DON SANCHO was young. He was arrogant. He had already crowned himself king of the three kingdoms, and believed he was invincible. As the Cid entered his tent and delivered Doña Urraca’s message, he turned upon him savagely.
“This is your counsel,” he cried. “Oh, Cid, such courage does not belong to a woman! My sister defies me because you were bred up with her, and because——”
What more Don Sancho might have said, remained unspoken, for the Cid broke in with a terrible oath:
“It is false. I have served you faithfully, according to my word. But I declare I will not take arms against the Infanta, nor against the city of Zamora, because of the days that are past.”
“Traitor!” shouted Don Sancho, incensed beyond all bounds. “If it were not for my father, I would order you this instant to be hanged!”
“It is not your father’s desires, but your own use for me which restrains you, Don Sancho. Have you not two brothers alive? And who shall gainsay me if I place one of them on the throne?”
Without another word the Cid turned and left the tent, and calling to him his kinsmen and friends, rode out of the camp towards Toledo.
King Don Sancho, greatly alarmed, sent after him and brought him back.
So hard-pressed was Zamora, that although Doña Urraca was of a stout heart, she determined, by the advice of her foster-father and her council, as she would not willingly see all her people die, to retreat with them to Toledo, to join her brother, Don Alfonso, who was with the Moors.
Now this was exactly what the traitor Dolfos was waiting for.
“Lady Doña Infanta,” he said, kissing her hand as she sat on an ancient seat in her retiring room debating what she was to do, signs of hunger and grief on her royal face, “I have served you long, and never had any reward, though I have seen you gracious to other men. But if you will look with favour on me, I will make Don Sancho raise the siege.”
Now this speech, which the chroniclers give us word for word, would seem to infer either that he was a villain, who took advantage of her strait, or that Doña Urraca was not that faultless dame we would fain believe her to be.
Her answer, too, was calm, as of one to whom the aspirations of love were no strange matter.
“Don Dolfos, I will answer you as the wise men did the fool. Bargains are made with the slothful, and with those in need. I am in sore need. I do not bid you to commit an evil deed, but I say there is nothing I would not grant to the man who saves Zamora from the king.”
Again Dolfos kissed her hand.
Now it is well known that the king was treacherously slain by Dolfos, with his own gilded hunting-spear, outside the walls, believing that he had come to him secretly pretending to give Zamora up. The Cid, who was riding near, met him flying back towards the postern, and charged him with the deed, but he put spurs to his horse and got back within the walls. The Cid, eager to pursue him, took his lance from his esquire, but did not wait to buckle on his spurs, which was the only fault ever found with him in all his life.
Without spurs he could not urge his horse as swiftly as the other, and so he escaped.
Once inside the postern, Dolfos, in mortal fear of those within, rushed to the palace and flung himself at Doña Urraca’s feet, drawing her royal mantle over him for protection.
But when her foster-father, Don Arias, knew it, he went to her and spoke:
“My Infanta, you cannot harbour this traitor, otherwise all the Castilians outside will accuse you of murder.”
“What can I do?” she answers. “See how he clings to my robe.”
She knew she had encouraged him in what he had done, and in the letters she had written, and fain would she have saved him. But Don Arias would listen to nothing.
“Give Dolfos up to me;” and he drew him away by force, the poor wretch trembling all over, with no strength to stand. “Come, Dolfos,” says Don Arias, “be of good cheer; to please the Infanta, I will hide you three days in my house. If the Castilians impeach us, I must give you up. If they do not, you shall escape from the town. Here you cannot bide, for we are honourable men, and keep no company with traitors.”
After King Sancho’s death came Don Alfonso, to be known as El Sabio, to join his sister at Zamora, who had always loved him well.
A council was called in the palace. The Castilians, Navarrese, Leonese, and the Gallegos, being already his subjects, are ready to acknowledge him as king if he can clear himself of all knowledge of the murder of his brother.
The ricoshombres, counts and knights, the prelates and chief persons have already kissed his hand; but the Cid sits apart. The image of his dead master rises up between him and Alfonso. It was he who had found Don Sancho by the side of the Douro wounded to death by his own hunting-spear, which he dared not draw forth for fear of killing him outright.
“Now, how is this, Cid Campeador?” asks the new king, who, in majesty of person and speech and wisdom, was much more like his sister Doña Urraca than Don Sancho. “See you not that all have received me for their lord except you? Why have you not kissed my hand?”
“Sir,” answers the Cid, rising from where he sat, “the reason is this: all these present, as well as I, suspect you of having compassed your brother’s death. Unless you can clear yourself, I will never kiss your hand or acknowledge you as king.”
“Your words please me well,” is the king’s reply, spoken softly, but rage was in his heart. “I swear to God and St. Mary I never slew him or took counsel of his death, and I will clear myself of the charge by oath within the church of Sant’ Agueda at Burgos.”
The ancient church of St. Gaden or Sant’ Agueda, not far from the Suelos of the Cid, and where he was married, is filled with the noblest company in Castile; the Cid, towering over all, at the high altar, in chain armour from top to heel, his good sword Tizona at his side, and in his hand a cross-bow of wood and steel.
