The Scroll of Seduction

by Gioconda Belli

  TO GET FROM THE CARRACK TO THE BISCAYNER THAT WOULD TAKE me to dry land, I had insisted on wearing one of my best gold-colored dresses. Neither Don Fadrique nor Doña Beatriz nor any of the other ladies in my entourage were able to dissuade me. I wanted to show off my complexion, my black hair, draw the attention away from the gigantic clock I felt was beating in my chest. Getting me from one boat to the next on the high seas, considering the splendor of my attire, the flounces and hoops, was a harrowing task. I was lowered from the ship like a heavy, useless bundle. I bore the discomfort, imagining the expression on my fiancé’s face when he finally saw me. But when only a small group of austere Spanish ladies came forward to greet me I was overwhelmed by a feeling of ridicule, which soured my mood. I felt utterly humiliated. I thought of my mother’s efforts putting together such a magnificent armada to display the glories of Spain. From the shore the entire horizon looked like a great city all festooned and decked out for a day of festivities. Such a blunder confused me. Doña María and Don Balduin attempted to conceal their displeasure. They were dressed in the Burgundian manner: she wore a high hat and a fine brocade dress detailed with lace cuffs and collar; he wore knee-length baggy trousers and fine ocher stockings, suede shoes with little arabesques, and a shirtfront with diamonds embroidered in gold thread. The very loquacious Doña María was eager for news of the Castilian court, and she gave us all the details regarding the preparations under way for Marguerite’s journey to Spain, where she was to wed my brother, Juan.

  In the carriage on the way to our accommodations, no longer within earshot of gossipers, Doña María informed us that although my father-in-law, Emperor Maximilian, agreed with the Spanish crown on the need to isolate the French Valois, both the counselors surrounding Philippe since childhood and a great number of the Burgundian nobility were in favor of the French. They were full of misgivings about the powerful fleet, the number of soldiers and the large entourage I was bringing along. To them it was an unequivocal sign of the influence that my parents, the Catholic Monarchs, wished to exert over Flanders by virtue of my marriage. No doubt that the Flemish preferred to ignore Spanish power. The court of Flanders admired France. They considered the Spanish unsophisticated, rough, inflexible, arrogant, and prudish.

  “You should know, Your Highness, that your fiancé the archduke is called not only Philippe the Handsome, but also croit conseil, the Easily Advisable, because he shows such blind faith in his counselors.”

  “The archduke has asked that you travel to Bruges, where he has prepared a reception for you,” Don Balduin interrupted.

  “But you might also elect to accompany us to Bergen-Op-Zoom. Seignior Jean de Berghes has asked me to extend a cordial invitation for you to attend the baptism of his daughter, and to be her godmother. Berghes is the archduke’s principal chamberlain, but he is faithful to the crown of Castile and Aragon,” Doña María said, a picaresque smile playing on her thin lips.

  Her clear insinuation did not fall on deaf ears. At that moment nothing seemed more appropiate to me than spoiling my future husband’s plans. I was still flustered from the fustration I had experienced at having to walk before the crowd at the port in my best golden dress without a handsome prince to welcome me.

  “I love baptismal ceremonies,” I responded. “I will visit Bruges another time.”

  “LET’S STOP HERE. YOU MUST GO BACK TO SCHOOL”

  I gently refused his offer to take me. We said good-bye at the entrance to the metro. All the way on the train I kept thinking of Juana’s dissapointment. Driven to distraction, I missed my stop and arrived at school a few minutes past seven. Dinner had already begun. Mother Luisa Magdalena saw me come in from the podium where she watched over the refectory. On the way to study hall, she came up and asked what had kept me.

  “I was on my way back when one of the old booksellers on Cuesta de Moyano decided to tell me his life story,” I said. “I just couldn’t bear to interrupt him. Today I saw Pradilla’s Juana la Loca at the Prado. Very impressive.”

  “It’s beautiful indeed. I must say I was quite surprised to see you arrive without your share of pastries.” She smiled.

  I looked down to avoid meeting her eyes. I feared her acute intuition. I feared she would know I was lying, but I didn’t feel like telling her the truth. Nuns had a tendency to issue warnings. Rather than trust your judgment, they preferred to ensure that you were never in a position where you would need to use it. Mother Luisa Magdalena’s affection for me was no guarantee that she would approve of my actions. Above all else, she was a nun.

