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

by C. W. Gortner

  The next twenty-four hours were a blur. Fernando refused to leave my side, defying the custom that men were not allowed in a birthing room. He mopped my brow with cool mint water and barked orders at the harried midwives, who didn’t know how to react to his presence. Though I was scarcely aware of anything but my pummeled body, I sensed him near, his hand on my forehead, his voice whispering, over and over, “Mi luna, push. Push with everything you’ve got. I’m here. I will not leave you.”

  Finally, in the early morning hours, I straddled the stool and, with a guttural cry, released my fourth child—a girl. As she was cleansed and delivered to the wet nurse I continued to strain, seeing and not believing the torrent of blood coming out of me. The chief midwife muttered that there was another child, a twin, lodged inside me. As night swallowed day, the shadow of death hovered near; through my narrowed eyes I could see its spectral visage, black wings outstretched. The midwives finally forced Fernando out into the corridor, where the nobles had gathered. Inés took his place, coaxing me to impossible efforts, for by this time I was so drained I could barely whimper.

  Finally, the twin slipped out in a viscous gush. The midwife swiftly gathered it; as I saw her turn away to wrap it in cerements, covering its face, I released a howl that reverberated through the alcazar.

  With tears in her eyes, Inés worked my numb limbs out of the sopping shift and into a clean bed-gown. As she tucked me into lavender-scented sheets, I clutched at her, whispering, “I want to see her. I want to see my baby….”

  She shook her head. “No, Majestad,” she murmured. “You do not. Rest now, for the love of God. Your daughter is well; she is nursing. The other is with the angels.”

  But she wasn’t. She had died unshriven, an innocent soul condemned forever to dwell in Purgatory. I was disconsolate, unable to rest, until Fernando brusquely ordered Cardinal Mendoza to perform last rites over the body and dribble holy water on our lost child’s tiny misshapen skull.

  Then my husband enfolded me in his arms and held me as I cried myself to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Fernando departed with an army of eleven thousand men under a July sun so hot it cracked the soil like boiled leather. I had to bid him farewell from bed; my recovery from labor was frustratingly slow. Our newborn daughter, christened María in honor of the Virgin, was placid, fair-haired, and healthy. I knew I was fortunate indeed that she exhibited no ill effects after such a difficult birth, but I felt little connection to her, as if all the anticipation I’d nurtured had perished with her twin. In time, the midwife assured me, I’d come to love her, but as my breasts ached and my milk dried I felt only a disturbing emptiness, and the shame gnawed at me because of it.

  While I waited for news of the siege on Loja, forcing myself to take slow walks around the patio in the cool hours of dusk, word arrived from my aunt Beatrice in Portugal. Joanna la Beltraneja, frustrated by the impasse I’d imposed on her, had decided to take her holy vows and live out the rest of her days in the convent. I was relieved. Soon after came the news that my old mentor and foe, Archbishop Carrillo, was dead.

  The sorrow his passing roused in me was unexpected, though his death didn’t come as a surprise. I’d known for some time his health was in decline, ever since I’d ordered him to assume the life of a monastic. His circumscribed existence in the cloister must have been harsh on a man with his passion for life. For days after I received the news, I kept seeing him as he’d been in his glory, the barrel-chested warrior-priest whose bravura had propelled me to the throne only to turn against me like a jealous lover. Though I was no longer the trusting infanta he’d so fiercely sought to mold to his will, the world seemed smaller, somehow, without him in it.

  My preoccupation soon shifted when the first couriers brought news from Loja. The terrain, Fernando wrote, was impossible, rocky and perilous; our forces had been obliged to separate and camp in different areas, while Fernando, Cádiz, Medina Sidonia, and the other grandees surveyed the remote city on its crag for some weakness to exploit.

  They waited too long. As they sought to shift the army to a less vulnerable position, the Moors of Loja swarmed out with a ferocity kindled by weeks of deprivation. In the ensuing battle, several of our knights were killed. My hands trembled as I read the missive detailing that Fernando had found himself cornered by a scimitar-wielding Moor intent on taking his head as a prize. He had been saved only by Cádiz’s savage defense.

