That would be unwise. These children must never forget that, although she was their mother, she was also their Queen.

‘And how are my children this day?’ she asked them.

Isabella, who was eleven years old, naturally spoke for the others. ‘They are all well, Highness; and they hope they see Your Highness in like state.’

A faint smile curved Isabella’s lips. What a formal answer to a mother’s question! But it was the correct answer of course.

Her eyes dwelt on her son – her little three-year-old Juan. How could she help his being her favourite? Ferdinand had wanted a boy, because he had felt it was fitting that there should be a male heir to the throne; and for Ferdinand’s sake she was glad.

And there was little Juana, a charming two-year-old, with a sparkle in her eyes.

‘I am very happy, my dears,’ said Isabella, ‘because now your father and I can spare a little time from our duties to spend with our family.’

‘What duties, Highness?’ asked young Juana.

The Infanta Isabella gave her sister a stern look, but the Queen said: ‘Nay, let her speak.’

She sat down and lifted her youngest daughter onto her knee. ‘You would know what the duties of a king and queen are, my child?’

Juana nodded.

The Infanta Isabella nudged her. ‘You must not nod when the Queen speaks to you. You must answer.’

Juana smiled enchantingly. ‘What must I say?’

‘Oh, Highness,’ said the Infanta Isabella, ‘she is but two, you know.’

‘I know full well,’ said Isabella. ‘And now we are in our close family circle we need not observe too strictly the etiquette which it is necessary to maintain on all other occasions. But of course you must remember that it is only at such times as this that we can relax.’

‘Oh, yes, Highness,’ the young Isabella and Juan replied together.

Then the Queen told her children of the duties of king and queen, how they must travel from place to place; how it was necessary to call a Cortes to govern the country, how it was necessary to set up courts to judge evil doers – those who broke the civic law and the laws of God. The children listened gravely.

‘One day,’ said Isabella, ‘Juan will be a King, and I think it very possible that you, my daughters, may be Queens.’

‘Queens?’ asked young Isabella. ‘But Juan will be King, so how can we be Queens?’

‘Not of Castile and Aragon, of course. But you will marry, and your husbands may be Kings; you will reign with them. You must always remember this and prepare yourselves.’

Isabella stopped suddenly. She had had a vivid reminder of the past. She remembered those days at Arevalo where she and her young brother Alfonso had spent their childhood. She remembered her mother’s hysteria and how the theme of her conversation was always: You could be King – or Queen – of Castile.

But this is different, she hastened to assure herself. These children will ascend thrones without trouble. It is not wild hysteria which makes me bid them prepare.

But she changed the subject abruptly and wished to know how they were progressing with their lessons. She would see their books and hear them read.

Then young Isabella read and, while she was doing so, the child began to cough.

‘Do you cough often?’ the Queen asked,

‘Now and then, Mother.’

‘She is always coughing,’ Juan told his mother.

‘Not always,’ Isabella contradicted. ‘At night sometimes, Mother. Then I am given a soothing syrup, and that makes me go to sleep.’

Isabella looked grave. She would consult the Infanta’s governess about the cough.

The two younger children were clearly healthy; she wished that Isabella did not look so fragile.

‘Highness,’ said little Juana, ‘it is my turn to read.’

‘She cannot,’ said the Infanta Isabella.

‘She points to the page and pretends to,’ Juan added.

‘I do read. I do,’ cried Juana. ‘I do, Highness, Highness, I do! I do! I do!’

‘Well, my little one, you must not become so excited; and you must not tell lies, you know. If you say you can read, and you cannot read, that is a lie.’

‘People who tell lies go to Hell and burn for ever,’ announced Juan. ‘They burn here too. There are lots of people who burn here. They tell lies. They don’t believe in God . . . our God . . . so we burn them to death.’

‘So you hear these things?’ the Queen asked.

‘They are always listening to gossip, Highness,’ the Infanta Isabella told her.

‘It does not matter that they burn,’ Juan announced. ‘They are going to burn for ever, so what do a few minutes on earth matter? The priest told me so.’

‘Now, my children,’ said Isabella, ‘you must not talk of these matters, for they are not for children. Juana has told me she can read, and I shall be very disappointed in her if she has told me a lie.’

Juana’s face puckered, and Juan, who was very kind, put his arm about her shoulder.

‘She learns some words, Highness, and knows them by heart. She points to the book and thinks she is reading.’

Juana stamped her foot. ‘I do not think I read. I do read.’

‘Silence, my child!’ commanded Isabella.

‘You forget,’ said the Infanta, to her little sister, ‘that you are in the presence of Her Highness the Queen.’

‘I can read. I can read!’ sobbed the child.

Isabella tried to catch her, but she wrenched herself free; she began to run round the room shouting: ‘I can read. I can. I can . . .’

The elder children watched her in dismay and amazement.

Then little Juana began to laugh, and as she laughed her laughter turned to tears.

The Queen stared at her youngest child, and a terrible fear had come to her.

Ferdinand burst on the domestic scene. Isabella started up at the sight of him, because she saw from his expression that some disaster had come to them.

Juan ran to his father and threw himself into his arms, but although Ferdinand lifted the boy up and kissed his cheek, he was not thinking of his children.

‘Now that the King has come, you must go back to your nursery,’ Isabella told the children.

‘No!’ cried the naughty Juana. ‘No! We wish to stay with Papa.’

‘But you have heard Her Highness’s command,’ said young Isabella horrified.

‘And she will obey them,’ put in Ferdinand, smiling down at his little daughter, who was pulling at his doublet, murmuring: ‘My turn, Papa. It was my turn to be kissed.’

‘This little one,’ said Ferdinand, ‘reminds me of my mother.’

Those words delighted Isabella so much that she forgot to wonder what ill news Ferdinand had to impart to her. Like his mother, she thought – calm, shrewd, practical Joan Henriquez. Not like Isabella’s own mother, the poor sad Queen living in darkness at Arevalo.

‘Come little mother-in-law,’ said Isabella, ‘you must go now to your nursery.’

‘What is a mother-in-law?’ Juana asked.

‘It is the mother of a wife’s husband or a husband’s wife,’ Isabella told her daughter.

Juana stood very still, her bright eyes wide, repeating to herself: ‘Suegra. Suegra . . . the mother of a wife’s husband.’

‘Go along, Suegra, at once, I said,’ the Queen reminded her daughter; and young Isabella took her sister’s hand and forced her to curtsey.

Ferdinand and Isabella stood looking after the children as they retired.

‘You have bad news, Ferdinand,’ she said.

‘The Moors have surprised our fortress of Zahara; it has fallen into their hands.’

‘Zahara! But that is serious.’

Ferdinand nodded. ‘It was my own grandfather who recovered it from the Infidel,’ he said, ‘and now it is theirs once more.’

‘It must not remain so,’ Isabella replied.

‘It shall not, my dear. If we had funds at our command I would wage a mighty war against the Infidel; and I would not cease to fight until every Mussulman had been driven from our land.’