Kitabı oxu: «Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 1», səhifə 11

“Mock not, profane youth, the saintly name of our master. There is no danger that your virtues will reach the height of his excellency. His pure soul lives more in heaven than on earth,” says the voice of an older man, an ancient Jefe much honoured by the king, advancing to join the group, which has moved, in the energy of talk, higher up towards the stone border of a fountain which rises from the base of a Roman statue overgrown with moss and weeds.

“Your challenge, Bernardo, comes too late. Charlemagne is already near the Pyrenees, with all his knights and vassals, the renowned Roland among them; they will soon touch the soil of Leon, to accept the inheritance our gracious king has given him. Once arrived in Leon, you dare not, presumptuous boy, who judge your betters by yourself, draw your sword upon the guest of Alonso.”

“He shall never be his guest,” shouts Bernardo, fire flashing from his eyes; “neither Charlemagne nor his peers, his knights or paladins, Roland and the rest shall set their feet in Leon. I, Bernardo del Carpio, will bar the way.” A laugh of derision comes from the old chamberlain, at what he considers such madness. Even Favila and Ricardo smile, so vain it seems that this youth could stay the advance of the greatest monarch in Christendom.

“You laugh!” cries Bernardo, turning fiercely round, his glittering eyes aglow. “You deem I boast? Be it so. Time will show. I speak not of Divine help, Santiago on his milk-white charger armed cap-à-pie in radiant steel interposing, or other monkish tales. If deeds are the language of the brave, words lie with fools. Was it with words Pelayo revenged his sister’s death and raised the Gothic standard against the great Abdurraman? Excuse me, good sir,” he adds, breaking off suddenly, the inspired look passing from his countenance as he addresses the older man, whose sarcastic countenance is still sharpened to a sneer – “if I who am so young, speak my mind. I go to the king to remonstrate.”

“You would do better to forbear,” hastily interrupts the old courtier. “The king is at his devotions, assisted by a learned monk lately arrived from Navarre.”

“I care not, though the air breed monks as thick as flies; you stay me not, Sir Chamberlain.”

CHAPTER XVII
King Alonso

BERNARDO hastily passed the court with swift, straight strides, his form in shadow defined against the light. A heavy peal of thunder sounded overhead as he turned to the right, where a marble stair, with a sculptured balustrade, guarded by soldiers, led to the royal apartments on the first floor, under a flat roof.

“ ‘Tis indeed a foul shame,” said Don Favila, looking after him, as he and his companions took shelter under the arcade from the now thickly falling rain, “that our king, who loves him well, does not grant him the honours of his birth and name him his successor. He guesses not who he is. You noted his words?” turning to Ricardo, who nodded.

“What! a bastard!” exclaimed the aged chamberlain; “a braggart and a bastard, instead of the victorious Charlemagne? Good gentlemen, you are distraught. Would you have a sovereign, the pureness of whose life will pass as an example in all time, forget so far his principles as to countenance his sister’s shame? The king, my master, has done right to protect his kingdom from such reproach.”

Meanwhile Bernardo passes the alguazils who knew him well, his mailed feet resounding on the marble floor as step by step he reaches a door before which a heavy panel of tapestry is displayed, bearing a royal crown, and beneath, the arms of Leon and Oviedo, bound by an inscription in old Gothic letters.

The first chamber, lined with wooden wainscot and a groined oaken roof, is bare of other furniture, save some rudely carved benches, on which meanly attired attendants sit or lounge.

These Bernardo passes with a hasty salute, which they respectfully return, then on into another and another chamber floored with coloured Moorish tiles, into the last, a hugely proportioned hall, the carved roof supported by lofty pillars. This hall, through the window of which the lightning plays, though void of furniture, is far more ornate than the rest, seeing that at the farther end, on a raised platform, surmounted by a dusty canopy, is a throne, on which a royal chair is placed, used on such rare occasions as when Alonso receives his compañeros and knights in state.

Nothing can exceed the neglect of this primitive apartment, now seen in the deep shadow of the coming storm. Trophies of early Gothic armour are fixed on hangings of once embroidered damask; but so little care has been taken that the nails have given way, the tapestry has fallen, and the mortar which knit together the solid blocks of stone is visible.

