Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 1

“But why, my queen, should you, the wife of Roderich, be answerable for his doom? It is said that the Gothic king tempted the infernal powers when he forced open the portals of the Tower of Hercules and let forth the demons confined there upon the earth.”

“That is true,” answered Egilona, “and the rash act was doubtless the cause of his death. Still the misfortunes which cling to me seem to have led on to his. Had he not loved me he might have married the daughter of Don Julian.”

“And what misfortunes has my Egilona encountered? You forget I know not who you are, or how you came here.”

Then she recounted to him her royal birth, and how from childhood she had been affianced to the son of the King of Tunis; the history of the storm which threw her on the coast of Spain; the Alcaide of Denia (now Malaga), upon whom she had made so favourable an impression. (Here the enamoured Emir drew a deep sigh, and pressed his lips upon her hand as she lay half-reclining upon a pile of gold-worked cushions.)

“Again I wore the bridal robes,” she continued, “which I had on when I was shipwrecked, as I awaited Don Roderich.”

Here was a pause. Egilona drops her eyes and is silent. The veins on the forehead of Abdul-asis suddenly swell with agony. Every word she utters plunges a dagger in his breast. “This was the man she loved,” he tells himself. “By the Prophet, she will never be to me as she was to him – dog of a Christian!”

Meanwhile, guessing his thoughts, a thousand blushes suffuse the cheeks of poor Egilona and dye her olive skin with a ruddy brilliance. “What could I do?” she asks in a plaintive voice. “I had broken through the bonds of Eastern custom; I had despised the laws of the harem; I had stood face to face with man. The beauty and variety of the outer world was known to me. The visits of Don Roderich – ”

“Say no more, my queen!” exclaims the generous-hearted Abdul-asis, ashamed of his jealous weakness. “Could any one approach you without love? I guess the conclusion.”

When the discreet Ayub was informed of the purpose of his cousin to wed the Gothic Queen, he covered his head and sat in sackcloth and ashes. In this unbecoming guise he forced himself into the presence of the Emir.

“Are you mad?” he cries, “O son of Mousa! Remember the words of your great father, bravest among the chiefs of Damascus: ‘Beware of love, my son. It is a passion – ’ ”

“Enough, enough,” answers Abdul-asis, rising from the divan on which he had thrown himself, as the spectacle his cousin presented had moved him to laughter, “I have heard these words before.”

“And you will hear them again, O son of my kinsman! I will not forsake you, by Allah! for his sake, nor give you over to the evil genius that possesses you.”

But the wrongs of Ayub, however terrible, melted as wax before the fierce fire of the Emir’s love.

His nuptials with Egilona were celebrated with great pomp. Nor did possession cool his ardour. He lived but for her. He consulted with her in all the affairs of his government, and rejected the counsels of the discreet though most troublesome cousin.

For a time no evil consequences ensued, and the fears of Ayub were almost lulled. Yet who can resist his fate?

Reposing one day in a gorgeous chamber of the Alcazar (it is now called the room of Maria de Padilla, but it was then known as the Hall of the Sultana), Egilona drew from under the folds of her mantle a circlet of gold.

“See, love,” said she, “the crown of Roderich the Goth. Let me place it on your brow. It will become you well.”

Holding up as she spoke a steel mirror attached to her girdle by a rope of pearls, she called upon him to admire the majesty of his appearance.

With a sigh he looked at himself, the crown placed on the folds of his turban, then put it from him and, like Cæsar, sighed that it could not be his.

“My love,” says Egilona, replacing it, “the wearer of a crown is a sovereign indeed. Believe me, the Christians are right; it sanctifies the rule.”

A second time, like Cæsar, Abdul-asis put the crown from him. Yet did his fingers linger on the rim, while he endeavoured to explain to Egilona that, as a Moslem, she must not urge him to go against the custom of his nation.

Still Egilona insists, her soft fingers clasped in his, her tempting lips resting on his own.

“There has been no real king in Spain,” she urges, “without a crown. I pray you, dear husband, do not refuse me.”

At first it was only worn in private, but the fact was too strange not to be noised abroad. The Moorish damsels in attendance on Egilona and the guards and eunuchs which fill an Eastern Court bore the news from mouth to mouth as a strange wonderment.

“The Emir not only has wedded a Christian wife, but he wears the Gothic crown,” is whispered in Seville. “He seeks to rule us as Roderich did.” To this was added by the many-tongued voice of calumny, “that not only Egilona had induced him to become a king, but, oh horror of horrors, that he was surely a Christian!”

