“Saint–George—” he breathed very faintly, then “England.”
His hands fell apart and his mouth dropped into a circle; a faint quiver ran through his body, and his head sank on to his shoulder.
The Host was borne round the bed, and no one moved.
Then Edward rose, regardless of the Presence of God.
“Too late,” he said in a terrible voice. “My son, my son!”
And before the priest carrying the Eucharist the victor of Cressy sank like a felled sapling, and Jehanne caught his head on her knee, herheart motionless in her bosom.
So died the youngest of the three royal Edwards of England, a few days before the sailing from Bordeaux, and soon after the other two were both at peace in Westminster and Richard was on the throne with Johan of Gaunt for his guardian and many troubles ahead.
Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess d’Este
Three women stood before a marble-margined pool in the grounds of the Ducal palace at Ferrara; behind them three cypresses waved against a purple sky from which the sun was beginning to fade; at the base of these trees grew laurel, ilex, and rose bushes. Round the pool was a sweep of smooth green across which the light wind lifted and chased the red, white and pink rose leaves.
Beyond the pool the gardens descended, terrace on terrace of opulent trees and flowers; behind the pool the square strength of the palace rose, with winding steps leading to balustraded balconies. Further still, beyond palace and garden, hung vineyard and cornfield in the last warm maze of heat.
All was spacious, noble, silent; ambrosial scents rose from the heated earth–the scent of pine, lily, rose and grape.
The centre woman of the three who stood by the pool was the Spanish Duchess, Lucrezia, daughter of the Borgia Pope. The other two held her up under the arms, for her limbs were weak beneath her.
The pool was spread with the thick-veined leaves of water-lilies and upright plants with succulent stalks broke the surface of the water. In between the sky was reflected placidly, and the Duchess looked down at the counterfeit of her face as clearly given as if in a hand-mirror.
It was no longer a young face; beauty was painted on it skilfully; false red, false white, bleached hair cunningly dyed, faded eyes darkened on brow and lash, lips glistening with red ointment, the lost loveliness of throat and shoulders concealed under a lace of gold and pearls, made her look like a portrait of a fair woman, painted crudely.
And, also like one composed for her picture, her face was expressionless save for a certain air of gentleness, which seemed as false as everything else about her–false and exquisite, inscrutable and alluring–alluring still with a certain sickly and tainted charm, slightly revolting as were the perfumes of her unguents when compared to the pure scents of trees and flowers. Her women had painted faces, too, but they were plainly gowned, one in violet, one in crimson, while the Duchess blazed in every device of splendour.
Her dress, of citron-coloured velvet, trailed about her in huge folds, her bodice and her enormous sleeves sparkled with tight-sewn jewels; her hair was twisted into plaits and curls and ringlets; in her ears were pearls so large that they touched her shoulders.
She trembled in her splendour and her knees bent; the two women stood silent, holding her up–they were little more than slaves.
She continued to gaze at the reflection of herself; in the water she was fair enough.Presently she moistened her painted lips with a quick movement of her tongue.
“Will you go in, Madonna?” asked one of the women.
The Duchess shook her head; the pearls tinkled among the dyed curls.
“Leave me here,” she said.
She drew herself from their support and sank heavily and wearily on the marble rim of the pool.
“Bring me my cloak.”
They fetched it from a seat among the laurels; it was white velvet, unwieldy with silver and crimson embroidery.
Lucrezia drew it round her shoulders with a little shudder.
“Leave me here,” she repeated.
They moved obediently across the soft grass and disappeared up the laurel-shaded steps that led to the terraces before the high-built palace.
The Duchess lifted her stiff fingers, that were rendered almost useless by the load of gems on them, to her breast.
Trails of pink vapour, mere wraiths of clouds began to float about the west; the long Italian twilight had fallen.
A young man parted the bushes and stepped on to the grass; he carried a lute slung by a red ribbon across his violet jacket; he moved delicately, as if reverent of the great beauty of the hour.
Lucrezia turned her head and watched himwith weary eyes.
He came lightly nearer, not seeing her. A flock of homing doves passed over his head; he swung on his heel to look at them and the reluctantly departing sunshine was golden on his upturned face.
Lucrezia still watched him, intently, narrowly; he came nearer again, saw her, and paused in confusion, pulling off his black velvet cap.
“Come here,” she said in a chill, hoarse voice.
He obeyed with an exquisite swiftness and fell on one knee before her; his dropped hand touched the ground a pace beyond the furthest-flung edge of her gown.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Ormfredo Orsini, one of the Duke’s gentlemen, Madonna,” he answered.
He looked at her frankly surprised to see her alone in the garden at the turn of the day. He was used to see her surrounded by her poets, her courtiers, her women; she was the goddess of a cultured court and persistently worshipped.
“One of the Orsini,” she said. “Get up from your knees.”
He thought she was thinking of her degraded lineage, of the bad, bad blood in her veins. As he rose he considered these things for the first time. She had lived decorously at Ferrara for twenty-one years, nearly the whole of his lifetime; but he had heard tales, though he had never dwelt on them.
“You look as if you were afraid of me—”
“Afraid of you–I, Madonna?”
“Sit down,” she said.
He seated himself on the marble rim and stared at her; his fresh face wore a puzzled expression.
“What do you want of me, Madonna?” he asked.
“Ahè!” she cried. “How very young you are, Orsini!”
Her eyes flickered over him impatiently, greedily; the twilight was beginning to fall over her, a merciful veil; but he saw her for the first time as an old woman. Slightly he drew back, and his lute touched the marble rim as he moved, and the strings jangled.
“When I was your age,” she said, “I had been betrothed to one man and married to another, and soon I was wedded to a third. I have forgotten all of them.”
“You have been so long our lady here,” he answered. “You may well have forgotten the world, Madonna, beyond Ferrara.”
“You are a Roman?”
“Yes, Madonna.”
She put out her right hand and clasped his arm.
“Oh, for an hour of Rome!–in the old days!”
Her whole face, with its artificial beauty and undisguisable look of age, was close to his; he felt the sense of her as the sense of something evil.
She was no longer the honoured Duchess of Ferrara, but Lucrezia, the Borgia’s lure, Cesare’s sister, Alessandro’s daughter, the heroine of a thousand orgies, the inspiration of a hundred crimes.
The force with which this feeling came over him made him shiver; he shrank beneath her hand.
