Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 1

With that he sheathed his formidable weapon, turned his back, and with a quick step disappeared.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Don Rodrigo (the Cid) Kills the Conde de Gormez

IT was the hottest hour of the day, when the citizens took their siesta; the sun poured down in splendour on the white walls, absorbing the shade; the river was dried up.

No one had witnessed the encounter. But what did that matter? Conde Gormez would be sure to publish it abroad. Oh, shame and grief! Don Diego was for ever dishonoured!

Just as, with wavering steps, he was addressing himself to seek his horse where he had left him, he heard the clank of spurs upon the pavement, and his son Rodrigo appeared.

“Well met!” cried he, clutching his arm and gazing up wistfully into his beaming face; “the saints have sent you.”

“May their blessing be ever on you, my honoured father,” is the reply, as he stops to kiss his hand. “I was hastening home to tell you that the marriage is fixed, and that the king, Don Fernando, gives away the bride. But, father, are you ill?” noting his blanched aspect as his father leaned heavily upon him.

“Rodrigo,” he whispers, and with an unutterable expression of despair he looks into his eyes, “are you brave?”

“Sir!” answers Rodrigo, drawing back his arm, “any other but you should feel it on the instant.”

“Oh, blessed anger!” replies Don Diego, watching the deep flush mounting on his face, “you are indeed my son. My blood flows in your veins. I was like that once. Prompt, ready, dexterous. Rodrigo, will you avenge me?”

“For what?” asks Rodrigo, more and more perplexed.

“For that,” returns Don Diego – and as he speaks his voice gathers strength and he draws himself back, and stands upright before him – “which touches your honour as nearly as my own. A blow, a cruel blow! Had I been of your age, his blood would have wiped it out. But it is not with swords such an outrage is avenged. Go – die – or slay him. But I warn you, he is a hero. I have seen him in the front of a hundred battles, making a rampart of his body against the foe. He is – ”

“Tell me, father, tell me!” exclaims Don Rodrigo, breathlessly following his father’s words.

“The father of Ximena.”

“The – ”

No sound came to his white lips. As if struck by a mortal blow, Rodrigo staggered back against the sculptured pilasters of the Ayuntamiento.

“Speak not, my son,” says Don Diego, laying his hand upon him. “I know how much you love her. But he who accepts infamy is unworthy to live. I have told you vengeance is in your hand, for me, for you. Be worthy of your father, who was once a valiant knight. Go, I say, – rush – fly, – as though the earth burned under your footsteps! Nor let me behold you until you have washed out the stain!”

The chronicles say that, insolent as he was, the Conde de Gormez had already repented of his furious act. Certain of the wrath of the king, who greatly esteemed Don Diego Laynez, and shrinking from the reproaches of his daughter, he was preparing to leave the city when he came upon the Cid.

They met beside the banks of the Arlanzon, which still presents the sandy emptiness of an ill-fed river, under a screen of plane-trees whispering to the summer wind, the space without thronged with hidalgos and cheerful citizens in ample cloaks and capas muffled up to the eyes, spite of the heat, in true Castilian fashion.

As Don Rodrigo, with lofty stride, approached, the Conde stood still, guessing his errand.

Of all the knights of Castile, Don Gormez was a palm higher than the rest. A dark defiant head was firmly set on massive shoulders, youthful in aspect for his period of middle age, an approved and complete warrior at all points, and full to the brim, as one may say, of the chivalric traditions of the time.

Rodrigo beside him looked a slender youth; the down was on his cheek, the lustre of boyhood in his eyes, now dilated with fury as he drew near.

“Sir Conde,” he says shortly, as he doffs his cap, to which the other responds with a haughty smile, “I ask two words of you.”

“Speak!” is the Conde’s answer, twirling his moustache.

“Tell me, do you know Don Diego, my father?”

“Yes,” in a loud tone. “Why ask?”

“Speak lower. Listen. Do you know that in his time he was the honour of the land, brave as yourself? You know it?”

Nearer and nearer Rodrigo came as he spoke, until their faces almost touched.

“I care not,” is the answer, with a sneer.

“Stand back in the shade of that thicket and I will teach you,” roars the Cid, his rage bursting in all bounds.

“Presumptuous boy!” exclaims the Conde with ineffable scorn; yet, spite of his affected contempt, the words have stung him, and he turns crimson.

