Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  I was thunderstruck. The expedition against England, I knew, was no new project. Three years before a secret envoy from the Queen of Scots, an Italian named Ridolfi, had come to propose to Philip that, in concert with the Pope, he should reestablish the Catholic faith in England and place Mary Stuart upon the throne. It was a scheme attractive to Philip, since it agreed at once with his policy and his religion. But it had been abandoned under the dissuasions of Alva, who accounted that it would be too costly even if successful. Here it was again, emanating now directly from the Holy See, but in a slightly altered form.

  “Why Don John of Austria?” I asked him.

  “A great soldier of the faith. And the Queen of Scots must have a husband.”

  “I should have thought that she had had husbands enough by now,” said I.

  “His Holiness does not appear to share that view,” he answered tartly.

  “I wonder will the King,” said I.

  “The Catholic King is ever an obedient child of Mother Church,” the oily Nuncio reminded me, to reprove my doubt.

  But I knew better — that the King’s own policy was the measure of his obedience. This the Nuncio should learn for himself; for if I knew anything of Philip’s mind, I knew precisely how he would welcome this proposal.

  “Will you see the King now?” I suggested maliciously, anxious to witness the humbling of his priestly arrogance.

  “Not yet. It is upon that I came to see you. I am instructed first to consult with one Escoda as to the manner in which this matter shall be presented to His Majesty. Who is Escoda?”

  “I never heard of him,” said I. “Perhaps he comes from Rome.”

  “No, no. Strange!” he muttered, frowning, and plucked a parchment from his sleeve. “It is here.” He peered slowly at the writing, and slowly spelled out the name: “Juan de Escoda.”

  In a flash it came to me.

  “Escovedo you mean,” I cried,

  “Yes, yes — Escovedo, to be sure,” he agreed, having consulted the writing once more. “Where is he?”

  “On his way to Madrid with Don John,” I informed him. “He is Don John’s secretary.”

  “I will do nothing, then, until he arrives,” he said, and took his leave.

  Oh, monstrous indiscretion! That dispatch from Rome so cunningly and secretly contrived in cipher had yet contained no warning that Escovedo’s share in this should be concealed. There are none so imprudent as the sly. I sought the King at once, and told him all that I had learnt. He was aghast. Indeed, I never saw him more near to anger. For Philip of Spain was not the man to show wrath or any other emotion. He had a fish-like, cold, impenetrable inscrutability. True, his yellow skin grew yellower, his gaping mouth gaped wider, his goggle eyes goggled more than usual. Left to himself, I think he would have disgraced Don John and banished Escovedo there and then, as he did, indeed, suggest. And I have since had cause enough to wish to God that I had left him to himself.

  “Who will replace Don John in Flanders?” I asked him quietly. He stared at me. “He is useful to you there. Use him, Sire, to your own ends.”

  “But they will press this English business.”

  “Acquiesce.”

  “Acquiesce? Are you mad?”

  “Seem to acquiesce. Temporize. Answer them, ‘One thing at a time.’ Say, ‘When the Flanders business is happily concluded, we will think of England.’ Give them hope that success in Flanders will dispose you to support the other project. Thus you offer Don John an incentive to succeed, yet commit yourself to nothing.”

  “And this dog Escovedo?”

  “Is a dog who betrays himself by his bark. We will listen for it.”

  And thus it was determined; thus was Don John suckled on the windy pap of hope when presently he came to Court with Escovedo at his heels. Distended by that empty fare he went off to the Low Countries, leaving Escovedo in Madrid to represent him, with secret instructions to advance his plans.

  Now Escovedo’s talents were far inferior to my conception of them.

  He was just a greedy schemer, without the wit to dissemble his appetite or the patience necessary to secure attainment.

  Affairs in Flanders went none too well, yet that did not set a curb upon him. He pressed his master’s business upon the King with an ardour amounting to disrespect, and disrespect was a thing the awful majesty of Philip could never brook. Escovedo complained of delays, of indecision, and finally — in the summer of ‘76 — he wrote the King a letter of fierce upbraidings, criticizing his policy in terms that were contemptuous, and which entirely exasperated Philip.