“Have you heard things of me?” she asked in a piercing voice.
“There is no one in Italy who has not heard of you, Madonna.”
“That is no answer, Orsini. And I do not want your barren flatteries.”
“You are the Duke’s wife,” he said, “and I am the servant of the Duke.”
“Does that mean that you must lie to me?”
She leant even nearer to him; her whitened chin, circled by the stiff goldwork of her collar, touched his shoulder.
“Tell me I am beautiful,” she said. “I must hear that once more–from young lips.”
“You are beautiful, Madonna.”
She moved back and her eyes flared.
“Did I not say I would not have your flatteries?”
“What, then, was your meaning?”
“Ten years ago you would not have asked; no man would have asked. I am old. Lucrezia old!–ah, Gods above!”
“You are beautiful,” he repeated. “But how should I dare to touch you with my mouth?”
“You would have dared, if you had thought me desirable,” she answered hoarsely. “You cannot guess how beautiful I was–before you were born, Orsini.”
He felt a sudden pity for her; the glamour of her fame clung round her and gilded her. Was not this a woman who had been the fairest in Italy seated beside him?
He raised her hand and kissed the palm, the only part that was not hidden with jewels.
“You are sorry for me,” she said.
Orsini started at her quick reading of his thoughts.
“I am the last of my family,” she added. “And sick. Did you know that I was sick, Orsini?”
“Nay, Madonna.”
“For weeks I have been sick. And wearying for Rome.”
“Rome,” he ventured, “is different now, Madonna.”
“Ahè!” she wailed. “And I am different also.”
Her hand lay on his knee; he looked at it and wondered if the things he had heard of her were true. She had been the beloved child of her father, the old Pope, rotten with bitter wickedness; she had been the friend of her brother, the dreadful Cesare–her other brother, Francesco, and her second husband–was it not supposed that she knew how both had died?
But for twenty-one years she had lived in Ferrara, patroness of poet and painter, companion of such as the courteous gentle Venetian, Pietro Bembo.
And Alfonso d’Este, her husband, had found no fault with her; as far as the world could see, there had been no fault to find.
Ormfredo Orsini stared at the hand sparkling on his knee and wondered.
“Suppose that I was to make you my father confessor?” she said. The white mantle had fallen apart and the bosom of her gown glittered, even in the twilight.
“What sins have you to confess, Madonna?” he questioned.
She peered at him sideways.
“A Pope’s daughter should not be afraid of the Judgment of God,” she answered. “And I am not. I shall relate my sins at the bar of Heaven and say I have repented–Ahè–if I was young again!”
“Your Highness has enjoyed the world,” said Orsini.
“Yea, the sun,” she replied, “but not the twilight.”
“The twilight?”
“It has been twilight now for many years,” she said, “ever since I came to Ferrara.”
The moon was rising behind the cypress trees, a slip of glowing light. Lucrezia took her chin in her hand and stared before her; a soft breeze stirred the tall reeds in the pool behind her and gently ruffled the surface of the water.
The breath of the night-smelling flowers pierced the slumbrous air; the palace showed a faint shape, a marvellous tint; remote it looked and uncertain in outline.
Lucrezia was motionless; her garments were dim, yet glittering, her face a blur; she seemed the ruin of beauty and graciousness, a fair thing dropped suddenly into decay.
Orsini rose and stepped away from her; the perfume of her unguents offended him. He found something horrible in the memory of former allurement that clung to her; ghosts seemed to crowd round her and pluck at her, like fierce birds at carrion.
He caught the glitter of her eyes through the dusk; she was surely evil, bad to the inmost core of her heart; her stale beauty reeked of dead abomination.… Why had he never noticed it before?
The ready wit of his rank and blood failed him; he turned away towards the cypress trees.
The Duchess made no attempt to detain him; she did not move from her crouching, watchful attitude.
When he reached the belt of laurels he looked back and saw her dark shape still against the waters of the pool that were beginning to be touched with the argent glimmer of the rising moon. He hurried on, continually catching the strings of his lute against the boughs of the flowering shrubs; he tried to laugh at himself for being afraid of an old, sick woman; he tried to ridicule himself for believing that the admired Duchess, for so long a decorous great lady, could in truth be a creature of evil.
But the conviction flashed into his heart wastoo deep to be uprooted.
She had not spoken to him like a Duchess of Ferrara, but rather as the wanton Spaniard whose excesses had bewildered and sickened Rome.
A notable misgiving was upon him; he had heard great men praise her, Ludovico Ariosto, Cardinal Ippolito’s secretary and the noble Venetian Bembo; he had himself admired her remote and refined splendour. Yet, because of these few moments of close talk with her, because of a near gaze into her face, he felt that she was something horrible, the poisoned offshoot of a bad race.
He thought that there was death on her glistening painted lips, and that if he had kissed them he would have died, as so many of her lovers were reputed to have died.
He parted the cool leaves and blossoms and came on to the borders of a lake that lay placid under the darkling sky.
It was very lonely; bats twinkled past with a black flap of wings; the moon had burnt the heavens clear of stars; her pure light began to fill the dusk. Orsini moved softly, with no comfort in his heart.
The stillness was intense; he could hear his own footfall, the soft leather on the soft grass. He looked up and down the silence of the lake.
Then suddenly he glanced over his shoulder. Lucrezia Borgia was standing close behind him; when he turned her face looked straight into his.
He moaned with terror and stood rigid; awful it seemed to him that she should track himso stealthily and be so near to him in this silence and he never know of her presence.
“Eh, Madonna!” he said.
“Eh, Orsini,” she answered in a thin voice, and at the sound of it he stepped away, till his foot was almost in the lake.
His unwarrantable horror of her increased, as he found that the glowing twilight had confused him; for, whereas at first he had thought she was the same as when he had left her seated by the pool, royal in dress and bearing, he saw now that she was leaning on a stick, that her figure had fallen together, that her face was yellow as a church candle, and that her head was bound with plasters, from the under edge of which her eyes twinkled, small and lurid.
She wore a loose gown of scarlet brocade that hung open on her arms that showed lean and dry; the round bones at her wrist gleamed white under the tight skin, and she wore no rings.
“Madonna, you are ill,” muttered Ormfredo Orsini. He wondered how long he had been wandering in the garden.
“Very ill,” she said. “But talk to me of Rome. You are the only Roman at the Court, Orsini.”
