BALTHASAR THE CRUEL

Don Balthasar was called the Cruel for a number of very satisfying and respectable reasons. As a child he had flayed a live monkey, which had been brought to amuse him in an ebony cage. And he had been fond of biting off the heads of singing birds or slipping hot needles into their eyes according as he wished to make them sing or not. Arrived at the age of discretion, he showed his seriousness of purpose by taking a breakneck journey across Spain without sleep and almost forfeiting his meals in order to be in time for the execution of his illegitimate brother. His hands had so often failed of killing him that he was seized with the idea of making his eyes at least fratricidal. But Don Balthasar was always morbid.

On the other hand he showed some remarkable traits. His restless energy was an example to the lethargic princelets by whom his boundaries were neighboured. In the infliction of pain or the pursuit of domestic vengeance he would endure what only the bravest and strongest would dare. He had a fine sense of the rules of chivalry and his discrimination in matters of taste was never challenged. When he said a ruby was a ruby, it was not disputed even in the Orient; and for sign of his passionate hobby toward precious stones he wore a large ruby in his iron helm about as large as a cuckoo’s egg dyed in carmine. He personally supervised the cutting and trimming of the velvet vestments used in his private chapel. His chapel was decorated with an excruciating picture of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle being deprived somewhat reluctantly of his apostolic skin. And Don Balthasar’s clothes kept busy several Moorish haberdashers during the greater part of the year.

He had peculiar notions as to property, particularly towards what had ceased to be his property or had ever been dignified by his ownership. For instance, he aped the royal Castilian etiquette, which allowed no lesser man to bestride a horse that had once been ridden by a King of Spain or to marry even a forgotten and abandoned lady love who had once enjoyed the royal embrace. Don Balthasar, once at the end of a long siege discovering in his net a damsel, whom he had seduced in boyhood, comfortably married to a burgess of the fallen town, insisted on strangling him with his own hands that he might realise how high an honour the unfortunate burgess had presumed to pay himself. The burgess who had been found in possession of the Don’s discarded romance died in the market-place with his broken eyeballs staring into the quaint features of Don Balthasar called the Cruel, who considerately provided him with a funeral furnished neither above nor below his rank. What time he could spare from the adornment of his person or the adjustment of etiquette he devoted to the beleaguerment of Castles upon which he or his ancestors had the shadow or phantom of a claim.

At the moment of writing he was engaged in laying close siege to the Castle of his arch-enemy Don Ximenes. His tactical array resembled rather a game of chess than one of those conflicts of sanguinary hordes into which the beautiful mediæval science of war developed. Don Ximenes was not in his lair, for Don Balthasar had been conveniently apprised of his secret absence on a neighbouring campaign to which Don Balthasar had not been invited. He could not lose the opportunity to bring two thousand men against Don Ximenes’s Castle, which was in those days of supreme fortification adequately held by the Seneschal and twelve men. When walls were impenetrable and ramparts unassailable except by the slow poising and escalading of ladders, they were sufficient to ward and defy a host. The Castle of Don Ximenes was as solidly built and magnificently engineered as any Castle in Spain, which was saying a great deal. It was originally a Moorish stronghold. The great dungeon-keep covered one side of the quadrangle. It was crenellated and thinly slashed with murderous arrowholes. The other three sides were flanked at each corner by turrets massively gathered to each other by a fortified passage running round the whole rampart. The dry moat was cut out of the quick rock. Across the moat rose a bridge like the hump of a donkey’s back and protected by a barbican. The angles and embrasures commanded and cross-commanded every approach. While the Seneschal watched from the top of the keep, two men held each turret, three remained in the barbican and three took turns to sleep. The Seneschal had no more than enough men and provender to hold the Castle for Don Ximenes, and it was weary work peeping over the ramparts at every move made by the redoubtable Don Balthasar.

