The Creation of Eve

by Lynn Cullen

  “Are we not yet finished with this walk?” Don Carlos said. “I am tired.”

  Doña Juana ignored him. “Too bad you don’t have a Michelangelo to Unload,” she said to the King. She lifted her brows in my direction. “I suppose we shall never know the whole truth about him, shall we? Sofonisba, did I ever tell you that I learned the name of the man after whom Michelangelo lusted?”

  Francesca’s short veil swished as she glanced at me. Don Juan looked at me as well.

  “Does the name Tiberio Calcagni sound familiar?”

  Guitar music swelled into the damp river air as a thudding filled my ears.

  “My Lord, you are always so generous,” said the Queen. “I should not have asked you for one more thing. Forget I asked for a picture.”

  “I will give her the tabletop—I wish for you to be happy.”

  Doña Juana’s bone-lashed gaze traveled from me to her brother.

  “Then you will go with me to see my mother, My Lord?” said the Queen.

  The King looked grieved. “You know I cannot do that. As much as I’d like to please you, she has pushed me too far with her accord with Suleiman. I am sorry, darling.”

  I walked along numbly. This is why I had not heard from Tiberio. He was the Maestro’s lover. But this could not be.

  I took a deep breath for courage. “Your Majesty,” I asked Doña Juana, “how do they know it is Tiberio Calcagni?”

  Doña Juana’s face lit. “Oh, you do know him? H’m. You may not recognize him now, not after his stint in the Castel Sant’Angelo. He has been held there for some time now, and will continue being held, at least Until he confesses to his relationship with Michelangelo. Once he has confessed, he will find what is left of himself rowing on a galley. Truly, the prison might be preferable.”

  The Queen sighed, not listening. “Then, My Lord, will you not mind if at least someone of the Blood accompanies me? May Don Carlos go?”

  Don Carlos’s pale eyes opened wide. His frail frame jerked Upright. “Oh, Father, may I?”

  “Do not tell me you would consider letting your heir go to those French!” Doña Juana said incredulously to the King. “Father would never have considered such a thing. If I still ruled . . .”

  His Majesty drew in a breath, then exhaled slowly. “You can go, Carlos.”

  I felt Don Juan’s touch Upon my elbow. He slid me a look of concern. I struggled harder to master my mask of calm.

  “Thank you, Father!” Don Carlos grabbed the Queen’s hand and swung it. “Thank you for asking me! Oh, we shall have such fun!” He gasped. “What do French men wear at court? How shall I dress?”

  The Queen laughed. “If you wish to look truly French, my Toad, you must dangle the biggest pearl you can find from your earlobe.”

  “A pearl?” He felt his ear.

  Doña Juana glared at her brother, her mind, it seemed, no longer on toying with me. She would have been gratified to know how much damage she had done. “Why don’t you lend him La Peregrina, Elisabeth?” she said in a friendly voice.

  The Queen’s mouth tightened. She looked to the King for support, but he was staring, cross-armed, at his sister.

  Doña Juana met his gaze with a lowered brow. “Why don’t you let Don Juan go too, then, Felipe? He ’s such a help to Carlos.” She smiled. “You have no objection, do you?”

  ITEM: El Diablo sabe mucho, porque es viejo. (The Devil knows much, because he is old.)

  —SPANISH PROVERB

  14 JUNE 1565

  Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France

  It is unusually hot here in the South of France for mid-June. I have always wished to travel to France, and today, in accompanying the Queen, I have finally done so, though Francesca will not stop grumbling about the heat. By the eleven-o’clock bells, our fine clothes hung on our bodies like wet sacks. By twelve, clouds of gnats rose from the river as if exhaled by the water. By one, the gnats were melting into our eyes as we crossed into France. We heard later that six French soldiers standing guard on the riverbank expired within their armor, cooked like snails in their shells. An inauspicious day, then, for My Lady’s reunion with her mother, a fact surely not lost Upon that most superstitious of queens, Catherine de’ Medici.

