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 A Demon's Wings (Vice College for Young Demons: Year 3)

Copyright: Marie Mistry © 2019

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, brands, media and
incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used
fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark owners of
various products, brands and/or stores referenced in this work of
fiction which have been used without permission. The
publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated
with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

The right of Marie Mistry to be identified as author of this Work

has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise
transmitted without written permission from the author. You must
not circulate this book in any format.
 Dedication
To all the unsung heroes.
 Authors Note
A Demon’s Wings is a Paranormal Reverse Harem novel
containing sexual situations with BDSM elements and multiple
consenting partners over the age of 18. This book also contains foul
language, descriptions of violence and alcohol, and is written in
British English. It also ends on a cliff hanger and the series will have
a happy ending in the fourth and final book.
 Table of Contents
Dedication
Authors Note
Table of Contents
Cast of Characters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Rina
 Cast of Characters
In alphabetical order by first name.
Key: P = Pride Demon E = Envy Demon L = Lust Demon
GR = Greed Demon S = Sloth Demon GL = Gluttony Demon
W = Wrath Demon U = Unshown

Aeron Saxon: (L – Aphrodisia) Gifted with Aerokinesis (air

manipulation) and Atmokinesis (weather manipulation). Professor of
Combat at Vice College, Knight of the Order of Shadow. Lilith's mate,
son of Aoife Saxon and Kellert Krossian.
Alicia Pruitt: (S – Tardiness) Elder of the Sloth Caste, Knight of
the Order of Shadow. Sister of Calandra Pruitt.
Aoife Saxon: (GR – Philomath) Gift – unknown. Head teacher
of Vice College and mother of Aeron Saxon.
Arnold Carazor: (S – Indifference) Father of Lilith Carazor.
Astoria Braxion: (P – Narcissist) Mother of Lilith Carazor.
Babette Ajax: (L – Adultery) Vice College Graduate. Friend of
Lilith Carazor. Niece of Reece Ajax, cousin of Morpheus and Vivienne
Ajax.
Bane Krossian: (GR – Acquisition) Gifted with Terrakinesis
(earth manipulation), Phytokinesis (plant manipulation) and
Crystallokinesis (crystal manipulation). Third year student,
commander within the Unshown Resistance, Knight of the Order of
Shadow. Lilith's mate, son of Leonie Karov and Kellert Krossian.
Blaze Inferna: (W – Violence) Seer. Gifted with Pyrokinesis
(fire manipulation) and Fragokinesis (explosion manipulation). Head
of security at Vice, Knight of the Order of Shadow. Lilith's mate,
older brother of Rina Inferna.
Calandra Pruitt: (GR - Selfishness) Professor of Etiquette at
Vice College. Sister of Alicia Pruitt.
Circe Abrosiax: (P – Conceit) Former Vice student. Daughter
of Constantin Abrosiax. Deceased.
 Constantin Abrosiax: (P - Ego) Senior Judge. Father of Circe
Abrosiax. Deceased.
Cornelia (Nelly) Drabos: (L – Desire) Vice College Graduate.
Personal assistant to the Lady Carazor, Knight of the Order of
Shadow. Twin sister of Lucrecia Drabos.
Daron Abraxon: (E – Possession) Gifted with Ferrokinesis
(metal manipulation) and Electrokinesis (electricity manipulation).
Third year student, Knight of the Order of Shadow. Lilith's mate.
Dorian McKinnax: (U) Servant at Vice College, Knight of the
Order of Shadow. Lulu's mate.
Egon Vrosis: (L – Desire) Elder of the Lust Caste.
Eliana Rutia: (W – Justice) Head of House Rutia.
Enzo Orfo: (GL – Indulgence) Gifted with Corporikinesis (body
manipulation) and Umbrakinesis (darkness manipulation). Assassin.
Lilith's mate, son of Ronan Craven.
Eoin McCormix: (GL – Masochism) Gifted with Vitakinesis
(health manipulation). Healer of the Unshown Resistance.
Evan Fraxis: (P – Supremist) Gifted with Telekinesis (object
manipulation). Professor of Combat at Transgression College.
Syndicate member. Deceased.
Ferris Inferna: (GR – Pecunious) Seer, Knight of the Order of
Shadow. Father of Blaze Inferna and Rina Inferna.
Fenella Rezinax: (W – Dispassionate) Gifted with Vitakinesis
(health manipulation). Head Healer at Vice College.
Gale Fintan: (L – Incubus) Tester.
Gilly: (U) Servant of Vendra Braxion.
Hadrian McKinnax: (GL – Luxury) Formerly Professor of
Combat at Vice College, Knight of the Order of Shadow. Lulu's mate.
Hannibal Delaroza: (E – Ambition) Head of House Delaroza.
Jin Sharax: (S – Slumber) Gifted with Hydrokinesis (water
manipulation) and Cryokinesis (ice manipulation). Fourth year
student, Knight of the Order of Shadow. Lilith's mate.
Kain Zenunim: (Pride – Accomplishment) Gifted with
Photokinesis (light manipulation) and Asterokinesis (cosmic
manipulation). Fourth year student, Knight of the Order of Shadow.
Lilith's mate.
 Kellert Krossian: (L – Incubus) Knight of the Order of
Shadow. Mate of Leonie Karov, father of Aeron Saxon and Bane
Krossian.
Leonie Karov: (U) Chef, Knight of the Order of Shadow. Mate
of Kellert Krossian, mother of Bane Krossian.
Lilith Carazor: (L – Succubus) Gifted with Odynokinesis (pain
manipulation) and Pathokinesis (emotion manipulation). Third year
student, Chosen of the Strange God. Mate of Aeron Saxon, Bane
Krossian, Blaze Inferna, Daron Saxon, Enzo Orfo, Jin Sharax and
Kain Zenunim. Daughter of Astoria Braxion and Arnold Carazor,
Granddaughter of Vendra Braxion.
Lucinda Luxwood: (GR – Selfishness) Gifted with Anthokinesis
(flower manipulation). Syndicate member. Deceased.
Lucrecia (Lulu) Drabos: (L – Promiscuity) Vice College
Graduate, Knight of the Order of Shadow. Twin sister of Cornelia
Drabos. Mate of Dorian and Hadrian McKinnax.
Miranda Inferna: (W - Vindictive) Seer. Mother of Ferris
Inferna, grandmother of Blaze Inferna and Rina Inferna.
Morpheus Ajax: First year student. Son of Reece Ajax, brother
of Vivienne Ajax, cousin of Babette Ajax.
Reece Ajax: (GR – Pecunious) Gifted with Aurumkinesis (gold
manipulation). Head of House Ajax. Uncle of Babette Ajax. Father of
Morpheus and Vivienne Ajax.
Rina Inferna: (W – Protector) Seer, Tester and Knight of the
Order of Shadow. Third year student. Younger sister of Blaze
Inferna.
Ronan Craven: (GL - Masochist) Gifted with Toxikinesis
(poison manipulation). Ex-Prime of the Assembly, Head of his House.
Father of Enzo Orfo.
Ruelle Ixia: (W - Justice) Gifted with Replicakinesis (replication
manipulation). Elder of the Wrath Caste, Knight of the Order of
Shadow.
Ryon Haverax: (L – Promiscuity) Vice College Graduate. Friend
of Lilith Carazor.
Seth Maddox: (P – Hubris) Professor at Vice College, Grand
Master of the Order of Shadow.
 Torin Valec: (U) Uncle of Babette Ajax.
Triston Fairbax: (L – Promiscuity) Vice College Graduate.
Friend of Lilith Carazor.
Vendra Braxion: (P - Arrogance) Head of House Braxion.
Mother of Astoria Braxion and grandmother of Lilith Carazor.
Vivienne Ajax: First year student. Daughter of Reece Ajax,
half-sister of Morpheus Ajax, cousin of Babette Ajax.
 Chapter 1
“How could you!” I roared, the moment Enzo's hold over my
body finally dropped.
The opulence of the Paris apartment's treasure room was lost
on me. I was more concerned with my mate but the focus of my
fury was missing.
“Enzo!” I yelled, my voice reverberating through the empty
room as I stormed past his treasure pile towards his studio. My
dress, a beautiful creation of my mother's, swirled like an angry gale
around my ankles as I stomped through the apartment, intent on
giving my assassin mate a piece of my mind.
But he wasn't in his studio either and all his beautiful art and
intricate bonsai trees sat undisturbed. Nor was he in the music
room, where his violin waited silently for him to pick it up.
“Enzo?” I said into the empty apartment, deflating when I
realised he simply wasn't there. My anger dissipated without a target
and I was left to flitter aimlessly from room to room, searching for
