Chapter 21 Columbus by Rafael Sabatini
THE MARCHIONESS
The chancellor of Aragon travelled in that state which became his quality and consequence. A dozen grooms, well mounted and well armed, with his blazon—azure, two chevrons argent—on the breast of their leather hacketons, served him for escort. A string of sumpter mules followed with his tents and baggage.
The little company rode south under the hot sun of June, and on the third day after leaving Cordoba it crossed the River Genil, and came out of dust and sultriness into the vast and miraculously green plain of the Vega and the breezes cooled by the snows of the Sierra Nevada. From the heights above the river they had viewed the Vega’s emerald expanse, interlaced with the sparkling silver of the snow-fed tributaries of the Genil, whence it derived a fecundity and a beauty comparable in Saracen eyes with the Plain of Damascus.
In the distance ahead of them, on the south bank of the parent stream, where tall poplars stood like a hedge of giant spears, they beheld the many coloured tents of the Spanish camp, an immense, sprawling city of silk and canvas under a cloud of fluttering banners and waving standards. Far beyond it, on the heights, hazy in the distance, stood the towers and minarets of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold, dominated by the embattled walls of Alhambra the Red, and taking for background the massive escarpments of the Sierra whose snow-capped heights were rose-flushed and opalescent in the evening sun.
At Santangel’s side Colon paused with him to view the opulent beauty of the prospect. Then they pushed on across the verdant plain, by vineyards and olive groves, by feathery acacia and flowering syringa, whose perfumes sweetened the breeze, beside acres of oats and of yellowing wheat, fields of gold splashed with the scarlet of poppies.
Colon rode in high hopes, among which, being human, was that of discomfiting those who had denounced him a trickster, flinging their malice in their teeth to shame them.
“Leave me to handle them,” Don Luis had insisted. “I’ll see their reverences choked with their own words. Your turn will follow.”
That had been settled between them before they left Cordoba. Where they had not agreed had been in the matter of Beatriz. Santangel had urged Colon to seek her at once, urged it with an insistence that surprised Colon by the interest in her which it suggested. Colon, however, had stood firm. He would not seek her until he could go to her with certain news. Meanwhile, to allay her anxieties, he sent her a note to inform her that his stolen property was recovered. Santangel struggled with a temptation to tell him the truth of what had occurred, but conquered it by the persuasion that the knowledge would come to him better in the form of a confession from Beatriz. Thus would the healing absolution be more certain.
They came at sunset to the outskirts of the vast encampment, the lines of ordnance and victualling carts, the herds of Andalusian and Arab horses, of mules and of donkeys, and the paddock of draught oxen. From the clamour and movement of this, they passed to the no less clamorous cluster of huts erected by the artisans; the smiths with their forges, the carpenters with their benches, the masons, rope-weavers and basket-makers, who made up the army of engineers to build bastions, causeways, bridges and what else was needed for the transport of the artillery, which was under the Queen’s own active ingenious direction.
Beyond these outskirts of the camp, they passed up long avenues of tents, about which soldiers took their evening ease, the noise and bustle of the place augmented by the voices of bards and ballad-stringers, the cries of pedlars who with their pack-mules or donkeys circulated everywhere seeking trade. But there were no other camp-followers to be seen, and none of the harpies who habitually prey upon troopers. In the camp of the chaste and pious Isabel nothing awaited them but the whip.
Moving slowly through the press, they came at last to the heart of the encampment, where about a great clearance were pitched the gay silken pavilions of the Sovereigns and their Court. Here were the purple tents of the warlike Cardinal of Spain, who brought two thousand men to swell the royal forces, those of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, the Marquis of Cadiz and other grandes whose armed vassals were incorporated in the Spanish host, each tent proclaimed by the banner waving over it.
Santangel made his way to the Marquis of Moya’s pavilion, where the welcome given them by the Marchioness seemed to be rather on his companion’s account than on his own.
“Now this is well thought, Don Luis. For had you not brought our Cristobal, he might not have sought us for himself.”
Colon bowed low. “I kiss your hands, madam. You’ll have heard that I am in disgrace.”
“Which is just when friends may serve you.”
Cabrera was not slow to support her welcome of him. “At the moment there is perhaps not much that we can do. But you shall command us, and we’ll prove to you how little credit we attach to your detractors.”
“The Lord confound their malice,” said the lady piously.
“I come in the hope to do it, myself, madam.”
She shook her head. “This is not the moment for arguments. I have tried them.”
“On my behalf?”
“Did you suppose my faith so easily destroyed? Or that I want for courage?”
“There is no virtue with which I do not credit you, madam.”
“I have none stronger than my faith in my own opinions. If you’ll be guided by them, you’ll postpone all suits. Her Highness is aggrieved. She feels herself humiliated in the eyes of the King, who has never smiled upon your project.”
“Now that is excellent,” said Santangel, and rubbed his hands. “Her Highness will be the more eager for Colon’s rehabilitation.”
Cabrera was gloomy. “You view it too lightly. Further insistence just now might be a provocation.”
