‘The reason I am here, the reason I have had to leave my work, has nothing to do with your going out, nor indeed about your treatment. I am here because of your behaviour towards the servants. They have been coming to me with their complaints.’
Juana looked at him, incredulous. ‘I never heard the like! Servants complaining about their mistress; what is this?’ This was all most difficult; first the confusion about her father and now being called to account by vassals.
‘You have behaved in a disgraceful manner. You have dared to throw dishes at them.’
‘What do you mean I have dared? Who “dared” to question my actions?’
‘You ought to feel a thousand shames. I can imagine what your mother would say if she only knew. She would never have debased herself in such a manner.’
‘Marqués, my mother had the luxury of having her own servants about her. I am denied that. Instead I have to suffer your servants. It is their behaviour you should question.’ Her voice grew louder and harsher. She was furious at having to justify herself. ‘They are insolent, refusing to obey even a simple request. They speak to me as though they were my equal. They turn their back on me and ignore me if it suits them not to listen. I have every right to be angry. And, I ask, why should I have to explain myself to you? Everyone seems to have forgotten that I am the queen.’
‘Then the sooner you begin to act like one the better.’
Juana made a huge effort to control her temper; she would try a different tack. ‘Here is a simple solution to all my problems.’ She smiled and spoke softly, wheedling. ‘You will allow me one servant of my choice, to replace the irreplaceable Marta. You will escort me to the convent once in a while, and especially this week as it is Holy Week. With these two little favours, marqués, you will see in no time at all how content and amiable I can be. Life will be so much easier for all of us.’
But neither would be acceptable. The Marqués de Denia had had to dismiss all the servants chosen by Hernan Duque because they gossiped openly in the town when visiting with their families. As he had written to King Charles at the time, … they talked about things that they should not and carried tales that they should have left behind in the palace. They had also been found guilty of bringing back news of the outside world to tell the queen while he was doing everything in his power to keep her in ignorance.
And as for allowing Juana to visit the Convent of Santa Clara, that was quite out of the question. She would come into contact with the townsfolk and who could tell what might be said or done? The people of Tordesillas were already highly suspicious of the circumstances surrounding the queen and her apparent lack of freedom, accusing Denia of keeping her his prisoner. Her presence could be used to dispel such thoughts, but the risks were too great.
‘You know that I can do nothing other than obey your father's orders until such time that he either chooses to come to visit or he responds to a written request from me …’ in his anxiety to overcome her guile, he had magnified the lie.
‘Then write to my father.’ Her voice remained soft and gentle. ‘Say that I want to go away from this place where I am held prisoner, allowed to see no one. Tell him I wish to go to Valladolid, to have the grandees visit me to keep me informed and to counsel me.’
‘You write; he is your father!’ Denia shouted.
‘I command you, marqués.’
He changed the subject. ‘You will be pleased to know that as from today I am allowing an altar to be placed in the corridor.’
‘I am overwhelmed by your kindness. You are to allow me to leave my room for a short while to hear Mass in the corridor. And will you give me some money for the alms box? It would be a rather splendid gesture if you did. Do I need to remind you that it is my money I am speaking of?’
‘For goodness' sake,’ he railed, ‘I am tired of this continual whingeing!’ He reached for his purse, took out a few coins and tossed them on the table.
‘I wish to see my treasurer about my money.’
‘Not allowed. The subject is closed. I have wasted far too much of my valuable time. I should be attending to important matters.’
‘I want to see Catalina.’
‘This is ridiculous! I have told you she is safe and well. You surely can hear her and her courtiers from here. Just because your father has taken your son Ferdinand away to Flanders,’ he swallowed hard over this, yet another of his lies, ‘it does not necessarily follow that he would steal your daughter. When there is time I shall send her to you.’
‘And what of my toothache? How much longer do I have to suffer? Are you doing anything about it?’ Juana despised herself knowing how she sounded increasingly childish reaching out here, there and everywhere for some minor bequest, just one, granted.
‘Good Lord. Everybody has toothache,’ he called over his shoulder as he left the room.
She was alone. She stood for quite some time, still holding her cloak and hood.
‘You may have won the battle today,’ she said eventually, raising her chin in defiance at the closed door, ‘but the war is not yet over.’
The marqués was back at his writing table, wrapped in the luxury of his fur-lined gown and the importance of his role as sole correspondent of Tordesillas to his master King Charles I of Spain; the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. All letters had to be written in his own hand and usually in code.
He scanned the few lines he had written before his visit to Juana, In Valladolid and Medina and elsewhere everyone is saying that the queen is a prisoner and there are some who are thinking to free her and take her to Valladolid. She, of course, continues to complain of this place incessantly … He dipped his quill in the ink and continued,
I was interrupted because she sent for me. She wants me to write to her father immediately (I had repeated it was her father's will she remain here and that no change could be made until he said so). She keeps asking for Catalina, thinking her father might kidnap her. She had been begging for money for so long that I finally gave her some today. That should keep her quiet for a while. I have decided she can hear Mass in the corridor, she had ranted and raved about it for months, her language beyond belief, that I had to concede. That is not to say that I will not have it removed as a form of punishment if need be. Today she was artful as well as angry. She was so disarming at one point that I was almost tempted to allow her to go out. I really do have to keep my wits about me, as she can be so cunning. In town they are saying more often and more loudly that I keep her prisoner; you had best give that some thought.
