CHAPTER IV.
CIVIL AMBITION, AND ECCLESIASTICAL.
Scarcely had the prince vanished, before the door that led from the
anteroom was opened, and an old man, in the ecclesiastical garb, entered
the secretary's cabinet.
"Do I intrude, my son?" said the churchman.
"No, father, no; I never more desired your presence--your counsel. It is
not often that I stand halting and irresolute between the two magnets of
interest and conscience: this is one of those rare dilemmas."
Here Calderon rapidly narrated the substance of his conversation with
Fonseca, and of the subsequent communication with the prince.
"You see," he said, in conclusion, "how critical is my position. On one
side, my obligations to Fonseca, my promise to a benefactor, a friend to
the boy I assisted to rear. Nor is that all: the prince asks me to
connive at the abstraction of a novice from a consecrated house. What
peril--what hazard! On the other side, if I refuse, the displeasure, the
vengeance of the prince, for whose favour I have already half forfeited
that of the king; and who, were he once to frown upon me, would encourage
all my enemies--in other phrase, the whole court--in one united attempt
at my ruin."
"It is a stern trial," said the monk, gravely; "and one that may well
excite your fear."
"Fear, Aliaga!--ha! ha!--fear!" said Calderon, laughing scornfully. "Did
true ambition ever know fear? Have we not the old Castilian proverb,
that tells us 'He who has climbed the first step to power has left terror
a thousand leagues behind'? No, it is not fear that renders me
irresolute; it is wisdom, and some touch, some remnant of human nature
--philosophers would call it virtue; you priests, religion."
"Son," said the priest, "when, as one of that sublime calling, which
enables us to place our unshodden feet upon the necks of kings, I felt
that I had the power to serve and to exalt you; when as confessor to
Philip, I backed the patronage of Lerma, recommended you to the royal
notice, and brought you into the sunshine of the royal favour--it was
because I had read in your heart and brain those qualities of which the
spiritual masters of the world ever seek to avail their cause. I knew
thee brave, crafty, aspiring, unscrupulous. I knew that thou wouldest
not shrink at the means that could secure to thee a noble end. Yea,
when, years ago, in the valley of the Xenil, I saw thee bathe thy hands
in the blood of thy foe, and heard thy laugh of exulting scorn;--when I,
alone master of thy secret, beheld thee afterwards flying from thy home
stained with a second murder, but still calm, stern, and lord of thine
own reason, my knowledge of mankind told me, 'Of such men are high
converts and mighty instruments made!'"
The priest paused; for Calderon heard him not. His cheek was livid, his
eyes closed, his chest heaved wildly. "Horrible remembrance!" he
muttered; "fatal love--dread revenge! Inez--Inez, what hast thou to
answer for!"
"Be soothed, my son; I meant not to tear the bandage from thy wounds."
"Who speaks?" cried Calderon, starting. "Ha, priest! priest! I thought
I heard the Dead. Talk on, talk on: talk of the world--the Inquisition--
thy plots--the torture--the rack! Talk of aught that will lead me back
from the past."
"No; let me for a moment lead thee thither, in order to portray the
future that awaits thee. When, at night, I found thee--the blood-stained
fugitive--cowering beneath the shadow of the forest, dost thou remember
that I laid my hand upon thine arm, and said to thee, 'Thy life is in my
power'? From that hour, thy disdain of my threats, of myself, of thine
own life--all made me view thee as one born to advance our immortal
cause. I led thee to safety far away; I won thy friendship and thy
confidence. Thou becamest one of us--one of the great Order of Jesus.
Subsequently, I placed thee as the tutor to young Fonseca, then heir to
great fortunes. The second marriage of his uncle, and the heir that by
that marriage interposed between him and the honour of his house,
rendered the probable alliance of the youth profitless to us. But thou
hadst procured his friendship. He presented thee to the Duke of Lerma.
I was just then appointed confessor to the king; I found that years had
ripened thy genius, and memory had blunted in thee all the affections of
the flesh. Above all, hating, as thou didst, the very name of the Moor,
thou wert the man of men to aid in our great design of expelling the
accursed race from the land of Spain. Enough--I served thee, and thou
didst repay us. Thou hast washed out thy crime in the blood of the
infidel--thou art safe from detection. In Roderigo Calderon, Marquis de
Siete Iglesias, who will suspect the Roderigo Nunez--the murderous
student of Salamanca? Our device of the false father stifled even
curiosity. Thou mayest wake to the future, nor tremble at one shadow in
the past. The brightest hopes are before us both; but to realise them,
we must continue the same path. We must never halt at an obstacle in our
way. We must hold that to be no crime which advances our common objects.
Mesh upon mesh we must entangle the future monarch in our web: thou, by
the nets of pleasure; I, by those of superstition. The day that sees
Philip the Fourth upon the throne, must be a day of jubilee for the
Brotherhood and the Inquisition. When thou art prime minister, and I
grand inquisitor--that time must come--we shall have the power to extend
the sway of the sect of Loyola to the ends of the Christian world. The
Inquisition itself our tool, posterity shall regard us as the apostles of
intellectual faith. And thinkest thou, that, for the attainment of these
great ends, we can have the tender scruples of common men? Perish a
thousand Fonsecas--ten thousand novices, ere thou lose, by the strength
of a hair, thy hold over the senses and soul of the licentious Philip!
At whatever hazard, save thy power; for with it are bound, as mariners to
a plank, the hopes of those who make the mind a sceptre."
"Thy enthusiasm blinds and misleads thee, Aliaga," said Calderon,
coldly. "For me, I tell thee now, as I have told thee before, that I
care not a rush for thy grand objects. Let mankind serve itself--I look
to myself alone. But fear not my faith; my interests and my very life
are identified with thee and thy fellow-fanatics. If I desert thee,
thou art too deep in my secrets not to undo me; and were I to slay thee,
in order to silence thy testimony, I know enough of thy fraternity to
know that I should but raise up a multitude of avengers. As for this
matter, you give me wise, if not pious counsel. I will consider well of
it. Adieu! The hour summons me to attend the king."
