I. THE ABSOLUTION
Aftonso Henriques, first King of Portugal
In 1093 the Moors of the Almoravide dynasty, under the Caliph Yusuf,swept irresistibly upwards into the Iberian Peninsula, recapturingLisbon and Santarem in the west, and pushing their conquest as far asthe river Mondego.
To meet this revival of Mohammedan power, Alfonso VI. Of Castilesummoned the chivalry of Christendom to his aid. Among the knights whoanswered the call was Count Henry of Burgundy (grandson of Robert, firstDuke of Burgundy) to whom Alfonso gave his natural daughter Theresa inmarriage, together with the Counties of Oporto and Coimbra, with thetitle of Count of Portugal.
That is the first chapter of the history of Portugal.
Count Henry fought hard to defend his southern frontiers from theincursion of the Moors until his death in 1114. Thereafter his widowTheresa became Regent of Portugal during the minority of their son,Affonso Henriques. A woman of great energy, resource and ambition, shesuccessfully waged war against the Moors, and in other ways laid thefoundations upon which her son was to build the Kingdom of Portugal. Buther passionate infatuation for one of her knights--Don Fernando Peres deTrava--and the excessive honours she bestowed upon him, made enemies forher in the new state, and estranged her from her son.
In 1127 Alfonso VII. of Castile invaded Portugal, compelling Theresato recognize him as her suzerain. But Affonso Henriques, now agedseventeen--and declared by the citizens of the capital to be of age andcompetent to reign--incontinently refused to recognize the submissionmade by his mother, and in the following year assembled an army for thepurpose of expelling her and her lover from the country. The warlikeTheresa resisted until defeated in the battle of San Mamede and takenprisoner.
He was little more than a boy, although four years were sped alreadysince, as a mere lad of fourteen, he had kept vigil throughout the nightover his arms in the Cathedral of Zamora, preparatory to receivingthe honour of knighthood at the hands of his cousin, Alfonso VII. ofCastile. Yet already he was looked upon as the very pattern of what aChristian knight should be, worthy son of the father who had devoted hislife to doing battle against the Infidel, wheresoever he might be found.He was well-grown and tall, and of a bodily strength that is almost abyword to this day in that Portugal of which he was the real founderand first king. He was skilled beyond the common wont in all knightlyexercises of arms and horsemanship, and equipped with far morelearning--though much of it was ill-digested, as this story will serveto show--than the twelfth century considered useful or even proper ina knight. And he was at least true to his time in that he combined afervid piety with a weakness of the flesh and an impetuous arrogancethat was to bring him under the ban of greater excommunication at thevery outset of his reign.
It happened that his imprisonment of his mother was not at all pleasingin the sight of Rome. Dona Theresa had powerful friends, who soused their influence at the Vatican on her behalf that the HolyFather--conveniently ignoring the provocation she had given and thescandalous, unmotherly conduct of which she had been guilty--came toconsider the behaviour of the Infante of Portugal as reprehensiblyunfilial, and commanded him to deliver Dona Theresa at once from duress.
This Papal order, backed by a threat of excommunication in the event ofdisobedience, was brought to the young prince by the Bishop of Coimbra,whom he counted among his friends.
Affonso Henriques, ever impetuous and quick to anger, flushed scarletwhen he heard that uncompromising message. His dark eyes smouldered asthey considered the aged prelate.
"You come here to bid me let loose again upon this land of Portugal thatauthor of strife, to deliver over the people once more to the oppressionof the Lord of Trava?" he asked. "And you tell me that unless by obeyingthis command I am false to the duty I owe this country, you will launchthe curse of Rome against me? You tell me this?"
The bishop, deeply stirred, torn between his duty to the Holy See andhis affection for his prince, bowed his head and wrung his hands. "Whatchoice have I?" he asked, on a quavering note.
"I raised you from the dust." Thunder was rumbling in the prince'svoice. "Myself I placed the episcopal ring upon your finger."