Face to face is King Alfonso in royal robes, his hand upon a painted missal beside the Host.
“King Don Alfonso,” says the Cid, in his terrible voice, so well known in the battle-field, “will you swear that you have not compassed the death of my king and master, your brother Don Sancho? If you swear falsely, may you die the death of a traitor and a slave.”
To which King Alfonso, joining his hands on the Cid’s answers, “Amen.”
But he changed colour.
Then the Cid repeats a second time, “King Don Alfonso, will you further swear you neither counselled nor favoured the murder of the king, your brother, and my master? If you swear falsely, may you die the death of a traitor and a slave.”
Again the king presses his hand and answers, “Amen.”
But he changed colour.
Then came forth twelve vassals who confirmed the king’s word, and the Cid was at last satisfied, and the knights also said, “Amen.” The Cid would have embraced the king, but he turned away, and though he had shown himself invincible, the king banished him (1081).
Then the Cid sent for all his kinsmen and vassals and asked who would follow him, and who remain at home?
“We will all go with you,” answers his cousin, Alvar Fañez, “and be your loyal friends.”
“I thank you,” replies the Cid. “The time will come when I shall reward you tenfold.”
WHEN the Cid returned to Burgos, men and women went forth to look at him, others were on the roofs and at the windows weeping, so great was the sorrow at the manner of his return. Every one desired to welcome him, but no one dared, for King Don Alfonso had sent letters to say, “None should give the Cid lodging or food, and that whoever disobeyed should lose all he had, and the eyes out of his head.”
The Cid went up Calle Alta to his Suelos, but he found the door fastened for fear of the king. He called out with a loud voice, but no one answered. Then he took his foot out of the stirrup and gave it a kick, but the lock stood firm, being well secured. The only one who appeared was a little girl nine years old, who ran out of one of the houses near.
“O Cid, we dare not open our doors to you, for we should lose all we have, and the eyes in our heads. This would not help you, dear Cid. But we pray that God and His angels may keep you. Adios.”
When the Cid understood what the king had done, he turned his horse aside to St. Mary’s chapel (at the gateway), and knelt and prayed with all his heart at the altar, then rode out of the town and pitched his tent on the banks of the Arlanzon.
At this time occurred his dealing with the Jews.
The Cid’s purse was empty, and he must fill it. “Take two chests,” he said to his nephew, “and fill them with sand, and go to Rachel and Vidal and bid them come hither privately, because I cannot take my treasure with me on horseback, and money I must have before I start. Let them come for the chests at night when no one will see. God knows I do not this willingly, but of necessity, and I will redeem all.”
Martin Antolinez did as he was told. To the Jews he said, “If you give me your hands that you do not betray me to Christian or Moor, you shall be rich men for ever. The Campeador has great wealth in tribute. He has two chests full of gold. He will leave them in your hands, and you shall lend him money upon them, if you swear solemnly not to open the chests nor look at the gold.”
The confiding Jews swore by Father Abraham, gave the money, and received the chests. They were covered with leather, red and gold, the nails gilt, and the sides ribbed with bars of iron; each chest was fastened by a lock, and they were very heavy, being filled with sand. The Jews came to the Cid’s tent and kissed his hand, then, spreading a sheet on the carpet, they counted out the gold, and also gave a handsome present to his nephew.
“Let us be gone,” whispered Martin into the Cid’s ear, not at all ashamed. So at cock-crow they started to meet Doña Ximena at San Pedro de Cardeña. (In the chapel of Santa Isabel, outside the Puerta del Sarmental of the cathedral, is still to be seen one of these chests, called the Cofre del Cid, clamped with iron and nailed up to the wall.)
At San Pedro the Cid found Ximena and his two little daughters. “Abbot,” he said, addressing himself to the priest. “I commend my two little niñas to your care. Take care of them while I fight, and my wife and her ladies, and when the money I now give you is gone, supply them all the same, for every mark I will hereafter give you four.” And the abbot promised.
Doña Ximena and her daughters kissed the Cid, and she knelt down at his feet weeping bitterly.
The Cid, whose heart was tender for his own however hard with his enemies, wept too, and took the children in his arms, for he dearly loved them.
“My dear and honoured wife,” he said, “cheer up, I shall yet live to give these children in marriage to great lords. Have faith in me, Ximena, whom I love as my own soul.”
Again and again the Cid commended Ximena to the abbot, then he and all the knights loosened the reins of their horses and pricking forward to the Sierra entered into the country of the Moors.
FROM this time began that life of knight-errantry which has made the Cid famous in all ages.
First he betook himself to the court of the Count of Barcelona, but not agreeing with him, passed into the service of the Sheikh Móstadri, the most powerful of the Moslem princes of Saragossa. At his death, which occurred soon after, the Cid continued with his eldest son, Montamin, and assisted him against his two brothers with prodigies of valour.
In five days he overran Aragon and harried a large tract of country for spoil, returning in triumph to Saragossa, bringing with him prisoner the Count of Barcelona.