Don Balthasar with his masses of fresh troops attacked or feigned attack at all hours, even at night when his camp fires blazed red with feasting and revelry. Each time an alarm was given by lighting a torch at the menaced turret, the Seneschal would collect the sleepers and hurry them as a reserve to the ramparts to meet each successive attack. Every third or fifth day there was a general attack and a number of surprise attempts to hook scaling ladders to some unwatched portion of the wall. With poles and sledge-hammers the Seneschal and his faithful few dislocated or smashed the feelers of the prying ladders as fast as they appeared above the walls. But day was as weary as night, and only the obstinate loyalty of the Seneschal made the hours pass without question or murmuring among his men. His determination was unflexed. Everything he could possibly value was at stake: the impregnable old keep in which he had been reared as a child, his loyalty to his lord, and incidentally his own wife and daughter who, unknown to the besiegers, were helping to consume his slender store behind the walls. It was a strong satisfaction to him to know that ten feet of masonry lay between their charms and Balthasar called the Cruel.

The Castle possessed all the strength and subtlety of construction and design that Moorish and Gothic architects could give after handling and remodelling each other’s work. Don Balthasar found it quite impossible to take it by assault and sat down in permanent circumsession. Within, there was enough to tide them over until Don Ximenes’s return, provided he returned with the New Year. But occasionally the Seneschal caught sight of a lean look. While the camp echoed with revelry and the air was thick with the steam of feasting, none of the besieged ever ate to satisfy or drank into the delicious preludes of intoxication. And there was a constant lack of sleep, which is a great subduer of grumbling and tedium. But no suspicion of the garrison’s loyalty ever glided through the mind of the Seneschal. He would not allow the possible fall of the Castle to dwell in his mind. He only looked forward to the day of triumph when the portcullis would be drawn and the Don Ximenes enter into his keep as inviolate as upon the day he had left it. If the Castle fell—well, there was nothing worse that Don Balthasar surnamed the Cruel could do to him.

Nevertheless murmuring had arisen and sometimes was hardly hushed before the sore-tried Seneschal stumbled into hearing. Though the besiegers were making no progress, time was; and time was on the side of Don Balthasar. To the garrison it became acutely clear that their days were shortened. There was enough provender for a month or for three months of semi-starvation. Two grim days already appeared on the horizon: the day when the Seneschal would announce half-rations and the day when, drowsy with hunger, they would be surprised and one turret would be taken and occupied with fresh troops, who would pour like a Moorish poison through the passages and into the stony veins of the Castle until every corner was captured. The Seneschal would undoubtedly fight to the end. When they had filled their tiny tasks they would perish like pawns. The life of foot soldiers was not sweet in Old Castile, but it was thought by their lords to be much sweetened by a death in their private service and defence. They could but accept their approaching fate with the devotion of feudal hirelots. It was already a matter of weeks or even days, and meantime Don Balthasar’s banners flaunted the landscape. He was only waiting for the first sign of weakness to show itself, if not in the fortifications, at least in the less enduring minds of men.

The weak spot in the garrison manifested itself one evening as the tired Seneschal was dragging himself to his place of rest. The best prospect before him was a name among those who had served their lords to the death. The garrison had less rosy expectation in the memories of Spanish chivalry. They would be forgotten.... Two men-at-arms stood in the Seneschal’s roadway. They had spent the day guarding one of the turrets and they had come to tell him simply that they were going to mutiny. Knowing how essential they were to the defence, they had no fear of instant execution. The Seneschal might as well surrender the Castle forthwith as dispense with their services. The Seneschal bowed his grey face. Tired as he was, he still struggled for time and thought and breath. He told them that, if they wished to mutiny, the Castle could no longer be held and he would send them over the ramparts to announce the surrender to Don Balthasar the following morning. He only asked them to keep their share of the watch that night. The morrow could care for the morrow. His only present endeavour was to hold the Castle for that night. The mutineers appeared to refuse his courteous offer, for they stood shaking their heads in an awkward way. Then they spoke.

They were not mutinying with any desire to save their skins. Least of all did they wish to join Balthasar or put him in possession of the Castle. They were loyal men and true to their lord. The Seneschal gave them an ironical glower. They were ready to fight to the end, they continued to observe. They only asked for a little consolation in the last days of their lives. They insisted that they were loyal and true to the great law which bound men of valour to their lords. And they would yet obey the Seneschal in all matters except perhaps where a stronger than military custom constrained their souls. This was all pointless speech, and the Seneschal made a sign to express that he thought so. However, they mentioned their readiness to fight to the end on condition that their last hours were sweetened with love. Their tranquil smile hardly seemed to clash against the Seneschal’s baffled misunderstanding. He, poor man, was feebly perplexed. If they had asked for a larger ration of bread or wine he would gladly have reduced that of his own family to satisfy them. But they might as well have asked him for the excitements of the chase or the luxuries of the Moorish bath within the Castle’s narrow world. For a moment they seemed to him mad; rendered mad by the rigours of the siege. His next hope was that they would fight the better for being insane. But what a moment to think of love! And he answered them with a kind laugh:

