Some moments passed during which both youths indulged in every endearment of friendship and love. Alonso spoke first and, in accents touched by the scene which we have just related, exclaimed, addressing his comrade:
“Lope, I know that you love Doña Inés; perhaps not as much as I, but you love her. Since a duel between us is impossible, let us agree to place our fate in her hands. Let us go and seek her, let her decide with free choice which of us shall be the happy one, which the wretched. Her decision shall be respected by both, and he who does not gain her favor shall to-morrow go forth with the King of Toledo and shall seek the comfort of forgetfulness in the excitement of war.”
“Since you wish it, so let it be,” replied Lope.
And arm in arm the two friends took their way toward the cathedral beneath whose shadow, in a palace of which there are now no remains, dwelt Doña Inés de Tordesillas.
It was early dawn, and as some of the kindred of Doña Inés, among them her brothers, were to march the coming day with the royal army, it was not impossible that early in the morning they could gain admittance to her palace.
Inspired by this hope they arrived, at last, at the base of the Gothic tower of the church, but on reaching that point a peculiar noise attracted their attention and, stopping in one of the angles, concealed among the shadows of the lofty buttresses that support the walls, they saw, to their amazement, a man emerging from a window upon the balcony of their lady’s apartments in the palace. He lightly descended to the ground by the help of a rope and, finally, a white figure, Doña Inés undoubtedly, appeared upon the balcony and, leaning over the fretted parapet, exchanged tender phrases of farewell with her mysterious lover.
The first motion of the two youths was to place their hands on their sword-hilts, but checking themselves, as though struck by a common thought, they turned to look on one another, each discerning on the other’s face a look of astonishment so ludicrous that both broke forth into loud laughter, laughter which, rolling on from echo to echo in the silence of the night, resounded through the square even to the palace.
Hearing it, the white figure vanished from the balcony, a noise of slamming doors was heard, and then silence resumed her reign.
On the following day, the queen, seated on a most sumptuous dais, saw defile past her the hosts who were marching to the war against the Moors. At her side were the principal ladies of Toledo. Among them was Doña Inés de Tordesillas on whom this day, as ever, all eyes were bent. But it seemed to her that they wore a different expression from that to which she was accustomed. She would have said that in all the curious looks cast upon her lurked a mocking smile.
This discovery could not but disquiet her, remembering, as she did, the noisy laughter which, the night before, she had thought she heard at a distance in one of the angles of the square, while she was closing her balcony and bidding adieu to her lover; but when she saw among the ranks of the army marching below the dais, sparks of fire glancing from their brilliant armor, and a cloud of dust enveloping them, the two reunited banners of the houses of Carrillo and Sandoval; when she saw the significant smile which the two former rivals, on saluting the queen, directed toward herself, she comprehended all. The blush of shame reddened her face and tears of chagrin glistened in her eyes.