History's Great Queens 2-Book Bundle: The Last Queen and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

by Gortner, C. W.

  “Didn’t your mother tell you?” My father paused, taking in my expression. “I should have guessed. The child. She wrote to say you’ve had a bad time of it. She must have thought to spare you for as long as she could.”

  “I don’t need anyone to spare me,” I replied, more harshly than I intended. I paused, took a few moments to compose myself. “Exactly how long has Philip been gone?”

  He met my gaze. “Close to a month now.”

  “A month! But why? What happened?”

  My father chuckled dryly. “What didn’t happen should be the question. First, that spider Louis decided to declare war on us over Naples. He dared send an envoy to threaten me that if we do not withdraw my claim he’ll dispatch an army to kick me out. Naturally, I had to respond. I petitioned my Cortes for men and arms, as no Frenchman is going to tell me what to do. As for your husband, he decided that by his honor he couldn’t stand by and watch us threaten France, though it’s his good friend Louis who’s doing all the threatening. So he abandoned me and my Cortes in midsession, insisting he had to cross the mountains before winter set in.”

  I felt as if I couldn’t draw a full breath. “He…he went alone?”

  “No, he took his gentlemen with him. I tell you he made quite an impression on my procurators—though not the one I intended. I rather doubt they’ll ever invest him now, the idiot.”

  I took a slow, deep breath. I did not want my rage, my horrified disbelief, to get the best of me. “Is he coming back?” I asked.

  “I have no idea. Nor do I really care. He’s been nothing but a thorn in our side since he came here. If he wants to scrape and bow to Louis, then let him. I’m done trying to convince him that France will devour him and his little duchy whole.”

  “Why didn’t you stop him?” I stood, unable to contain my anger anymore. “He’s my husband and prince consort. He’s already been invested by Castile. What am I supposed to do now? Follow him across the Pyrenees in the dead of winter?”

  “God’s death, what would you have me do? Put him in shackles? I told him his duty lay with us now. I listed all the reasons why it was inadvisable, insane even, to risk going to France. But he wouldn’t listen. No, he had to prove his manhood. He said he alone would persuade Louis of Valois away from this war. I’ve had donkeys with more sense! As if Louis would ever heed anyone over the chance to do me wrong.”

  I stared at him. Philip had said he was going to help Spain? I sensed something false, just beyond my comprehension. All these months I’d been here with my mother, what had gone on in Aragón? The feeling gnawed inside me; when I caught sight of that quiver under my father’s left eye, I couldn’t fight the doubt that engulfed me. I moved slowly to the hearth, my mind racing.

  I stared into the flames. “He knows I am with child.”

  “He knows. Your mother wrote to tell us the news. He thought it best if you didn’t travel until after the birth. It was the only thing we agreed on, I can assure you.”

  “But he left no word? No letter?”

  “No.”

  It was here. The deceit. I could almost reach out and touch it. “And all because of this war over Naples, a war he has nothing to do with?”

  “As I said, he thinks he can talk sense into Louis.” My father spat air out of the side of his mouth. “Pfah! Your mother might actually buy his excuse, but I know he went because he hopes to keep his feet in opposing camps, conniving Habsburg that he is. He has no intention of giving up his French alliance if he can help it.”

  I had the sensation of a world spinning fast out of control. My father set his hand on my shoulder. “It is not your fault, madrecita. Your husband will do as he pleases. But we’ll care for you, and after you’ve borne this child we’ll see what’s to be done. No use in worrying now, eh?”

  But there was every reason. For I had no idea where I belonged anymore.

  SEVENTEEN

  On March 10, 1503, as Castile shed its icy shroud, I took to my bed and after only a few hours of labor gave birth to a son. I named him Fernando, in my father’s honor, and to my mother’s delight he was pronounced of sound body and mind. Shortly thereafter, I moved with my household to La Mota in central Castile. My mother had to return to Toledo to attend to the upheaval in her Cortes caused by Philip’s abrupt departure, and I had no desire to lodge in the city with the memories of my fights with Philip and Besançon’s death.

