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

by Gortner, C. W.

  I insisted he have Cisneros officially draw up our agreement for my signature. I had my mother’s ring but didn’t yet possess an official seal, so my father brought me the one she had used. I had seen that worn cylindrical stamp on my mother’s desk many times, and I felt she was with me in spirit as I stamped the parchment that restored my father’s powers in Castile.

  In a carefully orchestrated ceremony, Villena, Benavente, and the other grandes who had flocked to Philip’s standard came before me to beg forgiveness for the wrongs committed in my name. I had no choice but to pardon them, though I winced as Cisneros bowed low over my hand, his eyes like smoldering coals when he lifted them to me. Despite my father’s assurances that the archbishop had rallied to him “like a well-trained hound,” I would never trust him.

  In early September my father located the perfect place for me to hold my court—a royal palace in the township Arcos, a mere two-day ride to Burgos. Winter approached and with the lords’ support my father had assembled the troops he needed to fight Don Manuel. Word had already gotten out of his impending march on the city and those Flemish courtiers not beholden to Don Manuel had fled with pieces of Philip’s household gold stuffed in their satchels. Several were arrested; others, however, reached port and commandeered a ship to return to Flanders.

  “If we want to catch Don Manuel,” my father laughed, “we’d best be about it before he too finds himself a hole to hide in.”

  He looked as if he’d shed years, the impending war bringing a gleam to his slanted eyes and bloom to his bronzed cheeks. He chuckled as I fumed over Don Manuel’s insolence. “Chains are what he deserves,” I declared, “and a dungeon to keep him in them!”

  “And so it shall be,” he replied. “Now set your ladies to packing. I’ve a surprise for you.”

  WE MADE THE TWO-DAY TRIP to Arcos in the blessed cool of the night. Flambeaux illumined our passage, and peasants and hamlet dwellers materialized from the shadows to witness the sight of their new queen riding beside the old king, followed by our train of nobles and clerics escorting the bier upon which rested Philip’s coffin.

  Women knelt in the dust; men doffed their caps. A group of children ran up to me in the middle of the road, braving the horses’ hooves to thrust brittle autumn wildflowers and clumps of chamomile into my hands. “Dios la bendiga, Su Majestad,” they said breathlessly. “God bless Your Majesty!”

  Leaning from his stallion, my father murmured, “They love you well, madrecita, just as they loved your mother,” and I clutched those simple offerings as if they were precious jewels.

  In Arcos, I found a spacious, well-equipped palace with a full staff, including, to my distaste, my half sister, Joanna. I’d hoped to have seen the last of her but couldn’t very well refuse her service, given our familial blood. I accepted her rigid curtsy with as much graciousness as I could muster. Then I turned to the bowing ranks of cooks, chamberlains, stewards, and chambermaids. Not since Flanders had I disposed of so many servants.

  “I’ll hardly know what to do with them all,” I said to my father. “My needs are simple.”

  “Nonsense. You’re a queen now. You require a court.” He pointed to an alcove. “See there. I believe there is someone who wishes to greet you.”

  I looked to where he pointed. Light spilled from the overhead windows, falling in shafts onto a small figure who stepped forth. I couldn’t move, could not speak, as I gazed through a start of tears at my five-year-old son, the infante Fernando, whom I had last seen as a babe.

  He bowed with perfect solemnity. “Majestad,” he intoned, “bienvenida a Arcos.”

  I felt a fluttering in my chest. I sank to my knees to look into his large, thick-lashed brown eyes. Of all my children, he most resembled my father, as if he had absorbed the physical traits of the man who had raised him.

  “Fernandito,” I said. “Do you know who I am?”

  He glanced at my father before returning to me. “Sí. Vos es mi madre la reina.”

  I reached out and embraced him. “Yes,” I whispered, “I am your mother the queen.” Holding him to me, I gazed up at my father. “Thank you, Papá, from the bottom of my heart. You’ve brought me so much happiness.”

  He bowed his head. “May it always be so, madrecita.”

