1492 by Mary Johnston (short books for teens .txt) 📕

SOME days went by. The King and the Queen with the court and a great train of prelates and grandees and knights rode in state through Granada. Don Enrique, returning, told me of it in his room at night, of the Christian service in the mosque and the throning in the Alhambra.

“Now,” he said, “after great affairs, our affairs! I have had speech with the Marchioness of Moya.”

“That is the Queen’s friend?”

“Yes. Dona Beatrix de Boabdilla. We stood together by a fountain, and when she said, `What can I do for you?’ I answered, `There is something.’ Then while all went in pageantry before us, I told her of the hermitage in the oak wood and of the unhappy small tower, and of you and me and those others, and what was done that day. Don Jayme, I told it like a minstrel who believes what he sings! And then I spoke of to-day. She is no puny soul, nor is she in priest’s grip. She acts from her own vision, not from that of another. The Queen is no weak soul either! She also has vision, but too often she lets the churchmen take her vision from her. But Dona Beatrix is stronger there. Well, she promises help if we can show her how to help.”

I said, “I have been thinking. It seems to me that it was wrong to come here and put my weight upon you.”

“No!” he answered. “Did we not swear then, when we were young men? And we needed no oaths neither. Let such thoughts be.—I am going to the palace to-morrow, and you with me. The King and the Queen ride with a great train into Granada. But Dona Beatrix will excuse herself from going. The palace will be almost empty, and we shall find her in the little gallery above the Queen’s garden.”

The next morning we went there, Don Enrique de Cerda and his squire, Juan Lepe. The palace rose great and goodly enough, with the church at hand. All had been built as by magic, silken pavilions flying away and stout houses settling themselves down. Sunk among the walls had been managed a small garden for the Queen and her ladies. A narrow, latticed and roofed gallery built without the Queen’s rooms looked down upon orange and myrtle trees and a fountain. Here we found the Marchioness de Moya, with her two waiting damsels whom she set by the gallery door. Don Enrique kissed her hand and then motioned to me. Don Jayme de Marchena made his reverence.

She was a strong woman who would go directly to the heart of things. Always she would learn from the man himself. She asked me this and I answered; that and the other and I answered. “Don Pedro—?” I told the enmity there and the reason for it. “The Jewish rabbi, my great-grand father?” I avowed it, but by three Castilian and Christian great-grandfathers could not be counted as Jew! Practise Judaism? No. My grandmother Judith had been Christian.

She drove to the heart of it. “You yourself are Christian. What do you mean by that? What the Queen means? What the Grand Cardinal and the Archbishop of Granada means? What the Holy Office means?”

I kept silence for a moment, then I told her as well as I might, without fever and without melancholy, what I had written and of the Dominican.

“You have been,” she said, “an imprudent cavalier.”

The fountain flashed below us, a gray dove flew over garden. I said, “There is a text, `With all thy getting, get understanding.’ There is another, `For God so loved the world’—that He wished to impart understanding.”

She sat quiet, seeming to listen to the fountain. Then she said, “Are you ready to avow when they ask you that in every particular to which the Grand Inquisitor may point you are wrong, and that all that Holy Church through mouth of Holy Office says is right?”

I said, “No, Madam! Present Church is not as large as Truth, nor as fair as Beauty.”

“You may think that, but will you say the other?”

“Say that church or kingdom exactly matches Truth and Beauty?”

“That is what I am sure you will have to say.”

“Then, no!”

“I do not see,” she said, “that I can do anything for you.”

There was a chair beside her. She sat down, her chin on her hand and her eyes lowered. Silence held save for the fountain plashing. Don Enrique stood by the railing, and Jayme de Marchena felt his concern. But he himself walked just then—Don Jayme or Juan Lepe—into long patience, into greater steadfastness. Into the inner fields came translucence, gold light; came and faded, but left strength.

Dona Beatrix raised her eyes and let them dwell upon me. “Spain breeds bold knights,” she said, “but not so many after all who are bold within! Not so many, I think, as are found in Italy or in France.” She paused a moment, looking at the sky above the roofs, then came back to me. “It is hopeless, and you must see it, to talk in those terms to the only powers that can lead the Holy Office to forget that you live! It is hopeless to talk to the Queen, telling her that. She would hold that she had entertained heresy, and her imagination would not let her alone. I see naught in this world for you to do but to go out of it into another! There are other lands—”

A damsel hurried to her from the door. “There’s a stir below, Madam! Something has brought the Queen home earlier than we thought—”

The Marchioness de Moya rose. Don Enrique kissed her hand, and Jayme de Marchena kissed it and thanked her. “I would help if I could!” she said. “But in Spain to-day it is deadly dangerous to talk or write as though there were freedom!”