  CHAPTER 6

  A letter from Manuel arrived during the week:

  On Sunday I spent some time analyzing the work of Francisco Pradilla, and his painting of Juana of Castile. I never cease to admire his ability to capture our poor queen’s sadness and impotence at being ostracized and loveless at the peak of her youth. Juana’s face makes me think of modern women who refuse to accept the asphyxiating conditions they are forced to endure by society. The more I look at these paintings the more convinced I am of both the painter and his subject’s lucidity. It’s interesting that Pradilla chose to portray his thoughts on Juana’s state of mind for posterity. I could fill page after page with my thoughts on the topic, but just a look at his painting is enough to understand the magnitude of the queen’s tragedy. Perhaps I bore you with my obsessions, but the history of Spain, and of that period in particular, is as vivid to me as the taste of the sangria I had with my Sunday lunch, as I watched people strolling down the street. I often ask myself how can this world produce a face as desolate as Juana’s when in other faces one can still perceive the innocence of paradise.

  In Spanish literature class I could hardly pay attention to the teacher, whose chin-length pageboy haircut looked like a stiff black helmet frozen into place with too much hair spray. I thought about Manuel’s words and tossed them around in my mind, trying to understand the emotions lurking behind them. Despite my love of reading and literature–or maybe because of it–Señorita Aguilar’s lessons (we called all of the teachers “Señorita”) invariably put me in a bad mood. She asked us to recite our lessons in class word by word. She forced us to remember dates and names, but showed little interest in expanding our knowledge of writers and their works. It was quite a shame to have someone like her teaching a subject that could lead to so much more than honing our memorization skills. Besides, whatever we learned with that system usually evaporated from our minds by the end of the semester–but Señorita Aguilar–not a very enlightened human being–apparently thought knowledge could be ascertained this way. Watching her in class I wavered between irritation and pity. Behind her desire to impose her authority, one could feel a sense of tedium and sadness. She was no longer young but pretended to look youthful, as if time could be defeated by makeup. Unfortunately she didn’t apply it well, or just did it in a rush. The result was that her pale, violet lipstick always ran over her lower lip line, her eyeliner caked in the corners of her eyes, and the overall effect made her look like a tattered rag doll worthy of compassion.

  THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY I WOKE UP BEFORE THE CRACK OF DAWN. IT was October and the cold had set in during the week, with icy winds blowing in from the sierra. Tucked up in bed, all I had to do was stretch out my legs and I could feel the cold plains at one end of the sheets. I thought about the coming winter. At night the nuns turned off the heat, and the thick walls soaked up the nocturnal chill like sponges, waiting until the dead of night to wring it out into our rooms. The luminous dial of the clock on my nightstand read 5:17 A.M. It would still be a few hours until daybreak, but I was wide awake, excited about meeting Manuel later at the Prado. In spite of myself, I had spent all week thinking about him, weaving absurd fantasies. Aside from feeling nervous and on edge, I felt a surge of energy, a clamoring in my chest that wouldn’t let me be still. I would have gladly gotten up and begun to dress, but before I left I first had to attend mass, go to breakfast, feign the usual languorous pace of Sundays at boardi
ng school.

  MANUEL WAS STANDING, WAITING FOR ME AT THE USUAL PLACE. This time he didn’t even pretend to enter the museum. He started straight down the sidewalk, and when he got to the corner, he stopped a taxi and gave the driver his address. I just let myself be led along.

  In his apartment, on the table by the sofa, he had set out little plates of appetizers, two glasses, and a bottle of wine. Conversation was always easy between us, although I often wondered why it was that Manuel puffed so eagerly on his cigarette. When we first arrived I had felt a bit uneasy, trying hard to seem relaxed and normal while I tried to calm an irrational fear: what if Manuel could see through me and read the romantic fantasies I had been entertaining? But his easygoing manner, the soft tone of his voice, and the way he picked up the thread of our conversation as if it had never been interrupted lessened my anxiety. The buzzing in my mind slowed down and my heartbeat regained its pace.

  We had some wine along with the appetizers and then Manuel served the lunch he had prepared: baked trout, rice, and vegetables. I was telling him about my literature class, about Señorita Aguilar and her mania for having us learn the lesson by heart, when he asked me if I had ever been in love.

  I knew I had blushed when I felt my cheeks get hot, but I burst out laughing.

  “How could I? I’ve been locked up in a convent school since I was thirteen….”

