by Lynn Cullen
For the Queen knows beyond certainty now of the King’s affair with doña Eufrasia. The condesa de Urueña finally informed her with great relish disguised as sympathy, though publicly no one acknowledges it, especially the King. He visits Her Majesty’s chamber after lunch each day, to ask after her health. He sends small gifts of fruit and flowers, perhaps a length of lustrous blue cloth, a new prayer book. But he has stopped even making the appearance of visiting their marital bed in the evening, though she waits each night behind the crimson brocade bed-hangings, dressed in a gossamer shift, while I toss and stir in my own bed, hating myself for opening my person to Tiberio’s scorn by writing him back. It has been nearly five months since I have written, and he still has not replied.
What a beautiful afternoon in May it was today, with the birds singing in the woods and the sun sparkling through the spring-green leaves, as a band of musicians strummed their guitars on the banks of the river. A breeze, scented with the milky green water of the Tajo and the fresh-scythed grass of the lawn, ruffled the lace at our cuffs and the feathers on the hats of the gentlemen.
“Sit with me,” the King said to My Lady, who was hesitating near the blanket on which he reclined. Her page rushed forth with a pillow. Upon helping her to settle, the lad seated the condesa de Urueña and madame de Clermont next to her, as was their due.
The Queen’s voice was high with nervousness. “Doña Sofonisba, please, sit with Us, too.”
Under the scowling gaze of the condesa de Urueña, I found a corner of the blanket as Francesca retreated to stand in the shade at the edge of the woods with the other servants.
Pages sallied forth with baskets piled with hams, strawberries, and asparagus. I was enjoying the smell of the cut grass and the river and the music of the guitars when the King asked the Queen, “So how go your drawing lessons, My Lady?”
The Queen pulled her attention from the King’s sister’s blanket, Upon which doña Eufrasia had alighted and was neatly arranging her skirts. The Queen looked down Upon the front of her own green velvet bodice, which had been slashed in vertical strips across her bosom, with puffs of yellow satin pulled through to give the illusion of curves where she has none. She wears a new gown every day, always cut cleverly to enhance her slim figure as only her French dressmaker can do.
“They go well, My Lord.”
“Indeed?” He leaned out to look at me.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” I dashed my gaze to the blanket, though I could see him take a strawberry from a basket and offer it to the Queen.
He watched her as she took it wordlessly. Since the afternoon she had come when I had been making glue, the Queen has come most days to my chambers or I to hers, to work on her drawing technique. Why did she not tell him how she has learned how to shade, taking into account the distance the object is from the viewer and the source of light when deciding Upon the depth of the shadow? She has watched me enlarge my drawing for my self-portrait with the Use of a grid to create a cartoon. She has seen how I then placed a transparent paper over the cartoon to prick the holes of an outline, and how when this in turn was placed over the canvas and chalk blown over the pinpricks, an outline was left. Why does she not explain this to him? The King is interested in painting. She might impress him in this way.
“Will she be painting soon?” the King asked me.
“Your Majesty, yes. She is a natural.” I did not add that My Lady had applied her lessons in chalks on a drawing of the woods of her husband’s beloved Aranjuez. It was to be a surprise birthday present, and was not a bad piece for someone with her limited experience.
“Good,” he said. He held out a plate of strawberries to the condesa, madame de Clermont, and me.
The Queen put down her strawberry and looked Up determinedly. “I have examined the tabletop painting in the palace in Madrid by the artist El Bosco, My Lord. The one of which you had spoken, with the two dogs fighting over a bone.”
After we ladies had chosen a fruit, the King took a strawberry for himself. “The Seven Deadly Sins—you remembered.”
“Yes, My Lord. But actually, there are three bones in the painting, not one—two on the ground and the man holds one. Yet is the saying not ‘two dogs fighting over one bone’?”
The condesa, who had been quietly sniffing her strawberry, spoke Up. “If I may explain, My Lady. Although the dogs already have a large bone each, they still crave the bone held by their master. Their sin is in having all they need yet desiring what someone else might get. Is that not what the artist intends, Your Majesty?”
