by P K Adams
The queen nodded vigorously, as if she had extensive experience of the way fevers worked. I remembered her distraction during our brief conversation at the funeral reception. She was certainly more attentive now, and I saw deep concern in her eyes. For my son’s health? I found that hard to believe.
I was wondering if I should ask her for help directly when she spoke again. “We believe it would benefit your Giulio to be seen by a competent doctor, of whom there aren’t many.” I inclined my head, my heart leaping with hope, even as I registered the sarcasm of her last words. Bona still despised physicians, it seemed.
“Fortunately, we have a few in our employ with deep and extensive learning in the medical arts,” she went on, and I listened to this praise, half-surprised and half-amused. Perhaps she had softened toward medics as she got older and needed them more, although she looked healthy enough to me. “Here’s what we think.” She raised a forefinger. “It would be best for the boy to be seen by an Italian physician, given that his affliction is common in our native land. Unfortunately, the two Italians who serve us are currently away from Kraków—de Valentinis is back home tending to his ailing mother, and Nascimbene is with the young king in Vilnius.”
My heart sank. “When do you expect them to return, Your Majesty?”
“It’s hard to say. Nascimbene will be with my son until the end of the year at least, and de Valentinis—that depends on how his mother fares.”
“What about the Polish doctors?”
The queen shrugged. “They are both good surgeons, but they know little about herbs and potions. They don’t have the experience to deal with your son’s condition,” she stated authoritatively.
I knew better than to argue with her. I would not have had the chance, either, for she was speaking again, smoothly and firmly, which told me she had already thought this through. “There is a weekly convoy to Vilnius, carrying dispatches and consignments from the court. You and your son could go with it to see Nascimbene. It’s the safest way to travel.”
The suggestion amazed me. I took a deep breath and tried to gather my thoughts. I was supposed to leave for Lithuania so soon after making the arduous journey from Bari? And with Giulio? He was better, but I feared that more travel would weaken him, perhaps even sicken him again. Was it worth the risk? And what would Sebastian say?
When I looked at Bona, she was studying me calmly, but there was a tense and calculating look in her eyes. I had no doubt she knew exactly what was going through my mind.
Behind me, I heard the door of the chamber open, and the queen’s eyes turned in that direction. With an air suggesting expectations fulfilled, she flipped her left palm up and beckoned to the newcomer with a practiced movement of her fingers, swift and commanding. I looked over my shoulder to find a man of spare build, with a narrow, intelligent face framed by thick gray hair spilling from under his cap. He wore a tight black doublet, a chain of office rested on his chest, and he carried a sheaf of papers under one arm. Clearly a secretary, but a high-ranking one because I had seen him during the funeral reception seated at the same table as the queen and her son.
“Leave us,” the queen commanded, and we women dropped into a curtsy. The men bowed. “You stay, Caterina,” she added as the others made their way out of the chamber, with the notable exception of Pappacoda. He remained motionless by the queen’s chair, his eyes trailing the others as they left. Bona had always had favorites whom she would take into her deepest confidence, and Pappacoda was obviously the latest of them.
The commotion gave me more time to consider the offer. Admittedly, it was generous. As much as I did not look forward to another journey, I knew that a convoy could cover the distance between Kraków and Vilnius in a little more than a week in good weather. Moreover, she would pay our expenses, and it would be a chance for Giulio to be seen by one of the best physicians in Europe. What kind of mother would refuse such an opportunity?
When the doors closed behind the last of the retreating courtiers, the queen gestured toward the newcomer. “Pan Marcin Kromer, His Majesty’s chief secretary. My husband’s,” she clarified. “Signora Caterina Konarska, my former Lady of the Chamber.”
We nodded at each other. I tried to hide my puzzlement under a polite smile. What did the old king’s secretary have to do with my son’s health or my journey to Vilnius?
“So what do you think of my offer, Caterina?” the queen asked in her usual direct manner. She was never one to leave too much silence hanging over a gathering. I also noticed that she switched away from the royal “we.” Now she was speaking to me as she had in the old days—more intimately. Suddenly, I felt more at ease, despite Pappacoda’s unsettling presence.
“It is a kind and magnanimous offer, Your Majesty, and I thank you for it.” Bona acknowledged my words with a curt but gracious incline of her head. “However, I have to consult my husband before I accept.”
“Of course.”
In the brief silence that followed, as I awaited a dismissal that was not coming, my eyes strayed to Kromer before I could help myself.
“I wish to be honest with you, Caterina.” The queen spoke again. The worry I had seen in her eyes at the beginning of our meeting intensified. There was a new sadness in them, too. Something was clearly eating away at her. “There is a reason why your journey to Vilnius would also be very helpful to me.”
“In what way, Your Majesty?”
Bona inhaled, her ample chest swelling. Somewhere under the loose robes the seams of her bodice must have come close to snapping. The opaque lace with which she now covered the bosom she had once loved to display expanded with her breath, making her look more than ever like a puffed-up owl.
“You may be aware that my son has had the care of the Grand Duchy since His Majesty my husband ceded the position to him last year,” she said. Then, with a note of bitterness, she added, “He’s back in Vilnius now.”
