by Lynn Cullen
“My picture?”
Papa glanced at Mother.
“It shouldn’t be too hard for him to catch your freshness and beauty.”
She was calling me fresh and beautiful? Her usual manner was to home in on the areas in which I needed improvement, not to compliment me. An alarum sounded in my head.
“We need this picture to send to Maximilian, King of the Romans.” She looked at Papa as if waiting for him to chime in.
Papa leaned forward, signed the document, then pushed it to the secretary to sand, silent as the anvil of his emblem.
Mother frowned at him before continuing. “He has a boy of marriageable age,” she told me. “A healthy, intelligent-enough, athletic boy, a year older than you. Philippe is his name.”
“Philippe inherited the title of Duke of Burgundy from his mother,” said the Cardinal. “Mary of Burgundy was one of the richest women in the world. From his father’s side he carries the title Archduke of Austria and brings the wealth and ambition of the Habsburgs. As his wife, you would live in splendor.”
“I suppose he can mount his own horse,” I said. I saw Papa hide his smile. I warmed with pride at amusing him. How many times had we heard Mother tell the story of how, as a girl, she had rejected the future King of France as a suitor on the grounds that he could not mount his steed unaided?
Mother’s own look was long and displeased. “It is meet that we cement our alliance with Maximilian against Charles in France. Even your father agrees with that. I believe I can take care of the English question with Catalina.”
“But Catalina’s just seven.” I glanced at Papa for support. Surely he would not agree to send either of us away. Not yet.
“She will go to England when she is of suitable age.” She looked between Papa and me. “You know my mind, Fernando. Neither Juana nor Catalina—none of my girls—shall marry before sixteen. That is not unreasonable, not when the French and the English marry their children when mere babes.”
“True, true,” the Cardinal agreed. To me he said, “Poor Marguerite, Philippe’s sister, was betrothed and shipped to France to marry Charles as a three-year-old, only to be rejected by him when she turned eleven. Then he would not send the poor girl home, thinking he might wed her off to his benefit. He has always been a scoundrel.”
“You sent our Isabel to Portugal when she was ten,” I said to Mother, “and she had to stay there for three years.”
Mother looked pained. “That was an entirely different situation. I shall never forgive the Portuguese King for making her his hostage as a condition of our peace. Do you think I wished to send my—”
“Favorite daughter?” Had I gone mad? My tongue would be the end of me.
“I was going to say ‘oldest,’ ” she said drily.
“You offered me in exchange for her!”
“That was just a ruse to get him to let her go.”
Could she not see how this had terrified me?
“Will I have the right to refuse if I see fit, as you did when your brother tried to pick for you? You turned down the future King of France for not being able to ride a horse and the future King of England for being able to ride a horse too well.” My heart pounded. I had never stood up to my mother before. Hostias en vinagre, who had?
“And I was right about both, wasn’t I?” she said, unruffled. “The Duke of Berry was so weak that he lost his place for the throne, and when the Duke of Gloucester became Richard the Third, his zest for dominance drove his countrymen into rebellion.”
“You are fortunate that your mother has your best interests at heart,” said Cardinal Mendoza. “Her half brother the King cared not two pins for her. I need not remind you what a villain he was. You do remember what he did to his six-month-old daughter.”
“Let it drop,” Mother said.
The Cardinal turned his old turtle’s beak to me. “When people suggested that the baby was not his true daughter, he had her nose broken to make her look more like him.”
“This is why I am glad to be so removed from the succession!” I exclaimed. “I cannot bear what people will do to have the power of the crowns.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Mother flashed the Cardinal a look.
“I do know!” I said. “I don’t want any part of it. I would rather be a—a miller’s wife.”
“Oh?” said Mother. “You don’t think they have their own problems?”
Papa put his quill in his inkhorn. “Come here, Juana.”
He made a ring with his thumb and his forefinger. “Can you fit your hand through here?”
It had been our game since I was little for me to slip my hand through the ring, he always feigning surprise at how I could make my slender hand do so, I always beaming as if I had performed a great feat.
