"A word of advice in season, Don Antonio," he said as we stepped forth together. "Do not go so often to visit the Princess."
I sought to pull my arm from his, but he dung to it and pinned it to his side.
"Nay, now—nay, now!" he soothed me. "Not so hot, my friend. What the devil have I said to provoke resentment? I advise you as your friend."
"In future advise that other friend of yours, the devil," I answered angrily, and pulled my arm away at last. "Don Juan, you have presumed, I think. I did not seek your advice. It is yourself that stands in need of advice this moment more than any man in Spain."
"Lord of the World," he exclaimed in amiable protest, "listen to him! I speak because I owe friendship to the Princess. Men whisper of your comings and goings, I tell you. And the King, you know well, should he hear of this I am in danger of losing my only friend at Court, and so—"
"Another word of this," I broke in fiercely, "now or at any other time, and I'll skewer you like a rabbit!"
I had stopped. My face was thrust within a hand's-breadth of his own; I had tossed back my cloak, and my fingers clutched the hilt of my sword. He became grave. His fine eyes—he had great, sombre, liquid eyes, such as you'll scarcely ever see outside of Spain—considered me thoughtfully a moment. Then he laughed lightly and fell back a pace.
"Pish!" said he. "Saint James! I am no rabbit for your skewering. If it comes to skewers, I am a useful man of my hands, Antonio. Come, man"—and again he took my arm—"if I presume, forgive it out of the assurance that I am moved solely by interest and concern for you. We have been friends too long that I should be denied."
I had grown cool again, and I realized that perhaps my show of anger had been imprudent. So I relented now, and we went our ways together without further show of ill-humour on my part, or further advice on his. But the matter did not end there. Indeed, it but began. Going early in the afternoon of the morrow to visit Anne, I found her in tears—tears, as I was to discover, of anger.
Escovedo had been to visit her before me, and he had dared to reproach her on the same subject.
"You are talked about, you and Perez," he had informed her, "and the thing may have evil consequences. It is because I have eaten our bread that I tell you this for your own good."
She had risen up in a great passion.
"You will leave my house, and never set foot in it again," she had told him. "You should learn that grooms and lackeys have no concern in the conduct of great ladies. It is because you have eaten my bread that I tell you this for your own good."
It drove him out incontinently, but it left her in the condition in which I was later to discover her. I set myself to soothe her. I swore that Escovedo should be punished. But she would not be soothed. She blamed herself for an unpardonable rashness. She should not have taken that tone with Escovedo. He could avenge himself by telling Philip, and if he told Philip, and Philip believed him—as Philip would, being jealous and mistrustful beyond all men—my ruin must follow. She had thought only of herself in dismissing him in that high-handed manner. Coming since to think of me it was that she had fallen into this despair. She clung to me in tears.
"Forgive me, Antonio. The fault is all mine—the fault of all. Always have I known that this danger must overhang you as a penalty for loving me. Always I knew it, and, knowing it, I should have been stronger. I should have sent you from me at the first. But I was so starved of love from childhood till I met you. I hungered so for love—for your love, Antonio—that I had not the strength. I was weak and selfish, and because I was ready and glad to pay the price myself, whatever it should be and whenever asked, I did not take thought enough for you."
"Take no thought now," I implored her, holding her close.
"I must. I can't help it. I have raised this peril for you. He will go to Philip."
"Not he; he dare not. I am his only hope. I am the ladder by which he hopes to scale the heaven of his high ambition. If he destroys me, there is the kennel for himself. He knows it."
"Do you say that to comfort me, or is it really true?"
"God's truth, sweetheart," I swore, and drew her closer.
She was comforted long before I left her. But as I stepped out into the street again a man accosted me. Evidently he had been on the watch, awaiting me. He fell into step beside me almost before I realized his presence. It was Escovedo.
"So," he said, very sinister, "you'll not be warned."
"Nor will you," I answered, no whit less sinister myself.
It was broad daylight. A pale March sunshine was beating down upon the cobbled streets, and passers-by were plentiful. There was no fingering of hilts or talk of skewering on either side. Nor must I show any of the anger that was boiling in me. My face was too well known in Madrid streets, and a Secretary of State does not parade emotions to the rabble. So I walked stiff and dignified amain, that dog in step with me the while.
"She will have told you what I have said to her," he murmured.
"And what she said to you. It was less than your deserts."
"Groom and lackey, eh?" said he. "And less than I deserve—a man of my estate. Oh, ho! Groom and lackey! Those are epithets to be washed out in blood and tears."
"You rant," I said.
"Or else to be paid for—handsomely." His tone was sly—so sly that I answered nothing, for to answer a sly man is to assist him, and my business was to let him betray the cause of this slyness. Followed a spell of silence. Then, "Do you know," said he, "that several of her relatives are thinking seriously of killing you?"
"Many men have thought seriously of that—so seriously that they never attempted it. Antonio Perez is not easily murdered, Don Juan, as you may discover."
It was a boast that I may claim to have since justified.
"Shall I tell you their names?" quoth he.
"If you want to ruin them."
"Ha!" It was a short bark of a laugh. "You talk glibly of ruining—but then you talk to a groom and lackey." The epithets rankled in his mind; they were poison to his blood, it seemed. It takes a woman to find words that burn and blister a man. "Yet groom and lackey that I am, I hold you both in the hollow of my hand. If I close that hand, it will be very bad for you, very bad for her. If, for instance, I were to tell King Philip that I have seen her in your arms—"
"You dog!"
"I have—I swear to God I have, with these two eyes—at least with one of them, applied to the keyhole half an hour ago. Her servants passed me in; a ducat or two well bestowed—you understand?"
We had reached the door of my house. I paused and turned to him.
"You will come in?" I invited.
"As the wolf said to the lamb, eh? Well, why not?" And we went in.
"You are well housed," he commented, his greedy, envious eyes considering all the tokens of my wealth. "It were a pity to lose so much, I think. The King is at the Escurial, I am told."
He was. He had gone thither into retreat, that he might cleanse his pious, murky soul against the coming of Eastertide.
"You would not, I am sure, compel me to undertake so tedious a journey," said he.
"Will you put off this slyness and be plain?" I bade him. "You have some bargain in your mind. Propound it."
He did, and left me aghast.
"You have temporized long enough, Perez," he began. "You have been hunting with the dogs and running with the stag. There must be an end to all that. Stand by me now, and I will make you greater than you are, greater than you could ever dream to be. Oppose me, betray me—for I am going to be very frank—and the King shall hear things from me that will mean your ruin and hers. You understand?"
Then came his demands. First of all the command of the fortress of Mogro for himself. I must obtain him that at once. Secondly, I must see to it that Philip pledged himself to support Don John's expedition against England and Elizabeth and to seat Don John upon the throne with Mary Stuart for his wife. These things must come about, and quickly, or I perished. Nor was that all. Indeed, no more than a beginning. He opened out the vista of his dreams, that having blackmailed me on the one hand, he might now bribe me on the other. Once England was theirs, he aimed at no less than a descent upon Spain itself. That was why he wanted Mogro to facilitate a landing at Santander. Thus, as the Christians had originally come down from the mountains of the Asturias to drive the Moors from the Peninsula, so should the forces of Don John descend again to reconquer it for himself.