by Lynn Cullen
“Please,” I moaned. “Stop.”
Mother closed her mouth.
Philippe frowned at me in annoyance. “What, Puss?”
Papa laid down the pen.
I drew in a breath. I was not yet ready to face the meaning of the words I was about to utter.
“We cannot leave the Spains. I am carrying a child.”
29.
24 August anno Domini 1502
It was August in Toledo, when the air radiates with the heat of an iron pulled from the fire. Lizards, thin as a knife, darted tails a-slither over the hot stone walls of the houses and churches. Platter-eyed cicadas, big as one’s thumb, wailed from the hills, their call building then throbbing then ebbing into the thick dusty air. Their cries accompanied my half sister Juana as she read from the Scriptures at dinner that afternoon, though we had not the good fortune for their screeching to blot her out. No, we were forced to listen to her labor her way through a passage in Ephesians as we ate, our spooning and sipping punctuating the verses that exhorted wives to submit to their husbands.
Oh, yes, I thought as I poked at a chickpea in my stew. I did submit to Philippe, even though most nights he preferred roaming the streets to sleeping with his newly pregnant wife. I let him take my body whenever he visited my bed, to preserve it from the damage it would sustain should I have resisted, yet I got no rest when he left me alone. As much as I wished not to care about his doings, I lay awake listening for the sound of male laughter out on the streets. When I heard it, or a murmuring in French, or a sharp female cry, my stomach would roil with anger and fear, until at last, sapped by the new life growing from his seed within me, I fell asleep.
My sister Juana turned a gilded page of her missal. “‘So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ the Church.’ ”
I laughed out loud.
Mother looked up, her spoon to her mouth. “Is there something humorous, Juana?”
I shook my head, then, in spite of myself, burst out again. How true—how greatly Philippe did love his own body. Had anyone ever indulged his appetites so generously?
Mother waited for an explanation. I saw Beatriz, returned to court after her visit home, press her lips together.
“I am sorry, My Lady Mother.”
She watched me for a moment. “You seem agitated.”
“I am well, Mother.”
She frowned, unconvinced. “Eat. You need it for your child.”
Spoons clicked against bowls as dining resumed. Mother’s favorite harpist strummed softly, while outside, the rasping of the cicadas soared. The other Juana searched for the place where she had stopped her bumbling.
“Juana,” Mother said.
Both my new sister and I looked up.
Mother’s scowl designated me as her subject. “Your father says the Cortes in Aragón are prepared now to name you as heir.”
I smiled as if that were happy news. Well, it was good that little Charles would have another crown to wear someday—the better to hold up his head against those who might scorn him.
The blast of the herald’s trumpet alerted us to someone’s approach.
A page opened the door and announced, “Don Philippe, Prince of Asturias.”
I put down my spoon as my husband entered.
He kissed Mother’s hand, then mine, then squared himself before Mother. Her ladies exchanged wry glances.
“I am sorry to interrupt your meal, Your Majesty.”
She pursed her lips, then spoke. “Won’t you sit with us?”
He cleared his throat. “I come from my own dinner, where I just learned that you have freed the Castilian men charged with killing three of my attendants.”
“Sit, Don Philippe. Ladies, you don’t mind?”
Philippe remained standing. “You freed murderers of innocent men.”
“Don Philippe, if your men were innocent, would they not still be alive?” She went back to her eating.
“This is not acceptable!”
She lowered her spoon. “If you had cared to preside at the court of justice with me this morning, you could have had your say then.”
“Pedro had arranged a hunt. I could not offend him.”
Mother looked at him, then took up a piece of bread.
Anger and dismay twisted Philippe’s beautiful face. All his life he had been coaxed and coddled into agreement. It was possible no one had ever challenged him directly. He certainly did not like it now.
“If you will not hang those murderers, I will—I will have François reopen the case. I cannot have an uprising of Castilians against my men.”