  New pearl earrings a-swing, Don Carlos and Don Juan came this morning after Mass. They were to escort Us to the reception hall in the moldy little palace at which we stayed in Irún. The Queen’s brother Henri awaited Us, come to fetch his sister and to cross the river with her into France. We were dressed in the richest clothes, as the King had given the Queen an Unlimited purse to spend Upon the preparations for meeting her mother. Although English piracy and keeping peace have bled the King’s coffers dry, it is far more important to look rich than actually to be rich.

  “Look at you!” My Lady cried when the two caballeros entered her chamber, her face turning a deep pink. Though the twelve-o’clock bells had just rung, the braids wrapped around my head were already heavy with sweat. The maids of the condesa and madame de Clermont were pouring cool water over their mistresses’ wrists—the guards at the door could have benefited from such treatment. The pungent odor of overheated, Unwashed flesh oozed from Under their armor.

  “Look at you, mon chéri !” cried My Lady. “You look so French.” She threw her arms around Don Carlos, then kissed him soundly on both cheeks. He kissed her back, lingering on the second kiss.

  “You look so pretty, My Lady,” he said, withdrawing tenderly. “No, not just pretty, beautiful. More beautiful than any woman in the world.”

  “My dear little Toad. You are always so sweet.”

  She lifted her gaze to Don Juan, standing back with his arms folded. He came forward and quickly kissed her cheek, the sweat-darkened ends of his blond hair dragging against the cords of his neck.

  The Queen smiled brightly at Don Carlos. “Have you seen my brother? How does he look? It has been five and a half years—he was just eight when I left.”

  The condesa marched from behind the screen. “My Lady, are we ready?” With a scowl at the guards, she took one last fortifying whiff of her pomander, then let it drop on its chain from her girdle before plucking Up the long train suspended from the Queen’s pearl-encrusted gown. Cher-Ami scampered forward to trot self-importantly before Us.

  “Hombre,” the condesa addressed a guard. “Get the dog.”

  “No!” exclaimed the Queen. “Cher-Ami goes with me.”

  The condesa conceded reluctantly, and our party complete, we made for the reception hall.

  Henri, Duke of Orléans, sprang forward to embrace the Queen the moment we entered. “Sister!”

  The caballeros’ earrings might have outweighed the French Prince ’s own dangling gem, but the rest of his spare personage glittered with more jewels than the three of theirs combined. The diamonds sewn into glittering fleur-de-lys on his doublet winked as he kissed his sister. Although she was the taller of the two, being six years older, the monstrous plume on his hat bobbed over her jaunty little cap like a chicken pecking at seed.

  “Dear, dear sister.” His voice was precociously suave for a youth of almost fourteen years, especially one whose face bloomed with purple pimples. “Did you ever learn to master the guitar? When last I saw you, you were making one wail like a dying cat.”

  “I see you have not yet learned to master your tongue.”

  “Who says I want to?”

  The Queen’s voice was thick with affection. “Still Mother’s son, I see.”

  “That is me.” The olive-toned skin of his cheeks folded in vertical creases when he grinned, accentuating the narrowness of his face and the pustules Upon it. His eyes were as small and dark as raisins and his lips were leathery and thick, but still you would not call him Unattractive. Maybe his glamour was in his jolly confidence, the kind of confidence that comes from knowing one is Mother’s favorite child, a fact the French Queen Mother takes no care to hide. I would see this for myself today, long before Francesca had brought it to my attention with her dark
mutterings. It was to become abundantly clear that My Lady was beloved by her mother for what she could do for the French crown, while Henri, the golden child, was beloved solely for himself.

  This morning, though, I saw only My Lady’s joy at being reunited with her family. With Henri chatting self-assuredly at her side, we left the dark of the musty palace for the stultifying brightness of the out-of-doors, where more than a hundred Catholic French nobles and their retainers, and the Spanish grandees chosen by the King to accompany the Queen into France, awaited with our litter. Once homage was paid and rank was established, off we set on the cracked mud road in a cavalcade of lords and ladies and servants that stretched for a quarter-mile, not including the baggage train that had gone before Us into France.

  We came to the wide waters of the Bidossa. We were clattering across the bridge, a temporary construction of boards nailed atop two rows of boats, when Henri said to Don Juan, “I do like your earring.”

