by Lynn Cullen
I felt sick. “I am so ashamed.”
“Don’t be.”
“But the Maestro—”
“The Maestro has a few secrets of his own.” When he saw that I was not comforted, he touched my cheek. “My love, we’ve done nothing wrong. Not compared with what the Maestro has done, at least not from what I have heard.”
“Sofi?” The Queen’s soft girl’s voice brought me back to the present.
I opened my eyes.
“Why did you not tell me about the Great Pearl?”
I turned around quickly.
But there was wonder on the Queen’s face, not anger. “I just made sense of something,” she said. “It Used to wound me how my mother let my father wear Diane’s colors to his ceremonies. She allowed Diane’s initials to be carved with his on the cathedrals and palaces he had built. She even publicly praised the poems he wrote for Diane. How this made me hate my mother! I thought she was a fool, letting Father scorn her. I was furious with her when she let him fly Diane’s black and white at the tournament at which he died, bringing Mother’s own private shame to my wedding celebration. It was Diane’s black and white scarf that they tore from Father’s helmet to give him air.”
“My Lady—”
“But I Understand now. I Understand why she allowed this. It is far better to know and bear the truth than to look the hoodwinked fool.”
I nodded. I knew how it felt to be played the fool. I had never meant to hurt My Lady.
“If there should ever be something I should know, will you promise you won’t spare me? Please don’t look like that—it is what I want. Will you promise me? Please, Sofi? There is no one else I can count on here.”
“If it is truly what you desire ...”
“It is, truly.”
“Then I promise.”
She studied me Until satisfied of my word. Then, with a sigh, she gathered her covers closer. “He did not even look at that woman at the picnic today. Did you notice?”
“No, he didn’t, did he?”
“Once he tires of her for good, I will not tolerate her at court, whether she is part of Doña Juana’s household or not. Whore.”
Some could call me that, giving myself so freely to Tiberio. But it had seemed so right. I had seen his true spirit trembling and he had seen mine.
“No, My Lady.”
“My mother did not suffer fallen ladies in her court. When she found that mademoiselle de Rohan had lost her maidenhead to one of Father’s men, she dragged the slut from her lover’s arms and marched her before Father and the Cardinal of Lorraine. Though I was just a little girl, I shall never forget the sound of mademoiselle de Rohan’s sobs echoing down the halls when she was sent packing.”
I forced a smile of agreement. “What did she expect when she broke the laws of God and man?”
“I cannot wait Until I can banish doña Eufrasia.” She settled her head into her pillow and folded her hands over her neck. “I think he will come to me tonight.”
I turned my burning face to the window. A movement in the garden to the left caught my eye. A fox in His Majesty’s roses?
“Don’t you think he will come, Sofi?”
I swallowed. “I hope so, Your Majesty.”
A deer broke from the cover and with tentative steps, leaned to nibble a rose overhanging from a bower. The animal, its glossy hide silvered by the moon, ate its fill, twitching its great soft ears.
I could hear the rustle of the covers behind me as the Queen stirred beneath them. “Doña Sofi, I have been meaning to ask: Could a person get with child before she first bled? Could she be ripe without her knowing it?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps.”
Below, the deer raised its head and, ears pricked, stilled its jaw. With a flick of its tail, it turned and sprang deeper into the garden as two shadowy figures emerged from the other side of the palace, a man and a woman, walking along the river. I peered closer just as the man looked Up. I jerked back, but not before I saw his long chin jutting over his ruff.
I turned back to the Queen, humming as she picked at a swirl in the red brocade on her covers. For once her high forehead was Unlined with worry; the corners of her mouth turned up with the impishness that had marked her when she first came to court.
She smiled when she saw me looking. “What is it?”
Should the truth always be told, even when it damages one’s hope or one’s reputation? Are there not circumstances in which it should be withheld? What kind of Hell would we live in if we all revealed our secrets?
“Nothing, My Lady.”
