Don Rodrigo (the Cid) Kills the Conde de Gormez
It was the hottest hour of the day, when the citizens took their
_siesta_; the sun poured down in splendour on the white walls, absorbing
the shade; the river was dried up.
No one had witnessed the encounter. But what did that matter? Conde
Gormez would be sure to publish it abroad. Oh, shame and grief! Don
Diego was for ever dishonoured!
Just as, with wavering steps, he was addressing himself to seek his
horse where he had left him, he heard the clank of spurs upon the
pavement, and his son Rodrigo appeared.
“Well met!” cried he, clutching his arm and gazing up wistfully into his
beaming face; “the saints have sent you.”
“May their blessing be ever on you, my honoured father,” is the reply,
as he stops to kiss his hand. “I was hastening home to tell you that the
marriage is fixed, and that the king, Don Fernando, gives away the
bride. But, father, are you ill?” noting his blanched aspect as his
father leaned heavily upon him.
“Rodrigo,” he whispers, and with an unutterable expression of despair he
looks into his eyes, “are you brave?”
“Sir!” answers Rodrigo, drawing back his arm, “any other but you should
feel it on the instant.”
“Oh, blessed anger!” replies Don Diego, watching the deep flush mounting
on his face, “you are indeed my son. My blood flows in your veins. I was
like that once. Prompt, ready, dexterous. Rodrigo, will you avenge me?”
“For what?” asks Rodrigo, more and more perplexed.
“For that,” returns Don Diego--and as he speaks his voice gathers
strength and he draws himself back, and stands upright before
him--“which touches your honour as nearly as my own. A blow, a cruel
blow! Had I been of your age, his blood would have wiped it out. But it
is not with swords such an outrage is avenged. Go--die--or slay him. But
I warn you, he is a hero. I have seen him in the front of a hundred
battles, making a rampart of his body against the foe. He is----”
“Tell me, father, tell me!” exclaims Don Rodrigo, breathlessly following
his father’s words.
“The father of Ximena.”
“The----”
No sound came to his white lips. As if struck by a mortal blow, Rodrigo
staggered back against the sculptured pilasters of the Ayuntamiento.
“Speak not, my son,” says Don Diego, laying his hand upon him. “I know
how much you love her. But he who accepts infamy is unworthy to live. I
have told you vengeance is in your hand, for me, for you. Be worthy of
your father, who was once a valiant knight. Go, I say,--rush--fly,--as
though the earth burned under your footsteps! Nor let me behold you
until you have washed out the stain!”
* * * * *
The chronicles say that, insolent as he was, the Conde de Gormez had
already repented of his furious act. Certain of the wrath of the king,
who greatly esteemed Don Diego Laynez, and shrinking from the reproaches
of his daughter, he was preparing to leave the city when he came upon
the Cid.
They met beside the banks of the Arlanzon, which still presents the
sandy emptiness of an ill-fed river, under a screen of plane-trees
whispering to the summer wind, the space without thronged with hidalgos
and cheerful citizens in ample cloaks and _capas_ muffled up to the
eyes, spite of the heat, in true Castilian fashion.
As Don Rodrigo, with lofty stride, approached, the Conde stood still,
guessing his errand.
Of all the knights of Castile, Don Gormez was a palm higher than the
rest. A dark defiant head was firmly set on massive shoulders, youthful
in aspect for his period of middle age, an approved and complete warrior
at all points, and full to the brim, as one may say, of the chivalric
traditions of the time.
Rodrigo beside him looked a slender youth; the down was on his cheek,
the lustre of boyhood in his eyes, now dilated with fury as he drew
near.
“Sir Conde,” he says shortly, as he doffs his cap, to which the other
responds with a haughty smile, “I ask two words of you.”
“Speak!” is the Conde’s answer, twirling his moustache.
“Tell me, do you know Don Diego, my father?”
“Yes,” in a loud tone. “Why ask?”
