CHAPTER IX.
THE COUNTERPLOT.
Calderon had not long left the young soldier before the governor of the
prison entered to pay his respects to a captive of such high birth and
military reputation.
Fonseca, always blunt and impatient of mood, was not in a humour to
receive and return compliments; but the governor had scarcely seated
himself ere he struck a chord in the conversation which immediately
arrested the attention and engaged the interest of the prisoner.
"Do not fear, sir," said he, "that you will be long detained; the power
of your enemy is great, but it will not be of duration. The storm is
already gathering round him; he must be more than man if he escapes the
thunderbolt."
"Do you speak to me thus of my kinsman, the Cardinal-Duke de Lerma?"
"No, Don Martin, pardon me. I spoke of the Marquis de Siete Iglesias.
Are you so great a stranger to Madrid and to the court as to suppose that
the Cardinal de Lerma ever signs a paper but at the instance of Don
Roderigo? Nay, that he ever looks over the paper to which he sets his
hand? Depend upon it, you are here to gratify the avarice or revenge of
the Scourge of Spain."
"Impossible!" cried Fonseca. "Don Roderigo is my friend--my intercessor.
He overwhelms me with his kindness."
"Then you are indeed lost," said the governor, in accents of compassion;
"the tiger always caresses his prey before he devours it. What have you
done to provoke his kindness?"
"Senor," said Fonseca, suspiciously, "you speak with a strange want of
caution to a stranger, and against a man whose power you confess."
"Because I am safe from his revenge; because the Inquisition have already
fixed their fatal eyes upon him; because by that Inquisition I am not
unknown nor unprotected; because I see with joy and triumph the hour
approaching that must render up to justice the pander of the prince, the
betrayer of the king, the robber of the people; because I have an
interest in thee, Don Martin, of which thou wilt be aware when thou hast
learned my name. I am Juan de la Nuza, the father of the young officer
whose life you saved in the assault of the Moriscos, in Valentia, and I
owe you an everlasting gratitude."
There was something in the frank and hearty tone of the governor which at
once won Fonseca's confidence. He became agitated and distracted with
suspicions of his former tutor and present patron.
"What, I ask, hast thou done to attract his notice? Calderon is not
capricious in cruelty. Art thou rich, and does he hope that thou wilt
purchase freedom with five thousand pistoles? No! Hast thou crossed the
path of his ambition? Hast thou been seen with Uzeda? or art thou in
favour with the prince? No, again! Then hast thou some wife, some
sister, some mistress, of rare accomplishments and beauty, with whom
Calderon would gorge the fancy and retain the esteem of the profligate
Infant? Ah, thou changest colour."
"By Heaven! you madden me with these devilish surmises. Speak plainly."
"I see thou knowest not Calderon," said the governor, with a bitter
smile. "I do--for my niece was beautiful, and the prince wooed her--.
But enough of that: at his scaffold, or at the rack, I shall be avenged
on Roderigo Calderon. You said the Cardinal was your kinsman; you are,
then, equally related to his son, the Duke d'Uzeda. Apply not to Lerma;
he is the tool of Calderon. Apply yourself to Uzeda; he is Calderon's
mortal foe. While Calderon gains ground with the prince, Uzeda advances
with the king. Uzeda by a word can procure thy release. The duke knows
and trusts me. Shall I be commissioned to acquaint him with thy arrest,
and entreat his intercession with Philip?"
"You give me new life! But not an hour is to be lost; this night--this
day-oh, Mother of Mercy! what image have you conjured up! fly to Uzeda,
if you would save my very reason. I myself have scarcely seen him since
my boyhood--Lerma forbade me seek his friendship. But I am of his race--
his blood."
"Be cheered, I shall see the duke to-day. I have business with him where
you wot not. We are bringing strange events to a crisis. Hope the
best." With this the governor took his leave.
At the dusk of the evening, Don Juan de la Nuza, wrapped in a dark
mantle, stood before a small door deep-set in a massive and gloomy wall,
that stretched along one side of a shunned and deserted street. Without
sign of living hand, the door opened at his knock, and the governor
entered a long and narrow passage that conducted to chambers more
associated with images of awe than any in his own prison. Here he
suddenly encountered the Jesuit, Fray Louis de Aliaga, confessor to the
king.
"How fares the Grand Inquisitor?" asked De la Nuza. "He has just
breathed his last," answered the Jesuit. "His illness--so sudden--
defied all aid. Sandoval y Roxas is with the saints."
The governor, who was, as the reader may suppose, one of the sacred body,
crossed himself, and answered.--"With whom will rest the appointment of
the successor? Who will be first to gain the ear of the king?"
"I know not," replied the Jesuit; "but I am at this instant summoned to
Uzeda. Pardon my haste."
