“Yes, my lord, all Spain knows it, and is weary of the wickedness of this presumptuous man. It is by infernal arts that he sways you. He will bring the kingdom to destruction. Did he not, like a traitor, turn back from the walls of Granada when the Zegrins were with you, and he should have led your victorious army into the walls of the Alhambra? Does he not conspire with the Infante of Aragon against your life?”
So vivid is the picture she calls up of the misdeeds of Luna, that real tears now course each other down her cheeks. She believes in what she says, and this gives conviction to her words. She believes him to be guilty of all of which he is accused, and she knows that he will cross her influence with Don Juan. Above all, she dreads the mysterious action of that occult power he is said to possess. Superstition and ignorance go together in her mind. A Portuguese princess of the fourteenth century is alive to all the prejudices of the time.
“What!” cries Don Juan, starting up from his chair in a burst of generous feeling, which he is quite incapable of sustaining, “can you, my queen, ask me seriously to dismiss from my councils and from my heart the hero who has so faithfully upheld the glory of Castile? The tales you accept as true are but the suggestions of envy. The constable has ever done his duty. What do I not owe him! Was it not he who rescued me as a boy from the strong fortress of Tordesillas, where a powerful league, headed by my treacherous cousin, the Infante of Aragon, would have shut me up for life? Who was it that, when the Moors, emboldened by the weakness of Castile, refused to pay the tribute, led on our armies against them and forced them to submission? And if he did not enter the city of Granada the fault was not in him, but in my seditious nobles, whose divided counsels forced him to retreat. Is this the man, the bulwark of my throne, who alone has stood by his king against the factious nobles, the conspiracies of his kindred, and the machinations of his own son? Would you have me deprive him of the honours he so well deserves? High Constable I have created him, and such, by the Holy Mother, he shall die.”
So unexpected an outburst completely overset all the queen’s calculations. Was her influence so small for the great task she had undertaken? she asked herself, as she gazed in wonder at the virile expression which sat on the king’s chiselled features, and gave such unwonted energy to his words.
She smiled, however, as she replied: “Aye, my liege, all this may be true, but why has Don Alvarez de Luna shown this great zeal for his king? Because, while he defended his cause he was forwarding that ambition for which he has sold his soul. The interests of Don Juan de Castile are his own. Believe me in this, my dear and honoured lord, though I risk your displeasure in saying so.”
“Such indeed are the accusations of his enemies,” answered the king, already cooling down from his brief display of impetuosity; in fact, he was now turning over in a helpless confusion of ideas whether indeed the constable was in league with the devil, as Isabel represented, and if magic really gave him the extraordinary influence he exercised over him. “Surely you must allow, my queen,