Before the throne stands a long wooden table, on which rests a rich enamelled crucifix, set with jewels, and huge candelabra of silver, holding waxen torches such as are used in churches to light up the shrines of saints, a rude attempt at splendour which leaves the rest more bare. Seats there are with time-stained leather coverings, and a royal chair inlaid with ivory, as was also the curiously formed footstool. Two low doors open in a recess behind the throne into two opposite turrets, one leading to the private apartments of the king, who lives alone – Queen Berta being relegated to a distant part of the palace, which formed three sides of a square, fronting the cathedral, where there is an array of delicately carved saints and martyrs niched round the deep curves of three arched portals under two turreted towers; – the other door opening into a small chapel, where King Alonso, kneeling on the bare stones, passes a great part of the day and often of the night, in ecstatic prayer and meditation.

Not for a moment did Bernardo hesitate. As he knocked on the oaken panels interspersed with heavy nails, which opened to the chapel, the latch yielded to his hand, and he entered as a blinding flash of lightning gleamed bright and strong and the thunder broke loudly overhead. An instant after, all had darkened into so profound a gloom that at first nothing was visible, except the dim outline of a gilt retablo behind the altar, on which a light burned day and night before the ever-present host and such sacred bones and relics as had been saved from desecration by the Moors.

“Who dares to break in on my devotions?” cried a harsh voice, speaking as it were from the depths of sudden night before a shrine concealed in the sunken curvings of the wall. “Begone! leave me to commune with the saints.”

“It is in their name I come, O King, to defend the land they love,” answered Bernardo, bending his knee, in a voice so young and fresh, life and youth seemed to waft with it into the gloom.

There was a moment of silence.

“Not now, Bernardo, not now, my boy. Leave me. I have vowed a novena to the Virgin of Saragossa, whose favour I specially implore, with that of the Holy Santiago and Saint Isidore our patrons, on a great project I have in hand. Not now.”

“Yes, now,” in a stern voice came from Bernardo, fronting the king, who had turned reluctantly towards him. “What I have to say brooks not a moment’s delay.” Another crash from without interrupts him, and a wild whirl of hail and rain rattle outside on the casement. “Oh, my lord,” he continues, “are there no valiant knights in Leon that you should betray your kingdom into the hands of a strange king?”

“Betray? you dare to say betray, after the long and prosperous reign heaven has vouchsafed me?” cried Alonso, rising up from where he was kneeling as a subdued ray of light lit the sunken features of his emaciated face, with long white hair and beard, the natural fairness of his skin turned by time into a yellow tinge; his eyes full and grey, with thin imperceptible eyebrows, and cheeks deeply lined with wrinkles which collected on his high forehead under a silken cap. A noble face, once full of manly beauty, but with an expression of coldness and fickleness in the wandering eye, and weakness in the thin-lined mouth which marred it. Then in a louder tone he continued: “It ill becomes your slender years, Bernardo, and your lack of experience, to question the wisdom of your sovereign.”

“But to sell us to a foreigner, my lord, to give us over into the hands of the Frankish wolf! This can never be. A courage equal to Charlemagne’s beats in a thousand Spanish breasts, and I, Bernardo, will lead them. Not secretly and treacherously, but in the light of day. Therefore I am come to warn you against yourself. For by no unbiassed will of your own have you done this thing.”

“Silence, rash boy,” answered Alonso, roused into unwonted passion by these stinging words, “you presume upon my constant favour to insult me.”

“Never, oh never! All that I know of kindness is from you,” and Bernardo cast himself at Alonso’s feet and seized his hands. “You are my king and master. I forget none of your bounties to a friendless boy” (at this word Alonso started, and laid his hand tenderly on Bernardo’s head, but presently withdrew it with a sigh); “but neither the crown you wear nor your bounties, had they been ten times greater, would make me a traitor to the land.”

CHAPTER XVIII
Bernardo del Carpio’s Vow

AS Bernardo knelt upon the steps of the darkened altar, on which the outline of a saint with a dim glory seemed to bless him with outstretched arms, something in the ardent auburn of his hair, relieved from the pressure of his cap of steel, which he had removed before entering, his open manly brow and honest eyes fixed on him with such pleading warmth, touched some subtle chord of tenderness within the King.

His sister Ximena in her youth rose up and gazed at him in Bernardo’s eyes. Deep down in his cold heart a thrill of human affection throbbed as he recalled their games as children and a thousand ties of girlish love she had woven about his heart. Alas! how he had loved her! How he still mourned her, and importuned Heaven with constant prayers, spite of what he considered the deadly sin of her apostasy in forming an adulterous union which shut out her son from the legal pale of kinship! Therefore he had destroyed all record of the marriage, ever, in the consideration of the Church, a sacrilegious act.

