CHAPTER XXOF OUR ROAD TO PARIS
Thesun had scarce begun to creep from behind his white curtain when, on the following day, madam’s three ministers set forth on their embassy. The road to Paris was more than an hundred leagues. The first part of it lay through the very heart of Castile; much of it was difficult and beset with peril for the traveller, and particularly for those upon such a service as ours. Yet upon this beautiful morning of midsummer, as we rode forth from the castle down the steep winding track, these jealous servants of a noble mistress gave not a thought to the dangers that might befall.
As we took the road our chief concern was to come to King Louis at Paris with all expedition, and to return again with all the speed possible in the company of an armed host, that the designs of the Castilian might be thwarted. With madam’s high courage and a tolerable address on the part of her garrison, her fastness might be held against an enemy until our return. Yet we felt that every hour was of price, and that there was not one to lose.
Judge, then, of our concern when upon coming into Toledo, Sir Richard Pendragon stayed his horse at that fonda we had come to know so well. He declared that, “Castilian or no Castilian, he must break his fast,”and acquire a store of victual to bear with him during the day. “For,” as he declared, “Spain was a most cursed country, and unless you had been bred to eat sand and brown dust, you were like to go short at your meals in the course of a long excursion.”
The Englishman declined to be moved by our prayers to hurry his campaign at the inn table. “The belly is a proud jade,” he said, “and apt to take affront at a small thing. It was through an intemperate haste at his meals that one of the foremost among my ancestors was fain to renounce the eating of roast pig, that most delectable of cates, at the age of one-and-thirty.”
Sir Richard Pendragon having at last, as he expressed it, “coaxed the rude jade into a humour of some civility,” made to mount his tall horse, which stood solemnly munching corn before the inn door. But as he did so there arose an altercation with the innkeeper, for, following his usual practice, the Englishman showed no disposition to pay his score. However, as we moved off, the Count of Nullepart threw a piece of money to the astonished and complaining host.
Nevertheless we had scarcely gone the distance of a single street when Sir Richard Pendragon again dismounted. In one of the bazaars which abound in this city he purchased a handsome cloak edged with fur, which put the tattered garment he was wearing to the blush. His bonnet also received a new white feather for its adornment. “It was not seemly,” he said, “that one of his lineage should come before the good France like a guy in a field of young beans, lest France, who was a good fellow, should consider him to be one of the Spanish nobility.”
Upon these loose words I felt my hand stray to the hilt of my sword. And although our situation was one of great instancy, and my incapacity to cope with the Englishman’s skill in this weapon was notorious, we must have crossed blades in the public street had not the peace been indebted to the notable behaviour of the worshipful Count of Nullepart. His apologies for this rude foreigner were so delicate that I swallowed my choler in what sort I might; and to such a point did the Count of Nullepart carry his courtesy that he even brought the Englishman to say that his reference to the Spanish nobility “was only his humour, which, as was the case with his nation, was apt to lead him into all kinds of fantasy; although foreign peoples, who lived in dark places, and rubbed but seldom against enlightened minds, could never addict themselves to this English pleasantry. Y’are solemn rogues, you continentals,” he concluded. “I don’t wonder you require so much holy water and so many masses for your souls.”
As we came through the market-place there were hens and turkeys exposed for sale in the open bazaars. To the astonishment of those who sold these wares, Sir Richard Pendragon lifted a number of them on to his saddle on the point of his sword, saying “that, in his opinion, although doubtless it was his English whimsicality, their flavour, if roasted gently over a sea-coal fire, compared not unfavourably with the finest Spanish sand and the fattest Spanish flies.”
The Count of Nullepart and myself being of this mind also, our companion left to us the task of appeasing those who had thus been ravished of their wares.Yet even to us he addressed a remonstrance. “Is it good silver money you are giving these poor souls?” he said. “I dare say it is the continental custom, but it marks an essential difference between the nations of the earth. We quick-moving islanders are more peremptory. You continentals ask a ‘by your leave,’ and live by the power of the purse; we English all the world over claim our own where we find it.”
In this, at least, I think Sir Richard Pendragon must have had a just appreciation of his countrymen. For all the long leagues we rode with him upon our embassy it was never once our hap to find him with his hand within his poke.
When we had come out of Toledo, and had got fairly upon the narrow winding tracks which traversed the great wilderness that was spread before us, Sir Richard Pendragon began to show a great concern for robbers. His eyes were continually casting about the horizon. No bush, no rock, no tree escaped his dark suspicion; his hand was upon the hilt of his sword a hundred times a day. At every turn of the road he expected to see a robber; and, indeed, as the day wore on without any sort of an encounter, it seemed to be a grief to him that robbers were so few. But if we came upon any chance wayfarers, to judge by the haste which they made to get clear of our path, I should say that this opinion was not general.
“By my soul,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, as three honest, grey-bearded merchants upon comely asses scurried away up a steep mountain path, “these Spaniardoes are the poorest spirited people upon the face of the earth. If I had not had a good mother, andshe had not had a good son, I might have unloaded those fish-blooded burgesses so easily as I drink sherris.”