  I stood at the alcazar’s gates with the court about me as the survivors straggled back. Fernando was riding at their head; sunburnt, bearded, and blood-spattered, he clutched our royal standard in tatters in his fist.

  I made myself smile as he dismounted; the lesson I had learned years ago at Tordesillas was still seared in my mind. Though I wanted to rail at the injustice of our defeat, the months of planning and expense wasted, venting my frustration would resolve nothing. We had miscalculated. We had forgotten, in our zeal and pride, how tenacious a foe the Moors could be. Now we had to contend with the consequences. I saw in Fernando’s haggard features his relief at my demeanor, though I also could see his acute humiliation at the fact that he would have to publicly acknowledge his defeat.

  “We will try again next year,” I said, as he dismounted before me.

  “Try?” He gave me a bitter smile. “We’ll do more than that, my moon. I’ll tear the very seeds from this Moorish pomegranate one by one. Next time, it is we who will give no quarter.”

  Proud words; but in the meantime we had a decimated army to reassemble, not to mention laying our dead, which numbered in the thousands, to rest. Burials had to be arranged, relatives notified, widows’ pensions paid. Córdoba quickly became a place of grief. When Fernando suggested I return to Castile to oversee our business there—we had to petition the Cortes for more funds—while he stayed behind to safeguard the border, I readily agreed. I wanted nothing more than to go home.

  IN SEGOVIA, I found my children busy with their studies. Isabel was serene as ever. Juan remained too thin and pale, still prone to fever. Juana was a vigorous child with a mass of coppery curls and “a temper to match,” as Beatriz often teased. My friend had delivered a healthy boy whom she and her husband adored. They had christened him Andrés, after his father, but with the distraction of having to care for her new babe, Beatriz had indulged Juana’s whims. My second daughter displayed early talent when it came to languages and music, but she was rebellious as far as her daily regimen was concerned, far too much so for a three-year-old.

  I had a stern discussion with her about her unseemly penchant for throwing off her slippers to wade barefoot in the garden ponds. “Infantas should not behave thus,” I informed her when she pertly replied that her feet swelled in the heat. “Decorum at all times is essential.”

  Juana pouted and proceeded to do exactly as she had been doing, so I decided to take her with me on a long overdue visit to Arévalo to see my mother. I reasoned that time alone with me, away from the distractions of court, would instill in her a modicum of behavior. To my disconcertion, she proved entirely unmanageable during the two-day trip, leaping up on the litter cushions to peer out the window at the passing meseta, and pointing and chattering excitedly about everything she saw, from the swooping eagles that stalked the plains to the crumbled watch-towers pockmarking the barren ridges. I watched her with bemusement, thinking of the fables I’d heard about changelings. Of course such tales were nonsense; but though she resembled Fernando in her coloring and disposition, there were moments when she caught my regard with those penetrating eyes of hers and suddenly she would seem years older than she was, as if another being dwelled in her skin.

  She quieted down once we reached Arévalo, however. The isolation of the castle under its brooding sky seemed to affect her, and she stared, wide-eyed but silent, at the old servants moving like ghosts about the halls, treating her with the stiff discomfort of those who’d lived for years without ever seeing a child. I tried to reassure her that there was nothing to fea
r, that this had once been my home, but she only brightened when one of the castle dogs, descendants of my brother’s beloved Alarcón, snuffled up beside her. She had a way with animals, just as Alfonso had had.

  She displayed an unexpected reticence at the sight of my mother, ensconced in the faded splendor of her apartments, which she now refused to leave. Dressed in the antiquated fashions of her brief tenure as queen, so gaunt her wrists poked like bones from her frayed sleeves, my mother peered at Juana for a seemingly endless moment before she crooked a finger at her, motioning her forward. Juana refused to budge. I felt her hand clasp at my skirts, resisting my murmured urge that she go and kiss her grandmother.

  Then my mother whispered, “Tan desgraciada. So beautiful and so unfortunate, like me.”

  Juana gave a frightened gasp; even at her age she understood the tenor of this pronouncement, uttered with the eerie assurance of a prophecy.

