“I thank your Majesty,” said the young girl quickly. “I need nothing.”
“I will be your physician,” answered Philip, very suavely. “I shall insist upon your taking the medicine I prescribe.”
He did not turn his eyes from her as Perez brought a gold salver and offered Dolores the glass. It was impossible to refuse, so she lifted it to her lips and sipped a little.
“I thank your Majesty,” she said again. “I thank you, sir,” she said gravely to Perez as she set down the glass, but she did not raise her eyes to his face as she spoke any more than she would have done if he had been a footman.
“I have much to say to you, and some questions to ask of you,” the King began, speaking very slowly, but with extreme suavity.
He paused, and coughed a little, but Dolores said nothing. Then he began to look at her again, and while he spoke he steadily examined every detail of her appearance till his inscrutable gaze had travelled from her headdress to the points of her velvet slippers, and finally remained fixed upon her mouth in a way that disturbed her even more than the speech he made. Perez had resumed his seat.
“In my life,” he began, speaking of himself quite without formality, “I have suffered more than most men, in being bereaved of the persons to whom I have been most sincerely attached. The most fortunate and successful sovereign in the world has been and is the most unhappy man in his kingdom. One after another, those I have loved have been taken from me, until I am almost alone in the world that is so largely mine. I suppose you cannot understand that, my dear, for my sorrows began before you were born. But they have reached their crown and culmination to-day in the death of my dear brother.”
He paused, watching her mouth, and he saw that she was making a superhuman effort to control herself, pressing the beautiful lips together, though they moved gainfully in spite of her, and visibly lost colour.
“Perez,” he said after a moment, “you may go and take some rest. I will send for you when I need you.”
The Secretary rose, bowed low, and left the room by a small masked door in a corner. The King waited till he saw it close before he spoke again. His tone changed a little then and his words came quickly, as if he felt here constraint.
“I feel,” he said, “that we are united by a common calamity, my dear. I intend to take you under my most particular care and protection from this very hour. Yes, I know!” he held up his hand o deprecate any interruption, for Dolores seemed about to speak. “I know why you come to me, you wish to intercede for your father. That is natural, and you are right to come to me yourself, for I would rather hear your voice than that of another speaking for you, and I would rather grant any mercy in my power to you directly than to some personage of the court who would be seeking his own interest as much as yours.”
“I ask justice, not mercy, Sire,” said Dolores, in a firm, low voice, and the fire lightened in her eyes.
“Your father shall have both,” answered Philip, “for they are compatible.”
“He needs no mercy,” returned the young girl, “for he has done no harm. Your Majesty knows that as well as I.”
“If I knew that, my dear, your father would not be under arrest. I cannot guess what you know or do not know—”
“I know the truth.” She spoke so confidently that the King’s expression changed a little.
“I wish I did,” he answered, with as much suavity as ever. “But tell me what you think you know about this matter. You may help me to sift it, and then I shall be the better able to help you, if such a thing be possible. What do you know?”
Dolores leaned forward toward him from her seat, almost rising as she lowered her voice to a whisper, her eyes fixed on his face.
“I was close behind the door your Majesty wished to open,” she said. “I heard every word; I heard your sword drawn and I heard Don John fall — and then it was some time before I heard my father’s voice, taking the blame upon himself, lest it should be said that the King had murdered his own brother in his room, unarmed. Is that the truth, or not?”
While she was speaking, a greenish hue overspread Philip’s face, ghastly in the candlelight. He sat upright in his chair, his hands straining on its arms and pushing, as if he would have got farther back if he could. He had foreseen everything except that Dolores had been in the next room, for his secret spies had informed him through Perez that her father had kept her a prisoner during the early part of the evening and until after supper.
“When you were both gone,” Dolores continued, holding him under her terrible eyes, “I came in, and I found him dead, with the wound in his left breast, and he was unarmed, murdered without a chance for his life. There is blood upon my dress where it touched his — the blood of the man I loved, shed by you. Ah, he was right to call you coward, and he died for me, because you said things of me that no loving man would bear. He was right to call you coward — it was well said — it was the last word he spoke, and I shall not forget it. He had borne everything you heaped upon himself, your insults, your scorn of his mother, but he would not let you cast a slur upon my name, and if you had not killed him out of sheer cowardice, he would have struck you in the face. He was a man! And then my father took the blame to save you from the monstrous accusation, and that all might believe him guilty he told the lie that saved you before them all. Do I know the truth? Is one word of that not true?”
She had quite risen now and stood before him like an accusing angel. And he, who was seldom taken unawares, and was very hard to hurt, leaned back and suffered, slowly turning his head from side to side against the back of the high carved chair.
