At this moment, Garcia de Padilla, who has remained an unobserved witness of the interview, rushes forward, and, with effusive courtesy, offers his arm to the king to assist him to his seat, bows to the ground, and is lost to view among the pillars. Then, resuming the conversation with the queen: “You forget, my mother,” says Don Pedro, as he places her beside him (it is said, he never was more dangerous than when he assumed a gracious air), “that this _demoiselle_ of France, who bears my name, has been convicted of incest with my brother Fadique by a council of bishops appointed for that purpose, and that, far from being a prisoner, she is at this moment free, in the city of Toledo, under the chivalric custody of my rival and successor, Enrique el Caballero. You forget I am superseded, dishonoured. Ha! ha! Yes! dishonoured by these bastards, whom you had not the sense to wring the necks of, when they were young.” “Yes, Pedro, but I am confident all this will be set right. I have received such assurance during your illness, from Toledo, that I know you will overcome your brother whenever you take the field. As to Blanche----” “Yes, madam,” interrupting her, “but as yet I am too weak to wield a weapon. I think you can have little to say to me,” he adds coldly, “that the Lady Padilla could not hear. It is her son I have named my successor, and the lady declares she is my lawful wife. What if I proclaim her such to the assembled Cortes?” “Mother of God!” cries the queen, clasping her hands, a look of absolute horror on her face, “give me patience! To be so mocked at by my son! Such madness is impossible!” “Not a whit! Not a whit!” he exclaims, facing the infuriated queen. “Now, by the heavens above, Blanche of Bourbon shall die! And speedily too! My mind is made up.” Alas! The strain upon the unhappy mother is too great. As the king utters these words, she staggers backwards, a deadly pallor overspreads her face, and with a wild cry of “My son! My son!” holding out her arms in the vain hope of his support, she falls fainting on the floor, and is borne away by her ladies waiting without in the _Patio de las Doncellas_. CHAPTER XI A New King--Enrique de Trastamare Again we are at Toledo, on the banks of the dark Tagus, a river full and strong, flowing for three hundred and seventy-three miles from the lonely mountains of Biscay to the port of Lisbon. The wild and melancholy Tagus! A very river of fate, now darkly rushing beside blackening rocks, now meandering sweetly by the meadows of the Huerta del Rey, whispering by the Baths of Florinda under King Wamba’s old palace, or turning the Moorish mills which still supply the city with corn.