The great throne room of the palace was crowded with courtiers long
before the time when the King and Queen and Don John of Austria were to
appear, and the entries and halls by which it was approached were almost
as full. Though the late November air was keen, the state apartments
were at summer heat, warmed by thousands of great wax candles that
burned in chandeliers, and in huge sconces and on high candelabra that
stood in every corner. The light was everywhere, and was very soft and
yellow, while the odour of the wax itself was perceptible in the air,
and helped the impression that the great concourse was gathered in a
wide cathedral for some solemn function rather than in a throne room to
welcome a victorious soldier. Vast tapestries, dim and rich in the thick
air, covered the walls between the tall Moorish windows, and above them
the great pointed vaulting, ornamented with the fantastically modelled
stucco of the Moors, was like the creamy crests of waves lashed into
foam by the wind, thrown upright here, and there blown forward in swift
spray, and then again breaking in the fall to thousands of light and
exquisite shapes; and the whole vault thus gathered up the light of the
candles into itself and shed it downward, distributing it into every
corner and lighting every face in a soft and golden glow.
At the upper end, between two great doors that were like the gateways of
an eastern city, stood the vacant throne, on a platform approached by
three broad steps and covered with deep red cloth; and there stood
magnificent officers of the guard in gilded corslets and plumed steel
caps, and other garments of scarlet and gold, with their drawn swords
out. But Mendoza was not there yet, for it was his duty to enter with
the King's own guard, preceding the Majorduomo. Above the throne, a huge
canopy of velvet, red and yellow, was reared up around the royal coat of
arms.
To the right and left, on the steps, stood carved stools with silken
cushions--those on the right for the chief ministers and nobles of the
kingdom, those on the left for the great ladies of the court. These
would all enter in the King's train and take their places. For the
throng of courtiers who filled the floor and the entries there were no
seats, for only a score of the highest and greatest personages were
suffered to sit in the royal presence. A few, who were near the windows,
rested themselves surreptitiously on the high mouldings of the
pilasters, pushing aside the curtains cautiously, and seeming from a
distance to be standing while they were in reality comfortably seated,
an object of laughing envy and of many witticisms to their less
fortunate fellow-courtiers. The throng was not so close but that it was
possible to move in the middle of the hall, and almost all the persons
there were slowly changing place, some going forward to be nearer the
throne, others searching for their friends among their many
acquaintances, that they might help the tedious hour to pass more
quickly.
Seen from the high gallery above the arch of the great entrance the hall
was a golden cauldron full of rich hues that intermingled in streams,
and made slow eddies with deep shadows, and then little waves of light
that turned upon themselves, as the colours thrown into the dyeing vat
slowly seethe and mix together in rivulets of dark blue and crimson, and
of splendid purple that seems to turn black in places and then is
suddenly shot through with flashes of golden and opalescent light. Here
and there also a silvery gleam flashed in the darker surface, like a
pearl in wine, for a few of the court ladies were dressed all in white,
with silver and many pearls, and diamonds that shed little rays of their
own.
The dwarf Adonis had been there for a few moments behind the lattice
which the Moors had left, and as he stood there alone, where no one ever
thought of going, he listened to the even and not unmusical sound that
came up from the great assembly--the full chorus of speaking voices
trained never to be harsh or high, and to use chosen words, with no loud
exclamations, laughing only to please and little enough out of
merriment; and they would not laugh at all after the King and Queen came
in, but would only murmur low and pleasant flatteries, the change as
sudden as when the musician at the keys closes the full organ all at
once and draws gentle harmonies from softer stops.
The jester had stood there, and looked down with deep-set, eager eyes,
his crooked face pathetically sad and drawn, but alive with a swift and
meaning intelligence, while the thin and mobile lips expressed a sort of
ready malice which could break out in bitterness or turn to a kindly
irony according as the touch that moved the man's sensitive nature was
cruel or friendly. He was scarcely taller than a boy of ten years old,
but his full-grown arms hung down below his knees, and his man's head,
with the long, keen face, was set far forward on his shapeless body, so
that in speaking with persons of ordinary stature he looked up under his
brows, a little sideways, to see better. Smooth red hair covered his
bony head, and grew in a carefully trimmed and pointed beard on his
pointed chin. A loose doublet of crimson velvet hid the outlines of his
crooked back and projecting breastbone, and the rest of his dress was of
materials as rich, and all red. He was, moreover, extraordinarily
careful of his appearance, and no courtier had whiter or more delicately
tended hands or spent more time before the mirror in tying a shoulder
knot, and in fastening the stiffened collar of white embroidered linen
at the fashionable angle behind his neck.
