Inside the palace was gloomy after the brilliant sunshine. Here and there torches burned to give light in the corridors. Passing along I got glimpses through open doors of chapels with candles burning, of soldiers eating, of monks sitting writing at a table, now and then we came out into a courtyard or passed along a gallery which had one arcaded side looking out over a fountain or a garden with statues. The guard led us into an ante-chamber hung with paintings of battle scenes, and here were a dozen other people already waiting.
We too settled to wait. We waited from a quarter before nine until a quarter after twelve. Nobody else in that time was attended to, only the number in attendance grew. Then a liveried servant came through the farther door and passed through the stirring expectant throng until he reached us. He spoke to Alazar and we followed him.
Beyond was another ante-chamber in which a man sat writing at a desk. He was tall and middle aged and his face was square and bony and discreet like a carefully closed fist. Two young pages with long black hair stood at his elbows.
Alazar said in English: “Excellency, this is the boy.”
Eyes like olives dipped in water made a very careful scrutiny of all that I was and wore. “He speaks Spanish?”
“No, your Excellency.”
“What is your name?” he asked in a harsh, accented English.
“Maugan Killigrew.”
“Whence come you?”
“Arwenack House, beside Pendennis Castle, in Cornwall.”
“You are the natural son of John Killigrew, governor of the castle? “
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell me the names of his other children.”
“His my …” I stared a moment. “The the eldest is John, who is now fourteen. Then comes Thomas, who is thirteen, then Odelia, who is who will soon be twelve. Henry is ten, will be eleven in June. Maria is four, Peter nearly three, Elizabeth is a few months old … That is all.”
“What is your mother’s Christian name?”
“I do not know, sir. I never knew who she was.”
An impatient gesture. “Your second mother. How do you put it? Stepmother.”
“Oh. Dorothy. Her maiden name was Dorothy Monck.-
The Spaniard rubbed the sleeve of his crimson velvet jacket. As he got up the pages jumped to draw back his chair. He left the room by a tiny door let into the tapestry. The pages came across to me, and their hands searched impersonally for hidden weapons.
“Who was that?”
“Senor Andres Prada:’
“Who is he?”
“Quiet, boy.”
SefSor Prada came back; I was to go with him. Alazar wanted to accompany us but the Spaniard brushed this contemptuously aside.
We went into a small room with a long window looking across the city towards the snow peaks thirty miles distant. Another man, whom I took to be a junior secretary, sat writing at a desk piled high with papers. When we had stopped moving there was no sound in the room but the scratching of his quill. He was in black; an elderly man with pale redrimmed eyes, a drawn ascetic face with a heavy under-jaw which a grey beard did not disguise. Altogether he looked less Spanish than any other I had recently seen.
I had expected he might have jumped to his feet but it was Sehor Prada who made the obeisance. I think he said: ‘This is the boy.’ One grew used to the sound of a sentence.
The elderly man said in a very good English: “You think he is bona fide?”
“Yes, sire.”
“Come here, boy.”
I took two cautious steps nearer the table.
“Know you who I am?”
“No, sir.”
The elderly man put his pen down and rubbed his knuckles together as if he was cold. The papers on his desk were elaborate lists and statistical tables, many of them annotated. “He is certainly English. It is a type I well knew once . I. Are you a Luterano, boy?”
“Sir? “
“Are you an apostate? … What they call a Protestant?”
“Yes, sir.”
A glint came into the tired eyes. “If you are to stay here that must be changed. It must be changed, Prada.”
“Yes, sire.”
“You come from a western county which, alas, I never visited but one which I always held in esteem. You are Celts and have affinities with the Irish. A sturdy, faithful stock among whom fidelity to the religion of Christ dies hard.”
“We too ” I began and stopped.
“We too?”
“No, sir,” I said, seeing danger in argument.
“Throughout England,” he said, “good and saintly people groan under the yoke. It may be that, God guiding and strengthening our hands, they shall need to wait but a short time now.”
A brilliant band of sunlight lit up the Hapsburg coat of arms on the carpet by my feet. Was this the man Ralegh had spoken about at Arwenack last Christmas twelvemonth, this quiet, clerkly, dedicated, elderly person?
“There is much unrest in England,” he went on. “Oh, I know that, boy, everyone is agreed on it. She is shaken by religious feuds to the point that many parts are on the verge of revolt. There is pestilence and other internal troubles, too. It is a judgment …”
“Your Majesty ” Prada began.
The knuckles cracked. “Tell me, boy, where is Drake, now? We have seen nothing of him these later years.”
“I think he lives near Plymouth, sir.”
“You are right. He superintends its fortifications. He works on schemes for improving its supply of water. He has been out of favour with the Queen. He grows old as we all grow old. If he came forth he would fare less well.”
“Yes, sir.” I was startled by his sharpness and his detailed knowledge.
“Yet I have information that he still yearns for adventure. I have information that the Queen is regarding him more kindly again. Knew you that?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, let him beware if he comes forth again. He will fare less well. He will find our fleets greatly changed.”
“Your Majesty,” Prada said, “the two men who brought this boy are in the next chamber and ask some reward for his capture.”
The King picked up a sheet of parchment and held it in hands of the same colour. “is it true, boy, what they say here, that they fired your castle?”
“Yes, sir,” I said after a moment. “Yes, it was the explosions that brought me from the house. Of course I do not know what damage was caused.”
“In due course we shall have word on that. Is your castle well prepared to resist invasion?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My information is that it is not. My information is that your father neglects his defences, selling the powder and shot where best he can … Prada, can you use this boy?”
“I think, sire, he may be of some value.”
The King turned the parchment over and over in his thin fingers. “Give this Portuguese a gold chain of a fair weight and quality. And grant him an annual pension of 50 ducats … The Englishman … give him 100 ducats and some employment with the fleet. He can continue to be useful in other ways.”
“Yes, sire.”
The King extended his hand, it seemed for me to kiss, and then withdrew it. There were little beads of saliva at the corners of his mouth.
“You will keep this boy in your service, Prada?”
“Yes, sire. So long as we can see use for him.”
“Then attend to his soul. At that age a course of instruction may do all that is necessary … But whatever is necessary, let it be done …”
Before we left the room the pen was scratching on the paper again.
I separated from Alazar and Burley in the middle of the following week.
Whatever the value of the reward, they were not unsatisfied with it. Alazar’s gold chain was one for which he said he could get 200 ducats anywhere. Their interest in me finished from that day. They were to hand me over on the Tuesday to Sehor Prada; I had to be there and I had to be alive, that was all. Burley was drunk all Sunday.