Part 14 (1/2)

The Moors, rus.h.i.+ng down from the heights, pursued the retreating Christians. The chase endured for a league, but it was a league of rough and broken road, where the Christians had to turn and fight at almost every step. In these short but fierce combats the enemy lost many cavaliers of note, but the loss of the Christians was infinitely more grievous, comprising numbers of the n.o.blest warriors of Vaena and its vicinity. Many of the Christians, disabled by wounds or exhausted by fatigue, turned aside and endeavored to conceal themselves among rocks and thickets, but never more rejoined their companions, being slain or captured by the Moors or peris.h.i.+ng in their wretched retreats.

The arrival of the troops led by the master of Calatrava and the bishop of Jaen put an end to the rout. El Zagal contented himself with the laurels he had gained, and, ordering the trumpets to call off his men from the pursuit, returned in great triumph to Moclin.*

* Zurita, lib. 20, c. 4; Pulgar, Cronica.

Queen Isabella was at Vaena, awaiting with great anxiety the result of the expedition. She was in a stately apartment of the castle looking toward the road that winds through the mountains from Moclin, and regarding the watch-towers on the neighboring heights in hopes of favorable signals. The prince and princess, her children, were with her, and her venerable counsellor, the grand cardinal. All shared in the anxiety of the moment. At length couriers were seen riding toward the town. They entered its gates, but before they reached the castle the nature of their tidings was known to the queen by the shrieks and wailings from the streets below. The messengers were soon followed by wounded fugitives hastening home to be relieved or to die among their friends and families. The whole town resounded with lamentations, for it had lost the flower of its youth and its bravest warriors. Isabella was a woman of courageous soul, but her feelings were overpowered by spectacles of woe on every side: her maternal heart mourned over the death of so many loyal subjects, who shortly before had rallied round her with devoted affection, and, losing her usual self-command, she sank into deep despondency.

In this gloomy state of mind a thousand apprehensions crowded upon her.

She dreaded the confidence which this success would impart to the Moors; she feared also for the important fortress of Alhama, the garrison of which had not been reinforced since its foraging party had been cut off by this same El Zagal. On every side she saw danger and disaster, and feared that a general reverse was about to attend the Castilian arms.

The grand cardinal comforted her with both spiritual and worldly counsel. He told her to recollect that no country was ever conquered without occasional reverses to the conquerors; that the Moors were a warlike people, fortified in a rough and mountainous country, where they never could be conquered by her ancestors; and that, in fact, her armies had already, in three years, taken more cities than those of any of her predecessors had been able to do in twelve. He concluded by offering to take the field himself with three thousand cavalry, his own retainers, paid and maintained by himself, and either hasten to the relief of Alhama or undertake any other expedition Her Majesty might command.

The discreet words of the cardinal soothed the spirit of the queen, who always looked to him for consolation, and she soon recovered her usual equanimity.

Some of the counsellors of Isabella, of that politic cla.s.s who seek to rise by the faults of others, were loud in their censures of the rashness of the count. The queen defended him with prompt generosity.

”The enterprise,” said she, ”was rash, but not more rash than that of Lucena, which was crowned with success, and which we have all applauded as the height of heroism. Had the count de Cabra succeeded in capturing the uncle, as he did the nephew, who is there that would not have praised him to the skies?”

The magnanimous words of the queen put a stop to all invidious remarks in her presence, but certain of the courtiers, who had envied the count the glory gained by his former achievements, continued to magnify, among themselves his present imprudence; and we are told by Fray Antonio Agapida that they sneeringly gave the worthy cavalier the appellation of count de Cabra the king-catcher.

Ferdinand had reached the place on the frontier called the Fountain of the King, within three leagues of Moclin, when he heard of the late disaster. He greatly lamented the precipitation of the count, but forbore to express himself with severity, for he knew the value of that loyal and valiant cavalier.* He held a council of war to determine what course was to be pursued. Some of his cavaliers advised him to abandon the attempt upon Moclin, the place being strongly reinforced and the enemy inspirited by his recent victory. Certain old Spanish hidalgos reminded him that he had but few Castilian troops in his army, without which stanch soldiery his predecessors never presumed to enter the Moorish territory, while others remonstrated that it would be beneath the dignity of the king to retire from an enterprise on account of the defeat of a single cavalier and his retainers. In this way the king was distracted by a mult.i.tude of counsellors, when, fortunately, a letter from the queen put an end to his perplexities. Proceed we in the next chapter to relate what was the purport of that letter.

* Abarca, a.n.a.les de Aragon.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

EXPEDITION AGAINST THE CASTLES OF CAMBIL AND ALBAHAR.