I thought it odd that young Zygmunt had left less than a month after his wife’s burial, but something told me that Bona’s bitterness had more than one cause.
I was correct.
“I have been hearing some very troubling news from the ducal court,” the queen continued, growing more dispirited as she went on. Whatever was coming next, it was clearly difficult for her to talk about. “News of an affair my son has been conducting with a certain woman of a rather disreputable character.”
I did not know what to say to that. Barbara was a noblewoman from a prominent family. I knew nothing else about her, and therefore thought it best to hold my peace.
Bona continued with barely a pause. “I’m told the young king is very smitten with her”—her mouth twisted in a grimace of distaste—“and that her family is plotting to convince him to marry her.”
Disbelief must have been painted all over my face, because Bona nodded vigorously in emphasis. Although she remained outwardly calm, I sensed fury building up inside her. Her fingers squeezed the arms of her chair until her knuckles showed white. I understood why: a marriage of her only son and heir to the throne that brought nothing in terms of alliances or territorial possessions would be a disaster.
“Surely His Majesty wouldn’t—”
“Oh yes, he would!” Bona exclaimed. “My son does what he wants, and if it hurts me, so much the better!” Her voice rang with bitterness again, and her eyes glistened with tears—a weakness she abhorred—before she determinedly blinked them back.
I stared at her. In truth, what could I say? That she had raised him that way—to put his own interests and pleasures above everything else? I could not utter such words to the queen, yet I felt pity for her, and her brief moment of vulnerability touched me.
“I am very sorry to hear that, but what does it have to do with my journey to see Doctor Nascimbene?” I asked cautiously.
The reply was swift. “I want you, Caterina, to speak to my son while in Vilnius and dissuade him from taking this step, which would be a catastrophe for the monarchy.”
Speechles
s, I struggled to rein in my thoughts as they scattered in a thousand directions. From a corner of my eye, I registered Pappacoda’s darkening face. It seemed that the queen’s favorite disliked me as much as I did him. Or perhaps he resented the familiarity with which she treated me.
Bona gazed at me unwaveringly, still as a statue, until I gathered my wits and asked, feebly, “I, Your Majesty?”
She nodded gravely.
“But why would King Zygmunt listen to me, a person he doesn’t know, a woman? Surely, such a mission would be better accomplished by an official envoy …”
She cut me off. “He won’t speak to any of my men. He refuses to see them.”
I raked my mind for an argument to refute that. “Even if that’s the case,” I said after failing to find one, “that doesn’t mean that he will listen to me. After all, I would be acting as Your Majesty’s emissary, too.”
“Not officially. You would be traveling at my recommendation to see Nascimbene, who serves as my son’s personal physician. My son loves children; he will sympathize.”
So that was the plan. Now that I understood, the silent presence of Kromer spoke volumes. It told me that the old royals presented a united front in their opposition to the marriage, and that I would undertake the mission on behalf of both of them. It made sense, I realized.
“He will agree to see you,” the queen added, “if you ask for an audience as an Italian married to a Polish nobleman and seeking help for your son. Only when you stand before him will you unveil your other mission—my sincere supplication for him to abandon the idea of marriage to this woman for the good of the state. He will hear you out. You are my last hope, Caterina.” She strove to keep her tone level, but I could see how humiliated she was both by her son’s indifference and the necessity of asking others for help.
I felt sorry for her. Watching her power wane must be one of the hardest experiences of her life. Only at the breaking point would she beg her son like that. But I knew her well enough to understand that she would do what she had to, not just because of her sense of dynastic pride but also out of a genuine concern for the future of Poland-Lithuania, surrounded by enemies wolfishly eyeing her throne. She cared about that, and I respected her for it. But could I help?
Then I thought of my son again. The queen’s mission and the future of the state aside, this was my best chance yet to help Giulio overcome his illness and have a healthy childhood. If Sebastian let me travel to Lithuania, I would. I would travel to the ends of the earth to save my child.
“I will talk to my husband, and if it is within my power, I will go to Vilnius,” I said.
Bona acknowledged this with a nod, and I thought I saw her tense frame relax slightly. Next to her, one corner of Pappacoda’s full lips lifted in a smirk in which I saw a fleeting annoyance. But I had too much on my mind to give it another thought.
* * *
Lucrezia escorted me to the castle courtyard. In the early afternoon, it was drenched in sunlight reflecting so brightly off the white stone of the colonnade that I had to squint. Heat dried the flagstones under our feet and sizzled in the air again. The courtyard was deserted, except for the guards standing sentinel by the gate leading to the forecourt. Everyone else, it seemed, had sought refuge in the cool interior of the castle.
“The queen says her son refuses to receive any of her men,” I remarked as we descended the steps from the main entrance. Whether or not Lucrezia knew about Bona’s offer, like anyone else who spent more than a day at court, she must have been aware of their feuding. “I had no idea the break between them was so deep.”
“It’s even worse than you think,” she said quietly. “He believes that Her Majesty wants to have Barbara Radziwiłł assassinated. That’s why he won’t see anybody who comes from her, and why he won’t let them anywhere near his mistress.”