“Blessed be God and all His saints,” said the Cid to his followers. “By this victory we have bettered our quarters for horses and for men. Hear me, all you knights,” and he raised his mighty voice, “we shall get nothing by killing these Moors. Let us make them show us the treasures they have hidden in their houses. That will serve us better than their death.”
All this and much more was done, as the Cid said, por murzar. Enemies or friends, money must be had.
But the great feat of the Cid’s life is his conquest of Valencia, where he was called to protect the Sheikh Yahia along with the Moorish king of Saragossa. Upon whatever cause he went (and the chronicles are extremely confused after he took service with the Moslem), ambition was his motive and pillage his object.
From Jativa, on the hills over the sea, he came down with his army into the Huerta, an unexampled garden, beautiful in all time: woods of palm and orange-trees, fences of aloes and prickly pear, the glory of the Roman, the pleasaunce of the Goth, the delight of the Arab, who declared “that heaven had fallen here.”
Valencia itself lies sweetly on either side of a river, the banks breaking into bosques and gardens, with tall towers shooting into the blue sky. El Miguelete, square and Gothic, its rival Aliberfar, all points, minarets, and domes,—the Zeca (bazaar) and Alcazar,—bridge, twelve gates, and tapia battlements, turreted and machicolated, hemmed in by fruitful plains, the rich country studded with posadas and quintas to the sea-shore, about a mile distant.
The Moorish Sheikh Yahia received the Cid honourably, and gave him a great revenue in
return for his protection. But this did not last long.
Seeing how powerful he was, King Alfonso suddenly claimed all his conquests as his suzerain, which led to further strife between them, Alfonso attacking Valencia in his absence with the Moors to gain it for himself; in revenge for which act of treason the Campeador carried his arms into his own land, Castile, destroying castles and sacking towns. “Make war and deceive,” was his motto now. He had learned it from the Moors, and acted up to it till he died. Still in his heart he loved the country where he was born and where he had left his wife and children, only that he hated King Alfonso more.
On his return the gates of Valencia were shut against him, and the terrible siege began, the Cid attacking the city as cruelly as he could, and food becoming dearer every day till at last it was not to be had; the people were carried off in waves of death, dropping and dying in the streets, the Alcazar full of corpses, and no grave with less than ten bodies in it.
At last the gates were opened to him by his friend, Abeniaf, the Adelantado, in return for which he had him first stoned, then burned alive in the plaza.
In these days one seeks in vain for the noble qualities of Ruy Diaz de Bivar. The only excuse to be found is the harshness and injustice with which Don Alfonso treated him.
Valencia surrendered in June, 1694, and the Cid at once bethought him of his wife and children, now grown up to womanhood, left in the Abbey of St. Peter, and sent his nephew Alvar Fañez and Martin Antolinez, with two hundred knights, on a mission to the king. He also sent money to redeem the debt of the chests filled with sand, and to excuse himself to the Jews, Rachel and Vidal, for having cheated them in his great need.
“What tidings bring you me of the Cid?” asks the king (of Alvar and Martin), whom they find in the city of Burgos.
Then Alvar stood out and spake boldly: “The tidings are good, Sir King, but we come to ask a boon, for the love of your Maker. You banished the Cid from the land, and behold, he has won six pitched battles against the Moors, also the city of Valencia; and he places all he has at your feet, if of your bounty he may have his wife and his daughters with him there.”
“It pleases me well,” is the king’s answer. “I will give them a guard through Castile. When they have passed it, the Cid Campeador will look after them himself. Moreover, I grant him Valencia and all that he has won as his own, to be held under me, who am his liege lord and suzerain.”
Great joy was there at San Pedro de Cardeña when the knights appeared, Doña Ximena and her daughters running out on foot to meet them, and weeping plenteously for joy.
“And how does my dear lord fare?” asks the gentle Doña Ximena, wiping her eyes. “In all all these years I have had no news of him.”
“Well, and safe and sound,” answers Alvar Fañez, saluting her. “Be of good cheer, my cousin, for the great city of Valencia is his, and his heart’s desire is to see you and have you with him there.”
“Alas! what am I,” cries poor Ximena, ever humble in her mind, “that he could show me this favour after so many years! God and the Virgin be thanked for his constancy.”
When they were within three miles of Valencia, under the thick shade of the orange woods of the Huerta, word of their coming was brought to the Cid, who ordered that Babieca should be saddled, and girt on his sword.
He was much changed. He had the same commanding aspect and far-seeing eyes, but his white beard was so long and flowing, it was a wonder to behold. No man ever put his hand on it in life but himself, or touched it with a razor, and when he fought it was screwed up like a curl under his chin. Every gesture was imperious, as of a king. At that time, indeed, no king in Spain could compare with the Cid in power.
“Dear and honoured wife,” he exclaimed, as he embraces Doña Ximena, who received him on her knees, “and you, my daughters, come with me into Valencia, the inheritance I have won for you.”
