Captain from Castile

by Samuel Shellabarger; Internet Archive

  "Is she beautiful?" Catana asked suddenly.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean the girl you dressed up for tonight."

  He stared at first, then frowned. That anyone of Catana's station should refer to Luisa de Carvajal, his princess of honor, as a girl, shocked him.

  Catana understood. "Lord Christ!" she flared, but caught herself and looked down, then faltered, "I'm sorry."

  He felt ashamed but said formally, "There is a certain great and lovely lady, Catana, whom I am privileged to serve—let it suffice you."

  She felt deservedly rebuked. Indeed, if he had spoken or acted differently, he would have lessened himself in her eyes. From the standpoint of the times, he spoke and loved as a hidalgo should. If her rival had been a wench like herself, she would have thought of murder; but the greatness of the lady altered things. She knew that he should worship some highborn hidalga in that world of his which was unknown to her, that she should count herself honored by the scraps of his regard. And because her humility was sincere, they both took it for granted.

  "We must make plans," she said. "You must get away from here in the morning. Do you know Hernan Soler?"

  "The robber?"

  "Yes."

  "I've seen him here."

  "He has a hiding place I know of two leagues toward Granada. You could stay with him until you decide what to do. At worst he could get you to the sea—Malaga or Valencia."

  "Why should he? He doesn't know me at all."

  "He knows rae.'' She forced a smile. "He's a friend of mine."

  "I have no money. He's not a man to do something for nothing."

  "That's my business. Leave it to me. He's an amigo muy intimo."

  At that moment she made her decision. There was no use telling Pedro, because he would protest it. All that mattered to her was that he should escape. A girl had the right to dispose of herself, and Hernan Soler would be glad of the bargain.

  But jealousy, though he would not have called it such, now took its turn with Pedro.

  "A fine friend!" he snapped. ''Muchas gracias! I can look out for myself. I know the sierra."

  She shook her head. "You can't live in the mountains with every door closed to you on account of the Holy Office. Hernan's your one chance. He's a good Christian, but his brother died in an auto-da-fe at Seville. He hates the Santa Casa—"

  She broke off and stared sharply at the partition behind her.

  "Did you hear anything?"

  "No," he said.

  They could not have seen the eye which had been applied to a knothole in the partition and at that instant withdrew. It belonged to Jose, the mule boy of one of the arrieros stopping at the inn. He had wakened at Catana's entrance, had heard voices, and with the curiosity of his age had climbed to the main hayloft for a possible peep at forbidden mysteries. But the sight of Catana and Pedro de Vargas, sitting opposite each other across a lantern, was of no interest, and he retired disappointed.

  Only the usual rustling sounds rose from the stable.

  "I suppose it was nothing," she concluded. "No, senor, I'll guide you to Hernan in the morning."

  "The risk for you?" he hesitated.

  "That's nothing."

  It would have been desecration to compare Catana in any way with Luisa de Carvajal. That the one was willing to dare everything for him and the other nothing did not present itself to his mind. Luisa was not expected to dare; her value was ethical, transcendental; she existed to be adored. Between this and Catana's practical courage, there was no connection. But for a moment Pedro de Vargas felt the heat of something that was more even than adoration. It bewildered him.

  "Vdlgame Diosf' he muttered. "I love you."

  "I love youj" she answered simply.

  He leaned toward her. The consent in her eyes, raised to his, the softness of her lips, drew him closer.

  "I love you, Catana," he repeated.

  Suddenly a clatter of hoofs filled the courtyard, a clanking and ring of steel, hammering on the door of the inn, summons to open.

  At once she was on her feet, alert and tense. In an instant the lantern was out, the basket hidden beneath the hay. She crouched listening beside the trap door.

  Confusion started below, the snorting and stamping of awakened animals, shouts and oaths. The stable door was flung back as ostlers and mule boys trooped out to gape at the invasion.

  "Cover up with the hay," she directed. "I've got to show myself. Nobody's seen you. We'll put them on the wrong scent."

  Raising the trap, she slipped under it, lowered it behind her, and a moment later mingled with the throng in front of the inn.

