A Curse of Roses includes themes, imagery, and content that might be triggering for some readers. Discussions of religious-based self harm, religious-based eating disorders, and religious-based internalized homophobia appear throughout the novel.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Recipe for Açorda Alentejana
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Bring Me Their Hearts, by Sara Wolf
Illusions, by Madeline J. Reynolds
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Diana Pinguicha. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
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Edited by Lydia Sharp and Jen Bouvier
Cover design by Bree Archer
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Interior design by Toni Kerr
HC ISBN 978-1-68281-509-0
Ebook ISBN 978-1-68281-510-6
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition December 2020
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
to those who have been erased
Author’s Note
I grew up listening to Yzabel’s story.
We call her Rainha Santa Isabel—which you can translate to Saint Queen Isabel. She was canonized in May of 1625 by Pope Urban VIII. My hometown, Estremoz, has a statue in her honor, the Castle’s Pousada has her name, and so does the high school I went to. A lot of Estremoz still spins around her—and of all the people my hometown could’ve been known for, I’m glad it’s Isabel we ended up with. I do believe she was a truly good person who wanted nothing but to help others. Dinis, as well, was a surprisingly forward king for the time, and together, they were perhaps the best rulers we had. He took away power from the Church and the Nobility and gave it to the people. He was our first literate king and composed poems and songs. He also expanded the Leiria Pine Forest, which later allowed us to build ships and sail the seas.
Isabel herself was one of the most politically savvy queens we had. She fostered diplomatic deals, stopped a war between her brother, King of Aragon, and her son-in-law Fernando, King of Castela. When her son tried to kill one of Dinis’s bastard sons, Afonso Sanches, she parked a mule between their armies and made them talk it out to avoid civil war.
That being said, I took a lot of liberties. For one, Moura wasn’t a Portuguese town in 1288. It was given to Dinis later, when he tried to wage war against Castela—a war that never materialized because Castela offered lands in return for peace. And while it’s true that Erzsébet of Hungary was Isabel of Aragon’s great-aunt from her mother’s side and they have the same kind of miracle attributed to them, Erzsébet didn’t die at eighteen as stated in this book, but she did die young, at the age of 24.
Isabel’s age is correct, but Dinis’s isn’t. He was, in fact, ten years older than her. Their marriage was arranged when she was ten, and it was officiated two years later. Isabel and Dinis would not, however, have children until she was nineteen.
Fatyan’s story is also different. She wasn’t in love with another Moura named Salúquia—Salúquia was the Moura who threw herself from Al-Manijah’s tower when the Portuguese took it. I wanted to keep the story but use Salúquia’s name in passing so as to give a nod to the original.
In the Miracle of Roses, Isabel didn’t turn roses to bread, and there was no Enchanted Moura. But she did sneak out of the castle to feed the poor, and upon being caught by her betrothed, the bread she carried turned to roses. A miracle, supposedly from God, to show King Dinis that his wife’s charity was blessed and shouldn’t be interfered with. But that didn’t make for an entire book, and as such, I set out to rewrite the legend.
We like to romanticize our kings and queens as being madly in love with each other, and while some probably were, most…were not. Isabel had incredible political value, and her marriage to Dinis was one of convenience, an accord signed when she was just ten years old. They did grow to respect each other, and he did include her in making new laws. Theirs was a marriage of friendship; just not a marriage of romantic love.
Unlike many queens before and after her, Isabel only had two children with Dinis, and had no more when the second was a boy. It’s also speculated that she knew of Dinis’s infidelities, and instead of detracting him, she was glad she was not the center of his attention. Many, many women were glad when their betrotheds paid no attention to them. Sex spelled the possibility of children, and pregnancy and childbirth were as dangerous as a battlefield.
Her lack of children doesn’t mean Isabel was gay. But she might have been, as so many women were, and had to hide it because of the way society was. How many still do. I know I did.
The reason why I have such a tense relationship with my hometown of Estremoz is because of how hard I was bullied there for simply being different. Sure, some guys are fine, but I find women much more attractive. And it took me years to overcome the fact that I wasn’t broken just because I liked girls, too, maybe even more so than boys. That was the legacy Estremoz left me, one of being halfway into the closet, of self-doubt, and self-hate. It’s where I was called “a man” because I liked video games and was good at sports, where people use the term “lesbian” as an insult. (And I will always be grateful for my parents who, when I came home crying about it, always said, “So what if you’re gay?”)
