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Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV 
    SANTA FÉ rose before me, a camp in wood, plaster and stone, a camp with a palace, a camp with churches. Built of a piece where no town had stood, built that Majesty and its Court and its Army might have roofs and walls, not tents, for so long a siege, it covered the plain, a city raised in a night. The siege had been long as the war had been long. Hidalgo Spain and simple Spain were gathered here in great squares and ribbons of valor, ambition, emulation, desire of excitement and of livelihood, and likewise, I say it, in pieces not small, herded and brought here without any "I say yes" of their own, and to their misery. There held full flavor of crusade, as all along the war had been preached as a crusade. Holy Church had here her own grandees, cavaliers and footmen. They wore cope and they wore cowl, and on occasion many endued themselves with armor and hacked and hewed with an earthly sword. At times there seemed as many friars and priests as soldiers. Out and in went a great Queen and King. Their court was here. The churchmen pressed around the Queen. Famous leaders put on or took off armor in Santa Fé, -- the Marquis of Cadiz and many others only less than he in estimation, and one Don Gonsalvo de Cordova, whose greater fame was yet to come. Military and shining youth came to train and fight under these. Old captains-at-arms, gaunt and scarred, made their way thither from afar. All were not Spaniard; many a soldier out at fortune or wishful of fame came from France and Italy, even from England and Germany. Women were in Santa Fé. The Queen had her 



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ladies. Wives, sisters and daughters of hidalgos came to visit, and the common soldiery had their mates. Nor did there lack courtesans. 

   Petty merchants thronged the place. All manner of rich goods were bought by the flushed soldiers, the high and the low. And there dwelled here a host of those who sold entertainment, -- mummers and jugglers and singers, dwarfs and giants. Dice rattled, now there were castanets and dancing, and now church bells seemed to rock the place. Wine flowed. 

   Out of the plain a league and more away sprang the two hills of Granada, and pricked against the sky, her walls and thousand towers and noble gates. Between them and Santa Fé stretched open and ruined ground, and here for many a day had shocked together the Spaniard and the Moor. But now there was no longer battle. Granada had asked and been granted seventy days in which to envisage and accept her fate. These were nearing the end. Lost and beaten, haggard with woe and hunger and pestilence, the city stood over against us, above the naked plain, all her outer gardens stripped away, bare light striking the red Alhambra and the Citadel. When the wind swept over her and on to Santa Fé it seemed to bring a sound of wailing and the faint and terrible odor of a long besieged place. 

   I came at eve into Santa Fé, found at last an inn of the poorer sort, ate scant supper and went to bed. Dawn came with a great ringing of church bells. 

   Out of the inn, in the throbbing street, I began my search for Don Enrique de Cerda. One told me one thing and one another, but at last I got true direction. At noon I found him in a goodly room where be made recovery from wounds. Now he walked and now he sat, his arm in a sling and a bandage like a turban around his head. A page took him the word I gave. "Juan Lepe. From the hermitage in the oak wood." It sufficed. When I entered he gazed, then coming to me, put his unbound hand over mine. "Why," he asked, " `Juan Lepe'?" 



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   I glanced toward the page and he dismissed him, whereupon I explained the circumstances. 

   We sat by the window, and again rose for us the hermitage in the oak wood at foot of a mountain, and the small tower that slew in ugly fashion. Again we were young men, together in strange dangers, learning there each other's mettle. He had not at all forgotten. 

   He offered to go to Seville, as soon as Granada should fall, and find and fight Don Pedro. I shook my head. I could have done that had I seen it as the way." 

   He agreed that Don Pedro was now the minor peril. It is evil to chain thought! In our day we think boldly of a number of things. But touch King or touch Church -- the cord is around your neck!" 

   I said that I supposed I had been rash. 

   He nodded. "Yes. You were rash that day in the oak wood. Less rash, and my bones would be lying there, under tree." He rose and walked the room, then came to me and put his unhurt arm about my shoulders. "Don Jayme, we swore that day comrade love and service -- and that day is now; twilight has never come to it, the leaves of the oak wood have never fallen! The Holy Office shall not have thee!" 

   "Don Enrique -- " 

   We sat down and drank each a little wine, and fell to ways and means. 