  I dispatched a letter to Naples, where Papá had gone to fight the French. In the midst of his war (which he described as “a nasty skirmish” in his usual offhanded fashion), he sent me a ruby ring and his regrets that he could not be here to see his new grandson and namesake. You have fulfilled my most earnest hopes, madrecita, he wrote, and I’ll soon have these Frenchmen fleeing like curs. I suggest you write to your husband and tell him the good news.

  I could imagine his ironic smile as he penned these last words. The truth of the matter was that I had written to Philip, several times in fact. I had not received a single reply. I knew he’d arrived in France because my mother’s ambassador in Paris informed us as much, but whatever business he concluded with King Louis had not stopped the struggle over Naples. Madame de Halewin also continued to send regular communiqués about the children, but from my husband I had not heard a word since his departure seven months ago.

  It was as though to him, I had ceased to exist.

  I avoided my worst fear that he had abandoned me and focused instead on my new son. Fernandito, as we called him, was a beautiful child even in his infancy, with soft brown hair and my amber-hued eyes, the delicate bones under his plump features a sure sign of his Aragonese blood. I knew he would grow to resemble my father’s side of the family and found special comfort in holding him close, nuzzling the sweet crevices of his plump neck, and relishing the feel of his greedy mouth on my breast. He gurgled and cooed and laughed with delight far more than he fretted. He was as docile as my Charles had been at his birth, yet unlike Charles, curious about the world around him, his wide eyes and perfect little mouth fixed in a perpetual O of wonder that mesmerized all of us.

  The effect he had on my mother was miraculous. She shed her mournfulness like an old skin, reverting to her old self again, with even a faint blush to her cheeks and vigor to her step, as if all her pains had vanished. She was not that ill, I saw with relief. Rather, her recent losses and concerns over Spain had made her so. But now she had a new grandson, and I patiently suffered her obsessive worry over the child’s health and scrutiny of his household. She wanted more attendants to serve him. I reminded her that he cared nothing for how many pages ringed his crib. I did give in to her insistence that he have his own physician, however. My sister Isabella’s son had been hale only to later sicken and die. Death had stalked my family for years, scything through our brightest hopes, and I decided that Fernandito must have the best of care. On one point, however, I was adamant. I must nurse him. I would not surrender him to the established protocol, which set forth that a newborn prince should be delivered to a wet nurse and appointed guardians.

  Throughout the spring and summer, my mother came and went from La Mota at regular intervals, keeping me apprised of the Cortes deliberations. I would have to make my own way back to Flanders if Philip did not call for me soon, but she replied that my presence in Spain was required, at least until their session concluded. I reluctantly agreed. I had my babe to consider and the truth was, I couldn’t embark on a voyage while he was still so young. I therefore informed the procurators via a formal document that I would remain at their disposal and set myself to fashioning a home within La Mota’s thick fortified walls.

  Despite my lifelong aversion to fortresses, the old castle proved a perfect residence in which to weather another fiery summer. Situated on the high plains of Castile and overlooking vast fields of wheat, its ramparts and curtain wall kept the place cool, and the twisting lengths of corridor and cramped staircases soon became familiar to me. Here time slipped away as I attended to my son and banal daily
chores, interrupted only by my mother’s visits and sojourns to the nearby township of Medina del Campo, where Beatriz and I haggled like fishwives at the trade market over imported bolts of Venetian silk brocade. We paid too much despite our attempts to outsmart the crafty merchants and returned to La Mota content as sparrows with twine for our nest, promptly setting ourselves to fashioning new gowns.

  Yet such distractions grew less fulfilling as autumn neared. My mother sent word that her Cortes had concluded and she’d come to me as soon as she packed up her household in Toledo. I began to brood. I’d been in Spain for close on two years and I still hadn’t received a reply to my innumerable letters to Philip. It was as if my past had become an illusion, the life of someone else. I worried that my other children would forget me, grow up reared by others, that my husband and I had become strangers to each other. I wasn’t one to nurture old hurts. I wanted my marriage back, a marriage that despite its troubles had been one of passion and gaiety.

