– XXXVIII –

In which two dogs eat chestnuts

A messenger from the Duke of Lerma arrived at Don Rodrigo’s house in Sevilla summoning the Grandee to Madrid for a meeting with the King. Rodrigo could barely contain his excitement at the thought he was about to be awarded some special mission. Doña Inmaculada intuited another possibility.

‘The audience might have something to do with Guada,’ she said.

‘Guada?’ he asked incredulously. ‘He’s barely aware of her existence.’

‘She spent three years at court and was well received.‘

‘But what would that possibly have to do with this? You don’t send a rider on a four-day journey to Sevilla to bring back a Grandee of Spain to conference with his King about our daughter.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said affecting a pallid smile. She saw no point in going on about it.

‘Of course I’m right,’ he said.

‘We’ll know soon enough,’ she replied.

He entered the capital at twilight at the end of a clear November’s day and went directly to Marta Vélez’s mansion, where he was greeted sympathetically. Not wishing to contemplate any connection she might have with the royal summons, she instead encouraged Rodrigo in his fantasies about what might be on the King’s mind. An ambassadorship would be the most likely explanation, and to somewhere important, France perhaps, or the Low Countries.

On his way to the Alcázar the following morning, he was already making mental calculations regarding the allocation of household funds and the choosing of favored employees who might keep a proper eye on his estates during his time abroad. The Duke of Lerma greeted him warmly but when questioned pleaded ignorance, a response that only served to intensify Rodrigo’s curiosity given the universally acknowledged belief that the Duke of Lerma knew everything about the Monarch.

Rodrigo was ushered into the Royal Library. It contained hundreds of volumes assembled for the King by a committee of sabios or wise men, who had been charged with the task of putting together a selection of titles aimed at helping the Monarch pilot the ship of state. But Philip had also insisted the library contain works banned by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, one of which, The Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, he was enjoying when Rodrigo appeared. Two large dogs rose from the floor and approached the Grandee as he bowed to the King.

‘Your Majesty.’

‘Don Rodrigo. I am so pleased you could come. Don’t mind the dogs. They prefer chestnuts to flesh, and I’ve a bowlful here,’ he said, pointing to a valuable ceramic resting by the opened manuscript.

‘Chestnuts, sire …’

‘They are Canes de Palleiro, from Galicia—chestnut trees all over the place.’

‘A province unknown to me, I’m afraid,’ said Rodrigo with a grin.

‘You old snob,’ replied the King. ‘I doubt you’re afraid to say it at all. To men like yourself it must seem like a black forest filled with Visigoths, not an olive grove or a jasmine vine within hundreds of kilometers.’

‘It does have a reputation, sire.’

The King tossed a pair of polished chestnuts into the air, and the dogs caught them in midflight. Rodrigo appreciated the touch of how the animals, gruff beasts that would have been more in place in a corral in the rainy north, nevertheless wore silken collars embroidered with the Hapsburg coat of arms.

‘The sun does shine there occasionally,’ said the King, ‘and if you don’t mind a bit of damp, the hunting to be had is far superior to anything around here.’

‘As you know, sire, hunting has never been my strong point. I prefer the relative comforts of husbandry.’

‘I know. I know,’ said the King, irritated, and Rodrigo picked up on it. ‘Your degree of civilization is most impressive.’

‘Not at all, sire. I only meant …’

‘In any event,’ said the King, interrupting Rodrigo’s worried apology, ‘it’s the topic of “husbandry” in fact that has led me to ask you back to Madrid, and for that it is I who must apologize. But I find myself in a potentially delicate situation.’

‘The journey is inconsequential, My Lord,’ said Rodrigo, hoping to get things back on a better track. ‘I am here to serve.’

There was something in the Monarch’s tone and body language that caused Rodrigo to realize that an ambassadorship would probably not be on the day’s agenda.

‘How do you feel about your son-in-law Julian? What opinion of him have you? And take a seat, man.’

The dogs had resettled themselves next to the King’s chair. One looked as if it might already be asleep while the other vigorously scratched at its neck with a hind paw. Rodrigo sat opposite the King, on a chair slightly lower than the Monarch’s. On the table between them were Cellini’s opened codex and the Moorish bowl of shiny nuts. For the life of him and as an indication of his general obtuseness, Rodrigo could not fathom why the King might have taken an interest in Julian, and he strained to respond with what would be the correct answer.

‘I must confess, sire, and at the cost of some embarrassment, that I do not know the boy all that well. My wife has often accused me of being a distant parent.’

‘The “boy” as you call him, is now very much a man as far as I am concerned. Surely you must have some inkling of an impression as to his nobility, and by that I am not referring to his lineage.’

‘Understood, my lord. Well, I would say, I might say, that it seems that sometimes he may exhibit somewhat temperamental qualities.’

‘Temperamental.’

‘Pique, anger, mixed with a certain hubristic bravado.’

Though the foul event claimed and protested by his daughter did cross his mind at this point, what he was most remembering with a much heftier dose of spite was the sound of the laughter he had heard from the boy and Marta Vélez on that night, now over a year ago, as he had clambered back down the tree in front of her bedroom window.

‘I’ve had him arrested,’ said the King.

‘Arrested?’

‘He’s here in the dungeon of the palace, in an area well aired and attended that is reserved for the nobility, but in chains.’

‘Virgen Santo!’ said the Grandee. ‘Why, sire?’

‘I will get to that in a minute. I’ve called you here for two reasons. First of all, his own father is old and ill. As you probably know, after a clutch of daughters Julian came along late in his parents’ life. I’ve never met the father, although my father and I have always been grateful for the taxes collected from their vast estates, some of which now belong to you. But he is not a Grandee. You, my friend, are in a different sphere altogether, and so I feel I have an obligation to warn you of the embarrassment the young fellow’s crimes might bring upon you and your family unless you disown him quickly.’

