‘I was so happy … happy. Mother, can you understand? I was so frightened at first, and when I found that … we loved … it was all so wonderful. We planned to live like that for the rest of our lives …’

The Queen did not speak; she went on stroking her daughter’s hair.

‘It was cruel … so cruel. He was so young. And when we went out into the forest that day it was like any other day. He was with me but ten minutes before it happened … laughing … with me. And then there he was …’

‘It was God’s will,’ said the Queen gently.

‘God’s will? To break a young body like that! Wantonly to take one so young, so full of life and love!’

The Queen’s face set into stern lines. ‘Your grief has unnerved you, my child. You forget your duty to God. If it is His wish to make us suffer we must accept suffering gladly.’

‘Gladly! I will never accept it gladly.’

The Queen hastily crossed herself, while her lips moved in prayer. Isabella thought: She is praying that I may be forgiven my wicked outburst. However much she suffered she would never give way to her feelings as I have done.

She was immediately contrite. ‘Oh, Mother, forgive me. I know not what I say. It is like that sometimes. The memories come back and then I fear …’

‘You must pray, my darling, for greater control. It is not God’s wish that you should shut yourself away from the world as you do.’

‘It is not my father’s wish, you mean?’ demanded Isabella.

‘Neither the wish of your heavenly nor your earthly father,’ murmured the Queen soothingly.

‘I would to God I could go into a convent. My life finished when his did.’

‘You are questioning the will of God. Had He wished you to end your life He would have taken you with your husband. This is your cross, my darling; think of Him and carry it as willingly as He carried His.’

‘He had only to die. I have to live.’

‘My dearest, have a care. I will double my prayers for you this night and every night. I fear your sufferings have affected your mind. But in time you will forget.’

‘It is four years since it happened, Mother. I have not forgotten yet.’

‘Four years! It seems long to you because you are young. To me it is like yesterday.’

‘To me it will always be as though his death happened yesterday.’

‘You must fight against such morbid thoughts, my darling. It is a sin to nurse a grief. I sent for you because I have news for you. Your father-in-law has died and there is a new King of Portugal.’

‘Alonso would have been King had he lived … and I his Queen.’

‘But he did not live, yet you could still be Queen of Portugal.’

‘Emanuel …’

‘My dear daughter, he renews his offer to you. Now that he has come to the throne he does not forget you. He is determined to have no wife but you.’

Emanuel! She remembered him well. Kindly, intelligent, he was more given to study than his gay young cousin Alonso had been; but she had known that he envied Alonso his bride. And now he was asking for her hand once more.

‘I would rather go into a nunnery.’

‘We might all feel tempted to do that which seems easier to us than our duty.’

‘Mother, you are not commanding me to marry Emanuel?’

‘You married once, by the command of your father and myself. I would not command you again; but I would have you consider your duty to your family … to Spain.’

Isabella clenched her hands tightly together. ‘Do you realise what you are asking of me? To go to Lisbon as I did for Alonso … and then to find Emanuel waiting for me and Alonso … dead.’

‘My child, pray for courage.’

‘I pray each day, Mother,’ she answered slowly. ‘But I cannot go back to Portugal. I can never be anything but Alonso’s widow as long as I live.’

The Queen sighed as she drew her daughter down to sit beside her; she put an arm about her and as she rested her face against her hair she was thinking: In time she will be persuaded to go to Portugal and marry Emanuel. We must all do our duty; and though we rebel for a while it avails us little.


* * *

Ferdinand looked up as the Queen entered. He smiled at her and his expression was slightly sardonic. It amused him that the Franciscan monk who, in his opinion so foolishly, had been offered the Archbishopric of Toledo, should merely have fled at the sight of his title in the Pope’s handwriting. This should teach Isabella to think before bestowing great titles on the unworthy. The fellow was uncouth. A pleasant prospect! The Primate of Spain a monk who was more at home in a hermit’s hut than a royal Palace. Whereas his dear Alfonso – so handsome, so dashing – what a Primate he would have made! And if he were unsure at any time, his father would have been at hand to help him.

Ferdinand could never look at his son Alfonso without remembering voluptuous nights spent with his mother. What a woman! And her son was worthy of her.

Fond as he was of young Juan he almost wished that Alfonso was his legitimate son. There was an air of delicacy about Juan, whereas Alfonso was all virility. Ferdinand could be sure that this bastard of his knew how to make the most of his youth, even as his father had done.

It was maddening to think that he could not give him Toledo. What a gift that would have been from father to son.

Still, he did not despair. Isabella might admit her folly now that the monk had run away.

‘I have spoken to Isabella,’ said the Queen.

‘I hope she realises her great good fortune.’

‘She does not call it such, Ferdinand.’

‘What! Here’s Emanuel ready to do a great deal for her.’

‘Poor child; can you expect her to enjoy returning to the place where she has once been so happy?’

‘She’ll be happy there again.’

Isabella studied her husband quizzically. Ferdinand would be happy were he in his daughter’s place. Such a marriage would mean to him a kingdom. He could not see that it made much difference that the bridegroom would be Emanuel instead of Alonso.

The Queen stifled the sorrow which such a thought roused. It was not for her to feel regrets; she was entirely satisfied with her fate.

‘You made our wishes known to her, I hope?’ went on Ferdinand.

