Philippa Gregory: The Constant Princess

She was too young to realize that they were going to a certain death. She had no idea of the sentries at every gate, of the merciless rage of the Moors. Her eyes lit up in excitement. “You are?”

“Isn’t it a wonderful plan?”

“When are you going?”

“Tonight! This very night!”

“I shan’t sleep till you come back!”

“You must pray for me, and then go to sleep, and I will come myself, Princess, and tell you and your mother all about it in the morning.”

She swore she would never sleep, and she lay awake, quite rigid in her little cot bed, while her maid tossed and turned on the rug at the door. Slowly, her eyelids drooped until the lashes lay on the round cheeks, the little plump hands unclenched, and Catalina slept.

But in the morning, he did not come, his horse was missing from its stall, and his friends were absent. For the first time in her life, the little girl had some sense of the danger he had run—mortal danger, and for nothing but glory and to be featured in some song.

“Where is he?” she asked. “Where is Hernando?”

The silence of her maid, Madilla, warned her. “He will come?” she asked suddenly doubtful. “He will come back?”

Slowly, it dawns on me that perhaps he will not come back, that life is not like a ballad, where a vain hope is always triumphant and a handsome man is never cut down in his youth. But if he can fail and die, then can my father die? Can my mother die? Can I? Even I? Little Catalina, Infanta of Spain and Princess of Wales?

I kneel in the sacred circular space of my mother’s newly built chapel; but I am not praying. I am puzzling over this strange world that is suddenly opening up before me. If we are in the right—and I am sure of that; if these handsome young men are in the right—and I am sure of that—if we and our cause are under the especial hand of God, then how can we ever fail?

But if I have misunderstood something, then something is very wrong, and we are all indeed mortal, perhaps we can fail. Even handsome Hernando Pérez del Pulgar and his laughing friends, even my mother and father can fail. If Hernando can die, then so too can my mother and father. And if this is so, then what safety is there in the world? If Madre can die, like a common soldier, like a mule pulling a baggage cart, as I have seen men and mules die, then how can the world go on? How could there be a God?

Then it was time for her mother’s audience for petitioners and friends, and suddenly he was there, in his best suit, his beard combed, his eyes dancing, and the whole story spilled out: how they had dressed in their Arab clothes so as to pass for townspeople in the darkness, how they had crept in through the postern gate, how they had dashed up to the mosque, how they had kneeled and gabbled an Ave Maria and stabbed the prayer into the floor of the mosque, and then, surprised by guards, they had fought their way, hand to hand, thrust and parry, blades flashing in the moonlight; back down the narrow street, out of the door that they had forced only moments earlier, and were away into the night before the full alarm had been sounded. Not a scratch on them, not a man lost. A triumph for them and a slap in the face for Granada.

It was a great joke to play on the Moors. It was the funniest thing in the world to take a Christian prayer into the very heart of their holy place. It was the most wonderful gesture to insult them. The queen was delighted, the king too. The princess and her sisters looked at their champion, Hernando Pérez del Pulgar, as if he were a hero from the romances, a knight from the time of Arthur at Camelot. Catalina clapped her hands in delight at the story and commanded that he tell it and retell it, over and over again. But in the back of her mind, pushed far away from thought, she remembered the chill she had felt when she had thought that he was not coming back.

Next, they waited for the reply from the Moors. It was certain to happen. They knew that their enemy would see the venture as the challenge that it was—there was bound to be a response. It was not long in coming.

The queen and her children were visiting Zubia, a village near to Granada, so Her Majesty could see the impregnable walls of the fort herself. They had ridden out with a light guard, and the commander was white with horror when he came dashing up to them in the little village square and shouted that the gates of the red fort had opened and the Moors were thundering out, the full army, armed for attack. There was no time to get back to camp. The queen and the three princesses could never outrun Moorish horsemen on Arab stallions. There was nowhere to hide, there was nowhere even to make a stand.

In desperate haste Queen Isabella climbed to the flat roof of the nearest house, pulling the little princess by her hand up the crumbling stairs, her sisters running behind. “I have to see! I have to see!” she exclaimed.

“Madre! You are hurting me!”

“Quiet, child. We have to see what they intend.”

“Are they coming for us?” the child whimpered, her little voice muffled by her own plump hand.

“They may be. I have to see.”

It was a raiding party, not the full force. They were led by their champion, a giant of a man, dark as mahogany, a glint of a smile beneath his helmet, riding a huge black horse as if he were Night riding to overwhelm them. His horse snarled like a dog at the watching guard, its teeth bared.

“Madre, who is that man?” the Princess of Wales whispered to her mother, staring from the vantage point of the flat roof of the house.

“That is the Moor called Yarfe, and I am afraid he has come for your friend, Hernando.”

“His horse looks so frightening, like it wants to bite.”

“He has cut off its lips to make it snarl at us. But we are not made fearful by such things. We are not frightened children.”

“Should we not run away?” asked the frightened child.

Her mother, watching the Moor parade, did not even hear her daughter’s whisper.

“You won’t let him hurt Hernando, will you? Madre?”

“Hernando laid the challenge. Yarfe is answering it. We will have to fight,” she said levelly. “Yarfe is a knight, a man of honor. He cannot ignore the challenge.”

“How can he be a man of honor if he is a heretic? A Moor?”

“They are most honorable men, Catalina, though they are unbelievers. And this Yarfe is a hero to them.”

“What will you do? How shall we save ourselves? This man is as big as a giant.”

“I shall pray,” Isabella said. “And my champion Garallosco de la Vega will answer Yarfe for Hernando.”

As calmly as if she were in her own chapel at Córdoba, Isabella kneeled on the roof of the little house and gestured that her daughters should do the same. Sulkily, Catalina’s older sister, Juana, dropped to her knees, the princesses Isabel and María, her other two older sisters, followed suit. Catalina saw, peeping through her clasped hands as she kneeled in prayer, that María was shaking with fear and that Isabel, in her widow’s gown, was white with terror.

“Heavenly Father, we pray for the safety of ourselves, of our cause, and of our army.” Queen Isabella looked up at the brilliantly blue sky. “We pray for the victory of Your champion, Garallosco de la Vega, at this time of his trial.”

“Amen,” the girls said promptly, and then followed the direction of their mother’s gaze to where the ranks of the Spanish guard were drawn up, watchful and silent.

“If God is protecting him—” Catalina started.

“Silence,” her mother said gently. “Let him do his work, let God do His, and let me do mine.” She closed her eyes in prayer.

Catalina turned to her eldest sister and pulled at her sleeve. “Isabel, if God is protecting him, then how can he be in danger?”