With the greatest aplomb the Prince promised, and D. John did the same, not being able to do otherwise, and the King gave his consent by nodding his head without saying a word.
They all left the Queen's room together, and then D. Carlos, taking D. John of Austria's arm, took him off to his rooms, which were in the "entresol" of the Palace, looking on the side now called "el Campo del Moro."
D. Carlos ordered the doors to be shut, and no one has ever known for certain what passed between the nephew and the uncle during the two hours they remained there.
At the end of this time the valets heard a noise inside, and the loud, manly voice of D. John of Austria, who shouted indignantly, "Keep there, your Highness."
Frightened, they opened the door, and saw D. John, looking furious, keeping the Prince at bay with his sword, who, livid with rage, was trying to attack D. John with sword and dagger.
The valet's account says that, "after this scene D. John went to his house." Perhaps D. John pretended to do so, to disarm D. Carlos's suspicion, but it is certain that he went straight to D. Philip and told him of the occurrence. The King then feared for D. John's life, and would not let him leave the castle. He sent and had a room prepared, where he made D. John sleep that memorable night.
Meanwhile D. Carlos, fearful that the King would wish to see him alone, went to bed, pretending to be ill. He was not mistaken; for soon afterwards D. Rodrigo de Mendoza brought an order from the King that D. Carlos should go up to his room. D. Carlos gave his pretended illness as an excuse, and, thinking the danger past, got up again at six o'clock; putting on a long overcoat, without dressing, and sitting in the warmth of the fire, he supped off a boiled capon. The mad Prince had not given up his plan for a minute, and more than ever persisted in his project of running away the next day at dawn.
For some time past D. Carlos had taken the most extraordinary precautions for his personal safety, above all while he was asleep. He had sent away the gentleman who, according to etiquette, should have slept in his room at night, and secured his door inside with a curious mechanism which he had had made by the French engineer Luis de Foix; it consisted of a series of springs which prevented the door opening unless D. Carlos pulled a long red silk cord which hung at the head of his bed.
He had also had an extraordinary weapon, which he himself had devised, and the construction of which he superintended, made by the same engineer.
He had read of the deed of the terrible Bishop of Zamora, D. Antonio de Acuña, who broke the head of the Alcaide of Simancas with a stone which he carried hidden in a leather purse, as if it were a breviary.