The Queen's Sorrow

by Suzannah Dunn

  The sun laid down its light, piling it down in a rich silt. Back home, sunlight was thin and sharp and on the attack from overhead. In this slanted illumination, trees cast webs of shadow. Sometimes Rafael’s own shadow took him aback, bringing him up sharp: so distinct, it was, and compact, solid-looking, advancing with confidence. The sun blessed his face, his shoulders, his back. The trees fizzed with breeze; a bumblebee hummed like a bow dandled on a string. Both Nicholas and Richard were industrious. Cecily’s face had some colour, Rafael saw. Lady-blush.

  The day should have been perfect, but Cecily was tense because the yield was poor. Apart from the scattering of plum-like fruits, blackberries were the last before the long winter, she told him, and should have been plentiful. She didn’t like other pickers near, Rafael noticed, which was because they were competition but could also have been because many of them were so obviously armed, firearms slung over their shoulders. Whenever anyone else was around, Rafael kept quiet, kept his head down. He was even less protected, he realised, than in London. Had Cecily realised it, too? Did she see him as vulnerable, up here? He hoped she didn’t, and he hoped he hadn’t been foolish to come.

  Whenever he glanced up, London was there in the distance, all spires. A city of churches, yes, but invisible from here were the ruins of some and the ransacked look of others. Seeing him pause to take in the view, once, Cecily confided, ‘I don’t like London.’

  He was surprised: she’d never even hinted at it. ‘No?’

  She merely shook her head.

  ‘You prefer …?’ He waved a hand around: open countryside.

  She considered how to reply. ‘I come from far away,’ she said, eventually, in that careful English with which she spoke to him.

  ‘Me, too,’ he said, and then they both laughed. He’d have loved to have asked her more, if he’d known how. And she’d taken it as a joke, his coming from far away, but he, too, had grown up in the countryside. Three miles from Seville, although he’d gone to school there and his father had worked there, as did all his brothers.

  His brother Pedro’s working away every day in Seville was what had enabled his wife, Jeronima, to have her affair. Rafael tried not to think of it, but that night after the blackberrying, he was unable to stop himself.

  Jeronima had had a playful smile but seemed to play with no one except, of course, her two adorable little girls. From everyone else in the household, she was pleasantly aloof. She’d been living alongside Rafael for five years by the time he was nineteen and he still knew nothing about her. But why would he? – he was a nineteen-year-old lad and she was an elegant woman in her mid-twenties, a wife and mother.

  One Sunday, he’d fallen down some steps, leaving him shaken-up and bruised, his ankle twisted and swollen, and his mother had allowed him to stay home instead of going to Mass. He was in his bedroom, lying on his bed and thinking nothing much, as he often did. Thank God that was all he’d been doing, because suddenly his sister-in-law was in the doorway. He hadn’t known she was also at home, didn’t know of her own indisposition; he might have been told, but he wouldn’t have listened. She was in her nightgown, her hair down, and there was that smile of hers. She was inside his room and locking the door. He sat up, startled, puzzled as to what she’d want with him, but somehow she was already sitting on the edge of his bed, leaning over and kissing him. The touch of her lips, her tongue to his: the physical effect was immediate and he felt both strong and helpless. What was she up to? Some kind of a game. Must be. A game he didn’t quite get. He would, though: in a second, he would, and then it’d be over, and they’d be sitting back from each other and laughing. Until then, she was his sister-in-law. Her mouth was on his. Two compelling reasons for shutting up and doing as she required.

  Her mouth was different from Beatriz’s: that was what he was thinking. And she was scented: something floral. How clever, to be scented like that. Artful. Floral-scented and fine-boned: the bones of her back rippled beneath his hands. She was beautiful, he realised. She was utterly beautiful and he’d been blind to miss it.

  But what was she doing? His sister-in-law, this glorious woman, rose, moved beside him – still with the smile – and then lay against him, comfy as a cat, before easing him over on top of her. A game, a joke, all soon to be revealed but, until then, indulged in. She was so warm. He’d forgotten about the warmth of a body and how intoxicating it was. He played along: kissing her, lying on top of her. With pleasure, yes, but merely playing along. Not to say that he wasn’t aroused – of course he was, but he practically always was, although never before pressed against his sister-in-law. He hoped against hope that she hadn’t noticed: if this was a game, he didn’t want to spoil it.

