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

by Gortner, C. W.

  At the mention of my mother, I went cold. “It was Her Majesty who sent me here. And the archduchess Margaret herself told me Besançon will hold this cathedral wedding you insist on.”

  “Hah! What does that French pig in his satin know? Did he not insist you remove your veil with no more ceremony than a pauper’s daughter?” She wagged her finger at me, her jowls quivering. “I suppose you think it’s perfectly acceptable for them to flaunt you like some trophy. You always did like to be the center of attention.”

  “By the Cross,” I cried. My matrons gasped and genuflected. “Are you going to tell me there’s something wrong with a simple dance between a wife and her husband?”

  “He is not your husband! You were betrothed by proxy in Spain—betrothed, nothing more. By the law of God, what you wish to do with him tonight is a sin.”

  The matrons rustled, muttering. I said softly, “How do you know what I wish to do?”

  “I can see it in you,” she spat. “I see your wantonness. And as your matron, I forbid you to allow him into this chamber should he dare come to your door.”

  “You forbid me?” I met her hard stare. I took pleasure in her flinch, in wielding for once my own power over her after years of submitting to hers. “Careful, señora,” I said. “I am no longer a child to be reprimanded by you.”

  “Would that you still were, for even as a child never did you dare go so far.” Her face set like mortar. “If you let him come to you before the marriage is sanctified, I cannot be held responsible, nor can any of your ladies. We cannot serve you under such conditions.”

  I faltered. I’d never been without my ladies. All my life, they had been there to help me with the private tasks other women performed on their own.

  I turned to my matrons. They looked away as if I’d been branded. “As you wish,” I said quietly. “Those who disapprove should go.” Even as I spoke, I wondered at my boldness. What would my mother say when she heard about this? Somehow the thought of defying her from across the sea gave me a small thrill.

  My duenna drew herself to full height. “So be it.” She stalked out, followed immediately by the matrons. I turned to find that only Beatriz and Soraya remained in the room.

  Beatriz said, “We will not leave Your Highness on your wedding night.”

  I sighed in gratitude. “Please, help me undress.”

  I stood motionless as they replaced my finery with a linen bed gown that had surfaced unexpectedly in one of the coffers. Soraya went to prepare the bed. Beatriz draped a topaz silk robe about my shoulders. “I found this earlier while searching for your red gown,” she said, and as I sat at the dressing table, she undid my braid and began brushing out my hair.

  I stared unseeing into the polished glass. I had no doubt Philip would indeed come to me tonight and that I was about to take the final, irrevocable step into womanhood. It wasn’t too late to change my mind. I could issue the order now, have the door bolted and have Beatriz send word that the day’s events had exhausted me and I must rest.

  I whispered, “Beatriz, do you think I am wed in the eyes of God?”

  Beatriz paused in her brush strokes, met my gaze in the mirror. “Your Highness has nothing to be ashamed of. You are wed. It’s just as well Doña Ana and that gaggle of crows aren’t here to spoil your night. I vow they’d douse the lust of Lucifer himself.”

  I giggled. “You are incorrigible.”

  “I speak the truth as I see it. You are his wife, he is your husband, and that’s the end of it.” She leaned closer. “And providing you and the fair archduke do what comes natural to most married couples, you could be mother to a prince before the year is out.”

  I gasped, pinched her arm. Beatriz winked at me and turned to Soraya, who had paused with a pillow in her hands. “You! What are you doing standing there with your ears big as castles! Draw down those sheets. His Highness the archduke could be here at any moment and—”

  She went still. I too paused as I heard a bawdy song echoing in the corridor. Beatriz started fussing over my hair again, running her hands over its fiery curls until I pushed her away. “I’m fine,” I said, but I couldn’t look in the glass anymore, my heart galloping in my chest as I stood.

  A knock came at the door. Beatriz looked at me; I looked at her. Another knock came, louder this time. We didn’t move. Four more bangs.

  “Blessed Virgin, open it,” I said, “before they bring it down.”

  Philip and three of his gentlemen stepped into the room, flushed from carousing, chemises open to their navels. As one of them made a playful grab at Soraya, Beatriz lunged. I stopped her, marched up to the fool, and slapped his hand away.

