This the man had done safely, and it was these letters that Castell read.
One of them was from his partner Bernaldez in Seville; not in answer to that which he had written on the night of the opening of this history--for this there had been no time--yet dealing with matters whereof it treated.

In it was this passage: "You will remember what I wrote to you of a certain envoy who has been sent to the Court of London, who is called d'Aguilar, for as our cipher is so secret, and it is important that you should be warned, I take the risk of writing his name.

Since that letter I have learned more concerning this grandee, for such he is.

Although he calls himself plain Don d'Aguilar, in truth he is the Marquis of Morella, and on one side, it is said, of royal blood, if not on both, since he is reported to be the son born out of wedlock of Prince Carlos of Viana, the half-brother of the king.

The tale runs that Carlos, the learned and gentle, fell in love with a Moorish lady of Aguilar of high birth and great wealth, for she had rich estates at Granada and elsewhere, and, as he might not marry her because of the difference of their rank and faiths, lived with her without marriage, of which union one son was born.