  It was in vain I strove to warn the fellow of whither he was drifting; in vain I admonished and sought to curb his headlong recklessness. I have said that I had a friendship for him, and because of that I took more pains, perhaps, than I should have taken in another’s case.

  “Unless you put some judgment into that head of yours, my friend, you will leave it in this business,” I told him one day.

  He flung into a passion at the admonition, heaped abuse upon me, swore that it was I who thwarted him, I who opposed the fulfilment of Don John’s desires and fostered the dilatory policy of the King.

  I left him after that to pursue his course, having no wish to quarrel with this headstrong upstart; yet, liking him as I did, I spared no endeavour to shield him from the consequences he provoked. But that letter of his to Philip made the task a difficult one. Philip showed it to me.

  “If that man,” he said, “had uttered to my face what he has dared to write, I do not think I should have been able to contain myself without visible change of countenance. It is a sanguinary letter.”

  I set myself to calm him as best I could.

  “The man is indiscreet, which has its advantage, for we always know whither an indiscreet man is heading. His zeal for his master blinds him and makes him rash. It is better, perhaps, than if he were secretive and crafty.”

  With such arguments I appeased his wrath against the secretary. But I knew that his hatred of Escovedo, his thirst for Escovedo’s blood, dated from that moment in which Escovedo had forgotten the reverence due to majesty. I was glad when at last he took himself off to Flanders to rejoin Don John. But that was very far from setting a term to his pestering. The Flanders affair was going so badly that the hopes of an English throne to follow were dwindling fast. Something else must be devised against the worst, and now Don John and Escovedo began to consider the acquisition of power in Spain itself. Their ambition aimed at giving Don John the standing of an Infante. Both of them wrote to me to advance this fresh project of theirs, to work for their recall, so that they could ally themselves with my party — the Archbishop’s party — and ensure its continuing supreme. Escovedo wrote me a letter that was little better than an attempt to bribe me. The King was ageing, and the Prince was too young to relieve him of the heavy duties of State. Don John should shoulder these, and in so doing Escovedo and myself should be hoisted into greater power.

  I carried all those letters to the King, and at his suggestion I even pretended to lend an ear to these proposals that we might draw from Escovedo a fuller betrayal of his real ultimate aims. It was dangerous, and I enjoined the King to move carefully.

  “Be discreet,” I warned him, “for if my artifice were discovered, I should not be of any further use to you at all. In my conscience I am satisfied that in acting as I do I am performing no more than my duty. I require no theology other than my own to understand that much.”

  “My theology,” he answered me, “takes much the same view. You would have failed in your duty to God and me had you failed to enlighten me on the score of this deception. These things,” he added in a dull voice, “appal me.”

  So I wrote to Don John, urging him as one who counselled him for his good, who had no interest but his own at heart, to remain in Flanders until the work there should be satisfactorily completed. He did so, since he was left no choice in the matter, but the intrigues continued. Later we saw how far he was from
having forsaken his dreams of England, when I discovered that he had engaged the Pope to assist him with six thousand men and one hundred and fifty thousand ducats when the time for that adventure should be ripe.

  And then, quite suddenly, entirely unheralded, Escovedo reappeared in Madrid, having come to press Philip in person for reinforcements that should enable Don John to finish the campaign. He brought news that there had been a fresh rupture of the patched-up peace, that Don John had taken the field once more, and had forcibly made himself master of Namur. This was contrary to all the orders we had sent, a direct overriding of Philip’s wishes. The King desired peace in the Low Countries because he was in no case just then to renew the war, and Escovedo’s impudently couched demands completed his exasperation.

  “My will,” he said, “is as naught before the ambitions of these two. You sent my clear instructions to Escovedo, who was placed with Don John that he might render him pliant to my wishes. Instead, he stiffens him in rebellion. There must be an end to this man.”

