the monastery of San Lucar, where he remained in solitary confinement until his death."

Carlos mused a little. Then he said, "What a blessed change, from solitary confinement to the company of just men made perfect; from the gloom of a convent prison to the glory of God's house, eternal in the heavens!"

"Some of the elder brethren say we may be called upon to pass through trials even more severe," remarked Fray Fernando. "I know not. Being amongst the youngest here, I should speak my mind with humility; still I cannot help looking around me, and seeing that everywhere men are receiving the Word of God with joy. Think of the learned and noble men and women in the city who have joined our band already, and are eager to gain others! New converts are won for us every day; not to speak of that great multitude among Fray Constantino's hearers who are really on our side, without dreaming it themselves. Moreover, your noble friend, Don Carlos de Seso, told us last summer that the signs in the north are equally encouraging. He thinks the Lutherans of Valladolid are more numerous than those of Seville. In Toro and Logrono also the light is spreading rapidly. And throughout the districts near the Pyrenees the Word has free course, thanks to the Huguenot traders from Béarn."

"I have heard these things in Seville, and truly my heart rejoices at them. But yet – " here Carlos broke off suddenly, and remained silent, gazing mournfully into the fire, near which, as it was now winter, they had seated themselves.

At last Fray Fernando asked, "What do you think, señor?"

Carlos raised his dark blue eyes and fixed them on the questioner's face.

"Of the future," he said slowly, "I think —nothing. I dare not think of it. It is in God's hand, and he thinks for us. Still, one thing I cannot choose but see. Where we are we cannot remain. We are bound to a great wheel that is turning – turning – and turn with it, even in spite of ourselves, we must and do. But it is the wheel, not of chance, but of God's mighty purposes; that is all our comfort."

"And those purposes, are they not mercy and truth unto our beloved land?"

"They may be; but I know not. They are not revealed. 'Mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant,' that indeed is written."

"We are they that keep his covenant."

Carlos sighed, and resumed the thread of his own thought, —

"The wheel turns round, and we with it. Even since I came here it has turned perceptibly. And how it is to turn one step further without bringing us into contact with the solid frame of things as they are, and so crushing us, truly I see not. I see not; but I trust God."

"You allude to these discussions about the sacrifice of the mass now going on so continually amongst us?"

"I do. Hitherto we have been able to work underground; but if doubt must be thrown upon that, the thin shell of earth that has concealed and protected us, will break and fall in upon our heads. And then?"

"Already we are all asking, 'And then?'" said Fray Fernando. "There will be nothing before us but flight to some foreign land."

"And how, in God's name, is that to be accomplished? But God forgive me these words; and God keep me, and all of us, from the subtle snare of mixing with the question, 'What is his will?' that other question, 'What will be our fate if we try to do it?' As the noble De Seso said to me, all that matters to us is to be found amongst those who 'follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.' But he went to Calvary."

The last words were spoken in so low a tone that Fray Fernando heard them not.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"No matter. Time enough to hear if God himself speaks it in our ears."

Their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of a lay brother, who informed Carlos that a visitor awaited him in the convent parlour. As it was one of the hours during which the rules of the house (which were quite liberal enough, without being lax) permitted the entertainment of visitors, Carlos went to receive his without much delay.

He knew that if the guest had been one of "their own," their loved brethren in the faith, even the attendant would have been well acquainted with his person, and would naturally have named him. He entered the room, therefore, with no very lively anticipations; expecting, at most, to see one of his cousins, who might have paid him the compliment of riding out from the city to visit him.

A tall, handsome, sunburnt man, who had his left arm in a sling, was standing with his back to the window. But in one moment more the other arm was flung round the neck of Carlos, and heart pressed to heart, and lip to lip – the brothers stood together.

XVI.

Welcome Home

"We are so unlike each other,Thou and I, that none would guess We were children of one mother,But for mutual tenderness."E.B. Browning.

After the first tumult of greeting, in which affection was expressed rather by look and gesture than by word, the brothers sat down and talked. Eager questions rose to the lips of both, but especially to those of Carlos, whose surprise at Juan's unexpected appearance only equalled his delight.

"But you are wounded, my brother," he said. "Not seriously, I hope?"

"Oh no! Only a bullet through my arm. A piece of my usual good luck. I got it in The Battle."

No adjective was needed to specify the glorious day of St. Quentin, when Flemish Egmont's chivalrous courage, seconded by Castilian bravery, gained for King Philip such a brilliant victory over the arms of France. Carlos knew the story already from public sources. And it did not occur to Juan, nor indeed to Carlos either, that there had ever been, or would ever be again, a battle so worthy of being held in everlasting remembrance.

"But do you count the wound part of your good luck?" asked Carlos.

"Ay, truly, and well I may. It has brought me home; as you ought to have known ere this."

"I received but two letters from you – that written on your first arrival, and dated from Cambray; and that which told of your notable prize, the French prisoner."

"But I wrote two others: one, I entrusted to a soldier who was coming home invalided – I suppose the fellow lost it; the other (written just after the great St. Laurence's day) arrived in Seville the night before I made my own appearance there. His Majesty will need to look to his posts; certes, they are the slowest carriers to be found in any Christian country." And Juan's merry laugh rang through the convent parlour, little enough used to echo such sounds.

