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

by Gortner, C. W.

  Madame de Halewin dropped back onto the chair.

  I stabbed my needle through my embroidery hoop, my every sense attuned to the hallway beyond my door. When at last I heard his approach, I set my task aside and looked up.

  The door burst open. In strode my husband, flushed from his vigorous ride. He wore no cap. His hair tumbled like spun gold to his shoulders, streaked with sunlight. I had forgotten in my fury that he had a commanding presence, though my practiced eye noted he’d grown heavier, his cheeks ruddier and coarser than I recalled. I consciously drew a breath, reminding myself that regardless of his physical attributes, he was still the man who had forsaken me in Spain. Yet when I saw the unfeigned surprise in his expression I felt a rush of mortifying desire.

  How could I still lust for a man who was so unworthy of me?

  I submitted to his hot kiss. “My infanta,” he breathed as if we’d been separated only a few hours. “Did you miss me?”

  “As much as you missed me,” I replied, and the chill in my tone pleased me. I could feel every pair of eyes in the room watching as he went to an astoundingly blushing Eleanor and greeted her—“So pretty and tall you’ve grown, my dear”—and then to Isabella, who cooed in delight when he handed her a beribboned feather he produced as if by magic from within his doublet. “This is from a white owl my falcon took down in France. Put it in your blue velvet bonnet, ma petite reine.”

  I found myself momentarily speechless. It was plain to me that our daughters adored him, though he’d arguably been more absent from their lives than I. But of course they would. What girl would not adore such a father? It did not make him any less a liar or adulterer.

  He spun to where I sat like an effigy amid my women. When he clapped his hands, it sounded as though a storm broke overhead. “Out! I would spend time alone with my wife.”

  I saw Eleanor’s annoyed glance as Madame led her and Isabella out. My Flemish ladies scampered into the antechamber, my two Spanish women following with heavy steps.

  After two years of strife and separation, Philip and I were alone.

  I did not shift from my chair as he went to the cabinet to pour a goblet of wine. He quaffed it. It was not until I saw him reach again for the decanter that I realized he was only feigning nonchalance. His hand trembled as he raised the goblet to his lips. When he turned with a disingenuous smile, I knew that he had every intention of pretending nothing was amiss.

  I wanted to throw myself at his throat. Instead, I said, “How was your trip to France?”

  His smile slipped. “Didn’t Don Manuel tell you? I went to negotiate a peace settlement.” He chuckled uncomfortably. “It’s not as easy as you might think, getting two kings to agree, but I think we made progress.” He took in my stare, turned heel to cross the room, away from me. “Blessed Christ,” I heard him mutter, “I’ve been riding all day through mud and mire. I’m in no mood for an inquisition.”

  I folded my hands in my lap. “Yes, I heard about your travels, though not by you.” And then my accusation came, almost as if by its own volition: “Your mistress must have kept you busy indeed, that you couldn’t find the time to tell me of your negotiations with Louis or indeed remain here in Flanders to welcome me home.”

  He went still. “Mistress? I’ve no idea what you refer to.”

  “Come now, my lord.” I forced out a curt laugh. “I find it poor taste indeed that you’d let your French whore pilfer my belongings while I gave birth to our son.”

  His eyes narrowed. “And I see nothing has changed. For a year and a half, you remained in that accursed land of yours. Now you return with your proud airs and your reproaches. Where is this son you gave birth to, eh? How do I know he even lives?”

  I came to my feet. “He lives! I left him with my mother. He—he’s too young to travel.”

  “You lying bitch,” he breathed. “You left him there so she can use him against me. She got what she wanted, what you and she schemed for. You’ve shown where your loyalty lies.”

  I felt a sense of devastating loss. I needn’t do this. I could win him back to me, as I had before. I didn’t have to wreck whatever remnants of affection remained between us. We could still find happiness; we could still be who we were. It took all my effort to remember that I deluded myself, that though he might negate it, in fact everything had changed. I now fought for a greater cause than our marriage.