“By the head of the Prophet, I swear it is a lie!” cried the discreet Ayub to the ancient counsellors Mousa had placed about his son, who, in their long dark robes, gathered round him in dismay. “Not a day passes but Abdul-asis may be seen offering up his prayers in the Zeca, his face turned towards Mecca. Ask the muezzin at the Giralda if it be not so. Five times a day does he prostrate himself; and as to purifying, there is not water enough in Seville to serve him.”

“But the crown, most powerful vizier, does not the Emir wear a crown?”

At this Ayub, feigning a sudden fit of coughing, turned aside. “I have never seen it,” he answers at last; “I swear I have never seen it.”

“That may very likely be,” is the answer; “but it is well known, and for a Moslem to wear a Christian crown is against the laws of the Koran. Allah Achbar! we have spoken.” So, covering their faces with their robes, as those that mourn the dead, they departed from the presence of Ayub.

Enemies were not wanting to Abdul-asis in Seville, his own, and those who hated him as the son of the famous Mousa.

These wrote hasty letters to Damascus, accusing him not only of detaining captives of price, but as seeking to establish the Gothic kingdom by right of Egilona, acknowledged as their queen by all the Christians.

Now Suleiman, a new Caliph, was on the throne, and it so happened that he cherished a deep hatred against Mousa, whom he had divested of all his high commands in favour of the One-Eyed, who had brought rich spoil to Damascus.

The Caliph waited for no proofs, he wanted none. It was enough that Abdul-asis was accused, and that his death would be the heaviest punishment he could inflict on the unfortunate Mousa.

When the fatal scroll was laid before Ayub the parchment dropped from his hand.

“Allah is great!” cried he, as soon as words came to him. “It is known of all men I have taken no part in my cousin’s marriage; rather that I have always opposed it. Beware, said I, of the seductions of love. Avoid the strange woman upon whose face is written an evil fate. As long as I could I counselled him well, as I had promised his father. Now the Caliph’s commands must be obeyed, else we shall all lose our heads, which will not keep that of Abdul-asis on his shoulders.”

Thus spoke Ayub, discreet to the last. As long as he could shield the Emir he had done so loyally. Now that he must die he hastened to assist at his downfall.

The assassins came upon them as they sat together beneath a purple awning, drawn from tree to tree, – four naked Nubians, black as night, with four naked scimitars. So lightly fell their bare feet as they glided behind them, they looked like some hideous vision of the night.

Before the dawn of day, Abdul-asis and Egilona had risen, disturbed by the noise of the populace without. No one would tell them what it meant. While the Emir was preparing to go himself to the walls, to inquire if Egilona had returned from praying in a little chapel she had caused to be erected within the limits of the harem, their fate came to them. Together they fell under the cruel steel, together their bodies lay exposed upon the stones.

The dogs of the palace would have mangled them, but that some friendly hand gathered them up and interred them secretly in one of the many squares of the garden.

Where they lie, no one knows, or if it was the discreet Ayub who buried them. But as the time of the year comes round when they suffered, in the hour preceding dawn, stifled sighs and groans are heard in the angles of the walls, and a universal tremor runs through the space; although the outer air is still, a sudden tempest seems to rustle, the fan palms quiver as if shaken by unseen hands, the pale-leaved citrons bow their heads to a mysterious blast, clouds of white blossoms cover the earth like snow, and the leaves of the yellow jasmine fly as if with wings.

Then a clash of scimitars breaks the silence, the shadowy form of a stately lady floats across the pavement, closely followed by the figure of a Moor, who sighs and wrings his hands, gliding on into the thickness of the woods, when a dark cloud gathers and they disappear.

CHAPTER XI

The Moors at Cordoba

AT Cordoba we come upon the full splendour of the Moors, a whole world of chivalry, jonglerie, magic, and song, from the old East, their home. What noble devotion to their race! What unalterable faith! What generous courage in life, and silent constancy in death! What knowledge, could we but grasp it!

We know but what is left to us of their outward life in Andalusia and Granada. Their exquisite sense of proportion and colour, in palaces vermilion walled and vocal with many waters; the massive grandeur of barbicans of defence, the sensuous charm of lace-covered chambers and gigantic leap of arch, tower, and minaret, destined to live as their mark for ever.

