Виктория Холт - Daughters of Spain

‘Should she not wait until her brother’s wedding celebrations are over?’

‘But we planned that these ceremonies should continue for a long time. The people expect it. Soon however I want Juan and Margaret to go on a long pilgrimage through the country, showing themselves in the various towns. There will be feasting and celebrations wherever they halt. There is nothing like a progress for winning the devotion of the people. And when you have a pair like Juan and Margaret … young, handsome and in love … the people will be their devoted slaves for ever.’ Ferdinand’s eyes blazed. ‘When I think of all that young man of ours is heir to, I could sing for joy.’

‘Perhaps Isabella could accompany them on their pilgrimage.’

‘And thus delay her departure for Portugal?’

‘It would remind the people of all that we are doing for them with these alliances.’

‘Quite unnecessary. Isabella must prepare to leave Spain for Portugal at once.’

The Queen was about to protest, but Ferdinand’s mouth was stubborn.

These are my children as well as yours, he was reminding her. You may be Queen of Castile, but I remain the head of the family.

It was useless to protest, the Queen decided. And a short postponement would make little difference to Isabella in the long run. She was sure that when her daughter was in Portugal she would be as happy with Emanuel as Margaret was with Juan.

* * *

The coming of Margaret to Spain had brought an immense relief to Catalina. It seemed to her that here she saw, played out before her eyes, that drama which had begun to dominate her life. The transference of a foreign Princess to the home of her bridegroom could be a happy event.

It was exhilarating therefore to watch the happiness of Margaret and Juan.

Margaret was very friendly with her husband’s sisters. She was amusing and clever, and her manner of never hesitating to say what she meant was extraordinary.

Catalina knew that the Princess Isabella was a little shocked by her sister-in-law. But Isabella could not share in the general rejoicing, because her own departure was imminent.

‘How cruel of us,’ said Catalina to Maria, ‘to be happy when soon Isabella is going to leave us.’

Maria looked astonished. Like her father she could not understand why Isabella should be so distressed. She was going to have a wedding, as Juan had; she was going to be the centre of attraction. That seemed a very fine thing to Maria.

Catalina often left the company, which Margaret was enlivening with some story of the manners of the Flemish, that she might sit with her sister, Isabella.

Isabella had changed in the last weeks. She had become resigned. She seemed a little thinner than usual but there was a hectic flush on her cheeks which made her look very pretty. Her cough worried her still but she continually sought to control it.

One day Catalina crept to her sister’s apartments and found her at the window, looking out wistfully on the scene below.

‘May I come in, Isabella?’

‘But of course.’

Isabella held out her hand and Catalina took it.

‘Why do you come to me?’ Isabella asked. ‘Is it not more fun to be with the others?’

Catalina was thoughtful. Yes, it was more fun. Margaret was amusing and it was pleasant to watch her and remind oneself that this was what it was like going to a strange country to be married; but Catalina could not enjoy the stories of Margaret while she must be thinking of Isabella.

‘I wished to be with you,’ she explained.

‘There will not be many more days when we can be together, for I shall soon be setting out for Portugal. Juan and Margaret will be starting on their journey, so you will miss them also. But of course they will be coming back.’

‘You will come back too.’

‘Yes. Our mother has promised that I shall return to see you all or she will come to me. If she does, I hope she will bring you with her, Catalina.’

‘I will implore her to.’

They were silent for a while and then Isabella said: ‘Catalina, you are the youngest, yet I think you are the wisest. You understand my feelings more than any of the others.’

‘It is because one day I too shall have to go away.’

‘Why yes, Catalina. How selfish I am, to think of myself all the time. But it will be different for you. Catalina, how I wish that I had gone before.’

‘Then you would not have been here now.’

‘You are too young to remember what happened in this country; and because of me it will happen in Portugal. Emanuel has agreed that it shall.’

‘They will drive out the Jews, Isabella; but is that not a good thing? Then Portugal will be an all-Christian country, even as Spain is.’

‘I think of those men, women and children driven from their homes.’

‘But they are Jews, Isabella. I have heard the servants talking about them. They poison wells. They destroy the crops with their incantations and, do you know, Isabella, they do something far worse. They kidnap Christian boys and crucify them as Christ was crucified.’

‘I have heard these stories too, but I wonder if they are true.’

‘Why should you wonder?’

‘Because when people do great injustice they always seek to convince themselves that what they have done is just.’

‘But it is surely just to bring all people to the Christian Faith. It is for their good.’

‘I believe that, but I am haunted by them, Catalina. I see them in my dreams. Terrible things happen to them. When they reached barbarous foreign countries they were robbed and murdered. Little girls like you were violated before the very eyes of their parents. And when they had raped them they slit open their bodies because it was rumoured that they had swallowed their jewels that they might take them away with them. You see, they were not allowed to take what belonged to them.’

‘Isabella, you must pray. You must be serene, as Margaret is. You must not think of these things.’

‘It is easy for her. She does not come to her husband with this guilt upon her.’

‘Nor should you, Isabella.’