”Happy are those princes,” exclaims the worthy padre Fray Antonio Agapida, ”who have women and priests to advise them, for in these dwelleth the spirit of counsel.” While Ferdinand and his captains were confounding each other in their deliberations at the Fountain of the King, a quiet but deep little council of war was held in the state apartment of the old castle of Vaena between Queen Isabella, the venerable Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, grand cardinal of Spain, and Don Garcia Osoria, the belligerent bishop of Jaen. This last worthy prelate, who had exchanged his mitre for a helm, no sooner beheld the defeat of the enterprise against Moclin than he turned the reins of his sleek, stall-fed steed and hastened back to Vaena, full of a project for the employment of the army, the advancement of the faith, and the benefit of his own diocese. He knew that the actions of the king were influenced by the opinions of the queen, and that the queen always inclined a listening ear to the counsels of saintly men: he laid his plans, therefore, with the customary wisdom of his cloth, to turn the ideas of the queen into the proper channel; and this was the purport of the worthy bishop's suggestions:

The bishopric of Jaen had for a long time been hara.s.sed by two Moorish castles, the scourge and terror of all that part of the country. They were situated on the frontiers of the kingdom of Granada, about four leagues from Jaen, in a deep, narrow, and rugged valley surrounded by lofty mountains. Through this valley runs the Rio Frio (or Cold River) in a deep channel worn between high, precipitous banks. On each side of the stream rise two vast rocks, nearly perpendicular, within a stone's throw of each other, blocking up the gorge of the valley. On the summits of these rocks stood the two formidable castles, Cambil and Albahar, fortified with battlements and towers of great height and thickness.

They were connected together by a bridge thrown from rock to rock across the river. The road which pa.s.sed through the valley traversed this bridge, and was completely commanded by these castles. They stood like two giants of romance guarding the pa.s.s and dominating the valley.

The kings of Granada, knowing the importance of these castles, kept them always well garrisoned and victualled to stand a siege, with fleet steeds and hard riders to forage the country of the Christians. The warlike race of the Abencerrages, the troops of the royal household, and others of the choicest chivalry of Granada made them their strongholds or posts of arms, whence to sally forth on those predatory and roving enterprises in which they delighted. As the wealthy bishopric of Jaen lay immediately at hand, it suffered more peculiarly from these marauders. They drove off the fat beeves and the flocks of sheep from the pastures and swept the laborers from the field; they scoured the country to the very gates of Jaen, so that the citizens could not venture from their walls without the risk of being borne off captive to the dungeons of these castles.

The worthy bishop, like a good pastor, beheld with grief of heart his fat bishopric daily waxing leaner and leaner and poorer and poorer, and his holy ire was kindled at the thoughts that the possessions of the Church should thus be at the mercy of a crew of infidels. It was the urgent counsel of the bishop, therefore, that the military force thus providentially a.s.sembled in the neighborhood, since it was apparently foiled in its attempt upon Moclin, should be turned against these insolent castles and the country delivered from their domination. The grand cardinal supported the suggestion of the bishop, and declared that he had long meditated the policy of a measure of the kind. Their united opinions found favor with the queen, and she despatched a letter on the subject to the king. It came just in time to relieve him from the distraction of a mult.i.tude of counsellors, and he immediately undertook the reduction of those castles.

The marques of Cadiz was accordingly sent in advance, with two thousand horse, to keep a watch upon the garrisons and prevent all entrance or exit until the king should arrive with the main army and the battering artillery. The queen, to be near at hand in case of need, moved her quarters to the city of Jaen, where she was received with martial honors by the belligerent bishop, who had buckled on his cuira.s.s and girded on his sword to fight in the cause of his diocese.

In the mean time, the marques of Cadiz arrived in the valley and completely shut up the Moors within their walls. The castles were under the command of Mahomet Lentin Ben Usef, an Abencerrage, and one of the bravest cavaliers of Granada. In his garrisons were many troops of the fierce African tribe of Gomeres. Mahomet Lentin, confident in the strength of his fortresses, smiled as he looked down from his battlements upon the Christian cavalry perplexed in the rough and narrow valley. He sent forth skirmis.h.i.+ng parties to hara.s.s them, and there were many sharp combats between small parties and single knights; but the Moors were driven back to their castles, and all attempts to send intelligence of their situation to Granada were frustrated by the vigilance of the marques of Cadiz.

At length the legions of the royal army came pouring, with vaunting trumpet and fluttering banner, along the defiles of the mountains.

They halted before the castles, but the king could not find room in the narrow and rugged valley to form his camp; he had to divide it into three parts, which were posted on different heights, and his tents whitened the sides of the neighboring hills. When the encampment was formed the army remained gazing idly at the castles. The artillery was upward of four leagues in the rear, and without artillery all attack would be in vain.

The alcayde Mahomet Lentin knew the nature of the road by which the artillery had to be brought. It was merely a narrow and rugged path, at times scaling almost perpendicular crags and precipices, up which it was utterly impossible for wheel carriages to pa.s.s, neither was it in the power of man or beast to draw up the lombards and other ponderous ordnance. He felt a.s.sured, therefore, that they never could be brought to the camp, and without their aid what could the Christians effect against his rock-built castles? He scoffed at them, therefore, as he saw their tents by day and their fires by night covering the surrounding heights. ”Let them linger here a little while longer,” said he, ”and the autumnal torrents will wash them from the mountains.”