The roads called forth curses from Joshua, struggling with the led sumpter. Years ago he had journeyed into Spain with Beauvallet, but he protested that he had forgotten long since how incomparably bad were the roads. He rode to the rear, and observed all with bright, calculating eyes. “Naught but sheep!” he grunted. “Enough to ravage the land. God’s Life, but this is a poor country! Ruin stares us in the face, master, from all sides. Here are no crops, no snug farmers. Naught but bare rocks, and dust. And sheep—I forget the sheep, which you would have thought hardly possible. Why, call you this a road? Ho, we Englishmen can still teach the Spaniards some few matters, it seems!”
“Set a guard on that tongue of yours,” Beauvallet said sharply. “Let me hear no talk of Englishmen. Ay, this is a waste country. Now, how might a runner go at speed, to the Frontier, let us say?”
“He might not, master, on these roads, without foundering. It’s a land of the Dark Ages, one would say. Bethink you of the fair manor my lord has built him in Alreston, and look on these grim fortresses!” He spoke of a gloomy castle seen some miles back along the road, and shuddered. “Nay, I like not this land. It frowns, master! Mark what I say, it frowns!”
Over the Guadarrama Mountains they climbed, and dropped on to the great, parched plateau. They rode league upon weary league, and at last saw Madrid ahead, and came to it in the cold of the evening. Joshua shivered on his horse, and muttered against a climate so extreme. He was roasted by day, he swore, but when evening fell Arctic winds arose that were like to lay him low of a fever.
Beauvallet knew Madrid of old, but found it grown since his day. He made his way to the inn of the Rising Sun, lying some paces off the Puerta del Sol. It was not necessary to caution Joshua again. That wiry individual ceased complaining as they climbed the steep streets into the heart of the town, and might be trusted to carry all off with a bold front. Beauvallet had no fear of unwitting betrayal from him. French he spoke fluently, if roughly, and Spanish very fairly. He was not likely to slip into his own tongue through inability to find words in a foreign language.
Sir Nicholas bespoke a private room at the inn, and supped there that evening, waited on by Joshua. “Since it is very certain that the French Ambassador is not privy to this correspondence I carry, you will say, Joshua, that I am travelling for my pleasure. You know naught of secret documents.”
“Master, what will you do with those papers?” Joshua asked uneasily.
The corners of Sir Nicholas’ mouth lifted under the trim moustachio. “Why, present them to his Catholic Majesty! What else?”
“ ’S death, sir, will you go into the lion’s den?” quaked Joshua.
“I know of only one lion, sirrah, and that one is not to be found in Spain!” Beauvallet said. “I am bound on the morrow for the Alcazar. Lay me out a rich suit of the French cut.” He brought out the stolen papers from his bosom, and laid them on the table. “And stitch me these safe in a length of silk.” His eyes twinkled. “What, do you tremble still? Cross yourself, and say Jesu! It’s in the part.”
Access to the Alcazar was not found to be so easy as access to any of Queen Elizabeth’s palaces. There was a long delay, many questions, and the pseudo-Chevalier’s credentials were taken from him while he was left to cool his heels in the great austere hall.
He sat down on a carved chair of cypress wood, and looked about him with interest. There was much sombre marble, much rich brocade, and hangings of Flanders tapestry depicting the martyrdoms of various saints. A statue in bronze stood at the foot of the wide stairway; there were Turkey carpets on the floor, strange sight to an English eye, so that footsteps fell muffled. Certain, there was no sound in the Alcazar. Lackeys stood graven on either side the great door; sundry personages passed across the hall from time to time, but they spoke no word. There was a courtier, all in silk and velvet; a soberly clad individual whom Beauvallet took to be a secretary; a priest of the Dominican order with his cowl shading his face, and his hands hidden in the wide sleeves of his habit; an elderly man who looked curiously at Beauvallet; an officer of the guard, a hurrying woman who might be a maid of honour.
It was oppressive in the lofty hall; the very hush of the place might have preyed on nerves less hardy than Beauvallet’s. Here, to an Englishman, was a place of grim foreboding, of lurking terror. It did not need the sight of that dark priest to conjure up hideous pictures to the mind.
But Sir Nicholas saw no hideous pictures, and his pulse beat as steadily as ever. A false step, and he would never again see England: with a kind of brazen daredevilry he was confident there would be no false step. In Paris, a month ago, the Marquis de Belrémy had said aghast:—“Mon Dieu, quel sangfroid!” Could he have set eyes on his kinsman now he would have been still more aghast, and might have repeated with even more conviction, that Nicholas would sit jesting in hell’s mouth itself.
After a full half-hour’s wait the lackey came back with a long-gowned, close shaven secretary who looked keenly at Beauvallet. “You are the Chevalier de Guise?” he asked in French.
Sir Nicholas was swinging his golden pomander. He did not think, from his knowledge of them, that the Guise would rise out of their seats for a mere scrivener. Gravely he bowed his head.
“You have letters for his Majesty?” pursued the secretary.
Again Beauvallet bowed, and knew that he was creating a good
