Pedro built more than one palace, or, more correctly, two or three wings of the same palace, in this enclosure. Traces of his Stucco Palace (Palacio del Yeso) remain. Pedro looms very large in the history of Seville. He plays as prominent a part here as Harûn-al-Rashid in the story of Bagdad. He was fond of the Moors, and affected their costumes and customs. He also favoured the Jews, and was alleged by his enemies to be the changeling child of a Jewess. His treasurer and trusted adviser was an Israelite named Simuel Ben Levi. He served the king long and faithfully, till one day it was whispered that half the wealth that should fill the royal coffers had been diverted into his own. Ben Levi was seized without warning and placed on the rack, whereupon he expired, not of pain, but of sheer indignation. Under his house—so the story goes—was found a cavern in which were three piles of gold and silver, twice as high as a man. Pedro on beholding these was much affected. "Had Simuel surrendered a third of the least of these piles," he exclaimed, "he should have gone free. Why would he rather die than speak?"
Stories innumerable are told of this king, a good many, no doubt, being pure inventions. There is no reason to question the account of his treatment of Abu Saïd, the Moorish Sultan of Granada. This prince had usurped the throne, and being solicitous of Pedro's alliance, came to visit him at the Alcazar with a magnificent retinue. The costliest presents were offered to the Castilian king, whose heart, however, was bent on possessing the superb ruby in the regalia of his guest. Before many hours had passed, the Moors were seized in their apartments and stripped of their raiment and valuables. Abu Saïd, ridiculously tricked out, was mounted on a donkey, and with thirty-six of his courtiers, hurried to a field outside the town, where they were bound to posts. A train of horsemen appeared, Don Pedro at their head, and transfixed the helpless men with darts, the king shouting, as he hurled his missiles at his luckless guest: "This for the treaty you made me conclude with Aragon! This for the castle you took from me!" The ruby which had been the cause of the Moor's death was presented by his murderer to the Black Prince, and now adorns the crown of England.
Nor did Pedro confine his fury to the sterner sex. Doña Urraca Osorio, because her son was concerned in Don Enrique's uprising, was burned at the stake on the Alameda. Her faithful servant, Leonor Dávalos, seeing that the flames had consumed her mistress's clothing, threw herself into the pyre to cover her nakedness, and was likewise burnt to ashes. Having conceived a passion for Doña Maria Coronel, the king caused her husband to be executed in the Torre del Oro. The widow, far from yielding to his entreaties and threats, took the veil and destroyed her beauty by means of vitriol. Pedro at once transferred his attentions to her sister, Doña Aldonza, and met with more success. If a chronicler is to be believed, he threw his brother Enrique's young daughter naked to the lions, like some Christian virgin martyr. The generous (or possibly overfed) brutes refused the proffered prey, and the whimsical tyrant ever afterwards treated the maiden kindly. In memory of her experience, she was known as "Leonor de los Leones."
The misdeeds and eccentricities of this extraordinary monarch have been chronicled by Ayala (who was a partisan of Don Enrique), and given a wider circulation by the pen of Prosper Mérimée. I cannot very well omit the oft-told tale that gives its name to the curious little street, near the Casa de los Abades, called Calle Cabeza de Don Pedro. There the king's head may be seen in effigy high up on the wall at the corner of the street. Pedro, prowling about the town after dark, had a quarrel with a passer-by to whom, of course, he was unknown, and whom he incontinently ran through the body. Thinking there had been no witness to his crime, he stalked back to his palace. Next day he summoned the Alcalde of Seville to his presence and asked for news of the town. The magistrate told him that the body of a man had been found, murdered by whom no one knew. The king would suffer no laxity on the part of his officers. If the assassin were not discovered the alcalde must pay the penalty of the crime with his own life. Luckily for the magistrate, an old dame had beheld the encounter of the previous night, and now hastened to him with the surprising news that the man he sought after was no other than his majesty. She had recognized him beyond all possibility of doubt, not only by his features, but by the peculiar clicking of the royal knees. The alcalde hanged the king in effigy and invited him to the spectacle. "It is well," said the prince, after an ominous pause, "I am satisfied. Justice has been done."
I have told the tale rather hurriedly, as it is far from being well authenticated, and because it will doubtless be familiar in some form or another to most readers. That Pedro had a sense of humour is shown by yet another incident. A priest for murdering a shoemaker was condemned by the ecclesiastical tribune to be suspended from his sacerdotal functions for the space of twelve months. On hearing this Pedro decreed that any tradesman who murdered a priest should be punished by being restrained from the exercise of his trade for the like period.
But now let us return to the palace of which the sinister king seems the presiding genius.
Crossing the Plaza del Triunfo, which lies between the Cathedral and the old Moorish walls, we enter the Patio de las Banderas, so called either because a flag was hoisted here when the royal family was in residence, or on account of the trophy, composed of the arms of Spain with crossed flags, displayed over one of the arches. Pedro was accustomed to administer justice, tempered with ferocity, after the Oriental fashion, seated on a stone bench in a corner of this square. The surrounding private houses occupy the site of the old Palace of the Almohades, and one of the halls—the Sala de Justicia—is still visible. It is entered from the Patio de la Monteria. Contreras assigns a date to this room even earlier than the advent of the Almohades. It is square, and measures nine metres across. The stucco ceiling is adorned with stars and wreaths, and bordered by a painted frieze. The decorations consist chiefly of inscriptions in Cufic characters. The right-angled apertures in the walls were closed either by screens of translucent stucco or by tapestries, "which must," says Gestoso y Perez, "have made the hall appear a miracle of wealth and splendour." It was in this hall, often overlooked by visitors, that Don Pedro overheard four judges discussing the division of a bribe they had received. The question was abruptly solved by the division of the disputants' heads and bodies. Thanks to its isolation, the Sala de Justicia escaped the dreadful "restoration" effected in the middle of the nineteenth century by the Duc de Montpensier. The house No. 3, Patio de las Banderas, formed part, in the opinion of Gestoso y Perez, of the Palacio del Yeso, or Stucco Palace, of Don Pedro.
Passing through the colonnaded Apeadero, built by Philip III. in 1607, and once used as an armoury, we reach the Patio del Leon, where tournaments used to be held, and stand in front of the Palace of the Alcazar. The façade is gorgeous yet elegant, of a gaudiness that in this brilliant city of golden sunshine and white walls is not obtrusive. Yet, despite the Moorish character of the decoration, the Arabic capitals and pilasters, and the square entrance "in the Persian style," the front is not that of an eastern palace; and it is without surprise that we read over the portal, in quaint Gothic characters, the legend: "The most high, the most noble, the most powerful, and the most victorious Don Pedro, commanded these Palaces, these Alcazares, and these entrances to be made in the year (of Cæsar) 1402" (1364). Elsewhere on the façade are the oft-repeated Cufic inscriptions: "There is no conqueror but Allah," "Glory to our lord the Sultan" (Don Pedro), "Eternal glory to Allah," etc., etc.