The Creation of Eve

by Lynn Cullen

  Don Carlos’s mouth dropped open. He lowered his face with a guilty frown, then burst into a noisy guffaw.

  A wave of discomfort passed over the crowd. Did Don Carlos actually think the fool referred to him as the Queen’s lover?

  “What?” said Don Carlos. “It was just a jest. I have been brought Up too well to do anything Untoward with a lady.”

  I felt Francesca’s gaze boring into me from a group of servants spilling out from behind a painted screen, questioning my countenance, still Unsettled from my memory of Tiberio.

  After that evening, Don Carlos seemed to regain his newfound equanimity. For the rest of the visit—at the masques, at the tourneys, at the dinner where two thousand lords and ladies sat down to sup, he behaved as a gentleman, with a minimum of braying laughter or pushing about of the servants. He showed a mature level of compassion toward the Queen on our way home, leaving his own dinner to comfort her that miserable evening in the mountain village of Covarrubias, a day’s journey south of Burgos.

  We had been happily dining Upon a feast of the local fare—trout from the river at the foot of the town, venison, and morcilla, the black blood sausage stuffed with rice—when our host, the lord of the village castle, let slip that the tower in which the Queen would be staying had once housed, long ago, a princess who was in love with a shepherd.

  The Queen had paused, the point of her knife piercing into a tender cut of venison. “Was she allowed to leave?”

  “Your Majesty, no,” said our host, a lean, black-haired gentleman whose rough face showed every black pore. “Never. They say her father had the church bells rung to drown out her cries. But even if the villagers could not hear her, they could see her. She would put her face to the bars of the window at the top of the tower.”

  With Uncharacteristic Unselfishness, Don Carlos left his own meal to jump Up from the table to join My Lady, who had excused herself, claiming a sudden need for air. They went outside, where My Lady paced along the river’s edge, Francesca and I and a phalanx of the King’s German guards trailing behind.

  “What trouble you?” Francesca whispered to me.

  I gazed Up at the little castle, at the barred opening at the top of its square tower. Had Tiberio had such a window out of which to gaze in the Castel Sant’Angelo? Or had he been in the darkest dungeon, the scapegoat for the Pope’s campaign against Michelangelo? Now he was dying at the oars of a ship because someone had been needed as evidence of the Maestro’s illicit leanings, and Tiberio, working in the Maestro’s house and subject of the Maestro’s poems, had been convenient. But there was proof that Tiberio, as much as he esteemed Michelangelo, was not his lover. Living proof that he had given his naked soul in the act of love to a woman. Me.

  Later, Don Carlos rode at the Queen’s side as we made our way through the mountains, then crossed the endless arid expanse of the Castilian meseta, our train raising a plume of ochre dust soon dispersed by the bone-dry wind. Too overwrought to entertain the Queen myself, I was grateful for his ability to speak to her day after day of his exploits in France and his great knowledge of the world as she sat in her litter with Cher-Ami in her lap, the silver tassels of the litter curtains swaying to the rhythm of the plodding mules.

  Finally we neared Segovia, journey’s end. The Queen sank back onto her divan, her strength flagging. We were amongst the flat green fields just north of the city; the golden towers of the castle, just now visible, crowned the plains. Behind the towers, the pale blue peaks of the Guadarramas rose in a jagged wall.

  “The Camino Real that we take to Madrid runs along that ridge.” Don Carlos pointed toward the mountains. “Way Up there to the left—see? Can you believe that we get Up so high there on our mules?”

  My Lady nodded listlessly, then glanced behind our litter, where with a crowd of Spanish nobles rode Don Juan, smiling at his companions’ talk, though his mirth did not reach his eyes.

  “See the Mujer Muerta?” said Don Carlos.

  The Queen looked startled. “The dead woman?”

  “That’s what they call those peaks. Look—she’s lying down.” He pointed to the distant blue ridges toward the right. “See the peak that is her head? You can see the profile of her forehead, nose, and chin. Way over there are her feet. She’s got her hands folded on her belly and there, above her belly, are her—” He coughed into his fist.

