THE HISTORICAL NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENT, SECOND SERIES
By Rafael Sabatini
To David Whitelaw
My Dear David,
Since the narratives collected here as well as in the preceding volume
under the title of the Historical Nights Entertainment—narratives
originally published in The Premier Magazine, which you so ably
edit—owe their being to your suggestion, it is fitting that some
acknowledgment of the fact should be made. To what is hardly less than
a duty, allow me to add the pleasure of dedicating to you, in earnest
of my friendship and esteem, not merely this volume, but the work of
which this volume is the second.
Sincerely yours,
Rafael Sabatini
London, June, 1919.
Contents
Preface
I. THE ABSOLUTION
Affonso Henriques, First King of Portugal
II. THE FALSE DEMETRIUS
Boris Godunov and the Pretended Son of Ivan the Terrible
III. THE HERMOSA FEMBRA
An Episode of the Inquisition in Seville
IV. THE PASTRY-COOK OF MADRIGAL
The Story of the False Sebastian of Portugal
V. THE END OF THE “VERT GALANT”
The Assassination of Henry IV
VI. THE BARREN WOOING
The Murder of Amy Robsart
VII. SIR JUDAS
The Betrayal of Sir Walter Ralegh
VIII. HIS INSOLENCE OF BUCKINGHAM
George Villiers’ Courtship of Anne of Austria
IX. THE PATH OF EXILE
The Fall of Lord Clarendon
X. THE TRAGEDY OF HERRENHAUSEN
Count Philip Königsmark and the Princess Sophia Dorothea
XI. THE TYRANNICIDE
Charlotte Corday and Jean Paul Marat
Preface
The kindly reception accorded to the first volume of the Historical
Nights Entertainment, issued in December of 1917, has encouraged me to
prepare the second series here assembled.
As in the case of the narratives that made up the first volume, I set
out again with the same ambitious aim of adhering scrupulously in every
instance to actual, recorded facts; and once again I find it desirable
at the outset to reveal how far the achievement may have fallen short
of the admitted aim.
On the whole, I have to confess to having allowed myself perhaps a
wider latitude, and to having taken greater liberties than was the case
with the essays constituting the previous collection. This, however,
applies, where applicable, to the parts rather than to the whole.
The only entirely apocryphal narrative here included is the first—“The
Absolution.” This is one of those stories which, if resting upon no
sufficient authority to compel its acceptance, will, nevertheless,
resist all attempts at final refutation, having its roots at least in
the soil of fact. It is given in the rather discredited Portuguese
chronicles of Acenheiro, and finds place, more or less as related here,
in Duarte Galvao’s “Chronicle of Affonso Henriques,” whence it was
taken by the Portuguese historical writer, Alexandre Herculano, to be
included in his “Lendas e Narrativas.” If it is to be relegated to the
Limbo of the ben trovato, at least I esteem it to afford us a precious
glimpse of the naive spirit of the age in which it is set, and find in
that my justification for including it.
The next to require apology is “His Insolence of Buckingham,” but only
in so far as the incident of the diamond studs is concerned. The
remainder of the narrative, the character of Buckingham, the details of
his embassy to Paris, and the particulars of his audacious courtship of
Anne of Austria, rest upon unassailable evidence. I would have omitted
the very apocryphal incident of the studs, but that I considered it of
peculiar interest as revealing the source of the main theme of one of
the most famous historical romances ever written—“The Three
Musketeers.” I give the story as related by La Rochefoucauld in his
“Memoirs,” whence Alexandre Dumas culled it that he might turn it to
such excellent romantic account. In La Rochefoucauld’s narrative it is
the painter Gerbier who, in a far less heroic manner, plays the part
assigned by Dumas to d’Artagnan, and it is the Countess of Carlisle who
carries out the political theft which Dumas attributes to Milady. For
the rest, I do not invite you to attach undue credit to it, which is
not, however, to say that I account it wholly false.
In the case of “The _Hermosa Fembra_” I confess to having blended
together into one single narrative two historical episodes closely
connected in time and place. Susan’s daughter was, in fact, herself the
betrayer of her father, and it was in penitence for that unnatural act
that she desired her skull to be exhibited as I describe. Into the
story of Susan’s daughter I have woven that of another New-Christian
girl, who, like the Hermosa Fembra, her taken a Castilian lover—in this
case a youth of the house of Guzman. This youth was driven into
concealment in circumstances more or less as I describe them. He
overheard the judaizing of several New-Christians there assembled, and
bore word of it at once to Ojeda. The two episodes were separated in
fact by an interval of three years, and the first afforded Ojeda a
strong argument for the institution of the Holy Office in Seville.
Between the two there are many points of contact, and each supplies
what the other lacks to make an interesting narrative having for
background the introduction of the Inquisition to Castile. The
denouement I supply is entirely fictitious, and the introduction of
Torquemada is quite arbitrary. Ojeda was the inquisitor who dealt with
both cases. But if there I stray into fiction, at least I claim to have
sketched a faithful portrait of the Grand Inquisitor as I know him from
fairly exhaustive researches into his life and times.
The story of the False Demetrius is here related from the point of view
of my adopted solution of what is generally regarded as a historical
mystery. The mystery lies, of course, in the man’s identity. He has
been held by some to have been the unfrocked monk, Grishka Otropiev, by
others to have been a son of Stephen Bathory, King of Poland. I am not
aware that the theory that he was both at one and the same time has
ever been put forward, and whilst admitting that it is speculative, yet
I claim that no other would appear so aptly to fit all the known facts
of his career or to shed light upon its mysteries.