   I rested Juan Lepe in the household of Don Enrique de Cerda, one figure among many, involved in the swarm of fighting and serving men. There was a squire who had served him long. To this man, Diego Lopez, I was committed, with enough told to enlist his intelligence. He managed for me in the intricate life of the place with a skill to make god Mercury applaud. Don Enrique and I were rarely together, rarely were seen by men to speak one to the other. But in the inner world we were together. 

   Days passed. We found nothing yet to do while all listening and doing at Santa Fé were bound up in the crumbling 



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of Granada into Spanish hands. It seemed best to wait, watching chances. 

   Meantime the show glittered, and man's strong stomach cried "Life! More life!" It glittered at Santa Fé before Granada, and it was a dying ember in Granada before Santa Fé. The one glittered and triumphed because the other glittered and triumphed not. And who above held the balances even and neither sorrowed nor was feverishly elated but went his own way could only be seen from the Vega like a dream or a line from a poet. 

   For the most part the nobles and cavaliers in Santa Fé spent as though hard gold were spiritual gold to be gathered endlessly. One might say, "They go into a garden and shake tree each morning, which tree puts forth again in the night." None seemed to see as on a map laid down Spain and the broken peasant and the digger of the gold. None seemed to feel that toil which or soon or late they must recognize for their own toil. Toil in Spain, toil in other and far lands whence came their rich things, toil in Europe, Arabia and India! Apparel at Santa Fé was a thing to marvel at. The steed no less than his rider went gorgeous. The King and Queen, it was said, did not like this peacocking, but might not help it. 

   They themselves were pouring gold into the lap of the Church. It was a capacious lap. 

   Wars were general enough, God knew! But not every year could one find a camp where the friar was as common as the archer or the pikeman, and the prelate as the plumed chieftain. 

   Santa Fé was court no less than camp, court almost as though it were Cordova. This Queen and King at least did not live at ease in palaces while others fought their wars. North, south, east and west, through the ten years, they had been the moving springs. It was an able King and Queen, a politic King and a sincere and godly Queen, even a loving Queen. If only -- if only -- 

   I had been a week and more in Santa Fé when King Boabdil 



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surrendered Granada. He left forever the Alhambra. Granada gates opened; he rode out with a few of his emirs and servants to meet King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The day shone bright. Spain towered, a figure dressed in gold and red. 

   Santa Fé poured out to view the spectacle, and with the rest went Diego Lopez and Juan Lepe. So great festival, so vivid the color, so echoing the sound, so stately and various the movement! Looking at the great strength massing there on the plain I said aloud, as I thought, to Diego Lopez, "Now they might do some worthy great thing!" 

   The squire not answering, I became aware that a swirl in the throng had pushed him from me. Still there came an answer in a deep and peculiarly thrilling voice. "That is a true saying and a good augury!" 

   I learn much by voices and before I turned I knew that this was an enthusiast's voice, but not an enthusiast without knowledge. Whoever spoke was strong enough, real enough. I liked the voice and felt a certain inner movement of friendship. Some shift among the great actors, some parting of banners, kept us suspended and staring for a moment, then the view closed against us who could only behold by snatches. Freed, I turned to see who had spoken and found a tall, strongly made, white-haired man. The silver hair was too soon; he could hardly have been ten years my elder. He had a long, fair face that might once have been tanned and hardened by great exposure. His skin had that look, but now the bronze was faded, and you could see that he had been born very fair in tint. Across the high nose and cheek bones went a powdering of freckles. His eyes were bluish-gray and I saw at once that he habitually looked at things afar off. 

   He was rather poorly dressed and pushed about as I was. When the surge again gave him footing, he spoke beside me. " `Now that this is over, they might do some great, worthy thing!' Very true, friend, they might! I take your words for good omen." The throng shot out an arm and we were 



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parted. The same action brought back to me Diego Lopez. Speaking to him later of the tall man, he said that he had noticed him, and that it was the Italian who would go to India by way of Ocean-Sea. 

   King Boabdil gave up his city to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Over Granada, high against the bright sky, rose and floated the banners. Cannon, the big lombards, roared. Mars' music crashed out, then the trumpets ceased their crying and instead spread a mighty chanting. Te Deum Laudamus! 