  “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” I said, in a tone that would have made Doña Ana proud. They didn’t seem to notice I was trembling under my robe.

  The slim man who’d accosted Soraya leered. “It is Flemish custom to see the newlyweds put to bed, my pretty wench, unless you’d like us to christen it first.”

  The others roared. Had they actually forgotten whom it was they addressed? I looked at Philip. “My lord, your ways are not yet mine. I ask you to please send these lords away.”

  Philip nodded. “Of course. My lords, off with you.”

  The men moaned and tromped out. Beatriz started to move toward me when Philip said: “You and the girl too. I would be alone with my wife.”

  Beatriz curtsied, then took glowering Soraya by the arm and led her into the antechamber.

  The door shut. In the slight draft, a candle by the bed went out.

  Now that we were alone, he looked enormous, a giant with hands like platters. I was overwhelmed with longing for the chamber I’d shared with my sisters, for the susurration of their voices in the dark and quiet snores of our ladies on their pallet. What was I supposed to do? What did he expect me to do? I searched my mind for a nugget of useful advice among the stockpile imparted to me. I flashed on my mother. She always offered my father a goblet when he returned after an absence, and I said, somewhat breathlessly, “Would my lord care for wine?”

  He gave a soft laugh. “I think I’ve had enough.” His hand reached for me. “Come here.”

  I recoiled. My mouth went dry. His fingers caught at my wrist, tugging me to him. As he bent to me, I turned my head away. “My lord, please,” I whispered. “I am afraid.”

  He paused. “You are afraid? I’d not have thought you capable of such an emotion, my fiery princess.” As he spoke, his fingertips caressed the underside of my wrist. His touch was light as a feather tip and yet it felt like a thousand braziers lighting up inside me.

  He was watching me intently. He smiled. “Ah, yes. You are not afraid. You are just unsure of yourself. But you can feel it, can’t you, my sweet Juana? You can feel how much I desire you.”

  My heart sounded like horses galloping in my head. I drew a shallow breath, standing perfectly still as his other hand snaked to my waist and unbuckled my robe’s jeweled clasp.

  The robe slid from my shoulders, pliant as wings. “Mon Dieu,” he breathed, “you are more beautiful than I imagined.” He lifted his eyes. “And me, my infanta? Do you find me beautiful?”

  I couldn’t speak a word, but as if he espied the answer in my silence his smile broadened and he began to tug at the tangled stays of his shirt.

  A surge of unexpected confidence drove me to him. I pried his fingers aside, disentangled the knots, his breath hot on my brow as I peeled back the linen. His chest shone in the candlelight. I tentatively set my palms on him, marveling that skin so smooth could be so firm to the touch. He moaned. I watched his eyelids flutter and close. As abruptly as it appeared, my confidence vanished. I stepped back, flustered. What was I doing? He’d think me as wanton as Doña Ana had accused me of being.

  His hand caught me again. “No. Don’t stop. I promise, I will not hurt you.”

  He drew me to him, buried his hands in my hair and pulled it back from my temples. I felt his arousal press against my leg and I wanted to look, to
see what made a man.

  He brought my mouth to his. This time, his kiss was charged, demanding. I finally did what I had wanted to do from the moment I set eyes on him: my arms rose about his shoulders and I pressed my entire length against him, feeling him tug loose the stays of my bed gown.

  Our bodies’ innate language took over. I let my hands roam the planes of his torso with eager inexperience, finding the hidden places that made his skin twitch and him groan. He crushed me against him, raising the cloth of my gown up my body until it passed over me in a crumpled mist.

  I stood before him. I’d never been naked in front of anyone save my women, but I wasn’t ashamed. I knew I had a lovely body, my breasts high and firm, my waist slender and legs toned from years of riding. He confirmed this with his eyes, bowing his head to tease me with his mouth. I had never imagined such an intensity of pleasure. I threw back my head as he went lower, lower, rousing a hunger unlike any I had experienced.

