The Grove of Eagles

by Winston Graham

  It was past noon before the Grand Inquisitor finished. The King rose to reply. Although the voice was dry and thin there was a quiet passion and fervour in it; several times he roused his listeners to murmurs of approval, and once there was a grumbling roar when he said something of reconversion by fire and the sword. As soon as he had finished the royal party went inside to eat and to rest. Most of the ordinary spectators squatted where they were, trying to take their siestas in the hot sunshine. Monks were still chanting and singing, and lesser penitents made endless processions round the square.

  As the afternoon wore on the shadows of the houses formed new geometries across the crowded square. About five the royal party reappeared. A procession of monks made a circuit of the amphitheatre bearing statues and effigies of saints and a dozen coffins with flames painted round them. These, Rodez said, held the bones of heretics who had recently died in prison.

  Now the prisoners were brought forward one by one and their crimes read out. I could not hear the sentences, but one of the four women prisoners and five of the thirteen men were condemned to death; the others went to the galleys, to imprisonment or to be scourged. A fight broke out in the crowd near by us: a woman with a man had looked at another man, and knives were out; people surged and pushed; we were trampled and moved five or six yards before the pressure eased.

  Mass was celebrated in the growing dark; then people settled to eat again. Litter and dirt were everywhere, and even though the chill was returning it did not take away the smell. Bags of wine were passed round, and I drank deeply. The scene was like the Day of Judgment, the flambeaux smoking, the Inquisitor on his dais. The King had not gone in; it seemed he could wait to dine until the ceremony was over. Already it had lasted more than twelve hours.

  I was tired now and ready to go. My legs were tired with standing, and there was nothing but stale warm air to breathe. Rodez muttered something and I said: “What is it?”

  “Four of them—and that includes the woman—have said they prefer to die in the Christian faith. That leaves two to face the fire alive. Ah, well, it’s not an ordeal I would relish myself, even for a seat in Heaven; and for them, who merely make more certain their descent into Hell …”

  The crowd surged forward and we with it as the prisoners were bound to stakes in the middle of the square. Faggots and charcoal were piled around them by black-coated burners and priests of the Holy Office. Heads bobbed in my way; someone was coughing and spitting; two women in front of me were arguing about the price of wool. Columns of charcoal men with lighted torches were in procession to make obeisance to the King.

  Now the flag with the white cross was leading them back to the six pyres. One of the prisoners was shouting at the top of his voice; in a quiet that had fallen it was easy to hear the words, but they were in a strange tongue: German or Dutch perhaps. It looked as if a priest were counselling each of the prisoners, advising them; but the shouting man would have none of it.

  “He has gone off his head,” said Rodez. “I see they are to be merciful to him.”

  A man was trying to get his little boy of eight through to see more clearly. Most were willing to move aside, but a woman complained angrily that the boy was standing on her dress; a torrent of angry, argument broke out; in the arena charcoal men were passing cords round the necks of four prisoners who had recanted; the one was still shouting, another was reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Latin. A long brass trumpet reared its mouth and a shrill blast was blown; it silenced the quarrelers beside me as the charcoal men pulled on the cords and the cursing and praying of the prisoners ended in a strangled coughing. Soon all were dead.

  The people sighed; a monk’s high voice intoned a prayer.

  The trumpet blew again, torches were raised where I could see them clearly, and then plunged. People pushed me forward against the people in front, straining to see, all wanting to see the two living victims as the flames licked round their feet. It seemed that they were not yet to be deserted by the monks of the Holy Office, who risked burns in order to hear any recantations that might fall from their lips. One of the prisoners was dressed in tattered black slops, and as these caught fire he began to scream in a high-pitched almost whistling voice like a horse I had once heard being clumsily slaughtered. The other made no sound, but as the flames licked up him blisters rose and burst quickly on his skin like bubbles in a boiling pot. Then as they burst, so blood poured from them, and also from his nose.

  As life left them, their bodies twisted and crouched against the wire thongs as if they were wrestlers in some game. The four who had been strangled before burning had taken on the same contorted attitude of defiance.

  The screams of the last living man came to an end, and then the only thing was the hissing as blood and fat ran down into the flames.

  Pressure slowly eased; breath came back; people stretched and yawned; there was room and time to feel one’s aching feet; but it was nine or after before the last prayers were said and we were free to go. Noisily, sweatily, untidily, like people coming from a cockpit or a bear-baiting we made our way out. At one of the entrances to the square there was a great crush as more tried to pass through than there was room for; women screamed, blows were struck. Rodez and I were like sticks in a current, one minute idly moving, the next caught tight in a log jam, inching forward a half step at a time. I thought, if anyone should block this crowd at the other end there would be no need of the judgment of the Holy Office for me or for a hundred others.

  Suddenly we were through and walking back towards the Puerta del Sol in a laughing, talking, jostling company.

  Chapter Three

  When we got back Andres Prada was at home and with him was the old soldier with the withered hand who had at last insinuated himself into the house. Father Rafael was there also, and the three men were sitting at a table in the largest of the living-rooms drinking wine. After the hot day the night had turned sharply cold and a brasero bowl was under the table warming their legs and feet. The soldier had a rough duffel cloak thrown around his shoulders.