"My lord, my lord! Could I forget? All that I have I owe to you--saveonly my soul, which I owe to God; my faith, which I owe to Christ; andmy obedience, which I owe to our Holy Father the Pope."
The prince considered him in silence, mastering his passionate,impetuous nature. "Go," he growled at last.
The prelate bowed his head, his eyes not daring to meet his prince's.
"God keep you, lord," he almost sobbed, and so went out.
But though stirred by his affection for the prince to whom he owed somuch, though knowing in his inmost heart that Affonso Henriques was inthe right, the Bishop of Coimbra did not swerve from his duty to Rome,which was as plain as it was unpalatable. Betimes next morning word wasbrought to Affonso Henriques in the Alcazar of Coimbra that aparchment was nailed to the door of the Cathedral, setting forth hisexcommunication, and that the Bishop--either out of fear or out ofsorrow--had left the city, journeying northward towards Oporto.
Affonso Henriques passed swiftly from incredulity to anger; then almostas swiftly came to a resolve, which was as mad and harebrained as couldhave been expected from a lad in his eighteenth year who held the reinsof power. Yet by its very directness and its superb ignoring of allobstacles, legal and canonical, it was invested with a certain wildsanity.
In full armour, a white cloak simply embroidered in gold at the edgeand knotted at the shoulder, he rode to the Cathedral, attended by hishalf-brother Pedro Affonso, and two of his knights, Emigio Moniz andSancho Nunes. There on the great iron-studded doors he found, as he hadbeen warned, the Roman parchment pronouncing him accursed, its sonorousLatin periods set forth in a fine round clerkly hand.
He swung down from his great horse and clanked up the Cathedral steps,his attendants following. He had for witnesses no more than a fewloiterers, who had paused at sight of their prince.
The interdict had so far attracted no attention, for in the twelfthcentury the art of letters was a mystery to which there were fewinitiates.
Affonso Henriques tore the sheepskin from its nails, and crumpled itin his hand; then he passed into the Cathedral, and thence came outpresently into the cloisters. Overhead a bell was clanging by hisorders, summoning the chapter.
To the Infante, waiting there in the sun-drenched close, came presentlythe canons, austere, aloof, majestic in their unhurried progress throughthe fretted cloisters, with flowing garments and hands tucked intotheir wide sleeves before them. In a semi-circle they arrayed themselvesbefore him, and waited impassively to learn his will. Overhead the bellhad ceased.
Affonso Henriques wasted no words.
"I have summoned you," he announced, "to command that you proceed to theelection of a bishop."
A rustle stirred through the priestly throng. The canons looked askanceat the prince and at one another. Then one of them spoke.
"Habemus episcopum," he said gravely, and several instantly made chorus:"We have a bishop."
The eyes of the young sovereign kindled. "You are wrong," he told them."You had a bishop, but he is here no longer. He has deserted his see,after publishing this shameful thing." And he held aloft the crumpledinterdict. "As I am a God-fearing, Christian knight, I will not liveunder this ban. Since the bishop who excommunicated me is gone, you willat once elect another in his place who shall absolve me."
They stood before him, silent and impassive, in their priestly dignity,and in their assurance that the law was on their side.
"Well?" the boy growled at them.
"Habemus episcopum," droned a voice again.
"Amen," boomed in chorus through the cloisters.
"I tell you that your bishop is gone," he insisted, his voice quiveringnow with anger, "and I tell you that he shall not return, that he shallnever set foot again within my city of Coimbra. Proceed you therefore atonce to the election of his successor."
"Lord," he was answered coldly by one of them, "no such election ispossible or lawful."
"Do you dare stand before my face, and tell me this?" he roared,infuriated by their cold resistance. He flung out an arm in a gestureof terrible dismissal. "Out of my sight, you proud and evil men! Back toyour cells, to await my pleasure. Since in your arrogant, stiff-neckedpride you refuse to do my will, you shall receive the bishop I shallmyself select."
He was so terrific in his rage that they dared not tell him that he hadno power, prince though he might be, to make such an election, bowed tohim, ever impassively, and with their hands still folded, unhurried asthey had come, they now turned and filed past him in departure.
