‘Isabella, you must be calm, my dearest.’

‘I am calm, Emanuel. But I distress you. I do not want my passing to be the shock to you that my brother’s death was to my mother. Emanuel, my dear husband, it is always better to be prepared. Shall I tell you what is in my mind, or shall I pretend that I am a woman who looks into the future and sees her child playing beside her? Shall I lie to you, Emanuel?’

He kissed her hands. ‘There must be truth between us.’

‘That is what I thought. So I would tell you. Emanuel, my House has brought greatness to Spain, great prosperity and great sorrow. Is it never possible to have one without the other? On our journey to Toledo we passed through a town where, in the Plaza Mayor, I saw the ashes and I smelt the fires which had recently burned there. It was human flesh which burned, Emanuel.’

‘Those who died were condemned by the Holy Office.’

‘I know. They were heretics. They had denied their faith. But they have hearts in which to harbour hatred, lips with which to curse. They would curse our House, Emanuel, even as those who were driven from Spain would curse us. And their curses have not gone unheeded.’

‘Should we suffer for pleasing God and all the saints?’

‘I do not understand, Emanuel; and I am too tired to try to. We are told that this is a Christian country. It is our great desire to bring our people to the Christian faith. We do it by persuasion. We do it by force. It is God’s work. But what of the devil?’

‘These are strange thoughts, Isabella.’

‘They come unbidden. See what has happened to us. My parents had five children – four daughters and one son. Their son and heir died suddenly, and his heir was stillborn. My sister Juana is strange, so wild that I have heard it whispered that she is half-way to madness. Already she has caused trouble to our parents by allowing herself to be proclaimed Princess of Castile. You see, Emanuel, it is like a pattern, an evil pattern built up by curses.’

‘You are distraught, Isabella.’

‘No. I think I see clearly … more clearly than the rest of you. I am to have a child. Childbearing can be dangerous. I am the daughter of a cursed House. I wonder what will happen next.’

‘This is a morbid fancy due to your condition.’

‘Is it, Emanuel? Oh, tell me it is. Tell me that I can be happy. Juan caught a fever, did he not? It might have happened to anybody. And the child was stillborn because of Margaret’s grief. Juana is not mad, is she? She is merely high-spirited, and she has fallen completely under the spell of that handsome rogue who is her husband. Is that not natural? And I … I was never very strong, so I have morbid fancies … It is merely because of my condition.’

‘That is so, Isabella. Of course that is so. Now there will be no more morbidity. Now you will rest.’

‘I will sleep if you will sit beside me and hold my hand, Emanuel. Then I shall feel at peace.’

‘I shall remain with you, but you must rest. You have forgotten that we have to start on our travels tomorrow.’

‘Now we must go to Saragossa. The Cortes there must proclaim me the Heiress as the Cortes here at Toledo have done.’

‘That is right. Now rest.’

She closed her eyes, and Emanuel stroked back the hair from her hot forehead.

He was worried. He did not like this talk of premonitions. He had an idea that the ceremony in Saragossa would not be such a pleasant one as that of Toledo. Castile was ready to accept a woman as heir to the crown. But Saragossa, the capital of Aragon, did not recognise the right of women to rule.

He did not mention this. Let her rest. They would overcome their troubles the better by taking them singly.


* * *

Into Saragossa came Isabella, Princess of Castile, with Emanuel her husband.

The people watched them with calm calculating gaze. This was the eldest daughter and heiress of their own Ferdinand, but she was a woman, and the Aragonese did not recognise the right of women to reign in Aragon. Let the Castilians make their own laws; they would never be accepted as the laws of Aragon. The Aragonese were a determined people; they were ready to fight for what they considered to be their rights.

So as Isabella rode into their city they were silent.

How different, thought Isabella, from the welcome they had received in Toledo. She did not like this city of bell turrets and sullen people. She had felt the vague resentment as soon as she passed into Aragon; she had been nervous as she rode along the banks of the Ebro past those caves which seemed to have been formed in this part of the country among the sierras as well as along the banks of the river. The yellow water of the Ebro was turbulent; and the very houses seemed too much like fortresses, reminding her that here was a people who would be determined to demand and fight for its dues.