  I could hold it in no longer. “My Lady,” I whispered into her ear. “I wish to talk to you.”

  She kept her eyes Upon the hazy blue mountaintops. “What, Sofi?”

  I darted a glance at the condesa, dozing across from Us, her chin on her breast. Who could tell if madame, next to her, was listening, as wrapped as she was in her veils? I kept my voice low. “There is a man I wish to marry.”

  The Queen glanced at me, distracted, then returned her gaze to the Dead Woman. “What?”

  “You wish for me to have a husband. Well, there is a man I desire. He is from Rome.”

  When she did not respond, I whispered Urgently, “Your Majesty, please, you must ask the King to send for him, as quickly as possible. His life is in danger, unjustly so, when I know he—he is a good man.”

  A single black horse streaked down the dusty road from Segovia, tail straight out, its rider leaning low into the horse’s mane.

  “Who the devil approaches Us like that?” snapped Don Carlos. “Guards!”

  “I believe it is your father, Your Majesty,” said one of the nobles.

  Don Carlos squinted. “He’s moving awfully fast.” He raised his hand to halt the soldiers.

  My Lady sat back in our litter.

  The fore guards spurred their weary horses off the road, making way for the galloping rider. In a swirl of yellow dust, the King pulled his horse to a halt.

  The cavalcade came to a ragged stop; all the gentlemen dismounted. Trumpets blared as the guardsmen called, “His Majesty the King!”

  His Majesty, still mounted, paid no heed. His intense gaze sought the Queen. “My Lady.”

  She put out her gloved hand.

  Don Carlos remained on his horse. “Father! What are you doing out here alone?”

  The King brought his own steed near to kiss his Lady’s hand. “How was France?” he said to Don Carlos, though gazing at the Queen. “Was it to your liking?”

  Don Carlos shrugged.

  “Your son acquitted himself well there,” said the Queen.

  “Good. Good for you, son. My Lady, would you be too weary to ride with me a ways? Valsaín is but a few leagues away.”

  The Queen took back her hand. “I should like that, My Lord.” She gave me her dog.

  Upon the King’s orders, two guards lifted the Queen from our litter and, her skirts billowing around her, set her Upon His Majesty’s horse. The King locked his arms around her. She cast down her gaze as he whispered in her ear.

  “Father—” Don Carlos began.

  The King put spur to horse; they were away.

  The condesa drew heavily Upon her dust-coated pomander as the gentlemen remounted. “A happy ending.”

  Don Juan urged his horse forward; he touched the Prince’s arm.

  “Happy?” Don Carlos shrugged away from Don Juan and yanked on his reins, reeling his horse around. “Happy?”

  The condesa sniffed as if slapped.

  “She was exhausted!” cried Don Carlos. “He ’ll hurt her. Fucker! I’ll kill him!”

  A hush fell Upon the cavalcade, broken only by the breathing of our mules and the creak of saddles.

  “What are you gaping at?” Don Carlos shouted at the crowd. “Have you never seen an old pincho fondle his wife?” He jabbed his spurs into his horse, making it scream before it plunged across the verdant plain.

  The cavalcade slowly stirred to life. As the muleteers cracked their whips and men chirruped to their horses, the tired beasts strained forward with their burdens. Those of us remaining in the Queen’s litter kept private company with our thoughts as our conveyance swayed into motion. The con
desa sniffed her pomander; madame twisted her veil. As for me, I searched the empty plains, trying not to think of what the King would do once his son’s treasonous words were whispered into his ear, and of Tiberio, rowing away his life Under a ship’s flapping sail.

  ITEM: The Spanish King Pedro the Cruel earned his title not only for quickly dispatching his enemies, but also for imprisoning his Queen, Doña Blanca, from their wedding night until the day of her death. Her crime? She did not please him.

