“This is vital, Señor; you must again act as God acts: not by being; not by loving; only by being able — power. You have said it yourself.”
“And I myself rejected it.”
“You cannot pay your debts with the words of your testament.”
“What are you saying? Everything belongs to me. The earth is mine; the earth is bounded, limited, by what I possess. Everything the land produces is mine, harvests, herds, everything is brought to my palace, delivered to my gates by vassals and serfs as it was to the gates of my fathers and my grandfathers…”
“Yes; your vassals still bring what they owe you under the old laws, but there are fewer vassals and less tribute, and the expenses of the construction are greater, and greater, too, the number of products that no longer pass through your hands. The cities, Sire … the cities today receive the greatest part of the riches…”
“But I continue to receive what I have always received: such is the law of my kingdoms…”
“Yes, and a good law it was when you received more than anyone else. But today, though you continue to receive the same, you receive much less than others. The cities, Señor. Almost everything today is taken directly from the fields to the nearest city instead of making the long trip to this palace, and from the city, merchants bring things here, and you must pay for them. You continue to receive what you have always received: so many head of cattle, so many sheaves of wheat, so many bales of hay. But you must now pay for things not due your sovereignty. Cadavers arrive here from great distances, but not the eggs, vegetables, bacon that are delivered to the markets of the burghers. These are no longer the golden times of your father, Señor…”
“What are you saying to me? Eggs, vegetables! I am speaking to you of death and sin and the resurrection of souls, and you speak to me of bacon?”
“Without eggs and bacon, one cannot speak of the soul. The world beyond the castles has changed, without your having realized it. Forgive my effrontery. The people constantly require less and less from you. People have invented their own world, without corpses, without sin, without the torments of the soul…”
“Then it did no good to kill them. Then heresy has triumphed. Then I am an imbecile. Is this what you are saying?”
“Señor, my devotion is to you alone, and it includes speaking the truth. I know nothing of theology. I only know that instead of working at your command and for the use of your kingdom, now men are producing things without your command, and selling them…”
“To whom?”
“To how many, you mean. Why, to buyers: whomever; they receive money; they use intermediaries; they specialize; there are new powers being formed not upon blood but upon the commerce of salt, leather, wine, wheat, and meat…”
“My power is of divine origin.”
“There is a greater divinity, if you will forgive me, Señor, and that power is called money. And the law of that god is that after debts are contracted, they must be paid. Señor: your coffers are empty.”
“What, then, is being used to pay the servants of this palace? The construction? The workmen?”
“Precisely, Sire; there is nothing left with which to pay them. This is what I urgently needed to tell you, once the ceremonies for the dead had been concluded. I did not want to bother you before that. Now it is my duty to inform you that the construction of the crypts for your ancestors, and the costly transportation of all the corpses here, have consumed everything that remained.”
“But the riches within the palace; the iron railings forged in Cuenca, the balustrades from Zaragoza, the Italian marbles, the Florentine bronzes, the Flemish candelabra…”
“All still owed; nothing has been paid; your credit is great, but the moment for payment has arrived.”
“What? Why are you holding my testament? What is that new paper?”
“A detailed listing of what is owed: debts with smiths, shipowners, butchers, carpenters, bakers, salt merchants, weavers, fullers, dyers, shoemakers — and look here, one of them is complaining that the youth who accompanied your mother forced him to eat the leather of his shoes; he asks indemnification for it; one must pay for such willful behavior — harness makers, drapers, vintners, brewers, barbers, doctors, tavern keepers, tailors, silk merchants … Should I continue, Señor?”
“But, Guzmán, everything used to be produced here in the castle…”
“There is no one now but the workmen constructing the palace and those of the religious orders, who serve death. There is honor. There is no money.”
“And what do you propose, Guzmán?”
Guzmán walked to the entrance to the bedchamber; he parted the curtain separating it from the chapel. A stooped old man was standing behind the curtain. A short fur cape protected him against the cold of the early morning and the long night’s vigil in the stone chapel; but the cape did not warm the rock crystal of his carved, avaricious features, or the blue snow of his eyes.
A cap of marten skins covered his head; his long, knotted fingers toyed with a silver medallion hanging upon his emaciated chest; his black breeches clung loosely to spindly legs. His toothless mouth was distorted into an obsequious smile; this old javel bowed before El Señor, professed his fealty, and thanked him for the honor of being received; he had waited many hours, all night, in that icy chapel, with no companion but the dead; it was a most sumptuous chapel, what had the balustrades, the marbles, the paintings, the sepulchers themselves, cost?; a fortune, doubtlessly, a fortune; the quality of the workmanship, the cost of the transport, then the installation, which was also very costly, no doubt …
No, he wasn’t complaining about the wait; he had observed, he had seen; he had admired the great construction; no one except the royal servants knew what it was like inside; curiosity was high, as great as the fame of this interminable palace; and he had special reason to appreciate this place and he wasn’t complaining of the fatiguing trip he had undertaken from Seville so that he might know it, so he might offer his service to El Señor and also know the place where his daughter, the rare fruit of a late marriage, was preparing to take her vows; strange girls, those of today, Señor, and his girl — instead of taking advantage of everything an aged father close to death and made rich by commerce and the moneylending arts could offer her — preferred to cloister herself in this palace; surely the old adage was right: when an old man has a daughter, if he’s lucky, she’ll pay him heed, but if she’s inclined to madness, she’s very mad indeed; and add to that fact that she’s a Sevillian, then if she turns out all right, she’s one in a million; well, the blood is tired, and the child of an old man is early an orphan; tired the blood, yes, but not the mind, especially if throughout a lifetime that mind has been sharpened, day in and day out, by the clever dealings demanded by the merchant’s trade and by the evil called usury, which in truth is not an evil at all but an act of charity; but in any case, experience is the best teacher, and as a merchant I just go on my way, you know, not too much loss, not too much pay, though if I do say so, I’ve had a sharp nose when it comes to detecting when the price of metals is going up and when the price of salt is going down, and dealing accordingly with my colleagues on the Baltic and the Adriatic, for the merchant who doesn’t know his lore closes his store; invest a little here, withdraw a little there, the coin of a miser is money that’s wiser … a marvelous word, money, Señor; money … fondle it, sow it, and watch it grow, fertilized by commerce and manufacture, into a tree with great spreading branches, mining, maritime transport, the administration of lands, and loans to princes in need of funds for war, exploration … and the construction of palaces.