Philip, looking at his sister, saw that she was weeping softly. Had she loved her husband so much? Was she the best person to look after Carlos? She lacked his own calmness and the common sense of his sister Maria, who was now in Austria with her husband, Maximilian. It was too late now to alter arrangements. Besides, it would be a breach of etiquette to leave any other than Juana in charge of the boy.

He reminded himself that he would beget more children; and that thought led him to another; he was getting nearer and nearer to the marriage bed of Mary Tudor.

“My son,” said Philip as they left Valladolid on the way to Corunna, where Philip would embark for England while Carlos returned to Valladolid, “we shall pass through Tordesillas on our way and visit your great-grandmother.”

“Yes, Father.” The boy’s eyes were alight with excitement. Each day brought nearer the farewell between himself and his father; then he would return to Valladolid and Juana. In the meantime, here was another treat; he was going to see his great-grandmother of whom he had heard so much. There were many rumors about her, and Carlos had bullied one of the younger boys into telling all he knew. He had kept the boy in his apartment, and even tickled his throat with a knife while the boy, with bulging eyes and twitching lips, had told all he knew.

“She is mad … mad,” he had said. “‘Mad Juana’ they call her. She lives in the Alcázar at Tordesillas, and she has jailors who are called her servants. She speaks against Holy Church and once she was tortured by the Holy Office.”

Carlos’s eyes had glistened. Tortured! Carlos must know more. He must have details of torture by the pulley, when men or women were drawn up by means of ropes, and left hanging by their hands with weights attached to their feet, until every joint was dislocated; he must know of the burning of the soles of the feet, of the red-hot pincers, of all the wondrous arts of the Holy Inquisition.

And the fanatical monks had dared to torture his great-grandmother, who was a Queen!

“They would have burned her at the stake,” his informant had said, “but for the fact that she was a Queen.”

And now he was going with his father to see this mad great-grandmother. It seemed that life was smiling for him at last.

As they rode the few miles between Valladolid and Tordesillas, Philip was wondering what effect Juana would have on Carlos. He would have preferred not to have his son accompany him, But how could it be arranged otherwise? Juana was a Queen, if living in retirement, and Carlos was her great-grandson.

Philip said as they came near to Tordesillas: “You will find your great-grandmother unlike other people whom you have known. You must be quiet in her presence and speak only when spoken to. Do not be alarmed by what may seem strange to you. I shall speak with your great-grandmother, and you will stand very still. You will receive her blessing.”

“Yes, Father.”

Was it imagination, thought Philip, or had the boy improved?

“You may hear me speak to your great-grandmother on religious matters,” went on Philip. “She is a little strange and needs guidance.”

“Father, is it true that she has offended the Holy Office?”

“You should not have heard such things. None has any right to say such things of a Queen.”

“But even Kings and Queens should not offend the Inquisition, should they, Father?”

“My son, one day, I hope, you will support the Inquisition with all your might … as I intend to do.”

Carlos seemed almost reverent. He was thinking of the torture chambers below the prisons of the Inquisition, where the walls were lined with heavy, quilted material so that the cries of the sufferers might be deadened. Carlos thought of blood and pain, but with less excitement than usual.

Carlos walked beside Philip into the apartment of Queen Juana.

A few candles were burning, but they gave little light to such a vast room and the effect was one of gloom. On the floor food lay about in dishes on which flies had settled. The air seemed to hold the smell of decay.

Carlos thought it was a very strange room, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light he became aware of the woman in the chair, and she was stranger than anything else in that room. She sat on a chair with ornate arms; she looked like a witch. Her mouth was toothless; her gown was tattered and splashed with food; her hair hung loose about her shoulders; her long thin hands lay on her lap, showing uncared-for nails, black and overgrown.

So this was Juana, the Queen, who might now be Queen of Spain had it not been decided that she was mad, and that it was best for her to live out her crazy life in solitude.

Carlos was filled with horror that held something of fascination.

Members of Philip’s entourage had followed him and Carlos into the apartment; they stopped at a respectful distance.

Carlos felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, forcing him to his knees. Obediently he knelt before the Queen in the chair.

