I could go back to Queluz. The idea tempts me, but an inner voice tells me to go first to some place where I can establish who I am on my own before I decide on a more permanent home. But where? Simona told me not to stay in Queluz just because I couldn’t decide what to do with my life, and I’m feeling the same confusion now. In time, will I feel as Simona does, saying to myself, “look where I ended up,” without remembering exactly when, and how, my destiny was set?
I go to the palace one morning and know from the minute I arrive that something is wrong. No one is outside tending the gardens, and the shops are empty. “Is he—?” I ask a guard.
“No, but they’re saying he won’t last the day.” I rush to the women’s quarters, but only Rayyan is there. We wait together the rest of the morning, and eventually we see Mushtaq being carried in a chair. Jawhara and Zubiya are holding onto each other, crying.
“My husband is gone,” Mushtaq says as the servants lower her chair. Grief buckles her legs under her as she stands up.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, my eyes welling with tears for this woman I have grown to love so deeply.
“He’s better now. He is with Allah and the Prophet, sall Allahu ëalayhi wa sallam.” She tries to smile.
The servants help her to her favorite chair, and she glances at the table next to her. “It looks as if you have received a letter.” She examines the wax seal. “From Elizabeth of Castile.”
She hands it to me, then turns to a wet-faced eunuch standing quietly nearby. “Please tell the servants our time here is over. We’ll bury my husband and leave for Almería as soon as we can pack.”
Mushtaq excuses me so I may read my letter in private. The former Queen of Castile is my childhood friend Elizabeth, whom I haven’t heard from in years. She is already a widow, her elderly husband, King Juan II, having died five years ago, when she was only twenty-five.
There are rumors that her removal with her two children to the small town of Arévalo was not voluntary, but a banishment carried out by the new king, Enrique IV, who is Elizabeth’s stepson by King Juan’s first marriage. Elizabeth has two children of her own, an eight-year-old daughter Isabella and a son Alfonso, two years younger. The boy is second in line for the throne because Enrique is childless.
“El Impotente” people call him behind his back. After thirteen years of marriage to his first wife, Blanca of Navarre, the pope granted an annulment, based on proof that Blanca was still a virgin. When prostitutes came forward saying he had been quite the lover with them, he claimed Blanca had used witchcraft to keep him from her bed. The poor woman was sent in disgrace back to her home in Navarre.
Since his second marriage, the rumors have increased that Enrique’s member is withered, because he and Juana have not produced a child to secure the throne of Castile. Witchcraft indeed. I’m glad Diogo never heard that excuse.
What can Elizabeth want from me? Closing the door to my quarters, I break the seal.
My dearest Amalia,
Although it’s been years since we have seen or written to each other, I think of you often and hold you in my heart. I understand you have been in service as a tutor in Granada, and if you are ever looking for another assignment, I hope you will consider coming to Arévalo to be the tutor for my daughter, Isabella.
My dear Amalia, I remember our childhood together and hope the recollection brings you the same tears of joy. Life has brought both of us much sorrow, but there is no friend like one from that time of youthful innocence, and I pray we will make each other smile again.
Your friend,
Elizabeth of Portugal and Castile
19
ARÉVALO, 1459
My first reaction upon seeing Elizabeth is to wonder whether I could possibly look that old. I am thirty-three and she is two years younger, but the sad details of her life since she left Portugal to be King Juan’s second wife weigh heavily on her. Elizabeth had been plump and rosy-skinned back in Portugal, but now her collarbone juts out behind a necklace of pearls, and even the careful ministrations of servants cannot disguise her lank, thin hair and sagging jaw.
She senses my alarm and gives me a wan smile. “It’s the poison,” she says. “My husband’s mayordomo tried to kill me with what he said was a cure for melancholy. I never recovered.” She shrugs too enigmatically for comfort. “It’s part of life in Castile. I guess they don’t realize God sees all of the court for the fraudulent little weasels they are.”
Eliana is sitting next to me, trying not to squirm in the style of dress we must now wear. The maids assigned to our quarters had to scurry to find suitable clothing for us this morning, since we’d come with nothing but our loose Andalusian robes. Later today, the tailors will arrive to begin our transition into uncomfortable Castilian wardrobes of our own.
The views from the palace are of the same glorious countryside we traveled through. Scattered among the undulating fields of golden wheat are patches of saffron flowers and orderly vineyard rows. Trees line the banks of rivers and streams like dark-green ribbons dropped from the hand of a giant. Cows and horses graze in pastures set against violet hills in the distance. The sky is blue most of the time, although massive clouds form quickly, sending shadows racing across the landscape.
Just outside the walls that enclose the town, two rivers meet. Near their juncture, a round fortress juts up to the sky, and from our window we can see small figures of guards walking the parapets. Above them, the flag of Castile waves in the breeze, next to the personal banner of Elizabeth, to mark the fact that she is in residence.
Life in the palace is turned inward, though, and the windows lining the corridors aren’t open to let in light, much less a hint of the world outside. It feels like a prison here compared to the expansiveness of Granada. Is anything in this room where we now sit truly her own? Is Elizabeth her own anymore? Was she ever?