“Confess that it is true!” she cried, in concentrated tones. “Can you not even find courage for that? You are not the King now, you are your brother’s murderer, and the murderer of the man I loved, whose wife I should have been to-morrow. Look at me, and confess that I have told the truth. I am a Spanish woman, and I would not see my country branded before the world with the shame of your royal murders, and if you will confess and save my father, I will keep your secret for my country’s sake. But if not — then you must either kill me here, as you slew him, or by the God that made you and the mother that bore you, I will tell all Spain what you are, and the men who loved Don John of Austria shall rise and take your blood for his blood, though it be blood royal, and you shall die, as you killed, like the coward you are!”
The King’s eyes were closed, and still his great pale head moved slowly from side to side; for he was suffering, and the torture of mind he had made Mendoza bear was avenged already. But he was silent.
“Will you not speak?” asked the young girl, with blazing eyes. “Then find some weapon and kill me here before I go, for I shall not wait till you find many words.”
She was silent, and she stood upright in the act to go. He made no sound, and she moved towards the door, stood still, then moved again and then again, pausing for his answer at each step. He heard her, but could not bring himself to speak the words she demanded of him. She began to walk quickly. Her hand was almost on the door when he raised himself by the arms of his chair, and cried out to her in a frightened voice: —
“No, no! Stay here — you must not go — what do you want me to say?”
She advanced a step again, and once more stood still and met his scared eyes as he turned his face towards her.
“Say, ‘You have spoken the truth,’” she answered, dictating to him as if she were the sovereign and he a guilty subject.
She waited a moment and then moved as if she would go out.
“Stay — yes — it is true — I did it — for God’s mercy do not betray me!”
He almost screamed the words out to her, half rising, his body bent, his face livid in his extreme fear. She came slowly back towards him, keeping her eyes upon him as if he were some dangerous wild animal that she controlled by her look alone.
“That is not all,” she said. “That was for me, that I might hear the words from your own lips. There is somet
hing more.”
“What more do you want of me?” asked Philip, in thick tones, leaning back exhausted in his chair.
“My father’s freedom and safety,” answered Dolores. “I must have an order for his instant release. He can hardly have reached his prison yet. Send for him. Let him come here at once, as a free man.”
“That is impossible,” replied Philip. “He has confessed the deed before the whole court — he cannot possibly be set at liberty without a trial. You forget what you are asking — indeed you forget yourself altogether too much.”
He was gathering his dignity again, by force of habit, as his terror subsided, but Dolores was too strong for him.
“I am not asking anything of your Majesty; I am dictating terms to my lover’s murderer,” she said proudly.
“This is past bearing, girl!” cried Philip hoarsely. “You are out of your mind — I shall call servants to take you away to a place of safety. We shall see what you will do then. You shall not impose your insolence upon me any longer.”
Dolores reflected that it was probably in his power to carry out the threat, and to have her carried off by the private door through which Perez had gone out. She saw in a flash how great her danger was, for she was the only witness against him, and if he could put her out of the way in a place of silence, he could send her father to trial and execution without risk to himself, as he had certainly intended to do. On the other hand, she had been able to terrify him to submission a few moments earlier. In the instant working of her woman’s mind, she recollected how his fright had increased as she had approached the door by which she had entered. His only chance of accomplishing her disappearance lay in having her taken away by some secret passage, where no open scandal could be possible.
Before she answered his last angry speech, she had almost reached the main entrance again.
“Call whom you will,” she said contemptuously. “You cannot save yourself. Don Ruy Gomez is on the other side of that door, and there are chamberlains and guards there, too. I shall have told them all the truth before your men can lay hands on me. If you will not write the order to release my father, I shall go out at once. In ten minutes there will be a revolution in the palace, and to-morrow all Spain will be on fire to avenge your brother. Spain has not forgotten Don Carlos yet! There are those alive who saw you give Queen Isabel the draught that killed her — with your own hand. Are you mad enough to think that no one knows those things, that your spies, who spy on others, do not spy on you, that you alone, of all mankind, can commit every crime with impunity?”
“Take care, girl! Take care!”
“Beware — Don Philip of Austria, King of Spain and half the world, lest a girl’s voice be heard above yours, and a girl’s hand loosen the foundation of your throne, lest all mankind rise up to-morrow and take your life for the lives you have destroyed! Outside this door here, there are men who guess the truth already, who hate you as they hate Satan, and who loved your brother as every living being loved him — except you. One moment more — order my father to be set free, or I will open and speak. One moment! You will not? It is too late — you are lost!”
Her hand went out to open, but Philip was already on his feet, and with quick, clumsy steps he reached the writing-table, seized the pen Perez had thrown down, and began to scrawl words rapidly in his great angular handwriting. He threw sand upon it to dry the ink, and then poured the grains back into the silver sandbox, glanced at the paper and held it out to Dolores without a word. His other hand slipped along the table to a silver bell, used for calling his private attendants, but the girl saw the movement and instinctively suspected his treachery. He meant her to come to the table, when he would ring the bell and then catch her and hold her by main force till help came. Her faculties were furiously awake under the strain she bore, and outran his slow cunning.
“If you ring that bell, I will open,” she said imperiously. “I must have the paper here, where I am safe, and I must read it myself before I shall be satisfied.”
