The Emperor’s table was laid in one of the lower rooms of the Golden
Cross. The orchestra and the boy choir had been stationed in Saint
Leonhard’s chapel. A wide door led from the consecrated chamber, spanned
by a vaulted roof, into the dining-room. When it was opened, the music
and singing would pour in a full flood to those seated around the board.
Shortly before midnight everything in kitchen and cellar was ready for
the royal couple. The wax candles and lamps were already lighted when
Queen Mary prepared to bring her imperial brother to the surprise which
she had planned, and whose influence she eagerly anticipated.
The Emperor had received the last report half an hour before, and then
commissioned his physician, who had again warned him against the excess
of work, to protect him from interruption--he desired to have an hour
alone.
Dr. Mathys had fulfilled this order with the utmost strictness. Even the
English ambassador was dismissed. The members of the royal household and
the nobles who during their stay in Ratisbon crowded around the royal
brother and sister, and even at this late hour filled the rooms and
corridors of the spacious building with busy life, had been commanded to
step lightly and keep silent.
The lord chamberlain, Count Heinrich of Nassau, saw that nothing was
stirring near the apartment of his imperial master, and the stewards,
Quijada and Malfalconnet, aided him. But they could not prevent the
barking of Queen Mary’s hunting dogs, and when their royal mistress
followed them to accompany her illustrious brother to the dining-hall,
Malfalconnet ventured to remark that the lion, when he retires to
solitude, sometimes values rest more than the presence of even the most
beloved and adorable member of his noble race; but the regent quickly
retorted that she had not yet reached lion hunting, but she knew that
even the king of beasts possessed a stomach, and would be glad to have
rest seasoned with dainty food.
“The banquet is ready,” added Count Buren, and Malfalconnet, with a low
bow, said:
“And a portion of it is the covered chiming dish with which your
Majesty’s love and wisdom intends to surprise the illustrious epicure.”
While speaking, he cautiously opened the door of the royal apartment,
but the dogs were held back by the pages who had carried the train of
the festal robe. Two others zealously aided her to throw the trailing
brocade across her arm, and in this manner she entered her distinguished
brother’s chamber.
This was so deep that a short walk was necessary to reach the window
near which the Emperor sat. The office of lighting the vast room was
assigned to a dozen wax candles in a silver candelabrum, but they were
so inadequate to the task that neither the mythological scenes on the
Brabant Gobelin curtains with which the walls were hung, nor the very
scanty furniture of the remainder of the long chamber could be seen from
the door.
Thus the prevailing dusk concealed the surroundings of the great monarch
who was resting there, and the only object visible to the entering
Queen was his figure illumined by the light. In her soul everything
else receded far behind the person, welfare, and pleasure of this mighty
sovereign. Yet she had already crossed half the room, and her entrance
still remained unnoticed.
The Emperor Charles, with his forehead resting on his hand, sat absorbed
in thought before the papers which had occupied his attention. How
mournful he looked, what sorrowful thoughts were doubtless again
burdening that anxious brain! Never before had he seemed to his sister
so old.
Perhaps it was the ceaseless planning and pondering of the statesman and
general which, during the last few years, had thinned the light-brown
hair at the corners of the brow.
The resting ruler now seemed to have brought his mind to repose also,
for every emotion had vanished from his pallid face. Even the sharply
cut nostrils of the long nose, which usually moved swiftly, were
perfectly still. The heavy chin, framed by a thin, closely clipped
beard, had sunk upon the high ruff as if for support, and the thick,
loosely hanging lower lip appeared to have lost its elasticity.
In this hour of rest and relaxation this tireless and successful
sovereign, utterly exhausted, had even relinquished seeming what he
was; his brown hair framed his brow and temples in a tangled, disordered
mass; the lacings of his velvet doublet were loosened; a shabby woollen
coverlet of anything but imperial appearance was wound around his lower
limbs, and the foot in which the gout throbbed and ached rested on his
sleeping hound, and was wrapped in the cloths which his valet Adrian
found at hand after the Venetian ambassador, the confessor, and the
leech had left his master.
It pierced his sister to the heart to see her mighty brother, upon whose
dominions, it was said, the sun never set, in this guise.
Her glance rested sorrowfully upon him a long time, but even when she
moved several paces nearer he retained the same motionless rigidity
which had seized upon him and even communicated itself to the dog. The
animal knew the regent, and did not let her disturb its repose.
Then a terrible fear assailed her, and the image of the Cid Campeador
who, mounted on horseback, went swaying on his steed to meet the foe,
rose before her.
“Your Majesty,” then again “Your Majesty,” she called in a low tone,
that she might not startle him; but the answer for which she waited in
breathless suspense did not come, and now the anxious dread that filled
her sisterly heart forced from her lips the cry, “Carlos!” and once more
“Carlos!”