  “Well,” said Señor Prada to us, “ so it is over? I confess I find the ceremony tedious these days. How His Majesty—a man suffering from gout and ulcers—can endure the long day I know not.”

  He was speaking in Spanish as Rodez and I took seats on cushions on the floor and were given wine to drink by one of the servants.

  “For my part,” said the old soldier, who was called Miguel, “I have never seen one through. I witnessed a part of one in Seville when two English soldiers were to perish for their heresy, but to melt a man slowly away like a candle lit at the wrong end has always seemed to me a poor testimony of Christian charity, so I came away before the flames were lit.”

  “This boy is English,” said Prada.

  “Ah … Yes, he looks it. Yet twas my colouring when I was young: fair haired; and he’s not unlike I was, thin and lively and strong, with wide awake eyes not short of a glint of mischief. You remember me as I was then, Andres?”

  “It is a long time since.”

  “And you were ever a dark-skinned boy for contrast. And prone to sickness. The years have advanced you and retarded me … This English boy, now—why do you keep him here?”

  “He was brought in by two sea-rovers who kidnapped him as proof of a raid they made on the English coast. But it so happens that they have laid hold of the base son of this man who guards a key fortress on the coast of England …”

  “Have a care, sir,” said Rodez, “he follows Spanish now.”

  “He’s much as I was then,” mused Miguel, plucking at a hole in his slops, “but scarcely as I am now after a lifetime of soldiery and five years a slave to the Turks. My hand shot through at Lepanto; a prey to feverish agues that rack the bones I have left. Thirty years of honourable service for my country. It is no employment for such a one to hawk cloth from door to door or to write doggerel for broadsides. That is why I petition you and through you His Majesty for some honourable commission—”
/>   “You have had them in the past—”

  “Pittances, Andres, pittances of the most degrading kind, ill-paid and often unpaid, as you must know. A Naval Commissary is expected to live off his peculations and I will not do that, Andres. I still believe in the ideals of patriotism and honesty, however much in this age they have become empty words.”

  The door opened and Señora Prada came in. When she saw the company she seemed likely to turn and go away again at once.

  Her husband made a half irritable gesture. “Oh, my love, I am not sure if you have met Miguel de Cervantes, a playmate of mine in student days. A distinguished soldier, who has also turned his hand to plays and poems—”

  Miguel rose to his feet and gave her a bow, which she barely acknowledged. “ My Lady, I knew your husband, as he says, in the days of his youth, and I come to pay a call long overdue—”

  “Oh, you have called before,” said the lady. “Twas you, was it not, who escaped three times from the Turks and was thrice recaptured; but that is old news. Andres, this is the second time I have come home and Sebastiano is not at the door to hand me down! I think in the morning he should be beaten.”

  “I’ll see to it, my love,” said Prada Cynically. “ No doubt you found the auto de fé tiring. There is wine and food laid in the next chamber.”

  “I am going out again,” she said. “ I came but to change after the day. Don Diego will be calling for me within the hour.”

  She left the room and an awkward silence fell, in which I thought the old man would take his leave. But clearly he was used to being treated as of no account; perhaps his condition had long been too desperate for him to be too tender of his honour. Yet as he sat down again I saw that he had not lost his bearing or his dignity.

  “I say to you, Andres, I still believe in the old ideals, rarely though they emerge in the present palace and court. From what I have seen of it since I came to Madrid from Andalusia—”

  “Oh, it is a superficial blemish that you exaggerate,” Prada said impatiently. “The King could scarcely be more holy—”

  “Oh, the King, yes indeed, he turns his court into a monastery. But under the assumed piety of the religious form every sort of immorality and corruption exists. Spanish ladies, once a model for the world, are loose and immodest in their lives. The behaviour even of many of those men who have taken the vows of a priestly fife, the behaviour of many such is licentious and evil.”

  “Señor,” said Father Rafael gently, “you speak harsh words which would be dangerous outside this house. Even in it they give offence.”

  “As for you, father,” said Miguel, “ if I speak ill of your cloth I mean no personal slight. But many others say as I do. The Treasury is empty, and the riches of the Indies flow into it and then out to enrich the peculators in Spain and the Bankers and Jews in other lands. Under the cloak of the church the state decays!”

  He reached for the buckskin bag containing the wine, and poured himself some and drank it. Then he wiped his long moustache with his withered hand.

  “And if you were in my position,” said de Prada, “ you would contrive to change it all?”

  “Nay, friend, I have no easy remedy; do not mistake me. But I think no country can prosper while corruption is so widespread, while the worst poverty and the most lavish luxury are separated by a street’s width. I think no country can fight a just war while it is being bled white from within; and while it is dominated by 22,000 spies in the habit of the Holy Office! We have many wars on our hands. The Netherlands remain a cockpit. Henry of Navarre has entered Paris by a ruse and our troops forced out. Did you hear he stood upon a balcony of Porte St Denis and saluted them as they marched away, calling, ‘Commend me to your master but never come back’? He’ll be at war with us ere long, you mark my words … And as for England—every preparation for the Second Armada is hampered by lack of money, lack of supplies. You know that, Andres, without my telling you …”

  “I know, Miguel, without you telling me.”

