History's Great Queens 2-Book Bundle: The Last Queen and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

by Gortner, C. W.

THE CEREMONY WAS interminable. As Archbishop Cisneros intoned High Mass, I felt myself collapsing before the altar like a cake in the sun, impaled by my finery, my headdress so heavy I marveled my spine didn’t snap under its weight. As he escorted me here, the admiral had told me I looked lovely and I preened under his gentle gaze, steadfast manner, and lean, imposing height, which had set many a woman at court to sighs. But now all I felt was miserable and tired. All I wanted to do was take off these clothes and soak in a hot bath.

  Beside me, the Flemish envoy’s ale-saturated breath rasped. Incense billowed from the braziers, coalescing with the candle and votive smoke and the musk of nobles, courtiers, and envoys crammed into the pews. In their royal pew, my parents sat stiff as effigies.

  Finally, Cisneros spoke the long-awaited vows. I choked back sudden laughter when the envoy repeated in his dreadful accent: “I, Philip of Habsburg, archduke of Burgundy and Flanders, take thee, Juana, infanta of Castile and the Indies, as my wife….”

  When my turn came, I reversed the ridiculous array of titles: “I, Juana, royal infanta of Castile and the Indies, take thee, Philip, archduke of Burgundy…”

  Thus, with a few meaningless words, I was formally betrothed to the archduke Philip.

  WINTER ROARED IN LIKE A BEAST. ICY STORMS TURNED THE SKIES black and coated the roads with frost, even as my mother traveled from one end of Castile to the other, dragging us with her.

  She did not rest for a moment, nor did she allow me to. New duties were added to my already mind-numbing schedule, along with fittings for my trousseau and evening lectures on all the diplomatic issues I was expected to influence at Philip’s court, the foremost of which was to never let him sign treaties with, negotiate with, or otherwise show any favor to France. Exactly how I was supposed to do this, my mother didn’t explain, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she had. Though I had resolved to do my duty, I still took to pummeling my pillows at night, loathing this marriage that seemed nothing more than a political stratagem.

  Soon after the Feast of the Magi on January 6, word came that my maternal grandmother, the dowager queen, had fallen gravely ill. Defying the hellish weather, my mother rode straight to Avila in central Castile, accompanied by the Marquise de Moya and, to my surprise, by me.

  I hadn’t seen my grandmother since my early childhood; none of my siblings had. She had been twenty-three years old when her husband, my mother’s father, King Juan, died, and had been obliged to retire from court, as befitted a widow. In the ensuing years, she succumbed to a grief-induced illness of the mind, eventually becoming so debilitated she could not travel or abide the presence of strangers. For forty-two years, she had dwelled in Arévalo; to me, it was as if she had died long ago. I did not understand my mother’s explanation that as I would soon leave for Flanders, I had to bid my grandmother farewell. Surely if she was too ill to leave Arévalo she’d hardly remember a granddaughter she’d met once during a familial visit years ago. I certainly didn’t recall much of her. I had only an obscure memory of distant eyes staring at me, and a spectral hand that reached out, ever so briefly, to caress my hair.

  Peering through the snow-flecked wind, I caught sight of Arévalo like a lone bulwark on the plain, stark as the land surrounding it. The castle custodian and his portly wife hurried out to welcome us and hustle us into the sala. My mother went straight to consult with the physicians she’d sent ahead. Left alone, I accepted a goblet of warm cider and moved through the hall.

  Woven rugs covered the plank floor, the furnishings of sturdy yew and oak. Wrought-iron candelabra illumined faded tapestries, their once-vibrant wools drained from years of light and dust. Though hardly luxurious by court standards, the castle seemed comfortable enough for one old woman and a handful of servants.

  “I remember this hall well,” the marquise said from behind me. “Her Majesty and I used to play here when we were girls, pretending we were captive damsels waiting to be rescued.”

  I’d forgotten that in their childhood, my mother and the marquise had lived in Arévalo with my grandmother. I could no more imagine my mother as a girl than I could the staid marquise, and I murmured, “It must have been lonely,” for lack of anything else to say.

  “Oh, it was,” she replied. “Fortunately, Her Majesty and I had each other. We made up games, sewed together, and went riding. It was lovely in the summer, especially in fair weather, but the winter—brr! It was miserable, just like today. You could see your own breath.”

