Виктория Холт: Spain for the Sovereigns

At last. . . success. The long waiting was over.

The roads to the coast were thick with bands of refugees. Old and young, those who had been accustomed to the utmost luxury, those who had been bred in poverty, now walked wearily together; they had been stripped of all they possessed, for although they had been allowed to sell their property, they had been cynically forbidden to take money out of the country.

This was the exodus of the Jews of Spain. Onward they trudged, hoping to find some humane creatures who would be kinder to them than those in the land which for centuries had been the home of their ancestors.

It was forbidden to help them. It was no crime to rob them.

The shipmasters looked upon them as legitimate prey. Some took these suffering people aboard, extracted payment for the voyage and then threw their passengers, who had trusted them, into the sea.

From all parts of this all-Christian Spain those Jews who refused to conform to the Christian Faith wandered on their wretched way to an unknown future.

Thousands died on many a perilous journey; some of plague, but many of barbaric murder. The rumour, that it had become a practice of these Jews to swallow their jewels in the hope of preserving them, was circulated and numbers of them, on arriving in Africa, were ripped up by barbarians, who hoped in this way to retrieve the jewels from their hiding-places.

Some, however, found refuge in other lands, and a few managed to survive the horror.

Torquemada was satisfied. He had had his way.

He knelt with the Sovereigns and they prayed together for the continued greatness of their all-Christian state.

In a room over a grocer’s shop in the town of Seville a woman saw the Jews gathering together to leave their homes.

She looked from her window upon them, for she was too ill to leave her room, and she knew that only a few more weeks of life were left to her.

Those faces, on which were depicted blank despair and bewildered misery, took her mind back to the days when she, a Jewess, had lived in her father’s luxurious house; and with a sudden, terrible fear she began to wonder what part she herself had played in bringing about this terrible crime which was taking place all over Spain.

What if she had not taken a lover; what if she had not been in fear that her father would discover her pregnancy? What if she had not betrayed him and his friends to the Inquisition – would this be happening now?

It was a terrible thought. She had not allowed herself to think of it before, although it had always been there hovering in her mind, hanging over her life like a dark shadow of doom which she could not escape for ever.

If Diego de Susan had not been betrayed by La Susanna, if his conspiracy against the Inquisition had succeeded, who knew, the Inquisition might not have taken hold in Spain as it had this day.

She clenched her hands and beat them against her wasted breasts.

And what a life had been hers, passing from one protector to another, moving down the scale as la hermosa hembra lost her beauty little by little.

At last she had found a man who really loved her – this humble grocer who had known her in the days of her pride, and was happy to be the protector of Diego de Susan’s daughter – he who had been a millionaire of Seville – even though that man had been burned alive through La Susanna’s betrayal of him.

He had looked after her, this little grocer, looked after her and the children she had had. And now this was the end. She could hear the suppressed sobbing of children in the crowd, little ones who sensed tragedy without understanding it.

Then she could bear no more. She stumbled back to her bed, but the effort of leaving it and the agony of remorse had been too much for her. She had shortened her life – but only by a few weeks.

Her lover came into the apartment, and there was anguish in his eyes. Ah, she thought, it is because he does not see me as I am; to him I am still the young girl who sat on the balcony of the house of Diego de Susan, then far out of the reach of a humble grocer.

‘I am dying,’ she told him.

He helped her back to bed and sat beside her. He did not deny the truth of what she said, for he realised it would be futile to do so.

‘Do something for me,’ she said. ‘When I die, put my skull over the door of this house, that all may know it is the skull of one whose passions led her to an evil life, and that she wishes a part of her to be left there as a warning to all. The skull of a woman who was a bawd and betrayer of those who loved her best.’

The grocer shook his head. ‘You must not fret,’ he said. ‘I will take care of you till the end.’

‘This is the end,’ she said. ‘Promise me. Swear it on your Faith.’

So he promised.

And, before the Jews had all left Spain, the skull of the woman who had once been judged the most beautiful in Seville was set up over the door of the grocer’s house.

The reconquest secure, Isabella and Ferdinand appointed Talavera Archbishop of Granada, and the Count of Tendilla its Governor, and set off on a progress through the country, with their children, to receive the grateful thanks of the people.

They rode with all the splendour of royalty, and always beside them was Juan, the Prince of the Asturias. Isabella felt that all her subjects must agree that one of her greatest gifts to them was this bright and beautiful boy, the heir to a united Spain.

Ferdinand had said: ‘Castile is with us to a man, so is Aragon; but there has always been trouble in Catalonia since . . . the death of my half-brother. Now is the time to show the Catalans that we include them in our kingdom, that they mean as much to us as the Castilians and the Aragonese.’

Isabella agreed that this was so and that now, in the full flush of their triumph, was the time to make the Catalans forget for ever the mysterious death of Carlos, Prince of Viana, who had been removed to make way for Ferdinand to take the throne of Aragon.

So into Catalonia rode the procession.

Ferdinand had been presiding at the hall of justice in Barcelona, and was leaving the building to rejoin Isabella at the Palace.

He was pleased, for never had he been so popular in Catalonia as he was at this time. Congratulations were coming to him from all over the world. He and Isabella were accepted as the hero and heroine of this great victory for Christianity. He was to be henceforth known as Ferdinand the Catholic, and Isabella as Isabella the Catholic. Even Catalonia, which had for so long set itself against Ferdinand, now cheered him wherever he went.

But no doubt there were some who did not share the general opinion. Ferdinand came face to face with one as he left the hall of justice, and suddenly he found himself looking into the face of a fanatic, while a knife gleamed before his startled eyes.

‘Die . . . murderer!’ cried a voice.

Ferdinand fell forward, and there was a shout of triumph from the man who held up the bloodstained knife.

Isabella was with her children when she received the news. Her daughter, Isabella, covered her face with her hands; the Prince was as one struck dumb; and the little girls ran to their mother and clung to her in terror.

‘Highness, the King is being brought here to you. It was a madman outside the hall of justice.’

Isabella felt her heart leap in fear.

‘Not now,’ she prayed. ‘Not this. We have come through so much together. There is so much for us yet . . .’

Then she recovered her serenity.

She put the frightened children from her and said: ‘I will go to the King at once.’