The Scroll of Seduction

by Gioconda Belli

  Juana used her body as a weapon time and time again. Perhaps so many pregnancies had been a means to assert her power, to display the love Philippe held for her. A pregnant woman was a symbol of female sexuality. A pregnant woman did not conjure up images of a Madonna, but of a real woman, in bed, making love. I found pregnant women enchanting to watch. I loved the lumbering sweetness that floated around them like a halo of life. I hadn’t told anyone, but I hadn’t gotten my period that month and I was distraught and anxious, especially when I thought about my recent conversation with Mother Luisa Magdalena. That weekend, when I was lying naked beside Manuel, he held one of my breasts as if he were weighing the evidence, and told me that they’d grown. He said making love was maturing my body. Surely that was it. It wasn’t the first time I’d skipped a period. When I was fifteen, the nuns had even taken me to a gynecologist to see what the problem might have been, and the doctor had told them it was normal, especially at first, when hormones and cycles were still adjusting. My periods eventually became regular. Perhaps this was just another phase, maybe my body was entering maturity. After all, Manuel and I had been very careful. Especially him. So I shouldn’t worry too much about it. I had to take my emotional state into account and assume my fears would prove to be unfounded.

  I walked out of the metro into the chill of the street, and stopped off at the bakery to buy croissants. The girl behind the counter wrapped my package in Christmas paper and tied it up with red and green ribbons. Águeda had told me that she would very much like to have me stay with them over Christmas vacation. The nuns had already agreed. My grandmother, at my request, wrote to the mother superior to say that I was mature enough to make that sort of decision on my own. It was a huge relief to know I had been spared from going to Málaga, where the foreign boarders spent cheerless vacations.

  I walked down the street back toward school thinking about Juana and her confinement. During the coming week I wouldn’t see the streets, or cars, or the hustle and bustle of the city. The gray walls would swallow me up. I crossed the somber, tiled front hall and pushed the door open. I heard it close behind me. The echo of the wood hitting the frame followed me all the way to my room. The idea of having to spend six more months there made it seem an eternity. I imagined the sense of liberation I’d feel when this unchanging routine finally ended. I wondered what would become of me and the other girls in a few years’ time. Where would we end up? Huge differences separated us: they had parents; I didn’t. They were virgins; I had a lover. They dismissed the prejudices that stood like obstacles in our path. I imagined those prejudices aligned against us like an army. They’d shoot at our legs to prevent us from going very far without help. Perhaps not being a virgin would make things more difficult for me when it came to marriage. We all had to be on the lookout for those who would just as soon turn us into caretakers: nurses, secretaries, second-rate citizens.

  I missed not having parents to guide me. My father had been a successful banker, a lawyer by profession, but I had no interest in studying law. My plan, before Manuel arrived on the scene, had been to finish high school and then move to New York and study humanities; Isis could help me figure out exactly what to do and how. History maybe, I thought now. I liked reliving better than living. Maybe that’s why I felt so comfortable evoking Juana, her history, her life story, delving into her past. Or maybe it was just that the future seemed so uncertain. When the year ended, I’d be done with school: no more convent, no more nuns. And no matter how boring I thought boarding school was, no matter how badly I wanted to get out of there, I had no idea what would become of me afterward. I couldn’t imagine how my relationship with Manuel would change my plans or what would happen between us once Juana’s story came to an end.

  CHAPTER 17

  On the morning of January 7, 1506, I watched the port of Flushing fade into the distance from the deck of the Julienne, a Genovese carrack. A year and a half had passed since my mother’s death, and Philippe and I were finally on our way to Spain. I sent for a chair and intended to sit for a good long while, stewing over the latest affront to my pride. To protect myself from the cold, made worse by the brackish sea breeze, I wrapped up tightly in my fur hood. My husband would probably be drinking wine with his chamberlains in the captain’s cabins right now, ranting about me. I didn’t care. I even smiled, recalling the expression on his face when I forced him to disembark the ladies whom–without my consent–he proposed to bring as passengers, attempting to pass them off as female escorts for me. I threatened not to board myself unless he heeded my request. I had prepared for this journey carefully, and he was not going to ruin it by stirring up my jealousy with those women.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, trying to match my heartbeat to the rhythm of the waves. Behind us lay Flanders and the year 1505, annus horribilis, which had announced itself late in 1504 with my mother’s death.