  I began to prowl the ramparts as the days shortened and the long crimson twilights of summer were swallowed by the sudden fall of autumn dusk. As I stared toward the horizon, I could not imagine spending another winter in Spain. The ache in my heart, which I had kept subdued through love for my little son and duty for my country, could no longer be denied. The Cortes had adjourned; they had not, in the end, called for me. Whatever decisions they had reached had not required my presence. What did I wait for? Why did I still linger?

  In my heart, I knew the time had come for me to leave. My son was still a babe, but I could go by sea. It was a shorter route. A well-equipped galleon would protect us. As I descended the staircase to my rooms, I felt a sudden sadness. I would miss Spain. I had no idea what to expect when I reached home, considering Philip’s and my estrangement.

  But I had to go, regardless. Sitting at my desk, I wrote to my mother in Toledo.

  A WEEK LATER, MY CHAMBER DOOR OPENED AND ARCHBISHOP Cisneros walked in.

  We’d had only the most cursory of contact. He’d been away dealing with the Moorish insurrection when I first arrived, and after he made his antipathy for my husband clear during our investiture, I steered clear of him. It proved easy enough. He did not live at court but rather in his diocese in Toledo, where he attended my mother and her Cortes as Castile’s premier prelate.

  His sudden appearance here, in La Mota, brought my women and me to a standstill.

  He seemed like a cadaver of a man, his hard black stare severe as a fanatic’s. My ladies paused in midmotion, arms filled with linens, sections of my gowns, and other items. We’d taken advantage of the dreary afternoon and Fernandito’s nap to sort through my belongings, choosing what I would take and what I would leave behind, as a royal household, however well controlled, invariably accumulates more than one expects.

  He stepped forth, clad in his trademark brown wool cloak and habit, his horny feet bare in their sandals. He took us in with a piercing glance. “May I ask what Your Highness is doing?”

  I lifted my chin. I could sense he had an instinctual aversion to women. Indeed, that he and my mother had found a way to work together testified more to her sagacity and determination than his, and I did not appreciate his intrusion or his accusatory tone. Still, I owed him my respect for his rank, even if he clearly did not think of me as his future queen.

  “What I am doing is sorting through my things,” I told him. “I’ve accumulated more than a galleon can hold and I assume that given the state of the treasury, Her Majesty my mother won’t wish to furnish me with an armada to take me home.”

  With a lift of his hand, Cisneros motioned my women out. I clenched my jaw, resisting the urge to remind him of who I was. Beatriz gave me a worried glance as she closed the door.

  The archbishop and I faced each other. I felt his fury at once, rising between us like a wall.

  “Begging Your Highness’s pardon,” he said, “your decision to leave is most sudden.”

  “I hardly see why,” I replied. “I have my children and my husband waiting for me. I can hardly remain here indefinitely.”

  “Oh?” His thin, bloodless lips tightened. “And what about Your Highness’s duty to Spain? Or is that not as important to you as your own pleasure?”

  I met his unblinking stare. I determined not to show how much it unnerved me, for thus did I imagine he looked upon the pleading heretics he condemned to the fire. “My duty here is done,” I said carefully. “I love Spain with all my heart and will return to claim my throne when the time comes. But, my lord, that time is far into the future. My mother, God save her, is well and has many years ahead of her. And I have a home in Flanders to attend to.”

  One wiry black eyebrow arched. “Few share your belief that anyone in Flanders is waiting for you, with all due respect. Indeed, we find this show of devotion somewhat surprising.”

  “Surprising?” I echoed, and I forced myself to sound nonchalant. “I don’t see why. Philip and I are bound by holy matrimony. I should think that you of all people would respect said vows.” I paused. “I wrote to Her Majesty my mother, conveying my decision. Are you here at her command? Or are you in the habit of opening and reading her private correspondence?”

  The ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “Her Majesty has asked that I speak with you. She read your letter but has been tried of late, both with the adjourning of her Cortes and ongoing struggle of securing this kingdom. Your Highness’s decision only added to her distress.”

  I felt a prickle of foreboding. “I am sorry if I have caused her distress, but she must have known that this day would come. And seeing I prefer to travel by ship, it’ll require advance preparation.”

  “And you would take a babe to sea with you?”

  I went still. “He is my child.”