  FROM MY PALACE IN ARCOS, I WAS KEPT APPRISED BY DAILY COURIERS of the siege. My father and the grandes marched into Burgos to meet the constable and his forces. Surrounding the castle walls, they trapped the mercenaries in the citadel. They waited it out for a full three months before all inside capitulated without a single blade being drawn. My father promised them mercy if they swore allegiance to Spain and turned over the traitor Don Manuel, only to discover that Don Manuel had slipped out days before the surrender through an underground passage, carrying a small fortune in Philip’s plate and his private jewels.

  “Can you believe it?” my father said when he came to escort me to Burgos for our triumphant entrance. “That miserable frog found some old medieval passage everyone else had forgotten about. It led directly to a convent and he forced the poor sisters at dagger point to help him escape. From there, he took ship at Laredo for Vienna.” He guffawed as he spoke; he found the ambassador’s cowardice amusing, even as I replied tartly that justice had not been served.

  “Oh, it’s been served,” he said. “Being exiled to your father-in-law’s court will be punishment enough. From head councillor, he’s reduced to stowing away to Vienna in a stolen nun’s robe, to beg succor on hands and knees. Lucky for him, he has your dead husband’s jewels. Otherwise, Maximilian would have his head.”

  “He had no right to those jewels,” I countered. “And he’s still a free man.”

  “Yes, but a ruined one. And Burgos is mine.”

  I didn’t remark on his slip, reasoning he’d meant to say “ours.” A week later, he and I rode into Burgos, to the clangor of the cathedral bells. I wore my finest gold gown and a coronet; this time, however, the populace called out, “Viva el rey Don Fernando! Viva la reina Doña Juana!” and I espied my father’s proud grin. He must have looked this way countless times before when he’d taken a city for my mother. It pleased me to see him have the veneration and respect he deserved and to see the nobles’ scowls at our reception. Let them be warned that under my rule Castile would no longer be prey to their wiles or ambitions.

  At the cathedral doors, my father clasped my hand and lifted it together with his, to a resounding roar from the crowd. “And once we put matters to right here,” he told me as I threw back my head and laughed, “the bells in Toledo shall ring for your coronation.”

  AUTUMN TURNED TO WINTER; WINTER FADED INTO SPRING. THERE was much to do in Burgos, but I left my father to wrangle with the constable and the other grandes while I returned to my palace and my children, where for the first time in years I could devote myself to being a mother. My Catalina approached her first year; I wanted to spend time with her and my son, and enjoy the tranquillity I’d so painstakingly earned. The sound of laughter soon pervaded the house; and with my devoted Beatriz, Soraya, and old Doña Josefa (who also seemed to shed years as she assumed charge of the children) I set myself to fashioning an intimate cocoon.

  My father had shown singular care in his rearing of Fernando. My Spanish-born was quick-witted, intelligent, and studious, but not as overtly as my Charles. I spent every morning watching over his lessons, recalling how my mother’s personal supervision of my and my sisters’ education had ensured our academic success, but in the afternoons I insisted we go out into the gardens to partake of the fresh air.

  He shared stories of his time in Aragón, where he said the mountains dwarfed anything he had seen in Castile, and how he longed one day to own his own hawk. I sent all the way to Segovia for a renowned falconer and the perfect bird, and while I privately feared the creature was far too wild for a child, it took to Fernandito like a kitten. The falconer assured me my son was a born hunter and they plunged with gusto into his hawking lessons in the wide fields outside
the palace, landing us quail and other small birds for our dinner table.

  Sometimes I joined them, wearing the thick-padded gauntlet on which the tethered and blinded bird perched, feeling its claws dig into the leather as it waited impatiently for me to untie it and release it into the sky. I was mesmerized as it effortlessly soared upward, seeming not to notice the frantic rustling of the creatures the falconer beat out of the bushes with a stick, and I always watched breathlessly as it swooped down with lethal precision to catch its prey. I did not like the smell of blood but I could only admire how it always delivered a sure, quick death.