  I had been expecting the news for months, and yet I was unprepared for how powerfully it affected me when it finally came. I received the messenger with Philippe at my side. He began to believe his own fabrications, fearing that I would act like the madwoman they have made me out to be. Juana the Mad. (I know that my detractors already call me that. How unfair that the same passion that in men gives cause for admiration, in women is seen as a sign of instability. I do not know how to behave any other way than that which my emotions dictate. Perhaps I was not born for the court, which is the same as saying that I was not born for hypocrisy.) I didn’t shout. A vile sticky darkness, a black liquid filled my veins, as if all my life’s sorrow had been turned into a sea of ink. I felt I was drowning, I felt all the colors around me fade to black. I was overcome by panic, and I don’t know if it was life or death that I feared. Philippe must have been scared, because suddenly he stopped being the other. He hugged me. He stroked my hair and whispered sweet nothings to me, as if he were comforting a baby. My sobs quieted slowly with his tenderness, and gradually the black liquid stopped constricting my throat. It was early December and cold seeped from the walls of Coudenberg Palace. Philippe sent for firewood; he sent for furs to wrap around me; and he got into bed with me and sang like a minstrel. We spent an entire week in bed, he and I. He was trying to relieve my look of despair. Never had my eyes grown so dim, he said. Perhaps my mother’s spirit floated above us before she died. Mary was conceived during that week of love in which Philippe seemed to glow while he slept like a naked god beside me. We talked. He asked me to understand that he had only dismissed my servants because he had found out they had been conspiring among themselves to take Charles to Spain, leaving us without a son. I did not contradict him; I did not dare. I feared the other Philippe would return.

  But it was just a question of time. I should have known. At the royal exequy for my mother in Saint Gudule on January 14 and 15, he alone received the sword of justice and proudly displayed his new coat of arms, which now included the insignias of Castile, León, and Granada, as if they were just a few more possessions in his kingdom. Two hundred copies of his brand new coat of arms adorned the cathedral in Brussels, and thousands had the insignia emblazoned on their torches. Given that he was the consort and I the queen, it should have been me who was honored, but before his subjects, he decided to change the order of things without so much as consulting me, not caring a whit about casting me aside. As he was being acclaimed, he exchanged his mourning hood for a regal one, lined with ermine and embroidered with the new coat of arms, and then he proclaimed himself king. Indignant, I was forced to sit several steps below him, to the right of the altar, with my mourning clothes and my veil, dark and nearly invisible beside his dazzling vanity. I felt sorry for his stupidity, his ambition. Several days later, when the news arrived that my father–using Martín de Moxica’s testimony–had convinced the Cortes in Toledo that due to my incapacity to rule he should be named regent, I didn’t become furious. I was more overjoyed at the humiliation inflicted on Philippe than I was surprised at my father’s shrewd maneuver. I imagined th
at he wanted to avoid the possibility of Philippe usurping the throne from me. And I accepted his judgment, reasoning that if I had to pick between an Aragonese and a Fleming to rule over my kingdoms, I would take the Aragonese. At least he spoke the language!

  To legitimize the situation, my father sent me a dispatch, asking for authorization to rule on my behalf. He was perfectly aware of the fact that I was not incapacitated, which was precisely why he sought my mandate to rule. I signed right away, but my valet, Miguel de Herrera–curse him–took the dispatch straight to Philippe, who, neither dim-witted nor idle, trampled my authority once again. Not only did he rip up the parchment, he also tortured the poor emissary–my father’s secretary, Lope de Conchillos–leaving him crippled and disfigured. And even if he had placed Conchillos on the rack and imprisoned him, I didn’t fare much better. Philippe forbade any Spaniard from speaking to me or coming near me and locked me in my rooms yet again, this time with a dozen archers stationed in my first chamber to ensure I could not escape.

