‘Get down, get down, Rodrigo!’ cried his father, fearing lest the king should resent his rudeness. ‘Swear fealty to thy lord, and kiss his hand, as a loyal subject should do.’
Now, ever since he had fought with Count Gomez, Rodrigo had felt himself to be a man, and, more than that, to be much greater than other men, and he was not pleased to be scolded by his father in the presence of so many people. Still, he was wise enough to know that it would do him no good in the eyes of the nobles gathered round, to disobey his father, and slowly he got down from his horse to do homage with the rest. But so clumsy was he that, as he knelt, his sword nearly fell out of its sheath, and the king, thinking Rodrigo meant to kill him, started back, exclaiming:
‘Away, away! you devil! If you have the form of a man, your deeds are those of a lion.’
‘It is base to kiss the hand of such a craven,’ answered Rodrigo in anger, ‘and I hold that my father has heaped disgrace on his family by humbling himself in such a fashion!’ And so saying, he rode away, with his followers behind him.
A few centuries later a man might have lost his head for such words, but in those days people were accustomed to speak their minds even to kings, and little harm came of it. Six weeks later, Rodrigo had forgotten all about it, and, what was more to the purpose, so had the king, at any rate he pretended to do so, and when Don Diego sent his son to do his business with Fernando, who was at Burgos, the young man went willingly. The morning after he reached the city he was dining in the hall of the palace with the king and his nobles, when word was brought to the royal table that Ximena, the daughter of Count Gomez, and her train stood at the gates, and demanded an audience of the king. Fernando rose from his seat, and, signing to his nobles to follow him, he went to meet Ximena.
A figure of woe was she, clothed all in black, even her face hidden by a black veil. Throwing herself on her knees, she implored that justice might be done on the murderer of her father, for not till then would the stain be wiped out which had killed her mother and was killing her. ‘He rides to and fro under my lattice,’ said she, ‘and the hawk on his wrist slays my doves, and my mantle is sprinkled with their blood. If you do not do me right, O king, you are not fit to reign, or to call yourself a knight.’
Thus spake Ximena, and the king sat silent and pondered her words. ‘I cannot punish Don Rodrigo, either by imprisonment or death,’ he said to himself, ‘for my nobles would not suffer it; I must find some other way to satisfy Ximena.’ Then turning to her, he bade her go home, and added that no damsel should have cause to complain that wrong had been done them at his hands.
Then Ximena rode away, and by-and-by Rodrigo departed also.
Six months later King Fernando was seated in the great hall of his palace of Burgos, dispensing justice to high and low, when there entered once more Ximena, followed by thirty esquires and pages.
‘I come, though I know it is in vain,’ she cried, when she had made her way to the foot of the throne. ‘Five times I have appeared to demand my rights, and no longer will I be put off with empty words. No king are you, who are swayed this way and that by every man that passes, and dare not even avenge your friends, for fear of what may come of it.’