In the Palace of the King

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In the Palace of the King

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Title: In The Palace Of The King A Love Story Of Old Madrid
Author: F. Marion Crawford
Release Date: August 21, 2004 [EBook #13243]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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PALACE OF THE KING ***

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IN THE PALACE OF THE KING
A LOVE STORY OF OLD MADRID

BY F. MARION CRAWFORD

1900
To my old friend GEORGE P. BRETT
New York, October, 1906

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
Two young girls sat in a high though very narrow room of the old
Moorish palace to which King Philip the Second had brought his court
when he finally made Madrid his capital. It was in the month of
November, in the afternoon, and the light was cold and grey, for the
two tall windows looked due north, and a fine rain had been falling all
the morning. The stones in the court were drying now, in patches, but
the sky was like a smooth vault of cast lead, closing over the city that
lay to the northward, dark, wet and still, as if its life had shrunk down
under ground, away from the bitter air and the penetrating damp.
The room was scantily furnished, but the few objects it contained, the
carved table, the high-backed chairs and the chiselled bronze brazier,
bore the stamp of the time when art had not long been born again. On
the walls there were broad tapestries of bold design, showing green
forests populated by all sorts of animals in stiff attitudes, staring at one
another in perpetual surprise. Below the tapestry a carved walnut
wainscoting went round the room, and the door was panelled and
flanked by fluted doorposts of the same dark wood, on which rested
corbels fashioned into curling acanthus leaves, to hold up the cornice,

which itself made a high shelf over the door. Three painted Italian
vases, filled with last summer's rose leaves and carefully sealed lest the
faint perfume should be lost, stood symmetrically on this projection,
their contents slowly ripening for future use. The heap of white ashes,
under which the wood coals were still alive in the big brazier, diffused
a little warmth through the chilly room.
The two girls were sitting at opposite ends of the table. The one held a
long goose-quill pen, and before her lay several large sheets of paper
covered with fine writing. Her eyes followed the lines slowly, and from
time to time she made a correction in the manuscript. As she read, her
lips moved to form words, but she made no sound. Now and then a
faint smile lent singular beauty to her face, and there was more light in
her eyes, too; then it disappeared again, and she read on, carefully and
intently, as if her soul were in the work.
She was very fair, as Spaniards sometimes are still, and were more
often in those days, with golden hair and deep grey eyes; she had the
high features, the smooth white throat, and the finely modelled ears that
were the outward signs of the lordly Gothic race. When she was not
smiling, her face was sad, and sometimes the delicate colour left her
clear cheek and she grew softly pale, till she seemed almost delicate.
Then the sensitive nostrils quivered almost imperceptibly, and the
curving lips met closely as if to keep a secret; but that look came
seldom, and for the most part her eyes were quiet and her mouth was
kind. It was a face that expressed devotion, womanly courage, and
sensitiveness rather than an active and dominating energy. The girl was
indeed a full-grown woman, more than twenty years of age, but the
early bloom of girlhood was on her still, and if there was a little
sadness in the eyes, a man could guess well enough that it rose from the
heart, and had but one simple source, which was neither a sudden grief
nor a long-hidden sorrow, but only youth's one secret--love.