The Half-Hanged Man

by David Pilling

There was nothing to be done except obey, and wait for an opportunity to redeem herself in his eyes. She bowed meekly and returned to the bedchamber to dress.

  Excluded as she was from her lover’s confidence, Eleanor did not learn until much later the reason for Carillo’s presence in Burgos. The truth was that his master, Enrique, driven to desperation by the squalor of his mountain hideaway and the hopelessness of his cause, had decided to throw in his lot with Núñez.

  To this end he had dispatched Carillo to Burgos with a verbal message, couched in terms of the most craven obeisance, offering to give up his own claim to the throne of Castile, in exchange for a generous annuity and a place at Núñez’s court at Seville once Pedro was overthrown.

  Enrique had put aside his pride for naught. Núñez’s sickness worsened with terrifying speed, until the doctors despaired of his life and rumours swirled around the city that he had been poisoned. Whether this was true or not, Eleanor never discovered, but considered both King Pedro and Don Albuquerque easily capable of stooping to such a ploy.

  Poisoned or not, the old schemer breathed his last mere hours before a troop of jinetes galloped into the city with news that Pedro’s army was just a few miles from Burgos.

  Núñez’s untimely death left Garci in command of the defence of the city. One night Eleanor made her way to the Great Hall where he and his advisors were arguing over how best to proceed. She kept herself well-hidden behind the throng of knights and burghers, and listened carefully to what passed.

  What she heard filled her with terror for Garci’s safety. He was standing at the head of the table in full harness, his helm tucked under his arm. “I will not skulk inside the walls, and allow King Pedro to lay siege to Burgos,” he said in a loud voice so that all might hear, “instead I will take the strongest force I can muster, and march out to meet him head-on.”

  “A pitched battle?” one greybeard exclaimed, tearing at his whiskers in horror, “it is not to be thought of. The King is said to have six thousand men at his back. Burgos cannot summon half so many.”

  “We must not risk all on a battle,” one of his colleagues agreed, “if you fight, you will be well beaten, Don Garci. The city cannot afford the loss of so many fighting men.”

  “Be quiet, you timid old fools!” cried Carillo, who was standing at Garci’s side, looking more than ever like some Arthurian paladin in his polished harness. Eleanor’s heart gave a little throb at the sight of him, and for a brief moment she recalled her old infatuation.

  “Don Garci does not propose to ride out on some hopeless sally and sacrifice the lives of the garrison,” he went on, glaring around the table, “but merely to make a show of armed force, and then offer terms.”

  This met with a mixed response. The fighting men, many of whom were Garci’s poor relations and bound to agree with him, made approving noises, but the city dignitaries looked doubtful. They were more in favour of ejecting all useless mouths from the city, closing the gates, and daring Pedro to waste his strength in a long siege.

  “My thanks, Don Carillo, but I can speak for myself,” said Garci, smiling wearily at the young knight, “but what you say is true. I will go out to meet the king, and ask to treat with him.”

  He raised his hand to still the protests. “Peace, gentlemen. I am in command here, and you will have to trust my judgment.”

  “What can you offer Pedro?” demanded the greybeard who had first spoken, “he is not yet twenty, and yet all the world knows of his black nature. I have heard dark rumours of what goes on inside his palace at Seville. He is a latter-day Caligula, a Nero for our time!”

  This met with cries of approval from his colleagues, and contemptuous looks from the soldiers in the room. Eleanor noted how opinion was evenly split, but knew that Garci would follow his own course, regardless of what anyone said.

  “As I recall,” he said when the contending voices had died down, “Caligula and Nero were only allowed to play the tyrant because the Roman Senate lacked the courage to defy them.”

  It was a shrewd retort, and he followed up by banging his mailed fist on the table. “The swiftest way to tyranny is to surrender to it!” he shouted, his voice rising like a war-horn, “and so it will be with this king. Let Pedro see us skulking behind the safety of our walls, like so many rats packed into a cage, and he will know that we have not the will to defy him. Then, gentlemen, you will see the cruelty in him run loose.”

