Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 1. Elliot Frances Minto Dickinson

a careless laugh Roderich descends the marble steps on which the throne is placed, and placing his crown in the hands of a daintily apparelled page, moves freely about among his nobles. The friends of his father, Pelistes and Teofredo, coming from Murcia, are specially greeted. To the Archbishop Opas he again addresses himself with the studied courtesy he learned in civilised Italy. But again Pelayo is passed over in silence, an affront which calls up a flush of anger on his face, as he silently turns and leaves the hall. At last, singling out Julian, Roderich moves aside under the range of the low pillars which divide the hall.

      “This judgment,” says he, speaking with caution, “relieves my mind of much care. Witica has been condemned by those of his own blood. Brother, brother-in-law, and kinsmen have joined together to make secure my position on the throne. The dam indeed is scotched, but what of the lambkins? Witica will be executed forthwith, but his sons remain. Where are they? While they live the kingdom will never be safe from traitors.”

      “Have no fear, my lord,” answered Julian, who, through all this painful scene seemed to be lost in the contemplation of the expression of the king, as a student pores over the page of a precious manuscript, the sense of which may escape him by its obscurity. What manner of man is this they have chosen, he was asking himself? Was Roderich as ferocious as he seemed? Or was his conduct but the effort of a vacillating mind to play the tyrant to excess, conscious of an inherent weakness? And as he watched him, a feeling of deadly hatred came over him for the commission of the very act of cruelty he had just sanctioned. But his answer to Roderich’s question was as unmoved as though no hostile sentiments were warring within him.

      “The youths are already fled to Africa, my lord, where the Spanish Governor of Tangiers harbours them out of gratitude to their father. Let them rest, they will not trouble you.”

      “You say well, count,” answers Roderich in a light tone; “vengeance for my father is a duty. For awhile we will grant them life, but later they must pay the forfeit of Witica’s crimes. But now to other matters. How fares the Lady Frandina, your virtuous consort, and the young Florinda, whom report extols as beautiful beyond measure?”

      The manners of the king were frank and soldierly, and history records that he possessed to a great degree that winning demeanour which charms in the high ones of the earth. To Julian, whose powerful aid had mainly helped him to the possession of the crown, he had hitherto shown a deference that flattered while it controlled. To Don Roderich’s question Julian answered with a smile: “It is well with my consort, who is at our castle of Algeciras; she bade me greet your grace. As to my daughter, it was of her I was about to speak. Florinda is with me in Cordoba. I have brought her as a fair present and hostage to your bride, Queen Egilona, to attend on her, along with the other noble damsels of the court, and to learn those lessons of virtue and excellence in which she is paramount. Will you, my lord, be my surety with the queen?”

      “That will I, gladly,” answers Don Roderich, his countenance lighting up with a gracious smile. “The confidence which you repose in me is of all else the crown and proof of your loyalty. As such I accept it. To me Florinda shall be as a daughter. I will watch over her as yourself, and see that she is trained in the same rigid principles of piety which honour her mother’s name.”

      Julian, his pale, olive-skinned face flushed with the gratification these words afford, bows low. “Florinda,” he replies, “is but a timid girl brought up by her mother’s side, as yet unacquainted with the state which fittingly surrounds Queen Egilona. You will pardon her inexperience; she is quick and sensitive of nature, and keen to appreciate kindness. It is by her wish that she will attend the queen; I have but followed her own desire. Her mother indeed consented, but unwillingly, to part with her.”

      “This is welcome news. It is as a shaft which tells both ways, in the sentiment of attachment in which she has been reared, and of the mind of the fair maid herself. No parents shall be tenderer or more careful than we to her. Would that I had a son to match with her in marriage.”

      “And now,” says Julian, making a low obeisance, “I will crave to be permitted to withdraw; my presence is demanded in my government. The Moors have received considerable reinforcements, and advance upon Ceuta from the neighbouring hills. By way of Damascus they come, despatched by Almanzor from Bagdad, called by those unbelievers ‘The sword of God.’ Our Gothic province on the margin of the Straits needs vigorous and constant watching.”