  She eased him on to his back and knelt beside him, began unlacing him, unbuttoning. As if this happened all the time. She didn’t actually hum, but it was that kind of unlacing: brisk, no fuss. Perhaps this was going too far: it occurred to him to resist, to put a halting hand over hers, but it was done before he could and, anyway, she was his sister-in-law and it wasn’t his business to halt her. That’s how it seemed, to him. It wasn’t his business to do anything other than comply. And be glad about it. His state was now obvious to her, but she didn’t seem bothered. On the contrary, she pulled her nightgown up over her head and dropped it to the floor. Naked. No: some kind of lower garment – he didn’t dare look but glimpsed it – which was untied by a tug on a knot or bow, and then that, too, was on the floor. And then she was naked, she was naked. He’d never seen breasts before and hadn’t anticipated that they’d be beautiful: but these, this pair, the swell of them counterbalancing her bony shoulders, and the delicate buds that were her nipples. But suddenly she was back beneath him: he was lying on top of her, afraid of squashing those breasts. Her legs felt strong; he hadn’t thought of her as having strong legs but, then, he hadn’t thought of her legs at all, just those long, pretty skirts of hers. And then he was inside her and then it was all over. She looked up at him with humourful exasperation – a ticking-off – but held him there anyway and, for some time, moved rhythmically against him, just a little, as one might run a spoon around an empty dish to scoop every last trace.

  Eventually, he was too small and soft even for that, and she was up, getting her clothing back on, and that was when he saw the blood. She saw him see it (he’d not have mentioned it – what on earth would he have said?), which was when she spoke for the first – only – time of the encounter. ‘No babies,’ she said, cheerfully, which of course he didn’t understand. In fact, he misunderstood, thinking that the blood had happened then and there as a result of a failure of conception. Conception – the possibility of it – wasn’t something he’d considered.

  And then she was gone, back to her own bed, to lie propped against her pillows, to be found there by her husband when he returned from church. Rafael stayed on his bed, sticky and bloodied, needing a wash. There was muck on his bedcovering. He was appalled. His sister-in-law. He’d be struck down. He’d seen his sister-in-law naked, let alone all the rest that’d happened. He’d let her do it, he hadn’t looked away and hadn’t stopped her. Had she gone mad? Was that what it was? Some weird female madness of which he should’ve known, against which he should’ve been on his guard? She’d hate him for it, for not bringing her to her senses. He’d failed her. He could’ve helped her and he hadn’t. And now, when she came to her senses, she’d tell on him.

  He prayed then and there, over and over, eyes squeezed shut, giving himself up to God. And yet, and yet … his own blood beat everywhere in him. He was alive, alive; alive as he hadn’t been since Beatriz had gone. He’d seen Jeronima as she was, whereas, before, he’d been blind, he’d been blind to this wonderful creation of God. He knew something, he knew something which had to be known: the same feeling that he’d had with Beatriz. He’d done the same as he’d done with Beatriz, but faster, harder, hungrier, with a naked woman shamelessly open to him.

  There was no question of her coming to him again. It’d be
en an accident, that once: he knew it. She hadn’t been well. It was to be a treasured memory. Every night, he’d relive it, experiencing great pleasure that somehow gave him no pleasure at all.

  One day, though, in view of the rest of the family but not their earshot, she sidled up to him – causing him some physical discomfort – and asked him if he knew of her friend Mariana’s house. He did. ‘Meet me there,’ she said, naming a date and time. Unbelievable though it later became to him, he still didn’t get it: he imagined she wanted him there for a confrontation, for an apology from him. He’d done a terrible wrong and she knew it – oh, did she know – and now she was calling him to account for it.