  “Mama, please,” I said. “You mustn’t say such things. She’s only a child.”

  “So was I, once.” My mother’s watery eyes turned distant. “So were you. Youth is no protection; in the end, life scars us all.”

  After that, I wouldn’t let Juana see my mother again. I stayed long enough to ensure that the household was in order; old Doña Clara was an invalid now, near-blind with cataracts and crippled by gout, so I hired a new matron to oversee my mother’s care before I bundled up Juana and my bags to return to court. I was ready to do battle with the Cortes over the funding of our next Moorish offensive; to summon nobles to enlist retainers in our army; to write letters to Germany and Italy for reduced prices on large quantities of gunpowder and artillery; and to meet with my treasurer, Rabbi Señeor, to arrange low-interest loans through his usurers, in case the Cortes’s funding fell short. As usual, my time at Arévalo had left me restless, eager to move forward.

  Soon after my return to Segovia, my confessor, Fray Talavera, came to see me. “Torquemada has sent this,” he said, setting a parchment on my overflowing desk. “He’d heard you seek coin through the Jewish moneylenders, and he is outraged. He claims that while he fights to purify the Church and obtain divine favor for your crusade against the infidel, you ignore the very devil in our midst.”

  I picked up the letter, crowded with line after line of Torquemada’s habitually dense handwriting. With a sigh, I set it aside. My head ached; if I had to read through each one of his complaints, I’d need a tonic. Better just to hear them.

  “What else? Our head inquisitor never remonstrates without offering his solution.”

  Talavera’s lean, white-bearded face creased in a smile. He was not fiery, not like Torquemada; his was a tranquil steadfastness I’d increasingly come to rely upon and trust.

  “More of the same, I fear. He insists that while the Jews remain at large, their influence will obstruct all attempts to eradicate heresy among the conversos. He says we can no longer turn a blind eye. He demands that you issue an edict: Either the Jews convert or they must be expelled, on pain of death.”

  “He says all that, does he?” I said flatly. “Anything else?”

  Talavera sighed. “He claims there is precedent. England and France expelled the Jews centuries ago. Few Christian countries tolerate them.”

  “And he’s advocating that I take this stance now, in the middle of a crusade?” I forced in a calming breath. “He overreaches his duties. You have my leave to inform him as much. As I’ve stated before, the Jews have served us faithfully and we have a long history of coexistence with them. This is not a decision I can take precipitously, nor do I intend to.”

  “Yes, Majestad.” He turned to the chamber door. He paused, looking over his shoulder at me. “The hour of reckoning must come,” he said quietly. “It is unavoidable, much as we may regret it.”

  I went still, meeting his somber gaze. “But it is not here yet,” I answered, though my reassurance sounded hollow to my ears. “And when it does come, they may convert. They are a misguided people, lost to the light of our Savior, yes, but worthy of redemption. As their queen, I owe them my protection even as I strive to guide them toward the one true faith. I need time. I cannot perform miracles.”

  He bowed his head. “I fear you may need one, to save them all.”

  AS WINTER CHILLED the air, Fernando and I were reunited in the Monastery of Guadalupe in Extremadura, site of Castile’s most cherished shrine, that of the black Madonna carved by Saint Luke. Here, among shaded cloisters and colored brick patios, with the rugged cordillera swathed in mist in the distance, we tarried as a family.

  I was spending as much of my time as I could with Isabel; at twelve, she was fast becoming a svelte beauty, her immaculate complexion and fair tresses giving her the appearance of an angel. All the younger ladies of court eyed her in covert envy and she never seemed to notice, as if she were immune to her own reflection. She preferred to occupy her time studying, and perfecting her Portuguese, in preparation for marriage to that country’s heir.

  When she practiced it aloud, Juana would peer at her suspiciously. Once, she blurted, “You act as if you’re looking forward to leaving Spain,” then she wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  “That’s my girl,” chuckled Fernando. “A Spaniard to her core, she is.” He swung Juana into his arms; as she squealed and pulled off his cap, revealing his now near-bald pate, I resisted a frown. He favored her too much. He even had a nickname for her, “Madrecita,” because she reminded him of his late mother. I’d told him countless times she must not grow up thinking she was more privileged than our other daughters, for she too must one day take her assigned place in the world, but Fernando would just chuck her chin and say, “My Madrecita will be an envoy for Spain no matter where she goes, eh?” And Juana’s emphatic “Sí, Papa!” did not reassure me, either. At this rate, Fernando would spoil her so much she would think no prince worthy of her, nor capable of living up to her father.