  “My loyalty lies with the country we will inherit,” I said, “the country you seem intent on casting into ruin to suit your pride. Are you so blinded by hatred you cannot see the truth?” My voice shook, despite my attempt to control it. “Louis doesn’t care about you. He seeks only to work through you so he can destroy my father.”

  “Your father,” he spat, “is nothing more than a cowardly murderer, who poisoned Besançon! If I had to strike a deal with Lucifer himself to destroy him, I would do it!”

  I should have known then that I had lost him. The venomous suspicion he nursed for Spain and my parents had poisoned his mind as surely as he believed my father had poisoned Besançon. And yet I heard myself say in a voice as icily contemptuous as my mother’s, “I’ve no doubt you’d lick Louis’ boots if he ordered you. But I, my lord, will not. Spain is not Flanders.”

  He threw his goblet aside. Sudden fear bolted through me. Not until that moment did I realize how vulnerable I was: a woman alone, his wife, practically his property, to do with as he pleased.

  He stepped so close I felt his breath like a furnace on my brow. “If this is how you feel, then you have my leave to return to your beloved Spain and veil your mother’s deathbed, Madame Infanta. I’ll be there soon enough to claim my throne.”

  My throne.

  I raised my chin. “You forget I am Spain’s heir. Without me, you will claim nothing.”

  His eyes turned to slits. Without warning he struck me with his open hand, hard enough to send me sprawling backward against my desk, its contents flying. I grappled for something to protect myself with as he lunged over me, his hands about my throat. “You will never rule Spain,” he hissed. “When the day comes, I will take the throne—I, and no other!”

  I flung up my arm, my jeweled letter opener in my fist. I raked the blade down his cheek. A bloody ribbon appeared. He hit me again; as the room reeled in a sickening haze around me, he gripped my wrists, twisting as he yanked me up and around. I started to shout for help when he hurled me facedown upon the desk.

  My jaw slammed against the leather blotter; I tasted blood. A strangled scream clawed at my throat as he kicked apart my legs, forcing both my wrists behind me in a vise while with his other hand he heaved up my skirts. Brocade and the stiff horsehair padding of my underskirts smothered me. He tore at my stockings. I fought him, my wrists burning in his grip. He clouted me on the side of my temple. My ears rang. I kicked back desperately, slamming my feet as hard as I could against his legs. I knew with breathless horror what he intended.

  There was a sudden silence. Then I heard him rip at his codpiece. Searing pain stabbed through me as he thrust himself inside. He pounded into me, banging me against the desk, turning an act we’d indulged in so many times with joy and passion into a brutal obscenity. I went limp, my body becoming a piece of flesh I could not feel.

  He spent himself, his breathing harsh in my ear. “Castile is mine, do you hear me? Mine! And when the time comes, you will hand it over to me. You will give it to me without protest. If you don’t, if you dare try to stop me, I’ll do this to you every night. You’ll carry my children one after the other until you die like a spitted cow.”

  I slid to the floor. He struck me once more, then turned and stalked out, crashing open the door on my appalled women.

  As they rushed in, the scream I had held in erupted from me in a primal wail.

  I WAS SEQUESTERED IN MY ROOMS, MY BODY SO BRUISED AND blackened I could barely leave my bed. At first I could not even speak, my jaw and right eye were so swollen shut. Despite my feeble protests, Beatriz insisted on summoning the
court physician; he examined me with discomfited tentativeness, muttered that nothing seemed broken, and prescribed a rosemary poultice before he hurried out.

  Nothing broken.

  By the fifth day, I could walk without cramping and was able to eat more than the simple broths my women painstakingly prepared for me. They’d created a haven of my apartments, a cocoon of feminine solicitude where they conspired to keep the world outside at bay. They brought my little Isabella to see me after she raised a fuss that she missed her mamá, but I saw in her frightened gaze and gently uttered “Does it hurt?” that she sensed something was terribly wrong. Holding back my tears, I reassured her that Mamá was just a little sick and she must wait for me to get better so I could come to her.

  When Beatriz informed me that Philip had announced he would leave tomorrow on a hunting excursion, I ordered her to see me dressed and accompany me to the gallery. I had not been out of my rooms in weeks; as I entered the gallery in my black brocade Spanish gown, the veil of my coif drawn over my face to hide my bruises, idling courtiers stopped and stared, so taken aback they forgot to offer their obeisance. I moved past them as if they didn’t exist, paused at the diamond-paned bay window overlooking the inner palace courtyard.