He had entered the latticed gallery on his way to Don John's apartments
with the King's message. A small and half-concealed door, known to few
except the servants of the palace, opened upon it suddenly from a niche
in one of the upper corridors. In Moorish days the ladies of the harem
had been wont to go there unseen to see the reception of ambassadors of
state, and such ceremonies, at which, even veiled, they could never be
present.
He only stayed a few moments, and though his eyes were eager, it was by
habit rather than because they were searching for any one in the crowd.
It pleased him now and then to see the court world as a spectacle, as it
delights the hard-worked actor to be for once a spectator at another's
play. He was an integral part of the court himself, a man of whom most
was often expected when he had the least to give, to whom it was
scarcely permitted to say anything in ordinary language, but to whom
almost any license of familiar speech was freely allowed. He was not a
man, he was a tradition, a thing that had to be where it was from
generation to generation; wherever the court had lived a jester lay
buried, and often two and three, for they rarely lived an ordinary
lifetime. Adonis thought of that sometimes, when he was alone, or when
he looked down at the crowd of delicately scented and richly dressed men
and women, every one called by some noble name, who would doubtless
laugh at some jest of his before the night was over. To their eyes the
fool was a necessary servant, because there had always been a fool at
court; he was as indispensable as a chief butler, a chief cook, or a
state coachman, and much more amusing. But he was not a man, he had no
name, he had no place among men, he was not supposed to have a mother, a
wife, a home, anything that belonged to humanity. He was well lodged,
indeed, where the last fool had died, and richly clothed as the other
had been, and he fed delicately, and was given the fine wines of France
to drink, lest his brain should be clouded by stronger liquor and he
should fail to make the court laugh. But he knew well enough that
somewhere in Toledo or Valladolid the next court jester was being
trained to good manners and instructed in the art of wit, to take the
vacant place when he should die. It pleased him therefore sometimes to
look down at the great assemblies from the gallery and to reflect that
all those magnificent fine gentlemen and tenderly nurtured beauties of
Spain were to die also, and that there was scarcely one of them, man or
woman, for whose death some one was not waiting, and waiting perhaps
with evil anxiety and longing. They were splendid to see, those fair
women in their brocades and diamonds, those dark young princesses and
duchesses in velvet and in pearls. He dreamed of them sometimes,
fancying himself one of those Djin of the southern mountains of whom the
Moors told blood-curdling tales, and in the dream he flew down from the
gallery on broad, black wings and carried off the youngest and most
beautiful, straight to his magic fortress above the sea.
They never knew that he was sometimes up there, and on this evening he
did not wait long, for he had his message to deliver and must be in
waiting on the King before the royal train entered the throne room.
After he was gone, the courtiers waited long, and more and more came in
from without. Now and then the crowd parted as best it might, to allow
some grandee who wore the order of the Golden Fleece or of some other
exalted order, to lead his lady nearer to the throne, as was his right,
advancing with measured steps, and bowing gravely to the right and left
as he passed up to the front among his peers. And just behind them, on
one aide, the young girls, of whom many were to be presented to the King
and Queen that night, drew together and talked in laughing whispers,
gathering in groups and knots of three and four, in a sort of irregular
rank behind their mothers or the elder ladies who were to lead them to
the royal presence and pronounce their names. There was more light where
they were gathered, the shadows were few and soft, the colours tender as
the tints of roses in a garden at sunset, and from the place where they
stood the sound of young voices came silvery and clear. That should have
been Inez de Mendoza's place if she had not been blind. But Inez had
never been willing to be there, though she had more than once found her
way to the gallery where the dwarf had stood, and had listened, and
smelled the odour of the wax candles and the perfumes that rose with the
heated air.
It was long before the great doors on the right hand of the canopy were
thrown open, but courtiers are accustomed from their childhood to long
waiting, and the greater part of their occupation at court is to see and
to be seen, and those who can do both and can take pleasure in either
are rarely impatient. Moreover, many found an opportunity of exchanging
quick words and of making sudden plans for meeting, who would have found
it hard to exchange a written message, and who had few chances of seeing
each other in the ordinary course of their lives; and others had waited
long to deliver a cutting speech, well studied and tempered to hurt, and
sought their enemies in the crowd with the winning smile a woman wears
to deal her keenest thrust. There were men, too, who had great interests
at stake and sought the influence of such as lived near the King,
flattering every one who could possibly be of use, and coolly
overlooking any who had a matter of their own to press, though they were
of their own kin. Many officers of Don John's army were there, too,
bright-eyed and bronzed from their campaigning, and ready to give their
laurels for roses, leaf by leaf, with any lady of the court who would
make a fair exchange--and of these there were not a few, and the time
seemed short to them. There were also ecclesiastics, but not many, in
sober black and violet garments, and they kept together in one corner
and spoke a jargon of Latin and Spanish which the courtiers could not
understand; and all who were there, the great courtiers and the small,
the bishops and the canons, the stout princesses laced to suffocation
and to the verge of apoplexy, and fanning themselves desperately in the
heat, and their slim, dark-eyed daughters, cool and laughing--they were
all gathered together to greet Spain's youngest and greatest hero, Don
John of Austria, who had won back Granada from the Moors.
