OF OUR ROAD TO PARIS
THE sun had scarce begun to creep from behind his white curtain when,
on the following day, madam’s three ministers set forth on their
embassy. The road to Paris was more than an hundred leagues. The first
part of it lay through the very heart of Castile; much of it was
difficult and beset with peril for the traveller, and particularly for
those upon such a service as ours. Yet upon this beautiful morning of
midsummer, as we rode forth from the castle down the steep winding
track, these jealous servants of a noble mistress gave not a thought to
the dangers that might befall.
As we took the road our chief concern was to come to King Louis at
Paris with all expedition, and to return again with all the speed
possible in the company of an armed host, that the designs of the
Castilian might be thwarted. With madam’s high courage and a tolerable
address on the part of her garrison, her fastness might be held against
an enemy until our return. Yet we felt that every hour was of price,
and that there was not one to lose.
Judge, then, of our concern when upon coming into Toledo, Sir Richard
Pendragon stayed his horse at that fonda we had come to know so well.
He declared that, “Castilian or no Castilian, he must break his fast,”
and acquire a store of victual to bear with him during the day. “For,”
as he declared, “Spain was a most cursed country, and unless you had
been bred to eat sand and brown dust, you were like to go short at your
meals in the course of a long excursion.”
The Englishman declined to be moved by our prayers to hurry his
campaign at the inn table. “The belly is a proud jade,” he said, “and
apt to take affront at a small thing. It was through an intemperate
haste at his meals that one of the foremost among my ancestors was fain
to renounce the eating of roast pig, that most delectable of cates, at
the age of one-and-thirty.”
Sir Richard Pendragon having at last, as he expressed it, “coaxed the
rude jade into a humour of some civility,” made to mount his tall
horse, which stood solemnly munching corn before the inn door. But as
he did so there arose an altercation with the innkeeper, for, following
his usual practice, the Englishman showed no disposition to pay his
score. However, as we moved off, the Count of Nullepart threw a piece
of money to the astonished and complaining host.
Nevertheless we had scarcely gone the distance of a single street when
Sir Richard Pendragon again dismounted. In one of the bazaars which
abound in this city he purchased a handsome cloak edged with fur, which
put the tattered garment he was wearing to the blush. His bonnet also
received a new white feather for its adornment. “It was not seemly,” he
said, “that one of his lineage should come before the good France like
a guy in a field of young beans, lest France, who was a good fellow,
should consider him to be one of the Spanish nobility.”
Upon these loose words I felt my hand stray to the hilt of my sword.
And although our situation was one of great instancy, and my incapacity
to cope with the Englishman’s skill in this weapon was notorious, we
must have crossed blades in the public street had not the peace been
indebted to the notable behaviour of the worshipful Count of Nullepart.
His apologies for this rude foreigner were so delicate that I swallowed
my choler in what sort I might; and to such a point did the Count of
Nullepart carry his courtesy that he even brought the Englishman to say
that his reference to the Spanish nobility “was only his humour, which,
as was the case with his nation, was apt to lead him into all kinds of
fantasy; although foreign peoples, who lived in dark places, and rubbed
but seldom against enlightened minds, could never addict themselves to
this English pleasantry. Y’are solemn rogues, you continentals,” he
concluded. “I don’t wonder you require so much holy water and so many
masses for your souls.”
As we came through the market-place there were hens and turkeys exposed
for sale in the open bazaars. To the astonishment of those who sold
these wares, Sir Richard Pendragon lifted a number of them on to
his saddle on the point of his sword, saying “that, in his opinion,
although doubtless it was his English whimsicality, their flavour, if
roasted gently over a sea-coal fire, compared not unfavourably with the
finest Spanish sand and the fattest Spanish flies.”
The Count of Nullepart and myself being of this mind also, our
companion left to us the task of appeasing those who had thus been
ravished of their wares. Yet even to us he addressed a remonstrance.
“Is it good silver money you are giving these poor souls?” he said.
“I dare say it is the continental custom, but it marks an essential
difference between the nations of the earth. We quick-moving islanders
are more peremptory. You continentals ask a ‘by your leave,’ and live
by the power of the purse; we English all the world over claim our own
where we find it.”
In this, at least, I think Sir Richard Pendragon must have had a just
appreciation of his countrymen. For all the long leagues we rode with
him upon our embassy it was never once our hap to find him with his
hand within his poke.
When we had come out of Toledo, and had got fairly upon the narrow
winding tracks which traversed the great wilderness that was spread
before us, Sir Richard Pendragon began to show a great concern for
robbers. His eyes were continually casting about the horizon. No bush,
no rock, no tree escaped his dark suspicion; his hand was upon the
hilt of his sword a hundred times a day. At every turn of the road
he expected to see a robber; and, indeed, as the day wore on without
any sort of an encounter, it seemed to be a grief to him that robbers
were so few. But if we came upon any chance wayfarers, to judge by the
haste which they made to get clear of our path, I should say that this
opinion was not general.
“By my soul,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, as three honest, grey-bearded
merchants upon comely asses scurried away up a steep mountain path,
“these Spaniardoes are the poorest spirited people upon the face of the
earth. If I had not had a good mother, and she had not had a good son,
I might have unloaded those fish-blooded burgesses so easily as I drink
sherris.”
