What festivities there had been. Surely no Infanta had ever been so fêted; and of course it was all due to the importance of the union. She had sat beside Edward and marvelled at his splendid appearance. Moreover he had been so kind to her, so tender. He explained to her that she would have to go away to complete her education and as soon as she was ready he would come to claim her.
She had been terrified of her mother-in-law – one of the handsomest women she had ever seen – and her fear had not been calmed by her mother’s obvious animosity towards that lady. It was understandable, for the stately Queen from Provence had been the one who had supplanted Joanna in Henry’s affections and news of his uxurious attitude towards his Queen had spread even to Castile.
But the young girl had immediately loved her father-in-law, Henry King of England, who had received her so warmly and had kept her at his side during the sumptuous feast he had ordered should be prepared to honour her. ‘You are now a member of our family,’ he had told her; and she had learned that that was a privilege, not so much because it was the royal family of England, but because there could not have been a more loving and devoted one in the whole of the world.
The late King of England and his Queen may not have been the wisest of rulers, but they certainly had a talent for family life.
In her brother’s Court of Castile it had been pleasant enough, but it was not until she came to England that she realised what a warm and comforting thing family life could be. All she had to do was obey her husband and her mother-in-law; if she did this she would have their unbounded love.
It had been a wonderful day when she had joined her knightly husband. So kind, so loving and oddly enough so faithful had he been, though she soon heard rumours that while he had been waiting for her to be old enough he had had adventures and that many ladies of the Court were only too willing to surrender to him. Fortunately she only heard these rumours after her marriage, and then only because those who told her were struck by his conversion to a model husband.
So she had much to be thankful for, and the only time she had really asserted herself was when he had decided to go to the Holy Land. By that time she had shown herself to be a fertile wife – to the delight of the family – and in the nursery were John, Eleanor and little Henry. Edward had been deeply touched when she had stood before him and shown a firmness she had never displayed before.
‘Nothing should separate those whom God hath joined together,’ she had said, ‘and the way to Heaven is as near, if not nearer from Syria as from England or from Spain.’
She remembered the blank amazement in Edward’s face when she had said that. He had laughed aloud and held her firmly in his arms while he explained the discomforts and dangers of the expedition.
‘All these things,’ she had replied, ‘I know full well. They have been the subjects of our songs for more than a hundred years. I know of your great-uncle, Richard Coeur de Lion, who was a prisoner until he was rescued by the faithful Blondel. I am aware of the dangers which you will have to face and I, as your wife, would share them with you.’
He had shaken his head and told her that while he loved her for making the suggestion he must forbid her to carry it out.
Edward then learned that the seemingly weak can sometimes be strong and that it is as though they give way on the smaller issues reserving the full force of their strength for the larger ones.
She was determined to accompany him and she did. For he said he would not stand in the way of such love as that, and her father-in-law – good, kind King Henry – had listened with tears in his eyes and her mother-in-law had said that had she been in her place she would have insisted in the same way. Moreover the children would be in the good hands of their grandparents.
And so they had set out.
Of course she had suffered hardship and there had been times when she had thought longingly of the cool rains of England and the comforts of the royal palaces, for it was often uncomfortable – wretchedly so – sleeping in tents, pestered by flies and other obnoxious insects. And then she had become pregnant. Perhaps when she lost her little daughter a few days after her birth she had wondered whether she had been wise; but as soon as her depression over the loss had passed she knew she could never have stayed behind because it would have meant losing Edward and to share his life was of greater importance than being with her children.
And as though there was a sign from Heaven she had almost immediately conceived and this time a healthy child was born. She called this daughter Joanna after her mother, and Joanna had the dark looks of Castile rather than those of the fair Plantagenets; and from the first she was lively and wilful and a daughter to delight in.
People began to call her Joanna of Acre because of the place of her birth, and Edward said that the child would always remind him and the world of the wonderful wife he had who had accompanied him on his crusade and borne him a child during it.
There was another reason why she knew she had been right. That was when Edward had been wounded in his tent. If she had not been there would Edward have survived? He said not. His doctors claimed the credit, of course, while admitting that some was due to him for submitting to the painful surgery. But Edward always said it was her action which had saved his life, and Providence was telling them that God liked well a brave wife who would follow her husband no matter where his duty took him.
She would never think of that occasion without living again the dreadful moment when she thought she had lost him.
Of course they were surrounded by danger and Edward was notoriously reckless. These bold knights believed it was part of the bravery expected of them to shrug aside danger or refuse to see it. Oh, how relieved she was to see those white cliffs, that impregnable fortress defiant on the cliff. Danger could come to them in England. A king could never lie easy in his bed. Her brother had told her that and again and again it had been shown to be true. But in a Holy War, when they were surrounded by the Saracens, danger was not just a possibility, it was a certainty.
For as long as she would live she would have memories of the time she had spent in an alien land. Those still, hot nights, when a sudden noise could set her starting from her bed, would never be forgotten. Constantly they had been on the alert, for how could they know what fearful fate might overtake them at any moment, when there were a thousand dangers lurking waiting to spring? Often she had longed for home, and she knew that if she had asked Edward to let her go he would have arranged to send her back. But she had known she could never leave him. What would her life have been without him? She had once come close to discovering the answer to that question. In her nightmares now she would see the dead man lying on the floor of Edward’s tent, and Edward near to death stretched out on the bed. One glance had told her what had happened. The assassin had attempted to kill Edward and Edward had killed him. But in those first moments she had thought that Edward himself had been mortally wounded in the struggle.
There was evil in that land and rumours were always circulating about the Old Man of the Mountains – a fabled creature who might have existed. Who could be sure? It was said that the Old Man lived in the mountains where he had created a paradise on earth. His palace there was made of chalcedony and marble, and in its gardens luscious fruits and colourful flowers grew in abundance. Men were lured to it, as mermaids were said to lure sailors to disaster. These victims lived in the Old Man’s paradise for many months with beautiful women to wait on them and supply their needs. Then one day the Old Man would send for them and tell them they were banished and must go back to the world. To have experienced this life for so long had affected these men so deeply that they could not contemplate living any differently. The Old Man would tell them that they could win their way back by carrying out his orders, and these dangerous assignments usually involved the murder of someone whom the Old Man wished destroyed. Thus the Old Man created a band of assassins who killed at his will which meant that he was a power throughout the world.