‘I could not command her, Ferdinand. The wound has not yet healed.’

Ferdinand sat down at the polished wood table and beat his fist on it. ‘I understand not such talk,’ he said. ‘The alliance with Portugal is necessary for Spain. Emanuel wants it. It can bring us great good.’

‘Give her a little time,’ murmured Isabella; but in such a way that Ferdinand knew that, whatever he wished, their daughter would be given a little time.

He sighed. ‘We are fortunate in our children, Isabella,’ he said. ‘Through them we shall accomplish greatness for Spain. I would we had many more. Ah, if we could have been together more during those early years of our marriage …’

‘Doubtless you would have had more legitimate sons and daughters,’ agreed Isabella.

Ferdinand smiled slyly, but this was not the moment to bring up the matter of Alfonso and the Archbishopric of Toledo.

Instead he said: ‘Maximilian is interested in my proposals.’

Isabella nodded sadly. At such times she forgot she was ruler of a great and expanding country; she could only think of herself as a mother.

‘They are young yet …’ she began.

‘Young! Juan and Juana are ready for marriage. As for our eldest, she has had time enough in which to play the widow.’

‘Tell me what you have heard from Maximilian.’

‘Maximilian is willing for Philip to have Juana and for Juan to have Margaret.’

‘They would be two of the grandest marriages we could arrange for our children,’ mused Isabella. ‘But I feel that Juana is as yet too young … too unsteady.’

‘She will soon be too old, my dear; and she will never be anything but unsteady. No, the time is now. I propose to go ahead with my plans. We will tell them what we propose. There is no need to look gloomy. I’ll warrant Juana will be excited at the prospect. As for your angel son, he’ll not have to leave his mother’s side. The Archduchess Margaret will come to Juan. So it is only your poor unsteady Juana who will have to go away.’

‘I wish we could persuade Philip to come here … to live here.’

‘What, Maximilian’s heir! Oh, these are great matches, these marriages of our son and daughter to Maximilian’s. Have you realised that Philip’s and Juana’s offspring will hold the harbours of Flanders, and in addition will own Burgundy and Luxembourg, to say nothing of Artois and Franche Comté? I would like to see the face of the King of France when he hears of this match. And when Isabella marries Emanuel we shall be able to relax our defences on the Portuguese frontier. Oh yes, I should like to see the French King’s face.’

‘What do you know of Maximilian’s children … Philip and Margaret?’

‘Nothing but good. Nothing but good.’ Ferdinand was rubbing his hands together and his eyes gleamed.

Isabella nodded slowly. Ferdinand was right, of course. Both Juan and Juana were due for marriage. She was allowing the mother to subdue the Queen when she made wild plans to keep her children with her for ever.

Ferdinand had begun to laugh. ‘Philip will inherit the Imperial crown. The house of Habsburg will be bound to us. France’s Italian projects will have little success when the German dominions stand with us against them.’

He is always a statesman first, thought Isabella, a father second. To him Philip and Margaret are not two human beings – they are the House of Habsburg and the German Dominions. But she had to admit that his plan was brilliant. Their empire overseas was growing, thanks to their brilliant explorers and adventurers. But Ferdinand’s dream had always been of conquests nearer home. He planned to be master of Europe; and why should he not be? Perhaps he would be master of the world.

He was the most ambitious man she had ever known. She had watched his love of power grow with the years. Now she asked herself uneasily whether this had happened because she had found it necessary so often to remind him that she was the Queen of Castile, and in Castile her word should be law. Had his amour propre been wounded to such a degree that he had determined to be master of all the world outside Castile?

She said: ‘If these marriages were made it would seem that all Europe would be your friend with the exception of that little island – that pugnacious, interfering little island.’

Ferdinand kept his eyes on her face as he murmured: ‘You refer to England, do you not, my Queen. I agree with you. That little island can be one of the greatest trouble spots. But I have not forgotten England. Henry Tudor has two sons, Arthur and Henry. It is my desire to marry Arthur, Prince of Wales, to our own little Catalina. Then, my dear, the whole of Europe will be bound to me. And what will the King of France do then? Tell me that.’

‘Catalina! She is but a child.’

‘Arthur is young also. This will be an ideal match.’

Isabella covered her face with her hands.

‘What is the matter with you?’ demanded her husband. ‘Will you not congratulate your children on having a father who makes such good matches for them?’

Isabella could not speak for a moment. She was thinking of Juana – wild Juana whose spirits no amount of discipline had been able to subdue – of Juana’s being torn from her and sent to the flat, desolate land of Flanders, there to be wife of a man whom she had never seen but who was so suitable because he was the heir of the Habsburgs. But chiefly she thought of Catalina … tender little Catalina … taken from her family to be the bride of a foreign Prince, to live her life in a bleak island where, if reports were true, the sun rarely shone, and the land was frequently shrouded in mists.

It had to come, she told, herself. I always knew it. But that does not make it any easier to bear now that it is upon me.


* * *

The Queen had finished her confession and Ximenes enumerated her penances. She was guilty of allowing her personal feelings to interfere with her duty. It was a weakness of which she had been guilty before. The Queen must forget she is a mother.

Isabella meekly accepted the reproaches of her confessor. He would never stray from the path of duty, she was sure. She looked at his emaciated face, his stern straight lips which she had never seen curved in a smile.