THE city of Leon is a very ancient place, old even in the days of the Romans. Around it circles the line of walls spared by Witica when he levelled the defences throughout Spain.

It is entered by four gates opening into four wide streets, crossing each other at right angles. Many have been the changes, but there still stand the city walls, substantially the same, the huge stones worked into coarse rubble, capped by frequent towers with tapia turrets from which the eye ranges over the leafy plains of mountain-bound Galicia.

The houses are low-roofed and homely, as befits the rough climate of the north; the streets narrow and grey. Red-brown and sepia is the colouring against the sky, with whiffs of chill air from the mountains and the scent of fields and flowers, the shelter of green thickets and verdant banks, sown with tall poplars, beside purling streams.

A homelike and pleasant place, despised by the Moors after the African fantasies of the south, but absolute luxury to the Spaniards, as so much larger and nobler than their late capital, Oviedo.

Alonso, surnamed “the Chaste,” second of that name, passing to the conclusion of a long and prosperous reign, finds much that is congenial to his monkish prejudices and austere life in the simplicity of the nature around.

That Alonso’s habits are more of a friar than of a king may be explained by the aspect of the times. As successor to the pious “Il Diacono,” and as a protest against Mauregato, his kinsman, who, for the assistance given him by the Moors, agreed to pay them what is often mentioned in history as the “Maiden Tribute,” a hundred Christian maidens to be sent to the Caliph at Cordoba for his harem, fifty rich and fifty poor, a shameful agreement faithfully fulfilled until the reign of Ramiro in 866.

This specially develops in Alonso a sentiment of religious protest in the form of a rigid chastity, not only enforced in his own person, but in all those about him. As he grows older these ideas take more and more hold upon him, and increase to such a degree as actually to pervert his judgment. Obviously it is the interest of the Church to encourage them, and for this reason he seeks his companions among priests and monks.

What care his subjects that Alonso is called “the Chaste,” or that his wife, Queen Berta, lives like a nun? The royal claims to sanctity are utterly thrown away upon a sarcastic, laughter-loving court, especially as DoÑa Ximena, his sister, a buxom dame, with the fair amplitude of her Gothic ancestors, has so far strayed from the fold as to become the mother of a boy!

Imagine the scandal! She is promptly ordered off to a cloister for life, and her lover, the heroic Conde de SaldaÑa, imprisoned in the castle of Luna, where, more gothicum, he is deprived of sight; Alonso fasting, and scourging himself until nature well-nigh gives way, and Berta, the Queen, bathed in tears, doing nothing but confess, although she has nothing to say except that she has lived in company with such a sinner as Ximena!

But the boy thrives apace, a very lusty and proper child, with no notion of dying or care as to who are his parents, provided he has enough to eat and playmates to amuse him, horses to ride and dogs to follow him about the court, where, with singular inconsistency, Alonso allows him to remain and bear the name of Bernardo del Carpio.

Not that he is acknowledged by the king—heaven forfend! Though one of those secrets known to every one, Bernardo himself was never told how he came into the world, but accepted himself in ignorance as one standing alone, not in arrogance and pride, but out of the simplicity of his heart, which prompted him to be second to none, seeing that he had already given good proofs of his valour in tilts and tourneys and in continual encounters with the Moors, pressing hard on the little Christian kingdom, so narrow against the sea.

It is a gusty morning in the month of June; a mass of black clouds rides up from the west, portending a coming storm. Distant thunder rumbles between snatches of fitful sunshine, lighting up the inner court of the royal palace where the Roman prefects once ruled—a plain edifice, built of stone, with open arcades running round supported by pilasters of coarsely grained marble.

In and out there is an air of unusual bustle and movement. Sturdy Goths are hurrying to and fro, their long, unkempt hair hanging on their shoulders, and others of a slighter mould, in outlandish draperies and white turbans, whose finer features betray an Eastern origin; for, as was often the case, African captives in battle gladly accepted, as slaves, the more peaceful service of the Christians, when no necessity was imposed on them of fighting their Moslem brethren.

In the countenances of all there is a look of surprise as they hurry by, carrying such golden utensils as served for the celebration of the Mass, jewelled cups, golden patens, embroidered cushions, and rich folds of arras and tapestry worked in Algerian looms, with which the chapel walls are decorated on high occasions of state.

A master of the ceremonies, or Jefe, bearing an ivory wand, stands in the centre of the court directing the servants. His flat Castilian cap of a bright colour, and dark manto lined with fur, sharp aquiline features and piercing eyes proclaim him a native-born Spaniard of the old type.

