in the little village square and shouted that the gates of the red fort had opened and the Moors were thundering out, the full army, armed for attack. There was no time to get back to camp. The queen and the three princesses could never outrun Moorish horsemen on Arab stallions. There was nowhere to hide, there was nowhere even to make a stand.
In desperate haste Queen Isabella climbed to the flat roof of the nearest house, pulling the little princess by her hand up the crumbling stairs, her sisters running behind. “I have to see! I have to see!” she exclaimed.
“Madre! You are hurting me!”
“Quiet, child. We have to see what they intend.”
“Are they coming for us?” the child whimpered, her little voice muffled by her own plump hand.
“They may be. I have to see.”
It was a raiding party, not the full force. They were led by their champion,a giant of a man, dark as mahogany, a glint of a smile beneath his helmet, riding a huge black horse as if he were Night riding to overwhelm them. His horse snarled like a dog at the watching guard, its teeth bared.
“Madre, who is that man?” the Princess of Wales whispered to her mother, staring from the vantage point of the flat roof of the house.
“That is the Moor called Yarfe, and I am afraid he has come for your friend, Hernando.”
“His horse looks so frightening, like it wants to bite.”
“He has cut off its lips to make it snarl at us. But we are not made fearful by such things. We are not frightened children.”
“Should we not run away?” asked the frightened child.
Her mother, watching the Moor parade, did not even hear her daughter’s whisper.
“You won’t let him hurt Hernando, will you? Madre?”
“Hernando laid the challenge. Yarfe is answering it. We will have to fight,” she said levelly. “Yarfe is a knight, a man of honor. He cannot ignore the challenge.”
“How can he be a man of honor if he is a heretic? A Moor?”
“They are most honorable men, Catalina, though they are unbelievers. And this Yarfe is a hero to them.”
“What will you do? How shall we save ourselves? This man is as big as a giant.”
“I shall pray,” Isabella said. “And my champion Garallosco de la Vega will answer Yarfe for Hernando.”
As calmly as if she were in her own chapel at Córdoba, Isabella kneeled on the roof of the little house and gestured that her daughters should do the same. Sulkily, Catalina’s older sister, Juana, dropped to her knees, the princesses Isabel and María, her other two older sisters, followed suit. Catalina saw, peeping through her clasped hands as she kneeled in prayer, that María was shaking with fear and that Isabel, in her widow’s gown, was white with terror.
“Heavenly Father, we pray for the safety of ourselves, of our cause, and of our army.” Queen Isabella looked up at the brilliantly blue sky. “We pray for the victory of Your champion, Garallosco de la Vega, at this time of his trial.”
“Amen,” the girls said promptly, and then followed the direction of their mother’s gaze to where the ranks of the Spanish guard were drawn up, watchful and silent.
“If God is protecting him—” Catalina started.
“Silence,” her mother said gently. “Let him do his work, let God do His, and let me do mine.” She closed her eyes in prayer.
Catalina turned to her eldest sister and pulled at her sleeve. “Isabel, if God is protecting him, then how can he be in danger?”
Isabel looked down at her little sister. “God does not make the way smooth for those He loves,” she said in a harsh whisper. “He sends hardships to try them. Those that God loves the best are those who suffer the worst. I know that. I, who lost the only man that I will ever love. You know that. Think about Job, Catalina.”
“Then how shall we win?” the little girl demanded. “Since God loves Madre, won’t He send her the worst hardships? And so how shall we ever win?”
“Hush,” their mother said. “Watch.