some sign of his whereabouts.
I had been disposed of in his 'safehouse' and abandoned, left to
my own devices. That meant he was either out killing another target
or all my mates had gathered for a discussion, without me—or both.
“Damn you,” I whispered at the empty room.
I kicked off my killer heels and plodded barefoot into the
kitchen, blindly pulling out a bottle of wine at random and kicking a
stool far enough away from the bar to sit on. I uncorked the bottle
and took a deep swig.
As I brought the bottle to my lips, the ring, that had been the
cause of half of the night's drama, glittered under the light, casting
tiny rainbows around the room.
When Enzo had given it to me, the single stone in the centre
had swirled with darkness but now, it was a cloudy white. The piece
of power Enzo had imbued it with had left when Constantin Abrosiax
had kissed it.
The shadows had sliced Constantin's lungs to ribbons from the
inside out.
Enzo had framed his own father, the Prime of the British Isles,
for it—
I ripped it from my finger and chucked it behind me with
disgust.
Alone in the apartment, I nursed the wine, making a decent
dent but it wasn't long before our mating bond came alive, telling
me that Enzo was finally home.
I whirled, ready to face my Gluttony mate.
He stood framed in the doorway, all black clothes and gleaming
blonde hair. The epitome of deadly male beauty, except for the
sadness in his eyes.
“How could you!” I growled.
He shrugged. “Are you referring to the mechanics of the deed or
your presumption that I overcame some emotional or moral code to
perform it?”
“How could you use me like that?” I hissed, stomping towards
him, wine bottle still clutched in one hand.
“I wanted to give you the chance to claim your own vengeance.
After all, Abrosiax sent assassins after you on multiple occasions. His
own daughter was responsible for injuring you. Letting you play a
part in his demise was simply my gift to you.”
“Vengeance is not a gift,” I retorted. “What about your own
father? How could you let him die like that?”
Enzo chuckled. “He's not dead, Pretty Darling. No, that would be
too easy. It's effortless to die; everyone does it, eventually. But it's
far harder to live when everything you have ever worked for has
been stripped away from you and your sins have been shoved in
your face. I have no intention of letting my father die. Not for a very,
very long time.”
I didn't know what to say to that so instead, I let out a
frustrated growl and marched away from him. “And what about the
fact that you're nearly eight decades older than me? When were you
going to let that one slip?”
His damned teapot appeared in thin air and he held a cup out to
me. “Did you want me to regale you with the tales of my childhood?
Perhaps I should begin with 'during the war' or 'before we had
television.'”
Holy shit … He was older than television—
I flopped against the wall as my knees buckled.
It struck me, then, that all my anger was pointless. Or, at least,
unlikely to yield any results. Enzo would never see death in the same
light as me. He knew his actions were wrong by normal standards
but he just didn't care. And after doing it for so long—it would be
like trying to teach a lion to be a vegetarian.
I brought the bottle to my lips and upended it.
Enzo smirked at the sight, pouring himself a cup of tea and
vanishing the teapot back into the shadows, out of sight. “That's not
particularly ladylike. I like it.”
“Using a glass is for people who haven't just been made an
accessory to murder,” I muttered darkly. “And you're half-human—”
“Yes, but you'll keep that little fact between us.”
I frowned. “Why? It doesn't matter…”
As soon as he'd gone through his showing, he would have lost
any human DNA that he'd received from his mother.
His eyes narrowed. “It might not to you but it does to me.”
“And murdering people might not matter to you but it does to
me,” I countered.
“You seemed fine with it when it was Fraxis and Lucinda.”
“That was self-defence!” I insisted but my defence fell flat when
he just smirked. “Why are you smiling at me like that?!”
“You're beautiful when you're angry.” He slipped through the
shadow realm and reappeared in front of me, stroking a stray lock of
hair from my face with gentle fingers. “Absolutely stunning. Like an
avenging goddess.” His finger trailed a line down behind my ear and
along my jaw to my throat, sending tingles of pleasure down our
mating bond that wore down my anger like waves against stone. “So
soft.”
 I blinked away the haze of building pleasure and moved away.
“Enzo, now is not the time!” I growled.
He just stepped with me and trapped me against the wall,
resting his head against my neck, his cheek on my shoulder. “Why
not?” His breath misted over my skin, sending a shiver down my
spine. His fingers ran through my hair and fisted in it, applying light
pressure and exposing my throat to him.
“Because you've just killed someone!” I insisted, pushing him
back.
“And I'll do it again and again and again, until you're safe.” His
unrepentant smirk twisted my insides. I felt like I was fighting an
uphill battle against him and my own arousal. “Your life is the only
one that matters to me, Pretty Darling. I know exactly what it feels
like when you lose the person you care about the most. I've lived
that grief for eight decades. So, I will do anything, kill anyone, to
keep you from harm and that is non-fucking-negotiable.”
He ate away at the barely-there distance between us with each
word of his declaration, until there was no more space. Nothing but
his lips sealed to mine, cutting off any retort I might have had.
It was a battle of wills as our lips meshed together, raw, primal,
angry. I nipped at his lips with my teeth, letting him know that even
though I'd given in to the desire between us, I hadn't given in to
him.
The wine bottle disappeared from my hand and a split second of
cold interrupted the lava in my veins as he took us through the
shadow realm to his bedroom.
He grasped the backs of my thighs, lifted me and tossed me
backwards so I bounced on the mattress.
I rose back to my knees before he could come down and tore
his jacket off as I claimed his mouth as my own.
Anger and sheer want consumed me as I consumed him, my
hands fisting in his long, silky hair.
Another tug on the backs of my knees sent me sprawling
backwards and Enzo used the opportunity to reach under the layers
of my skirt and rip my panties off. Before he could touch me and
cajole me into forgetting my anger, I locked my legs around his waist
and used my hips to flip us so I was on top.
Grinding against him through his trousers, I yanked at his shirt,
sending buttons popping in all directions as I splayed my palms
against his smooth, hairless skin.
One of his hands clasped my hip, encouraging my grinding,
whilst the other moved up to grab my horns, pulling me down to
continue our battle of mouths. That hand didn't stay there; instead,
it caressed a line of fire from my horns to the delicate bones of my
wings. The instant his fingers made contact, I arched against him
with a needy mewl of want that I hadn't realised was building. The
wing fluttered under his touch and wetness trickled down my thighs
to soak his trousers.
He growled and I smirked against his lips, lightly scratching my
fingernails over his nipples. He bucked beneath me, pulling aside the
straps of my dress to reveal my breasts. Enzo's mouth tore away
from mine and swooped straight for my exposed nipple, laving and
sucking and nibbling, sending lightning from each tug of his lips
straight to my clit.
I whimpered and shook beneath him, grabbing at the buckle of
his belt with impatient hands. The moment it was off and his
trousers undone, I pulled out his cock and pumped it in my grasp.
Squeezing the warm, velvet-covered steel of him made me even
wetter and I smirked as his tongue stilled against my breast with a
hiss.
One of his large hands tunnelled back under the fabric of my
