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The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series

R >> Rafael Sabatini >> The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series




Never sped a lover to his mistress in a frame of mind more
aggrieved than that which afflicted Don Rodrigo as, tight-wrapped
in his black cloak, he gained the Calle de Ataud on that January
night.

Anon, however, when by way of a garden gate and an easily
escaladed balcony he found himself in the presence of Isabella,
the delight of her effaced all other considerations. Her father
was from home, as she had told him in the note that summoned him;
he was away at Palacios on some merchant's errand, and would not
return until the morrow. The servants were all abed, and so Don
Rodrigo might put off his cloak and hat, and lounge at his ease
upon the low Moorish divan, what time she waited upon him with a
Saracen goblet filled with sweet wine of Malaga. The room in
which she received him was one set apart for her own use, her
bower, a long, low ceilinged chamber, furnished with luxury and
taste. The walls were hung with tapestries, the floor spread with
costly Eastern rugs; on an inlaid Moorish table a tall, three-
beaked lamp of beaten copper charged with aromatic oil shed light
and perfume through the apartment.

Don Rodrigo sipped his wine, and his dark, hungry eyes followed
her as she moved about him with vaguely voluptuous, almost feline
grace. The wine, the heavy perfume of the lamp, and the beauty of
her played havoc among them with his senses, so that he forgot
for the moment his Castilian lineage and clean Christian blood,
forgot that she derived from the accursed race of the Crucifiers.
All that he remembered was that she was the loveliest woman in
Seville, daughter to the wealthiest man, and in that hour of
weakness he decided to convert into reality that which had
hitherto been no more than an infamous presence. He would loyally
fulfil the false, disloyal promises he had made. He would take
her to wife. It was a sacrifice which her beauty and her wealth
should make worth while. Upon that impulse he spoke now,
abruptly:

"Isabella, when will you marry me?"

She stood before him, looking down into his weak, handsome face,
her fingers interlacing his own. She merely smiled. The question
did not greatly move her. Not knowing him for the scoundrel that
he was, guessing nothing of the present perturbation of his
senses, she found it very natural that he should ask her to
appoint the day.

"It is a question you must ask my father," she answered him.

"I will," said he, "to-morrow, on his return." And he drew her
down beside him.

But that father was nearer than either of them dreamed. At that
very moment the soft thud of the closing housedoor sounded
through the house. It brought her sharply to her feet, and loose
from his coiling arms, with quickened breath and blanching face.
A moment she hung there, tense, then sped to the door of the
room, set it ajar and listened.

Up the stairs came the sound of footsteps and of muttering
voices. It was her father, and others with him.

With ever-mounting fear she turned to Don Rodrigo, and breathed
the question: "If they should come here?"

The Castilian stood where he had risen by the divan, his face
paler now than its pale, aristocratic wont, his eyes reflecting
the fear that glittered in her own. He had no delusion as to what
action Diego de Susan would take upon discovering him. These
Jewish dogs were quickly stirred to passion, and as jealous as
their betters of the honour of their womenfolk. Already Don
Rodrigo in imagination saw his clean red Christian blood
bespattering that Hebrew floor, for he had no weapon save the
heavy Toledo dagger at his girdle, and Diego de Susan was not
alone.

It was, he felt, a ridiculous position for a Hidalgo of Spain.
But his dignity was to suffer still greater damage. In another
moment she had bundled him into an alcove behind the arras at the
chamber's end, a tiny closet that was no better than a cupboard
contrived for the storing of household linen. She had-moved with
a swift precision which at another time might have provoked his
admiration, snatching up his cloak and hat, and other evidences
of his presence, quenching the lamp, and dragging him to that
place of cramped concealment, which she remained to share with
him.

Came presently movements in the room beyond, and the voice of her
father:

"We shall be securest from intrusion here. It is my daughter's
room. If you will give me leave, I will go down again to admit
our other friends."

Those other friends, as Don Rodrigo gathered, continued to arrive
for the next half-hour, until in the end there must have been
some twenty of them assembled in that chamber. The mutter of
voices had steadily increased, but so confused that no more than
odd words, affording no clue to the reason of this gathering, had
reached the hidden couple.

And then quite suddenly a silence fell, and on that silence beat
the sharp, clear voice of Diego de Susan addressing them.