As the doors opened at last, a distant blast of silver trumpets rang in
from without, and the full chorus of speaking voices was hushed to a
mere breathing that died away to breathless silence during a few moments
as the greatest sovereign of the age, and one of the strangest figures
of all time, appeared before his court. The Grand Master of Ceremonies
entered first, in his robe of office, bearing a long white staff. In the
stillness his voice rang out to the ends of the hall:
"His Majesty the King! Her Majesty the Queen!"
Then came a score of halberdiers of the guard, picked men of great
stature, marching in even steps, led by old Mendoza himself, in his
breastplate and helmet, sword in hand; and he drew up the guard at one
side in a rank, making them pass him so that he stood next to the door.
After the guards came Philip the Second, a tall and melancholy figure;
and with him, on his left side, walked the young Queen, a small, thin
figure in white, with sad eyes and a pathetic face--wondering, perhaps,
whether she was to follow soon those other queens who had walked by the
same King to the same court, and had all died before their time--Mary of
Portugal, Mary of England, Isabel of Valois.
The King was one of those men who seem marked by destiny rather than by
nature, fateful, sombre, almost repellent in manner, born to inspire a
vague fear at first sight, and foreordained to strange misfortune or to
extraordinary success, one of those human beings from whom all men
shrink instinctively, and before whom they easily lose their fluency of
speech and confidence of thought. Unnaturally still eyes, of an
uncertain colour, gazed with a terrifying fixedness upon a human world,
and were oddly set in the large and perfectly colourless face that was
like an exaggerated waxen mask. The pale lips did not meet evenly, the
lower one protruding, forced, outward by the phenomenal jaw that has
descended to this day in the House of Austria. A meagre beard, so fair
that it looked faded, accentuated the chin rather than concealed it, and
the hair on the head was of the same undecided tone, neither thin nor
thick, neither long nor short, but parted, and combed with the utmost
precision about the large but very finely moulded ears. The brow was
very full as well as broad, and the forehead high, the whole face too
large, even for a man so tall, and disquieting in its proportions.
Philip bent his head forward a little when at rest; when he looked about
him it moved with something of the slow, sure motion of a piece of
mechanism, stopping now and then, as the look in the eyes solidified to
a stare, and then, moving again, until curiosity was satisfied and it
resumed its first attitude, and remained motionless, whether the lips
were speaking or not.
Very tall and thin, and narrow chested, the figure was clothed all in
cream-coloured silk and silver, relieved only by the collar of the
Golden Fleece, the solitary order the King wore. His step was ungraceful
and slow, as if his thin limbs bore his light weight with difficulty,
and he sometimes stumbled in walking. One hand rested on the hilt of his
sword as he walked, and even under the white gloves the immense length
of the fingers and the proportionate development of the long thumb were
clearly apparent. No one could have guessed that in such a figure there
could be much elasticity or strength, and yet, at rare moments and when
younger, King Philip displayed such strength and energy and quickness as
might well have made him the match of ordinary men. As a rule his anger
was slow, thoughtful, and dangerous, as all his schemes were vast and
far-reaching.
With the utmost deliberation, and without so much as glancing at the
courtiers assembled, he advanced to the throne and sat down, resting
both hands on the gilded arms of the great chair; and the Queen took her
place beside him. But before he had settled himself, there was a low
sound of suppressed delight in the hall, a moving of heads, a
brightening of women's eyes, a little swaying of men's shoulders as they
tried to see better over those who stood before them; and voices rose
here and there above the murmur, though not loudly, and were joined by
others. Then the King's waxen face darkened, though the expression did
not change and the still eyes did not move, but as if something passed
between it and the light, leaving it grey in the shadow. He did not turn
to look, for he knew that his brother had entered the throne room and
that every eye was upon him.
