RECOGNITION
/The/ Auto de Fé was over. The reconciled had been reconducted to the
Holy House, where upon the morrow measures would be taken for the
enforcement of the penances to which they were sentenced. The
condemned had been hurried away to the meadows by the river, beyond
the walls. There at La Dehesa, beside the swirling Tagus, in view of
the smiling countryside beyond the river, that lovely peaceful
amphitheatre enclosed by hills, a great white cross had been reared as
the symbol of mercy. About it were the stakes, the faggots piled, and
there, _Christi nomine invocato_, the work of the Faith was brought to
an end in smoke and ashes. The crowd had followed to attend the
closing scene of that great show, and was again kept within bounds by
a stout barricade guarded by men-at-arms. But the majority of those
who had taken active part in the Auto had returned with the reconciled
to the Holy House.
The Cardinal-Archbishop was back in his palace, disrobing, his mind at
peace at last so far as his nephew was concerned. The course which he
had advocated to Frey Juan Arrenzuelo had in the end been adopted. Don
Pedro had been sentenced upon the depositions of Frey Luis. He was
condemned to pay a fine of a thousand ducats into the treasury of the
Holy Office and to attend Mass barefoot, clad only in his shirt and
with a rope about his neck, every day for a month in the Cathedral of
Toledo, at the end of which his offence would be accounted purged, and
absolution and reinstatement would follow.
The case against the woman might now proceed strictly in accordance
with inquisitorial duty and inquisitorial practice, and, whether as a
witch or merely as a heretic, she would undoubtedly be burnt when they
came to hold the next Auto de Fé. That, thought the Cardinal, was no
longer a matter of sufficient importance to cause him any
preoccupation.
But in this conclusion he was proven hasty. Within half an hour of his
return to the palace, Frey Juan Arrenzuelo came in agitation to seek
him.
He brought news that already Frey Luis Salcedo was protesting openly
against the order observed, which he denounced for an illegality. The
sentence upon Don Pedro, Frey Luis was asserting, had been based upon
matters which must remain presumptuous until established by the
condemnation of the woman as a witch. He desired to know--demanded to
know--what course would be adopted if torture should fail to wring
from the woman the necessary admission of her necromantic practices.
Arrenzuelo had sought to pacify him with the reminder that he might
well wait until the situation which he feared arose; at present all
his protests were in the realm of speculation.
‘The realm of speculation!’ Frey Luis had laughed. ‘Was it not in the
realm of speculation that sentence was passed upon Don Pedro, so as to
enable him to escape the graver punishment which may yet be his due?’
He had said this in the presence of a considerable audience in the
Holy House, and it was impossible not to perceive the threat which he
implied, and also the fact that his zeal and vehemence had impressed
many of those who overheard him into sympathy with his views.
The Cardinal was deeply annoyed. But he was of a wisdom which bade him
put aside annoyance which could not serve him in dealing with one who
was supported by right. He considered deeply for some moments, saying
no word to betray his real chagrin.
At last he permitted himself a smile of much gentleness and some
craft.
‘Word comes to me from Segovia that the Inquisitor of the Faith there
is so ill that a successor must be appointed. I shall confer the
appointment on Frey Luis Salcedo to-day. His zeal and rigid honesty
would seem eminently to qualify him. He shall leave for Segovia at
once.’
But the suggestion in which the Cardinal conceived that he had found
the solution of his difficulty had the effect of visibly terrifying
Frey Juan.
‘He will see in that an attempt to remove an awkward testifier to the
truth, an attempt to bribe him into silence. He will become a
devastating flame of righteous anger which nothing afterwards will
quench.’
The Cardinal perceived the truth of this, and stared blankly. All,
then, was to be rendered vain by this impetuous friar unless torture
could wring the requisite confession from the woman. That was now his
only hope.
A secretary entered unbidden at that moment. Irritably the Cardinal
waved him away.
‘Not now! Not now! You interrupt us.’
‘On the King’s business, Eminence.’ And in answer to the Cardinal’s
change of countenance, the secretary informed him that alguaziles of
the Holy Office had brought in a man who excused himself for bearing
arms in such a place at such a time on the ground that he was a
messenger from the King with a letter for the Inquisitor-General,
which he was to deliver in person.