“Madonna, I know nothing of Rome,” he answered, “save our palace there and sundry streets—”
She raised one hand from the stick and clutched his arm.
“Will you hear me confess?” she asked. “All my beautiful sins that I cannot tell the priest? All we did in those days of youth before this dimness at Ferrara?”
“Confess to God,” he answered, trembling violently.
Lucrezia drew nearer.
“All the secrets Cesare taught me,” she whispered. “Shall I make you heir to them?”
“Christ save me,” he said, “from the Duke of Valentinois’ secrets!”
“Who taught you to fear my family?” she questioned with a cunning accent. “Will you hear how the Pope feasted with his Hebes and Ganymedes? Will you hear how we lived in the Vatican?”
Orsini tried to shake her arm off; anger rose to equal his fear.
“Weed without root or flower, fruitless uselessness!” he said hoarsely. “Let me free of your spells!”
She loosed his arm and seemed to recede from him without movement; the plasters round her head showed ghastly white, and he saw all the wrinkles round her drooped lips and the bleached ugliness of her bare throat.
“Will you not hear of Rome?” she insisted in a wailing whisper. He fled from her, crashing through the bushes.
Swiftly and desperately he ran across the lawns and groves, up the winding steps to the terraces before the palace, beating the twilight with his outstretched hands as if it was an obstacle in his way.
Stumbling and breathless, he gained the painted corridors that were lit with a hasty blaze of wax light. Women were running to and fro, and he saw a priest carrying the Holy Eucharist cross a distant door.
One of these women he stopped.
“The Duchess—” he began, panting.
She laid her finger on her lip.
“They carried her in from the garden an hour ago; they bled and plastered her, but she died–before she could swallow the wafer–(hush! she was not thinking of holy things, Orsini!)–tenminutes ago—”
Don Juan of Austria
“Sa Majesté ne résout rien; du moins, on me tient ignorant de ses intentions. Je pousse des cris, mais en vain. Il est clair qu’on nous laisse ici pour y languir jusqu’à notre dernier soupir.”Don Juan to Mendoza,September 16th, 1578, from “The Camp” outside Namur.“Nos vies sont en jeu et tout que nous demandons, c’est de les perdre avec honneur.”Don Juan to Philip II.,September 20th, 1578, from “The Camp” outside Namur.
“Sa Majesté ne résout rien; du moins, on me tient ignorant de ses intentions. Je pousse des cris, mais en vain. Il est clair qu’on nous laisse ici pour y languir jusqu’à notre dernier soupir.”
Don Juan to Mendoza,September 16th, 1578, from “The Camp” outside Namur.
“Nos vies sont en jeu et tout que nous demandons, c’est de les perdre avec honneur.”
Don Juan to Philip II.,September 20th, 1578, from “The Camp” outside Namur.
The Imperial Army, composed of Germans, Walloons and Spanish regiments, was encamped outside Namur, at the juncture of the Sambre and Meuse, where Charles V. had been entrenched when pressed by the forces of Henri II.
The Commander of the Army was the son of Charles V., Don Juan of Austria, the hero of Christendom armed against the infidel, the victor of Lepanto, the conqueror of Tunis, blessed by the Pope, a brilliant name in Europe, half-brother of the great King Philip and son of a servant girl, near the throne, of the blood royal, but barred for ever from it, a prince yet linked with peasants; he had blazed very brightly over Europe, the King had flattered him, had caressed him and used him.
By the King’s favour he had swept over Italy, Sicily, Africa, a conqueror, almost within touchof a throne; by the King’s favour he had been sent to crush the rebel heretics who were rising against the might of Spain in the Low Countries.
And now the King was silent; it seemed as if he meant to abandon Don Juan. Antonio Perez was always at the King’s ear, and he hated Don Juan; Escovedo, the Prince’s Secretary and favourite, was assassinated in the streets of Madrid by order of Perez.
When Don Juan heard this news he thought that there was no better end preparing for him and that Perez meant his ruin; the King did not answer his letters, and his glory broke like a bubble.
He had been too great, too beloved, too popular; Philip tolerated no rivals.
And now he began to be unfortunate; the Prince William of Orange, one time page to Don Juan’s father and now the Captain of Heretics, marched against him with a powerful army; the Duc D’Anjou joined the cause of the rebels, and the Queen of England, Elizabeth Tudor, at last decided to send succours to the rebellious provinces.
The forces met; the day of Rynemants was almost a defeat for Don Juan.
A haunted, hunted feeling began to possess him; in the brilliant south everything had been right with him; here, in the cursed Low Countries, every step he took seemed a step nearer his grave.
The death of Escovedo weighed on him dayand night.
And the King would not write.
Don Juan began to fear and hate his second-in-command, the Prince of Parma, Alessandro Farnese, a man of his own age, but his nephew, for Farnese’s mother was Margaret, daughter of Charles V.
This man was in the confidence of the King; Don Juan knew and feared that fact. He began to dread the sight of the dark Italian face; the figure of Farnese seemed to him like that of a spy–or executioner.
When he had fought Boussu at Rynemants he had been ill; when he had held the useless conference with the English envoys he had scarcely been able to hold himself on his horse, and when he returned to the camp on the heights of Bouges outside Namur he fell to his knees as he dismounted and could not rise for the weight of his armour.
They carried him to the quarter of the regiment of Figueroa and lodged him in a pigeon-house or place for fowls belonging to a Flemish farm the Spanish guns had demolished.
No one knew what illness ailed him; some spoke of the plague, some of the Dutch fever, others said he had worn himself out with the fatigues of war and the delights of Italy.
The fever increased on him; he wrote to Mendoza, the Spanish agent at Genoa; he wrote to Andrea D’Aria, his companion in arms of Lepanto; he wrote to the King. But with little hope, for he felt himself abandoned.
Monseigneur François D’Anjou, brother of the King of France, was at Mons and had taken on himself the title of Defender of the Low Countries against the Spanish Tyranny; Don Juan had only eighteen thousand men, of which six thousand were Spanish, old, tried troops, and the rest merely Walloon and German mercenaries of doubtful loyalty.
They had scarcely any artillery and but little powder.
The plague appeared in the camp, numbers of the small army sickened and died.
There came news that the English were sailing for Flushing and that William of Orange was advancing on Namur.
Don Juan of Austria lay in the pigeon-house, prostrate with fever, sad and silent.
