Some moments passed during which both youths indulged in every
endearment of friendship and love. Alonso spoke first and, in accents
touched by the scene which we have just related, exclaimed, addressing
his comrade:
“Lope, I know that you love Doña Inés; perhaps not as much as I, but you
love her. Since a duel between us is impossible, let us agree to place
our fate in her hands. Let us go and seek her, let her decide with free
choice which of us shall be the happy one, which the wretched. Her
decision shall be respected by both, and he who does not gain her favor
shall to-morrow go forth with the King of Toledo and shall seek the
comfort of forgetfulness in the excitement of war.”
“Since you wish it, so let it be,” replied Lope.
And arm in arm the two friends took their way toward the cathedral
beneath whose shadow, in a palace of which there are now no remains,
dwelt Doña Inés de Tordesillas.
It was early dawn, and as some of the kindred of Doña Inés, among them
her brothers, were to march the coming day with the royal army, it was
not impossible that early in the morning they could gain admittance to
her palace.
Inspired by this hope they arrived, at last, at the base of the Gothic
tower of the church, but on reaching that point a peculiar noise
attracted their attention and, stopping in one of the angles, concealed
among the shadows of the lofty buttresses that support the walls, they
saw, to their amazement, a man emerging from a window upon the balcony
of their lady’s apartments in the palace. He lightly descended to the
ground by the help of a rope and, finally, a white figure, Doña Inés
undoubtedly, appeared upon the balcony and, leaning over the fretted
parapet, exchanged tender phrases of farewell with her mysterious lover.
The first motion of the two youths was to place their hands on their
sword-hilts, but checking themselves, as though struck by a common
thought, they turned to look on one another, each discerning on the
other’s face a look of astonishment so ludicrous that both broke forth
into loud laughter, laughter which, rolling on from echo to echo in the
silence of the night, resounded through the square even to the palace.
Hearing it, the white figure vanished from the balcony, a noise of
slamming doors was heard, and then silence resumed her reign.
On the following day, the queen, seated on a most sumptuous dais, saw
defile past her the hosts who were marching to the war against the
Moors. At her side were the principal ladies of Toledo. Among them was
Doña Inés de Tordesillas on whom this day, as ever, all eyes were bent.
But it seemed to her that they wore a different expression from that to
which she was accustomed. She would have said that in all the curious
looks cast upon her lurked a mocking smile.
This discovery could not but disquiet her, remembering, as she did, the
noisy laughter which, the night before, she had thought she heard at a
distance in one of the angles of the square, while she was closing her
balcony and bidding adieu to her lover; but when she saw among the ranks
of the army marching below the dais, sparks of fire glancing from their
brilliant armor, and a cloud of dust enveloping them, the two reunited
banners of the houses of Carrillo and Sandoval; when she saw the
significant smile which the two former rivals, on saluting the queen,
directed toward herself, she comprehended all. The blush of shame
reddened her face and tears of chagrin glistened in her eyes.