Undoubtedly I have allowed myself a good deal of licence and
speculation in treating certain unwitnessed scenes in “The Barren
Wooing.” But the theory that I develop in it to account for the
miscarriage of the matrimonial plans of Queen Elizabeth and Robert
Dudley seems to me to be not only very fully warranted by de Quadra’s
correspondence, but the only theory that will convincingly explain the
events. Elizabeth, as I show, was widely believed to be an accessory to
the murder of Amy Robsart. But in carefully following her words and
actions at that critical time, as reported by de Quadra, my reading of
the transaction is as given here. The most damning fact against
Elizabeth was held to be her own statement to de Quadra on the eve of
Lady Robert Dudley’s murder to the effect that Lady Robert was “already
dead, or very nearly so.” This foreknowledge of the fate of that
unfortunate lady has been accepted as positive evidence that the Queen
was a party to the crime at Cumnor, which was to set her lover free to
marry again. Far from that, however, I account it positive proof of
Elizabeth’s innocence of any such part in the deed. Elizabeth was far
too crafty and clear-sighted not to realize how her words must
incriminate her afterwards if she knew that the murder of Lady Robert
was projected. She must have been merely repeating what Dudley himself
had told her; and what he must have told her—and she believed—was that
his wife was at the point of a natural death. Similarly, Dudley would
not have told her this, unless his aim had been to procure his wife’s
removal by means which would admit of a natural interpretation.
Difficulties encountered, much as I relate them—and for which there is
abundant evidence—drove his too-zealous agents to rather desperate
lengths, and thus brought suspicion, not only upon the guilty Dudley,
but also upon the innocent Queen. The manner of Amy’s murder is pure
conjecture; but it should not be far from what actually took place. The
possibility of an accident—extraordinarily and suspiciously opportune
for Dudley as it would have been—could not be altogether ruled out but
for the further circumstance that Lady Robert had removed everybody
from Cumnor on that day. To what can this point—unless we accept an
altogether incredible chain of coincidence—but to some such plotting as
I here suggest?
In the remaining six essays in this volume the liberties taken with the
absolute facts are so slight as to require no apology or comment.
R. S.
London, June, 1919.
I. THE ABSOLUTION
Aftonso Henriques, first King of Portugal
In 1093 the Moors of the Almoravide dynasty, under the Caliph Yusuf,
swept irresistibly upwards into the Iberian Peninsula, recapturing
Lisbon and Santarem in the west, and pushing their conquest as far as
the river Mondego.
To meet this revival of Mohammedan power, Alfonso VI. Of Castile
summoned the chivalry of Christendom to his aid. Among the knights who
answered the call was Count Henry of Burgundy (grandson of Robert,
first Duke of Burgundy) to whom Alfonso gave his natural daughter
Theresa in marriage, together with the Counties of Oporto and Coimbra,
with the title of Count of Portugal.
That is the first chapter of the history of Portugal.
Count Henry fought hard to defend his southern frontiers from the
incursion of the Moors until his death in 1114. Thereafter his widow
Theresa became Regent of Portugal during the minority of their son,
Affonso Henriques. A woman of great energy, resource and ambition, she
successfully waged war against the Moors, and in other ways laid the
foundations upon which her son was to build the Kingdom of Portugal.
But her passionate infatuation for one of her knights—Don Fernando
Peres de Trava—and the excessive honours she bestowed upon him, made
enemies for her in the new state, and estranged her from her son.
In 1127 Alfonso VII. of Castile invaded Portugal, compelling Theresa to
recognize him as her suzerain. But Affonso Henriques, now aged
seventeen—and declared by the citizens of the capital to be of age and
competent to reign—incontinently refused to recognize the submission
made by his mother, and in the following year assembled an army for the
purpose of expelling her and her lover from the country. The warlike
Theresa resisted until defeated in the battle of San Mamede and taken
prisoner.
He was little more than a boy, although four years were sped already
since, as a mere lad of fourteen, he had kept vigil throughout the
night over his arms in the Cathedral of Zamora, preparatory to
receiving the honour of knighthood at the hands of his cousin, Alfonso
VII. of Castile. Yet already he was looked upon as the very pattern of
what a Christian knight should be, worthy son of the father who had
devoted his life to doing battle against the Infidel, wheresoever he
might be found. He was well-grown and tall, and of a bodily strength
that is almost a byword to this day in that Portugal of which he was
the real founder and first king. He was skilled beyond the common wont
in all knightly exercises of arms and horsemanship, and equipped with
far more learning—though much of it was ill-digested, as this story
will serve to show—than the twelfth century considered useful or even
proper in a knight. And he was at least true to his time in that he
combined a fervid piety with a weakness of the flesh and an impetuous
arrogance that was to bring him under the ban of greater
excommunication at the very outset of his reign.
It happened that his imprisonment of his mother was not at all pleasing
in the sight of Rome. Dona Theresa had powerful friends, who so used
their influence at the Vatican on her behalf that the Holy
Father—conveniently ignoring the provocation she had given and the
scandalous, unmotherly conduct of which she had been guilty—came to
consider the behaviour of the Infante of Portugal as reprehensibly
unfilial, and commanded him to deliver Dona Theresa at once from
duress.