When I leaned in to thread my fingers through his circle, I got the slightest whiff of orange peel and honey, as though it had transferred to his person when he had embraced someone. I looked up at him.
“Such a small hand,” he said.
Something seized in my gut.
“Thank you.”
“As long as it fits, you do not have to marry.” He nodded in affirmation, perhaps thinking that was why I continued to stare.
“Really, Fernando,” said Mother. “Why don’t you tell her the truth?”
I glanced at Mother. Could she smell the perfume, too?
“I am,” Papa said.
With a sigh, she dipped her pen into the ink, and signed the next document. She reached for another paper she had set aside. “Should we give Beatriz de Peraza the funds she requests to repay her?” She caught Papa’s gaze. “She did supply Colón well when he stopped at Gomera on his voyage. She claims that as regent governor of Gomera, she is due the twenty-three thousand maravedís that she spent on him.”
Papa looked surprised. “I did not know she was regent governor.”
The Cardinal glanced at Mother.
Papa still held his fingers in a ring. “When did her husband die? He was so young. One would have expected him to live a long, vigorous life when you sent her to the outer isles of the Canaries to wed him. Could you have sent her farther away?”
“No,” Mother said. “Though I would have if I could.”
Papa drew away his hand, seeming to forget me. “Now that she is a widow, are you going to ask her back to serve you?”
“Should I?”
They stared at each other.
Papa did not wear perfume. And the scent on him was not Mother’s.
“It’s up to you,” Papa said.
Mother’s jaw tightened. “Then—never.” Her pen scratching, she signed the paper.
Papa smiled when he saw me watching. “What is it, Juana?”
How could they speak of this lady from Gomera before me? Did they think that I could not hear, could not smell, could not think? No. No. The Anvil would never betray his wife of many years, no matter if she was difficult.
Yet he had given himself to other women. Though we did not speak of the circumstances at home, Papa had a son who was about the same age as my sister Isabel. There were no ill feelings—Papa had even made Alfonso of Aragón the Archbishop of Zaragoza. Mother allowed him to visit at court, and then Papa would take him hunting. Nobody was hurt. It was just something that had happened in the past. So it was implied.
Against my will, my mind’s eye dragged me to the first reception for Colón in the Saló del Tinell. Even as I fought like a trapped creature against the vision, I saw Papa leaning in to talk to Mother. I saw the glittering row of rubies on his collar. As my sights centered on the space left by the missing ruby, I remembered what I had not let myself recall until that moment.
Papa had not been in the Saló del Tinell when I had left to get Estrella. He had returned only after I had heard the persons coupling in Mother’s prayer booth.
My Anvil. Papa. Tell me you would not do this.
Oh, Papa.
4.
1 April anno Domini 1494
>
It was a fresh spring morning; we were on the road from Valladolid to Medina del Campo. Drums were thumping in the distance like the heartbeat of God. From outside the hooded cart in which I joggled along with my younger sisters and Beatriz came the weary clip-clop of hooves, the hollow snorts of mules, and the groan of a thousand wagon wheels upon the dry Castilian plain. Far ahead, Mother and Papa rode on horses caparisoned in scarlet and gold, leading a caravan that raised the dust on the road for nearly a league.
Inside our cart, we saw none of this. We jostled in the gloom, Catalina singing in her child’s clear voice while she brushed María’s waist-length hair of strawberry-gold. Beatriz was asleep with an open book on her lap, a fly sidling its way up the breast of her nun’s gray robes.
Sighing, I gazed toward the single source of light, a small barred window in the door. I was finding my entrapment within our rolling cage particularly hard to endure. The song Catalina sang was one then popular at court, a ballad about Mother and Papa’s undying love for each another. It proclaimed how Papa’s gallantry toward Mother made him the Last True Knight.
Hostias en vinagre.
