A cavalcade of about fifty horses ribboned its way up the wooded hill, curling itself around the final bends of the stony track, passing the local folk gathered to catch a glimpse of a person they had been told was their king. As it entered the courtyard its dignified shape fell into a tangle of shuffling indecision. After faltering and circling, a small group of riders guided the two-horse litter towards the entrance to the chapel. The prior, with all the solemnity and dignity he had practised for weeks, adjusted his brown hooded cloak and approached the litter, a cleverly adapted wooden chest, which sheltered his most illustrious guest.
A gruff whisper from behind Alonso and Manuel urged them into action. “Right lads; set to it. Manuel, Alonso steady that horse at the back there. Get the halters.”
“We’re going. We’re going! He doesn’t have to tell us everything; think we didn’t know our jobs! God knows we’ve been doin’ it for years. Tries your patience, it does. Anyway, which of them lasses are you going for, Alonso?”
“By now I don’t care. You know what them sailors was always sayin’; any port in a storm. Whoa there, me old beauty. I got you.” He stroked the weary animal, calming it with a voice he reserved exclusively for his horses.
“Quija’a, Quija’a!” Growls of petulance, unintelligible splutterings, found their way out from deep within the darkness of the litter’s protective wood and leather hood.
Quijada brought his horse close.
Ah, yes, when the king is speaking it demands all your concentration. Let me explain; his speech has never been very good, you will soon see why; the protruding jaw, the fact that he cannot close his mouth. He is also tongue‑tied. Unfortunately matters are worse these days since losing most of his teeth. So he is almost impossible to understand without a lot of effort on the listener’s part.
Quijada leaned down from his horse to speak to the monk. “His majesty needs a few moments to himself, good prior,” he explained as Alonso and Manuel turned the horses to take the litter up the steep cobbled ramp that had been purposely designed to bring the infirm emperor directly to the first floor of his new home.
Quijada dismounted, handing the reins to waiting lads, then strode up the slope to the porch. Lean and still remarkably agile, it is only the pewter grey of his hair and short beard that remind those about him of his three score years. Alonso and Manuel steadied the horses. Two attendants in their livery of dark green tunics and breeches hurriedly set about removing the litter’s heavy wooden cover and hood.
“God da’ it, watch the leg, you ’iserable cur.” This and other curses filled the air as Carlos was lifted from his cocoon of velvet-covered eiderdowns and fur-lined rugs. Undaunted, the two strong young men continued the process of transferring their master from the litter to his chair and swiftly wheeling him indoors, away from the icy winter air and into a room with furnace-like heat blasting forth from hearths and braziers.
Briefly, while we have a moment, Carlos’s whole life has been one of continuous struggle: protecting all his inheritances, fighting the Turk, protecting his beloved Catholicism from the threat of the ever growing Protestantism, and trying to keep Germany united. And if this were not enough, there have been the perennial wars with France.
So here we are, almost forty years on and little, if anything, has been resolved. Indeed everything remains the same except that he has decided to abdicate. And, I might add, Spain is bankrupt. Spanish blood and Spanish treasure have both been squandered on ventures in which, in my opinion, there was never anything to be gained and in which so much has been lost. I repeat; Spain is bankrupt – in debt to the tune of seven million gold ducados.
Now, on that happy note, shall we follow the others?
II
As the little entourage entered the salon they were welcomed by a small and plump man bent with age and years of endless letter writing. This was Gaztelu, the king’s secretary, sent on ahead to ensure all was in readiness. He shuffled to Quijada’s side carefully keeping his back to the king, peering to right and left before deftly drawing a letter from the wide sleeves of his secretary’s black gown, whispering, “This one is addressed to you; it was in with the others. There was no time to give it to you before I left; my apologies.”
Gaztelu’s permanently squinting eyes, the result of decades of laborious penmanship for royal letters and documents, looked up into Quijada’s seeking some explanation. He knew already that there would be none, there never was.
“Thank you. Do not concern yourself, my friend.” Quijada glanced at the writing, recognising the firm hand of Barbara. He slipped it inside his jerkin; it could wait until later.
Carlos smiled up at him from his chair where he sat looking most unemperor-like; stooped and worn, his face long and crumpled with tired rheumy blue eyes and grizzled white hair and beard; an old man, almost as broad as he was tall, muffled from head to toe in quilted black velvets and dark brown furs.
He hunched his awkward bulk forward, his body a witness to years of gross overindulgence in food and drink.
“You may join me in a toast.”
“Apart from the fact that your doctor has strongly advised against your drinking, you now invite us, or I should say, command us to join you in this wilful ignoring of the doctor’s warnings,” Quijada lectured.
Still in command?
