Chapter 10
Before the trees burst into leaf, the queen was pregnant once again. The king had started visiting her apartments in an attempt, now even more imperative, to conceive a male heir. As soon as she realized she was expecting, Isabel asked me to accompany her on a pilgrimage to the Convent of Penitence in Valladolid.
“Are you sure you want to go on this journey? It's very tiring and you are so weak.”
“I have no choice. The only hope is to pray and entreat God to help me. This time it absolutely has to be a boy. I mustn't get it wrong again.”
It seemed offensive to associate the idea of wrongness to the two infantas, but I held my tongue. Evidently Isabel was not herself.
The journey there and back took three weeks, over steep mountain roads and hot plains, on foot or riding mul