Philip, conquering his repulsion, took Juana’s hand and kissed it.

“Your Highness,” he said, “I have brought your great-grandson to pay you homage and receive your blessing.”

“Who is that?” asked Juana, her eyes growing suddenly wilder yet alert. “Carlos! Where is Carlos?”

“Here, at your Highness’s feet.” Philip took one of the dirty hands and laid it on Carlos’s head.

“Carlos,” she muttered, leaning forward. Her hair fell over her face and she peered through it as though it were a curtain. “Carlos. Carlos. That’s not my Carlos. That’s not Caesar … ruling the world.”

“Not your son,” said Philip. “But my son. Your grandson’s son. You are thinking of my father, the Emperor.”

“Ah!” The eyes were cunning. “You are trying to deceive me. You bring him here … as Esau was brought to Isaac. I know. I know.”

“Give him your blessing, I beg of you, Grandmother.”

Carlos then lifted wondering eyes to her face. She laughed, and Philip was reminded of the laughter of Carlos. There was the same wild abandonment which he had heard his son display.

But the old woman was looking at Carlos, and she seemed to sense some bond between herself and the boy. “Bless you,” she said quietly. “May God and the saints preserve you … give you long life, little Carlos, great happiness and many to love you.”

“To your feet, my son,” commanded Philip. “Kiss your great-grandmother’s hand and thank her for her blessing.”

Carlos, still as though under a spell, obeyed. The woman and the boy kept their eyes fixed on each other; then slowly tears began to flow down Juana’s cheeks, making furrows through the dirt on her skin. This was comforting to Carlos, but to Philip quite horrible. He signed to one of his attendants.

“Escort Don Carlos to his apartments,” he said. “And leave me alone with the Queen and Father Borgia.”

Carlos was led out of the room, and Philip was alone with the priest and his grandmother.

“Grandmother,” said Philip, “I have heard sad stories of your state. I understand that you have once more spoken against Holy Church. Grandmother, cannot you see the folly of this?”

She shook her head, mumbling to herself: “We should not be forced to perform religious rites … We should worship as we please. I do not like these ceremonies … and if I do not like them I will not perform them … nor have them performed in my presence.”

“Grandmother, such words are in direct defiance of the Holy Inquisition itself.”

“So you have come to torture me … as I was tortured once before! I was tortured when I spoke against the Catholic Church and the Inquisition. They take people to their dungeons, they tear and burn the flesh … all in the name of God. Is He happy, think you? Does He say: ‘Look at all the blood they have shed in Spain! It is all for Me. It is all in My Name …’? Ha … ha …”

“Grandmother, I beg of you, be calm. Father Borgia tells me that you have been a little more reasonable of late, but that your conduct leaves much to be desired.”

“And who is this come to torment me, eh?”

“I am Philip, your grandson … Regent of Spain in the absence of the Emperor, but I have not come to torment you.”

“Philip … oh, speak not that name to me. You come to torture me with memories … and memories torture even as do the red-hot pincers … even as does the rack … Philip … oh, my beautiful Philip, I hate you. Yes. I do. I hate you … because you are so beautiful … and I love you …”

Philip looked helplessly at Father Borgia.

“She swept everything off the altar we set up for her, your Highness,” said the priest, “screaming out that she would not have it thus. But I beg your Highness not to despair of her soul. She grows more reasonable as her health fails.”

“What are you mumbling about, eh, priest? What are you mumbling about there in the shadows? You are a woman in disguise, I believe. I won’t have women about me. He’s not to be trusted with women, that Philip!”

“There seems nothing I can say,” said Philip.

“We might apply … a little force, your Highness.”

Philip looked at the sad figure in the chair, the filthy hair, the tattered garments, the legs swollen with dropsy. Philip hated cruelty for its own sake. He hated war because that meant much bloodshed; in his opinion, the tortures of the Inquisition were only inflicted for the purpose of guiding heretics to the truth and saving their souls, or preparing them for eternal torment. That seemed to him reasonable. But to inflict suffering when no good could come of it disgusted him. And how could they, by torturing this woman, make her see the truth? She might see it for a day, but after that she would lapse into the old ways. She was mad; they must remember that.