This Papal order, backed by a threat of excommunication in the event of
disobedience, was brought to the young prince by the Bishop of Coimbra,
whom he counted among his friends.
Affonso Henriques, ever impetuous and quick to anger, flushed scarlet
when he heard that uncompromising message. His dark eyes smouldered as
they considered the aged prelate.
“You come here to bid me let loose again upon this land of Portugal
that author of strife, to deliver over the people once more to the
oppression of the Lord of Trava?” he asked. “And you tell me that
unless by obeying this command I am false to the duty I owe this
country, you will launch the curse of Rome against me? You tell me
this?”
The bishop, deeply stirred, torn between his duty to the Holy See and
his affection for his prince, bowed his head and wrung his hands. “What
choice have I?” he asked, on a quavering note.
“I raised you from the dust.” Thunder was rumbling in the prince’s
voice. “Myself I placed the episcopal ring upon your finger.”
“My lord, my lord! Could I forget? All that I have I owe to you—save
only my soul, which I owe to God; my faith, which I owe to Christ; and
my obedience, which I owe to our Holy Father the Pope.”
The prince considered him in silence, mastering his passionate,
impetuous nature. “Go,” he growled at last.
The prelate bowed his head, his eyes not daring to meet his prince’s.
“God keep you, lord,” he almost sobbed, and so went out.
But though stirred by his affection for the prince to whom he owed so
much, though knowing in his inmost heart that Affonso Henriques was in
the right, the Bishop of Coimbra did not swerve from his duty to Rome,
which was as plain as it was unpalatable. Betimes next morning word was
brought to Affonso Henriques in the Alcazar of Coimbra that a parchment
was nailed to the door of the Cathedral, setting forth his
excommunication, and that the Bishop—either out of fear or out of
sorrow—had left the city, journeying northward towards Oporto.
Affonso Henriques passed swiftly from incredulity to anger; then almost
as swiftly came to a resolve, which was as mad and harebrained as could
have been expected from a lad in his eighteenth year who held the reins
of power. Yet by its very directness and its superb ignoring of all
obstacles, legal and canonical, it was invested with a certain wild
sanity.
In full armour, a white cloak simply embroidered in gold at the edge
and knotted at the shoulder, he rode to the Cathedral, attended by his
half-brother Pedro Affonso, and two of his knights, Emigio Moniz and
Sancho Nunes. There on the great iron-studded doors he found, as he had
been warned, the Roman parchment pronouncing him accursed, its sonorous
Latin periods set forth in a fine round clerkly hand.
He swung down from his great horse and clanked up the Cathedral steps,
his attendants following. He had for witnesses no more than a few
loiterers, who had paused at sight of their prince.
The interdict had so far attracted no attention, for in the twelfth
century the art of letters was a mystery to which there were few
initiates.
Affonso Henriques tore the sheepskin from its nails, and crumpled it in
his hand; then he passed into the Cathedral, and thence came out
presently into the cloisters. Overhead a bell was clanging by his
orders, summoning the chapter.
To the Infante, waiting there in the sun-drenched close, came presently
the canons, austere, aloof, majestic in their unhurried progress
through the fretted cloisters, with flowing garments and hands tucked
into their wide sleeves before them. In a semi-circle they arrayed
themselves before him, and waited impassively to learn his will.
Overhead the bell had ceased.
Affonso Henriques wasted no words.
“I have summoned you,” he announced, “to command that you proceed to
the election of a bishop.”
A rustle stirred through the priestly throng. The canons looked askance
at the prince and at one another. Then one of them spoke.
“Habemus episcopum,” he said gravely, and several instantly made
chorus: “We have a bishop.”
The eyes of the young sovereign kindled. “You are wrong,” he told them.
“You had a bishop, but he is here no longer. He has deserted his see,
after publishing this shameful thing.” And he held aloft the crumpled
interdict. “As I am a God-fearing, Christian knight, I will not live
under this ban. Since the bishop who excommunicated me is gone, you
will at once elect another in his place who shall absolve me.”
They stood before him, silent and impassive, in their priestly dignity,
and in their assurance that the law was on their side.
“Well?” the boy growled at them.
“Habemus episcopum,” droned a voice again.
“Amen,” boomed in chorus through the cloisters.
“I tell you that your bishop is gone,” he insisted, his voice quivering
now with anger, “and I tell you that he shall not return, that he shall
never set foot again within my city of Coimbra. Proceed you therefore
at once to the election of his successor.”
“Lord,” he was answered coldly by one of them, “no such election is
possible or lawful.”
“Do you dare stand before my face, and tell me this?” he roared,
infuriated by their cold resistance. He flung out an arm in a gesture
of terrible dismissal. “Out of my sight, you proud and evil men! Back
to your cells, to await my pleasure. Since in your arrogant,
stiff-necked pride you refuse to do my will, you shall receive the
bishop I shall myself select.”
He was so terrific in his rage that they dared not tell him that he had
no power, prince though he might be, to make such an election, bowed to
him, ever impassively, and with their hands still folded, unhurried as
they had come, they now turned and filed past him in departure.
