The Constant Prince

“Well,” said Joao, “since no one can tell what there may be in these Infidel places, I came to take care of Fernando.”

“Indeed,” said Enrique; “I thought you woke me to take care of you. However ’tis small blame to you to have been puzzled.”

Joao, not finding an answer ready, applied himself to trying to catch the parrots, and pursued them on to the balcony, while Enrique looked thoughtfully and curiously round the strange scene which he had entered in the dark two or three hours before. Presently he looked at Fernando, and smiled.

“So,” he said, “Ceuta, praise be to God, is ours, fortress and all, for Zala-ben-Zala fled in the night, and before I came here Duarte and Pedro were there in command. It was your words, Fernando, that set us on this track.”

Fernando blushed deeply. “Enrique,” he said, “I am not a good Christian, and I shall never be like the holy martyrs.”

“Why not!” said Enrique. “I do not wonder that the chattering parrot frightened you.”

“No; but I thought I would do anything in the world to win Ceuta to be a Christian city, and the day our mother was buried, while we knelt in the abbey at Batalha, I made a vow that I would give up my life to convert the Infidel, to win the world back to holy Church.”

“I think,” said Enrique, “that you are too young to make vows save with your confessor’s permission, or what holy Church ordains for you.”

“That is what Father José said, when I told him what I had done. He bade me prepare myself by prayer and obedience for whatever life God might send me. But I did make the vow, Enrique, and I shall keep it. I thought – and this is what I want to tell you – that it would be quite easy, for I thought I cared more about it than about anything in the world.”

“Well,” said Enrique, as Fernando paused, faltering, but with his great ardent eyes fixed on his brother, “surely it is not now in the hour of triumph that you change your mind?”

“No; but dear Enrique, when I thought you dead, I did not care at all about Ceuta: I would have given it back to save you! Was that wrong?”

How little Enrique thought, as he listened with tender indulgence to his little brother’s troubled conscience, with what awful force that question would one day ring in his own ears. Now he put it aside.

“If we were fighting side by side, Fernando, we should not hold each other back; but if it were easy to imitate the holy martyrs, they would the less have deserved their crowns. If we would seek any object earnestly, we most count the cost. But it was ill-managed that you should have had such an alarm. Never heed it. I am safe, and Ceuta is ours, and will be a Christian city soon. And now I must go to make all due arrangements; for we must confess our sins and prepare ourselves for the knighthood that is to come at last.”

Fernando looked after him with admiring envy, as he pictured to himself a future day, when he and Joao should head such another expedition, and be themselves the heroes of it. But all vain-glorious thoughts received a rebuke when he heard Duarte and Pedro petition their father, that since Enrique had certainly distinguished himself the most in the attack, he might receive the honour of knighthood first, before his elder brothers.

The King replied that he owed so much to his son Enrique, that he was willing to grant this request; but Enrique refused, saying that the rights of seniority should be respected; he would rather be knighted in his turn after his brothers.

So the next morning beheld a wonderful and glorious sight. Over the fortress of Ceuta hung the Portuguese colours; instead of the Crescent on the great mosque was to be seen a golden Cross. Within all traces of the Mohammedan ritual had been swept away, an altar which, with all its furniture, had been brought from Lisbon, was erected, and instead of the turbans and the bare feet of the Mussulman worshippers were the clanking spurs and uncovered heads of the Christians; while, most wonderful of all, the sweet peal of Catholic bells for the first time woke the echoes of the Moorish city. (A fact.) For the conquerors had actually discovered, stowed away in the mosque, a peal of imprisoned bells, doubtless carried off from some sea-side church by the pirates of Ceuta.

Then after high Mass had been duly performed, with all the ceremony possible under the circumstances, one by one, Duarte, Pedro, and Enrique stepped forward, and were knighted by their father before the altar of the new Christian church. Nobly had their desire been fulfilled; they had proved their courage, and in a noble cause.

All this time bands of Moorish people were pouring unmolested out of the gates of the city, great numbers choosing rather to go than to stay; and in the darkness, when the gates were closed, they came back and beat wildly against them with outcries of anguish and despair.

“Oh, why will not they stay and become Christians?” cried Fernando, bursting into tears, as he listened to their lamentations.

“That is not to be expected,” said Enrique; “but now we have drawn their fangs for them. More than half their detestable privateers sailed from this port. It is in our hands, and we can penetrate into the unknown world beyond, and from hence send out missionaries among the people. That is what I mean to do.”

“All is not gained by the taking of Ceuta,” said Fernando, dreamily.

“No,” returned Enrique, “we cannot gain in a day objects which need the devotion of our lives.”

Chapter Seven

The Twin Sisters

“Against injustice, fraud, or wrong,

His blood beat high, his hand waxed strong.”