It was the end of September; day after day was sunny, with a honey-coloured peaceful light resting on the camp, on the two rivers, on the fortifications of Namur; the windmills stood motionless in the stagnant air; the few willows by the river turned from grey-green to dull amber and shook their long leaves on the soft, muddy bank; the horizon was veiled in mist, yellow, soft and mournful; at night the moon rose pale gold through languid dusky vapours; in the morning the sun rose, glimmering through melancholy mists, and above the camp hung, day and night, the fumes of the plague, of fever, the exhalations of decay and sickness, the close odours of death.
Juan of Austria loathed this place as passionately as he had loved Naples and Sicily; the plain with the two rivers embracing the frowning town of Namur seemed to him hateful as some roadway to Hell; he dreaded the warm moist nights, the long misty days, the veiled Northern skies, the flat, distant melancholy horizon, and he hated these things more because he sometimes felt that he would never see any other skies or fields but these, never see any moon or sun rise over any town but this high battlemented fortress of Namur.
He was trapped, abandoned, forgotten; the hero of Lepanto, the conqueror of Tunis, was left to die miserably in this vile swamp–forsaken!
He resolved, when the fever left his mind clear, that he would not die, that he would live to face Philip in the Escurial and demand an account for this–and for other things.
On September 28th he confessed, on the 28th he received the communion.
His confessor, Francisco Orantes, told him that he was dying, but he laughed that away.
In the evening of that day he fell into a delirium and for two days tossed unconscious, in great torments, talking continually of wars, of soldiers, of conquests and arms.
On the first of October the fever abated and he seemed much recovered; he fell into a little sleep about the dawn, and when it was fully light he woke and sent for the Prince of Parma.
When that general came, Juan of Austriaraised himself on his elbow and looked at him with a searching kind of eagerness, and Farnese stood arrested, in the poor doorway, glaring at the sick man.
The pigeon-house, in which Don Juan lay, was the size of a small tent, of clay with niches in the walls for the birds; part of the tiled roof and a portion of one wall had gone, and through this the early, misty Northern sunlight streamed, for the canvas that had been dragged over the aperture was drawn away to admit the air.
On the rough mud floor a carpet of arras had been flung; there were a couple of camp chairs of steel and leather; a pile of armour, helmet, greaves, cuirass, cruises, vambraces, damascened in black and gold and hung with scarlet straps, was in one corner; above swung a lantern and a crucifix.
Facing the entrance the Emperor’s son lay on a pile of rich cloaks and garments embroidered with a thousand colours in a thousand shapes of fantasy; two cloth of gold cushions served to support his head and gleamed incongruously against the dull clay wall.
He was himself swathed to the breast in a mantle of black and orange, and covering his lower limbs was a robe of crimson samite lined with fox’s fur.
The fine ruffled shirt he wore had been torn in his delirious struggles and showed his throat and the gaunt lines of his shoulders.
His face was colourless with the pure pallor of a blonde complexion, and his long, pale waving hair clung to his damp forehead and hung dishevelled either side of his hollow cheeks; his large grey eyes, whose usual expression was so joyous, careless and ardent, now shone with the brilliancy of fever and were sunk and shadowed beneath with the bluish tinge that stained his close-drawn lips.
His right hand, on which sparkled an emerald ring, clutched at the linen over his heart; the other was taut on the ground with the effort of supporting his body.
In the niche above him a solitary white pigeon sat contented and surveyed his invaded home.
Alessandro Farnese, tall and very slender, dark-haired, from head to foot in black save for a great chain of linked gold and jewels over his velvet doublet, let the improvised curtain fall into place over the doorway and stood leaning against the wall, never moving his sombre eyes from the Prince whose gleaming glance fiercely returned the scrutiny.
“Your Highness is a whole man to-day,” he said; his voice was smooth, low, carefully trained like his expression and his gestures; Philip’s favourites always had this quiet way.
“Whether I shall get well or no I cannot tell,” answered Don Juan hoarsely. “But this I know–that His Majesty hath forsaken me.”
The Prince of Parma took his right elbow in his left hand and put his right hand to his pointed chin.
“You speak too plainly, señor,” he said. His subtle mind disliked boldness of speech and action; he had always been annoyed by these qualities in Don Juan.
“I have done with pretences,” answered the Prince. “I think I must be dying, for I care very little what happens on earth–yet I have some curiosity; it is because of that I sent for you—” he paused gathering his strength. “Why hath the King forsaken me?” he asked intensely.
“Even if this were so,” said Alessandro Farnese, “how should I know it?”
“It is so and you know it,” replied Don Juan. “The King hath cast me down, and he is putting you in my place.”
The Prince of Parma lifted his dark, arched brows.
“The mind of your Highness is still bemused by your sickness,” he answered soothingly. “Any hour may bring a post from Madrid.”
Don Juan dropped from his elbow, and his head sank on the gold brocade cushions.
“I was lost when they killed Escovedo,” he muttered; “there went my last friend. It would have been more honourable to die on the battle-field—”
Farnese answered smoothly–
“Your Highness will win many battles yet.”
The Emperor’s son smiled up at him.
“What did Philip pay you to mislead me?” he asked.
The Italian’s shallow cheek flushedfaintly, and a little quiver, it might be of rage or fear, ran through his sensitive frame.
“The fever returns on you, señor,” he said coldly.
Again Don Juan dragged himself into a sitting posture.
“No,” he answered with a terrible air, “my mind is very clear. I see what I have been all my life. Philip’s plaything–no more. And I dreamt to be a King! He used me till I climbed too high and then cast me away. And you, señor, are to take my place. It was never meant that I should leave the Low Countries. It was never meant that I should return again a victor to Madrid–as servant and as brother I have served the King well, and in his own fashion he hath rewarded me.”
He put his hands before his face and a shudder went through his body, for in that moment he thought of all the glorious past that had ended so suddenly and so terribly.
“I suffer!” he moaned. “Jésu and Maria, I suffer!”
He fell prostrate, face downwards, on the tumbled couch, and the strengthening sunlight played with a mocking brilliance on the scattered strands of his fair hair.
The Prince of Parma lifted the curtain before the door and spoke to one of his servants who waited outside, then crossed and knelt beside his general.
“Prince,” he said in a low tone, “the fever has turned your mind—”
Juan raised his head.
“I am no prince,” he answered. “I never was–but what I am your mother is, Farnese–you and I alike are tainted.”