  “But when you were twelve, eleven, wasn’t there a boy who caught your fancy? I, for one, was given to platonic love. There was Amalia, my neighbor, for instance. I daydreamed about her, but I never dared tell her how I felt.”

  “I did like my cousin Alejandro. We were inseparable, and he would tell me that I was his girlfriend and that we’d get married one day. But the older cousins said we couldn’t marry because we were related. Thinking that our love was impossible saddened me for some time. But we were kids. What about you? What happened with Amalia?”

  “Amalia moved away one day, and I never saw her again. Then came Nieves. Does Alejandro write to you?”

  “He had an accident about two years ago. He dove into a nearly dry swimming pool. He almost died. He was in a coma for a few months. Luckily he recovered, but he still has memory lapses, and one of the things he forgot was his love for me. He never writes. After Alejandro, I had a fleeting crush on an older man: the architect who built our house. He was really handsome, and he treated me very deferentially, as if I were an adult, but I think he was really taken with my mother. The minute she showed up he’d forget all about me.”

  “Were you jealous?”

  “I suppose so. I hated being so young. I would hide in the room next to the studio, trying to catch something between them that I could tell my father about, but all they did was talk about construction. Still, I’m sure my mother liked the architect. She would get all dolled up to greet him, and her eyes sparkled when she looked at him. But why are you asking me all these questions?”

  “Maybe because I’ve never talked about these things with anyone your age. I can hardly remember how I saw the world when I was a teenager, and when I think about Juana the Mad falling in love at sixteen with Philippe the Handsome, I wonder if such a young person can really fall in love.”

  “Why not? Besides, back then people got married at that age, right? So they must have felt something.”

  Manuel smiled as he poured me more wine and lit another cigarette.

  “Whenever you’re ready, you can get changed and we’ll continue. I want to tell you about Juana and Philippe’s first meeting. When we left off, she was on her way to the baptism of Jean de Berghes’s daughter in Bergen-Op-Zoom.”

  ON THE TRIP TO BERGEN-OP-ZOOM, I WAS IMPRESSED BY THE NEAT and swarming Flemish cities; their rectangular, brick houses, lined up one after the other, topped with ornate triangular roofs reminded me of the illustrations in the book of hours María de Borgoña had given my mother. The farmhouse roofs were made of very dense thatch, the ends tidily chopped off into straight edges. Everywhere people were working in the fields or toiling away in bakeries and shops. There was an air of productivity very different from that of Castile, which seemed poor and pastoral by comparison. Jean de Berghes’s family gave me a very warm welcome, making me and all my ladies very comfortable and putting us up in their chambers, which were exquisitely decorated with brightly colored tapestries. After having been at sea, those days provided me with the rest I so needed; I don’t know how I would have survived the following month otherwise. At the baptism, I held the little girl, who they named Jeanne in my honor.

  A few days later we left Bergen-Op-Zoom and headed to Antwerp, arriving on September 19. In each city along the way, the people received me with great celebrations to mark my joyous entry, and I returned their interest with smiles and salutations as I paraded down the principal streets with my entourage. My ladies and I rode sidesaddle, in the Spanish manner, on very fine, embossed saddles. We wore our traditional headdresses and mantillas over the gold and deep red of our most sumptuous gowns. We were accompanied by a retinue of trumpeters and standard bearers who made quite a commotion as we passed. These Castilian-style processions, which here also included fire breathers, jesters, and all sorts of entertainers, were aimed at presenting me to the public with a great display of ostentation and revelry, so as to mark the importance of my union with Philippe, particularly in light of my lineage and nobility. The simple inhabitants of these towns, with their rosy-cheeked faces and thin, fair skin, watched us pass in marked admiration. Their smiles and applause made up for what they couldn’t express with their words. The Flemish seemed remarkably happy and bold to me. Men and women addressed one another with great familiarity, foregoing the modesty and formality of Castile. Women with tambourines lifted their skirts as they danced. And I saw more than one raise a stein of beer in greeting, from the windows of taverns. Don Luis de Osorio, my confessor, was so scandalized by these people’s behavior that I couldn’t help but laugh. He kept crossing himself discretely and glancing over at me in an attempt to ensure that I agreed that their conduct was licentious and reprehensible. But the truth is, the self-possessed spirit of the Flemish was so vibrant it was contagious. And even though the hospitality the nobility extended were commingled with clear indications that at times they wished to expose our lack of experience with Burgundian ceremony–as if they were making fun of our ignorance–I did not take it personally. It just seemed part of the jovial, animated, irreverent spirit that I was so pleased to discover in my future subjects. I felt lighthearted and happy. The compliments I received everywhere I turned, more than making me feel vain, made me grateful and also made me want to become a sovereign who they would come to truly love one day.

