Fair Margaret | Page 2

to be
read, amidst renewed shouting he passed on to the great feast that was
made ready in his palace of Westminster.
Among those who rode near to him was the ambassador, de Ayala,

accredited to the English Court by the Spanish sovereigns, Ferdinand
and Isabella, and his following of splendidly attired lords and
secretaries. That Spain was much in favour there was evident from his
place in the procession. How could it be otherwise, indeed, seeing that
already, four years or more before, at the age of twelve months, Prince
Arthur, the eldest son of the king, had been formally affianced to the
Infanta Catherine, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, aged one year
and nine months? For in those days it was thought well that the
affections of princes and princesses should be directed early into such
paths as their royal parents and governors considered likely to prove
most profitable to themselves.
At the ambassador's left hand, mounted on a fine black horse, and
dressed richly, but simply, in black velvet, with a cap of the same
material in which was fastened a single pearl, rode a tall cavalier. He
was about five-and-thirty years of age, and very handsome, having
piercing black eyes and a stern, clean-cut face.
In every man, it is said, there can be found a resemblance, often far off
and fanciful enough, to some beast or bird or other creature, and
certainly in this case it was not hard to discover. The man resembled an
eagle, which, whether by chance or design, was the crest he bore upon
his servants' livery, and the trappings of his horse. The unflinching eyes,
the hooked nose, the air of pride and mastery, the thin, long hand, the
quick grace of movement, all suggested that king of birds, suggested
also, as his motto said, that what he sought he would find, and what he
found he would keep. Just now he was watching the interview between
the English king and the leaders of the crowd whom his Grace had been
pleased to summon, with an air of mingled amusement and contempt.
"You find the scene strange, Marquis," said the ambassador, glancing at
him shrewdly.
"Señor, here in England, if it pleases your Excellency," he answered
gravely, "Señor d'Aguilar. The marquis you mentioned lives in
Spain--an accredited envoy to the Moors of Granada; the Señor
d'Aguilar, a humble servant of Holy Church," and he crossed himself,
"travels abroad--upon the Church's business, and that of their

Majesties'."
"And his own too, sometimes, I believe," answered the ambassador
drily. "But to be frank, what I do not understand about you, Señor
d'Aguilar, as I know that you have abandoned political ambitions, is
why you do not enter my profession, and put on the black robe once
and for all. What did I say--black? With your opportunities and
connections it might be red by now, with a hat to match."
The Señor d'Aguilar smiled a little as he replied.
"You said, I think, that sometimes I travel on my own business. Well,
there is your answer. You are right, I have abandoned worldly
ambitions--most of them. They are troublesome, and for some people,
if they be born too high and yet not altogether rightly, very dangerous.
The acorn of ambition often grows into an oak from which men hang."
"Or into a log upon which men's heads can be cut off. Señor, I
congratulate you. You have the wisdom that grasps the substance and
lets the shadows flit. It is really very rare."
"You asked why I do not change the cut of my garments," went on
d'Aguilar, without noticing the interruption. "Excellency, to be frank,
because of my own business. I have failings like other men. For
instance, wealth is that substance of which you spoke, rule is the
shadow; he who has the wealth has the real rule. Again, bright eyes
may draw me, or a hate may seek its slaking, and these things do not
suit robes, black or red."
"Yet many such things have been done by those who wore them,"
replied the ambassador with meaning.
"Aye, Excellency, to the discredit of Holy Church, as you, a priest,
know better than most men. Let the earth be evil as it must; but let the
Church be like heaven above it, pure, unstained, the vault of prayer, the
house of mercy and of righteous judgment, wherein walks no sinner
such as I," and again he crossed himself.

There was a ring of earnestness in the speaker's voice that caused de
Ayala, who knew something of his private reputation, to look at him
curiously.
"A true fanatic, and therefore to us a useful man," he thought to himself,
"though one who knows how to make the best of two worlds as well as
most