by Lynn Cullen
He did not let go. “We are under orders from the Prince,” he repeated.
Isabel started to cry. I handed her to Beatriz.
“Must you do this in front of the children?” I demanded.
He grabbed my other arm. Charles and Leonor stopped playing to watch.
“Beatriz, stay with the children. It’s all right, Leonor. Charles, come and make Isabel smile. You have the power, remember?”
I let the guard seat me on the pillion before the children could become more frightened. The other men closed ranks around me. I was given the reins. The guard slapped my horse’s flank; we were off as a group. I rode for the palace escorted as closely as if I were the most dangerous enemy of the state.
37.
19 May anno Domini 1504
The nightingale sang outside my window. Up and down the scale she warbled, calling for her mate, as she had been doing since I was escorted to my bedchamber and unceremoniously locked within it.
She had sung for her mate in the morning, while I pounded on the door, furious, outraged. How could Philippe treat me like this? I was heir to the Spanish crowns. I was the daughter of the Catholic Kings. My God, I was his wife.
She had sung for her mate in the afternoon, as I sank cradling my aching fists. Was no one to come free me? Where was Beatriz, or even Katrien?
The nightingale sang in the early evening, when I sat hugging my knees in terror. I was friendless. Powerless. My husband had made it abundantly clear that he could do whatever he wanted with me.
A key scraped in the keyhole. I rose, my heart thumping.
Philippe entered, a guilty smile on his face. “Knock, knock.”
Even as he crossed the chamber, my relief that he had come hardened into fury. He kissed my hand, its flesh made tender from beating the door. I pulled it away.
The pouches by his mouth were set with a mixture of apology and stubbornness. “Don’t be angry with me.”
“I was walking with the children when your men came, Philippe. They frightened them. Leonor was crying. Did you not think of that when you ordered the men to seize me then?”
“You must understand my position. I could not have you leave a reception without my dismissing you. It made me look weak.”
“And so you had me locked into my room like a dog?”
His contriteness dissolved. “You make it sound worse than it is. I will not be made to look like less of a man by my wife, as your father lets your mother do. I saw enough of that while in the Spains.”
“I left last night because I wished to leave. It was not a show of power.”
“That’s not how it was construed.” He went over to my table and picked up my pen. “Write me an apology. As soon as you show me deference, I will let you go.”
“I will tell you now, then: I am sorry to have made you feel bad. It was not my intention.”
“Not good enough.” He held out my pen. “Write.”
“I will not write. I am telling you: I am sorry.” I turned to leave.
He dropped the pen and grabbed my arm.
“You’re hurting me!”
His fingers dug into my flesh. “I said to write me a proper apology. You know how, with your fancy Latin training. The nun taught you how to turn a pretty phrase—do it.”
“Let me go!”
“Not until you show me some respect.”
I laughed. “Dear Philippe, don’t you know that you can’t force someone to respect you? You have to earn it.”
He raised his hand. I flinched.
He patted my head. “There, there. I am surprised at you.” He let go of me and then rubbed my arm. “You know I would never hurt you. Gyrfalcons are not trained by abusing them. They are given choice bits of meat and coddled until they realize that their masters will take care of them when they behave.”
“Yes, and they come to that conclusion more quickly when their eyes are sewn shut.”
He stared at me and, deciding I must be jesting, chuckled. “I should sew yours shut.”
“Oh, mine were, for quite some time, by my lust.”
He drew me to him. “Lust. Puss. Why can’t you call it love? What’s so wrong with desiring your husband?”
I kept my face turned away. “Nothing, when he treats you with care.”
“I take care of you as much as any man takes care of his woman.”
I broke from him and laughed. “I hope that is not true.”
He caught my wrist. “You developed a smart mouth, being around your mother.”
“Alas, if only I had a brain to match hers.”
“She’s not invincible, Juana. She can be defeated.”
“Oh, she can be.”
“I’m glad you are aware of that.” He let go of me and reached inside his doublet. He took my hand and put a lump upon it. From my open palm, Diego’s pearl glowed with a milky light.
“Just to show you that I am a reasonable man, I am giving it back to you.”
But how will you remember your father without it? I had asked Diego when he had given me the pearl.
I saw his tender expression. I am not likely to forget, he had said.
I laid the pearl on a table. “I don’t need it.” Outside, the nightingale sang loudly. How long would she go on calling before she realized that her mate was not to come?
“I came here to free you. Damn it, Puss, I love you. Why do you want it to look otherwise?” He scowled at the window. “Damn bird. It’s driving me mad.”
I gazed into his beautiful face, now contorted with frustration. Yes, I believed that he did love me, in his unholy fashion, as Papa loved Mother in his own. Yet Papa had betrayed her, as Philippe betrayed me and would continue to betray me, the moment he stepped from this room. How many generations would this go on, as it had played out in my mother’s life and mine? Would strong women forever find themselves undermined by their lovers should they appear too strong, cut down at their vulnerable roots—their need for trust?
I crossed over to my desk.
“You’re writing the apology?” He sounded pleasantly surprised. “Good. Very good. Your attendants wait in the antechamber. I shall tell them to spread the word of my pardon and our reconciliation.”