She sighs. “Do you remember I used to think being married off to an old man was the worst thing that could happen? My troubles were nothing compared to what they’ve been since my husband died.” Her eyes cloud and she looks away, just as she used to when one of her dark moods was setting in.
I try to introduce a note of cheer. “We’ve been looking forward to meeting Isabella and Alfonso,” I say, giving my daughter a forced smile.
Eliana doesn’t smile back.
She doesn’t smile much these days. At thirteen, she’s not happy about coming to a place where her only company will be an eight-year-old princess. She was crushed when Jamil married Noor and devastated again at Zubiya’s departure from the Alhambra. She sulked much of the way to Arévalo, insinuating that her unhappiness was, if not completely, at least largely my fault.
I’ve tried to reassure her this move will be for the best, even if we can’t see how at the moment. I’ve tried to tell her my heart is breaking too, and we will both get over the pain, but there’s a hole in my heart so large I feel as if my entire being will be sucked in and vanish altogether. I’ve lost Jamil and Granada too. I don’t know where I am going, or why, and the sullen child with me, for all her desire to take her own path, still depends on me to choose well for both of us.
I haven’t told Eliana how wounded I am, don’t want her to know how little confidence I feel. On the journey here, I waited with such anticipation for her to fall asleep at night. Only then could I let myself go and cry for all I have lost, surrendering to the bleakness ahead, for that is all I can see.
A sound in the doorway startles me back to the present. A young girl is waiting just inside the room. The silhouette of a nun takes up most of the light, but the girl is standing in the glow from a wall torch that illuminates her blond hair like a crown around her face.
“Isabella!” Elizabeth says. “You may enter.”
The little girl comes into the room followed by her brother Alfonso, who has to be urged forward by the nun. “We’ve come from mass, your highness,” the nun says. “I hope we haven’t kept you waiting.” She looks at Eliana and me, and though
the light is low, I see a flicker of disdain. I’m a Jew. I’m in her country. I don’t expect she needs to know any more than that.
Another sour soul like Tarab. Being a nun, at least this one won’t have a daughter she’s trying to marry off, although the stories I’ve heard about some convents make me think it’s best to be prepared even for that possibility.
I informed Elizabeth I was now living as a Jew, so she could rescind her invitation if she wished. “I can’t say I like what you’ve done, but it is up to God to judge, and no one here need know you were ever anything else.”
“I would get much comfort from being with someone I know to be a privada, a true friend, who cared for me when there was nothing to gain by it,” the letter went on. “Such a friend can only come from the years before I became a ball to be tossed around in games others play.”
“Isabella, Alfonso, I’d like you to meet Doña Cresques and her daughter, Eliana,” Elizabeth says, using the Jewish family name I have now adopted. “Doña Cresques will be teaching you geography and literature.” A scowl flits across Isabella’s face, and I realize the nun has probably been telling her how wrong it is for a Jew to teach a princess anything. From the stubborn set of her mouth and shoulders, I can see that Isabella agrees with the nun. “And if you would like,” her mother continues, “Doña Cresques can teach you Arabic as well. She speaks and writes many languages perfectly.”
“Arabic?” Isabella had been examining me with her smoky eyes, but now her head turns sharply toward her mother. “Why do we need to know Arabic when there will soon be no Moors in Spain?” She looks at the nun. “I gave my favorite bracelet for the cause when we went to church today.” The black-robed woman gives her a dour, approving nod.
Why learn Arabic indeed? Isabella’s value lies in a strategic marriage. Whatever foreign country she goes to, one thing the little girl can count on is that they will not speak Arabic there.
I meet Isabella’s stare with one of my own, tempered with a smile to show I am not unnerved by her. But I am. Something about that child is different from anyone her age I have ever met. Forget Arabic, I tell myself. Teaching her geography is going to be challenging enough.
VALENCIA 1492
I remember Isabella’s face when she announced that she had given her own jewelry to fight the Moors. The intensity in her manner and expression was unlike what I expected in a princess. All the ones I had known were pampered, vacant little dolls.
God had spoken. That was how Isabella felt. The triumph of right over wrong might take time but it was inevitable. How could God be almighty otherwise?
Those raised with a modest sense of themselves acknowledge that God loves their neighbors too and may favor causes other than their own. But Isabella did not grow up modestly. Certainly, when King Enrique didn’t like something his stepmother said or did, he was not above cutting off the allowance that let Elizabeth and her children live in comfort, but Isabella’s lack of modesty had nothing to do with the food she ate or clothes she wore.
The girl I tutored in Arévalo listened to what others said, but she kept her own counsel. Isabella never doubted that the Moors would be pushed from Spain, because she was sure she knew God’s will. Would Isabella have turned out differently if Elizabeth had been stronger? If just one thing is altered, does a string of changes inevitably follow, or are some forces so great they plow down whatever is in their path?
I soon realized that my presence in Arévalo had little to do with Isabella needing a tutor. I can’t think of anything I taught her that couldn’t have been handled by someone else. Elizabeth needed a friend she’d chosen herself, and she needed to set her foot down at least occasionally, as a reminder of the person she had once been.
