Reign of Madness

by Lynn Cullen

  Beatriz spoke up quickly. “Not all of us. I shall stay, as well as doña Manuela, doña María, and doña Ángela.”

  I frowned in confusion as I faced the row of ladies, all dressed in rich cloth of Spanish black. The eight were the younger, unmarried women of my train. They were to stay for six months before returning home, unless Philippe found them husbands—it was expected that he do so.

  “You do not wish to stay?” I asked them.

  Their bowed heads were their response.

  The Dowager held my Book of Hours to her chin, as still and alert as a fox.

  I strove to smooth the alarm from my voice. “Is it homesickness? I am homesick, too. But I trust time will make it better, for all of us.”

  Beatriz drew in her lips and shook her head.

  “I shall make sure Philippe finds you good husbands,” I said, my panic rising. “I promise.”

  “Your Highness.” Doña Blanca glanced at the others. “It is not husbands that we seek. Not Burgundian husbands.”

  “But they are rich!” I exclaimed. “And handsome. And gay.”

  The ladies gave doña Blanca significant gazes.

  “Doña Juana,” said doña Blanca in her silvery voice, “many of us cannot understand their ways. What we call gluttony and lasciviousness they call gaiety. They honor drinking well more than living well. We can hardly abide this court’s perilous moral atmosphere.”

  “You judge too quickly! We have been celebrating my marriage and the marriage of your Prince Don Juan to Marguerite, as we all should. But I am sure that soon they will settle—”

  The Dowager put down my Book of Hours with a thud. “Go! All of you! The Archduchess would be better served by those who value the great favor she has bestowed upon them. Go back to your chapels in the Spains and pray for husbands—see how quickly that brings them to you.”

  Doña Blanca’s pretty mouth fell open. The ladies seemed to have stopped breathing.

  “Go now,” said the Dowager. “Shoo! We do not need you here. You. Doña Whoever. Show them out.”

  “Doña Juana,” doña Blanca said woodenly, “I am truly sorry. If I may have your permission to leave …”

  I put out my hand. One by one, they kissed it, then left.

  I stared at my hand, still foolishly outstretched, as though the ladies would come back if I left it there long enough.

  “You can do better than those sad-eyed madonnas,” said the Dowager. “They think to try to outpray the Virgin Mary.” She tapped the cover of my Book of Hours. “We shall have to order you a new one of these. The art here is so much finer than in the Spains.”

  11.

  3 April anno Domini 1497

  Heated water streamed over my head. I opened my mouth to let it pool on my tongue as steaming rivulets flowed down my sodden shift and into the tub in which I sat. I savored the warmth radiating into my scalp and skin and bones—and then Katrien’s bucket was empty. Immediately, chill air breathed upon my wet hair and flesh, turning comfort into pain, even with flames crackling in the fireplace, the windows shuttered, the walls covered with tapestries, and the floors blanketed with woven straw mats. Although there were buds on the trees and other signs of spring outside, inside the Prinsenhof in Ghent, the black stone walls had absorbed two seasons of cold. A bucket of warm water was no match.

  I sank lower into the cooling water, displacing the linens with which Katrien had so carefully lined the bottom of the copper tub. “Another bucket, Katrien, quickly.”

  “Yes, Mevrouw.”

  I paddled the water with my hands. Why had I not thought sooner of dismissing my Burgundian ladies and the remaining Spanish attendants for the day, and keeping only the stoic company of Katrien, the Flemish washerwoman? I was sad to have included Beatriz in the pack, but to show her favor overmuch would make it hard for her with the other ladies. Katrien was young, close to my age in years, yet she was as stout and strong as a pack horse, and though her hair might be white-blond under the curious winged linen bonnet that the local women wore, she was not especially beautiful with her round blue eyes and stub nose. But she was calm and efficient, and in her practical presence, I could relax in a way I never could when in the company of the Viscountess of Furnes, with her smug attention, or madame de Hallewin, with her quietly disapproving looks, or even Beatriz, who worried about me so much that it made me doubt myself. Katrien’s blandness was a perfect antidote to the tension around me. And best of all, though I told myself this mattered little, she was too plain to attract Philippe.

