The Shadow of the Pomegranate

The Death of Ferdinand

FERDINAND WAS OFTEN THINKING OF HIS DAUGHTER IN England. Indeed lately he had begun to ponder on the past, a habit he had never indulged in before. This may have been due to the fact that his health was rapidly declining. His limbs were swollen with dropsy, and, although he longed to rest them, he found it difficult to breathe within closed walls because of the distressing condition of his heart.

There were times when he had to battle for his breath, and then would come these sessions of reminiscence. His conscience did not trouble him. He had been a fighter all his life and he knew that the only way he could have preserved what he had, was to have fought and schemed for it.

He had heard an alarming rumor that Henry of England believed his wife to be incapable of bearing healthy children because not one of them so far had lived. Ferdinand knew the significance behind such rumors.

But Catalina is strong, he told himself. She is her mother’s daughter. She will know how to hold her place.

It was not for him to worry about his daughter; his great concern was to keep the breath in his body.

There was one place where he felt more comfortable, and that was out of doors. The closeness of cities was intolerable to him, for the air seemed to choke him. He would not admit that he was old; he dared not admit it. If he did he would have young Charles closing in on him, eager to snatch the crown.

He could feel angry about young Charles. The boy did not know Spain, and did not even speak Spanish; he was Fleming from the top of his flaxen head to the toes of those—if he could believe reports—ungainly feet. He lacked the dignity of the Spaniard.

“If I could only put his brother Ferdinand in his place, how willingly would I do so.” Ferdinand thought lovingly of his grandson who bore the same name as himself, and who had been as the son he had longed for. He had had the boy educated in the manner of a Spanish grandee, he himself supervising that education; he loved young Ferdinand.

His eyes glinted. Why should he not give his possessions to Ferdinand?

He laughed to picture the disapproving face of Ximenes who would remind him of his duty and that Charles was the heir, the elder of mad Juana’s sons. Ximenes would rigidly adhere to his duty. Or would he? He had a great affection for young Ferdinand also.

But I have many years left to me, he assured himself, refusing to think of death. It was true he was nearly sixty-four years old—a good age—but his father had been long-lived and, but for this dropsy and the accursed difficulty in breathing, he would not feel his age. He had a young wife, and he still endeavored to persuade her that he was young, yet he was beginning to wonder if the continual use of aphrodisiacs did not aggravate his condition.

As he sat brooding thus he was joined by the Duke of Alva who looked at him keenly and said: “Your Highness yearns for the fresh air of the country. Come to my place near Placencia. There are stags in plenty and good hunting.”

Ferdinand felt young at the thought of the hunt.

“Let us leave this very day,” he said.

When they came into the country he took deep breaths of the December air. Ah, he thought, this suits me well. I am a young man again in the country. He looked at Germaine who rode beside him. She was so fresh and youthful that it did him good to see her; yet his thoughts strayed momentarily to his wife Isabella who had been a year older than he was, and he felt a sudden desire to be back in those old days when he and Isabella had fought for a kingdom, and at times for supremacy over each other.

As usual the fresh air was beneficial and he found that if the day’s hunting was not too long, he could enjoy it. Alva, concerned for his health, made sure that the hunt finished when the King showed signs of fatigue, and Ferdinand began to feel better.

In January he decided that he should travel on to Andalusia, for he was never one to neglect state duties for pleasure.

Perhaps the hunt had been too strenuous, perhaps the journey was too arduous, but Ferdinand was finding it so difficult to breathe that by the time his party reached the little village of Madrigalejo not far from Truxillo, he could not go on.

There was great consternation among his followers as there was no place worthy to provide a lodging for the King. Yet stop they must, and certain friars in the village came forward and said they had a humble house which they would place at the King’s disposal.

The house was small indeed; rarely in his adventurous life had Ferdinand rested in such a place; but he knew that he could not go on, so he gasped out his gratitude to the friars, and allowed himself to be helped to a rough bed.

He looked round the small room and grimaced. Was this the place where the most ambitious man in Europe was to spend his last days on Earth?

Almost immediately he laughed at himself. His last days! He had never been easily defeated and he would not be now. After a little rest he would be ready to go on with his journey; he had learned one lesson; he would take more rest; he would give up his rejuvenating potions and live more as a man of his years must expect to live. If he curtailed his physical exercise he could direct state affairs from a couch. He thanked God that he was in possession of his mental powers.

But as he lay in that humble dwelling news was brought from the village of Velilla in Aragon. In this village was a bell which was said to be miraculous; when any major disaster was about to befall Aragon the bell tolled. Certain bold men had sought to stop the bell’s tolling only to be dashed to death. The bell, it was said, rang and stopped of its own volition, when the warning had been given.

Now, said rumor, the bell of Velilla was tolling for the imminent death of great Ferdinand of Aragon.

So stunned by this were those about him that Ferdinand asked what ailed them; and one, unable to withstand the insistent interrogation, told Ferdinand that the bell of Velilla had given a warning of imminent disaster.

Ferdinand was horrified because until this moment he had not believed death could possibly come to him. To other men, yes; but in his youth he had seen himself as an immortal; such self-made legends died slowly.

But the bell was tolling…tolling him out of life.

He said: “I must make my will.”

He thanked God…and Isabella…in that moment for Ximenes, because thinking of the tolling of the Velilla bell, his great anxiety was not for himself but for the good of his country. Ximenes he could trust. There was a man who was above reproach, above ambition, who would never give honors to his friends and family unless he honestly believed they deserved them. He remembered even now all he owed to Isabella, and he would serve Isabella’s family with all his powerful ability.

Then Cardinal Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, should be the Regent of Spain, until such time as his grandson was ready to rule it.

Ximenes would support Charles, he knew. Ferdinand grimaced. Oh, that I were not on my death-bed! Oh, that I might fight for a kingdom and bestow it on my grandson Ferdinand!

But this was a matter outside the control of a dying man. There was no question of the succession of Castile; as for the succession of Aragon and Naples they must fall to Juana—mad Juana, a prisoner in Tordesillas—and to her heirs. The Regency of Castile should go to Ximenes and that of Aragon to his dear son the Archbishop of Saragossa.

Ferdinand could smile wryly, and it seemed to him then that his first wife Isabella was at his bedside and that he snapped his fingers at her. “Yes, Isabella, my bastard son, my dear one on whom I bestowed the Archbishopric of Saragossa when he was six years old. How shocked you were, my prim Isabella, when you discovered his existence! But see, he is a good and noble boy, of sound good sense and beloved by the people. The Aragonese love my illegitimate son more than you did, Isabella.”

He would not forget his grandson Ferdinand. He should have an annual income of fifty thousand ducats and a share in Naples. As for Germaine, she must be provided for. She should have thirty thousand gold florins, and five thousand should be added to that while she remained a widow. Would that be long? He pictured her—gay Germaine—with a husband who did not have to resort to potions. Jealous anger almost choked him and he had to restrain himself in order to get back his breath.

He saw a man standing at his bedside and demanded: “Who is there?” Some of his servants came forward and said: “Highness, it is Adrian of Utrecht who has arrived here, having heard of the indisposition of Your Highness.”

Ferdinand turned his face to the wall to hide his anger. Adrian of Utrecht, the chief adviser of his grandson Charles.

So, he thought, the carrion crows have arrived already. They sit and wait for the last flicker of life to subside. They are mistaken. I’m not going to die.

He turned and gasped: “Tell…that man to go. He has come too soon. Send him away.”

So Adrian of Utrecht was forced to leave the house. But Ferdinand was wrong.

A few days later when his gentlemen came to his bed to wish him good morning, they found that he was dead.