He watched them with scowling brows and tightened lips, Moniz and Nunessilent behind him. Suddenly those dark, watchful eyes of his were heldby the last figure of all in that austere procession--a tall, gauntyoung man, whose copper-coloured skin and hawk-featured face proclaimedhis Moorish blood. Instantly, maliciously, it flashed through theprince's boyish mind how he might make of this man an instrument tohumble the pride of that insolent clergy. He raised his hand, andbeckoned the cleric to him.
"What is your name?" he asked him.
"I am called Zuleyman, lord," he was answered, and the nameconfirmed--where, indeed, no confirmation was necessary--the fellow'sMoorish origin.
Affonso Henriques laughed. It would be an excellent jest to thrust uponthese arrogant priests, who refused to appoint a bishop of their choice,a bishop who was little better than a blackamoor.
"Don Zuleyman," said the prince, "I name you Bishop of Coimbra in theroom of the rebel who has fled. You will prepare to celebrate High Massthis morning, and to pronounce my absolution."
The Christianized Moor fell back a step, his face paling under itscopper skin to a sickly grey. In the background, the hindmost members ofthe retreating clerical procession turned and stood at gaze, angered andscandalized by what they heard, which was indeed a thing beyond belief.
"Ah no, my lord! Ah no!" Don Zuleyman was faltering. "Not that!"
The prospect terrified him, and in his agitation he had recourse toLatin. "Domine, non sum dignus," he cried, and beat his breast.
But the uncompromising Affonso Henriques gave him back Latin for Latin.
"Dixi--I have spoken!" he answered sternly. "Do not fail me inobedience, on your life." And on that he clanked out again with hisattendants, well-pleased with his morning's work.
As he had disposed with boyish, almost irresponsible rashness, and inflagrant contravention of all canon law, so it fell out. Don Zuleyman,wearing the bishop's robes and the bishop's mitre, intoned the KyrieEleison before noon that day in the Cathedral of Coimbra, and pronouncedthe absolution of the Infante of Portugal, who knelt so submissively anddevoutly before him.
Affonso Henriques was very pleased with himself. He made a jest of theaffair, and invited his intimates to laugh with him. But Emigio Monizand the elder members of his council refused to laugh. They looked withawe upon a deed that went perilously near to sacrilege, and implored himto take their own sober view of the thing he had done.
"By the bones of St. James!" he cried. "A prince is not to bebrow-beaten by a priest."
Such a view in the twelfth century was little short of revolutionary.The chapter of the Cathedral of Coimbra held the converse opinion thatpriests were not to be browbeaten by a prince, and set themselves tomake Affonso Henriques realize this to his bitter cost. They dispatchedto Rome an account of his unconscionable, high-handed, incrediblesacrilege, and invited Rome to administer condign spiritual flagellationupon this errant child of Mother Church. Rome made haste to vindicateher authority, and dispatched a legate to the recalcitrant, audaciousboy who ruled in Portugal. But the distance being considerable, andmeans of travel inadequate and slow, it was not until Don Zuleyman hadpresided in the See of Coimbra for a full two months that the PapalLegate made his appearance in Affonso Henriques' capital.
A very splendid Prince of the Church was Cardinal Corrado, the envoydispatched by Pope Honorius II., full armed with apostolic weapons toreduce the rebellious Infante of Portugal into proper subjection.
His approach was heralded by the voice of rumour. Affonso Henriquesheard of it without perturbation. His conscience at ease in theabsolution which he had wrung from Mother Church after his own fashion,he was entirely absorbed in preparations for a campaign against theMoors which was to widen his dominions. Therefore when at length thethunderbolt descended, it fell--so far as he was concerned--from a skyentirely clear.
It was towards dusk of a summer evening when the legate, in a litterslung in line between two mules, entered Coimbra. He was attended by twonephews, Giannino and Pierluigi da Corrado, both patricians of Rome,and a little knot of servants. Empanoplied in his sacred office, thecardinal had no need of the protection of men-at-arms upon a journeythrough god-fearing lands.