  She was waddling from the fireplace with a sloshing bucket when Philippe strode in with Delilah on his arm, followed by Hendrik and his old tutor, doctor François de Busleyden, now the Archbishop of Besançon.

  “What ho! Good men, this is a sight meant only for a husband,” Philippe said. Hendrik had already wheeled around and was disappearing out the door.

  “We will wait for you in the antechamber,” said the Archbishop, who then bowed and left as well.

  “Go on, go on.” Philippe waved at Katrien, stopped in her tracks with her bucket. “Do what you were doing. We do not want my wife to freeze.”

  She plodded forward. I winced as she poured the water over me, the pleasure of its warmth now gone with Philippe watching. I did not wish for him to see me this way, wet as a cat in the rain, my shift clinging to me and my hair hanging in sopping ropes.

  He watched the water run down my breasts. “I do wonder if you should bathe so much, Puss. It is a Moorish custom, isn’t it, to splash around in baths every week?”

  I glanced at Katrien. She stepped back with her empty bucket, her eyes properly downcast.

  Philippe put Delilah on the back of a chair, letting her transfer first one clawed foot and then the other onto the top rail of the headrest. “Didn’t your mother’s brother King Enrique favor Moorish ways? I hear he wore a turban and carried a scimitar.” He came over and stirred my water with his finger. “And he took all those baths—no wonder your mother relieved him of his crowns.”

  I leaned forward with a swoosh. “My mother did not ‘relieve him of his crowns’! She was his rightful heir, and when he died, she inherited them—though there were those who unjustly tried to keep them from her.”

  He flicked some drops at me. “I wondered when I would see that famous Spanish temper.”

  I covered myself with my arms. Though I might speak out against my mother, it wounded me to hear others do so. “When Enrique changed his mind and wanted his wife’s bastard child to be his heir, Mother was forced to fight for the crown. La Beltraneja hadn’t a drop of royal blood in her. That’s where she got her name—she was the child of a courtier, Beltrán de la Cueva.”

  “I was just playing, Puss.” He rubbed my arm. “You shiver. All jesting aside, do you think bathing is good for you, especially if you are with child?”

  I looked at my knees, my teeth rattling with cold. We had been wed for nearly half a year and still my womb had not quickened. I was seventeen and healthy—or so I had thought. When would he grow impatient with me?

  “Katrien,” I said, “I should like to be dried now.”

  She hurried over with a linen sheet, her wooden clogs thumping against the rush mats.

  “I have news from Marguerite,” Philippe said as I rose, dripping. I could smell Katrien’s scent of hay and cheese as she wrapped me in the sheet.

  Philippe pulled a letter from his doublet. Keeping the sheet around me, Katrien loosened the ties of my wet shift as Philippe scanned the contents of his sister’s missive. “She said she arrived in Spain in March.”

  “Four months at sea.” I moved my arms so that Katrien could tug off my chemise. “Did her ship run afoul?”

  “So much so that she thought she would die. She even wrote an epitaph for herself, and stitched it to her waistband for when her remains were found.” He lifted his letter and read.

  “‘Here lies Margaret, gentle damsel. Although she had two husbands, she died unwed.’

 
“Funny girl,” he said. “Only she would find humor in being betrothed twice and never married—let alone in dying.”

  Katrien settled a hooded robe of marten upon me. I snuggled into the glossy fur. “How does she find my brother?”

  “She said he was a gentleman, and lively, and intelligent, though of slighter stature than she expected.”

  “I suppose he is not as tall as she is. Poor Juan—as much as he loves to hunt and take his exercise, he has a small frame and a delicate constitution.”

  “Well, it seems that did not dim his ardor. He would have had them wed on the spot, just as you and I were, had your parents allowed it. Though they did get a dispensation to let them marry during Lent, your parents insisted on all the pomp and ceremony, with churchmen from the four corners of their kingdom to bless them.”

  “As is proper. They will be King and Queen of the Spains someday.”

  He took me in his arms. “I am glad we did not have to worry about that.”

