The Story of Don John of Austria

by Luis Coloma

The boys began to giggle and look at each other, not daring to answer, stir or even take off their caps as a mark of respect. The fat man repeated the question two or three times very politely and kindly, till at last Pedro Verde, who was eleven years old, and had been twice to Pinto, and had seen the cavalcade of Ruy Gómez de Silva from afar, made up his mind to answer, his mouth dry with fear and keeping his cap on, that the musician Francisquin, as they called him, had died some years previously, but that his widow Ana de Medina still lived there and that her son Jeromín, was one of those present. This Pedro demonstrated by seizing Jeromín by the neck of his doublet and pulling him forward. For the fat man to hear this, look at Jeromín and stretch his arms out of the window as if to seize him and drag him into the coach was only the work of a second. But it took the children, terrified at the old man's behaviour, even less time to scamper up the hill towards the village as if they had legions of devils at their heels. The gentleman called to them to stop. The escort also called out. But the children, spurred on by fright, ran harder and harder up the hill like hunted hares, until they stopped at the threshold of Ana de Medina where we met them.

The widow's face fell when she heard all this, and she drew Jeromín towards her as if she wished to hide him in her woollen skirt. She asked the boys several questions, but they all answered together, and all she could make out was that a fat gentleman had wished to carry off Jeromín in a little house on wheels.

Ana, worried, went back into her house and sent a message by Pedro Verde to ask the priest to come and see her, the cleric Bautista Vela, who served the parish for D. Alonso de Rojas, chaplain to His Majesty in the Royal Chapel at Granada at that time. Bautista Vela tarried too long; by the time he arrived at Ana's house he could no longer be there alone. Round the corner of the street came the whole population of the village, surrounding with wonder the vehicle in which the fat man came. He sat smiling, greeting some and of others asking the way to Ana's house, which a hundred hands pointed out to him, while he continued to look out of the window as if this house was the goal of his journey.

The hubbub made Ana come to her door, with Jeromín clinging to her skirts. The coach, the like of which was never seen before, stopped in front of her; the gentleman greeted her politely, and the widow could not therefore do otherwise than offer him hospitality in a peasant's homely way.

The gentleman then got out, and Ana conducted him to her parlour, which was also her kitchen, clean certainly and with room for twenty people in the chimney corner on the rough stone seats placed on either side.

Invited by the widow, who seemed to be afraid to be alone with the stranger, Bautista Vela entered also, followed by Jeromín, recovered from his fear, but still full of wonder and looking the visitor up and down as if he were the bearer of good or evil fortune. The fat man was about sixty, but his extraordinary corpulency neither destroyed the activity of his limbs nor the charm of his manners. He spoke with a soft, low, kindly voice with a marked Flemish accent, and not like the haughty man of war so common at that time. Everything in him betokened the obsequious courtier, accustomed to the yoke of powerful masters. Very courteously he told the widow who he was, the object of his visit, and what he hoped and wished from her. His name was Charles Prevost, a servant of the Emperor, who had come to Castille on his own business, but had also brought a special and secret message for her from Adrian du Bois, valet to the Emperor, and therefore his fellow-servant.

Here the courteous Fleming made a pause and, slightly raising his voice and accentuating his words, added that this business had been urgently recommended to him by the very high and mighty gentleman Luis Méndez Quijada, Steward to the invincible Cæsar Charles V.

Hearing the name of Cæsar all bowed their heads in token of respect, and on hearing that of Quijada the cleric and the widow exchanged a rapid glance of fear and suspicion. Jeromín, calmer than the rest, sat on a high stool, swinging his legs and never taking his eyes off the stranger, as if he were trying to decipher in that round red face some problem which he was turning over and over in his baby mind.

Charles Prevost pointed to the child as if its presence were an obstacle, so the widow took Jeromín by the arm and shut him up in a room, telling him to wait there. Meanwhile Prevost had produced a paper carefully wrapped up in two covers of linen, which he held out to the widow folded in four. As she could not read, shrugging her shoulders she passed it in her turn to Bautista Vela, who, very much astonished, unfolded the letter and slowly and solemnly read as follows:

"I, Francis Massy, musician to His Majesty, and Ana de Medina, my wife, know and confess that we have taken and received a son of Señor Adrian de Bois, valet to His Majesty, which we did by his wish, and he prayed us to take and bring him up like our own son, and not to tell anyone whose son he was, as Señor Adrian did not wish that by this means his wife or anyone else should know or hear of him. For this reason I, Francis Massy, and Ana de Medina, my wife, and our son Diego de Medina, swear and promise to the said Señor Adrian not to tell or declare to any living person whose this child is, but to say that it is mine, until Señor Adrian sends someone with this letter or the said Señor Adrian comes in person.