"So I have heard almost nothing of you, brother; save what could be gathered from the public accounts," Carlos continued.

"All the better now. I have only such news as is pleasant for me to tell; and will not be ill, I think, for thee to hear. First, then, and in due order – I am promised my company!"

"Good news, indeed! My brother must have honoured our name by some special deed of valour. Was it at St. Quentin?" asked Carlos, looking at him with honest, brotherly pride. He was not much changed by his campaign, except that his dark cheek wore a deeper bronze, and his face was adorned with a formidable pair of bigotes.

"That story must wait," returned Juan. "I have so much else to tell thee. Dost thou remember how I said, as a boy, that I should take a noble prisoner, like Alphonso Vives, and enrich myself by his ransom? And thou seest I have done it."

"In a good day! Still, he was not the Duke of Saxony."

"Like him, at least, in being a heretic, or Huguenot, if that be a less unsavoury word to utter in these holy precincts. Moreover, he is a tried and trusted officer of Admiral Coligny's suite. It was that day when the admiral so gallantly threw himself into the besieged town. And, for my part, I am heartily obliged to him. But for his presence, there would have been no defence of St. Quentin, to speak of, at all; but for the defence, no battle; but for the battle, no grand victory for the Spains and King Philip. We cut off half of the admiral's troops, however, and it fell to my lot to save the life of a brave French officer whom I saw fighting alone amongst a crowd. He gave me his sword; and I led him to my tent, and provided him with all the solace and succour I could, for he was sorely wounded. He was the Sieur de Ramenais; a gentleman of Provence, and an honest, merry-hearted, valiant man, as it was ever my lot to meet withal. He shared my bed and board, a pleasant guest rather than a prisoner, until we took the town, making the admiral himself our captive, as you know already. By that time, his brother had raised the sum for his ransom, and sent it honourably to me. But, in any case, I should have dismissed him on parole, as soon as his wounds were healed. He was pleased to give me, beside the good gold pistoles, this diamond ring you see on my finger, in token of friendship."

Carlos took the costly trinket in his hand, and duly admired it. He did not fail to gather from Juan's simple narrative many things that he told not, and was little likely to tell. In the time of action, chivalrous daring; when the conflict was over, gentleness and generosity no less chivalrous, endearing him to all – even to the vanquished enemy. No wonder Carlos was proud of his brother! But beneath all the pride and joy there was, even already, a secret whisper of fear. How could he bear to see that noble brow clouded with anger – those bright confiding eyes averted from him in disdain? Turning from his own thoughts as if they had been guilty things, he asked quickly, —

"But how did you obtain leave of absence?"

"Through the kindness of his Highness."

"The Duke of Savoy?"

"Of course. And a braver general I would never ask to serve."

"I thought it might have been from the King himself, when he came to the camp after the battle."

Don Juan's cheek glowed with modest triumph. "His Highness was good enough to point me out to His Catholic Majesty," he said. "And the King spoke to me himself!"

It is difficult for us to understand how a few formal words of praise from the lips of one of the meanest and vilest of men could be looked upon by the really noble-hearted Don Juan Alvarez as almost the crowning joy of his life. With the enthusiastic loyalty of his age and country he honoured Philip the king; Philip the man being all the time a personage as utterly unknown to him as the Sultan of Turkey. But not choosing to expatiate upon a theme so flattering to himself, he continued, —

"The Duke contrived to send me home with despatches, saying kindly that he thought my wound required a little rest and care. Though I had affairs of importance" (and here the colour mounted to his brow) "to settle in Seville, I would not have quitted the camp, with my goodwill, had we been about any enterprise likely to give us fair fighting. But in truth Carlos, things have been abundantly dull since the fall of St. Quentin. Though we have our King with us, and Henry of France and the Duke of Guise have both joined the enemy, all are standing at gaze as if they were frozen, and doomed to stay there motionless till the day of judgment. I have no mind for that kind of sport, not I! I became a soldier to fight His Catholic Majesty's battles, not to stare at his enemies as if they were puppets paid to make a show for my amusement. So I was not sorry to take leave of absence."

"And your important business in Seville. May a brother ask what that means?"

"A brother may ask what he pleases, and be answered. Wish me joy, Carlos; I have arranged that little matter with Doña Beatriz." And his light words half hid, half revealed the great deep joy of his own strong heart. "My uncle," he continued, "is favourable to my views; indeed, I have never known him so friendly. We are to have our betrothal feast at Christmas, when your time of retreat here is over."

Carlos "wished him joy" most sincerely. Fervently did he thank God that it was in his power to do it; that the snare that had once wound itself so subtly around his footsteps was broken, and his soul escaped. He could now meet his brother's eye without self-reproach. Still, this seemed sudden. He said, "Certainly you did not lose time."

"Why should I?" asked Juan with simplicity. "'By-and-by is always too late,' as thou wert wont to say; and I would they learned that proverb at the camp. In truth," he added more gravely, "I often feared, during my stay there, that I might have lost all through my tardiness. But thou wert a good brother to me, Carlos."