  In some distant part of my mind a warning clamored that this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I should be waiting for him in bed; he should blow out the candles, slip in beside me with his shirt still on. It was supposed to be brief, painful, then over. It should beget a child, not rouse such heat that it felt as though we might ignite and consume each other.

  But now nothing could quell the desires he had awoken. When he grasped me by my waist and hoisted me up, I wrapped my legs about him with ferocity, our hips grinding in a primal dance. He whispered, scalding my thighs as he lowered me onto the bed.

  He paused, his face in shadows. Watching. “Show me,” he said, “show me everything.”

  I let out a sudden laugh, the audible release of my joy nearly as powerful as the euphoric sensation of lying naked under his gaze. Then I met his stare and reached to my thighs, parting my legs slowly, with a lasciviousness I hadn’t known I possessed. He did not move at first. Then he undid his codpiece and untied his hose, removing his slashed breeches. His hose slipped to his groin, slid apart, and crumpled at his feet.

  I had never seen anything so magnificent.

  He was fashioned of sinew and muscle, his skin pure as white stone, his broad torso narrowing into lean hips, his sculpted thighs exalting his engorged sex.

  “Do you like what you see, little infanta?” he asked, and I nodded, aching now.

  He dropped onto the bed. His fingers were everywhere, probing with exquisite sophistication, kindling even more heat, until just as I began to shudder and I heard my own throaty gasps, he spooned my legs on his shoulders and thrust into me.

  The pain was sharp, snagging my breath. I instinctually curved upward to meet his plunge. We melded together, our hands gripping, our mouths devouring, until his entire body arched to spill his seed, and he breathed in my ear: “Now, my Juana, now we are one.”

  SEVEN

  Two days later, we were wed again in the cathedral, our union witnessed by enough nobles and prelates to satisfy even Doña Ana’s exacting standards.

  Another grand feast ensued. At the height of the revelry, Philip seized me by the hand and hauled me laughing through the palace to my apartments. He locked the door and threw me onto the carpet, ripping at my clothes. From the carpet, we graduated to the bed, where he displayed me on linen sheets strewn with lavender, his hands and mouth seeming to be all over me at once. Guided by his moans and whispers, I strove to show him that I was a fast learner, finding pleasure not only in what he did to me but also in giving him what he desired.

  Later in our disheveled bed, with the sheets tangled about me, I looked up at the coffered ceiling and found myself recalling the day I’d first beheld the grandeur of the Moors’ vanquished world. I had felt then as I felt now, full of exultation and belief in the miraculous.

  I turned to Philip. He lay with his arm across his brow. “What is it?” he murmured. He reached out to pull me closer, his eyelids drooping as he struggled against sleep.

  “I want to tell you about Spain,” I whispered.

  He smiled lazily. “Then do. Tell me everything.”

  And so I did, weaving in the darkened room the colors and shapes of my land. I relived the march on Granada, my mother at the head of her armies in a soldier’s breastplate, her silver cross aloft. I heard again the whoosh of catapults, my father’s defiant laughter as he strode through the ranks. I stood before the ocean, watching Colón depart in the galleons my mother had purchased with her jewels; rode in procession to Toledo to witness the return of Colón with his cages of exotic birds and natives from an unknown world. I danced in the sala; quarreled and made up with my sisters; followed the bats as they gathered in the sunset; and beheld the Alhambra as I’d last seen it, leonine and silent. When I finished, I hugged my knees, tears brimming in my eyes.

  Philip lay so quiet beside me I thought he’d fallen asleep. I leaned to him. His eyes were open, muted. “Felipe,” I said softly in my native tongue. “What is it? You look so sad.”

  He sighed. “I was thinking about my family. Or what passes for my family.” He did not look at me. “My mother died when I was a babe. My father loved her so much he could not bear her loss or, apparently, the charge of raising his own children. He sent me here and my sister to France as a future bride for King Charles. Charles eventually repudiated Margaret, but by the time she and I reunited, we had both grown up. We never knew each other as children.”

