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Pious ejaculationthanks to all the saints he could think ofhorror that the son of an Eminence should be thus abusedprophecies of the wrath to come when the duchess, his motherAt this Don Ruy groped for a sword, and found a boot, and flung it, with an unsanctified word or two, in the direction of the lamentation.
You wail worse than a dog of a Lutheran under the yoke, he said in as good a voice as he could muster with a cut in his lip. What matter how much Eminence it took to make a father for meor how many duchesses to make a mother? I am labelled as plain Ruy Sandoval and shipped till called for. If you are to instruct my youth in the path it should treadwhy not start in with a lesson on discretion?
At this hopeful sign of life from the bundle of bandages on the monks bed, Maestro Diego approached and looked over his illustrious charge with a careful eye.
Discretion has limped far behindenterprise, else your highness would cut a different figure by nowand
Choke back your infernal highnesses! growled the younger man. I know well what your task is to be here in this new land:it is to send back reports of duty each time I break a rule or get a broken head. Now by the Blood, and the Cross, if you smother not your titles, and let me range free, I tell you the thing I will do:I will send back a complaint against you to Sevilleand to make sure that it goes, no hand shall carry it but your own. Ere they can find another nurse maid for my morals, Ill build me a ship and go sailing the South seas for adventureand your court tricksters will have a weary time in the chase! I like you better than many another godly spy who might have been sent, and I promise myself much joy in the journal of strange travels it is in your mind to write. But once for all, remember, we never were born into the world until a week ago!
But your Excellency
By the Great Duke of Hell! Will you not bridle your tongue when the damned monks are three deep at the key hole?
By which it will be seen that the travels of the pious Don Diego were not all on paths of roses.
A little later the still faced priest of the stealthy glances came in, and Don Ruy sat on the side of the bed, and looked him over.
You are the one who picked me upeh? And the gentlemen of the streets had tossed me into a corner after discreetly starting my soul on its travels! Warm trysts your dames give to a stranger in this landwhen you next confess the darlings, whisper their ears to be less bloodthirsty towards youth innocence!
The man in the robe smiled.
That unwise maid will make no more trysts, he said quietly,not if she be one important enough to cause an assault on your Highness.
Did they?
Nonoharm would not be done to her, but her destiny is without doubt a convent. The men who spoiled your tryst earn no purses as guard for girls of the street,sacred walls will save them that trouble for a timewhether maid or wife I dare promise you that! It is as well you know. Time is wasted seeking adventure placed beyond mortal reach.
Conventeh? Do your holy retreats teach the little tricks the lady knew? And do they furnish their vestals with poems of romance and silks and spices of Kathay?
He drew from an inner pocket a little scarf of apple green with knotted fringes, and butterflies, various colored in dainty broidery. As the folds fell apart an odor of sweetness stole into the shadowy room of the monastery, and the priest was surprised into an ejaculation at sight of such costly evidence, but he smothered it hastily in a muttered prayer.
After that he listened to few of the strangers gibes and quips, but with a book of prayers on his knee he looked the youth over carefully, recalled the outburst of Don Diego as to origin, and the adventurers own threat to build a ship and sail where chance pointed. Plainly, this seeker of trysts, or any other thing promising adventure, had more of resource than one might expect from a battered stranger lifted out of the gutter for the last rites.
The priestwho looked a good soldier and who was called Padre Vicente de los Chichimecos (of the wild tribes) read further in his book of hours, and then spoke the thing in his mind.
For a matter of many years in this land of the Indies I have waited for a man of discreet determination for a certain work. The virgin herself led me to the gutter where you groaned in the dark, and I here vow to build her a chapel if this thought of mine bears fruit.
Hump! My thanks to our Lady,and I myself will see to the building of the chapel. But tell me of the tree you would plant, and well then have a guess at the fruit. It may prove sour to the taste! Monkly messes appealed to me little on the other side of the seas. Ive yet to test their flavor on this shore of adventure.
Padre Vicente ignored the none too respectful commentand took from his pocket a bit of virgin gold strung on a thread of deer sinew.
Your name is Don Ruy Sandoval, he said. You are in this land for adventure. You content yourself with the latticed window and the strife of the streetswhy not look for the greater things? You have wealth and power at your callwhy not search for an empire ofthis?
Then he showed the virgin gold worn smooth by much wearing.
Don Ruy blinked under the bandage and swore by Bradamante of the adventure that he would search for it gladly if but the way was shown.
Where do we find this golden mistress of yours? he demanded, and why have you waited long for a comrade?
The gold is in the north where none dare openly seek treasure, or even souls, since Coronado came back broken and disgraced. I have waited for the man of wealth who dared risk it, andat whose going the Viceroy could wink.
Why wink at merather than another?
That is a secret knotted in the fringes of the silken scarf there said Padre Vicente with a grim smile. Cannot a way be found to clear either a convent or a palace of a trouble breeder, when the church itself lends a hand? You were plainly a breeder of trouble, else had you escaped the present need of bandages. For the first time I see a way where Church and the government of the Indies can go with clasped hands to this work. In gold and converts the work may prove mighty. How mighty depends whether you come to the Indies to kill time until the day you are recalledor improve that time by success where Coronado failed.
And if we echo his failure?
None will be the wiser even then! You plan for a season of hunting in the hills. I plan for a mission visit by the Sea of Cortez. Mine will be the task to see how and where our helpers join each other and all the provisioning of man and beast. Mine also to make it clear to the Viceroy that you repent your
Hollo!Don Ruy interrupted with a grimace. You are about to say I repent of follyor the enticing of a virginor that I fell victim to the blandishments of some tricky dameI know all that cant by rote!a man always repents until his broken head is mended, but all that is apart from the real thingwhich is this:In what way does my moment with a lady in the dark affect the Viceroy of the Indies? Why should his Excellency trouble himself that Ruy Sandoval has a broken headand a silken scarf?
Padre Vicente staredthen smiled. Ruy Sandoval had not his wits smothered by the cotton wool of exalted pamperings.
I will be frank with you, he said at last. The Viceroy I have not yet addressed on this matter. But such silken scarfs are fewthat one would not be a heavy task to trace to its owner.