Captain from Castile (72 page)

Don Francisco and Doiia Maria did not allow consternation to interrupt the duties of hospitality, but Sefiora de Vargas, pale of face and with haunted eyes, wrung her hands between times.

"What will they do to him, husband? What does the charge mean?"

"It's a heavy charge, wife, and one not lightly made. God knows what lies behind it. But I have no doubt he will be cleared. Pluck up heart, my dear. Only we must let no grass grow under our feet. See that my saddlebags are packed, for I'm riding with Pedro."

"My lord, you cannot—crippled as your knee is. It's a hundred leagues to Valladolid."

"And if it were a thousand, I'd ride. If I was sound enough to escape into Italy, do you think I'll coddle myself now when our name's attainted and our son's in need? Come, wife, dispatch. See to my bags. Excuse me to our guests for a moment. I have notes to write. Our good friend, Carvajal, will want to come with us. I must get off messages to the Duke, to other friends. Pedro's trial will not take long. He must be helped at once if help is to be of use."

So the old cavalier drove a hurried quill across paper and sent out appeals in all directions.

But in the case of the Marquis de Carvajal, who replied at once, he had a sharp disappointment. Although the Marquis had been perfectly well the preceding evening, he now excused himself on the score of gout. He would not be able to put foot to stirrup or even to ride in his coach for the next week or ten days. He lamented the stroke of ill-fortune which had befallen Pedro, but had no doubt that all would turn out well in the end. Meanwhile, he could do little, but he was entirely at the service of his noble friends. If it were not that he needed Luisa at his bedside, she would have come to bid farewell to Captain

de Vargas, whom she would not fail to remember night and morning in her prayers.

"Ah," regretted Don Francisco, "I'm sorry. I counted on him."

He showed the letter to Pedro, who detached himself a moment from entertaining his captors. Having glanced through the message, Pedro smiled.

"I wonder whether he has gout in the foot, my lord, or gout somewhere else."

"Nay, son, you should not misjudge him."

Once again Pedro reflected that it would do no good to express his well-founded opinion of Carvajal. He merely answered, "No, sir, it would be impossible to misjudge him."

Since speed was an article of Captain de Paz's orders, he reluctantly declined the de Vargas hospitality for the night and insisted on leaving about midafternoon. The departure was witnessed by a concourse of people in the plaza, for news of grave doings had spread like wildfire through the town. But when Pedro appeared, equipped as usual with sword and dagger and in pleasant conversation with the troopers, rumor took a new turn. It was reported that His Majesty had sent a guard of honor to escort Captain de Vargas to Valladolid. And indeed the squadron of twenty lances, Pedro's Indians, whom de Paz accepted as Don Francisco's attendants, the Alcalde on a comfortable palfrey, several other mounted servants, the imperial banderoles and the pennons of de Vargas and de Paz, made a fine, triumphal spectacle.

Pedro embraced Doiia Maria again in the doorway. "Don't worry, Madrecita. I'll be back in a blaze of glory. You'll see! . . . Nay, if you cry, Madrecita darling!"

The crowd burst into huzzas and vivas as the small company rode off, and a number trooped after it down the narrow streets to the city gates.

De Paz, his head humming from the good wine at dinner, waved his gauntlet at a pretty girl in a window and laughed. "By the saints, I wonder whether this is a pageant or an arrest. I'll wager that in all Spain the king's justice has never been more pleasantly executed."

"More gallantly, sir," Don Francisco amended.

"More admiringly, my lord," effervesced de Paz.

And so it was at the first night's stop in Linares, and so through the ten days' travel north over sierra and mesa, through La Mancha, through Madrid, through New and Old Castile. The road was enlivened by many a gay story, by Don Francisco's memories of Italy and

Pedro's accounts of Mexico, by militar)' discussions, and once even by a jousting between Pedro and de Paz, which ended in mutual satisfaction, since both splintered their lances to the butt and neither could unhorse the other.

Every gentleman in the company agreed that it was a memorable, enjoyable journey. When at last the towers of Valladolid appeared across the wind-swept plain, they called forth audible regret.

"Pedrito," said de Paz (for they were now on familiar terms), "if you would speak alone with Don Francisco for a moment, now is the time. We'll have to close up ranks from here on."