"My friends," he said, "I have called you hither that we may
concert measures for the protection of ourselves and all New-
Christians in Seville from the fresh peril by which we are
menaced. The edict of the inquisitors reveals how much we have to
fear. You may gather from it that the court of the Holy Office is
hardly likely to deal in justice, and that the most innocent may
find himself at any moment exposed to its cruel mercies.
Therefore it is for us now to consider how to protect ourselves
and our property from the unscrupulous activities of this
tribunal. You are the principal New Christian citizens of
Seville; you are wealthy, not only in property, but also in the
goodwill of the people, who trust and respect, and at need will
follow, you. If nothing less will serve, we must have recourse to
arms; and so that we are resolute and united, my friends, we
shall prevail against the inquisitors."

Within the alcove, Don Rodrigo felt his skin roughening with
horror at this speech, which breathed sedition not only against
the Sovereigns, but against the very Church. And with his horror
was blent a certain increase of fear. If his situation had been
perilous before, it was tenfold more dangerous now. Discovery,
since he had overheard this treason, must mean his certain death.
And Isabella, realizing the same to the exclusion of all else,
clutched his arm and cowered against him in the dark.

There was worse to follow. Susan's address was received with a
murmur of applause, and then others spoke, and several were
named, and their presence thus disclosed. There was the
influential Manuel Sauli, who next to Susan was the wealthiest
man in Seville; there was Torralba, the Governor of Triana; Juan
Abolafio, the farmer of the royal customs, and his brother
Fernandez, the licentiate, and there were others--all of them men
of substance, some even holding office under the Crown. Not one
was there who dissented from anything that Susan had said; rather
did each contribute some spur to the general resolve. In the end
it was concerted that each of those present should engage himself
to raise a proportion of the men, arms and money that would be
needed for their enterprise. And upon that the meeting was
dissolved, and they departed. Susan himself went with them. He
had work to do in the common cause, he announced, and he would do
it that very night in which it was supposed that he was absent at
Palacios.

At last, when all had gone, and the house was still again,
Isabella and her lover crept forth from their concealment, and in
the light of the lamp which Susan had left burning each looked
into the other's white, startled face. So shaken was Don Rodrigo
with horror of what he had overheard, and with the terror of
discovery, that it was with difficulty he kept his teeth from
chattering.

"Heaven protect us!" he gasped. "What Judaizing was this?"

"Judaizing!" she echoed. It was the term applied to apostacy, to
the relapse of New-Christians to Judaism, an offense to be
expiated at the stake. "Here was no Judaizing. Are you mad,
Rodrigo? You heard no single word that sinned against the
Faith."

"Did I not? I heard treason enough to."

"No, nor treason either. You heard honourable, upright men
considering measures of defence against oppression, injustice,
and evil acquisitiveness masquerading in the holy garments of
religion."

He stared askance at her for a moment, then his full lips curled
into a sneer. "Of course you would seek to justify them," he said.
"You are of that foul brood yourself. But you cannot think to
cozen me, who am of clean Old-christian blood and a true son of
Mother Church. These men plot evil against the Holy Inquisition.
Is that not Judaizing when it is done by Jews?"

She was white to the lips, and a new horror stared at him from
her great dark eyes; her lovely bosom rose and fell in tumult.
Yet still she sought to reason with him.

"They are not Jews--not one of them. Why, Perez is himself in
holy orders. All of them are Christians, and . . ."

"Newly-baptized!" he broke in, sneering viciously. "A defilement
of that holy sacrament to gain them worldly advantages. That is
revealed by what passed here just now. Jews they were born, the
sons of Jews, and Jews they remain under their cloak of mock
Christianity, to be damned as Jews in the end." He was panting
now with fiery indignation; a holy zeal inflamed this profligate
defiler. "God forgive me that ever I entered here. Yet I do
believe that it was His will that I should come to overhear what
is being plotted. Let me depart from hence."

With a passionate gesture of abhorrence he swung towards the
door. Her clutch upon his arm arrested him.

"Whither do you go?" she asked trim sharply. He looked now into
her eyes, and of all that they contained he saw only fear; he saw
nothing of the hatred into which her love had been transmuted in
that moment by his unsparing insults to herself, her race and her
home, by the purpose which she clearly read in him.

"Whither?" he echoed, and sought to shake her off.

"Whither my Christian duty bids me."

It was enough for her. Before he could prevent or suspect her
purpose, she had snatched the heavy Toledo blade from his girdle,
and armed with it stood between the door and him.