  “Sire,” I cried, “it may be they think to advance your interests.”

  “Heaven help me!” he cried. “Did ever villain wear so transparent a mask as this dog Escovedo? To advance my interests — that will be his tale, no doubt. He will advance them where I do not wish them advanced; he will advance them to my ruin; he will stake all on a success in Flanders that shall be the preliminary to a descent upon England in the interests of Don John. I say there must be an end to this man before he works more mischief.”

  Again I set myself to calm him, as I had so often done before, and again I was the shield between Escovedo and the royal lightnings, of whose menace to blot him out the fool had no suspicion. For months things hung there, until, in January of ‘78, when war had been forced in earnest upon Spain by Elizabeth’s support of the Low Countries, Don John won the great victory of Gemblours. This somewhat raised the King’s depression, somewhat dissipated his overgrowing mistrust of his half-brother, and gave him patience to read the letters in which Don John urged him to send money — to throw wood on the fire whilst it was alight, or else resign himself to the loss of Flanders for all time. As it meant also resigning himself to the loss of all hope of England for all time, Escovedo’s activities were just then increased a hundredfold.

  “Send me money and Escovedo,” was the burden of the almost daily letters from Don John to me, and at my elbow was Escovedo, perpetually pressing me to bend the King to his master’s will. Another matter on which he pressed me then was that I should obtain for himself the governorship of the Castle of Mogro, which commands the port of Santander, an ambition this which intrigued me deeply, for I confess I could not fathom what it had to do with all the rest.

  And then something else happened. From the Spanish Ambassador at the Louvre we learnt one day of a secret federation entered into between Don John and the Guises, known as the Defence of the Two Crowns. Its object was as obscure as its title. But it afforded the last drop to the cup of Philip’s mistrust. This time it was directly against Don John that he inveighed to me. And to defend Don John, in the interests of common justice, I was forced to place the blame where it belonged.

  “Nay, Sire,” I assured him, “these ambitions are not Don John’s. With all his fevered dreams of greatness, Don John has ever been, will ever be, loyal to his King.”

  “If you know anything of temptation,” he answered me, “you should know that there is a breaking-point to every man’s resistance of it. How long will Don John remain loyal while Escovedo feeds his disloyalty, adds daily to the weight of temptation the burden of a fresh ambition? I tell you, man, I feel safe no longer.” He rose up before me, a blotch on his sallow face, his fingers tugging nervously at the tuft of straw-coloured beard. “I tell you some blow is about to fall unless we avert it. This man this fellow Escovedo — must be dispatched before he can kill us.”

  I shrugged and affected carelessness to soothe him.

  “A contemptible dreamer,” I said. “Pity him, Sire. He has his uses. To remove him would be to remove a channel through which we can always obtain knowledge precisely of what is doing.”

  Again I prevailed, and there the matter hung a while. But the King was right, his fears were well inspired. Escovedo, always impatient, was becoming desperate under persistent frustration. I reasoned with him — was he not still my friend? — I held him off, urged prudence and patience upon him, and generally sought to temporize. I was as intent upon saving him from leaving his skin in this business as I was, on the other hand, intent upon doing my duty without pause or scruple to my King. But the fool forced my hand. A Court is a foul place always, even so attenuated a Court as that which Philip of Spain encouraged. Rumour thrives in it, scandal blossoms luxuriantly in its fetid atmosphere. And rumour and scandal had been busy with the Princess of Eboli and me, though I did not dream it.

  We had been indiscreet, no doubt. We had been seen together in public too often. We had gone to the play together more than once; she had been present with me at a bull-fight on one occasion, and it was matter of common gossip, as I was to learn, that I was a too frequent visitor at her house.

  Another visitor there was Escovedo when in Madrid. Have I not said that in his early days he had been one of Eboli’s secretaries? On that account the house of Eboli remained open to him at all times. The Princess liked him, was kindly disposed towards him, and encouraged his visits. We met there more than once. One day we left together, and that day the fool set spark to a train that led straight to the mine on which, all unconsciously, he stood.