“Is it that foreign palmer,” he mutters between his teeth, “arrived from Navarre, or that Gallic knight who flies the fleur-de-lis with such heavy armour and delicate forms of speech? I warrant me he is a hypocrite to the core, as he comes from the Frankish king. One or both, they have bewitched our master. The palmer, with his sandalled feet and cockle-shell, an ill-favoured fellow one scents a mile off, dirt being, I am told, a quality next to holiness—but I like it not, the odour of garlic is strong enough for me—is shut up with my lord in his private closet. Anyway, the king has encountered the foul fiend somewhere, that he is tempted to risk his crown. Now they have been singing a laudamus in the chapel for the safe arrival of the French king, whom the devil confound as a stranger and an invader! Well-a-day! The Holy Virgin of Saragossa help us! We can die but once! Here, Poilo, Poilo!” he shouts at the top of his voice, to a rough, wolfish-looking dog which has precipitated itself with an angry growl and clenched teeth into the arcade.

“Fie upon you for an ill-mannered brute. Leave the king’s guests alone.”

Doffing his scarlet cap, the Jefe at once assumes the humble aspect of his condition, as two personages, evidently of importance, emerge from the arcade, taking no notice of his repeated low salutations or of the snarls of the dog which he now holds by a silver collar, as they walk up and down the court in eager conversation.

“Was the like ever heard?” exclaims one of them, a tall figure of martial aspect, attired in a rich robe trimmed at neck and shoulder with miniver, and secured on the breast with a huge gold brooch.

“Let Alonso forfeit his crown if he please,” is the answer, “but I will never consent to cut my own throat.”

“Nor I, Favila,” replies the other, a younger man, who holds the office of Chamberlain, wearing a heavy gold chain about his neck, his slight figure set off by a coquettishness in the fashion of the time—a close-fitting tunic of dark green, with a hood attached reaching to his waist, and a plume fixed by a jewel in a small cap poised on one ear.

“I, for one, will stoutly defend my castle and shake off all allegiance to Alonso. I would rather join the Moors, treacherous as they are and ready to pounce on us at every corner, than submit to an inroad of new enemies to overrun the land we have rescued with so much blood. Bad enough to have Charlemagne for a neighbour, without bringing him here to rule over us with the king’s leave. They say he and his paladins are already on the march. Why cannot the king be content to name his sister’s son his successor? Whom will he find better than the son of SaldaÑa and a royal infanta? I love Bernardo with all my heart.”

“That Alonso will never do,” rejoins the older man, “in face of his obstinate refusal to admit the legality of the marriage of DoÑa Ximena to the Count of SaldaÑa. They say he has destroyed the documents, and that Bernardo can never prove himself his father’s son.”

“He has no notion of trying,” answers Don Ricardo, “as far as I can see. He is strangely indifferent to name and position.”

“But is the reason of the king’s strange perversity known?” asked Don Favila.

“In part it is. First there is in his head this maggot of chastity.”

“He will not find that virtue among the Gallic monks he is so fond of harbouring,” Don Favila observes, twirling his black moustache. “Of all the hoary sinners——”

“No matter,” interrupts Don Ricardo, “that is not to the point. You question me of the reason—if he has any tangible one and is not mad—that Alonso treats Bernardo as he does. Chastity in the first place. The propagation of his royal race offends him. He glories in the name of ‘the Chaste.’ He would have all his family the same.”

“Fool,” mutters Don Favila, but he offers no further interruption.

“DoÑa Ximena, his only sister, was destined to

become the Abbess of the great Convent of San Marcos, outside the gate of Leon, which he is building. So averse to love is he himself——”

“Then why in the foul fiend’s name did he marry Queen Berta?” puts in the younger man, evidently of an impatient temperament, but Don Ricardo passes the question by as irrelevant and proceeds:

“When he found that the Infanta preferred a mortal to an immortal spouse, and had actually gone the length of bearing him a child, he fell into such a state of blind rage that he declared she had never married, and shut her up with such rigour that she died.”

“By Santiago, a most barbarous act,” is the response; “but saints are always cruel.”

“About as barbarous,” answers Don Ricardo, “as calling in to inherit the Gothic throne a foreigner, Charlemagne, a Frank, to whom he offers the succession, when his own sister’s child is beside him branded with infamy.”

“If this is the Church’s teaching, I would fain be a Mussulman. What will Bernardo say when he hears of it?”

“Who speaks of me?” cries a clear young voice, coming from a more distant part of the patio where an arched gateway led out into the place of arms in which the Spanish knights and soldiers exercised themselves. A knight’s chain and spurs of gold show out from under a manto of dark velvet, which he throws on the ground, and which is instantly, with every sign of reverence, picked up by the Jefe, with difficulty holding Poilo back, who with sharp, quick barks and yells of delight seeks to precipitate itself on the young knight, much too preoccupied to observe it, save that with a quick wave of the hand he dismisses both the dog and the Jefe.

