This letter was never written, but the paths of communication between souls are as manifold as they are mysterious, and of the many words that Sete-Sois never got around to dictating, some affected the King deeply, such as that fatal judgment that, as a warning to Baltasar, appeared engraved in fire on the wall, weighed, counted, and divided, this Baltasar is not the Mateus we know, but that other Baltasar or Belshazzar the King of Babylon who, having desecrated the sacred vessels during a feast at the Temple in Jerusalem, was punished and put to death at the hands of Cyrus, who was destined to execute this divine sentence. The transgressions of Dom Joao V are of another order, any sacred vessels he desecrates are likely to be the brides of the Lord, but they enjoy the experience and the Lord turns a blind eye, so let us proceed. What struck a deep chord like the stroke of a bell for Dom Joao V was that phrase when Baltasar, speaking of his mother, expresses his regret that she will never see that greatest and most beautiful of sacred monuments. The King suddenly realises that his own life will be of short duration, that many people have died and will continue to die before the convent of Mafra is finally built, and that he himself might close his eyes tomorrow forevermore. You will recall that he abandoned the idea of building St Peter of Rome precisely because Ludovice convinced him that life is short, and that the same St Peter, as has been recorded, from the time the foundation stone was blessed until the Basilica's consecration, swallowed up one hundred and twenty years of labour and expense. So far, Mafra has already taken eleven years of labour and who knows how much expense, Who can guarantee that I shall still be alive when the consecration finally takes place, when not so many years ago I was not expected to survive, stricken as I was by a melancholia that threatened to carry me off before my time, the simple truth is that Sete-Sois's mother, poor woman, saw the beginning but will not see the end, and a king is not exempt from a similiar fate.
Dom Joao V is in a room in the tower that overlooks the river. He orders the footmen, secretaries, friars, and a singer from the Teatro da Comedia to withdraw, for he wishes to be alone. Written on his face is fear of death, the greatest humiliation of all for so mighty a monarch. But this horror of dying is not such as to reduce him in body and spirit, but enough to ensure that his eyes will no longer be open and shining when the consecrated towers and dome of Mafra are finally erected, that his hearing will no longer be sensitive to the sonorous chimes that will triumphantly ring out, his hands no longer be able to touch the sumptuous vestments and hangings of the religious solemnities, his nostrils no longer able to inhale the incense spiralling from those silver thuribles, that he will simply be the monarch who gave the orders that the sanctuary be built, not the monarch who saw it completed. Yonder sails a ship, and who can tell if it will arrive safely in port, A cloud passes overhead, and perhaps it will be obliterated by a rainstorm, Beneath those waters, a shoal of fishes swims toward the fisherman's net, Vanity of vanities, Solomon once declared, and Dom Joao V repeats these words, All is vanity, to desire is vanity, to possess is vanity.
To overcome vanity, however, does not mean to have achieved modesty, much less humility, it is, rather, an excess of vanity. Upon rousing himself from this anguished meditation, the King did not don the sackcloth of penance and renunciation but summoned back the footmen, secretaries, and friars, the singer from the Teatro da Comedia would arrive later, and asked them if it was really true, as he had always been led to believe, that basilicas should be consecrated on a Sunday, and they assured him that it was so according to the Holy Liturgy, so the King asked them to check in which year his birthday, the twenty-second of October, would fall on a Sunday, and after consulting the calendar, the secretaries verified that such a coincidence would occur twenty years hence, in the year seventeen hundred and thirty, Then on that day the basilica of Mafra will be consecrated, that is what I wish, ordain, and decree, and when they heard these words, the footmen kissed the hand of their sovereign, you will tell me which is the more excellent thing, to be king of the world or of these people.
Joao Frederico Ludovice and Dr Leandro de Melo dampened the King's ardour when they were urgently recalled from Mafra, where the former had been sent and the latter offered his assistance, with the place they had come from fresh in their memory, they warned the King that the slow progress of the work at Mafra did not justify any such optimism, the walls of the enlarged section of the convent were going up very slowly, and the church, because of its delicate stone structure and intricate design, could not be built in haste, as Your Majesty knows better than anyone else, from your long experience of reconciling and balancing the different forces that constitute a nation. Dom Joao V glowered, because this importunate flattery did nothing to console him, he suppressed the temptation to reply with some chilling words of rebuke and instead recalled his secretaries, whom he ordered to verify when his birthday would next fall on a Sunday after the year seventeen thirty, which was obviously too soon. They struggled with their arithmetic and replied with some uncertainty that the coincidence would recur ten years later, in the year seventeen forty.