A sickly pallor crept into the Italian’s cheek; he clasped his fingers together as if he prayed for patience.
“But you are too crafty to be deceived as I was,” resumed Don Juan faintly. “You would never dream as I dreamt of being ‘Infante’ of Spain, of being a King! Therefore Philip spares you, for you are a useful man, Farnese, and puts his foot on me because I dared too high–but we are both–his puppets.”
The Prince of Parma clenched his hands till the knuckles showed white through the dark skin.
“You–always–hated–me,” gasped Don Juan.
“Are you in pain?” asked Farnese gently.
“In the torments of Hell,” answered the sick man with a ghostly smile; “there is fire eating my heart, my blood, my brains.”
The Prince of Parma’s face changed in an extraordinary fashion; it was a slight change, yet one that transformed his expression into that of utter and satisfied cruelty.
But Don Juan kept his eyes closed, and did not notice this look bending over him.
Farnese spoke, and his voice was still very gentle.
“Will your Highness drink this potion?”
The Prince lifted his burning lids and saw his page advancing with a goblet of rock crystal, inwhich a pale gold liquid floated.
The boy gave this to the kneeling Farnese, who took it between his long, dark, capable hands.
“This draught has often soothed your Highness,” he said.
Don Juan dragged himself to a sitting posture; as he moved such a weak giddiness seized him that the clay walls, the rift of sky and the figure of Farnese swung round him like reflections in troubled water.
He set his teeth and put out his hot hands for the goblet; as he drank a sweet languor and a grateful cessation of pain swept over him; he drained the last drop and gave a little sigh as Farnese took the shining cup from his feeble grasp.
As he sank back on his cushions he noticed that a drop of the liquid had fallen on the brocade cushion, and lay there like an amber bead holding a spark of sunlight.
The Prince of Parma rose silently, and beckoning to the page, left the sick man alone.
An exquisite lassitude crept over Don Juan; his limbs relaxed, his breath came easily, he became certain that there were long years of glorious and pleasant life before him; it was only necessary for him to regain his health–to defeat the heretics and return to Spain to confound that villain Perez.…
He was slipping out of consciousness; the blue sea of Italy began to rise before his eyes–an endless expanse of celestial colour over which sailed the galleys of Spain, Genoa and Venice bearing down on the infidel fleet.
The victor of Lepanto quivered with joy; he thought he was back in Naples, in Sicily; the warm scent of a thousand flowers floated round the rose and amber pillars of the heathen temples, and from the high windows of gold and painted palaces dark-eyed women looked, leaning on folds of glimmering tapestry and twisting wreaths of roses and laurels in gemmed fingers.
He saw the myrtle with the frail bridal blossoms, he saw the vineyards with the opulent grapes, he saw ladies in dresses stiff with jewels and heavy sleeves slipping from polished shoulders, he saw peasant girls with flushed faces and dusky hair.…
Then these pictures faded; he was in the dark silence of the Escurial; his terrible brother was speaking to him, caressing him; then Perez pulled a curtain back, and he saw his confidant Escovedo, lying mangled on a bier, bloody, with a fearful face.
Don Juan moaned and opened his eyes; he was light-headed; he beat his hands on the cushions.
“Escovedo!” he muttered. “Escovedo!”
The pigeon above, startled by his sudden movement, flew out over his head and away into freedom through the broken wall.
Juan of Austria shivered and blenched before the swift flash of the white wings as if an angel had passed him.
“I am a great sinner,” he said with trembling lips. He remembered how the Pope had embraced and blessed him after Lepanto; he hoped that, in case he died, God would remember it too, and how he had slain the infidel on the coast of Africa. His mind cleared, he looked round for Farnese, he called his secretary, his page, but no one came.
He lay quite still, thinking now of the great ambition, the great chimera of his life, the passionate desire to be recognised as royal, as a Prince, to one day be a King.
He had dreamt that he might be King of many countries, even King of England with Marie Stewart for wife, but he had never attained even recognition as a Prince of Spain.
All Philip’s promises, all Philip’s flatteries had amounted to nothing. While he was useful he was caressed; when he grew too great he was forsaken, left without arms, without money, without men, left with Farnese watching him night and day.
And they had killed the man he loved, his friend, his confidant Escovedo.
That fact rose up horrid, insistent, burning his heart with rage.
He could not forgive Perez; he could not forgive Philip.
In discomfort of mind and body he tossed from side to side. One of the gold cushions slipped from beneath him, and he was too weak to recover it; he lay with his eyes vacantly on it, and presently sat up with sudden strength and pointed at it with a quivering finger.
On the gold brocade was a round black hole where the stuff had been burnt away.
Don Juan began to laugh; he rememberedthe yellow drop of liquid that had gleamed on the rich fabric; he shouted for some one to come.
There was no answer; he supposed that they, thinking he suffered from the plague, would not through fear approach him.
He waited; his attention wandered from the cushion; he heard the trumpets without and smiled.
Presently a party of horsemen galloped past; he could catch a glimpse of them through the aperture in the wall; one carried his flag–a cross on the royal standard with the proud legend: “In hoc haereticos signo vici Turcos; in hoc signo vincam haereticos.” The heavy silk folds recalled these words to the Prince’s mind; he thought of his success at Gembloux.
“I could defeat them now,” he murmured, “if I was–on horseback–with a thousand men–behind me—”
The Lowland sun was creeping across the floor and glimmering in the armour in the corner, showing the dints and marks in it, the worn straps, the beautiful gold inlay and the long pure white plumes floating above the helmet.
Juan of Austria shivered at the sight of the pale sky, the pale sunlight; he longed passionately for the South, for all the purple heat, the violet shade, the soft hours of noonday silence in a marble chamber overlooking the sea, the glossy darkness of laurel and ilex.
“I will not die here,” he said in his throat.
Presently his confessor came, a slow-footed priest, and asked him if he would not make his will.
“No, for I have nothing to leave,” he answered, “so I am spared that trouble.”
Francisco Orantes then asked if he would have the canvas drawn over the broken roof and wall, for the sun was creeping very near his face.
He answered yes, and it was done; the barn was now only lit by the glimmer from the one small window.
“Father, I am not dying,” said Don Juan. “When I die it will be in Spain or Italy; tell the King so–tell him I know that he wants me dead–but that I will not die like this.”
The priest, seeing he was out of his wits, made no answer, but approached and felt his wrist and brow.