  A fire burned in the hearth, and braziers were scattered throughout the hall. Wrapped in my fleece-lined cloak, I didn’t feel any chill, and yet a shiver went through me. I could imagine the night wind seeping through every window and wall crevice, whistling down the corridors like a phantom. What had my grandmother done during those long, bitter nights? Had she roamed the twisting passages with the wind, plagued by the penury and helplessness of a widowed queen? Or had she floated alone, forgotten, already caught up in her own inner labyrinth?

  As if she could read my thoughts, the marquise said softly, “You mustn’t fear. Her Grace the dowager is old and ill. She will do you no harm.”

  I frowned. “I do not fear—” I stopped when I saw my mother motion from the staircase.

  “Your grandmother is upstairs,” said the marquise. “You will meet with her there.”

  THE CHAMBER WAS DARK. Pausing on the threshold, I waited for my eyes to adjust while my mother strode in without pause, striking flint and lighting candles. A web of light flickered and spread. “Juana,” she said, “come in and shut that door. I can feel a draft.”

  Steeling myself against an inexplicable thrill of fear, I stepped into the room.

  In the interplay of shadow and light, I saw an old loom in the corner, a table and chairs, and a dilapidated throne. I’d expected a sickroom cluttered with medicine and the stench of illness, and I turned in relief to where my mother stood by the bed.

  The moment lengthened. She stood in absolute silence, looking down at an almost indistinguishable figure under a mound of covers. Then I heard her say, “Mamá?”

  It was a voice unlike any I’d heard from her before, little more than a sigh and laden with a profound sadness. Then she looked up at me, and with her hand beckoned me forward.

  I moved to the bedside. I went still.

  Only my grandmother’s head and upper torso were visible, propped on pillows. Strands of colorless hair fell to a sunken chest without any visible breath. The bones of her face seemed etched under a waxen mold; her bruised eyelids closed. She looked so still, so insubstantial, I thought she must be dead. I forced myself to take a step closer. Something unheard, perhaps the brush of my fingers against the tester curtain or click of heel, awoke her. Eyes the hue of a frozen sea slowly opened, riveting me with their glassy stare. Her parched mouth moved, in a barely audible whisper: “Eres mi alma.”

  You are my soul.

  “No,” said my mother. “It’s Juana, Mamá. It’s your granddaughter.” She added in a low voice to me, “Hija, come into the light. Let her see you.”

  I started around the bed, my nape crawling as my grandmother swiveled her head to me. I fought the urge to look away. I did not want to meet that probing gaze, did not want to see whatever horrors lurked there.

  Then her frail voice reached me, as if from across an abyss. “Why are you afraid?”

  I lifted my gaze. The pounding in my chest dissolved.

  Never had I beheld such unspeakable anguish. In my grandmother’s eyes I saw the toll of an eternal night, of a solitude that had ravaged without succor or release. Forced to suffer isolation no mortal being should endure, she now begged with her eyes for mercy, a swift end to an existence that had ceased to hold any meaning.

  I dropped to my knees, fumbled under the furs. The hand I enclosed in mine felt brittle as a desiccated leaf. There were no more words. The dowager queen sighed. Her eyes closed in fitful sleep. After a long moment, I released her hand and stood. I turned to face my mother. She did not mov
e, her face pallid, her chin lifted as if she were about to ride into battle.

  “Why, Mamá?” I asked. “Why did you do this to her?”

  “I did not do anything,” she replied, but I heard the quaver in her voice, a gnawing edge I suspected had eaten at her for far longer than anyone suspected. “My mother was ill,” she went on, too quickly, as if she sought to purge herself of a terrible burden. “She could no longer live in this world. I was only a child when she began having her first spells. Later, after I was queen, it became painfully clear she would never get well again. This was all I could do. This was the only place where she could be kept safe.”

  “Safe?” I echoed.

  Quick anger flushed her tone. “Don’t look at me like that. I assure you, no harm came to her. She had the services of her women and her custodians, a host of doctors, the entire castle to walk in, everything she could possibly want.”

  “Not everything. She was a queen once.” I paused. “Wasn’t she?”

