Текст книги "Daughters of Spain "
Автор книги: Jean Plaidy
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
ISABELLA RECEIVES CHRISTOBAL COLON
Margaret went about the Palace like a sad, pale ghost. She had lost her Flemish gaiety; she seemed always to be looking back into the past.
Often Catalina would walk beside her in the gardens; neither would talk very much, but they had a certain comfort to give each other.
Catalina had a feeling that these walks were precious because they could not go on for long. Something was going to happen to her … or to Margaret. Margaret would not be allowed to stay here indefinitely, any more than she would. Maximilian would soon be wondering what new marriage could be arranged for his daughter; as for Catalina, her time of departure must be near.
Catalina said, one day as they walked together: ‘Soon my sister Isabella will be coming home. Then there will be festivities to welcome her. Perhaps then the time of mourning will be over.’
‘Festivities will not end my mourning,’ Margaret answered.
Catalina slipped her arm through that of her sister-in-law. ‘Will you stay here?’ she asked.
‘I do not know. My father may recall me. My attendants would be glad to return to Flanders. They say they can never learn your Spanish manners.’
‘I should miss you sadly if you went.’
‘Perhaps …’ began Margaret and stopped short.
Catalina winced. ‘You are thinking that I may be gone first.’ She was silent for a moment, then she burst out: ‘Margaret, I am so frightened when I think of it. I can tell you, because you are different from everyone else. You say what you think. I have a terror of England.’
‘One country is not so very different from another,’ Margaret comforted.
‘I do not like what I hear of the King of England.’
‘But it is his son with whom you will be concerned. There are other children, and perhaps they will not be like their father. Look how friendly I have become with you all.’
‘Yes,’ said Catalina slowly, ‘perhaps I shall like Arthur and his brother and sisters.’
‘Perhaps you will not go after all. Plans are often changed.’
‘I used to think and hope that,’ Catalina admitted. ‘But since the ceremony has been performed by proxy, I feel there is little chance of escape for me.’
Catalina’s brow was wrinkled; she was picturing that ceremony of which she had heard. It had had to be performed in secret because the King of England feared what the King of Scotland’s reaction would be if he knew that England was making a marriage with Spain.
‘In the Chapel of the Royal Manor of Bewdley …’ she whispered. ‘What strange names these English have. Perhaps in time they will not be strange to me. Oh, Margaret, when I think of that ceremony I feel I am already married. I feel there is no longer hope of escape.’
Isabella watched her daughter from a window of her apartments. She was glad to see Margaret and Catalina together. Poor children, they could help each other.
Although she could not see the expression on her young daughter’s face it seemed to her that there was desperation displayed in the droop of her head and the manner in which her hands hung at her sides.
She was probably talking of that marriage by proxy. The poor child would break her heart if she had to go to England. She was thirteen. Another year and the time would be ripe.
The Queen turned away from the window because she could no longer bear to look.
She went to her table and wrote to Torquemada.
‘As yet my daughter is too young for marriage. There has been this proxy ceremony; that must suffice for a little longer. Catalina shall not go to England … yet.’
Queen Isabella of Spain was often thankful that there was so much to demand her attention. If there had not been, she believed that she would not have been able to bear her grief for what had befallen her family. She had borne the terrible blow of Juan’s death, and she had thought at that time that she had come as near to despair as any woman could come; and yet, when she thought of Juana in Flanders, something like terror would assail her.
The truth was that she dared not think too often of Juana.
Therefore she was glad of these continual matters of state to which it was her duty to attend. She would never forget that she was the Queen and that her duty to her country came before everything – yes, even the love which she, as an affectionate mother, bore her children.
Now she was concerned about her Admiral, Christobal Colon, who was on his way to see her. She had a great admiration for this man and never ceased to defend him when his enemies – and he had many – brought charges against him.
Now he wished to sail once more for the New World, and she knew that he would beg for the means to do so. This would mean money for equipment, men and women who would make good colonists.
She would always remember that occasion when he had come home, having discovered the New World and bringing proof of its riches with him. She remembered singing the Te Deum in the royal chapel, praising God for this great gift. Perhaps to some it had not fulfilled its promise. They had expected more riches, greater profit. But Isabella was a woman of vision and she could see that the new colony might have something more important to offer than gold and trinkets.