That the son of his sister should inherit the crown had ever been to him a horror and a dread. Indeed, in the ramifications of his strangely mixed nature, this fear had mainly influenced him in the choice he had made of Charlemagne.

Now, by a sudden revulsion of feeling, the very boldness of Bernardo, his open-handed valour and the fiery words in which he pleaded, invested him with something sacred as the utterance of the true and rightful defender of his people. From that moment a tardy remorse began to possess him, and doubts of the rightfulness of his act in destroying the proofs of his legitimacy.

“Too late, too late,” he murmured, gazing sorrowfully into the depths of Bernardo’s clear blue eyes, and unconsciously passing his fingers through the beads of an agate rosary suspended at his waist, as if to invoke the assistance of the saints to maintain the steadfastness of his resolve – then shook his head, which sank upon his breast.

All this time the war of the elements was raging without. Thunder, lightning, wind, and rain had burst forth in one of those sudden tempests which sweep down from the mountains even in the midst of summer. The walls of the old palace seemed to rock, and at times the voices of the speakers were barely audible.

“My lord, you answer not,” pleaded Bernardo, rising to his feet, offended at the long silence, as a gleam of vivid lightning at the same moment swept over him. “Hark! The very powers of nature protest against your act. At least before you made us over as vassals to Charlemagne you might have called the Cortes together, and heard what the nation had to say. But let me tell you, Don Alonso, you have made a promise you can never keep. Instead of the crown of Leon, Charlemagne will have to face a nation in arms. Every man that bears the name of Castilian will rise and water the soil with his blood rather than yield, and I, Bernardo del Carpio, will lead them!”

For an instant the fury within him overtopped all control, but he checked himself as Alonso answered:

“Bernardo, Bernardo! Again I warn you not to overstep the respect you owe me. Your words are sharp, but there is a ring of truth in them, I admit. Bethink you, my boy,” and Alonso’s voice fell suddenly into a feeble tone, “Charlemagne is a Christian king, and a great warrior, whose power has always curbed the Moor. To exterminate the Moslem is the duty of sovereigns who love the saints. Who is so strong as he? Wage no war on Christians, but keep your sword for the vile Infidels who press round the limits of our land.”

“Christian or Moslem, my lord, Charlemagne shall never lead the knights of Leon,” cried Bernardo. “But before I go” – (and again he bowed his knee before the king, who had now seated himself in an arched niche, a silver lamp suspended over his head among the rich details of garlands and shields, crowns and badges at moments visible in startling distinctness in the rapidly succeeding sheets of lightning) – “tell me, I pray you, what name I bear, and from whom I am sprung? I crave it as a boon. Men call me Bernardo del Carpio, by the name of the castle you bestowed upon me. When I question further they turn aside and smile. But a knight in such a battle as I go to lead against the Franks must wear his own escutcheon on his shield, not one granted him by favour.”

Had a viper suddenly fixed its sharpest fangs upon his flesh Alonso could not have started with greater horror. His glassy eyes fixed themselves on the unconscious Bernardo, who eagerly awaited his answer to be gone, with an expression of mingled dread and terror, eyeing him as if the foul fiend himself had crossed his path, while a tremendous explosion of thunder overhead rattled around, and flash after flash of lightning quivered upon the walls. At length, out of his mouth came inarticulate words, mixed with broken phrases, but spoken so low in the uproar created by the storm no sense came to Bernardo.

“Begone, bastard!” cried the king at length, every feature in his face working with the violence of his passion. “Have I harboured you so many years to open the wound of my dishonour? Is this the return you make for all my care? Neither name nor kindred have you, so get you gone. The sight of you offends me.”

“Oh, my lord!” answered Bernardo, whose open countenance had grown very white, deep lines forming on mouth and brow with a sudden look of age the course of years could not have wrought, “had any man but you spoken thus to me, he would not have lived to draw another breath. Your words point to some hideous secret, some foul crime, in which you share. Great God! whence am I sprung? The very beasts have dams that suckle them, and is Bernardo alone deprived of the common claims of nature?”

No answer came from the king; no sign, no yielding. Bernardo’s question had struck him to the quick.

“As you pray for mercy, sire, speak one word,” urged Bernardo, the trembling of his lips telling what he suffered. “Are father and mother dead?”

