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

in that yellow garment of shame, the
sanbenito
, with the flames scorching them while their cries of agony rose up to Heaven. He heard the voices of Dominicans chanting as they watched the flames; he saw their eyes gleaming through their masks. “In the service of God … in the service of Christ …” they chanted. Yet those martyrs, while the flames licked their bodies, had been known to cry: “I die in Christ. I die for the glory of God.”
    Ruy’s dream of the future was different from Philip’s, and Ruy was thoughtful, for he knew that the threads of his life were inextricably woven with those of the boy who had just left him.
    We are both dreamers, he pondered. We are both dreaming our different dreams.
    Leonor had a new baby to nurse on her lap. Philip, with amusement, could watch her clucking over the child as once she had clucked over him; once he must have looked very like his sister Juana.
    This child was the sequel of the Emperor’s visit, and before Charles left Spain there was yet another baby; this time the child was a boy.
    Philip knew that the birth of his brother made him a little less important in the eyes of Spain. If he should become still more delicate, they would not be quite so anxious now.
    Often he would steal into the nursery and look at the little boy in the cradle, imagining him, instead of himself, growing up, listening to the Emperor telling him of the dominions he would one day inherit.
    The Emperor had returned to his dominions abroad, where his presence was urgently needed because of the menace of the Kings of France and England, and the spreading Lutheranism among the German Princes.
    It was a year or so after his departure when Philip, on entering the nursery one day, found his little brother lying on the floor in a strange position. He thought at first that the child was playing some game.
    “Get up,” he cried. “You will hurt yourself if you kick like that.”
    Bending over the child, Philip saw that his face was distorted; his eyes rolled, showing the whites so that he looked grotesquely unlikehimself. It was clear that he did not know his brother. He had bitten his tongue, and there was blood and foam at the side of his mouth and dribbling down his chin. A spasm seemed to pass through his body; he kicked furiously and lashed out with his arms. As Philip watched in horror, the little body became quite rigid and the breathing seemed to stop. Then the boy’s legs began to jerk spasmodically; he started to breathe again; his face became bloated and he was gasping for his breath.
    Philip called out in horror and Leonor came running in. She took one look at the child and crossed herself.
    “We must do something,” cried Philip. “What ails him?”
    “Stand back!” cried Leonor. “The devils within him might leap out … and into you. That is what these evil-wishers would like. Stand back, I say.”
    “But he will injure himself. Look, Leonor. How can we help him?”
    “We can do nothing but pray … pray the saints to help us fight this evil. I have seen him thus before. It passes. The evil spirits tire within him … and they let him rest. But each time he grows weaker. Go! I beg of you, go … lest they leave him and enter you … which is what they are trying to do.”
    Philip, obedient as ever, went to his own apartments.
    Ruy was there, and Philip was glad of that. He sank on to a stool and told Ruy what he had seen.
    “There are people here who wish me ill, who wish my family ill. Some witch has cast a spell upon my brother.”
    Ruy said nothing for a while. He was thinking that they would soon begin to look for the ill-wisher. Their eyes would fall upon some person … someone whom they wished to accuse. That person would be taken before the Inquisition, his body—or hers—broken in the torture chambers until a confession was extorted. But the explanation was simple. Ruy knew it. Not far away in the Alcázar of Tordesillas was a mad woman; and could madness be