dress. His fingers circled my opening once, twice, gathering my
slickness on his fingers before he thrust two of them inside me,
hard.
“Enzo!” I bucked, almost losing my grip on him, as the barrage
of primal pleasure sent my body to the edge but didn't let me tip
over. He smiled with cruel satisfaction as those clever, brutal fingers
twisted inside me, that perfect come-hither motion hitting that
secret spot with deadly accuracy.
His cocky grin made me squeeze him harder in retaliation and I
pumped my fist in time with the motion of his fingers inside me. We
tortured each other. Each stroke of my hand made his hips buck
wildly whilst each pump of his fingers drew an irrepressible moan
from me.
I knew he was keeping us both on the edge with his power.
It was a game of who would surrender first but I held strong,
refusing to beg, despite the promise of pleasure blooming beneath
my skin with every heartbeat.
“Enough! I want you now, Pretty Darling,” he commanded, his
voice rough.
I lined him up with my entrance but I couldn't help but torture
him a little more. I rubbed my wet core against him and was
rewarded when he bucked and growled beneath me. But I couldn't
keep it up for long. I was just as tormented by my actions as he
was. So, with a single, sensuous move, I sheathed him inside me.
“Oh fuck…” I breathed past the perfect fullness of his invasion.
I stayed still for a second, just long enough for my body to
adjust, then rotated my hips slowly in an infinity motion, clenching
around his length as I moved.
His tortured groan made me smile and I repeated the move
again.
His control snapped.
With a roar, his hands clamped hard on my hips, holding me
above him as he thrust upwards into me. His harsh, frantic pace
made his pelvic bone jostle my clit with each bounce and I screamed
at the intensity of the sensation. I was liquid with desire, my frame
trembling with need as he rammed into me over and over, filling me
completely.
Our eyes locked, and the intimacy of the moment sent me
soaring over the edge. He gave a victorious shout as he followed,
spurting hot inside me, filling me with cum and power all at once.
I collapsed against him without separating our bodies and there
was nothing but the sound of our harsh breathing for long moments
as we recovered. His arms slowly moved from my hips to surround
me completely, crushing me to him as his fingers played lightly in my
hair. I buried my face in the crook of his neck and breathed in the
smell of him.
 It was like my earlier anger had been driven out of me. Perhaps
it was the endorphins talking but all I really wanted to do was stay
like this and forget everything, except the feel of my mate holding
me.
Enzo drove me insane but my heart bled for him at the same
time. He treated me like spun glass but trusted my inner strength
more than I did. He was utterly and completely mad but had the
coldest, most rational mind of any person I'd ever met.
He was a man of contradictions and I loved him despite it. Or
perhaps even because of it.
I was still reeling from that epiphany when he kissed the tip of
my ear gently.
“I vow to the Strange God never to use you to kill a target
again,” he whispered. “My decision was … rash. I was too caught up
in seeking vengeance for my brother and I let it cloud my
judgement. I'm … sorry if that hurt you.”
I pulled back a breath until my eyes were locked with his again.
“It only hurt so much because I love you,” I admitted, studying him
for his reaction.
Enzo's eyes widened slightly. I heard his breath lock in his
throat as the rest of his body turned to stone against me.
“Oh, Pretty Darling.” He closed his eyes with a sigh. “You're
determined to drive me insane, aren't you?”
I frowned, pushing away. “What do you mean?”
He didn't reply immediately. Instead, he tugged me back into
him, holding me against his chest. His touch feathered across the
exposed skin of my bare shoulder. “You already know you're my
greatest weakness. I have—for the most part—managed to curb my
desire to lock you away from the world and keep you safe. But if you
keep testing me like this, Pretty Darling…”
He sighed and a sudden wave of tiredness washed over me and
I frowned at his blatant manipulation.
“Stop making me sleepy!” It was the most underhanded method
of avoiding the subject possible and I was too weary to even be
angry at him for it.
“Apologies, Pretty Darling.”
 But the drowsiness kept filling my body like liquid lead, making
every part of me feel heavy with sleep. I was out in minutes and
there was nothing I could do about it.
 Chapter 2
I woke in my room in the Carnal Tower, naked and alone.
Clutching the sheet to my breasts, I sat up and surveyed the room,
wondering if Enzo had lingered at all. He wasn't there, but my dress
was hanging neatly on the chair by my desk and my sigillary lay in
its plain, ring form on my bedside cabinet.
Onyx and Ivory were snoring away in their little house and I
smiled softly at the sight they made as I quietly left my bed and
headed for the shower, careful not to wake them. I wasn't entirely
successful, as Ivory opened one bleary eye, but he quickly went
back to sleep when he realised I wasn't going anywhere.
I'd just finished dressing and drying my hair when the twins
burst into the room.
“Happy birthday!” they sang, the noise waking both imps and
sending them fluttering out of their house.
“We brought presents!” Lulu added, depositing two brightly-
wrapped parcels in my arms before jumping on the freshly-made
bed.
They were both dressed in regular clothes, rather than the
school uniform. For a second, I balked at seeing Lulu in a floaty,
skater dress and Nelly in jeans and a shirt. They looked so …
normal. My heart sank when I realised it was because they were no
longer students. They hadn't been since the ball yesterday—and
tonight, they'd be disappearing from the Carnal Tower forever.
In two years' time, that would be me.
“Open them!” Nelly insisted, tucking a blonde strand behind her
ear as she perched next to her sister on the bed.
The first one turned out to be a huge picture frame, filled with a
collage of the three of us. Tears pricked my eyes as I examined each
one. Some were moments I remembered as if they were yesterday
and hoped to remember forever, whilst others were just general, off-
guard moments when we'd all been smiling. It was perfect but I had
no idea how they'd gotten the photos.
“How did you two get these?” I said, fingers trailing over the
frame, eyes flicking between all the perfectly-captured moments.
“You've never had a camera and there's no electricity for students…”
“We snuck into the records office, where they keep all of the old
security camera footage,” Lulu announced. “It's almost as good as if
we'd taken them ourselves, which is kind of creepy, when you think
about it…”
“Anyway, they looked good enough for what we needed them
for,” Nelly interrupted Lulu's musings, shooting her an amused,
exasperated glare.
I grinned. “It's perfect!” I set the first present on top of my
dresser before I turned to the second parcel.
But when I opened that one, my brows scrunched together in
confusion. “You got me a bikini?” The skimpy, deep blue set had a
halter neck and bottoms that tied together at the sides. The fabric
was soft and lush and three adorable, copper buttons adorned one
edge of the plunging neckline. Beneath it, a sheer, creamy lace
kaftan was snuggled into the bottom of the box, along with a pair of
flip-flops.
“That is part of your birthday surprise.” Lulu grinned. “We're
going to have breakfast in the Great Hall and then we're going to
come back here and get changed." She paused for dramatic effect
and looked to Nelly, who rolled her eyes but obliged her by playing
air drums. "We're going on a group day trip to Greece!”
“All of us,” Nelly added. “We even persuaded Rina into it.”
The expression on my face must have been a comical cross
between excitement and disbelief. I opened and closed my mouth
several times, before giving up on finding words and launching