On her arrival in this faintly hostile city she went to pray to the statue of the Virgin which, it was said, had been carved by the angels fourteen hundred years before. Precious jewels glittered in her cloak and crown which seemed to smother her; and it occurred to Isabella that she must have looked very different when, as the legend had it, she appeared to St James all those years ago.

From the Virgin she went to the Cathedral close by, and there she prayed anew for strength to bear whatever lay before her.

The people watched her and whispered together.

‘The crown of Aragon was promised to the male heirs of Ferdinand.’

‘And this is but a woman.’

‘She is our Ferdinand’s daughter nevertheless, and he has no legitimate sons.’

‘But the crown should go to the next male heir.’

‘Castile and Aragon are as one now that Ferdinand and Isabella rule them.’

There was going to be resistance in Aragon to the female succession. Isabella of Castile had remained Queen in her own right, but it was well known that she had greater power than Ferdinand. In the eyes of the Aragonese, it was their Ferdinand who should have ruled Spain with Isabella merely as his consort.

‘Nay,’ they said, ‘we’ll not have women on the throne of Spain. Aragon will support the male heir.’

‘But wait a moment … the Princess is pregnant, is she not? If she were to have a son …’

‘Ah, that would be a different matter. That would offend none. The Aragonese crown goes to the male descendants of Ferdinand, and his grandson would be the rightful heir.’

‘Then, we must wait until the birth. That’s the simple answer.’

It was the simple answer, and the Cortes confirmed it. They would not give their allegiance to Isabella of Portugal because she was a woman; but if she bore a son, then they would accept that son as the heir to the crown of Aragon and all Spain.

It was a wearying occasion for Isabella.

She had been alarmed by the hostile looks of the members of the Cortes. She had disliked their arrogant manner of implying that unless she produced a son they would have none of her.

She lay on her bed while her women soothed her; and when Emanuel came to her they hurried away and left them together.

‘I feel a great responsibility rests upon me,’ she said. ‘I almost wish I were a humble woman waiting the birth of her child.’


* * *

The Queen faced Ferdinand in anger.

‘How dare they!’ she demanded. ‘In every town of Castile our daughter has been received with honours. But in Saragossa, the capital of Aragon, she is submitted to insult.’

Ferdinand could scarcely suppress a wry smile. There had been so many occasions when he had been forced to take second place, when he had been reminded that Aragon was of secondary importance to Castile and that the Queen of Castile was therefore senior to the King of Aragon.

‘They but state their rights,’ he answered.

‘Their rights – to reject our daughter!’

‘We know well that Aragon accepts only the male line as heirs to the crown.’

A faint smile played about his lips. He was reminding her that in Aragon the King was looked upon as the ruler and the Queen as his consort.

Isabella was not concerned with his private feelings. She thought only of the humiliation to her daughter.

‘I picture them,’ she said, ‘quizzing her as though she were some fishwife. How far advanced in pregnancy is she? She will give birth in August. Then we will wait until August and, if she gives birth to a male child, we will accept that child as heir to the throne. I tell you, our daughter Isabella, being our eldest, is our heir.’

‘They will not accept her, because they will not accept a woman.’

‘They have accepted me.’

‘As my wife,’ Ferdinand reminded her.

‘Rather than endure this insolence of the Saragossa Cortes I would subdue them by sending an armed force to deal with them. I would force them to accept our Isabella as the heir of Spain.’

‘You cannot mean that.’

‘But I do,’ insisted Isabella.

Ferdinand left her and returned shortly with a statesman whose integrity he knew Isabella trusted. This was Antonio de Fonesca, a brother of the Bishop who bore the same name; this man Ferdinand had once sent as envoy to Charles VII of France, and the bold conduct of Fonesca had so impressed both the Sovereigns that they often consulted him with confidence and respect.

‘The Queen’s Highness is incensed by the behaviour of the Cortes at Saragossa,’ said Ferdinand. ‘She is thinking of sending soldiers to subdue them over this matter of accepting our daughter as heir to the throne.’

‘Would Your Highness care to hear my opinion?’ asked Fonesca of the Queen.