Was ever a man so broken? And he believed he knew why good fortune had forsaken him. The ghost of Carlos knew the answer too.
And so he sat by his wife’s bed. He could not see her clearly, yet he remembered every detail of that well-loved face. He could not see the handsome boy kneeling there, yet the memory of that eager young face would never leave him.
‘John,’ said Joan, and her fingers tightened on his, ‘it cannot be long now.’
For answer he pressed her hand. He knew it was useless to deny the truth.
‘I shall go,’ went on Joan, ‘with many sins on my conscience.’
John kissed her hand. ‘You are the bravest and best woman who has ever lived in Aragon... or anywhere else.’
‘The most ambitious wife and mother,’ murmured Joan. ‘I lived for you two. All I did was for you. I remember that now. Perhaps because of that I may in some measure be forgiven.’
‘There will be no need of forgiveness.’
‘John... I sense a presence here. It is not you. It is not Ferdinand. It is another.’
‘There is no one here but ourselves, Mother,’ Ferdinand reassured her.
‘Is there not? Then my mind wanders. I thought I saw Carlos at the foot of my bed.’
‘It could not be, my dearest,’ whispered John, ‘for he is long since dead.’
‘Dead... but perhaps not resting in his tomb.’
Ferdinand raised his eyes and looked at his dying mother, at his aged and blind father. He thought: The end of the old life is near. She is going, and he will not live long after her.
It was as though Joan sensed his thoughts, as though she saw her beloved Ferdinand still but a boy. He was sixteen. It was not old enough to wage a war against Lorraine, against sly Louis. John must not die. If she had committed crimes – which she would commit again for Ferdinand – they must not have been committed in vain.
‘John,’ she said, ‘are you there, John?’
‘Yes, my dearest.’
‘Your eyes, John. Your eyes... You cannot see, can you?’
‘Each day they grow more dim.’
‘There is a Hebrew doctor in Lerida. I have heard he can perform miracles. He has, it is said, restored sight to blind men. He must do that for you, John.’
‘My eyes are too far gone for that, my love. Do not think of me. Are you comfortable? Is there anything we can do to make you happier?’
‘You must allow this man to perform the operation, John. It is necessary. Ferdinand...’
‘I am here, my mother.’
‘Ah, Ferdinand, my son, my own son. I was speaking to your father. I would not forget that, though you be brave as a lion, you are young yet. You must be there, John, until he is a little older. You must not be blind. You must see this Jew. Promise me.’
‘I promise, my dearest.’
She seemed contented now. She lay back on her pillows.
‘Ferdinand,’ she whispered, ‘you will be King of Aragon. It is what I always intended for you, my darling.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘You will be a great King, Ferdinand. You will always remember what obstacles were in the way of your greatness and how I and your father removed them... one by one.’
‘I will remember, Mother.’
‘Oh Ferdinand, my son... Oh, John my husband, we are not alone, are we?’
‘Yes, Mother, we are alone.’
‘Only the three of us here together, my love,’ whispered John.
‘You are wrong,’ said Joan; ‘there is another. There is a presence here. Can you not see him? No, you cannot. It is because of your eyes. You must see that Jew, husband. You have promised. It is a sacred promise given on my death-bed. Ferdinand, you cannot see either for you are too young to see. But there is another here. He stares at me from the end of the bed. It is my stepson, Carlos. He comes to remind me. He is here that I may not forget my sins.’
‘She rambles,’ said Ferdinand. ‘Father, should I call the priests?’
‘Yes, my son, call the priests. There is little time left, I fear.’
‘Ferdinand, you are leaving me.’
‘I will be back soon, Mother.’
‘Ferdinand, come close to me. Ferdinand, my son, my life, never forget me. I loved you, Ferdinand, as few are loved. Oh my son, how dear you have cost your mother.’
‘It is time to call the priests,’ said the King. ‘Ferdinand, delay no longer. There is so little time left. There is only time for repentance and departure.’
So Ferdinand left the King and Queen of Aragon together, and the King bent over the bed and kissed the dying lips of the woman for love of whom he had murdered his first-born son.
King John of Aragon lay on his couch while the Jew performed the operation on his eye. The Jew had been reluctant. He was ready enough to try his skill on men of lesser rank, but he feared what would be his fate if an operation on the King should fail.
John lay still, scarcely feeling the pain, indeed being almost glad of it.
He had lost his wife and he no longer cared to live. For so long Joan had been everything to him. He saw her as the perfect wife, so handsome, so brave, so determined. He would not face the fact that it was due to her ambition for her own son that Aragon had suffered a long and bloody civil war. He had loved her with all the devotion of which he was capable; and now that she was gone, he could only find pleasure in carrying out her wishes.
That was why he now lay on this couch placing his life in the hands of the Hebrew doctor. If it were possible to save his eyes, this man would do it, he knew. There were no doctors in Spain to compare with the Jewish doctors, who had advanced far beyond the Spaniards in medical skill; and this man would know that his fortune would be made if he saved the eyes of the King.
And when I have the sight of one eye, thought John, I shall dedicate myself, as she would have wished, to making secure Ferdinand’s succession to the throne of Aragon.
The operation was successful, and John had recovered the sight of one eye. He sent for the doctor and said: ‘Now you must perform the same operation on the other eye.’
The man was afraid. He had done it once, but could he repeat it? Such operations were by no means always successful.
‘Highness,’ he said, ‘I could not attempt to work on your second eye. The stars are against success.’
‘A plague on the stars!’ cried John. ‘You will forget them and give my other eye its sight.’
Everyone at Court trembled when they heard what was about to take place. They believed that, since the stars were against the performing of the operation, it could not succeed.
The doctor was in great fear, but he thought it more expedient to obey the King than the stars, and the operation was performed.
Thus John of Aragon, now almost eighty years of age, was cured of his blindness and, in obedience to the wishes of his dead wife, prepared himself to hold the crown of Aragon for Ferdinand.
With the return of his sight, John of Aragon regained a great deal of that energy which had been his chief characteristic in the past. John was shrewd and clever; his vulnerable spot had been his love for Joan Henriquez, and that in itself had been the stronger because of the strength of his character. His love for his wife had forced him to give to her son all the affection he had for his children, which meant robbing those by his first wife. John knew that the war, which had lasted so many years and had impoverished him and Aragon, was entirely due to his treatment of Carlos. Joan had demanded the sacrifice of Carlos, that her son Ferdinand might be his father’s heir; and willingly had John given her all that she asked, because he found it impossible to deny her anything.