He watched them with scowling brows and tightened lips, Moniz and Nunes
silent behind him. Suddenly those dark, watchful eyes of his were held
by the last figure of all in that austere procession—a tall, gaunt
young man, whose copper-coloured skin and hawk-featured face proclaimed
his Moorish blood. Instantly, maliciously, it flashed through the
prince’s boyish mind how he might make of this man an instrument to
humble the pride of that insolent clergy. He raised his hand, and
beckoned the cleric to him.
“What is your name?” he asked him.
“I am called Zuleyman, lord,” he was answered, and the name
confirmed—where, indeed, no confirmation was necessary—the fellow’s
Moorish origin.
Affonso Henriques laughed. It would be an excellent jest to thrust upon
these arrogant priests, who refused to appoint a bishop of their
choice, a bishop who was little better than a blackamoor.
“Don Zuleyman,” said the prince, “I name you Bishop of Coimbra in the
room of the rebel who has fled. You will prepare to celebrate High Mass
this morning, and to pronounce my absolution.”
The Christianized Moor fell back a step, his face paling under its
copper skin to a sickly grey. In the background, the hindmost members
of the retreating clerical procession turned and stood at gaze, angered
and scandalized by what they heard, which was indeed a thing beyond
belief.
“Ah no, my lord! Ah no!” Don Zuleyman was faltering. “Not that!”
The prospect terrified him, and in his agitation he had recourse to
Latin. “Domine, non sum dignus,” he cried, and beat his breast.
But the uncompromising Affonso Henriques gave him back Latin for Latin.
“Dixi—I have spoken!” he answered sternly. “Do not fail me in
obedience, on your life.” And on that he clanked out again with his
attendants, well-pleased with his morning’s work.
As he had disposed with boyish, almost irresponsible rashness, and in
flagrant contravention of all canon law, so it fell out. Don Zuleyman,
wearing the bishop’s robes and the bishop’s mitre, intoned the Kyrie
Eleison before noon that day in the Cathedral of Coimbra, and
pronounced the absolution of the Infante of Portugal, who knelt so
submissively and devoutly before him.
Affonso Henriques was very pleased with himself. He made a jest of the
affair, and invited his intimates to laugh with him. But Emigio Moniz
and the elder members of his council refused to laugh. They looked with
awe upon a deed that went perilously near to sacrilege, and implored
him to take their own sober view of the thing he had done.
“By the bones of St. James!” he cried. “A prince is not to be
brow-beaten by a priest.”
Such a view in the twelfth century was little short of revolutionary.
The chapter of the Cathedral of Coimbra held the converse opinion that
priests were not to be browbeaten by a prince, and set themselves to
make Affonso Henriques realize this to his bitter cost. They dispatched
to Rome an account of his unconscionable, high-handed, incredible
sacrilege, and invited Rome to administer condign spiritual
flagellation upon this errant child of Mother Church. Rome made haste
to vindicate her authority, and dispatched a legate to the
recalcitrant, audacious boy who ruled in Portugal. But the distance
being considerable, and means of travel inadequate and slow, it was not
until Don Zuleyman had presided in the See of Coimbra for a full two
months that the Papal Legate made his appearance in Affonso Henriques’
capital.
A very splendid Prince of the Church was Cardinal Corrado, the envoy
dispatched by Pope Honorius II., full armed with apostolic weapons to
reduce the rebellious Infante of Portugal into proper subjection.
His approach was heralded by the voice of rumour. Affonso Henriques
heard of it without perturbation. His conscience at ease in the
absolution which he had wrung from Mother Church after his own fashion,
he was entirely absorbed in preparations for a campaign against the
Moors which was to widen his dominions. Therefore when at length the
thunderbolt descended, it fell—so far as he was concerned—from a sky
entirely clear.
It was towards dusk of a summer evening when the legate, in a litter
slung in line between two mules, entered Coimbra. He was attended by
two nephews, Giannino and Pierluigi da Corrado, both patricians of
Rome, and a little knot of servants. Empanoplied in his sacred office,
the cardinal had no need of the protection of men-at-arms upon a
journey through god-fearing lands.
He was borne straight to the old Moorish palace where the Infante
resided, and came upon him there amid a numerous company in the great
pillared hall. Against a background of battle trophies, livid weapons,
implements of war, and suits of mail both Saracen and Christian, with
which the bare walls were hung, moved a gaily-clad, courtly gathering
of nobles and their women-folk, when the great cardinal, clad from head
to foot in scarlet, entered unannounced.
Laughter rippled into silence. A hush descended upon the company, which
stood now at gaze, considering the imposing and unbidden guest. Slowly
the legate, followed by the two Roman youths, advanced down the hall,
the soft pad of his slippered feet and the rustle of his silken robes
being at first the only sound. On he came, until he stood before the
shallow dais, where in a massively carved chair sat the Infante of
Portugal, mistrustfully observing him. Affonso Henriques scented here
an enemy, an ally of his mother’s, the bearer of a fresh declaration of
hostilities. Therefore of deliberate purpose he kept his seat, as if to
stress the fact that here he was the master.
“Lord Cardinal,” he greeted the legate, “be welcome to my land of
Portugal.”
The cardinal bowed stiffly, resentful of this reception. In his long
journey across the Spains, princes and nobles had flocked to kiss his
hand, and bend the knee before him, seeking his blessing. Yet this mere
boy, beardless save for a silky down about his firm young cheeks,
retained his seat and greeted him with no more submissiveness than if
he had been the envoy of some temporal prince.
