The Historical Nights Entertainment | Page 7

whom lay the victory. If Affonso Henriques
thought that night that he had conquered, morning was to shatter the
illusion.
He was awakened early by a chamberlain at the urgent instances of
Emigio Moniz, who was demanding immediate audience. Affonso
Henriques sat up in bed, and bade him to be admitted.
The elderly knight and faithful counsellor came in, treading heavily.
His swarthy face was overcast, his mouth set in stern lines under its
grizzled beard.
"God keep you, lord," was his greeting, so lugubriously delivered as to
sound like a pious, but rather hopeless, wish.
"And you, Emigio," answered him the Infante. "You are early astir.
What is the cause?"
"III tidings, lord." He crossed the room, unlatched and flung wide a

window. "Listen," he bade the prince.
On the still morning air arose a sound like the drone of some gigantic
hive, or of the sea when the tide is making. Affonso Henriques
recognized it for the murmur of the multitude.
"What does it mean?" he asked, and thrust a sinewy leg from the bed.
"It means that the Papal Legate has done all that he threatened, and
something more. He has placed your city of Coimbra under a ban of
excommunication. The churches are closed, and until the ban is lifted
no priest Will be found to baptize, marry, shrive or perform any other
Sacrament of Holy Church. The people are stricken with terror,
knowing that they share the curse with you. They are massing below at
the gates of the alcazar, demanding to see you that they may implore
you to lift from them the horror of this excommunication."
Affonso Henriques had come to his feet by now, and he stood there
staring at the old knight, his face blenched, his stout heart clutched by
fear of these impalpable, blasting weapons that were being used against
him.
"My God!" he groaned, and asked: "What must I do?"
Moniz was preternaturally grave. "It is of the first importance that the
people should be pacified."
"But how?"
"There is one way only--by a promise that you will submit to the will of
the Holy Father, and by penance seek absolution for yourself and your
city."
A red flush swept into the young cheeks that had been so pale.
"What?" he cried, his voice a roar. "Release my mother, depose
Zuleyman, recall that fugitive recreant who cursed me, and humble
myself to seek pardon at the hands of this insolent Italian cleric? May

my bones rot, may I roast for ever in hell-fire if I show myself such a
craven! And do you counsel it, Emigio--do you really counsel that?" He
was in a towering rage.
"Listen to that voice," Emigio answered him, and waved a hand to the
open window. "How else will you silence it?"
Affonso Henriques sat down on the edge of the bed, and took his head
in his hands. He was checkmated--and yet....
He rose and beat his hands together, summoning chamberlain and
pages to help him dress and arm.
"Where is the legate lodged?" he asked Moniz.
"He is gone," the knight answered him. "He left at cock-crow, taking
the road to Spain along the Mondego--so I learnt from the watch at the
River Gate."
"How came they to open for him?"
"His office, lord, is a key that opens all doors at any hour of day or
night. They dared not detain or delay him."
"Ha!" grunted the Infante. "We will go after him, then." And he made
haste to complete his dressing. Then he buckled on his great sword, and
they departed.
In the courtyard of the alcazar, he summoned Sancho Nunes and a
half-dozen men-at-arms to attend him, mounted a charger and with
Emigio Moniz at his side and the others following, he rode out across
the draw-bridge into the open space that was thronged with the clamant
inhabitants of the stricken city.
A great cry went up when he showed himself--a mighty appeal to him
for mercy and the remission of the curse. Then silence fell, a silence
that invited him to answer and give comfort.
He reined in his horse, and standing in his stirrups very tall and virile,

he addressed them.
"People of Coimbra," he announced, "I go to obtain this city's
absolution from the ban that has been laid upon it. I shall return before
sunset. Till then do you keep the peace."
The voice of the multitude was raised again, this time to hail him as the
father and protector of the Portuguese, and to invoke the blessing of
Heaven upon his handsome head.
Riding between Moniz and Nunes, and followed by his glittering
men-at-arms, he crossed the city and took the road along the river by
which it was known that the legate had departed. All that