Don John was all in dazzling white--white velvet, white satin, white
silk, white lace, white shoes, and wearing neither sword nor ornament of
any kind, the most faultless vision of young and manly grace that ever
glided through a woman's dream.
His place was on the King's right, and he passed along the platform of
the throne with an easy, unhesitating step, and an almost boyish smile
of pleasure at the sounds he heard, and at the flutter of excitement
that was in the air, rather to be felt than otherwise perceived. Coming
up the steps of the throne, he bent one knee before his brother, who
held out his ungloved hand for him to kiss--and when that was done, he
knelt again before the Queen, who did likewise. Then, bowing low as he
passed back before the King, he descended one step and took the chair
set for him in the place that was for the royal princes.
He was alone there, for Philip was again childless at his fourth
marriage, and it was not until long afterwards that a son was born who
lived to succeed him; and there were no royal princesses in Madrid, so
that Don John was his brother's only near blood relation at the court,
and since he had been acknowledged he would have had his place by right,
even if he had not beaten the Moriscoes in the south and won back
Granada.
After him came the high Ministers of State and the ambassadors in a rich
and stately train, led in by Don Antonio Perez, the King's new
favourite, a man of profound and evil intelligence, upon whom Philip was
to rely almost entirely during ten years, whom he almost tortured to
death for his crimes, and who in the end escaped him, outlived him, and
died a natural death, in Paris, when nearly eighty. With these came also
the court ladies, the Queen's Mistress of the Robes, and the maids of
honour, and with the ladies was Doña Ana de la Cerda, Princess of Eboli
and Melito and Duchess of Pastrana, the wife of old Don Ruy Gomez de
Silva, the Minister. It was said that she ruled her husband, and Antonio
Perez and the King himself, and that she was faithless to all three.
She was not more than thirty years of age at that time, and she looked
younger when seen in profile. But one facing her might have thought her
older from the extraordinary and almost masculine strength of her small
head and face, compact as a young athlete's, too square for a woman's,
with high cheekbones, deep-set black eyes and eyebrows that met between
them, and a cruel red mouth that always curled a little just when she
was going to speak, and showed extraordinarily perfect little teeth,
when the lips parted. Yet she was almost beautiful when she was not
angry or in a hurtful mood. The dark complexion was as smooth as a
perfect peach, and tinged with warm colour, and her eyes could be like
black opals, and no woman in Spain or Andalusia could match her for
grace of figure and lightness of step.
Others came after in the long train. Then, last of all, at a little
distance from the rest, the jester entered, affecting a very dejected
air. He stood still a while on the platform, looking about as if to see
whether a seat had been reserved for him, and then, shaking his head
sadly, he crouched down, a heap of scarlet velvet with a man's face,
just at Don John's feet, and turning a little towards him, so as to
watch his eyes. But Don John would not look at him, and was surprised
that he should put himself there, having just been dismissed with a
sharp reprimand for bringing women's messages.
The ceremony, if it can be called by that name, began almost as soon as
all were seated. At a sign from the King, Don Antonio Perez rose and
read out a document which he had brought in his hand. It was a sort of
throne speech, and set forth briefly, in very measured terms, the
results of the long campaign against the Moriscoes, according high
praise to the army in general, and containing a few congratulatory
phrases addressed to Don John himself. The audience of nobles listened
attentively, and whenever the leader's name occurred, the suppressed
flutter of enthusiasm ran through the hall like a breeze that stirs
forest leaves in summer; but when the King was mentioned the silence was
dead and unbroken. Don John sat quite still, looking down a little, and
now and then his colour deepened perceptibly. The speech did not hint at
any reward or further distinction to be conferred on him.
When Perez had finished reading, he paused a moment, and the hand that
held the paper fell to his side. Then he raised his voice to a higher
key.
"God save his Majesty Don Philip Second!" be cried. "Long live the
King!"
The courtiers answered the cheer, but moderately, as a matter of course,
and without enthusiasm, repeating it three times. But at the last time a
single woman's voice, high and clear above all the rest, cried out other
words.
"God save Don John of Austria! Long live Don John of Austria!"
The whole multitude of men and women was stirred at once, for every
heart was in the cheer, and in an instant, courtiers though they were,
the King was forgotten, the time, the place, and the cry went up all at
once, full, long and loud, shaming the one that had gone before it.
