The Grove of Eagles

by Winston Graham

  “Do you like the name?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps one day you will prove it is not true.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Have you ever had an amencebada?”

  “What is that?” “What would you guess?” “Something to eat?” She laughed. “Let us go in.”

  That night Señor Andres Prada returned, and the following morning he sent for me. He was sipping chocolate in the study he used above the patio, and wore a gold embroidered morning gown. With him were two other men, one much younger with dark copper hair and the eyes of a zealot, whom I later learned was called Pedro Lopez de Soto; and a stiff-haired, cautious faced, stout man called Estabah de Ibarra.

  “This is the boy Killigrew.”

  Both men spoke halting English. They began to question me.

  All the questions related to England and many of them to my father.

  Some of them seemed designed to trap me, as if they were privately testing the accuracy of what I said against information of their own. They spoke of our neighbours, of Hannibal Vyvyan: how often did he keep the fort at St Mawes, and when he was away who took his place? Then they worked up the river to the Trefusises, the Enyses, the Arundells. It was fascinating how much these men knew already, and in what detail. But sometimes their interpretation was quite wrong, and I was careful not to correct them.

  After a while they broke off and began to talk among themselves. Although I could not follow all they said, five weeks of careful listening had given me a smattering of Spanish.

  I was dismissed and went down into the patio itself, which was tiled in blue and green, with a tiny fountain playing. Vines and other plants climbed up the walls and across the trellis which almost cut out the sky. Rodez was there idly eating a green walnut, and Father Rafael sat in the rocking chair reading his breviary.

  I found my hands and knees were trembling.

  “Mariana has been telling that you walked out with her yesterday,” Rodez said.

  “Round the square, yes.”

  “Mariana has a taking for you. Have a care.”

  “I do not think so, or she would not call me el pincho.

  “Why not?”

  I was still thinking of the three men upstairs. “ Well, it means a louse.”

  Rodez laughed. “Never believe it. El piojo is the louse. This is Mariana’s amusement.”

  “What does el pincho mean, then?”

  “It means the Handsome One.”

  “Oh,” I said, surprise for a moment gaining over apprehension. “And what is an amencebada?”

  “Now I know she has the fancy for you! Perhaps I should not say take care, for perhaps it is already too late!”

  “Rodez.” The voice came from the balcony above, cutting through Rodez’s laughter like a knife through tallow.

  “Sir?”

  “I want you.”

  When Rodez had disappeared I stood for a minute or two watching the goldfish moving lazily in the pond beneath the fountain. I heard a page of the breviary turned. Father Rafael, no doubt, was keeping an eye on me as well as on his prayers, but I felt unequal to the task of addressing him.

  Señora Prada came into the patio and asked Father Rafael a question. Their Spanish was quick and colloquial, but I gathered that she asked where Andres was, and he told her he was upstairs and the names of his callers. She said, was he going to the Palace tonight and Father Rafael said, yes, there was to be a meeting of the Junta de Noche. She said, oh, that was good. More passed between them that I could not follow at all; but because I could not I had more time to notice the intimacy of their conversation.

  Rodez came down again and I heard Señor Prada showing his visitors out.

  “Who were they?” I said to him. “Who were those men?”

  He shrugged. “Two who order this country, my friend. Like my uncle: behind the stage.”

  “Yes, but what did they want with me?”

  “We Spaniards do not fail for lacking the attention to detail. You? You are just one of the details.”

  “Details of what?”

  “Who knows? The information you give us is filed away. If it is ever needed, then it will be used. See?”

  “What is the Junta de Noche?”

  “A committee, an inner council, which works under the King.”

  “Are they—do they belong to it?”

  “The young one, Captain de Soto, does not. He is an outsider, but is secretary to the Adelantado. The Adelantado of Castile is the highest military officer of the crown. Does that satisfy you?”

  “And the other?”

  “Estaban de Ibarra? He, with my uncle, is joint secretary of the Junta de Noche.”