myself at my two mentors.
“You two are the best!” I squealed embarrassingly, as we
crushed ourselves into a group hug.
“No, birthdays are the best,” Nelly corrected. “As you'll soon
discover for yourself.”
 Breakfast flew by as I tried to contain my excitement for the
trip. With the teachers surveying us all from the high table, we
couldn't let slip that we were preparing to leave the college—let
alone the country. Pretending to be interested in eating at all was
almost as difficult for me as it was for Kain, who was all but
bouncing in his seat with enthusiasm.
The only thing that could even remotely dull my anticipation
was the sight of Aeron in jeans and a leather jacket. He looked drop-
dead gorgeous, every inch the sexy bad boy every girl dreamed of.
But, just like seeing Nelly and Lulu that morning, I couldn't help the
dread that seeing him out of uniform filled me with. The gut-
wrenching feeling must have been something my mates could sense
because there was no battle as to who I sat with. The moment I
arrived, Aeron pulled me into his lap and I snuggled against him for
the rest of the meal.
The twins were undoubtedly in charge of my birthday because
they dragged me away from the table before I'd even swallowed my
last bite. My fork clattered onto the plate as I was yanked from
Aeron's lap.
"Come on! They have to get your surprise ready!" Nelly said,
leaving behind my grinning mates.
We spent the time getting changed and I fell in love with the
bikini the instant I tried it on. It was soft, yet supportive, and from
the heat in Enzo's eyes when he arrived to collect the three of us, it
obviously showed off my best assets.
“Pretty Darling…” he choked out, eyes roving over my body,
lingering on the exposed skin of my cleavage and the junction
between my ass and thighs. “You are stunning.”
He was wearing black, as usual, but it was weird to see him in
just a black t-shirt and swimming shorts. The relaxed combination
was so strange on my Gluttony mate, that I couldn't help taking him
in for a second as well.
Eventually, I got over my gawking and pulled him in for a hug.
“I know you found my last gift … lacking,” he said quietly. “So, I
took the liberty of procuring us a box at the theatre in Paris next
week. The French version of Les Misérables is supposed to be too
perfect to miss.”
I smiled and went to him, looping my arms around his neck. We
needed to talk about what had happened last night but I was only
too happy to put it off a little longer.
“I'd like that,” I whispered against him. “Are you coming on the
trip with us?”
“Of course he is.” Nelly snapped her fingers impatiently. “I told
him I'd kick his butt three ways to Sunday if he tried to weasel out
of it.”
“Shall we, then?” He smirked and didn't wait for an answer
before we blinked out of existence.
I could tell that no one had warned the twins about how
teleporting felt. Both of them had paled considerably, but they shook
off my concern before I could voice it.
“We're here!” I looked out at the impossibly blue ocean and
grinned. “First one to the sea wins!”
“Presents first!” Nelly chided, grabbing my wrist and keeping me
from dashing off towards the sea.
My bare feet dug easily into the pristine, white sand, as I stared
at the scene around us. We were in a rocky cove, surrounded by
steep cliffs that provided privacy and a sense of secrecy. It would be
almost impossible to climb down to this beach. They'd brought us far
enough out that I couldn't imagine anyone swimming around to find
us either. It was a peaceful place. Only the crash of the waves and
the cawing of flying gulls disturbed the silence.
And in the middle of the beach, surrounding a crackling fire pit,
the rest of my men waited for me, a cooler full of food and a pile of
presents by their feet. I grinned at them and snagged Enzo's hand
when he would have pulled away, dragging him into the group with
me. I only released him when I was certain he wasn't going to linger
on the outside.
After a lot of hugs, things settled down into an easy rhythm
between us. Despite Nelly wanting me to open presents, Kain
distracted us with snorkelling equipment. Of course, Bane couldn't
resist playing a trick on Aeron during our swim, which dissolved our
peaceful snorkel into a splash war which involved everyone. I stuck
close to Jin, like the coward I was, and he kept us both shielded
whilst taking the opportunity to kiss me senseless.
 Chapter 3
Sooner than we would have liked, we were drawn out of the
rapidly-cooling water and back to the beach. We ended up on the
sand, sat in a ring around the fire, sipping ice-cold drinks as Lulu
sorted through the pile of presents.
Before another argument could break out, Blaze, shirtless with
his scars glistening in the sun, pulled me into his lap, sending our
mating bond humming comfortably between us. He never got to sit
with us at mealtimes, so the others didn't complain and it was nice
to cosy up to my Wrath mate for once. “Happy birthday, Sweetness,”
he said, circling his arms around my waist. “As I'm the eldest, you
get to open my present first.”
“Ahem, technically I'm the eldest…” Enzo smirked from the
other side of the fire, sipping a cup of steaming hot tea. “But, don't
worry. I've already given her my present.”
Blaze shrugged, not rising to the bait as he passed me his gift.
From the second I held it, I could just tell it was a book and I
grinned. Ripping open the paper, I threw it to the side and gaped at
the leather-bound, first edition copy of Pride and Prejudice, sitting in
my hands.
“Oh my god, you shouldn't have.” I held the book reverently,
gently flicking through the pages of the two-hundred-year-old text. I
was holding a book that was two hundred years old and exposing it
to salty sea air! Was that bad for it? I looked up at Blaze, awed.
“How did you even…?”
“I have my ways,” he replied, mysteriously.
Eyeing him for a moment, I decided to let him keep his secrets.
Instead, I turned to Enzo. “Can you put it in the Paris apartment?” I
expected he would know how to keep a book as old as this one safe,
given the pile of treasures he kept.
He winked and the book disappeared. I was almost sorry to see
it go but Blaze distracted me.
 “Rina also has something to give you,” he said, looking pointedly
at his sister beside him.
She rolled her eyes, but a faint blush coloured her cheeks.
“Don't make a big deal of it but I'll watch the clouds for you if you
want.” When I blinked at her, uncomprehending, she rolled her eyes
again. “I'll look at your future for you, dumbass.”
I was speechless. Some demons paid millions to get a seer to
peer into their future and here Rina was, offering it to me as a gift.
But at the same time, the thought of knowing what was to come
filled me with dread. What if she saw something I didn't want to
know about?
“Rina is better at directing her gift than I am.” Blaze seemed to
read my mind. “She can't see much but she can fine-tune her visions
more than I can.”
“As long as I'm looking for a positive moment, I'll find one …
unless there aren't any for me to see,” Rina interjected. “But that's
quite unlikely…”
“Thank you.” I smiled, hoping that this was a good sign for our
friendship.
“We'll do it later,” she announced. “I don't see well surrounded
by a crowd.”
I nodded, curious about the mysterious seer's gift that she
never talked about. Before I could launch into the interrogation I
had kept at bay for so long, Kain dragged me onto his lap with one
hand, reaching for the two parcels beside him with the other.
“I was trying to keep your present a surprise but apparently
Daron told you about the refurbishment of the Carazor Estate
already.” He scowled playfully at my other mate as he passed me a
small box. “So, I got you something else as well.” He held the
second parcel just out of my reach and ducked his head to whisper
in my ear. “But you only get to open it when we're alone and I'm
going to enjoy every second of using them on you…”