  Prada’s cold voice at last made an impression on the other man’s eloquence. “Aye, well, you should be far better informed than any of us … No doubt I talk out of place. Did I not see Lopez de Soto leaving here the other day? If so, you will know all about the naval preparations.”

  “You did—and I do. Captain de Soto says it is due to the corruption of minor officials such as yourself that the Armada is not more ready to sail.”

  Miguel de Cervantes’ face went a deep colour like the faces of the burning men; an old scar whitened on his cheek. “Of many it is true; I have said so. That way they live. Because I would not so tarnish my good name I am reduced to beggary and to supplicating help from old friends! As you know I have been in prison, but never for any act injurious to my honour!”

  “Well, I will help you if I can,” said Prada. “But perhaps I cannot.” He rose. “ You must excuse me now.”

  “When may I see you again?”

  “I will let you know. Have you no other friends?”

  “None so close to the court. While men like Lope de Vega strut in society I am—destitute.”

  “Tut, tut, we’ll meet again, no doubt. But I’m not the King, you know.”

  The old soldier was edged towards the door. As I also rose Señor Prada spoke sharply in English.

  “I wish to see you, boy.”

  “Now, sir?”

  “Yes. Wait there. You may go, Rodez.”

  Father Rafael picked up his rosary and followed Rodez from the room. I was left to wait alone.

  Andres Prada’s face was irritable as he sat, down again at the table. He took up a palm leaf and fannel the brasero bowl to make the charcoal glow. He coughed as the smoke caught his throat.

  “What would you say, boy, if I offered you your freedom?”

  I stared at him. “ I would thank you from my heart!”

  “There would be conditions.”

  “What conditions?”

  “You would be required to convey a message back to England.”

  “Gladly—” then I stopped. “Where would I have to take it?”

  “That matters?”

  “Yes, sir. If …”

  He put the palm leaf down. “The message would be to your father.”

  “To my—”

  “Would you carry a message to him?”

  “Willingly … To my father?”

  “Yes. Verbally.”

  “If—yes, I think so.”

  “There would be other conditions—concerned with the message.”

  The charcoal had died again, being nearly burned through, and the chill of the night seemed to come out of the white plaster walls.

  Señor Prada said dryly: “We thought to convert you to Christ before offering you freedom. The King was unwilling to make any move to restore you to your family until you had come to see your error. But I prevailed upon him otherwise.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I will be plain with you, boy. I did not intervene on your behalf out of love for you. Those freebooters who brought you here hoping for a reward, got it because you were of some small use coming fresh from England, and that part of England, for the information you gave us. But there is this second use to which you may now be put. Have you been well treated here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Fed, clothed, used as a guest?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Put in chains, beaten, starved, stretched on the rack?”

  “No, sir.”

  “An attempt has been made to persuade you to reaccept the old religion. That failing, has coercion been used?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, remember those things. If God sees fit to favour us in war, and we take England, there will be clemency and justice shown as well as the rigour of holy law. Remember that and tell your father.”

  “Was that what you wished me to tell him?”

  “Not that alone.” He paused, biting his finger thoughtfully.

  “A
nswer this, boy, I know little of your Calvinist religion. Do you still use the Bible of Christ?”

  “Yes … It is in all our churches.”

  “So that an oath sworn on it would be binding upon you—as we should swear upon holy relics?”

  “Yes.”

  He peered hard at me as if trying to assure himself.

  “Tomorrow then we will see if a way can be found.”

  “What are you asking me to swear, señor?”

  “To secrecy in the message you carry.”

  “To my father?”

  “Yes, it must be learned by heart and must go to him only and must never be spoken of again.”

  Sleep for less than an hour. The pageant of the day, with its ponderous, tedious progression to the blind automatic spectacle of the end, was of the stuff of nightmare. Mingling with all this were sudden wakings, full of panic hopes and fears, and long minutes when everything was clear with the feverish clarity of illness.

  About eleven that morning Mariana limped down the steps to the patio.

  “So, Maugan, I hear you are to leave us?”

  “There is no certainty of it yet.”

  “Perhaps you will be returning to your girl, and you can say to her, ‘ Ay de mi, those Spanish women, how I despised them!’ ”

  “If I say anything to anyone in England it will be that Spanish women have courage and beauty … and one, among them that I knew, more than any of the others.”

  She looked surprised. “Sweet Jesu, you are becoming a courtier. Perhaps it is after all true that you have uncles close to the Queen.”

  All that day I waited, but it was not until six in the evening that the summons came. Rodez arrived to say we were to attend at the palace at once.

  There was no ceremony to being admitted, no waiting, no ante-chambers crowded with favour-seekers. We entered the palace by the side door through which the pages came and went, crossed the width of the building by musty passages most of them below ground, here and there coming out level with little green courtyards.