“That parting shaft of his about the prophecy was not so bad,” he mutters. “All the same, I wonder if it will come true. A man can but die once, and that his worst enemy should kill him is but natural and just. Still, most noble bastard, Don Enrique, we will have a tussle for it ere it comes to that, and if the Lady Blanche strengthens my arm, why then, _por Dios_, we will marry her!” How Albuquerque’s project prospered will now appear; the present upshot being that it was secretly arranged between the king and himself to despatch his half-brother, the Infante Fadique, “the Grand Master” as he was called, to Narbonne to ask the hand in marriage of the Lady Blanche, niece of the King of France. A mission which prospered marvellously, seeing that within a month Don Fadique acted as his brother’s proxy at their solemn espousals in the Gothic Cathedral of St. Just, the darkly painted figures of saints and angels in the flamboyant windows of the choir casting down mystic shadows on the form of a pale young girl in the very bud of youth, kneeling at the altar beside a royal youth with the sweetest and softest eyes, his elegant figure set off by the magnificent robes of the Grand Master of Santiago, so stiff with gold embroidery and jewels, on mantle and _justaucorps_, that they stood up of themselves. CHAPTER III Blanche de Bourbon The Princess Blanche de Bourbon, sister to the Queen of France, wife of Charles V., lived in the old fortress of Narbonne, beside the sea, in those romantic days when ladies’ robes were sewn with _fleur-de-lis_ and heraldic devices, dragons, and coats of arms--wore pointed shoes, long chains from the waist, and high coifs and head draperies incredible in our eyes. She was young, only fifteen, small and delicate in stature, with a tender, beseeching look, as seeking for fondness and protection from those around her. By nature she was little fitted to command or to dazzle, but rather to creep into the heart of manly affection and nestle there. The very name of the King of Castile gave her the horrors, and when called into the presence of her father and told she was to marry him, she lay three days on her bed without speaking. Imagine her feelings when she took courage to look at his proxy, of all his brothers the most like the king!