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

by Gortner, C. W.

  I had not been wrong. They meant to keep me here.

  I wiped at the blood on my face, heedless to its smearing across my cheek. “Would you take me by force?” I said to Lopez. “Bind me with ropes as if I were a criminal?”

  “Your Highness has lost all reason,” he whispered. “This behavior, it—it is madness.”

  Mad. It was the first time that word was linked to my name. I did not care. In truth, I was mad. Mad with sorrow and the pain of betrayal. Mad with rage and grief and fear.

  “You may think me mad,” I said, flinging the words in Lopez’s face. “But I am still an infanta of Castile and heiress of this realm. Set guards on me, and by God you will pay for it.”

  I watched him struggle to decide. He glanced at the retainers, then back at me. He pulled his shoulders to his neck and without another word trudged back to the castle. He did not look back.

  I did not move as night fell and the drizzle turned into the first winter snow.

  NINETEEN

  A vigil was set up in the keep. I heard voices, the lighting of fires, footsteps. By dusk, I had to retreat into a thatched pen near the portcullis, where we kept goats. The poor creatures bleated and cowered, sensing my desperation. But they emitted warmth in that small hovel and I knew I couldn’t survive the night outside in my gown and bare feet. Beatriz was allowed to bring me a platter of food, my cloak, and a brazier. I wrapped myself in the former and huddled over the latter, as wolves howled beyond the castle walls and the goats curled together.

  “My lady,” Beatriz implored. “I beg you, come inside. You’ll catch your death.”

  “No. Go see to my son. I’ll not return to that prison. If I do, they’ll never let me out again.”

  Beatriz kept up her pleas until a retainer obliged her to leave. The following afternoon, as I dozed fitfully, always with an eye to the entrance lest they come and attempt to drag me out, I heard the slap of sandals. There was only one person I knew who wore sandals in winter.

  I stiffened, crouching within my cloak.

  A hooded head thrust through the hut entrance. Cisneros yanked back his cowl to show his enraged jaundiced face. “Your Highness, come out of there this instant.”

  “Open the gate,” I replied, “and I will do so.”

  “That is impossible. Her Majesty has ordered that you not leave this castle.”

  “Then here I shall remain.”

  “This is an outrage! The entire castle and most of Medina del Campo by now say Your Highness has lost her wits. You are creating a scandal. Come out at once!”

  “I care not a whit for what anyone says. And you are no one to tell me what I should or should not do. I am the infanta and heiress of Castile. You are but a servant.”

  He pulled back. My entire body quickened when I heard him bark to someone unseen outside, “We have no choice. We must take her out by force if need be.”

  I heard Lopez murmur, “My lord, I beg your pardon, but I came to La Mota at Her Majesty’s command. I cannot sanction any act that may harm Her Highness. I fear you must summon Her Majesty.”

  “And I tell you, Her Majesty is too ill,” Cisneros hissed, in a voice that made the hair on my neck stand on end. “She cannot move from Madrigal. You will do as I say!”

  “No,” said Lopez, and the resolution in his voice caused me to inch to the hut entrance. “My lord, it was your letter that caused this upset. I did not understand its contents and do not understand you now. Her Majesty instructed me to keep Her Highness comfortable and safe until she could be sent for. Unless I receive word to the contrary from Her Majesty herself, I cannot comply. Find another man, if you must.”

  My entire world came to a halt. I could tell he spoke the truth. He did not know what Cisneros meant. And my mother was ill. She lay in Madrigal, less than an hour away. I knew then she must be close to death, for otherwise she would have sent for me. Cisneros must have waylaid her missives, usurping her power while she lay unaware and intimidating Lopez into keeping me here, away from her.

  I made myself rise, pull the cloak about me, and emerge with as much dignity as I could. I must have presented a terrible sight—my hair matted, disheveled about my sleepless face, my feet filthy, dried blood caked on my temple and cheek. I faced Cisneros and Lopez with my chin raised and declared, “My lord Lopez, prepare an escort. I will go to Madrigal. At once.”

  Lopez bowed and hastened away.

