Виктория Холт - Daughters of Spain

They were right too. She was almost blown off her feet, as she started across the deck. The two men held her, and laughing, she accepted their assistance.

* * *

The ship tossed and rolled, and the din was terrific. As she sheltered in her cabin with two of her attendants she occasionally heard the shouts of the sailors above the roar of the wind.

She saw two of her attendants clinging together. They were terrified. Their orders had been not to leave her if there was any danger, and their fear of Maximilian was greater than their fear of the storm.

She saw the tears on their faces as their fingers clutched their rosaries and their lips moved in continual prayer.

‘How frail a thing is a ship,’ said Margaret.’ How fierce is an ocean!’

‘You should pray, Your Grace. I fear some of the smaller ships will have been lost and we shall never come out of this alive.’

‘If it is the end, then it is the end,’ said Margaret.

The two women looked at each other. Such calmness alarmed them. It was unnatural.

‘We shall die without a priest,’ sighed one of the women, ‘with all our sins on us.’

‘You have not sinned greatly,’ Margaret comforted her. ‘Pray now for forgiveness, and it will be granted you.’

‘You pray with us.’

‘I find it difficult to ask God to spare my life,’ said Margaret, ‘for, if He has decided to take it, I am asking Him to go against His wishes. Perhaps we shall hate living so much that it will be more intolerable than death.’

‘Your Grace! Do not say such things!’

‘But if we are to find bliss in Heaven why should we be so distressed at the thought of going there? I am not distressed. If my time has come, I am ready. I do not think that my new father and mother-in-law are going to be very pleased with me. Perhaps they will already have heard of the manner in which Philip is treating their daughter.’

She was thinking of Philip – golden haired and handsome. What a beautiful boy he had always been. Everyone had made much of him, especially the women. She suspected that he had been initiated into the arts of love-making at a very early age, for some lusty young serving girl would surely have found the good looks of Philip impossible to resist; and Philip would be so eager to learn; he had been born to philander.

At an early age he had had his mistresses and had not been greatly interested in the wife he was to have. He had accepted her in his free and easy Flemish way – for Philip had the Flanders easy manners – as one of a group. Margaret knew he would not give up his mistresses merely because he had a wife.

And it was said that the Spaniards were a dignified people. Their ways would certainly not be the ways of Flanders. Poor Juana. Her future was not an enviable one. But perhaps, thought Margaret, she has a temperament like my own. Then she will accept what is, because it must be, and not ask for what it is impossible for life to give her.

Did they know in Spain that Philip had made no haste to greet his bride, that he had dallied with his gay friends – so many of them voluptuous women – and had laughingly declared that there was time enough for marriage?

I am afraid Juana is not getting a good husband, mused Margaret. I must say this even though that husband is my own brother.

So perhaps there would not be a very enthusiastic welcome for Philip’s sister when she reached Spain; and if she never did, who could say at this stage that that would not be a fortunate outcome?

The women in her cabin were moaning.

‘Our last hour has come,’ whispered one of them. ‘Holy Mother of God, intercede for us.’

Margaret closed her eyes. Surely the ship was being rent asunder.

Yes, she thought, this is the end of my father’s hopes through me. Here on the ocean bed will lie the bones of Margaret of Austria, daughter of Maximilian, drowned on her way to her wedding with the heir of Spain.

She began to compose her epitaph. It helped her not to catch the fear of those about her; she had discovered that it was all very well to talk lightly of death when it was far off; when you felt its breath in your face, when you heard its mocking laughter, you could not resist a certain fear. How could anyone be sure what was waiting on the other side of that strange bridge which joined Life with Death?

‘Ci gist Margot,’ she murmured, ‘la gentil’ damoiselle

Qu’a deux maris, et encore est pucelle.’

On a bright March day what was left of the battered fleet came into the port of Santander. Waiting to greet it were Ferdinand the King and by his side his son, Juan, the bridegroom to be.

Juan was nervous. His thoughts were for the young girl who had come perilously near to death at sea and had been miraculously brought to him. He must try to understand her; he must be gentle and kind.

His mother had talked to him about her, although she knew of course that she had no need to ask her son to show indulgence. Kindness came naturally to him. He hoped that she was not a flighty, senseless girl. Although if she were he would try to understand her ways. He would try to be interested in her interests. He would have to learn to enjoy dancing perhaps; he would have to pay more attention to sports. It was hardly likely that she would share his interests. She was young and doubtless she was gay. One could not expect her to care for books and music as he did.

Well then, he must suppress his inclinations. He must try above all to put her at ease. Poor child! How would she feel, leaving her home?

Ferdinand was smiling at him.

‘Well, my son, in a short while now you will see her,’ he said.

‘Yes, Father.’

‘It reminds me of the first day I saw your mother.’ Ferdinand wanted to say: If she does not please you, you should not take it to heart. There are many women in the world and they’ll be ready enough to please the heir to my crown.

