‘Emanuel is good to you?’
‘No husband could be better.’
‘I noticed his tenderness towards you. It pleased me.’
‘He does everything to please me.’
‘Then why these tears?’
‘Perhaps … I am frightened.’
‘Frightened of childbirth! It is natural. The first time can be alarming. But it is the task of all women, you know. A Queen’s task as well as a peasant’s. Nay, more so. It is more important for a Queen to bear children than for a peasant to do so.’
‘Mother, there are times when I wish I were a peasant.’
‘What nonsense you talk.’
Isabella realised then that there were matters she could not discuss even with her mother. She could not depress her by telling her that she had a strange foreboding of evil.
She wanted to cry out: Our House is cursed. The persecuted Jews have cursed us. I feel their curses all about me.
Her mother would be shocked at such childishness.
But is it childishness? Isabella asked herself. In the night I feel certain that this evil is all about me. And Emanuel feels it too.
How could that be? Such thoughts were foolish superstition.
She fervently wished that she had not to face the ordeal of childbirth.
How tiring it was to stand before the Cortes, to hear them proclaim her the heiress of Castile.
These worthy citizens were pleased with her, because none who looked at her could be in any doubt of her pregnancy. They were all hoping for a boy. But if she did not give birth to a boy, still the child she carried would, in the eyes of the Toledans, be the heir of Spain.
She listened to their loyal shouts and smiled her thanks. How glad she was that she had been brought up to hide her feelings.
After the ceremony with the Cortes, she must be carried through the streets to show herself to the people. Then she was received in the Cathedral and blessed by the Archbishop.
The atmosphere inside the massive Gothic building seemed overpowering. She stared at the treasures which hung on the walls and thought of the rich citizens of Toledo who had reason to be grateful to her mother for restoring order throughout Spain where once there had been anarchy. In this town lived the finest goldsmiths and silversmiths in the world; and the results of their labours were here in the cathedral for all to see.
She looked at the stern face of Ximenes and, as she studied the rich robes of his office, the brocade and damask studded with precious jewels, she thought of the hair shirt which she knew would be worn beneath those fine garments, and shivered.
She tried to pray then to the Virgin, the patron saint of Toledo, and she found that she could only repeat: ‘Help me, Holy Mother. Help me.’
When they had returned to the Palace, Emanuel said she must rest; the ceremony had tired her.
‘There are too many ceremonies,’ he said.
‘I do not believe it is the ceremony which tires me, Emanuel,’ she said. ‘I think I should be equally tired if I lay on my bed all the day. Perhaps I am not really tired.’
‘What then, my dearest?’
She looked at him frankly and answered: ‘I am afraid.’
‘Afraid! But, my love, you shall have the very best attention in Spain.’
‘Do you think that will avail me anything?’
‘But indeed I do. How I long for September! Then you will be delighting in your child. You will laugh at these fears … if you remember them.’
‘Emanuel, I do not think I shall be here in September.’
‘But, my darling, what is it you are saying …?’
‘Dear Emanuel, I know you love me. I know you will be unhappy if I die. But it is better for you to be prepared.’
‘Prepared! I am prepared for birth, not for death.’
‘But if death should come …’
‘You are overwrought.’
‘I am fatigued, but I think at such times I see the future more clearly. I have a very strong feeling that I shall not get well after the child is born. It is our punishment, Emanuel. For me death, for you bereavement. Why do you look so shocked? It is a small payment for the misery we shall bring to thousands.’
Emanuel threw himself down by the bed. ‘Isabella, you must not talk so. You must not.’
She stroked his hair with her thin white hand.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I must not. But I had to warn you of this feeling I have. It is so strong. Well, I have done so. Now let us forget it. I shall pray that my child will be a boy. That I think will make you very happy.’
‘And you will be happy too.’
She only smiled at him. Then she said quickly: ‘Toledo is a beautiful town, is it not? I think my father loves it. It is so prosperous. It is so Moorish. There is everything here to remind my parents of the reconquest; there are more than the chains from Malaga on the walls of San Juan de los Reyes. But my mother, while she exults in the prosperity and beauty of Toledo, feels a certain sadness.’
‘There must be no sadness,’ said Emanuel.
‘But there must always be sadness, it seems, sadness to mingle with pride, with laughter, with joy. Is it not beautiful here? I love to watch the Tagus dashing against the stones far below. Where in Spain is there such a fertile vega as that around Toledo? The fruit is so luscious here, the corn so plentiful. But did you notice how the flies pestered us as we came in? I saw the Rock too. The Rock of Toledo from which criminals are hurled down … down into the ravine. So much beauty and so much sorrow. That is what my mother feels when she rides into Toledo. In this rich and lovely city my sister Juana was born.’
‘That should make your mother love it all the more.’
Isabella took her husband’s hand in hers and cried out: ‘Emanuel, let there be complete trust between us. Let us not pretend to one another. Can you not see it? It is like the writing on the wall. I see it clearly. As I come nearer and nearer to my confinement I seem to acquire a new sensitivity. I feel I am not entirely of this world but have not yet reached the next. Therefore I sometimes see what is hidden from most human eyes.’
‘Isabella, you must be calm, my dearest.’
‘I am calm, Emanuel. But I distress you. I do not want my passing to be the shock to you that my brother’s death was to my mother. Emanuel, my dear husband, it is always better to be prepared. Shall I tell you what is in my mind, or shall I pretend that I am a woman who looks into the future and sees her child playing beside her? Shall I lie to you, Emanuel?’
He kissed her hands. ‘There must be truth between us.’
‘That is what I thought. So I would tell you. Emanuel, my House has brought greatness to Spain, great prosperity and great sorrow. Is it never possible to have one without the other? On our journey to Toledo we passed through a town where, in the Plaza Mayor, I saw the ashes and I smelt the fires which had recently burned there. It was human flesh which burned, Emanuel.’
‘Those who died were condemned by the Holy Office.’
‘I know. They were heretics. They had denied their faith. But they have hearts in which to harbour hatred, lips with which to curse. They would curse our House, Emanuel, even as those who were driven from Spain would curse us. And their curses have not gone unheeded.’
‘Should we suffer for pleasing God and all the saints?’
‘I do not understand, Emanuel; and I am too tired to try to. We are told that this is a Christian country. It is our great desire to bring our people to the Christian faith. We do it by persuasion. We do it by force. It is God’s work. But what of the devil?’
‘These are strange thoughts, Isabella.’
‘They come unbidden. See what has happened to us. My parents had five children – four daughters and one son. Their son and heir died suddenly, and his heir was stillborn. My sister Juana is strange, so wild that I have heard it whispered that she is half-way to madness. Already she has caused trouble to our parents by allowing herself to be proclaimed Princess of Castile. You see, Emanuel, it is like a pattern, an evil pattern built up by curses.’