Men grew impatient. They did not wish to work for their riches. They wanted to grow rich effortlessly. As for Ferdinand, when he saw the spoils which were being brought from the New World, he regretted that they had promised Christobal Colon a share in them, and was continually seeking a way out of his bargain with the adventurer.
Many had desired to follow him on his return to the New World, but to found a colony one needed men of ideals. Isabella understood this as Ferdinand and so many others could not.
It had been a troublous tale of ambition and jealousies which had been brought to Spain from the new colony.
‘Who is this Colon?’ was a question on the lips of many. ‘He is a foreigner. Why should he be put above us?’
Isabella understood that many of the would-be colonists had been adventurers, hidalgos who had no intention of submitting to any sort of discipline. Poor Colon! His difficulties were not over when he discovered the new land.
And now he was coming to see her again, and she wondered what comfort she would have to offer him.
When he arrived at the Palace she received him at once, and as he knelt before her she gave him a glance of affection. It grieved her that others did not share her faith in him.
She bade him rise and he stood before her, a broad man, long-legged, with deep blue eyes that held the dreams of an idealist in them; his thick hair, which had once been a reddish gold, was now touched with white. He was a man for whom a great dream had come true; but, energetic idealist that he was, one dream fulfilled was immediately superseded by another which seemed as elusive.
Perhaps, thought Isabella, it is easier to discover a New World than to found a peaceable colony.
‘My dear Admiral,’ she said, ‘tell me your news.’
‘Highness, the delay in leaving Spain for the colony alarms me. I fear what may be happening there.’
Isabella nodded. ‘I would I could give you all you need. There has, as you realise, been a heavy drain on our purses during these sad months.’
Colon understood. The cost of the Prince’s wedding must have been enormous. He could have fitted out his expedition on a quarter of it. He remembered how angry he had been during the celebrations, and how he had said to his dear Beatriz de Arana and their son, Ferdinand: What folly this is! To squander so much on a wedding when it could go towards enriching the colony and therefore Spain!
Beatriz and young Ferdinand agreed with him. They cared as passionately about his endeavours as he did himself, and he was a lucky man in his family. But what sad frustration he suffered everywhere else.
‘The Marchioness of Moya has been telling me of your plight,’ said the Queen.
‘The Marchioness has ever been a good friend to me,’ answered Colon.
It was true. Isabella’s dearest friend, Beatriz de Bobadilla who was now the Marchioness of Moya, believed in Christobal Colon as few did. It was she who, in the days before he had made his discovery, had brought him to the notice of Isabella and given him her active support.
‘I am deeply distressed for you and have been wondering how I can provide you with the colonists you need. I think it might be possible to find the money more easily than the men.’
‘Highness,’ said Christobal, ‘an idea has come to me. It is imperative that I have men for the colony. I need them for mining, building and agricultural work. Previously I took with me men who were not primarily colonists. They did not wish to build the New World; they only wished to take from it and return to Spain with their spoils.’
Isabella smiled.
‘They were disappointed,’ she said. ‘The climate did not agree with them, and it was said that they came back so sick and sallow that they had more gold in their faces than in their pockets.’
‘It is true, Highness. And this is why I find it so difficult to find men who will sail with me. But there are some men who could be made to go. I refer to convicts. If they were offered freedom, in the colony, they would eagerly take it in preference to imprisonment here.’
‘And,’ said Isabella, ‘it would not be a matter of choice. That should be their punishment.’
Christobal’s sunburned, weather-scored face was alight with excitement. ‘Out there,’ he said, ‘they will become new men. They will discover the delights of building a new world. How could they fail to do this?’
‘All men are not as you are, Admiral,’ Isabella reminded him.
But Christobal was certain that all men must prefer the adventure of the new world to incarceration in the old.
‘Have I Your Highness’s permission to go forward with this plan?’
‘Yes,’ said Isabella. ‘Select your convicts, Admiral; and may good luck go with you.’
After he had gone she sent for the Marchioness of Moya. It was rarely that she had time to be with this dear friend; each had their duties, and it was not often enough that their paths crossed. Yet each remembered the friendship of their youth, and when they could be together they never lost the opportunity.
When Beatriz arrived Isabella told her of Christobal’s plan to take convicts to the colony. Beatriz listened gravely and shook her head.
‘That is going to mean trouble,’ she said. ‘Our dear Colon will find himself keeping the peace among a set of ruffians. How I wish we could send good colonists with him.’