But they refused to be dismayed. Santangel’s smile grew broader. “So it shall be for some. I mean it so to be. But not for her Highness. We come with proofs not arguments. The proofs the gentlemen of the junta said they would accept as definite: the missing chart and letter, the robbery of which they pronounced a palpable subterfuge. We have recovered them.”
“Vive Dios!” swore the Marquis, whilst his lady stared until laughter kindled in her splendid eyes.
“That will provide a resounding vindication.”
“At least it makes my honour safe,” said Colon.
“And all the rest.”
“Hardly the rest. Malice was content to crush me with this pretext. But had I been able to produce the chart the learned doctors would no doubt have found that it did not suffice.”
This gave her thought: amusing thought from which it resulted that she became the promoter of a conspiracy to confound Talavera and Fonseca, both of whom were with the Sovereigns.
“I stand as much in need of rehabilitation with the Queen as she with the King, and our Cristobal with both. So give me leave to handle this. You shall see what a jurist has been lost in Beatriz de Bobadilla.”
They stayed to a supper of eels and trout from the Genil and ortolans of the Vega, with a white wine of Alicante, chilled in snow from the sierras. So gay were they over this repast that Colon, who knew the gaiety to be that of spirits generously exalted on his behalf, was paradoxically almost touched to melancholy.
After supper a groom lighted them to the royal pavilion of audience, over which floated the standard of the two kingdoms.
The King was at chess with the Bishop of Avila, whilst the Queen, at a table some distance away, was receiving a report from Captain Ramirez, her Master of the Ordnance, known as El Artillero. This was concerned with the new lombards that were to augment the royal artillery. Fonseca, that ecclesiastical man of war, was naturally in attendance. Although from head to foot he was in unadorned black and wore no weapons, yet since nature had completely tonsured him there was nothing about him to denote the priest.
Ramirez was taking his leave when a page raised the heavy tapestries that shut off the vestibule, so as to give passage to the Marchioness, who as the Queen’s intimate possessed the right of access at all hours.
Her Highness looked up from El Artillero’s list. She had been scanning it by the light of a cluster of candles of perfumed wax in a massive silver candlebranch. She smiled a gentle welcome as the Marchioness came forward, splendid in blue velvet, the bodice cut square to make a brave display of her white throat. She advanced over the eastern rugs that carpeted the richly furnished tent, to take the seat by the table to which her Highness motioned her.
“You do not usually seek me so late, Beatriz. You had leave to remain absent.”
“But cause to be present. I have news for your Highness. News of Colon.”
If she had overturned the candlebranch she could not have surprised them more. The King, overhearing across the tent, swung round in his chair. “News that the rascal has left Spain, I hope.”
“Indeed, I am the bearer of no such evil tidings, sire.”
“Evil? I could bear worse. But, to be sure, you ever had a kindness for that long-legged put.”
The Bishop moved a piece. “Check, sire,” he murmured.
“It’s his mind that commands my respect, Highness,” said the Marchioness.
“Yet his legs are the better part of him,” laughed Ferdinand. “He should use them now.” And he returned his attention to the game.
The Queen sighed. “The worth of him has unfortunately been tested—by Don Juan here, among others.”
“I am fortunate to find Don Juan with your Highness.”
Fonseca bowed, but there was no smile on his round, flat face.
“I have a hope,” the Marchioness continued lightly, “that I may bring him to change his view on Master Colon.”
“Alas, madam, it is too solidly founded.”
“Solidly? Solid as sand, Don Juan.”
The King moved a piece in haste. “What’s that?” he shouted, and again looked over his shoulder. “Are you still defending that unmasked impostor?”
“From the error of his judges, sire.”
“On my soul, you push your infatuation something far.”
“It is an infatuation for the good of Spain and the honour and glory of your Highnesses.”
The Queen patted her hand, and sighed. “No one doubts your good intentions, Beatriz. But this matter has been judged.”
“And sentence passed,” Ferdinand flung in. “It is res judicata.”
“Check, sire,” said the cold voice of the Bishop. “It will be checkmate on the next move, I think.”
“Eh?” His Highness glowered at the board. “To the devil with Colon and this distracting chatter. The dog has lost me the game.”
The handsome eyes of the Marchioness were solemnly turned upon him.
“I could prove to your Highness that more might be lost over Colon than a game of chess.”
“By St. James, yes. A deal of time and patience.”
“Therefore,” the Queen admonished her, “do not be adding to that loss.”
“Would my love for you, madam, excuse my disobedience?”
Ferdinand heaved himself up, and stood square and solid, a frown between his blue eyes. “In the name of Heaven, Beatriz, do you not perceive that there are no words to mend this broken thing?”
“I have not deserved your Highness’s attention. I spoke of proofs.”
“But proofs of what?” asked the Queen.
“That Colon was rashly judged.”
Ferdinand laughed. “You’re of a persistence that would shame a spider.”
“Give me leave, then, to spin my web.” She looked from Ferdinand to the Queen with an entreating smile.
“And now you are all siren,” the King laughed, whilst the Queen added, questioningly:
“There is something in your mind, Beatriz?”
