Виктория Холт - Daughters of Spain

It was what Juana had seen many times before. If she could have had her way she would have taken one of those women by her flaxen hair, and have her bound and beaten. Then she would turn her attention to the other.

But she must calm herself. They might flaunt their long flaxen locks which fell over their big bare bosoms, but this was an occasion when she had something more to offer, and she was going to calm herself so thoroughly that she would not act foolishly this time.

She stood on the threshold of the room. No one took any notice of her. The dancers went on dancing and the women went on caressing Philip.

Juana screeched at the top of her voice: ‘Silence!’

This had the desired effect. There was complete stillness in the room and, before Philip could command them all to go on as they were, Juana cried: ‘I have important news from Spain.’

Philip rose to his feet without warning. The woman at his feet toppled off her stool and fell to the floor. Juana wanted to laugh exultantly as she watched her, but she controlled herself.

She waved the letter from her mother and, seeing it, Philip’s eyes gleamed with interest.

‘Leave me with my wife,’ he ordered.

Juana stood aside, watching them file out. She did not look at the two women. She was determined not to lose control of her emotions. She was about to have him to herself and she was happy.

‘What news?’ he demanded. ‘What news?’

She smiled at him with all the love she felt for him in her eyes. She knew that she was about to give him something which he greatly desired.

‘The child is stillborn,’ she said.

For a few seconds he did not speak. She watched the slow smile cross his face. Then he brought his clenched fist down on to his thigh. He took her cheek between his thumb and forefinger and pressed it so tightly that she wanted to scream with the joy of it. Whether it was pain or caresses he gave her she did not care. It was enough that his hands were upon her.

‘Show me the letter,’ he said gruffly, and snatched it from her.

She watched him reading it. It was all there, just as he wished it to be.

Then his hands fell to his sides and he began to laugh.

‘You are pleased, Philip?’ she said, as though to remind him that he owed this to her.

‘Oh yes, my love, I am pleased. Are you?’

‘I am always pleased when you are.’

‘That’s true, I know. Why Juana, do you see what this means?’

‘That my sister Isabella is now the heir of Spain.’

‘Your sister Isabella! They will not have a woman to rule them, I tell you.’

‘But my parents have no more sons. And Isabella is the eldest.’

‘I ought to beat you for not being born first, Juana.’ She laughed wildly. The thought did not displease her. She only asked that she should have his undivided attention. Instead he went on: ‘I will show you what an indulgent husband I am. You and I shall be Prince and Princess of Castile and, when your mother is no more, Castile will be ours.’

‘Philip, it should be as you say. But they will remind me that I am not the eldest.’

‘Do you think they will want the King of Portugal to rule Spain? Not they.’

‘Not they!’ she cried. And she wondered whether they would have the heir of Maximilian either. But this was not for her to say. Philip was pleased with her.

He took her in his arms and danced her round the room. She clung to him madly.

‘You will stay with me for a while?’ she pleaded. He put his head on one side and considered her. ‘Please, Philip! Please, Philip!’ she pleaded. ‘The two of us … alone …’

He nodded slowly and drew her to the couch.

Her passion still had the power to amuse him.

He would not stay long with her though, and was soon calling back his friends.

He made Juana stand on the couch beside him.

‘My friends,’ he said, ‘you have strangers among you, strangers of great importance. You must each come forward and pay homage to the Prince and Princess of Castile.’

It was a game similar to those they often played. Each person came to the couch and bowed low, kissing first the hand of Philip and then Juana’s.

Juana was so happy. She suddenly remembered with unusual vividness her mother’s apartment at Madrid, and she wondered what her parents and her sisters would say if they could see her and Philip now – clever Philip and his wife who had, without their consent, made themselves the heir and heiress of Castile.

She was so amused that she burst into laughter. The restraint of the last hour had been too much for her, and she could not stop laughing.

Philip looked at her coldly. He remembered her frenzied passion, her great desire for him – and he shuddered.

For the first time the thought occurred to him: I know why she is so strange. She is mad.

Ferdinand and Isabella were studying with dismay the letter they had received from Fray Matienzo. This was indeed disquieting news. Not only was Juana conducting herself in Flanders with the utmost impiety, but she had dared, with her husband, to assume the title of heir to Castile.

Isabella said bitterly: ‘I wish I had never allowed her to leave me. She should never have been sent away from me. She is unstable.’

Ferdinand looked gloomy. He was wondering now whether it would not have been better to have sent Maria into Flanders. Maria had little spirit, it was true, but at least she would not have behaved with such abandon as Juana apparently did.

‘There are times,’ went on Isabella, ‘when I say to myself, What blow will fall next? My son …’

Ferdinand laid his arm about her shoulders. ‘My dear,’ he murmured, ‘you must not give way to your sorrow. It is true that our alliances with the Habsburgs are proving to be a mixed blessing. We have Margaret here on our hands … our daughter-in-law, who has failed to give us an heir. And now it seems that Philip is more our enemy than our friend.’

‘You have written to Maximilian protesting against this wicked action of his son and our daughter?’

‘I have.’

‘But,’ went on Isabella quickly, ‘I do not blame Juana. She has been forced to do this. Oh, my poor child, I would to God I had never let her go.’