  My mother’s eyes bore at me. I could almost smell her fear, her guilt. “I brought you to say goodbye, not to question. I told you, she was not harmed. Only once I’d been assured that her illness was beyond the remedy of any cure did I find myself forced to impose further restrictions. She…she could not be allowed out. She was not fit.”

  I clenched my fists at my sides. “Why did you bring me here? Why now?”

  Her words came at me like vengeance. “So that you can see that I too have had to make sacrifices; that sometimes even a queen must act against her heart if she is to survive. I had no choice. I did it for Spain and for our blood. Think of what might have happened if the world had found out? I couldn’t risk it. We had been through too much. My duty first was to protect Castile, above all else. Castile had to come first.”

  My throat closed on itself. She had done this. Isabel the queen had imposed this seclusion on Arévalo. It was simple, terrifyingly so. Her mother, the dowager, had become a hindrance. For the good of Spain, she had to be consigned to darkness, hidden away so no one would know that madness tainted our blood. What else was she capable of, this iron-hearted queen? What would she not do, not sacrifice, to safeguard her kingdom?

  I bowed my head, unable to endure the terrible secret in my mother’s eyes. “You should not have done it,” I said. “She is our family, our flesh and blood. She belonged with us.”

  My mother gave a choked sound, almost a cry. “You dare judge me? You do not know, you cannot know, the responsibility I faced, the enormous duty I had to shoulder on my own.”

  “Oh, but I do know, Mamá,” I said quietly. “How could I ever forget?”

  And I turned and walked from the room.

  FIVE

  I faced the windswept cauldron of Laredo Bay two months later. Sailors and deckhands rushed about on the galleon; the air throbbed with their cries, the rumble of coffers dragged to flatboats, and coarse voices lifted in command.

  Behind me, my sisters and brother clustered together against the wind, regarding me in awe. I was the first of us to undertake such a trip, and at my mother’s gesture, I turned and went to them. To my surprise, it was Isabella, newly betrothed to the Portuguese heir, who embraced me first. “I shall never see you again in this life, hermana,” she whispered.

  “Nonsense,” I replied, even as her words moved through me. I drew back from her to allow Maria to kiss my cheek. “Be strong, Juana,” she said, “as you always are.”

  Catalina was next. I saw at once that she was losing her struggle to contain her tears. One look at her brimming eyes, at the strands of gold escaping her cowl, and I held her close. “You must be brave when your time comes to go to England. Think of me, as I will of you, mi pequeñita.”

  Catalina clung to me until her governess, Doña Manuel, pried her away.

  I curtsied before Juan. “May God keep you in good health, Your Highness.”

  “Will you be kind to Margaret when you see her?” he blurted, his face wan and eyes febrile from a recent attack of fever. “Will you be a friend to her until she comes to me?”

  “I’ll be like a sister to her and tell her she’s the most fortunate woman in the world to have such a handsome husband-to-be.”

  “Oh, Juana, I am sad to see you go!” Juan embraced me. Against his frail body, I heard him say, “I will pray for you, my sister.”

  I set a hand briefly to his cheek before I turned to my father.

  It was the moment I most dreaded. I feared it would cost me my last shred of painstaking composure and I resolved not to leave him with the memory of a tearful child. Yet as I saw him standing there by my mother, his cloak whipping about him and his face under its cap shadowed by his own hidden pain, I had a sudden vision of myself as a little girl, wrapping my arms about that strong body. All of a sudden, it hurt to breathe.

  “Papá,” I said. He swept me into his arms, enveloping me. “Be strong, mi madrecita. Be brave, as only you can be. Never let them think Spain doesn’t rule in your heart.”

  “I will. I promise.” I felt a vast emptiness when he drew back from me.

  My mother stepped forth. “Come, Juana. I will see you to your ship.”

  AS THE SUN MELTED in a ball of scarlet fire into the horizon, my armada lumbered out to sea, propelled by vast billowing sails. The waters transformed from murky emerald to diamond azure; foam sprayed up against the prows as the ships plunged forward.

  An algid wind tugged at my cloak. I did not move from my vigil on the deck, straining to keep the receding mountains in sight, even as night crept in, trailing shadows and mist. Soon Spain sank away into nothingness.