  So, he arrived at the house in trepidation. He was lingering close to the gate, not knowing who to ask for, when she called to him from a window. ‘Let yourself in,’ she said, and indeed the gate was unattended and unfastened. The main door was also unlocked, and she called again to him when he was inside: ‘Up here.’ He climbed the stairs and there, in a bedroom, she was, smiling her pretty smile in greeting before turning her back on him: ‘Would you unlace me, please?’ As if this would come as no surprise to him at all. As if this was what he’d come here for. He complied incompetently because he was shaking and because he’d never done this before: unlaced a woman’s gown. She was patient, standing very still. Later, it occurred to him that perhaps she’d been savouring it, that unlacing, and that he could have enjoyed making the moment last. At the time, he wondered if he should object. Say something, he told himself. Say, Jeronima, I really think … But what? What did he really think? He wasn’t thinking, he was unlacing a woman’s gown. He wanted her free of that dress. No: ‘want’didn’t cover it, didn’t nearly cover it, came nowhere close; she had to be out of that dress. She had to be naked and he had to be inside her.

  It’s going to happen. His anticipation was so keen that it hurt him to breathe; he could have been the one with the ribs in lacings. His heart was reeling and he loved her, how he loved her and her clever finding of this house for them, and he’d have done anything for her, then, anything that she asked, it didn’t matter what: he’d atone afterwards. He’d been busy atoning for weeks and he’d go on doing so, he’d double his efforts, really he would, but afterwards.

  Once she was unlaced, she undressed herself in that businesslike way of hers and indicated with a flap of a hand that he should be doing the same. There was blood again, he saw: he saw it in that undergarment, a slash of it on a wad of linen, and assumed that she bled all the time and was unable to have more children. He didn’t even know quite where that blood came from. He didn’t understand until later in life that she’d been calculating about when their liaisons could take place. At the time, he was surprised that she exposed herself to him like that: she, with her elegant dresses. But she’d had to; she did what she had to, and wasn’t precious about it.

  He marvelled at the shape of her: the perfect breadth of her hips, a perfect span. If he’d put his hands up into the air in front of him, that’d be the span: it was exactly what a span should be. Her bottom, too, its beguiling flatness and broadness: how astounding for it to be hidden, usually, under a gown. She should walk everywhere naked: yes, she should.

  She’d taken a square of thick linen from a bag and placed it on the bed; she got up on to it and reclined, her eyes on his. He didn’t like standing there naked, so he hurried to join her. His skin on hers: the heat of it. Her scent. She said, ‘We don’t have long,’ but that wasn’t going to bother him.

  She made no sound other than an appreciative hum from time to time. There came no intake of breath as Beatriz used to do, but that didn’t concern Rafael, he’d half-forgotten that it had ever happened and assumed it to have been a peculiarity of Beatriz’s. When he’d finished, she lay there, eyes closed, smiling as if she were facing springtime sunshine. ‘Tomorrow,’ was all she said.

  Tomorrow? No time for atonement, then. That’d have to wait. Tomorrow would be a continuation of this same misdemeanour. It hadn’t yet finished. Atonement was for later. For now, it was suspended.

  The second time in that room, she stopped him just as he was about to get started, her hands firm on his shoulders, and commanded, ‘Slower.’ And he got the idea: he must give her time. He began to learn to do that. A little, at least.

  There was a third day but then nothing for weeks. Those weeks were unbearable. He couldn’t look at her; he feared he’d explode. Once, he approached her; he didn’t say anything – when had he, ever? – but presented himself there at her side, placing himself at her mercy. ‘Next month,’ was all she said. He had a sense that she was genuine, that she was giving him her word. She expected him to understand and he didn’t, but he accepted it. He began putting the hiatus to good use when, reliving their encounters, he made himself practise taking it slower, making it last longer. You want slow? I’ll give you slow.

  Or, at least, try to.