  I said: “I do not understand. I am—a boy of sixteen. In England I could not, would not, be interviewed by—by Sir Robert Cecil, by the Earl of Essex, nor even by his secretary. I am a nobody. What is my value here?”

  “Little enough, assuredly. But be thankful for your own sake that it is something.”

  Chapter Two

  That night I dreamt of Sue Farnaby. She kept crying: “ Maugan, Maugan!” her voice lost and hoarse. I began to cry out: “ Sue, Sue, Sue!” in reply, panting each word in effort and in agony. When I woke some sound was ringing in my ears, and I think I must have been crying the name aloud. I was soaked with sweat and for minutes could not shake free of the dream.

  It was dark in the room but a light was flickering from the square, three wavering bars on the ceiling. I got up and went to the lattice. There were no lights in the houses opposite but there was a lantern glimmering on the cobbles below. Yesterday an old mule struggling to drag a load of gravel had died there and the body had been left where it fell. Now two beggars were hacking at the carcass for what they could take away.

  Sue’s cries were still ringing in my ears. I could not stay in this house any longer letting time and opportunity slip away: there must be some escape.

  First, first I must improve my Spanish, at least to the point of understanding and being understood. Second, I must lay hold on some money, for in any country there were people who would give their services or hold their tongues for gold. Third, I must plan a way back.

  I had to begin to make plans now. Madrid was right in the centre of Spain, impossibly situated for a fugitive, but it would be better to die on the way than to stay on here in weak luxury until one’s uses were done.

  The beggars below snatched up their lantern and their knives and faded into the gabled shadows. Two men were crossing the square; they were monks walking silently, hoods up, arms folded in sleeves; they went into a building beside La Inclusa; the clang of the door echoed across the square.

  It was cold, and I went back and sat on the bed, then on impulse pulled on my stockings and went to the door and opened it. The house was built round the patio and some light came in through the passage window as I went down the first flight of stairs.

  My only thought tonight was to see how easy or how difficult it might be to leave this house when the time came; one did not know what would be bolted and barred or whether any guard was kept; but when I reached the first floor where the two main bedrooms and the living-room were I heard the murmur of voices and saw a light under the door of the Prada bedroom. I had time only to squeeze into the shadow of a heavy Cuban mahogany chest when the door opened and Father Rafael came out. A woman’s hand came through the door; he bent and kissed it, then strode away, the only sound being the scuff of his sandal heels and the rustle of a silk robe. Immediately he had disappeared the light under the door went out and I was alone and could almost have been persuaded that this was a part of the earlier dream.

  I leaned on the stone balustrade and looked down into the patio. I had found these Spanish people far kinder than I had ever supposed them to be; for all the danger and the unspoken menaces that surrounded me I had not lacked for casual friendship; I had even wondered what Catholicism meant that men should fight it so bitterly. Now in this moment I remembered again
the words of the Puritans at home.

  I was about to go down the last flight when somebody moved in the patio. It was Sebastiano, the negro who often guarded the door. He had been squatting beside the fountain, and if I had gone down he would have caught me. His keys were rattling as he moved to the great door and presently he opened it and Señor Prada came in followed by his personal servant carrying a lantern. There was a conversation; Prada sounded tired and irritable. To stay on the balcony would be to invite discovery, so I stole back up the stone flight and then up the creaking wooden flight to bed.

  Over the next week I worked day-long at Spanish. When Rodez tired I went to Mariana.

  Mariana had beautiful teeth, and it was not hard to make her laugh. Always she called me el pincho, but I never challenged her translation, knowing well enough that if I did she would shrug it off or somehow turn the point against me.

