In the Palace of the King: A Love Story of Old Madrid by F. Marion Crawford (e books free to read txt) 📗

ever. There was no reasoning in all that--it was but the flash of wild thoughts that all seemed certainties.

But Don John of Austria was neither dead nor dying. His brother's sword had pierced his doublet and run through the outer flesh beneath his left arm, as he stood sideways with his right thrust forward. The wound was a mere scratch, as soldiers count wounds, and though the young blood had followed quickly, it had now ceased to flow. It was the fall that had hurt him, not the stab. The carpet had slipped from under his feet, and he had fallen backwards to his full length, as a man falls on ice, and his head had struck the marble floor so violently that he had lain half an hour almost in a swoon, like a dead man at first, with neither breath nor beating of the heart to give a sign of life, till after Dolores had left him; and then he had sighed back to consciousness by very slow degrees, because no one was there to help him, to raise his head a few inches from the floor, to dash a little cold water into his face.

He stirred uneasily now, and moved his hands again, and his eyes opened wide. Inez felt the slight motion and heard his regular breathing, and an instinct told her that he was conscious, and not in a dream as he had been when he had kissed her.

"I am Inez," she said, almost mechanically, and not knowing why she had feared that he should take her for her sister. "I found your Highness here--they all think that you are dead."

"Dead?" There was surprise in his voice, and his eyes looked at her and about the room as he spoke, though he did not yet lift his head from the hood on which it lay. "Dead?" he repeated, dazed still. "No--I must have fallen. My head hurts me."

He uttered a sharp sound as he moved again, more of annoyance than of suffering, as strong men do who unexpectedly find themselves hurt or helpless, or both. Then, as his eyes fell upon the open door of the inner room, he forgot his pain instantly and raised himself upon his hand with startled eyes.

"Where is Dolores?" he cried, in utmost anxiety. "Where have they taken her? Did she get out by the window?"

"She is safe," answered Inez, hardly knowing what she said, for he turned pale instantly and had barely heard her answer, when he reeled as he half sat and almost fell against her.

She held him as well as she could, but the position was strained and she was not very strong. Half mad now, between fear lest he should die in her arms and the instinctive belief that he was to live, she wished with all her heart that some one would come and help her, or send for a physician. He might die for lack of some simple aid she did not know how to give him. But he had only been dizzy with the unconscious effort he had made, and presently he rested on his own hand again.

"Thank God Dolores is safe!" he said, in a weak voice. "Can you help me to get to a chair, my dear child? I must have been badly stunned. I wonder how long I have been here. I remember--"

He paused and passed one hand over his eyes. The first instinct of strong persons who have been unconscious is to think aloud, and to try and recall every detail of the accident that left them unconscious.

"I remember--the King was here--we talked and we quarrelled--oh!"

The short exclamation ended his speech, as complete recollection returned, and he knew that the secret must be kept, for his brother's sake. He laid one head on the slight girl's shoulder to steady himself, and with his other he helped himself to kneel on one knee.

"I am very dizzy," he said. "Try and help me to a chair, Inez."

She rose swiftly, holding his hand, and then putting one arm round him under his own. He struggled to his feet and leaned his weight upon her, and breathed hard. The effort hurt him where the flesh was torn.

"I am wounded, too," he said quietly, as he glanced at the blood on his vest. "But it is nothing serious, I think."

With the instinct of the soldier hurt in the chest, he brushed his lips with the small lace ruffle of his sleeve, and looked at it, expecting to see the bright red stains that might mean death. There was nothing.

"It is only a scratch," he said, with an accent of indifference. "Help me to the chair, my dear."

"Where?" she asked. "I do not know the room."

"One forgets that you are blind," he answered, with a smile, and leaning heavily upon her, he led her by his weight, till he could touch the chair in which he had sat reading Dolores' letter when the King had entered an hour earlier.

He sat down with a sigh of relief, and stretched first one leg and then the other, and leaned back with half-closed eyes.

"Where is Dolores?" he asked at last. "Why did she go away?"

"The jester took her away, I think," answered Inez. "I found them together on the terrace. She was trying to come back to you, but he prevented her. They thought you were dead."

"That was wise of him." He spoke faintly still, and when he opened his eyes, the room swam with him. "And then?"

"Then I told her what had happened at court; I had heard everything from the gallery. And Dolores went down alone. I could not understand what she was going to do, but she is trying to save our father."

"Your father!" Don John looked at her in surprise, forgetting his hurt, but it was as if some one had struck his head again, and he closed his eyes. "What has happened?" he asked faintly. "Try and tell me. I do not understand."

"My father thought he had killed you," answered Inez, in surprise. "He came into the great hall when the King was there, and he cried out in a loud voice that he had killed you, unarmed."

"Your father?" He forgot his suffering altogether now. "Your father was not even in the room when--when I fell! And did the King say nothing? Tell me quickly!"