King Philip's hands strained at the arms of his great chair, and he half
rose, as if to command silence; and Don John, suddenly pale, had half
risen, too, stretching out his open hand in a gesture of deprecation,
while the Queen watched him with timidly admiring eyes, and the dark
Princess of Eboli's dusky lids drooped to hide her own, for she was
watching him also, but with other thoughts. For a few seconds longer,
the cheers followed each other, and then they died away to a comparative
silence. The dwarf rocked himself, his head between his knees, at Don
John's feet.
"God save the Fool!" he cried softly, mimicking the cheer, and he seemed
to shake all over, as he sat huddled together, swinging himself to and
fro.
But no one noticed what he said, for the King had risen to his feet as
soon as there was silence. He spoke in a muffled tone that made his
words hard to understand, and those who knew him best saw that he was
very angry. The Princess of Eboli's red lips curled scornfully as she
listened, and unnoticed she exchanged a meaning glance with Antonio
Perez; for he and she were allies, and often of late they had talked
long together, and had drawn sharp comparisons between the King and his
brother, and the plan they had made was to destroy the King and to crown
Don John of Austria in his place; but the woman's plot was deeper, and
both were equally determined that Don John should not marry without
their consent, and that if he did, his marriage should not hold, unless,
as was probable, his young wife should fall ill and die of a sickness
unknown to physicians.
All had risen with the King, and he addressed Don John amidst the most
profound silence.
"My brother," he said, "your friends have taken upon themselves
unnecessarily to use the words we would have used, and to express to you
their enthusiasm for your success in a manner unknown at the court of
Spain. Our one voice, rendering you the thanks that are your due, can
hardly give you great satisfaction after what you have heard just now.
Yet we presume that the praise of others cannot altogether take the
place of your sovereign's at such a moment, and we formally thank you
for the admirable performance of the task entrusted to you, promising
that before long your services shall be required for an even more
arduous undertaking. It is not in our power to confer upon you any
personal distinction or public office higher than you already hold, as
our brother, and as High Admiral of Spain; but we trust the day is not
far distant when a marriage befitting your rank may place you on a level
with kings."
Don John had moved a step forward from his place and stood before the
King, who, at the end of his short speech, put his long arms over his
brother's shoulders, and proceeded to embrace him in a formal manner by
applying one cheek to his and solemnly kissing the air behind Don John's
head, a process which the latter imitated as nearly as he could. The
court looked on in silence at the ceremony, ill satisfied with Philip's
cold words. The King drew back, and Don John returned to his place. As
he reached it the dwarf jester made a ceremonious obeisance and handed
him a glove which he had dropped as he came forward. As he took it he
felt that it contained a letter, which made a slight sound when his hand
crumpled it inside the glove. Annoyed by the fool's persistence, Don
John's eyes hardened as he looked at the crooked face, and almost
imperceptibly he shook his head. But the dwarf was as grave as he, and
slightly bent his own, clasping his hands in a gesture of supplication.
Don John reflected that the matter must be one of importance this time,
as Adonis would not otherwise have incurred the risk of passing the
letter to him under the eyes of the King and the whole court.
Then followed the long and tedious procession of the court past the
royal pair, who remained seated, while all the rest stood up, including
Don John himself, to whom a master of ceremonies presented the persons
unknown to him, and who were by far the more numerous. To the men, old
and young, great or insignificant, he gave his hand with frank
cordiality. To the women he courteously bowed his head. A full hour
passed before it was over, and still he grasped the glove with the
crumpled letter in his hand, while the dwarf stood at a little distance,
watching in case it should fall; and as the Duchess Alvarez and the
Princess of Eboli presented the ladies of Madrid to the young Queen, the
Princess often looked at Don John and often at the jester from beneath
her half-dropped lids. But she did not make a single mistake of names
nor of etiquette, though her mind was much preoccupied with other
matters.
The Queen was timidly gracious to every one; but Philip's face was
gloomy, and his fixed eyes hardly seemed to see the faces of the
courtiers as they passed before him, nor did he open his lips to address
a word to any of them, though some were old and faithful servants of his
own and of his father's.
In his manner, in his silence, in the formality of the ceremony, there
was the whole spirit of the Spanish dominion. It was sombrely
magnificent, and it was gravely cruel; it adhered to the forms of
sovereignty as rigidly as to the outward practices of religion; its
power extended to the ends of the world, and the most remote countries
sent their homage and obeisance to its head; and beneath the dark
splendour that surrounded its gloomy sovereigns there was passion and
hatred and intrigue. Beside Don John of Austria stood Antonio Perez, and
under the same roof with Dolores de Mendoza dwelt Ana de la Cerda,
Princess of Eboli, and in the midst of them all Miguel de Antona, the
King's fool.
* * * * *