The Devils of Cardona by Matthew Carr

Author:Matthew Carr
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-05-25T12:18:44+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

n the early hours of the morning, the most powerful man in the world awoke in pain in his darkened chamber at San Lorenzo de El Escorial. This morning the gout was particularly bad, spreading through his bones and joints till it seemed that every part of him was on fire. He tried to relieve it by turning from one side to the other, but by the time the clock struck five, the pain was so awful and so overwhelming that it was only through an effort of willpower that he could prevent himself from moaning or crying out loud. As he lay there alone in the darkness in the canopied bed, he imagined his body in the same way that he imagined his country, as a fortress under siege by cruel and barbaric foes intent on its subjugation and destruction, and the thought of the satisfaction that his enemies would take in his agony steeled him to resist and endure the onslaught.

He drew strength also from the pictures of saints on his walls and the metal crucifix in his hands, whose cross of thorns, ribs and nailed feet he caressed to remind himself of an agony that was infinitely worse than anything he had suffered or would suffer. He thought of San Lorenzo, roasted alive on a gridiron, and all the other Christian martyrs who had suffered torments on behalf of the faith, and the bones of the saints in the reliquary in the monastery. He told himself that the suffering God had chosen to inflict on his earthly body was a punishment for his sins, that the body was merely the carriage that would bear his soul during its brief passage through the world as his wives and so many of his children had already been borne, and that he would be reunited with all of them someday.

He knew that that happy day might not be far off. At the age of sixty-two, he had already lived four years longer than his father, whose body had been so racked by gout and piles and so exhausted by his years in the saddle and the wars he’d fought on behalf of the faith that he’d been forced to abdicate. Long before his death, his father had lost his teeth, so that he was forced to suck and slurp his food, but his father had never complained, and nor would he. At six o’clock his manservants drew back the wooden doors to his bedchamber. A wan gray light filtered in from the study while they entered the room as silently as ghosts to empty his chamber pot and dress him. The Hammer of Heretics sat on the edge of the bed and listened to the swifts shrieking outside the window before forcing his stiff body upright so that they could put on his slippers and dressing gown. Soon afterward Secretary Vázquez brought the morning’s first papers to his desk, and the king spent the next two hours working his

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.