Виктория Холт - Daughters of Spain

He lay in his apartment in that most delicately beautiful of summer palaces. From his window he looked out on the terraced gardens in which the myrtles and cypresses grew; he longed to leave his bed that he might wander through the tiny courtyards and meditate beside the sparkling fountains.

But even the peace of the Generalife did not bring a return to good health; and he thought often of Tomás de Torquemada who had lain thus in the Monastery of Avila and waited for the end.

Torquemada had lived his life; Ximenes had the feeling that he had only just begun. He had not completed his work in Granada, and that he believed to be only a beginning. He admitted now that he had seen himself as the power behind the throne, as head of this great country, with Ferdinand and Isabella in leading strings.

The Queen’s health was failing. He had been aware of that when he had last seen her. If she were to die and Ferdinand were left, he would need a strong guiding hand. The fact that Ferdinand did not like him and would always be resentful of him, did not disturb him. He knew Ferdinand well – an ambitious man, an avaricious man – one who needed the guiding hand of a man of God.

I must not die, Ximenes told himself. My work is not yet completed.

Yet each day he felt weaker.

One day as he lay in his bed, a Moorish servant of the Generalife came to his bedside and stood watching him.

For a moment he thought she had come to do him some injury, and he remembered that day when his brother Bernardín had tried to suffocate him by holding a pillow over his face. He had not seen Bernardín since that day.

These Moors might feel the need for vengeance on one who had disrupted the peace of their lives. He knew many of them had accepted baptism because they preferred it to the exile which was to be imposed on those who did not come into the Christian Faith. They were not such an emotional people as the Jews. He believed many of them had said to each other: ‘Be a Mussulman in private and a Christian in public. Why not, if that is the only way to live in Granada?’

There would be the Inquisition, of course, to deal with those who were guilty of such perfidy. The Inquisitors would have to watch these people with the utmost care. They would have to be taught what would happen to them if they thought to mock baptism and the Christian Faith.

All these thoughts passed through Ximenes’s mind as the woman stood by his bedside.

‘What is it, woman?’ he asked.

‘Oh, lord Archbishop, you are sick unto death. I have seen this fever and the languor often. It has a meaning. With the passing of each day and night the fever burns more hot, the languor grows.’

‘Then,’ said Ximenes, ‘if that is so, it is the will of God and I shall rejoice in it.’

‘Oh, lord Archbishop, a voice has whispered to me to come to you; to tell you that I know of one who could cure your sickness.’

‘One of your people?’

The woman nodded. ‘A woman, oh lord. She is a very old woman. Eighty years she has lived in Granada. Often I have seen her cure those of whom the learned doctors despaired. She has herbs and medicines known only to our people.’

‘Why do you wish to save me? There are many of your people who would rejoice to see me die.’

‘I have served you, oh lord. I know you for a good man, a man who believes that all he does is in the service of God.’

‘You are a Christian?’

A glazed look came into the woman’s eyes. ‘I have received baptism, oh lord.’

Ximenes thought: Ay, and practise Mohammedanism in private doubtless. But he did not voice these thoughts. He was a little excited. He wanted to live. He knew now that he wanted it desperately. A little while before he had prayed for a miracle. Was this God’s answer? God often worked in a mysterious way. Was he going to cure Ximenes through the Moors whom he had worked so hard to bring to God?

The Moors were skilled in medicine. Ximenes himself had preserved their medical books when he had committed the rest of their literature to the flames.

‘Do you propose bringing this wise woman to me?’ asked Ximenes.

‘I do, oh lord. But she could only come at midnight and in secret.’

‘Why so?’

‘Because, my lord, there are some of my people who would wish you dead for all that has happened since you came to Granada, and they would not be pleased with this wise woman who will cure you.’

‘I understand,’ said Ximenes. ‘And what does this woman want for her reward should she cure me?’

‘She cures for the love of the cure, oh lord. You are sick unto death, she says, and the Queen’s own doctors cannot cure you. She would like to show you that we Moors have a medicine which excels yours. That is all.’

Ximenes was silent for a few seconds. It might be that this woman would attempt to avenge her people. It might be that she had some poison to offer him.

He thought again of Bernardín, his own brother, who had hated him so much that he had attempted to murder him.

There were many people in the world who hated a righteous man.

He made a quick decision. His condition was growing daily weaker. He would die in any case unless some miracle were performed. He would trust in God, and if it were God’s will that he should live to govern Spain – by means of the Sovereigns – he would rejoice. If he must die he would accept death with resignation.

He believed that this was an answer to his prayers.

‘I will see your woman,’ he said.

* * *

She came to him at midnight, smuggled into the apartment, an old Moorish woman whose black eyes were scarcely visible through the folds of flesh which encircled them.

She laid her hands on him and felt his fever; she examined his tongue and his eyes and his starved body.

‘I can cure you in eight days,’ she told him. ‘Do you believe me?’

‘Yes,’ answered Ximenes, ‘I do.’

‘Then you will live. But you must tell none that I am treating you, and you must take only the medicines I shall give you. None must know that I come to you. I shall come in stealth at midnight eight times. At the end of that time your fever will have left you. You will begin to be well. You must then abandon your rigorous diet until you are recovered. You must eat rich meat and broths. If you will do this I can cure you.’