Bernardo’s somewhat short and sturdy figure is clothed in linked mail which rattles as he hastens forward to join Favila and Ricardo, at the moment that a louder and nearer clap of thunder is audible and a deeper shadow falls.

“Favila, Ricardo, you have heard this cursed news? I see it in your faces. By the blood of Saint Isidore, is the king distraught that he disposes of the kingdom of Leon as though he were a churl chaffering away his field? Can it be true? I am just come from the mountains, where I have met with sport both of men and beasts, for the Moor Kirza has planted himself at Selagon, and sends out detachments to the foot of the Asturias. Tell me, friends, can it be true?”

Both bow their heads.

“We will never submit,” said Favila, “to the Frankish king. Many are already gone from the court to place their castles in a state of defence.”

“What!” exclaims Bernardo, whose cheeks are flushing scarlet and the veins in his forehead swelling with growing passion. “What! give away the whole kingdom of Leon, with its warriors and nobles, to a foreigner, as if we were a flock of sheep? I am of no illustrious race myself”—at these words a significant look passes between his two companions, who turn their eyes on the ground. “Faith! I know not of what race I am,” with a short laugh, “nor do I care while the king continues his favour to me, but I am a Spaniard; I will sell my living to no man.”

“The king has no heir,” observes Favila, in a dry tone, raising curious eyes on Bernardo. “He says he desires to settle the succession before his death.”

“True,” answers Ricardo, “no legal heir,” and he, in his turn, shot a significant glance at Bernardo, who does not in the least observe it. “He may fear that some one of his blood might take his place that he would not approve.”

“Sir, you speak in riddles,” cries Bernardo, cutting in. “Who is there that the king fears will step into his place? Marry for me I know not, nor do I care. Confusion to his surname of ‘the Chaste,’ if Alonso brings in Charlemagne and his paladins into the hard-won land that the noble Pelayo wrested from the Moor. By the memory of the cave of Cavadonga and the sacred oath our ancestors swore among the savage rocks of the Asturias” (at these words, Bernardo raises his steel cap from his head, and stands with open brow and glistening eyes full in the glory of the fitful sunshine), “I pledge myself never to sheathe my unworthy sword until every invader, be he enemy or friend, Frank, Berber, or Moor, be driven out of the limits of Leon. I swear it,” he adds in a deep tone, laying his right hand on his breast, where, on a laced front of velvet, was embroidered the cognizance he had received from the king. “You are witnesses, my friends?” At which Don Favila and Don Ricardo incline their heads, and Bernardo replaces the helmet on his head from which floated a sombre plume, then adding, with a light laugh, “Let Alonso play the anchorite if he will, but all of us are not blest with his virtues.”

“Mock not, profane youth, the saintly name of our master. There is no danger that your virtues will reach the height of his excellency. His pure soul lives more in heaven than on earth,” says the voice of an older man, an ancient Jefe much honoured by the king, advancing to join the group, which has moved, in the energy of talk, higher up towards the stone border of a fountain which rises from the base of a Roman statue overgrown with moss and weeds.

“Your challenge, Bernardo, comes too late. Charlemagne is already near the Pyrenees, with all his knights and vassals, the renowned Roland among them; they will soon touch the soil of Leon, to accept the inheritance our gracious king has given him. Once arrived in Leon, you dare not, presumptuous boy, who judge your betters by yourself, draw your sword upon the guest of Alonso.”

“He shall never be his guest,” shouts Bernardo, fire flashing from his eyes; “neither Charlemagne nor his peers, his knights or paladins, Roland and the rest shall set their feet in Leon. I, Bernardo del Carpio, will bar the way.” A laugh of derision comes from the old chamberlain, at what he considers such madness. Even Favila and Ricardo smile, so vain it seems that this youth could stay the advance of the greatest monarch in Christendom.

“You laugh!” cries Bernardo, turning fiercely round, his glittering eyes aglow. “You deem I boast? Be it so. Time will show. I speak not of Divine help, Santiago on his milk-white charger armed cap-À-pie in radiant steel interposing, or other monkish tales. If deeds are the language of the brave, words lie with fools. Was it with words Pelayo revenged his sister’s death and raised the Gothic standard against the great Abdurraman? Excuse me, good sir,” he adds, breaking off suddenly, the inspired look passing from his countenance as he addresses the older man, whose sarcastic countenance is still sharpened to a sneer—“if I who am so young, speak my mind. I go to the king to remonstrate.”

“You would do better to forbear,” hastily interrupts the old courtier. “The king is at his devotions, assisted by a learned monk lately arrived from Navarre.”

“I care not, though the air breed monks as thick as flies; you stay me not, Sir Chamberlain.”