  I also had my private moments, in which I made peace with my past. No one seemed to know what to do with Philip’s coffin. The smell alone grew so terrible I finally had to order the lid nailed shut and the coffin itself removed to a ruined chapel on the palace grounds, where it rested before the leaf-strewn altar. I had the chapel roof repaired to keep out the elements but otherwise did little else. I didn’t believe anything but dead flesh remained in that box, and still I took a strange comfort in visiting the chapel in the afternoons when everyone took to their beds for the siesta, to sit by it and sometimes touch the now-tarnished handles. I even spoke to him at moments, of our son and how handsome he was, and of our girl Catalina, who was starting to resemble the best of both of us in her looks and personality. Philip had gone to a place where crowns did not matter anymore; I wanted to remember him as he’d been when we first met, beautiful and young, uncorrupted by the ambition that tore us apart.

  “Rest now, my prince,” I would murmur, and I leaned to the coffin to set my lips on the cold lid. The smell of death was gone now. It was as though the coffin held only memories.

  And I would not hate memories.

  THE ADMIRAL HAD REMAINED in Burgos with my father, but he sent letters to me detailing the events shaping Castile. He reported there had been much wrangling and threats when my father announced his and my decision to set the kingdom to rights together, with the Marquis of Villena in particular flinging down his cap in disgust and declaring he would not let himself be ruled by Aragón again. My father, the admiral reported, proved uncharacteristically mild in his rebuke, given his own past with the nobility of Castile. At his side, supporting his every move and facing down the lords with the full wrath of the church at his back, was Cisneros, who’d recently been granted a cardinal’s hat at sixty-seven years of age.

  I was taken aback by the announcement that Cisneros had been elevated to such prestige. My old feelings for him had not gone away, and I did not relish that he would now enjoy even greater ecclesiastical power in Castile. No one had told me beforehand the pope was considering him for a cardinalship and I wrote back to the admiral that I wished someone had seen fit to inform me as much. I assumed I would have to attend Cisneros’s investiture ceremony at some point and asked that I please be told in anticipation so I could prepare. I expected a reply within a few days; to my disconcertion I heard nothing more. “I wonder why I wasn’t consulted,” I remarked to Beatriz one night over supper. “Did they fear I might protest elevating Cisneros to such a rank? I certainly might have, but I’ve no say in how Rome chooses to reward her servants.”

  I paid no heed to the servitors around us, ready with the decanter and clean napkin. No sooner had I vented my frustration than I forgot it and returned to my daily activities.

  I wrote to my sister Catalina in England, asking for news of her and promising to help her in her struggle to wed her prince now that I was queen. I also wrote to my sister-in-law, Margaret, requesting that she prepare to send my daughters to me in the coming spring.

  I hadn’t heard from her at all, not even a word of condolence on Philip’s passing. I knew Charles, as the new Habsburg heir, must remain in Flanders, and I suspected Margaret had assumed charge of him as well. I wondered if she had grown so attached to my children she kept silent in hope I wouldn’t ask for them. If so, I feared she must relinquish my three daughters. I wanted to raise them with Catalina and Fernando, as my mother had raised us together. I didn’t want my children to grow up strangers from each other, as Margaret and Philip had, and as so many royal children often did.

  I was therefore preoccupied and completely unprepared when my father came barging into my chambers one afternoon, after months of absence.

  “What?” he said, the hot tinge to his face betraying a hard ride in a temper. He threw off his cloak onto the nearest chair. “Have I so displeased you, you must remonstrate about me before everyone?”

  My women sat with me, working on our sewing. Glancing at them, I saw my own surprise reflected in their expressions and started to wave them out.

  My father laughed curtly. “Don’t send them away on my account. You’ve complained times enough behind my back, anything you say now will come as no surprise.”

  I regarded him in silence as Beatriz rose with Soraya and left.

  I set aside my sewing. “Papá, what is wrong? You are angry at me and I have no idea why.”

  “You don’t?” He eyed me, his gloved hands clenched. “Are you saying you did not complain that I deliberately keep you ignorant of the state of this realm?”

  “I…I never said that.” My mouth went dry. There was a hard, cruel edge to his voice I had never heard before.