  A light rain fell like satin, turning the brick walls a moist red and exalting the loud colors of the company below. No one would see me, even if they thought to glance up. In my unrelieved black I was a shadow. I saw my husband and his group of mincing favorites mount their horses. Don Manuel was with them, a toad in gaudy green velvet on a pony, his rings flashing dully on his gauntlets. Professional falconers rode behind with a cart carrying a week’s supply of foodstuffs. It seemed my husband was going to the same lodge where he’d taken me once, years before.

  I saw only four women. I ignored three of them; they were obviously professional courtesans in their garish low-cut dresses and ceruse lathered on their faces.

  The fourth, however, I marked. She sat on a palfrey, her wealth of fair hair coiled about her face and threaded with the distinctive blue-gray of my pearls. Even from where I stood, I saw she was pretty but not remarkably so—a French doll with her pale complexion and rubicund lips. My husband brought his horse close to her; my breath caught when he reached out to tuck her trailing cloak over her palfrey’s hindquarters, exposing her full breast in a gray velvet bodice I recognized as one of mine. His gloved hand caressed her; she arched her throat and laughed.

  On her bodice, I espied a gold brooch with the arms of Castile—the very brooch I had given to Louis and Anne of Brittany in France, as a mocking gift for their daughter.

  A black flame pulsed in the core of my being. I turned away, returned to my rooms.

  There I waited. I did not go to the gardens or visit my children. I did not venture outside my doors. Each day seemed an eternity; each night a lifetime as I felt myself succumb to something so terrifying and insatiable I wondered that no one else could see it.

  This time there would be no forgiveness.

  THE NIGHT OF PHILIP’S RETURN I ENTERED THE HALL ALONE. Beatriz had begged me to let her go with me as she helped me dress. My choice of the same crimson gown that I had been violated in alerted her that whatever I planned, it couldn’t be good. But I ordered her and Soraya to stay behind. I also wore my hair loose and disdained all jewels. The bruises on my face had faded to faint yellowish discolorations; these were decoration enough.

  Only a few astonished murmurs from those closest to the hall entrance greeted my appearance. No doubt everyone at court had heard by now of the altercation in my apartments and my seclusion, but I had deliberately come late. The tables were already drawn back for the dancing and everyone fast on their way to complete drunkenness. On the dais Philip’s chair was empty; at his left side, where Besançon had once sat, was Don Manuel. He looked up and froze, his protuberant black eyes bulging even more. He rose and started to scamper down the steps, shoving at the courtiers barring his way as if the floor under his little feet had taken flame.

  I followed his intended direction to where my husband stood. Philip was flushed, a goblet in his hand as he guffawed with his men. Not too far away, seated in demure but prominent placement before the long, magnificent tapestries lining the hall, was the woman. Tonight, she wore an opalescent gown that had also belonged to me, altered to fit her larger bosom. Her hair—in truth, I thought, her only claim to beauty—fell in a contrived cascade of spun gold to her waist. She sat surrounded by ladies of questionable virtue, my pearls now coiled about her throat. As she gestured with her plump hands, I saw her gaze turn again and again to Philip.

  Once again on her breast, she displayed my brooch.

  I surveyed her from where I stood. Then I walked straight toward her, carving a path through the courtiers on the floor, smelling their rank sweat and musk but scarcely hearing their shrieking laughter and clang of goblets. As I neared her, I caught sight of Don Manuel breaking free from an inebriated lord who’d latched onto his sleeve to gabble in his ear. He was now rushing as fast as he could to Philip, his hands wagging in comical desperation. It made me want to laugh. He could have shouted to the eaves. With the music and other noises of carousing no one would hear him until it was too late.

  I halted before her. She stood, her face blanching. Her lips were painted with carmine but not enough to disguise a small ugly sore at the corner of her mouth. The ladies around her gasped and drew back. It gratified me that I still commanded a level of respect.

