Doña Ava
At a great festival given by Don Garcia, Doña Ava sat at the board. The
jewels that decked her coif and neck but increased the paleness of her
eyes. No love-dimple dented her fair cheek; it had vanished with the
presence of Fernan, and the white lips he had so boldly kissed gave
utterance to secret sighs. She spoke no word as she sat in the light of
the torches fixed on the walls, nor took any heed of the company of
guests, but leaned back, lost in dismal remembrance of the night when
her lover, with soft brown hair, who had ridden across the mountains to
ask her hand, was beside her.
On the raised dais was a pilgrim knight with a red cross on his breast,
arrived from Normandy, and riding through Navarre to cross swords with
the Moors at Saragoza. But who he was, or on what special errand he had
come, he did not reveal even to the king.
The Infanta took little heed of him, but as the feast proceeded and the
gold loving-cup passed round from hand to hand, and each guest quaffed
the red wine in honour of the king, she looked up and saw his eyes
earnestly fixed on her.
Then a whisper came to her ear, so low that the voice did not ruffle a
hair of the delicate locks which so beautified her face and neck.
“Fernan still loves you,” said the voice, “spite of the little kindness
you have shown him. I have visited him in prison; I bribed the Alcaide
with many golden bezants; you might do the same. Bethink you of the
curse which will cleave to your name--worse than Don Julian’s daughter,
_La Cava_--if his life be lost. For your sake he came into Navarre. It
is for you to set him free!”
As the pilgrim spoke Ava’s cheeks grew red and white by turns. She
trembled, hesitated, while silent tears rose in her eyes, and fell one
by one on her rich robe. At length, with faltering voice she whispered
back again, watching the moment when the king had turned aside in
earnest speech with some nobles from Leon, quaffing to their health in a
cup of Cyprus wine taken in the last foray with Almanzor in the North:
“I promise you I will. Tell me who you are and whence you come. Happy is
the prince who possesses such a friend.”
Then the stranger explained that he was no pilgrim from Normandy, but a
trusty Castilian knight come from Burgos to find his lord, and that so
well had he acted his part that he had deceived the whole court and
discovered him.
The dungeon into which the Conde de Castila had been borne by the slaves
of Don Garcia (for so much did Moslem habits prevail at that time, it
was common for Christians also to have Nubian and Ethiopian slaves) lay
at the foot of many steep flights of stairs in the very foundations of
the castle. Overhead the sea boomed against the walls in ceaseless
waves, bellowing with thundering uproar.
He had at first been callous to his fate. In the immediate expectation
of a violent death, life and its interests had faded from his thoughts.
The image of the Infanta was ever with him, but as a bright phantom from
another world with whom he could have no concern, rather than as the
reality of a mortal love.
Was she true or false? _That_ lay in the mystery of the past. As a dying
man he had no past. He forgave her, even if she were false. Whither he
went she could not follow. He must die, and leave revenge to his people.
Soon they will know the treachery of the king. His faithful subject, the
seeming pilgrim, will ride straight to Burgos, call together the Cortes,
and declare war. But little will that help him when he is dead! Alas!
all fails!
Day after day he waited for some sign from the friend who had risked his
life to find him. None came. He was forgotten, and he longed to die!
In the dead of night he had thrown himself on a rough couch of ox-hide,
and, hiding his face in his hands, groaned heavily. At length a
feverish sleep had come to his relief, when, starting up, it seemed
that the silence was broken by a sound of footsteps.
“Now, by the wounds of Christ, my hour is come,” he told himself. “King
Garcia will take from me that life he dare not attempt by combat in the
field,” and he rose up to meet death as became a man.
The footsteps came nearer and nearer and now there is the dim glimmer of
a light.
“They come, they come; but how cautiously. Is it that the assassins
would strike me while I sleep?”
Plainer and plainer were the steps, and brighter and brighter shone the
light which fell across the floor. Now they are at hand, close at the
door. Deftly and noiselessly the heavy chains are loosed. The door
opens. A figure, dim in the shadow, stands before him. He strains his
eyes in the darkness. Great God! Can it be true? It is the Infanta! She
is alone.
“Ava, my princess!” cries Fernan, and such a transport of rapture
possesses him the words will scarcely come, “you are not false,” and he
clasps her to his heart.
Then she explains to him how, following the counsel of the pilgrim
knight whom he had sent to her, she bribed the Alcaide with all the
jewels she possessed.
“And could you, Don Conde,” says she, gazing up into his face from under
the folds of the heavy mantilla which concealed her features, “could
you doubt my honour and my faith? Out on the base thought! Shame on your
weak love! I waited but the occasion, and it came.”
“Oh! let me hear your voice,” sighs the love-sick Conde, “though it rain
curses on me! Forgive my unworthy doubt, or that in aught I misjudged
you. I am sure you pleaded for me. Have you softened the king’s heart?”