(Gomez) “I am afraid to have to report that Spain is so seriously in debt to the foreign bankers that at this point not one, no, not one of them will exchange gold for our promissory notes; and if this were not all …”
Carlos exploded, “Those blasted Germans! Oh, they are only too ready to have someone protect them; but by God, when it suits them they can be too damned reluctant to part with the wherewithal to pay for that protection! God knows I have always given them their damned money in the end; and with a pretty hefty interest too. Yes, they have always got their pound of flesh. They have never been the ones mortgaged up to the hilt. For how many years have I poured Spanish gold back into their coffers? Paying over forty per cent interest, I would have you know! Humph! Bankers: the Fuggers, et al. I suspect the poisonous talk of some of those damned German princes behind this. Downright insulting. But I shall not lose my temper. I need time to think.”
“Have you been to Valladolid to speak with the Princess Juana?” Quijada enquired of Gomez. He knew full well he had, hadn’t he just said that the princess had spoken of the child, but he had to ask.
“I have. But more grave news awaited me there. Something is sorely amiss in Seville. Let me explain. When the princess, acting on behalf of Felipe, sought loans for the Spanish troops, the response from Seville was that there was no gold. I mean, I ask you, no gold? My lord, I do not seek to cause your majesty any alarm …”
Carlos’s face had turned purple; strangled gurglings of rage forced their way from between lips rigid with anger. “I do not believe this! How dare they!” He held his hand to his throat.
Gomez rose to his feet, alarmed. Quijada leapt up, sending his stool clattering to the floor. Gaztelu rushed for a goblet of barley water.
“Sire, shall I send for Doctor Mathys? For some medication perhaps?” Quijada was concerned.
“No, dammit!” Carlos fumed, “I shall soon recover. This is anger, not an illness you fools!” He threw the contents of the goblet into his mouth before furiously spitting the whole lot back. “Get rid of that horse piss, Gaztelu, and bring me a beer. Gentlemen help yourselves to some refreshment. We must think.”
The right man for the job?
"First I want to hear the good news from Valladolid. Get me some more beer for this thirst.”
Regla (Carlos's confessor) clutched his Psalter to his breast. “You are so right, your majesty, I do indeed have good news for you. News to gladden your heart, your very soul. Canon Ponce has been detained by the Inquisition in Seville.”
“Ponce? Ponce? But damn it man, I chose him as canon. What the devil has he been up to?”
“Reading and espousing the works of Luther and Calvin!” Regla’s face contorted in pained anguish at the full horror of it all.
Quijada, ever the sceptic, asked, “The books were in his possession?”
“No; he had given them to a family friend to hide. You see the deviousness of the enemy, my lord!”
Quijada would not be deterred, “And the friend surrendered the books?”
“No; the friend did not!” Regla’s smile was pure triumph. “It was her son who delivered them in person to the Inquisitor, denouncing his mother for her heresy!”
Quijada threw up his arms in despair, looking at Gaztelu and receiving his full support. He turned to Carlos, “Sire, did I not warn you that there would be those waiting for such an opportunity to further their own cause. I have no doubt the son in question was too impatient to wait for his inheritance.”
“Silence, Quijada!” Carlos snapped back. “I will have none of it! Ponce, a man I trusted, has betrayed the Faith; that is enough for me! He must go to the stake; an example must be made. Any other news?”
“In Valladolid an even greater catch has been landed, all arrested at a meeting called by their leader, Cazalla.” His words came slowly, deliberately, as he savoured every one; he revelled in the joy of reporting the downfall of someone he had never liked and had recently grown to hate.
“Give me strength! Another of my personal choices, returning my trust with treachery! At great cost to my health I have spent my life fighting God’s enemies; the infidel and the Lutherans. Finally I come here to Spain to retire in a country where God’s word was sacred; and what do I find? I find that the bastards have followed me here!”
Quijada made another effort, “This all sounds so much worse than it is; a gross exaggeration of the facts. Regla is talking about a mere handful of reformers, nothing more. Moderation is called for, some time given to considering …”
“Be quiet! I was too lenient with Luther, should have had him burnt; that was where I went wrong. But I will show the way now, by God I will. Spain will lead the world by example.” He shuffled restlessly in his chair, his words degenerated to a garbled babble, his face purple with fury, “The heretics shall burn and the news will spread throughout Europe. Yes, this is more like it; nipping the damned worm in the bud before any further damage can be done!” Now he could compensate for his weakness in the past, his lack of resolve. God would be avenged. “Gaztelu, you will write to the regent and to King Felipe informing them of our good news. Valdes is proving himself an excellent and rigorous Inquisitor. Finally got the right man!”
Chattels
“Brother, (my daughter's) grievances have more to do with later events rather than those years of abandonment. There was that first occasion when instead of being the one chosen as Felipe’s betrothed she was passed over in favour of her younger cousin.” Leonor plucked at her handkerchief.