But of course one would not say such things to Juan. He was quite unlike the gay Alfonso on whom Ferdinand had wished to bestow the Archbishopric of Toledo. Ferdinand felt a little wistful. It would have been pleasant had this son of his been a little more like himself. There was too much of Isabella in him. He had too strong a sense of duty. He looked almost frail in the spring sunshine. We should try to fatten him up, harden him, thought Ferdinand. And yet he was always a little abashed in the presence of his son; Juan made him feel earthy, a little uneasy about the sins he had committed throughout a long and lusty life. Angel was a good name for him; but the company of an angel could sometimes be a little disconcerting.

Even now Ferdinand guessed that, instead of impatiently waiting to size up the girl’s personal attributes – which was all he need concern himself with, her titles and inheritance being good enough even for the heir to Spain – he was thinking how best he could put her at ease.

Odd, thought Ferdinand, that such as I should have a son like that.

‘She is coming ashore now,’ said Juan; and he was smiling.

* * *

They rode side by side on their way to Burgos where Queen Isabella and the rest of the royal family would be waiting to greet them.

They were pleased with each other, and they made a charming pair. The people, who had lined their route to watch them pass, cheered them and called out their blessings.

They loved their heir. He was not so much handsome as beautiful, and his sweet expression did not belie the reports they had heard of him. It was said that any petition first submitted to Juan would be certain to receive attention, no matter if it came from the most humble. Indeed the more humble the petitioner, the more easily the Prince’s sympathies were aroused.

‘Long live the Prince of the Asturias!’ cried the people. ‘Long live the Archduchess Margaret!’

Ferdinand, riding with them, had graciously hung back. He was ready on this occasion to take second place to his heir and the bride. He would not have had it otherwise. He was congratulating himself. The girl looked healthy and none would guess she had been almost drowned at sea a week ago.

Margaret wished to talk to Juan. His Spanish manners were to her somewhat dignified, and she, after some years in Flanders, knew no such restraint.

‘The people love you,’ she said.

‘They love a wedding,’ he answered. ‘It means feasting and holidays.’

‘Yes, no doubt they do. But I think they have a special regard for you personally. Is my Spanish intelligible to you?’

‘Completely. It is very good.’

She laughed. ‘You would say it was good, no matter how bad it was.’

‘Nevertheless it is very good indeed. I trust my sister Juana speaks her husband’s language as well as you speak that of the man who will be yours.’

‘Ah … Juana,’ she said.

‘Did you see much of my sister?’ he asked anxiously.

‘No. She travelled to Lille, you know, for the wedding. I had to prepare myself to return with the fleet.’

He was quick to notice that she found the subject of Juana disconcerting, so changed it immediately although he was anxious to hear news of Juana.

‘Tell me, what pastimes please you most?’

She gave him a grateful look. ‘I’m afraid you will find me rather dull,’ she said.

‘I cannot believe it.’

She laughed aloud again, and he noticed – though she did not – that the attendants were astonished at her displays of mirth. Flemish manners! they were thinking. It was not fitting to show such lack of dignity in Spain.

But Juan liked that laughter; it was fresh and unaffected.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do not greatly care for games and dancing and such diversions. I spend a great deal of time reading. I am interested in the history of countries and the ideas of philosophers. I think my brother deemed me a little odd. He says that I have not the right qualities to please a husband.’

‘That is not true.’ She saw the sudden gleam in Juan’s eyes. ‘I am not good at sport and games either. I frankly dislike hunting.’

Margaret said quickly: ‘I too. I cannot bear to hunt animals to the death. I picture myself being hunted to death. My brother laughs at me. He said that you would.’

‘I would never laugh at you nor scorn your ideas if they differed from my own. But, Margaret, I think that you and I are going to think alike on many things.’

‘That makes me happy,’ she said.

‘And you are not afraid … coming to a strange land … to a strange husband?’

‘No,’ she answered seriously, ‘I am not afraid.’

Juan’s heart began to beat wildly as he looked at her clean-cut young profile and her fair, fine skin.

She has all that I could have wished for in a wife, he told himself. Surely I am the luckiest of Princes. How serene she is! She looks as though she would never be ruffled. It is going to be so easy … so pleasant … so wonderful. I need not have been afraid. I shall not be shy and awkward with her. She is so young, and yet she has a calmness almost equal to that of my mother. What a wonderful person my wife will be.

‘You are smiling,’ she said. ‘Tell me what amuses you.’

He answered seriously: ‘It is not amusement which makes me smile. It is happiness.’

‘That,’ she replied, ‘is the best possible reason for smiling.’

So, thought Juan, I am beginning to love her already.

Margaret also began to smile. She was telling herself that she had been fortunate as she remembered the flabby lips of Charles VIII of France.

She was glad that she had been sent to France and affianced to Charles. It was going to make her realise how lucky she was to have come to Spain to marry Juan.

So on they rode to the shouts of ‘Long live the Prince! Blessings on him and his bride!’

They were already serenely contented as they thought of the years ahead.

* * *

In the Palace at Burgos the arrival of the cavalcade, headed by Ferdinand, his son and the bride, was awaited with eagerness.

In the children’s apartments the Princess Isabella watched the servants busy at the toilet of her sisters, Maria and Catalina.

How quiet they were! It would have been so different if Juana had been with them. She would have been speculating about the bride, shouting her wild opinions to them all.