Drawing apart with his father, Pedro gave him Cortes's letter to the Emperor and the equally precious receipt for the royal gold which he had obtained from the Father Superior at La Rabida.

"ril have these fall into no hands but His Majesty's," he concluded. "A good deal could happen in the Valladolid prison. De Silva works best in the dark."

Don Francisco stuck out his lower lip. "Son Pedro, it seems to me I hear the hounds too hot on that wolf's traces for him to have much time for mischief. But be that as it may, I'll make shift to visit you in prison and assure my own eyes that nothing has happened. You have gold and I have credit enough for that."

Gradually the troop drew near the flat, unlovely city, whose walls rose higher as they approached. Don Francisco tactfully fell to the rear, and Pedro reined back to the center of the squadron so as not to embarrass Captain de Paz. In this fashion they passed through the gates and stopped at last before the squat doors of the city keep. These swung open after a parley; then de Paz, entering with Pedro, delivered his charge to Seilor de Heredia, governor of the prison.

Dry, sour, and ashen-colored, the latter looked as if the hopelessness of the jail had transferred itself to him.

"Sir, what is this man doing with sword and dagger?"

"Sir," retorted de Paz, "what does any man do with them?"

Turning upon Pedro, Heredia plucked out the rapier and poniard and tossed them onto a table.

"You'll hear more of this. Captain de Paz."

"Sir, I want to hear nothing from you but what you haven't the stomach to send me. . . . Good-by, Pedrito, I sorrow to leave you in such hands."

And thrusting his broken nose toward Heredia, Don Claros paused a moment before swaggering out.

The governor turned a yellow-shot eye on de Vargas.

"Here," he said to a turnkey, "take this fellow to the tower, though I have yet to understand why a traitor should be better lodged than a thief."

LXX/X

Though not luxurious, the tower room had some pretensions to comfort. It afforded light, air, and sufficient space. The bed, however moldy and verminous, boasted a canopy and side curtains. The turnkey, who had a keen scent for gold, fetched up Pedro's saddlebags and showed him every civility. In short, as compared with the warren of cells below it, the tower room could be considered an apartment de luxe.

But, in spite of the poet, stone walls do make a prison and iron bars a cage. The memories of other occupants haunted the place: scrawled initials, paths worn along the floor. The smell was prison smell; the dreary quality of the light, the silence, were characteristic of a prison. After the gay companionship of the road, Pedro felt the oppression of it and dreaded the coming of night.

"Yes," said the turnkey, happily pocketing a gold piece, "there's not many a keep in Spain has quarters like this for the gentry. As good as any tavern room in Valladolid. More private, too. And that isn't all. Show me the tavern anywhere that's had so many noble lodgers. Man and boy, I've attended here thirty years, and Your Grace would be surprised how many from the first famiUes I've served. Fetched them their last meal. Took care they had enough brandy to steady them on the scaff"old. Does Your Grace know—"

He ran through several names familiar to Pedro, who nodded.

"I've set their limbs for 'em when they've had too bad a time on the rack—tended 'em like a mother. Why, young Fadrique de Mendoza in the old King's time hanged himself on the crossbar of that bed. I cut him down in the morning. And he isn't the only one. Jaime Enriquez, kinsman of the present Admiral, was another. He hung from the window bars. And Don lago de Velasco. Gentlemen sometimes get discouraged." The turnkey slapped his thigh. "Ho, ho! We laugh about it in the guardroom. Call this 'Suicide Tower'—a manner of joke, as you might say."

"Find the service profitable?" asked Pedro to change the subject.

"Only fair, Your Grace."

"Well, do what you can for me, Senor Carcelero, and you'll not lose by it."

"I kiss Your Grace's feet. Your Magnificence has only to ask."

"Then here's the first thing. If my father or other gentlemen should come to see me, and the visit can be arranged, you'd have five pesos a call."

The carcelero's lips moistened. "I'll do my possible, Your Grace."

At exorbitant cost, Pedro ate an inferior midday meal brought in from a near-by tavern. Then the afternoon hours dragged by.