He leads them through the gate called “of the Snake,” then mounts into the famous tower of the Miguelete, now the Campanile of the Cathedral,—and in the clear transparent air shows them the city which lies at their feet, the green Huerta, thick with shade, and the blue ocean beyond, on which ride the ships of the King of Morocco, come to besiege the city, a sight which made poor Ximena tremble.
But the Cid comforted her.
“You shall see with your own eyes how I fight and how I gain our bread. Fear not, honoured wife,” seeing that Ximena’s courage fails her, “my heart kindles to the fight because you are here. More Moors, more gain——”
The tambours of the enemy now sound a great alarm, but the Cid smiles and strokes his beard, gazing fondly on Ximena, now a wrinkled woman in middle age.
“Dear wife, look boldly out over Valencia. All this I give you for a marriage gift. I have won it, and I will send the King of Morocco packing whence he came. In fifteen days, please God, his rattling tambours shall be hung up in the church of St. Mary. Pray God I may live for your sakes, and still overcome the Moor!”
Thus speaking, they descend the tower and enter the Alcazar, all gold and painted walls on stone and wood, in the Arab manner, with hangings above and below, purple and crimson, and rich cloths thick with gold and silver, and take their seats on benches set with precious stones, the Cid placing himself on an ivory divan like a throne.
About this time King Alfonso and the Cid met at last as friends on the banks of the Tagus, a river of very rapid flood, where tents were pitched and many knights assembled.
The Cid knelt on the ground before him, and would have kissed his foot in the jewelled stirrup, but King Alfonso cried out: “My hand, Cid Campeador, my hand!” and embracing him said he forgave him with all his heart (the Cid still on his knees), then raised him up and gave him the kiss of peace.
Afterwards they ate together, and Alfonso proposed his kinsmen, the two Infantes of Currion, as husbands to the Cid’s two daughters, Elvira and Sol. Very scornful and haughty young princes they were, who did not please the Cid nor Doña Ximena at all, but the Cid dared not say “No,” on account of the king.
The marriages indeed turned out ill; and the dames were afterwards affianced to Don Sancho of Aragon, and the Infante Ramiro of Navarre. The Infantes of Currion were dismissed and dishonoured for their crimes, at the Cortes held in the palace of Burgos, before Alfonso, the Cid sitting beside him, within the golden estrado, on the ivory divan he had taken from the Moors—a throne, in fact, which had served a sheikh—a great triumph for him, at Burgos especially, his native city, where he had begged in vain for bread and was forced to cheat the Jews to fill his purse!
The Cid was in the prime of life, untouched by the hand of time, lord of a great capital and of a powerful state—far-seeing and wise, heroically audacious in all he did, capable of love, yet tremendous in hate. “Our Cid,” as the people called him, “born in a happy hour,” none dreaming of a united kingdom of which he was to be the head when he was struck in the midst of his career by the hand of death.
“Be you sure,” he said to his household and his companions in arm, whom he had called together, “that I am at the end of my life. In thirty days I shall die. More than once lately I have seen my father, Don Diego Laynez, and the son whom I lost. They say to me each time, ‘You have tarried on earth too long, come now with us, among the people who live for ever.’ ”
After this, having sickened of the malady of which he died, he called for the casket of gold in which was the balsam and the myrrh the Soldan of Persia had given him, and he drank it, and, for the seven days which he lived, he neither ate nor drank aught else, and his body and his countenance appeared fairer and fresher and his voice clearer, though he waxed weaker and weaker.
On the day before he departed, he called for Doña Ximena and his nephew Alvar Fañez, and directed them what to do after his death.
“You know,” he said, “that the King Bucar, of Morocco, will presently return to besiege the city; therefore, when I am dead, make no cries or lamentations, but wash my body and dry it well, and anoint it with the myrrh and balsam out of the gold casket, from head to foot; then saddle you my horse Babieca, and arm her as for battle, apparel my body as I went in life against the Moors, and set me on her back, and tie me fast, so as not to fall, and fix my good sword Tizona in my hand, and when thus accoutred lead me out against the king, whom God has delivered into my hands.”
Three days after the Cid died (1099). On the morning of the twelfth day, when all was ready, as the Cid had commanded, they went against the army of the Moor and prevailed, and the dead body of the Cid left Valencia, on his horse Babieca, armed at all points and passed through the camp of the Moors, followed by Doña Ximena and his trusty friends—taking the road for the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, near Burgos, where he was to be interred; and the king came from Toledo to meet them.
When they took the Cid from off his horse and set him on a frame before the altar, so fair and comely did he appear, Doña Ximena entreated the king not to have the body laid in a coffin underground. So king Alfonso sent to Burgos for the ivory divan on which the Cid had sat as king at the Cortes, and gave orders that he should be placed in it, to the right of the altar, and a graven tabernacle placed over him, bearing the blazon of Castile and Leon, Navarre, and Aragon, and his own arms as the Cid Ruy Diaz the Campeador. There it was left for ten years, and when the garments waxed old others were put on.
In a side capella of the church of San Pedro, five miles from Burgos, the square monument of the Cid is still to be seen. It is much mutilated, but his lofty figure can still be traced on the lid, wearing a coat of mail and grasping his double-hilted sword Tizona, the effigy of the faithful Ximena at his side.