  I went again to the palace; once to help Rodez with moving and arranging some English books. But on the second occasion I was confronted by the terrible priest with the face like a vulture and spent two chilling hours in his company being instructed in the tenets of the faith. I wished fervently that I had the true learning of a Protestant. I lacked the knowledge to confound his specious reasoning, yet instinctively knew it must be evil and corrupt; I had been brought up on the evils of Rome. That night I prayed for guidance and courage. There must come a moment soon when I must refuse to hear any more of his sly and perverted arguments; to listen to them was almost as much of a blasphemy as to heed. Yet to stand up and tell him he was an agent of the Devil needed a cold courage, a desperate faith that was hard to come by.

  The third time at the palace I was called in, again with Rodez, to wait at the table of Captain Lopez de Soto, the copper-haired young fanatic who was secretary to the Adelantado of Castile. De Soto was entertaining some dozen guests in a party recently arrived from Italy. Three were priests and five were Genoese naval officers, members of the entourage of Prince Giovanni Andrea Doria, who had just arrived in Madrid. Talk was sometimes in Spanish sometimes in Italian, and for the most it was of naval power and the Spanish building programme and the prospects of an early attack on England.

  After it, one of the civilians called me to him. “They tell me you are a Killigrew.”

  A narrow sun-tanned face, a mop of brown hair; the eyes were blue, eccentric, slightly squinting; it was a different face from any seen of late.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And a prisoner, I’m told. Fresh out of England. The trees will be budding there soon.”

  “You are English!”

  “Much better than that, boy. Do they still dance the Hal-an-tow at Helston?”

  I stared. “ You’re … from Cornwall?”

  “Yes. Though it’s more than 13 years since I was there. I think sometimes of the pleached alleys, the primroses, the violets. How is your father?”

  “You know him?”

  “As a young man. I was born at Tolverne up the river from your place.”

  I choked with delight and relief at seeing a friendly face. The three months away from home might have been three years. As I grasped his hand I remembered what young Thomas Arundell had said that night at Tolverne. ‘And Uncle Thomas who went on a pilgrimage to Rome thirteen years ago and never returned.’

  “This means—much to me …”

  “Oh, aye, I well know. I was 30 when I left, not a boy in his teens, and I stayed away from choice not because I had to; but the old place still has its pull. Always, always I’ve promised myself a sight of it again. But that nasty old woman lives too long.”

  “I saw your family, sir, just before Christmas. I was coming from Truro and spent the night at Tolverne.”

  “Ah … My brother’s family, you mean. And how fares Sir Anthony? Now that Hell is nearer I suspicion he is making efforts to avoid it.”

  I told him about his nephew Jonathan’s wedding and all the family news. Even though my pleasure drained off a little as I realised this man had cast in his lot with the enemy, just knowing he was a kinsman was an encouragement to hope.

  I said: “ Do you know what they intend with me here?”

  “I? Nay, I’ve just arrived. But there are many English scattered through Italy and Spain. You may take heart.”

  “Protestant English?”

  He gave me a look. “ You must change that. Oh, I know the Killigrews have always been on the side of the reformed Church, but I can tell you why: it was for what they got out of it, not from religious fervour. Three quarters of Killigrew land was Church land. I do not suppose many of your ancestors would cling to a faith that it was not in their interest to cling to—and I’d advise you to change while this Spanish forbearance lasts.”

  I said: “What did you mean, sir, by saying that Sir Anthony was nearer Hell?”

  “As all heretics are when they grow older and nearer death. But if there is God’s justice he’ll not escape by amending his ways now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Ah, boy, you’re too young to remember. There was a saintly Jesuit priest called Cuthbert Mayne arrested in Cornwall just before I left. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Launceston. My brother was on the jury that tried him. An Arundell, by God! To bring such shame on the name! By Christ, all the saints in Heaven must have turned away their faces!”

  I stared across at a picture of the Virgin; she had a strange wide-awake expression like some newly opened flower, and she seemed to be listening.

  I said: “ Mr Arundell, can you help me?”

  “What in?”

  “I want no part in—in religion or in war. I only want to go home.”

