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DON RODRIGUEZ
CHRONICLES OF SHADOW VALLEY
By
LORD DUNSANY
To WILLIAM BEEBE
CHRONOLOGY
After long and patient research I am still unable to give to the reader
of these Chronicles the exact date of the times that they tell of. Were
it merely a matter of history there could be no doubts about the
period; but where magic is concerned, to however slight an extent,
there must always be some element of mystery, arising partly out of
ignorance and partly from the compulsion of those oaths by which magic
protects its precincts from the tiptoe of curiosity.
Moreover, magic, even in small quantities, appears to affect time, much
as acids affect some metals, curiously changing its substance, until
dates seem to melt into a mercurial form that renders them elusive even
to the eye of the most watchful historian.
It is the magic appearing in Chronicles III and IV that has gravely
affected the date, so that all I can tell the reader with certainty of
the period is that it fell in the later years of the Golden Age in
Spain.
CONTENTS
THE FIRST CHRONICLE
HOW HE MET AND SAID FAREWELL TO MINE HOST OF THE DRAGON AND KNIGHT
THE SECOND CHRONICLE
HOW HE HIRED A MEMORABLE SERVANT
THE THIRD CHRONICLE
HOW HE CAME TO THE HOUSE OF WONDER
THE FOURTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE CAME TO THE MOUNTAINS OF THE SUN
THE FIFTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE RODE IN THE TWILIGHT AND SAW SERAFINA
THE SIXTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE SANG TO HIS MANDOLIN AND WHAT CAME OF HIS SINGING
THE SEVENTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE CAME TO SHADOW VALLEY
THE EIGHTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE TRAVELLED FAR
THE NINTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE WON A CASTLE IN SPAIN
THE TENTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE CAME BACK TO LOWLIGHT
THE ELEVENTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE TURNED TO GARDENING AND HIS SWORD RESTED
THE TWELFTH CHRONICLE
THE BUILDING OF CASTLE RODRIGUEZ AND THE ENDING OF THESE CHRONICLES
DON RODRIGUEZ
THE FIRST CHRONICLE
HOW HE MET AND SAID FAREWELL TO MINE HOST OF THE DRAGON AND KNIGHT
Being convinced that his end was nearly come, and having lived long on
earth (and all those years in Spain, in the golden time), the Lord of
the Valleys of Arguento Harez, whose heights see not Valladolid, called
for his eldest son. And so he addressed him when he was come to his
chamber, dim with its strange red hangings and august with the
splendour of Spain: "O eldest son of mine, your younger brother being
dull and clever, on whom those traits that women love have not been
bestowed by God; and know my eldest son that here on earth, and for
ought I know Hereafter, but certainly here on earth, these women be the
arbiters of all things; and how this be so God knoweth only, for they
are vain and variable, yet it is surely so: your younger brother then
not having been given those ways that women prize, and God knows why
they prize them for they are vain ways that I have in my mind and that
won me the Valleys of Arguento Harez, from whose heights Angelico swore
he saw Valladolid once, and that won me moreover also ... but that is
long ago and is all gone now ... ah well, well ... what was I saying?"
And being reminded of his discourse, the old lord continued, saying,
"For himself he will win nothing, and therefore I will leave him these
my valleys, for not unlikely it was for some sin of mine that his
spirit was visited with dullness, as Holy Writ sets forth, the sins of
the fathers being visited on the children; and thus I make him amends.
But to you I leave my long, most flexible, ancient Castilian blade,
which infidels dreaded if old songs be true. Merry and lithe it is, and
its true temper singeth when it meets another blade as two friends sing
when met after many years. It is most subtle, nimble and exultant; and
what it will not win for you in the wars, that shall be won for you by
your mandolin, for you have a way with it that goes well with the old
airs of Spain. And choose, my son, rather a moonlight night when you
sing under those curved balconies that I knew, ah me, so well; for
there is much advantage in the moon. In the first place maidens see in
the light of the moon, especially in the Spring, more romance than you
might credit, for it adds for them a mystery to the darkness which the
night has not when it is merely black. And if any statue should gleam
on the grass near by, or if the magnolia be in blossom, or even the
nightingale singing, or if anything be beautiful in the night, in any
of these things also there is advantage; for a maiden will attribute to
her lover all manner of things that are not his at all, but are only
outpourings from the hand of God. There is this advantage also in the
moon, that, if interrupters come, the moonlight is better suited to the
play of a blade than the mere darkness of night; indeed but the merry
play of my sword in the moonlight was often a joy to see, it so
flashed, so danced, so sparkled. In the moonlight also one makes no
unworthy stroke, but hath scope for those fair passes that Sevastiani
taught, which were long ago the wonder of Madrid."
The old lord paused, and breathed for a little space, as it were
gathering breath for his last words to his son. He breathed
deliberately, then spoke again. "I leave you," he said, "well content
that you have the two accomplishments, my son, that are most needful in
a Christian man, skill with the sword and a way with the mandolin.