Legend says that while the body was left alone in the church before being interred, it was visited by a Jew, who, wagging his head, contemptuously contemplated the face of the dead hero and his sacred beard, of which the Cid had said, “Thanks be to God, it is long because I keep it for my pleasure, and never a son of Moor or Jew has dared to touch it.”
“Yes,” said the Jew to himself, recalling all the cruelties of which he had been guilty towards his race, “you are the great Cid, low enough now, and that is your fine black beard, grey and thin, of which you were so proud. I should like to see what you will do to me if I pluck it.” At which he stretched forth his hand, but drew it back sharp enough when, with a hollow sound, the dead hand seized the hilt of Tizona and drew forth the blade more than half a palm. Down fell the Jew in a fit, and in rushed the priests, and lo! the dead hand still grasped Tizona, and the fierce eyes seemed to roll. Who, after such an experience, would dare to trifle with the remains of the Cid?
At the present time these remains are said to be deposited at the Ayuntamiento at Burgos, in a case of walnut wood, in the centre of a large hall, along with the skeleton of poor Ximena, still faithful to him in death.
AFTER the death of Alfonso el Valiente, which followed close upon that of the Cid, our Old Court Life brings us to the reign of Fernando el Santo, third of that name—1217—brother of that well-beloved Eleanor, Queen of Edward the First, destined to conquer Seville after five hundred years of Moslem rule, the first Christian king who inhabited the Alcazar.
With Fernando the shadow of a great king rises before us. He wears a high pointed crown surrounded by a glory, his face is set and stern, with the prominent far-seeing eyes of a prophet, his features aquiline and pure; his hair fair and curly, thrown back as if in an ecstasy, and a full beard covers his closely shut mouth and finely modelled chin. It is an essentially modern countenance for the time in which he lived, full of life and expression, only the stiff ruff round the long neck is old Castilian, and the heavy armour in which the tall, stalwart body is encased very different from the elegance in wrought steel and gold which was manufactured by the Moors.
Around him hang the ample folds of a royal mantle, a deep ermine collar descending to his waist. In one hand he carries a drawn sword, in the other the globe of empire and the keys of Seville.
Thus he is to be seen in a statue in the Cathedral of Seville, and in a curious painting by Murillo in the Library, the reproduction of some earlier likeness.
When not bearing arms against the Moors he occupied himself in burning them, for in religious zeal he was the precursor of Torquemada, the parent of the Inquisition. Indeed the malicious chroniclers insist that he was “sainted” for carrying fagots to the stake with his own hands.
Not an attractive monarch, though cousin to St. Louis of France, whom he somewhat resembles in person, and his emulator in crusades against the heathen. With this difference: no crime was ever imputed to the French king, who died tending plague-stricken Africans, while the record of much cruelty attaches to the memory of Fernando.
Not to be too severe on him, however, it must be remembered that from his time the Castilian Spaniards assumed the grave and dignified demeanour that characterises them to this day, and marks them as a race at once loyal, valiant and sincere.
Fernando first conquered Cordoba, occupied the palace of the great Abdurraman, and actually endeavoured to turn the inimitable mosque into a church. Happily the Moorish architecture was too much for him; a mezquita it is, and mezquita it will remain, as long as horseshoe arch and pillar hold together.
Cordoba conquered, Fernando turned his victorious arms against the capital of Andalusia, for call it as you please, Boetica or Italica, Seville was and ever will be the chief city of the south—still encircled by portions of the Roman walls, untouched since the days of Cæsar and Pompey.
There were seven suburbs and as many gates, and 166 castellated towers. Azataff was the Moorish caliph who held it, as brave a knight and chivalric a prince as ever drew blade.
At the mouth of the Guadalquivir, by the white shores of Cadiz, he held his fleet, and his vassals and troops were with him in the Alcazar. From the Patio de las Banderas floated his flag, a black crescent and a star on a yellow ground, and his turbaned body-guard thronged the walls.
Fernando fixed his camp on the low hills over Sancti Ponce. In such a world of flats as surround Seville any height is valuable, and he seized it. As the eye ranges afar, these olive-planted hills appear paltry and monotonous, but they command the city. At their base winds the Guadalquivir in many a graceful bend, otherwise the land is unprotected to the sea.
Not only did Fernando fix his camp scientifically, but he was expert enough to understand that to succeed he must block the river. A fleet of Castilian boats intercepted the Moorish vessels at the mouth of the Guadalquivir at Cadiz, and stopped all supplies.
Such were the dispositions of the Castilian king; and as the siege drew on, and the Christian host gazed down upon the walls, great encouragement came to them from the visible interposition of the Virgin in many notable visions and miracles.
One day as Don Fernando stands at the entrance of the royal tent, casting those prominent eyes of his across the plains, and counting by the number of outposts in how many days he may hope to plant the flag of Castile upon the Giralda tower, rising so tall and graceful before him, he beholds a Christian knight with a companion and an esquire riding by the bank of the river below, carelessly as a man who takes the air on a fine summer’s day, and loiters on the way the better to enjoy it. Lightly the knight carries his lance in rest upon his thigh. His vizor is raised over a bright young face. At his side hangs his sword, held by a golden chain; on his arm flutters a scarf striped red and blue, and the same colours shine radiant in the sunshine on the plume which nods from his helmet.
