The Flute of the Gods

by Marah Ellis Ryan

THE SILKEN SCARF

Of the many godly enterprises set afoot for exploration and conquest in New Spain of the sixteenth century, not all have chronicles important enough for the historian to make much of. But there were goings and comings of which no written record reached the archives. Things forbidden did happen even under the iron heel of Castilian rule, and one of the hidden enterprises grew to be a part of the life of the P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé valley for a time.

Not that it was unchronicled, but there was a good reason why the records were not published for the Spanish court.

It was a pretty romantic reason also––and the usual one, if we may trust the world’s judgment of the foundation of all trouble. But a maid tossing a blossom from a Mexic balcony could not know that the stranger from Seville to whom it was thrown was the son of an Eminence, instead of the simple gentleman named Don Ruy Sandoval in a royal letter to the Viceroy. With him travelled his tutor whose tutelage was past, and the position a difficult one for even the Viceroy to comprehend.

Since the youth rebelled at the habit of a monk––he had been given a space for adventure under godly surveillance. The godly surveillance limped a trifle at times. And because of this did Don Ruy walk again in the moonlight under the balcony and this 64 time more than a blossom came to him––about the stem of a scarlet lily was a flutter of white! The warm light of the Mexic moon helped him to decipher it––a page from Ariosto––the romance of Doña Bradamante––and the mark of a pen under words uttered by the warrior-maid herself––words to warm a cooler youth than this one from over seas:––“Why seek I one who flies from me?––Why implore one who deigns not to send me reply?”

Whereupon there was no further delay as to reply––there was found an open gate to a garden where only stars gave light, where little hands were held for a moment in his––soft whispers had answered his own––and he was held in thrall by a lace wrapped señorita whose face he had not even looked on in the light. All of Castile could give one no better start in a week than he had found for himself in three days in the new world of promise.

For there were promises––and they were sweet. They had to do with a tryst two nights away––then the lady, whom he called “Doña Bradamante” because of the page torn from that romance, would enlighten him as to her pressing need of the aid of a gentleman, and courage would be hers to tell him why a marked line and a scarlet lily had been let fall in his path––and why she had trusted his face at first sight––though he had not yet seen her own––and why––

It was the usual thing––the page of a poem and a silken scarf as a guerdon of her trust.

He found the place of the tryst with ease for a stranger in the Mexic streets, but a glimmer of white robe was all he saw of his unknown “Doña Bradamante.” Others were at the tryst, and their staves and arms lacked no strength. He heard a woman 65 scream, then he heard her try again to scream and fail because of a hand on her throat, and beyond that he knew little for a night or two, and there was not much of day between.

Monkly robes were the next thing in his range of vision––one face in particular, sallow and still with eyes glancing sideways, seeing all things;––divining much! soft steps, and bandages, and out of silence the excited shrillness of Don Diego Maria Francisco Brancadori the tutor:––the shepherd who had lost track of his one rather ruffled lamb.