There was serious business for Don Alfonzo that Good Friday morning. As he came down to the patio (passing the splendid chamber where Maria de Padilla bathed, and where Don Pedro’s courtiers showed their gallantry by drinking the water of her bath), the drums and fifes of his halberdiers sounded the royal march. Lopez Ballesteros, the Governor, was waiting; with him, Garcia Pierto, Minister of Grace and Justice. Preceded by the halberdiers, followed by the Court, they all set off together for the cathedral. The way was lined by soldiers with furled flags. In the capilla mayor a throne had been placed for the King; here he sat with his grandees and generals (one of them called Pacheco, a descendant, perhaps, of the old painter, writer, and familiar of the Inquisition, who taught Velasquez), and listened to the singing of the Passion. The great Crucifix of Montañes was then uncovered, and the royal party moved to the coro, where the King performed the act of adoration, and made his offering of an ounce of gold.
At the act of adoration, Don Alfonzo was confronted by his Minister of Justice, carrying a basketful of parchment scrolls, each tied with a black ribbon.
“Señor,” said the Minister, “do you pardon the condemned felons whose names are written here?”
“I pardon them, that God may pardon me,” answered the King. One by one he untied the black ribbons and retied the scrolls with white silk cord.
The wild woman with the bruised face the Archbishop had comforted that day in the street, had forced herself as near the front as the guard allowed. She peered between two halberdiers, watching the ceremony with desperate eyes. Was the name she loved among the fourteen names of felons condemned to death, written on those white decrees of pardon?
“Did you ever,” asked Pemberton, “see a ceremony so touching, so human, in the dead cathedrals of England, or even in St. Peter’s?”
| PORTRAIT OF VELASQUEZ, BY HIMSELF. | PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST’S WIFE. Velasquez |