The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile

by C. W. Gortner

  He had been waiting for me in the keep. As I crossed the flagstones under a storm-rent sky, I had seen the sorrow etched on his face, in the hollows of his eyes. I’d flung myself into his embrace, not caring about the soldiers assembled about us, the officials and courtiers and grandees. With my face buried against his neck, which smelled of sweat and sun, I’d whispered, “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

  He had held me close. “Isabella, my love, my moon—what would I do without you?” He did not care about the child, not if it came at the price of my life; and together we had repaired to the rooms he’d prepared for me, decorated with my tapestries and furnishings, which he had ordered brought all the way from Segovia.

  “You shouldn’t have,” I’d chided, even as tears pricked my eyes. “The expense …”

  “Bah. What are a few more maravedies?” he’d smiled.

  Isabel was fine, he assured me that night as we lay tangled in our bed, hearing the rain—that endless rain—driving against the castle walls. Beatriz and Andrés watched over her in the alcazar, where nothing could harm her. We had not spoken of the force bearing down on us, of the threat nothing could protect us from. We’d caressed and kissed; lost in the scent and feel of each other, we’d made tacit agreement never to mention again the loss we both so keenly felt.

  He left me before dawn, arrayed in armor, at the head of the patchwork army we had assembled, composed of vassals and retainers, volunteers from remote villages, carters, pages, townsmen, minor nobles, and prisoners whose sentences had been commuted so they could fight for Castile. As he rode across the drawbridge spanning the gorge, under rippling standards emblazoned with our arrows and yoke, he looked over his shoulder and raised his gauntleted hand.

  “Isabella, mi amor,” he shouted. “Wait for me!”

  And so I had, for weeks, as humid June dragged into sweltering July. I was kept informed of every event by the couriers racing to and from Fernando’s encampment; from them, I learned of Afonso’s craven entrenchment behind Zamora’s unimpeachable walls, his refusal to come out and engage, though Fernando challenged him to single combat. Our men were forced to lay siege, to dig trenches and poison wells, until supplies dwindled and tempers flared and the offensive we’d painstakingly forged out of hope, loans, and force of will began to fall apart.

  “Give us victory,” I prayed. “Let us triumph. You took my child; now give me this.”

  I still hadn’t learned that bartering with the Almighty only incites His displeasure.

  On July 22, as I paced in the castle in Tordesillas, a missive arrived, scrawled in a hand I did not recognize at first. I read it, horrified. I raised my eyes to the exhausted messenger and said in a voice hard as stone, “Go back. Tell him I forbid it. Not a single tower in Castile must fall to them.”

  “Majestad,” replied the courier, with a cowering stance, “it is too late. The Portuguese commandeered Toro and cut off supply lines to our army. Our soldiers lacked fresh water and food. Then flux broke out; men fell sick and there began to be talk of abandoning our cause and going over to Portugal’s side. Before the soldiers deserted, the king ordered our retreat. They’re already on their way back here.”

  The missive, shredded by my fingers, dropped to the floor.

  “Bring my hat,” I cried out. “And saddle my horse!”

  The heat outside was a demon, exhaling the fires of Hell. I could scarcely catch my breath as I rode across the drawbridge, down the steeply sloping road, past the hamlet, over the causeway across the river and onto the simmering plain. There, I ordered a canopy set up, and a portable chair and table were brought. As Canela panted alongside my secretaries and Inés, I waited. A goblet of water sat untouched on the table. Hours passed. As violet dusk crept over the plain, plunging us into twilight, I finally caught sight of the bedraggled men straggling over the red-rimmed horizon.

  I mounted Canela and held up my hand, refusing all company. Alone I rode out to meet our returning army. Fernando was at their head, along with the admiral; their faces were scored by fatigue, sunburnt skin peeling off their noses, their hair matted and filthy. Their armor clattered in panniers at the sides of their trudging, foam-lathered horses.

  It was the sound of that discarded armor, unsullied by the blood of our foes, that most enraged me.