He signed, sanded, folded, and then sealed the letter before sitting back well pleased with his morning's work.
Chapter 43
‘Ana, the French would probably call this déjà vu.’ Juana's mouth twitched nervously as she shook her head. The servant; Ana, a sullen, middle-aged reject of the marquesa, put the finishing touches to her dress. ‘I beg pardon?’ she enquired, cutting the thread to her sewing and smoothing the bodice at the side where she had completed the stitching.
‘Nothing, nothing; only a myriad of thoughts,’ she sighed, not wanting to admit that some of those thoughts frightened her.
Jewelled clasps were placed at intervals down the fronts of the sleeves then the chemise sleeves were carefully coaxed and puffed out between them. The only other jewellery she wore was her ruby, her mother’s gift, on its gold chain.
Her fingers fidgeted with the clasps and the necklace then traced the gold edge of her hood. Then suddenly the words were out, ‘I am afraid. I dare not think what is going to happen. Too often it seems I have dressed in preparation for …’
The Marquesa de Denia entered in a swish of expensive brocades. ‘My husband, the marqués is waiting, are you not ready yet? Hurry up.’
Juana steadfastly held her tongue instead of making some sarcastic remark in retaliation. She would not invite a confrontation, nor would she allow herself to be the one guilty of spoiling what might yet still be a day of pleasant surprises; she willed it to be such a day, a
special day. Unbelievably, and after so long a time, someone had come to see her.
She studied herself in the mirror. It was an old lady who returned her gaze. She was forty-two and the last year or so had taken their toll. Her hair, where it showed at the margin of her hood, was almost grey and quite lifeless. Age lines ran deep and rampant across her forehead and cheeks. Suspicion and mistrust filled her eyes; her lips were pulled down in a curve of anger and bitterness.
Juana addressed her image, ‘Denia must consider it an important occasion to allow me to wear my best dress and to permit a visitor; a visitor, at last. Oh, but I have lots to say and ask. But then again it could be something awful, something worse than ever before. Or it may be some tragic news. No not that, for surely Denia would have taken delight in delivering that personally.’
The marquesa tapped her foot with impatience, tempting Juana to linger an extra moment or two contemplating her appearance, and wondering.
She touched the ruby at her breast, thinking of it as her talisman and seeking courage from it. ‘I am ready.’
Deciding not to wait any longer, the marquesa had disappeared; the days being long gone when she would have deigned to wait for her queen or curtsey as she passed.
Juana walked slowly, enjoying the luxury of her full and heavy skirts, savouring the sheer freedom to stroll down the corridor, unguarded, knowing she was not going to be dragged forcibly back to her room. She was finally doing something denied her for how long?
There had been those other times when, attracted by the music and happy voices or laughter from the Grand Salon, Juana had sped over these very tiles desperate to catch a glimpse of Catalina and her young courtiers dancing. If luck was with her she did manage to watch the rows of dancers, all in such dazzling colours, executing the stately movements of a pavan or, better still, she saw Catalina with her partner dancing a galliard, her dainty feet carrying her, light as a feather, through the rapid steps. But Juana was always discovered and bundled back to her apartments. Nevertheless, the treasured images of her beautiful daughter sustained her through the following days of harsh treatment and meagre rations of bread and water; and they were still there when the interminable days of solitude became almost unbearable.
But even now, as she was savouring her liberty, the fear that had never been very far away came flooding back. Whoever had come had come simply to mock, to ridicule. The marqués had had her dressed up like this for some evil purpose, of that there was no doubt. He was no longer content with his usual regime and was seeking entertainment of a different sort.
She grasped at the ruby, her talisman. ‘Dear God, I do not know how much more of this torment I can take.’
There was an archbishop and his small court of clerics awaiting her in the salon, along with the marqués and marquesa and their full entourage.
Everyone bowed low then the archbishop approached and knelt before her, ‘Your royal highness,’ said a deep and mellifluous voice. He reached for her hand to kiss it.
‘Please stand, archbishop.’ She was unnerved by all this show of deference and looked about her with trepidation. ‘I see by your robes,’ her voice was ridiculously high, ‘that you are an archbishop.’ She was cross with herself for saying something so foolish.
‘I am the Archbishop of Granada. The regent, Adrian of Utrecht, has sent me with this Council of State for Castile,’ he indicated the others in the room, ‘to beg for an audience.’
Adrian of Utrecht; yes, she knew that name, but what was he doing as regent? And what had the archbishop said about her giving an audience?
‘I am perhaps a little deaf, I would ask you please to repeat what you said.’
‘We have come to beg an audience at the behest of the regent, my lady.’
