LITMIR.BIZ

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of his calmness by this unusual sensibility; “he will stab you first and then succeed you. The treachery of the race, their greed of power, is patent everywhere. The people speak of it in the wine shops, the beggars make songs and sing them in the streets, and the soldiers – ”

      “No, by God! Not my soldiers!” cries Pedro, quickly arresting him. “I will not believe it. Not my soldiers! They are true! Fadique may or may not be false, what matter? I tell you” (impatiently) “I use him as a ‘tool.’ ”

      “My Lord,” replies Albuquerque, lifting his deep-set eyes upon his master, “although young, I perceive you are already skilled in kingcraft. Nothing answers like diversion. You have dealt wisely in setting up one brother against the other. In making Fadique Grand Master of Santiago the jealous spleen of Don Enrique is fed and nourished. He has no position in Castile. But about that prophecy, my lord,” continues Albuquerque – seeking to return to the important matter on which his mind is set, which Don Pedro is obviously seeking to avoid – “of which I spoke to your Grace. Do you intend to verify it by the lack of rightful heirs? Pardon me, my lord, I speak in the interest of Castile. As far as your Highness’s pleasure is concerned, I have shown that I grudge not my own kinswoman Maria.” At her name the king turns paler than was his wont and reseats himself. “Were I ambitious, I might scheme for a crown on her head and on her son’s. But I appeal to your Highness if I have not ever preferred your honour to my own? But reasons of State and the unsettled condition of the kingdom demand not only that you espouse a great princess, but that her hand should bring a strong alliance.”

      “And the princess is called?” asks Don Pedro, with a sarcastic smile. “Doubtless her name is ready.”

      “Yes, my lord, the Lady Blanche, daughter of the Duke of Bourbon, and niece of the most Christian King of France. Repute says she is comely, and her great youth and motherless condition under a warlike father promises her submissive. What says your Highness?”

      “And in my turn I desire to ask you a question, Albuquerque,” replies Don Pedro, who sits in deep thought as sentence after sentence falls from the great minister. “When do you intend afterwards to return to Seville?”

      “I, to Seville, my lord? I do not catch your Grace’s meaning. Whenever the service of your Highness permits me.”

      “I would advise you,” replies the young king, sardonically, “for your safety, to delay it as long as possible. If you affiance me to the Lady Blanche, you will find a warm welcome from Maria at your return. What her revenge may hatch, you best know. I warn you. You are a bold man, Albuquerque. Better face a lioness robbed of her whelps than an outraged woman.”

      The grave Albuquerque laughs outright. “A woman’s fury is a small matter, your Highness, and court report says that you yourself hold it cheap. The welfare of my master is what I regard. If your Highness holds the obstacles as light as I do, we will have the espousals at the Alcazar, and Maria shall hold the new queen’s robe.”

      “No, no, never!” cries Don Pedro, stung into real feeling by the remembrance of her he loved and the insult to be put on her. “If this is done at all, it must be distant and secret. She shall be spared the knowledge until all is over. I would rather lead a dozen campaigns against the French and Du Guesclin into the bargain in open field, than lend my hand to this matter. I a wife – a queen – a consort – what am I to do with her? Will she replace that other who nestles in my breast?” and a look of love comes into his eyes which softens them into real beauty. No one can tell what that hard face can express until that one chord is struck to which his whole being vibrates.

      “The princess will bring France in her hand and peace in your councils. Your Highness is not bound to separate from – ”

      “Yes, yes, I understand; but would Maria’s proud heart accept it? ‘Peace in my councils and strife at my board!’ I cannot undertake it. An older man might do it, but, Albuquerque, I am young, and though men call me El Cruel, I am also El Justiciar. Now that is not justice. She has borne me children. She is like no other woman – I love her.”

      “Leave my kinswoman to me, sire; only consent and I will answer for her. But, my lord, forgive me if I say that if you thus half-hearted enter into this scheme, you will bring more calamity on Castile, more war and misery than we have now to battle with. Women, my liege, are but cheap in your eyes as yet. But any wrong done to a royal princess such as the Lady Blanche, any insult, any dishonour” – the king looks up sharply – “would bring on us the whole power of France. Your Highness knows it,” he adds deprecatingly, watching the king’s grave face. “If done, it must be well done, or let alone.”

      “And who says no?” answers the inscrutable young sovereign. “Who says that I shall not become, under the Lily of France, the most adoring of husbands; a very Hercules to his Omphale? Methinks the scene rises before me in the patio below – the daughter of France and I seated under the palms, Nubian slaves waving feather fans over us, lest any fly or insect touch her soft cheek, while your kinswoman Maria” – (here the king gives a discordant laugh) – “watches behind a screen, subdued and gentle.”

      Albuquerque frowned. To this, then, had come all his wise reasonings, his statecraft, his far-seeing policy; a jest, worse than a jest, a scoff in the mouth of that sardonic youth whose service he held. Well he knew him, and that once in that mocking mood no more was to be done with him.

      Raising his eyes to the cynical young face which faced him, a low laugh still on his lips, somewhat of the contempt he felt looked out, spite of himself, and Don Pedro marked it and for a moment yielded to the influence of his powerful mind.

      “Albuquerque, I will consider your reasons and give you my decision,” he says, with a natural majesty of manner he knows well how to assume. “Until then, let this matter rest. As soon as I can ride I shall order my further progress towards Burgos. There we will hold a council as to the threatened rising of Enrique de Trastamare. He has many followers at Toledo and will endeavour to take the city and garrison. But my friends the Jews, headed by Samuel Levi, will take care of my interests.”

      The haughty bearing of the young king strangely jarred upon the feelings of Albuquerque.

      After all, the discussion of the marriage might be called (seeing his relationship to Maria de Padilla) almost a personal question, and that he had been and was acting magnanimously in the matter he felt to his heart’s core. The ill-concealed contempt of the king wounded and offended him as it had never done before. He reddened under the mocking glance of Don Pedro, his eyes half in jest, half in anger, fixed on him as if reading the embarrassment of his thoughts.

      At length, with a silent dignity no ridicule could reach, he slowly gathered up his papers, and bowing low craved leave to depart. “God preserve your Highness,” were his words. “You need not to be told I hold your commands absolute, but, sire, as your servant, I once more crave you to remember the prophecy of which I spoke – ‘To be stabbed and succeeded by his brother.’ The Gitano died for these traitorous words against your Grace, but still dying he persisted in repeating them.”

      “An excellent joke, a capital pleasantry! Adieu, good Albuquerque, God have you in His holy keeping till we next meet and you bring me some new command,” are the king’s laughing words, to all appearance as light-hearted as a bird.

      And as Albuquerque disappears under the shadow of the Moorish arches beyond the door, he laughs still louder.

      “That parting shaft of his about the prophecy was not so bad,” he mutters. “All the same, I wonder if it will come true. A man can but die once, and that his worst enemy should kill him is but natural and just. Still, most noble bastard, Don Enrique, we will have a tussle for it ere it comes to that, and if the Lady Blanche strengthens my arm, why then, por Dios, we will marry her!”

      How Albuquerque’s project prospered will now appear; the present upshot being that it was secretly arranged between the king and himself to despatch his half-brother, the Infante Fadique, “the Grand Master” as he was called, to Narbonne to ask the hand in marriage of the Lady Blanche, niece of the King of France.

      A mission which prospered marvellously, seeing

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