‘It shall be done. What reward do you ask if you cure me?’

She came close to the bed and the folds of flesh divided a little so that he saw the black eyes. There was a look in them which matched his own. She believed in the work she did, even as he believed in his. To her he was not the man who had brought misery to Granada; he was a malignant fever which the doctors of his own race could not cure.

‘You seek to save souls,’ she said. ‘I seek to save bodies: If my people knew that I had saved yours they would not understand.’

‘It is a pity that you do not burn with the same zeal to save souls as you do to save bodies.’

‘Then, my lord Archbishop, it might well be that eight days from now you would be dead.’

She gave him a potion to drink and she left more with the woman who had brought her. Then she was stealthily taken away.

When she had gone Ximenes lay still thinking about her. He wondered whether the herbs she had given him had been poisoned, but he did not wonder for long. Had he not seen that look in her eyes?

Why had she, a Moorish woman, risked perhaps her life in coming to him – for he knew he had many enemies in the Albaycin and any friend of his would be their enemy. Did she hope that if she saved his life he would relent towards the people of Granada, would restore the old order in payment for his life? If she thought that, she would be mistaken.

He lay between sleeping and waking, wondering about that woman, and in the morning he knew, before his doctors told him, that his fever had abated a little.

He refused their medicines and lay contemplating this strange situation until midnight, when the old woman came to him again. She had brought oils with her and these she rubbed into his body. She gave him more herbal drinks and she left him, promising to come again the next night.

Before the fourth night he knew that the cure was working. And sure enough, as she had said, on the eighth day after he had first seen her his fever had completely disappeared; and the good news was sent to Isabella that her Archbishop was on the way to recovery.

Ximenes was able to wander through the enchanting little courtyards of the Generalife. The sun warmed his bones and he remembered the wise woman’s instructions that he should take nourishing food.

Often he expected to be confronted by her, demanding some payment for her services. But she did not come.

It was God’s miracle, he told himself eventually. Perhaps she was a heavenly visitor who came in Moorish guise. Should I soften my attitude towards these Infidels because one of them has cured me? What a way of repaying God for His miracle!

Ximenes told himself that this was a test. His life had been saved, but he must show God that his life meant little to him compared with the great work of making an all-Christian Spain.

So when he was well he continued as harsh as ever towards the fellow countrymen of that woman who had saved his life; and as soon as he felt the full return of his vigour he resumed the hair shirt, the starvation diet and the wooden pillow.

At last Philip and Juana were on their way to Spain.

When Ferdinand received a letter from Philip he came raging into Isabella’s apartments.

‘They have begun the journey,’ he said.

‘Then that should be cause for rejoicing,’ she answered him.

‘They are travelling through France.’

‘But they cannot do that.’

‘They can and they are doing it. Has this young coxcomb no notion of the delicate relationship between ourselves and France? At this present time this might give rise to … I know not what.’

‘And Charles?’

‘Charles! They are not bringing him. He is too young.’ Ferdinand laughed sharply. ‘You see what this means? They are not going to have him brought up as a Spaniard. They are going to make a Fleming of him. But to go through France! And the suggestion is that there might be a betrothal of Charles and Louis’s infant daughter, the Princess Claude.’

‘They would not make such a match without our consent.’

Ferdinand clenched his fists in anger. ‘I see trouble ahead. I fear these Habsburg alliances are not what I hoped for.’

Isabella answered: ‘Still, we shall see our daughter. I long for that. I feel sure that when we talk together I shall know that all the anxiety she has caused us has been because she has obeyed her husband.’

‘I shall make it my task to put this young Philip in his place,’ growled Ferdinand.

After that Isabella eagerly awaited news of her daughter’s progress. There were letters and dispatches describing the fêtes and banquets with which the King of France was entertaining them.

At Blois there had been a very special celebration. Here Philip had confirmed the Treaty of Trent between his father, the Emperor Maximilian, and the King of France; one of the clauses of this treaty was to the effect that the King’s eldest daughter, Claude, should be affianced to young Charles.

It was a direct insult to Spain, Ferdinand grumbled. Had Philip forgotten that Charles was the heir of Spain? How dared he make a match for the heir of Spain without even consulting the Spanish Sovereigns!

The journey through France was evidently so enjoyable that Philip and Juana seemed in no hurry to curtail it.

Ferdinand suspected that the sly Louis was detaining them purposely to slight him and Isabella. Trouble was brewing between France and Spain over the partition of Naples, and both monarchs were expecting conflict to break out in the near future. So Louis amused himself by detaining Ferdinand’s daughter and his son-in-law in France, and binding them to him by this Treaty of Trent and the proposed marriage of Charles and Claude.

But by the end of March news came that Philip and Juana with their train were approaching the Spanish border.

Soon I shall see my Juana, Isabella assured herself. Soon she would be able to test for herself how far advanced was this wildness of her daughter.

* * *

As Isabella was preparing to go to Toledo, where she would meet Juana, there was news from England, disquieting news.