CHAPTER XXXV
Don Pedro
OH! the beautiful south it is at Seville! Nothing can shut it out! With its glamour of all strange things in nature, story, and song; Moslem and Christian knights and lovely sultanas hung with priceless pearls, dead caliphs haunting blood-stained towers, shades of Christian conquerors and swarthy slaves, the curse of a murderous past, the glitter of a glorious present, the clash, the confusion, Arab palaces, marble-paved, heavy with far-off tales, and gates, walls, and castles of nations long died out, yet with a poetic life still speaking!
The narrow streets, across which lovers still whisper to each other under the moon, the unshuttered windows, iron-bound, where Inez may creep down and warble to Alonso, concealed in a dark mantle behind the shadow of a wall, where roses fling curtains of perfumed blossom, orange petals scent the air, and southern sunsets spread sudden splendours in the afterglow, as the earth lies black under a sky palpitating like a furnace, till night falls and countless stars come forth to light a paler day!
Two things are most notable at Seville; the great mosque, now the cathedral, and the Alcazar. The Alcazar, inhabited by long generations of Arab caliphs up to the time of St. Fernando, is still untouched, a Moorish fortress in the centre of the city, girt by tapia walls and castellated towers. Not a poetic ruin like the Alhambra, but a real substantial castle, reached through the Plaza del Trionfo by which Fernando passed.
It was again rebuilt and redecorated by Don Pedro el Cruel, 1350, King of Castile and Leon, at the same period as the Alhambra, Yussuf, Caliph of Granada, being on such friendly terms with Don Pedro that the same Moorish architect wrought for both.
Passing an outer barbican with two low towers the Patio de las Banderas, where floats the flag of Spain, a dark corridor leads to the inner Patio de la Monteria, where the portal of Don Pedro blazes in the sun, a glittering blending of red, blue, and gold, set on snowy surfaces of finest fretwork; painted roofs casting rich shadows, arabesques formed into Cufic letters, diapered borders parting into groups of horseshoe arches, and a Gothic inscription setting forth “that the most high and powerful Don Pedro, by the Grace of God King of Castile and Leon, ordered these castles and fortresses to be re-erected.” The magic of it all is wonderful, coming into sight as it does, rising tier above tier, parapet on parapet, in a glow of Oriental colour, to a central dome cutting against the azure sky; the door a curious mosaic of dark wood, and on either side low marble benches, sunk into the arcaded carvings of the wall, where the young King Don Pedro sat to administer justice to all who came, while his dark-haired mistress, Maria de Padilla, watched from above, leaning out of the central mirador (window) of her chamber, still used as a retiring room for the queens of Spain.
One morning Don Pedro, taking his place as usual, surrounded by his alguazils, commanded that certain men should be brought before him whose arrest he had ordered as they were drifting down the Guadalquivir with the tide to Cadiz upon a wooden raft. His knitted brows and sinister aspect boded ill to the rough-looking countrymen brought trembling into the court.
“How comes it, fellows,” asks the king, his steely-blue eyes fixed on the foremost man, “that you dare to come to Seville to cheat me of the dues on the timber that floats down the stream? Think you you will escape unpunished?”
“O King,” one of the men answers, falling on his knees, “in what have we offended? We are four poor men from Puerta Santa Maria, incapable of deceiving any one – much less your royal Grace.”
“Liar!” roars the young king, starting from his seat. “Look at me. Do you not know me?”
“No, my lord, I have never to my knowledge set eyes on you before.”
“You did not meet me last night upon the quay?”
“No, my liege.”
“Come now,” and a cynical smile spreads over his fair young face, “remember! Did not a stranger help you to unload a raft? A fellow you found sleeping under a boat wrapped in a cloak? Did you not wake him and promise to pay him well, if he would aid you to land certain timber so that you might start before sunrise?”
“O King, it is true; we spoke with such a fellow – mean, almost in rags – and he did help us after sunset to land some wood. We paid him and let him go, and the king’s dues on it were lodged at the Torre d’Oro before we left.”