  18 JULY 1565

  Valsaín, the House in the Woods of Segovia

  Thirty-eight hours after the King had ridden off with the Queen, she returned to her chambers, ravenous. I stood back in startled awe with the other attendants as My Lady, dressed in the clothes she ’d been wearing when I’d last seen her, fell Upon the platters of melon and meat and cheese like a man just released from Inquisitor-General Valdés’s prison, with Cher-Ami yelping with joy. I wondered if she had eaten in the time during which she had disappeared with the King, but she offered no explanations of where they’d gone or what they’d done, and left no openings for one to ask. Without so much as a word about the previous day and a half, she cleaned the platters, downed a small jug of watered wine, then retired to a siesta from which she did not wake Until the following morning.

  She kept her own counsel about what had transpired with the King as her ladies dressed her in the morning. She said so little as we readied her for Mass that I wondered if she was ill. Indeed, the rash at her throat was inflamed. But Upon retUrning from chapel, as we were following her through the arcade around the courtyard, she announced, “I should like to go on a walk in the woods.”

  “Are you sure?” said the condesa. “Would you rather not rest?”

  “I would like to walk,” the Queen said quietly.

  The condesa frowned. “Very well. Inez,” she said to her servant, “please get my black silk mask. There is enough sun, even in the woods, to mar my skin.” She threw madame de Clermont a mournful glance, as if to say she was sorry the French lady would need no mask with all those veils. “And get the Queen’s green mask,” she added. “The green is good, is it not, My Lady?”

  “Thank you, doña María,” said the Queen, “but I think it best if only Sofi attends me. The King would like a new portrait done of me, and I want Sofi to do it. She needs quiet in which to consider how she might attempt it.”

  I let the leather-bound prayer book through which I’d been fitfully flipping drop on the cord around my waist. Although I had scribbled off hundreds of sketches during our trip to France, I had not put together studies for a portrait. Even if the King was interested, I had not yet been asked. But I could keep Up my end of the charade if needed.

  The condesa smiled stiffly. “Who is to carry your train?”

  “Sofi. Or Francesca, if Sofi is busy drawing.”

  Francesca smiled at Her Majesty as lovingly as a mother at her infant.

  “Then—” sputtered the condesa, “then Your Majesty must wear a mask!”

  “Certainly,” the Queen said sweetly. Her skirts swished against the floor tiles as she left the chamber.

  “Dinner is at two!” the condesa called after Us.

  My prayer book thumping against my leg, I hung on to Her Majesty’s train as she glided through the cloisters. Moving in and out of the shadows cast by the arches, she nodded at the nobles lingering about in hopes of getting the King’s ear, at the German guards posted at their stations, at the servants falling into low and loving bows. I wondered how I was to work on a drawing without chalk or pen, but held my tongue, and she said nothing, either, about any subject, as we left the palace and its square pointed towers and entered the meadow on the south side of the estate. Save for the quiet pat of My Lady’s slippers, the footsteps of myself and Francesca, and the snuffling of Cher-Ami as he explored a patch of crimson poppies, we walked silently, our skirts catching on the long bent grass.

  Francesca and I held our tongues as we passed into a pasture where cows grazed, their bells languidly clanking. I kept my own counsel in the hope of encouraging the Queen to share hers. Once she had unburdened herself, I could remind her about my request for a husband. But on she sailed, over a humped stone footbridge and past a vegetable patch tended by gardeners who rose on their knees from their weeding like rabbits sniffing the air.

  At last we gained the wild woods. Our footsteps now deadened by the fine grass sprawling between the pines, we pressed forward, Until deep within the forest Her Majesty came to a stop. I was stunned to see her shoulders quaking.

  She kept her back to me as I held on to her train, trembling in my hands. “My Lady, what is it?”

  She shook her head. A breeze picked Up, sending the pine boughs hissing.

  “My Lady?” I whispered.

  “It was terrible.”

  I took a careful breath.

  “If he would have just given me time . . .”

  The wind whipped a lock of hair from my braids and across my mouth. I dared not move.

  “I know I should be glad.” Her back still turned to me, she wiped her eyes with her hand. “A child can come of it.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Francesca.

  “But I hate him, Sofi. I hate him!”

  “Shhh, My Lady!” I whispered. “You do not mean this.”

  She shook as she quietly cried.

