Isabella nodded sadly. At such times she forgot she was ruler of a great and expanding country; she could only think of herself as a mother.

‘They are young yet …’ she began.

‘Young! Juan and Juana are ready for marriage. As for our eldest, she has had time enough in which to play the widow.’

‘Tell me what you have heard from Maximilian.’

‘Maximilian is willing for Philip to have Juana and for Juan to have Margaret.’

‘They would be two of the grandest marriages we could arrange for our children,’ mused Isabella. ‘But I feel that Juana is as yet too young … too unsteady.’

‘She will soon be too old, my dear; and she will never be anything but unsteady. No, the time is now. I propose to go ahead with my plans. We will tell them what we propose. There is no need to look gloomy. I’ll warrant Juana will be excited at the prospect. As for your angel son, he’ll not have to leave his mother’s side. The Archduchess Margaret will come to Juan. So it is only your poor unsteady Juana who will have to go away.’

‘I wish we could persuade Philip to come here … to live here.’

‘What, Maximilian’s heir! Oh, these are great matches, these marriages of our son and daughter to Maximilian’s. Have you realised that Philip’s and Juana’s offspring will hold the harbours of Flanders, and in addition will own Burgundy and Luxembourg, to say nothing of Artois and Franche Comté? I would like to see the face of the King of France when he hears of this match. And when Isabella marries Emanuel we shall be able to relax our defences on the Portuguese frontier. Oh yes, I should like to see the French King’s face.’

‘What do you know of Maximilian’s children … Philip and Margaret?’

‘Nothing but good. Nothing but good.’ Ferdinand was rubbing his hands together and his eyes gleamed.

Isabella nodded slowly. Ferdinand was right, of course. Both Juan and Juana were due for marriage. She was allowing the mother to subdue the Queen when she made wild plans to keep her children with her for ever.

Ferdinand had begun to laugh. ‘Philip will inherit the Imperial crown. The house of Habsburg will be bound to us. France’s Italian projects will have little success when the German dominions stand with us against them.’

He is always a statesman first, thought Isabella, a father second. To him Philip and Margaret are not two human beings – they are the House of Habsburg and the German Dominions. But she had to admit that his plan was brilliant. Their empire overseas was growing, thanks to their brilliant explorers and adventurers. But Ferdinand’s dream had always been of conquests nearer home. He planned to be master of Europe; and why should he not be? Perhaps he would be master of the world.

He was the most ambitious man she had ever known. She had watched his love of power grow with the years. Now she asked herself uneasily whether this had happened because she had found it necessary so often to remind him that she was the Queen of Castile, and in Castile her word should be law. Had his amour propre been wounded to such a degree that he had determined to be master of all the world outside Castile?

She said: ‘If these marriages were made it would seem that all Europe would be your friend with the exception of that little island – that pugnacious, interfering little island.’

Ferdinand kept his eyes on her face as he murmured: ‘You refer to England, do you not, my Queen. I agree with you. That little island can be one of the greatest trouble spots. But I have not forgotten England. Henry Tudor has two sons, Arthur and Henry. It is my desire to marry Arthur, Prince of Wales, to our own little Catalina. Then, my dear, the whole of Europe will be bound to me. And what will the King of France do then? Tell me that.’

‘Catalina! She is but a child.’

‘Arthur is young also. This will be an ideal match.’

Isabella covered her face with her hands.

‘What is the matter with you?’ demanded her husband. ‘Will you not congratulate your children on having a father who makes such good matches for them?’

Isabella could not speak for a moment. She was thinking of Juana – wild Juana whose spirits no amount of discipline had been able to subdue – of Juana’s being torn from her and sent to the flat, desolate land of Flanders, there to be wife of a man whom she had never seen but who was so suitable because he was the heir of the Habsburgs. But chiefly she thought of Catalina … tender little Catalina … taken from her family to be the bride of a foreign Prince, to live her life in a bleak island where, if reports were true, the sun rarely shone, and the land was frequently shrouded in mists.

It had to come, she told, herself. I always knew it. But that does not make it any easier to bear now that it is upon me.

The Queen had finished her confession and Ximenes enumerated her penances. She was guilty of allowing her personal feelings to interfere with her duty. It was a weakness of which she had been guilty before. The Queen must forget she is a mother.

Isabella meekly accepted the reproaches of her confessor. He would never stray from the path of duty, she was sure. She looked at his emaciated face, his stern straight lips which she had never seen curved in a smile.

You are a good man, Ximenes, she was thinking; but it is easier for you who have never had children. When I think of my little Catalina’s eyes fixed upon me I seem to hear her pleading with me: Don’t send me away. I do not want to go to that island of fogs and rains. I shall hate Prince Arthur and he will hate me. And for you, Mother, I have a love such as can never be given to any other person.

‘I know, my love, I know,’ Isabella whispered. ‘If it were in my power …’

But her thoughts were straying from her sins and, before she had earned forgiveness, she was falling into temptation once more.

When she next saw Catalina she would remind the child of her duty.

She rose from her knees. Now she was no longer a penitent but the Queen. Regality fell like a cloak about her and she frowned as her eyes rested on the monk.

‘My friend,’ she said, ‘you still refuse the honour I would give you. How much longer will you hold out?’

‘Your Highness,’ answered Ximenes, ‘I could not take office for which I felt myself to be unfitted.’

‘Nonsense, Ximenes, you know that the position fits you as a glove. I could command you to accept, you know.’

‘If Your Highness should adopt such a measure there would be nothing for me to do but retire to my hut in the forest of Castañar.’

‘I believe that is what you wish to do.’

‘I think I am more suited to be a hermit than a courtier.’

‘We do not ask you to be a courtier, Ximenes, but Archbishop of Toledo.’

‘They are one and the same, Your Highness.’

‘If you took the office I am sure they would be quite different.’ Isabella smiled serenely. She was certain that within the next few days Ximenes would accept the Archbishopric of Toledo.

She dismissed him and he went back to the small chamber which he occupied in the Palace. It was like a monk’s cell. There was straw on the floor; this was his bed, and his pillow was a log of wood. There would be no fire in this room whatever the weather.

It was said in the Palace: Fray Francisco Ximenes enjoys punishing himself.

As he entered this cell-like apartment he found a Franciscan monk awaiting him there and, as the hood of this newcomer fell back, Ximenes saw that his visitor was his own brother Bernardín.

The grim face of Ximenes was as near to expressing pleasure as it could be. It delighted him that Bernardín had entered the Franciscan brotherhood. Bernardín had been a wild boy and the last thing to have been expected of him was that he should enter the Order.