The Story of Don John of Austria by Luis Coloma (e books for reading txt) 📖

At midday the Archbishop of Toledo, Fr. Bartolomé de Carranza, arrived in Yuste, a robust old man with a loud, disagreeable voice, and long, ill-kept white hair. He rode on a white mule, and was wrapped in a brown garment over his Dominican habit, and over that wore a crumpled cloak with a magnificent pectoral cross, a present from Mary Tudor, Queen of England. His enormous suite followed him to Cuacos, but he came alone to Yuste with the Dominicans who accompanied him, Fr. Pedro de Sotomayor and Fr. Diego Jiménez. The Archbishop knelt when he reached the Emperor's bedside and kissed his hand. The dying man looked at him for a long time without speaking, and then ordered that a chair should be given him, and asked for news of the King, his son, whom the Archbishop had left in Flanders; but after a few words the Emperor interrupted him abruptly, and ordered him to go and rest in his inn. Charles mistrusted the Archbishop because the first suspicions had come to his ears of that heresy which shortly landed the unlucky old man in prison, persecuted by some, defended by others, and discussed by all, even to our times.

So the Archbishop went to dine in Luis Quijada's house at Cuacos, where Doña Magdalena was awaiting him. The grave condition of the Emperor had made a great sensation in the village; the whole neighbourhood was to be found in the street, making a cordon from Yuste to the church of the place, where continual prayer was offered before the Blessed Sacrament.

Doña Magdalena and Jeromín never rested; since dawn messengers had never ceased coming from Yuste with news, and since the same hour the noble lady came and went from the oratory, where she prayed and wept, to the parlour, where she received the messengers and made preparations for the arrival of the Archbishop, whom she expected from minute to minute. Jeromín, nervous and trembling, could not keep still for an instant; at times he wanted to cry, at others to shut himself up in the oratory with Doña Magdalena and pray, or to dash off to Yuste, and, if it were by main force, to reach the Emperor's room and gaze once more on that pallid face, its snowy beard surrounding it like a fringe of silver. The boy had never seen death, or heard it alluded to except as happening on the field of battle, and it seemed to him like killing by treason that so great an Emperor should die in his bed, and that to annihilate so glorious an existence, thunder and lightning and stars would be necessary, that the elements should war together and the whole earth be convulsed.

At four o'clock the Archbishop arranged with his suite to return to Yuste, and then an idea occurred to Jeromín. Without saying a word to anyone, he saddled the little Roman mule himself and went to the convent among the Archbishop's following. His presence surprised no one, as he was thought to be Luis Quijada's page, and without any difficulty he went to the black hung room next to the chamber where the Emperor lay dying. He found several monks there, the prelate, Juan de Ávila, the Conde de Oropesa, D. Francisco de Toledo, his brother, and Diego de Toledo, uncle to both.

Luis Quijada hastened to meet the Archbishop and came face to face with Jeromín. The great heart of the steward seemed to come into his mouth and even his eyes to moisten when he saw him. With much love and kindness he came towards the frightened child, and drawing him out of the room, begged him to go back to Cuacos to the side of Doña Magdalena. The boy obeyed without a word, hanging his head and casting a look at the room where his hero was dying. He saw nothing; the black curtains were drawn, and between them could only be seen the foot of the enormous bed and, over the crippled limbs, the black silk coverlid. But he could hear the difficult breathing of the dying man.

When Jeromín returned, overcome, to Cuacos, he found Doña Magdalena in the oratory, saying the prayers for the dying, again and again, with her ladies and servants. He knelt in a corner amongst them, and there remained for hours and hours. At ten o'clock sleep, that invincible friend of children, overcame him, and obliged Doña Magdalena to put him, dressed as he was, in her own bed, promising to wake him at the supreme moment. The lady sat at the head of the bed leaning against it, inside the curtains, telling her beads. Jeromín slept uneasily, with a sad expression on his little white face, heaving deep sighs. Doña Magdalena looked at him, anxious also and astonished. All at once, for the first time a strong suspicion crossed her mind; she stopped praying, looking earnestly at the child, and leant over him as if to kiss his forehead, and then kissed his little hands.

At this moment the big bell of Yuste tolled solemnly in the silent night. Doña Magdalena sat up frightened and stretched out her neck to listen, with her hands joined. Another bell tolled and then another. There was no doubt, it was the passing bell. Doña Magdalena hesitated for a moment, and then gently woke the sleeping child. Clinging to her neck he asked, terrified, "Is he dead?" "Pray, my son, pray," she answered.

And, linked together, they prayed the psalm of the dead, "Out of the deep I call."

