Frances Elliot - Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 2

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 that within a month Don Fadique acted as his brother’s proxy at their solemn espousals in the Gothic Cathedral of St. Just, the darkly painted figures of saints and angels in the flamboyant windows of the choir casting down mystic shadows on the form of a pale young girl in the very bud of youth, kneeling at the altar beside a royal youth with the sweetest and softest eyes, his elegant figure set off by the magnificent robes of the Grand Master of Santiago, so stiff with gold embroidery and jewels, on mantle and justaucorps , that they stood up of themselves.

THE Princess Blanche de Bourbon, sister to the Queen of France, wife of Charles V., lived in the old fortress of Narbonne, beside the sea, in those romantic days when ladies’ robes were sewn with fleur-de-lis and heraldic devices, dragons, and coats of arms – wore pointed shoes, long chains from the waist, and high coifs and head draperies incredible in our eyes.

She was young, only fifteen, small and delicate in stature, with a tender, beseeching look, as seeking for fondness and protection from those around her. By nature she was little fitted to command or to dazzle, but rather to creep into the heart of manly affection and nestle there.

The very name of the King of Castile gave her the horrors, and when called into the presence of her father and told she was to marry him, she lay three days on her bed without speaking. Imagine her feelings when she took courage to look at his proxy, of all his brothers the most like the king!

But Don Fadique was altogether cast in a slighter mould, fitted rather for a lady’s bower than the stern ranks of the battle-field. His address was soft and gentle, and no amount of provocation could call up on his features any resemblance to that tempest-torn expression that so often disfigured the countenance of Don Pedro. It is true that at the time of his mother’s death, when certain suspicious circumstances pointed to foul play, he had joined in the rebellion of his brother, Enrique, but he had rallied afterwards to the king, and was the only one of his family who gave him a loyal allegiance. As the nearest relation of Don Pedro, he was selected by Albuquerque as proxy for the king.

In such haste was the great minister to avail himself of the half-promise of marriage he had obtained – hastened by the ravages of the Free companies of France in the north – that he immediately despatched Don Fadique with a splendid retinue, without ever reflecting upon his personal fitness for the mission; fitness indeed as a consort, but not as a proxy, for he was specially created to please a lady’s eye. His large brown eyes had the sweetest expression, and there was a womanly softness about him, united to the manly bearing of a knight, that suited exactly his half-military, half-religious position as Grand Master of the order of Santiago.

Of all created beings Blanche was the simplest and the best; unselfish, trusting, relying on the faith of others, utterly inexperienced and easily impressed by kindness, of which she had not known much.

Her mother died at her birth. Her brothers were always away at the court, in Touraine, or in the camp. Her women and her friend, Claire de Coucy, were her only companions, so that when the brilliant cortège of knights and nobles arrived at Narbonne, and Don Fadique, Grand Master of Santiago, most becomingly attired in the splendid robes of his order, a great jewelled cross on his breast, and a heavy chain of gems sparkling around his neck, advanced to kiss her hand, so happy was she in the respite from the dreaded Don Pedro, so frankly affectionate in her sisterly confidence, that the very charm of her innocence became a fatal snare to him.

Not that Don Fadique nourished any thought of treason towards his brother’s bride. No plan or project of supplanting him had entered his brain when selected by Albuquerque as nearest of blood to the king. He had neither foreseen nor imagined the danger in which he was placed by reason of the manifold charms of the Lady Blanche, and that he would be more than man to resist them.

Alas for the fair-haired Grand Master! Hour by hour he yielded. Did she love him? was the question that rang through his brain day and night. On the answer his life depended. But how could he ask? Honour, loyalty, chivalry forbade. Yet the time must come when he would have to know. Could he see this innocent creature delivered over a prey to his licentious brother without one word of warning? Without one devoted friend to shield her from the deadly intrigues of a court wholly under the spell of Maria de Padilla?

And that warning. What did it mean? Love to himself? Great Heaven! And if she did not love him in return? The doubt brought agony. A woman would have been more easily deciphered, but this royal girl was all simplicity and guilelessness. When her little hand rested in his as, attired with all the pomp of the Queen of Castile, and blazing with the rich jewels sent by Don Pedro, he, with a wildly beating heart, led her to the nuptial supper, it lay as trustingly in his as though he had been her brother.