Виктория Холт: Spain for the Sovereigns

She was at his bedside, for she was determined that no one should nurse him but herself.

She prayed constantly, but she did not neglect to nurse him during those days while his life was in danger.

The would-be assassin had been captured, and had suffered the most cruel torture; but he could not be made to confess that he had had accomplices.

There was one fact which emerged from the torture chamber; the man was a lunatic, for he declared that he was the true heir to the throne of Aragon and that he expected to gain this on Ferdinand’s death.

There came the day when Isabella knew that Ferdinand was out of danger and that this was not the end of their life together, as she had feared it might be. Outside the Palace the people were waiting for news. Never had Ferdinand been so popular in Catalonia as he was at this time. The people saw him as the hero of the reconquest, and they saw also a new life for themselves and their country through the greatness of their rulers.

Isabella was of Castile, and they had at first been suspicious of her; they believed that it was her careful nursing, her constant prayer, which had saved the life of Ferdinand.

The news was conveyed to them: ‘The King will live.’ And Isabella appeared on the balcony before the sickroom while the people shouted themselves hoarse with delight.

‘Isabella and Ferdinand! Ferdinand and Isabella!’ No longer for Castile, for Aragon, for Catalonia. But ‘Isabella and Ferdinand for Spain!’

She returned to Ferdinand’s bed. He was smiling at her, for he had heard the shouts outside the Palace.

‘It would seem,’ he said, ‘that they love us both with an equal fervour.’

‘They know,’ said Isabella, ‘that we are as one.’

‘It is true,’ said Ferdinand. ‘We are as one.’ And as he took her hand, he thought of the humiliation he had suffered when he had been forced to take second place in Castile; he thought of the women he had loved, so many of them, so much more accomplished in the arts of love than Isabella could ever be. But even as he considered them and all the differences of the past – and all those which no doubt were to come in the future – he knew that the most important person in his life was Isabella, and that in generations to come, when his name was mentioned, that of Isabella would be for ever linked with it.

She understood his thoughts and she was in complete harmony with them.

She said: ‘They are demanding the most painful death for your would-be assassin. It is to be in public that they all may see, that all may gloat over the agonies of one who might have caused the death of their beloved King.’

Ferdinand nodded.

She went on: ‘I have given orders that he shall be strangled first. Secret orders. They will see his body taken out. They will not know that he is past pain, for he has been greatly tortured. But now I would let him die in peace.’

Ferdinand restrained an oath. She had given orders in Catalonia . . . his province!

Again she read his thoughts, and for a moment that old hostility hovered between them.

Then she said: ‘Can you hear what they are shouting? It is “Ferdinand and Isabella. Isabella and Ferdinand . . . for Spain!”’

The irritation vanished from his face and he smiled at her.

‘We have done so much,’ Isabella said gently. ‘There is so much to do. But we shall do it. . . together.’

Crowds had gathered in the streets of Barcelona, to take part in one of the great occasions in Spanish history.

It was April and the sun shone brilliantly as through the streets to the Palace came a brilliant procession.

Nuggets of gold were carried by brown-skinned men in robes decorated with gold ornaments; there were animals such as none had ever seen before.

And in the midst of this procession came the Admiral of the New World, Cristobal Colon, his head held high, his eyes gleaming, because now his dream of discovery had become a reality.

Among the crowd was a woman who held a young boy in her arms that he might see the hero of this occasion.

‘See, Ferdinand,’ Beatriz de Arana whispered with pride, ‘there is your father.’

‘I see, Mother,’ cried the boy excitedly. ‘Mother, I see my father.’

Isabella and Ferdinand were waiting to receive their Admiral, and with them were their family. There was one page, in the service of the Prince of the Asturias, who could scarcely bear to look, so strong was his emotion.

This was Diego, that other son of the explorer, who had waited so many years for the return of his father, first in the monastery of La Rabida, then at the Court.

Cristobal Colon knelt before the Sovereigns, and when Isabella offered him her hand to kiss, she knew that what he was offering her – and Spain – was a New World.

How happy I am in this moment, thought Isabella. Ferdinand has fully recovered his strength. I have all my beloved children with me. I have made not only a united Spain but a Christian Spain.

I have all this. I should be singularly blessed, even were this all.

But it was not all. And here is this adventurer, returned from his long journey with strange tales to tell. Here he comes, to lay a new world at my feet.

Isabella’s smiling gaze embraced her beloved family; but she looked beyond them all into a future when men and women who were gathered together to discuss the greatness of a mighty Empire would say: ‘It was Isabella who made Spain great – Isabella . . . and Ferdinand.’

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