He was borne straight to the old Moorish palace where the Infanteresided, and came upon him there amid a numerous company in the greatpillared hall. Against a background of battle trophies, livid weapons,implements of war, and suits of mail both Saracen and Christian, withwhich the bare walls were hung, moved a gaily-clad, courtly gathering ofnobles and their women-folk, when the great cardinal, clad from head tofoot in scarlet, entered unannounced.
Laughter rippled into silence. A hush descended upon the company, whichstood now at gaze, considering the imposing and unbidden guest. Slowlythe legate, followed by the two Roman youths, advanced down the hall,the soft pad of his slippered feet and the rustle of his silken robesbeing at first the only sound. On he came, until he stood before theshallow dais, where in a massively carved chair sat the Infante ofPortugal, mistrustfully observing him. Affonso Henriques scented herean enemy, an ally of his mother's, the bearer of a fresh declaration ofhostilities. Therefore of deliberate purpose he kept his seat, as if tostress the fact that here he was the master.
"Lord Cardinal," he greeted the legate, "be welcome to my land ofPortugal."
The cardinal bowed stiffly, resentful of this reception. In his longjourney across the Spains, princes and nobles had flocked to kiss hishand, and bend the knee before him, seeking his blessing. Yet thismere boy, beardless save for a silky down about his firm young cheeks,retained his seat and greeted him with no more submissiveness than if hehad been the envoy of some temporal prince.
"I am the representative of our Holy Father," he announced, in a voiceof stern reproof. "I am from Rome, with these my well-beloved nephews."
"From Rome?" quoth Affonso Henriques. For all his length of limb andmassive thews he could be impish upon occasion. He was impish now."Although no good has ever yet come to me from Rome, you make mehopeful. His Holiness will have heard of the preparations I am makingfor a war against the Infidel that shall carry the Cross where nowstands the Crescent, and sends me perhaps, a gift of gold or assist mein this holy work."
The mockery of it stung the legate sharply. His sallow, ascetic faceempurpled.
"It is not gold I bring you," he answered, "but a lesson in the faithwhich you would seem to have forgotten. I am come to teach you yourChristian duty, and to require of you immediate reparation of thesacrilegious wrongs you have done. The Holy Father demands of you theinstant re-instatement of the Bishop of Coimbra, whom you have drivenout with threats of violence, and the degradation of the cleric youblasphemously appointed Bishop in his stead."
"And is that all?" quoth the boy, in a voice dangerously quiet.
"No." Fearless in his sense of right, the legate towered before him."It is demanded of you further that you instantly release the lady, yourmother, from the unjust confinement in which you hold her."
"That confinement is not unjust, as all here can witness," the Infanteanswered. "Rome may believe it, because lies have been carried toRome. Dona Theresa's life was a scandal, her regency an injustice to mypeople. She and the infamous Lord of Trava lighted the torch of civilwar in these dominions. Learn here the truth, and carry it to Rome. Thusshall you do
worthy service."
But the prelate was obstinate and proud.
"That is not the answer that our Holy Father awaits."
"It is the answer that I send."
"Rash, rebellious youth, beware!" The cardinal's anger flamed up, andhis voice swelled. "I come armed with spiritual weapons of destruction.Do not abuse the patience of Mother Church, or you shall feel the fullweight of her wrath released against you."
Exasperated, Affonso Henriques bounded to his feet, his face livid nowwith passion, his eyes ablaze.
"Out! Away!" he cried. "Go, my lord, and go quickly, or as God watchesus I will add here and now yet another sacrilege to those of which youaccuse me."
The prelate gathered his ample robes about him. If pale, he was entirelycalm once more. With stern dignity, he bowed to the angry youth, andso departed, but with such outward impassivity that it would have beendifficult to say with whom lay the victory. If Affonso Henriques thoughtthat night that he had conquered, morning was to shatter the illusion.
