Spain for the Sovereigns - Plaidy Jean - Страница 23

Isabella was eager for the meeting, and she immediately agreed to it.

Meanwhile, with Ferdinand and her counsellors, she drew up the peace terms.

Isabella, not yet incapacitated by pregnancy, rode to the border town of Alcantara, where Dona Beatriz of Portugal was waiting for her.

The ladies embraced and, because each was so eager to bring about peace, they wasted no time in celebrations but began their discussions immediately.

‘My dear Dona Beatriz,’ said Isabella, as they sat together in the council chamber, ‘the Portuguese Army was beaten in the field, and should it come against us once more we should be confident of annihilating it.’

‘That is true,’ said Dona Beatriz, ‘but let us not consider the possibility of war. Let us turn our thoughts to peace.’

‘By all means,’ was the answer. ‘The first clause that we should insist on would be that Alfonso gives up the title and armorial bearings of Castile which he has assumed.’

‘That is reasonable. I feel sure he will agree to that.’

‘There must be no more claims from or on behalf of Joanna, and the King must no longer consider himself betrothed to her. Moreover, he must never again aspire to her hand.’

Dona Beatriz frowned. ‘He has a great fondness for Joanna,’ she said.

‘And for the crown of Castile,’ replied Isabella dryly, ‘to which he pretends to believe she has a claim.’

‘I can put this clause before him,’ said Beatriz. ‘It will be for me to persuade him to accept it.’

‘You are convinced of the justice of it?’

‘I am convinced that there must be peace between Castile and Portugal.’

‘Between Castile and Aragon and Portugal,’ said Isabella with a smile. ‘We are stronger now.’

‘I will remind the King of that also.’

‘As for Joanna,’ went on Isabella, ‘she must either leave Portugal or be betrothed to my son, Juan.’

‘Juan! He is not yet a year old . . . and she . . . she is now a young woman.’

‘It is a condition,’ said Isabella. ‘We will give her six months to decide whether she will leave Portugal or be betrothed to my son. If, when he reaches a marriageable age, she prefers to enter a convent, I shall not stand in her way. If she did enter a convent it would be necessary for her to take the veil’

Beatriz looked long into the smiling face of Isabella, and she thought: We are discussing the life of a young girl who, although she has been a menace to Isabella, is in herself innocent. Yet Isabella, herself so happy in her marriage and her family, is so determined to be secure upon the throne, that she is not only denying this girl any hope of the crown but of the normal life of a woman. The face Isabella showed to the world was completely enigmatic. It would be well not to be deceived by that gentle facade.

‘It is a hard choice for a young girl,’ mused Beatriz. ‘Betrothal to a baby or the veil!’

‘It is an important condition,’ said Isabella.

‘I can put these terms before Joanna,’ said Beatriz, ‘and before the King. I can do no more.’

‘That is understood,’ said Isabella. ‘All Castilians who have fought with the King of Portugal for Joanna will be pardoned and, to show that I and my husband wish for friendship with Portugal, my daughter, the Infanta Isabella, shall be betrothed to Alonso, son of the Prince of Portugal.’

‘So these are your conditions,’ said Beatriz. ‘I do not think it will be easy to obtain the King’s consent to all of them.’

‘I deplore war,’ Isabella told her. ‘But it will be necessary for the King to agree to all these conditions if we are to have peace. He must remember that he was defeated in the field. He will know that, eager as Castile is for peace, it does not need it so desperately as does Portugal.’

The two ladies took their leave of each other, Beatriz travelling westward to Lisbon, Isabella eastward to Madrid.

Isabella waited. The conditions were hard, but they were necessarily so, she told herself, to secure lasting peace. She was sorry for Joanna, who had been a helpless puppet in the hands of ambitious men, but the comfort and happiness of one young woman could not be considered when the prosperity of Castile was at stake.

Isabella was large with her child when news came that Alfonso had accepted her terms.

Her spirits were high. The War of the Succession, which had lasted four years, was over.

And very soon another child would be born to her and Ferdinand.

The city of Toledo was set high on a plateau of stone which appeared to have been carved out of the surrounding mountains in the gorge of the Tagus. Only on the north side was it accessible by a narrow isthmus which connected it with the plain of Castile. In no other city in Isabella’s Castile was there more evidence of Moorish occupation.

Isabella could never visit her city of Toledo without reiterating the vow that one day she would wrest from the Moors those provinces of Spain which were still under their domination, and that the flag of Christian Spain should float over every city.

But, to remind her of the state of her country, not far from this very palace of Toledo in which she now lay was that great rock, from which it was the custom to hurl alleged criminals. Many would meet their fate at the rock of Toledo before Castile would be safe for honest men and women to live in.

A tremendous task lay before her, and as soon as she had left this childbed she must devote herself to stabilising her country. Nothing should be spared, she had decided. She would be harsh if harshness were needed, and all her honest subjects would rejoice. She had sworn to rid Castile of its criminals, to make the roads safe for travellers by imposing such penalties on offenders that even the most hardened robber would think twice before offending.

But now there was the child about to be born.

It would be soon, and she was unafraid. One grew accustomed to childbearing. The pains of birth she could bear stoically. She had a daughter and son, and she no longer had any uneasy feelings regarding a child she would bear. Her mother was living in a dark world of her own at Arevalo, and the dread that the children should be like her had disappeared. Why should they be? Isabella was in full possession of her mental powers. No one in Castile was more balanced, more controlled than the Queen. Why, then, should she fear?

The pains were becoming more frequent. Isabella waited a while before she called to her women.

It was some hours later when, in the fortress town of Toledo, Isabella’s second daughter and third child was born.

She called her Juana.

Joanna knew herself to be deserted. Alfonso had agreed to Isabella’s terms, and she had been offered her choice: a marriage with a boy who was still a baby, or the veil.

Joanna knew that only would that marriage take place if by the time Prince Juan was in his teens there were still people to remember her cause in Castile. She wondered what sort of marriage she could hope for with a partner so many years younger than herself.

The peace of the cloister seemed inviting; but to take the veil, to shut herself off from the world for ever! Could she do that?

Yet what alternative was Isabella offering her? Shrewd Isabella who, so gently and with seeming kindness, could drive a poor bewildered girl into a prison from which there was no escape!

She must resign herself. She would take the veil. It was the only way to end conflict. How unhappy were those who, by an accident of birth, could never be allowed to live their lives as they would choose to do.

‘I think,’ she said to her attendants, ‘that I will prepare myself to go to the convent of Santa Clara at Coimbra.’