The Iberian Flame

Chapter 23

It was several minutes before the door was answered by a frightened housekeeper, who hastily pulled them inside.

‘El senor, is he at home?’ Dolores asked respectfully.

‘I am here!’ said a gentle voice at an inner door. It belonged to a strong-faced man with a meticulous moustache and in a garb that made him appear as if he’d stepped out of the pages of history. ‘Dona Vargas, you have come to make your apology for doubting me?’

His quick glance took in Renzi.

‘El Erudito, I have abandoned my trust in and allegiance to the King, and desire to be set on a course that is more worthy for the land of my birth.’

‘I understand, the news of Bayonne grating upon the soul as it does, demanding an answer. Who is this gentleman?’

‘A noble lord from England who does pilgrimage to Our Lady of Toledo and has unhappily been taken up in our troubles. Sir, we saw bloody things on our way. What is their meaning?’

A passing burst of shouting outside made him wince. ‘The people are angry – do you doubt it?’

She held up her hand and frowned, listening intently. The noise grew, passionate cries piercing the clamour, the underlying roar stronger. It began moving off and she said, ‘Something has changed. I go to see.’

In a very few minutes she was back, her face white. ‘I cannot believe it, but the one I spoke with swears it is true.’

‘Senorita, what is it?’ Mariano Vicente de Lis asked.

‘King Fernando has been deposed. Spain has no king.’

‘No king? This is-’

‘Bonaparte declares that King Carlos was feloniously deposed by his own son and thus Fernando cannot be the lawful ruler.’

‘Therefore King Carlos reigns!’

‘Not so! He abdicated of his own free will and without objection. What has been done cannot be undone, Bonaparte says.’

Mariano sat down abruptly, his face tight. ‘That a Frenchman tells a Spaniard who shall sit on the throne of Spain is monstrous,’ he breathed.

‘There is worse. As a boon to the Spanish nation, he is willing to provide a more virtuous sovereign, one with power to pacify the unrest we are suffering.’

‘Who is this?’

She gave a twisted smile. ‘Why, his own elder brother, Prince Joseph, the King of Naples, who comes with eighty thousand bayonets at his personal command.’

With a bitter stab, Renzi understood. It had finally come about – the kingdom of Spain had slipped into the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte as, no doubt, he had planned from the beginning. The Spanish had been out-manoeuvred and now he had the pick of Spain’s treasures, its colonies, even its soldiery to deploy as he pleased.

Only one thing could stop him. ‘Sir. What of the revolution, the people’s rising?’ Renzi asked. ‘Will your leader step forth and-’

‘I know nothing of these, sir.’

‘A confection of mine to keep him warm,’ muttered Dolores. Then, more passionately, ‘There will be one and I must know of him!’

Outside, the sullen roar was shot through with hoarse, angry bawling as the crowd swelled. Mariano went to the window and drew aside the curtains, revealing a stream of people surging past, one or two with muskets, others with makeshift weapons – poles with scythes crudely fixed to them, sharpened stakes, bludgeons.

‘I pity any Frenchman on the streets today,’ he said, then turned and went back to his chair, his head in his hands.

‘What must we do now?’ Dolores growled. ‘Sit about like old men and women while others throw the French out, like the curs they are?’

Mariano looked up wearily. ‘Senorita, calm yourself. You see out there the commonality, the beating heart of Spain – but they are like sheep to the slaughter. They have no leaders, no plan, no weapons. How then can this be a revolution?’

‘A leader will arise and-’

‘Who is this to be? He who supports a restoring of the old ways of the conquistadors or one who execrates the regime and desires the people to reign? One who will march with the French, or another who sees the devil incarnate in Napoleon Bonaparte? Who will listen to whom? What does your spirit tell you is right?’

Renzi knew he was hearing the still small voice of reason and his heart went out to the humble scholar.

‘Ha!’ spat Dolores, and rounded on Renzi. ‘Then here is an Englishman. How say you, Excelentisimo? Will you help us as you promised?’

To be their leader? Renzi smiled without humour. ‘Senorita, you may have forgotten that I am the enemy of your people.’

‘With soldiers, guns!’

Mariano put his hand on her arm. ‘No, senorita. Do not ask it of him. This is Spain’s trial. We must save ourselves by our own sacrifice.’

‘To cave in to the French?’ she snapped.

Mildly he answered, ‘If necessary, yes. Would you rather the flower of our youth lie heaped in death on the battlefield or live to create a new Spain?’

‘To fight for honour!’

Renzi thought of the cruelly ambitious and ruthless Murat, by now camped outside the capital. Were his troops already on a forced march into the city, and in strength, with nothing to hold them back? The excited crowds he’d seen would have no chance at all.

He went over to the window and looked out. The crowd had swelled, now including ragged children with their mothers, the whites of their eyes showing wildly in the gathering dusk.

Mariano came to stand beside him, his sensitive features drawn and stricken.

‘I go to them!’ Dolores cried. Before they could stop her, she’d thrown open the front door and, pausing only to blaze forth a passionate declaration of support, which was met by an answering roar, was lost in the seething mob.

Mariano tore himself away from the window and, like a broken man, went to his chair and stared into an unknowable future.

The crowd surged away on some mindless impulse, and in the relative quiet a different sound lay on the air: sinister, ominous. Renzi recognised it.

Musketry. Not the ceaseless random firing of pot-shots but the disciplined volleys of troops from positions on the periphery as they advanced into the city. Murat had begun his retaliation.