‘He must needs take what he can get,’ Isabella answered.
‘As we all must,’ added Beatriz. ‘What news of the Queen of Portugal?’
‘They are setting out at once. They must. I would not have Isabella travel later, when she is far advanced in pregnancy.’
‘Oh, how I hope …’ began the impetuous Beatriz.
‘Pray go on,’ Isabella told her. ‘You were going to say you hoped that this time I shall not be disappointed. This time I shall hold my grandchild in my arms.’
Beatriz went to Isabella and stooping over her kissed her. It was the familiar gesture of two friends who had been close to each other. Indeed, the forthright Beatriz, rather domineering as she was, was one of the few who treated the Queen at times as though she were a child. Isabella found it endearing. In the company of Beatriz she felt she could let down her defences and speak of her hopes and fears.
‘Yes,’ said Beatriz, ‘you are anxious.’
‘Isabella’s health was never good. That cough of hers has persisted for years.’
‘It is often the frail plants that live the longest,’ Beatriz assured her. ‘Isabella will have every care.’
‘That is one reason why I can feel glad that it has been necessary to call her home. I shall be at the birth. I shall see that she has every possible care.’
‘Then it is a good thing …’
‘No,’ answered Isabella sternly, ‘it can never be a good thing when there is internal strife in families.’
‘Strife! You call the strutting of this coxcomb, Philip, strife!’
‘Remember who he is, Beatriz. He could make a great deal of trouble for us. And my poor Juana …’
‘One day,’ Beatriz said, ‘you will find some reason to call her home. Then you will explain her duty to her.’
Isabella shook her head. It had never been easy to explain to Juana anything which she did not want to understand. She had a feeling that life in Flanders was changing Juana … and not for the better. Was it possible for such as Juana to grow more stable? Or would her mind, like her grandmother’s, gradually grow more and more wayward?
‘So many troubles,’ mused Isabella. ‘Our poor sad Margaret is like a ghost wandering about the Palace, looking for her happy past. And Juana … But do not let us talk of her. Then there is my frustrated Admiral with his convicts. I fear too there will be great trouble in Naples. Is there no end to our afflictions?’
‘No end to our afflictions, and no end to our joys,’ said Beatriz promptly. ‘You will soon be holding your grandchild in your arms, my Queen. And when you do so you will forget all that has gone before. Isabella’s son will mean as much to you as Juan’s would have done.’
‘You are my comforter, Beatriz, as you ever were. I trust we can spend more time together before we must part.’
THE BIRTH OF MIGUEL
Toledo lay before them. Neither Isabella nor Ferdinand, riding at the head of the cavalcade, could help feeling pride in this city. There it stood perched on a lofty granite plateau which from this distance looked as though it had been moulded to the shape of a horseshoe among the mountains above the Tagus. A perfect fortress city, for it could only be reached on the north side by way of the plain of Castile. At every other point the steep rock would prevent entry.
There was little that was Spanish in its architecture, for the Moors seemed to have left their mark on every tower, on every street.
But Isabella was not concerned with her city of Toledo; her thoughts were of the meeting which would shortly take place.
I shall be happy, she told herself, when I see Isabella and assure myself that this pregnancy has not weakened her.
‘You grow impatient,’ Ferdinand whispered, a smile on his lips.
‘And you too?’
He nodded. He was impatient for the birth of the child. If it were a son, the unhappy deaths of Juan and his offspring would be of little significance. The people would be glad to accept the son of Isabella and Emanuel as the heir.
‘If it is a boy,’ he said, ‘he must stay with us in Spain.’
‘Perhaps,’ ventured Isabella, ‘our daughter should stay with us also.’
‘What! You would separate husband and wife!’
‘I see,’ said Isabella, ‘that you are thinking there should be more children; and how could Isabella and Emanuel beget children if they were not together!’
‘That is true,’ replied Ferdinand. His eyes strayed to those three girls in the party – Margaret, Maria and Catalina. If his daughters had but been boys … But never mind, if Isabella had a male heir, this would be some solution of their troubles.
They were entering the town. How could she ever do so, Isabella asked herself, without remembering that it was the birthplace of Juana? That memorable event had occurred on a November day when the city looked different from the way it did this day in springtime. When she had first heard the cry of her little daughter she had not guessed what anxieties were to come because of her. Perhaps it would have been better if the child, to which she had given birth here in Toledo in the year 1479, had been stillborn as poor Margaret’s child had been. She felt an impulse to call Margaret to her and tell her of this. How foolish of her! Her grief was nowadays often weakening her sense of propriety.