“Yes. I believe that is the crux of envy.” He inclined his head toward the Queen. “I commend your interest in art.”
“Learning to draw has helped my Understanding, My Lord.”
The King closed his moUth over a berry, then pulled away the naked green stem. “I had thought,” he said to the QUeen, swallowing down the remains of the fruit, “to install a small grove of mulberry trees near the palace here. I thought it might give you something to do, My Lady, in tending the silkworms. My mother had such a grove in Valladolid when I was a boy.”
“Worms,” the Queen murmured. “Thank you, My Lord.”
“One of my earliest memories of my mother is of her tending her garden.”
“That is where you must have gotten your love for growing things,” said the condesa. She smiled proudly at his nod.
The Queen’s gaze drifted over to doña Eufrasia, who was taking a plate of strawberries from a page. Under the pale blue gauze of her veil, doña Eufrasia’s long black hair lay like a glossy sheet Upon her narrow back.
I spoke Up, startling even myself. “Your Majesty, your love for nature is apparent. You have made Aranjuez a beautiful place.” I glanced down quickly at my edge of blanket, heat coming to my scalp.
“I have put in two thousand and forty trees this year,” said the King,
“from France and from the Low Countries—from the New World, as well.” He granted me a slight smile when I looked Up.
“Which of the trees are from your far western lands, Your Majesty?” I asked. My Lady still gazed at doña Eufrasia. Why would she not look away and join the conversation?
The King nodded to one of the alleys of saplings leading from the meadow. “Elms. I am told by doctor Hernández that the New World elms will grow to great height, much greater than the ones from France. How beautiful that part of my woods will be when they have grown.”
“Will it be many years, Your Majesty?” I asked. “Before they are tall, I mean?”
“Yes, but I am a patient man. Time and I can take on any two others.”
“That is your motto, Your Majesty,” said the condesa. She sniffed happily when he agreed.
“The elms will be tall when our sons are grown,” said the Queen.
The King looked at her in surprise. “Yes,” he said. “Indeed they will.”
The condesa took a smug whiff Upon her purple-enameled pomander, punctuating the thought that circulated Unspoken amongst Us: It is difficult to get a son without the benefit of monthly courses, let alone to do so without lovemaking.
Checked by our thoughts, our group ate quietly as others chatted on their surrounding blankets—or laughed loudly, as in the case of Don Carlos, dining nearby with Don Juan and Don Alessandro. Though the tender slivers of ibérico ham melted on my tongue, I could not savor them in a silence that diminished the Queen. With Francesca firmly cordoned in the woods, I drank more wine to embolden myself.
“Your Majesty,” I said after a long draught, “I have heard that doctor Hernández has much knowledge about the plants of the New World. He says the plants are different there from ours, and hold great medicinal powers.”
The King took a bit of bread. “He wishes for me to send him on an expedition there. But I cannot spare him, not with . . . things being as they are.”
I glanced at the neighboring blanket, Upon which Don Carlos and his caballeros sat stuffing their mouths with ham and bread, then washing it down with wine.
Only last week Don Carlos had been abed again with the fever that racked him more often than not. And though she appears to be much more robust than the Prince, the Queen has endured her share of fevers and rashes, too. As physician to the Royal Family, doctor Hernández was indeed kept busy at court.
“You are quiet,” the King said to the Queen.
“I apologize, My Lord.”
He gave a short nod, then crossed and recrossed his arms. “It is no Use,” he burst out. “I am no good at holding a secret.”
The Queen stiffened. The fine black wool of the condesa’s habit swished, as did madame de Clermont’s veils when the ladies turned abruptly.
The King pulled a folded sheaf of papers from his doublet and handed it to the Queen. She took it, then with an audible swallow laid open the sheaf.
She looked at it, blinking.
“Read it aloud,” he said.
She squinted at him before beginning to read. “ ‘On the Diversity of Animals. Our Lord’ ”—she cleared her throat—“ ‘Our Lord, in his infinite wisdom, has created for Us a wondrous variety of animals—’ ” She broke off. “You wrote about animals?”