Still travel-stained, haggard, and unshaven, Sir Gervase was
introduced, a man worn almost to the last strand of endurance. His
eyes, blood-injected from sleeplessness, seemed to have receded into
his head; they shone with an unnatural glassy brightness amid the dark
shadows that surrounded them. He lurched in his step as he now
advanced.
The Cardinal, a humane man, observed these signs. ‘You have ridden
hard, sir,’ he said between question and assertion.
Sir Gervase bowed, and presented his letter. The Cardinal took it.
‘Give him a seat, Pablo. He is in no case to stand.’
Gratefully the Englishman slid into the chair to which the Cardinal
waved him and which the secretary advanced invitingly.
His Eminence broke the royal seal. As he read, the cloud of care
lifted from his brow. The eyes which he raised to look across the top
of the royal parchment at Frey Juan were alight with relief, almost
with laughter.
‘Heaven, I think, has intervened,’ he said, and passed the sheet to
the Dominican. ‘The woman is abstracted from the care of the Holy
Office by royal command. She need preoccupy us no further.’
But Frey Juan Arrenzuelo frowned as he read. The woman might not be a
witch, but she was still a heretic, a soul to be saved, and he
resented this royal intervention in what he accounted the affairs of
God. At another time the Inquisitor-General would have shared that
just resentment, and would not have relinquished this heretic without
a struggle and a stern reminder to His Majesty that he intervened at
his peril in matters of the Faith. But at present the command came so
opportunely to solve all difficulties, to rescue the
Inquisitor-General even from a possible accusation of nepotism, that,
as he pondered it, His Eminence smiled. Before that smile, so placid
and beatific, Frey Juan bowed his head, and stifled the protests which
were rising to his lips.
‘If you will confirm this, Eminence, in your quality as
Inquisitor-General of the Faith, the prisoner shall be surrendered.’
Subtly thus he reminded Cardinal Quiroga that the King transcended his
royal and strictly secular authority. Cardinal Quiroga, very grateful
for that royal presumption, dictated at once his confirmation to the
secretary, signed it, and delivered it to the inquisitor that he might
attach it to the royal letter.
Then he turned his glance again upon Sir Gervase. ‘Who are you, sir,
into whose charge the prisoner is to be consigned?’
Sir Gervase got to his feet, and answered him. He gave his name and
announced that he had followed from England with a letter from the
Queen.
‘An Englishman?’ said His Eminence, raising his brows. Here, no doubt,
was another heretic, he thought. But he shrugged. After all, the
matter was out of his hands, and he was very glad to be rid of it. He
had no reason for anything but thankfulness towards this hard-worn
messenger.
He offered him refreshment, of which he appeared to stand so sorely in
need, whilst the prisoner was being brought to the palace from the
Holy House. When inquisitorial duty permitted it, there was no more
humane gentleman in Spain than this Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo.
Gervase accepted gratefully, having heard Frey Juan dismissed with
instructions to send the prisoner at once to the palace, and Frey
Juan’s reply that it should be done within the hour, so soon as the
necessary formalities were satisfied and record made of the royal
command concerning her.
Two familiars of the Holy Office conducted her from her cell. She
imagined that she was being led to another of those exasperating
audiences that made a mockery of justice. Instead, she found herself
conducted across the great hall to the great double doors that opened
upon the street. The postern was set wide for her by one of the
familiars, and she was waved out by the other, who followed.
Before the door stood a mule-litter, which they motioned her to enter.
She looked about her, hesitating a moment. People were streaming
through this as through other streets in numbers, dispersing after the
consummation of the Auto. She desired to know what was intended by
her. The novelty of the proceedings filled her with a fresh
uneasiness. But having no Spanish it was impossible to ask questions.
Being a woman, single-handed, weak, and helpless, it was even more
idle to attempt resistance. She must wait to ascertain, and meanwhile
command such patience as still remained in her.
She entered the litter, the leather curtains were closely drawn, and
the mules went off briskly, guided by the man who rode the foremost,
and escorted by some others which she had seen drawn up alongside and
whose hooves she now heard clattering beside her.