“Now, who is this young fool,” cries Fernando in a rage, “who dares ride forth into the enemy’s camp as if he were the herald of a tournament? Does he think that I allow my knights thus to sacrifice their lives? or that he has a right to risk it?” Then, as he watches his progress, always farther and farther into the outworks of the Moor, “Who is he?” he cries again. “Will no one tell me his name? Methinks it were well for him he had shriven himself before he started, or his soul will be the worse for it very briefly.”
Before the king could be answered, a loud voice shouted at his ear: “Ride, ride for your life, Garcia Perez of Varga. I see the gleam of Moorish lances near at hand. Ride on, or you are lost.”
The voice that shouted was that of the Conde Lorenzo, the king’s Jefe, who, coming up behind the king at that moment, and having longer sight than his, recognised Don Garcia’s cognisance, a red cross and a green tree, and called out to warn him of his danger.
“Sire,” says he, in a lower tone, bowing before Fernando, “pardon me, I see seven Moors on horseback. They are in ambuscade in that wood yonder. They have sighted Don Garcia, and are waiting to break out upon him as he passes. Therefore I warned him.”
“Don Garcia Perez is it?” quoth the king, his eyes following those of Count Lorenzo upon the plain. “I could lose no better man. For die he will, as surely as Christ suffered on the cross. Blow for blow he will give them, but seven to one is too great odds.”
As to Don Garcia, he is too far off to hear any voice, let them shout ever so loudly. On he rides tranquilly, as a lover to his mistress; but as
if some instinct suddenly struck him, at the same moment that the Conde Lorenzo calls out to him from the hill, he lowers the vizor of his helmet, crested by the wing of a black eagle, grasps the hilt of his lance firmly in his hand, and turning back to his companion, by no means so well armed as himself, and secretly recommending himself to every saint in the calendar, “The Moors are sure to be on us,” he says, “it were well to make ready for them. Buckle your girths tightly and take care they do not shake you from the saddle.”
Instead of answering, Don Juan Attiz (for that was his name) set spurs to his horse, riding furiously towards the back camp, leaving Don Garcia alone with his esquire.
“Ha! ha! is it so?” laughs he, watching his companion as his horse’s hoofs tear up the turf. “Better to be alone with me, Baldo” (to his esquire), “than to have such a coward at my heels. Hey! for Castile and Leon!”
Now softly, one by one, the Moors come creeping out from their ambush in the wood (there is no mistaking them now, the sun shone upon their round steel caps and their smooth shields), one by one, like Agag, “delicately,” until seven Moslem knights place themselves across the path by which Don Garcia rides, the last one carrying a flag bearing the mystic symbol of an open hand, the same as is still to be seen carved over the principal gateway of the Alhambra.
“By Santiago!” cries King Fernando, anxiously watching from the hill. “Observe Don Garcia. The seven Moors are ranging themselves on the grass. Yet, to look at them, one would say it is they who are afraid, not he, he rides on so boldly.”
“And so it is, sire,” answers the chamberlain, his eye fixed on the plain; “I warrant their hearts beat louder than his. The Moors stand back in line, while Garcia advances. See, now he pauses, as though he did not see them—pauses and speaks to his esquire. My lord, you will soon sing a Te Deum in the Seville mosque, if all your army be as brave as Don Garcia.”
“Did ever man behold the like?” replies King Fernando, shading his eyes the better to observe him. “Now Garcia is taking off his casque. He is wiping his head. He is calling his esquire up beside him. God be thanked we have such Christian knights! May the Blessed Virgin guard him, and bring him safe back.”
“Come hither,” Don Garcia is saying to his esquire, taking no more notice of the seven Moors than if they were seven statues; while they, in their turn, mark with dismay the red cross and the green tree emblazoned on his shield. Too well they know that device, and when they see whom they have waylaid they wish themselves elsewhere.
“Come hither, the sun is hot upon my head. Take my casque from me and hold it for awhile; there is no need why I should heat myself with such a weight.”
As he speaks, he lifts his arm to remove his casque, and behold, his striped scarf has vanished. “Alas! how have I lost it?” he cries in much distress. “I must have dropped it but a moment ago. Now, I would rather fight ten battles than lose that scarf. My liege lady worked it for me and bound it on my arm long ago, and there I have worn it ever since. Find it I will, or I will die for it.”
As he speaks Don Garcia turns himself round in his saddle unhelmeted as he is, his hair flying in the breeze, and gazes eagerly upon the path by which he has come, a track upon the greensward.
Then for the first time he raises his eyes upon the Moors, seven knights ranged in a line, wearing green turbans on their helmets and carrying lances in their hands; and there, suspended upon the point of a spear, is his scarf striped white and red—a Moslem has picked it up and looped it there.