  We celebrated that Christmas season together, serenaded by minstrels, slicing pies out of which flew flocks of startled sparrows, dressing the manger with carved ivory figurines. The snows were light, a mere frosting that lent the season glamour without its habitual biting chill. On Twelfth Night we went in candlelit procession to the cathedral in Segovia to hear midnight Mass while the Dominican choir of Santa María lifted a haunting paean to the Nativity. Surrounded by my children, with my husband at my side and my lifelong friend Beatriz behind me, I knelt for communion, in heartfelt gratitude for everything God had given me.

  Little did I know how much would be exacted of me in return, in the days to come.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I was awoken in the middle of the night. Though we kept separate apartments as monarchs, Fernando and I had managed to dine together that night, and in a moment of rare intimacy, given all the recent demands on our time, he had turned amorous. Later, he fell asleep in my arms. I lay with his head resting on my breast, as I caressed the wiry hair of his chest. I noticed a few stray white hairs; the sight roused tenderness in me.

  Hours later, insistent knocking startled me awake. Fernando grumbled, burying his head in a pillow as I eased him aside. I pulled on my robe and padded hastily to the door. Though it was March and winter was almost over, the night’s chill emanated from the alcazar’s stone, so that I was shivering by the time I cracked open the door. Ines peered at me from the passageway, her hair in a plait under her bed-cap, her own robe clutched about her.

  “What is it?” I whispered, so as not to wake Fernando again. “Is it Juan? Is he ill?”

  “No, no, His Highness is well, fast asleep. It’s the marquis of Cádiz. He’s here. He asks to see you. He says it’s urgent.”

  Alarm rippled through me. “Cádiz is here? But he’s supposed to be overseeing our latest offensive in Andalucía; Fernando charged him with the task until he goes there himself.”

  As I spoke, I glanced back at the bed. Fernando did not move, sunk in slumber. He’d been working for weeks on end, organizing the new battle strategy,
traveling all the way to his own Cortes in Aragón to harangue them for extra money. We were almost ready; in a few weeks’ time, while I saw to the cumbersome move of our court back to the south, he was due to ride ahead and take up the reins of the crusade.

  “I’ll be with him in a moment,” I said, passing a hand over my own unbound hair. “Go now, before we wake the king.”

  I dressed in a dark gown, tying my hair back in a net and throwing a wool mantle over my shoulders. As I descended the stairs in the torch-lit cold, I heard men’s voices echoing from the hall. Squaring my shoulders, I entered the room to find Chacón, Fray Talavera, and several important men of our court surrounding the marquis of Cádiz.

  He dropped to one knee at the sight of me. In disconcerted surprise, I took in his appearance: his black clothing filthy, his cloak and boots mud-spattered, as if he’d ridden nonstop from Andalucía. He also looked as if he’d aged years, his entire countenance haggard.

  “Majestad,” he whispered, as the other men stared, “forgive me.”

  I thought irritably that he must have had another quarrel with Medina Sidonia. This time blood must have been spilled, or he’d not have ridden all this way.

  “You have come a long way for my forgiveness,” I remarked. “Pray, what is the cause?”

  Cádiz did not speak; as I watched his eyes fill with tears, I looked, bewildered, to Fray Talavera. My confessor said quietly, “There has been a terrible defeat.”

  “Defeat?” I looked back at Cádiz, still prostrate before me. “What defeat?”

  “Near the city of Málaga,” Cádiz answered in a low voice. “In the pass of Ajarquía. Medina Sidonia, the master of Alcántara, and I … we decided to lead a raid into the passes to scorch the fields and prepare for His Majesty’s arrival and the taking of Málaga. But El Zagal learned of our intent and he attacked us without warning.”