‘Philip is a wild and ambitious young man. We must not take him too seriously. Have no fear. This is not as important as you think. You are upset because one of your daughters has so far forgotten her duty to us as to act in a manner certain to cause us pain. Juana was always half crazy. We should not take too much notice of what she does. There is only one answer to all this.’

‘And that is?’

‘Send for Isabella and Emanuel. Have them proclaimed as our heirs throughout Spain. Then it will avail Maximilian’s son and our daughter very little what they call themselves. Isabella is our eldest daughter and she is the true heir to Castile. Her sons shall inherit our crowns.’

‘How wise you are, Ferdinand. You are right. It is the only course. In my grief I could only mourn for the conduct of one of my children. It was foolish of me.’

Ferdinand smiled broadly. It was pleasant to have Isabella recognising his superiority.

‘Leave these matters to me, Isabella. You will see that I know how to manage these erring children of ours.’

‘Promise me not to feel too angry towards our Juana.’

‘I’d like to lay my hands on her …’ began Ferdinand.

‘No, Ferdinand, no. Remember how unstable she is.’

Ferdinand looked at her shrewdly. ‘There are times,’ he said slowly, ‘when she reminds me of your mother.’

At last those words had been spoken aloud, and Isabella felt as though she had received a blow. It was folly to be so cowardly. That idea was not new to her. But to hear it spoken aloud gave weight to it, brought her terrors into the daylight. They were no longer fancies, those fears; they had their roots in reality.

Ferdinand looked at her bowed head and, patting her shoulder reassuringly, he left her.

She was glad to be alone.

She whispered under her breath: ‘What will become of her, what will become of my tragic child?’

And she knew at that moment that this was the greatest tragedy of her life; even now, with the poignant sorrow of loss upon her, she knew that the blow struck at her through the death of their beloved son was light compared with what she would suffer through the madness of her daughter.

Ferdinand on his way to his apartments met a messenger who brought him dispatches. He saw that these came from Maximilian, and it gave him pleasure to read them first, before taking them to Isabella.

She is distraught, he told himself. It is better for me to shield her from unpleasantness until she has recovered from these shocks; and as he read Maximilian’s reply he told himself that he was glad he had done so. Maximilian made it quite clear that he was firmly behind his son’s claim to the crown of Castile. He felt that the daughter-in-law of Maximilian had the right to come before the wife of the King of Portugal, even though she happened to be the younger.

This was a monstrous suggestion to make, even for such an arrogant man. Maximilian also suggested that he had a right to the crown of Portugal through his mother, Doña Leoñor of Portugal; and that his claim was greater than that of Emanuel who was merely a nephew of the last King. There were sly hints that the King of France, Ferdinand’s enemy and rival in the Italian project, was ready to stand beside Maximilian in this claim.

Ferdinand’s fury was boundless. Was this what the Habsburg alliance had brought him?

He sat at his table and wrote furiously. Then he called his messengers.

‘Leave at once,’ he said, ‘for Lisbon. Let there be no delay. This is a matter of the utmost importance.’

* * *

Queen Isabella of Portugal had become reconciled to life. She was no longer tormented by nightmares. For this new peace which had come to her she was grateful to her husband. None could have been kinder than Emanuel. It was strange that here in Lisbon, where she had been so happy with her first husband Alonso, she was learning to forget him.

From her apartments in the Castelo she could look down on Lisbon, a city which she found entrancing to watch from this distance. She could see the Ashbouna where the Arabs lived, shut up in those walls which had long ago been erected by the Visigoths; she looked down past olive and fig trees to the Alcaçova which she and Emanuel sometimes inhabited. Along the narrow streets, which had been made hundreds of years before, the people congregated; there they bought and sold; gossiped, sang and danced. Sometimes in the evenings the sound of a slave song would be heard, plaintive and infinitely sad with longing for a distant land.

The industrious Moors in the Mouraria turned clay on their wheels; they sat cross-legged making their pottery. Some sat weaving. They were adept at both arts and they grew rich.

It was a city of a hundred sights and beauties. Yet the Queen of Portugal did not care to mingle with her husband’s people. She wished to remain in the castle looking on at them, as she wished to look on life, aloof, an onlooker rather than a participant.

In due course many of her and her husband’s most industrious subjects would be driven from their country. Isabella could not forget the condition which had brought her into Portugal. The thought came back to torment her: One day they will curse me, those men and women.

But the time was not yet, and something had happened to bring her resignation.

Isabella was pregnant.

She prayed for a son. If she could give Emanuel and Portugal a son she felt she would in some small way have compensated them for the unhappiness their King’s marriage was going to bring to numbers of his subjects.

When she had heard the news of her brother’s death it had not been merely sorrow which had so stricken her that she had been kept to her bed for some days. That fear, which had been haunting her for so long, seemed to take a material shape, to become a tangible thing, something which would whisper in her ear: There is a curse on your House.

She had told Emanuel this and he had shaken his head. She was subject to strange fancies, he told her. Why, even though Juan was dead, Margaret was to have a child, and if that child were a son there would be an heir for Spain as surely as if Juan had lived.