Twelve or thirteen years after the taking of Ceuta a little group was assembled in the central court of a handsome house in Lisbon. This open space was indeed the summer sitting-room of the family; the sleeping apartments and the great entrance hall opened into it. Large orange, citron, and pomegranate-trees, were ranged round the marble pavement, and filled the air with their fragrance, while in the centre was a little fountain falling into a carved basin. An awning was palled across the top to exclude the sun, and a few seats and coaches were arranged round the fountain. On one of these sat a tall man in the prime of life dressed in deep mourning. Several women, one prepared for a journey, were standing near, and also a couple of men-servants. In front of the gentleman, hand-in-hand stood two little girls of seven or eight years old. They were dressed in black, with little black hoods tied over their light-brown hair, which hang down in long curls beneath; they had fair, rosy faces and large grey eyes, out of which they were staring with an expression of alarmed solemnity. Poor little things! They were as merry-hearted a pair as ever made home cheerful, by chatter and laughter and pattering feet; but life looked very serious to them then, for they were about to be sent away from home, their mother’s recent death having left them with no efficient female protector.

The gay young Walter Northberry, who had been attached to Dom Enrique’s suite at the time of the taking of Ceuta, had some time after married Mistress Eleanor Norbury, a lady whose father, like his own, had followed Queen Philippa from England; and on her death he had resolved on sending her little twin daughters to be educated by his English relations. His own habits were not such as made it easy for him to bring up his little girls at home, and he was jealous enough of their nationality not to wish to send them to any of the Lisbon convents, where all their training must have been Portuguese. So having received affectionate offers from his brother, who represented the old family in England, the little maidens were to be sent under fitting escort to Northberry Manor House, in Devonshire. Communications were frequent between the two countries, and there was no difficulty in arranging for their journey.

“Well, Kate and Nell,” the father said, “it’s a hard matter to part with you after all, my pretty blossoms. Be good maids, and obey your aunt, and soon, maybe, I’ll come and see you, and my father’s country too.”

“We want to stay at home,” said Nell, with a pout, and with a tone of decision.

“Father, keep us?” said Kate more softly, with her big eyes full.

“No, no, my pretty ones,” said Walter Northberry, wiping his own eyes; “’tis a fine place you are going to see; come along.”

He held out his arms, and the two little black-frocked things sprang into them, clinging round his neck and crying.

“Come – come. Is the litter ready, else I shall be too late to get you aboard Dom Manuel’s ship? But hark! who comes? ’Tis my lord the Infante himself.”

Sir Walter set down his daughters, who retreated, hand-in-hand, under a great orange-tree; while their father rose and went to the door, as he heard horses stopping without. In a few moments he returned, accompanied by a tall, slender young man, dressed in black velvet, with a red cross on his breast. Fernando of Avis, as he was called, since, like his father, he was Grand-Master of the Order of Avis, had led, during the twelve years since the taking of Ceuta, neither an idle nor a useless life, but his boyish ambition was still unsatisfied; he had struck no blow against the Infidel power, led no armies to battle, and won no triumphs. His health had always been so delicate, and he was subject to such long attacks of illness, that it was only at intervals that he could indulge in his taste for military towards which, however, his natural impulse was so strong that he had no inconsiderable skill in riding, fencing, and tilting. The delicate Fernando was more essentially a soldier than any of his powerful brothers; he longed with a more ardent desire for knightly glory – a longing hitherto perforce suppressed; but it was for glory to be won by that chivalrous self sacrifice which formed the ideal of the Middle Ages, however seldom it was put in practice. And Fernando’s dreams were of personal distinction only in one cause – the cause of the Church; he had therefore gladly accepted the control of one of these military orders which, somewhat similar in character to the Knights Templar, were so common in Spain and Portugal. The vows of these orders pledged their members to the most perfect devotion and purity of life. They did not always preclude marriage; and where celibacy was their rule, dispensations were obtainable, as in the case of King Joao himself; and their great revenues formed an ample provision for princes of the blood, and were applied by Dom Enrique – who was head of the Order of Christ; Dom Joao, who was Master of that of Saint James; and by Dom Fernando himself – to many useful and charitable ends.

Fernando was thus pledged to the life of a soldier-saint. He could not be a soldier, and with the discontent of his ambitious and ardent nature he daily felt himself still less of a saint. But those who watched his deep religious fervour, his constant self-denials, and his untiring patience, thought differently; still more those who felt his kindly charity and his unfailing sweetness of temper and warmth of heart. He still possessed the fair colouring regular features of his English cousins, but his blue Plantagenet eyes had a softened, wistfulness as of unsatisfied desires.