  Fernando looked up, startled, as I rode forward. Then he spurred forth, as if he sought to put as much distance as possible between us and the watching grandees and quarrelsome soldiers whose lack of conviction in our enterprise had doomed us before we’d so much as maimed a single Portuguese soldier.

  “Isabella,” he began, haltingly, “I … we had no other choice. They would not leave the city; they skulked behind Zamora’s ramparts and pelted us with arrows, with rocks; with their own filth.” His voice trembled with humiliation. “Afonso laughed at me from the battlements—he laughed and mocked me! He said he’d make a better king on his privy stool than I could ever hope to be on Castile’s throne. He refused my offer of combat. He said he preferred to wait and watch us die slowly, like flies suffocating on his shit.”

  I held his gaze for a long moment. I tried to summon compassion, sympathy, any feeling from inside the vault where my heart used to be. Then instead I said coldly, “You should not have come back, not while he held as much as a single tower in Castile.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What was I supposed to do? We’ve no siege engines, no cannon, no powder. You knew that. We’ve been woefully unprepared for them from the start.”

  “None of that matters.” I thumped my chest with my fist. “We have God on our side; we are in the right, not those who come to steal what is not theirs. With our faith and an army like ours, how could Afonso of Portugal’s words rob you of the courage that moves men to battle?”

  He flinched visibly. His voice hardened. “Isabella, I am warning you: Stop this. You were not there. You do not understand.”

  But I was beyond heeding him, beyond reason. It was as though every insult, every fear, every flight I’d ever taken since the perilous days of my childhood had coalesced into this vast, excruciating humiliation—this unbelievable moment when my husband, one of Aragón’s most vaunted warriors, had turned tail and fled from the very enemy whose sole purpose was to wrench our throne from us.

  “You may say I do not understand,” I said. “So many men believe that women cannot speak of war because we do not risk ourselves on the battlefield. But I tell you, nobody has risked more than me, because I wagered my husband and king, whom I love more than anything.” My voice broke. “I risked my heart for the good of these realms, knowing that if we failed, I too stood to lose everything!”

  My words echoed around me, across the silent plain. Our army was immobile—miles of men, of faces I did not know. Fernando remained motionless on his destrier, his face an impassive mask.

  “If you’d torn down the walls of Zamora,” I added, “as you would have, if you had my will, Portugal and its sovereign would have been wiped from this realm and we would not find ourselves here in this shameful hour.”

  He clapped his hand to his saddle, making his horse paw the ground. “I don’t believe this. After everything we’ve endured, you complain because we’ve returned whole? We may have not won a battle, but neither did we lose one.”

  “No?” I retorted. “You may think there is glory in defeat, but I will not be satisfied by anything less than victory.”

  The moment I spoke, I knew I had gone too far. His expression turned inward. “Well,” he said softly, “then I fear we’ll have a heavy task ahead, for it seems you cannot be satisfied by the efforts of any mere mortal man.”

  His voice cut through the haze of my anger, returning me with a jolt to the present, the stark situation before me—of our army, ragged and threadbare but, as he had tried to tell me, still intact; of Fernando himself alive, not lying dead or wounded under a heap of corpses. He had drawn himself up in his saddle and I saw before me the prince I had chosen for his tenacity, who had fought tim
e and time again for his own realm. He was a king, who had made an impossible decision today in order to spare us potential devastation tomorrow. And he was my husband, who, out of love for me and my realm, had gone to war to battle our foes, prepared to die, if need be, for the good of Castile.

  With sickening clarity, I gazed toward the plain. I saw for the first time the tired admiral regarding me from his horse in discomfiture, and the soldiers—all the brave men—crippled by flux, hunger, and heat. They regarded me with a heartbreaking mixture of awe and disillusionment. I was their queen, but rather than expressing my gratitude for their salvation, I had chastised them for their refusal to sacrifice themselves.

  I felt like hiding my face. Was Fernando right? Would I never be satisfied by the efforts of anyone, most of all my own self?