“I am the representative of our Holy Father,” he announced, in a voice
of stern reproof. “I am from Rome, with these my well-beloved nephews.”
“From Rome?” quoth Affonso Henriques. For all his length of limb and
massive thews he could be impish upon occasion. He was impish now.
“Although no good has ever yet come to me from Rome, you make me
hopeful. His Holiness will have heard of the preparations I am making
for a war against the Infidel that shall carry the Cross where now
stands the Crescent, and sends me perhaps, a gift of gold or assist me
in this holy work.”
The mockery of it stung the legate sharply. His sallow, ascetic face
empurpled.
“It is not gold I bring you,” he answered, “but a lesson in the faith
which you would seem to have forgotten. I am come to teach you your
Christian duty, and to require of you immediate reparation of the
sacrilegious wrongs you have done. The Holy Father demands of you the
instant re-instatement of the Bishop of Coimbra, whom you have driven
out with threats of violence, and the degradation of the cleric you
blasphemously appointed Bishop in his stead.”
“And is that all?” quoth the boy, in a voice dangerously quiet.
“No.” Fearless in his sense of right, the legate towered before him.
“It is demanded of you further that you instantly release the lady,
your mother, from the unjust confinement in which you hold her.”
“That confinement is not unjust, as all here can witness,” the Infante
answered. “Rome may believe it, because lies have been carried to Rome.
Dona Theresa’s life was a scandal, her regency an injustice to my
people. She and the infamous Lord of Trava lighted the torch of civil
war in these dominions. Learn here the truth, and carry it to Rome.
Thus shall you do worthy service.”
But the prelate was obstinate and proud.
“That is not the answer that our Holy Father awaits.”
“It is the answer that I send.”
“Rash, rebellious youth, beware!” The cardinal’s anger flamed up, and
his voice swelled. “I come armed with spiritual weapons of destruction.
Do not abuse the patience of Mother Church, or you shall feel the full
weight of her wrath released against you.”
Exasperated, Affonso Henriques bounded to his feet, his face livid now
with passion, his eyes ablaze.
“Out! Away!” he cried. “Go, my lord, and go quickly, or as God watches
us I will add here and now yet another sacrilege to those of which you
accuse me.”
The prelate gathered his ample robes about him. If pale, he was
entirely calm once more. With stern dignity, he bowed to the angry
youth, and so departed, but with such outward impassivity that it would
have been difficult to say with whom lay the victory. If Affonso
Henriques thought that night that he had conquered, morning was to
shatter the illusion.
He was awakened early by a chamberlain at the urgent instances of
Emigio Moniz, who was demanding immediate audience. Affonso Henriques
sat up in bed, and bade him to be admitted.
The elderly knight and faithful counsellor came in, treading heavily.
His swarthy face was overcast, his mouth set in stern lines under its
grizzled beard.
“God keep you, lord,” was his greeting, so lugubriously delivered as to
sound like a pious, but rather hopeless, wish.
“And you, Emigio,” answered him the Infante. “You are early astir. What
is the cause?”
“I’ll tidings, lord.” He crossed the room, unlatched and flung wide a
window. “Listen,” he bade the prince.
On the still morning air arose a sound like the drone of some gigantic
hive, or of the sea when the tide is making. Affonso Henriques
recognized it for the murmur of the multitude.
“What does it mean?” he asked, and thrust a sinewy leg from the bed.
“It means that the Papal Legate has done all that he threatened, and
something more. He has placed your city of Coimbra under a ban of
excommunication. The churches are closed, and until the ban is lifted
no priest will be found to baptize, marry, shrive or perform any other
Sacrament of Holy Church. The people are stricken with terror, knowing
that they share the curse with you. They are massing below at the gates
of the alcazar, demanding to see you that they may implore you to lift
from them the horror of this excommunication.”
Affonso Henriques had come to his feet by now, and he stood there
staring at the old knight, his face blenched, his stout heart clutched
by fear of these impalpable, blasting weapons that were being used
against him.
“My God!” he groaned, and asked: “What must I do?”
Moniz was preternaturally grave. “It is of the first importance that
the people should be pacified.”
“But how?”
“There is one way only—by a promise that you will submit to the will of
the Holy Father, and by penance seek absolution for yourself and your
city.”
A red flush swept into the young cheeks that had been so pale.
“What?” he cried, his voice a roar. “Release my mother, depose
Zuleyman, recall that fugitive recreant who cursed me, and humble
myself to seek pardon at the hands of this insolent Italian cleric? May
my bones rot, may I roast for ever in hell-fire if I show myself such a
craven! And do you counsel it, Emigio—do you really counsel that?” He
was in a towering rage.
“Listen to that voice,” Emigio answered him, and waved a hand to the
open window. “How else will you silence it?”
Affonso Henriques sat down on the edge of the bed, and took his head in
his hands. He was checkmated—and yet....
He rose and beat his hands together, summoning chamberlain and pages to
help him dress and arm.
“Where is the legate lodged?” he asked Moniz.
“He is gone,” the knight answered him. “He left at cock-crow, taking
the road to Spain along the Mondego—so I learnt from the watch at the
River Gate.”
“How came they to open for him?”
“His office, lord, is a key that opens all doors at any hour of day or
night. They dared not detain or delay him.”
“Ha!” grunted the Infante. “We will go after him, then.” And he made
haste to complete his dressing. Then he buckled on his great sword, and
they departed.