I had not told my sisters about Papa’s infidelities since learning of them the previous year. I could not bear for them to know that my hero had feet of clay. Nor could I stand to confront him with it. He was happily unaware of my knowledge, which in itself made me furious. I had to bear the burden of keeping his secret. I had to protect him, when he, as my father, should be protecting me. So I had made it my business to stay away from him, not only because I could not bear to face him, but also, yes, because I wished to punish him. As wrong and childish as it was, I wished to hurt him the way I had been hurt. Yet each time I punished him by turning away, I was punishing myself twofold. How I wished for the innocence of my sisters.
Catalina began the next verse.
“Must you sing that?” I cried out.
She paused with her brush. “What?” She appeared to be all teeth those days. Her new-grown front pair seemed too large for her mouth.
“Why not?” said María. “It’s beautiful. I like the part where Papa saves Mother from the Moors.”
Catalina lifted her reedy voice to resume. Just then, the caravan stopped. I banged on the leather walls.
“What’s wrong?” María kept her head rigid so as not to ruin the fanciful hairstyle Catalina was creating for her.
A footman opened the door at the rear.
“Why did we stop?” I asked.
“Your Highness, to water the horses.”
“Let me out.”
Beatriz bolted upright. “Highness! Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry. Take care of María and Catalina.”
I pushed into the light of day. We had come to a lush valley lying within a fold of the arid plains. Small trees overhung a swift river flowing beside the road. The air had the woody green scent of leaves and wet earth. I closed my eyes and let the sunshine warm my face.
Catalina poked her head out the door. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.” I hopped down, then, once out of sight, changed directions, hoping to throw Beatriz from my scent when she came looking, as I knew she would.
Holding up my skirts to free them from the long grass at the side of the road, I strode past horses being led, splashing, into the river. Stable boys swarmed up the banks, loaded with filled leather buckets for the mules still hitched to the wagons. Ladies emerged from behind the curtains of their litters, handed down by groomsmen. They dipped into halfhearted curtseys as I passed.
Near the front of the caravan, in the shade of a grove of oaks and surrounded by attendants, two lutenists, and a flute player, Mother rubbed her hands together as her proud lady Aixa poured water over them from a silver ewer. Papa leaned against a nearby tree with his sleeves rolled up and his hands still damp from washing, chatting with Cardinal Mendoza, who sat in a folding chair. The cardinal’s litter rested on the grass behind him, its mules having been led to the river to drink. Whereas Mother and Papa usually rode horses, the Cardinal was carried in a litter like Mother’s ladies. His old bones couldn’t abide the back of a horse.
I wheeled around, hoping I hadn’t been seen.
“Juana!”
I stopped.
“Juana,” called Mother, “come here.”
I did as asked. I curtseyed briefly to her; Papa kissed my cheek. I did not look at him.
Mother took the towel offered by Aixa without acknowledging her. “We never see you anymore. You’re always chasing off with the Latinist. As a matter of fact, where is she? She should be with you now.”
“Please, My Lady Mother. I would like to ride a horse.”
Papa turned and told his man to call a stable boy.
“Fernando,” Mother said, “do you think that’s wise?” She handed her used towel to Aixa, who took a step backward, her eyes downcast.
“The child wants to ride a horse. Must you control even that?” He smiled at Cardinal Mendoza, who returned his mild amusement.
Mother lifted a finger at another lady standing by. “See if you can find me an infusion of chamomile.” Her lady hurried off into the melee of persons freed momentarily from their conveyances.
“Does your belly ache, my princess?” Papa asked her.
Mother ignored his question. “I’m not denying Juana anything. Those girls ride in the wagon for their own protection. There are those who would kidnap them or harm them, like that villain did to you.”
“It seems my wife will not let me out of her sight now,” he said to the Cardinal. “The worst crime that little man did against me was to cause my imprisonment for the rest of my natural life.”
“Don’t joke about it, Fernando.” She pushed her filmy veil from her cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re right—I haven’t gotten over it, and I won’t.”
“You weren’t even there,” said Papa.
Mother looked at him.
