Виктория Холт - Daughters of Spain

‘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.’

‘Emanuel, you hate this. You loathe it. It haunts you … even as it does me.’

‘I wanted you so much,’ he said. ‘It was the price that was asked of me and I paid it … because I wanted you so much.’

‘Is there no way out?’ she whispered.

It was a stupid question. As she asked it, she saw the stern face of Torquemada, the serene one of her mother, the shrewd one of her father. They had made this condition. They would insist on its being carried out.

They were silent for a while, then she went on: ‘It is like a blight upon us. Those strange people, with their strange religion, will curse us for what we have done to them. They will curse our House. Emanuel, I am afraid.’

He held her tightly against him and when he spoke his voice sounded muffled: ‘We must do the deed and then forget. It was not our fault. I was weak in my need of you. But we are married now. We will do this thing and then … we will begin again from there.’

‘Is it possible?’

‘It is, my Isabella.’

She allowed herself to be comforted; but when she slept her dreams were haunted by a thousand voices – voices of men, women and children who, because of their faith, would be driven from their homes. These voices cursed her, cursed the united Houses of Spain and Portugal.

* * *

Salamanca was celebrating the arrival of the heir of Spain and his bride. The people had come in from miles around; men, women and children moved like ants across the plain on their way to the town of the University.

The students were en fête; they were of all nationalities for, next to Paris, this was the foremost seat of learning in the world. The town was rich, as many noblemen had bought houses there that they might live near their student sons and watch over them during their years at the University.

Through the streets the students swaggered in their stoles, the colour of which indicated their faculties. Salamanca was often gay, but it had never seen anything to equal this occasion. The bells of the churches rang continually; its streets and courtyards were filled with laughter; the bulls were being brought in – there must always be bulls; and in the Plaza Mayor the excitement was at its height. On the balconies of the houses sat beautiful women, and the students watched them with gleaming eyes. Now and then a brilliant cavalcade would sweep through the streets, and the crowd would cheer because they knew this was part of the Prince’s retinue.

On their way to the balls and banquets, which were given in their honour, the Prince and his bride would pass through the streets, and the people of Salamanca were given an opportunity to show their delight in the heir to the throne.

In Salamanca there was nothing but gaiety and loyalty to the royal pair.

Margaret looked on with serene eyes.

It was pleasant to know that the people loved her and her husband. She suspected that they loved the excitement of ceremony even more, but she did not tell Juan this. She was perhaps a little more cynical than he was.