“And it is precisely because I do not wish for an uprising of Castilians against your men that I made the judgment that I did. Save the Archbishop’s talent for arguing other cases. There should be plenty of them, the way your men are behaving.”
“My men—”
“In the meantime,” she said, overriding his speech, “I suggest that you instruct your men to repair to their own beds at night like the citizens of Toledo. It will be good for their health.”
Philippe blinked at her. “What kind of country is this?”
“My daughter’s. Someday. And yours, in a fashion, if you behave.”
He looked to me. I glanced away.
“You haven’t heard the last of this,” he said to Mother. He strode from the room.
Mother’s attendants slipped me expressions of pity. My Burgundian women watched with interest; Beatriz grimaced with her customary worry. I suppose I could have borne it had not my new sister stared at me with a look of bovine incomprehension. I excused myself, claiming that my early state of pregnancy necessitated that I take some air in the courtyard, in the cool shade of the orange trees. Beatriz got up to accompany me.
Our skirts dragging against the tiled floors, we made our way to the covered arcade. “Is there anything I can do for you?” Beatriz asked.
“You are too good. No, nothing.”
“I have a new Latin text of Plutarch. Perhaps we could read it together.”
I smiled. Only Beatriz would think that deciphering words of wisdom from an extinct civilization could bring one cheer. But perhaps it would comfort her. “Yes, please get it.”
When she left, I leaned my cheek against the relative cool of a pillar, savoring the meager breeze limping across the courtyard.
“Are you well?”
I pushed upright. Diego Colón rose from a bench on the opposite side of the pillar.
“I didn’t see you.” I tried to hide my delight. “Here again? In this heat.”
“May I claim that I’m watching the storks? Someone got me interested.”
I glanced at the nest on the bell tower of Santo Tomé, then laughed. “You may claim anything you like.”
“In truth, I have been making a study of them. I have come to see that this time in the chick’s life is particularly hard on the parents.”
I followed his gaze back up to the pile of sticks. A young stork clung to the edge of the nest, flapping its fluffy white wings. You could see the concern on the old-man faces of its parents as they watched it lurch forward, then flounder to regain its hold.
“The miracle is that the chick will learn to fly,” he said. “What gives it the confidence to trust its wings and not drop to the earth?”
“Perhaps it knows no better. It does not know that if it doesn’t move its wings, it will dash into the ground. If it knew the consequences, perhaps it would not be so brave.”
“So it is a case of blissful ignorance.”
I laughed. “Maybe so.”
We watched the young stork flap again, this time with such enthusiasm that only one grasping claw kept it attached to the nest.
“He’s almost got it,” Diego said.
“It will leave soon,” I said. “The whole family. The empty nests look so forlorn in the winter. I wonder w
here storks go.”
“Africa, I think.”
I looked back to Diego. “Truly?”
“I grew up in the monastery of Santa María de la Rábida near Palos. Every fall I would watch flocks of storks pass over, bound for the coast only a stone’s throw away. From there, it is not far to Africa. Then every spring, I would watch the flocks fly over again. Some of the storks would stay. They would wheel in the sky, around and around, for days on end, until their mates came. Then they would have their happy reunion, throwing back their heads and clacking together their beaks.”
“I have heard them. It sounds like rattling sticks.”
“Stork love-talk,” he said with a smile. “As a boy, I would stop whatever I was doing to watch them. I wished to show my father, but he was never there.”
“Where was he?”
“Traveling.” He saw my troubled look. “Oh, he came back now and then. Do not worry, the brothers were good enough to me. I was free to raise myself, which gave me the great luxury of letting me find on my own the person I should be. But there were times when I envied my little brother, who was brought up by his mother, Father’s mistress in Córdoba, until he was taken to your brother’s court. I envied him, and resented his mother—not very pretty emotions. I thought that they were getting Father’s attention. It wasn’t until later that I learned that none of us got it. He lavished it all on his most demanding mistress—the enterprise of the Indies.” The father stork flew from the nest, its black-tipped white wings bright against the hard blue sky. “That is why I am a student of my beautiful bird friends here. They are free of ugly thoughts.”