She took this for permission, and plunged boldly. “I am fortunate to find here my Lord Bishop of Avila, who presided over the junta, and Don Juan de Fonseca, who bore so weighty a part in it.”
Talavera had risen with the King. His cold eyes pondered her in silence. Don Juan bowed again, with a grace too courtly for a priest. “You overestimate my worth, madam. My poor part was to unmask this man.”
“Of the mask your wits had fitted to him.”
“Not I, madam. Not I. But his own false hands.”
“Let that be the issue. Have I your Highness’s leave to come to it?”
The Queen sat back in her chair, perplexed by this strange eagerness. “Oh, but let us hear you,” she consented. “I don’t doubt that Don Juan will make a good defence.”
The King lounged across to them. He chose to be amused. “A joust, is it? As I live, Bishop, you’ll be dragged into the lists before all’s done.”
The Marchioness looked into Don Juan’s round yellow face, dazzling him a little by the effulgence of her glance. “You persuaded yourself and others—did you not?—that Master Colon’s claim to have possessed a chart from the great Toscanelli was a falsehood.”
“I persuaded myself, Marchioness, do you say?” He was smiling, unctuously confident. “By your leave, it was Colon, himself, who persuaded us of that.”
“He told you that he was lying, did he?”
“By his methods,” Fonseca assented. “They have been employed before by other tricksters. It is a common thing for men of no authority in themselves to pretend that for what they state they have behind them an authority that is beyond dispute. Thus this man dug a pit for himself. For when we asked him, as our duty was, for his proofs, he pretended that he had been robbed. A stale trick.”
“A stale trick? Where is the evidence that it was a trick at all?”
Ferdinand laughed outright. “Lord, man! You will begin to see that to argue with a woman is to carry water in a basket.”
But Isabel frowned. “Perhaps,” said she, “Don Juan has nothing better in which to carry it. Let us hear him.”
Fonseca strove with his impatience. “The evidence is in the irresistible inferences from the facts. It is not credible that had this man possessed such backing for his arguments he would not have produced them long before our insistence drove him into claiming their possession.”
“I see,” the Marchioness conceded, with apparent reluctance. “I see.”
“God be praised,” the King mocked. “Her eyes are opened.”
“Not quite, Highness. What I do not understand is why, if Colon’s theories did not suffice to convince, identical theories put forward by another could have done so. No doubt I am but a foolish woman. But I cannot perceive the difference.”
It was Talavera, moving slowly towards them, who answered her.
“The difference, madam, is that which lies between the opinions of an ignorant visionary mariner and that of the most learned mathematician of his day.”
“Are you answered, Marchioness?” the King, asked her.
“Indeed, sire, I am being buffeted at every turn.” She trilled good-humoured laughter at her own discomfiture. “But surely, sire,” she looked from Talavera to Fonseca, “it is easy to show that you overstate this difference. You will hardly pretend that if Colon’s arguments, which must have failed to persuade you, had actually been supported, as he foolishly asserted, you would have found in his favour.”
“That is no pretence, madam,” said Talavera sternly.
“What?” Her brows went up. Her countenance reflected a disturbed amazement. “Can you assert, my lord, that if this misguided fellow could have produced the chart and the letter, he would have received your support?”
“I do assert it, madam,” said the Bishop firmly, and—“Undoubtedly, madam,” added Fonseca.
The Marchioness’s laughter of unbelief visibly annoyed them both.
“It is easy to assert a thing the proof of which cannot be called for. You would be less glib, I think, if Colon’s possession of those documents were still untested.”
“Madam!” cried the Bishop, in outraged protest.
“An error, Marchioness,” said Fonseca. “An error gross and uncharitable. You will forgive the terms.”
“I find them mild,” laughed the King.
But the silent Queen was placidly watchful. Her shrewdness perceived that behind all this there was some definite purpose.
The Marchioness, returning to the attack, was no longer smiling.
“Gross and uncharitable! Fie, Don Juan! Yet I will own myself both if you will dare to say that were Colon at this moment to lay Toscanelli’s chart before you, you would advise their Highnesses to give him their support. Dare you?”
Fonseca goaded almost to the limits of endurance answered irritably: “I have as good as said so already.”
“And you, my Lord Bishop?”
Talavera shrugged. “The assertion is idle, superfluous. But if it will content you, madam, I make it without hesitation.”
Smiling again, and with something now of triumph in her smile, she turned to the Queen. “Your Highness hears these reverend gentlemen. Have I bound them tightly enough?”
Fonseca was disturbed. “Bound us, madam?”
“In the web that I warned you I was spinning. Perhaps you did not sufficiently heed the warning.”
The Queen sat forward. “You have been mysterious long enough, Beatriz. Shall we now have some plain sense from you?”
“The plain sense of it, Highness, is that I hope I have made impotent the prejudice out of which these gentlemen pronounced Colon a trickster. It has pleased God that to confound them Colon should have recovered the chart and the letter that were stolen. He is here in the camp, waiting to lay them before your Highnesses.”