  I turned to the archbishop. His face contorted with rage. “If I discover you’ve played my mother false, you can be sure that premier prelate or not you’ll have cause to regret it.”

  As I walked past him to the castle I felt his stare like fangs in my back.

  But I knew this time he would not dare stop me.

  I ARRIVED AT THE PALACE of Madrigal as a glassy sun without warmth slid behind the glacial bank of clouds, turning the sky into a dull gray shield.

  No word had gone ahead of my arrival. I rode out of La Mota with only Lopez and two retainers. My women had instructions to shut themselves in my room with my child and await my return.

  As we clattered into the empty courtyard of my mother’s favorite palace, the place of her birth, it looked deserted. But the sound of our horses’ hooves on the cobblestones alerted grooms and pages, who rushed out in obvious astonishment. Moments later, I was striding down wood-paneled corridors to my mother’s apartments, past awestruck sentries and women who dropped to the floor in hasty curtsies.

  I wore a wool gown, my face scrubbed clean and my hair coiled at my nape.

  The marquise, so stooped and gray she resembled a twist of cinders, met me at the entrance. She took in my appearance with a judicious sweep of her eyes and motioned to the women seated like guards at the doors of the bedchamber. My heart cracked in my chest when she then took my arm—she who was my mother’s most intimate lady, who had known me since birth yet had never willingly touched a person of royal blood without leave.

  “I assume your delay in coming and that look in your eye means a grievous wrong has been done,” she said. “It can be sorted out later. For now, Her Majesty need only know that which can ease her passage to God.” Her fingers, so twig-thin they looked as if they might snap at any moment, gripped me with surprising strength. “Do you understand me, princesa?”

  I nodded, set my other hand on hers. She released me. The women at the doors rose and opened them. I walked through.

  The curtains at the embrasure were drawn back, letting in colorless light. The room was smothering, braziers in every corner, a haze of herb-laced smoke drifting below the eaves. I did not see my mother anywhere, not at the upholstered chair by her desk near the embrasure nor at the empty throne on its small dais. It took me a few seconds to realize with a pained jolt that she lay in the bed before me. I moved to it.

  She lay against mounded pillows, her eyes closed. I gazed on her translucent pallor, under which bluish veins and the very structure of her bones could be traced. A linen cap covered her scalp; her features seemed oddly childlike. It took a moment to realize she had no eyebrows. I had never noticed before. She must have had them plucked in her youth; those thin lines I was accustomed to seeing arched in disapproval were, in fact, painted. Her hands rested on her chest. These too I stared at, the fingers long and thin now, without any rings save the ruby signet of Castile, which hung loosely on her right finger. I hadn’t realized how beautiful her hands were, how elegant and marble-smooth, as if made to hold a scepter.

  The hands of a queen. My hands.

  How could I not have seen it?

  “Mamá?” I whispered. I watched her struggle to awaken; her emaciated breast quickening, her brow furrowed and eyelids fluttering.

  Then her eyes opened and I drowned in their ethereal blue, glazed over with the effects of the opiate draught.

  “Juana? Hija mia, is that you? Why have you taken so long? Where have you been?”

  I dropped onto the stool at her bedside, took her cold hand in mine. It was frail, almost brittle, as
if it might crumble like an autumn flower in my fingers.

  “Forgive me, Mamá. I did not know you were ill. No one…no one told me.”

  She shook her head with trademark indignation, though the denial was heartbreaking now, a futile attempt to refute her own mortality. “This cursed ague. I adjourned the Cortes and planned to visit you as soon as I closed down my household in Toledo, but I felt so poorly that my Moya insisted I take to my bed for a few days.” She gave a hollow chuckle. “And here I am. I would not be separated so long from you and my grandson, so I finally told them to bring me here, by litter.” She paused, staring at me. “What has happened to you? Tell me.”

  I averted my eyes. “It is nothing,” I murmured. It was clear to me Cisneros had set himself to keeping us apart, for his own unscrupulous reasons, but I would not trouble her further. Later, I would deal with the archbishop, for like Besançon before him I now knew him for an enemy.

