She waited with her blue eyes upon him. He said,
and said quietly, “It was long ago, Madam, when
I was a young man and careless. I will do all
that lies in me to do. But Spain is wide and
there are ships to Africa and other shores.”
She said, “Yes, I do not see such an one daring
to come to Santa Fe! But they say that ten demons
possess a heretic, and that he crosses streams upon
a hair or walks edges of high walls.”
With her ringed hand she made gesture of dismissal.
He bowed low and stepped back to his former place.
The sun flooded in at window. Manuel Rodriguez
painted steadily. The Queen sat still, with lifted
face and eyes strained into distance. She sighed
and came back from wastes where she would be Christian,
oh, where she would be Christian! and began with a
tender, maternal look to talk with her daughter.
The door giving upon the great corridor opened.
One said, “The King, Madam!” King Ferdinand
entered quietly, in the sober fashion of a sober and
able man. He was cool and balanced, true always
to his own conception of his own dues. The Queen
rose and stepped to meet him. They spoke, standing
together, after which he handed her to her chair and
took beside her the other great chair which the pages
had swiftly placed. After greeting his daughter
and the Archbishop he looked across to the painter.
“Master Manuel Rodriguez, good day!”
There fell a moment of sun-drenched quiet in which
they all sat for their picture. Then said the
King, “Madam, we are together, and here are
those who have been our chief advisers in this affair
of discoveries. Master Christopherus is below.
We noted him in the court. Let us have him here
and see this too-long-dragging matter finished!
Once for all abate his demands, or once for all let
him go!”
They sent a page. Again there was sunny silence,
then in at the door came the tall, muscular, gray-eyed,
silver-haired man whom I had met the day King Boabdil
surrendered
Granada.
He made reverence to the Queen and the King and to
the Archbishop. It was the Queen who spoke to
him and that gently.
“Master Christopherus, we have had a thousand
businesses, and so our matter here has waited and
waited. Today comes unaware this quiet hour and
we will give it to you. Here with us are the
Archbishop and others who have been our counsellors,
and here is Don Alonzo de Quintantella who hath always
stood your friend. In all the hurly-burly we
yet took time, two days ago, to sit in council and
come to conclusion. And now we give you our determination.
In all reason it should give you joy!” She smiled
upon him. “How many years since first you
laid your plan before us?”
He answered her in a deep voice, thrilling and crowded
with feeling. “Seven years, Madam your Highness!
Like an infant laid at your feet. And winter
has blown upon it, and sunshine carrying hope has
walked around it, and then again the cold wind rises—”