There’s nothing wrong with being a girl who looks manly and enjoys “manly” things, and there’s nothing wrong with being a lesbian. There’s also nothing wrong with not being interested in boys, or girls, or anyone. I know that now. I wish I’d known it then. I wish someone had dared tell me a story where one of our most beloved queens liked women, too, that queer people have always existed through the centuries despite most of history erasing them. But that story didn’t exist for me then, so I wrote it.
Mom, Dad—I know you’ll read this. Yes, I like girls, too, and I know that I could come home with a girlf
riend and you wouldn’t turn me away. But the hateful hometown where you raised me did.
And if you’re like I once was, hiding yourself because of society, I sincerely hope Yzabel’s story helped you in some way. Writing it certainly helped me.
Kingdom of Portugal
and the Algarves
1288
Part I
Curses
Chapter One
Festering Secrets
With heavy eyes and weary bones, Yzabel walked past the castle walls and into the narrow streets of Terra da Moura. At her order, her Além-Tejo mastiff, Lucas, took off, checking the cobblestones ahead for any little threat.
“This is ill-advised,” Vasco said to her right, his vigilant hand on the pommel of his sheathed sword. “Going to the lower side of town with just myself and your lady’s maid. We should at least bring a full squad for your protection.”
“Senhor Davide was brave enough to reach out to Brites about the missing supplies.” Yzabel cringed as she spoke, leg muscles shuddering against the never-ending chafe of the cilice. With a deep breath, she used that pain to center herself and put one foot in front of the other. “I don’t want to scare him away with twelve armed soldiers.”
“Why would he fear them unless he wasn’t telling the truth?”
“Oh, give her a rest, will you?” On Yzabel’s left, Brites adjusted her grip on the wooden box, tins and jars of herbal remedies rattling with the motion. “I know Davide. He wouldn’t have come to me unless the situation was truly dire. Plus, you’re built like the Man in the Iron Hat. Your scowl alone is enough to detract anyone from attacking the princess.”
Yzabel snorted the giggle that sneaked past her lips while Vasco’s mouth and nose puckered with a grunt. He turned a narrowed gaze to Brites, asking, “Remind me again, how is it that the lady’s maid to an Aragonian princess seems to know everyone between Sicillia and Lishbuna?”
Brites rolled her eyes and scoffed. “If you listened to me when I talk, you’d have heard that I spent some time in this town.”
“Yes, when you were a nun. How a convent ever accepted you is beyond me—”
Yzabel gave a pointed sigh, hoping they’d take the cue, but Brites and Vasco seemed to enjoy reenacting the same argument in thousands of different ways. They’d been with her since she’d turned twelve, and after five years, she’d long realized that for some reason trading insults was how they showed friendship.
Both their voices faded to the back of her attention, and Yzabel readjusted her cowl, hiking the collar of her fur mantle to protect her nose from the crisp bite of autumn’s air. She blinked away the stars burning across her vision as her eyes darted around the town. Close to the castle, the houses were painted with whitewash, the streets neat—here and there, she could spy children running and playing while their grandmothers sowed nearby, ears alert even if their eyes weren’t. With the sun a couple of hours away from setting, most people would still be at work in the fields, but that wouldn’t explain the almost-emptiness of the plaza, or why there wasn’t a single person lingering around the tavern.
No place was so tapestry-perfect, and as sheltered as Yzabel had been, she knew better than to take appearances at their face value. No place was absent of poverty, and Terra da Moura should be no exception.
All the more reason why she had to speak to Senhor Davide. When he’d approached Brites after mass, the local prelates had looked from afar, scoffing and dismissing him as a drunk.
“Ah, the town’s drunk has come to pester the princess’s lady’s maid,” Baron de Seabra had said then, a slick smirk twisting his mouth. “Don’t believe a word he says, Your Highness. I’m sure he’s heard the tales of your good nature and is looking to exploit them.”
At the time, Yzabel had nodded and assured him she wouldn’t believe unfounded gossip. Yet, as she sat next to the king, her future husband, surrounded by nobles of good flesh wrapped in fine leather and expensive silks, the bright glint of gold and jewels peeking between luxurious furs, and rings shining like shackles on their fingers…she saw the baron’s words for what they truly were. Brushstrokes made of insults, meant to paint over the image of the man who dared to come to the Carmo Church and to a service reserved only for the nobility, meant to manipulate feelings, to incite prejudice, to foster disgust.
He’d wanted her to see the image of a mean drunk, a selfish man who put his vices before anything else.
Yzabel had seen nothing but a downtrodden man driven to despair by the same beast roaring inside her, with its manic talons clawing at her bowels, her womb, her stomach. It climbed to her head, stabbed shiny stars into her vision and agony into her temples.
Hunger.
