"A penitent!" cried Affonso Henriques. He laughed wickedly, and plucked his 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 the Lord'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 young cutter of Gordian knots. "And it imports above all else that the curse should be lifted from my city of Coimbra."
"It shall be, my son, as soon as you show penitence and a Christian submission to the Holy Father's will," said the undaunted Cardinal.
"God give me patience with you," Affonso Henriques answered him. "Listen to me now, lord Cardinal." And he leaned forward on his dagger, burying the point of it some inches into the deal table. "That you should punish me with the weapons of the Faith for the sins that you allege against me I can understand and suffer. There is reason in that, perhaps. But will you tell me what reasons there can be in punishing a whole city for an offence which, if it exists at all, is mine alone?—and in punishing it by a curse so terrible that all the consolations of religion are denied those true children of Mother Church, that no priestly office may be performed within the city, that men and women may not approach the altars of the Faith, that they must die unshriven with their sins upon them, and so be damned through all eternity? Where is the reason that urges 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 to revolt against you, unless you relieve them of the ban. Thus, Lord Prince, I hold you in check. You make submission or else you are destroyed."
Affonso Henriques considered him a moment. "You answer me indeed," said he, and then his voice swelled up in denunciation. "But this is statecraft, not religion. And when a prince has no statecraft to match that which is opposed to him, do you know what follows? He has recourse to force, Lord Cardinal. You compel me to it; upon your own head the consequences."
The legate almost sneered. "What is the force of your poor lethal weapons compared with the spiritual power I wield? Do you threaten me with 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. I wear no mail. Strike if you dare, and by the sacrilegious blow destroy yourself in this world and the next."
The Infante considered him. Slowly he sheathed his dagger, smiling a little. Then he beat his hands together. His men-at-arms came in.
"Seize me those two Roman whelps," he commanded, and pointed to Giannino and Pierlulgi. "Seize them, and make them fast. About it!"
"Lord Prince!" cried the legate in a voice of appeal, wherein fear and anger trembled.
It was the note of fear that heartened Affonso Henriques. "About it!" he cried again, though needlessly, for already his men-at-arms were at grips with the Cardinal's nephews. In a trice the kicking, biting, swearing pair were overpowered, deprived of arms, and pinioned. The men looked to their prince for further orders. In the background Moniz and Nunes witnessed all with troubled countenances, whilst the Cardinal, beyond the table, white to the lips, demanded in a quavering voice to know what violence was intended, implored the Infante to consider, and in the same breath threatened him with dread consequences of this affront.
Affonso Henriques, unmoved, pointed through the window to a stalwart oak that 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 his eye, he who so fearlessly had bared his own breast to the steel.
The two comely Italian youths were dragged out writhing in their captors' hands.
At last the half-swooning legate found his voice. "Lord Prince," he gasped. "Lord Prince... you cannot do this infamy! You cannot! I warn you that... that..." The threat perished unuttered, slain by mounting terror. "Mercy! Have mercy, lord! as you hope for mercy!"
"What mercy do you practice, you who preach a gospel of mercy in the world, and cry for mercy now?" the Infante asked him.
"But this is an infamy! What harm have those poor children done? What concern is it of theirs that I have offended you in performing my sacred duty?"
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 theirs that I have offended you? Yet to master me you did not hesitate to strike at them with the spiritual weapons that are yours. To master you I do not hesitate to strike at your nephews with the lethal weapons that are mine. When you shall have seen them hang you will understand the things that argument could not make clear to you. In the vileness of my act you will see a reflection of the vileness of your own, and perhaps your 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 preparations for the task entrusted to them.
The Cardinal writhed, and fought for breath. "Lord Prince, this must not be!" He stretched forth supplicating hands. "Lord Prince, you must release 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 own affliction learn compassion." The Infante's voice was so cold, his mien so resolute that the legate despaired of conquering his purpose. Abruptly he capitulated, even as the halters went about the necks of his two cherished lads.
"Stop!" he screamed. "Bid them stop! The curse shall be lifted."
Affonso Henriques opened the window with a leisureliness which to the legate seemed to belong to the realm of nightmare.
"Wait yet a moment," the Infante called to those outside, about whom by now a little knot of awe-stricken villagers had gathered. Then he turned again to Cardinal Corrado, who had sunk to his chair like a man exhausted, and sat now panting, his elbows on the table, his head in his hands. "Here," said the prince, "are the terms upon which you may have their lives: Complete absolution, and Apostolic benediction for my people and myself this very night, I on my side making submission to the 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 as they are; but you can satisfy your conscience on that score by yourself confirming the appointment of Don Zuleyman. Come, my lord, I am being generous, I think. In the enlargement of my mother I afford you the means of satisfying Rome. If you have learnt your lesson from what I here proposed, your conscience should satisfy you of the rest."
"Be it so," the Cardinal answered hoarsely. "I will return with you to Coimbra and do your will."
Thereupon, without any tinge of mockery, but in completest sincerity in token that the feud between them was now completely healed, Affonso Henriques went down upon his knees, like the true and humble son of Holy Church he accounted himself, to ask a blessing at the Cardinal's hands.
II. THE FALSE DEMETRIUS
Boris Godunov and the Pretended Son of Ivan the Terrible
The news of it first reached him whilst he sat at supper in the great hall of his palace in the Kremlin. It came at a time when already there was enough to distract his mind; for although the table before him was spread and equipped as became an emperor's, the gaunt spectre of famine stalked outside in the streets of Moscow, and men and women were so reduced by it that cannibalism was alleged to be breaking out amongst them.