“I am young, it is true,” answers Rodrigo, “but once so were you. Valour goes not by the number of our years.”

“You —you dare to measure yourself with me!” cries he, losing all control in the climax of his rage.

“I do. I well know your prowess. You have always prevailed, but to him who fights for his father nothing is impossible. Come on, Sir Conde,” drawing his sword.

“Seek not so vainly to end your days,” answers Gormez, laying his hand on the hilt of his weapon. “Your death will be no credit to my sword.”

“Mock me not by this insulting pity,” answers Rodrigo, “or by God I shall think it is you who are tired of living, not I.” And as he speaks he strikes the Conde de Gormez with the flat of his sword.

The attack, on both sides is furious. Rodrigo grows cold with the thirst of vengeance; the Conde burns to cut off a life which rivals with his own.

But the sure aim of Rodrigo and his strength prevail. With one stroke of his good sword Tizona, he fells Gormez to the earth and plunges his weapon straight into his heart. Red with his life-blood he draws it out to bear it as a trophy to his father.

“Die! Lord of Gormez,” are his words, wiping his brow, as he watches the blood slowly ooze from the wound to mix itself, a sinister stream, with the sand. “Alas! had your courtesy equalled your knighthood and your birth, you might have lived to see your child’s children mine. Farewell, oh my enemy”; and he stoops reverently to cover the face of the dead with his mantle, reading the while with horror in the still set features the softer lineaments of his Ximena. “Alas!” – and his countenance darkens and he heaves a great sigh – “I am but Ruy Diaz, your lover, the most wretched of men! Oh! that I could lie there dead, instead of him! Ximena, oh, my love, will you ever forgive me?”

And sorrowing thus he turns away by intricate windings to mount the hill to the Suelos where Don Diego awaits him, seated in the hall, the food lying on the table before him untouched.

“Behold!” cries he, unsheathing the bloody sword. “The tongue which insulted you, Don Diego, is no longer a tongue; the hand which struck you is no longer a hand. You are avenged, oh, my father, and I – ”

He could not continue.

With a loud laugh Don Diego rose up, taking in his hand the blood-stained sword and placing it beside him on the board below the salt; then turned to embrace Rodrigo.

He spoke never a word, but stood like one stupefied, his arms folded on his breast, his eyes fixed on the ground.

“Son of my heart,” says Don Diego, “I pray you turn and eat. Mourn not what you have done. My youth comes back to me in you. Greater than me shall you be, and win back broad lands from the Moors, and be rich like a king, when I am low in the dust. Take the head of the board, Rodrigo. Higher than myself is the place of the son who has brought the sword of Conde Gormez to his Suelos. The place of honour is yours, and I will pledge you with wine.” And as he speaks the old man rises, and taking Rodrigo by the hand places him above him, and with his own hand serves him with meat and drink.

Poetry and the drama in latter days have much dealt with the story of the Cid, and altogether altered it from its ancient simplicity.

Not so the chronicles, which depict the facts in the language of the time very straightforwardly, specially the chronicle of King Alfonso of Castile, surnamed El Sabio, written soon after the Cid’s death. If not penned by the hand of the king himself, at least it was largely dictated by him, and not at all partial, for as King of Castile he deeply resented the rebellion of the Cid against his father Alonso.

CHAPTER XXIX

Marriage of the Cid and Doña Ximena

THREE years had passed when King Fernando solemnly knighted Rodrigo.

It was in this manner. The king girded on him his sword Tizona, to become famous to all time, and gave him a kiss, but no blow; the queen gave him a horse, perhaps Babieca; and the Infanta Doña Urraca stooped to the earth and fastened on his spurs – an act of honour so exceptional even in those days of chivalry she would not have performed it unless Rodrigo was dearer to her than appeared. But if there was love on her side or on his, or on both, is not known, except that some words in the chronicles would lead one to suppose that the Cid honoured her beyond all women, and that the lady herself would never marry a meaner man.

From that day he was called the Cid Campeador. It was the Moors who gave him the title of “Said” (Cid) or “master,” so often had he beaten them, and Campeador, or “champion” in single combat, such as was Roland the Brave, slain by Bernardo del Carpio.

