“Not at all,” cried Queen Doña Teresa, disengaging her hand from that of the king, the old malignant smile glittering in her black eyes. “Did you think, Sir Conde, we were as green as you, who come unarmed a second time among your foes? The bird that had flown is recaptured! Ha! ha!” and she gave a bitter laugh. “I think I can prophesy you will not escape this time! The dungeons of Leon are better guarded than those of Narbonne!”
“Queen Doña Teresa,” was his answer, his arms already bound by fetters, “I take no shame for my lack of suspicion. Rather is it for you, so royally born, to blush at such baseness. You,” and, spite of himself, his eyes flamed with rage as he realised that he had again fallen into the power of his remorseless kinsfolk, “you are a disgrace to the royal lineage you represent. See, even the king, your son, casts down his eyes. Don Sancho is ashamed of his mother!”
Stung by his reproaches the queen raised her hand as a signal to the guards to bear him away.
“What manner of man is this?” she said, turning to the king, who, though he had joined in the conspiracy, now stood irresolute and pale, a silent witness to his mother’s treachery. “He dares to jeer at me with the chains about his neck. But a long life passed in a Gothic dungeon will bring down his pride. Fear not, my son, what can he do? When the half of his kingdom is in your hands you will thank me.”
“But our kinswoman the Infanta will offer a large ransom. Can you refuse her?”
“Refuse!” retorted the queen, her tall figure drawn up to its full height; “there is no treasure in the world that shall buy off the Conde de Castila. His death alone will satisfy me.”
And with a menacing gesture in the direction by which he had disappeared, she swept out of the hall as she had come, followed by her retinue.
CHAPTER XXV
Doña Ava Outwits Don Sancho and Releases her Husband
IME passed and a new element made itself felt in the struggle between the Christians and the Moors. The powerful tribe of the Berbers had fastened like leeches on the Gothic lands of the north, and Almanzor, by his constant attacks in the south, had paralysed the kings of Leon and Navarre into mere tributaries. But selfish and disloyal as they were, Doña Teresa and the kings of Leon and Navarre never lost sight of their determination to possess Castile, and instead of joining heartily against a common enemy they each summoned every lord and vassal they possessed to appear in arms to march against Burgos.