Читать книгу Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 2 - Elliot Frances Minto Dickinson - Страница 8

THE Grand Master Don Fadique was not with his brother Enrique. In the first moment of his flight from Valladolid he had crossed the frontier into Portugal.

There, among goatherds and shepherds, for awhile he lay concealed, and when reflection came to him in this solitude, his conscience sorely pricked him for his disloyalty to the king. Whatever punishment his brother and sovereign inflicted on him he felt would be his due. It was not that he mistook Don Pedro’s mind in his treatment of the Lady Blanche, nor did his love and pity for her suffer any diminution, but he could not rid himself of the conviction that he had been a traitor. Blanche’s innocence alone had preserved him from a crime.

His upright and loyal nature revolted against the thought, and in his flight, as he struck the rowels into the glossy sides of the sorrel jennet on which he was mounted, causing it to rear and prance, he felt he could not put distance enough between himself and the dear object of his love.

Poor Blanche! Sweet Blanche! Where was she now? How fared it with her? Did she love him still? And then he checked himself for these guilty thoughts, and drawing from his doublet his jewelled rosary, he vainly tried to drown his thoughts in prayer.

Arrived within the strong fortress of Coimbra, on the coast of Portugal, he heard that his brother Enrique was advancing, at the head of an army, on Toledo, while Don Pedro lingered inactive at Seville. This seemed most strange!

There were rumours that he was waiting for the advance of the English to support him against the French king, furious at the imprisonment of Blanche in the castle of Talavera on the Tagus.

At length a royal messenger arrived at Coimbra direct from the king, an honourable messenger, wearing the noda and banda, the bearer of a letter from Don Pedro.

“Come to Seville,” he wrote, “dear brother, and let us live at peace. I am about to hold a tourney and tilt of reeds on the plains of the Guadalquivir, near the city, and I can ill lack the absence of the Grand Master of Santiago among my knights. A friendly greeting to you, and a safe conduct on the road. Your quarters are at the Alcazar at Seville, from whence I write. – Pedro.”

“And I will go!” cried Don Fadique. “It may perhaps give me the occasion to help the queen. Perhaps Pedro has come to a better mind; he changes suddenly. Or it may be that at this time of risings and rebellions, he may desire the support of the knights of Santiago and the presence of their Grand Master.”

Those of his friends and attendants at Coimbra strove vainly to dissuade him from putting faith in the friendship of the king. It was, at best, they represented, a rash resolve, especially to go to Seville and the Alcazar. If he would join him, let them meet in the open camp, not put himself into danger within a palace inhabited by Maria de Padilla.

At this Don Fadique grew wroth. “What!” he answered, “do you take me for a craven that cannot defend himself? Maybe, surrounded by enemies, he may think of me more kindly. Read the gracious words. Look at the royal messenger, whom we all know as a man who would not lend himself to fraud or treachery. My brother generously sets me free, and I can use that freedom as well at Seville as at any other place. Let Maria de Padilla do her worst. Rather than consume my life in this fortress, I would face the devil himself. Enrique may join with the enemies of Castile and bring Du Guesclin’s free lances to spoil the land, but my place is by my brother in tournament or battle – I will go!”

Buckling on his richest suit of armour, over which he wore the short crimson mantle of his order, with the cross of Santiago embroidered on his breast, he set forth, accompanied by a goodly band of followers hastily armed; also with him he took a little page, his foster-brother, who had never left him, and loved him with the affection of a child.

On the eighth day from his departure he reached the banks of the Tagus, at an old town called Castel Bianco, where he rested.

Now the tale runs, and I will neither deny nor assert it, that the Grand Master received here a message from Queen Blanche, informing him how near she was, and that at night he went out disguised, and, taking a boat, dropped down the river to Talavera, and there saw the Lady Blanche, thanks to the complaisance of the gallant governor – who was so wildly in love with Claire, he could refuse her nothing. This is said, and that a plan of escape was formed by which Blanche could reach Toledo, on which the French were advancing to reinforce the army of Don Enrique el Cavalier, and that Don Fadique at Seville should apprise her of Don Pedro’s movements by means of the little page.

Speaking personally, I do not believe that the Grand Master ever went to the castle or saw Blanche at all, after the remorse he had felt and the confessions he had made, to say nothing of the danger to the queen if Don Pedro found it out. And Don Pedro did find out everything in the most extraordinary way, as people said, by black magic, and that Maria de Padilla looked upon a crystal and saw all she desired to tell the king.