“Perhaps I can learn from them, too.”
“You, Your Majesty? Are you not happy?”
I gave a dry laugh. “Have you ever met my husband?”
Shouts arose from Philippe’s quarters in the palace. Shortly after, a page dashed through the arcade. He could be heard calling to a groomsman at the palace entrance. Hoofbeats announced the page’s hasty departure.
I would not let them end this moment. “I now have no excuse for unhappiness. I am in possession of the luckiest of charms.” I drew the great pearl from my bodice, where it hung from a ribbon around my neck.
A smile lit Diego’s face. “You wear it?”
“Oh, yes. Except to sleep. It’s much too lumpy,” I said, which was only half of the truth. I did not wish for Philippe to see it when he ravaged me at night. It was not his jealousy I feared. Philippe would not dream that another man had given it to me. No one, he assumed, would dare. No, it was the size and perfection of the gem that made it vulnerable. My insatiable husband would have to have it for himself. But this one thing, regardless of its value—it could have been made of clay—this one thing was mine.
“You have woven a cradle for it.”
I took it from around my neck and gave it to him to see. “Katrien made it, of black ribbon. I could not bear to put a hole in it, but since I wished to keep it close …” The sweetness of Diego’s smile undid me. “Katrien is my washerwoman,” I murmured.
“Yes, I know.”
I gazed at him, wondering how he would know the name of such a low-ranking servant. Just then hooves thundered on the street outside. Before I could gather my thoughts, Philippe, clothed only in an open shift and breeches, stormed into the arcade with his men. They rushed past as if Diego and I were invisible.
“There is trouble,” said Diego.
Guards clanked by in their armor. A trumpet blasted in alarm. A moment later, an anguished cry arose from Philippe’s chamber.
Diego placed the pearl in my hand. “Go. He needs you. Godspeed,” he said, but I was already running.
Nearly all the German guards who had come to the Spains with Philippe were already outside his chamber door when I arrived.
“What is it?” I demanded of them.
A guard knelt. “Madame, His Holiness François de Busleyden, the Archbishop of Besançon, is dead.”
“The Archbishop? That cannot be. I just saw him this morning.”
The guards exchanged glances but gave me no answer.
I tightened my fist around the pearl and made my way through them, my skirts crushing against their armor. Inside, Philippe stood at a window overlooking the church of Santo Tomé. He turned and, seeing it was me, opened his arms.
“Philippe, is it true?”
His body shook with silent sobs as he held me in his embrace.
“I am sorry,” I said into his shoulder. “What happened?”
I could hear his pained swallows.
“Where is he?” I asked gently.
“In there. You can’t go in.”
Philippe cried out loud, then buried his face in my headdress. “God forgive me. He was more of a father to me than my own father.”
“I hope he did not suffer,” I said.
He pulled back, his face contorted. “Is it your purpose to make me feel worse? If it were not for me, he would be alive this moment.”
“Philippe, hush. You did nothing but hold him in the highest esteem.” I tried to gather him into my arms but he fought against me. “It was his wish to come to the Spains,” I said. “He could have stayed in Brussels, but he wanted to come.”
“Well,” he snapped, “it wasn’t his wish to be poisoned, was it?”
I put down my arms.
“Yes. That is what I said. He was poisoned. Poison meant for me.”
“This is your grief talking.”
“He was well enough this morning. Then he excused himself at dinner, saying he felt ill. I thought he left because he was angry at the news that your mother had pardoned those murderers. That’s why I sought her out after I finished my own meal. Then I went down the street for a little entertainment—I never dreamed I would not see him alive again.”
“But why would anyone—”
“Someone in my party made a Spanish lady’s husband mad.”
I searched his face.
“It wasn’t me, if that’s what you are thinking.”
Realization iced my blood. His denial was his confession. “I suppose you’ll say it was Hendrik.”