I flushed scarlet, although I couldn't tell if it was from desire or
embarrassment. Kain's ability to make me wet with just a few, well-
placed words had me eyeing the box with apprehension. The rest of
my men grinned and I wondered if all of them knew what my Pride
mate had bought me. I knew that he loved to torment me and that
thought sent my imagination into overdrive. This was the man who'd
sent me to my first end-of-year ball wearing vibrating underwear. I
knew whatever was in that box would probably leave me boneless
and panting … but only after he tormented me with it first.
Shaking away the titillating possibilities which were wreaking
havoc on my mind, I ripped open the smaller box. Even though I
knew what was inside, I still smiled at the set of keys, attached to a
keychain with an ornate, house-shaped, brass charm on it.
“As Daron already told you, I hired his sisters to work on
designing a completely new interior for your ancestral home,” Kain
said. “The contractors I hired finished work yesterday and Bane has
transformed the garden with his gifts. The Carazor Estate is ready
for you to move in as soon as you finish college.”
I stared at the keys, eyes wide. “Kain…” How much had that
cost him? Daron had shown me pictures of the estate's huge manor
house and he'd paid to have the interiors completely redesigned?
Was he insane?
“Don't say a word about the money, Sunshine,” he said, a
warning look in his eyes that was quickly replaced with his
trademark smile. “You're worth every penny … and I plan to live
there with you, so, really, it was a selfish gift.” He winked as though
that was enough to dismiss the small fortune he spent.
I glanced up at him, and then at Bane, who was sitting on the
opposite side of the fire, clutching his own box. How much power
had it taken him to help Kain with his gift? I couldn't imagine that
the grounds of the Carazor Estate were small; in fact, I'd put money
on them being vast.
“Thank you, both of you,” I whispered, cradling the keys gently
as tears pricked my eyes.
Jin noticed and snatched me away before anyone could object.
“No tears, Pet. This is supposed to be a happy birthday.”
“They're happy tears,” I promised him. “I just can't believe…”
“That we all adore you and want to give you the world?” His
soft, sleepy smile made my heart throb. “It's not that hard to
believe, Pet.” He picked up his gift—a flat, square box—handed it to
me. “Although, he has tried to outdo us all this year. Typical Pride.”
I shook my head because I knew that whatever Jin had gotten
me would be just as wonderful and heartfelt. I was proved right
when I lifted open the lid and inside were the softest pair of
pyjamas, folded neatly. The bottoms were a pale purple and covered
in happy doughnut cartoons, whilst the cream-coloured top read
'Doughnut Disturb' in curly writing.
“Aww,” I cooed as I stroked the fabric.
“Those are your present from Doughnut.” Jin smiled and, as if
on cue, his pet rat peeped over the top of the pocket of his Hawaiian
shirt. “Mine is underneath.”
I stroked Doughnut's tiny head. “Thank you, little guy,” I said,
before moving the soft fabric aside.
Underneath were four thin strips of paper with posh writing on
them. “Seven Star Spa?” I read aloud, recognising the name of the
high-end demon-only spa in London.
“I thought you and your friends might want a ladies' day out.”
He shrugged as though it wasn't a big deal. “It's probably
exhausting dealing with seven men all the time and your third year
will be hard work. You deserve to be pampered.”
I hugged him, careful not to squash Doughnut in the process.
“That sounds perfect.”
The others let me snuggle him for a while but it still wasn't long
before Aeron was kidnapping me, pulling me into his lap with a kiss
to my forehead.
He presented his gift to me without a word and I ripped open
the paper to reveal a sleek, modern-looking camera. Underneath
was a beautiful, beaded scrapbook.
“It's battery powered so it will work at Vice,” Aeron said, his
hands running lightly through my sea-tangled hair. “There are extra
batteries in the bottom of the box. You can give me the memory
card when it's full and I'll be able to print your photos since
professors have access to electricity … I just thought you might like
to have some memories of your time at college.”
Another random document with
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shaken, was restored to its equilibrium. Individual rulers had passed
from the board; but Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples once
more checked and counter-checked each other’s moves. How could
this temporary disarrangement be said to have concerned Spain,
save to afford a passing triumph for Ferdinand’s diplomacy?
Yet in truth this same expedition was pregnant with results not
only for Spain but the whole of Western Christendom, results so far-
reaching that the history of modern Europe is often said to have
begun at this date. Mediæval Italy had rallied for a moment, but she
had none the less received her death-blow, the very incompetence
and folly of her conqueror revealing her mortal weakness. Never
again, till centuries had passed would her sunny fields and pleasant
cities be free from foreign menace; never again would her native
rulers be left to plot and plan her future undisturbed. Her beauty, her
culture, her luxury had aroused the lust of younger and hardier
nations; and against their strength she could offer no adequate
defence.
Ludovico Sforza had boasted too soon, when he depicted a map of
Italy, with himself broom in hand sweeping the other Powers before
him where he would. In April, 1498, Charles VIII. of France died and
was succeeded by his cousin, Louis, Duke of Orleans, who at once
styled himself King of Naples and Duke of Milan. The assumption of
these titles foretold his invasion of Italy, whenever a favourable
opportunity should occur, a hint of which other Powers were not
slow to take advantage. Venice, at the price of a small stretch of
Lombard territory for her mainland empire, agreed to Ludovico’s
ruin, with a shortsightedness that aroused Peter Martyr’s shrewd
comment to a Venetian friend: “The King of France, after he has
dined with the Duke of Milan, will sup with you.”
The Pope, anxious to found a kingdom in Romagna for his family,
also put away former anti-French prejudices, and granted a divorce,
much desired by Louis XII., in return for a bride and the title “Duke
of Valentinois” for his son, Cæsar Borgia.
The way for French ambition was thus paved; and Ludovico “Il
Moro,” with a retributive justice not often so clearly shown, fell a
victim to the storm he had originally evoked; and, captured by his
rival in April, 1500, was sent to end his days in the dungeons of
Loches. Less deserved but equally irrevocable was the disappearance
of the bastard line of Aragon in Naples. Ferrante II. had died in
September, 1496; and his uncle and successor, Federigo, menaced by
Louis XII., sought assistance from his relations in Spain without
avail. Ferdinand was playing a deeper game than to preserve the
throne of those whom he secretly regarded as having cheated him
out of a rightful inheritance. Only political and financial
embarrassments had caused his father, John II., to acquiesce in
Alfonso V.’s will, leaving Naples to an illegitimate son; and
Ferdinand, with a united Spain behind him, and an army trained for
ten long years in the wars of Granada, saw no reason to continue this
policy. His support of Ferrante II. had been a temporary expedient to
rid Southern Italy of Charles VIII.; but now he boldly approached the
French King with a wholly selfish scheme of spoliation that finally
took shape in the Partition Treaty of Granada of November, 1500.
Federigo had foolishly given an opening to his enemies, when in
despair at his isolation he appealed to the Turks to come to his aid;
and the Pope was thus enabled to denounce him as a traitor to the
Christian Faith and to demand his instant abdication.
 A KING-AT-ARMS

