They sat sewing in silence, and at length Margaret rose and left them.

In her apartments she found two of her Flemish attendants staring gloomily out of the window.

They started up as Margaret came in, but she noticed that the expressions on their faces did not change.

‘I know,’ said Margaret. ‘You are weary of Spain.’

‘Ugh!’ cried the younger of the women. ‘All these dreary sierras, these dismal plains … and worst of all these dismal people!’

‘Much has happened to make them dismal.’

‘They were born dismal, Your Highness. They seem afraid to laugh or dance as people were meant to. They cling too firmly to their dignity.’

‘If we went home …’ began Margaret.

The two women’s faces were alight with pleasure suddenly. Margaret caught at that pleasure. She told herself then: There will never be happiness for me here. Only if I leave Spain can I begin to forget.

‘If we went home,’ she repeated, ‘that might be the best thing we could do.’

Ferdinand stood by his wife’s bedside looking down at her.

‘You must rouse yourself, Isabella,’ he said. ‘The people are getting restive.’

Isabella looked at him, her eyes blank with misery.

‘A ridiculous legend is being spread throughout the land. I hear it is said that we are cursed, and that God has turned His face away from us.’

‘I was beginning to ask myself if that were so,’ whispered the Queen.

She raised herself, and Ferdinand was shocked to see the change in her. Isabella had aged by at least ten years. Ferdinand asked himself in that moment whether the next blow his family would have to suffer would be the death of the Queen herself.

‘My son,’ she went on, ‘and now my daughter. Oh, God in Heaven, how can You so forget me?’

‘Hush! You are not yourself. I have never before seen you thus.’

‘You have never before seen me smitten by such sorrow.’

Ferdinand beat his right fist into the palm of his left hand.

‘We must not allow these foolish stories to persist. We are inviting disaster if we do. Isabella, we must not sit and mourn; we must not brood on our losses. I do not trust the new French King. I think I preferred Charles VIII to this Louis XII. He is a wily fellow and he is already making treaties with the Italians – we know well to what purpose. The Pope is sly. I do not trust the Borgia. Alexander VI is more statesman than Pope, and who can guess what tricks he will be up to? Isabella, we are Sovereigns first, parents second.’

‘You speak truth,’ answered Isabella sadly. ‘But I must have a little time in which to bury my dead.’

Ferdinand made an impatient gesture. ‘Maximilian, who might have helped to halt these French ambitions, is now engaged in war against the Swiss, and Louis has secured our neutrality by means of the new treaty of Marcoussis. But I don’t trust Louis. We must be watchful.’

‘You are right, of course.’

‘We must keep a watchful eye on Louis, on Alexander, on Maximilian, as well as on our own son-in-law Philip and our daughter Juana, who seem to have ranged themselves against us. Yes, we must be watchful. But most important is it that all should be well in our own dominions. We cannot have our subjects telling each other that our House is cursed. I have heard it whispered that Miguel is a weakling, that he will not live more than a few months, that it is a miracle that he was not born as was our other grandchild, poor Juan’s child. These rumours must be stopped.’

‘We must stop them with all speed.’

‘Ah then, my Queen, we are in agreement. As soon as you are ready to leave your bed, Miguel must be presented to the Cortes of Saragossa as the heir of Spain. And this ceremony must not be long delayed.’

‘It shall not be long delayed,’ Isabella assured him, and he was delighted to see the old determination in her face. He knew he could trust his Isabella. No matter what joy was hers, or what sorrow, she would never forget that she was the Queen.

The news of the Queen of Portugal’s death was brought to Tomás de Torquemada in the monastery of Avila.

He lay on his pallet, unable to move, so crippled was he by the gout.

‘Such trials are sent for our own good,’ he murmured to his sub-prior. ‘I trust the Sovereigns did not forget this.’

‘The news is, Excellency, that the Queen is mightily stricken and has had to take to her bed.’

‘I deplore her weakness and it surprises me,’ said Torquemada. ‘Her great sin lies in her vulnerability where her family is concerned. It is high time the youngest was sent to England. And so would she be, but for the Queen’s constant excuses. Learn from her faults, my friend. See how even a good woman can fail in her duty when she allows her emotions regarding her children to come between her and God.’

‘It is so, Excellency. But all have not your strength.’

Torquemada dismissed the man.

It was true. Few men on Earth possessed the strength of will to discipline themselves as he had done. But he had great hopes of Ximenes de Cisneros. There was one who, it would seem, might be worthy to tread in his, Torquemada’s, footsteps.

‘If I were but a younger man,’ sighed Torquemada. ‘If I might throw off this accursed sickness, this feebleness of my body! My mind is as clear as it ever was. Then I would still rule Spain.’

But when the body failed a man, however great he was, his end was near. Even Torquemada could not subdue his flesh so completely that he could ignore it.

He lay back complacently. It was possible that his death would probably be the next one which would be talked of in the towns and villages of Spain. There was death in the air.

But people were constantly dying. He himself had fed thousands of them to the flames. He had done right, he assured himself. It was only in his helplessness that he was afraid.

‘Not,’ he said aloud, ‘of the pain I might suffer, not of death – for what fear should I have of facing my Maker? – but of the loss to the world which my passing must mean.

‘Oh, Holy Mother of God,’ he prayed, ‘give this man Ximenes the power to take my place. Give Ximenes strength to guide the Sovereigns as I have done. Then I shall die happy.’

The faggots in the quemaderos all over the country were well alight. In the dungeons of the Inquisition men, women and children awaited trial through ordeal. In the gloomy chambers of the damned the torturers were busy.

‘I trust, O Lord,’ murmured Torquemada, ‘that I have done my work well and shall find favour in Your sight. I trust You have noted the number of souls I have brought to You, the numbers I have saved, as well as those I have sent from this world to hell by means of the fiery death. Remember, O Lord, the zeal of Your servant, Tomás de Torquemada. Remember his love of the Faith.’

When he thought over his past life he had no qualms about death. He was certain that he would be received into Heaven with great glory.

His sub-prior came to him, as he lay there, with news from Rome.

He read the dispatch, and his anger burned so fiercely that it set his swollen limbs throbbing.

He and Alexander were two men who were born to be enemies. The Borgia had schemed to become Pope not through love of the Faith but because it was the highest office in the Church. His greatest desire was to shower honours on his sons and daughter, whom, as a man of the Church, he had no right to have begotten. This Borgia, it seemed, could be a merry man, a flouter of conventions. There were evil rumours about his incestuous relationship with his own daughter, Lucrezia, and it was well known that he exercised nepotism and that his sons, Cesare and Giovanni, swaggered through the towns of Italy boasting of their relationship to the Holy Father.