“Villains!” cries the king, his features darkening. “A pretty example! This is how my subjects rob and cheat and lie. I should like to cut off your heads with my own hand. Know you that I was that fellow who helped you, ‘that mean person in rags.’ Did you not say the night was dark, and that no man would see you land the timber and you would escape the dues? And did you not add that those dues were wrung unjustly from poor men? and that the king who slept in the golden chambers would be none the worse if he lost them? And did I not tell you that my name was Pedro—Pedro?” Here the cruel boy broke into a mocking laugh, more terrible than threats. “Now I am that Pedro, King of Castile and Leon and Caliph of Cordoba and Seville!”
Then turning to the mutes, who stood with drawn swords behind: “Cut off the heads of these carrion and set them on the wharf, that all men may know me as I am, El Rey Justiciero.”
Looking at Don Pedro, son of Alonso XI. – 1312 – (who was cruel also and made away with his enemies remorselessly) – he is not such a remote personage after all. He was contemporary with the Black Prince, son of Eleanor of Castile, daughter of Alfonso el Sabio, and four short reigns bring him almost into modern times with Fernando and Isabel, the parents of Caterina of Aragon, wife of Henry VIII.
The times were stirring when he came to the throne. The Crusades were not over, and the world was moved by wars, murders, and pestilence.
Young as he was, under twenty when he succeeded his father, Don Pedro fixed the attention of Europe; the most prominent figure in Spain since the time of San Fernando, and as fantastic, brave, handsome, and unscrupulous as a Castilian prince should be.
Yet it must not be forgotten that during his short reign he civilised the south of Spain by a close alliance with the cultivated Moors of Granada; that he loved the arts and industries in which they excelled, and during his brief periods of leisure from incessant wars, surrounded himself with all that was illustrious in the Mussulman race – still the mediæval depositors of knowledge in Spain, as the monks were in Central Europe. As long as he lived he never abandoned these artistic tastes, and has left in the Alcazar a monument of exquisite architecture, which sends down his name to posterity with honour.
In a small plaza not far from the Casa de Pilatos, popularly believed to have been constructed on the model of the Proconsular Palace at Jerusalem in which Pilate lived, by a travelled ancestor of the San Sidonia family, a small bust of Don Pedro is let into a house wall.
From this we know him as he was: regular aquiline features, with soft youthful lines, long waves of rippling curls fall on his shoulders, and a low pointed crown presses upon his smooth brow. One hand rests on the hilt of a sword, the other grasps a Gothic sceptre. The place where the bust is placed is called the Calle del Candilejo, in the middle of narrow alleys unaltered since the Moors.
Now the story goes that in one of his midnight rambles, for he wandered about like the Caliph Haroun el Raschid, Don Pedro found himself in the Calle del Candilejo (of the candle), where he ran up against a hidalgo, who turned and struck him. Some say that he was a noted duellist, with whom Don Pedro had long desired to measure swords; others that he did not run up against the king at all, but that Don Pedro purposely attacked him. Anyhow swords were drawn freely. Neither would let the other go with his life, and both would sell their own dearly. At last, by a cunning lunge, Don Pedro ripped up his adversary and laid him at his feet.
Now, shortly before, the king had made a decree forbidding all fighting in the streets upon pain of death. What with love, revenge, jealousy, and robbery, so many citizens were killed that there were not enough left to fight.
What was to be done? There lay his adversary dead, and as Don Pedro gazed down upon his face he remembered that, according to his own decree, he had condemned himself to death. While he was wiping the blood from his sword, an idea struck him and he began to laugh. No one had seen the fight, no one could identify him. What an excellent occasion this would be of showing the carelessness of the Alcaide. If the Alcaide had done his duty and put guards about, such a thing could not have happened. Further, if the Alcaide could not discover him as the living man, he, Don Pedro, would have the pleasure of wringing off his neck. Altogether he returned to the Alcazar in high good humour.
The first thing he did next morning was to summon the Alcaide. “Sir Alcaide,” said he, leading him by the hand to a seat on his own divan, “I have called you to inquire whether any miscreant has dared to transgress my law against street-fighting. In these unsettled times it is needful that the king should be obeyed.”
“My lord,” replied the Alcaide, not altogether reassured by the king’s manner, too gracious to be sincere, “I am not aware that any one has offended.”
“Ha! say you so? Are you sure? For remember, if any fighting takes place within the city and the survivor escapes, I shall hold you responsible for the blood that is shed.”
