Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 2

“Dear Blanche, hear me!” cries Claire, passionately seizing her hand and carrying the cold fingers to her lips. “On my knees I conjure you to live, for yourself, for me! For France, our pleasant land, where we shall return. Rouse yourself, Blanche. Sit up,” and she essays to raise her in her arms, while Enrique, with looks of the tenderest pity, assists her.

At length, more dead than alive, she is placed on a litter bearing the device of “the Castle” (the same as was used by the pious Queen Berengaria when she came to Mass), and is carried from the cathedral up the hill to the square of the Zocodover, on her way to the Alcazar.

CHAPTER XV

Taking of Toledo by Don Pedro – Death of Queen Blanche

WITHIN an incredibly short time Don Pedro marched from Seville with a well-disciplined army and gained possession of Toledo, principally by the connivance of the Jews, Father Isaac himself with his own hands opening the postern of the Gate of San Martino. Many of the citizens who had believed the king to be dead or dying, at the news of his approach joined themselves with the Jews in a close conspiracy in his favour, greatly strengthening his cause.

The siege was short and rapid. Don Enrique had only time to escape by night from the Alcazar in disguise, with his most faithful adherents; his showy but inefficient army, comprised, as Albuquerque had reminded him, of so many heterogeneous elements, ill-paid and ill-fed, melted away before the disciplined troops of his brother, and Blanche, poor Blanche, was seized in the Alcazar and sent far away from all hope of succour into Andalusia to the castle of Xeres.

But this is not enough for Don Pedro. After the most solemn promises of pardon to those citizens of Toledo who had acknowledged his brother, no sooner had he manned the walls and floated the “Castle and the Lion” at the four towers of the Alcazar, than every one of his brother’s adherents was denounced.

In this, Father Isaac did cruel service, gratifying the private vengeance of his nation under the pretext of treachery to the king. A terrible massacre followed; head after head was struck off in the presence of Don Pedro, until the executioners rested from sheer fatigue.

“I am El Rey Justiciar,” are his cruel words, “let my enemies feel there is no mercy for traitors.” One of the accused, an old caballero, who had refused to pay an exorbitant interest to a Jew, a friend of Father Isaac’s, was a venerable citizen of good repute, who had taken no part in the insurrection. His son rushed forward and implored the king to spare him. “Take my life, my lord!” cried he, “not his!” and he flung himself upon his knees before him in an agony of supplication.

“Not a whit, not a whit!” answered Don Pedro commanding his guards to drive him back. “If you so love death, share it together,” and the father and son both fell under the axe.

The barbarous death of Doña Urraca de Osorrio at this time has become historical. When Don Pedro learned that her husband, Alvarez de Guzman (the son of Guzman el Bueno, who saved Spain from the Moors at the siege of Tarifa), had gone over to his brother in the siege of Toledo, he caused her to be seized and burnt alive in the public square of Seville before the Ayuntamiento. Her maid, Leonora Davilo, was with her. As the wind was high at the time, Doña Urraca’s clothes were displaced, and her body exposed to the jeers of the brutal Sevillianos, when the faithful Leonora leaped into the flames, and casting herself as a veil on her mistress was burned with her. Thus they are both represented on Doña Urraca’s monument in the church of San Isidoro at Santa Ponce, a short distance from Seville, built by Guzman el Bueno, with little idea that his own daughter-in-law would be interred there under circumstances of such horror.

And now the great name of Albuquerque is heard for the last time. Faithful to the cause of Don Enrique as he had been to that of Don Pedro, he met his former master, at his particular request, at the ancient town of Toro, lying in the open expanse of plains between Salamanca and Zamora, in order to endeavour to negotiate better terms for his new master.

Of what passed between Don Pedro and his great minister there is no record, but the sudden death of Albuquerque immediately after the interview is not without suspicion of foul play.

The southern district of Spain, within the bounds of Andalusia, extending from Seville to Cadiz, is still a mystery as in days of yore. Great open alluvial plains, utterly treeless, stretch into boundless perspectives, the home of the wild bull in its pristine ferocity. The Guadalquivir flows onwards in a torpid tide among canals and open trenches down to the sea, a most unpoetic river in all but the name. All is grey, misty, and desolate, a “no man’s land,” to which even the waves of the Mediterranean bring no delight, for the shallow beach sends back the water so far it barely covers the sandy shore.