Especially he deserved these honours when he overcame five Moorish kings, who had presumptuously crossed the mountain of Oca, and were plundering the plains near Burgos. He took them captive, divided the booty with his knights, and brought them to his mother in the Suelos on the hill with great honour. “For it is not meet,” he said, “to keep kings prisoners, but to let them go freely home.”

Like a practical man, however, as he was, he demanded a large ransom.

Fernando, who loved Rodrigo, endeavoured to end the feud between the families of Gormez and Laynez. Nor was it difficult. Don Diego, full of years, slept the sleep of death. The lord of Gormez was slain, and Ximena was left, the youngest of three daughters.

The age was one of war, and knightly honour counted as the highest virtue in a man.

So when the king called her to him in the castle, Ximena answered, falling on her knees before him, according to the love she bore Rodrigo.

“Don King Fernando,” she said, “had you not sent for me, I would have craved as a boon that you would give me Rodrigo to be my husband. With him I shall hold myself well married, and greatly honoured. Certain I am that he will one day be greater than any man in the kingdom of Castile, and as his wife I truly pardon him for what he did.”

So King Fernando ordered letters to be sent to the Cid at Valencia, commanding him at once to return to Burgos upon an affair greatly for God’s service and his own.

He came mounted on his war-horse, attired in his fairest suit of chain armour, wearing that high steel cap in which we see him now; his rippling braids of hair hanging down on his shoulders in the ancient fashion of the Goths, and in his company were many knights, both his own and of his kindred and friends – in all two hundred peers – in festive guise, streamers in various colours flying from their shields, and scarfs upon their arms, each knight attended by a mounted squire bearing his lance and cognisance.

In the courtyard of the castle beside the keep the king received them sitting on his throne; the queen and her ladies and Doña Urraca, resting on raised estrades tented with silk, attired in brocade and tissue, lined with rare fur.

As he entered the enclosure which was marked with gilded poles, the Cid dismounted, as did the other knights, to do obeisance to the king and queen, but he alone advanced to kiss the royal hand – a distinction which greatly offended his fellows, who were further angered by being dismissed while Rodrigo was invited to remain beside the king.

“I have called you, my good Rodrigo,” said King Fernando, with a voice lowered to reach his ear alone, “to question you respecting Doña Ximena de Gormez, whose sire you slew. She is too fair a flower to bloom alone.”

At these words Don Rodrigo reddened like a boy and hung his head.

So greatly was he moved who had never known fear that the power of speech left him suddenly, and for a time he stood like one distraught. Whether the eyes of Doña Urraca being upon him he was confused, or that the transport of love he felt for Ximena overcame him, who knows?

“Speak, noble Cid, I pray you,” said the king at last, weary of waiting.

“It is for you, my gracious lord and king, to question me,” was at last his answer. “Alas! her blood is on my hand.”

“In fair fight,” was the rejoinder, “as becomes a belted knight. But the lady already forgives you, and would rejoice to be your bride. I have it from herself. Nor shall my favour be wanting to you both in lands and gifts.”

Then Rodrigo raised his head proudly, and his face lit with joy. Whatever tokens had passed between him and Doña Urraca, it was clear he had not forgotten his love to Ximena, nor questioned the claim she had upon him.

“In this, as in all else, I will obey my lord the king,” he said again, making obeisance on bended knee. “Dear shall Ximena be to me as my own life, and my honoured mother shall tend and keep her in our house while I am away on my lord’s business against the Moors.”

King Don Fernando, greatly contented, rose from his throne, and bidding Don Rodrigo follow him, he passed into the great court of the castle followed by the queen and Doña Urraca, already of great courage, and casting glances at the Cid from under the silken coil which bound her head. Not so hidden but that some of the court observed her, and remembered it later at Zamora, when the Cid refused to bear arms against her.

Within the great hall of the castle the marriage feast is held. The whole city is hung with garlands and tapestry, banners, flags, and devices, as though each street is a separate tent; the people swarming on balconies and roofs, and the sandy plain outside dark with the companies of knights who come riding in. All the great names are there – Ordoñez, Gonzalez, Peranzurez, Vellidas, on fleet Arab steeds; some rich turbans also of the Moors to be distinguished in the crowd, for the parties are so strangely mixed that the Cid has many close friends among his enemies. Crowds of the common folk come, and retainers from the castle of Bivar, each one with some story to tell about the Cid. From Las Huelgas, the royal burying-ground and fortress, surrounded by walls, a mile out of the city, arrives the abbess, who takes rank as a Princess Palatine, attended by her female chapter, in the full dress of the order, all mounted on mules; monks from the Church of San Pedro de Cardeña, the burying place of the Laynez, and companies of the Ricoshombres from the adjacent cities, trotting over the hills – all disappearing into the huge gateway of Santa Maria to reach the Calle Alta, where the procession is to be formed.