The kind of person who could force a doting husband to sacrifice his closest friend just to please her. Alvaro de Luna, the man who had tried to poison Elizabeth, had been assigned as Juan’s page when the prince was only six years old, and as Juan grew, Luna’s power grew with him. When Juan became king, Luna was appointed mayordomo, his chief of staff. Because Juan did not really want to take on the work of ruling his country, he named Luna Constable of Castile and let him make most of the decisions.
This upstart was not going to tell a royal princess of Portugal and the Queen of Castile what to do! Elizabeth used everything in her power—whining, tantrums, silences, seduction—to get Juan to sign an order of execution. The morning of Luna’s death, lightning struck the palace where Juan was in residence, and in the blue flash, the king saw a vision of his beheaded friend, who told him he would be explaining to God in a year’s time why he had repaid his mayordomo’s faithful service in this fashion. Stricken by remorse and without Luna to restrain him, the king fell into debauchery, recovering from one illness only to come down with another. Luna was right. One year after the execution, Juan was dead.
With her husband gone, Elizabeth’s power vanished. El Impotente was king. That insignificant baby we waited for Queen Eleanor to give birth to when Elizabeth and I were girls in Lisbon, the girl so quickly forgotten after Eleanor lost the regency, had become Enrique’s wife, Queen Juana of Castile.
The sound of my laughter echoes off the bare walls. Insignificant baby girls have a way of surprising people. Isabella, born with little chance for the throne, turned out to be one of those. If El Impotente had managed to have a son, Isabella would not be queen, Ferdinand would not be king, and I would not be in this room.
Perhaps. Who knows? Why bother with these thoughts? Isabella happened. I’ll leave the fantasies of better outcomes to others. The atlas feels so heavy in my lap I don’t open it, and thoughts of that little princess in Arévalo will not go away.
ARÉVALO 1461
In the two years I’ve been at Elizabeth’s court, I’ve come to understand what is going on behind her daughter’s eyes. Something in Isabella seems to be lying in wait, as if she is measuring everything for how she might use it in the future. She’s obedient not because she lacks stubbornness or courage but because, at least for now, listening serves her best.
She can be willful, even cruel. Her little brother is often reduced to tears by her tantrums, which always happen out of range of anyone whose opinion matters. This doesn’t include either me or her maids, who mutter out of earshot about how one would think she and not Juana was the Queen of Castile, with the airs she puts on.
Eliana dislikes her, but Isabella is unconcerned. My daughter goes off every day to be with the Jewish friends she has made in Arévalo, and she cares as little about Isabella as the princess does about her.
And yet, there’s a charming side to Isabella too. In town, she enchants the merchants, claps her hands at the bands of entertainers who pass through, and gives alms to the poor and maimed. Everyone in town loves her, offering her treats and little gifts, feeding her more by their adoration than their ribbons and candied fruit.
She is second in line to the throne, after her younger brother, for there must be no male candidate before Castile will consider a queen. She will find herself further removed from power if El Impotente manages to produce an heir. Often, when we stop to survey the magnificent countryside while out riding, I wonder what she is thinking. Perhaps that it’s better not to get too attached to anything or anyone, because she is likely to be sent elsewhere as a bride.
At such times I pity this little princess, who keeps her thoughts hidden behind her aloof manners and calculating eyes. For all the demands people rush to indulge, she cannot order up a future to her liking, and in many ways I am freer—and luckier—than she is.
***
When I first came to Castile, I found it strange that when people here spoke of the infidel, they meant Muslims, because I’d just come from a place where the infidels were Christians.
People are terrified that the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans a few years back will soon bring Muslim armies here to restore their lost glory in the land they named al-Andalus. Castilians are stockpiling bludgeons and sharpened stick
s to defend themselves against Christ-hating invaders coming to batter down their doors. From every pulpit, sermons about the victory of Christendom ring forth. Church coffers bulge, and thousands of men all over Castile stand ready to march south to conquer the last Muslim stronghold in Granada.
The wealthiest of them will be in full battle dress on mounted steeds, but the poorest will be armed with little more than the pope’s word that even if they drown in a creek or die of gangrene from an infected toenail before they get there, the mere act of setting out to destroy the infidel gives them a free pass into heaven. For the nobles, what could be better than returning home covered with honors, laden with booty and perhaps a new title or two, with minstrels telling of their heroic exploits to rapt audiences? Everyone wants a good war, it seems.
Except El Impotente. From what I’ve seen of Enrique, he doesn’t care about anything except a big dinner and a fine pack of hounds. The king prefers to march south, threaten Granada, demand tribute from the caliph, and come home with most of the war chest unspent. He rewards some nobles with land, treasure, and title to ensure that the disgruntled remainder, who have nothing but debt to show for following him, don’t have the numbers to form a hostile alliance against him.
The king travels around Castile most of the year, and he is now in Arévalo for a visit with Elizabeth. I’ve never seen a ruler so unregal. From the way the man smells, I think he must sleep with his dogs. While Enrique swaggers through the halls of the castle or sleeps off his wine, his men make a shambles of the taverns. Bar wenches are brutalized, and the churches are filled with people praying to be delivered from a pestilence that must, at least at the moment, seem worse than the Moors.
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