I gasped, incredulous. “That’s not true, is it?” The Bona I had known in my youth would not have considered anything so heinous, but the woman I had just left was hurt, humiliated, and desperate. And she still held sufficient power to issue such a command and expect results.
Lucrezia scoffed. “Of course not.”
“Then why would he think that?”
“Some of his advisors, including Chancellor Maciejowski”—Lucrezia’s voice was barely above a whisper—“have been turning King Zygmunt against his mother for a long time. It doesn’t help that she’s Italian.”
Being Italians ourselves, we both knew how deeply rooted our reputation was in that regard, and not entirely without justification. Some prominent nobles in our lands—including women—had indeed dispatched their political or personal enemies using secretive methods. But to paint everyone of us with the same brush? If the highest officials in the realm perpetuated such slanders, and the young king lent them credence, any one of us stood in danger of a grave accusation for the slightest of reasons—or no reason at all.
We reached the middle of the courtyard and stopped to bid each other good-bye.
“Thank you for arranging this audience,” I said. Lucrezia had no chance to answer before an oddly high-pitched sound, something between the yelping of a dog and the braying of a donkey, cut her off. I looked around for the source of the noise but could not find it. The guards remained unmoved, clearly not perceiving any danger.
Lucrezia gave a small laugh when she saw my bewilderment. “Come with me,” she said with an air of mystery.
She led us toward the gate that connected the courtyard with the queen’s private garden. She pushed the gate open, and we entered a large space enclosed by the castle wall. It looked much as it had when Bona first set it up: the flower beds arranged in the form of a chessboard, delineated by neat paths, and a large trellised loggia covered in creeping vines and rosebushes in the far corner. But there was one difference. The section of the garden to the right of the gate had been cordoned off from the rest by a stockade of sorts, taller than a person’s height and made of vertical iron bars.
Behind those bars were three of the strangest animals I had ever seen: sandy colored, with thin legs and curving necks topped with narrow heads that ended in large, fleshy lips, curved into a perpetual roguish smile. But the oddest feature was their backs—not flat like a horse’s but raised in a hump.
As I stared at them, I heard Lucrezia’s voice next to me, amused. “They are called camels.”
“Camels,” I repeated. “I have heard of them.”
“They come from the warm regions of the world, where they are used much like pack horses by caravans crossing the great desert.” Then she added, “The queen received them as a gift from Roxelana, the wife of the Turkish sultan, Suleiman, whom they call the Magnificent, as a gesture of gratitude for her efforts to promote peace between them.”
“I see.” I continued to gaze at the animals. Despite the semblance of perpetual smiles, they seemed restless as they stepped around their enclosure aimlessly. I had the impression—perhaps enhanced by the shape of their heads, elongated and tilted up at a slight angle—that they sought to escape. Their tawny fur had dry and gray patches like those one might find on mangy dogs, adding to their forlorn air. Scattered piles of apples, pears, and carrots gave off a ripe scent, but the camels did not nibble at them. Every now and then, one of them made that whining-braying sound, which seemed to make the others even more restless.
“And she sent three of them?” I asked, puzzled. What use could Bona have for these exotic pack animals in the heart of Kraków?
“She sent five,” Lucrezia said. “But two of them died.”
I regarded the beasts again. They had come from a different world, where hot winds blew every day and winter did not exist. No wonder their companions had not survived for long. Even in the height of a Polish summer, when they should have been comfortable, the remaining three were anxious. They would probably meet a similar fate soon.
Royalty always wants to bend everything to its will, I reflected. To make things work according to decree. But some things can
not be controlled. There is no cheating nature, no taming its laws. In the end, nature always prevails.
* * *
I returned to Konary the next day.
Sebastian was out on the estate supervising the repairs. We had seen little of each other since the day we attended Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. I knew he would not return before supper, and too impatient to wait, I went through the apple orchard and down the sloping hill toward the farm buildings. He was there, among the laborers hired to replace the roof over the large barn that overlooked several acres of pasture and a pond. He was wearing a shirt and breeches, but no doublet in the heat. I wished I had the same freedom to shed my constraining bodice and voluminous skirts and walk around in a cotton shift. Fortunately, the countryside was breezier than the city.
He saw me, and I waited for him in the shade of a large tree at the edge of the orchard, its long branches dotted with the small, rounded shapes of new fruit. A week earlier, they had been green, but now the globes had acquired a faint pink blush. In a month or so, the branches would sag low and heavy under the weight of ripe red apples, and I wondered with renewed apprehension if I would be here to enjoy them.
I considered my husband as he walked up the path. Despite his fifty-five years, he was mostly lean, although the trace of a belly could be seen under his shirt, open at the collar to reveal chest hair as much gray as black. Gray threaded his beard, too. Although he still walked with the grace of his youth, I noticed with a pang of sadness that his movements were slower now. I wished he did not have to do this work himself, but I was also aware that he saw it as a respite from the tension of our son’s illness. He had not told me that—it had been a long time since we talked about such things honestly—but I knew that a part of him looked forward to the work, which took him away from the infirmary-like atmosphere of the house.