“Now, by my faith!” says Garcia, considering them with a frown, “these are uncourteous enemies. Folks say the unbelievers exceed us in that quality, but it is not so. They have come out to steal, these Moslem dogs. They shall pay for it. No Moor that ever lived shall ride back into Seville and call that scarf his own! Come on, ye thieves and robbers! give me my lady’s token!”
As he speaks, Don Garcia falls upon them and hacks and hews them with such deadly blows right and left, that ere much time is passed such as are not dead are scouring the plain to Seville.
Fernando, watching anxiously from the hill, still sees Don Garcia on the plain. Again he is alone, now he is fastening the scarf, which his esquire has unloosed from the Moorish spear, securely upon his arm. Then, humming a roundelay, he girds his sword, streaming with blood, upon his thigh, and turning his horse’s head towards the Christian camp, rides gaily up the hill, four green-turbaned heads dangling from his saddle-bow.
Meanwhile the jefe is telling the king a pleasant tale of Don Garcia’s brother, Don Diego de Varga, who, having snapped his sword in the heat of an engagement outside Xerez, tore up by the roots a wild olive-tree, and laid about him with such fury among the Moors, that to this day he is known by the name of El Machuca (the Pounder).
For sixteen months the Caliph Azataff gallantly defended the walls of Seville, but before an army of such chivalric knights and a king prepared for canonisation, what city could hope to stand?
On the 23d November (el dia de San Clemente) the strong fortress of the Alcazar is stormed and Azataff capitulates. Then, amid an inaudible blare of trumpets and fifes, ringing of bells and beating of drums, King Fernando, in a suit of fine steel armour, a royal crown of wrought gold encircling his casque, and mounted on a graceful Andalusian charger caparisoned with silver housings, enters the gate nearest to the river on the north, from henceforth to be known as “La Puerta del Trionfo.” By his side rides Don Garcia de Varga and his brother Don Diego (whom it is said the immortal Don Quixote de la Mancha chose as his model for tearing up the wild oak-tree, and which act of valour he proposed to perform equally), the Conde Lorenzo, the Lord of Haro, Pelayo Correa, the Master of Santiago, and many other champions of the times.
Over Fernando’s head waves the banner of Castile, the Golden Castle, and the Lion of Leon, his hand resting upon the hilt of that same iron sword, still to be seen in the sacristy at Seville, and fixed on his saddle-bow is a small ivory statue of the Virgen de los Reyes, which accompanies him everywhere.
The procession is superb. First, men-at-arms bearing the escutcheons of the twin kingdoms he rules and the black standards and flags captured from the Moors, a long string of swarthy prisoners following bare-headed—the greatest humiliation an Arab can endure; other banners floating in the sun, heralds in golden tabards proclaiming with a loud voice the feats of arms accomplished during the siege; bowmen, pursuivants, knights and esquires in squadrons behind, with gleaming spears and glistening targets, mounted on proudly prancing war-horses, a sheet of mail.
As Fernando passes the drawbridge, marked now by a sensible depression in the road (for the Puerta del Trionfo disappeared in the last revolution, and the fosse is filled up), a cup of rock-crystal is presented to him under an Arab arch by the Christian citizens, filled to the brim with golden Xerez wine. This he quaffs to the health of his victorious army, turning himself around in his saddle-bow so that all may see.
“Castile! Castile! Leon to the rescue! Viva el Rey Fernando! Viva el Cristo Deo!” come ringing through the air from every Christian throat of mailed warriors and tried men-at-arms. Their arms and hands are weary from the toil, but their hearts make merry at the pageant and the booty in store for all.
Then two men, a Jew and a Moor, advance from the crowd, one an aged Rabbi, with a long white beard, habited in a Hebrew gabardine reaching to the ground, the other a young Arab of stately presence, fully equipped for battle, the nephew of Caliph Azataff, but without casque or scimitar—both bearing offerings to the King. The Jewish gift is an iron key, bearing on the wards the words in Hebrew: “The King of kings shall open; the King of all the earth shall enter.” The Moor also bears a key, but it is of silver, inscribed in Arabic characters with the motto: “May Allah render the dominion of Islam eternal;” and as the young knight offers it to Fernando, kneeling in the dust beside his stirrup, he raises his other hand to put back the bitter tears that blind his eyes.
At the moment King Fernando entered Seville, the caliph fled by the side where is now the Hospital del Sangre, near to the Convent of San Jeronima in the fields, on the spot where the lepers had their ancient refuge.
Whither the caliph went no one knew, or if he died by his own hand or that of another, Fernando little heeding his fate as he passed into the city to take possession of the castle of the Alcazar.
And there he lived till he died, and was buried in the Capilla Real of the great mosque he turned into a cathedral.
Over the altar, placed on a silver throne embossed with the double knout of Castile and Leon, sits the little ivory image of the Virgen de los Reyes, given him by St. Louis—the same mediæval figure, with a glistening gown, hair spun in gold, and shoes worked with Gallic lillies and the word Amor, he always carried on his saddle-bow in battle.