Whereupon Sir Richard Pendragon sighed profoundly.
We made many leagues that first day of our journey, although we rested
at noon in a small hamlet from the heat of the sun. It may have
been that we had entered upon our adventure not too propitiously,
and that the humours of the Englishman made but an odd sort of
companionship--notwithstanding a liberal rebate for the qualities of
kings’ blood--for one who boasted the sangre azul of a true hidalgo;
yet the wisdom and politeness of the humane and ever-delightful Count
of Nullepart kept us all three to the road, and brought us in a state
of toleration one of another to a wayside venta at the end of the long
day.
In this rustic place we enjoyed a good supper and a peaceful night’s
repose. We had journeyed long that day, and seldom have I known an
honest sleep taste more delicious. But by now we were well in the King
of Castile’s country, and the next morning, as we took our way, the
vigilance of the Englishman grew double. The Count of Nullepart and
myself were tolerably easy that none would guess our mission. Not so
Sir Richard Pendragon. He declared his experience of Castile to be such
that walls had ears, blind men saw, and dead men told tales.
Indeed, it was clear from the lively concern that Sir Richard displayed
that his former passages with the King of Castile had not been pleasant
ones. Precisely what they were we could not learn from him who had
suffered them, yet that they had been grievous and considerable we had
the authority of his demeanour.
On the second day, as we came into the road to Madrid, we saw high up
in the distant hills one of the noblest castles of this infamous king.
At the sight of it, with the westering sun touching the embowery of
its trees with gold, Sir Richard Pendragon reined in his horse, took
off his hat, and spat on the earth; and then, in what must have been
the roundest London English, for it sounded very rude and barbarous,
he cursed the King of Castile, he cursed his mother and his female
relations, even unto his wet nurse and his most distant kinsfolk.
“The first trick is yours, Spanish John,” he said. “I allow it; I admit
it; my early nurture has been too gentle to cope with low deceit. But
harkee, John Spaniard, the next trick will go to t’other player, or my
gracious sire was not the King of England.”
“Do I gather, most worthy Sir Richard Pendragon,” said the Count of
Nullepart in a melodious voice, “that your former passages with King
John of Castile have been of a grievous character?”
“Yes, good mounseer,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, giving his tall horse
such a kick in the ribs as astonished that extraordinary quadruped;
“you may gather it. If my good mind walks not abroad in bad dreams,
I have been mishandled, mounseer, I have been mishandled. And let me
tell thee, good mounseer, English Dick hath never been mishandled
previously, except once at the instance of virtue, which was upon the
knee of the sainted lady who is now in heaven.”
As we pursued our way towards the capital of the King’s dominion, a
profound silence overtook the Englishman. His dark and lowering looks
were the palpable fruit of a former bitterness; and as we came into
Madrid at nightfall, the numerous soldiers we passed in the streets
wearing the Castilian’s livery seemed to inflame his humour. Indeed,
as we entered the first venta we came to within the gates of the city,
and as we were disposing of our horses in comfort for the night, he
was moved to say that “if his humour did not lift after supper, he was
minded to go out in the streets and cut a few throats, as the sight of
so many jackbooted rascals twirling their moustachios was as sore to
him as the presence of holy water was to the Author of Deceit.”
The stabling of this venta was divided from the great kitchen of the
inn by a short arched passage-way. Upon crossing this we found to
our good pleasure that the hearth was entirely at our disposal, as
there was no other company in the inn. Over the fire was suspended
a cauldron, and this we regarded with favour. After we had supped
worthily, we prepared ourselves for the repose we so much desired; but
it was written that there should be no sleep for us that night.
Scarce had we disposed ourselves about the chimney-place for the
slumber for which we yearned, when the first of the passages that were
to ensue came upon us. A number of soldiers wearing the livery of the
King came into the inn kitchen, bawling for wine and victual. These
men, in their high boots and long cloaks and great hats, and with their
long moustachios, were extremely formidable to look upon; and the Count
of Nullepart and myself, conscious as we were of the strange mood of
our companion, no sooner beheld these fellows than we regretted their
intrusion exceedingly.
Sir Richard Pendragon, as became an old campaigner, had his eyes
already sealed in slumber, and was beginning to snore loudly as he
reclined with his enormous legs stretched out to the hearth, when these
soldiers entered so unseasonably. As they came swaggering up to the
cooking-pot, abusing the landlord loudly that no food was ready, one
of them had the misfortune to trip over the Englishman’s far-extended
limbs. As he measured his length he swore a horrid oath in rude Spanish.
The Englishman gave a grunt and opened his eyes sleepily, and seeing
the soldier sprawling on all fours, he said to the innkeeper, who was
about to add a fowl to the pot, “Landlord, ye should not admit bears
and dromedaries and beasts with four feet among the nobility. The
nobility do not like it.”
The Englishman’s insolent tone was heard by the comrades of the fallen
one, who numbered eight or nine. They looked at him as though they
could not believe what their ears had told them, and then their hands
flew to the hilts of their swords. By this, however, the fallen one had
risen to his feet. He pulled his moustachios and rolled his eyes with
fury.
“By the devil’s life!” he cried, “you foreign dog, I will cut out your
liver!”
And as he spoke he drew his sword with a flourish.