Samuel Shellabarger - Captain From Castile: The Best-Selling Historical Epic

To my son JOHN ERIC SHELLABARGER

Part One

On the evening of June 28th, 1518, young Pedro de Vargas, aged nineteen, confessed his sins of the month to Father Juan Mendez. He took them more seriously than the priest, who had been hearing confessions for hours, and was ready for supper. Besides, Father Juan knew the young man so well that he could have guessed beforehand what he would tell him.

"I, Pedro, confess to Almighty God, to Blessed Mary..."

Though the wall of the confessional separated them, Father Juan had as clear a picture of the penitent as if they had been face to face. In imagination, he could see Pedro's bronze-colored hair, short and curly; the greenish-blue eyes set well apart; a sunburned face and strong mouth; the high cheekbones with hollows under them. Pedro's folded hands, big and brown, though shapely, held a paper with a list of sins in poor handwriting.

"I accuse myself of forgetting my prayers on the night when Campeador came."

"Who is Campeador, son?"

"My new horse, Father, a good horse, sired by..."

"You must not forget the Blessed Virgin because of a horse, my son."

"No, Father."

"What next?"

"I accuse myself of falling asleep during the Bishop's sermon on St. John's Day."

"Hm-m," said the priest, overcoming a smile.

"I have disobeyed my father by frequenting the Rosario tavern in the mountains."

"An evil place. There is none worse in the province of Jaen. The resort of bandits and rascals."

"Yes, I have sinned. Moreover, I kissed a certain girl there a dancer."

"Amorously?"

"Yes," gulped Pedro.

"And afterwards?"

"Nothing, por Dios!"

"Do not swear."

"I'm sorry.... No, there was nothing. Father."

"Go on."

"I accuse myself of drawing a knife over cards."

"You did not use it?"

"No, Father."

"What next?"

"I made fun of my sister, Mercedes, for reading saints' legends. I told her that they were not the equal of Amadis de Gaula."

The priest muttered: "Woe unto them through whom offenses come! It were better for them if a millstone were tied around their necks."

"Yes, Father. I repent. I have been impertinent to my mother."

"Alas! What next?"

When Pedro had finished. Father Juan, struggling with a yawn, absolved him. His penance consisted in part of reading five saints' legends that evening and of an interdict against Amadis for a month.

The next morning, therefore, on June 29th, day sacred to his name saint and patron. Saint Peter, he was clean spiritually as a hound's tooth, and climbed up through the narrow streets of Jaen with his family to take communion in the cathedral church under the castle.

From the side of the nave, Father Juan, who at that mass had no duties at the altar, watched the procession of the de Vargases down the center aisle. First, a page boy carrying prayer cushions; then Don Francisco with Dona Maria on his arm; then Pedro with his sister Mercedes, a girl of twelve.

As father confessor, the priest knew them all well. An honorable family, a credit to Jaen. His eyes followed them affectionately. Don Francisco, tall, erect, lean as whip leather, with a hawk nose too large for his face, and his lower lip jutting out. Though sixty and retired, he still looked his reputation as one of Spain's foremost cavaliers; a soldier of the Marquis of Cadiz in the Moorish wars; knighted by King Ferdinand at Granada; stirrup comrade of the Great Captain, Gonsalvo de Cordoba, in Italy; survivor of more forays and pitched battles than anyone in the province. He was well known among the soldiery of Europe. Even such a champion as the French knight, Bayard, called him friend. With a head grown partly bald from the rubbing of his helmet, a stiff knee crushed at the battle of Ravenna, almost every one of his features was a trophy of war. Even his wife, Dofia Maria, might be considered a trophy. Florentine by birth and belonging to the great Strozzi family, she had married Don Francisco twenty years before during a lull between campaigns. She had since grown plump, maternal, and forty; but her husband treated her still with scrupulous gallantry. She walked beside him now like a dignified pouter pigeon beside a falcon.

Father Juan shook his head as he glanced at Mercedes de Vargas Too slender and frail. Her delicate health gave concern to her family. He liked Pedro's manner with her, protective and smiling, as they went down the aisle.

It was Pedro himself, with his reddish hair and scarlet doublet standing out in the dimness of the church, who most fixed the priest's attention. A man of the world before he had taken orders, Juan Mendez could not but admire the erect figure, narrow hips, and broad shoulders. He realized suddenly that here was no longer the boy he had known, but a young man on the threshold of his career as a soldier. Pedro's naive confessions the evening before contrasted strangely with the impression he now made.

The Processional began; the priest turned to devotion.

Kneeling between his father and mother, young de Vargas did his best to pray. His eyes rested on the huge, black, fearsome crucifix newly brought from Seville. But his thought drifted to the crusades. There were still infidelsin Tangier, in the Indies. Some of his father's friends had sailed with the Admiral, Christopher Columbus...

He returned to prayer, but soon found himself gazing up at the votive banners overhanging the nave. He tried to make out the quarterings. There was Leon, there Mendoza; that was the banner Queen Isabella left when she held her court at Jaen. Becoming too much absorbed, and gaping upwards, he received a poke in the ribs from the gold knob of his father's cane. On Pedro's other side, his mother frowned and shoved a half of her book at him.

The Bishop took his throne, the celebrant bowed to the altar, the servers kneeled, puffs of incense rose from the thurible.

"Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison"

From now on, Pedro did his best to keep his mind on the service..On other days some inattention might be allowed; but today he was receiving the sacrament after confessionif unworthily, to his eternal loss; if worthily, to the fortifying of his souland he had been wasting precious minutes, which should have been spent in preparation.

Earnestly he followed his mother's forefinger across the page of the missal, as it accompanied the priest's singsong.

A subtle anguish began between his shoulder blades. A flea, with the cunning of its race, was attacking him in the most unreachable spot, and he could do nothing. A cavalier did not scratch in public. He could only wriggle his shoulders, which seemed to provoke the enemy. But a sudden thought struck him. Was it an ordinary flea? Was not Beelzebub himself the lord of fleas? Wasn't it probable that the Fiend had sent a familiar to attack the soul of Pedro de Vargas through the flesh? Vaya, he defied the demon! As a result, he did not miss a word of the Epistle, and the temptation passed, a fact which showed that he had gauged it correctly.