The first to appear is the Bishop of Valencia on a mule. He is followed by the Cid, decked in his bridal state, under a trellis-work of green branches, held up by the lances and scimitars he has taken from the Moors, his own troop of true men with him, friends and kinsmen – all dressed in one colour, and shining in new armour.

As he passes, olive branches and rushes are laid upon the streets, ladies fling posies and wreaths, and bulls are led before with gilded horns, covered with rich housings. The court fool follows in cap and bells, his particoloured legs astride an ass. A harmless devil comes after, horned and hoofed, hired to frighten the women, and crowds of captive maidens dance to cymbals and flutes. The Queen Doña Sancha walks next, wearing her crown and a “fur pall,” attended by her ladies and dueñas, but the name of Doña Urraca nowhere occurs.

Then, hand in hand with the smiling king, comes Ximena; “the king always talking,” as the ballad says, but Ximena holding down her head. “It is better to be silent than meaningless,” she said.

Upon her fall showers of yellow wheat. Every shooter, young and old, makes her his mark. From her white shoulders and breast the king picks it off. “A fine thing to be a king,” laughs the fool, “but I would rather be a grain.”

In the Gothic Church of Sant’ Agueda, close on the hill, the nuptial knot is tied. After which the king does them great honour at the feast, conferring on them many noble gifts and adding to the lands of the Cid more than as much again.

To his own Suelos on the hill (for indeed all these great doings were confined to a very narrow space), the Cid conducts his bride, to place her under his mother’s keeping, and as his foot touches his own threshold, under the escutcheon of his race, he pauses and kisses her on the cheek. “By the love I bear you, dear Ximena, I swear that I will never set eyes on you again until I have won five pitched battles against the Moors.” Again he kisses her, drying her tears; then goes out to the frontier of Aragon, taking with him his trusty knights.

CHAPTER XXX

Death of King Fernando – Doña Urraca at Zamora

AFTER this there was a great change. The good king Fernando fell ill with the malady of which he died. For three days he lay on his bed lamenting in pain; on the fourth, at the hour of sexte, he called to him his son Don Sancho, and recommended him to the Cid, to give him good counsel, and not to go against his will, which was to divide the kingdom into three parts, a most unaccountable act, seeing that all his life he had been fighting to maintain it united.

With Don Sancho came the other Infantes, Alfonso and Garcia, and stood round his bed – all three comely youths, and very expert in knightly exercises, but as yet too young to carry a beard. Alfonso and Garcia were well contented with their kingdom, but Don Sancho, the eldest, was wroth against his father, and already turned in his mind how he could overcome his brothers and possess Castile and Leon alone.

Fernando, suffering great anguish, had turned his face to the wall to die, when his daughter Doña Urraca came rushing in.

“Oh, father!” cries she, kissing his hand, “if God had not laid His hand upon you, and brought you to this death hour, I should reproach you bitterly. It is well known you have meted out your kingdom between my three brothers. To me alone you give nothing. Why should your daughter be left to be blown like a waif before the wind? Whither can I fly? Shall I address myself to the Moors for protection. A fine sight, indeed, will it be to see a king’s daughter brought to such a pass!”

Now Doña Urraca was a princess of great presence and power in her speech. Her words were cutting, and they roused even the dying king. Slowly he turned on his side to look at her, and though his lips were already livid his eyes showed he understood; thrice he essayed to speak; at last, between pangs of mortal pain, the words came forth:

“Cease, Urraca, cease; a noble mother bore you, but a churlish slave gave you milk. Take Zamora for your portion; may my curse fall on any of your brothers who take it from you.”

“Swear to me, my sons.”

“Amen,” answered Don Alfonso heartily, for he loved his sister. Don Garcia, the youngest, repeated the same; only Don Sancho moved his lips, but no word came.