  XVf

  There were about a dozen mounted men. Rugged but respectful, Sancho Lopez confronted the captain of the troop, who sat glaring down from his saddle. To lend him support, Catana appeared, as if from the inn, and stood beside him.

  "No, Seiior Captain, he is not here; he has not been here this evening. . . . Yes, I know Pedro de Vargas—as who doesn't? He has stopped at the Rosario for refreshment. . . . No, I have seen no one pass on the road, Senor Captain."

  "But I have," Catana's husky voice interrupted. "Vaya, it must havt been an hour ago. The watchdog wakened me. I looked out and noticed a man on the road. It was bright as day. He walked fast uphill. I said to myself, 'It's no time of night for an honest traveler.' "

  The news sent a rattle of steel through the troop. Sebastian Reyes demanded, "By God, what're we waiting for? That's he. It'd be pretty close to an hour ago."

  "If it was he," returned the captain, "he's in the sierra by now and safe till morning."

  "Unless he stopped at Juan the Woodcutter's," drawled Catana indifferently, "up the Guardia. He's hunted through the mountains and knows Juan."

  The captain sat tight. He was not the man to leave one covert un-

  beaten for the sake of another. Besides, he knew all about the Rosario.

  On the point of ordering a search, he happened to drop his skeptical eye on Jose, the mule boy, and found him grinning. Why? Nobody else grinned.

  "You!" he barked. "Come here."

  The youth's self-importance vanished. In the dead silence, he faltered forward. The captain drew a coin from his belt purse, tossed it in the air, caught it in his gauntlet. A gold coin.

  "You look a sharp lad," he said. "What d'you know?"

  "Nothing, Sefior Captain. I—I don't know anything."

  "Take a hitch on his arm," directed the other. "Jog his memory. The dog wouldn't be sniggering for nothing."

  Two men, who had dismounted, stepped over to Jose. One collared him, the other grasped his wrist.

  "For God's sake!" screamed the boy.

  Slowly his arm rose behind his back. What did the arm of a ragamuffin matter except to himself? If he knew nothing, he shouldn't have grinned at the wrong time.

  The captain sat tight.

  "For God's sake! ... Let me go .. . I'll tell."

  He was in a hard pinch. If he did not tell, they would break his arm. If he told—

  Catana watched him inscrutably over the shoulder of one of the men, She was chewing a straw.

  "Going to speak?" asked the captain.

  The fear of imminent pain overbalanced the remoter fear; but he lied as much as possible. To betray Pedro de Vargas was one thing— he might get away with it; to betray Catana meant at best the knife of one of her admirers between his ribs before tomorrow's sun.

  She stood watching him as he stammered about the cahallero in the spare hayloft. The gentleman had let himself into the stable and climbed the ladder. He didn't know whether it was de Vargas or not. Catana arched her eyebrows with interest and shifted the straw between her teeth. ''Diga, diga! Well, well!" she remarked.

  The troopers were streaming across the courtyard. Jose plucked at the captain's boot.

  "The money, sir?"

  He received a cut from the other's whip that sent him back with his hands to his face. When he lowered them, Catana was standing in fro
nt of him. She might have been joking for all that a bystander would have noticed.

  "The money, sir?" she mimicked; and, removing the straw, she drew it lightly across Jose's throat. "Better find a priest, Joseito. That's what you need more than money, sir—a priest."

  They brought Pedro de Vargas into the inn; but, except that his hands were bound, they treated him with the courtesy due a gentleman. The captain drank his health, and Sebastian Reyes complimented his swordsmanship. When he complained of the tightness of the cords, they loosened them so that he could make shift to drink. Save for their duty, they wished him the best. No reference was made to what awaited him in the Castle of Jaen; good manners forbade it.

  But Sancho Lopez and the Rosario fared worse. Now that they had got their prisoner, the men of the Holy Office relaxed. They guzzled Lopez's wine, devoured his victuals, and took over the premises. They might have taken him over as well for sheltering an accused heretic; but when Pedro declared that he had entered the stable without the innkeeper's knowledge, they let it go at that. Lopez could count himself lucky to get off with horseplay—sword pricks in the behind and, when the fun grew madder, a blanket-tossing in the courtyard. Some of his guests had the same treatment.