On these shores the old Continent of Europe seems to die out, to make place for the youthful splendour of Africa opposite, visible in the line of the picturesque Atlas range rising across the straits; old Europe worn out, and melting into the sea before the defiance of its stalwart rival.

Xeres de la Frontiera is the only town on this low marshy coast. The Xeres of that day – not famed for wine and commerce as in our time – was a small fortified place taken from the Moors, enclosed by walls; and precisely because the Xeres of that day was desolate and lonely, it was selected for the place of the queen’s imprisonment.

Blanche – oh! so changed! her young face drawn, her delicate cheeks marked with fine lines, her childlike eyes dim, her slight figure bowed as if by age, her flaxen curls streaked with grey, although she has scarcely reached the years of womanhood – is indeed an object of compassion! All hope gone, knowing that she must die. And so living day by day as the months roll on and she measures the dull routine of sunrise and sunset across those cruel plains, which cut her off from all humanity.

One image haunts her, the gallant young Infante who dared to love her. And from him her thoughts wander to his brother, El Caballero, who was about to send her to Navarre with an escort when he was surprised at Toledo, and is now almost as helpless as herself; in her enfeebled brain the lineaments of the two brothers become mingled, and the gentle Fadique seems to live again in the gracious Enrique, whom all men love.

What matter? She is doomed. Incapable of hate or love; no passion is left within her. Even the craving for liberty is gone. She feels she could not use it, were it hers; and thus she sits, day after day, on the summit of a castellated tower, under a low wall, hand in hand with Claire.

That she has loved or been loved seems so impossible, a feeble smile rises on her lips as she thinks of it. That she has been born to pomp and greatness is equally incredible in her abject condition. To hold a flower in her hand, to scent the perfume of herbs borne by the breeze, to watch the flight of sea-gulls which skim across the plain, to note the accidents of the seasons, golden autumn breaking into grey winter, then passing to the glad garments of the spring, on the shadowy outlines of the mountains of La Mancha, is to her mind as a never-ending wonder that the world should thus go on. It is she alone who is dead, while all nature lives triumphant!

The entrance of the old crone who performs such menial offices as she requires is a boon as something human, yet even she scowls at her with envy because she is a queen.

“What devil’s deed have you in your mind?” she mutters, as she sweeps the floor, casting malignant glances at Blanche, seated beside Claire. “Are you expecting a saviour, mistress? Ha! ha! None will come to Xeres. You do not answer? You can weep, therefore you can speak.”

“We are French,” answers Claire, speaking for Blanche. “We mean you no offence by our silence. But, for the sake of mercy, tell us, good mother, is there really no means of escape from this prison?”

“None,” answers the woman, pursing up her thin lips as if it gave her a certain satisfaction. “Think not of it. From hence you go to the gates of death. I can tell you that. Misfortune is the road to a better world. It comforts me to think you are as wretched as I am myself. Fare you well, ladies, till to-morrow. There is not a chamber in the castle nor a step on the stairs that is not slippery with human blood. They die, every soul of them, who come here.”

As she speaks she turns her back to go, when Blanche rushes after her. Roused from her torpor by these horrible words, she seizes the old hag by the shoulders and looks wildly into her eyes.

“Richly, richly would my father requite you, did you save me.”

“Your father?” retorts the woman. “Where is he? Meanwhile they would wring my old neck, and you be no better. No! no!”

“Stay! stay!” cries Blanche, keeping hold on her. “It consoles me to hear another voice and not always to listen to the owls hooting outside, or the ticking of the death-watch in the walls.”

“Let go,” answers the old woman, extricating herself rudely from her weak grasp, “or you shall serve yourselves, mistresses. I cannot help you. When I was young I could not protect myself. Here, not the Holy Virgin herself can save you.” As she speaks she bars the door and disappears, a sneering smile upon her face, furrowed with wrinkles.

