Виктория Холт - Spain for the Sovereigns

There was so little she knew, so much she had to learn; she felt that she was being buffeted into a world of new sensations, new emotions, and she was unsure whether she would be able to deal with them.

‘It is time, Infanta,’ she was told.

And she left her apartments to be joined by the seventy ladies, all brilliantly clad, and the hundred pages in similar magnificent attire, who were waiting to conduct her to the ceremony.

She placed her hand in that of Don Fernando de Silveira and the solemn words were spoken.

The ceremony was over; she was the wife of the heir of Portugal, the wife of a man whom she had never seen.

Out in the streets they were shouting her name. She smiled and acknowledged their applause in the manner in which she had been taught.

On to the banquets, on to the balls and fetes and tourneys – all given in honour of a frightened girl whose single prayer was that something would happen which would prevent her leaving the heart of the family she loved.

* * *

There was respite. All through the summer the festivities continued, and it was not until autumn that she rode out of Castile.

The people lined the roads to see her pass and cheer her.

It was said that Portugal had prepared to welcome her in a royal manner. They were delighted to receive her. She brought with her a larger dowry than that usually accorded to the Infantas of Castile, and it was said that she had such magnificent gowns which alone had cost twenty thousand golden florins.

And so, on she rode over the border, away from her old country into the new.

* * *

She was bewildered by the pomp which awaited her.

She saw one man standing by the throne of the King who smiled at her encouragingly. He was young and handsome, and his eyes lingered on her.

She thought: There is my husband. There is Alonso. And she averted her eyes because she was afraid that, out of her inexperience, she might betray her emotion.

She approached King John, and knelt before him, but he raised her up and embraced her. ‘Welcome, my daughter,’ he said. ‘We have long awaited your coming. I rejoice that you are safely with us.’

‘I thank Your Highness,’ she answered.

‘There is one who waits most impatiently to greet you! My son, who is also your husband.’

And there he was, Alonso – not the man she had at first noticed – young and handsome; and because she sensed that he also was a little nervous, she felt happier.

He embraced her before the Court and the people cried: ‘Long live the Prince and the Princess of Portugal!’

* * *

And so she came to happiness. Her mother had been right. If one grasped one’s duty firmly, one was rewarded. She knew she was particularly fortunate, because she had been given a young and handsome husband, a kindly gentle husband, who admitted that marriage alarmed him even as it alarmed her.

Now they could comfort each other, they could laugh at their fears. And out of the intensity of their relief in having found each other, was born a great affection.

Isabella wrote home of her happiness.

Her mother wrote of her intense joy to receive such glad news from her daughter.

All was well. The important link had been forged between two old enemies, and at no cost to the happiness of the Queen’s beloved daughter.

Now that she was away from her mother’s supervision, the character of the Princess began to change. She discovered a love of dancing, a love of laughter. This was shared by Alonso.

One day Isabella woke up to the realisation that she had begun to live in a way which she had not thought possible. She had realised that life could be a gay affair, that one need not think all the time of the saving of one’s soul.

‘We are young,’ said Alonso, ‘we have our lives before us. There is plenty of time, twenty years hence, for us to think of the life to come.’

And she laughed with him at what, such a short time ago, would have shocked her deeply.

She grew less pale; her cough worried her less, for she was spending a great deal of time out of doors. Alonso loved to hunt, and he was unhappy unless she accompanied him.

She understood that these months, since she had been the wife of Alonso, were the happiest she had ever known. It was a startling and wonderful discovery.

Her beauty was intensified. Many people watched her unfold. She was like a bud that opened to become a beautiful flower, slightly less fragile than had been expected.

‘You are beautiful,’ she was often told; and she had learned to accept such compliments with grace.

‘No one at Court is more beautiful than you,’ she was assured by Emmanuel, Alonso’s cousin, the young man whom she had noticed when she had first come to the Court.

‘When I arrived,’ she told him, ‘I thought you were Alonso.’

Emmanuel’s face glowed with sudden passion. ‘How I wish that had been so,’ he said.

* * *

Afterwards she said to herself that it was folly to expect such happiness to last.

A day arrived which began as other days began.

She awoke in the morning to find Alonso beside her . . . handsome Alonso who woke so suddenly and in such high spirits, who embraced her and made love to her and then said: ‘Come, I want to hunt while the morning is young. We will leave as soon as we are ready. Come, Isabella, it is a beautiful morning.’

So they summoned their huntsmen, mounted their horses and rode away into the forest.

Indeed it was a beautiful morning; the sun shone on them and they exchanged smiles and jokes as they rode along.

They were separated for a while in the hunt, so she did not see it happen.

She had been aware of a sudden stillness in the woods – a brief stillness, yet it seemed to her to last a long time, for it brought to her, like the scent of an animal on the wind, the consciousness of evil.

The silence was broken by shouting voices, by cries of alarm.

When she arrived on the scene of the accident the huntsmen had improvised a stretcher, and on it lay her beautiful, her beloved Alonso.

