Then comes the echo of many steps in the antechamber, and Claire rushes in through the arras as Don Fadique disappears by a door on the other side.
Following Claire appears a tall and stately jefe, holding a white wand of office, with many crosses and decorations on his breast, and a high plumed hat in his hand, which he doffs, bowing low.
“Madam, the Queen,” says he, in a sonorous voice, again inclining himself to the ground, “it is my duty to apprise your Majesty that the king is now passing the drawbridge outside the city. A royal page bears his greeting to your Grace.”
“Claire, oh, Claire!” sighs Blanche, casting herself into her arms. “Oh! why did you leave me?”
CHAPTER V
Marriage at Valladolid
HE ancient city of Valladolid lies on low ground and is watered by the Pisuerga, a broad river for this waterless land.
Although so far in the north, Valladolid was at this time considered the official capital of Castile, and therefore it was there that Blanche had come to meet her much dreaded bridegroom.
A more uninviting city does not exist in Spain, as we see it now, and although it suffered cruelly from the invasion of the French in the Peninsular War, uninteresting it must always have been. No charm leads one’s thoughts lovingly to Valladolid. The cathedral is hideous. Only the front of San Pablo and the Collegiata de San Gregorio, a magnificent gift of Cardinal Ximenes, dwell in the mind.
Of course, with the exception of San Pablo, these buildings were erected centuries after Don Pedro’s reign, and one asks oneself what Valladolid could have been then?