“We will not fail,” is the answer.
The place appointed for the secret council-chamber was within the precincts of the Cathedral, in the cloisters, where life-like statues of prophets and kings quaintly sculptured stand beside the Gothic arches; Abraham and St. Jaime, and San Fernando holding a ring, and his consort, Doña Beatrix.
The night was dark, and the muffled figures enveloped in ample mantles passed unnoticed through the door with the beautiful triptych carved over it.
In a dark room, lined with a mosaic of wood, with gold pendants on the roof, and lit up with massive silver candelabra, stands the Archbishop of Toledo, dismissed from his office of Minister to make way for Ledesma. This enemy of El Impotente is a man in the prime of life, as turbulent, fierce, and haughty as any feudal baron, his dark eyes sunk deeply in his head, bright with the power of intellect, and unerring and piercing; his ecclesiastical robe hanging loosely about his figure—very different from the dignified churchman who headed the banquet at which the young King Enrique sang as a wandering minstrel.
Prominent among the nobles who arrive is the Conde de Santilana, in the prime of life, with that soldierly bearing so noticeable in Spain among all who hold military command; Giron, Master of Calatrava, bland and mild, but withal shrewd and acute, as behoves one in his prominent position; Pimentel, Lord of Benevente, with strongly cut features on which many a wrinkle has gathered, not from age, but from the headlong impetuosity of his character, which has aged him before his time; the Grand Admiral of Castile, with a weather-beaten face, showing that he has lived a life of exposure; the Condes de Haro, Palencia, and Alba, besides prelates and ricoshombres, all men of commanding eminence in the kingdom.
But one of the number is yet wanting, the archconspirator, Villena, who, although bearing the name of one of the regents, is of quite a different form. He is in reality the leading spirit of them all, a man tormented by the love of power, to attain which he is willing to meet, unmoved, peril, or even death, with the silent constancy of a Spaniard.
No one hates Ledesma more than Villena, who, like the archbishop, was displaced for his sake; no one has more influence over those assembled here, not even the warlike archbishop, armed as for heaven and earth.
As Villena enters, the importance of his mission is impressed upon every movement as he hastens to salute the exalted company, who rise as he appears, with the utmost expression of formal courtesy, then reseat themselves as he takes his seat at the council table beside them.
“Lords of Castile and Leon,” he says, in a full, clear voice, as he rises to speak under the deep shadow of a deep-chiselled altar at his back, “my words shall be short, but my purpose will be long. Let none imagine that private vengeance for the affront put on me by the king, as also on my kinsman, the archbishop, actuates my mind. The existence of the state is at stake. I have a proposal to make.”
“Speak!” comes from all sides.