  Pedro's chief concern was for Catana, but he soon realized that he need not worry. She belonged to this element, like the devil to fire or a fish to water. She appealed to one bully against another; left them quarreling; slipped from the arms of a third to the knee of a fourth; turned the laugh on a fifth; flew into white-hot rage that took the breath from the next man; laughed, swaggered, dominated. In the end a guitar was found, a tune struck up, and she danced her audience into groggy adulation. That the Rosario, though battered, survived the evening was largely due to her.

  Seated against the wall between the captain and Reyes, with the table a bulwark in front of them, Pedro half-dozed. At last consciousness split into fragments like a dream. He could see the moonlight on the fairy round in the garden; the owl face of the Marquis de Carvajal; Luisa's pale beauty lighted by the candle; the melee at the steps; the road between the olive trees from Jaen; Catana facing him in the hayloft; and now, jumbled with this, the uproar in front of him. A dream, or rather nightmare because of the cords on his arms and the dread of tomorrow.

  Catana pirouetted near them, but he might have been a stranger for any recognition in her eyes. Only the professional smile. He understood: she had to pretend that she didn't know him to save her skin; but he felt terribly alone.

  The windows had suddenly turned gray. It was already tomorrow.

  Head-splitting din greeted the end of the dance. ''Bis! Bis! Viva la Catana!"

  ''Viva!'' bawled Reyes. "Salud, de Vargas!"

  "Salud!" Pedro mumbled. He fingered his cup, then lurched forward on the table.

  "By God, he's asleep," said a distant voice.

  He knew nothing more until several hours later, when he wakened with his arms numb and his head bursting.

  XV(/

  It was well into the morning when the troopers shook off last night's carouse and got ready to start for Jaen. Seated, filthy and disheveled, on the rump of a horse, his legs dangling, his arms tied, a rope binding him to the rider in front, Pedro seemed to himself already a prison scarecrow. The sun burned down from a pitiless blue sky, adding sweat and heat to the other discomforts.

  "Oiga, mozaf called the trooper in front of Pedro to Catana, "one more cup of water. Lopez's foul wine has left my mouth like a pigsty."

  "Perhaps it found it that way, m'lord," she drawled; but, fetching a pitcher, she filled a cup for the man and handed it up to him.

  She looked pale from the night, and her black eyes seemed larger because of the hollows under them. Shifting to Pedro, they narrowed a little. The impersonal look was gone. They spoke fiercely, passionately. He knew that she was trying to convey some message.

  "May I have a drink, Catana?"

  "A sus ordenes." She filled and held the cup high, so that, bending a little, he could drink. "Valor y esperanza, senor!" she added lightly.

  Courage and hope! Her eyes narrowed again. It seemed to him that she stressed the last word.

  The captain mounted, gave the word of command, and the little squadron clanked out of the courtyard. Looking back, Pedro saw Catana standing arms akimbo, gazing after them. She gave a brief wave of the hand; then, turning abruptly, she entered the inn.

  It was a league downhill to Jaen, and because of the heat and dust, the captain rode slowly. Moreover, more people than usual were heading for the town, so much so at times they almost blocked the highway. Peasants in holiday clothes, on foot and on donkeys, trooped forward

  as if to some gala event. But they were in a queer humor too, a feverish humor that showed itself in forced hilarity and use of the bottle, with a sprinkling of sober faces in between. They made way docilely for the horsemen and with sidelong glances when they saw" the pennon of the Holy Office, which was borne at the head of the troop.

  Absorbed by his own concerns, Pedro wondered vaguely at first what saint's day it was. Then a witticism, flung at him by a yokel on a burro, recalled what had slipped his mind.

  "Get a move on, heretic, or you'll miss saying hasta la vista to your friends."

  Yes, he had forgotten. It was a big day. A couple of dozen men and women were scheduled to make confession of their sins in the public square and to receive penance. For some, the lash and the galleys; for some, the lash and prison; for some, the stake. It was rumored that six were to burn.