How many troops did he have? Forty, fifty thousand? It didn’t matter. With a dozen columns converging on the centre of Madrid they could clear the streets as they marched in with no fear of opposition. Now he heard the sharp crack of horse artillery with them – grape shot that would tear a crowd to bloody shreds and send others fleeing in terror.

What deeds of useless heroism were being acted out at this moment? He’d seen much of war and his imagination supplied him with the details, but this was not war: it was punishment inflicted on the common people by a tyrant emperor who wanted nothing less than domination of the world.

He gulped with a surge of feeling. Dolores was somewhere out there in the carnage – or was her torn body to be left cold and lonely in some street, the scene of despair and vanquishing.

The sounds drew nearer, harsher, and suddenly the street was filled with the thunder of massed hoofs as a troop of cavalry swept past the door. Mamelukes? Some nameless division having no attachment or respect to the ancient kingdom? It left the street deserted, strewn with debris and one or two bodies.

Half an hour later the tramping of soldiers intruded into the quiet. A column of infantry swung into the street, in the darkness eerily menacing, the reality that Spain now lay under their feet as they marched on. Faceless numbers, the steel of bayonets glinting.

It went on and on, then faded.

Renzi had feared that Madrid would be given over to sack and plunder, as was the age-old way of invading armies, but he realised now that this would not be so. These were not conquering heroes: they were enforcing the will of the new sovereign of Spain, Prince Joseph, against those who would object to his rule. The kingdom’s chattels would remain inviolate – but the people would suffer.

The servants had long since fled so he went to the scullery to find something to eat for them both, returning with a little ham and wine. Mariano was still sunk in a stupor of melancholy but thanked him graciously, eating mechanically and silently. At one point there was a harsh screaming quite close until it was broken off in a chorus of vengeful shouts.

The night wore on. By degrees the occasional shrieks and wails fell away and Renzi drifted off in his chair.

It was still dark when he was jolted awake. Another crowd had gathered, quite different from the earlier one. This had a purposeful tread and, in place of the passionate shouts, there was an ugly growl, the menace chilling.

He went to the window and saw a sizeable group, at its centre a squad of soldiers with muskets. A wider line stood beyond them with bayonets fixed, facing outwards at the crowd. A sergeant in a high plumed shako had a sheaf of papers and halted his men, then stepped forward importantly, the crowd falling back.

Renzi strained to hear – the gist was clear.

It was an order-of-the-day from Marshal Murat to the effect that any person found under arms, making public speeches or otherwise opposing the authority of the state, would suffer the maximum penalty.

Then, in the flickering torchlight, he noticed a tightly guarded small group; men, women and children, weeping, cowering, praying, begging for life. It was a barbarous scene of horror for Renzi knew what must happen.

A pair of soldiers were sent off at the trot. Their musket butts made short work of the door opposite and from it was dragged an old man, a cripple. He was thrown forcefully in with the others.

Then the soldiers came straight for the house in which Renzi stood. They smashed the door into a splintered ruin and thrust inside.

‘The traitor Mariano Vicente de Lis!’ snarled one, his eyes flicking dangerously from Mariano to Renzi. ‘Quick! Who is it?’

Mariano rose slowly. ‘There are no traitors in this room, but I am he.’

Renzi was left, stricken with pity and helplessness, as Mariano was taken out.

He went back to the window to see the rest of the cruel drama play out.

Harsh orders were bellowed and the pitiful group was thrust before a wall. The children were wrenched from their mother’s despairing reach, then made to kneel and face their end. Soldiers formed in a line at near point-blank range. The shrieks and beseeching, moaning and weeping tore at Renzi, and in the centre he saw Mariano standing nobly, his arms aloft as he called for forgiveness. Then came the hoarse command and the crash and smoke of the muskets.

And when it cleared, bodies, bleeding and obscene. And very still.

The soldiers formed up and marched away without a backward glance.

Trembling, Renzi lurched back, fell into a chair and wept helplessly.

In the cold dawn he forced his mind to an icy calm. Alone and in circumstances that could not have been more hostile, he had to get away, every instinct tearing at him to flee, away from the madness, the insanity.

Outside was the stillness of horror, of spreading desolation. To go out into it was lunacy. He’d stay where he was until things had settled somewhat and then …

When evening came he went upstairs, found a bed and fell onto it, knowing that he had to endure many more hours before light returned.

Then his mind came to an abrupt focus. He’d heard something from below, a scrape, a moving of the wreckage of the door.

There was an intruder.

Without a weapon he froze. Then a small voice called. ‘Senor Mariano?’

Dolores!

‘Senorita!’ he called back breathlessly, and hurried down the stairs.

‘Excelentisimo!’ she gasped, and hesitantly threw her arms around him in a Continental hug. ‘You’re safe – but where’s El Erudito?’

Renzi paused, letting his expression of grief reach out to her. ‘They came for him,’ he said simply.

Tears started. She bit her lip to stop them. ‘Where is he now?’

‘He still lies with the others. The death cart has not yet come.’

It took some time before they could talk, plan.

‘He was right,’ she sobbed. ‘So right. The French, they’re everywhere, Spain lies a corpse under their feet. There’s been no revolution, no great leader. Everything’s quiet – we’re finished, conquered, slain.’

There was no comforting her. Without a focus, a figurehead, there was no opposition that could be supported in a struggle for liberation, however much Britain might desire it. Spain must now be left to its fate.

‘Senorita,’ he said gently, ‘I fear to ask it, but will you help me leave Spain?’

She dried her eyes and looked up with a small smile. ‘Yes, Excelentisimo,’ she answered, at once.

‘I rather think Cadiz.’ The thought of stepping aboard one of the blockading cruisers in all its timeless naval order and tradition was intoxicating beyond belief.