“Both to me,” was the stern answer. “The mortal spark of life can never reanimate the soul dead in sin. Question me no more, audacious youth. And think not, because my blood runs in your veins that I will favour your ambition. Rather have I called in the stranger to occupy the throne. Now you know my mind. Were I dead, my spirit would stand as with a flaming sword to shut you out.”

“Then sweeter far than life and honour and glory, come death!” exclaimed Bernardo, throwing up his arms. “From this day I am a desperate man. My sword is to me the staff of life; bloodshed and carnage the food on which I live. Come now over the grey heights of the mountains the Frankish host and I will meet them as never mortal did his country’s foes. Come, great Charlemagne and all your peers; iron-fisted Guarinos, good Ferragol, Oliver, Gayferos, and Roland, bravest of paladins. Come all. Despair, dishonour are the keen edges to the weapon which I draw for your destruction. An unknown knight, degraded from my place, I will leave a name behind me that shall be honoured as long as Spain cleaves the seas. Adieu, my lord,” turning to the king, “you have forgotten your duty to the land you rule, come to you inch by inch, bathed in Gothic blood. I, Bernardo del Carpio, the nameless outcast, go forth to defend it. You have planted a dagger in my heart not hecatombs of the enemy can draw forth. Adieu!”

“Now stay, my boy,” cried the king, laying his hand on his shoulder as he turned to go. “Spite of the past, my heart warms to you. Take the lion of Leon and place it on your shield; and when men ask you by what right, answer, ‘By order of the King.’ ”

At this moment the tempest seemed to have reached its climax; a loud and hollow reverberation, like the sound of a blow upon a brass timbrel, shook the palace to its foundations and the whole firmament pulsated with flame. But Bernardo heeded not: with his features locked in a cold, impassive silence, he passed out.

CHAPTER XIX
Bernardo Leads the Goths against Charlemagne

THE day is warm and genial, the landscape flushed with green, and such homely blossoms as hawthorne and elder, briony and honeysuckle, flourish in the fields.

An immense plain spreads around, verdant with pastures, gardens and huertas full of fruit-trees and clumps of planes and oaks, while across it, flung like a silver ribbon, flows the current of the Torio River. Hayfields, ploughed land, and squares of maize and yellowing rye, follow each other in its course, divided by groves and wooded hedgerows rich in roadside flowers – Canterbury bells, pink willow-wand, the humble star daisy, and the wild rose.

Behind rise the turrets and spires of Leon, ruddy in colour, on a gentle slope crowned by the cathedral backed by a waving line of hills fading into the darkness of fantastic rocks, rising to the giddy heights of the Asturian mountains capped with snow.

Nor is the fairness of the earth less than the brilliancy of the sky. Not a cloud floats on the horizon to mar the view, – winding in and out among the trees, the dazzle of glittering helmets in the sun; sleek war-horses, cased in armour, curveting gaily spite of the heavy weight laid on them; flags and emblazoned shields breaking through masses of bright lances held aloft, battle-axes and broadswords – each knight as he passes, followed by his esquire, trumpeter and page, riding forth on the sacred mission, led by Bernardo del Carpio.

As one man the city follows him as he rides forth from the gate on a white charger, the banner of Leon waving before him, a gold lion rampant on a field of red. “It is the standard of Leon,” say those around. “The king allows him to bear it – a high honour to a nameless knight who, men say, never came legally into the world.”

Now cries of “Bernardo! Bernardo!” rend the air; the brazen trumpets sound, the shrill clarion calls to arms – and as he hears the warlike sound, the peasant quits his team to grasp a spear, the shepherd watching his flock by running streams flings down his crook and rushes forward, the youth whose limbs have never felt the weight of armour, the old men who sit at home at ease – all swell the crowd, as mountain torrents receive neighbouring rills.

“We are born free,” they say, “and free we will remain. No Frankish king shall rule over Leon. Anointed cravens may barter the land, but under the lion who bathes his paws in blood we will fight for ‘our land.’ ”

Three thousand men follow Bernardo to the field, all animated with the spirit of their chief. The secret infamy which hangs over his birth he dares not fathom, nor why his father is concealed, or in what manner he is connected with the king! Some foul injustice has clearly been done him. The thought of it rankles deeply in his soul. With this feeling comes a growing hatred to Alonso, who at least has been privy to this concealment, if not the cause.