  He turned faint a moment; black dots wheeled in front of his eyes. But remembering himself, he fought the dizziness off, lifted his head. He had witnessed several auto-da-fes with the indifference bred of familiarity. Now his point of view" had suddenly altered, and it took no great shrewdness to understand why.

  The pride of an hidalgo helped him out. He was carried forward amid the taunts of the crowd, impassive as a statue, closing his mind to the future, scornful of the present.

  At last the shadow of the city gates shut off the sun. The troop plodded uphill through streets choked with people flocking in the same direction. As they drew closer to the Plaza Santa Maria in front of the cathedral, it was only by sheer weight of horseflesh that the riders could force a passage.

  "Why not see the show?" called one of them to the captain, when they plunged into the milling crowd that filled the square.

  "No, not till we've reported to the Castle," came the answer. "We'll have time later. Skirt the crowd."

  But it was not so easy. The place was packed to suffocation, except for the center where a cordon of pikemen kept sufficient space clear. Brought to a halt in spite of himself, the captain looked for a crevice, through which he could wedge his way, and found none.

  With new eyes, Pedro stared at the objects in the center of the plaza. There was the familiar low platform, erected during the night and standing a few steps above the cobblestones. On one side, it supported low benches, where the condemned would sit; and facing these were higher seats for the Inquisitor and the town magistrates. There, not far

  off, half-hidden by faggots, stood the thick, blunt posts with their blackened chains.

  "Demonio!" chafed the captain, standing in his stirrups. But at that moment came a sound that put an end to any thought of advance.

  It was a distant chant, growing steadily louder. The pikemen on the opposite side of the square, shouldering and shoving, cleared the end of the street leading down from the Castle. A hush fell on the crowd, as the diapason of the chant came nearer.

  ''Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam: et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum dele iniquitatem meam."

  Into the square, under the hot sky, slowly advanced the procession. To a philosopher, such as Germany was then producing, it might have symbolized many things: a once redeeming faith now fossilized and distorted by human corruption into the opposite of everything its Founder had advocated; a demonstration of the past, still powerful and alert t
o keep the New Age in leading strings. But Pedro de Vargas was no philosopher. He had been conditioned to accept humbly and in trembling the sternness of God as exercised by a divine Church. Not for him to question or protest; the very instinct of protest was in itself a proof of Original Sin. To the people in the square and to him among them, this ought, indeed, to be a joyful occasion: it manifested the victory of God over the forces of evil.

  So, humbly and in trembling, he gazed at the banner of the Inquisition borne in front, and then at the column of chanting friars—white, black, and gray—of the monastic orders, and then at the shuffling procession behind. These last were the penitents. They came in single file, each one flanked by Soldiers of Christ, as the familiars of the Holy Office styled themselves. Each penitent was clad in the hideous san-henitOj to be worn by many of them till death, a loose, yellow garment like a nightshirt, plastered front and back with red crosses. Each had a rope about the neck and carried a long, green candle unlighted.

  They limped and stumbled forward on limbs dislocated by torture. Their faces were putty gray, their hair matted; they blinked painfully in the unfamiliar sunlight. One old woman, too crippled to walk, was drawn on a hurdle, her distorted frame bumping over the cobblestones. At a pause in the chanting could be heard her shrill outcries. Most of the penitents were of Jewish or Moorish blood and had confessed to lapsing back into heresy. A few were self-admitted practitioners of the Black Art; a few were convicted blasphemers.

  Hobble, hobble. They dragged themselves up on the platform, each

  to his or her appointed place on the benches, in the order in which they would receive judgment. The old woman, still feebly moaning, was carried to her place and propped upright between two Jews. The ranks of scarecrows behind their candles looked like a red and yellow crazy quilt threaded with green. Now that they came nearer, Pedro recognized some of the faces, but was struck by the change in them. They were half-crazed men and women, only a blur of what they had been once. Fortunately, too, their minds seemed blurred, and they sat vacantly blinking at what went on.