There be other arts indeed among the heathen, for the world is wide and
hath full many customs, but these two alone are needful." And then with
that grand manner that they had at that time in Spain, although his
strength was failing, he gave to his eldest son his Castilian sword. He
lay back then in the huge, carved, canopied bed; his eyes closed, the
red silk curtains rustled, and there was no sound of his breathing. But
the old lord's spirit, whatever journey it purposed, lingered yet in
its ancient habitation, and his voice came again, but feebly now and
rambling; he muttered awhile of gardens, such gardens no doubt as the
hidalgos guarded in that fertile region of sunshine in the proudest
period of Spain; he would have known no others. So for awhile his
memory seemed to stray, half blind among those perfumed earthly
wonders; perhaps among these memories his spirit halted, and tarried
those last few moments, mistaking those Spanish gardens, remembered by
moonlight in Spring, for the other end of his journey, the glades of
Paradise. However it be, it tarried. These rambling memories ceased and
silence fell again, with scarcely the sound of breathing. Then
gathering up his strength for the last time and looking at his son,
"The sword to the wars," he said. "The mandolin to the balconies." With
that he fell back dead.
Now there were no wars at that time so far as was known in Spain, but
that old lord's eldest son, regarding those last words of his father as
a commandment, determined then and there in that dim, vast chamber to
gird his legacy to him and seek for the wars, wherever the wars might
be, so soon as the obsequies of the sepulture were ended. And of those
obsequies I tell not here, for they are fully told in the Black Books
of Spain, and the deeds of that old lord's youth are told in the Golden
Stories. The Book of Maidens mentions him, and again we read of him in
Gardens of Spain. I take my leave of him, happy, I trust, in Paradise,
for he had himself the accomplishments that he held needful in a
Christian, skill with the sword and a way with the mandolin; and if
there be some harder, better way to salvation than to follow that which
we believe to be good, then are we all damned. So he was buried, and
his eldest son fared forth with his legacy dangling from his girdle in
its long, straight, lovely scabbard, blue velvet, with emeralds on it,
fared forth on foot along a road of Spain. And though the road turned
left and right and sometimes nearly ceased, as though to let the small
wild flowers grow, out of sheer good will such as some roads never
have; though it ran west and east and sometimes south, yet in the main
it ran northward, though wandered is a better word than ran, and the
Lord of the Valleys of Arguento Harez who owned no valleys, or anything
but a sword, kept company with it looking for the wars. Upon his back
he had slung his mandolin. Now the time of the year was Spring, not
Spring as we know it in England, for it was but early March, but it was
the time when Spring coming up out of Africa, or unknown lands to the
south, first touches Spain, and multitudes of anemones come forth at
her feet.
Thence she comes north to our islands, no less wonderful in our woods
than in Andalusian valleys, fresh as a new song, fabulous as a rune,
but a little pale through travel, so that our flowers do not quite
flare forth with all the myriad blaze of the flowers of Spain.
And all the way as he went the young man looked at the flame of those
southern flowers, flashing on either side of him all the way, as though
the rainbow had been broken in Heaven and its fragments fallen on
Spain. All the way as he went he gazed at those flowers, the first
anemones of the year; and long after, whenever he sang to old airs of
Spain, he thought of Spain as it appeared that day in all the wonder of
Spring; the memory lent a beauty to his voice and a wistfulness to his
eyes that accorded not ill with the theme of the songs he sang, and
were more than once to melt proud hearts deemed cold. And so gazing he
came to a town that stood on a hill, before he was yet tired, though he
had done nigh twenty of those flowery miles of Spain; and since it was
evening and the light was fading away, he went to an inn and drew his
sword in the twilight and knocked with the hilt of it on the oaken
door. The name of it was the Inn of the Dragon and Knight. A light was
lit in one of the upper windows, the darkness seemed to deepen at that
moment, a step was heard coming heavily down a stairway; and having
named the inn to you, gentle reader, it is time for me to name the
young man also, the landless lord of the Valleys of Arguento Harez, as
the step comes slowly down the inner stairway, as the gloaming darkens
over the first house in which he has ever sought shelter so far from
his father's valleys, as he stands upon the threshold of romance. He
was named Rodriguez Trinidad Fernandez, Concepcion Henrique Maria; but
we shall briefly name him Rodriguez in this story; you and I, reader,
will know whom we mean; there is no need therefore to give him his full
names, unless I do it here and there to remind you.
The steps came thumping on down the inner stairway, different windows
took the light of the candle, and none other shone in the house; it was
clear that it was moving with the steps all down that echoing stairway.
The sound of the steps ceased to reverberate upon the wood, and now
they slowly moved over stone flags; Rodriguez now heard breathing, one
breath with every step, and at length the sound of bolts and chains
undone and the breathing now very close. The door was opened swiftly; a
man with mean eyes, and expression devoted to evil, stood watching him
for an instant; then the door slammed to again, the bolts were heard
going back again to their places, the steps and the breathing moved
away over the stone floor, and the inner stairway began again to echo.
"If the wars are here," said Rodriguez to himself and his sword, "good,
and I sleep under the stars." And he listened in the street for the
sound of war and, hearing none, continued his discourse. "But if I have
not come as yet to the wars I sleep beneath a roof."