  I looked Up from where I was leaning over the edge of my litter, batting gnats away from my eyes as I watched silvery schools of fish dart in the clear mountain water of the river. My thoughts had strayed, once again, to Tiberio, imprisoned in the Castel Sant’Angelo. How long had he been in the Pope ’s prison? Had he had to endure the strappado Under interrogation? The torture often dislocated people ’s shoulders when they were jerked high in the air with their hands behind their back. Too many applications of the strappado’s rope, and Tiberio might not be able to sculpt ever again. Then there is the torture of applying fire to the accused’s feet, a torture reserved for those suspected of more serious crimes against the Church, as sodomy is considered. I weep inside for him, and then remember that he was Michelangelo’s lover when he took me that night in Rome. What kind of false thing was he?

  Don Juan put his reins in one hand and took the earring from his ear. “For you.”

  Henri laughed. “Truly? I did not mean—”

  The Queen spoke Up from next to me. “That was a gift from me.”

  “Then it’s his to give.” Henri took out his own earring, threw it into the water with a plonk, and hooked the larger pearl in its place. “It looks better on me, don’t you think?” He turned his head for Us to admire, then noticed the Queen and Don Juan, locked in a cool gaze.

  He raised his lips in a lopsided smile. “Do I miss something here?”

  Our litter jostled as our mules left the bridge and gained the French bank of the river. Over the blare of trumpets announcing our arrival into France, the condesa shouted for the French nobles to take care of the Queen’s skirts; My Lady was helped down from our litter and seated Upon the horse provided by her brother the King. As I mounted the mule made ready for me, I saw a soldier slump to his knees at the water’s side, one of the victims of the heat.

  I bobbed through the town gates on my foul-tempered mule, my vitality sapped by the temperature and my renewed thoughts of Tiberio. Just ahead were the condesa and madame, and in front of them, the Queen, looking fresh and young and glorious in spite of the sweat trickling from her hairline. Townsfolk cheered from every window and door of the half-timbered houses that lined the hard dirt street Upon which Her Majesty’s sleek white palfrey pranced. Each time the horse shook its harness, it tossed 400,000 ducats’ worth of jewels, but the people had not eyes for gems and finery—their love was for their Elisabeth.

  At last we arrived at the squat stone château of the French Queen Mother. My Lady bit her nails through her gloves as she was lifted from her mount.

  “How do I look?” she asked her brother when she was set beside him.

  “Sweaty, but gorgeous—almost as gorgeous as me.” He offered her his arm. “We have kept Mother waiting two hours in this heat. She will have our hides.”

  Behind the Queen’s chief ladies—the condesa stoically erect as she held My Lady’s train, though her own neat bodice was thoroughly sweat-soaked, and madame de Clermont, sagging beneath her veils—I advanced through the stifling halls, the tapping of my feet Upon the marble floor muffled by the dampness of the air. We passed ranks of beautiful curtseying ladies whose brilliantly hued silks made me, in my embroidered Spanish black, feel like a beetle crawling amongst the company of butterflies. Gentlemen bowed, their earrings a-swing, musicians strummed lutes, singers sang odes to the French Queen Mother and her daughter. There was even a shaggy bear, groaning, to Cher-Ami’s petrification, as it lolled on a golden chain, its misery poignant even in this miserably overheated crowd.

  My amazed sights wandered to the end of the hall, where My Lady had come to a stop before a dais. There, beneath a filmy web of black gauze wafting in a breeze created by two fanning dwarves, sat a glittering black lump. Trembling, My Lady waited as this brilliant heap rose, laid back the sheer black veil covering its head, and opened its arms. My Lady rushed forward.

  Catherine de ’ Medici, daughter of a duke, niece of popes, wife and mother of kings, drew her daughter to her breast.

  As they rocked each other and exclaimed, I could not help comparing the mother with her child. Every feature I so admired in My Lady was swollen and coarsened in her mother. Whereas My Lady’s eyes were endearingly large, the French Queen Mother’s orbs bulged like a garden toad’s. Whereas the slight puffiness and impish curl to My Lady’s lips afforded them a playful pout, her dam’s lips, when set together, were as thick and florid as a plum. While My Lady’s pretty chin receded only when she tucked it back in jest, her mother’s chin appeared to be fastened Upon her neck. Truly, Queen Catherine, mother of my dear Lady, was but a puffed frog in a French hood.