“No, not a whit,” answers Ava, with a sigh. “His enmity but grows more
dangerous as the time wears on for him to depart to Burgos to meet King
Don Sancho and his mother.”
“To Burgos, my capital?”
“Yes, they will divide your kingdom, and then march against Almanzor.
Fernan, you have no friend but me!”
“Now may the foul fiend seize them on the way!” cries the Conde. “Oh!
that I had a sword to fight! Castile and Burgos in their hands! The
dastards! And I am bound here like a slave!”
“But I am come to free you!” replies the Infanta, with such courage in
her voice that already the fresh air of freedom seems to fan his cheek,
as with deft hands she loosens his fetters. “The door is open, before
you lies the way.”
“And you, dear Ava,” clasping her willing hand “are we to part thus?”
At this question she hung her head, and a great blush mounted to her
cheeks.
“Ah, my lord,” she whispered, and the little dimple came back again,
forming near her lip, “I fain would fly with you. For this I came, never
to part again.”
“Then,” says the ballad, “he solemnly saluted the Infanta as his bride
on brow and lip, and hand in hand they went forth together into the
night.”
* * * * *
Had there been court painters in those days, they might fitly have
depicted the Conde, flushed with hope, the Infanta at his side, feminine
and sweet, as one of those blonde images adored on altars pale amid the
perfume of incense, caracoling through the greenwood on their way to
Burgos.
The geography of the Conde’s progress is rather loose, but we will
figure to ourselves a forest glade of wide-branching oaks, which had
perhaps sheltered the advance of the Roman legions from Gaul. Athwart
rambles a rocky stream, a gentle eminence lies in front, crowned by a
group of olives.
As they address themselves to the ascent, the figure of a priest
appears, mounted on a mule, equipped in a strange fashion, a mixture of
cassock and huntsman, a bugle round his neck and a hawk upon his wrist.
“Now stop you. Stop you,” he shouts, placing himself full across the
way; “Castila knows you both, fair Infanta, and you, Lord of Castila. I
have seen you at the castle. What unlawful game are you after? Dismount,
Sir Conde, and give account to me, the purveyor of these forests for
the king.” And the bold priest presses his mule close up to them.
“By the rood! Conde or no Conde, I will dismount to please no man,”
answers he. “Nor shall the Infanta, as you say you know her. Remove
yourself, I pray, Sir Priest, from our way, or your tonsure shall not
save you from a whipping.”
“That is at my pleasure,” is the reply. “But as the Infanta seems to
have yielded willingly to your blandishments, Conde de Castila, I stay
you not if you pay me a fitting ransom.”
“A ransom!” quoth he, “that is a most singular demand from a consecrated
priest, who ought to be saying his prayers, instead of hawking in the
greenwood. No ransom will I pay.”
“Then I will teach you a lesson,” and the vagrant churchman raises his
bugle to his lips. “A note from my little instrument and you will soon
lie again in chains.”
“Do your worst, craven,” shouts the Conde in a rage, spite of the
whispers of the Infanta, seated behind him on a pad of the broad saddle,
her arms clasped round his waist; “it shall never be said that Fernan
Gonzales yielded to a pilfering clerk.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than, reddening with rage, the
priest blew a long loud blast, among the ancient oaks. At this the
Infanta could no longer keep silence.
“Help, help!” she shouted, “for the Conde de Castila,” and Gonzales,
though embarrassed with her weight, rode fiercely forward raising his
hand to strike, for he had no sword. But the treacherous priest,
setting spurs to his mule, galloped down the glade at headlong speed,
sounding his horn. The noise he made was heard by others--the rattle of
horses’ hoofs came rapidly in the wind, and a company of horsemen
advanced with threatening aspect.
“Ah, now is our time come!” cries the Infanta, “the vile priest has done
for us. We cannot fly. Alack! alack! the evil day!”
“Nay, comfort thee, sweet one,” answers Fernan, “I will face them,
though I die.” At which the tears stream down Doña Ava’s face, and she
clasps her arm tighter around him.
“Now, by the heaven above us,” exclaims the Conde, “what miracle is
this? It is my own dear standard--the banner of Castile! There is ‘the
castle’ as large as life on its gold ground. Long may it flourish, the
blessed sign. Draw near, draw near, my merry men! Behold, my sweet
Infanta,”--stealing a hidden kiss--“these are my own true subjects!
Castile, Castile to the rescue! Look, how bright are their lances! How
the sun shines on the blades! Every sword is for my Ava; every sword
gleams for her! Ah! there is my trusty knight, brave Nuño Ansares, who
visited me in prison,” addressing the leader of the troop. “Never did
vassal better serve his lord! The horn of that robber-priest, instead of
harming us, has saved our lives. Now to Burgos ride, ride for our
lives!”