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At seven in the evening, the court of São Gens de Calvos gathered in Abbot Marcos Rebelo's poor room. Torcato Nunes played the viscount, private secretary and brigadier; the abbot was chief chaplain, while other priests and soldiers displayed equally invented offices. They all remained standing, although the royal figure had given them permission to sit down. Veríssimo occupied a leather chair beside the clock, while solemn papers, a lead inkwell, political books, beans for the tripe and a curled-up cat shared the stage.
They were waiting for the bearer of Vasco da Cerveira Lobo's letter. At eight, Cristóvão Bezerra entered first, very upright in his high cravat, new coat and gold spectacles, with Miguelist medals on his chest. The false court called him the Baron of Bouro, and he advanced with all the dignity that the title demanded. Behind him came Zeferino das Lamelas, pale with fear, his knees giving way inside his short trousers and enormous work boots.
Bezerra bent one knee before Veríssimo's outstretched hand. Zeferino dropped onto both knees so hard that his kneecaps struck the floorboards. 'Get up, man, this is not a chapel,' said Veríssimo, but the mason seemed to prefer that position to any other. He rose only when Nunes repeated His Majesty's order. On impulse, Zeferino tried to give the letter directly to the man in the chair, but Marcos Rebelo explained that letters went through the secretary first. The mason then handed the letter to Torcato Nunes, observing the ritual of that imaginary royal office.
Cristóvão Bezerra presented Zeferino as an honourable Legitimist who had not dared to enter his king's presence alone. He said that Gaspar das Lamelas, the visitor's father, had led three hundred men in the rising of 1838 and swum across the Ave in January with his sword between his teeth. According to Bezerra, Gaspar was left paralysed by that exploit and never rose again. Veríssimo appeared moved, declared that he had known nothing of the attack because he was in Rome without news, and asked the brave man's name. Zeferino replied that his father's name was Gaspar Ferreira. The supposed monarch ordered Nunes to place Gaspar on the list as an infantry colonel, with pay dating from 1838 and a note referring to the battle of Santo Tirso. He also promised the son that Gaspar would receive seven years of back pay, a reward as false as the commission.
When he asked for the old friend's letter, Veríssimo called Cerveira 'Teixeira'. Nunes corrected him carefully: it was Cerveira Lobo. Veríssimo opened the letter, read it in silence and then praised Cerveira as a rare friend and one of the cause's finest supporters. To lend grandeur to the performance, he quoted Camões and asked whether it was more excellent to be king of the world or king of such loyal people. In the shadows, one rector whispered to another that the man must have studied a great deal, since he even knew Latin. Veríssimo announced that he would reply in his own hand and ordered Vasco da Cerveira Lobo to be entered as a cavalry general and Count of Quadros.
He took a sheet from an old folder and sat down to write, allowing the courtiers to talk. Marcos Rebelo used the pause to serve Douro wine, pastries from Guimarães, crisp convent biscuits and small cakes. Heavy jaws chewed with pleasure and made the fresh sweets from that poor royal table crack between their teeth. In one group, the former sergeant-major of Rio Caldo acted out a wild-boar hunt in Gerês with sweeping gestures. He described how his dog Ligeira had been injured and how he had waited for the animal in a clearing before firing three large pellets into it. Bezerra feared that the conversation might disturb the king, but Veríssimo assured them that they could talk freely. A canon quietly admired that extraordinary mind, and discreet toasts were soon raised to the man indicated only by their eyes.
While the priests exchanged jokes and insults about another Father Marcos, Nunes laughed sarcastically. Then he bent over Veríssimo's shoulder and whispered, 'Press him harder!' Veríssimo hesitated and suggested two; Nunes demanded three, although neither of them yet said aloud what they meant to ask for. 'Three, on my responsibility; it is a straightforward matter,' the secretary insisted, thus directing the hand that was drafting the letter. Aloud, Nunes asked whether the new Count of Quadros had a wife and children. Bezerra passed the question to Zeferino, as though the distance between them required one more degree of ceremony.
Now more confident, the mason replied that Cerveira had two sons and three daughters, one of them married. He added that the landowner's wife had run away years earlier with the doctor from Pombais and had never returned. Marcos Rebelo lamented the corruption of the times and declared that it was urgent to remedy such a misfortune. A silence full of official compassion followed, while the false king continued to write.
Veríssimo slowly polished his sentences and tried to compete with Father Rocha's rounded, adjective-laden rhetoric. He consoled himself with the thought that Dom Miguel was not known as a scholar and that a few errors would make the reply more plausible. He reread the text, corrected commas and asked Nunes for a red wafer with which to seal it. As envelopes had not yet reached Lanhoso, he folded the sheet in four. On the wrapper he placed the invented title: to the Count of Quadros, general of the royal army.
Meanwhile, Bezerra drew Nunes aside and privately made a request that he wished to submit for His Majesty's pleasure. Nunes approached the man in the chair, spoke softly to him and received a simple assent. He then opened the register of favours and proclaimed that Zeferino Ferreira was appointed sergeant-major of Lamelas for his father's services. The commission existed only in the theatre of that room, but Zeferino received it as the revelation of the important man he believed himself to be. Told to give thanks, he knelt again and tried to kiss Veríssimo's boots. Veríssimo raised him, handed him the reply for Cerveira and demanded that no one should see the addressee written on the paper. He also asked him to return with another letter from his honourable friend, until he could embrace him in person.
The courtiers backed out and bumped into one another so as not to turn their bodies away from the performed majesty. The maid immediately appeared, distressed because supper was ready and the chicken with rice could not wait for royal ceremonies. Nunes stayed to eat with Veríssimo and the abbot, as he always did. Zeferino had his mare there and decided to travel through the moonlit night beside a group of pilgrims bound for Bom Jesus do Monte. The following afternoon, he galloped into the courtyard at Quadros, his face flushed with delight.
Cerveira was having his afternoon nap, and a tenant farmer explained to Zeferino, with bitter satisfaction, the drunkenness that had caused that sleep. According to the tenant farmer, the landowner had ordered Egas's chestnut mare saddled, then mounted it with pistols at his side and his sword drawn, and galloped shouting beneath the vines. Egas and Heitor managed to dismount him before he struck a stone post and took him to bed. The man allowed for an occasional bout of drunkenness, but thought it shameful to get drunk every day and become impossible for everyone around him. He accused Cerveira of growing rich on the sweat of the poor, refusing to forgive his tenants even a bushel of maize and spending far less than he received. He said that the landowner kept money hidden, had offered six contos for another estate and yet left his daughter Teresinha to live in poverty. Speaking with the cruel prejudice of his world, he also attacked the children's conduct and declared that, if he had daughters like those, he would crush them.
Finally, he reminded Zeferino that Gaspar drank as well and blamed that drink for the madness of the Santo Tirso rising. Zeferino admitted that his father drank, but defended the courage of the deed and said that the tenant farmer would never be capable of repeating it. The tenant farmer replied that he had never been drunk and that Dom Miguel would take no more notice of Gaspar than of a heap of manure. He did admit, however, that Zeferino had done well to work as a mason, respond to the loss of the land and save money through his own efforts. He then asked whether it was true that Zeferino had offered the man from Prazins money in order to marry Marta. Irritated, Zeferino said that it was over and that he no longer wanted Marta even with a dowry of several contos. 'You do not know who I am, but you soon will,' he declared, nourished by the commission that he believed to be real. When he heard a window opening, he went off to speak to Cerveira and inwardly called the tenant farmer a boor.