Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  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 weapo
ns 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 af
front.

  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?”