  Eleanor smiled as she listened to the speech, and at the fierce acclaim it met with from the soldiers. The burghers could muster no effective response, and their feeble bleats were ignored.

  She pressed herself into a corner as the armed men filed out, Garci at their head, followed by the complaining, shuffling crowd of dignitaries and merchants. Garci failed to notice her hiding in the shadows, and for a moment she considered running out to speak with him. She decided against it, for his face was set in a grim mask, and she feared he would brush her aside.

  Garci swiftly mustered a considerable body of knights, squires and men-at-arms and led them out of the gates. Eleanor joined the people clustered on the parapet of the city walls to watch them depart. She had to admit that the long, well-ordered column of horse and foot made a brave show as they tramped out of the gates, their armour shining and their banners and pennons fluttering in the breeze.

  She shaded her eyes to look south, and thought she glimpsed a column of dust on the horizon, and the glimmer of spear-heads. King Pedro was coming to Burgos, and in her mind’s eye she replayed the dreadful memory of that night in Algeciras, where she had witnessed the King of Castile, God’s anointed, wantonly assaulting a defenceless beggar. What he might do to Eleanor if he laid eyes on her again, she could not imagine, but her fears were all for Garci.

  He returned at dusk, just as the long shadow of night was stealing across the land, intact and at the head of his men, and accompanied by the much larger royal host. Eleanor, who had remained at her post in the hours since Garci’s departure, saw the massed array of banners, lances and spears advancing, and was flooded with joy, for that meant there had been no battle.

  Her joy dissipated when she saw the royal arms of Castile – a quartered banner displaying a rearing red lion against a white field, and a three-towered castle against a red field - in the van. King Pedro himself rode under it. He wore gilded armour of black and gold, and was mounted on a magnificent white destrier.

  Still, it seemed that Garci had pulled the devil’s teeth. A palpable sense of relief swept along the wall, as the relieved citizens of Burgos cheered and waved their hats at the approach of the king. Eleanor sneered at their joy. These same people had acclaimed Núñez just days before, and she was beginning to suspect they would acclaim a crowned monkey if it meant they would be left in peace.

  She hurried back through the streets. Garci had given no explicit orders for Eleanor to be banished from the castle, and the guards made no attempt to bar her from entering his apartments. However, the door to his private study was locked.

  The realisation that he genuinely suspected her of being a spy hit her like a blow, and she sat on his bed and wept awhile, cursing herself for being so weak.

  “Fool!” she chided herself, slapping away the tears that trickled down her cheeks, “if you wish to survive in the pit of snakes that is Castile, you will have to become as hard as any man. Observe them, see how faithless and murderous they are, and learn from them.”

  She could hear the roars of the crowd outside, mingling with a riotous din of clashing cymbals, blowing horns and the rattle of drums, presumably to acclaim King Pedro as he rode through the streets.

  It occurred to her that Garci had failed in his duty, which was to prevent Pedro entering Burgos. Now the royal army had taken the place without a blow being struck, and she had no confidence in Pedro or Albuquerque – presumably the old statesman had accompanied the King to Burgos – keeping faith with whatever peace terms they had agreed to.

  She heard iron footsteps ringing on the
flagstones outside, and Garci appeared in the doorway, massive and intimidating in his harness.

  “Eleanor,” he said in a hoarse voice, “I was told you were here. You must dress in your finest, and accompany me to dinner. The king is our guest tonight, along with a great crowd of his knights. The survival of Burgos may depend on keeping him in his present good humour.”

  She hugged her knees as she looked up at him, feeling small and fragile in his presence. “He accepted your offers of peace, then?”

  Garci blew out his cheeks. “Not at first. Those damned fool burghers almost ruined everything. Pedro was in a vile mood when we met him, and threatening to have all our heads on spikes. The burghers attempted to flatter him, which he rightly interpreted as hypocrisy. For a moment I thought we were doomed, but somehow Carillo and I managed to soothe him.”

  “Is Albuquerque with the King?” she asked.

  “That he is, and one of his creatures, an evil ruffian named Manrique, attacked me with his bare hands as I approached the royal banner, calling me traitor and such. A group of knights separated us, for otherwise I would have twisted the fool’s neck.”