   At last the massed brightness out in the plain quivered and parted. The pageantry broke, wide curving and returning with some freedom but with order too, into Santa Fé. I saw the Queen and the King with their children, and the Grand Cardinal, and prelates and prelates, and the Marquis of Cadiz, and many a grandee and famous knight. Don Enrique de Cerda and his troop came by. 

   Diego Lopez and I returned to the town. I saw again the man who would find India by a way unpassed, as far as one knew, since the world began! He was entering a house with a friar beside him. Something came into my mind of the convent of La Rabida.



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Chapter 5
CHAPTER V 
    SOME days went by. The King and the Queen with the court and a great train of prelates and grandees and knights rode in state through Granada. Don Enrique, returning, told me of it in his room at night, of the Christian service in the mosque and the throning in the Alhambra. 

   "Now," he said, "after great affairs, our affairs! I have had speech with the Marchioness of Moya." 

   "That is the Queen's friend?" 

   "Yes. Doña Beatrix de Boabdilla. We stood together by a fountain, and when she said, `What can I do for you?' I answered, `There is something.' Then while all went in pageantry before us, I told her of the hermitage in the oak wood and of the unhappy small tower, and of you and me and those others, and what was done that day. Don Jayme, I told it like a minstrel who believes what he sings! And then I spoke of to-day. She is no puny soul, nor is she in priest's grip. She acts from her own vision, not from that of another. The Queen is no weak soul either! She also has vision, but too often she lets the churchmen take her vision from her. But Doña Beatrix is stronger there. Well, she promises help if we can show her how to help." 

   I said, "I have been thinking. It seems to me that it was wrong to come here and put my weight upon you." 

   "No!" he answered. "Did we not swear then, when we were young men? And we needed no oaths neither. Let such thoughts be. -- I am going to the palace to-morrow, and you with me. The King and the Queen ride with a great train into Granada. But Doña Beatrix will excuse 



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herself from going. The palace will be almost empty, and we shall find her in the little gallery above the Queen's garden." 

   The next morning we went there, Don Enrique de Cerda and his squire, Juan Lepe. The palace rose great and goodly enough, with the church at hand. All had been built as by magic, silken pavilions flying away and stout houses settling themselves down. Sunk among the walls had been managed a small garden for the Queen and her ladies. A narrow, latticed and roofed gallery built without the Queen's rooms looked down upon orange and myrtle trees and a fountain. Here we found the Marchioness de Moya, with her two waiting damsels whom she set by the gallery door. Don Enrique kissed her hand and then motioned to me. Don Jayme de Marchena made his reverence. 

   She was a strong woman who would go directly to the heart of things. Always she would learn from the man himself. She asked me this and I answered; that and the other and I answered. "Don Pedro -- ?" I told the enmity there and the reason for it. "The Jewish rabbi, my great-grand father?" I avowed it, but by three Castilian and Christian great-grandfathers could not be counted as Jew! Practise Judaism? No. My grandmother Judith had been Christian. 

   She drove to the heart of it. "You yourself are Christian. What do you mean by that? What the Queen means? What the Grand Cardinal and the Archbishop of Granada means? What the Holy Office means?" 

   I kept silence for a moment, then I told her as well as I might, without fever and without melancholy, what I had written and of the Dominican. 

   "You have been," she said, "an imprudent cavalier." 

   The fountain flashed below us, a gray dove flew over garden. I said, "There is a text, `With all thy getting, get understanding.' There is another, `For God so loved the world' -- that He wished to impart understanding." 

   She sat quiet, seeming to listen to the fountain. Then 



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she said, "Are you ready to avow when they ask you that in every particular to which the Grand Inquisitor may point you are wrong, and that all that Holy Church through mouth of Holy Office says is right?" 

   I said, "No, Madam! Present Church is not as large as Truth, nor as fair as Beauty." 

   "You may think that, but will you say the other?" 

   "Say that church or kingdom exactly matches Truth and Beauty?" 

   "That is what I am sure you will have to say." 

   "Then, no!" 

   "I do not see," she said, "that I can do anything for you." 

   There was a chair beside her. She sat down, her chin on her hand and her eyes lowered. Silence held save for the fountain plashing. Don Enrique stood by the railing, and Jayme de Marchena felt his concern. But he himself walked just then -- Don Jayme or Juan Lepe -- into long patience, into greater steadfastness. Into the inner fields came translucence, gold light; came and faded, but left strength. 