  “Are you? Would you rather have wed me quickly than be King?”

  He knocked back my hood as he nuzzled my neck. “I should want both,” he murmured, “though at this moment, I could not give a damn if I were pauper or Pope.”

  I sent Katrien from the chamber with a look.

  Philippe brushed his lips along my jaw. “What else did your sister say about my brother?” I whispered.

  “He was quite impressed with the carriages she brought. Apparently, there are none in Spain.”

  “None,” I said, unconscious of my words as he touched his tongue to my ear. “None in Spain.”

  He opened my robe. “Oh, I think something is going to be ‘in Spain’ soon, n’est-ce pas? ”

  Afterward, we lay on my bed, catching our breath. My gaze went to Delilah, sitting on the back of my dressing chair. Today she wore no hood. She turned to me as if aware that I was looking at her.

  “Philippe?”

  He ran his arm over his face. “Hm?”

  “Delilah wears no hood today. How do you get her to be so still?”

  “Much hard work, Puss.”

  “For you, or her? Her, I daresay. She seems exhausted. She moves her head though she remains asleep.”

  He lifted his head to look. “She’s not sleeping.” He put down his head.

  “But her eyes are closed.”

  “In a fashion. They are sewn shut.”

  I raised myself. Peering from the bed, I could just make out the white thread binding her upper lids to her lower ones.

  “You blinded her?”

  “Don’t sound so horrified. It’s only temporary. We’ll take the threads out later.”

  “But—it seems so cruel.”

  “It’s for her own good. I had to starve her when I first got her—her spirit had to be broken for her to be of use to me. But now she gets the choicest bits from her catches, as you have seen on our hunts. I treat her like a queen.”

  I shivered.

  “Soon she’ll learn not to trust her own eyes, but to rely solely on me for direction. I won’t even need to use the hood when we’re outside. She won’t fly away—you’ll see.”

  “It doesn’t hurt her?”

  “No. Shhh. Go to sleep.” He laid his arm over my breasts, then closed his eyes.

  I thought he had drifted into slumber, so I started when he said, “Where were your other ladies this afternoon?”

  I looked over at him. His eyes were still shut.

  “I preferred privacy,” I said. “In case you should come,” I added.

  “It is not proper for an archduchess to keep only the company of a Flemish peasant girl, Puss. Appearances, you know. What would the King of France say if he knew my wife’s chief attendant was her washerwoman? Lord, if word got out, Grand-mère would be shrill. Anything that might lessen her in the eyes of the Tudor King Henry is anathema to her. She thinks he wears the crown that is her family’s, you know. According to her, he stole it on the Bosworth battlefield. The Yorks haven’t been on the throne for twelve years, and she still can’t get over it.”

  “But—”

  “Just keep your ladies about you. That is not asking for much, is it?” He opened one eye, then patted my breast companionably. “Now, go to sleep.”

  12.

  20 October anno Domini 1497

  We had been wed a year. On this sunlit fall morning, our party had dismounted in a stand of beech outside Bruges, and our horses—in the Dowager’s case, the horses drawing her litter—were being led behind us. Yellow-dappled leaves hissed soothingly in the damp breeze. A nearby stream gurgled between reed-covered banks, mingling its muddy scent with the woody breath of the trees. Where the trees gave way in the distance to marshland, swaths of brown grass shimmered in the sun.

  And yet, as we strolled along the weedy trail, my senses strained elsewhere. Specifically, they were latched upon the strip of skin between my husband’s glove and the cuff of his sleeve, the sinuous, veined flesh revealed as he held up Delilah. I stared at this column of flesh while he told a story to Hendrik, who was trudging good-naturedly at his side. How did I keep walking and not groan aloud? Did others play lascivious pictures in their mind as they exclaimed about the color of the leaves—for the glimpse of Philippe’s strong wrist put me in mind of something similarly blue-veined and upright, something for which I longed both day and night. Or was I simply going mad for love?

  The Dowager, leaning on the arm of the lushly beautiful Viscountess of Furnes as they strolled, spoke up behind me. “How is your sister?”

