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

is aware of my knowledge of having ordered him to

put Escovedo to death and of the motives which he told me existed

for this measure; and that as it imports for the satisfaction of my

conscience that it be ascertained whether or not those motives were

sufficient, I order him to state them in the fullest detail, and to

advance proof of what he then alleged to me, which is not unknown

to yourself, since I have clearly imparted it to you. When I shall

have seen his answers, and the reasons he advances, I shall give

order that such measures be taken as may befit.

I, THE KING

 

You see what a twist he had given to the facts. It was I who had

urged the death of Escovedo; it was I who had advanced reasons which

he had considered sufficient, trusting to my word; and it was

because of this he had consented to give the order. Let me confess

so much, let me prove it, and prove, too, that the motives I had

advanced were sound ones, or I must be destroyed. That was all

clear. And that false king held fast the two trunks of papers that

would have given the lie to this atrocious note of his, that would

have proved that again and again I had shielded Escovedo from the

death his king designed for him.

 

I looked into the face of my enemy, and there was a twisted smile

on my lips.

 

“What fresh trap is this?” I asked him. “King Philip never wrote

that note.”

 

“You should know his hand. Look closer,” he bade me harshly.

 

“I know his hand - none better. But I claim, too, to know something

of his heart. And I know that it is not the heart of a perjured

liar such as penned those lines.”

 

That was as near as a man dared to go in expressing his true opinion

of a prince.

 

“For the rest,” I said, “I do not understand it. I know nothing of

the death of Escovedo. I have nothing to add to what already I have

said in open court unless it be to protest against you, who are a

passionate, hostile judge.”

 

Six times in the month that followed did Vasquez come to me,

accompanied now by a notary, to press me to confess. At last, seeing

that no persuasions could bend my obstinacy, they resorted to other

measures.

 

“You will drive us to use the torture upon you so that we may loosen

your tongue!” snarled Vasquez fiercely, enraged by my obduracy.

 

I laughed at the threat. I was a noble of Spain, by birth immune

from torture. They dared not violate the law. But they did dare.

There was no law, human or divine, the King was not prepared to

violate so that he might slake his vengeance upon the man who had

dared to love where he had loved.

 

They delivered me naked into the hands of the executioner, and I

underwent the question at the rope. They warned me that if I lost

my life or the use of any of my limbs, it would be solely by my own

fault. I advanced my nobility and the state of my health as

all-sufficient reasons why the torture should not be applied to me,

reminding them that for eleven years already I had suffered

persecution and detention, so that my vigour was all gone.

 

For the last time they summoned me to answer as the King desired.

And then, since I still refused, the executioner was recalled, he

crossed my arms upon my breast, bound them securely, thrust a long

rod beneath the cord, and, seizing one end of this in either hand,

gave the first turn.

 

I screamed. I could not help it, enfeebled as I was. But my spirit

being stouter than my flesh, I still refused to answer. Not indeed,

until they had given the rope eight turns, not until it had sliced

through my muscles and crushed the bone of one of my arms, so that

to this day it remains of little use to me, did they conquer me. I

had reached the limit of endurance.

 

“In Christ’s name, release me!” I gasped. “I will say anything you

wish.”

 

Released at last, half swooning, smothered in blood, agonized by

pain, I confessed that it was myself had procured the death of

Escovedo for reasons of State and acting upon the orders of the King.

The notary made haste to write down my words, and, when I had done,

it was demanded of me that I should advance proof of the State

reasons which I had alleged.

 

Oh, I had never been under any delusion on that score, as I have

shown you. The demand did not take me by surprise at all. I was

waiting for it, knowing that my answer to it would pronounce my

doom. But I delivered it none the less.

 

“My papers have been taken from me, and without them I can prove

nothing. With them I could prove my words abundantly.”

 

They left me then. On the morrow, as I afterwards learnt, they read

my confession to my devoted Martinez, and the poor fellow, who

hitherto had remained staunch and silent under every test, seeing

that there was no further purpose to be served by silence, gave

them the confirmation they desired of Enriquez’s accusation.

 

Meanwhile, I was very ill, in a raging fever as you may well conceive,

and in answer to my prayer my own doctor was permitted to visit me

in prison. He announced that he found my case extremely grave, and

that I must perish unless I were relieved. As a consequence, and

considering my weakness and the uselessness just then of both my arms,

one of which was broken, first a page of my own, then other servants,

and lastly my wife were allowed to come and tend me.