For the second time therefore he drew his sword, and began to strike
methodically at the door, noting the grain in the wood and hitting
where it was softest. Scarcely had he got a good strip of the oak to
look like coming away, when the steps once more descended the wooden
stair and came lumbering over the stones; both the steps and the
breathing were quicker, for mine host of the Dragon and Knight was
hurrying to save his door.
When he heard the sound of the bolts and chains again Rodriguez ceased
to beat upon the door: once more it opened swiftly, and he saw mine
host before him, eyeing him with those bad eyes; of too much girth, you
might have said, to be nimble, yet somehow suggesting to the swift
intuition of youth, as Rodriguez looked at him standing upon his
door-step, the spirit and shape of a spider, who despite her ungainly
build is agile enough in her way.
Mine host said nothing; and Rodriguez, who seldom concerned himself
with the past, holding that the future is all we can order the scheme
of (and maybe even here he was wrong), made no mention of bolts or door
and merely demanded a bed for himself for the night.
Mine host rubbed his chin; he had neither beard nor moustache but wore
hideous whiskers; he rubbed it thoughtfully and looked at Rodriguez.
Yes, he said, he could have a bed for the night. No more words he said,
but turned and led the way; while Rodriguez, who could sing to the
mandolin, wasted none of his words on this discourteous object. They
ascended the short oak stairway down which mine host had come, the
great timbers of which were gnawed by a myriad rats, and they went by
passages with the light of one candle into the interior of the inn,
which went back farther from the street than the young man had
supposed; indeed he perceived when they came to the great corridor at
the end of which was his appointed chamber, that here was no ordinary
inn, as it had appeared from outside, but that it penetrated into the
fastness of some great family of former times which had fallen on evil
days. The vast size of it, the noble design where the rats had spared
the carving, what the moths had left of the tapestries, all testified
to that; and, as for the evil days, they hung about the place, evident
even by the light of one candle guttering with every draught that blew
from the haunts of the rats, an inseparable heirloom for all who
disturbed those corridors.
And so they came to the chamber.
Mine host entered, bowed without grace in the doorway, and extended his
left hand, pointing into the room. The draughts that blew from the
rat-holes in the wainscot, or the mere action of entering, beat down
the flame of the squat, guttering candle so that the chamber remained
dim for a moment, in spite of the candle, as would naturally be the
case. Yet the impression made upon Rodriguez was as of some old
darkness that had been long undisturbed and that yielded reluctantly to
that candle's intrusion, a darkness that properly became the place and
was a part of it and had long been so, in the face of which the candle
appeared an ephemeral thing devoid of grace or dignity or tradition.
And indeed there was room for darkness in that chamber, for the walls
went up and up into such an altitude that you could scarcely see the
ceiling, at which mine host's eyes glanced, and Rodriguez followed his
look.
He accepted his accommodation with a nod; as indeed he would have
accepted any room in that inn, for the young are swift judges of
character, and one who had accepted such a host was unlikely to find
fault with rats or the profusion of giant cobwebs, dark with the dust
of years, that added so much to the dimness of that sinister inn. They
turned now and went back, in the wake of that guttering candle, till
they came again to the humbler part of the building. Here mine host,
pushing open a door of blackened oak, indicated his dining-chamber.
There a long table stood, and on it parts of the head and hams of a
boar; and at the far end of the table a plump and sturdy man was seated
in shirt-sleeves feasting himself on the boar's meat. He leaped up at
once from his chair as soon as his master entered, for he was the
servant at the Dragon and Knight; mine host may have said much to him
with a flash of his eyes, but he said no more with his tongue than the
one word, "Dog": he then bowed himself out, leaving Rodriguez to take
the only chair and to be waited upon by its recent possessor. The
boar's meat was cold and gnarled, another piece of meat stood on a
plate on a shelf and a loaf of bread near by, but the rats had had most
of the bread: Rodriguez demanded what the meat was. "Unicorn's tongue,"
said the servant, and Rodriguez bade him set the dish before him, and
he set to well content, though I fear the unicorn's tongue was only
horse: it was a credulous age, as all ages are. At the same time he
pointed to a three-legged stool that he perceived in a corner of the
room, then to the table, then to the boar's meat, and lastly at the
servant, who perceived that he was permitted to return to his feast, to
which he ran with alacrity. "Your name?" said Rodriguez as soon as both
were eating. "Morano," replied the servant, though it must not be
supposed that when answering Rodriguez he spoke as curtly as this; I
merely give the reader the gist of his answer, for he added Spanish
words that correspond in our depraved and decadent language of to-day
to such words as "top dog," "nut" and "boss," so that his speech had a
certain grace about it in that far-away time in Spain.
I have said that Rodriguez seldom concerned himself with the past, but
considered chiefly the future: it was of the future that he was
thinking now as he asked Morano this question:
"Why did my worthy and entirely excellent host shut his door in my
face?"
"Did he so?" said Morano.
"He then bolted it and found it necessary to put the chains back,
doubtless for some good reason."
"Yes," said Morano thoughtfully, and looking at Rodriguez, "and so he
might. He must have liked you."