The dog stirred, and at the same time the Emperor raised his bowed head
and turned toward his sister.
Drawing a long breath, as if relieved from a heavy burden, she hastened
to his side, and, clasping his delicately formed hand, kissed it with
passionate tenderness; but the Emperor withdrew it, saying with a
mournful smile, which gave his rigid countenance a new and more winning
expression, in the Castilian language in which he always addressed her:
“Why are you so agitated, Querida? Did the sight of the silent brother
alarm the sister? Ay, darling, there are some things more terrible than
the wild boar at which the brave huntress hurls her spear. Our mother’s
bequest----”
Queen Mary, with hands outstretched beseechingly, bowed the knee before
him; but he raised her with more strength than would have been expected
from him just before, and, sighing faintly, continued:
“There are hours, Mary, when the demon that overpowered the mother
stretches his talons toward the son also. But, in spite of his satanic
origin, he is a cowardly wight, and a loving face, a tender word, drives
him away.”
“Then may my coming be blessed!” she answered warmly. “Yet it can
scarcely be a demon or any being of mortal mould that is spoiling the
life happiness of my beloved brother and sovereign lord. After all, they
are tolerably alike in the main point, and what semblance would the son
of hell wear that dares to assail the most powerful and vigorous mind
of all the ages, and yet is seized with panic terror at the glance of a
feeble woman? Whoever knows the anxieties which have recently burdened
your Majesty, and the wide range of the decision to which the course
of events is urging you, can not wonder if, as just now, your cheerful
spirits desert you. No demons or evil creatures of that sort, Heaven
knows, are needed to accomplish it.”
“Certainly not,” replied the Emperor. “Yet it does not matter what name
is borne by the unconquerable power which poisons with horrible images
the few hours of repose allotted to the solitary man who is bereft of
love and joy. But let us drop the subject! When you appear and raise
your voice, it seems as though all gloomy thoughts heard the view
hallo which drives your stags and roes back into their coverts, Mary. I
suppose you have come to summon me to the table?”
The Queen assented, and now he could not prevent her kissing his hand.
Then she seized the dainty little bell on the table to ring for the
valet Adrian; but the Emperor Charles stopped her with the exclamation:
“Never mind him. I will go with you as I am, if you do not object to
sharing your meal with such a scarecrow of a man. Only permit me to lock
up these papers.”
“From Rome?” asked the regent eagerly.
“That is easily discerned,” replied the Emperor. “New and amazingly
favourable promises. Nothing is required of me except the trifling
obligation to allow the Protestants nothing in religious affairs
which the Pope or the Council do not approve. If I agree to accept the
promises, every one will think that I have the advantage, and yet, if
the contract is made, it is tearing from the sky the political polestar
of many a lustrum, and burying one of my clearest, ripest, most sacred
hopes.”
Here the startled Queen interrupted him: “That would surely, inevitably
be the evil fruit which would grow from such a treaty. It would deliver
to the Pope, with fettered hands, this very Council which your Majesty
so confidently expected would remove or diminish, in orderly methods,
the abuses which are urging so many Christians to abandon the Catholic
Church. How often I have heard even her most faithful sons acknowledge
that such abuses exist! But if you make the alliance, the self-interest
of the hierarchy will know how to prevent the introduction of even a
single vigorous amendment, and, instead of the conqueror of the hydra of
abuse, your Majesty will render yourself its guardian.”
“And,” added the Emperor affectionately--he still retained his seat
at the writing table--“this alliance, moreover, would force me to the
painful necessity of opposing the earnest wish of the dearest, fairest,
and wisest of my sisters.”
“Because it would render war with the evangelical princes inevitable,”
cried the Queen excitedly. “Oh, your Majesty, you know that the
heretical movement, which is making life a burden to me in my provinces,
is going much too far for me, as well as for you here in Germany; nay,
that it is hateful to me, because I value nothing more than our holy
Church, her greatness and unity. But would it really redound to her
welfare if the schism now existing, and which you yourself expected to
heal through the Council, should by this very Council be embittered and
even perhaps perpetuated? For a long time nothing has seemed to me more
execrable than this war. Your Majesty knows that, and therefore my lord
and brother can not be vexed with me if I remind him of the hour when, a
few months ago, he promised to avoid it and do all in his power to
bring what relates to religious matters in these German countries to a
peaceful conclusion.”
