THE SILKEN SCARF
Of the many godly enterprises set afoot for exploration and conquest
in New Spain of the sixteenth century, not all have chronicles
important enough for the historian to make much of. But there were
goings and comings of which no written record reached the archives.
Things forbidden did happen even under the iron heel of Castilian
rule, and one of the hidden enterprises grew to be a part of the life
of the P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé valley for a time.
Not that it was unchronicled, but there was a good reason why the
records were not published for the Spanish court.
It was a pretty romantic reason also--and the usual one, if we may
trust the world's judgment of the foundation of all trouble. But a
maid tossing a blossom from a Mexic balcony could not know that the
stranger from Seville to whom it was thrown was the son of an
Eminence, instead of the simple gentleman named Don Ruy Sandoval in a
royal letter to the Viceroy. With him travelled his tutor whose
tutelage was past, and the position a difficult one for even the
Viceroy to comprehend.
Since the youth rebelled at the habit of a monk--he had been given a
space for adventure under godly surveillance. The godly surveillance
limped a trifle at times. And because of this did Don Ruy walk again
in the moonlight under the balcony and this time more than a blossom
came to him--about the stem of a scarlet lily was a flutter of white!
The warm light of the Mexic moon helped him to decipher it--a page
from Ariosto--the romance of Doña Bradamante--and the mark of a pen
under words uttered by the warrior-maid herself--words to warm a
cooler youth than this one from over seas:--"_Why seek I one who flies
from me?--Why implore one who deigns not to send me reply?_"
Whereupon there was no further delay as to reply--there was found an
open gate to a garden where only stars gave light, where little hands
were held for a moment in his--soft whispers had answered his own--and
he was held in thrall by a lace wrapped señorita whose face he had not
even looked on in the light. All of Castile could give one no better
start in a week than he had found for himself in three days in the new
world of promise.
For there were promises--and they were sweet. They had to do with a
tryst two nights away--then the lady, whom he called "Doña Bradamante"
because of the page torn from that romance, would enlighten him as to
her pressing need of the aid of a gentleman, and courage would be hers
to tell him why a marked line and a scarlet lily had been let fall in
his path--and why she had trusted his face at first sight--though he
had not yet seen her own--and why--
It was the usual thing--the page of a poem and a silken scarf as a
guerdon of her trust.
He found the place of the tryst with ease for a stranger in the Mexic
streets, but a glimmer of white robe was all he saw of his unknown
"Doña Bradamante." Others were at the tryst, and their staves and arms
lacked no strength. He heard a woman scream, then he heard her try
again to scream and fail because of a hand on her throat, and beyond
that he knew little for a night or two, and there was not much of day
between.
Monkly robes were the next thing in his range of vision--one face in
particular, sallow and still with eyes glancing sideways, seeing all
things;--divining much! soft steps, and bandages, and out of silence
the excited shrillness of Don Diego Maria Francisco Brancadori the
tutor:--the shepherd who had lost track of his one rather ruffled
lamb.
Pious ejaculation--thanks to all the saints he could think of--horror
that the son of an Eminence should be thus abused--prophecies of the
wrath to come when the duchess, his mother--At this Don Ruy groped for
a sword, and found a boot, and flung it, with an unsanctified word or
two, in the direction of the lamentation.
"You wail worse than a dog of a Lutheran under the yoke," he said in
as good a voice as he could muster with a cut in his lip. "What matter
how much Eminence it took to make a father for me--or how many
duchesses to make a mother? I am labelled as plain Ruy Sandoval and
shipped till called for. If you are to instruct my youth in the path
it should tread--why not start in with a lesson on discretion?"
At this hopeful sign of life from the bundle of bandages on the monk's
bed, Maestro Diego approached and looked over his illustrious charge
with a careful eye.
"Discretion has limped far behind--enterprise, else your highness
would cut a different figure by now--and--"
[Illustration: TO DON RUY, A MESSAGE IN THE MOONLIGHT _Page 63_]
"Choke back your infernal highnesses!" growled the younger man. "I
know well what your task is to be here in this new land:--it is to
send back reports of duty each time I break a rule or get a broken
head. Now by the Blood, and the Cross, if you smother not your titles,
and let me range free, I tell you the thing I will do:--I will send
back a complaint against you to Seville--and to make sure that it
goes, no hand shall carry it but your own. Ere they can find another
nurse maid for my morals, I'll build me a ship and go sailing the
South seas for adventure--and your court tricksters will have a weary
time in the chase! I like you better than many another godly spy who
might have been sent, and I promise myself much joy in the journal of
strange travels it is in your mind to write. But once for all,
remember, we never were born into the world until a week ago!"
"But your Excellency--
"By the Great Duke of Hell! Will you not bridle your tongue when the
damned monks are three deep at the key hole?"
By which it will be seen that the travels of the pious Don Diego were
not all on paths of roses.
A little later the still faced priest of the stealthy glances came in,
and Don Ruy sat on the side of the bed, and looked him over.
