Виктория Холт - Daughters of Spain

Isabella told him that she would.

‘Then, Highness, I would say that the Aragonese have only acted as good and loyal subjects. You must excuse them if they move with caution in an affair which they find difficult to justify by precedent in their history.’

Ferdinand was watching his wife closely. He knew that her love of justice would always overcome every other emotion.

She was silent, considering the statesman’s remarks.

Then she said: ‘I see that you are right. There is nothing to be done but hope – and pray – that my grandchild will be a boy.’

* * *

Isabella, Queen of Portugal, lay on her bed. Her pains had started and she knew that her time had come.

There was a cold sweat on her brow and she was unconscious of all the people who stood about her bed. She was praying: ‘A son. Let it be a son.’

If she produced a healthy son she would begin to forget this legend of a curse which had grown up in her mind. A son could make so much difference to her family and her country.

The little boy would be heir not only to the crown of Spain but to that of Portugal. The countries would be united; the hostile people of Saragossa would be satisfied; and she and Emanuel would be the proudest parents in the world.

Why should it not be so? Could her family go on receiving blow after blow? They had had their share of tragedy. Let this be different.

‘A boy,’ she murmured, ‘a healthy boy to make the sullen people of Saragossa cheer, to unite Spain and Portugal.’ What an important little person this was who was now so impatient to be born!

The pains were coming regularly now. If she did not feel so weak she could have borne them more easily. She lay moaning while the women crowded about her. She drifted from consciousness into unconsciousness and back again.

The pain still persisted; it was more violent now.

She tried not to think of it; she tried to pray, to ask forgiveness of her sins, but her lips continued to form the words: ‘A boy. Let it be a boy.’

* * *

There were voices in the bedchamber.

‘A boy! A bonny boy!’

‘Is it indeed so?’

‘No mistake!’

‘Ah, this is a happy day.’

Isabella, lying on her bed, heard the cry of a child. She lay listening to the voices, too exhausted to move.

Someone was standing by her bed. Someone else knelt and was taking her hand and kissing it. Emanuel was standing, and it was her mother who knelt.

‘Emanuel,’ she whispered. ‘Mother …’

‘My dearest …’ began Emanuel.

But her mother cried out in a voice loud with triumph: ‘It is over, my darling. The best possible news for you. You have given birth to a fine baby boy.’

Isabella smiled. ‘Then everyone is happy.’

Emanuel was bending over her, his eyes anxious. ‘Including you?’ he said.

‘But yes.’

His eyes were faintly teasing: No more talk of curses, they were telling her. You see, all your premonitions were wrong. The ordeal is over and you have a beautiful son. ‘Can you hear the bells ringing?’ her mother asked the young Queen.

‘I … I am not sure.’

‘All over Spain the bells shall ring. Everyone will be rejoicing. They shall all know that their Sovereigns have a grandson, a male heir, at last.’

‘Then I am happy.’

‘We will leave her to rest,’ said the Queen.

Emanuel nodded. ‘She is exhausted – no wonder.’

‘But first …’ whispered Isabella.

‘I understand,’ laughed her mother. She stood up and called to the nurse.

She took the baby from her and placed it in its mother’s arms.

* * *

Ferdinand said: ‘He shall be called Miguel, after the saint on whose day he was born.’

‘God bless our little Miguel,’ answered the Queen. ‘He’s a lively little fellow, but I wish his mother did not look so exhausted.’

Ferdinand bent over the cradle, exulting in the infant; he found it hard to take his hands from the child who meant so much to him.

‘We must have a triumphant pilgrimage as soon as Isabella is well enough to leave her bed,’ went on Ferdinand. ‘The people will want to see their heir. We should do this without delay.’

Isabella agreed as to the desirability of this, but it should not be, she assured herself, until Miguel’s mother had recovered from her ordeal.

One of the women of the bedchamber was coming quickly towards them.

‘Your Highnesses, Her Highness of Portugal …’

‘Yes?’ said Isabella sharply.

‘She seems to find breathing difficult. Her condition is changing …’

Isabella did not wait for more. With Ferdinand following she hurried to her daughter’s bedside.

Emanuel was already there.