  He didn’t know – never even wondered – how she’d managed to arrange for them to have that bedroom. That was her business. His business was to get there. They never spoke about what they did. He didn’t know that there were words for it, that you could tell a woman what you wanted to do to her and she, too, could say what she wanted to do, and that alone, somehow, would make it happen, as if casting a spell. Jeronima never made a sound except for an occasional half-breath of a laugh, but she lay there beneath him, open to him in a way he hadn’t known with Beatriz, and she liked to lie there afterwards, too, for quite a while, in that same manner. Abandon. He came to deride the memory of Beatriz: angry with her, even, for having given so little of herself, for having stayed clothed. All those times, it could’ve been like this. Because Jeronima was quiet, he had no fear that he was hurting her, however hard he went at her; and it was then, when he was losing himself, that she’d breathe that half-laugh, as if he were faintly endearing, perhaps a little ridiculous.

  Atonement was ever-deferred. Rafael felt he was blessed; he had been given something against all the odds. Their liaison being out of wedlock and her being married to his brother: details, mere details, and inconvenient ones. They weren’t doing wrong; they were in fact doing right: celebrating life, the wonder of God’s creation. They were in the crux of it, they knew life. And, anyway, it was secret, and a secret harmed no one. He assumed that it would last for ever. It was at this time that Gil brought home Leonor as his wife. Rafael was happy for him although also sorry for him that this wife wasn’t anything like Jeronima: beautiful and long-limbed and languid. Leonor was short and stocky and serious. He couldn’t imagine Leonor doing what Jeronima did, lying on a bed with that spring-sunshine smile.

  But then it happened: it stopped. Jeronima had promised next month as usual, and as usual he was trusting to her to arrange it and summon him. He didn’t keep count of the days, just basked in the certainty that the time was coming. After a while, he began to suspect that the interval had been longer than usual. He made himself wait a week longer before seeking her out. ‘Not possible,’ was all she said. She said it regretfully but refused to be drawn, turning and walking away. But you made it possible before, he wanted to shout after her: what’s different, now?

  He never did find out. Practical considerations, probably, because six months later – six utterly joyless months – she came as usual with her smile to ask him to meet her in the afternoon. But by that time he was in love with Leonor. Newly and dramatically lovelorn, he refused to contemplate love-making – as he now wished to think if it – with anyone else. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t,’ he told her, and, to make sure she understood: ‘Jeronima, I can’t do it any more.’ If she was going to put it down to revenge or to newly discovered moral qualms, he was going to let her. He was that callow.

  Now, twenty years on, he wondered what it had been about, for her. Had she ever – before or since – taken other lovers? Nowadays – in her forties, a mother of six – she’d probably not have the time or energy. She’d been unwell, too, for a long time, after the birth o
f the last child. But when she was younger, it couldn’t have been just Rafael, could it? Or could it? He’d been convenient: in the same household, and young enough to pretend to himself that he didn’t know better; and as Pedro’s own little brother, he’d had almost as much at stake in keeping the secret. Reasons enough, perhaps, for her to have gone for him. But she couldn’t have enjoyed the sex very much – he was old enough now to admit it. He hadn’t really known what he was doing: there couldn’t have been much for her to enjoy. Yet she’d still done it, month after month. Could she really have been that bored? Stuck miles from Seville as Pedro’s wife and sole daughter-in-law of his mother, and mother herself of those two little girls with others almost certainly to come, she could have felt that trapped. That desperate for something to happen, something that was hers. To feel alive, while there was still time. That, now, he understood. What pained him was that he’d never once considered the risk she was taking. If they’d been discovered, he’d have been in deep disgrace, but she would have lost everything. She would have lost her children.

  November. Rafael’s October departure hadn’t taken place because the selfsame officials who’d been dismissive of his claim that he was in England to build a sundial had – for no reason that Rafael could ascertain – changed their minds and written to his original contact for clarification. Rafael despaired, because how long before word came back? Six, eight weeks? He considered writing, himself, to put the case for abandoning the project after so long – but, then, if the sundial remained unbuilt, he’d almost certainly remain unpaid. Over two months, now, and still no satisfactory talk of compensation. He’d had to dip into the fund he’d intended for materials. He’d had to hand some over to Antonio. Not enough, in Antonio’s view, of course, but at least it was something. If by any chance the sundial did go ahead, he’d modify his design so that it was less expensive to build.