“Would that I could satisfy your wishes, my dear children, but you must not ask for a well of wine in the desert or for loaves to rain from heaven. Love will come to you some day among the beautiful girls of the town when Don Ximenes has returned to his own. Come, return to your noble duty, and some of the best wine will be served you on the morrow. Oh, my children.”

“But we do not need your red wine,” replied the mutineers. “If we are to die, we prefer we should drink something better than red wine.”

“My children, I would not hesitate if by opening my purse or my veins I could furnish you with a wine worthy of your valour during this siege. If I could encourage you to hold out against Don Balthasar, there is nothing that I would not promise you. And my word is true as you have always known.”

“We do not ask for promises or words. We would prefer to accept what you have to offer on the spot.”

“But I have nothing, my children, except what you know is in the store. If these are our last days (which may the Most Serene Virgin otherwise dispose!) at least you shall feed and drink well.”

But the mutineers still looked at him with their dull stare. “Well, in the Holy Virgin’s name,” shouted the Seneschal, “what do you want?”

“We want love, and if you will allow us a little share of love we will hold the Castle with you till the last of us is killed. It will not be well for any of us to fall alive into the hands of Don Balthasar.”

“Yes, make love,” murmured the tired Seneschal, “make love and be happy.” And he turned slowly away. “But where will you find love in this prison of stone?”

“We thought it convenient as well as pleasant to offer our courteous love to your family.”

The poor Seneschal’s face turned ashen; “You mean my daughter as the price of remaining at your duty?” And his determination to hold the Castle at all costs received a fiercer blow than any that had been dealt by the enemy. But still his staggering mind was essaying how to hold on and on. The mutineers came to his rescue when words failed him.

“We are willing that you choose upon which one of us you will bestow your daughter.”

“And will you return to your duties if I bestow her on the morrow?” he asked. The Seneschal’s word was good and they saluted him with their swords.

“You shall have her,” groaned the unhappy man, as he laid his hand upon the younger and fresher of the two, “but if the God of Castile and the Most Serene Virgin suffer me to bring this Castle through the siege I will not spare you.”

The mutineers laughed; “Be not troubled. Our days shall end long before Don Ximenes returns. Don Balthasar will see to that.” The younger one added: “When may I make the acquaintance of the beautiful daughter you have promised me?”

“On the morrow,” hissed the Seneschal; “have I not said it? I cannot disturb her this night.” The mutineer returned to his turret. His companion remained bulking in the narrow stone passage.

“And I, my master, must my last days be passed without love or solace because my companion in arms has borne less years of fighting and has less scars to show in his boy’s face?”

“Come,” murmured the exhausted Seneschal, “That is no reason for leaving the ramparts. You are a fine battle-pocked warrior and you could not spend your last days more happily than by facing the army of Don Balthasar.”

The grisled warrior seemed to hesitate over what was most likely to felicitate his last days on earth. Then he spoke quite abruptly: “Give me your wife and I will fight better.” It was like saying “check” to a chess player playing with members of his own family instead of wooden pieces. The Seneschal bowed his head in utter despair and the other slowly turned his back. His nod was as good as his word under the circumstances. At that moment a torch flared from the central keep, and the Seneschal rushed to the scene of attack hurrying his reserves on the way. A frontal attack was being made in full force and he rushed from turret to turret shouting hoarse commands and disengaging the cruel little hooks and feelers, that were pushed over the walls, with his own hands. Never had the garrison fought so magnificently. The intrepid coolness and energy of the two mutineers was beyond praise or emulation. They fought with their hands, their feet and their toes, hacking, pushing, kicking, and biting, now in one corner and now in another. With their bare hands they uprooted ladder after ladder and with swift leverage hurled clusters of men headlong into the hard dry moat. The Seneschal caught sight of the pair at moments and his loyal, long-tried heart was at rest.