  His face hardened. “ Then it is time you grew up. No one now, of a surety no one with your name, can draw aside from the greatest issue of the age. Are you for Christ or Anti-Christ? Is that not important enough to kill indifference? There’s no choice in between, and I cannot help you to one.”

  I said curiously: “But sometime don’t you hope to come home?”

  “I have told you yes, and sometime soon! But not as a suppliant. I have not lived all these years in exile to creep back under the festering cloak of Calvin. In England there are hundreds of thousands who would rise tomorrow if they received the call! One day it will come.”

  Rodez was waiting for me impatiently by the door.

  “Sir,” I said, “where are you lodged in Madrid? If I’m permitted may I wait on you sometime?”

  “Your friend has my address. I shall be here for some weeks. I have spent much of my exile painting and there is an artist living in Toledo whom I wish to see.”

  As I walked away down the long passage with Rodez he said cynically: “A relative?”

  “… Distant. I had never met him before.”

  “Spain has a good sprinkling of them—English who have clung to the faith. But they are not popular. We are never sure if one or other of them will turn out to be a spy.”

  “Who is Captain de Soto?” I asked. “ Why does he entertain in this way?”

  “I have told you: he is the secretary of Don Martin de Padilla, the Adelantado of Castile.”

  “And what has the Adelantado to do with naval matters?”

  “He is the supreme commander of our fleet. A seasoned veteran, not a weakling like Medina Sidonia who commanded in ’88.”

  “He is assembling another Armada?”

  “Ah,” said Rodez, “ have a care you do not ask too much or we may take you for a spy.”

  That night Señor Prada was called again to the palace and sent word back that he would not be home. Rodez had gone with him; and Señora Prada went off to the theatre with a gallant. Father Rafael retired early to his room, and Isabella, who was in love with a young officer who had been posted to Valladolid, spent the evening in the patio plucking moodily at her guitar.

  That left Mariana and me, and of course her duenna sitting cross-legged in a corner. We spent an hour on our language, but Mariana soon grew tired of it for
she had less to learn than I and less incentive. Because of our lessons our friendship had ripened. In the course of work she had told me much about Spain and about herself; I had told her of England and Cornwall and my own life. But with an understandable reticence I had never mentioned Sue Farnaby.

  Now she suddenly said: “Have you ever been in love, pincho?”

  I hesitated. “… In a way.”

  “In what way is that?”

  “Well, yes … I have been in love.”

  “With whom? Tell me now. A little girl of sixteen? a big girl of twenty? a married woman?”

  I said: “ Oh …” and laughed self-consciously.

  “And this girl—you have loved her?”

  “I said so.”

  “But there is different—si, claro … depende … If you love perhaps like Isabella down below you swoon and sigh, you worship, you adore; very beautiful, but it is in the heart, no more. Or you may love—make love, is that it?—with the body, with the senses—you are in passion. That is fierce, the thing itself. Which was yours?”

  “The first.”

  “Ah … so I should have think.”

  We said no more for a time. Then she said:

  “Do you know what an amencebada is?”

  “You know I do not.”

  “In Spain, boys when they are twelve or thirteen are given a concubine mistress who teaches them about love. That is what such a woman is called.”

  It was the first warm evening, and the gentle plucking of the guitar was sonorous and sad, punctuating the faint plash of water from the fountain. Mariana stood up and leaned over the balcony. She called something in a harsh voice to her sister and the playing stopped. She turned to me with gleaming eyes.

  “Muy bien. If you will have the goodness to watch.”

  Her black hair was parted in the middle, tied at the back with a ribbon and wrapped up in a carnation coloured taffeta scarf. She unwrapped the scarf. While she was doing it Isabella began to play again, but this time differently, fiercely: a strange music that I had heard before but only in the distance coming from lighted taverns or from a group of gypsies around a fire: a trembling passionate music full of sadness and sliding semi-tones. Mariana stopd by the balcony’s edge, eyes closed, with a hand clasped to her face as if in torment; and she began to dance.