“Do not the Scriptures say to forgive and forget?” said the Cardinal.
Mother shifted her gaze from Papa. “It’s not a matter of forgiving and forgetting. I have forgiven that little man. My sins take away the right to judge him harshly. But I do not take lightly things that endanger my family. Or my husband.”
“You cannot fault a wife for protecting what is hers,” said the Cardinal. He slid his gaze to Aixa and took a drink.
He lowered his cup. “So,” he said to me, “you wish to ride like your mother? She’s a legendary horsewoman, you know. She’s been known to ride thirty miles at a gallop. Few horses are a match for her.”
“Or men,” Papa murmured.
The Cardinal laughed.
Did they not know how disgusting they were to me? “Never mind about the horse,” I said. “I shall find Beatriz.”
“Wait,” said Papa. “Here comes our food. Eat with us.”
A cook’s boy, carrying a domed tray, followed by the cook himself, arrived at our circle. The cook, a short, florid man whose doublet was spotted with grease, lifted the cover and sliced a black morcilla sausage into pieces to sample a bite.
Papa motioned impatiently. “Bueno, bueno, nobody wishes to poison us today.” The cook, still chewing, stepped aside. Papa helped himself as more cooks and their boys brought forth trays from farther back in the caravan, each dish tasted for poison. Soon a picnic of bread, cheese, dates, and honeyed pastries was at hand, though Mother still looked for her jar of chamomile infusion and I for a chance to flee.
“Have you heard from Fray Hernando lately?” the Cardinal asked Mother.
“Do you jest?” said Papa. “The good padre sent his first letter before he was outside the city walls when he left us last year, and keeps them coming every week. It seems he cannot let go of his job as Isabel’s confessor.”
“Surely,” said the Cardinal with a small smile, “Her Majesty has little to confess.”
Mother watched as he bit into his cheese. “On the contrary. That is why I took your reco
mmendation for my new confessor.”
“Fray Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros—a more stringent self-martyr you’ve never met,” said Papa. “The man lives in a hair shirt and sleeps on the floor.”
“He teaches me about penance,” said Mother.
Papa frowned. “He teaches you about misery.”
The Cardinal took a drink. “Have you something to be miserable about, My Lady?”
She turned to Aixa. “Please—have something to eat. You look hungry.”
“Your Majesty, I am fine, thank you.”
“I cannot have you wasting away. Fernando, don’t you have something for this lady to eat?”
Papa met Mother’s gaze, then flicked his finger for his page to bring a tray.
No expression disturbed the cold beauty of Aixa’s face. “I am not hungry, My Lady, but thank you for your concern.”
“Fernando, give her one of those almond pastries.”
Papa frowned. It was not for a king to serve a lady-in-waiting. Hesitantly, he took a wedge between finger and thumb.
“Feed it to her,” Mother said.
Hatred flashed in Aixa’s eyes.
“Do it, Fernando.”
The lady opened her mouth. Papa put the piece on her tongue as solemnly as if it were a Host, then turned to Mother, his jaw clenched.
A stable boy approached with a mule bearing my saddle. I threw my honeyed pastry to the grass and ran toward him.
“Juana!” Mother called. “Where are you going?”
“Lift me up!” I told the boy. “Please!”
He boosted me onto the pillion. I placed my feet against the solid wooden bar of the footrest, snatched the reins, and chirruped my mount forward.
Aixa was one of Papa’s lovers and Mother knew it. It could have been her in the prayer booth with him that day, her and her vile orange-and-honey perfume. Mother knew it. The Cardinal knew it. Papa knew they knew. How could they keep up their foul little game?
“Juana!”
I cracked the reins and soon reached a gallop. The pounding of the mule’s hooves soothed my jangling nerves. I urged my steed along the river, sending the drinking horses farther into the water, splashing and whinnying. Behind the last of the horses was a clearing along the bank. I could cross to the other side and get away from this madness, at least for a moment. I braced my feet against the planchette and steered for the water.