FROM “SPANISH ARMS AND

ARMOUR”

REPRODUCED BY COURTESY OF THE

AUTHOR, MR. A. F. CALVERT

His kingdom, divided into two by a somewhat vague boundary

line, was partitioned by France and Spain, Louis receiving the
northern portion with the town of Naples, Ferdinand the provinces
of Calabria and Apulia. The unfortunate Federigo after a feeble effort
to oppose this settlement, yielded to superior force, and retired to
honourable captivity in France with the title “Duke of Anjou.”
Machiavelli’s contempt for Louis XII.’s share in the treaty was
unbounded. “The French do not understand statecraft,” was his
answer to Cardinal d’Amboise, who on one occasion had suggested
sneeringly that the Italians did not understand war; and there is little
doubt that the Florentine considered his own race the more blest.
That a King who might have controlled the peninsula should
deliberately choose to share his supremacy with a powerful rival was
of all acts the most stupid; and stupid indeed it was to prove; though
it may be questioned if, in the face of Ferdinand’s opposition, Louis
could have conquered Naples at all.
Where war in Southern Italy was concerned, Spain had in many
ways the advantage over France, above all in her extensive eastern
seaboard and her possession of the island of Sicily, which afforded a
convenient base of operations for landing reinforcements and
provisions. Louis would have needed to maintain an enormous army
had he endeavoured to keep Naples entirely free of Spanish
aggression; but his alternative policy of sharing the kingdom
bordered quite as close on the impossible.
Differences of opinion respecting the imaginary boundary (that
had left the ownership of some of the middle provinces undefined);
quarrels as to the right of collecting the tolls paid on the cattle and
sheep passing from their summer quarters in the Abruzzi to the
sheltered valleys of the Capitanata, their winter home; feuds between
those Neapolitan barons, who had originally supported the Angevin
cause, and their opponents, the former Allies of the Aragonese House
—these were matters so productive of strife that any efforts to
establish a permanent peace between France and Spain were
obviously doomed to failure. Thus, by 1502, the royal thieves had
fallen out; and war, occasionally suspended by truces and
negotiations, devastated Naples for the next two years.
Its course is hardly a highway in Castilian history, though its
battles were waged and its victories secured mainly by Castilian
soldiers. The ambitions by which it was dictated were purely
Aragonese; and the final success of Spanish arms in 1504, that drove
the French from Naples, was the crowning triumph of Ferdinand’s
career. Yet, in as much as the issue so vitally affected the future of
Spain, drawing her definitely into a struggle for the supremacy of
Europe, and pitting her against France in a national duel that was to
outlast both Ferdinand and Louis, the campaign demands some
mention here.
 Its actual conduct recalls, not only through its deeds of chivalry
and daring but in the character of its warfare, the struggle in
Granada; and, if Spain owed her success largely to her advantageous
position, she was also indebted to the thorough training her soldiers
had received in guerilla tactics. The mountainous districts of the
kingdom of Naples were peculiarly suited to the quick movements of
light-armed horse; but Gonsalvo de Cordova, Ferdinand’s
Commander-in-chief, though recognizing and using to the full this
knowledge, did not disdain to learn what his enemies could teach
him in other branches of military art; and his infantry, patiently
drilled on the Swiss method, was soon to prove the equal of any body
of troops in Europe.
The real laurels of victory belong indeed to Gonsalvo de Cordova;
for, though the French army could boast heroes of chivalry, such as
Bayard the “knight without fear or stain,” and generals of skill and
courage, such as D’Aubigny, it had no soldier who could in any way
approach the genius of the “Great Captain.” Gonsalvo had been bred
in a school of war, which gave individual talent full scope, and like
his elder brother, Alonso de Aguilar, he had been early singled out by
Isabel for praise and advancement.
 SPANISH MAN-AT-ARMS, FIFTEENTH
CENTURY

FROM “SPANISH ARMS AND

ARMOUR”

REPRODUCED BY COURTESY OF THE

AUTHOR, MR. A. F. CALVERT

To the light-hearted chivalry of the courtier, he united the

prudence and foresight of a practised statesman, and the patience
and equable temperament of the born ruler of men. In the fire before
Granada which destroyed the Queen’s tent, he had been prompt to
put at her disposal his wife’s wardrobe; an act of courtesy that caused
Isabel to remark she was afraid he and his family had suffered more
loss than herself. This and similar deeds of courtesy made him a
pattern of manners in his own day, but like the English Sir Walter
Raleigh he was no mere carpet-knight in search of royal favour. He
was devoid of personal fear, yet, when large issues depended on his
orders, he never let his courage degenerate into recklessness, after
the manner of the average Castilian commander, and perhaps his
greatest military gift was his power of judging whether the occasion
required caution or a daring onslaught. Never was a leader more
intrepid in attack, more cool in the hour of retreat, or less easily
drawn from a good position by feint or scoff.
“A general,” he once remarked, “must obtain the victory at any
price, right or wrong. Afterwards he will be able to make tenfold
compensation to those whom he has injured.”
This specious reasoning is characteristic both of the man and the
age in which he lived; and Gonsalvo, like many of his
contemporaries, was a strange combination of sincerity and
unscrupulous dealing. After the campaign against Charles VIII., in
which he had assisted Ferrante II. to win back his kingdom, the
Spanish General had been rewarded by a lavish grant of Neapolitan
territory. When, however, war broke out once more, and Gonsalvo
found he must lead his troops against his former Allies, his code of
honour prompted him to inform them of his regret at this necessity
and to offer the restoration of their gifts before embarking on hostile
measures. At the surrender of Taranto in 1502, on the other hand,
having promised on oath that the young Duke of Calabria, Federigo’s
eldest son, should be free to go where he liked, he nevertheless
arrested the boy and sent him a prisoner to Spain. It has been argued
that, in the latter case, he had received sudden orders from
Ferdinand not on any account to let the Duke escape; but the excuse,
if true is after all a sorry shelter for his bad faith.
More pleasing, in a country where generals were wont to sell their
services to the highest bidder and yield to bribery with little
hesitation, was Gonsalvo’s persistent loyalty to his sovereign.
Ferdinand was not an easy master to satisfy, for neither his thoughts
nor actions were ordinarily generous, and his cold distrustful nature
was slow to respond to either enthusiasm or anxiety. During the war
of Granada, the task of dispatching an adequate supply of soldiers
and ammunition to the seat of war had fallen, as we have seen, to
Isabel; but with increasing ill-health and worry such affairs had
slipped from her fingers, and preparations for the Neapolitan
campaigns were left to other hands.
In vain Gonsalvo begged for reinforcements and the necessary
money to pay those companies already under his command.
Ferdinand had a shrewd conviction that his general was capable,
when in straits, of making two men perform the work of four, and
doled out his assistance with niggardly craft. Nor did the brilliant
achievements of his young Commander-in-chief, in the teeth of
difficulties he himself had often aggravated arouse his gratitude or
admiration.
“He who is the cause of another’s greatness,” says Machiavelli, “is
himself undone”; and Ferdinand looked with suspicion on a subject
so successful and popular that his possible disloyalty might prove a
source of danger to the Crown. His own reputation as the champion
cheat of Europe was perhaps unassailable; but it carried with it this
penalty: he lived in mortal terror that he would one day be cheated.
In extenuation of his parsimony, the contrast between his wide
ambitions and small treasury must be remembered. Ferdinand, like
Elizabeth of England, was forced to imitate the careful housekeeper
in making a little go a long way; and habitual economy is a virtue
that often borders on vice. Not yet were the gold and silver of South
America and Mexico pouring in a rich flood into the royal coffers;
while every day fresh schemes of government, fresh wars and
discoveries abroad, and the weaving of fresh strands of alliance
demanded monetary support, as well as the King’s minute and
unswerving attention.
Were Spain to pause for a moment in the race, letting Portugal
outstrip her in the Western seas, or France suborn her brilliant
generals and entice away her allies, she must inevitably fall behind
into the second rank of nations. Thus Ferdinand, straining ever after
a prize, whose very magnitude was to prove his country’s ultimate
ruin, spun his web of diplomacy in and out amongst the Powers of
Europe, never neglecting any opportunity that would draw him
nearer his goal.
In the case of Portugal, fate seemed to have willed by the death,
first of Prince Alfonso and then of the young Queen Isabel, that no
Aragonese Infanta should draw closer the union of the two nations;
but in 1500 the spell of tragedy was broken by the marriage of Maria,
the sovereign’s third daughter, with the widower King Emmanuel.
One child alone remained with Ferdinand and Isabel, Catherine
their youngest; and in the following year she also fulfilled her destiny
and carried her father’s olive-branch to a northern home. Born in
December, 1485, she had been betrothed almost from her infancy to
Arthur, Prince of Wales, Henry VII.’s eldest son; and Roger
Machado, on his visit to the Spanish Court, did not in his amazement
at jewels and fine clothes neglect to mention his future Queen, and
how beautiful he had thought her, held up in her mother’s arms to
watch a tilting-match.
So firmly settled was the alliance, grounded on mutual hatred of
England and Aragon for France, that already at the early age of three
the little Infanta was styled “Princess of Wales”; but the intervening
years before the union could be realized did not on this account pass
her over in silence. The correspondence of the time is filled with
frequent disputes between the Catholic sovereigns and Henry VII. as
to the exact financial value of their respective offspring; and the
discussion ranged from Catherine’s marriage portion and the size of
her household to the comeliness of the ladies-in-waiting, who would
accompany her;—the latter a point on which the English King laid
great stress.
At length, however, all was satisfactorily settled; and Henry,
having welcomed the bride, could write to her parents that

although they could not see the gentle face of their beloved daughter, they might be
sure that she had found a second father, who would ever watch over her happiness,
and never permit her to want anything he could procure her.