Their whole existence in Spain is a romance anomalous but dazzling; a nation within a nation, never amalgamated; a people without a country; a wave of the great Moslem invasion cast into Europe; a brilliant phantasmagoria, various and rare!

The Moors took no solid root in Spain as the

Saxons in England or the Arabs in Sicily, but lived as an exotic race, divided from the Christians and from the Jews by impassable barriers of religious customs and laws; their occupation but a long chivalric struggle for a foothold in the land they had gained but never conquered.

Not all the fiery valour of the African was proof against the obstinate resistance of the Goths. Never was defence more complete! In the midst of apparent victory loomed defeat!

A new era opens in Cordoba, with its million inhabitants and three hundred mosques, in the reign of the Caliph Abdurraman, of the race of the Ummaÿa, who overthrew the rival princes sent by the Sultan of Damascus.

After him from A.D. 756 to A.D. 1000, ten independent sultans reigned in Cordoba, their wealth and luxury like the record of a tale.

Most notable among these were three other Abdurramans, Hakin, surnamed “the bookworm,” Hisham, and Hazin, not to forget the great Sultan and statesman Almanzor, a Moorish Lorenzo de’ Medici, collecting books all over the world, and drawing learned men to his court even from remote Britain.

While the north, in perpetual warfare, was plunged in the darkness of the Middle Ages, solid learning, poetry, and elegant literature charmed the minds of the enlightened Moors, the pioneers of civilisation in Europe.

At Cordoba Averroës, the great Grecian scholar, translated and expounded Aristotle. Ben Zaid and Abdulmander wrote histories of the people at Malaga. Ibn el Baal searched the mountains and plains to perfect a knowledge of botany; the Jew Tudela was the successor of Galen and Hippocrates; Albucaris is remembered as a notable surgeon, some of whose operations coincide with modern practice; and Al Rasi and his school studied chemistry and rhetoric.

Not only at Cordoba, but at Seville, and later at Granada, colleges and schools were endowed, and libraries founded in which the higher sciences were taught, which drew the erudite of the Moslem world from all parts of the globe, and became the resort of Christian students anxious to instruct themselves in superior knowledge.

And Christian knights came also to perfect themselves in chivalric fashions and martial exercises, as well as to master the graceful evolutions of the “tilt of reeds” in the tourneys of the Moors.

From the court of the first Abdurraman came la gaya ciencia, poetic discussions of love and chivalry transplanted later to the Court of Provence.

In architecture no building that ever was erected can compare to the elegance of his Mesquita (come down to us almost entire) as a monument of the taste and culture of the age. The most mystic and astounding of temples, with innumerable aisles of double horseshoe arches, suspended like ribbons in mid-air, resting on pillars of jasper, pavonazzo, porphyry, and verd antique crossing and re-crossing each other in a giddy maze of immeasurable distances, red, yellow, green, and white dazzling the eye in a very rainbow of colour!

No windows are visible, and the light, weird and grim, comes as from a cave peopled by demons; no central space at all, but vistas of endless arcades, which for a time the eye follows assiduously, then turns confused, and the brain reels.

Deep hidden in the heart of the temple is the throne or macsurah, a marvel of embroidered stone, where the Sultan takes his seat. Here the Koran is read in the pale light of scented tapers and torches, and those ecstatic visions evoked by the Faithful of a sensual paradise of dark-haired houris.

Opposite is the Zeca, or holiest of holies, turned towards Mecca, where the gorgeous decorations of the East blend with Byzantine mosaics of vivid colours on a gold ground; a most lovely shrine, a great marble conch-shell for the roof, the sides dazzling with burnished gold, and round and round, deep in the pavement, the footprints of centuries of pilgrims.

Such is the Mesquita of Cordoba in our day, the desecrated shelter of an old faith, a sanctuary rifled, a mystery revealed!

But how glorious in the time of the great Abdurraman when the blaze of a thousand coloured lanterns, fed with perfumed oil, played like gems upon jewelled surfaces, vases, and censers filled with musk and attar, making the air heavy with fragrance, golden candelabra blazing among mosaics, crescent banners floating beside the almimbar or pulpit, where green-turbaned Almuedans mount to intone the Selan, as the Sultan emerges from a subterranean passage leading from the Alcazar, treading on Persian carpets sown with jewels, to take his place on a golden throne within the macsurah, surrounded by swarthy Africans, bare-armed Berbers, helmeted knights bristling with scimitars, Numidians with fringed head-bands and golden armlets, superb Emirs, wandering Kalenders, who live by magic, the dervish of the desert, and hoary Imaums in full gathered robes.