"You are the one who picked me up--eh? And the gentlemen of the
streets had tossed me into a corner after discreetly starting my soul
on its travels! Warm trysts your dames give to a stranger in this
land--when you next confess the darlings, whisper their ears to be
less bloodthirsty towards youth innocence!"
The man in the robe smiled.
"That unwise maid will make no more trysts," he said quietly,--"not
if she be one important enough to cause an assault on your Highness."
"Did they--?"
"No--no--harm would not be done to her, but her destiny is without
doubt a convent. The men who spoiled your tryst earn no purses as
guard for girls of the street,--sacred walls will save them that
trouble for a time--whether maid or wife I dare promise you that! It
is as well you know. Time is wasted seeking adventure placed beyond
mortal reach."
"Convent--eh? Do your holy retreats teach the little tricks the lady
knew? And do they furnish their vestals with poems of romance and
silks and spices of Kathay?"
He drew from an inner pocket a little scarf of apple green with
knotted fringes, and butterflies, various colored in dainty broidery.
As the folds fell apart an odor of sweetness stole into the shadowy
room of the monastery, and the priest was surprised into an
ejaculation at sight of such costly evidence, but he smothered it
hastily in a muttered prayer.
After that he listened to few of the stranger's gibes and quips, but
with a book of prayers on his knee he looked the youth over carefully,
recalled the outburst of Don Diego as to origin, and the adventurer's
own threat to build a ship and sail where chance pointed. Plainly,
this seeker of trysts, or any other thing promising adventure, had
more of resource than one might expect from a battered stranger lifted
out of the gutter for the last rites.
The priest--who looked a good soldier and who was called Padre Vicente
"de los Chichimecos" (of the wild tribes) read further in his book of
hours, and then spoke the thing in his mind.
"For a matter of many years in this land of the Indies I have waited
for a man of discreet determination for a certain work. The virgin
herself led me to the gutter where you groaned in the dark, and I here
vow to build her a chapel if this thought of mine bears fruit."
"Hump! My thanks to our Lady,--and I myself will see to the building
of the chapel. But tell me of the tree you would plant, and we'll then
have a guess at the fruit. It may prove sour to the taste! Monkly
messes appealed to me little on the other side of the seas. I've yet
to test their flavor on this shore of adventure."
Padre Vicente ignored the none too respectful comment--and took from
his pocket a bit of virgin gold strung on a thread of deer sinew.
"Your name is Don Ruy Sandoval," he said. "You are in this land for
adventure. You content yourself with the latticed window and the
strife of the streets--why not look for the greater things? You have
wealth and power at your call--why not search for an empire
of--this?"
Then he showed the virgin gold worn smooth by much wearing.
Don Ruy blinked under the bandage and swore by Bradamante of the
adventure that he would search for it gladly if but the way was
shown.
"Where do we find this golden mistress of yours?" he demanded, "and
why have you waited long for a comrade?"
"The gold is in the north where none dare openly seek treasure, or
even souls, since Coronado came back broken and disgraced. I have
waited for the man of wealth who dared risk it, and--at whose going
the Viceroy could wink."
"Why wink at me--rather than another?"
"That is a secret knotted in the fringes of the silken scarf there--"
said Padre Vicente with a grim smile. "Cannot a way be found to clear
either a convent or a palace of a trouble breeder, when the church
itself lends a hand? You were plainly a breeder of trouble, else had
you escaped the present need of bandages. For the first time I see a
way where Church and the government of the Indies can go with clasped
hands to this work. In gold and converts the work may prove mighty.
How mighty depends whether you come to the Indies to kill time until
the day you are recalled--or improve that time by success where
Coronado failed."
"And if we echo his failure?"
"None will be the wiser even then! You plan for a season of hunting in
the hills. I plan for a mission visit by the Sea of Cortez. Mine will
be the task to see how and where our helpers join each other and all
the provisioning of man and beast. Mine also to make it clear to the
Viceroy that you repent your--"
"Hollo!"--Don Ruy interrupted with a grimace. "You are about to say I
repent of folly--or the enticing of a virgin--or that I fell victim to
the blandishments of some tricky dame--I know all that cant by
rote!--a man always repents until his broken head is mended, but all
that is apart from the real thing--which is this:--In what way does my
moment with a lady in the dark affect the Viceroy of the Indies? Why
should his Excellency trouble himself that Ruy Sandoval has a broken
head--and a silken scarf?"
Padre Vicente stared--then smiled. Ruy Sandoval had not his wits
smothered by the cotton wool of exalted pamperings.
"I will be frank with you," he said at last. "The Viceroy I have not
yet addressed on this matter. But such silken scarfs are few--that one
would not be a heavy task to trace to its owner."
"Ah!--I suspected your eminence had been a gallant in your time,"
remarked Don Ruy, amicably--"It is not easy to get out of the habit of
noticing alluring things:--that is why I refused to do penance for my
birth by turning monk, and shrouding myself in the gown! Now
come--tell me! You seem a good fellow--tell me of the 'Doña
Bradamante' of the silks and the spices."