He was awakened early by a chamberlain at the urgent instances of EmigioMoniz, who was demanding immediate audience. Affonso Henriques sat up inbed, and bade him to be admitted.
The elderly knight and faithful counsellor came in, treading heavily.His swarthy face was overcast, his mouth set in stern lines under itsgrizzled beard.
"God keep you, lord," was his greeting, so lugubriously delivered as tosound like a pious, but rather hopeless, wish.
"And you, Emigio," answered him the Infante. "You are early astir. Whatis the cause?"
"I'll tidings, lord." He crossed the room, unlatched and flung wide awindow. "Listen," he bade the prince.
On the still morning air arose a sound like the drone of some gigantichive, or of the sea when the tide is making. Affonso Henriquesrecognized it for the murmur of the multitude.
"What does it mean?" he asked, and thrust a sinewy leg from the bed.
"It means that the Papal Legate has done all that he threatened, andsomething more. He has placed your city of Coimbra under a ban ofexcommunication. The churches are closed, and until the ban is liftedno priest will be found to baptize, marry, shrive or perform any otherSacrament of Holy Church. The people are stricken with terror, knowingthat they share the curse with you. They are massing below at the gatesof the alcazar, demanding to see you that they may implore you to liftfrom them the horror of this excommunication."
Affonso Henriques had come to his feet by now, and he stood therestaring at the old knight, his face blenched, his stout heart clutchedby fear of these impalpable, blasting weapons that were being usedagainst him.
"My God!" he groaned, and asked: "What must I do?"
Moniz was preternaturally grave. "It is of the first importance that thepeople should be pacified."
"But how?"
"There is one way only--by a promise that you will submit to the willof the Holy Father, and by penance seek absolution for yourself and yourcity."
A red flush swept into the young cheeks that had been so pale.
"What?" he cried, his voice a roar. "Release my mother, depose Zuleyman,recall that fugitive recreant who cursed me, and humble myself to seekpardon at the hands of this insolent Italian cleric? May my bones rot,may I roast for ever in hell-fire if I show myself such a craven! Anddo you counsel it, Emigio--do you really counsel that?" He was in atowering rage.
"Listen to that voice," Emigio answered him, and waved a hand to theopen window. "How else will you silence it?"
Affonso Henriques sat down on the edge of the bed, and took his head inhis hands. He was checkmated--and yet....
He rose and beat his hands together, summoning chamberlain and pages tohelp him dress and arm.
"Where is the legate lodged?" he asked Moniz.
"He is gone," the knight answered him. "He left at cock-crow, taking theroad to Spain along the Mondego--so I learnt from the watch at the RiverGate."
"How came they to open for him?"
"His office, lord, is a key that opens all doors at any hour of day ornight. They dared not detain or delay him."
"Ha!" grunted the Infante. "We will go after him, then." And he madehaste to complete his dressing. Then he buckled on his great sword, andthey departed.
In the courtyard of the alcazar, he summoned Sancho Nunes and ahalf-dozen men-at-arms to attend him, mounted a charger and with EmigioMoniz at his side and the others following, he rode out across thedraw-bridge into the open space that was thronged with the clamantinhabitants of the stricken city.
A great cry went up when he showed himself--a mighty appeal to him formercy and the remission of the curse. Then silence fell, a silence thatinvited him to answer and give comfort.
He reined in his horse, and standing in his stirrups very tall andvirile, he addressed them.
"People of Coimbra," he announced, "I go to obtain this city'sabsolution from the ban that has been laid upon it. I shall returnbefore sunset. Till then do you keep the peace."
The voice of the multitude was raised again, this time to hail him asthe father and protector of the Portuguese, and to invoke the blessingof Heaven upon his handsome head.
Riding between Moniz and Nunes, and followed by his glitteringmen-at-arms, he crossed the city and took the road along the river bywhich it was known that the legate had departed. All that morningthey rode briskly amain, the Infante fasting, as he had risen, yetunconscious of hunger and of all else but the purpose that was consuminghim. He rode in utter silence, his face set, his brows stern; and Moniz,watching him furtively the while, wondered what thoughts were stirringin that rash, impetuous young brain, and was afraid.