He was tormented by the puzzle of his arrest. Why? What lay behind the charge of high treason? If the messenger sent by him and his kinsman, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, had not reached the Emperor, he would no doubt be charged with the theft of the gold; but it was hard to believe that the messenger had not arrived. He regretted bitterly that he had taken the advice of the Duke in not acting as his own messenger. And yet the reasons at the time seemed excellent. Charles had then barely landed, had not reached Valladolid, was absorbed by the affairs of the Comunidades. Medina Sidonia believed that Pedro's arrival at court would be attended by greater eclat if it were slightly delayed until it was prepared for by the first message and until an imposing array of backers had been marshaled. This was evidently a mistake. Both he and Pedro had underrated the vigilance and power of the Bishop of Burgos.

But it was not his personal plight that most concerned de Vargas: it was the menace to his mission. To have been selected by Cortes among all the captains, and now at the very outset to have blundered! Another case of pride before a fall. He had been too complacent over his management in landing the gold and had assumed that the worst was over when the real crisis had not begun.

The light was fading when footsteps and voices on the tower stairs roused him. Keys rattled, bolts were drawn back, and the tall figure of his father appeared in the doorway.

But when they had embraced and the turnkey, though doubly tipped, had gone out muttering that he might pay for this with his head, Pedro noticed the ominous drooping of Don Francisco's lower lip and the harassment in his eyes.

"What news?" he prompted.

"Well, Pedrito, I've been from pillar to post. It's the devil how fast friendship cools when it costs something. I could have sworn that the Constable of Castile was my friend and also Don Juan Hurtado. Perhaps I wrong them. At any rate, they were no use. I got more from

those two gentlemen Cortes sent back three years ago, Puertocarrero and Montejo, than from anyone else. I learned why His Majesty is so hot against you."

"You did? Well, by God, that's something, Senor Father! Why then?"

Don Francisco lowered his voice. "First, no messenger arrived. (The Bishop or de Silva may have had a hand in that, for your doings in Seville were known to the agents of the Indian Council.) Hence you are guilty of stealing His Majesty's treasure."

Pedro gave a laugh of relief. "I guessed it! So that's all! Well, sir, I have only to show the receipt of the Father Superior of La Rabida and the General's letter. That will stop the lion's mouth."

Don Francisco shook his head. "I would it might, hijo mio. But there are other charges."

"Other charges? How?"

"You are accused, together with General Cortes himself and all his captains, of rebelling against the King's authority in the person of Diego de Velasquez, Adelantado of Cuba." Don Francisco made a hopeless gesture. "Nay, son, the longer I live, the madder, it seems to me, grows the world."

"Rebelling against the King," Pedro burst out, "when everything we did was in his service! Rebelling against the King because we wouldn't let that fat Cuban lubber pluck us of our gains!"

The old cavalier nodded ironically. "As I say. . . . But not so loud, boy. I don't know a knave when I see one if that same jailer of yours isn't a Judas. Yes, as I say. I pass over similar charges. You are accused especially of disgracing the Spanish name by the massacre of helpless Indians in that city you speak of which I can't pronounce. You are accused of plotting the death of the priest Ignacio de Lora. You are accused of reviling the King's Majesty and conspiring with others to make Cortes king of New Spain. You are accused of inhuman cruelty to the honest seamen of your ship, who are now bought witnesses of de Silva and who swear that they sought to prevent you from making off with the royal treasure. In short, my son," Don Francisco concluded with frozen sarcasm, "you are one of the choicest monsters our nation has produced."

Pedro sat with flushed cheeks, clenched fists, and an open mouth.

"But Montejo and Puertocarrero—why are they not in prison or accused? They were Cortes's men."

"Their defense is that they left New Spain before most of these atrocities occurred. But they live in fear and are getting out of Valladolid.

Remember," Don Francisco added, "that the Emperor's ears have been filled with every half-truth and whole lie that the Bishop and de Silva could muster. They've spread the same thing about court. I hear too that de Silva has gained such favor with His Majesty as to set every tongue wagging. He lives in great style; has a court of his own. . . . No, my son, your crime was to have missed killing him when you had the chance. You're apt to pay for it on the block unless we can silence him." The old knight shook with anger. "Unless we can silence him," he repeated.

Leaning forward, Pedro laid his hand on his father's arm. "Not that way," he said in a low voice, "not yet. It would give support to every lie he has told."