"There was a great uproar, and I ran away to find Dolores. I do not know what happened afterwards."

Don John turned painfully in his chair and lifted his hand to the back of his head. But he said nothing at first, for he was beginning to understand, and he would not betray the secret of his accident even to Inez.

"I knew he could not have done it! I thought he was mad--he most have been! But I also thought your Highness was dead."

"Dear child!" Don John's voice was very kind. "You brought me to life. Your father was not here. It was some one else who hurt me. Do you think you could find Dolores or send some one to tell her--to tell every one that I am alive? Say that I had a bad fall and was stunned for a while. Never mind the scratch--it is nothing--do not speak of it. If you could find Adonis, he could go."

He groaned now, for the pain of speaking was almost intolerable. Inez put out her hand towards him.

"Does it hurt very much?" she asked, with a sort of pathetic, childlike sympathy.

"Yes, my head hurts, but I shall not faint. There is something to drink by the bed, I think--on this side. If you could only find it. I cannot walk there yet, I am so giddy."

"Some one is coming!" exclaimed Inez, instead of answering him. "I hear some one on the terrace. Hark!" she listened with bent head. "It is Adonis. I know his step. There he is!"

Almost as she spoke the last words the dwarf was in the doorway. He stood still, transfixed with astonishment.

"Mercy of heaven!" he exclaimed devoutly. "His Highness is alive after all!"

"Yes," said Inez, in a glad tone. "The Prince was only stunned by the fall. Go and tell Dolores--go out and tell every one--bring every one here to me!"

"No!" cried Don John. "Try and bring Doña Dolores alone, and let no one else know. The rest can wait."

"But your Highness needs a physician," protested the dwarf, not yet recovered from his astonishment. "Your Highness is wounded, and must therefore be bled at once. I will call the Doctor Galdos--"

"I tell you it is nothing," interrupted Don John. "Do as I order you, and bring Doña Dolores. Give me that drink there, first--from the little table. In a quarter of an hour I shall be quite well again. I have been as badly stunned before when my horse has fallen with me at a barrier."

The jester swung quickly to the table, in his awkward, bow-legged gait, and brought the beaker that stood there. Don John drank eagerly, for his lips were parched with pain.

"Go!" he said imperatively. "And come back quickly."

"I will go," said Adonis. "But I may not come back quickly, for I believe that Doña Dolores is with his Majesty at this moment, or with her father, unless the three are together. Since it has pleased your Highness not to remain dead, it would have been much simpler not to die at all, for your Highness's premature death has caused trouble which your Highness's premature resurrection may not quickly set right."

"The sooner you bring Doña Dolores, the sooner the tremble will be over," said Don John. "Go at once, and do your best."

Adonis rolled away, shaking his head and almost touching the floor with his hands as he walked.

"So the Last Trumpet is not merely another of those priests' tales!" he muttered. "I shall meet Don Carlos on the terrace, and the Emperor in the corridor, no doubt! They might give a man time to confess his sins. It was unnecessary that the end of the world should come so suddenly!"

The last words of his jest were spoken to himself, for he was already outside when he uttered them, and he had no intention of wasting time in bearing the good news to Dolores. The difficulty was to find her. He had been a witness of the scene in the hall from the balcony, and he guessed that when she left the hall with Ruy Gomez she would go either to her father or the King. It would not be an easy matter to see her, and it was by no means beyond the bounds of possibility that he might be altogether hindered from doing so, unless he at once announced to every one he met the astounding fact that Don John was alive after all. He was strongly tempted to do that, without waiting, for it seemed by far the most sensible thing to do in the disturbed state of the court; but it was his business to serve and amuse many masters, and his office, if not his life, depended upon obeying each in turn and finding the right jest for each. He placed the King highest, of course, among those he had to please, and before he had gone far in the corridor he slackened his pace to give himself time to think over the situation. Either the King had meant to kill Don John himself, or he had ordered Mendoza to do so. That much was clear to any one who had known the secret of Don Carlos' death, and the dwarf had been one of the last who had talked with the unfortunate Prince before that dark tragedy. And on this present night he had seen everything, and knew more of the thoughts of each of the actors in the drama than any one else, so that he had no doubt as to his conclusions. If, then, the King had wished to get rid of Don John, he would be very much displeased to learn that the latter was alive after all. It would not be good to be the bearer of that news, and it was more than likely that Philip would let Mendoza go to the scaffold for the attempt, as he long afterwards condemned Antonio Perez to death for the murder of Escobedo, Don John's secretary, though he himself had ordered Perez to do that deed; as he had already allowed the ecclesiastic Doctor Cazalla to be burned alive, though innocent, rather than displease the judges who had condemned him. The dwarf well knew that there was no crime, however monstrous, of which Philip was not capable, and of the righteous necessity of which he could not persuade himself if he chose. Nothing could possibly be more dangerous than to