‘I see.’

‘Second of all, I was hoping you might corroborate a tale I’ve learned thanks to a most shocking letter I asked for and received last week from the recently widowed woman who married our beloved Duke of Medina-Sidonia, a letter that led to my asking you here.’

Inmaculada had been right. As his face reddened, Rodrigo unreasonably cursed the woman while simultaneously marveling at her perspicacity.

‘Might this have something to do with my daughter, sire?’

‘It does.’

‘I see.’

‘The letter states she was violated against her will by her own husband. Are you aware of this?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did you confront him about it?’

‘No, sire. It is a delicate matter,’ Rodrigo said, looking down.

‘Perhaps such a thing is ignored or even encouraged by the heathens of this world,’ said the King, ‘but it is not sanctioned in this realm by our Holy Mother Church, nor by me, who am the Church’s defender.’

‘I am aware of that, sire.”

‘Now, I realize it can be a delicate matter, as you put it. Such acts are inevitably committed in private and rarely have witnesses and come to depend on the sole testimony of the victim. But I must ask. How did you and your wife react when you learned of it?’

‘We counseled forbearance, my lord. We saw no advantage in airing such intimacies.’

‘An honest answer. I appreciate that.’

‘Why sire, might I ask, are you this concerned with this particular case?’

‘Two reasons,’ said the King. ‘I have learned of it firsthand and therefore cannot look away from it. If that were all and you were to plead for me to share in you and your wife’s counsel of forbearance, I might have acceded. But I cannot, especially because I have such fond memories of the years Guada spent here at court. She was a favorite of our late Queen. The idea of her being subjected to such a thing is abhorrent to me. But that is my second reason. My first reason, in all honesty, is that I first became aware of this sad tale in a manner most offensive to my person.’

Rodrigo was appalled and enraged at having his own opinions questioned, his role as a father disparaged, nay, insulted and overlooked by the inbred gentleman across from him who had more Teuton blood in his veins than Iberian.

‘I am humbled, my lord,’ he said.

The King went on.

‘The late Duke of Medina-Sidonia was much beloved in this palace. He put up with immense challenges and even ridicule because of my father’s occasional pigheadedness, and he did so without ever losing his sense of grace or humor, ever the gentleman, ever the elegant warrior. In the final months of his life, he acquired a most unusual protégé, a young man, a Prince I’m told, from the distant realm of Japan, a young man of unusual distinction and taste I took a liking for, as well, and to whom I had commissioned a special gift that only he would truly appreciate. This young man left court shortly afterwards, of a sudden, and was not heard from again. Then some weeks ago while entertaining a generation of younger noblemen at a hunt organized by the Duke of Lerma I saw the gift, a red leather quiver filled with arrows from my personal supply. It was brought to the hunt by none other than your son-in-law, and when I questioned him about it, as to how he had come to acquire it, he lied to me, repeatedly, lied to my face.’

Rodrigo felt lost, like he was sinking, as if tossed from a ship into the sea.

‘The story, according to the letter I received,’ said the King, ‘goes like this…’

Relying on Rosario’s detailed account, taken down and neatly transcribed by the same gentleman who had helped Shiro with his first letters to Guada, the King then proceeded to tell the tale, beginning with Shiro’s befriending of Diego Molina aboard the Date Maru and ending with the heinous rape of Guada and her subsequent pregnancy. He also described the multifaceted role Marta Vélez had played in the affair.

‘I’m afraid your mistress has much to be sorry for,’ he said in conclusion.

‘I had no idea she was still entertaining Julian,’ Rodrigo said, if only to say something, anything at all, while the full weight of the account along with its possible consequences made its way through the conduits of his brain.

‘I’ve called you here to corroborate some facts,’ said the King, ‘one of which, the aggression against your daughter, you have already confirmed. Is she in fact pregnant?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

‘And living I understand with Soledad Medina.’

‘That is correct.’

‘Because you would not accede to her complaint.’

‘We saw no point, especially when the pregnancy was discovered.’

‘And there was the question of the estates accrued to you because of her marriage.’

‘That, too, sire.’

‘Once again, I respect your honesty, Rodrigo.’

‘Sire.’

A momentary silence gripped the room in a vise.

‘May I ask, sire,’ Rodrigo finally said, ‘what you are going to do with him?’

‘The charge of murder against the sailor or the olive worker or whatever he was is the most grievous one,’ said the King. ‘There were witnesses to it, two thugs who helped him carry it out. Both of them confessed. One of them did not survive his confession, but the other is still with us and was also present on the evening my young friend from Japan was assaulted, and this thug has also testified he heard Guada’s screams both during and after that event. I also know from my own guards that the young Samurai, now in Rome, has virtually lost the use of his hands. You ask me what I am going to do with Julian…’

Here the King paused and stared into the flames before them.

‘You know,’ he then said in a quieter tone, ‘I could have brooked almost anything from the cad, if only out of respect for you and for his aging father. But his lying to me the way he did, lies I now have had validated from sufficient sources, is unforgiveable.’

‘Of course,’ Rodrigo said. Then, somewhat wistfully, he added, ‘With my own son’s embrasure of chastity and the cross I had looked forward in Julian to having another.’

‘That was a mistake,’ said the King. ‘But Perhaps Guada’s child will be a son, and you can spend your remaining years taking good care of them. She and the child, whatever its sex, shall inherit all of Julian’s holdings. I’ll see to that. As to what to do with him,’ he concluded, petting the sleeping dog, ‘I’ve decided to leave that up to the Samurai.’