“Poison,” said Don Juan rapidly. “Poison–why not the sword–as with Escovedo? I have made my peace with heaven–but when shall Philip clear himself before God?”
The priest moved away silently as he had come; the sick man lay staring at the partial darkness; his blood was flaming with a returning agony.
“Philip!” he cried. “Philip! Will you bury me in the Escurial? If I die will you put me next my father? My father as well as yours, Philip! Hold my hand, some one–are you all afraid? This is not the plague. I have watched the heretics burning–I am burning now–I shall not go to Hell; I am absolved. Who will absolve Philip? Give me a little ease—”
The priest stood motionless beside the entrance, watching him; Juan dropped into silence, and then Francisco Orantes came again to his side and gazed as intently as the dim light allowed into the young, distorted and beautiful face.
The Prince was unconscious; the priest’s bloodless hand crept gently to his heart, which still beat, though reluctantly and faintly.
Farnese entered.
“He sleeps,” said Francisco Orantes.
The Prince of Parma made no answer; a slight convulsion shook him, and his face was swept with a look of limitless pride and ambition which distorted his fine features hideously.
The priest glanced up at him and shrunk away.
“This seems a foul end for one who loved life so,” he muttered.
Farnese fingered his long gemmed chain.
“You serve Philip,” he answered coldly.
Don Juan struggled back to consciousness, opened his eyes and looked up at the two bending over him; a sensation that he had never known before in all his life overcame him–a sensation of wild fear.
He fought with his weakness and dragged himself up.
“Is there no one to help me?” he implored. “To save me from Philip and Philip’s men! Jésu whom I served in Africa do not let me die this way!”
Farnese leant swiftly down and caught thePrince by the shoulder.
“Hush!” he said, “Hush!” and forced him gently back into the cushions.
Juan resisted him with all his feeble strength, his eyes glittering with terror.
“You are murdering me as Carlos was murdered–and Escovedo,” his voice was hoarse, broken, but tense with fear, “as you will be murdered when Philip is weary of you. I do not want to die–I–will–not—”
“Hush!” said Farnese again.
Juan dragged away from him and crouched back against the wall.
“I leave you heir,” he panted, “to all my honours, all my commands. Philip meant you as my successor. I leave you heir to my death of loneliness and exile. When did one of Philip’s servants escape this reward?”
The priest shivered and his figure bowed together, but Farnese listened patiently like a man waiting for the cessation of something that soon must end.
The Prince’s fear rose and swelled to a stronger passion, hate.
He thought that he saw in these two instruments of the King a symbol of the two things that had dogged his glory all his life, the powerful cruelty of his brother that had used his gifts, his successes, his popularity for his own ends, lured him with the promise of rewards and always withheld them, and the opinion of the world that the degradation of his mother equalled the splendour of his father and would always prevent him taking that last step into royal rank.
Ithadprevented him; he saw that now, he saw how hopeless his ambition had been from the first.…
“If I had my life again I would not serve Philip,” he muttered.
Then pain began to seize and grip him, and he became unconscious of everything save the physical agony; he fell on his face and clutched the rich mantles on which he lay, groaned and shrieked in blasphemous ravings.
“He hath not much fortitude after all,” said Farnese, who had looked on suffering so often that no anguish could move him; his cold eyes had many times rested on men and women flaming at the stake with the same expression of cruel indifference with which they now rested on this man of his own blood, who had served his turn and was no longer useful to the policies of Spain.
“How long will this last?” asked the priest.
“I cannot tell,” answered the Prince of Parma. “He must have great strength.”
“He had until he used it in the delights of Italy,” said Francisco Orantes. “Such a life as his, señor, does not make for old age—”
“Escovedo! Escovedo!” moaned Don Juan. “Help me! Succour me! I am burning–burning to the bone, the marrow! Jèsu! Jèsu and Maria!”
“Ay, pray for your sins,” remarked Farnese sombrely, “or you will go to light theflames that burn to all eternity.”
“Nay, señor,” said the priest; “he confessed and received absolution.”
“Who shall absolve Philip?” murmured Don Juan, who had caught the sentence. “I wish I had not betrayed Don Carlos. How awful it is to die!”
Drops of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his fingers trembled on the brocade covering him.
“The war,” he whispered, “the war.”
He thought of the great armies sweeping to and fro over the Low Countries, of all the toss and turmoil of Europe through which he had moved so gaily, so splendidly, of the infidel smitten in Africa; he did not think of his childhood at all. Life seemed to have begun for him on the day on which he had first met the King in the green forest glade.
“Pray,” urged the priest, “pray, señor.”
He shook his head feebly; he was not at all afraid of God–only of Philip. Besides, he did not mean to die.
The dreadful pain was lessening in his veins; he turned over on his side and looked up at Farnese.
“Where shall we put your body when your soul has left us?” asked the priest.
The sick man’s eyes gleamed.
“The Escurial,” he muttered. “Philip, remembering Lepanto might give me that–if not, then Our Lady of Montserrat–but I am not dying,” he added. “My life is not finished–you must see that–my life is–not–finished.”
An extraordinary feeling of peace came over him; he wondered at it and closed his eyes; he again saw the blue Sicilian seas encompassing him and heard their lapping waves in his ears.
“I will sleep now,” he thought, “and when I wake I will plan a victory–life is so long and I am so young—”
He smiled, for all the agony had ceased, and he was no longer conscious of his body; his head sank to one side so that his face was turned towards the wall.…
Francisco Orantes rose from his knees.
“He died very gently,” he said; “his soul passed as lightly as a bird to the bough.”
Farnese made the sign of the cross, and his figure dilated with pride, ambition and power; he went to the armour in the corner and picked up the dead man’s bâton of command.
Philip buried his brother in the Escurial near the great Emperor who was their father.
The Polander was a very innocent fellow who came out of Germany to enter the service of my lord Conningsmarke, a Gentleman of a great Quality at this moment inLondon.
He had taught the Polander some while ago at the instance of Captain Vratz, who was an old retainer of his, and who gave this youth a good character, especially for dressing Horses after the German Fashion. The Polander knew nothing of my lord Count Conningsmarke, and nothing aboutEngland, for he was very simple and ignorant, being but of Peasant birth, but the Captain he knew and loved, for this man had brought him out of Evil Days in Poland, and his heart held little else but a deep Affection for this Captain Vratz.