"Mayest thou ever think so, brother mine," said Carlos, not without a pang, as his conscience told him how little he deserved the praise.

"But what in the world," asked Juan hastily, "has induced thee to bury thyself here, amongst these drowsy monks?"

"The brethren are excellent men, learned and pious. And I am not buried," Carlos returned with a smile.

"And if thou wert buried ten fathoms deep, thou shouldst come up out of the grave when I need thee to stand beside me."

"Do not fear for that. Now thou art come, I will not prolong my stay here, as otherwise I might have done. But I have been very happy here, Juan."

"I am glad to hear it," said the merry-hearted, unsuspecting Juan. "I am glad also that you are not in too great haste to tie yourself down to the Church's service; though our honoured uncle seems to wish you had a keener eye to your own interest, and a better look-out for fat benefices. But I believe his own sons have appropriated all the stock of worldly prudence meant for the whole family, leaving none over for thee and me, Carlos."

"That is true of Don Manuel and Don Balthazar, not of Gonsalvo."

"Gonsalvo! he is far the worst of the three," Juan exclaimed, with something like anger in his open, sunny face.

Carlos laughed. "I suppose he has been favouring you with his opinion of me," he said.

"If he were not a poor miserable weakling and cripple, I should answer him with the point of my good sword. However, this is idle talk. Little brother" (Carlos being nearly as tall as himself, the diminutive was only a term of affection, recalling the days of their childhood, and more suited to masculine lips than its equivalent, dear) – "little brother, you look grave and pale, and ten years older than when we parted at Alcala."

"Do I? Much has happened with me since. I have been very sorrowful and very happy."

Don Juan laid his available hand on his brother's shoulder, and looked him earnestly in the face. "No secrets from me, little brother," he said. "If thou dost not like the service of Holy Church after all, speak out, and thou shalt go back with me to France, or to anywhere else in the known world that thou wilt. There may be some fair lady in the case," he added, with a keen and searching glance.

"No, brother – not that. I have indeed much to tell thee, but not now – not to-day."

"Choose thine own time; only remember, no secrets. That were the one unbrotherly act I could never forgive."

"But I am not yet satisfied about your wound," said Carlos, with perhaps a little moral cowardice, turning the conversation. "Was the bone broken?"

"No, fortunately; only grazed. It would not have signified, but for the treatment of the blundering barber-surgeon. I was advised to show it to some man of skill; and already my cousins have recommended to me one who is both physician and surgeon, and very able, they say."

"Dr. Cristobal Losada?"

"The same. Your favourite, Don Gonsalvo, has just been prevailed upon to make trial of his skill."

"I am heartily glad of it," returned Carlos. "There is a change of mind on his part, equal to any wherewith he can reproach me; and a change for the better, I have little doubt."

Thus the conversation wandered on; touching many subjects, exhausting none; and never again drawing dangerously near those deep places which one of the brothers knew must be thoroughly explored, and that at no distant day. For Juan's sake, for the sake of One whom he loved even more than Juan, he dared not – nay, he would not – avoid the task. But he needed, or thought he needed, consideration and prayer, that he might speak the truth wisely, as well as bravely, to that beloved brother.

XVII.

Disclosures

"No distance breaks the tie of blood; Brothers are brothers evermore; Nor wrong, nor wrath of deadliest mood, That magic may o'erpower."Keble.

The opportunity for free converse with his brother which Carlos desired, yet dreaded, was unexpectedly postponed. It would have been in accordance neither with the ideas of the time nor with his own feelings to have shortened his period of retreat in the monastery, though he would not now prolong it. And though Don Juan did not fail to make his appearance upon every day when visitors were admitted, he was always accompanied by either of his cousins Don Manuel or Don Balthazar, or by both. These shallow, worldly-minded young men were little likely to allow for the many things, in which strangers might not intermeddle, that brothers long parted might find to say to each other; they only thought that they were conferring a high honour on their poorer relatives by their favour and notice. In their presence the conversation was necessarily confined to the incidents of Juan's campaign, and to family matters. Whether Don Balthazar would obtain a post he was seeking under Government; whether Doña Sancha would eventually bestow the inestimable favour of her hand upon Don Beltran Vivarez or Don Alonso de Giron; and whether the disappointed suitor would stab himself or his successful rival; – these were questions of which Carlos soon grew heartily weary. But in all that concerned Beatriz he was deeply interested. Whatever he may once have allowed himself to fancy about the sentiments of a very young and childish girl, he never dreamed that she would make, or even desire to make, any opposition to the expressed wish of her guardian, who destined her for Juan. He was sure that she would learn quickly enough to love his brother as he deserved, even if she did not already do so. And it gave him keen pleasure that his sacrifice had not been in vain; that the wine-cup of joy which he had just tasted, then put steadily aside, was being drained to the dregs by the lips he loved best. It is true this pleasure was not yet unmixed with pain, but the pain was less than a few months ago he would have believed possible. The wound which he once thought deadly, was in process of being healed; nay, it was nearly healed already. But the scar would always remain.