      “And it is for that reason,” is Roderich’s reply, “that I have placed the government in your hands, valiant Espatorios, first and most trusted of all my Gothic chiefs.”

      “I will do my duty, my lord,” is the rejoinder. “You need, I trust, no assurance of this; but, spite of precautions, I fear greatly that a battle or a siege is imminent. The Moslems are gathered in such numbers, savage tribes of Arabs and Berbers, under the Moorish general, Mousa ben Nozier of Damascus, and his son Abd-el-asis, that it will need all our resources to baffle. Mousa swears that he will drive the Cross from the confines of Africa, and raise the Crescent on every Christian fortress we hold in Tingitana.”

      “This is a confirmation of evil news,” replies Don Roderich, whose beaming countenance had darkened as Julian gave these details. “I am well advised of the concentration of the Arabs in the north of Africa. I but awaited your coming to confirm it. But had you not been present with the archbishop it would have been argued in the nation that as his relative you disapproved my sentence. Now we are hand in hand. Command all the resources of the mainland to drive the invaders back. Light sloops can be run from Algeciras to Ceuta with soldiers and arms.”

      “My lord, I have enough; should a siege be threatened every mouth has to be fed. But it is to me, the leader, that the Christians look. It is I who am needed on the coast of Barbary. I have personally, too, great credit with the Moors; they are noble enemies.”

      “I doubt it not,” is Roderich’s answer. “Wherever my trusty Espatorios draws the sword, victory follows.”

      “My lord, it was but to excuse my hasty parting, not to ask for more supplies, that I spoke. To know that my daughter is well disposed of in a safe asylum is a balm to me greater than any boon you could bestow. My wife, Frandina, fights by my side. I have no fear for her, and our son is consigned to the care of the Archbishop Opas. Now, thanks to you, my lord, I am free-handed to face the Moors. I have but to settle more matters connected with Florinda, and to depart. The queen is at Toledo; I must accompany her thither.”

      “By no means,” cries Don Roderich, “unless such is your wish. She shall go with me, accompanied by suitable attendants. I myself will present her to Egilona as our child.”

      Meanwhile, the assemblage had gradually diminished. Each chief was in haste to depart, for the country was full of enemies, more especially in the south and east, where the vessels of the Moors continually landed Berbers and Arabs to plunder and carry off the inhabitants as slaves. That serious invasion was near at hand all understood, except perhaps Roderich and the idle young Goths who formed his court. As yet, it is true, Don Julian held the enemy at bay in Africa, but, his presence or his support withdrawn, the Moors would pour like a torrent on the land, and, save for a few of the old leaders who had survived the disastrous reign of Witica, and the enervating atmosphere spreading everywhere from the court into all ranks, who was there to oppose them?

      CHAPTER III

      Don Roderich’s Perfidy

      THE court life shifts from the green Sierras of Cordoba to the old city of Toledo. Again we are in the corn-bearing plains, the outlines of the domes, pinnacles, and turrets of the Alcazar before us gay and jocund with the security of two hundred years of Gothic rule. What footsteps have echoed through those courts! What regal presences haunt them! Iberian, Roman, and Gothic; Recaredo, Wamba, Witica, and comely Roderich; to be followed by Moors, and Castilian kings; El Caballero, El Emplazado, El Valente, El Impotente; a red haired bastard of Trastamare succeeding his brother Don Pedro el Cruel, a swaggering Alfonso, Velasque’s, Philip, the staid dowager-queen Berenguela, fair Isabel the Catholic, the widow of Philip the Fourth, the mother of Charles el Soco, Johana el Loca, not to forget the Cid, first Christian alcaide and governor; a palace in old times marking the utmost limits of the known world, beyond which the East looked