Виктория Холт - Daughters of Spain

When she was alone she lifted the child from his bed and sat holding him in her arms while the tears slowly ran down her cheeks.

* * *

There was little time to grieve. There was the invasion of Naples to be planned; there was the affair of Christobal Colon to demand Isabella’s attention.

Her feelings towards the adventurer were now mixed. He had incurred her wrath by using the Indians as slaves, a practice which she deplored. She did not follow the reasoning of most Catholics that, as these savages were doomed to perdition in any case, it mattered little what happened to their bodies on Earth. Isabella’s great desire for colonization had been not so much to add to the wealth of Spain as to bring those souls to Christianity which had never been in a position to receive it before. Colon needed workmen for his new colony and he was not over-scrupulous as to how he obtained them. But Isabella at home in Spain asked: ‘By what authority does Christobal Colon venture to dispose of my subjects?’ She ordered that all those men and women who had been taken into slavery should immediately be returned to their own country.

This was the first time she had felt angered by the behaviour of Christobal Colon.

As for Ferdinand he had always regarded the adventurer with some irritation. Since the discovery of the pearl fisheries of Paria he had thought with growing irritation of the agreement he had made – that Colon should have a share of the treasures he discovered. Ferdinand itched to divert more and more of that treasure into his coffers.

There were complaints from the colony, and Isabella had at last been persuaded to send out a kinsman of her friend Beatriz de Bobadilla, a certain Don Francisco de Bobadilla, to discover what was really happening.

Bobadilla had been given great powers. He was to take possession of all fortresses, vessels and property, and to have the right to send back to Spain any man who he thought was not working for the good of the community, that such person should then be made to answer to the Sovereigns for his conduct.

Isabella had at first been pleased to give Bobadilla this important post because he was a distant kinsman of her beloved friend; now she deeply regretted her action, as the only resemblance that Don Francisco bore to his kinswoman Beatriz was in his name.

It was while they were at Granada, mourning the death of little Miguel, that Ferdinand brought Isabella the news that Colon had arrived in Spain.

‘Colon!’ cried Isabella.

‘Sent home for trial by Bobadilla,’ Ferdinand explained.

‘But this is incredible,’ declared Isabella. ‘When we gave Bobadilla such powers we did not think he would use them against the Admiral!’

Ferdinand shrugged his shoulders. ‘It was for Bobadilla to use his power where he thought it would do the most good.’

‘But to send Colon home!’

‘Why not, if he thinks he is incompetent?’

Isabella forgot the disagreement she had had with the Admiral over the sale of slaves. She was immediately ready to spring to his defence because she remembered that day in 1493 when he had come home triumphant, the discoverer of the new land, when he had laid the riches of the New World at the feet of the Sovereigns.

And now to be sent home by Francisco de Bobadilla! It was too humiliating.

‘Ferdinand,’ she cried, ‘do you realise that this man is the greatest explorer the world has known? You think it is right that he should be sent home in disgrace?’

Ferdinand interrupted. ‘In more than disgrace. He has come in fetters. He is now being kept in fetters at Cadiz.’

‘This is intolerable,’ cried Isabella. She did not wait to discuss the matter further with Ferdinand. She immediately wrote an order. Christobal Colon was to be released at once from his fetters and was to come with all speed to Granada.

‘I am sending a thousand ducats to cover his expenses,’ she told Ferdinand; ‘and he shall come in the style befitting a great man who has been wronged.’

* * *

So, the people cheering as he came, Christobal Colon rode into Granada. He was thin, even gaunt, and they remembered that this great man had come across the ocean in fetters.

When she heard that he was in Granada, Isabella immediately sent for him and, when he arrived before her and Ferdinand, she would not let him kneel. She embraced him warmly, and Ferdinand did the same.

‘My dear friend,’ cried the Queen, ‘how can I tell you of my distress that you have been so treated?’

Colon held his head high, and said: ‘I have crossed the ocean in fetters as a criminal. I understand I am to answer charges which have been brought against me, the charges of having discovered a New World and given it to Your Highnesses.’