  THE TRIP TOOK THREE WEEKS LONGER THAN EXPECTED, AFTER A gale struck and separated my fleet. Exhausted by the close quarters, the lack of fresh food, and my women’s ceaseless prayers for a safe arrival, on September 15 I gratefully set foot in Flanders.

  A crowd waited to receive me, their resounding cheers scattering pigeons from rooftops. I waved as I rode through the town of Arnemuiden to a house prepared for me, where I fell into bed. I awoke the next morning to a headache, sore throat, and news that the carrack carrying my trousseau had scraped against a shoal and sunk. Everything, and everyone, aboard had been lost.

  “What shall we do?” wailed Doña Ana. “All your gowns, your jewels, your slippers and headdresses: gone! You have nothing to wear for your meeting with the archduke.”

  I sneezed. Beatriz gave me a handkerchief. “Surely, there’s something in my coffers,” I said.

  “Like what?” said Doña Ana. “You’re not possibly thinking of one of those old wool gowns you insisted on bringing? They smell of dirt and smoke.”

  “They smell of Granada,” I replied with an impatience born of too many hours on the sea with my duenna. “I also know we packed a red velvet and cloth of gold somewhere. Either should suffice. In the meantime, we’ll just have to purchase some fabric to make new gowns. We’re in Flanders, are we not? Cloth is this nation’s trade.”

  “Your red velvet is inappropriate for travel, and the cloth of gold too extravagant. As for purchasing cloth, we’re not merchants to debase ourselves thus.”

  By the Cross, she could be difficult! I sat up in bed. “If I need clothing, then we must pay for it.” I paused. “And where in all this is the archduke?”

  Tense silence ensued. Then Doña Ana said briskly, “You mustn’t worry. His Highness the archduke has been apprised of our arrival and is—”

  “Hunting,” interjected Beatriz, with a wry smile. “When we failed to arrive as scheduled, he thought our departure had been delayed and he went to hunt boar. His sister, the archduchess Margaret, sent word while you slept. We are to proceed to Lierre, where she waits to receive us.”

  I stared at my lady for a moment before I pressed a hand to my lips in mirth. Here I was discussing my choice of raiment and my husband-to-be was off hunting! Not the most auspicious start to our union, I thought, even as I said, “Well, then it hardly matters what I wear, does it?”

  D
espite Doña Ana’s protest, I chose one of my comfortable wool gowns, though I soon deduced the people of Flanders wouldn’t have minded if I’d donned sackcloth. Lining the roads to Lierre, they cheered themselves hoarse and threw handfuls of flowers, clad in colorful costumes. Their sheer numbers astonished me, accustomed as I was to the vastness of Spain, where one could ride for days without encountering another soul.

  Like its denizens, the land itself challenged my senses—a verdant monotony boasting nothing higher than a squat hill. There were no jagged mountains, no hilltops crowned by frowning stone castles or vast golden plains. Flanders looked like a garden bowl, green and inverted and soaking wet. There was water everywhere, a permanent presence sitting turgid in marshes, babbling in rivers, or flowing through canals; water dripping from the sky and water sloshing underfoot. Outside their picturesque hamlets, where it seemed even the dogs were well fed, luxuriant fields sprouted cabbages, legumes, and other vegetables, and gleaming livestock munched within grassy enclosures. Flanders teemed with abundance, a veritable heaven on earth, where it seemed no one had ever suffered war or famine or disease.

  Flemish noblemen and their wives met my entourage halfway to Lierre. The women chattered nonstop, their low-cut gowns and hiked skirts revealing sturdy ankles in colored hose. By the time we rode into Lierre, Doña Ana sat rigid on her mule, her flinty expression indicating that, to her, Flanders was steeped in vice.

  Built on the banks of the river Néthe, Lierre was dazzling, crowned by spires and crisscrossed with canals. Balconies were festooned with flower boxes and laundry; the cobblestone streets rang with the rattling of coins in velvet pouches as merchants went about their business. I stared in delight at street vendors peddling meat pies and sugary buns, and Beatriz laughed aloud when she spied market stalls piled high with bolts of brocade, velvet, tissues of every hue, satins, and fine-worked Brussels lace.

  “It is paradise,” she exclaimed.