THE DOGS
Guzmán walked around the sleeping body, still holding high the long knife, and a grieving and restless Bocanegra growled quietly; then Guzmán laughed and sheathed the dagger. He walked to the door and Bocanegra’s growl rose to a ferocious pitch; he opened the door and took the leashes of several steaming, jostling, expectant greyhounds, along with vessels containing various compounds, from the hands of the faithful hunt attendants. He led the dogs into the bedchamber; Bocanegra, bound to his board, could not move, but he barked desperately; the other dogs approached to sniff him, as Guzmán called them by name: here, Fragoso; here, Hermitaña; down, Preciada; quiet, Herreruelo; here, Blandil. He took the forepaws of the swollen Hermitaña and rubbed her dugs and engorged black teats made tender by the overdue whelping; then he threw her on the bed of the sleeping Liege; he took the vessel containing a paste of ash and watered wine and briskly anointed the bitch’s gaping genitals. Then with a burst of laughter he spoke to Preciada: “And how is my pretty little Preciada? How do you like going without food for a day? What sweet eyes she has, here … here.”
He held out a portion of leavened dough and as the ravenous bitch ate, and before she realized, he had inserted three grains of coarse salt in her anus; then he unleashed Herreruelo, who went straight for the bitch’s black hole, and excited by the trembling induced by hunger and the salt, mounted her and began pumping energetically, all on El Señor’s bed. Then Guzmán called Blandil to the bed, fed him a mixture of human excrement and goat’s milk, and the dog began to urinate on the bed while Herreruelo and Preciada fornicated, linked together like a monster with two heads and eight paws, and Hermitaña finally began to deliver her pups in her master’s bed, one after another, and each one, born in the island of silk between the contracted paws and the warm muzzle, was licked clean by the bitch, who cut the cord with her teeth and then nuzzled the pups to her pulsing teats. Bocanegra barked, incapable, now the hour had finally arrived, of defending his master: Guzmán jerked three hairs from his tail and the great mastiff stopped barking, as if he were fearful of being expelled from his own quarters. The chief huntsman took Fragoso by the collar and dragged him to El Señor’s curule chair where the master’s clothing was scattered.