I sat down.
“I truly do love you, Puss. Next time, just think before you act, that’s all.”
I unscrewed the golden cap from a horn of ink, then paused. “Philippe, can you promise you will be true to me?”
“I can promise that I will love you.”
“That’s not the same. People can do horrible things to the people they love. Philippe, I am asking, will you be true?”
“Puss, I am weak. It does not mean that I don’t love you.”
“Weakness is a choice, Philippe.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know where you get these ideas.”
I took up my pen. Swallowing back remorse so deep that I could scarcely breathe, I formed the first words.
My dear Mother. Can you forgive me? I am just now beginning to understand.
38.
13 November anno Domini 1504
It was butchering season, and the air seeping into my chambers in the Dowager’s palace smelled of smoky fires, singed animal hair, and the cold. Charles sat on my lap in his little fur-trimmed gown and coif while Leonor stood next to him, as I showed them an illuminated book of letters.
“C is for—”
“ ‘Chat,’ ” Charles said.
“That’s right,” I said, smiling.
“It is also for ‘canard’ and ‘chambre,’ ” Leonor said smugly. “And ‘chemise’ and ‘cheval’ and ‘cigogne.’ And you, too, Charles. ‘Charles’ starts with C.”
I nodded. “Impressive, Leonor. Cigognes, even. I just so happen to like storks very much.”
“I like storks,” she said. “But they are very ugly.”
I nodded. “Their faces might seem that way. But sometimes the ugliest things are beautiful inside. And the prettiest things, well, sometimes ins
ide they are the ugliest.”
Her fine wheaten hair tumbled over her shoulder as she cocked her head to consider this.
Charles blurted, “ ‘Cachot’ fftartff with ffee.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Cachot. What do you know about dungeons?”
Nearby, Beatriz glanced up from her translation work spread on my desk. At her embroidery frame by the door, as far away from me as possible while in the same room, the Viscountess gazed my way, too. She was now my chief lady-in-waiting, to neither of our delights. After I had refused to write the apology, my husband had responded by sending my few Spanish ladies home and giving the Viscountess this highest honor. He had allowed Beatriz to remain in my attendance only after I had refused to eat for a week. Not that he cared about my hunger.
“I suppose your mother will take away my title if I let you starve,” he had said on the seventh day. “And I do dislike bony women.” He had scowled at the tray of uneaten fruit, then at me. “You can have your blessed nun—just eat.”
Charles pointed to the Viscountess. “Ffhe told uff about them. There iff a dungeon in thiff palaffe. There iff a dungeon in every palaffe. Ffhe ffaid if we were bad, ffhe would have uff ffrown into it.”
I turned around to glare at her. “How dare you frighten them!”
The Viscountess shrugged, and drove her needle into her embroidery. “I was only teasing. Children love tales of dungeons and giants and witches.”
“Well, I don’t appreciate it. You will frighten them.”
“I’m not ffcared.” Charles pointed up at me. “I’ll ffrow you in the dungeon.”
I kissed his dimpled finger. “That’s not nice. Don’t you want to be a good king and make people happy?”
“Papa ffayff I don’t have to.”
“Make people happy? Why wouldn’t you want to? It feels so very nice.”
The Viscountess smiled flatly as she tugged at her thread. On this day she wore a plain gown of gray. I had not known that she owned such a simple garment. She had not dressed to her usual standard in the past few weeks, the same period, coincidentally, that Philippe had been gone. He had traveled with his men and a few choice others to his pleasure palace in Hesdin, to see how the improvements he had ordered for its famous reception rooms fared. He was eager to see if the additional trick fountains had been installed, particularly those that sprayed the ladies from underneath. Such fun they were, he thought, since under our skirts we wore nothing. How he loved to sniff the air and smack his puffed lips as we dripped, and then cry, “Who smells fish?” I was glad to have not been asked to join him, though perhaps the Viscountess, now dressed like a sparrow and with her brow in a pucker, had not shared in my relief.
Leonor turned the page. “D is for—”
“‘Dragonff’!” Charles broke in with a triumphant shout. “Big, mean, wicked oneff.”
At that moment Katrien came in with a pile of pressed linens.
I could sense Beatriz stiffening at her desk. She had been wary of Katrien since reading of the dangers of white lead paint. She was convinced that it was lead in my cup that had made me ill, and that Katrien knew about and desired this effect. Her conviction was made stronger by Katrien’s evasiveness when she tried to question her. There was also the fact that after abandoning the potion, I had gotten well. But it was not Katrien who frightened me. If someone meant me ill, it was one who had knowledge of insidious poisons, lead or otherwise, not an ignorant peasant girl—although, Beatriz argued, this did not mean that an ignorant peasant girl would not agree to deliver it. Perhaps Beatriz’s suspicions would have been quelled if she had been able to examine the white cup. Katrien claimed that she didn’t know what had happened to it, that she had not seen it since we had been in Segovia.
Now Katrien curtseyed to me, then, with a clack of her klompen, proceeded to pull back the cut-velvet counterpane and strip the sheets from my bed. I returned to the book and my children. We had reached the letter T when Katrien was gathering the sheets, readying to leave.
