‘She is as happy here as she could be. You are her very dutiful daughter. It is enough, Isabella, that she is cared for. You must think of the child.’

Isabella nodded slowly.

She was thinking of the child. A new dread had come into her life. She believed that it would always be haunted by a shadow.

She would think often of those wild fits of laughter which used to overtake her mother; she would think of the poor dazed mind, lost in a half-world of darkness; and in the future she would watch her children, wondering and fearful. Her mother had brought the seeds of insanity from Portugal. It was possible that they had taken root and would break into hideous flower in the generations to come.


* * *

Meanwhile Alfonso of Portugal had not been idle. No sooner had he returned to his country in the company of the young Joanna than he was eager to make another attempt to win for her and himself the crown of Castile, for although he had tired of the old campaign, he was very eager to begin a new one.

He discussed this with his son John.

‘Are we to allow the crown of Castile to slip from our grasp?’ he demanded. ‘What of our young Joanna – this lady in distress? Is she to be deprived of what is hers by right?’

‘What do you propose to do, Father? We have lost the best of our army in Castile. We are not equipped to go to war again.’

‘We should need help,’ Alfonso agreed. ‘But we have our old ally. Louis will help us.’

‘At the moment he is deeply involved with Burgundy.’

Alfonso’s eyes were glittering with a new purpose.

‘He will help if our ambassadors can persuade him of the justice of our cause.’

‘And the profit our success might bring to him,’ added John cynically.

‘Well, Louis will see that there is profit in it for himself.’

‘Whom shall we send into France? You had someone in mind?’

Alfonso was restless. His desire for adventure did not leave him with advancing years. He wished to enjoy his youthful bride, but he could not marry a girl – however young, however charming – who might be illegitimate and have no claim to a crown whatsoever. There was only one way in which he could deal with this matter. He must set a crown on his little Joanna’s head. Then he would marry her; then Castile would be under the sway of Portugal.

He could not bear to wait for what he wanted. He must be on the move all the time.

He thought of the long journey into France, of his

ambassadors trying to set the case before Louis, whose mind would be on the threatened war with Burgundy.

There was only one man in Portugal, he felt sure, who could explain to Louis what great good could come to France and Portugal through an invasion of Castile and the setting up of Joanna in place of Isabella.

He looked as eager as a boy as he turned to John. ‘I myself will go to Louis,’ he said.


* * *

It was a triumphal progress which Alfonso made through France with the retinue of two hundred which he had taken with him.

Louis XI had given the order: ‘The King of Portugal is my friend. Honour him wherever he should go.’

Thus the people of France gave a warm welcome to this friend of their King’s, and those in the country villages threw flowers at his feet and cried ‘Long life’ to him as he went on his way.

Louis himself, seeming so honest in his shabby fustian doublet and battered old hat, in which he wore a leaden image of the Virgin, took Alfonso in his arms and kissed him on both cheeks before a large assembly, to assure all those who did not know Louis of his friendship and esteem for his ally.

There was a meeting between the two kings, when they sat opposite each other in the council chamber surrounded by their ministers and advisers. Louis was as affable as ever, but his friendly words were couched in cautious phrases and he did not offer that which Alfonso had come to France to obtain.

‘My dear friend and brother,’ said Louis, ‘you see me here in a most unhappy state – my kingdom plunged in war, my resources strained to their limit in this conflict with Burgundy.’

‘But my brother of France is master of great resources.’

‘Great!’ The eyes of the King of France flashed with fire rarely seen in them. Then he smiled a little sadly, stroking his fustian doublet as though to call attention to his simple and shabby garments that the King of Portugal might compare them with his own finery. He shook his head. ‘Wars deplete our treasury, brother. I could not burden my poor people with more taxes than they already suffer. Nay, when I have brought this trouble with Burgundy to an end . . . then . . . why then I should be most happy to come to your help, that together we may defeat the usurper Isabella and set the rightful heiress on the throne of Castile. Until then . . .’ Louis lifted his hands and allowed a helpless expression to creep over his cunning features.

