Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 1

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!”

CHAPTER XXIV

Marriage of Doña Ava and El Conde de Castila – Treachery of Doña Teresa

BURGOS was reached without further incident, and in a few days the marriage of the Conde and the Infanta was solemnised with great pomp in the church of Sant’ Agueda on the hill, under a mantle of delicate sculpture which lined the walls.1

Now here it should be said, as in the fairy tales, “They married and lived happily ever after.” Not at all. We are only at the beginning of their troubles.

The rage of Don Sancho of Leon and King Garcia of Navarre, the father of Doña Ava, knew no bounds. Genuine rage, for they had both been caught in their own trap, a thing utterly unbearable to malignant natures, be they kings or commons.

As to the King of Navarre, who not only had lost a highly valuable marriageable daughter, but the half of the kingdom of Castile, he at once assembled a strong army, under the pretence that the Conde had feloniously carried off the Infanta – a curious accusation, considering that he himself had consented to their nuptials.

“Let us wait till he comes to a better mind,” urged Doña Ava, from her palace at Burgos, looking out over those rich plains which are the glory of Central Spain; “after all, I am his daughter, he cannot harm me.”

But this Christian point of view was not shared by the King of Navarre, who from his mountains executed such raids on Castile that Gonzales had no choice but to face him.

Near Ogroño was the battle, not far from Burgos, by the river Ebro, and hardly was it fought, and victory only gained by a clever feint, headed by the Conde in person. Don Garcia’s camp was seized and he himself taken prisoner.

Now face to face they stood within a tent, the father-in-law and son. The casque of the king battered, his armour bleared, his chief knights in a like plight, prisoners beside him – the Conde in front brandishing a blood-stained sword, with such a sense of wrong gnawing at his heart as for a time leaves him speechless.

Then the words of reproach came rushing to his lips. “False king, did I not come in peace to Narbonne, and you gave me the royal kiss of welcome? Did I not eat at your board? Sleep the sleep of peace under your roof? Ride with you? Jest with you? Live as man to man of the kinship we are to each other? Did you not” (and here his upraised voice breaks into a softer tone as he names her) “give me your daughter, the Infanta, as my wife, and, while her hand was clasped in mine, her kiss upon my cheek, did you not bind me, vile king, in chains, and hurl me into a dungeon, where but for her help, the angel of my life, I should have died unheeded?”

To all this Don Garcia, with eyes cast on the ground, answered not a word, his armed figure defined against the pattern of rich brocade which lined the tent under the light of torches.

“Now to Burgos with you, King of Navarre, and as you did by me, so be it done to you! That is bare justice!”

“Ah! good my lord,” came the soft voice of Doña Ava into his ear, as she went out to meet him with her ladies to the gate of Santa Maria, beside the river which flows by the walls of Burgos “remember, Don Garcia is my father.”

“Now prythee hold your peace, fair wife,” was his reply, “much as I love you he shall this time meet his due. Nor shall he return to Navarre until he pays me a full ransom.”

But like the gentle dropping of water (and drops, we know, wear even stones, much more the soft substance of which hearts are made) came the entreaties of the Infanta. After all they were married, and Don Garcia had suffered a grievous defeat, which had weakened him for mischief for many a day!

So at the end of a year the prison was unbarred and a great festival held in the old palace of Burgos, of which no trace remains; a throne glittering with cloth of gold was raised in the midst of carpets and screens and awnings of brocaded silk, a luxury borrowed from the Moors – from whom, much as they fought them, all refined tastes were acquired; and afterwards, at the board in royal robes, Don Garcia is seated side by side with Castile (Doña Ava, crowned with a royal diadem, between), as they quaff the generous wine of Valdepeñas in healths of eternal amity and alliance.

Again the Cortes were assembled in haste, in the northern city of Leon, to determine conclusions against the Moors.

