Spain for the Sovereigns - Plaidy Jean - Страница 65

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‘If you would tell me . . .’ he began.

‘I will tell you this. I believe it is God’s will that you stay here. Senor Colon, do not deny me what I ask.’

‘Since you put it like this, I will stay,’ said Cristobal.

Fray Juan was satisfied.

He left father and son together and went to his cell.

He wrote for some time; then destroyed what he had written.

He paced his cell. He knelt and prayed.

Then he made a sudden decision.

He went to Cristobal and Diego and said: ‘I have to leave the monastery on a most urgent matter. You have given me your word, Cristobal Colon, that you will stay here. I want you to promise me now that you will not leave until I return.’

He looked so earnest that Cristobal gave his promise.

And that very day the Prior set out on his mule for the two-hundred-mile journey to Granada.

Isabella lay sleeping in her pavilion. These elaborate sleeping quarters were very different from the tents used by the soldiers, and had been provided for her by the Marquis of Cadiz.

She was weary, for the days in camp were exhausting. She was continually going among the troops, talking to them of their homes, urging them to valour; and as there were constant skirmishes, there were many wounded to be attended to.

But now the night was still, and she slept.

She awoke suddenly to a sense of alarm; it was some seconds before she realised that what had awakened her was the smell of burning.

She hastened from her bed, calling to her women, and as she ran from the pavilion she saw that draperies at one side of it were ablaze and that the fire had spread to the nearby tents.

Isabella immediately thought of her children, who were sleeping near the pavilion, and she found time in those seconds to visualise a hundred horrors which might befall them.

‘Fire!’ called Isabella. ‘Fire in the camp!’

Immediately the camp was awake, and Isabella made with all speed to those tents in which the royal children were sleeping; she found to her immense joy that the fire had not yet touched them, so she roused the children hastily and, throwing a few clothes about them, they hurried with her into the open.

There she found Ferdinand giving instructions.

‘Be watchful,’ he called to the sentinels. ‘If the enemy see what is happening they might attack.’

As Isabella, with her daughters, watched the soldiers dealing with the fire, she noticed that Juana’s eyes were dancing with excitement and that the child seemed even a little disappointed when the fire was under control. Maria looked on with an expression which was almost one of indifference, while little Catalina grasped her mother’s hand and clung to it tightly. Their sister Isabella seemed listless, as she had habitually become since the death of Alonso.

The Marquis of Cadiz joined Isabella and explained that a lamp had evidently caught the draperies of the pavilion and the wind had carried the flame to the nearby and highly inflammable tents.

At length Isabella led the children into one of the tents which had been prepared for them. She lifted Catalina into her arms and the child was almost immediately asleep. She kept them with her for the rest of the night.

The elaborate pavilion and many of the costly tents and their furnishings had been destroyed; and in the morning Ferdinand estimated the damage with a frown. The loss of valuable property always upset him more than any other calamity.

‘Ferdinand,’ said Isabella slowly, ‘this might have been a great disaster. We might have lost our lives, if the saints had not watched over us. How ironical if, on the eve of victory, we should have died through a fire caused accidentally.’

Ferdinand nodded grimly. ‘The loss must amount to a small fortune,’ he grumbled.

‘I have been thinking, Ferdinand. It is now July. Very soon the summer will be over. Suppose we do not take Granada before the winter is upon us?’

Ferdinand was silent.

‘The advantage,’ she went on, ‘will be all on the side of our enemies. They will be in warm winter quarters in their town, while we shall be exposed to the weather in our encampment.’

‘You and the children will have to leave us.’

‘And what effect will that have, do you think? I prefer to remain with the army, Ferdinand. I think it is essential that I remain with the army.’

‘Then we shall have to retire and come back in the spring.’

‘And lose the advantage we now have! No! I have a plan. We will build ourselves a town here . . . here on the plain before Granada.’

‘A town! You cannot mean that.’

‘But I do mean it, Ferdinand. We will build houses of stone which will not take fire so easily as our tents. We will build a great garrison – houses, quarters for the soldiers and stables. And we shall not retreat from our position, but stay here all through the winter as comfortably housed as our enemies!’

‘Is this possible?’

‘With God’s help everything is possible,’ she answered.

‘It would have to be completed in three months.’

‘So shall it be.’

Ferdinand looked at her with admiration. The previous day she had been exhausted by her work in the camp; her night had been disturbed by this disastrous fire; and here she sat, looking fresh and as energetic as ever, calmly proposing a plan which, had anyone but Isabella suggested it, he would have declared to be absurd.

Before Granada the work went on. The town grew up with a speed which astonished all who beheld it.

The Moors looked on in despair.

They understood the meaning of this. The Christians would remain there throughout the winter. The respite for which they had longed would be denied them.

‘Allah has turned his face from us,’ wailed the people of Granada. And they cursed Boabdil, their King, who had brought civil war among them when he had challenged the rule of Muley Abul Hassan.

Isabella moved about among her workmen. They must work harder. The task was tremendous, but it must be accomplished. They must ignore the sporadic sallies of the Moors. They must build their town by winter.

There were two avenues traversing this new town as Isabella had planned that there should be.

‘Thus,’ she said, ‘my new town is in the form of the cross – the cross for which we fight. It shall be the only town in Spain which has not been contaminated by Moslem heresy.’

The town must have a name, it was decided; and a deputation of workers came to her and asked if she would honour the town by bestowing her name upon it.

She smiled graciously. ‘I thank you for the honour you have done me,’ she said. ‘I thank you for the good work you have done in this town. But I have decided on a more appropriate name than my own. We shall call this town Santa Fe.’

And there was the town in the shape of a cross – a monument to the determination of the Christians not to rest until they had brought about the reconquest of every inch of Spanish soil.

Beatriz de Bobadilla was in her quarters within the fortifications of Santa Fe when one of her women came to her and told her that a friar had arrived and wished to speak to her on the most urgent business.

Beatriz received him at once.

‘My lady,’ said Fray Juan, ‘it is kind of you to receive me so promptly.’

‘Why,’ she said, ‘you have made a long journey and you are exhausted.’

‘I have travelled two hundred miles from La Rabida, but the matter is one which needs urgent attention, and I beg you to give it. It concerns the explorer, Cristobal Colon.’

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