  I couldn’t imagine it. The most time I’d spent apart from my parents had been summers in Granada, and even then my sisters were with me. My mother had overseen every aspect of our upbringing; she’d selected our tutors, corrected our workbooks, and arranged our schedules. Overpowering as her presence had been, I’d never stopped to consider that I had been fortunate, as royal children were often sent away to their own households to be reared by others.

  “And your father?” I ventured. “Did he visit you?”

  His smile was cold. “My father prefers Vienna, from where he can rule his mighty empire. He visited once a year. He reviewed my expenses, inquired as to my education, and then he left. Once, I begged him to stay. I was just a boy and I held on to his stirrup. ‘This is your place,’ he told me from his horse. ‘I do not want to see you cry like a girl. We are princes, and princes must learn to be alone. We must not want or need anyone. We must never show our weakness.’ ”

  The cruelty of this reminded me of what my mother had said to me in Arévalo. As little as I knew about the man beside me, we had this much in common: we had both felt the iron shackle of duty, forever marking us as different from the rest of the world.

  “I’ve heard similar words,” I said quietly. “They are a hard lesson indeed.”

  He shrugged. “Not for me. I learned there were few things I could not do without, including my father. Until I turned twelve.” Warmth entered his voice. “That was when Besançon entered my service. My father appointed him as my spiritual adviser. He taught me everything I needed to know about being a prince. I was fourteen when I was deemed old enough to take charge of Flanders in my father’s name, and the first thing I did was petition Rome for a dispensation to make Besançon my chancellor. Though he oversees his archbishopric, his primary duty is to serve me.”

  I’d never heard of such an unusual arrangement for a man of such rank. “My mother has a trusted adviser that is somewhat like him,” I said. “Archbishop Cisneros. He’s head of the See of Toledo, the greatest in Castile. But he only advises my mother on religious matters.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of him.” Philip’s voice lowered to mock severity, his hands curled at his face like claws. “They say he is so pious, he hunts down heretics wherever they might hide and wears sandals year-round, no matter the weather.”

  I chuckled at his uncanny imitation and nestled beside him. He kissed my brow. “Time to sleep, little infanta. Tomorrow we rise early to escort Margaret to Antwerp and her ship for Spain, and on to Brussels. After that, I’ll take you on a tour of our future empire.” He ruffled my hair, kissing me again before he turned
away. Soon thereafter, his breath deepened in sleep.

  Lifting myself on my elbows, I gazed at his profile.

  In the rush of emotions that had overtaken me since my arrival in Flanders, I’d not given thought to the fact that he was just seventeen, a man by royal standards, yes, and already a ruler, but scarcely adult in body or mind. I traced the width of his shoulder, recalling my anger when I’d first learned of my betrothal, my railing against my fate. I’d blamed Philip for separating me from Spain, longed to flee the loveless responsibility I thought marriage to him would entail.

  My misgivings seemed so distant now, like the tantrum of a naïve, frightened child. Philip and I were destined for each other. I would be more than a wife to him, more than a mere vessel for his seed. We were both young; we had our entire lives ahead. We would learn together how to rule with benevolence and wisdom. We would bequeath a heritage of power and fortune to our children and retire to grow old together, basking in our memories. And when our bones turned to dust in a marble tomb, our blood would continue to rule after us, until the world ceased to exist.

  I curled against him. He murmured, unconsciously adjusting to accommodate me, his hand bringing mine to his chest. My fingers spread over his heart, seeking its strong, steady beat.

  I closed my eyes and succumbed to dreams.

  WE BADE MARGARET A FOND FAREWELL AT ANTWERP, WHERE SHE embarked on her trip to Spain. We then proceeded on to Brussels—a dense and scenic city situated in the north of Flanders. The countryside was enchanting, lush as a garden, but I was astonished by how small Philip’s duchy was, squeezed like a biscuit between northern France and the immense sprawl of the Germanic principalities. It took weeks to travel from Granada to Toledo, while we were barely in the saddle four days before we reached the bustling capital of Flanders. To me, it seemed the entire realm could have fit in a tiny corner of Castile, with room to spare. Perhaps this was why I saw so few signs of poverty or expanses of uninhabited stony land. Here, it was as if everyone had a purpose, and a place.