‘But I do, Catalina. I hear their voices in my dreams. I see them … rows and rows of angry, frightened faces. I see terrible things in my dreams, and I feel that a curse is upon me.’

There was little that Catalina could do to comfort Isabella.

Juan and Margaret had started on their triumphal journey, and the time had come for the Princess Isabella to set out for the meeting with Emanuel.

She was glad that her mother was travelling with her. Ferdinand also accompanied them, but the Princess had little to say to her father; she was aware of his impatience for the marriage to take place.

The Queen understood her daughter’s reluctance to return as a bride to the country of the man she had loved so tenderly; but she had no idea of the horrors which filled her daughter’s mind. It was inconceivable to the Queen that young Isabella could be so concerned about the fate of a section of the community who refused the benefits of Christianity.

The marriage was to be performed without the pomp which usually accompanied royal marriages. Isabella was a widow. The people were still rejoicing over the marriage of Juan and Margaret. A great deal had been spent on that ceremony, and important as this marriage with Portugal was, it must be performed with the minimum outlay. Neither Ferdinand nor Isabella were spendthrifts and they were not eager to spend unless it was necessary.

So the ceremony which was to take place at Valencia de Alcantara would be a quiet one. In this little town Emanuel was waiting for his bride.

Strange emotions filled the young Isabella’s heart as she lifted her eyes to her bridegroom’s face. Memories came back to her of the Palace in Lisbon where she had first seen him standing beside the King, and she remembered thinking at that moment that he was Alonso.

He had been her friend afterwards; he had shown clearly his desire to be in Alonso’s place; and after that unhappy day when Alonso died he had been the kindest and most sympathetic of her friends. It was then that he had suggested that she stay in Portugal as his wife.

Now he was the King of Portugal – an honour which could never have come to him but for that accident in the forest, for had Alonso lived she and he would have sons to come before Emanuel.

But it had happened differently, tragically so. And here she was, the bride of Emanuel.

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. He loved her still. How wonderful that this young man should have remained faithful to her all those years. While she had mourned in her widowhood and declared that she would never marry again, he had waited.

And so she had come to him at last, but now it was with a hideous burden about her neck, the misery of thousands of Jews.

There was pain behind his smile. He too was thinking that it was a terrible price – the denial of his own beliefs – which he had to pay for her.

The ceremony was performed, while Ferdinand exulted and the Queen smiled graciously. All was well. The Infanta Isabella of Spain was now the Queen of Portugal.

* * *

Isabella was glad that it had not been the usual exhausting ceremony. That was something she could not have endured.

When she was with Emanuel, when she was aware of his tenderness for her, his gentleness, his determination to make her happy, she felt a quiet contentment. She thought, I am fortunate, even as Margaret has been in Juan.

She had been foolish in delaying so long. She could have married him a year … two years … why, three years before. If she had done so she might have had a child by now.

‘What a faithful man you are,’ she told her husband, ‘to wait all those years.’

‘Did you not understand that, once I had seen you, I should be faithful?’ he answered.

‘But I am not young any more. I am twenty-seven. Why, you could have married my sister Maria. She is twelve years younger than I, and a maiden.’

‘Does it seem strange to you that it was Isabella I wanted?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘very strange.’

He took her hands and kissed them. ‘You will soon learn that it is not strange at all. I loved you when you first came to us. I loved you when you went away; and I love you more than ever now that you have come to me.’

‘I shall try to be all that you deserve in a wife, Emanuel.’

He kissed her then with passion, and she had a feeling that he was trying to shut something from his mind. She knew what it was. He had not mentioned ‘the condition’, but it was there between them, she felt, between them and complete happiness.

To lie beside Emanuel, to know that she had a husband once more, did not bring back the bitter memories of Alonso which she had so feared. She realised now that this was the quickest way to obliterate the memory of that long ago honeymoon which had ended in tragedy.

Emanuel was not unlike his dead cousin. And if she could not feel the wild exultation which she had enjoyed with Alonso she believed that this quieter contentment was something to which she and Alonso would have come in time.

In those first days of marriage, Alonso and Emanuel had begun to mingle strangely in her mind. They had become as one person.

During those first days they forgot. Then she noticed that one of Emanuel’s attendants had a Jewish cast of feature, and when it seemed to her that she caught this man’s gaze fixed upon her malevolently, a terrible fear shot through her.

She said nothing of this at the time, but that night she woke screaming from a frightening dream.

Emanuel sought to comfort her but she could not remember what the dream was.

She could only sob out her terror in Emanuel’s arms.

‘It is my fault,’ she said. ‘It is my fault. I should have come to you earlier. I should never have let this happen.’

‘What is it, my dearest? Tell me what is on your mind.’

‘It is what we are going to do to those people. It is the price you had to pay for our marriage.’

She felt his body stiffen, and she knew that this terrible thing was on his mind as surely as it was on her own.

He kissed her hair and whispered: ‘You should have come before, Isabella. You should have come long ago.’

‘And now?’

‘And now,’ he answered, ‘the deed must be done. I have given my word. It is a condition of the marriage.’