The attack died down with severe loss to Don Balthasar. The garrison had reason to feel pleased as they snatched portions of rest during the night. The Seneschal reposed in the bosom of his family. He was weary unto death, but he felt unable to sleep. At the back of his mind throbbed the safety of the Castle. It was his main preoccupation, and it still gripped him in spite of the new bitterness, which underlay his thought like a festering toothache. “No, it was monstrous, unheard of in the annals of war and chivalry, that he should sacrifice his daughter and his wife!” He moaned in agony. Beside him lay his wife, the long brown hair across her face. He sat up in his leathern armour as stiffly as though another attack had been signalled. Slowly he recollected that he had given her away with his word.... At that moment his daughter sighed in her sleep, and he cried aloud once more. Did loyalty to his lord demand that he leave nothing undone even to his own undoing? Must he give wife and daughter like provender into the jaws of those who were defending his lord’s castle? It was unutterable, unspeakable, unbelievable. Who would help him in his biting loneliness, when he could not even think of a road out or even of words in which to pray? Unthinkingly he muttered aloud “Most Serene Virgin! A thousand candles and a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella.” Then silence fell, and the weary Seneschal felt an unanswered prayer eddying in his empty heart. To whom could he turn in his distress? His dear lord was far away. He would never see him again. Again he cried to the Virgin, and again silence followed his cry. He shivered with fear and fury. He swayed miserably to and fro on his knees. If he slept not, he would scarce be able to fight on the morrow. A thousand curses that his last days on earth should be embittered beyond the endurance of the loyal and the deserts of the faithful. At one time he began to despair. Perhaps it would be better to hurl himself off the ramparts and let his dead body announce the end of the siege to Don Balthasar the next morning. No, that would leave wife and daughter to the mutineers. He pulled himself to the top of the mighty keep. There were the flickering lights of Don Balthasar’s camp. Would the Serene and Holy Virgin make no answer, give no sign to one so fiercely tried? He had dedicated his daughter a hundred times to the Immaculate Serenity. Well, what was the use, if she could do nothing to save her child? He began to expostulate with the Blessed Virgin and reasonably. Could she do nothing with all the armies of Heaven recognising her as their Commandress? He scolded her with the childlike faith of the mediæval warrior, who saw the Virgin like the Tournament Queen learning over heavenly barriers and deeply interested and concerned in all the affairs of heart and chivalry on earth. “Take or abandon her,” the Seneschal shouted into the night, “you know best, most sweet and serene Lady, whether she shall be yours or for Don Balthasar. If you will not save her I will give her to him called ‘The Cruel!’” He lifted his waving hands to Heaven as a man carried down a whirlpool. Not a star fell. No vision appeared.

His mind was now set and he returned to the armoury, pulled a vellum leaf out of a Breviary and began writing a letter to Don Balthasar. Anything rather than throw his daughter to the lout on the ramparts. The Don was a Cavalier and a great gentleman of Spain. He began scratching the titles of Don Balthasar in the fullness of all the laudatory etiquette of the time. Then he explained that two of his soldiers had mutinied, which placed the Castle in Don Balthasar’s hands whenever it should seem agreeable to him. He begged Don Balthasar to understand that he was not surrendering the Castle of his lord foolishly or fearfully. The mutineers with Moorish impudence had demanded his wife and daughter as the price of keeping their place on the ramparts. He ventured to place the matter before the august eyes of Don Balthasar himself, who, as the paragon of chivalry and loyalty and such matters in Spain, could advise his troubled servant whether loyalty to his family or to his lord came first, and whether he was bound to persevere at the price of offering his wife and daughter to these foul mutineers. He appealed to Don Balthasar for a ruling. He would bow to his decision.

He carefully sealed the letter with his lord’s seal, and went on the ramparts. He lit and waved a torch with slow movements in sign of parley or surrender. He was quickly noticed, and Don Balthasar’s secretary approached with an escort. The Seneschal threw the letter over the ramparts and staggered back to rest. A whisper passed through the Castle.