A few short months and Arthur’s death had left the little Spanish
Princess, then not seventeen years old, a widow in a strange land;
while fatherly kindness wrangled furiously over the cost of her
maintenance and the disposition of her dowry. It was well for the
immediate fortunes of Catherine of Aragon that she soon found a
husband in Arthur’s younger brother Prince Henry, though perhaps,
could she have read the future, she would have preferred to decline
the honour.
 De Puebla, the Spanish Ambassador entrusted by Ferdinand with
the greater part of the marriage negotiations, had also tried his hand
during the years that he resided in England, at enticing the King of
Scotland into the anti-French web. The friendship between France
and Scotland was of ancient date; but De Puebla felt that the offer of
a royal bride from the Spanish Court would make a deep impression
on King James’s susceptible vanity, and since, at the date when this
idea occurred to him, all the Spanish Infantas were either married or
betrothed, he suggested instead Doña Juana, one of Ferdinand’s
illegitimate daughters, concealing as he believed with considerable
statesmanship the fact of the bar sinister. Ferdinand, when he heard
of it, was most contemptuous. Such a deception, he wrote, could not
possibly be maintained and therefore was not worth the lie. Let De
Puebla, on the other hand, hold out false hopes if he could of one of
the real Princesses, and by this bait induce the Scottish monarch to
quarrel with France. Even moderate success in this strategy would
prove of considerable value.
James IV. did not marry a Spanish Princess but Catherine of
Aragon’s sister-in-law Margaret Tudor; and what harm he might
inflict on Spain and her Allies in French interests was a mere pin-
prick to the stab administered by Ferdinand’s immediate family. On
the death of Prince Miguel in July, 1500, Joanna, Archduchess of
Austria, became heiress to the throne of Castile and Aragon; and,
though there was cause for rejoicing that a son had been born to her
early in the same year and thus the succession was assured, yet the
situation arising from the new importance of her position tended
every day to grow more critical. Joanna and her husband had been
from the first an ill-matched pair, his light careless nature acting like
a spark to fire the mine of her sullen temper and quick jealousy; and
his faithlessness and her lack of self-control combined to keep the
Flemish Court in a perpetual flame of scandal.
Had they been merely private individuals, the evil effects of their
passions might have spread no further than the street or town in
which they lived; but unfortunately Joanna had gone to Flanders not
merely as a bride but as an agent to influence her husband’s policy in
her father’s favour, and the odium and exasperation her behaviour
aroused reacted to the detriment of Spain. Philip had nothing in
common with the Castilian race. Their pride irritated him, their deep
religious feeling awoke his incredulity, their sense of reverence and
gravity a flippant scorn and boredom, that his selfishness found it
difficult to disguise. Personal tastes inclined him rather to the
volatile, easy-mannered Frenchman; and, as domestic differences
increased, so also did his dislike for the Aragonese and sympathy
with their enemies.
“The French rule everything,” wrote Fuensalida, the Spanish
Ambassador at the Archduke’s Court despairingly. “They alone
surround him and entice him from feast to feast, from mistress to
mistress.”
 TILTING ARMOUR OF PHILIP THE
FAIR

FROM “SPANISH ARMS AND

ARMOUR”

REPRODUCED BY COURTESY OF THE

AUTHOR, MR. A. F. CALVERT

Fuensalida suggested that Philip and his wife should be induced to

visit Castile as soon as possible, before the evil habits into which the
Archduke had fallen took permanent hold of him; and Ferdinand and
Isabel warmly seconded this idea. Their son-in-law’s behaviour had
been scandalous; but their daughter’s conduct caused them if
anything more uneasiness. At times full of loving memories of her
old home, so that she confessed “she could not think of her mother
and how far she was separated from her for ever without shedding
tears,” Joanna, on other occasions, was taciturn or even defiant when
approached by special emissaries from Spain. Their questions she
met by silence, their allusions to her parents or to the religious
enthusiasm that had stirred her youth, by indifference. It seemed
that jealousy and wounded pride could in a moment slip like a dark
curtain across her mind and blot out all save a brooding fury at her
wrongs.
The mental balance, once a flaw has shaken its equilibrium, is of
all scales the most difficult to adjust; and Isabel’s hopes that a
personal supervision of her daughter would effect a cure were
doomed to disappointment. Philip and Joanna came to Spain in
1502; but their presence was an unwilling acknowledgment that
custom required their recognition as Prince and Princess of Castile
by the national Cortes. That business concluded, the Archduke was
fully determined to return to his own land, if possible as he had come
by way of France, for the reception he had been accorded in Paris
made him eager to renew its delights.
It was his ambition that his son, Charles, heir not only of his
Austrian archduchy and county of Flanders but of all the wide
dominions of Spain, should marry Claude, the infant daughter of
Louis XII., a scheme of alliance by which he himself would be
enabled to pose as the arbiter of European politics, adjudicating
between the two great rival nations with whom he had formed
connections. Ferdinand might be pardoned if he regarded the
Archduke somewhat dubiously in the proposed rôle; and indeed
quarrels over the terms of the Partition Treaty and the subsequent
war in Naples were soon to wreck the would-be arbitrator’s hopes.
Yet, even before this failure was assured, mutual suspicion had
thrown a restraint over the intercourse of father-in-law and son-in-
law, and had even poisoned the relations between Isabel and her
daughter.
Joanna was well aware of her husband’s intention of leaving Spain
at the first possible moment; but she herself was expecting a child
and knew the long journey would be beyond her powers. The thought
that Philip would leave her behind, intensified by the fear that he
would do so with keener pleasure than regret, assumed in her
disordered brain the monstrous proportions of a plot to keep her a
prisoner in Castile. In vain she entreated him to stay until she should
be well enough to accompany him; the Archduke, his ambition once
satisfied by the homage of the Cortes of Toledo and of Saragossa,
impatiently counted the days until he could cross the French border,
and all the Catholic sovereigns’ efforts to entertain him failed
dismally.
In December, 1502, he left Madrid; and Joanna, at his going, sank
into a mood of sullen despondency from which even the birth of her
son, Ferdinand, in March of the following year, could not rouse her.
At length she received a letter from Philip suggesting her return to
Flanders; but war had broken out between France and Spain, making
the journey, if not impossible, at least fraught with danger.
Ferdinand was with his army in Roussillon, and Isabel who was ill
in Segovia sent imploring messages to her daughter at Medina del
Campo, begging her to do nothing rash. Joanna was however
obsessed by the notion that she was the victim of a plot, and in her
passionate desire to escape from Spain was deaf to warnings and
petitions. One evening, lightly clad and followed by her scared
attendants, she started on foot from the castle and was only
prevented from leaving the city by the Bishop of Burgos, who had
been placed by the Queen in charge of her household and who gave
orders that the gates should be closed. The Archduchess commanded
that they should be opened, and even descended to prayers and
entreaties, when she found her authority was of no avail; to all the
Bishop’s persuasions that she should return home she replied by an
uncompromising refusal. Through the long night, in the darkness
and the cold, she maintained her vigil; and when messengers arrived
from Segovia the next day, begging her in her mother’s name to
resist from her project, she would only consent to move into a poor
hovel hard by the gates.
On the second evening, Isabel, who had dragged herself from her
sick-bed at the tale of her daughter’s mad folly, appeared in Medina
del Campo; but Joanna at first greeted her with reproaches and
anger, “speaking” wrote the Queen in her account of the interview to
Fuensalida, “so disrespectfully and so little as a child should address
her mother, that if I had not seen the state of mind she was in, I
would not have suffered it for a moment.”
 JOANNA “THE MAD,” DAUGHTER OF
QUEEN ISABEL