In the courtyard of the alcazar, he summoned Sancho Nunes and a
half-dozen men-at-arms to attend him, mounted a charger and with Emigio
Moniz at his side and the others following, he rode out across the
draw-bridge into the open space that was thronged with the clamant
inhabitants of the stricken city.
A great cry went up when he showed himself—a mighty appeal to him for
mercy and the remission of the curse. Then silence fell, a silence that
invited him to answer and give comfort.
He reined in his horse, and standing in his stirrups very tall and
virile, he addressed them.
“People of Coimbra,” he announced, “I go to obtain this city’s
absolution from the ban that has been laid upon it. I shall return
before sunset. Till then do you keep the peace.”
The voice of the multitude was raised again, this time to hail him as
the father and protector of the Portuguese, and to invoke the blessing
of Heaven upon his handsome head.
Riding between Moniz and Nunes, and followed by his glittering
men-at-arms, he crossed the city and took the road along the river by
which it was known that the legate had departed. All that morning they
rode briskly amain, the Infante fasting, as he had risen, yet
unconscious of hunger and of all else but the purpose that was
consuming him. He rode in utter silence, his face set, his brows stern;
and Moniz, watching him furtively the while, wondered what thoughts
were stirring in that rash, impetuous young brain, and was afraid.
Towards noon at last they overtook the legate’s party. They espied his
mule-litter at the door of an inn in a little village some ten miles
beyond the foothills of the Bussaco range. The Infante reined up
sharply, a hoarse, fierce cry escaping him, akin to that of some
creature of the wild when it espies its prey.
Moniz put forth a hand to seize his arm.
“My lord, my lord,” he cried, fearfully. “What is your purpose?”
The prince looked him between the eyes, and his lips curled in a smile
that was not altogether sweet.
“I am going to beg Cardinal Corrado to have compassion on me,” he
answered, subtly mocking, and on that he swung down from his horse, and
tossed the reins to a man-at-arms.
Into the inn he clanked, Moniz and Nunes following closely. He thrust
aside the vintner who, not knowing him, would have hindered him, great
lord though he seemed, from disturbing the holy guest who was honouring
the house. He strode on, and into the room where the Cardinal with his
noble nephews sat at dinner.
At sight of him, fearing violence, Giannino and Pierluigi came
instantly to their feet, their hands upon their daggers. But Cardinal
da Corrado sat unmoved. He looked up, a smile of ineffable gentleness
upon his ascetic face.
“I had hoped that you would come after me, my son,” he said. “If you
come a penitent, then has my prayer been heard.”
“A penitent!” cried Affonso Henriques. He laughed wickedly, and plucked
his dagger from its sheath.
Sancho Nunes, in terror, set a detaining hand upon his prince’s arm.
“My lord,” he cried in a voice that shook, “you will not strike the
Lord’s anointed—that were to destroy yourself for ever.”
“A curse,” said Affonso Henriques, “perishes with him that uttered it.”
He could reason loosely, you see, this hot-blooded, impetuous young
cutter of Gordian knots. “And it imports above all else that the curse
should be lifted from my city of Coimbra.”
“It shall be, my son, as soon as you show penitence and a Christian
submission to the Holy Father’s will,” said the undaunted Cardinal.
“God give me patience with you,” Affonso Henriques answered him.
“Listen to me now, lord Cardinal.” And he leaned forward on his dagger,
burying the point of it some inches into the deal table. “That you
should punish me with the weapons of the Faith for the sins that you
allege against me I can understand and suffer. There is reason in that,
perhaps. But will you tell me what reasons there can be in punishing a
whole city for an offence which, if it exists at all, is mine
alone?—and in punishing it by a curse so terrible that all the
consolations of religion are denied those true children of Mother
Church, that no priestly office may be performed within the city, that
men and women may not approach the altars of the Faith, that they must
die unshriven with their sins upon them, and so be damned through all
eternity? Where is the reason that urges this?”
The cardinal’s smile had changed from one of benignity to one of guile.
“Why, I will answer you. Out of their terror they will be moved to
revolt against you, unless you relieve them of the ban. Thus, Lord
Prince, I hold you in check. You make submission or else you are
destroyed.”
Affonso Henriques considered him a moment. “You answer me indeed,” said
he, and then his voice swelled up in denunciation. “But this is
statecraft, not religion. And when a prince has no statecraft to match
that which is opposed to him, do you know what follows? He has recourse
to force, Lord Cardinal. You compel me to it; upon your own head the
consequences.”
The legate almost sneered. “What is the force of your poor lethal
weapons compared with the spiritual power I wield? Do you threaten me
with death? Do you think I fear it?” He rose in a surge of sudden
wrath, and tore open his scarlet robe. “Strike here with your poniard.
I wear no mail. Strike if you dare, and by the sacrilegious blow
destroy yourself in this world and the next.”
The Infante considered him. Slowly he sheathed his dagger, smiling a
little. Then he beat his hands together. His men-at-arms came in.
“Seize me those two Roman whelps,” he commanded, and pointed to
Giannino and Pierlulgi. “Seize them, and make them fast. About it!”
“Lord Prince!” cried the legate in a voice of appeal, wherein fear and
anger trembled.