So saying, Aliaga glided away.
"With Sandoval y Roxas," muttered Don Juan, "dies the last protector of
Calderon and Lerma: unless, indeed, the wily marquis can persuade the
king to make Aliaga, his friend, the late cardinal's successor. But
Aliaga seeks Uzeda--Uzeda his foe and rival. What can this portend?"
Thus soliloquising, the governor silently continued his way till he came
to a door by which stood two men, masked, who saluted him with a mute
inclination of the head. The door opened and again closed, as the
governor entered. Meanwhile, the confessor had gained the palace of the
Duke d' Uzeda. Uzeda was not alone: with him was a man whose sallow
complexion, ill-favoured features, and simple dress strangely contrasted
the showy person and sumptuous habiliments of the duke. But the instant
this personage opened his lips, the comparison was no longer to his
prejudice. Something in the sparkle of his deep-set eye-in the singular
enchantment of his smile--and above all, in the tone of a very musical
and earnest voice, chained attention at once to his words. And, whatever
those words, there was about the man, and his mode of thought and
expression, the stamp of a mind at once crafty and commanding. This
personage was Gaspar de Guzman, then but a gentleman of the Prince's
chamber (which post he owed to Calderon, whose creature he was supposed
to be), afterwards so celebrated in the history of Philip IV., as Count
of Olivares and prime minister of Spain.
The conversation between Guzman and Uzeda, just before the Jesuit
entered, was drawing to a close.
"You see," said Uzeda, "that if we desire to crush Calderon, it is on
the Inquisition that we must depend. Now is the time to elect, in the
successor of Sandoval y Roxas, one pledged to the favourite's ruin. The
reason I choose Aliaga is this,--Calderon will never suspect his
friendship, and will not, therefore, thwart us with the king. The
Jesuit, who would sell all Christendom for the sake of advancement to his
order or himself will gladly sell Calderon to obtain the chair of the
Inquisition."
"I believe it," replied Guzman. "I approve your choice; and you may rely
on me to destroy Calderon with the prince. I have found out the way to
rule Philip; it is by never giving him a right to despise his favourites
--it is to flatter his vanity, but not to share his vices. Trust me, you
alone--if you follow my suggestions--can be minister to the Fourth
Philip."
Here a page entered to announce Don Fray Louis de Aliaga. Uzeda advanced
to the door, and received the holy man with profound respect.
"Be seated, father, and let me at once to business; for time presses, and
all must be despatched to-night. Before interest is made by others with
the king, we must be prompt in gaining the appointment of Sandoval's
successor."
"Report says that the cardinal-duke, your father, himself desires the
vacant chair of the Inquisition."
"My poor father, he is old--his sun has set. No, Aliaga; I have thought
of one fitter for that high and stern office in a word, that appointment
rests with yourself. I can make you Grand Inquisitor of Spain--!"
"Me!" said the Jesuit, and he turned aside his face. "You jest with me,
noble son."
"I am serious--hear me. We have been foes and rivals; why should not our
path be the same? Calderon has deprived you of friends more powerful
than himself. His hour is come. The Duke de Lerma's downfall cannot be
avoided; if it could, I, his son, would not as, you may suppose, withhold
my hand. But business fatigues him--he is old--the affairs of Spain are
in a deplorable condition--they need younger and abler hands. My father
will not repine at a retirement suited to his years, and which shall be
made honourable to his gray hairs. But some victim must glut the rage of
the people; that victim must be the upstart Calderon; the means of his
punishment, the Inquisition. Now, you understand me. On one condition,
you shall be the successor to Sandoval. Know that I do not promise
without the power to fulfill. The instant I learned that the late
cardinal's death was certain, I repaired to the king. I have the promise
of the appointment; and this night your name shall, if you accept the
condition, and Calderon does not, in the interim, see the king and
prevent the nomination, receive the royal sanction."
"Our excellent Aliaga cannot hesitate," said Don Gaspar de Guzman. "The
order of Loyola rests upon shoulders that can well support the load."
Before that trio separated, the compact was completed. Aliaga practised
against his friend the lesson he had preached to him--that the end
sanctifies all means. Scarce had Aliaga departed ere Juan de la Nuza
entered; for Uzeda, who sought to make the Inquisition his chief
instrument of power, courted the friendship of all its officers. He
readily promised to obtain the release of Fonseca; and, in effect, it was
but little after midnight when an order arrived at the prison for the
release of Don Martin de Fonseca, accompanied by a note from the duke to
the prisoner, full of affectionate professions, and requesting to see him
the next morning.
Late as the hour was, and in spite of the expostulations of the governor,
who wished him to remain the night within the prison, in the hope to
extract from him his secret, Fonseca no sooner received the order than he
claimed and obtained his liberation.