The Caliph Almanzor, coming from Cordoba, had penetrated north as far as Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia, sacked the shrine, the very Mecca of Spain, where countless miracles were wrought by his bones; and, insult of insults, pulled down the bells and hung them (oh, horrors!) in the Mesquita of Cordoba, where they still remain! So that Fernan gladly hastened to obey Don Sancho’s summons, along with the kings of Aragon and Navarre. Years had passed, a son had been born to him, and many acts of courtesy exchanged, as between royal kinsfolk.

To recall the past was by no means in harmony with his forgiving temper. “Perhaps he will pay the debt he owes me,” was his thought, “for my horse Sila and the hawk he bought of me so long ago; the sum must by this time be a big one.”

It was night when the council ended, and the royal company assembled in the hall, having exchanged their heavier garments for fanciful doublets and mantles of tissues woven in Eastern looms, set off with fur and gems – graceful toques to correspond, replacing helmet and head-piece, a feather lying low on the shoulder, or peaked caps encircled with garlands of jewels, the badge of his house embroidered on each knight’s breast. As each guest took his place with that solemn demeanour common to Spaniards, a flourish of trumpets sounded, a side door opened, and Doña Teresa appeared, upright to stiffness, wearing her crown upon her head, her son Don Sancho advancing with respectful courtesy to place her on his right hand.

All eyes were fixed on Don Fernan Gonzales, the youngest of the princes. Happiness and loyalty looked out of his comely face, grace was in every movement, as he exchanged compliments with his royal kinsmen – Aragon, a broad-shouldered man, frank and true in nature; Navarre, dark and preponderant, his eyes bent significantly on his son-in-law; and his nephew of Leon, Don Sancho the Fat, grown so obese he moved in his royal robes with difficulty.

The feast, spread on oaken tables covered with scarlet cloths, blazed with the sheen of precious candelabra, cups inlaid with rubies, and silver figures trimmed with posies of flowers, aromatic herbs and green boughs from the wood, the walls hung with damascened draperies and a fair Moorish carpet on the floor. The fish, flesh, and fowl served in heavy silver platters were offered entire to each guest, who with his dagger cut his own portion, drinking from silver goblets placed at his side.

At the conclusion of the banquet, to the blare of trumpets, King Don Sancho rose to lead his mother to her retiring room, with the same state as she had entered.

Already the kings of Navarre and Aragon had passed on, and the Conde de Castile was preparing to follow when an armed hand was placed on his shoulder and a voice uttered in his ear: “You are my prisoner.”

“Your prisoner?” cried he, looking round to behold a circle of armed men, who had silently gathered behind his chair as he was in the act of making obeisance to the queen, “by my troth! this is an idle jest. You have mistaken your man, my masters. Look elsewhere.”

“Not at all,” cried Queen Doña Teresa, disengaging her hand from that of the king, the old malignant smile glittering in her black eyes. “Did you think, Sir Conde, we were as green as you, who come unarmed a second time among your foes? The bird that had flown is recaptured! Ha! ha!” and she gave a bitter laugh. “I think I can prophesy you will not escape this time! The dungeons of Leon are better guarded than those of Narbonne!”

“Queen Doña Teresa,” was his answer, his arms already bound by fetters, “I take no shame for my lack of suspicion. Rather is it for you, so royally born, to blush at such baseness. You,” and, spite of himself, his eyes flamed with rage as he realised that he had again fallen into the power of his remorseless kinsfolk, “you are a disgrace to the royal lineage you represent. See, even the king, your son, casts down his eyes. Don Sancho is ashamed of his mother!”

Stung by his reproaches the queen raised her hand as a signal to the guards to bear him away.

“What manner of man is this?” she said, turning to the king, who, though he had joined in the conspiracy, now stood irresolute and pale, a silent witness to his mother’s treachery. “He dares to jeer at me with the chains about his neck. But a long life passed in a Gothic dungeon will bring down his pride. Fear not, my son, what can he do? When the half of his kingdom is in your hands you will thank me.”