They were at the gates of the city and the Toledans were coming out of their homes to welcome them. Here were the goldsmiths and silversmiths, the blacksmiths, the weavers and embroiderers, the armourers and the curriers, all members of the guilds of this city which was one of the most prosperous in Spain.
Thus it had been at that time when she and Ferdinand had come here to inspect the work on San Juan de los Reyes which they had given to the city. She remembered well the day they had seen the chains of the captives whom they had liberated when they conquered Malaga. These chains had been hung outside the walls of the church for significant decoration; they rested there today and they should remain there for ever – a reminder to the people that their Sovereigns had freed Spain from Moorish domination.
They would go to the church, or perhaps that of Santa Maria la Blanca, and give thanks for the safe arrival of the King and Queen of Portugal.
She would be happy among those horseshoe arches, among those graceful arabesques; there she would ask to be purged of all resentment against the sorrows of the last year. She would be cleansed of self-pity, and ready for the miracle of birth, the recompense which was to be the son her dearest Isabella would give to her and Spain.
It was meet that the Archbishop of Toledo should be in the city to greet them – gaunt, emaciated Ximenes de Cisneros, his robes of state hanging uneasily on his spare figure.
Isabella felt a lifting of her spirits as she greeted him. She would tell her old confessor of her weakness; she would listen to his astringent comments; he would scorn her mother-love as unworthy of the Queen; he would deplore her weakness in questioning the will of God.
Ferdinand’s greeting of the Archbishop was cool. He could never look at him without recalling that the office with all its pomp and grandeur might have gone to his son.
‘It does me good to see my Archbishop,’ murmured Isabella graciously.
Ximenes bowed before her, but even his bow had arrogance. He set the Church above the State.
Ximenes rode beside the Queen through the streets of Toledo.
With what great joy the Queen embraced her daughter Isabella!
This was when they were alone after the ceremonial greeting which had been watched by thousands. Then they had done all that was required of them, this mother and daughter, bowing graciously, kissing hands, as though they were not yearning to embrace and ask a thousand questions.
The Queen would not allow herself to look too closely at her daughter; she was afraid that she might see that which had made her anxious and betray her anxiety.
But now they were alone and the Queen had dismissed all her attendants and those of her daughter, for she told herself they must have this short time together.
‘My dearest,’ cried the Queen, ‘let me look at you. Why, you are a little pale. And how is your health? Tell me exactly when the little one is expected.’
‘In August, Mother.’
‘Well, that is not long to wait. You have not told me how you are.’
‘I feel a little tired, and rather listless.’
‘It is natural.’
‘I wonder.’
‘What do you mean? You wonder! A pregnant woman has a child to carry. Naturally she does not feel as other women do.’
‘I have seen some women seem perfectly healthy in pregnancy.’
‘Nonsense. It differs from woman to woman and from birth to birth. I know. Remember I have had five children of my own.’
‘Then perhaps this tiredness is nothing.’
‘And your cough?’
‘It is no worse, Mother.’
‘You think I am foolish with all my questions?’
‘Mother, it is good to hear those questions.’ Isabella suddenly flung herself into her mother’s arms and, to the Queen’s dismay, she saw tears on her daughter’s cheeks.
‘Emanuel is good to you?’
‘No husband could be better.’
‘I noticed his tenderness towards you. It pleased me.’
‘He does everything to please me.’
‘Then why these tears?’
‘Perhaps … I am frightened.’
‘Frightened of childbirth! It is natural. The first time can be alarming. But it is the task of all women, you know. A Queen’s task as well as a peasant’s. Nay, more so. It is more important for a Queen to bear children than for a peasant to do so.’
‘Mother, there are times when I wish I were a peasant.’
‘What nonsense you talk.’
Isabella realised then that there were matters she could not discuss even with her mother. She could not depress her by telling her that she had a strange foreboding of evil.
She wanted to cry out: Our House is cursed. The persecuted Jews have cursed us. I feel their curses all about me.
Her mother would be shocked at such childishness.
But is it childishness? Isabella asked herself. In the night I feel certain that this evil is all about me. And Emanuel feels it too.