  “I know it is not,” she said, and the iron in her voice brought my eyes back to hers. “Cisneros argued before the Cortes that you are not fit to rule. He says that together, you and Philip will bring Spain to ruin. I was most displeased with him and told him so before my procurators.”

  Her hand tightened in mine. She fixed her gaze on me. “He was wrong. I know it. I know you can rule. You are my daughter. With a loyal council and the Cortes at your side, you can rule as well as I and perhaps even better. It is not a mystery, this business of wearing a crown, for all we pretend it is. Rather, it is a matter of devotion and hard labor.”

  I did not hold back my tears. I let them fall. I let myself feel the incredible, unexpected grief that swept away a lifetime of misunderstanding, of mistrust and the struggle to assert myself against this woman who cast such an inexorable shadow over me. Isabel of Castile had been a stranger to me for most of my life, but in that moment I understood her. We were joined as queen and successor, mother and daughter; by blood and suffering and strength.

  It was a gift more precious than any crown she could bequeath.

  “Go.” She motioned to the desk. “Bring me the document there.”

  I rose. The document lay on her faded, ink-stained leather blotter, adorned with ribbons and strings of seals. From behind me she said, “We’ve little time, my child. Do not dawdle.”

  With a smile I turned to her, document in hand. “Mamá, can’t this wait until later?”

  “No. It is your future, Juana. You must hear what it contains. I must have your consent.”

  I returned to her. She took the vellum, regarded it in silence for a long moment. Then she said: “This codicil makes provision for Castile after my death.”

  I went still. I knew she had not ordered my detainment in La Mota, but it had been Cisneros’s doing, part of his plan to keep me isolated until her death. Was this codicil the reason why?

  “Mamá, is it Philip?” I asked softly.

  She grimaced. “God save me, I wanted to secure you an annulment. I petitioned Rome, went against everything I believed. But there are no grounds. This codicil is the only thing I have to protect you from him.”

  “Protect me?” The room abruptly darkened, as if a passing cloud muted the sky outside. “Dear God,” I whispered, “what has he done?”

  “What hasn’t he done? Not only did he flee to France in the midst of his investment by Aragón’s Cortes, but he lied to us about his motive. He made no attempt to persuade Louis away from his attack on Naples. Instead, he reaffirmed your son Charles’s betrothal to Louis’ daughter and sent word that unless you return to him, he’ll send for you with a French-paid army. He also demanded your father forsake his claim to Naples before it is too late. In short, he deceived us. He told us he went to France to set matters right, but instead he sat at Louis’ feet like a dog.”

  My hands clenched in my lap. I wished I could pretend I didn’t believe it. But I did believe it. It had been there, all the time: his arrogance and lust for power, his weakness and thwarted rage. He had played a treacherous game even as my mother lay dying, my father fought a bloody war in Naples and I struggled for my place in a world he’d torn apart. This was the man he was. This was the husband I was bound to.

  “He’s been in France, all this time?” I finally said.

  “Yes.” The compassion in her eyes sundered me. “Juana, you will never change him. This is why I must know if you are still willing to assume my throne and all it entails upon my death.”

  I met her stare. I had no hesitation. “I am.”

  “Bien.” She sighed. I had to fight back an overwhelming sense of loss, knowing I would soon face the world alone. I couldn’t imagine Spain without her.

  I poured a goblet from the decanter by the bed, held it to her mouth. Her hand as it clasped mine quivered with the effort of holding herself upright. She fell against the pillows with a stifled gasp, lines of pain taut about her mouth.

  “Only you, Lopez, and your father will know of this codicil. It shall be kept secret until after my death. We must not let word of it get to Philip. Already, some of the grandes look to their own ambitions. They will seek their advantage the moment I am gone.” Her voice lowered; as I leaned close, her gaze flickered to the closed chamber door. I went cold. She now lived in fear—fear of her own court, of her high nobles and Cisneros. She knew the wolves she’d spent years subjugating had begun to gnaw at their tethers.