“You are a terrible woman,” said the King, but she did not like his smile as he came towards her, holding out the document.
She took it from his hand, keeping her eyes on his, for something told her that he would try to seize her and draw her from the door while she was reading it. For some seconds they faced each other in silence, and she knew by his determined attitude that she was right, and that it would not be safe to look down. She wondered why he did not catch her in his arms as she stood, and then she realized that her free hand was on the latch of the door, and that he knew it. She slowly turned the handle, and drew the door to her, and she saw his face fall. She moved to one side so that she could have sprung out if he had tried violence, and then at last she allowed her eyes to glance at the paper. It was in order and would be obeyed; she saw that, at a glance, for it said that Don Diego de Mendoza was to be set at liberty instantly and unconditionally.
“I humbly thank your Majesty, and take my leave,” she said, throwing the door wide open and curtseying low.
A chamberlain who had seen the door move on its hinges stepped in to shut it, for it opened inward. The King beckoned him in, and closed it, but before it was quite shut, he heard Dolores’ voice.
“Don Ruy Gomez,” she was saying, “this is an order to set my father at liberty unconditionally and at once. I do not know to whom it should be given. Will you take it for me and see to it?”
“I will go to the west tower myself,” he said, beginning to walk with her. “Such good news is even better when a friend brings it.”
“Thank you. Tell him from me that he is safe, for his Majesty has told me that he knows the whole truth. Will you do that? You have been very kind to me to-night, Prince — let me thank you with all my heart now, for we may not meet again. You will not see me at court after this, and I trust my father will take us back to Valladolid and live with us.”
“That would be wise,” answered Ruy Gomez. “As for any help I have given you, it has been little enough and freely given. I will not keep your father waiting for his liberty. Good-night, Doña Dolores.”
CHAPTER XIX
ALL THAT HAD happened from the time when Don John had fallen in his room to the moment when Dolores left her sister on the terrace had occupied little more than half an hour, during which the King had descended to the hall, Mendoza had claimed the guilt of Don John’s murder, and the two had gone out under the protection of the guards. As soon as Dolores was out of hearing, Inez rose and crept along the terrace to Don John’s door. In the confusion that had ensued upon the announcement of his death no one had thought of going to him; every one took it for granted that some one else had done what was necessary, and that his apartments were filled with physicians and servants. It was not the first time in history that a royal personage had thus been left alone an hour, either dead or dying, because no one was immediately responsible, and such things have happened since.
Inez stole along the terrace and found the outer door open, as the dwarf had left it when he had carried Dolores out in his arms. She remembered that the voices she had heard earlier had come from rooms on the left of the door, and she felt her way to the entrance of the bedchamber, and then went in without hesitation. Bending very low, so that her hands touched the floor from time to time, she crept along, feeling for the body she expected to find. Suddenly she started and stood upright in an instant. She had heard a deep sigh in the room, not far off.
She listened intently, but even her ears could detect no sound after that. She was a little frightened, not with any supernatural fear, for the blind, who live in the dark for ever, are generally singularly exempt from such terrors, but because she had thought herself alone with the dead man, and did not wish to be discovered.
“Who is here?” she asked quickly, but there was no answer out of the dead stillness.
She stood quite still a few seconds and then crept forward again, bending down and feeling before her along the floor. A moment later her hand touched
velvet, and she knew that she had found what she sought. With a low moan she fell upon her knees and felt for the cold hand that lay stretched out upon the marble pavement beyond the thick carpet. Her hand followed the arm, reached the shoulder and then the face. Her fingers fluttered lightly upon the features, while her own heart almost stood still She felt no horror of death, though she had never been near a dead person before; and those who were fond of her had allowed her to feel their features with her gentle hands, and she knew beauty through her touch, by its shape. Though her heart was breaking, she had felt that once, before it was too late, she must know the face she had long loved in dreams. Her longing satisfied, her grief broke out again, and she let herself fall her length upon the floor beside Don John, one arm across his chest, her head resting against the motionless shoulder, her face almost hidden against the gathered velvet and silk of his doublet. Once or twice she sobbed convulsively, and then she lay quite still, trying with all her might to die there, on his arm, before any one came to disturb her. It seemed very simple, just to stop living and stay with him for ever.
Again she heard a sound of deep-drawn breath — but it was close to her now, and her own arm moved with it on his chest — the dead man had moved, he had sighed. She started up wildly, with a sharp cry, half of paralyzing fear, and half of mad delight in a hope altogether impossible. Then, he drew his breath again, and it issued from his lips with a low groan. He was not quite dead yet, he might speak to her still, he could hear her voice, perhaps, before he really died. She could never have found courage to kiss him, even then she could have blushed scarlet at the thought, but she bent down to his face, very close to it, till her cheek almost touched his as she spoke in a very trembling, low voice.
“Not yet — not yet — come back for one moment, only for one little moment! Oh, let it be God’s miracle for me!”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 975