She closed her eyes to ponder this. They had come to beg an audience with her. She was the one who begged for audiences; had done so for years. This didn’t make sense. Still, since someone was here to listen, there was no time to be lost, she must speak. There were wrongs that needed to be righted, but she must be cautious and not appear too eager.
‘Your highness,’ the voice of Denia broke into her thoughts. ‘It is procedure in a royal audience for the Council to be seated. On your behalf I shall send for some chairs.’
Juana coolly replied, ‘Marqués, must I remind you that protocol demands a chair for the archbishop and benches for the councillors. It has always been thus since the days of the Catholic Queen, the Lady Isabel, God rest her soul.’
As Juana made her solemn and dignified way to her chair she was faintly amused to see that someone had been able to find its canopy bearing her coat of arms, and for an instant cherished the unlikely possibility that perhaps Denia had guarded it carefully in readiness for such a moment.
She smiled, enjoying all this play-acting, this dream-like world in which she was both a player and a spectator.
‘My lady,’ the archbishop was impatient to begin, ‘Castile is in a perilous state and we come to beseech you, as our queen, to sign this decree putting down a dangerous revolt that is gathering momentum even as we speak. If you would simply put your signature here,’ he motioned for the necessary paper to be brought to him, ‘then our task will be made so much easier. We must not delay.’
‘I cannot. You must ask my father to issue such an order, his word would carry so much more weight than mine,’ she chided him.
The archbishop, who had been about to present Juana with the warrant, was unsure what to do. Denia had informed him that although she was totally demented, as long as she was treated as a queen; and they all kept up the pretence that this royal audience was a quite usual and regular affair for all of them, then everything would go smoothly, the warrant would be signed and he could leave.
But now they were talking about a dead man being called upon to sign, an indication of Juana’s madness no doubt, but somehow or other he had to have her realise that he was no longer alive and that she was the only one able to issue orders. He had to get her signature.
‘My lady, it is my sad duty and with great regret that I must advise you that your father died quite some time ago.’
‘That cannot be so. Denia will tell you himself that he still lives. He has told me so on so many occasions.’
All eyes were on Denia. The marqués bowed, smiling a benevolent smile, ‘I did indeed tell you so but that was because I thought by so doing I would calm your spirits.’
‘That is not the way I remember it at all. And you do surprise me inferring that you have ever held any concerns for me whatsoever. But enough of that; if as you say my father is dead then the archbishop must send for the prince.’
‘It is not Prince Ferdinand that we require,’ replied the archbishop.
‘Obviously not Ferdinand,’ Juana fired back, angry that they all seemed determined to confuse her, ‘I refer to Prince Charles.’
‘I beg your pardon for the misunderstanding. It is just that Charles, your son, is our king and not a prince.’
Juana looked from one to the other trying to remember if she should have known of this. She was convinced that she was still the queen and therefore he should still be a prince, and wasn’t he with her father, interceding on her behalf; or was her father truly dead?
The archbishop continued, ‘King Charles is in Austria, my lady, following the death of his grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian, God rest his soul.’
‘Marqués we must speak.’ Her mind was in turmoil; where was the truth for her to cling to? ‘I think you have been deceiving me for some time. Now, before these gentlemen I wish you to speak honestly. First, is my father dead, and do you swear it?’
‘Your father is dead. I accompanied his mortal remains to be laid alongside those of your mother.’ He bowed his head and sighed.
His obsequiousness nauseated her. How she loathed the man. But she must concentrate.
‘When did he die?’
‘Four years ago ma'am.’
‘And the Emperor Maximillian, he is de
ad too?’
‘He alas is also dead. King Charles has been elected ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.’
‘And Maximillian died when?’
‘Last year ma'am.’
‘And yet, marqués,’ the very words were choking her as they rushed to publicly confront her tormentor with his infamy, ‘for years you have consistently tried to persuade me to write to two dead men, my father and the emperor. What kind of cruel trickery was this?’
There was not a sound, there was no movement, everyone, everything focussed on Denia. The archbishop and his councillors waited in silence. A heat of embarrassment hung about them that equalled that of the August sunshine on the plains around the city; a still, heavy heat before a gathering storm.
‘There was no trickery. I assure you I only sought to divert your attention.’
‘You sought to prevent me from seeking justice, marqués.’ Turning to the others in a trembling rage she tried to explain. ‘Believe me, archbishop, everything I see and hear today is like some strange nightmare. It must be at least … oh, so many years … I forget. No matter, it was long ago in Flanders when it all started. That was when people first started lying to me and since then I have been surrounded by liars. No one has been truthful with me. And here you see before you the very epitome of all liars, that man.’ She pointed a long thin finger towards Denia her eyes never leaving the archbishop. ‘And for the same length of time I have been mistreated; and once again no one has been more expert than the marqués. He has proved himself a master of deception and of cruelty.’
The archbishop, while finding this all most distressing and probably demanding further enquiry, hoped to return to his urgent business, quickly, before it became completely lost in this thickening morass of difficulties which was quite outside his remit.
Juana sought to clear her mind desperate to make full use of this audience while it lasted, for there may not be another. She must concentrate.
Juana la Loca Page 24