Free For a Queen's Love: The Stories of the Royal Wives of Philip II by Jean Plaidy

of her soul. Philip was interested in the subjects of that kingdom, which would one day be his; he saw farmers, tanned by the sun, bent by long hours of toil in their unfertile land, pausing now to watch the cortège pass; there were girls leaving the clothes they were washing in the streams to kneel by the roadside. Muleteers stopped beating their starving animals to look and mutter a prayer for the departed Queen. There were gypsy girls who refused to be solemn and smiled on him as though they did not know he was the Prince of Spain. He saw beggars who looked wistfully at the jewels in his clothes; he noticed the speculative glances of would-be robbers.
    And into Granada at last they came—that city where every stone seemed to have been laid by an Infidel. In the Capilla Real, they set down the coffin of Isabella. There she lay beside the great sarcophagus adorned with alabaster images of Ferdinand and that other Isabella.
    It was a solemn moment. None realized this more than Philip. He thought of his great-grandmother Isabella, who had defeated the last Moorish King, the great Boabdil himself, and had forced thousands of Moors to become Christians on pain of death.
    He knelt on the tiles; he listened to the chanting voices about him as the last funeral rites were performed. He thought of his father who was praying for his mother’s soul with the monks of Toledo; and he thought of the mother whom he would never see again.
    The Emperor had insisted that Philip should undertake the journey to Granada without his company; Philip knew this meant that any childhood that might have been his was lost forever.
    Life could not be all solemnity, and the Emperor did not wish that it should be. Yet he insisted that Philip should spend hours with him each day learning statecraft.
    “I am growing old,” said Charles, “but I care not, for soon you will be ready to take over my burdens.”
    Those were happy moments for Philip, but he was always disturbed lest he might not give the right answers to his father’s questions. Helooked to the future with apprehension; he was afraid that when his time came he would be unable to make the right decisions.
    His father watched him with quizzical eyes. He was intelligent, this Philip, but slow; he was afraid of choosing the wrong course; his decisions would be laboriously made; there was no flash of genius there. Philip would never have brilliant inspirations.
    Yet, steadiness was a good quality, the Emperor reminded himself. An unswerving sense of duty was even better.
    Again and again Charles warned Philip of the gentlemen of the court, the grandees and the statesmen. “Trust them not. Never act on the advice of
one
of them. Listen to what all have to say, and weigh their words. They are full of hypocrisy. They will utter fine words because you are a prince and they seek your favors. They are greedy. They look for advancement. Listen to their counsel but … decide for yourself.”
    Philip listened eagerly. His desire not to disappoint touched the Emperor. On the whole, thought Charles, I am well pleased with this son of mine.
    And when he left Spain once more, although Philip was only sixteen, he appointed him Regent, entrusting him with secrets that he would disclose to no other. He was to be
guided
in all things by the councillors whom Charles had chosen, but he, himself, was to make final decisions.
    It was a test and, as it turned out, he came through it with honor.
    He was indeed a man and, Charles decided, it was time he had a wife.
    He was still the same sentimental youth who had loved Jeanne of Navarre. Now he loved another, and he prayed that this time he might not be thwarted.
    He had her picture; he carried it beneath his doublet in a silver locket. She was a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl with a soft mouth in a face as round as a baby’s. It was the bewildered childishness of her that made him know he would love her.
    He had been mistaken in Jeanne of Navarre. She was a fiery girl