It was the note of fear that heartened Affonso Henriques. “About it!”
he cried again, though needlessly, for already his men-at-arms were at
grips with the Cardinal’s nephews. In a trice the kicking, biting,
swearing pair were overpowered, deprived of arms, and pinioned. The men
looked to their prince for further orders. In the background Moniz and
Nunes witnessed all with troubled countenances, whilst the Cardinal,
beyond the table, white to the lips, demanded in a quavering voice to
know what violence was intended, implored the Infante to consider, and
in the same breath threatened him with dread consequences of this
affront.
Affonso Henriques, unmoved, pointed through the window to a stalwart
oak that stood before the inn.
“Take them out there, and hang them unshriven,” he commanded.
The Cardinal swayed, and almost fell forward. He clutched the table,
speechless with terror for those lads who were as the very apple of his
eye, he who so fearlessly had bared his own breast to the steel.
The two comely Italian youths were dragged out writhing in their
captors’ hands.
At last the half-swooning legate found his voice. “Lord Prince,” he
gasped. “Lord Prince... you cannot do this infamy! You cannot! I warn
you that... that...” The threat perished unuttered, slain by mounting
terror. “Mercy! Have mercy, lord! as you hope for mercy!”
“What mercy do you practice, you who preach a gospel of mercy in the
world, and cry for mercy now?” the Infante asked him.
“But this is an infamy! What harm have those poor children done? What
concern is it of theirs that I have offended you in performing my
sacred duty?”
Swift into that opening flashed the home-thrust of the Infante’s
answer.
“What harm have my people of Coimbra done? What concern is it of theirs
that I have offended you? Yet to master me you did not hesitate to
strike at them with the spiritual weapons that are yours. To master you
I do not hesitate to strike at your nephews with the lethal weapons
that are mine. When you shall have seen them hang you will understand
the things that argument could not make clear to you. In the vileness
of my act you will see a reflection of the vileness of your own, and
perhaps your heart will be touched, your monstrous pride abated.”
Outside, under the tree, the figures of the men-at-arms were moving.
Expeditiously, and with indifference, they went about the preparations
for the task entrusted to them.
The Cardinal writhed, and fought for breath. “Lord Prince, this must
not be!” He stretched forth supplicating hands. “Lord Prince, you must
release my nephews.”
“Lord Cardinal, you must absolve my people.”
“If... if you will first make submission. My duty... to the Holy See...
Oh God! Will nothing move you?”
“When they have been hanged you will understand, and out of your own
affliction learn compassion.” The Infante’s voice was so cold, his mien
so resolute that the legate despaired of conquering his purpose.
Abruptly he capitulated, even as the halters went about the necks of
his two cherished lads.
“Stop!” he screamed. “Bid them stop! The curse shall be lifted.”
Affonso Henriques opened the window with a leisureliness which to the
legate seemed to belong to the realm of nightmare.
“Wait yet a moment,” the Infante called to those outside, about whom by
now a little knot of awe-stricken villagers had gathered. Then he
turned again to Cardinal Corrado, who had sunk to his chair like a man
exhausted, and sat now panting, his elbows on the table, his head in
his hands. “Here,” said the prince, “are the terms upon which you may
have their lives: Complete absolution, and Apostolic benediction for my
people and myself this very night, I on my side making submission to
the Holy Father’s will to the extent of releasing my mother from
duress, with the condition that she leaves Portugal at once and does
not return. As for the banished bishop and his successor, matters must
remain as they are; but you can satisfy your conscience on that score
by yourself confirming the appointment of Don Zuleyman. Come, my lord,
I am being generous, I think. In the enlargement of my mother I afford
you the means of satisfying Rome. If you have learnt your lesson from
what I here proposed, your conscience should satisfy you of the rest.”
“Be it so,” the Cardinal answered hoarsely. “I will return with you to
Coimbra and do your will.”
Thereupon, without any tinge of mockery, but in completest sincerity in
token that the feud between them was now completely healed, Affonso
Henriques went down upon his knees, like the true and humble son of
Holy Church he accounted himself, to ask a blessing at the Cardinal’s
hands.
II. THE FALSE DEMETRIUS
Boris Godunov and the Pretended Son of Ivan the Terrible
The news of it first reached him whilst he sat at supper in the great
hall of his palace in the Kremlin. It came at a time when already there
was enough to distract his mind; for although the table before him was
spread and equipped as became an emperor’s, the gaunt spectre of famine
stalked outside in the streets of Moscow, and men and women were so
reduced by it that cannibalism was alleged to be breaking out amongst
them.
Alone, save for the ministering pages, sat Boris Godunov under the iron
lamps that made of the table, with its white napery and vessels of gold
and silver plate, an island of light in the gloom of that vast
apartment. The air was fragrant with the scent of burning pine, for
although the time of year was May, the nights were chill, and a great
log-fire was blazing on the distant hearth. To him, as he sat there,
came his trusted Basmanov with those tidings which startled him at
first, seeming to herald that at last the sword of Nemesis was swung
above his sinful head.
Basmanov, a flush tinting the prominent cheek-bones of his sallow face,
an excited glitter in his long eyes, began by ordering the pages out of
earshot, then leaning forward quickly muttered forth his news.
At the first words of it, the Tsar’s knife clashed into his golden
platter, and his short, powerful hands clutched the carved arms of his
great gilded chair. Quickly he controlled himself, and then as he
continued to listen he was moved to scorn, and a faint smile began to
stir under his grizzled beard.