The Capilla Real is a church within a church, entered by golden gates behind the altar, where, under a richly incrusted dome, in a shell-shaped vault, lies Saint Fernando in a crystal coffin. The body is wonderfully preserved. On his head is the pointed crown he wore in life, and his royal mantle is wrapped about his loins. On one side lies the sword with which he fought his way into Toledo and Seville, on the other the baton of command. Beside him rest his son, Alonso the Wise, and his Queen Beatrice, and on a wall near at hand are the medallions of the chivalric brothers Don Garcia and Don Diego de Varga.
The hour to enter the cathedral is at the Ave Maria, when the sun is low and its rays tremble on the burnished walls in irises of gold, and the great painted windows stand out in a pale light, alive with venerable forms of law-givers, prophets, and kings; the delicate curves of the arches melt into dim lines, and rays of yellow light pierce like arrows across the floor.
Then the sculptured saints seem to take form and live, the flying pipes of the twin organs to glitter like angels’ wings, the statues in the choir to murmur in strange tongues, the many famous pictures which line the walls to grow terrible in the half-light, with dark forms of archbishops and priests, monks and canons long laid to rest in the repose of painted shrines, beside which deacons keep watch with silver croziers; and from the boundless gloom a burst of sound rolls forth like the thunder of an earthquake from the deep-mouthed pipes of the two organs, replying to each other as in a voice of Titans—the rattle of conquering drums, the shrill bray of trumpets, the crying voice of pipes, and all the clash and clamour as of a battle-field.
On the anniversary of St. Fernando’s death the troops still march in to hear the military mass and to lower the standard of Spain before his body, each soldier bearing a lighted torch. Once it was a company of a hundred Moors, bareheaded, who carried the torches to the royal bier, sent in token of submission by the Caliph of Granada. Could any conqueror wish for more?
OH! the beautiful south it is at Seville! Nothing can shut it out! With its glamour of all strange things in nature, story, and song; Moslem and Christian knights and lovely sultanas hung with priceless pearls, dead caliphs haunting blood-stained towers, shades of Christian conquerors and swarthy slaves, the curse of a murderous past, the glitter of a glorious present, the clash, the confusion, Arab palaces, marble-paved, heavy with far-off tales, and gates, walls, and castles of nations long died out, yet with a poetic life still speaking!
The narrow streets, across which lovers still whisper to each other under the moon, the unshuttered windows, iron-bound, where Inez may creep down and warble to Alonso, concealed in a dark mantle behind the shadow of a wall, where roses fling curtains of perfumed blossom, orange petals scent the air, and southern sunsets spread sudden splendours in the afterglow, as the earth lies black under a sky palpitating like a furnace, till night falls and countless stars come forth to light a paler day!
Two things are most notable at Seville; the great mosque, now the cathedral, and the Alcazar. The Alcazar, inhabited by long generations of Arab caliphs up to the time of St. Fernando, is still untouched, a Moorish fortress in the centre of the city, girt by tapia walls and castellated towers. Not a poetic ruin like the Alhambra, but a real substantial castle, reached through the Plaza del Trionfo by which Fernando passed.
It was again rebuilt and redecorated by Don Pedro el Cruel, 1350, King of Castile and Leon, at the same period as the Alhambra, Yussuf, Caliph of Granada, being on such friendly terms with Don Pedro that the same Moorish architect wrought for both.
Passing an outer barbican with two low towers the Patio de las Banderas, where floats the flag of Spain, a dark corridor leads to the inner Patio de la Monteria, where the portal of Don Pedro blazes in the sun, a glittering blending of red, blue, and gold, set on snowy surfaces of finest fretwork; painted roofs casting rich shadows, arabesques formed into Cufic letters, diapered borders parting into groups of horseshoe arches, and a Gothic inscription setting forth “that the most high and powerful Don Pedro, by the Grace of God King of Castile and Leon, ordered these castles and fortresses to be re-erected.” The magic of it all is wonderful, coming into sight as it does, rising tier above tier, parapet on parapet, in a glow of Oriental colour, to a central dome cutting against the azure sky; the door a curious mosaic of dark wood, and on either side low marble benches, sunk into the arcaded carvings of the wall, where the young King Don Pedro sat to administer justice to all who came, while his dark-haired mistress, Maria de Padilla, watched from above, leaning out of the central mirador (window) of her chamber, still used as a retiring room for the queens of Spain.
One morning Don Pedro, taking his place as usual, surrounded by his alguazils, commanded that certain men should be brought before him whose arrest he had ordered as they were drifting down the Guadalquivir with the tide to Cadiz upon a wooden raft. His knitted brows and sinister aspect boded ill to the rough-looking countrymen brought trembling into the court.
“How comes it, fellows,” asks the king, his steely-blue eyes fixed on the foremost man, “that you dare to come to Seville to cheat me of the dues on the timber that floats down the stream? Think you you will escape unpunished?”
“O King,” one of the men answers, falling on his knees, “in what have we offended? We are four poor men from Puerta Santa Maria, incapable of deceiving any one—much less your royal Grace.”
“Liar!” roars the young king, starting from