Verily Rodriguez was just the young man to send out with a sword and a
mandolin into the wide world, for he had much shrewd sense. He never
pressed a point, but when something had been said that might mean much
he preferred to store it, as it were, in his mind and pass on to other
things, somewhat as one might kill game and pass on and kill more and
bring it all home, while a savage would cook the first kill where it
fell and eat it on the spot. Pardon me, reader, but at Morano's remark
you may perhaps have exclaimed, "That is not the way to treat one you
like." Not so did Rodriguez. His attention passed on to notice Morano's
rings which he wore in great profusion upon his little fingers; they
were gold and of exquisite work and had once held precious stones, as
large gaps testified; in these days they would have been priceless, but
in an age when workers only worked at arts that they understood, and
then worked for the joy of it, before the word artistic became
ridiculous, exquisite work went without saying; and as the rings were
slender they were of little value. Rodriguez made no comment upon the
rings; it was enough for him to have noticed them. He merely noted that
they were not ladies' rings, for no lady's ring would have fitted on to
any one of those fingers: the rings therefore of gallants: and not
given to Morano by their owners, for whoever wore precious stone needed
a ring to wear it in, and rings did not wear out like hose, which a
gallant might give to a servant. Nor, thought he, had Morano stolen
them, for whoever stole them would keep them whole, or part with them
whole and get a better price. Besides Morano had an honest face, or a
face at least that seemed honest in such an inn: and while these
thoughts were passing through his mind Morano spoke again: "Good hams,"
said Morano. He had already eaten one and was starting upon the next.
Perhaps he spoke out of gratitude for the honour and physical advantage
of being permitted to sit there and eat those hams, perhaps
tentatively, to find out whether he might consume the second, perhaps
merely to start a conversation, being attracted by the honest looks of
Rodriguez.
"You are hungry," said Rodriguez.
"Praise God I am always hungry," answered Morano. "If I were not hungry
I should starve."
"Is it so?" said Rodriguez.
"You see," said Morano, "the manner of it is this: my master gives me
no food, and it is only when I am hungry that I dare to rob him by
breaking in, as you saw me, upon his viands; were I not hungry I should
not dare to do so, and so ..." He made a sad and expressive movement
with both his hands suggestive of autumn leaves blown hence to die.
"He gives you no food?" said Rodriguez.
"It is the way of many men with their dog," said Morano. "They give him
no food," and then he rubbed his hands cheerfully, "and yet the dog
does not die."
"And he gives you no wages?" said Rodriguez.
"Just these rings."
Now Rodriguez had himself a ring upon his finger (as a gallant should),
a slender piece of gold with four tiny angels holding a sapphire, and
for a moment he pictured the sapphire passing into the hands of mine
host and the ring of gold and the four small angels being flung to
Morano; the thought darkened his gaiety for no longer than one of those
fleecy clouds in Spring shadows the fields of Spain.
Morano was also looking at the ring; he had followed the young man's
glance.
"Master," he said, "do you draw your sword of a night?"
"And you?" said Rodriguez.
"I have no sword," said Morano. "I am but as dog's meat that needs no
guarding, but you whose meat is rare like the flesh of the unicorn need
a sword to guard your meat. The unicorn has his horn always, and even
then he sometimes sleeps."
"It is bad, you think, to sleep," Rodriguez said.
"For some it is very bad, master. They say they never take the unicorn
waking. For me I am but dog's meat: when I have eaten hams I curl up
and sleep; but then you see, master, I know I shall wake in the
morning."
"Ah," said Rodriguez, "the morning's a pleasant time," and he leaned
back comfortably in his chair. Morano took one shrewd look at him, and
was soon asleep upon his three-legged stool.
The door opened after a while and mine host appeared. "It is late," he
said. Rodriguez smiled acquiescently and mine host withdrew, and
presently leaving Morano whom his master's voice had waked, to curl up
on the floor in a corner, Rodriguez took the candle that lit the room
and passed once more through the passages of the inn and down the great
corridor of the fastness of the family that had fallen on evil days,
and so came to his chamber. I will not waste a multitude of words over
that chamber; if you have no picture of it in your mind already, my
reader, you are reading an unskilled writer, and if in that picture it
appear a wholesome room, tidy and well kept up, if it appear a place in
which a stranger might sleep without some faint foreboding of disaster,
then I am wasting your time, and will waste no more of it with bits of
"descriptive writing" about that dim, high room, whose blackness
towered before Rodriguez in the night. He entered and shut the door, as
many had done before him; but for all his youth he took some wiser
precautions than had they, perhaps, who closed that door before. For
first he drew his sword; then for some while he stood quite still near
the door and listened to the rats; then he looked round the chamber and
perceived only one door; then he looked at the heavy oak furniture,
carved by some artist, gnawed by rats, and all blackened by time; then
swiftly opened the door of the largest cupboard and thrust his sword in
to see who might be inside, but the carved satyr's heads at the top of
the cupboard eyed him silently and nothing moved. Then he noted that
though there was no bolt on the door the furniture might be placed
across to make what in the wars is called a barricado, but the wiser
thought came at once that this was too easily done, and that if the
danger that the dim room seemed gloomily to forebode were to come from
a door so readily barricadoed, then those must have been simple
gallants who parted so easily with the rings that adorned Morano's two
little fingers. No, it was something more subtle than any attack
through that door that brought his regular wages to Morano. Rodriguez
looked at the window, which let in the light of a moon that was getting
low, for the curtains had years ago been eaten up by the moths; but the
window was barred with iron bars that were not yet rusted away, and
looked out, thus guarded, over a sheer wall that even in the moonlight
fell into blackness. Rodriguez then looked round for some hidden door,
the sword all the while in his hand, and very soon he knew that room
fairly well, but not its secret, nor why those unknown gallants had
given up their rings.