How could that be? Such thoughts were foolish superstition.
She fervently wished that she had not to face the ordeal of childbirth.
How tiring it was to stand before the Cortes, to hear them proclaim her the heiress of Castile.
These worthy citizens were pleased with her, because none who looked at her could be in any doubt of her pregnancy. They were all hoping for a boy. But if she did not give birth to a boy, still the child she carried would, in the eyes of the Toledans, be the heir of Spain.
She listened to their loyal shouts and smiled her thanks. How glad she was that she had been brought up to hide her feelings.
After the ceremony with the Cortes, she must be carried through the streets to show herself to the people. Then she was received in the Cathedral and blessed by the Archbishop.
The atmosphere inside the massive Gothic building seemed overpowering. She stared at the treasures which hung on the walls and thought of the rich citizens of Toledo who had reason to be grateful to her mother for restoring order throughout Spain where once there had been anarchy. In this town lived the finest goldsmiths and silversmiths in the world; and the results of their labours were here in the cathedral for all to see.
She looked at the stern face of Ximenes and, as she studied the rich robes of his office, the brocade and damask studded with precious jewels, she thought of the hair shirt which she knew would be worn beneath those fine garments, and shivered.
She tried to pray then to the Virgin, the patron saint of Toledo, and she found that she could only repeat: ‘Help me, Holy Mother. Help me.’
When they had returned to the Palace, Emanuel said she must rest; the ceremony had tired her.
‘There are too many ceremonies,’ he said.
‘I do not believe it is the ceremony which tires me, Emanuel,’ she said. ‘I think I should be equally tired if I lay on my bed all the day. Perhaps I am not really tired.’
‘What then, my dearest?’
She looked at him frankly and answered: ‘I am afraid.’
‘Afraid! But, my love, you shall have the very best attention in Spain.’
‘Do you think that will avail me anything?’
‘But indeed I do. How I long for September! Then you will be delighting in your child. You will laugh at these fears … if you remember them.’
‘Emanuel, I do not think I shall be here in September.’
‘But, my darling, what is it you are saying …?’
‘Dear Emanuel, I know you love me. I know you will be unhappy if I die. But it is better for you to be prepared.’
‘Prepared! I am prepared for birth, not for death.’
‘But if death should come …’
‘You are overwrought.’
‘I am fatigued, but I think at such times I see the future more clearly. I have a very strong feeling that I shall not get well after the child is born. It is our punishment, Emanuel. For me death, for you bereavement. Why do you look so shocked? It is a small payment for the misery we shall bring to thousands.’
Emanuel threw himself down by the bed. ‘Isabella, you must not talk so. You must not.’
She stroked his hair with her thin white hand.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I must not. But I had to warn you of this feeling I have. It is so strong. Well, I have done so. Now let us forget it. I shall pray that my child will be a boy. That I think will make you very happy.’
‘And you will be happy too.’
She only smiled at him. Then she said quickly: ‘Toledo is a beautiful town, is it not? I think my father loves it. It is so prosperous. It is so Moorish. There is everything here to remind my parents of the reconquest; there are more than the chains from Malaga on the walls of San Juan de los Reyes. But my mother, while she exults in the prosperity and beauty of Toledo, feels a certain sadness.’
‘There must be no sadness,’ said Emanuel.
‘But there must always be sadness, it seems, sadness to mingle with pride, with laughter, with joy. Is it not beautiful here? I love to watch the Tagus dashing against the stones far below. Where in Spain is there such a fertile vega as that around Toledo? The fruit is so luscious here, the corn so plentiful. But did you notice how the flies pestered us as we came in? I saw the Rock too. The Rock of Toledo from which criminals are hurled down … down into the ravine. So much beauty and so much sorrow. That is what my mother feels when she rides into Toledo. In this rich and lovely city my sister Juana was born.’
‘That should make your mother love it all the more.’
Isabella took her husband’s hand in hers and cried out: ‘Emanuel, let there be complete trust between us. Let us not pretend to one another. Can you not see it? It is like the writing on the wall. I see it clearly. As I come nearer and nearer to my confinement I seem to acquire a new sensitivity. I feel I am not entirely of this world but have not yet reached the next. Therefore I sometimes see what is hidden from most human eyes.’
‘Isabella, you must be calm, my dearest.’