Except this woman, no one but the governor enters. He is a stern, morose Castilian, eliminating all expression from his face as he looks at Blanche, yet with a certain kindliness of expression and gesture he cannot altogether disguise, which pains her, for she would gladly think that the world is as dead and buried as she is herself. Not even Claire can comfort her now – Claire, her whole soul in her eyes, watching her every movement, while her own thoughts turn to the fate of the lover who, at her command, risked his life to liberate the queen.

One evening, sitting together at sunset on the tower, the sound of horses’ feet galloping rapidly on the grass rouses them. A white terror is in Blanche’s eyes as she fixes them on Claire, who, leaning over, can perceive a little company of men-at-arms rapidly approaching, bearing a flag with the king’s badge.

No word is said, but when the governor enters, as is his custom, to serve their evening meal, Claire, standing behind her chair, observes his eyes, at moments when he thinks Blanche’s attention is distracted, fixed on Blanche with a glance full of pity.

No word is said, but below, in the courtyard, comes the sound of a loud harsh voice; the step of sentinels louder and quicker, and around an unwonted stir.

Blanche, sitting listless, pays no heed, but Claire goes and comes in the narrow tower, peering through the small arched slits which serve for light, listening to every sound. Then all dies away as night closes.

“For to-night we are safe,” is her thought; but suddenly in the darkness, to her sharp ears comes that same harsh voice with which she seems familiar. She has heard it at Valladolid. Can it be the king? One purpose only could bring him here, the death of Blanche. Ah! how can she save her? If to give her life, how gladly she would be the sacrifice! A thousand wild schemes whirl in her brain; but she says nothing, and Blanche, save that she has turned deadly pale, has not spoken.

But when the moonlight comes, and Claire is unbinding the long tresses of her hair and combing out those childish curls, now half grey, which lent so sweet an expression to her innocent young face when she came to Valladolid, a knock is heard at the door, and lo! a priest enters.

Now as, from time to time, Blanche has been allowed to confess, this does not startle Claire as much as it might seem; but when the priest says, entering the vaulted chamber and addressing Blanche, “My daughter, have you prayed?” she knows that her hour has come.

A piercing scream escapes from Claire as she falls on her knees beside her mistress, but Blanche rises up with the aspect of a queen.

“My father,” she answers, “I pray always, for I have died out of the world.”

“It is well, my daughter,” and the priest raises his hand over her in benediction as she kneels before him; but there is a tremor in his voice he cannot suppress, and old as he is and practised in the ways of death, tears stand in his eyes as he looks at her young face.

A solemn silence follows neither cares to break.

It is the priest, who speaks first in a voice which trembles spite of himself.

“It is not without reason, my daughter, that we are enjoined to pray. We know not when God may see fit to call our souls to him.”

“I understand,” answers Blanche in a voice so low it can only be heard by reason of the great silence, “you mean I am to die.”

“My daughter,” and now, unable to command his grief, sobs shake his words, and poor Claire, clinging wildly to her mistress, as if by her loving arms she could keep her in life, utters the most piercing cries.

“My sister,” and Blanche turns to her, “for such you are in love, disturb not my last hour with your grief, but rather rejoice with me that I am leaving a world in which I have suffered so much. I wonder I have been allowed to live so long. But, my father,” addressing the priest, “listen to me before I die: I am innocent of the crime imputed to me. I was condemned unheard. But there is a tribunal above, before the living God, to absolve me. There I summon my husband, the King of Castile, to appear. We shall meet shortly. By the sword he has lived; and by the sword he shall die. It has been revealed to me.”

“My daughter,” replies the priest, taking her hand in his, “such invocations are wicked. Leave vengeance to God.”

Blanche bows her head in obedience. But the prophecy is uttered, and the dark spirits which keep watch over human life have heard and noted it.

Then calling for paper, which Claire, gathering herself up from the floor, gave her with trembling hands, hanging over her the while as if each breath she drew was precious beyond life, Blanche wrote some words addressed to Don Pedro, and bound the paper with a black ribbon from her neck.

“I pray you, my father, to hold what is here written as sacred. Deliver it in person to the king. Tell him you saw me die.”