‘This is unforgivable,’ the Queen declared.

But Ferdinand was thinking: You did not give it entirely to your Sovereigns, Christobal Colon. You kept something for yourself.

He was calculating how much richer he would be if Christobal Colon did not have his share of the riches of the New World.

‘I have suffered great humiliation,’ Colon told them; and Isabella knew that to him humiliation would be the sharpest pain. He was a proud man, a man who for many years of his life had worked to make a dream come true. He had been a man with a vision of a New World and, by his skill in navigation and his extreme patience and refusal to be diverted from his project, he had made that New World a reality.

‘Your wrongs shall be put right,’ Isabella promised. ‘Bobadilla shall be brought home. He shall be made to answer for his treatment of you. We must ask you to try to forget all that you have suffered. You need have no fear; your honours will be restored to you.’

When the proud Colon fell on his knees before the Queen and began to sob like a child, Isabella was shaken out of her serenity.

What he has suffered! she thought. And I, who have suffered in my own way, can understand his feelings.

She laid a hand on his shoulder.

‘Weep, my dear friend,’ she said, ‘weep, for there is great healing in tears.’

So there, at the feet of the Queen, Christobal Colon continued to weep and Isabella thought of her own sorrows as she remembered suddenly the handsome boys she had seen with Colon … his son Ferdinand by Beatriz de Arana, and his son Diego by his first marriage. He had two sons, yet he had suffered deeply. His great love was the New World which he had discovered.

She wanted to say to him: I have no sons. Take comfort, my friend, that you have two.

But how could she, the Queen, talk of her sorrows with this adventurer?

She could only lay her hand on his heaving shoulders and seek to offer some comfort.

Ferdinand also was ready to comfort this man. He was thinking that the people would not be pleased to know that the hero of the New World had been sent home like a common criminal in fetters. He was also wondering how he could avoid allowing Christobal Colon such a large share of the riches of the New World and direct them into his own coffers.

* * *

It was a brilliant May day in that year 1501 when Catalina said goodbye to the Alhambra.

She would carry the memory of that most beautiful of buildings in her mind for ever. She told herself that in the misty, sunless land to which she was going she would, when she closed her eyes, see it often standing high on the red rock with the sparkling Darro below. She would remember always the sweet-smelling flowers, the views from the Hall of the Ambassadors, the twelve stone lions supporting the basin of the fountain in the Courtyard of the Lions. And there would be a pain in her heart whenever she thought of this beautiful Palace which had been her home.

There was no longer hope of delay. The day had come. She was to begin the journey to Corunna and there embark for England.

She would embrace her mother for the last time, for although the Queen talked continually of their reunion Catalina felt that there was something final about this parting.

The Queen was pale; she looked as though she had slept little.

Is life to be all such bitter partings for those of us who wear the badge of royalty? Isabella asked herself.

One last look back at the red towers, the rosy walls.

‘Farewell, my beloved home,’ whispered Catalina. ‘Farewell for ever.’ Then she turned her face resolutely away, and the journey had begun … to Corunna … to England.

Miguel was dead and Catalina had gone to England. The Queen roused herself from her sorrow. There was a duty to perform and it was a duty which should be a pleasure.

‘Now that Miguel is dead,’ she said to Ferdinand, ‘we should lose no time in calling Juana and Philip to Spain. Juana is now our heir. She must come here to be accepted as such.’

‘I have already sent to her telling her she must come,’ Ferdinand answered. ‘I had thought to hear news by now that they would have set out on their journey.’

‘Philip is ambitious. He will come soon.’

‘He is also pleasure-loving.’

Isabella was clearly anxious, and Ferdinand, mindful of her sufferings over her recent losses, remembered to be tender towards her.

My poor Isabella, he thought, she is growing frail. She would seem to be more than a year older than myself. She has brooded too much on the deaths in our family; they have aged her.

He said gently: ‘I’ll swear you are longing to see your grandson.’