Towards noon at last they overtook the legate's party. They espied hismule-litter at the door of an inn in a little village some ten milesbeyond the foothills of the Bussaco range. The Infante reined upsharply, a hoarse, fierce cry escaping him, akin to that of somecreature of the wild when it espies its prey.
Moniz put forth a hand to seize his arm.
"My lord, my lord," he cried, fearfully. "What is your purpose?"
The prince looked him between the eyes, and his lips curled in a smilethat was not altogether sweet.
"I am going to beg Cardinal Corrado to have compassion on me," heanswered, subtly mocking, and on that he swung down from his horse, andtossed the reins to a man-at-arms.
Into the inn he clanked, Moniz and Nunes following closely. He thrustaside the vintner who, not knowing him, would have hindered him, greatlord though he seemed, from disturbing the holy guest who was honouringthe house. He strode on, and into the room where the Cardinal with hisnoble nephews sat at dinner.
At sight of him, fearing violence, Giannino and Pierluigi came instantlyto their feet, their hands upon their daggers. But Cardinal da Corradosat unmoved. He looked up, a smile of ineffable gentleness upon hisascetic face.
"I had hoped that you would come after me, my son," he said. "If youcome a penitent, then has my prayer been heard."
"A penitent!" cried Affonso Henriques. He laughed wickedly, and pluckedhis dagger from its sheath.
Sancho Nunes, in terror, set a detaining hand upon his prince's arm.
"My lord," he cried in a voice that shook, "you will not strike theLord's anointed--that were to destroy yourself for ever."
"A curse," said Affonso Henriques, "perishes with him that uttered it."He could reason loosely, you see, this hot-blooded, impetuous youngcutter of Gordian knots. "And it imports above all else that the curseshould be lifted from my city of Coimbra."
"It shall be, my son, as soon as you show penitence and a Christiansubmission to the Holy Father's will," said the undaunted Cardinal.
"God give me patience with you," Affonso Henriques answered him. "Listento me now, lord Cardinal." And he leaned forward on his dagger, buryingthe point of it some inches into the deal table. "That you should punishme with the weapons of the Faith for the sins that you allege against meI can understand and suffer. There is reason in that, perhaps. But willyou tell me what reasons the
re can be in punishing a whole city for anoffence which, if it exists at all, is mine alone?--and in punishing itby a curse so terrible that all the consolations of religion are deniedthose true children of Mother Church, that no priestly office may beperformed within the city, that men and women may not approach thealtars of the Faith, that they must die unshriven with their sins uponthem, and so be damned through all eternity? Where is the reason thaturges this?"
The cardinal's smile had changed from one of benignity to one of guile.
"Why, I will answer you. Out of their terror they will be moved torevolt against you, unless you relieve them of the ban. Thus, LordPrince, I hold you in check. You make submission or else you aredestroyed."
Affonso Henriques considered him a moment. "You answer me indeed,"said he, and then his voice swelled up in denunciation. "But this isstatecraft, not religion. And when a prince has no statecraft to matchthat which is opposed to him, do you know what follows? He has recourseto force, Lord Cardinal. You compel me to it; upon your own head theconsequences."
The legate almost sneered. "What is the force of your poor lethalweapons compared with the spiritual power I wield? Do you threaten mewith death? Do you think I fear it?" He rose in a surge of sudden wrath,and tore open his scarlet robe. "Strike here with your poniard. Iwear no mail. Strike if you dare, and by the sacrilegious blow destroyyourself in this world and the next."
The Infante considered him. Slowly he sheathed his dagger, smiling alittle. Then he beat his hands together. His men-at-arms came in.
"Seize me those two Roman whelps," he commanded, and pointed to Gianninoand Pierlulgi. "Seize them, and make them fast. About it!"
"Lord Prince!" cried the legate in a voice of appeal, wherein fear andanger trembled.