In the morning the garrison were not surprised to see an unarmed company approaching the barbican waving the personal standard of Don Balthasar. The Seneschal himself descended from his watchpoint on the keep and leaning through the crenellations picked a letter from the top of a spearpoint. He read it slowly and its purport burst like the first glimpse of harbour on the eyes of the shipwrecked, for Don Balthasar commended his loyalty and fidelity, and was grieved to hear that two of his soldiers had mutineered and shown a lesser sense of loyalty to their lord. He considered that the terms they had offered their Seneschal were arrogant and outrageous, and foul beyond the foulness of the pit. He wished the Seneschal to mind not their threats, but to let them both desert to his camp. He gave his word that their desertion would not afflict the Seneschal in a military sense. Let him send them under safe conduct forthwith.

The mutineers were waiting in their turret when the Seneschal reached them. They had watched the coming of the embassage eagerly, and doubted not that the Seneschal had made a desperate bid for terms to save the Castle now he knew he could hold it no longer. Ineffectually for certain. With his prize in his jaws Don Balthasar was not the one to let it drop for a kiss given to his greedy cheeks. They awaited the Seneschal as the player who has called Checkmate and knows that any further struggle is useless. The Seneschal showed neither levity nor seriousness in his face. He spoke gently and firmly as though he was discussing some minute part of their routine. “My children, you have against all your loyalty to your lord offered to mutiny and go over to Don Balthasar unless I give you my wife and daughter. I have decided to surrender the Castle rather than allow such a misery to be inflicted upon me, and I bid you accompany Don Balthasar’s men and tell that great and terrible lord that I can no longer defend the Castle and will accept his commands. Go!”

The mutineers looked up with angry surprise. They felt they were being cheated out of their rights, out of their agreement, out of their pleasure. They had expected the immediate fulfilment of their demand. At any rate the siege was over. They could only rejoice that their weariness was at an end, though they would have preferred a few more weeks’ fighting, lightened as they had hoped by the wicked debauchery they had devised at their unfortunate Seneschal’s expense. For one baffled moment they hesitated. But the Seneschal had left them no choice, and they turned to accept the freedom they had not desired. They walked on to the ramparts amid their scowling comrades and lowered themselves with a rope that the Seneschal grimly held for them. With a malevolent grin they slid down into their new allegiance. At least they would be fed well that night, when they brought Don Balthasar good news. They marched away stretching their cramped legs between the riders who had come to meet them. Within an hour they stood before Don Balthasar called the Cruel. He did not waste his time with them. He mentioned his detestation of all kinds of disloyalty, especially to an absent lord. He showed no surprise or gratitude on hearing that the Castle was now within his reach. To their terror-struck excitement they learnt that the terrible one had been informed of the predicament in which they had placed the loyal Seneschal. He briefly informed them that he was unwilling to profit by so base an action even if it did place the Castle in his power. The mutineers stared at him with dull amaze.

The Seneschal was more agreeably surprised an hour later when he saw a scaffold being erected in front of the barbican, and his two defaulters being bound and deliberately executed. A roar of laughter and derision rose from the Castle walls. It was almost worth the surrender to enjoy so majestic a jest on the part of Don Balthasar. With parched throats and weary lungs the garrison shouted Vivas to Don Balthasar’s name. As for the Seneschal, he could only utter delirious thanks to the Virgin, who had delivered him so mightily from domestic shame and agony. She had strange and devious ways, the Serenissima, for coming to the rescue of her clients. This was really her most brilliant master-stroke!

The Seneschal laughed his first laugh during the siege, and he was still smiling when the riders of Don Balthasar again approached the barbican waving the signal of parley. It must be for the final surrender of the Castle, thought the Seneschal. Sadly he picked the letter of summons from the tip of the spearpoint handed to him.

He broke the heavy seal and coloured cord fastening the vellum. It brought him the greeting of his enemy, who further made plain his great regret that contrary to the laws of war he had killed two of the garrison after they had left the Seneschal under his safe conduct. But he had done what he thought was due to himself and to the honour of all Christian princes. Treachery among men-at-arms could not be too speedily or sternly punished. But lest he had taken any unfair advantage of the heroic garrison he was sending two suitable men-at-arms to take the place of the mutineers! By their fidelity to himself they were sworn to fight exactly as the Seneschal disposed and directed them. There was no doubt! Two stalwarts were waiting for admittance at the barbican and their escort was already riding away. And the letter was signed in the big, gawky lettering of Don Balthasar himself who was called the Cruel!