Then the talismanic words are heard from the open galleries of the Giralda from which the Muezzin calls to daily prayer: “There is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet.” To which the prostrate multitude echoes: “God is great,” each one striking the pavement with his forehead, and the sonorous chant answers, “Amen.”

When Abdurraman reigned, the lonely quarter beyond the Mesquita swarmed with Alcazars, Bazars, Cuartos, Zacatines, Baños, and Alamedas.

Three miles to the north, sheltered under the green heights of the Sierra Morena, rose the plaisance of Medina-a-Zehra, created by him, a congerie of kiosks and pavilions entered by gates of blue and yellow porcelain, overtopping woods of exotic shrubs, choice plants, and rare fruit-trees – here the Safary peach (nectarine) was first ripened in Europe – divided by the fountains, canals, and fish-ponds so dear to the Arab fancy; twelve statues in pure gold set with precious stones spouting perfumed water within a patio girt in by crystal pillars.

Hither came emirs, ambassadors, merchants, and pilgrims, all agreed that nothing could be compared to these matchless gardens. And besides Ez-Zahra there were other monuments, which have all disappeared under the mantle of green turf that lines the banks of the Guadalquivir. Not a stone left of the pavilion of Flowers, of Lovers, and of Content, the palace of the Diadem, evidently destined for the royal jewels, and another called after the city of Damascus.

About were many noble streets and plazas with baths and mosques, for next to the mosque stood the bath in credit among the Moslem, and as such despised by the Christians to that point, that after Ferdinand and Isabella drove the Moors out of Spain, their grandson, Philip II., ordered the destruction of all public baths as relics of Mohammedanism.

CHAPTER XII

Abdurraman, Sultan of Cordoba

ABDURRAMAN, first Sultan of Cordoba, was a kindly hearted man, with none of the traditional cruelty of the Arab, eloquent in speech, and of a quick perception – quite the Caliph of Eastern tales. Never in repose, never entrusting the care of his kingdom to viziers, intrepid in battle, terrible in anger and intolerant of opposition; yet ready to follow the biers of his subjects, pray over the dead, and even to mount the pulpit of the mosque on Fridays and address the people.

His majestic presence and dark, commanding face, lit up by a pair of penetrating eyes, shadowed by thick black eyebrows, inspired fear rather than love in those around him, and though it was said of him “he never forgot a friend,” it was added, “nor ever forgave an enemy.”

As he passed at evening alone into the garden of Ez-Zahra, the porphyry, jasper, and marble of the pavement absorbed by the intense blue of the sky, all his attendants fell back. His brow was knit with thought, for the fame of the victories of Charles Martel troubled him sorely. He knew that in knowledge and science the Frankish king was as a peasant compared to him, yet his name was in all men’s mouths as the conqueror of the Moors.

Not only did Charles Martel, after the victory of Tours, excel him in renown, but the remnant of the Goths, driven out of the cities of Spain, had taken refuge in the mountains bordering the Bay of Biscay, among the caves and untrodden defiles of the Asturias, and, small and insignificant as they were, still defied him.

Just and generous in character, the Sultan would have gladly drawn to him this patriotic band by an equitable rule, if they would have submitted; but the obstinate endurance of the Spaniard was never more displayed than in the fierce determination of these fugitives never to yield.

Thinking of all this, Abdurraman heaved a deep sigh. His soul was full of sympathy for the brave Goths, but, as Sultan, he was bound to suppress what was in fact open rebellion.

Long did he pace slowly up and down, musing in a silence broken only by the distant click of the castanets from the quarter of the harem, where the light of coloured lanterns shone out athwart huge branches of magnolia and pepper trees.

That these sounds of revelry were not to his taste was shown by the disdainful glance he cast in that direction, and a certain gathering about him of the dark caftan which hung from his shoulders.

Turning his eyes in the direction of one of the many illuminated kiosks standing out clear in the twilight, he paused, as if expecting some one to appear.

Nor did he wait long; a dark figure emerged from the gloom, the features of the face so dusky that but for the general outline of the figure it might have passed unseen as a phantom of the night.

“Mahoun,” says the Caliph, sharply, as the vizier approached and, prostrating himself on the earth, awaited his commands, “stand up and tell me what tidings from the north.”