  “I thought you had spurned me, Garci Laso,” she said, deliberately changing the subject and yearning up at him. He shifted and unlooked uncomfortable.

  “Never in life, my love,” he said awkwardly, and approached the bed to gather her in his arms. She allowed herself to be folded in the iron embrace, but only suffered his lips on hers for a moment before pulling away.

  “I cannot meet the King,” she said firmly, “for he knew me in Algeciras. We were not enemies, as such, but he is of a vicious disposition, and I saw him at his worst. He may decide to do me harm, out of sheer spite.”

  Garci threw his head back, and regarded her through narrowed eyes. “I ought to have questioned you more closely about your past,” he said, “and shall do so, once this night is safely through. I promised Pedro I would introduce my lady to him, which he found amusing, since he happens to know that my wife is not in Burgos. I suppose I can tell him you are sick.”

  She looked at him gratefully. “Do me that kindness, and I promise to answer all your questions.”

  Up to a point, she added privately.

  11.

  The welcome feast passed with every sign of renewed friendship and warm feeling between King Pedro and the leading citizens of Burgos, though Eleanor’s feigned sickness meant she had to rely on Garci’s report when he staggered back to his chambers, much the worse for drink.

  “There will be peace now,” he declared, breathing fumes and clumsily pawing at her shift as she helped him into bed, “and the rest of Castile will have to settle down, once word spreads that Burgos has come to terms.”

  “And what of Enrique?” she asked, reaching for a silk cloth to dab away the wine spillage around his mouth, “he is still at large, and in rebellion against his half-brother.”

  Garci cracked his thumb to indicate what he thought of Enrique. “That young man is a nothing. He fled like a whipped puppy from Algeciras, and offered to give up his claim to the throne to Núñez in exchange for a safe billet and thirty pieces of silver. Pedro will either kill him, or let him live out his days as a wandering fugitive, friendless and despised. Why a true knight like Don Carillo chose to enter the service of such a worm, I cannot fathom.”

  Eleanor tried to press more questions on him, but his taste for politics was exhausted for that night. After an unsuccessful attempt at boarding her he fell into a deep, impenetrable sleep.

  The atmosphere inside Burgos soon darkened. Albuquerque’s creature, Manrique, who had assaulted Garci and called him a traitor, insisted on moving his troops inside the Ghetto, a sort of interior citadel separated from the rest of the city by a strong wall. Many of the burghers dwelled there in fine white-plastered houses that they were now obliged to give over to the soldiers.

  That was just the beginning. King Pedro had his troops billeted in other parts of the city, until Burgos began to resemble a military camp.

  Eleanor observed this shadow creeping over the city, and tried to warn Garci that something terrible was afoot, but he refused to heed her, or the advice of his close council. He was a trusting man, and willing to believe that Pedro’s smiling countenance was a true reflection of his soul. Eleanor, who had taken care to avoid Pedro since he entered the city, despaired of her lover’s folly.

  The day came when he was summoned to meet the King at dinner in the castle (in deference to their royal guest, Garci and his household had moved out to private lodgings in the city). Believing that Pedro wished to discuss final peace terms, nothing could dissuade an elated Garci from attending the meal, which was to take place the following day, a Sunday. It was useless to argue with him in this mood, and Eleanor didn’t even try.

  That night an unexpected message arrived from the Queen-Mother, Maria, recently arrived at Burgos with her household. She had embarked on an affair with a much younger man that had scandalized Castile, and was out of favour with her son, which might have been the explanation for her attempt to warn Garci.

  The message was placed in the hand of one of Garci’s men-at-arms, and bore a blank wax seal. He split it open in the privacy of his bedchamber, with Eleanor present.

  “Let nothing on earth bring you to the palace on the morrow,” he read out, “that is all it says. It is signed ‘Maria’. My God, she is indiscreet! What if this message had fallen into the wrong hands?”

  Eleanor plucked the bit of parchment out of his hands and studied the writing by the light of a candle. “I have heard that Albuquerque hates the Queen Mother, and resents her influence on her son,” she said, “this would be a valuable weapon to use against her.”