‘Wars have a way of dragging on,’ said Alfonso desperately.

‘But until this conflict has been brought to a satisfactory conclusion you will stay in my kingdom as my guest . . . my very honoured guest.’

Louis had leaned forward in his chair, and certain of the Portuguese retinue shivered with distaste. Louis reminded them of a great spider in his drab garments, his pale face brightened only by those shrewd, alert eyes.

‘And it may well be,’ went on the King of France, ‘that by that time His Holiness can be persuaded to give you the dispensation you need for marriage with your niece.’

It was a further excuse for delay. The marriage could not take place without the dispensation from the Pope, and was he likely to give it while Isabella was firmly on the throne of Castile?

If the journey through France had delighted the King of Portugal, his meeting with France’s King could only fill him with foreboding.


* * *

Alfonso had been right to feel apprehensive. As the months passed, although the French continued to treat him with respect, Louis, on every occasion when the purpose of his visit was mentioned, became evasive.

Burgundy! was the answer. And where was the dispensation from the Pope?

A whole year Alfonso lingered in France, for, having made the long journey, how could he face a return without having achieved what he had come for?

The unhappy figure of the King of Portugal at the Court of France had become a commonplace. He was looked upon as a hanger-on whose prestige waned with each passing week.

The Duke of Burgundy had died and Louis had invaded his dominions. The Pope had given the dispensation.

Still there was no answer for Alfonso.

He began to grow melancholy and to wonder what he should do, for he could not stay indefinitely in France.

And one day, after he had been a year in Louis’s dominions, one of his retinue asked to speak to Alfonso privately; and when they were alone he said to the King: ‘Highness, we are being deceived. Louis has no intention of helping us. I have proof that he is at this time negotiating with Ferdinand and Isabella, and seeking a treaty of friendship with them.’

‘It is impossible!’ cried Alfonso.

‘There is proof, Highness.’

When he was assured that he had been told the truth Alfonso was overcome with mortification.

What can I do? he asked himself. Return to Portugal? There he would become the object of ridicule. Louis was not to be trusted, and he, Alfonso, had been a fool to think he could bargain with such a man. Louis had never intended to help him; and it was obvious that, since he sought the friendship of Isabella and Ferdinand, he believed them to be secure on the throne of Castile.

He called to three of his most trusted servants.

‘Prepare,’ he said, ‘to leave the Court immediately.’

‘We are returning home, Highness?’ asked one eagerly.

‘Home,’ murmured the King. ‘We can never go home again. I could never face my son, nor my people.’

‘Then where shall we go, Highness?’

Alfonso looked in a bewildered fashion at his servants.

‘There is a little village in Normandy. We will make for that place, and there we shall live in obscurity until I have made up my mind what I had best do.’


* * *

Alfonso stared out of the window of the inn at the fowls which scrabbled in the yard.

I, he mourned, a King of Portugal to come to this!

For several days he had lived here, like a fugitive, incognito, afraid to proclaim his identity lest even these humble people should be laughing at him.

At the Court of France his retinue would be asking themselves what had become of him; he did not care. All he wanted now was to hide from the world.

In Portugal Joanna would hear of his humiliation; and what would become of her? Poor child! A sad life hers, for what hope had she now of ever attaining the throne of Castile?

He had dreamed of a romantic enterprise. A fair young girl in distress, a gallant king to her rescue, who should become her bridegroom; and here he was, an ageing man in hiding, perhaps already known to the world as a fighter of lost causes.

What is left to me? he asked himself. What is left to Joanna? A convent for her. And for me?

He saw himself in coarse robe and hair shirt. He saw himself barefoot before some shrine. Why not a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and, after that, return home to the monastic life? Thus if he could not procure the crown of Castile he could make sure of his place in heaven.

He did not pause long to consider. When had he ever done so?