FROM “HISTORIA DE LA VILLA Y

CORTE DE MADRID” BY AMADOR DE
LOS RIOS

In the end Joanna’s stubborn obstinacy was conquered, and she

returned to the castle; but after such a scene few could doubt that she
was at any rate temporarily insane; and the Queen, conscious that
her own days were drawing to a close, trembled at the thought of her
country’s future, delivered to the moods of such a ruler.
“Cursed fruit of the tree that bore her; ill-fated seed of the land
that gave her birth, was this daughter for her mother,” wrote Peter
Martyr bitterly; and Isabel’s star, which had risen in such splendour
out of the murk of Henry IV.’s misgovernment, was destined to sink
amid the shame of Joanna’s folly.
In the spring of 1504 the Archduchess sailed to Flanders; and
Queen Isabel, guessing the scandals that would follow her footsteps
when her own restraining influence was removed, said good-bye to
her with a sick heart. Feeble in body, so that every task seemed an
effort, she herself turned more and more from worldly matters to the
prayers and meditations that drew her ever closer in touch with the
land of her desire towards which she was hastening. Yet neither her
kingdom nor people were far from her thoughts.
In 1503, when Ferdinand had gone north to protect the border
counties from what was rumoured to be an enormous invading army,
her old martial spirit had revived; and she busied herself in Segovia,
as in the old days, in collecting troops and despatching them to the
seat of war. With the news of Spanish victories her conscience smote
her. The flying French! These also were a Christian race, fighting for
their own land. Recoiling from the thought of such a slaughter, she
wrote to Ferdinand, praying him to stay his hand; and, whether
moved by her wish or his own foresight, he contented himself with
driving his foes across the border. Soon afterwards Louis XII. agreed
to an armistice that freed the Pyrenean provinces from war.
Triumph in the north of Spain was followed by the news of
Gonsalvo de Cordova’s victories in Naples; but joy at these successes
was counterbalanced by the serious state of the Queen’s health. She
and Ferdinand had fallen ill of fever in Medina del Campo in the
summer of 1504; and, while his constitution rallied from the attack,
anxiety for him and her own weakness aggravated her symptoms,
and it was feared that these would end in dropsy.
“We sit sorrowful in the palace all the day long,” wrote Peter
Martyr early in the autumn, “tremulously waiting the hour when
religion and virtue shall quit the earth with her.”
Isabel herself knew the end was not far off, and bade those about
her restrain their tears. When she heard of the processions and
pilgrimages made throughout the kingdom in the hope of restoring
her to health she asked that her subjects should pray “not for the
safety of her life but the salvation of her soul.”
On the 12th of October she signed her will, commanding in it that
her body should be taken to Granada, and there buried without
ostentation in a humble tomb. The money that would have provided
an elaborate funeral was to be spent on dowries for twelve poor girls
and the ransom of Christian captives in Africa.
The poverty of the Castilian treasury, in contrast to its heavy
expenses, evidently weighed on her mind; and she gave orders that
the number of officials in the royal household should be reduced, and
gifts of lands and revenues, that had been alienated by the Crown
without sufficient cause, revoked. Her jewels she left to Ferdinand,
that “seeing them,” she said, “he may be reminded of the singular
love I always bore him while living, and that now I am waiting for
him in a better world.”
The future government of the kingdom was her special care; and in
her will, and its codicil added in November, while acknowledging
Joanna as her successor, she begged both her and Philip “to be
always obedient subjects to the King, and never disobey his orders.”
This injunction was amplified by the command that if Joanna should
be absent from Spain, “or although present ... unable to reign and
govern,” Ferdinand should act as regent, until his grandson Charles
was of an age to undertake this task for himself.
Such were the most important clauses of the document, by which
Isabel strove to safeguard her loved Castile from the dangers
threatening her. In others, she insisted that Gibraltar, which she had
acquired for the Crown should never be alienated from it; that her
daughter and son-in-law should not appoint foreigners to any office
or post of trust, that the tax of the alcabala,[10] if found illegal on
inquiry, should be abolished; that a new and more accurate code of
laws should be compiled; and that steps should be taken to secure
the kindly treatment of natives in the New World. It will be seen that
Isabel in her last days was still the ruler, holding in her now feeble
hands all the threads of national government, but clear in mind to
recognize and command the issues.
10. See page 394.
 CODICIL TO ISABEL’S WILL, WITH
HER SIGNATURE

FROM LAFUENTE’S “HISTORIA

GENERAL DE ESPAÑA,” VOL. VII.

On November 26th[11] the end so long expected came; and, having

received the Sacraments and commended her soul to God, the
Queen, clad in a Franciscan robe, passed peacefully away.
11. Peter Martyr says November 22d.

My hand [says Peter Martyr] falls powerless by my side for very sorrow. The
world has lost its noblest ornament ... for she was the mirror of every virtue, the
shield of the innocent, and an avenging sword to the wicked.
It has pleased Our Lord [wrote Ferdinand to the chief citizens of Madrid] to take
to Himself the Most Serene Queen Doña Isabel, my very dear and well-beloved
wife; and although her loss is for me the greatest heaviness that this world held in
store ... yet, seeing that her death was as holy and catholic as her life, we may
believe that Our Lord has received her into His glory, that is a greater and more
lasting kingdom than any here on earth.
 The day after her death, the coffin with its funeral cortège left
Medina del Campo for Granada, amid a hurricane of wind and rain
such as the land had rarely witnessed. Peter Martyr, who was one of
the escort, declared that the Heavens opened, pouring down torrents
that drove the horsemen to shelter in the ditches by the wayside,
while the mules sank exhausted and terrified in the road. Never for a
moment was there a gleam of either sun or star, until on December
25th, as the funeral procession entered Granada, the clouds lifted for
the first time.
There in the city of her triumph, in the Franciscan monastery of
the Alhambra, the very heart of the kingdom she had won for
Christianity, Isabel of Castile was laid to rest.
 CHAPTER XIII
CASTILIAN LITERATURE

“Isabel’s death,” says Butler Clarke, “marks the beginning of a

period of anarchy.”
The peace that she had done so much to promote and that her
presence had insured was threatened by the incapacity of her
successor, and by the restless rivalry of the Archduke Philip and his
father-in-law. Prescott describes Isabel as “Ferdinand’s good genius,”
and her loss was to make obvious to the Castilians his less attractive
side,—the suspicion, and want of faith and generosity, that during
their joint rule her more kingly qualities had tended to disguise. The
old feeling against him as a foreigner, which his personal valour in
the Moorish war had partly obliterated, now reappeared and was
intensified by disgust at his prompt remarriage. Ferdinand was not
in the least sentimental, and thus failed to take into account the large
part played by sentiment in national history. The fact that he
regretted Isabel’s death would have struck him as a foolish reason for
missing any advantage that unfortunate occurrence might afford,
and he re-entered the matrimonial market with great promptitude.
He was now fifty-three and the bride selected by him a girl of
eighteen, Germaine de Foix, a daughter of the Count of Narbonne,
who with her brother Gaston represented the younger branch of the
House of Navarre. Such a union was naturally attractive to
Aragonese ambitions, ever watchful to establish dynastic links with
that northern kingdom, though at the moment as it happened the
Navarrese connection was of merely secondary importance.
Germaine de Foix was a niece of Louis XII., and by his marriage with
her (October, 1505) Ferdinand succeeded in breaking the dangerous
combination of France and Flanders that might otherwise have
proved his ruin.