"A moment, Don Rodrigo. Do not attempt to advance, or, as Heaven
watches us, I strike, and it maybe that I shall kill you. We must
talk awhile before you go."

Amazed, chapfallen, half-palsied, he stood before her, his fine
religious zeal wiped out by fear of that knife in her weak
woman's hand. Rapidly to-night was she coming into real knowledge
of this Castilian gentleman, whom with pride she had taken for
her lover. It was a knowledge that was to sear her presently with
self-loathing and self-contempt. But for the moment her only
consideration was that, as a direct result of her own wantonness,
her father stood in mortal peril. If he should perish through the
deletion of this creature, she would account herself his slayer.

"You have not considered that the deletion you intend will
destroy my father," she said quietly.

"There is my Christian duty to consider," answered he, but
without boldness now.

"Perhaps. But there is something you must set against it. Have
you no duty as a lover--no duty to me?"

"No earthly duty can weigh against a spiritual obligation. . . ."

"Ah, wait! Have patience. You have not well considered, that is
plain. In coming here in secret you wronged my father. You will
not trouble to deny it.

"Jointly we wronged him, you and I. Will you then take advantage
of something learnt whilst you were hiding there like a thief
from the consequences of what you did, and so do him yet this
further wrong?"

"Must I wrong my conscience?" he asked her sullenly.

"Indeed, I fear you must."

"Imperil my immortal soul?" He almost laughed.

"You talk in vain."

"But I have something more than words for you." With her left
hand she drew upon the fine gold chain about her neck, and
brought forth a tiny jewelled cross. Passing the chain over her
head, she held it out.

"Take this," she bade him. "Take it, I say. Now, with that sacred
symbol in your hand, make solemn oath to divulge no word of what
you have learnt here tonight, or else resign yourself to an
unshriven death. For either you take that oath, or I rouse the
servants and have you dealt with as one who has intruded here
unbidden for an evil end." She backed away from him as she spoke,
and threw wide the door. Then, confronting him from the
threshold, she admonished him again, her voice no louder than a
whisper. "Quick now! Resolve yourself. Will you die here with
all your sins upon you, and so destroy for all eternity the
immortal soul that urges you to this betrayal, or will you take
the oath that I require?"

He began an argument that was like a sermon of the Faith. But she
cut him short. "For the last time!" she bade him. "Will you
decide?"

He chose the coward's part, of course, and did violence tomb fine
conscience. With the cross in his hand he repeated after her the
words of the formidable oath that she administered an oath which
it must damn his immortal soul to break. Because of that, because
she imagined that she had taken the measure of his faith, she
returned him his dagger, and let him go at last. She imagined
that she had bound him fast in irrefragable spiritual bonds.

And even on the morrow, when her father and all those who had
been present at that meeting at Susan's house were arrested by
order of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, she still clung to
that belief. Yet presently a doubt crept in, a doubt that she
must at all costs resolve. And so presently she called for her
litter, and had herself carried to the Convent of St. Paul, where
she asked to see Frey Alonso de Ojeda, the Prior of the
Dominicans of Seville.

She was left to wait in a square, cheerless, dimly-lighted room
pervaded by a musty smell, that had for only furniture a couple
of chairs and a praying-stool, and for only ornament a great,
gaunt crucifix hanging upon one of its whitewashed walls.

Thither came presently two Dominican friars. One of these was a
harsh-featured man of middle height and square build, the
uncompromising zealot Ojeda. The other was tall and lean,
stooping slightly at the shoulders, haggard and pale of
countenance, with deep-set, luminous dark eyes, and a tender,
wistful mouth. This was the Queen's confessor, Frey Tomas de
Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of Castile. He approached her,
leaving Ojeda in the background, and stood a moment regarding her
with eyes of infinite kindliness and compassion.

"You are the daughter of that misguided man, Diego de Susan," he
said, in a gentle voice. "God help and strengthen you, my child,
against the trials that may be in store for you. What do you seek
at our poor hands? Speak, child, without fear."

"Father," she faltered, "I come to implore your pity."

"No need to implore it, child. Should I withhold pity who stand
myself in need of pity, being a sinner--as are we all."

"It is for my father that I come to beg your mercy."