  He eyed me. “Of course,” he said at length. “Nevertheless, Your Highness cannot simply set off to Flanders at a moment’s notice. We are at war with France. Think of King Louis’ delight should he capture you and a prince of Spain on the high seas. A fine ransom you both would fetch. He might even demand we cede Naples in exchange for your freedom.”

  Had my mother sent him here to berate me? Why, if she was so concerned, had she not come herself? She had never shied away from chastising me in the past.

  I drew myself to full height. “I hardly think I’m in any danger from the French. How would Louis even know of my departure unless we informed him of it?” I looked him in the eye. “Besides, that is not the reason you are here, is it, my lord? Speak plainly. Why has my mother sent you rather than come herself?”

  His reply was cool. “Her Majesty has several hundred petitions approved by the Cortes to oversee, not to mention her own duties as monarch. She asked that I inform Your Highness that much to her regret, your presence is still required in Spain. Your husband the archduke’s desertion in Aragón and subsequent escape to France occasioned graver concerns than we anticipated. Though the Cortes has ended for the year, you must be available in case you’re called upon when the members reconvene.”

  I faltered. I did not like the sound of this. “What could possibly be so important that it would require my presence for another year?”

  Cisneros bowed his head. That gesture of lowly ignorance made me start to tremble. “I am but a servant, Your Highness. Her Majesty will come as soon as possible to meet with you in person. I will, of course, convey any concerns you may have to her.”

  I clasped my hands, fighting back the sudden urge to bolt from the room. “I will compose a letter,” I managed to say, and the quiet in my voice surprised me, for I felt as though I stepped across cracking ice. I even conjured up a smile. “Now, my lord, you must be tired. Let me see to your rooms. How long do you plan on staying?” I started to move to the door.

  He stepped in front of me with fluid menace. “That will not be necessary. I shall be here only a short while, and my retainers and I are accustomed to shifting for ourselves.”

  “Retainers?” I said. Underneath me, the ice broke. />
  “Yes. There’s been some unrest. The harvest has not been good and the winter promises to be a hard one. We’ve heard rumors of an insurrection in Medina del Campo and thought it best to increase your guard here.” His smile was cold. “A precaution, nothing more. You needn’t trouble yourself. You’ve much to do and His Highness the infante to care for. You’ll hardly notice the intrusion.”

  I plunged without warning into swift black water. Retainers, he had brought retainers. He was increasing my guard. I had just been to Medina del Campo a few days ago. I had seen a prosperous town, with inhabitants who swarmed the trade fair in eagerness to share their affluence. I’d seen no signs of hardship or any insurrection.

  He turned to the door.

  “How long?” I asked, and I couldn’t control the quiver in my voice. “How long did Her Majesty say she would be in coming to me?”

  “Not long.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Your Highness must be patient. Even a sovereign queen must abide by her laws and elected representatives, which in Spain are the Cortes and the council. Sometimes she has no choice but to obey, though she wears the crown.”

  A chill spread through me. He bowed his head again, opened the door and left. As I heard his footsteps fade away, I reached with a trembling hand for the back of a chair.

  EIGHTEEN

  Cisneros departed two days later as abruptly as he had appeared. But his company of sixty-odd retainers stayed, turning my congenial household overnight into a barracks. Cloistered in my rooms with my son’s cradle (for I feared a nefarious scheme to perhaps kidnap him away from me), my ladies and I adopted the defensiveness of women under siege.

  The subsequent arrival of my mother’s secretary, Lopez, did not relieve my fears. He seemed happy to see me, as always, and while a little more bald and careworn, just as he had done when in Flanders he tried to ease my strain and answer all my questions. He reassured me my mother was well, but she’d had a difficult time with her Cortes, and there was no word yet from my husband. Though he spoke with conviction, I detected a new flicker of wariness in his tone. My mother had personally sent him to serve me, he added, and he set himself to his secretarial role, penning my letters and faithfully dispatching them by courier. I know he did because I always received the same impassive reply: Patience. I must have patience. Her Majesty would be with me as soon as she could. Until then, there was nothing to be done. Winter was upon us and I couldn’t travel now. I must wait until spring. If I was in want of anything, I need only request it. Certainly, La Mota must be provisioned for what promised to be a long, bitter season.