It was the note of fear that heartened Affonso Henriques. "About it!"he cried again, though needlessly, for already his men-at-arms wereat grips with the Cardinal's nephews. In a trice the kicking, biting,swearing pair were overpowered, deprived of arms, and pinioned. The menlooked to their prince for further orders. In the background Moniz andNunes witnessed all with troubled countenances, whilst the Cardinal,beyond the table, white to the lips, demanded in a quavering voice toknow what violence was intended, implored the Infante to consider,and in the same breath threatened him with dread consequences of thisaffront.
Affonso Henriques, unmoved, pointed through the window to a stalwart oakthat stood before the inn.
"Take them out there, and hang them unshriven," he commanded.
The Cardinal swayed, and almost fell forward. He clutched the table,speechless with terror for those lads who were as the very apple of hiseye, he who so fearlessly had bared his own breast to the steel.
The two comely Italian youths were dragged out writhing in theircaptors' hands.
At last the half-swooning legate found his voice. "Lord Prince," hegasped. "Lord Prince... you cannot do this infamy! You cannot! I warnyou that... that..." The threat perished unuttered, slain by mountingterror. "Mercy! Have mercy, lord! as you hope for mercy!"
"What mercy do you practice, you who preach a gospel of mercy in theworld, and cry for mercy now?" the Infante asked him.
"But this is an infamy! What harm have those poor children done? Whatconcern is it of theirs that I have offended you in performing my sacredduty?"
Swift into that opening flashed the home-thrust of the Infante's answer.
"What harm have my people of Coimbra done? What concern is it of theirsthat I have offended you? Yet to master me you did not hesitate tostrike at them with the spiritual weapons that are yours. To master youI do not hesitate to strike at your nephews with the lethal weapons thatare mine. When you shall have seen them hang you will understand thethings that argument could not make clear to you. In the vileness of myact you will see a reflection of the vileness of your own, and perhapsyour heart will be touched, your monstrous pride abated."
Outside, under the tree, the figures of the men-at-arms were moving.Expeditiously, and with indifference, they went about the preparationsfor the task entrusted to them.
The Cardinal writhed, and fought for breath. "Lord Prince, this mustnot be!" He stretched forth supplicating hands. "Lord Prince, you mustrelease my nephews."
"Lord Cardinal, you must absolve my people."
"If... if you will first make submission. My duty... to the Holy See...Oh God! Will nothing move you?"
"When they have been hanged you will understand, and out of your ownaffliction learn compassion." The Infante's voice was so cold, hismien so resolute that the legate despaired of conquering his purpose.Abruptly he capitulated, even as the halters went about the necks of histwo cherished lads.
"Stop!" he screamed. "Bid them stop! The curse shall be lifted."
Affonso Henriques opened the window with a leisureliness which to thelegate seemed to belong to the realm of nightmare.
"Wait yet a moment," the Infante called to those outside, about whom bynow a little knot of awe-stricken villagers had gathered. Then heturned again to Cardinal Corrado, who had sunk to his chair like a manexhausted, and sat now panting, his elbows on the table, his head in hishands. "Here," said the prince, "are the terms upon which you may havetheir lives: Complete absolution, and Apostolic benediction for mypeople and myself this very night, I on my side making submission tothe Holy Father's will to the extent of releasing my mother from duress,with the condition that she leaves Portugal at once and does not return.As for the banished bishop and his successor, matters must remain asthey are; but you can satisfy your conscience on that score by yourselfconfirming the appointment of Don Zuleyman. Come, my lord, I am beinggenerous, I think. In the enlargement of my mother I afford you themeans of satisfying Rome. If you have learnt your lesson from what Ihere proposed, your conscience should satisfy you of the rest."
"Be it so," the Cardinal answered hoarsely. "I will return with you toCoimbra and do your will."
Thereupon, without any tinge of mockery, but in completest sincerityin token that the feud between them was now completely healed, AffonsoHenriques went down upon his knees, like the true and humble son of HolyChurch he accounted himself, to ask a blessing at the Cardinal's hands.