There were some eight to ten people present, including the King, Ludovice, Leandro, the secretaries, and the nobles in attendance that week, and they all nodded their heads gravely as if Halley himself had just expounded the frequency of the comets, the things that men are capable of discovering. Dom Joao V, however, was suddenly assailed by a sombre thought, it was reflected in the expression on his face as he rapidly made a mental note with the help of his fingers, In the year seventeen forty I shall be fifty-one years of age, and added mournfully, If I'm still alive. For a few dreadful moments, this King once more ascended the Mount of Olives and there he agonised over his fear of death, terrified at the thought of all that would be taken from him, and envious of the son who would succeed him, along with his young Queen, who would shortly arrive from Spain, together they would share the joy of seeing Mafra inaugurated and consecrated, while he rotted in the Tomb at Sao Vicente de Fora, alongside the tiny Infante Dom Pedro, who had died in infancy from the shock of being weaned. Those who were present watched the King, Ludovice with scientific curiosity, Leandro de Melo indignant at the intransigent laws of time, which do not even respect the sovereignty of kings, the secretaries wondering whether they had calculated the leap year correctly, the footmen pondering their own chances of survival. Everyone waited. Then Joao V announced, The consecration of the basilica of Mafra will take place on the twenty-second of October in the year seventeen thirty, whether the building is finished or otherwise, whether there be rain or shine, snow or wind, flood or bedlam.
If you eliminate the emphatic expressions, you will observe that these words have been used before, this would appear to be nothing other than one of those declarations intended for posterity, like that well-known phrase, Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit, so take it, which just goes to prove that God is not one-handed after all, and Padre Bartolomeu Lourenco committed a minor sacrilege when he led Baltasar Sete-Sois astray, when all he had to do was go and ask God the Son, who ought to know how many hands God the Father possesses, but in addition to what Joao V has already said, we should add what we ourselves have discovered about the number of hands his subjects have and to what uses they might be put, for the King went on to say, I hereby command that all the magistrates of the realm should be told to round up and dispatch to Mafra as many skilled workers as they can find in their regions, whether they be carpenters, bricklayers, or manual labourers, even if they should have to be removed by force from their place of work, and they should not be exempt on any pretext whatsoever, no exceptions are to be made for domestic reasons or because of any other commitments or obligations, for nothing surpasses the royal will, and the latter will be appealed to in vain, because it is precisely to serve the divine will that these provisions have been made, I have spoken. Ludovice nodded gravely, as if he had just verified the constancy of a chemical reaction, the secretaries made rapid notes, the footmen exchanged glances and smiled, this was truly a king, Dr Leandro de Melo was safe from this latest decree, because in his region there were no skilled labourers left who were not already engaged, directly or indirectly, in building the convent.
The King's orders were proclaimed and the men arrived. Some went willingly, enticed by the promise of good earnings, or because they craved adventure or experienced some sense of mission, but nearly all of them under duress. The decree was posted in the public squares, and since there were few volunteers, the local magistrate went from street to street, accompanied by his henchmen, forced entry into homes and private property, and scoured the surrounding countryside in search of recalcitrants, by the end of the day, he had rounded up some ten, twenty, thirty men, and when they outnumbered their jailers, they bound them with ropes, adopting various methods, sometimes the men were tied to one another at the waist, sometimes with an improvised halter, and sometimes fettered at the ankles like galley slaves or serfs. Much the same scene was to be witnessed everywhere. By order of His Majesty, you will help to build the convent of Mafra and if the magistrate was particularly zealous, it mattered not whether the prisoner was a man in his prime, on his last legs, or a mere stripling. The men would start off by refusing to go or threatening to escape, then they would make excuses, one had a wife about to give birth any day now, another had to look after his old mother, or there was a brood of children to be provided for, a wall to be finished, a chest to be mended, land to be worked, but if they started to make excuses, they were not allowed to finish, the henchmen would set upon them if they showed any signs of resistance, and many of the men set out on the journey covered with blood.
The women ran behind them weeping, and the screams of the children added to the uproar, one would have