“Speak lower. Listen. Do you know that in his time he was the honour of
the land, brave as yourself? You know it?”
Nearer and nearer Rodrigo came as he spoke, until their faces almost
touched.
“I care not,” is the answer, with a sneer.
“Stand back in the shade of that thicket and I will teach you,” roars
the Cid, his rage bursting in all bounds.
“Presumptuous boy!” exclaims the Conde with ineffable scorn; yet, spite
of his affected contempt, the words have stung him, and he turns
crimson.
“I am young, it is true,” answers Rodrigo, “but once so were you. Valour
goes not by the number of our years.”
“You--_you_ dare to measure yourself with me!” cries he, losing all
control in the climax of his rage.
“I do. I well know your prowess. You have always prevailed, but to him
who fights for his father nothing is impossible. Come on, Sir Conde,”
drawing his sword.
“Seek not so vainly to end your days,” answers Gormez, laying his hand
on the hilt of his weapon. “Your death will be no credit to my sword.”
“Mock me not by this insulting pity,” answers Rodrigo, “or by God I
shall think it is _you_ who are tired of living, not I.” And as he
speaks he strikes the Conde de Gormez with the flat of his sword.
The attack, on both sides is furious. Rodrigo grows cold with the thirst
of vengeance; the Conde burns to cut off a life which rivals with his
own.
But the sure aim of Rodrigo and his strength prevail. With one stroke of
his good sword Tizona, he fells Gormez to the earth and plunges his
weapon straight into his heart. Red with his life-blood he draws it out
to bear it as a trophy to his father.
“Die! Lord of Gormez,” are his words, wiping his brow, as he watches the
blood slowly ooze from the wound to mix itself, a sinister stream, with
the sand. “Alas! had your courtesy equalled your knighthood and your
birth, you might have lived to see your child’s children mine. Farewell,
oh my enemy”; and he stoops reverently to cover the face of the dead
with his mantle, reading the while with horror in the still set
features the softer lineaments of his Ximena. “Alas!”--and his
countenance darkens and he heaves a great sigh--“I am but Ruy Diaz, your
lover, the most wretched of men! Oh! that I could lie there dead,
instead of him! Ximena, oh, my love, will you ever forgive me?”
And sorrowing thus he turns away by intricate windings to mount the hill
to the Suelos where Don Diego awaits him, seated in the hall, the food
lying on the table before him untouched.
“Behold!” cries he, unsheathing the bloody sword. “The tongue which
insulted you, Don Diego, is no longer a tongue; the hand which struck
you is no longer a hand. You are avenged, oh, my father, and I----”
He could not continue.
With a loud laugh Don Diego rose up, taking in his hand the
blood-stained sword and placing it beside him on the board below the
salt; then turned to embrace Rodrigo.
He spoke never a word, but stood like one stupefied, his arms folded on
his breast, his eyes fixed on the ground.
“Son of my heart,” says Don Diego, “I pray you turn and eat. Mourn not
what you have done. My youth comes back to me in you. Greater than me
shall you be, and win back broad lands from the Moors, and be rich like
a king, when I am low in the dust. Take the head of the board, Rodrigo.
Higher than myself is the place of the son who has brought the sword of
Conde Gormez to his Suelos. The place of honour is yours, and I will
pledge you with wine.” And as he speaks the old man rises, and taking
Rodrigo by the hand places him above him, and with his own hand serves
him with meat and drink.
Poetry and the drama in latter days have much dealt with the story of
the Cid, and altogether altered it from its ancient simplicity.
Not so the chronicles, which depict the facts in the language of the
time very straightforwardly, specially the chronicle of King Alfonso of
Castile, surnamed _El Sabio_, written soon after the Cid’s death. If not
penned by the hand of the king himself, at least it was largely dictated
by him, and not at all partial, for as King of Castile he deeply
resented the rebellion of the Cid against his father Alonso.