  “Forgive me,” I whispered, and I forced myself to meet Fernando’s eyes. I expected to find him remote, distanced from me, perhaps forever. I had attacked him before his men, the worst insult anyone could inflict on a commander; he had every right to hold me accountable for my actions. Instead he showed me reluctant comprehension, as though he understood all too well the fount from which my anger had sprung.

  “There is nothing to forgive,” he replied. “Henceforth, let us show humility before Him for whom even the most powerful are weak, so in our hour of need He may grant us mercy.”

  My throat knotted. I had no words. None seemed adequate to erase those I had so thoughtlessly strewn. I turned Canela about. Together, Fernando and I rode back to the castle, with our army marching behind us.

  WE SUMMONED THE Cortes to session in Valladolid, where I made a passionate appeal for help. We now had a foreign army on Castilian soil, intent on our destruction. But the representatives of the cities—drained by their past donations—voted us no new funds. All we had left, said Cardinal Mendoza as we sat bleary-eyed at our council table, was the Church. If I declared that the ecclesiastic authorities must donate half of their gold and silver for defense of the kingdom, we could melt it down for the money we needed. Otherwise, we’d have no other choice than to seek a parley with Afonso and Villena.

  “Out of the question,” said Fernando. He glanced at me. “Not one tower, you said. We cannot leave them a single tower.”

  I repressed my smile. Our confrontation in Tordesillas had marked a shift in our marriage. Though it had been too strident of me, too overt a demonstration, it had shown him I was ready to strap on armor and sword myself; that I too would live and die, if need be, in defense of my throne. That realization had inflamed his lust, so that he’d taken me in our bedchamber with a passion that left me raw. More interestingly, it had led him to accord me moments like these, moments where he left the final decision in my hands—hands he now judged as capable, as worthy, as any man’s.

  “Rome won’t like it,” I said warily. “His Holiness has yet to issue the dispensation Afonso needs to wed Joanna la Beltraneja, but if we confiscate Church treasure, he might suddenly see fit to do so.”

  Cardinal Mendoza’s face registered his agreement. “He might, yes, but His Holiness will be advised that it’s in his best interest that Your Majesties prevail, as you shall prove devout and generous champions of the faith in years to come.”

  The cardinal’s implication was clear, though in his eagerness to gain this new source of funds, Fernando did not see it. “Yes,” my husband said. “We shall, absolutely. Put it in writing.” He searched my eyes. “Isabella, what say you? We need cannon, powder; all the modern accoutrements. We can buy them from Germany and Italy but they’ll want the payment up front. This is our only hope.”

  I knew this to be true, yet I still shrank from the idea. I did not want to incur such a debt with the Church, for regardless of how assiduously we fulfilled our end of the deal, there would be hidden interest. But without fresh resources, we were as good as dethroned. We could harry the Portuguese, as we’d been doing since our retreat, cutting off their supply lines and torching the surrounding farmlands so they had nothing to forage; keeping them caged in Zamora, Toro, and the few cities in Extremadura they’d overrun. But we couldn’t expel them. Like vermin, they would multiply, spreading their dissent like a disease. Eventually, they would wear down our people’s resistance; in time, their presence would become acceptable; welcomed, even, if they promised enough in return.

  And if that happened, Afonso and la Beltraneja would prevail. They would see Fernando and me captured or killed, and they would seize our throne.

  Reluctantly, I nodded. “Let it be done. But only under these conditions: We will return whatever we borrow in three years’ time. And every maravedi we mint is to be used toward our war effort. Not one goes into our privy purse.”

  Mendoza inclined his head, signaling his agreement. Fernando rose purposefully, leaning toward me to murmur, “This time I promise you I’ll wipe those whoresons off the face of the earth.”

  He meant it, too. His shame and fury ran deep. Never had Fernando of Aragón found himself in a position of supplication, and he plunged into the requisitioning of our army tirelessly, tallying inventories, overseeing the purchases of weaponry, tracking the shipments as they arrived, and devising safe passage from the ports to our base camps.