  With me incommunicado, Philippe and Gómez de Fuensalida forged my signature and composed a missive in which I swore loyalty to my husband and defended his right to succession.

  At some point during all these machinations with which–one could easily think–both husband and father were attempting to usurp my power, someone informed the king that I was locked up. He, in turn, flew into a rage and used the information as a justification for not recognizing my supposed vows of loyalty to Philippe, threatening to make public the affronts I was suffering if he did not immediately set me free and treat me with the respect due the Queen of Castile.

  But rather than fear my father’s warnings, what Philippe truly feared was his own father’s censure, and it was during that time that–alarmed at the news of our disputes–Emperor Maximilian arrived at the palace. Finally, my door was unbolted.

  Filthy and disheveled, my long hair hanging loose and dirty, dressed in a gray robe that showed my taught, round belly on the verge of releasing Mary, I strode past my jailors, through the first chamber where the archers stood, and ran into the garden, desperate to cast off the murky shadows of weeks of darkness. It was August. The sun, air, and trees were bursting with their bounty; blue bellflower vines overflowed with blooms; ants marched busily, transporting food to their nests. After so many days of dimly lit imprisonment, my eyes teared up and I saw everything filtered through their gauzy humidity. From the balconies and corridors, courtiers watched the show. I let the sounds of their murmurs be carried off by the wind rustling the garden’s leaves, so that my happiness should not be spoiled by their curiosity.

  Despite my relief at being freed, I must also say that I had begun to realize that each time I was locked up, I became more skilled at carving out my own private world, extending its horizons, and triumphing over my loneliness. Were that not the case, I might well have lost my mind. And yet at the same time, I knew that this ability to inhabit my own world made the outside one fade away until the people around me were just blurred outlines in the distance. Still, it was painful to live without the silent, generous bounty of nature. This banishment filled me with a physical longing, a yearning for green, for towering canopies and open sky, that slowly turned into a vegetative burning in my fingertips, just like what I imagined flowers feel as they die of thirst. I sat beneath a birch tree, my arms and legs stretched out, my forehead to the sky, and I began to sing, to hum softly, bathing in the sun and the breeze.

  I cannot say how long I lay there, happily, before some Flemish ladies came to take me away. I let myself be led to the baths. They would be discussing the scene in the garden as if it were another fit of madness, but I didn’t care.

  Mary was born, healthy as all of my children. This time a physician and a midwife accompanied me. My father-in-law arrived and agreed to hold her over the baptismal font. It seemed that peace reigned once more in my palace. I attended jousts and banquets, despite the looks of fear and mistrust from my courtiers, and the cold watchfulness of Gómez de Fuensalida and the other Philippe.

  And now I am finally on my way back to Spain. I have hardly even seen my children over these past months. They will stay in Coudenberg during our absence. I weaned Mary in Middleburg, where I oversaw preparations for our journey and gave her to the wet nurse. I feel sorry for my children. They will all be kings and queens. Perhaps unhappy ones. I cannot give them happy childhoods when I suffer, as I do, from so little love and so much imprisonment. Perhaps I do not love them; perhaps I have not been allowed to love them. They never looked at me with the same eyes after I returned from Spain. They have probably been told that their mother is mad. And rather than see the look of fear in their eyes, I prefer to see them seldom, almost never.

  “MANUEL, I DIDN’T GET MY PERIOD THIS MONTH.”

  He stared at me. Silent.

  “It could just be hormones. This happened to me before, two years ago, it sort of came and went, but I thought it was better to tell you.”

  “Wait, Lucía. Don’t get distracted. Let’s keep going,” was all he said. But I could tell he was worried by that way he had of pondering several things at once.