It is much to know of an unknown danger that it really is unknown. Many
have met their deaths through looking for danger from one particular
direction, whereas had they perceived that they were ignorant of its
direction they would have been wise in their ignorance. Rodriguez had
the great discretion to understand clearly that he did not know the
direction from which danger would come. He accepted this as his only
discovery about that portentous room which seemed to beckon to him with
every shadow and to sigh over him with every mournful draught, and to
whisper to him unintelligible warnings with every rustle of tattered
silk that hung about his bed. And as soon as he discovered that this
was his only knowledge he began at once to make his preparations: he
was a right young man for the wars. He divested himself of his shoes
and doublet and the light cloak that hung from his shoulder and cast
the clothes on a chair. Over the back of the chair he slung his girdle
and the scabbard hanging therefrom and placed his plumed hat so that
none could see that his Castilian blade was not in its resting-place.
And when the sombre chamber had the appearance of one having undressed
in it before retiring Rodriguez turned his attention to the bed, which
he noticed to be of great depth and softness. That something not unlike
blood had been spilt on the floor excited no wonder in Rodriguez; that
vast chamber was evidently, as I have said, in the fortress of some
great family, against one of whose walls the humble inn had once leaned
for protection; the great family were gone: how they were gone
Rodriguez did not know, but it excited no wonder in him to see blood on
the boards: besides, two gallants may have disagreed; or one who loved
not dumb animals might have been killing rats. Blood did not disturb
him; but what amazed him, and would have surprised anyone who stood in
that ruinous room, was that there were clean new sheets on the bed. Had
you seen the state of the furniture and the floor, O my reader, and the
vastness of the old cobwebs and the black dust that they held, the dead
spiders and huge dead flies, and the living generation of spiders
descending and ascending through the gloom, I say that you also would
have been surprised at the sight of those nice clean sheets. Rodriguez
noted the fact and continued his preparations. He took the bolster from
underneath the pillow and laid it down the middle of the bed and put
the sheets back over it; then he stood back and looked at it, much as a
sculptor might stand back from his marble, then he returned to it and
bent it a little in the middle, and after that he placed his mandolin
on the pillow and nearly covered it with the sheet, but not quite, for
a little of the curved dark-brown wood remained still to be seen. It
looked wonderfully now like a sleeper in the bed, but Rodriguez was not
satisfied with his work until he had placed his kerchief and one of his
shoes where a shoulder ought to be; then he stood back once more and
eyed it with satisfaction. Next he considered the light. He looked at
the light of the moon and remembered his father's advice, as the young
often do, but considered that this was not the occasion for it, and
decided to leave the light of his candle instead, so that anyone who
might be familiar with the moonlight in that shadowy chamber should
find instead a less sinister light. He therefore dragged a table to the
bedside, placed the candle upon it, and opened a treasured book that he
bore in his doublet, and laid it on the bed near by, between the candle
and his mandolin-headed sleeper; the name of the book was Notes in a
Cathedral and dealt with the confessions of a young girl, which the
author claimed to have jotted down, while concealed behind a pillow
near the Confessional, every Sunday for the entire period of Lent.
Lastly he pulled a sheet a little loose from the bed, until a corner of
it lay on the floor; then he lay down on the boards, still keeping his
sword in his hand, and by means of the sheet and some silk that hung
from the bed, he concealed himself sufficient for his purpose, which
was to see before he should be seen by any intruder that might enter
that chamber.
And if Rodriguez appear to have been unduly suspicious, it should be
borne in mind not only that those empty rings needed much explanation,
but that every house suggests to the stranger something; and that
whereas one house seems to promise a welcome in front of cosy fires,
another good fare, another joyous wine, this inn seemed to promise
murder; or so the young man's intuition said, and the young are wise to
trust to their intuitions.