On a Friday he came to London and inquired for the Governor of my Lord at the Academy of M. Flaubert and this gentleman sent for the Count’s Secretary; and there the Polander lay on Saturday night feeling very strange in this new City and constantly praying that he might meet with Captain Vratz soon, who had been to him such a Benefactor.
The next day being the 11th ofFebruaryand bitter cold, Mr. Hanson, the Governor of my Lords, the young Counts of Conningsmarke, came to the Polander and bid him make ready to be carried to the Lodging of my Lord Charles.
This Governor seemed in a great Confusion of mind; he went over words twice when he spoke, which was in theGermanlanguage (for the Polander knew notEnglish) and the colour was up and down in his Face and his hands a-tremble.
The Polander stood before him, very tall and strong and humble, with his blue eyes clouded with Bewilderment and Disappointment; for he hoped he would be taken to Captain Vratz, and presently dared to say as much, very timidly.
Upon this Mr. Hanson broke out in a kind of Excitement.
“Would to God!” said he, “that this Swede Vratz had stayed out of England, for I think he will be the Engine of some harm to my Lord.” Then he went on to say that he was in no way responsible for the Count Charles but only for the other lord, Philip his younger Brother.
“But I must help a great man where I can,” he added, and seemed Troubled.
The Polander Wondered he should speak so to a Servant, but dare say no more but followed him out into the cold streets ofLondon. It was bitter enough and the Polander was inRags, but the Buildings and the people so pleased him that he took no heed of the Sharpness of the weather but smiled to himself with pleasure at a City soFine. So they came toSt. Martin’s Lanewhere the Count Lodged and in a room mean enough, high up, a place strange for a Man of Quality.
“My Lord Lodged in theHaymarket” said Mr. Hanson, “but the Chimney smoked so thathe was fain to move”–and with that he opened a Door and the Polander followed him into the Count’s Chamber.
This was an ill habitation for a Gentleman, being mean and low and of a poor Furnishing. There was a fire on the hearth, very brightly burning, and near the window a Bed, on which my lord the Count Charles lay, wrapped in a Flowered Robe of taffeta stuff.
He was a very young Gentleman, fair and pale, with a look of fear in eyes of an unusual bright blue; at the entry of Mr. Hanson and the Polander he sprang to a sitting posture on the Bed.
“This is the fellow, my Lord,” said the Governor.
The Count gave the Polander a Look of a startling keenness.
“Are you trustworthy?” says he.
“I will do anything for Captain Vratz,” answers the Polander humbly Yet with obstinacy.
My Lord put his feet, which were in white Satin slippers, very soiled, to the ground. “You are in my service,” he says swiftly.
“To Look after Horses,” replied the Polander simply, “and todressthem in the German Fashion, if it please your Honour.”
The Count glanced at the Governor and said:
“This is a fellow of agreatsimplicity andwell suited.”
Mr. Hanson answered with some uneasiness:
“Oh, I know not–Captain Vratz gave him a good Character for faithfulness.”
At this the Polander was very satisfied and his eyes held Gratitude.
The Count, leaning on one elbow against the Bed Post, addressed him:
“What is your Name?”
“George Borosky, my Lord.”
“Well,” said the Count of Conningsmarke, “it is true that I wish you to dress horses in the German fashion, for I believe you are a good Groom and I am here inEngland incognitoto raise aRegimentofHorsefor the service of theKing of EnglandWho is to enter into an Alliance withSwedelandandHollandagainstFrance–indeed there is talk of aSurpriseonStrasburgand my Brother has bought one Horse already and is to buy more.”
Here he stopped abruptly and the Polander gave a salute after the Military Fashion, not knowing what to say and withdrew against the Wall at the far end of the Chamber. Then my Lord spoke to Mr. Hanson.
“Have you made those Enquiries?” he asked.
“My Lord, I did ask theSwedish residentand his answer was–that if you should Meddle in any Way with Esquire Thynne you would have but a bad living inEngland–but as for the Law of it, he could not say.”
“And for the Other?” asked my Lord, in a low voice.
“He said, that if you should Duel Mr. Thynne, he could not instruct you as to what the Law might be regarding your Hopes of the Lady Ogle, Esquire Thynne’s Wife.”
“Monsieur Lienburgh knoweth nought!” cried my Lord impatiently; “What said he as to Riding Out in the Hyde Park on a Sunday?”
“He said it might certainly be done, before and after Sermon time.”
My Lord seemed Satisfied with that and looked again towards the Polander, who had heard all this Conversation as it was held in the High Dutch or German, but had made Nothing of it and was only thinking of Captain Vratz.
“You are very Ragged,” said the Count, “and have never a Sword—”
Then he questioned him–had he not been long in coming?
And the Polander answered Yes, and there had been fear of the Ship being cast away, owing to the High Storms, he having been twelve days fromStrasburgtoHamburgand fourteen fromHamburgtoLondon, instead of eight.
“Yes,” said my Lord pleasantly, “and I feared you were lost and went to enquire of the Ship at the ’Change, and I would have been unwilling to lose you, for Captain Vratz tells me you are a mighty Able Groom.”
“I do love Horses,” said the Polander, “and have trusted them always.”
“No man of mine can go in such a coat,” says my Lord, “but I have none to send to purchase one nor can I go out Myself by reason of the physicDr. Hardergave me, for I must no wise be Chilled, he said.”
“Why, Iwill do this Service for your Lordship, very Heartily,” answered Mr. Hanson.
“And a Sword also,” said the Count.
“That also,” said the Governor, “and Boots.” He asked my Lord then how hisIllnesswent and the Answer was–better, though the Ague was by no Means gone.
“Now, fellow,” said Mr. Hanson, “come with me to make these Purchases.”
My Lord took some money from the pocket of his gown and gave it to the Polander.
“That is to discharge your Lodging at Monsieur Flaubert’s Academy,” he said; “to-night you shall lie here.” He spoke in a Languid Tone, but his eyes had an Extraordinary sparkle and brightness.
Mr. Hanson now asked my Lord–How Much he was willing to dispose of on a Sword?
And he answered ten Shillings, and as much for the Coat.
Mr. Hanson then carried the Polander to a shop near and bought a riding Coat and a Pair of Boots and there was some difficulty in getting either large enough for one of his Bulk and Bearing.