  As days went by, and my understanding of Flemish or a phrase here and there in Latin allowed me to perceive that people envied my good fortune at marrying such a handsome, valiant prince, a good horseman with an admirable zest for life, my initial sadness and apprehension at being separated from my parents and everything I knew was replaced with a tremendous desire to make the most of my new life and become the charming foreign princess that would bring happiness to Archduke Philippe.

  It was beginning to get cold. In Antwerp, despite the magnificent reception we were offered, fortune did not smile upon us. I came down with a high fever that made me delirious and left my entire body aching. I felt suddenly overpowered by the fear that my future husband’s late arrival, as some had suggested, was meant to humiliate the Spanish crown. The real reason–which I was only just starting to glimpse–could be traced back to my fiancé’s childhood. Since the death of his mother in a riding accident when he was four years old, his father had left him under the tutelage of Flemish and Belgian nobles who decidedly supported the French. While they governed the provinces, they kept him entertained with hunts, banquets, and celebrations. Now that he was a man, his father was attempting to free him from these influences and guide him toward the defense and administration of Germanic interests. That was why he had forced him to preside ov
er the German parliament in Lindau, which prevented him from coming to meet me at the port. Nevertheless I found his absence unforgivable. When I fell ill and was in bed feverish after the initial days of joyful celebration, my delight at finding myself in this country that lacked the somber rigidity of Spain soon vanished. I fell into a state of depression that was only aggravated by the death of my confessor, Don Luis de Osorio, and the alarming news of the men and the fleet in Arnemuiden waiting to take Marguerite to Spain. Left to their own devices, thousands of soldiers and sailors were freezing, ill, and starving. Death had begun to decimate them. Impatient and cross, I dictated to Don Fadrique a letter for my fiancé, urging him to hurry to the monastery of Lier, where I was headed. Abbess Marie de Soissons had offered me her hospitality out of gratitude to María Manuela de Borgoña, who had not left my side.

  Philippe arrived on the night of October 12, dirty and drenched after having traveled several days without rest, even resorting to taking horses from posthouses. The abbess set him up in a nice room with a fireplace so that he could dry his clothes and have something to eat and drink. The buzz of the archduke’s arrival traveled quickly through the monastery eliciting whispers, comings and goings. The news of a masculine presence in their midst seemed to unleash who knows what memories or forbidden fantasies among the women confined there. Because she had been a widow when she entered the convent, the abbess knew of the ways of the world. Promptly after she finished attending to Philippe, she came to my chambers to make certain that my ladies-in-waiting were taking care of my apperance so that my fiancé would be impressed when he first saw me.

  Fortunately, I had recovered from my brief illness. The excitement that permeated the air after the news of Philippe’s arrival shook off the last vestiges of my melancholy. I intended to display before him the personality I had so often rehearsed when I daydreamed about our meeting. I wanted him to see me like a radiant creature. I chose a deep red dress with a square neckline and wide sleeves. I did not wish to flatter his ego by overdressing. Around my neck I wore the ruby my mother had given me for my engagement, and I let my hair down. I even refused to wear the whalebone stays to extend my skirts, choosing instead to let the velvet fall over my hips and lengthen my figure. Standing before the mirror I could not help but glimpse the fantasies reflected in the eyes of my ladies-in-waiting. Their eyes shone brighter than mine at the thought of what lay ahead. I, on the other hand, had trouble controlling the jumble of contradictory thoughts informing me that misery was as likely as bliss. God knew anything was possible. If Philippe did not captivate me, I would have to put up with years of suffering. Fervently, silently, I prayed for that man to find a way to touch my heart. Amused by my state of agitation, Beatriz de Bobadilla handed me the vial of love potion that Beatriz de Galindo had made me take the last night we dined with my mother. Now I had to find a way to get my future consort to take it, she said playfully. I slipped the vial into my bodice and, finally, accompanied by the abbess, Beatriz, Don Fadrique, and Doña María Manuel de Borgoña, I made my way to the hall where the archduke was waiting.