  I started guiltily, as though my thoughts could be heard. If anyone could divine the thoughts of another, it would be the Dowager Duchess.

  I hastily composed my face. The velvet hood of my headdress swished against my neck as I turned. “Which one, Madame?”

  “The youngest one. Catalina.”

  “She is well, Madame. She and María send me letters. They are quite fond of Marguerite.”

  The Dowager swatted at her sheer veil, blown into her face from the tip of her hennin. “Who wouldn’t be? Spain has never seen anything like that girl. Your brother was lucky to get her.”

  I swung forward. Lucky indeed. My sisters were full of news about how smitten Juan was with Philippe’s sister. María, in particular, breathlessly reported that his doctors begged him to use moderation in bedding his wife, for in overindulging himself, he compromised his health. Juan would not listen, María said. He would spend every moment dallying with Marguerite, giving up hunting, jousting, and riding just to be with her—how that sounded like my impetuous brother. Mother was asked by the doctors to intervene, but she would not. What God had joined together, she said, she would not put asunder. How wondrous that Mother was not trying to control the situation, as indeed she tried to control me through her barrage of demanding letters, which I still had not answered since my wedding. It seems that what had started as my fear of being able to account for myself had turned into defiance, though I knew in my heart that it was merely a weak person’s pitiful attempt at showing her strength. How easy it was, with the buffer of the sea between us, for me to insist that I would not be bullied.

  “Will she be going to England soon?” the Dowager asked.

  Still chuckling from the story he was telling, Philippe turned away from Hendrik. “Who, Grand-mère?”

  “Juana’s sister, Catalina. She’s to marry the Tudor impostor’s boy, Arthur.”

  “She is not yet twelve,” I said. “Mother says she does not have to go until she is sixteen.”

  “Is there something wrong with her that she cannot be sent?” said the Dowager. “Our dear Marguerite was sent to France as a three-year-old. It was Charles’s loss that he didn’t keep her. Now he’s chained to that brat Anne of Brittany, when he could have had our sweet girl. I bet he cries salty tears into his crown. Well. Regardless. Perhaps your mother will have a change of heart. Her daughter would be better spent elsewhere than on a Tudor.”

  “Grand-mère,” Philippe said, “
can we not just enjoy the leaves and for once not worry about the Tudors?”

  “You should care!” the Dowager cried. “You were cheated from any chance at the crown for yourself when that dirty Welshman stole it!”

  Aliénor patted the Dowager’s hand on her arm and smiled in amusement at Philippe, as would an old friend at a long-standing familial argument. Would I always be the outsider?

  “Was it ever within my reach, Grand-mère? Juana has a far better chance of getting her mother’s crowns than I ever did to inherit the English crown through your side of the family. A good dozen folk would have to die before it got to me. Although I suppose there are ways to speed the process.” Philippe gave the Viscountess a wink. “Grand-mère, did your brother King Richard ever say what happened to his two nephews? Did they ever show up after their visit to the Tower of London?”

  The Viscountess widened her eyes in scandalized mirth. The Dowager’s eyes bulged, too, but not with any sort of glee.

  “If you think my dear brother would murder his own nephews just to keep his crown—”

  “Philippe jests, Madame.” Aliénor stroked the Dowager’s hand. “You must not let him peeve you this way. He has needled you thus hundreds of times and still you take his bait.”

  The Dowager batted the air with a growl. Aliénor and Philippe exchanged smiles.

  A familiar ache hollowed my gut. How easy my husband was with the Viscountess. But though I had been keenly watching the discourse between them over the past year, I had not yet caught them in any real improprieties. Yes, Philippe did choose to dance with her on many occasions. Yes, he did often race with her at hunts. Yes, when we went out for strolls, he often dropped back to walk with her, their falcons on their arms, to chat amiably. Once she sent him a gift of gloves. On that occasion, I had not been able to hold my tongue.

  “What do you expect?” Philippe had said when I questioned him. I had found the gloves in his chambers, bound by a silvered-blue ribbon. “Was I not to accept them? She ruined my pair at hunt when she threw that bloodied duck at me—you saw her. She was only replacing them.”