“By the Prophet, O Caliph,” answers Mahoun, crossing his arms as he rose to his feet, and bending his supple body in a deep salaam, “tidings of many colours – good and bad.”

“Give me the bad first, O Vizier! After a storm the sun’s rays shine brightest. Proceed.”

“Don Pelayo, the Goth, son of the Christian noble, Dux of Cantabria, murdered by his kinsman,” continued the vizier, “or, as some call him, Pelagius – for these Gothic dogs much affect Roman names – the leader of the Christians, has disappeared. Nor can the cunning inquiries of Kerim, whom in your wisdom you have placed as governor over these newly conquered provinces, obtain any record of where he has gone. Some say to the French Court to ask succour for the remnant who still cling to his fortunes; others that he has died by treachery, or fallen in fight. So constant were these rumours, O Caliph, that the Goths, discouraged by his long absence, had fallen into disunion; the wisest (and they are few) were willing to submit to the rule of Kerim; the greater part (fools) prepared to elect the Gothic Infanta Onesinda, his sister, as queen – when of a sudden, Pelayo himself returns, and, with a horde of Christian beggars at his back, raises the standard of revolt in Galicia near Gijon.”

“What!” cries the Caliph, suddenly interested, “is Pelayo the youth, cousin of Don Roderich, who fought at the battle of the Guadalete close to his chariot, and never left him until he himself vanished from the battlefield? I have heard of Pelayo. He is of royal birth.”

“The same, O Caliph. Grandson of King Chindavinto, his father, murdered by that unclean beast Witica, predecessor of Roderich. Pelayo ends the line of Gothic princes. Kerim despises him as a despicable barbarian shut up on a mountain, where his followers die of hunger; they have no food but herbs and honey gathered in the rocks. Let not my Lord regard him.”

“Call you this good news, O Mahoun? A hero is ever a hero, even in rags! Though he is my enemy, I respect his valour. Had Roderich fought with like courage in the defence of Spain, we might now be eating dates in our tents under our native palms. The courage of the chief represents the spirit of the nation, as the flash of the lightning precedes the thunderbolt. One cannot scathe without the other.”

“But, O Caliph of the Faithful,” interrupts the vizier, again prostrating himself to the ground, “the good news is yet untold. Pelayo’s sister, Onesinda, is now in our hands, – Kerim, the Governor of Gijon, has captured her.”

A smile of satisfaction overspread the Caliph’s face. Then, as other thoughts seemed to gather in his mind, he raised his hand and thoughtfully passed it across the thick black curls of his beard.

“Surely all courtesy has been used towards this royal lady? I would rather that Kerim had shown his skill in overcoming men. Do Mussulmen wage war on women and children? I know Kerim as a valiant leader in the fight, but I misdoubt much his courtesy towards this daughter of the Goths. Are we not well-founded enough in Spain to spare this lady?”

“Yes, confined within the strong walls of your harem. Make her your sultana, O Caliph, she will be free, and, subdued by the wisdom of your lips, will bring her countrymen with her; otherwise she is too important a hostage to surrender. For his sister’s sake Pelayo himself may yield.”

“Never, if I know him,” exclaims Abdurraman, “while the fountain of life flows within his veins – never! Dishonour not the noble Goth so far. To turn a Christian maiden into a slave would be honour, for a Gothic princess a sore degradation. Mahoun, I want no sultana to share my throne. ‘Beware of the wiles of women,’ saith the sage. By the help of the Prophet, I will still steer clear. But that this noble lady shall have cause to extol the courtesy of the Moslem is my command.”

“How then shall we deal with her?” asks the vizier with anxious haste, too well aware of the generous nature of the Caliph. “If Pelayo lays down his arms, the Infanta might be escorted back in safety to the rocks and caverns he makes his home, but if he still raises the standard of revolt, a bow-string would better suit the lady’s throat.”

“Silence, slave,” replies Abdurraman in a deep voice. “Great Allah! Shall we degrade ourselves to make success depend on the life of a woman? Summon her here at once. When she arrives in Cordoba, let her immediately be conducted to my harem. Let orders be given for her immediate departure from Gijon with suitable attendants.”

“Oh, justest of men and greatest of rulers,” answers the vizier, “permit your slave yet to speak one word. These infidels must be reached through their women. Leave, I pray you, Onesinda to the Governor of Gijon, and she will be bait to catch her brother Pelayo.”