The Viscountess pulled at a stitch. “Girl, a little moment, please.”
Katrien halted. She regarded the other woman, her expression as impassive as ever, except for her eyes, which tightened with sheer hatred.
The Viscountess did not see her disdain, or did not care. “I am thirsty. Get me a cup of water.”
“Yes, Katrien,” said Beatriz, “see if you can’t find her a nice white cup.”
I kissed the top of Charles’s head, tired of the current of ill feelings swirling around me.
Philippe strode into the room. He bowled into Katrien, knocking her off her shoes and sending the wadded linens from her arms. He did not glance at her as she scrambled to gather them.
“Do you know what your mother has done?” he demanded of me.
“Children, say hello to your father.” I gently pushed them toward him, though they were understandably reluctant. Their usually fastidious father’s riding clothes were muddy, and his hair hung in dark, greasy strings. He slashed the air with his riding crop brought straight from the road, lowering it just long enough to receive their kisses.
Leonor had scarcely been able to peck his cheek when he bellowed, “You must set her straight this minute!”
My brave little girl pulled back, blinking to compose herself.
I kept my voice calm for the sake of the children. “I don’t know what I am to set her straight about.”
“That you, and only you, are to be her direct heir.”
“Please, Philippe, can you stop waving that thing? It’s terrifying the children.”
He glared at them. Charles clung to my skirts as Beatriz rose from the desk.
“Sit down, nun, this has nothing to do with you.”
“How do you know this?” I asked, rubbing Charles’s back. “Did you receive a letter from Mother? She has not replied to me.”
He glanced away with pursed lips. “Her ambassador gave me the news,” he said after a pause. “Damn it, this word is not the greeting I expected when I returned from my journey.”
“I’m sorry, Philippe, but it wasn’t my doing.”
“What really infuriates me is how she distrusts me. She wrote a codicil to her will that both you and I must be there to claim the crowns, or your father gets them.”
“She writes this in her will? Why does she feel the need to write one now?”
He looked at me. “The old dame’s not well.”
“Not well?” I stopped comforting Charles. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a growth in her stomach. They say she’s not long for this world. I doubt it—the old she-tiger won’t be put down so easily.”
“Why did no one tell me this?” But who would tell me? All those who were sympathetic to me had been dismissed for months.
He whipped the air again. “Why’d she have to make it difficult for us? You don’t want to go—you want to stay with your children. Why drag you to the miserable Spains?”
I took my hand from Charles’s back to cover my mouth. “My mother is dying,” I said wonderingly, as if saying the words would give me more understanding.
Beatriz came over to me. “Señora.”
“Write to her quickly,” said Philippe, “before she goes. Convince her that you want me to take the crowns in your name. You want to stay with the children, yes? Tell her that. Tell her you won’t go there—but you must be fast. Nun!” he barked.
Beatriz flinched.
“You’re handy with the pen. Make yourself useful and dash off a letter now. Raymond!”
A page appeared at the door.
“Get a courier ready. I’ll have a letter to send.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Nun!” He poked her with his crop. “You’re not writing!”
She would not leave my side.
“Why is everyone just standing there? You’re as dumb as cows.”
“Oh, Papa,” Leonor cried, her voice breaking.
Philippe gazed down at her
, then up at me. “You make me look bad in front of my children. That’s just what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Where are her letters, Philippe?” I asked. “I never get them.”
He pressed together his lips. “What does it matter? Her letters upset you.”
“Have there been letters?”
He narrowed his eyes as though suspecting he had been tricked. “Damn it, why am I pretending? I’ve been doing you a favor. You were always unhappy after receiving them. When Grand-mère suggested that I keep them, I jumped at the idea. I was only trying to help you.”
“So you have been keeping them,” I said in disbelief.
“Yours to her, too.” He shrugged. “Cat’s out of the bag, so what? I acted in your best interest.”
All those years before I returned to the Spains, and even now, I thought that she spurned me. And she had thought likewise of me.
“Nun!” Philippe cried. “Why aren’t you writing?”
I sank back. Mother wrote to me. She wished to have me know her. She had tried to talk to me in the Spains, but I had been too afraid to encourage her. I had been too afraid to let her be a human, with all a human’s frailities, because I needed her to be perfect. And now all my chances to make amends, all our chances to come to know each other, were dwindling like sand through an hourglass. “You had no right,” I whispered.
Philippe snorted. “I have every right to do whatever I want. And you have none—not here, at least. You would think that would scare you into behaving better, but you don’t seem to get it in your head.”
I could write to her quickly, let her know that I didn’t care whether she was perfect or not. That I admired and esteemed her no matter what, that I always had and always would. “I demand her letters.”
He laughed. “You demand? You demand? Have you not been listening? My God, you are her daughter.”
I swallowed against the lump searing my throat, then held up my chin. “You compliment me, Monseigneur.”
“Always undermining me, aren’t you, Puss?”
He threw his crop. The children cried out when it struck my shoulder.
The Viscountess flew over to entreat him as he marched for the door. He flung her away, even as Katrien covered her face.