  “You wear something that does not belong to you,” I said.

  She gaped at me. “Your Highness?”

  “That brooch, it is mine. So are the gown and pearls. You will return them to me. Now.”

  “Now?” Her voice was unpleasant, a shrill squawk, though perhaps this was due to her astonishment at my request.

  “Yes.” I took a step closer. “Or would you rather I took them from you, madame?”

  Her eyes widened. Then her mouth pursed in a knot and she spat: “I’ll do no such thing. These are a gift from His—”

  I didn’t let her finish. I lunged at her and grabbed hold of the brooch, tearing it with an audible rip of silk from her bodice. She screamed, tumbling backward over her chair in a flurry of skirts. I grabbed hold of her by the hair, seeking the pearls. A clump of hair tore out in my hand. I looked at it, looked down at her. She was on her knees, scrambling to get away. I leaned over and seized another fistful of her hair, yanking her back. She fell face up, her white-stockinged legs splayed, her mouth letting out an incessant hysterical noise.

  I gripped the pearls and twisted. Her scream became a choked cry as the pearls snarled about her neck. Then the clasp gave way and I held them in a tangled length, adorned with errant gold wisps of hair. A thrill went through me when I saw the bruise blooming about her throat. She threw her arms over her head, gasping as if she couldn’t get enough air. None of the ladies who only moments before had been fawning on her moved. They stood open-mouthed, aghast, like painted petrified statues.

  I heard thunderous footsteps charge behind me. I turned to stare into Philip’s bloodshot eyes. At his side, Don Manuel glared at me like a troll in a children’s fable.

  “Never again,” I said to him. “I will die before I do anything you want again.”

  He bellowed, “Guards!” and the yeomen behind him pushed past the now-silent, horrified ranks of staring courtiers. “Take her. Lock her in her rooms. She is insane!”

  I wrapped the pearls about my wrist as the guards surrounded me.

  TWO WEEKS LATER, WORD CAME TO FLANDERS. MY MOTHER WAS DEAD.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Princesa? Princesa, they are here. They await you in your presence chamber.”

  I knelt on the prie-dieu. I had not spoken in days. I had not cried or crumbled into a heap. When Beatriz with tears in her eyes handed me my father’s letter, a brief but tender missive that promised to send further news through an embassy, I went into my bedchamber and closed the door. There in the darkness I praye
d for my mother’s soul to rise far from this world.

  “Go, Mamá,” I whispered. “Do not look back.”

  The guards posted outside my apartment doors were dismissed, the illusion of my liberty restored. Then Philip came to see me. Though news of my mother’s death had plunged much of Europe into mourning, for she’d earned the respect of her fellow sovereigns if nothing else, he staggered in half-flown with wine. I lay rigid in bed, hearing his lurch across the dark room, Beatriz’s gasp as he kicked her awake on her truckle bed and ordered her out, followed by the shedding of his clothes and fumbling under the covers.

  When I felt his hands on my thighs, pushing my nightshift up and parting my legs, it was all I could do not to scream in rage and revulsion. I loathed his touch now, the very smell and feel of him, when once he’d been all I ever wanted. I could not stop him, though. He would hurt me again if I tried to resist and I’d not give him the satisfaction. He came night after night, and I shut my eyes, fleeing my body as he thrust inside me. After he spent himself, he sauntered out proudly and I rose from bed to scrub myself with a cloth, wishing Doña Ana were still with me, for she’d have known the secret herb lore that could prevent conception.

  His nocturnal visits were intentional, of course. I had no doubt Don Manuel had advised him to it. They wanted me with child. That way, I’d be more vulnerable to whatever they planned for me. Indeed, Don Manuel had the temerity to visit me by day, ostensibly to inquire if I needed anything during this time of grief, while eyeing me for a telltale pallor or sign of queasiness.

  I ignored his blandishments, staring past him to the wall. Though the guards might be gone, the prison remained, and it was more effective than any locked door.

  Already, I knew I had conceived.

  Day after day I rose at dawn, forced myself to swallow the breakfast Beatriz brought, and went to the prie-dieu, where I remained until dusk, motionless and alone.