Master Pedro's puppets

We stopped for the night at an inn on the road to Aragon, and I record that I called it an inn, and that Sancho was so pleased that he said so to the innkeeper twice. I am not so deceived as people say.

Shortly after we arrived a man came in dressed in chamois leather, with a large patch of green taffeta over one eye and that side of his face, and asked whether there was room for the fortune-telling ape and the show of the freeing of Melisendra. The innkeeper cried out with delight that it was Master Pedro, and that we were in for a fine evening.

01 The ape

Master Pedro's ape is a large animal with no tail and a face of great wisdom. Its master asks it a question, and it leaps onto his shoulder and puts its mouth to his ear and chatters, and then he gives the answer. It charges two reales a question and deals only with the past and present, not the future, which I thought very honest of it.

When it saw me, the ape leapt onto its master's shoulder and chattered, and Master Pedro immediately threw himself on his knees before me and embraced my legs, crying that here was the illustrious reviver of knight errantry, the never sufficiently praised Don Quixote de la Mancha. I was moved. Sancho asked the ape what his wife was doing. The ape chattered, and Master Pedro said that she was combing flax at that moment, with a jug of wine at her elbow from which she drank now and then to keep her spirits up. Sancho declared her a good wife and a jewel, and the price of the question cheap at twice the cost.

I confess I took Master Pedro aside afterwards and asked whether he had made some pact with the devil, since an ape that knows such things must have had help. He assured me the ape was an honest ape. There was something about his voice, now that I think of it, that I seemed to have heard before, somewhere on a dusty road with chains in it; but I could not place it, and I put it out of my mind.

02 The freeing of Melisendra

The theatre was set up, lit with candles, and the whole inn sat down before it. Master Pedro worked the figures from behind and a boy stood in front with a wand to explain the story. It was the old ballad of Don Gaiferos, a knight of Charlemagne's court, whose wife Melisendra was held captive by the King Marsilio in the city of Sansueña, which is now called Zaragoza.

First we saw Gaiferos playing at backgammon, quite forgetful of his lady, and the Emperor Charlemagne coming in to scold him with his sceptre, which was well done. Then we saw Melisendra at a window of the tower, gazing towards France. Then a man of King Marsilio's court stole a kiss from her, and the King had him punished in the public square, at which the boy explained that justice in that city was swift. Then Gaiferos rode up below the tower, Melisendra let herself down from the balcony, caught her skirt on the iron railings and hung there, very lifelike, until he lifted her down and set her up behind him on his horse, and away they went towards France.

I did correct the boy once, when he said that bells were ringing from all the towers of Sansueña to raise the alarm. A city of that kingdom in that age, I told him, would sound the alarm with kettledrums and shawms, not church bells. Master Pedro called out from behind the curtain that I should not look for perfection in a puppet show, and that plenty of plays are performed in Spain with worse mistakes in them. He was right, and I said so, and let them go on.

But then the alarm went up, and out of the city gates came the whole of King Marsilio's cavalry, a great glittering troop, galloping after the two lovers to bring them back. And here I must explain what happened, though it is easily misunderstood.

I rose to my feet. I said in a loud voice that while I lived no one should do harm to so famous a knight and so faithful a lady. I drew my sword, sprang to the theatre, and laid about me among the pursuing horsemen, cutting some down, beheading others, scattering the rest. One downward stroke would have taken off Master Pedro's head if he had not ducked. I struck King Marsilio from his throne. The Emperor Charlemagne, who had nothing to do with it, lost his crown in the confusion. The ape fled up onto the roof. In a few moments the whole army of Sansueña lay in pieces on the floor, and Gaiferos and Melisendra were, I am glad to say, safe on the road to France.

03 The reckoning

When I had done, Master Pedro sat in the ruins and wept, holding pieces of his king in both hands. I looked round and saw sawdust and paste and painted wood, and I understood that the enchanters who persecute me had once again shown me a thing as real so that I would destroy it. I said so to everyone present, and I offered at once to pay for all the damage.

Master Pedro valued each figure, and I agreed or haggled as was just. King Marsilio of Zaragoza, four reales and a half. The Emperor Charlemagne, five reales and a quarter. Melisendra's nose, which I had sliced off by accident, and an eye, five reales; though I objected that Melisendra could not have lost her nose, since by then she was in France with her husband. Master Pedro allowed some reduction. Two reales more for the trouble of catching the ape. In all it came to forty reales and three quarters, which Sancho counted out of our purse while muttering a proverb about how the man who breaks pays.

Then we all had supper together at my expense, and peace was restored. Master Pedro left before dawn with his ape and his broken army, and I have heard since that he was more than he seemed. If so, he was well paid for his trouble.

Read nextThe galley slavesAnother road, another man I could not quite place.

Sage Cide Hamete, should you write that I attacked a puppet show, add that the cavalry was gaining on the lovers, and that no knight can sit still while that happens, whatever they are made of.