Whereupon Sir Richard Pendragon sighed profoundly.
We made many leagues that first day of our journey, although we rested at noon in a small hamlet from the heat of the sun. It may have been that we had entered upon our adventure not too propitiously, and that the humours of the Englishman made but an odd sort of companionship—notwithstanding a liberal rebate for the qualities of kings’ blood—for one who boasted the sangre azul of a true hidalgo; yet the wisdom and politeness of the humane and ever-delightful Count of Nullepart kept us all three to the road, and brought us in a state of toleration one of another to a wayside venta at the end of the long day.
In this rustic place we enjoyed a good supper and a peaceful night’s repose. We had journeyed long that day, and seldom have I known an honest sleep taste more delicious. But by now we were well in the King of Castile’s country, and the next morning, as we took our way, the vigilance of the Englishman grew double. The Count of Nullepart and myself were tolerably easy that none would guess our mission. Not so Sir Richard Pendragon. He declared his experience of Castile to be such that walls had ears, blind men saw, and dead men told tales.
Indeed, it was clear from the lively concern that Sir Richard displayed that his former passages with the King of Castile had not been pleasant ones. Precisely what they were we could not learn from him whohad suffered them, yet that they had been grievous and considerable we had the authority of his demeanour.
On the second day, as we came into the road to Madrid, we saw high up in the distant hills one of the noblest castles of this infamous king. At the sight of it, with the westering sun touching the embowery of its trees with gold, Sir Richard Pendragon reined in his horse, took off his hat, and spat on the earth; and then, in what must have been the roundest London English, for it sounded very rude and barbarous, he cursed the King of Castile, he cursed his mother and his female relations, even unto his wet nurse and his most distant kinsfolk.
“The first trick is yours, Spanish John,” he said. “I allow it; I admit it; my early nurture has been too gentle to cope with low deceit. But harkee, John Spaniard, the next trick will go to t’other player, or my gracious sire was not the King of England.”
“Do I gather, most worthy Sir Richard Pendragon,” said the Count of Nullepart in a melodious voice, “that your former passages with King John of Castile have been of a grievous character?”
“Yes, good mounseer,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, giving his tall horse such a kick in the ribs as astonished that extraordinary quadruped; “you may gather it. If my good mind walks not abroad in bad dreams, I have been mishandled, mounseer, I have been mishandled. And let me tell thee, good mounseer, English Dick hath never been mishandled previously, except once at the instance of virtue, which was upon the knee of the sainted lady who is now in heaven.”
As we pursued our way towards the capital of theKing’s dominion, a profound silence overtook the Englishman. His dark and lowering looks were the palpable fruit of a former bitterness; and as we came into Madrid at nightfall, the numerous soldiers we passed in the streets wearing the Castilian’s livery seemed to inflame his humour. Indeed, as we entered the first venta we came to within the gates of the city, and as we were disposing of our horses in comfort for the night, he was moved to say that “if his humour did not lift after supper, he was minded to go out in the streets and cut a few throats, as the sight of so many jackbooted rascals twirling their moustachios was as sore to him as the presence of holy water was to the Author of Deceit.”
The stabling of this venta was divided from the great kitchen of the inn by a short arched passage-way. Upon crossing this we found to our good pleasure that the hearth was entirely at our disposal, as there was no other company in the inn. Over the fire was suspended a cauldron, and this we regarded with favour. After we had supped worthily, we prepared ourselves for the repose we so much desired; but it was written that there should be no sleep for us that night.
Scarce had we disposed ourselves about the chimney-place for the slumber for which we yearned, when the first of the passages that were to ensue came upon us. A number of soldiers wearing the livery of the King came into the inn kitchen, bawling for wine and victual. These men, in their high boots and long cloaks and great hats, and with their long moustachios, were extremely formidable to look upon; and the Count of Nullepart and myself, conscious as we were of thestrange mood of our companion, no sooner beheld these fellows than we regretted their intrusion exceedingly.
Sir Richard Pendragon, as became an old campaigner, had his eyes already sealed in slumber, and was beginning to snore loudly as he reclined with his enormous legs stretched out to the hearth, when these soldiers entered so unseasonably. As they came swaggering up to the cooking-pot, abusing the landlord loudly that no food was ready, one of them had the misfortune to trip over the Englishman’s far-extended limbs. As he measured his length he swore a horrid oath in rude Spanish.
The Englishman gave a grunt and opened his eyes sleepily, and seeing the soldier sprawling on all fours, he said to the innkeeper, who was about to add a fowl to the pot, “Landlord, ye should not admit bears and dromedaries and beasts with four feet among the nobility. The nobility do not like it.”
The Englishman’s insolent tone was heard by the comrades of the fallen one, who numbered eight or nine. They looked at him as though they could not believe what their ears had told them, and then their hands flew to the hilts of their swords. By this, however, the fallen one had risen to his feet. He pulled his moustachios and rolled his eyes with fury.
“By the devil’s life!” he cried, “you foreign dog, I will cut out your liver!”
And as he spoke he drew his sword with a flourish.