"The destiny of that person is probably already decided," stated the
priest of the wild tribes, "she is, if I mistake not, too close to the
charge of the Viceroy himself for that destiny to be questioned. The
mother, it is said, died insane, and the time has come when the
daughter also is watched with all care lest she harm herself--or her
attendants. So I hear--the maid I do not know, but the scarf I can
trace. Briefly--the evident place for such a wanton spitfire is the
convent. You can easily see the turmoil a woman like that can make as
each ship brings adventurers--and she seeks a lover out of every
group."
"Jesus!--and hell to come! Then I was only one of a sort--all is fish
to the net of the love lorn lady! Maestro Diego would have had the
romance and the lily if he had walked ahead instead of behind me!--and
he could have had the broken head as well!" Then he sniffed again at
the bit of silk, and regarded the monk quizzically.
"You have a good story, and you tell it well, holy father," he said at
last,--"and I am troubled in my mind to know how little of it may be
truth, and how much a godly lie. But the gold at least is true gold,
and whatever the trick of the lady may be, you say it will serve to
win for me the privilege to seek the mines without blare of trumpets.
Hum!--it is a great favor for an unknown adventurer."
"Unknown you may be to the people of the streets, and to your ship
mates," agreed the Padre. "But be sure the Viceroy has more than a
hint that you are not of the rabble. The broils you may draw to
yourself may serve to disquiet him much--yet he would scarce send you
to the stocks, or the service of the roads. Be sure he would rather
than all else bid you god speed on a hunting journey."
"But that you are so given to frankness I should look also for a knife
in the back to be included in his excellency's favors," commented Don
Ruy. "Name of the Devil!--what have I done since I entered the town,
but hold hands with one woman in the dark--and be made to look as if I
had been laid across a butcher block on a busy day! Hell take such a
city to itself! I've no fancy for halting over long in a pit where a
gentleman's amusements are so little understood. If the Doña of the
scarf were aught but an amiable maniac the thing would be different. I
would stay--and I would find her and together we would weave a new
romance for a new world poet! But as it is, gather your cut throats
and name the day, and we'll go scouring the land for heathen souls and
yellow clinkers."
Padre Vicente de Bernaldez was known by his wonderful mission-work to
be an ecclesiastic of most adventurous disposition. Into wild lands
and beyond the Sea of Cortez had he gone alone to the wild tribes--so
far had he gone that silence closed over his trail like a grave at
times--but out of the Unknown had he come in safety!
His fame had reached beyond his order--and Ruy Sandoval knew that it
was no common man who spoke to him of the Indian gold.
"Francisco de Coronado," stated this padre of the wilderness, "came
back empty handed from the north land of the civilized Indians for the
reason that he knew not where to search. The gold is there. This is
witness. It came to me from a man who--is dead! It was given him by a
woman of a certain tribe of sun worshippers. To her it was merely some
symbol of their pagan faith--some priestly circle dedicated to the
sun."
"It sounds well," agreed Don Ruy--"but the trail? Who makes the way?
And what force is needed?"
For a guide the Padre Vicente had a slave of that land, a man of
Te-hua baptized José, for five years the padre had studied the words
and the plans. The man would gladly go to his own land,--he and his
wife. All that was required was a general with wealth for the
conquest. There were pagan souls to be saved, and there was wealth for
the more worldly minds. The padre asked only a tenth for godly
reasons.
Thus between church and state was the expedition of his Excellency Don
Ruy Sandoval ignored except as a hunting journey to the North coast of
the Cortez Sea--if he ranged farther afield, his own be the peril, for
no troops of state were sent as companions. The good father had
selected the men--most of them he had confessed at odd times and knew
their metal. All engaged as under special duty to the cross:--it was
to be akin to a holy pilgrimage, and absolution for strange things was
granted to the men who would bear arms and hold the quest as secret.
Most of them thought the patron was to be Mother Church, and regarded
it as a certain entrance to Paradise. Don Ruy himself meekly accepted
a role of the least significance:--a mere seeker of pleasure
adventures in the provinces! It would not be well that word of risk or
danger be sent across seas--and the Viceroy could of course only say
"god speed you" to a gentleman going for a ride with his servants and
his major domo.
And thus:--between a hair brained adventurer and a most extolled
priest, began the third attempt to reach the people called by New
Spain, the Pueblos:--the strangely learned barbarians who dwelt in
walled towns--cultivating field by irrigation, and worshipping their
gods of the sun, or the moon, or the stars through rituals strange as
those of Pagan Egypt.
Word had reached Mexico of the martyrdom of Fray Juan Padilla at
Ci-bo-la, but in the far valley of the Rio Grande del Norte--called by
the tribes the river P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé,--Fray Luis de Escalona might be
yet alive carrying on the work of salvation of souls.
The young Spanish adventurer listened with special interest as the
devotion and sacrifices of Fray Luis were extolled in the recitals.
"If he lives we will find that man," he determined. "He was nobly
born, and of the province of my mother. I've heard the romance for
which he cloaked himself in the gray robe. He should be a prince of
the church instead of a wandering lay brother--we will have a human
thing to search for in the world beyond the desert--ours will be a
crusade to rescue him from the infidel lands."