She passed from the gallery, Don Enrique and I following. We came upon a landing with a great stair before us. Quick as had been her maidens, they were not quick enough. Many folk were coming up the broad steps. Dona Beatrix glanced, then opened a door giving into a great room, apparently empty. She pointed to an opposite door. “The little stair! Go that way!” Don Enrique nodded comprehension. We were in the room; the door closed.

At first it seemed an empty great chamber. Then from behind a square of stretched cloth came a man’s head, followed by the figure pertaining to it. The full man was clad after a rich fancy and he held in his hand a brush and looked at us at first dreamily and then with keenness.

He knew me, differently arrayed though I was, and looked from me to Don Enrique. “Master Manuel Rodriguez,” said the latter, “I would stop for good talk and to admire the Queen’s likeness, but duty calls me out of palace! Adios!” He made toward the door across from that by which we had entered. The painter spoke after us. “That door is bolted, Don Enrique, on the other side. I do not know why! It is not usually so.”

Don Enrique, turning, hurried to the first door and very slightly opened it. A humming entered the large, quiet room. He closed the door. “The Queen is coming up the great stair. The Archbishop of Granada is with her and a whole train beside!” He spoke to the painter. “I have no audience, and for reasons would not choose this moment as one in which to encounter the least disfavor! I will stay here before your picture and admire until landing and stairways are bare.”

“If to be invisible is your desire,” answered Manuel Rodriguez, “you have walked into trouble! The Queen is coming here.”

Don Enrique exclaimed. Juan Lepe turned eyes to the painter. The blue eyes met mine—there rose the rushy pool, there dozed the broken boat. Manuel Rodriguez spoke in his voice that was at once cool and fine and dry and warm. “It is best to dare thoroughly! Perhaps I may help you—as thus! Wishing to speak with Don Enrique of an altar painting for the Church of Saint Dominic, I asked him here and he came. We talked, and he will give the picture. Then, hearing the Queen’s approach, he would instantly have been gone, but alack, the small door is barred! —As for fisherman yonder, few look at squire when knight is in presence!”

No time to debate his offer, which indeed was both wise and kind! Chamberlains flung open the door. In came the Queen, with her the Princess Juana and several of her ladies. Beside her walked Fernando de Talavera, Her Highness’s confessor, yesterday Bishop of Avila but now Archbishop of Granada. Behind him moved two lesser ecclesiastics, and with these Don Alonzo de Quintanella, Comptroller-General of Castile. Others followed, nobles and cavaliers, two soberly clad men who looked like secretaries, a Franciscan friar, three or four pages. The room was large and had a table covered with a rich cloth, two great chairs and a few lesser ones.

The painter and Don Enrique bent low to the Majesty of Castile. In the background Juan Lepe made squire’s obeisance. I was bearded and my face stained with a Moorish stain, and I was in shadow; it was idle to fear recognition that might never come. The Queen seated herself, and her daughter beside her, and with her good smile motioned the Archbishop to a chair. The two ecclesiastics, both venerable men, were given seats. The rest of the company stood. The Queen’s blue eyes rested on Don Enrique. She spoke in a clear, mild voice, threaded with dignity. “Were you summoned thither, Don Enrique de Cerda?”

He answered, “No, Highness! I came to the palace to seek Master Manuel Rodriguez who is to paint for me an altarpiece for the Church of Saint Dominic. You and the King, Madam, I thought were in Granada. Not finding him in his own lodging, I made bold to come here. Then at once, before I could hasten away, you returned!”

The true nature of this Queen was to think no evil. Her countenance remained mild. He had done valiant service, and she was sisterly-minded toward the greater part of the world. Now she said with serenity, “There is no fault, Don Enrique. Stay with us now that you are here.”

Bowing deeply, he joined a brother-in-arms, Don Miguel de Silva. His squire stood in the shadow behind him, but found a chance-left lane of vision down which much might be seen.

The Queen composed herself , in her chair. “This is the position, Master Manuel?” The fair man, so fine and quick that I loved to look at him, bowed and stepped back to his canvas, where he took up his brush and fell to work. The Queen and the Archbishop began to speak earnestly together. Words and