“It wasn’t Hendrik.”
“Of course not. Though wouldn’t it be convenient to blame him?”
“I promise you, it was not I who dallied with that woman last night. I did no wrong, yet I was blamed—the biggest dog always stands out in a pack.”
“You would not be blamed for anything if you stayed in at night.”
He ran his hand over his face. “I hate this godforsaken land. I want to go home.”
“But we can’t. Our unborn child—”
“I can,” he said. “You can come later.”
If he left, he could see to the children. People would be less apt to whisper about Charles if Philippe was at court. “Then go.”
His look of relief narrowed into a squint. “Are you trying to be rid of me?”
“No. The children—”
“If I left before being confirmed by the Cortes of Aragón, only you would be acknowledged. Is that it? I should go, so that you will become sole heir for the throne of Aragón?”
“How little you know me if that is what you think.”
He snatched my hand. “What is in here? You keep it closed.”
“Nothing.”
“Look at how you keep it clenched. It makes me wonder if you carry poison.”
“Poison! Why would you even think that?”
“You yourself said that your grandmother was poisoned. And now poor François.”
“Poison was Luna’s madness. No one has used it since then.”
“Open your hand!”
“Grief undoes you.”
“Open it!”
He shook my wrist. The pearl dropped to the floor with a silken thud.
He picked it up. “Well, well. What is this?”
I swallowed. “It is what it looks like.”
“Then you do not mind if I take it?”
“It’s mi
ne.”
He stroked the pearl as if it were a little pet. “You will not part with a simple jewel, yet I am supposed to believe you care nothing for the crowns and all that comes with them.”
“Take it, then.”
“I can see why you are attached to it. It is a superior specimen. And what a clever little net you keep it in. Where did you get this?”
I shook my head.
“A secret, eh?” He closed his hand around the pearl. “Well, that can wait. But you aren’t getting rid of me this easily. Since I was a boy, François prepared me for all honors that have come my way. It was his life’s work. He lived and died in service to me. To leave the Spains without the guarantee of the throne of Aragón would be a mockery of all he did for me. So I shall go to Aragón”—he smiled at me, tears glittering in this eyes—“with you as my guard. No one will risk poisoning the precious Princess, and so in your presence I will be safe.”
“You are mad. Grief has made you mad.”
“If I am mad, it is your country that has made me so.”
“And yet you wish to be its King.”
He set his mouth.
“Philippe, let us go to Flanders and get our children. I shall not lose this baby—I am strong. Let us return there, and be to each other what we used to be.”
“Stop talking.” He rubbed at his forehead. “I am too sick to think. Leave me now.”
“Philippe—”
“Get out!”
I could not reach him in this state. At the door, I turned to bid him good-bye. But he did not hear me. He was at the window, gazing at the lustrous egg resting in his hand.
30.
24 March anno Domini 1503
The rain poured down in Alcalá de Henares, splashing in the puddles before our stand on the jousting ground, drumming on the velvet canopy, which sagged over our heads from the weight of the water. Drops fell from the center of the lake forming just above Mother, running onto her scarlet brocade headdress, then onto the shoulder of her robe, where they sank into the white thicket of ermine. It had been raining the entire week in which my milk had come in, and my breasts had been bound upon Mother’s orders, though I had objected strenuously. Why not feed my beautiful black-haired little boy, whom Mother had named Fernando? My fertility did not matter. My husband, should he have liked to indulge in his cruel form of procreation, was in France. He had galloped off in December, after his men, in a drunken spree, had laid waste to a former mosque filled with priceless works of art in Zaragoza. Run off by the angry citizens like a band of brigands, he and his cronies had not stopped upon reaching the French border, but made directly for the French King. As soon as Mother had heard of Philippe’s defection, she had documents for a treaty with the French King sent by express courier, to give the appearance that her son-in-law had left the Spains on a diplomatic mission. Only those who wished to be fooled by this explanation believed it.