The Historical Nights' Entertainment, Rafael Sabatini [freenovel24 .txt] 📗

ill-humour on my part, or further

advice on his. But the matter did not end there. Indeed, it but

began. Going early in the afternoon of the morrow to visit Anne, I

found her in tears - tears, as I was to discover, of anger.

 

Escovedo had been to visit her before me, and he had dared to

reproach her on the same subject.

 

“You are talked about, you and Perez,” he had informed her, “and

the thing may have evil consequences. It is because I have eaten

our bread that I tell you this for your own good.”

 

She had risen up in a great passion.

 

“You will leave my house, and never set foot in it again,” she had

told him. “You should learn that grooms and lackeys have no concern

in the conduct of great ladies. It is because you have eaten my

bread that I tell you this for your own good.”

 

It drove him out incontinently, but it left her in the condition in

which I was later to discover her. I set myself to soothe her. I

swore that Escovedo should be punished. But she would not be

soothed. She blamed herself for an unpardonable rashness. She

should not have taken that tone with Escovedo. He could avenge

himself by telling Philip, and if he told Philip, and Philip believed

him - as Philip would, being jealous and mistrustful beyond all men

- my ruin must follow. She had thought only of herself in

dismissing him in that high-handed manner. Coming since to think

of me it was that she had fallen into this despair. She clung to

me in tears.

 

“Forgive me, Antonio. The fault is all mine - the fault of all.

Always have I known that this danger must overhang you as a penalty

for loving me. Always I knew it, and, knowing it, I should have

been stronger. I should have sent you from me at the first. But I

was so starved of love from childhood till I met you. I hungered

so for love - for your love, Antonio - that I had not the strength.

I was weak and selfish, and because I was ready and glad to pay the

price myself, whatever it should be and whenever asked, I did not

take thought enough for you.”

 

“Take no thought now,” I implored her, holding her close.

 

“I must. I can’t help it. I have raised this peril for you. He

will go to Philip.”

 

“Not he; he dare not. I am his only hope. I am the ladder by which

he hopes to scale the heaven of his high ambition. If he destroys

me, there is the kennel for himself. He knows it.”

 

“Do you say that to comfort me, or is it really true?”

 

“God’s truth, sweetheart,” I swore, and drew her closer.

 

She was comforted long before I left her. But as I stepped out

into the street again a man accosted me. Evidently he had been on

the watch, awaiting me. He fell into step beside me almost before

I realized his presence. It was Escovedo.

 

“So,” he said, very sinister, “you’ll not be warned.”

 

“Nor will you,” I answered, no whit less sinister myself.

 

It was broad daylight. A pale March sunshine was beating down upon

the cobbled streets, and passers-by were plentiful. There was no

fingering of hilts or talk of skewering on either side. Nor must

I show any of the anger that was boiling in me. My face was too

well known in Madrid streets, and a Secretary of State does not

parade emotions to the rabble. So I walked stiff and dignified

amain, that dog in step with me the while.

 

“She will have told you what I have said to her,” he murmured.

 

“And what she said to you. It was less than your deserts.”

 

“Groom and lackey, eh?” said he. “And less than I deserve - a man

of my estate. Oh, ho! Groom and lackey! Those are epithets to be

washed out in blood and tears.”

 

“You rant,” I said.

 

“Or else to be paid for - handsomely.” His tone was sly - so sly

that I answered nothing, for to answer a sly man is to assist him,

and my business was to let him betray the cause of this slyness.

Followed a spell of silence. Then, “Do you know,” said he, “that

several of her relatives are thinking seriously of killing you?”

 

“Many men have thought seriously of that - so seriously that they

never attempted it. Antonio Perez is not easily murdered, Don Juan,

as you may discover.”

 

It was a boast that I may claim to have since justified.

 

“Shall I tell you their names?” quoth he.

 

“If you want to ruin them.”

 

“Ha!” It was a short bark of a laugh. “You talk glibly of ruining

- but then you talk to a groom and lackey.” The epithets rankled

in his mind; they were poison to his blood, it seemed. It takes a

woman to find words that burn and blister a man. “Yet groom and

lackey that I am, I hold you both in the hollow of my hand. If I

close that hand, it will be very bad for you, very bad for her. If,

for instance, I were to tell King Philip that I have seen her in

your arms -”

 

“You dog!”

 

“I have - I swear to God I have, with these two eyes - at least

with one of them, applied to the keyhole half an hour ago. Her

servants passed me in; a ducat or two well bestowed - you

understand?”

 

We had reached the door of my house. I paused and turned to him.

 

“You will come in?” I invited.