“Why should she have been expecting to be chosen, for God’s sake? I determine what is to be. In that particular instance a marriage to strengthen the bonds between Portugal and Spain was vitally important, but not with your daughter! No, it had to be with her cousin, because she was the child of the reigning monarchs and not the …”
“Not the little leftover orphan,” Leonor whimpered. “If, from the very beginning, I had been allowed to choose for myself none of this would have happened.”
Carlos threw his hands in the air in despair, “We are surely not going to go through this again? I am head of the family. I decide. End of story!”
“You allowed our sister Maria to make her own decisions. Yes, you permitted her to refuse all suggestions of marriage.”
Carlos pointed at Maria, “I knew it. You are at the root of all this nonsense.”
“Not guilty, brother,” was the stern reply. “My only crime, if crime it be, is in being so different from my sister. It appears that she always bent, apparently willingly, before strength whereas I always met force with force.” She turned to Leonor, “You never had the spirit for the fight and now you regret it. Is that not so?”
“Oh, but I did. I tried. Oh, how I tried. Brother, had you allowed me to marry Count Frederik everything would have been so very different. My life would have taken such a happier course. Maria, how often have I told you how I glowed in the warmth of his love? I was impatient to be in his company; longed to have him touch my hand, to set my heart and head afire.”
“All this again! God give me patience! The man was only a count and you were a princess. I would accept nothing less than a king or a prince for you,” Carlos tried to brush away the subject with a dismissive wafting of his hands as if to rid himself of a bothersome fly.
Leonor would not let go, “You will never understand. I never wished for a king or a prince. All I ever wanted was Frederik. How often did I plead? But you forbade him to ever look at me again. And who did you chose for me while flames of passion burned in my breast? You chose an ugly old hunch-backed cripple, dragging himself through his remaining days dribbling as he went. He was the one I had to receive in my bridal bed.”
“You refuse to accept that the negotiations failed through no fault of mine. I had intended you to wed his son. You cannot blame me for the father deciding to have you for himself,” Carlos blustered.
“Oh yes she can. And I certainly do!” Maria boomed. “If only I had been with you sister. Carlos you know well enough you could have insisted that my sister marry Prince John of Portugal. Be honest, it suited you to have her wed a king rather than a prince.”
“Your tongue has had too much liberty for too long. You speak too freely. However, madam, as you say it suited me to have my sister marry the king; political expediency.”
Maria shook her head, “Such impatience, you would not have had to wait long for the prince to become king. There was nothing to be gained except, of course, an immediate loan.”
“I refuse to discuss this further.”
“So my sister did as she was told, married the old man, and even provided him with a child.”
“Children,” Leonor interrupted. “I provided Emanuel with two children, the first, a boy, was dead within months, sad little mite, and then my Maria was born.” A long pause then she raised her eyes from the handkerchief she had been tugging at nervously on her lap. They twinkled, and a mischievous smile started to play on her lips, “But I did find a lover, someone to bring warmth and joy to my day and passion to my bed at night.”
Only the ticking of a clock broke through the shocked silence.
Samuel and José at their post by the door glanced quickly at each other thinking how many extra drinks this piece of gossip would bring their way.
Gaztelu and Quijada pursed their lips and stroked their chins also exchanging glances at this quite sensational revelation.
Maria gave her sister a congratulatory look then turned a challenging eye on her brother.
Carlos shattered the quiet, “Good God in His Heaven! I refuse to believe my ears. My sister, the daughter of a queen, the sister of an emperor, a queen herself … that, that, that she would dare to cuckold her husband! This is dishonour, madam! We are speaking of lascivious behaviour; lechery! You, my sister, are no more than a whore!”
“Now that does amuse me, brother,” Maria did not disguise her contempt. “When a man seeks consolation in welcoming arms between warm sheets, no one turns a hair. If a woman chooses the same avenue for comfort she is immediately condemned as a whore.” She admonished him further, “Now listen to me. You got what you wanted when Leonor was crowned Queen of Portugal; you received a massive loan. The fact that she had a lover should be of no consequence whatsoever.”
“This is monstrous,” Carlos’s words spluttered from a face purple with rage. “To be discussing whoring, with no sense of guilt, no shame. You are no better than soldiers round the beer table boasting of deeds in brothels. Tell me, who was the bastard who dared …”
“The one who dared, brother, was none other than myself. I was the one to reach out to grasp some moments of love and laughter, of tenderness. And, yes, I allowed my burning desire full freedom during those three years. No one until today has ever known I had a lover. So far as I know, no one knows his name, and it shall never escape my lips. And before you use any more insulting words about an affair which I refuse to have sullied, I will remind you it would not have come to pass had I been allowed to marry Frederik.”
“Do not try to offer lame excuses for such sinful behaviour. May God forgive you. I never thought I would live to see the day when I could be so shamed by the actions of anyone in my family. Disgusting …”