  I raked my mind for words of comfort but could find none. She had no rights to her body—it was the King’s to claim. And he was not such a bad man, surely, not as bad as other kings have been.

  Francesca stepped forward and took her hand. “Think how lovely is a child, cara mia. Your own little child.”

  “A son,” I said.

  Her hand still in Francesca’s rough grasp, My Lady exclaimed, “I do not want a son! I want a daughter, a daughter I can love and keep and hold to my heart. I will never be like my mother, forcing her to marry just for my gain.”

  “No, cara mia,” said Francesca. “Of course you no will. What name you like to give your little girl?”

  She sniffed. “Diane. After my governess.”

  I drew in a breath: Diane de Poitiers may have been her governess, but she was also her mother’s mortal enemy. My poor Lady, forever torn between the governess who had shown her love and care, and her natural but distant mother.

  “Diana,” Francesca said, her rough peasant accent caressing the final a. “Bella.”

  “Why am I always to hate whom I love and to love whom I hate? Why, Francesca? Why am I never free to love whom I love?”

  I let go of her train as Francesca gathered the Queen to her breast, clucking her tongue. “Cara mia, hush. Hush.”

  “Tell me the truth, Francesca—he killed the Prince of Ascoli, didn’t he?”

  Francesca stroked Her Majesty’s cheek, shaking her head.

  “He has no one to answer to,” said the Queen. “He can kill whomever, whenever, however he wants.”

  “He is mostly a good man,” said Francesca. “You must believe.”

  “And the part of him that is not good?”

  Francesca stroked her again. “That part, you keep happy, cara mia. Make sure you keep it happy.”

  ITEM:A trapped lynx will chew off its own foot to make an escape.

  ITEM:An amethyst placed in wine will cure the ills of having drunk too much wine the night before.

  27 DECEMBER 1565

  El Alcázar, Madrid

  Let no one claim I have stopped painting. My most recent subject—done tonight—is a reworking of an old painting of myself, standing at the clavichord. I made Francesca stand behind me and, with the aid of a mirror, added her to the picture. I do believe I have made her into a grimacing brown ghost. What do I expect Under the influence of drink?

  Items, items—more items for the notebook of the great and magnificent Sofonisba Virgo.

  Note: Don’t paint over Underpainting while it is wet, Unless you desire mud.

  Note: Wine from along the Duero River is qui
te good.

  Note: The Queen is again pregnant, perhaps two months so.

  Oh, the King is thrilled. He dotes Upon her with renewed vigor, taking time from his hectic schedule to be with her each day, though war is closing in from all his distant worlds. The Turkish navy has struck in Malta. Protestant mobs have stormed churches in the Netherlands, smashing everything in sight. Spanish troops have massacred French settlers in the New World land of Florida against his express orders to leave them alone. Yet in spite of his mounting worries, he asks the Queen to remain with him during his audiences though she is ill. So patiently, patiently, he waits for her to retch into a basin before he grants entrance to his emissaries.

  For while this pregnancy has already much weakened my Queen, it has made a new man of her husband. He dresses with Unprecedented thought to fashion, wearing a different doublet most days, not always a black one as before, but perhaps a dark gray or brown. He is growing his hair and mustaches longer, in the style of an adventuresome soldier. He takes more exercise at horse, and has the muscles to show for it, too—I have seen him flex them for the Queen.

  This morning the King claimed her directly after Mass. He excused me and the rest of her attendants from duty. I strode, immediately afterward, down the steep brick road to the gardens of the Casa de Campo. As frigid as it was, I had to get outside. But I did not escape. My thoughts of Tiberio caught up with me.

  I had asked the King to send a man for him, but what if, when found, Tiberio agreed to marriage only to escape his deadly bonds? What if he had no love for me, just a desire to be free? A man would marry a mule to be released from certain death.

  “Signorina!” Francesca called from behind me.

  I kept walking, letting the downward pull of the hill carry my feet.

  “Signorina!”

  I turned. Francesca was holding her side, trying to catch her wind. I waited Until she paddled forward, her footsteps ringing on cold brick.