  “This codicil to my last will and testament grants you my crown of queen regnant,” she went on, “with the succession devolving to your sons in order of their birth. Your husband will never rule in Spain. He will hold no lands or revenue of his own accord; he’ll not be granted the title of king consort without your consent nor pass it on to progeny not of your blood. Like you, he’ll be bound to the Cortes for his coronation. Your father will see to the same in his Cortes in Aragón when the time comes. Thus shall we bind him.”

  I did not move as I absorbed this mortal blow dealt to the man I had loved and defended, the prince who in the end had failed Spain.

  “And your father,” she added, “will be given the governorship of Castile until you claim your throne. He will hold the realm for you and ensure Spain stays in Spanish hands.”

  Her grip tightened. She was breathless now, betraying the return of her pain. “Remember the Cortes, Juana: they are your ally. Only they can approve a monarch’s right to rule. Keep them on your side and they will see you through.”

  “Yes, Mamá.” I bit my lip, her hand squeezing mine as if she might impart the last of her ebbing strength to me.

  “I wish it were different,” she whispered. “I wish I had more time to stop him. But all I have is this codicil. This codicil and your father. I pray God, they will be enough.”

  I looked at our clasped hands. Then I said in a low voice that came from my very soul, “I will stop him if need be, Mamá. I will fight for Spain.”

  She went limp. She dropped my hand. “I…I must rest now. I am so tired.”

  I sat anchored at her side, as night crept over the palace.

  WINTER EBBED INTO SPRING AND STILL MY MOTHER LIVED. MY women had brought my son and my possessions to Medina del Campo. There in that intimate palace with its arched inner patio and intricately carved windows we installed ourselves, our every hour scheduled around her. Cisneros stayed away; a host of royal physicians hovered, ever hopeful. Only my mother’s most trusted Dr. de Soto dared to tell me she suffered from a malignant growth in her stomach. The growth had begun to affect her other organs, and he warned we would not see another recovery as the one she’d staged upon my arrival in Spain and the birth of my son. Knowing this, I could only stand in awe of her spirit, which had shrugged aside even death’s manacle for a time.

  I believed only Fernandito’s presence and the desire to see my father again kept her alive. Every afternoon when I brought my son to her apartments, she insisted on rising from bed to sit on her chair, a wraith muffled in fur as she dangled his rattle and he made his first clumsy attempts to crawl. The sight
of him softened her waxen countenance; she’d hold him in her frail arms and he would gaze at her in reverent silence, as if he knew who she was.

  It was then that I decided to leave Fernandito with her. The danger of travel aside, whatever awaited me in Flanders was not something I would subject a babe to. He would be safe here.

  I then wrote to my father in Naples. My mother had demanded absolute silence as far as he was concerned; she knew from experience the fickle nature of war and did not want him racing home when a victory could be at hand. I finally broke my promise and informed him of her condition, telling him he must find a way to make haste. I would not have a chance to see him and I didn’t want her left alone for too long. I also left orders with her household and guards that under no circumstances was Cisneros to be allowed near her.

  On April 11, 1504, my possessions were loaded onto my ship in the northern port of Laredo. We made the trip to the rugged coast of Cantabria in stages, allowing the people to see us and dispel the rumor spreading through Spain that the great Isabel was dead. Now the wind blew strong, returning me to the day when I had first bid my family farewell.

  Nothing was the same.

  The ship that would convey me to Flanders was sturdy but small, without gilded standards; and of the hundreds who attended my last departure only my mother on her chair, the admiral, the elderly Marquise de Moya, and my women Beatriz and Soraya stood on the dock. My son had been left behind in Madrigal under the care of his household servants.

  Involuntarily, my gaze went to the empty space where my brother and sisters had stood. They were all gone now, the children for whom my mother had held such hopes, scheming and sacrificing for the day when we would lift Spain to eminence from our thrones, arranging our lives as she arranged her own, with precision and an utter disregard for the vagaries of fate.

  I went to kneel before her. She could no longer stand. I smiled as I gazed into eyes glassy from the narcotic draught she now relied on. She never took enough to induce oblivion; she wanted to remain alert, but her nights had become a purgatory and Dr. de Soto had increased the dose, so she might gain a few hours’ rest.