  To her amazement, Garci refused to heed the warning, thinking it some subtle ploy on Maria’s part to gain a political advantage over her son.

  “The old bitch cares nothing for my welfare,” he said, “why, I have only met her on a few occasions, and we hardly exchanged a word. She must be playing some game of her own.”

  He looked into the embers of the fire, into which Eleanor had tossed the charred fragments of parchment, and shrugged. “It matters not, since I can hardly refuse the king’s invitation. He is staging a bull-fight in the palace grounds to celebrate the peace. There will be a riot if it is cancelled.”

  Eleanor looked sadly at him, studying the rough planes and contours of his face and storing them away in her memory. “You are going into the jaws of death,” she said quietly, “and I will not follow you.”

  “I could order you to come,” he said, though without much conviction.

  “What will you do?” she asked, “drag me into the royal presence in chains? You are not that kind of man, Garci Laso.”

  Even so, when Garci left for the palace the following morning, accompanied by Carillo and his other brother-in-law, a gentleman named Don Ruy Gonzalez, Eleanor did not stay meekly in their lodgings, waiting and praying for his safe return. Instead she followed at a discreet distance, losing herself among the excited crowds making their way through the streets to the bull-fight inside the palace grounds.

  Despite the presence of so many armed men watching from the ramparts and street corners, Burgos was in the grip of a holiday atmosphere, assisted by the barrels of free wine that King Pedro had ordered to be set up in the market square.

  She kept Garci and his companions in sight as they rode through the gates of the castle, into the outer ward where the bull-fight was being set up. The arena was already filling up with people, and one of the furious black bulls being dragged unwillingly from his pen by a team of handlers.

  The gates to the inner ward and the palace were heavily guarded by a double line of men-at-arms, but their captain recognized Eleanor and nodded at his men to let her through. Once inside the gatehouse, she flickered through a side-entrance and up a twisting stair to a passage that led to the gallery above the Great Hall, where musicians often played to entertain guests at banquets.

  Sh
e met no-one as she moved along the narrow passage, and no strains of music filtered from the direction of the gallery. The wall to her right was a wooden arcade with a row of narrow windows cut into it. For caution’s sake Eleanor peered around the corner of the wall leading to the gallery. The breath caught in her throat when she spied two men armed with crossbows standing next to the balcony. Fortunately, their eyes were fixed on the hall below, and they failed to notice her as she sidled back to the furthest window of the arcade.

  The scene below was like a tableau, with the players carefully positioned for the drama about to unfold. King Pedro sat on his carved wooden throne on the dais at one end of the hall, flanked by half a dozen of his ballasteros, burly soldiers armed with iron-shod maces. He was the same handsome, arrogant foulness that Eleanor remembered from Algeciras, though noticeably thinner, doubtless the legacy of his recent sickness. He sat stiffly, his back straight as a lance, his face expressionless.

  To his right, sat below the dais on a humble stool, was Albuquerque. The little grey-haired man was dressed in his usual sober black, and might have been transported straight from Eleanor’s brief meeting with him in Seville. Beside him stood a stout, middle-aged woman clothed in fine silks whom Eleanor took to be the Queen Mother, and an elderly, nervous-looking clerk.

  Silence reigned in the hall until the doors swung open and Garci strode in, followed by his brothers-in-law and three aged burghers. The old men were pale as ghosts, and had to be shepherded into the hall by six more of Pedro’s grim-faced ballesteros.

  There was a rustle of silks as the Queen Mother suddenly ran from the hall, followed by her clerk. Both disappeared through the curtain behind the dais.

  Only now did Pedro speak. “Alfonso Garcia, Pero and Alfonso Fernandez,” he said, flicking a finger at the burghers, “you are under arrest for treason. Soldiers, get them out of my sight.”

  Rough hands seized the three hapless burghers, who wept and begged in vain for clemency as they were dragged away to prison.

  Eleanor looked at Garci. He and his companions had stopped in the middle of the hall, and watched in confusion as the burghers were arrested and forcibly removed. He clapped a hand on Carillo’s wrist as the young knight reached for his sword.