The reader will know, if he be one of us, who have been to the wars and
slept in curious ways, that it is hard to sleep when sober upon a
floor; it is not like the earth, or snow, or a feather bed; even rock
can be more accommodating; it is hard, unyielding and level, all night
unmistakable floor. Yet Rodriguez took no risk of falling asleep, so he
said over to himself in his mind as much as he remembered of his
treasured book, Notes in a Cathedral, which he always read to himself
before going to rest and now so sadly missed. It told how a lady who
had listened to a lover longer than her soul's safety could warrant, as
he played languorous music in the moonlight and sang soft by her low
balcony, and how she being truly penitent, had gathered many roses, the
emblems of love (as surely, she said at confession, all the world
knows), and when her lover came again by moonlight had cast them all
from her from the balcony, showing that she had renounced love; and her
lover had entirely misunderstood her. It told how she often tried to
show him this again, and all the misunderstandings are sweetly set
forth and with true Christian penitence. Sometimes some little matter
escaped Rodriguez's memory and then he longed to rise up and look at
his dear book, yet he lay still where he was: and all the while he
listened to the rats, and the rats went on gnawing and running
regularly, scared by nothing new; Rodriguez trusted as much to their
myriad ears as to his own two. The great spiders descended out of such
heights that you could not see whence they came, and ascended again
into blackness; it was a chamber of prodigious height. Sometimes the
shadow of a descending spider that had come close to the candle assumed
a frightening size, but Rodriguez gave little thought to it; it was of
murder he was thinking, not of shadows; still, in its way it was
ominous, and reminded Rodriguez horribly of his host; but what of an
omen, again, in a chamber full of omens. The place itself was ominous;
spiders could scarce make it more so. The spider itself was big enough,
he thought, to be impaled on his Castilian blade; indeed, he would have
done it but that he thought it wiser to stay where he was and watch.
And then the spider found the candle too hot and climbed in a hurry all
the way to the ceiling, and his horrible shadow grew less and dwindled
away.
It was not that the rats were frightened: whatever it was that happened
happened too quietly for that, but the volume of the sound of their
running had suddenly increased: it was not like fear among them, for
the running was no swifter, and it did not fade away; it was as though
the sound of rats running, which had not been heard before, was
suddenly heard now. Rodriguez looked at the door, the door was shut. A
young Englishman would long ago have been afraid that he was making a
fuss over nothing and would have gone to sleep in the bed, and not seen
what Rodriguez saw. He might have thought that hearing more rats all at
once was merely a fancy, and that everything was all right. Rodriguez
saw a rope coming slowly down from the ceiling, he quickly determined
whether it was a rope or only the shadow of some huge spider's thread,
and then he watched it and saw it come down right over his bed and stop
within a few feet of it. Rodriguez looked up cautiously to see who had
sent him that strange addition to the portents that troubled the
chamber, but the ceiling was too high and dim for him to perceive
anything but the rope coming down out of the darkness. Yet he surmised
that the ceiling must have softly opened, without any sound at all, at
the moment that he heard the greater number of rats. He waited then to
see what the rope would do; and at first it hung as still as the great
festoons dead spiders had made in the corners; then as he watched it it
began to sway. He looked up into the dimness then to see who was
swaying the rope; and for a long time, as it seemed to him lying
gripping his Castilian sword on the floor he saw nothing clearly. And
then he saw mine host coming down the rope, hand over hand quite
nimbly, as though he lived by this business. In his right hand he held
a poniard of exceptional length, yet he managed to clutch the rope and
hold the poniard all the time with the same hand.
If there had been something hideous about the shadow of the spider that
came down from that height the shadow of mine host was indeed demoniac.
He too was like a spider, with his body at no time slender all bunched
up on the rope, and his shadow was six times his size: you could turn
from the spider's shadow to the spider and see that it was for the most
part a fancy of the candle half crazed by the draughts, but to turn
from mine host's shadow to himself and to see his wicked eyes was to
say that the candle's wildest fears were true. So he climbed down his
rope holding his poniard upward. But when he came within perhaps ten
feet of the bed he pointed it downward and began to sway about. It will
be readily seen that by swaying his rope at a height mine host could
drop on any part of the bed. Rodriguez as he watched him saw him
scrutinise closely and continue to sway on his rope. He feared that
mine host was ill satisfied with the look of the mandolin and that he
would climb away again, well warned of his guest's astuteness, into the
heights of the ceiling to devise some fearfuller scheme; but he was
only looking for the shoulder. And then mine host dropped; poniard
first, he went down with all his weight behind it and drove it through
the bolster below where the shoulder should be, just where we slant our
arms across our bodies, when we lie asleep on our sides, leaving the
ribs exposed: and the soft bed received him. And the moment that mine
host let go of his rope Rodriguez leaped to his feet. He saw Rodriguez,
indeed their eyes met as he dropped through the air, but what could
mine host do? He was already committed to his stroke, and his poniard
was already deep in the mattress when the good Castilian blade passed
through his ribs.
THE SECOND CHRONICLE
HOW HE HIRED A MEMORABLE SERVANT
When Rodriguez woke, the birds were singing gloriously. The sun was up
and the air was sparkling over Spain. The gloom had left his high
chamber, and much of the menace had gone from it that overnight had
seemed to bode in the corners. It had not become suddenly tidy; it was
still more suitable for spiders than men, it still mourned and brooded
over the great family that it had nursed and that evil days had so
obviously overtaken; but it no longer had the air of finger to lips, no
longer seemed to share a secret with you, and that secret Murder. The
rats still ran round the wainscot, but the song of the birds and the
jolly, dazzling sunshine were so much larger than the sombre room that
the young man's thoughts escaped from it and ran free to the fields. It
may have been only his fancy but the world seemed somehow brighter for
the demise of mine host of the Dragon and Knight, whose body still lay
hunched up on the foot of his bed. Rodriguez jumped up and went to the
high, barred window and looked out of it at the morning: far below him
a little town with red roofs lay; the smoke came up from the chimneys
toward him slowly, and spread out flat and did not reach so high.