  “I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT THE ARMADA THAT ACCOMPANIED Philippe and Juana comprised forty ships, carrying not only their luggage and their retinues but also two thousand German soldiers. Though the Spanish nobles had offered to support Philippe and Juana and battle Fernando’s aspirations, the archduke thought it would be best if they were prepared to wrench the crown from him by force, if necessary. So he contracted lansquenets as a sort of private army. Always concerned with gaining the favor of his servants, Philippe not only ignored Juana’s wishes and embarked the ladies whom Juana had ordered off the ships, but he also snuck on a rather large group of prostitutes. Close your eyes and don’t get distracted, because the ship neared Calais during the windy, stormy season, and your fleet sailed right into a tempest. You had a premonition about it.”

  I WAS WATCHING THE WATER, THINKING THAT JONAH’S WHALE made an accurate metaphor for where I hid when life tried to sink me in its depths, when I sensed the sea’s uneasiness. It had gone very still, as if its soul had left it. More than afloat, the Julienne seemed suspended on the water’s surface, her topsails limp and lifeless. The dense air was thick, almost viscous. The sky–leaden and opaque, impassive since our departure from Flushing–now flashed threateningly as if someone were behind the canopy of heaven, pouring down liquid silver. Though it was quite beautiful, I thought of an assassin putting on satin gloves. “There’s a storm coming,” I whispered. An old sailor halfheartedly tightening the tackle nearby looked up at the sky and nodded, grunting. “And a bad one,” he said.

  At three o’clock, the sun vanished. The sea and sky began their ritual battle. The wind came out of hiding and began to howl like a lonely wolf. The waves raised their arms in protest against the darkness that had surrounded us. I went down to my cabin, crossed myself, and commended my soul to God, now free from the anxiety of the premonition and the waiting. My only duty now was to ride out the storm. No king or queen, as far as I knew, had ever died in a shipwreck and we were not going to be the first. But just as I was beyond fear, the others were entirely in its clutches. Philippe arrived, pale as a lily, and dragged me off to the common room, where ladies, gentlemen, and nobles were crammed in together, looking like a pack of rats surrounded by ravenous cats.

  I sat before them at the captain’s table. My tranquility must have appeared to them like disdain. The boat rocked from side to side, emptying the courtiers’ delicate stomachs of their bitter contents. I, on the other hand, felt hungry and so took the bowl of nuts from the captain’s table and began to nibble away. The rain hammered down as if the sea had been relocated to the sky and was trying to return home. Thrust by the wind, the water whipped against the ship’s sides and hatches. Seeing everyone’s panic, I tried to calm them by explaining that no king or queen had ever died in a shipwreck. But they just stared at me, mouths agape, as if I were stark raving mad, so I s
hrugged and returned to nibbling the nuts. There in the captain’s chamber, books slipped from their shelves, objects rolled off of tables, maps fell, spyglasses, liquor, and furniture came crashing to the floor. Weeping ladies found nothing to hold on to; some grabbed curtains to cover their faces and vomit into. Thrown to the floor, dukes and counts, thus degraded, no longer bothered to lift their heads before vomiting and just lay there in their own spew.

  Philippe shouted for us all to commend ourselves to God; Gómez de Fuensalida wept openly without bothering to wipe the snot running down his beard. Lightning was striking as one endless bolt. And the thunder was so close it rattled our bones. Keeping calm at times like these makes one wise and meditative. I began to ponder the importance of remembering–particularly for those who were suffering so–that in the face of nature, man is insignificant, his power risible, incapable of unleashing a storm or making the wind howl. We were nothing on that sea, with our petty sorrows and our worries. In minutes, the tempest had taken us straight back to the terror of childhood, or of nothingness.

  At some point, the roar of a tree crashing down exploded above our heads. We heard the captain’s voice shouting to his crew, announcing that the mast had snapped. Philippe ran after him and returned with a wineskin tied to his body. I can only assume he thought it would keep him afloat should we be shipwrecked. I had never seen him so pale, or so solicitous. I believe he even approached me to beg my forgiveness for locking me up and treating me poorly. Fortunately, it was not the time for conversations. I knew how quickly he would forget those words once the sea had calmed.