“For you, My Lady,” said the King, “and for my God. During my retreat, I have been cataloguing the varieties of creatures as I know them. I thought you might have an interest . . . with your love of animals.”
Her hand flew to her Pearl. “I thought you were going to send me—I—” She laughed out loud. “Oh, Your Majesty, it is only about animals?”
His expression cooled.
“No! What I mean is, I did not expect—I—oh, My Lord, thank you so much.” She clasped the papers to her breast. “I shall cherish it.”
But the damage had been done. “Put the papers aside,” he said.
Red-faced, she tucked the treatise next to her skirt.
The King peered into the woods. “I see my new gardener from Ghent. Excuse me.”
“Of course.” The Queen smiled meekly while he strode across the lawn. A hush fell over the picnickers as all eyes shuttled between Her Majesty and doña Eufrasia, watching to see if the King would acknowledge his lover when he passed and how the Queen would react if he did.
“How thoughtful of the King to write a treatise on animals for you,” I said loudly. Heads turned.
The Queen drew in a shuddering breath. “Yes.”
But only when the King had gained the woods and had begun to speak with a man leaning Upon a shovel amongst the trees did the buzz of speech resume.
An olive landed on the blanket near His Majesty’s treatise.
With a sad countenance, the Queen looked over her shoulder.
Don Carlos’s pasty face lit Up with a grin. He raised his goblet, a vessel the size of his head. “Did you get my present?” he called.
All diners paused on their blankets to listen.
“This?” The Queen flicked the olive. It hit the condesa de Urueña on the arm.
“Excusez-moi, madame!” the Queen cried as the condesa brushed at her sleeve.
The condesa returned her pomander to her nose and took an extra-deep draught to recover from her injury.
“Thank you very much,” the Queen mouthed to Don Carlos.
Don Carlos shook his head, setting a-flutter the orange-dyed plume on his hat that dwarfed his delicate face. “Not that,” he shouted from his blanket. He shoved his goblet into the hands of his page, then scrambled over to the Queen as we courtiers pretended not to watch. “I mean the emerald that I sent.”
The Queen shaded her eyes to look Up at him. “I received it.”
“And did you like it?”
“Yes, very much. But Toad, you really should not have sent it. It is too much for me.”
“Nothing is too much for you, My Lady.”
“Should you not have sent it to Anne of Austria?”
“I am not betrothed to her yet, nor to anyone, for that matter. I do not know why they bother. There is no one I wish to marry.”
“Not even my sister? My mother wishes you would marry her, and I can assure you that she is quite sweet—sweeter than I.”
Don Carlos grabbed her hand, startling her. “No one is sweeter than you, Doña Elisabeth.”
“Your Majesty!” the condesa de Urueña hissed. “People do watch.”
“Let them!” Don Carlos cried. “Doña Elisabeth, if I had known how—how kind you are, I would have done everything in my power to—”
“Would you like an olive?” Don Juan thrust a plate before Don Carlos.
Don Carlos looked Up angrily. “I was talking here!”
“Maybe you are thirsty, Your Majesty.” Don Juan shook the wineskin he carried.
Don Carlos pushed away the wine. “Do not toy with me, Juan.”
The wind lifted a page of the King’s treatise. The Queen clamped it to the blanket as Don Alessandro sauntered Up.
He nudged Don Juan with the toe of his boot. “Look at you, Uncle, bothering the ladies. Do you country folk not know how to hold your wine?”
“Only in our bellies.” Don Juan nodded in apology to the condesa, who looked away with a scowl.
Don Alessandro took the wineskin from him and squirted himself a draught, spilling two drops onto the red flowers embroidered on his black silk doublet. “Do you know that Uncle Juan talks to animals, My Lady?” He wiped his mouth. “You should see him carrying on a one-sided conversation with his hound. I think he expects it to speak.”
“Your hound does not?” said Don Juan.