"So I supposed." A shade crossed the gentle, wistful face; the
tender melancholy deepened in the eyes that regarded her. "If
your father is innocent of what has been alleged against him, the
benign tribunal of the Holy Office will bring his innocence to
light, and rejoice therein; if he is guilty, if he has strayed--
as we may all stray unless fortified by heavenly grace--he shall
be given the means of expiation, that his salvation may be
assured him."

She shivered at the words. She knew the mercy in which the
inquisitors dealt, a mercy so spiritual that it took no account
of the temporal agonies inflicted to ensure it.

"My father is innocent of any sin against the Faith," said she.

"Are you so sure?" croaked the harsh voice of Ojeda, breaking in.
"Consider well. Remember that your duty as a Christian is above
your duty as a daughter."

Almost had she bluntly demanded the name of her father's accuser,
that thus she might reach the object of her visit. Betimes she
checked the rash impulse, perceiving that subtlety was here
required; that a direct question would close the door to all
information. Skilfully, then, she chose her line of attack.

"I am sure," she exclaimed, "that he is a more fervent and pious
Christian--New-Christian though he be--than his accuser."

The wistfulness faded from Torquemada's eyes. They grew keen, as
became the eyes of an inquisitor, the eyes of a sleuth, quick to
fasten on a spoor. But he shook his head.

Ojeda advanced. "That I cannot believe," said he. "The deletion
was made from a sense of duty so pure that the delator did not
hesitate to confess the sin of his own commission through which
he had discovered the treachery of Don Diego and his associates."

She could have cried out in anguish at this answer to her
unspoken question. Yet she controlled herself, and that no single
doubt should linger, she thrust boldly home.

"He confessed it?" she cried, seemingly aghast. The friar slowly
nodded. "Don Rodrigo confessed?" she insisted, as will the
incredulous.

Abruptly the friar nodded again; and as abruptly checked,
recollecting himself.

"Don Rodrigo?" he echoed, and asked: "Who mentioned Don Rodrigo?"

But it was too late. His assenting nod had betrayed the truth,
had confirmed her worst fear. She swayed a little; the room swam
round her, she felt as she would swoon. Then blind indignation
against that forsworn betrayer surged to revive her. If it was
through her weakness and undutifulness that her father had been
destroyed, through her strength should he be avenged, though in
doing so she pulled down and destroyed herself.

"And he confessed to his own sin?" she was repeating slowly, ever
on that musing, incredulous note. "He dared confess himself a
Judaizer?"

"A Judaizer!" Sheer horror now overspread the friar's grim
countenance. "A Judaizer! Don Rodrigo? Oh, impossible!"

"But I thought you said he had confessed."

"Why, yes, but . . . but not to that." Her pale lips smiled,
sadly contemptuous.

"I see. He set limits of prudence upon his confession. He left
out his Judatting practices. He did not tell you, for instance,
that this deletion was an act of revenge against me who refused
to marry him, having discovered his unfaith, and fearing its
consequences in this world and the next."

Ojeda stared at her in sheer, incredulous amazement.

And then Torquemada spoke: "Do you say that Don Rodrigo de
Cardona is a Judaizer? Oh, it is unbelievable."

"Yet I could give you evidence that should convince you."

"Then so you shall. It is your sacred duty, lest you become an
abettor of heresy, and yourself liable to the extreme penalty."

It would be a half-hour later, perhaps, when she quitted the
Convent of St. Paul to return home, with Hell in her heart,
knowing in life no purpose but that of avenging the parent her
folly had destroyed. As she was being carried past the Alcazar,
she espied across the open space a tall, slim figure in black, in
whom she recognized her lover, and straightway she sent the page
who paced beside her litter to call him to her side. The summons
surprised him after what had passed between them; moreover,
considering her father's present condition, he was reluctant to
be seen in attendance upon the beautiful, wealthy Isabella de
Susan. Nevertheless, urged on by curiosity, he went.

Her greeting increased his surprise.

"I am in deep distress, Rodrigo, as you may judge," she told him
sadly. "You will have heard what has befallen my father?"

He looked at her sharply, yet saw nothing but loveliness rendered
more appealing by sorrow. Clearly she did not suspect him of
betrayal; did not realize that an oath extorted by violence--and
an oath, moreover, to be false to a sacred duty--could not be
accounted binding.

"I . . . I heard of it an hour ago," he lied a thought
unsteadily. "I . . . I commiserate you deeply."