The kind of hunger that festered not because of choice, but because of a lack of it. This man couldn’t eat because he had nothing to eat; Yzabel couldn’t eat because she was cursed. They weren’t the same, and yet, they were.
Just as she was absently crossing from the cobbled roads and into the beaten dirt of the low part of town, the afternoon sun stabbed at Yzabel’s eyes and pierced straight through her skull. With a wince, she swayed in her steps, and just when she thought her knees would give away, a heavy hand caught her arm.
“That’s it,” Vasco said while he helped her regain her balance. “We’re coming back after you eat. Shouldn’t have let you leave in the first place—”
“I’ll eat later…when I have to. I’m still fasting, remember?” They both knew she wasn’t fasting, not of her own choice. It was the convenient excuse she gave everyone when she sat at meals without touching her food, out of fear she’d turn her meal into a bouquet. That it made everyone think her extra pious was an added benefit she gladly reaped, even if it sat as well in her stomach as the flowers did.
It had been the same with her great-aunt Erzsébet of Ungarie. She, too, had possessed a touch that turned food into flowers, and died young for it. With her marriage to a foreign king, and his qualms against charity, Yzabel’s life was unfolding in the very same way as her aunt’s had; with a similar curse and engaged to a man of the same kind. At this rate, she too would die soon after her upcoming eighteenth birthday in Januarius. All without even being able to perform a miracle as Erzsébet had; Yzabel could barely eat, let alone hand out food from her own hand. Holding back the curse long enough to pass it as a divine act? Impossible.
Lucas’s barking return to Yzabel’s side brought her back to the present. A group of five children, all young but not fresh-faced, ran toward them in bare feet.
“The princess came to see us!” one of them said, with a grin that immediately faded when Vasco stepped in front of her.
“It’s all right,” Yzabel said, attempting to skirt around him.
“I hate to add wood to Vasco’s fire, but…” Brites tossed a look to the houses ahead. Squat, little more than four walls of brick held together with lime mortar, dwellings rested in clusters along the dirt road. Their backyards were shared, with a handful of chickens clucking in the communal pen.
The red cloths, however, were what dug claws into her heart. Draped over the windows and doors, the colorful fabric flapped gently in the breeze—a sign the red plague festered inside those walls.
Still, she couldn’t ignore these children, with their hollow cheeks and patched-up clothes. Had she been back home in Aragon, no one could’ve stopped her from raiding her trunks and the kitchens to help them. Here, she had a betrothed to answer to, and he’d made it clear she was not to give charity in the form of dinheiros or food. He’d said that she had butter for a heart and needed to harden it if they were to marry, for what good would a princess be if she bankrupted the kingdom with her short-sighted charity?
Under her mantle, her fist tightened. Chin high, she skirted Vasco and kept a hand on top of Lucas’s head to still him. “Tell you what,” she said to the children, “if you take me to Senhor Davide’s home, I�
�ll give you the bread and cheese Vasco is hiding.”
“That’s reserved for you,” he protested.
“You’re right. It’s reserved for me to do as I see fit,” she chimed back with the full, haughty stubbornness expected of royalty. Lower, so the children couldn’t hear, she whispered, “This is what you get for trying to bring me back to the castle to eat when you have a satchel of food hiding under that mail.”
The pursed line of Vasco’s lips disappeared under his mustache, but when he let out a long sigh and turned back to the children, she knew she’d won. “You heard the princess. Lead the way, but don’t touch us.”
“We don’t have the plague!” spat a little girl. “We’ve been sleeping at Nana’s and bathing in the springs every day so we wouldn’t catch it.” She was as stick thin as the other, dull and limp black hair stark against the bright fury in her dark eyes.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not risking the princess’s health.”
There was a collective pout, but the children soon recovered, leading them along the beaten earth that served as a road. Yzabel hiked up her mantle and skirts to keep the worst of the dirt off the fine embroidery, pushing through another wave of nausea and exhaustion that clung to her more heavily than the furs on her shoulders.
Vasco offered his arm—silently this time—and she gladly took it, letting him support her for the rest of the way.
“Careful with what you say to Davide,” Brites muttered. “I think the king’s having someone follow us again.”
It wouldn’t have been the first time Denis had sent someone to spy on Yzabel to ascertain whether she was out spending her dinheiros. When she’d arrived on Portuguese soil with her coffers almost empty, the king had taken it upon himself to save her from bankruptcy without even bothering to ask if she wanted to be saved from it. What good was money when it sat untouched in a trunk and not in the pockets of those who needed it most?
Vasco nodded. “Noticed that, too. Whatever you do, Yzabel, try not to speak too loudly. As far as they know, we’re only delivering medicine. Let’s keep it that way.”
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