The sight of her daughter’s wan face, her blue-encircled eyes, her fight for her breath, made Isabella’s heart turn over with fear.

‘My darling child,’ she cried, and there was a note of anguish in her voice which was a piteous appeal.

‘Mother …’

‘It is I, my darling. Mother is with you.’

‘I feel so strange.’

‘You are tired, my love. You have given birth to a beautiful boy. No wonder you are exhausted.’

‘I … cannot … breathe,’ she gasped.

‘Where are the physicians?’ demanded Ferdinand.

Emanuel shook his head as though to imply they had admitted their ignorance. There was nothing they could do.

Ferdinand walked to a corner of the room, and the doctors followed him.

‘What is wrong with her?’

‘It is a malaise which sometimes follows childbirth.’

‘Then what is to be done?’

‘Highness, it must take its course.’

‘But this is …’

The doctors did not answer. They dared not tell the King that in their opinion the Queen of Portugal was on her deathbed.

Ferdinand stood wretchedly looking at the group round the bed. He was afraid to join them. It can’t happen, he told himself. Isabella, his wife, could never endure this in addition to all she had suffered. This would be too much.

Isabella’s eyes seemed to rest on her mother.

‘Do we disturb you here, my darling?’ asked the elder Isabella.

‘No, Mother. You … never disturb me. I am too tired to talk, but … I want you here. You too, Emanuel.’

‘You are going to stay with us for months … you and Emanuel and little Miguel. We are going to show the baby to the people. They will love their little heir. This is a happy day, my daughter.’

‘Yes … a happy day.’

Emanuel was looking appealingly at his mother-in-law as though imploring her to tell him that his wife would recover.

‘Mother,’ said the sick woman, ‘and Emanuel … come near to me.’

They sat on the bed and each held a hand.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘I am happy. I am … going, I think.’

‘No!’ cried Emanuel.

But the younger Isabella saw the anguish in the eyes of the elder and she knew; they both knew.

Neither spoke, but they looked at each other and the great love they bore for one another was in their eyes.

‘I … I gave you the boy,’ whispered Isabella.

‘And you are going to get well,’ insisted Emanuel.

But the two Isabellas did not answer him, because they knew that a lie could give them no comfort.

‘I am so tired,’ murmured the Queen of Portugal. ‘I … will go now. Goodbye.’

The Queen of Spain signed for the priests to come to her daughter’s bedside. She knew that the moment had come for the last rites.

She listened to their words; she saw her daughter’s attempts to repeat the necessary prayers; and she thought: This is not true. I am dreaming. It cannot be true. Not Juan and Isabella. Not both. That would be too cruel.

But she knew it was true.

Isabella was growing weaker with every moment; and only an hour after she had given them little Miguel, she was dead.

The bells were tolling for the death of the Queen of Portugal. Throughout Spain the people were beginning to ask themselves: ‘What blight is this on our royal House?’

The Queen lay sick with grief in her darkened bedchamber. It was the first time any of her people had known her to succumb to misery.

About the Palace people moved in their garments of sackcloth, which had taken the place of white serge for mourning at the time of Juan’s death. What next? they asked themselves. The little Miguel was not the healthy baby they had hoped he might be. He was fretful; perhaps he was crying for his mother who had died that he might come into the world.

Catalina sat with Maria and Margaret; they were sewing shirts for the poor; and, thought Margaret, it was almost as if they hoped that by this good deed they might avert further disaster, as though they might placate that Providence which seemed determined to chastise them.

The rough material hurt Margaret’s hands. She recalled the gaiety of Flanders and she knew that there would never be any happiness for her in Spain.

She looked at little Catalina, her head bent over her work. Catalina suffered more deeply than Maria would ever suffer. The poor child was now thinking of her mother’s grief; she was longing to be with her and comfort her.

‘It will pass,’ said Margaret. ‘People cannot go on grieving for ever.’

‘Do you believe that?’ asked Catalina.

‘I know it; I have proved it.’

‘You mean you no longer mourn Juan and your baby?’

‘I shall mourn them for the rest of my life, but at first I mourned every waking hour. Now there are times when I forget them for a while. It is inevitable. Life is like that. So it will be with your mother. She will smile again.’