  “Never?”

  “No.”

  He spun to his cloak and reached into its folds. He removed a folded parchment, brandishing it between us with a trembling fist. “What of this, eh? Haven’t you learned that everything you say or do is important? By not consulting me, you cast doubts on your very trust in my abilities!”

  For an endless moment, I could not draw breath.

  My letter. He had intercepted my letter.

  A shadow gathered in the corners of my mind. I made myself look away from the crunched paper in his hands to meet his stare. I found a cold and inscrutable stranger looking back at me, someone I did not know.

  “I didn’t think I needed to consult you about my children,” I said carefully. “That letter is addressed to Philip’s sister, requesting news of my daughters, Eleanor, Isabella, and Mary. I haven’t heard of them in over a year, and I left Mary when she was just a babe.”

  His jaw worked. “What do we want with another parcel of girls here?” he said, proof that he had not only intercepted but also read my correspondence. “They need households, dowries. We can’t afford it. Best leave them where they are and let the Habsburgs find matches for them.”

  I felt an icy fear. I rose, moving past him to the window. “My daughters belong here with me,” I said at length. “If we can’t afford it, I’ll economize. I told you I don’t need so many servants, and what feeds three can feed five. If need be, my daughters can sleep in my bed.”

  He pawed the floor with his booted foot. “Need or not, everything comes with a price.”

  “So it would seem.” I turned to him. “As it would also seem I suffer spies in my house. I will not have it, Papá. I don’t understand what I have done to make you think you need watch my every move and intercept my private letters. Perhaps now would be a good time to tell me.”

  His face changed in a flash, the anger fading as if it were a mask. I did not like the chameleon swiftness of it, nor his quick conciliatory tone as he said, “Madrecita, forgive me. My behavior, it’s inexcusable.”

  My voice momentarily failed me. He had not denied he set spies on me. Why? What did he fear? Something shifted between us, crumbling the trust I had believed we shared.

  “I’m overwrought,” he added. “I always did have a bad temper. Your mother used to chide me about it all the time.” He paused. “It’s those damn grandes. I tell you, they have no loyalty. Months I have spent in Burgos trying to bring them to reason, to no avail.”

  That much I understood. I knew from experience that the lords of Castile could set a saint to gnashing his teeth. “What have they done this time?” I asked quietly.

  “The usual. They’re threatening that if I do not honor t
he promises your dead husband made to them, they will find the means to make me regret it. They want everything your mother and I took from them, though they’ve done nothing to deserve it. They claim having helped me take Burgos deserves a reward. Your husband and that idiot Don Manuel taught them well, it seems. They now think that any time they obey me, I should give them a title or castle for it.”

  I nodded, returned to my chair. It was only his temper, I told myself, that infamous Aragonese cauldron my mother had patiently curbed during their years of marriage.

  “They dare to threaten me!” He hit his gloved fist in his hand. “It’s high time they were taught who rules over them. I’ll not have them destroy this kingdom after they connived with the Habsburg behind my back. They let him throw me out but now I am back, and by God, they will do me the proper honor.”

  “You speak of civil war,” I said.

  He scowled. “More like civil slaughter. I’ve subdued them before. If I must I’ll do it again.”

  “But they are members of our nobility, with seats on the Cortes. If we declare war on them, it will indeed be a violation of their rights.”

  “They have no rights! They scheme to no end, plot and intrigue, forgetting this is not the Spain of old. Isabel may have seen fit to placate them, but I will not.” He stopped abruptly, swallowing hard. “You must understand my predicament. These grandes are dogs, and like dogs they must be put down for the good of Castile.”

  A surge of heat rose in me. I was sick of posturing and high-handedness in the name of Spain. I wanted this matter stopped before it led to further calamity.

  “The last thing I desire is to begin my reign by sending an army of Spaniards against Spaniards. I agree this matter with the nobles is serious and do not disregard your frustration, Papá. But there must be another way to show them we’ve a higher authority in the realm now.” I straightened my shoulders. “Perhaps the time has come to announce my coronation.”