Between him and the roofs swallows were sailing.
He found water for washing in a cracked pitcher of earthenware and as
he dressed he looked up at the ceiling and admired mine host's device,
for there was an open hole that had come noiselessly, without any
sounds of bolts or lifting of trap-doors, but seemed to have opened out
all round on perfectly oiled grooves, to fit that well-to-do body, and
down from the middle of it from some higher beam hung the rope down
which mine host had made his last journey.
Before taking leave of his host Rodriguez looked at his poniard, which
was a good two feet in length, not counting the hilt, and was surprised
to find it an excellent blade. It bore a design on the steel
representing a town, which Rodriguez recognised for the towers of
Toledo; and had held moreover a jewel at the end of the hilt, but the
little gold socket was empty. Rodriguez therefore perceived that the
poniard was that of a gallant, and surmised that mine host had begun
his trade with a butcher's knife, but having come by the poniard had
found it to be handier for his business. Rodriguez being now fully
dressed, girt his own blade about him, and putting the poniard under
his cloak, for he thought to find a use for it at the wars, set his
plumed hat upon him and jauntily stepped from the chamber. By the light
of day he saw clearly at what point the passages of the inn had dared
to make their intrusion on the corridors of the fortress, for he walked
for four paces between walls of huge grey rocks which had never been
plastered and were clearly a breach in the fortress, though whether the
breach were made by one of the evil days that had come upon the family
in their fastness, and whether men had poured through it with torches
and swords, or whether the gap had been cut in later years for mine
host of the Dragon and Knight, and he had gone quietly through it
rubbing his hands, nothing remained to show Rodriguez now.
When he came to the dining-chamber he found Morano astir. Morano looked
up from his overwhelming task of tidying the Inn of the Dragon and
Knight and then went on with his pretended work, for he felt a little
ashamed of the knowledge he had concerning the ways of that inn, which
was more than an honest man should know about such a place.
"Good morning, Morano," said Rodriguez blithely.
"Good morning," answered the servant of the Dragon and Knight.
"I am looking for the wars. Would you like a new master, Morano?"
"Indeed," said Morano, "a good master is better to some men's minds
than a bad one. Yet, you see señor, my bad master has me bound never to
leave him, by oaths that I do not properly understand the meaning of,
and that might blast me in any world were I to forswear them. He hath
bound me by San Sathanas, with many others. I do not like the sound of
that San Sathanas. And so you see, señor, my bad master suits me better
than perhaps to be whithered in this world by a levin-stroke, and in
the next world who knows?"
"Morano," said Rodriguez, "there is a dead spider on my bed."
"A dead spider, master?" said Morano, with as much concern in his voice
as though no spider had ever sullied that chamber before.
"Yes," said Rodriguez, "I shall require you to keep my bed tidy on our
way to the wars."
"Master," said Morano, "no spider shall come near it, living or dead."
And so our company of one going northward through Spain looking for
romance became a company of two.
"Master," said Morano, "as I do not see him whom I serve, and his ways
are early ways, I fear some evil has overtaken him, whereby we shall be
suspect, for none other dwells here: and he is under special protection
of the Garda Civil; it would be well therefore to start for the wars
right early."
"The guard protect mine host then." Rodriguez said with as much
surprise in his tones as he ever permitted himself.
"Master," Morano said, "it could not be otherwise. For so many gallants
have entered the door of this inn and supped in this chamber and never
been seen again, and so many suspicious things have been found here,
such as blood, that it became necessary for him to pay the guard well,
and so they protect him." And Morano hastily slung over his shoulder by
leather straps an iron pot and a frying-pan and took his broad felt hat
from a peg on the wall.
Rodriguez' eyes looked so curiously at the great cooking utensils
dangling there from the straps that Morano perceived his young master
did not fully understand these preparations: he therefore instructed
him thus: "Master, there be two things necessary in the wars, strategy
and cooking. Now the first of these comes in use when the captains
speak of their achievements and the historians write of the wars.
Strategy is a learned thing, master, and the wars may not be told of
without it, but while the war rageth and men be camped upon the
foughten field then is the time for cooking; for many a man that fights
the wars, if he hath not his food, were well content to let the enemy
live, but feed him and at once he becometh proud at heart and cannot
a-bear the sight of the enemy walking among his tents but must needs
slay him outright. Aye, master, the cooking for the wars; and when the
wars are over you who are learned shall study strategy."
And Rodriguez perceived that there was wisdom in the world that was not
taught in the College of San Josephus, near to his father's valleys,
where he had learned in his youth the ways of books.
"Morano," he said, "let us now leave mine host to entertain la Garda."
