Hardly was the first light of dawn streaming up the sky when there began
to sound throughout all the camp of Gômara the shrill trumpeting of the
Count’s soldiers; and the peasants who were arriving in numerous groups
from the villages round about saw the seigniorial banner flung to the
winds from the highest tower of the fortress.
The peasants were everywhere,--seated on the edge of the moat, ensconced
in the tops of trees, strolling over the plain, crowning the crests of
the hills, forming a line far along the highway, and it must have been
already for nearly an hour that their curiosity had awaited the show,
not without some signs of impatience, when the ringing bugle-call
sounded again, the chains of the drawbridge creaked as it fell slowly
across the moat, and the portcullis was raised, while little by little,
groaning upon their hinges, the massive doors of the arched passage
which led to the Court of Arms swung wide.
The multitude ran to press for places on the sloping banks beside the
road in order to see their fill of the brilliant armor and sumptuous
trappings of the following of the Count of Gômara, famed through all the
countryside for his splendor and his lavish pomp.
The march was opened by the heralds who, halting at fixed intervals,
proclaimed in loud voice, to the beat of the drum, the commands of the
King, summoning his feudatories to the Moorish war and requiring the
villages and free towns to give passage and aid to his armies.
After the heralds followed the kings-at-arms, proud of their silken
vestments, their shields bordered with gold and bright colors, and their
caps decked with graceful plumes.
Then came the chief retainer of the castle armed cap-à-pie, a knight
mounted on a young black horse, bearing in his hands the pennon of a
grandee with his motto and device; at his left hand rode the executioner
of the seigniory, clad in black and red.
The seneschal was preceded by fully a score of those famous trumpeters
of Castile celebrated in the chronicles of our kings for the incredible
power of their lungs.
When the shrill clamor of their mighty trumpeting ceased to wound the
wind, a dull sound, steady and monotonous, began to reach the ear,--the
tramp of the foot-soldiers, armed with long pikes and provided with a
leather shield apiece. Behind these soon came in view the soldiers who
managed the engines of war, with their crude machines and their wooden
towers, the bands of wall-scalers and the rabble of stable-boys in
charge of the mules.
Then, enveloped in the cloud of dust raised by the hoofs of their
horses, flashing sparks from their iron breastplates, passed the
men-at-arms of the castle, formed in thick platoons, looking from a
distance like a forest of spears.
Last of all, preceded by the drummers who were mounted on strong mules
tricked out in housings and plumes, surrounded by pages in rich raiment
of silk and gold and followed by the squires of the castle, appeared the
Count.
As the multitude caught sight of him, a great shout of greeting went up
and in the tumult of acclamation was stifled the cry of a woman, who at
that moment, as if struck by a thunderbolt, fell fainting into the arms
of those who sprang to her aid. It was Margarita, Margarita who had
recognized her mysterious lover in that great and dreadful lord, the
Count of Gômara, one of the most exalted and powerful feudatories of the
Crown of Castile.