  Now she pulled away from her daughter and examined My Lady’s face. “Where is your makeup? You look so Spanish.”

  “I am French in my heart,” said My Lady.

  “Are you?”

  The Queen turned to smile Upon Henri as he sauntered forward. My Lady, seeing she had been put aside, stepped over to a second figure lounging on a divan on the dais, a hollow-chested youth perspiring in ermine: the King of France. As My Lady’s eminent brother received his sister’s embrace, the French Queen Mother’s highest-ranking noble introduced his Queen to Don Carlos. Queen Catherine let him kiss her hand, then allowed Don Juan to take his turn.

  She pursed together her Damask-plum lips. “So, you are the brother.”

  Don Juan raised himself. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “It seems you sprang into this role full grown.”

  He smiled. “Like Athena from her father Zeus’s brow, Your Majesty.”

  “Oh, you think it humorous?”

  Don Juan became still, as does a buck when sensing danger. My Lady pulled from her brother’s arms.

  “Her Majesty is correct,” said Don Juan. “To claim kinship to the King is deadly serious. I do not mean to make light of it.”

  The French Queen Mother scooped Up the ivory-handled fan attached by a black ribbon to her considerable waist and began to fan herself languidly. “And how do we know you are not a pretender?”

  “Mother!” exclaimed My Lady. “Why do you say these things?”

  “He can answer for himself.” Catherine’s lips deflated into a smile. “He is probably Used to such questions.”

  “I am, Madame. But my kinship was thrust Upon me. I did not ask to play this role.”

  “Indeed?” Fanning, the French Queen Mother scanned his well-cut doublet and hose. “You look quite comfortable for someone forced into such a dreadful position. But we do not truly doubt your claim. We had you thoroughly investigated before we offered our youngest daughter to you. You shall tell your brother to reconsider our offer, yes?”

  She waved him off before he could answer. “Enough of this now. We are here to celebrate. Elisabeth, do introduce young Juan to your brother the King.”

  We sat to dinner soon after that, just an intimate family group of fifty-four kinsmen and their attendants. Before we were seated, a small squabble broke out between the French Queen Mother and My Lady over who should take place of honor at table. The Queen M
other insisted that My Lady, as Queen of Spain, outranked her, while she, with a modest sigh, claimed only to be Queen Mother. My Lady argued that her mother should take precedence, but Catherine would have none of it. The Queen Mother lost her place at head of table but emerged the clear victor, as she did, I guessed, in all her encounters.

  Dinner, though, was pleasant, with My Lady and her mother catching Up on family news over courses of fowl and beef and fish. My own enjoyment of the food and wine was marred by Francesca’s gaze boring Upon me from the servants’ table, taking in each movement of my glass, and by thoughts of how Tiberio might be faring that very moment in the Pope’s prison. How had I not guessed he was Michelangelo’s lover? Hanging on the Maestro’s every word, following him like a puppy, emulating him in all things—of course he was. There was poetry written to him that proved it. What a fool I’d been, Unaware of their relationship in the face of so much evidence. But that night in Rome, Michelangelo had not reacted with the fury one would expect from a lover who had caught his dear one with another. Why had he not shouted and slapped me and thrown me out like a whore? Instead he let me quietly leave, and in my absence sang my praises to Tiberio, making my achievements even greater than they were. Indeed, he’d had a medal made of me. It did not make sense.

  I watched the short after-dinner play acted out by the Queen Mother’s troupe of dwarves, then afterward withdrew with My Lady to her chambers, with her mother and the other chief attendants. I did not expect the outburst that came as soon as doors were closed and the condesa was removing My Lady’s sleeves to prepare her for a rest.

  The Queen Mother plucked her ivory fan from its ribbon and threw it to the tile floor, shattering the handle. “Explain, daughter, why you are not pregnant.”

  My Lady drew in a startled breath.

  The French Queen Mother’s bulging eyes flashed at the rest of Us. “Leave Us!” she commanded, then slumped into a cross-legged chair.