“You both mock me with your talk,” Don Carlos said, though with less heat now. “Your Majesty, you have not told me—will you wear the emerald?”
“Of course I will.” She drew his hand to her lips and kissed it. “And will think of my own good brother.”
“No,” he said, “I beg of you, wear it instead of that pearl. It hurts me to see that thing Upon you.”
The Queen took Up the great pear-shaped bauble hanging as usual from her neck. “My pearl from the King?”
Don Juan took Don Carlos’s arm. “I think I hear our hounds barking. Let Us go have a word with them.”
Don Carlos shrugged free. “My Lady, don’t you know that pearl is a jest? It is a castoff from Ugly old Bloody Mary—it means nothing to Father. It is just a signal of his wealth, nothing more. He doesn’t even like it. You might as well wear a bag of gold around your neck.”
The Queen gazed down at the gem.
“Wear my emerald.” Don Carlos’s thin voice broke. “Please, My Lady. It would make me so happy.”
“Your Highness,” hissed the condesa, “what are you thinking? Saying such things to the King’s own wife.”
“Shhh!” Madame de Clermont flashed her eyes toward the woods, where the King was just then leaving its leafy shelter. His cheerful look cooled when he saw the caballeros gathered around the Queen, and the guilty gazes of the courtiers on the nearby blankets.
“Feliz cumpleaños, Your Majesty!” Don Alessandro called.
“What is going on here?” The King stood over the Queen.
My Lady tucked in her chin as she gazed Up at him. “Did the gardener please you, My Lord?” she asked, timidly.
“Well enough.”
Don Alessandro stepped in front of Don Carlos, who was either too smitten or too foolish to wipe the love-struck look from his pale face. “Uncle Juan was just convincing Us of his ability to chat with dogs, My Lord.”
The King turned to his brother. “Oh, can you now?”
“I am sorry, Your Majesty,” said Don Juan. “Don Alessandro exaggerates greatly.”
“He can speak to them,” said Don Carlos. “Or communicates with them somehow. Dogs go mad for him.”
The King smiled with disdain. “So your calling is in the kennel, Brother. Father would be so pleased.”
Don Juan’s own smile faded into a wary stare.
Don Carlos started when Don Alessandro flung his arm around him. “Come, my illustrious Prince, let’s go riding. Coming, Uncle Juan? Many happ
y wishes on your birthday, Your Majesty.”
Don Carlos let himself be led away as Don Juan bowed rigidly to the King. “Enjoy your birthday, my brother.” He lifted the Queen’s hand, then kissed it. “Señora.”
She cradled her hand in her lap as he crossed the lawn to join his compatriots.
The wind snatched the King’s treatise from the edge of the Queen’s skirt and blew it across the lawn. Several gentlemen jumped to retrieve it.
“Let it go,” the King ordered.
The papers tumbled across the grass, then down the banks and into the river. One by one they sailed off, a paper flotilla, Upon the milky water.
Later that night, the Queen lay in her bed, waiting for the King. The hour was late, past compline. The moon had long drifted to its post at the top of the heavens; frogs screamed from their hiding spots along the river. The Queen had banished everyone from her chamber but me, to the condesa’s consternation, and though I knew that Francesca had readied my own bed in our chamber nearby, sprinkling it with lavender for its soothing smell and rue to kill the fleas, it would have to wait. The Queen had need of me.
“I think the King liked it when I gave him my drawing of Aranjuez tonight,” she said.
“It was a very good drawing.” I turned from the window at which I had stood watching the full moon spread its thin silver path over the river. My Lady lay with her covers Up to her chin. I thought of Europa when she was younger, requesting a bedtime story.
“I think it made Up for my blunder of not praising his treatise of animals, don’t you?”
I turned back to the window, then closed my eyes. “Surely.”
Unbidden, the image of Tiberio overtook my mind. I could hear the Maestro’s footsteps recede down the arcade as Tiberio covered his eyes with the crook of his arm. Seeing my stricken face, he reached out and hooked me toward him. He kissed my forehead. “Don’t worry.”