* * *

He was dead when they reached the Palace. She could not believe it. It was too sudden, too tragic. She had entered her new life, had learned to understand it and to find it contained more happiness than she had believed possible, only to lose it.

The Palace was plunged into mourning. The King’s only son, the heir to the throne, was dead. But none mourned more sincerely, none was more broken-hearted than Alonso’s young widow.

Now the young Emmanuel was treated with greater respect than had ever before come his way, for who would have believed that one so healthy and vital as Alonso would not live to take the crown.

But he had died in the space of a few hours, and now the more intellectual Emmanuel was heir to the throne.

Isabella was unaware of what was going on in the Palace. Everything else was obscured by this one overwhelming fact: she had lost Alonso.

The King sent for her, for her grief alarmed him. He had been warned that if she continued to shut herself away and mourn, she herself would soon join her husband.

What would Isabella and Ferdinand have to say to that? The Princess was a precious commodity. It was important that she be kept alive.

‘My dear,’ he said to her, ‘you must not shut yourself away. This terrible thing has happened, and you cannot change it by continually grieving.’

‘He was my husband, and I loved him,’ said Isabella.

‘I know. We loved him also. He was our son and our heir. We knew him longer than you did, so you see our grief is not small either. Come, I must command you to take more care of your health. Promise me you will do this.’

‘I promise,’ said Isabella.

She walked in the Palace gardens and asked that she might be alone. She looked with blank eyes at terraces and statues. There she had walked with Alonso. There they had sat and planned how they would spend the days.

There was nothing but memories.

Emmanuel joined her and walked beside her.

‘I would rather be alone,’ she said.

‘Forgive me. Allow me to talk with you for a minute or two. Oh, Isabella, how it grieves me to see you so unhappy.’

‘Sometimes I blame myself,’ she said. ‘I was too happy. I thought only of my happiness; and perhaps we are not meant to be happy.’

‘You suffered ill fortune, Isabella. We are meant to be happy. When, you have recovered from this shock, I would implore you to give me a chance to make you happy.’

‘I do not understand you.’

‘I am heir to my uncle’s throne. Therefore your parents would consider me as worthy a match as Alonso.’

She stood very still in horror.

‘I could never think of marrying anyone else,’ she said. ‘Alonso is the only husband I shall ever want.’

‘You say that because you are young and your grief is so close.’

‘I say it because I know it to be true.’

‘Do not dismiss me so lightly, Isabella. Think of what I have said.’

* * *

She was always conscious of him. He was so often at her side.

No, no, she cried with all her heart. This cannot be.

And she fretted and continued to mourn, so that the King of Portugal’s alarm increased.

He wrote to the Sovereigns of Castile, to tell them how their daughter’s grief alarmed him.

‘Send our daughter home to us,’ said Isabella. ‘I myself will nurse her back to health.’

So a few months after she had left her country Isabella returned to Castile.

And when she felt herself enfolded in her mother’s embrace she cried out that she was happy to come home. She had lost her beloved husband, but her beloved mother was left to her – and only through the Queen and a life devoted to piety could she want to live.

The time had come for the onslaught on the capital of the Moorish kingdom, and Ferdinand’s army was now ready to begin the attack.

He and Isabella were waiting to receive Boabdil. They had sent a messenger to him, reminding him of the terms he had agreed to in exchange for his release, and they now commanded him to leave Granada and present himself before them, that the terms of surrender might be discussed.

Ferdinand hoped that the people of Granada would remember the terrible fate which had overtaken Malaga, and that they would not be so foolish as to behave in such a way that Ferdinand would have no resort but to treat them similarly.

‘He should be here ere this,’ Ferdinand was saying. ‘He should know better than to keep us waiting.’

Isabella was silent. She was praying that the surrender of the last Moorish stronghold might be accomplished without the loss of much Christian blood.

But the time passed and Boabdil did not come.

Isabella looked at Ferdinand, and she knew that he was already making plans for the siege of Granada.

* * *

The messenger stood before the Sovereigns.

He handed the dispatch to Ferdinand, who, with Isabella, read what Boabdil had written.

‘It is impossible for me to obey your summons. I am no longer able to control my own desires. It is my wish to keep my promises, but the city of Granada refuses to allow me to depart. It is full now, not only with its own population, but those who have come from all over the kingdom to defend it. Therefore I regret that I cannot keep my promise to you.’

Ferdinand clenched his fists and the veins stood out at his temples.

‘So,’ he said, ‘they will not surrender.’

‘It is hardly to be expected that they would,’ Isabella replied mildly. ‘When we have taken Granada, consider, Ferdinand, we shall have completed the reconquest. Could we expect it to fall into our hands like a ripe fruit? Nay, we must fight for this last, this greatest prize.’

‘He has spoken,’ said Ferdinand. ‘He has chosen his own fate and that of his people. We shall no longer hesitate. Now it shall be . . . to Granada !’

The Sovereigns called together the Council and, while it was sitting, news was brought that fresh revolts had broken out in many of the cities which had been captured from the Moors. There had been Moorish forays into Christian territory, and Christians had been slaughtered or carried away to be prisoners or slaves.