 

“As the wolf said to the lamb, eh? Well, why not?” And we went in.

 

“You are well housed,” he commented, his greedy, envious eyes

considering all the tokens of my wealth. “It were a pity to lose

so much, I think. The King is at the Escurial, I am told.”

 

He was. He had gone thither into retreat, that he might cleanse

his pious, murky soul against the coming of Eastertide.

 

“You would not, I am sure, compel me to undertake so tedious a

journey,” said he.

 

“Will you put off this slyness and be plain?” I bade him. “You

have some bargain in your mind. Propound it.”

 

He did, and left me aghast.

 

“You have temporized long enough, Perez,” he began. “You have been

hunting with the dogs and running with the stag. There must be an

end to all that. Stand by me now, and I will make you greater than

you are, greater than you could ever dream to be. Oppose me, betray

me - for I am going to be very frank - and the King shall hear

things from me that will mean your ruin and hers. You understand?”

 

Then came his demands. First of all the command of the fortress of

Mogro for himself. I must obtain him that at once. Secondly, I

must see to it that Philip pledged himself to support Don John’s

expedition against England and Elizabeth and to seat Don John upon

the throne with Mary Stuart for his wife. These things must come

about, and quickly, or I perished. Nor was that all. Indeed, no

more than a beginning. He opened out the vista of his dreams, that

having blackmailed me on the one hand, he might now bribe me on the

other. Once England was theirs, he aimed at no less than a descent

upon Spain itself. That was why he wanted Mogro to facilitate a

landing at Santander. Thus, as the Christians had originally come

down from the mountains of the Asturias to drive the Moors from the

Peninsula, so should the forces of Don John descend again to

reconquer it for himself.

 

It was a madman’s fancy utterly - fruit of a brain that ambition

had completely addled; and I do not believe that Don John had any

part in it or even knowledge of it. Escovedo saw himself, perhaps,

upon the throne of one or the other of the two kingdoms as Don

John’s vice-regent - for himself and for me, if I stood by him,

there was such power in store as no man ever dreamed of. If I

refused, he would destroy me.

 

“And if I go straight to the Escurial and lay this project before

the King?” I asked him.

 

He smiled.

 

“You will force me to tell him that it is a lie invented to deliver

you from a man who can destroy you by the knowledge he possesses,

knowledge which I shall at once impart to Philip. Think what that

will mean to you. Think,” he added very wickedly, “what it will

mean to her.”

 

As I am a Christian, I believe that had it been but the consideration

of myself I would have flung him from my house upon the instant and

bade him do his worst. But he was well advised to remind me of her.

Whatever Philip’s punishment of me, it would be as nothing to his

punishment of that long-suffering woman who had betrayed him. Oh,

I assure you it is a very evil, ill judged thing to have a king for

rival, particularly a fish-souled tyrant of King Philip’s kind.

 

I was all limp with dread. I passed a hand across my brow, and

found it chill and moist.

 

“I am in your hands, Escovedo,” I confessed miserably.

 

“Say, rather, that we are partners. Forget all else.” He was eager,

joyous, believing all accomplished, such was his faith in my

influence with Philip. “And now, Mogro for me, and England for Don

John. About it with dispatch.”

 

“The King is in retreat. We must wait some days.”

 

“Till Easter, then.” And he held out his hand. I took it limply,

thus clenching the bargain of infamy between us. What else was

there for me. What, otherwise, was to become of Anne?

 

Oh, I may have been self-seeking and made the most of my position,

as was afterwards urged against me. I may have been extortionate

and venal, and I may have taken regal bribes to expedite affairs.

But always was I loyal and devoted to the King. Never once had I

been bribed to aught that ran counter to his interests; never until

now, when at a stroke I had sold my honour and pledged myself to

this betrayal of my trust.

 

Not in all Spain was there a more miserable man than I. All night

I sat in the room where I was wont to work, and to my wife’s

entreaties that I should take some rest I answered that the affairs

of Spain compelled attention. And when morning found me haggard

and distraught came a courier from Philip with a letter.

 

“I have letters from Don John,” he wrote, “more insistent than ever

in their tone. He demands the instant dispatch of money and

Escovedo. I have been thinking, and this letter confirms my every

fear. I have cause to apprehend some stroke that may disturb the

public peace and ruin Don John himself if he is allowed to retain

Escovedo any longer in his service. I am writing to Don John that

I will see to it that Escovedo is promptly dispatched as he requests.

Do you see him dispatched, then, in precise accordance with his

deserts, and this at once, before the villain kills us.”

 

My skin bristled as I read. Here was fatality itself at work.

Philip was at his