"I deserve commiseration," answered she, "and so does my poor
father, and those others. It is plain that amongst those he
trusted there was a traitor, a spy, who went straight from that
meeting to inform against them. If I but had a list it were easy
to discover the betrayer. One need but ascertain who is the one
of all who were present whose arrest has been omitted." Her
lovely sorrowful eyes turned full upon him. "What is to become
of me now, alone in the world?" she asked him. "My father was
my only friend."

The subtle appeal of her did its work swiftly. Besides, he saw
here a noble opportunity worth surely some little risk.

"Your only friend?" he asked her thickly. "Was there no one else?
Is there no one else, Isabella?"

"There was," she said, and sighed heavily. "But after what befell
last night, when . . . You know what is in my mind. I was
distraught then, mad with fear for this poor father of mine, so
that I could not even consider his sin in its full heinousness,
nor see how righteous was your intent to inform against him. Yet
I am thankful that it was not by your deletion that he was taken.
The thought of that is to-day my only consolation."

They had reached her house by now. Don Rodrigo put forth his arm
to assist her to alight from her litter, and begged leave to
accompany her within. But she denied him.

"Not now--though I am grateful to you, Rodrigo. Soon, if you will
come and comfort me, you may. I will send you word when I am more
able to receive you--that is, if I am forgiven for . . ."

"Not another word," he begged her. "I honour you for what you
did. It is I who should sue to you for forgiveness."

"You are very noble and generous, Don Rodrigo. God keep you!" And
so she left him.

She had found him--had she but known it--a dejected, miserable
man in the act of reckoning up all that he had lost. In betraying
Susan he had acted upon an impulse that sprang partly from rage,
and partly from a sense of religious duty. In counting later the
cost to himself, he cursed the folly of his rage, and began to
wonder if such strict observance of religious duty was really
worth while to a man who had his way to make in the world. In
short, he was in the throes of reaction. But now, in her
unsuspicion, he found his hopes revive. She need never know.
The Holy Office preserved inviolate secrecy on the score of
deletions--since to do otherwise might be to discourage delators--
and there were no confrontations of accuser and accused, such as
took place in temporal courts. Don Rodrigo left the Calle de
Ataud better pleased with the world than he had been since
morning.

On the morrow he went openly to visit her; but he was denied, a
servant announcing her indisposed. This fretted him, damped his
hopes, and thereby increased his longing. But on the next day he
received from her a letter which made him the most ample amends:

"Rodrigo,--There is a matter on which we must come early to an
understanding. Should my poor father be convicted of heresy and
sentenced, it follows that his property will be confiscated,
since as the daughter of a convicted heretic I may not inherit.
For myself I care little; but I am concerned for you, Rodrigo,
since if in spite of what has happened you would still wish to
make me your wife, as you declared on Monday, it would be my wish
to come to you well cowered. Now the inheritance which would be
confiscated by the Holy Office from the daughter of a heretic
might not be so confiscated from the wife of a gentleman of
Castile. I say no more. Consider this well, and decide as your
heart dictates. I shall receive you to-morrow if you come to me.

"Isabella."

She bade him consider well. But the matter really needed little
consideration. Diego de Susan was sure to go to the fire. His
fortune was estimated at ten million maravedis. That fortune, it
seemed, Rodrigo was given the chance to make his own by marrying
the beautiful Isabella at once, before sentence came to be passed
upon her father. The Holy Office might impose a fine, but would
not go further where the inheritance of a Castilian nobleman of
clean lineage was concerned. He was swayed between admiration of
her shrewdness and amazement at his own good fortune. Also his
vanity was immensely flattered.

He sent her three lines to protest his undying love, and his
resolve to marry her upon the morrow, and went next day in
person, as she had bidden him, to carry out the resolve.

She received him in the mansion's best room, a noble chamber
furnished with a richness such as no other house in Seville could
have boasted. She had arrayed herself for the interview with an
almost wanton cunning that should enhance her natural endowments.
Her high-waisted gown, low-cut and close-fitting in the bodice,
was of cloth of gold, edged with miniver at skirt and cuffs and
neck. On her white bosom hung a priceless carcanet of limpid
diamonds, and through the heavy tresses of her bronze-coloured
hair was coiled a string of lustrous pearls. Never had Don
Rodrigo found her more desirable; never had he felt so secure and
glad in his possession of her. The quickening blood flushing now
his olive face, he gathered her slim shapeliness into his arms,
kissing her cheek, her lips, her neck.

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