   Doña Beatrix raised her eyes and let them dwell upon me. "Spain breeds bold knights," she said, "but not so many after all who are bold within! Not so many, I think, as are found in Italy or in France." She paused a moment, looking at the sky above the roofs, then came back to me. "It is hopeless, and you must see it, to talk in those terms to the only powers that can lead the Holy Office to forget that you live! It is hopeless to talk to the Queen, telling her that. She would hold that she had entertained heresy, and her imagination would not let her alone. I see naught in this world for you to do but to go out of it into another! There are other lands -- " 

   A damsel hurried to her from the door. "There's a stir below, Madam! Something has brought the Queen home earlier than we thought -- " 

   The Marchioness de Moya rose. Don Enrique kissed her hand, and Jayme de Marchena kissed it and thanked her. "I 



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would help if I could!" she said. "But in Spain to-day it is deadly dangerous to talk or write as though there were freedom!" 

   She passed from the gallery, Don Enrique and I following. We came upon a landing with a great stair before us. Quick as had been her maidens, they were not quick enough. Many folk were coming up the broad steps. Doña Beatrix glanced, then opened a door giving into a great room, apparently empty. She pointed to an opposite door. "The little stair! Go that way!" Don Enrique nodded comprehension. We were in the room; the door closed. 

   At first it seemed an empty great chamber. Then from behind a square of stretched cloth came a man's head, followed by the figure pertaining to it. The full man was clad after a rich fancy and he held in his hand a brush and looked at us at first dreamily and then with keenness. 

   He knew me, differently arrayed though I was, and looked from me to Don Enrique. "Master Manuel Rodriguez," said the latter, "I would stop for good talk and to admire the Queen's likeness, but duty calls me out of palace! Adios!" He made toward the door across from that by which we had entered. The painter spoke after us. "That door is bolted, Don Enrique, on the other side. I do not know why! It is not usually so." 

   Don Enrique, turning, hurried to the first door and very slightly opened it. A humming entered the large, quiet room. He closed the door. "The Queen is coming up the great stair. The Archbishop of Granada is with her and a whole train beside!" He spoke to the painter. "I have no audience, and for reasons would not choose this moment as one in which to encounter the least disfavor! I will stay here before your picture and admire until landing and stairways are bare." 

   "If to be invisible is your desire," answered Manuel Rodriguez, "you have walked into trouble! The Queen is coming here." 

   Don Enrique exclaimed. Juan Lepe turned eyes to the 



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painter. The blue eyes met mine -- there rose the rushy pool, there dozed the broken boat. Manuel Rodriguez spoke in his voice that was at once cool and fine and dry and warm. "It is best to dare thoroughly! Perhaps I may help you -- as thus! Wishing to speak with Don Enrique of an altar painting for the Church of Saint Dominic, I asked him here and he came. We talked, and he will give the picture. Then, hearing the Queen's approach, he would instantly have been gone, but alack, the small door is barred! -- As for fisherman yonder, few look at squire when knight is in presence!" 

   No time to debate his offer, which indeed was both wise and kind! Chamberlains flung open the door. In came the Queen, with her the Princess Juana and several of her ladies. Beside her walked Fernando de Talavera, Her Highness's confessor, yesterday Bishop of Avila but now Archbishop of Granada. Behind him moved two lesser ecclesiastics, and with these Don Alonzo de Quintanella, Comptroller-General of Castile. Others followed, nobles and cavaliers, two soberly clad men who looked like secretaries, a Franciscan friar, three or four pages. The room was large and had a table covered with a rich cloth, two great chairs and a few lesser ones. 

   The painter and Don Enrique bent low to the Majesty of Castile. In the background Juan Lepe made squire's obeisance. I was bearded and my face stained with a Moorish stain, and I was in shadow; it was idle to fear recognition that might never come. The Queen seated herself, and her daughter beside her, and with her good smile motioned the Archbishop to a chair. The two ecclesiastics, both venerable men, were given seats. The rest of the company stood. The Queen's blue eyes rested on Don Enrique. She spoke in a clear, mild voice, threaded with dignity. Were you summoned thither, Don Enrique de Cerda?" 

   He answered, "No, Highness! I came to the palace to seek Master Manuel Rodriguez who is to paint for me an altarpiece for the Church of Saint Dominic. You and the 