Then, ashamed of permitting his own private griefs to intrude on the noble mission he has in hand, Bernardo calls to Don Favila to ride beside him.

“What will the king say to this armament, amigo?” are his first words. “Surely he will now understand the vainness of his purpose! In what disposition did you leave him?”

“I think he is much shaken,” is the reply, “but there are secret reasons. You, my lord, best know his mind.”

Bernardo heaves a deep sigh.

“Talk not to me of him,” he exclaims, “he is a hypocrite, unworthy of an honest man’s regard.” Then, seeing the look of amazement on Don Favila’s face, “Yes! by Santiago! such is my mind, and I will fling my mailed glove into his cursed face and tell him so, if I return from the present adventure.”

More and more amazed, Don Favila listens. “If it were not so early in the day, good Bernardo, I should think you had quaffed too many beakers of wine to our success.”

“Do I look like a man who has wine in him?” answers Bernardo, bitterly. “If wine would drown my care, I would drink a sack.”

“Tell me,” continues Favila, burning with curiosity, “by our long friendship, what is there amiss between you and King Alonso? You were wont to love him well.”

“Then it is past,” replies Bernardo, chafing under the questioning. “I hate him now. It is possible you can judge of the reason better than I. I pray you, good Favila, ask me no more; it is useless looking back.”

Don Favila, as a prudent man, held his peace. Although of a gentle and courteous nature, there was that in Bernardo that no one dared to cross. A look of sullen wrath is on his face he has never seen before. Has he at last discovered the secret of his birth and the cruelty of the chaste king?

Now the little army, passing by pleasant hedgerows and fertile fields, reaches the borders of the Ordega, crossed by a wooden bridge so narrow that much time is occupied by the passage of the troops.

A sound of the approach of many horsemen, galloping rapidly, comes from the road they have just traversed, and clouds of dust from the dry soil sweep to the height of the tree-tops. Voices are heard, and the roll of drums and the call of trumpets, but nothing as yet is seen.

“We are set upon by foes,” shouts Don Ricardo, hastily seeking out Bernardo, who, with a set white face, watches, immovable in the saddle, the passage of the knights across the bridge.

“Foes,” answers Bernardo, with a mocking laugh; “methinks, Ricardo, you are suddenly grown blind not to recognise your countrymen. These are no foes, but our own townsmen come out to join us.”

As he speaks, nearer and nearer comes the clamour, and louder and louder upon the breeze rises the cry, “El Rey, El Rey,” echoing back from a thousand voices along the line.

“Yes, it is he,” says Bernardo to those around. “I know him by his helmet, set with gems, and the fur collar over his corselet. By the rood, it is well he acknowledges his wrong.”

And as he turns his eyes upon Don Alonso, such a loathing possesses him, nothing but the cause he has in hand keeps his hand from his weapon to avenge his wrong.

Meanwhile the king’s arrival in face of the army is greeted by a shout so long and loud mountain and hill ring with it.

In the tall, thin warrior, with a long white beard, nobly wearing a regal diadem about his burnished helmet, no one would recognise the emaciated anchorite who scourged and starved himself. The words of Bernardo have stung him to the quick. He has cast off the delusions which filled his brain; the French monks have been sent whence they came, the armed messenger dismissed, the pledges given to Charlemagne have been withdrawn. Even the horror of his sister’s sin in the person of Bernardo has yielded to the nobleness of his conduct, and like a man distraught suddenly restored to his right senses, he has ridden out to join him.

The shouts of the crowd (for the distance from Leon has not prevented many of the citizens following the soldiers) for a time drowns every other sound.

Again and again King Alonso bows to the saddle-bow, and again and again from three thousand voices comes the cry, “Viva el Rey! Leon! Leon to the rescue!”

Nor, in this moment of triumph, as he lingers on the brink of the river, proudly contemplating the gallant body of knights, who crowd round him to touch, if possible, the nobler charger which bears him, his mailed hands, his rich saddle-cloth, and the royal standard borne before him, does he forget Bernardo.

Calling to him in a loud voice he commands him to leave the van of the army and place himself at his side.

Then raising the crossed hilt of his jewelled sword before his face, he utters a brief prayer, and turns towards the thousands of eager visages upraised to his.

“O men of Leon,” are his words, contemplating them with moistening eyes, “to this brave knight – Bernardo del Carpio – I confide the land. Where he leads, follow!”