  “A word of advice in season, Don Antonio,” he said as we stepped forth together. “Do not go so often to visit the Princess.”

  I sought to pull my arm from his, but he clung to it and pinned it to his side.

  “Nay, now — nay, now!” he soothed me. “Not so hot, my friend. What the devil have I said to provoke resentment? I advise you as your friend.”

  “In future advise that other friend of yours, the devil,” I answered angrily, and pulled my arm away at last. “Don Juan, you have presumed, I think. I did not seek your advice. It is yourself that stands in need of advice this moment more than any man in Spain.”

  “Lord of the World,” he exclaimed in amiable protest, “listen to him! I speak because I owe friendship to the Princess. Men whisper of your comings and goings, I tell you. And the King, you know well, should he hear of this I am in danger of losing my only friend at Court, and so—”

  “Another word of this,” I broke in fiercely, “now or at any other time, and I’ll skewer you like a rabbit!”

  I had stopped. My face was thrust within a hand’s-breadth of his own; I had tossed back my cloak, and my fingers clutched the hilt of my sword. He became grave. His fine eyes — he had great, sombre, liquid eyes, such as you’ll scarcely ever see outside of Spain — considered me thoughtfully a moment. Then he laughed lightly and fell back a pace.

  “Pish!” said he. “Saint James! I am no rabbit for your skewering. If it comes to skewers, I am a useful man of my hands, Antonio. Come, man” — and again he took my arm— “if I presume, forgive it out of the assurance that I am moved solely by interest and concern for you. We have been friends too long that I should be denied.”

  I had grown cool again, and I realized that perhaps my show of anger had been imprudent. So I relented now, and we went our ways together without further show of ill-humour on my part, or further advice on his. But the matter did not end there. Indeed, it but began. Going early in the afternoon of the morrow to visit Anne, I found her in tears — tears, as I was to discover, of anger.

  Escovedo had been to visit her before me, and he had dared to reproach her on the same subject.

  “You are talked about, you and Perez,” he had informed her, “and the thing may have evil consequences. It is because I have eaten your bread that I tell you this for your own good.”

  She had risen up in a great passion.

  “You will leave my house, and never set f
oot in it again,” she had told him. “You should learn that grooms and lackeys have no concern in the conduct of great ladies. It is because you have eaten my bread that I tell you this for your own good.”

  It drove him out incontinently, but it left her in the condition in which I was later to discover her. I set myself to soothe her. I swore that Escovedo should be punished. But she would not be soothed. She blamed herself for an unpardonable rashness. She should not have taken that tone with Escovedo. He could avenge himself by telling Philip, and if he told Philip, and Philip believed him — as Philip would, being jealous and mistrustful beyond all men — my ruin must follow. She had thought only of herself in dismissing him in that high-handed manner. Coming since to think of me it was that she had fallen into this despair. She clung to me in tears.

  “Forgive me, Antonio. The fault is all mine — the fault of all. Always have I known that this danger must overhang you as a penalty for loving me. Always I knew it, and, knowing it, I should have been stronger. I should have sent you from me at the first. But I was so starved of love from childhood till I met you. I hungered so for love — for your love, Antonio — that I had not the strength. I was weak and selfish, and because I was ready and glad to pay the price myself, whatever it should be and whenever asked, I did not take thought enough for you.”

  “Take no thought now,” I implored her, holding her close.

  “I must. I can’t help it. I have raised this peril for you. He will go to Philip.”

  “Not he; he dare not. I am his only hope. I am the ladder by which he hopes to scale the heaven of his high ambition. If he destroys me, there is the kennel for himself. He knows it.”

  “Do you say that to comfort me, or is it really true?”

  “God’s truth, sweetheart,” I swore, and drew her closer.

  She was comforted long before I left her. But as I stepped out into the street again a man accosted me. Evidently he had been on the watch, awaiting me. He fell into step beside me almost before I realized his presence. It was Escovedo.