And at the mention of the guard hurry came on Morano, he closed his
lips upon his store of wisdom, and together they left the Inn of the
Dragon and Knight. And when Rodriguez saw shut behind him that dark
door of oak that he had so persistently entered, and through which he
had come again to the light of the sun by many precautions and some
luck, he felt gratitude to Morano. For had it not been for Morano's
sinister hints, and above all his remark that mine host would have
driven him thence because he liked him, the evil look of the sombre
chamber alone might not have been enough to persuade him to the
precautions that cut short the dreadful business of that inn. And with
his gratitude was a feeling not unlike remorse, for he felt that he had
deprived this poor man of a part of his regular wages, which would have
been his own gold ring and the setting that held the sapphire, had all
gone well with the business. So he slipped the ring from his finger and
gave it to Morano, sapphire and all.
Morano's expressions of gratitude were in keeping with that flowery
period in Spain, and might appear ridiculous were I to expose them to
the eyes of an age in which one in Morano's place on such an occasion
would have merely said, "Damned good of you old nut, not half," and let
the matter drop.
I merely record therefore that Morano was grateful and so expressed
himself; while Rodriguez, in addition to the pleasant glow in the mind
that comes from a generous action, had another feeling that gives all
of us pleasure, or comfort at least (until it grows monotonous), a
feeling of increased safety; for while he had the ring upon his finger
and Morano went unpaid the thought could not help occurring, even to a
generous mind, that one of these windy nights Morano might come for his
wages.
"Master," said Morano looking at the sapphire now on his own little
finger near the top joint, the only stone amongst his row of rings,
"you must surely have great wealth."
"Yes," said Rodriguez slapping the scabbard that held his Castilian
blade. And when he saw that Morano's eyes were staring at the little
emeralds that were dotted along the velvet of the scabbard he explained
that it was the sword that was his wealth:
"For in the wars," he said, "are all things to be won, and nothing is
unobtainable to the sword. For parchment and custom govern all the
possessions of man, as they taught me in the College of San Josephus.
Yet the sword is at first the founder and discoverer of all
possessions; and this my father told me before he gave me this sword,
which hath already acquired in the old time fair castles with many a
tower."
"And those that dwelt in the castles, master, before the sword came?"
said Morano.
"They died and went dismally to Hell," said Rodriguez, "as the old
songs say."
They walked on then in silence. Morano, with his low forehead and
greater girth of body than of brain to the superficial observer, was
not incapable of thought. However slow his thoughts may have come,
Morano was pondering surely. Suddenly the puckers on his little
forehead cleared and he brightly looked at Rodriguez as they went on
side by side.
"Master," Morano said, "when you choose a castle in the wars, let it
above all things be one of those that is easy to be defended; for
castles are easily got, as the old songs tell, and in the heat of
combat positions are quickly stormed, and no more ado; but, when wars
are over, then is the time for ease and languorous days and the
imperilling of the soul, though not beyond the point where our good
fathers may save it."
"Nay, Morano," Rodriguez said, "no man, as they taught me well in the
College of San Josephus, should ever imperil his soul."
"But, master," Morano said, "a man imperils his body in the wars yet
hopes by dexterity and his sword to draw it safely thence: so a man of
courage and high heart may surely imperil his soul and still hope to
bring it at the last to salvation."
"Not so," said Rodriguez, and gave his mind to pondering upon the exact
teaching he had received on this very point, but could not clearly
remember.
So they walked in silence, Rodriguez thinking still of this spiritual
problem, Morano turning, though with infinite slowness, to another
thought upon a lower plane.
And after a while Rodriguez' eyes turned again to the flowers, and he
felt his meditation, as youth will, and looking abroad he saw the
wonder of Spring calling forth the beauty of Spain, and he lifted up
his head and his heart rejoiced with the anemones, as hearts at his age
do: but Morano clung to his thought.
It was long before Rodriguez' fanciful thoughts came back from among
the flowers, for among those delicate earliest blooms of Spring his
youthful visions felt they were with familiars; so they tarried,
neglecting the dusty road and poor gross Morano. But when his fancies
left the flowers at last and looked again at Morano, Rodriguez
perceived that his servant was all troubled with thought: so he left
Morano in silence for his thought to come to maturity, for he had
formed a liking already for the judgments of Morano's simple mind.
They walked in silence for the space of an hour, and at last Morano
spoke. It was then noon. "Master," he said, "at this hour it is the
custom of la Garda to enter the Inn of the Dragon and to dine at the
expense of mine host."
"A merry custom," said Rodriguez.
"Master," said Morano, "if they find him in less than his usual health
they will get their dinners for themselves in the larder and dine and
afterwards sleep. But after that; master, after that, should anything
inauspicious have befallen mine host, they will seek out and ask many
questions concerning all travellers, too many for our liking."
"We are many good miles from the Inn of the Dragon and Knight," said
Rodriguez.
"Master, when they have eaten and slept and asked questions they will
follow on horses," said Morano.
"We can hide," said Rodriguez, and he looked round over the plain, very
full of flowers, but empty and bare under the blue sky of any place in
which a man might hide to escape from pursuers on horse back. He
perceived then that he had no plan.
"Master," said Morano, "there is no hiding like disguises."
Once more Rodriguez looked round him over the plain, seeing no houses,
no men; and his opinion of Morano's judgment sank when he said
disguises. But then Morano unfolded to him that plan which up to that
day had never been tried before, so far as records tell, in all the
straits in which fugitive men have been; and which seems from my
researches in verse and prose never to have been attempted since.