Zamora la ben cercada, a Moorish fortress as the name indicates, lately conquered by Fernando, stands on the river Duero, which flows away to the west through a beautifully wooded valley, in the kingdom of Leon, between Valladolid and Medina. It was then surrounded by seven lines of walls, with deep moats between. From the bridge by the city walls is still to be seen the ruins of the palace of Doña Urraca, with her likeness, a mutilated head in a niche over the gateway, and the inscription, Afuera Afuera Rodrigo el soberbio Castellano.

Within her council chamber sits the Infanta, the white coif of a queen under a Gothic crown on her auburn head and long robes of black about her stately form. She is accustomed to the calm majesty of state, but her blue eyes shine with wonderful lustre, and, spite of herself, her fingers move nervously on the rich carving of her chair. The Cid Campeador is coming, sent by her brother Don Sancho, who is encamped outside, and has ridden three times round the walls to study the defences, attended by his knights.

For no sooner was the breath out of his father’s body than he attacked his brothers, and now he is come to take Zamora.

With Doña Urraca in the council chamber are Don Pero Anonras, Don Vellido, and Dolfos, a knight of no good fame, but devoted to her service.

The Cid enters in full armour, a green feather in his casque. His face has lost the sweetness of youth, and is hard and thin, the nose arched and prominent in advanced life, and his eyes of such searching fierceness that he terrifies his enemies before he draws his sword.

Not now; for as the Infanta hastens to the door to greet him, and he sinks on one knee to kiss her dimpled hand, his face melts into the most winning softness, and he smiles on her as she leads him to the estrade, enclosed by golden banisters, within which her chair of state is placed.

“Now, Cid,” says Doña Urraca, when they have seated themselves, “what is my brother about to do? All Spain is in arms. Is it against the Moors or the Christians?”

“Lady,” he answers – and the tone of his voice is wonderfully subdued – “the king your brother sends to greet you by me. He beseeches you to give up to him the fortress of Zamora; he will in return swear never to do you harm.”

“And you, Don Ruy Diaz de Bivar, bring me such a message!” she exclaims, half rising from her chair, a great reproach coming into her blue eyes; “you, who have been brought up with me in this very city of Zamora, which my father conquered!”

“I did not want to be the messenger,” replies the Cid, gazing into her comely face with a great freedom of admiration, “except that I might again see my Infanta, and give her some comfort. I strove with the king not to send me. How could I refuse him whom I have sworn to stand by? Better I than another man.”

“That is true,” she replies, “but I think before you swore to the king, my father, you had bound yourself to me.”

Now this speech put the Cid in a great strait. He and Doña Urraca had had love passages together as long as he could remember, yet he had wooed another and married her, and the Infanta was still alone. The Cid was great in battle, but he was simple in the language of love. All he could do was to hang his head and blush, which made Doña Urraca very angry.

“Wretch that I am!” cries she, clasping her hands, “what evil messages have I had since my father’s death? This is the worst of all. As for my brothers, Alfonso is among the Moors; Garcia imprisoned like a slave with an iron chain; I must give up Zamora; and Ruy Diaz, my playmate is come to tell me so! Now may the earth open and swallow me up that I may not suffer so many wrongs! Remember, I am a woman!”

To all this the Cid answers nothing. He is bound by his oath to the king, but his darkened countenance shows how much he is moved as he sits straight upright on the estrade, contemplating the face of Doña Urraca.

Then her foster-father, Don Arias Gonzalo, stands out from the other counsellors, and says, “Lady Doña Urraca, prove the men of Zamora, whether they will cleave to you or to Don Sancho.” To which she agrees, and calling in her ladies to bring her mantilla and manto, she goes out through the broad corridor of the palace in which the banners and the armour are hung, by the gateway with her effigy over it, down to the church of San Salvador; the Cid, as her brother’s messenger, walking on her right hand.

The townsmen arrive, called by the voice of Don Miño, and thus they speak:

“We beseech you, Doña Lady Infanta, not to give up Zamora. We will spend all our money, and devour our mules and horses; nay, even feast on our own children, in your defence. If you cleave to us, we will cleave to you.”

Doña Urraca was well pleased. She had a bitter tongue but a warm heart, and now it was touched. The beauty returned to her countenance as she turned it on the Cid, the stately beauty of royalty to which no lower born can attain.