A man had appeared in Poland—such was the burden of Basmanov’s
story—coming none knew exactly whence, who claimed to be Demetrius, the
son of Ivan Vassielivitch, and lawful Tsar of Russia—Demetrius, who was
believed to have died at Uglich ten years ago, and whose remains lay
buried in Moscow, in the Church of St. Michael. This man had found
shelter in Lithuania, in the house of Prince Wisniowiecki, and thither
the nobles of Poland were now flocking to do him homage, acknowledging
him the son of Ivan the Terrible. He was said to be the living image of
the dead Tsar, save that he was swarthy and black-haired, like the
dowager Tsarina, and there were two warts on his face, such as it was
remembered had disfigured the countenance of the boy Demetrius.
Thus Basmanov, adding that he had dispatched a messenger into Lithuania
to obtain more precise confirmation of the story. That messenger—chosen
in consequence of something else that Basmanov had been told—was
Smirnoy Otrepiev.
The Tsar Boris sat back in his chair, his eyes on the gem encrusted
goblet, the stem of which his fingers were mechanically turning. There
was now no vestige of the smile on his round white face. It had grown
set and thoughtful.
“Find Prince Shuiski,” he said presently, “and send him to me here.”
Upon the tale the boyar had brought him he offered now no comment.
“We will talk of this again, Basmanov,” was all he said in
acknowledgment that he had heard, and in dismissal.
But when the boyar had gone, Boris Godunov heaved himself to his feet,
and strode over to the fire, his great head sunk between his massive
shoulders. He was a short, thick-set, bow-legged man, inclining to
corpulence. He set a foot, shod in red leather reversed with ermine,
upon an andiron, and, leaning an elbow on the carved overmantel, rested
his brow against his hand. His eyes stared into the very heart of the
fire, as if they beheld there the pageant of the past, upon which his
mind was bent.
Nineteen years were sped since Ivan the Terrible had passed away,
leaving two sons, Feodor Ivanovitch, who had succeeded him, and the
infant Demetrius. Feodor, a weakling who was almost imbecile, had
married Irene, the daughter of Boris Godunov, whereby it had fallen out
that Boris became the real ruler of Russia, the power behind the
throne. But his insatiable ambition coveted still more. He must wear
the crown as well as wield the sceptre; and this could not be until the
Ruric dynasty which had ruled Russia for nearly seven centuries should
be stamped out. Between himself and the throne stood his daughter’s
husband and their child, and the boy Demetrius, who had been dispatched
with his mother, the dowager Tsarina, to Uglich. The three must be
removed.
Boris began with the last, and sought at first to drive him out of the
succession without bloodshed. He attempted to have him pronounced
illegitimate, on the ground that he was the son of Ivan’s seventh wife
(the orthodox Church recognizing no wife as legitimate beyond the
third). But in this he failed. The memory of the terrible Tsar, the
fear of him, was still alive in superstitious Russia, and none dared to
dishonour his son. So Boris had recourse to other and surer means. He
dispatched his agents to Uglich, and presently there came thence a
story that the boy, whilst playing with a knife, had been taken with a
fit of epilepsy, and had fallen, running the blade into his throat. But
it was not a story that could carry conviction to the Muscovites, since
with it came the news that the town of Uglich had risen against the
emissaries of Boris, charging them with the murder of the boy, and
killing them out of hand.
Terrible had been the vengeance which Boris had exacted. Of the
luckless inhabitants of the town two hundred were put to death by his
orders, and the rest sent into banishment beyond the Ural Mountains,
whilst the Tsarina Maria, Demetrius’s mother, for having said that her
boy was murdered at the instigation of Boris, was packed off to a
convent, and had remained there ever since in close confinement.
That had been in 1591. The next to go was Feodor’s infant son, and
lastly—in 1598—Feodor himself, succumbing to a mysterious illness, and
leaving Boris a clear path to the throne. But he ascended it under the
burden of his daughter’s curse. Feodor’s widow had boldly faced her
father, boldly accused him of poisoning her husband to gratify his
remorseless ambitions, and on a passionate appeal to God to let it be
done by him as he had done by others she had departed to a convent,
swearing never to set eyes upon him again.
The thought of her was with him now, as he stood there looking into the
heart of the fire; and perhaps it was the memory of her curse that
turned his stout heart to water, and made him afraid where there could
surely be no cause for fear. For five years now had he been Tsar of
Russia, and in these five years he had taken such a grip of power as
was not lightly to be loosened.
Long he stood there, and there he was found by the magnificent Prince
Shuiski, whom he had bidden Basmanov to summon.
“You went to Uglich when the Tsarevitch Demetrius was slain,” said
Boris. His voice and mien were calm and normal. “Yourself you saw the
body. There is no possibility that you could have been mistaken in it?”
“Mistaken?” The boyar was taken aback by the question. He was a tall
man, considerably younger than Boris, who was in his fiftieth year. His
face was lean and saturnine, and there was something sinister in the
dark, close-set eyes under a single, heavy line of eyebrow.
Boris explained his question, telling him what he had learnt from
Basmanov. Basil Shuiski laughed. The story was an absurd one. Demetrius
was dead. Himself he had held the body in his arms, and no mistake was
possible.
Despite himself, a sigh of relief fluttered from the lips of Boris.
Shuiski was right. It was an absurd story, this. There was nothing to
fear. He had been a fool to have trembled for a moment.