The grief of Luis Quijada at the death of the Cæsar was so great that the anonymous monk of Yuste, who was an eyewitness of all these events, writes as follows: "It happened that the Archbishop having left with the other lords, as I have said above, to write to the King, our Lord, about the death of his father, there remained in the room where the body of the dead Emperor lay, the three men beloved by H.M., the Marqués de Miraval, Luis Quijada and Martin Gastelbú (Gazletu), who did and said such things in their sorrow for the death of H.M. that those who did not know them might have judged them wrongly. They shouted, they cried, they beat their hands and their heads against the walls, they seemed beside themselves, and so they were, at seeing their lord die, who had brought them to such honours, and whom they so tenderly loved; they said much in praise of Cæsar, referring to his virtues. Such were their cries and shouts that they woke all the household of H.M., and all behaved in the same manner, till they were turned out of the room where four monks remained, who embalmed the body, as I said above." This excess of sorrow no doubt produced a certain nervous irritation in Luis Quijada, and made him harder and more severe than ever for a long while, and perhaps also less prudent. Only as regards Jeromín he seemed just the contrary, not by his care and vigilance, for they could not have been greater than before, but by showing the affection and regard which he had kept hidden.

For three days very solemn services were celebrated in Yuste, and Luis Quijada presided over everything, dressed in a cloak of black baize and a mourning hood which almost completely hid his face. During all these days Jeromín was at his side, also dressed in a cloak and hood which only left uncovered those blue eyes which saw and scrutinised everything. "It certainly astonished us," wrote the nameless monk of Yuste, "how he had the strength to remain standing so long."

It happened that on the first day of these services Quijada saw the page of the Marqués de Miraval bring a chair for his master into the church, and ordered him to take it out. The page answered that his master was ill, and that it was necessary for him to take it in. To which Quijada replied, "Then let him stop outside; I will not allow anyone to be seated before the Emperor, my Lord, alive or dead."

Jeromín asked Quijada if he might have the Emperor's parrot and one of the kittens, the other having died a short time before, and with real pleasure Luis Quijada brought them to Cuacos and placed them in the child's care, until they were claimed by Princess Juana, who had been notified of their existence. And such weight had this august "Zapirón"[3] with the austere steward that in a letter to the Secretary of State, Juan Vázguez, he adds this curious postscript, "This letter was written two days ago, and as I had much to do, and as I wished to wait till they had all gone, I did not send it. To-day they have finished taking out all his baggage. Your Honour will forgive the paper being cut, because the devil of a kitten upset the inkpot on the other sheet."

Luis Quijada stayed in Cuacos until the end of November, as it took all that time to finish the arduous task of arranging the Emperor's house, making inventories, sending away servants, settling accounts, and paying debts. Doña Magdalena took this opportunity of going with Jeromín to the sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadaloupe, which was not far off. While she was away something happened which surprised and displeased Quijada, though he had had warning of it a long time back.

It was that none of the many personages who stayed with him in Cuacos, or the monks of the convent who often came there, or any of the thousand people who, for one reason or another, arrived there during the stay of the Emperor, could fail to notice the attractive little figure of Jeromín, which had so much native charm, or the strange position that he occupied in the Quijada household. Many suppositions were formed and many remarks were made, and so serious were some, and to such exalted circles did others reach, that one day, when Quijada least expected it, he received a letter from the Secretary of State, Juan Vázguez, writing on behalf of Princess Juana, asking him bluntly if it were true that the Emperor had left a natural son, who had been for years in his care, because H.M. wished to provide for him, if such were the case. Quijada was much perturbed at this very important question, and hastened to answer Juan Vázguez on the 18th of October. "Regarding what your Honour says about the boy in my charge, it is true that a friend entrusted him to me years ago, but there is no reason to think that he is H.M.'s son, as your Honour says has been put about here, for neither in his will, a copy of which he had and made Gastelu read in his presence to us, his confessor and me, nor in the codicil which he afterwards made, is there mention of this, and this being so I do not know what more I can answer."

Not content with this, Quijada wrote from Cuacos, as if to put himself right with his unknown correspondent in Flanders, the only person to whom he mentioned anything about Jeromín. "Twenty days after the death of H.M., Juan Vázguez wrote to me from the Very Serene Princess that I should tell her if it were true that I had in my charge a child, wishing to make me understand that it was said to be H.M.'s, and that I should tell her secretly or publicly if it were so, because, if true, she would endeavour to fulfil any wishes left regarding him. To which I answered that I had the boy of a gentleman, a friend of mine, who had given him to me years ago, and that H.M. having mentioned him neither in his will nor in the codicil, there was reason enough for treating it as nonsense, and that I did not know what else to answer publicly or privately."

Juan Vázguez returned to the charge, and the steward, who was already put out, answered, alluding to the secretary's erroneous idea, in spite of Quijada's assurance to the contrary, that the Emperor, months before, was arranging the house of the Archbishop in Alcalá to go there, and to leave Yuste. "It certainly appears to me that your Honour goes on about this boy as if it were as certain as that H.M. was arranging the house in Alcalá so as to go there. Will your Honour ask the agent the value of, and what I said to him about, a certain annuity that I wish to purchase for this child?"

But as Quijada when passing Valladolid on his way to Villagarcia found on all sides the same rumour, of which Vázguez had sent him the echo, and was annoyed by direct and indirect questions, he wrote this time without circumlocution to the unknown Flemish correspondent, who was none other than His Catholic Majesty, King Philip II:

"I find all that