But ere the words have passed his lips, Maria has sprung to her feet.
“What, my lord!” she cries, with a mocking laugh, “so soon from Valladolid? Where is the Lady Blanche? Have you tired of her already? Is Albuquerque with you, listening behind the arras? If he is a traitor to me, you are a greater.”
Then her mood changes, and tearing herself away from his outstretched arms she flings herself back upon the divan. “Oh, you are cruel, cruel!” she sobs. “For years you have enjoyed the treasure of my love – all I could give you. Who swore to make me his queen before the Church? to name my child his successor? And now you have wedded, stealthily, secretly, treacherously, and Albuquerque has helped you! Oh, Pedro, you have broken my heart! Go to your white-faced princess. She will deceive you, as you have me. Let me go!” she shrieks, as the king endeavours to draw her closer to him, and the sound of her voice echoes in the painted vestibules as she struggles to free herself. “Touch me not. Not with a finger. You shall not stay me; I will die as proudly as I have lived in this palace where I have triumphed. Here, on this pavement our feet have pressed so long together; within these halls where you have so often dallied with me!”
Then, by a sudden movement flinging back the curtains, she rushes forward into the open gallery of the mirador, but in an instant the strong arms of Pedro are round her.
All that tenderness could devise he essays to calm her. Slowly and sadly she yields to his touch, and listens to his entreaties for forgiveness. No one could have recognised the cruel Pedro in this impassioned youth. Truly it might be said she had bewitched him!
“Maria,” he whispers, covering her with kisses, as she lies faint and exhausted in his arms, “believe me, if I am married, it is for your good.”
“ ‘My good,’ false one? What good can come to me by losing you?”
“By making you greater than the queen!” answers, Pedro, looking down with glowing eyes upon the lines of her exquisite figure, and that royal contour of neck and brow that marks her supreme among women.
“But I am queen,” she answers, looking up at him, as the colour returns slowly to her cheeks. “Your queen. There is no other. Why did you listen to Albuquerque and put that woman between us?”
“Ah! sweet love, why?” sighs the love-sick Pedro, his whole soul melting as he gazes at the enchantress.
Who is like her? Who? By heaven, this black-browed Andalusian would put the pale daughters of the north to shame, were she but a beggar!
“Yes, Maria, I hate Blanche of Bourbon as much as you! She shrank from me with loathing. Not a smile, not a word – all were for Fadique, the treacherous boy. Por Dios! he shall be stripped of his honours, and your brother Garcia shall take his place as Grand Master of Santiago. By this time Fadique is on his way to Portugal. I have rooted out the viper, and scorned the royal demoiselle. Mark that, Maria, scorned her, and left her. Your voice called me and I am here. And I am glad of it. Come what may. Let Du Guesclin and the French avenge her. Kings, queens, and powers – though the whole world stands before me, I will have none of her, I have sworn it on the Gospel.” And in a passion of newly awakened love, he strains Maria to him in a wild embrace.
“But how can I trust you,” she whispers, her eyes meeting his. “You have deceived me once, you may again.”
“But you are not the only one, Maria. I am also deceived, cajoled. Por Dios! my vengeance shall fall on more than her. Don Fadique – ” He paused.
“Away with these half-words,” cries Maria, the feeling of power coming to her again as, eagerly seizing the king’s hands, she draws him to her and brings her glowing face close to his. “What of Fadique? How could you trust him?”
“Yes,” answers Pedro slowly. “The Judas! It was Albuquerque who insisted on sending him as my proxy, ‘devoted to me,’ he said. Ha! ha!” and he burst into a harsh laugh. “He met her at Narbonne, and passed the nuptial ring on her finger. Let God judge the hand that smites her, for smitten she shall be for her treason, and that speedily.”
“What?” cried Maria, her dark eyes kindling with light. “Do you really mean – ?”
“I mean what I say,” answers the king, sullenly. “The Queen of Castile and Leon is not as a trump in a hand of cards to be passed from brother to brother. It is a foul crime on my throne and person. At Valladolid I saw it at a glance. So I took horse, and I am here. At least one woman is true to me, and that is you, Maria.” And again he clasps her to his breast. “Lie there, sweetheart, it is your home.”
“And Don Fadique?” asks Maria, her face hardening as she remembers how the handsome Grand Master has always treated her with scant courtesy. “Is he long to taste the bliss provided for him? Methinks that the sons of Eleanor de Guzman live but to play tricks upon your Grace.”
“Would that they had but one neck,” roars Don Pedro, “that I could finish them at a blow! Maria, I know you have a grudge against Fadique; console yourself. A choice revenge awaits him and the Lady Blanche shall pay for all!”
A gleam of hate passed into his eyes, and was reflected in those of Maria, who, breathlessly listening, drank in every word.
“Some day, who knows? Life is short. A draught of Xeres wine – a silken thread – even the too heavy pressure of a scarf. All these kill well (accidentally of course) and may send the soul of Blanche to heaven! God rest her soul! Do you say Amen, Maria? Ha! ha!” – how hollow and mocking is his laugh! – “Are you happy now?” he asks, twisting her long fingers in his own, and gazing at her with his full merciless eyes. “All your enemies have fallen Maria; I wait but to strike sure.”
“And shall Blanche really die?” again whispers Maria, her eyes glittering like a snake. “Die by some swift death? Swear it to me, Pedro.”
He did not speak, but smiling down on her as he held her in one arm, with his right hand, he unsheathed the jewelled dagger he wore beneath his girdle, until the steel, catching a ray of sunlight imprisoned in the dark room, flashes with a dangerous reflex.
“This shall settle all, love,” he answers. “Now let me go to the bath to refresh me. See how the dust lies on me for I rode hard. I have done sixty miles without drawing rein, with relays of horses, to come to you. Let me go,” as she clings to him as though terrified to lose him. “We will meet anon in the gardens, and the Moorish slaves from Granada shall dance to us.”
One more embrace, and he had picked up his plumed helmet and placed it on his head, and down the narrow steps of the private stair his mailed feet clanked.
Maria stood erect before the fountain which seemed to sing in the marble basin to a wild rhythm as the spray fell, and such a murderous look came upon her face as would have turned to stone all who were in her power. Then, sounding a golden whistle, her slaves came running in, and with a gesture she commanded that the curtains before the mirador should be withdrawn.
Like a conqueror, the setting sun comes blazing in, engulfing all the gorgeous tints of wall, dome, draperies, and pavement in its rays, while cythers, flutes, and viols make harmony without – she, moving to her toilette, as one whose thoughts are far away, while the long locks of her ebon hair are delicately smoothed with golden combs before a silver mirror, ere she descends to the garden to join the king.
CHAPTER VIII
Don Fadique Goes to Seville
THE Grand Master Don Fadique was not with his brother Enrique. In the first moment of his flight from Valladolid he had crossed the frontier into Portugal.
There, among goatherds and shepherds, for awhile he lay concealed, and when reflection came to him in this solitude, his conscience sorely pricked him for his disloyalty to the king. Whatever punishment his brother and sovereign inflicted on him he felt would be his due. It was not that he mistook Don Pedro’s mind in his treatment of the Lady Blanche, nor did his love and pity for her suffer any diminution, but