The Emperor looked his sister full in the face, and, while struggling to
his feet, said with majestic dignity:
“And I have never given your Highness occasion to doubt my word.” Then,
changing his tone, he continued kindly: “No means--I repeat it--shall
remain untried to preserve peace. I am in earnest, child, though there
are now many reasons for breaking the promise. I put them together on
the long list yonder, and the Spaniards at the court add new ones every
hour. If you care to know them----”
Here he hesitated, because the gout in his foot gave him a sharper
twinge; but the Queen availed herself of the pause to exclaim: “I think
I am aware of them. It is especially hard just now for the statesman and
soldier to keep the sword in the sheath, because Rome offers more than
ever, because at the present time no serious opposition is to be feared
from the most important states, and because the princes of the empire
have neglected nothing which could rouse the resentment of my imperial
brother. I know all this, and yet it is as firmly established as Alpine
mountains----”
Here a low laugh escaped the Emperor’s lips.
“The political course which could be thus firmly established is to be
found, you experienced regent, only in one place--the strong imagination
of a high hearted woman, who desires to accomplish what she deems right.
I, too, you may believe me, am opposed to this war, and, as matters
stand now, the German renegades, rather than we, may expect a glorious
result. But, nevertheless, it may happen that I shall be compelled to
ask you to give me back my promise.”
“I should like to see the person who could compel my august brother to
undertake anything against his imperial will,” the Queen passionately
interrupted.
“We will hope that this superior being may not appear only too soon,”
replied the Emperor, smiling bitterly. “The invincible oppressor
bears the name of unexpected circumstances; I encountered one of his
harbingers to-day. There lie the documents. Do you know to what those
miserable papers force me, the Emperor?--ay, force, I repeat it. To
nothing less, Mary, than consciously to deal a blow in the face of
justice, whose defender I ought and desire to be. I am not exaggerating,
for I am withdrawing a fratricide from the courts, nay, am paving the
way for him to evade punishment.”
“You mean Alfonso Diaz, who had his brother murdered by a hired
assassin because he abandoned the holy Church and accepted the Lutheran
religion,” said the Queen sorrowfully. “Malvenda was just telling
me----”
“He was the instigator of the crime,” interrupted the Emperor. “Now he
rejoices in it as a deed well pleasing to God, and many thousands, I
know, agree with him. And I? Had Juan Diaz been a German Johannes or
Hans, the Emperor Charles would have made Alfonso expiate his crime
upon the block this very day. But the brothers were Spaniards, and that
alters the case.”
With this sentence, which fell from his lips in firm, resolute tones,
his bearing regained its old decision, and his eyes met his sister’s
with a flashing glance as he continued:
“The seed which here in the North, in carefully prepared soil and under
the fostering care of men only too skilful and ready for conflict, took
deep root in the domain of religion, which we were obliged to tolerate
because it grew too rapidly and strongly for us to extirpate or crush
it without depopulating a great empire and jeopardizing other very
important matters, would mean ruin to our Spain. Whoever dared to
transplant the heresy to her soil would be the most infamous of the
corrupters of a nation, for the holy Church and the kingdom of Spain
are one. The mere thought of a Juan Diaz, who had absorbed the heretical
Lutheran doctrine here, returning home to infect the hearts of the
Castilians with its venom, makes my blood boil also. Therefore, for the
sake of Spain, a higher justice compels me to offend the secular one.
The people beyond the Pyrenees shall learn that, even for the brother,
it is no sin, but a duty, to shorten the life of the brother who
abandoned the holy Church. Let Alfonso Diaz strive to obtain absolution.
It will not be difficult. He can sleep calmly, so far as the judges are
concerned who dispense justice in the name of Charles V.”
As he spoke he waved his hand to repel the hound which, when he raised
his voice, had pressed closer to him, and glanced at the artistically
wrought Nuremberg clocks on the writing table, two of which struck the
hour at the same time. Then he himself seized the little bell, rang it,
and permitted the valet Adrian to brush his hair and make the necessary
changes in his dress.
Then he invited his sister to accompany him to the table.
Walking without a shoe was difficult, and, when he saw the Queen look
down sorrowfully at the cloths which swathed the foot, he said while
toiling on:
“Imagine that we have been hunting and the boot remained stuck in the
mud. I am sure of indulgence from you. As to the others, even with only
one shoe I am still the Emperor.”
He opened the door as he spoke, and, while the valet held the hound
back, the Emperor, with chivalrous courtesy, insisted that his sister
should precede him, though she resisted until Baron Malfalconnet, with a
low bow to the royal dame, said:
“The meal is served, your Majesty, and if you lead the way you will
protect our Emperor and sovereign lord from the unworthy suspicion of
wishing to be first at the trencher.”
He motioned toward the threshold as he uttered the words, but Charles,
who often had a ready answer for the baron’s jests, followed his sister
in silence with a clouded brow.
Leaning on her arm and the crutch which Quijada had mutely presented
to him, Charles cautiously descended the stairs. He had indignantly
rejected the leech’s proposal to use a litter in the house also, if the
gout tortured him.