 

That was at the end of February. By the middle of April my wounds

had healed, I had recovered the use of my limbs, though one remains

half maimed for life, and my condition had undergone a very

considerable improvement. But of this I allowed no sign to show,

no suspicion even. I continued to lie there day after day in a

state of complete collapse, so that whilst I was quickly gathering

strength it was believed by my gaolers that I was steadily sinking,

and that I should soon be dead.

 

My only hope, you see, lay now in evasion, and it was for this that

I was thus craftily preparing. Once out of Castile I could deal

with Philip, and he should not find me as impotent, as toothless as

he believed. But I go too fast.

 

One night at last, on April 20th, by when all measures had been

concerted, and Gil de Mesa awaited me outside with horses - the

whole having been contrived by my dear wife - I made the attempt.

My apparent condition had naturally led to carelessness in guarding

me. Who would guard a helpless, dying man? Soon after dark I rose,

donned over my own clothes a petticoat and a hooded cloak belonging

to my wife, and thus mufed walked out of my cell, past the guards,

and so out of the prison unchallenged. I joined Gil de Mesa,

discarded my feminine disguise, mounted and set out with him upon

that ninety-mile journey into Aragon.

 

We reached Saragossa in safety, and there my first act was to

surrender myself to the Grand Justiciary of Aragon to stand my trial

for the murder of Escovedo with which I was charged.

 

It must have sent a shudder through the wicked Philip when he

received news of that. A very stricken man he must have been, for

he must have suspected something of the truth, that if I dared,

after all the evidence amassed now against me, including my own

confession under torture, openly to seek a judgment, it was because

I must possess some unsuspected means of establishing all the truth

- the truth that must make his own name stink in the nostrils of

the world. And so it was. Have you supposed that Antonio Perez,

who had spent his life in studying the underground methods of

burrowing statecraft, had allowed himself to be taken quite so

easily in their snare? Have you imagined that when I sent for Diego

Martinez to come to me at Turruegano and instructed him touching

the surrender of those two chests of documents, that I did not also

instruct him carefully touching the abstraction in the first

instance of a few serviceable papers and the renewal of the seals

that should conceal the fact that he had tampered with the chests?

If you have thought that, you have done me less than justice. There

had been so much correspondence between Philip and myself, so many

notes had passed touching the death of Escovedo, and there was that

habit of Philip’s of writing his replies in marginal notes to my

own letters and so returning them, that it was unthinkable he should

have kept them all in his memory, and the abstraction of three or

four could not conceivably be detected by him.

 

Ever since then those few letters, of a most deeply incriminating

character, selected with great acumen by my steward, had secretly

remained in the possession of my wife. Yet I had not dared produce

them in Castile, knowing that I should instantly have been deprived

of them, and with them of my last hope. They remained concealed

against precisely such a time as this, when, beyond the immediate

reach of Philip’s justice, I should startle the world and clear my

own character by their production.

 

You know the ancient privileges enjoyed by Aragon, privileges of

which the Aragonese are so jealous that a King of Castile may not

assume the title of King of Aragon until, bareheaded, he shall have

received from the Grand Justiciary of Aragon the following

admonition: “We, who are of equal worth and greater power than you,

constitute you our king on the condition that you respect our

privileges, and not otherwise.” And to that the king must solemnly

bind himself by oath, whose violation would raise in revolt against

him the very cobbles of the streets. No king of Spain had ever yet

been found to dare violate the constitution and the fueros of

Aragon, the independence of their cortes, or parliament, composed

of the four orders of the State. The Grand Justiciary’s Court was

superior to any royally constituted tribunal in the kingdom; to that

court it was the privilege of any man to appeal for justice in any

cause; and there justice was measured out with a stern impartiality

that had not its like in any other State of Europe.

 

That was the tribunal to which I made surrender of my, person and

my cause. There was an attempt on the part of Philip to seize me

and drag me back to Castile and his vengeance. His officers broke

into the prison for that purpose, and already I was in their power,

when the men of the Justiciary, followed by an excited mob, which

threatened open rebellion at this violation of their ancient rights,

delivered me from their hands.

 

Baffled in this - and I can imagine his fury, which has since been

vented on the Aragonese - Philip sent his representatives and his

jurists to accuse me before the Court of the Grand Justiciary and

to conduct my prosecution.

 

The trial began, exciting the most profound interest, not only in

Aragon, but also in Castile, which, as I afterwards learnt, had

openly rejoiced at my escape. It proceeded with