At this the Alcaide grew very grave. He was quite aware that Don Pedro would be as good as his word, and trembled lest some hidden motive was prompting him. Nor was he left long in doubt. Before he could reply a Moorish page entered, bearing a paper on a silver salver, which no sooner had the king glanced at, than, starting to his feet, he swore a big oath.
“What,” he cries, “while you, Alcaide, are come here to lie and cringe, a more faithful servant warns me that a dead body was found last night in the plaza behind Pilatos’ house!”
“Sire,” replies the Alcaide, “if it be so, you have good reason to reproach me.”
“If!” shouts the king, in a well-simulated rage. “Do you dare to doubt me? Now, to teach you your duty, I warn you that if the criminal is not found in two days, you yourself shall hang in his place.”
The feelings of the Alcaide, a comfortable man with a wife and family, may be imagined. No sooner did he reach the Ayuntamiento than he found that a fight had really taken place, and a dead body been discovered. But alas! no one could give him the slightest clue. No one had seen the fight; no one knew the survivor.
At last, on the evening of the second day, when in sheer despair he had taken leave of his wife and children and sent for his confessor, an old woman looking like a witch, was shown into his presence, and astonished him by declaring that she could name the man. But what with his impatience and the breathless state of the old woman it was some time before he could get her to explain.
At last she spoke. “I had just fastened my door and was going upstairs, for it was late, when I heard a great clatter of swords at the opening of the Calle. As the night was dark and I could not see, I lit a candle and looked out of the window. There I saw two men fighting. As one, or both, will be sure to want to be laid out to-morrow (for my trade is with the dead), I will make sure, I said to myself. One had his back to me, the other was the king.”
“The king?”
“Yes, my lord, and no other. He was in common clothes and wore a mask; but when he had run his enemy through he took it off, and stood wiping his sword. I could see him as plainly as I see you. In a terrible fright, I blew out my candle, lest he should look up and kill me also; but he was too busy. If I had not seen his face,” continued the old woman, chuckling to herself, “I should have known him by the knocking of his knees. Everybody in Seville knows the noise the king makes when he walks.”
The old woman dismissed with proper thanks and a liberal reward, the Alcaide presented himself betimes at the Alcazar next morning, arriving just as Don Pedro was taking his seat upon the marble bench outside his dazzling portal, to judge all who came.
When Don Pedro beckoned to him to approach, the Alcaide smiled. “Well, sir officer,” says he, eyeing him all over with an evil smile, “have you found the man?”
“Yes, my lord, and nothing is easier than for your Grace to meet him face to face.” At which notion the Alcaide became so overwhelmed with mirth he had to turn away his face not to laugh outright.
“Is the man mad?” thought Don Pedro, “or is he mocking me?” Then a fit of passion seized him. “Villain,” he shouts, “you have found no one. You are shirking to save your life. Unless the real man is brought here – ”
“But, my lord,” breaks in the Alcaide, “if you know who the real man is, why do you command me to seek him?” To which shrewd question Don Pedro could find no reply; only if he hated the Alcaide before, he then and there resolved on the very next opportunity to cut off his head.
“Now,” and the Alcaide looks the young king full in the face, “will my lord permit me to take leave in order to make preparation for the execution? I think you insisted on the third day from the murder, that is to-morrow? As you yourself will be present, all must be arranged with fitting care.”
Then he called to him skilful Moorish artificers, for all the delicate work at that time was done by Moors, and caused them to construct during the night a life-sized figure or dummy, dressed in royal robes, to represent the king, a sword in one hand and a sceptre in the other. The next morning this figure was hung on a gibbet in the Plaza de San Francisco, Don Pedro himself being present, attended by all his court.
How he looked or in what manner he explained so strange a proceeding, tradition does not say; but when the crowned dummy was swinging in the air, the king called the Alcaide to him and said, “Justice has been done – I am satisfied.”
Ever since that time the spot where the King fought is called the “Calle della Cabeza del Rey Don Pedro,” and the narrow alley close by, where the old woman looked out of the window, the “Calle del Candilejo”; while, that there might be no mistake as to what took place there, a bust of Don Pedro is let into the wall.