Hospital El Escorial
Hospital El Escorial is the medical facility attached to the vast monastery-palace complex of El Escorial, located in the mountains outside Madrid. It is here that the terminally ill King of Spain is brought after his secret meeting with Prince Julián and Bishop Valdespino at the Valley of the Fallen, and it is here that the story's two most significant deaths occur: the king's peaceful passing and the bishop's deliberate overdose.
The King's Final Hours
After the king's confession inside the Valley of the Fallen basilica, Guardia agents wheel him to a vehicle for transport back to Hospital El Escorial. Prince Julián gently pulls the bedsheets up around his father's shoulders and tucks him in for the night. Despite the doctor's urging, the king politely declines any further treatment, forgoing his usual heart monitor and IV of nutrients and painkillers. When Julián asks if he is in pain, the king replies, "On the contrary," and smiles weakly at his son. The king says he is at peace because Julián has permitted him to tell the secret he has buried for far too long. Julián reaches out and takes his father's hand, holding it for the first time since he was a child, and tells him to sleep. Within seconds, the king is snoring softly. Julián dims the lights and leaves the bishop to be with him.
Valdespino's Vigil and Suicide
Bishop Valdespino enters the king's room, his gaunt face looking ghostly in the moonlight filtering in from the window. He tells Julián that what the king told him tonight was very hard for him, and perhaps even more so for the bishop himself. Valdespino pats Julián gently on the shoulder. When Julián asks him to sit with the king, the bishop steps forward and wraps his arms around the prince, warmly embracing him for the first time since Julián's childhood confirmation. Julián is startled to feel the frail skeleton shrouded beneath his robes; the aging bishop seems weaker even than the king. Valdespino tells Julián he is proud of him and that he knows he will be a compassionate leader. After Julián leaves, the bishop remains alone with the sleeping king. Later, when Julián returns to the room, he finds the bottle of oral morphine solution from the king's bedside table empty beside Valdespino. In the darkness, the painful truth becomes clear: the bishop has taken his own life. Julián kneels down and says a quiet prayer for the two old friends, then slips the empty morphine bottle into his pocket. Before leaving, he gently lifts the bishop's tear-streaked face off his father's chest and repositions him upright in his chair, hands folded in prayer, reflecting Ambra's teaching that love is a private thing and the world does not need to know every detail.
Narrative Significance
Hospital El Escorial serves as the story's final sanctuary for the two men who have shaped Spain's spiritual and political identity for decades. The king's death, announced by Prince Julián in a live television address, marks the end of an era and clears the way for Julián's ascension. Valdespino's suicide, disguised as heart failure, spares the palace a public investigation into his alleged involvement in the night's crimes and allows the bishop to die with his dignity intact, beside the man he loved. The hospital room becomes a private stage for the story's most tender and most devastating moments: a son's farewell to his father, a lifelong friend's final act of devotion, and the quiet erasure of a secret that would have shattered the monarchy.