  In turn, I organized the food provisions, recruitment, and training. I made agreements with the grandees and even sent Cárdenas to the Moorish caliph of Granada, with whom I signed a treaty, promising the Moors free range within their kingdom and personal redress by me of any grievances, should their borders be invaded by our Andalucían grandees. In exchange, the caliph sent four thousand of his best archers, who could each shoot a hundred arrows from horseback without so much as a pause.

  The hard work and long hours suited me; like Fernando, I was burning over the insult done to us. Any lingering affection I’d had for Joanna la Beltraneja was extinguished in those frenetic months, as Fernando and I devoted every minute to defending what she so callously offered up to Afonso.

  I did not see Isabel for months at a time, though I corresponded regularly with Beatriz. I did not read, embroider, or engage in any of the feminine pastimes I’d always enjoyed. I took a brief trip to Arévalo with a contingent of fresh guards, for I did not put it past Diego Villena to attempt to raze the castle. There, I found the staff gray as cinders, caught in an insular existence. They were barely aware of the tumult outside their walls, save for the perennial lack of goods. My mother behaved as if she’d seen me just the previous week before she forgot who I was, lost in her inescapable delirium. Gnarled and now clearly faltering, Doña Clara refused my offer of retirement; she insisted she would die on her feet, serving my mother as she always had. I had no doubt she would. Nevertheless, I hired extra women from the village to do the chores. I had nursed the secret hope that perhaps the time had come to bring my mother to court, where she could assume her role as dowager and where I could take better care of her, but during that painful visit I realized she would never be fit for public life. I couldn’t risk it; I could never let it be said that the taint of madness ran in my family nor let it blemish my daughter’s prospects for marriage. Though rumor would invariably spread, no one must see the proof for themselves. My mother would stay in Arévalo until her death, forgotten by the world; and I departed the castle with that sad sense of disorientation I invariably felt whenever I returned home, as well as the irrevocable guilt that I had condemned my own flesh and blood to an isolated existence, both for her sake and for the future of Castile.

  Christmas was a quiet affair. Winter precluded any armed conflict, and while Fernando took advantage of the lull to go to Valencia to fetch a phalanx of soldiers sent from Aragón for our cause, I finally reunited with Isabel in Segovia. She was nearly five years old, startlingly lovely with thick burnished golden hair and turquoise-green eyes that were so like my mother’s. I was content to do nothing but take wintry strolls in the alcazar gardens with Beatriz, wrapped in furs, while Isabel dashed about, enchanted by the magic of the snow; for a time, I pretende
d I had no other care in the world beyond whether or not the hearths had been lit.

  But all too soon the New Year arrived; before the snows had even thawed, Fernando departed with our newly equipped force, pared to lean precision. The fierce Moors on their jennets were joined to our cavalry; the German cannon and Italian gunpowder were on ox-drawn carts; the oiled siege engines and catapults wheeled behind the serpentine procession of iron and blades like unwieldy giants.

  Once again I took up residence in Tordesillas; once again I was receiving my news from couriers, waiting, always waiting, for the next dispatch.

  The war began with promise. The Portuguese had grown slack in the intervening months, fatted on the plunder of our looted cities, and in a bold step, Fernando quickly seized Zamora. Afonso sallied forth from neighboring Toro in high temper, engaging us in a flurry of arms, all aimed at distracting us while his enterprising son managed to sneak past our border patrols. To my furious disbelief, he arrived with reinforcements from Portugal. Suddenly, the army we had spent eight painstaking months assembling was outnumbered, surrounded on all sides by an ocean of the enemy.

  Fernando bid a hasty retreat behind Zamora’s stout medieval walls. I immediately sent reserve squadrons to harass the Portuguese and send them scurrying back to Toro. I hoped to secure Fernando an opening salvo, but after three weeks of skirmishes and hot words flung at each other from across walls, it became clear that if Afonso—trapped in Toro, in unbearable cold—was not winning anything, neither were we. In fact, the last of the gold we’d borrowed from the Church was fast dwindling and Fernando, holed up in Zamora, which the prior Portuguese occupation had emptied of everything edible, was starting to feel the pinch. Communication between us was nearly impossible; but one or two of his couriers did manage to reach me.