‘I am calm, Emanuel. But I distress you. I do not want my passing to be the shock to you that my brother’s death was to my mother. Emanuel, my dear husband, it is always better to be prepared. Shall I tell you what is in my mind, or shall I pretend that I am a woman who looks into the future and sees her child playing beside her? Shall I lie to you, Emanuel?’
He kissed her hands. ‘There must be truth between us.’
‘That is what I thought. So I would tell you. Emanuel, my House has brought greatness to Spain, great prosperity and great sorrow. Is it never possible to have one without the other? On our journey to Toledo we passed through a town where, in the Plaza Mayor, I saw the ashes and I smelt the fires which had recently burned there. It was human flesh which burned, Emanuel.’
‘Those who died were condemned by the Holy Office.’
‘I know. They were heretics. They had denied their faith. But they have hearts in which to harbour hatred, lips with which to curse. They would curse our House, Emanuel, even as those who were driven from Spain would curse us. And their curses have not gone unheeded.’
‘Should we suffer for pleasing God and all the saints?’
‘I do not understand, Emanuel; and I am too tired to try to. We are told that this is a Christian country. It is our great desire to bring our people to the Christian faith. We do it by persuasion. We do it by force. It is God’s work. But what of the devil?’
‘These are strange thoughts, Isabella.’
‘They come unbidden. See what has happened to us. My parents had five children – four daughters and one son. Their son and heir died suddenly, and his heir was stillborn. My sister Juana is strange, so wild that I have heard it whispered that she is half-way to madness. Already she has caused trouble to our parents by allowing herself to be proclaimed Princess of Castile. You see, Emanuel, it is like a pattern, an evil pattern built up by curses.’
‘You are distraught, Isabella.’
‘No. I think I see clearly … more clearly than the rest of you. I am to have a child. Childbearing can be dangerous. I am the daughter of a cursed House. I wonder what will happen next.’
‘This is a morbid fancy due to your condition.’
‘Is it, Emanuel? Oh, tell me it is. Tell me that I can be happy. Juan caught a fever, did he not? It might have happened to anybody. And the child was stillborn because of Margaret’s grief. Juana is not mad, is she? She is merely high-spirited, and she has fallen completely under the spell of that handsome rogue who is her husband. Is that not natural? And I … I was never very strong, so I have morbid fancies … It is merely because of my condition.’
‘That is so, Isabella. Of course that is so. Now there will be no more morbidity. Now you will rest.’
‘I will sleep if you will sit beside me and hold my hand, Emanuel. Then I shall feel at peace.’
‘I shall remain with you, but you must rest. You have forgotten that we have to start on our travels tomorrow.’
‘Now we must go to Saragossa. The Cortes there must proclaim me the Heiress as the Cortes here at Toledo have done.’
‘That is right. Now rest.’
She closed her eyes, and Emanuel stroked back the hair from her hot forehead.
He was worried. He did not like this talk of premonitions. He had an idea that the ceremony in Saragossa would not be such a pleasant one as that of Toledo. Castile was ready to accept a woman as heir to the crown. But Saragossa, the capital of Aragon, did not recognise the right of women to rule.
He did not mention this. Let her rest. They would overcome their troubles the better by taking them singly.
Into Saragossa came Isabella, Princess of Castile, with Emanuel her husband.
The people watched them with calm calculating gaze. This was the eldest daughter and heiress of their own Ferdinand, but she was a woman, and the Aragonese did not recognise the right of women to reign in Aragon. Let the Castilians make their own laws; they would never be accepted as the laws of Aragon. The Aragonese were a determined people; they were ready to fight for what they considered to be their rights.
So as Isabella rode into their city they were silent.
How different, thought Isabella, from the welcome they had received in Toledo. She did not like this city of bell turrets and sullen people. She had felt the vague resentment as soon as she passed into Aragon; she had been nervous as she rode along the banks of the Ebro past those caves which seemed to have been formed in this part of the country among the sierras as well as along the banks of the river. The yellow water of the Ebro was turbulent; and the very houses seemed too much like fortresses, reminding her that here was a people who would be determined to demand and fight for its dues.
On her arrival in this faintly hostile city she went to pray to the statue of the Virgin which, it was said, had been carved by the angels fourteen hundred years before. Precious jewels glittered in her cloak and crown which seemed to smother her; and it occurred to Isabella that she must have looked very different when, as the legend had it, she appeared to St James all those years ago.