At last the little cavalcade came to a standstill, the curtains parted
again, and she was desired to alight. She found herself before an
imposing building in the great square, across which fell now the
shadow of the vast Cathedral cast there by the sinking sun.
In that shadow the air was chill, and she shivered as she stood there.
Then the same familiars ushered her through double gates of wrought
iron bearing great gilded escutcheons each surmounted by a cardinal’s
hat with its array of tassels. Under a deep archway they came into a
quadrangle where the ground was inlaid with mosaics and in the middle
of which a fountain played. Across this at another door, guarded by
two splendid men-at-arms in steel and scarlet, the familiars consigned
her to a waiting chamberlain in black who bore a wand and about whose
neck a chain was hung.
The mystery of it deepened. Had she fallen asleep in her cell, and was
she dreaming?
This sleek black gentleman signed to her to follow him, and the
familiars were left behind. They ascended a wide marble staircase
flanked by a massive balustrade, rising from a hall that was hung with
costly tapestries which Spain had no doubt filched from Flanders. They
passed between another two men-at-arms, standing like statues at the
stair-head, and along a corridor until the chamberlain halted at a
door. He opened it, signed to her to enter, bowed as she passed him,
and closed the door upon her when she had crossed the threshold.
Understanding nothing, she found herself in a small plain room. Its
windows looked out across the courtyard through which she had passed
to the opposite wall whose white surface was aglow in the last rays of
the setting sun. A tall-backed chair was standing by a table that was
topped with red velvet. Out of this chair a man rose now to startle
her.
He turned to face her and the incredible became the impossible; even
when he spoke her name, spoke it on a sob, and came lurching towards
her with outheld hands, her brain refused to be seduced by this
illusion. And then she was in his arms, she felt them coiled about
her, and this ghost--this untidy, grimy, unshaven ghost--was kissing
her hair, her eyes, her very lips. He was no ghost, then. He was real.
The thought brought her a new terror. She thrust back from him as far
as his embrace allowed.
‘Gervase! What are you doing here, Gervase?’
‘I’ve come for you,’ he answered simply.
‘You’ve come for me?’ She repeated the words as if they had no
meaning.
A smile crossed the man’s weary face. His fingers fumbled at the
breast of his doublet. ‘I had your note,’ he said.
‘My note?’
‘The note you sent me to Arwenack, asking me to come to you. See. Here
it is.’ He drew it forth, a very soiled and crumpled scrap. ‘When I
got to Trevanion Chase, you’d gone. So… so I followed; and I’m here to
take you home.’
‘To take me home? Home?’ She could almost inhale the perfume of the
moors.
‘Yes. All is arranged. This Cardinal is very good.… The escort waits.
We go… Santander, and there Tressilian stays for us with his ship.…
All arranged.’
His senses were swimming, he staggered as he held her, might indeed
have fallen but for his hold of her. And then she said words which
revived and renewed his strength as not even the Cardinal’s wine had
been able to do.
‘Gervase! You wonderful, wonderful Gervase!’ Her arms tightened about
his neck as if she would have choked him.
‘I knew you would find it out one day,’ he said weakly.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. lovelorn/love-lorn, trumpet
call/trumpet-call, unmistakeable/unmistakable, etc.) have been
preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Abandon the use of drop-caps.
Punctuation: fix a few quotation mark pairings/nestings.
[Chapter VII]
Change "increased the fresh young comeliness of his _apppearance_" to
_appearance_.
[Chapter XVII]
"the fact that the _Inquisitor, General_ Don Gaspar de Quiroga" to
_Inquisitor-General_.
[Chapter XVIII]
"_Neverthless_, he waved back the familiars who had already" to
_Nevertheless_.
[Chapter XIX]
"held the sheet tremble _vioiently_ as if suddenly palsied" to
_violently_.
[Chapter XX]
"The _Concepcion_ which Don Pedro de Mendoza had commanded" to
_Concepción_.
[Chapter XXIII]
"spoke with an accent that rendered him almost _imcomprehensible_"
_incomprehensible_.
[End of text]