They then went downSt. Martin’s Lanebut could find never a Sword worth a Groat; then on Mr. Hanson went as far asCharing Crossand then into a Cutler’s and bestowed ten Shillings on a Sword for a Servant, which could not be ready till Evening, however.
Mr. Hanson said he would call for it when he came back from the Play that night and took the Polander back to M. Flaubert’s Academy, where the Younger Count, a very Gay and Beautiful Gentleman, was learning to ride the Great Horse.
The Polander Paid for his Lodging and waited in the Academy feeling sad for loneliness till Mr. Hanson came back from the Theatre and took him again to the Cutler’s; but the Sword was by no means Ready.
“’Tis strange,” cried the Governor, “that a Gentleman cannot get a Little Sword for himself in a whole Afternoon!”
“Well, sir,” said the Cutler, “pray do not be Impatient. I will send the Sword.”
They then left the shop and went towardsSt. Martin’s Lane; it was now Snowing and a Great Volume of Wind abroad.
When they reached my Lord’s Lodging they found him still in his Gown and Night Cap sitting over the fire and he looked like a sick man save for the great Light and Glitter in his Eyes.
He asked where his Brother was.
“At his Grace of Richmond’s,” said Mr. Hanson; “We were at the Play together and I have ordered the Broadsword which will come anon.”
They were talking without any Regard to the Polander who stood stiff in his New Coat, Longing to see Captain Vratz and to go to the horses he was to look after (and he wondered where the Stables might be as this was too Ill a House to have any). Now Mr. Hanson went up to my Lord in moved fashion.
“Think of the Consequences of this, Count Charles!” he said.
My Lord looked upin a kind of Passion.
“He puts Words on me that are no wise to be borne!”
“Is it for the words he Used or for the sake of the Red Haired Girl you saw at the Hague?” asked Mr. Hanson, biting the end Curls of his Peruke.
“He called me a Hector,” said my Lord, “and Laughed at my Horse–and, by God, you shall leave the Lady Ogle Out of this!”
“Your Lordship has not left her Out,” answered Mr. Hanson, “for you bid me discover if you would have any Hopes of her if you got rid of her Husband—”
At this Point the Count bid the Polander go down to the Kitchens of the house and dine, and he added that in this place he was known as Carlo Cuski, and not by his Real Name.
Thereupon the Polander went; there was a Man and a Maid and a Boy in the Kitchen who had no Language butEnglish, so the Count’s man ate his meat in Silence and was presently going to the place appointed to him to sleep in when a young Gentleman, very finely Dressed in Blue, came down, and speakingGerman, bade him Come up to the Count, which he did and found to his vast Joy, Captain Vratz with his Lordship.
“Come here, Fellow,” said my Lord; he stood up in the Light of the Fire and his slight figure in the Limp Gown, the Night Cap pulled over his tumbled Hair, his pallid face with the feverish eyes was in a Contrast with the Men of Lesser Quality who were Splendid enough in cut Velvet and Lace and Tassels.
Christopher Vratz lifted his Face flushed with Fairness after the fashion of the Swedelander and looked at the Polander.
“You are my Servant now, Borosky,” said he.
“Yes,” added my Lord. “I have given you to Vratz,” and he Shivered a little closer to the Fire and Held out his hand to the Glow of it, Regarding the three with Eyes so unnaturally blazing that they conveyed a thrill of terror.
“Oh, dear sir,” said the Polander, “this is a Greater Joy than I looked for in coming toEngland.”
He bent with more Grace than might easily have been expected from his Bulk and kissed the Count’s thin hand in a humble Gratitude.
“This is a man,” said Captain Vratz, “who will do Anything for me–out of the Great Affection he hath for my Person—”
“Need you set him on a losing Game?” asked the young German, glancing at the pleased, simple face of the Polander. “There is many anItalianwalking about the Piazza of Covent Garden who would do the Trick for the Matter of Fifty Pounds.”
At that my Lord looked up Sharply and seemed Mightily out of Countenance and Captain Vratz answered:
“That is in the Count’s hands. I am his Man.”
Now the Polander made nothing of all this but only Wished to be away with his Master; and they made so little account of him that they never abated their Talk but treated him like a Dog that had just been bought by a new Master, and so he took it himself and truly his Attention was absorbed by a Broadsword he beheld on a Table near, and that he Surmised was that ordered by Mr. Hanson at the Cutler’s atCharing Crossand a fine Weapon too, from the Look.
Near this Weapon was a Black Peruke, and the Polander wondered why a Gentleman of so fair a face as my Lord should have so Black a Wig and he surmised that it belonged to Mr. Hanson.
My Lord walked about the bare floor and seemed in some contained Passion of Excitement.
“It will be a Stain on my Blood,” said he, “but one good action at the Wars or one Fight on the Counterscarp will wipe that away—”
And he spoke like a Man exalted in his Courage and ready for a Tragic Turn.
Presently the three–Vratz, Stern theGermanlieutenant, and the Polander–went away, it being then late at Night and Cold.
And before they went the Count gave the Polander the Sword that Mr. Hanson had bestowed Ten Shillings on, and the last that Fellow saw of my Lord was the sight of him in the glimmer of a dying Candle staring after the three of them with a Face very Young, very Ill, very Wild, beneath the tumbled Night Cap.
The three of them went to the Captain’s Lodgings; he lay at theBlack BullinHolborn, in an ill Part of the Town.
Then the Captain called the Polander up to his room and gave him to Drink and after a little said:
“What will You do for Me, George Borosky?”
“Before God, Anything–for the great Gratitude I have to You.”
At this Vratz Laughed and cast off his Hat and Wig and his face was Fresh and Ruddy as a Rose under the Gold of his Hair.
“Look you, Borosky,” he made answer, “there is a Man inLondonwho has put an insult on me–and I did put a Challenge on him by the post having no Gentleman to send, and he returned answer by his Servant that I was not of a Sufficient Quality for a man of his Breeding to fight–and this is a thing difficult to Avenge.”
The Polander waited eagerly for his Part in this.
“It is Esquire Thynne of Longleat Hall,” continued the Captain, “a Great JollyEnglishGentleman and a Notable Rake at Court–a man very Rich and splendid–he will be riding along theMallto-morrow on his way to Church and it is we three who must stop him.”
With that he took a Blunderbuss from the wall and laid it in the great Hands of the Polander.
“As you love me,” he said earnestly, “you will put some bullet into this Tom Thynne.”