Joanna frowned into her governess’s face. ‘They should never have left me.’
‘They didn’t want to. Your mother was very, very sad. But your poor grandmother pleaded so and at last your father said you might stay for … a while.’
‘And that time is up now? That’s it, is it?’
‘You are going to England.’
For the first time Joanna was afraid. She threw herself at Edeline. ‘I shall leave Grandmother … my uncle the King … all the people here I know …’ She raised her eyes to Edeline’s face fearfully and dared not to ask the question which rose to her lips. Edeline answered it. ‘I shall come with you.’
Joanna sighed deeply. It was clear that she had found great comfort.
‘When shall we go?’
‘It will not be long.’
‘Oh my poor, poor grandmother!’
The Dowager Queen of Castile could have echoed those words. What would she do without the child on whom she doted? Life had been unfair to Joanna of Castile. She had never been loved as she had longed to be. Henry III had once asked for her hand and then when she had believed herself to be on the verge of marriage he had discarded her for Eleanor of Provence. It had been humiliating beyond endurance. Her mother had been similarly treated in a way and by an English king. Richard whom they called Coeur de Lion had been her betrothed and as a young girl she had been sent to England. But she had at least been beloved by Henry II who had seduced her when she was a child in the schoolroom and kept her as his mistress so that it was only natural that Richard should reject her. Then she had been married late to the Earl of Ponthieu who had been Queen Joanna’s father and they had produced but the one girl child. This child – rejected by the King of England – had at length been married to the King of Castile, but when he was old and she was almost past child-bearing, so she had had only one daughter – her dear gentle Eleanor who was now the wife of Edward of England. It had been a humiliating life and when her daughter had married and gone out of it she had yearned for someone to replace her.
Then had come Edward and Eleanor on their way home from the crusade with their dear little baby, who had been born in Acre, and when she had seen the child – named after herself, which seemed to make her more especially hers – she had implored them to leave the child with her. Rather to her surprise and to her intense delight they had done so. Of course they had stressed the point that one day little Joanna would have to come home, but she had refused to think of that day. Now it had come.
They had made a match for her. A match, thought the Dowager Queen indignantly. A match for a baby!
And they were going to take her darling away from her. She could not bear it.
There was no one she could discuss it with except the Lady Edeline. Her half-brother the King had his own affairs and that of a child being returned to her parents seemed a very small one to him.
Lady Edeline came to her and told her that the Princess Joanna had guessed that she was going to England.
The Queen opened her eyes very wide and stared at Edeline. ‘But how … could she know?’
‘She noticed your melancholy and thought it had something to do with herself and from that she guessed.’
‘Is she not a very clever child, Edeline? Fancy! So she knew.’
‘She is bright and sees herself as the centre of life. Everything that happens she believes must concern her. That was how she came to her conclusion.’
‘How can they take her away!’
‘She is their daughter, my lady.’
‘And this match … a child.’
‘It is the custom.’
‘Do you think they will send her to Germany?’
‘I should think that is probably the intention. Her future husband’s family will wish her to be brought up in their ways.’
The Queen clenched her fists together angrily. ‘It is a cruel thing to be a royal princess, Edeline.’
‘Perhaps so, my lady, but there are advantages.’
The Queen raised her eyes and studied Edeline. Calm, honest, precise, she would never flatter, always say what she wished. The Queen said fervently: ‘I thank God that you will be with our child.’
‘I thank Him too,’ said Edeline.
It was a long journey from the Court of Castile to that of England, but the Princess Joanna was excited at its prospect.
There was a tearful farewell with her grandmother – but the tears were really on her grandmother’s side. Joanna would miss that doting kindness which was more like adoration, but there was so much to look forward to. The Bishop had embraced his Filiola for the last time, and they had left the sunny land of Castile and passed through the rich vineyards of France and in time they came to the coast. How the poor little Spanish attendants chattered in near-hysterical fear at the sight of the rough waters they had to cross and how the boat heaved and sighed, and how sick so many of them were and how young Joanna loved the pull of the wind and the protesting groaning of the ship’s timbers as she ploughed her way across those frothing waters to the coast of England.
And then … home.
She was picked up and smothered with kisses. This was her mother whom she regarded coolly. Why did she leave me? she asked herself. Oh I know my grandmother begged and pleaded, but she left me.
Her father was there – big and splendid. She had never seen such a man. She bowed – very ceremonially as they did in Castile – and he laughed and picked her up.
‘Ah, we have a little beauty here,’ he said, and kissed her rather roughly. She gave him her cool smile. He, too, had abandoned her. ‘We are pleased to have you home, little one.’
Then there was her sister, the Princess Eleanor – fourteen years old, very grown up and beautiful; and very important it seemed by the way everyone treated her.
‘Welcome home, Joanna,’ said this important sister. ‘And come and meet your brother Alfonso.’
Alfonso was five years old – nearly two years younger than she was. He was rather meek too; and a little shy. He looked at her as though he were appealing to her to love him. She liked that.
‘And Margaret.’ A three-year-old who was only just aware of what it was all about, but delighted, as they all were, to have a seven-year-old sister presented to them.
‘Mary is in the nursery,’ said the Princess Eleanor. ‘She is only a baby.’
So now she knew them all – her family. She could reign supreme there as she did in Castile but there was one who might prevent her and that was her important sister the Princess Eleanor.
The first tussle came over the attendants. The Spanish ones suddenly disappeared.
‘Where are they?’ she asked her sister.
‘They have been sent back to Castile,’ she was told.
‘But I do not want them to go back to Castile.’
‘Our father has sent them.’
‘I will see him and they will be sent back to me.’
The Princess Eleanor laughed aloud. ‘They went on the King’s orders.’
‘But they were my attendants.’
‘I don’t know what happens in Castile, but here when the King gives an order it is obeyed without question. You will have to realise that, Joanna.’
‘But these attendants came with me.’
Her sister shrugged her shoulders.
‘I want to go back,’ said Joanna.
‘Don’t be silly. You are home with us now and we are your family.’
‘My grandmother was my family and she would never have sent my attendants away if I wanted to keep them.’