Dearest Daughter,
Good news! A writer from Florence named Giorgio Vasari has come to our home, looking for you. It seems messer Vasari is working on a second edition of a book he has written on the lives of the Great Painters. His first edition includes Leonardo, Botticelli, Raffaello, Michelangelo, and other well-known maestros, but he wishes to expand the book to include more painters who have made their unique contributions to art. He would like to speak with YOU, having heard your praises sung in the courts of Mantua and Milan and in Rome. I explained to him that you were serving Her Sacred Majesty, Elisabeth, Queen of Spain, which seemed to interest him much. I then showed him your painting of Lucia and Minerva playing chess, for which he had much admiration, and the portrait you had done of Asdrubale, Europa, and me before you left. He asked about your visit to messer Michelangelo four years ago, telling me how singular it was for Michelangelo to invite anyone to study with him, let alone a woman (apparently he knows Michelangelo well), and I corrected him, telling him there were actually two visits, the most recent one just last year. I told him he should ask messer Michelangelo himself about it, to which messer Vasari said indeed he would, as he was on his way to Rome before returning to his home in Florence. Is that not excellent news? I gave him the miniature self-portrait you had done, the one with the curious emblem you devised, so he would have a token of you while he wrote his book. I hope you do not mind.
All are well here. I must finish this quickly, as we are in the midst of printing a book about the animals of the New World. Know that every one of us thinks of you each day.
From Cremona,
this 2nd of September, 1560
With all my love,
Your Father
ITEM: A recipe overheard during a gathering of ladies: To simulate virginity, on the morning of the wedding day apply a large leech to the maidenhead. The leeches’ sucking will raise blisters of blood, which will burst upon the bridegroom’s gallant doings on the wedding night, giving ample evidence of the bride’s maidenhood.
But what becomes of the leech?
ITEM:Before the first line is drawn for a picture, you must look past the subject to the spirit of the pose.
27 SEPTEMBER 1560
El Alcázar, Toledo
Papà, Papà, you know not what a Pandora’s box you opened, sending this Vasari fellow to Michelangelo. Sweetest Holy Mary, what would Michelangelo say if anyone should ask about me? That for a virgin, I certainly like to rut? And for Papà to give this writer the miniature—what if Tiberio sees it and our emblem that I have painted on it? Architect, Portraitist, Lady, and King, indeed. He will know that I have doted on him overmuch.
I must not think about this. I must think about something else—something—anything—the storks flying outside my window. Look at them, five, flying low in the evening sky, their white bellies lit orange by the last of the setting sun. They are leaving in flocks for Africa. Fall is on its way, marked by the leathery orbs swelling on the pomegranate trees in the courtyard below. A cat with a kink in its tail slinks Under withered grapevines plucked clean by beak and human hand. The cat, being black, had its tail broken as a kitten to remove the Devil’s claim Upon it—someone believes in witchcraft. Many do, including the Queen’s mother in France. She sends My Lady a new amulet by post each week, thinking to conjure a child into my little Queen’s womb if she cannot pray one in. In this past month alone, she has sent
My Lady the finger of a fetus born two months before its time, the blood of a hare mixed with sheep Urine, and the left hind paw of a weasel, soaked in vinegar. Just last week she sent My Lady a girdle made of goat’s hair and soaked in the milk of a she-donkey—an itchy, smelly affair. My Lady wore it two days before demanding it be burnt. But whatever the potency of these charms, none of them will work if the Queen does not persuade the King to approach her. Still he comes not to her bed.
Each night the Queen’s ladies tuck her in bed, dressed in her pretty shift and shriveling amulets. Each morning we find her in her bed, shift and amulets undisturbed, her mouth turned down. I fear her mouth will grow that way, spoiling the beauty she was meant to have. I try to cajole her into good spirits as I dress her by singing the silly songs I taught my little sisters or by telling her humorous stories, such as the one I told her yesterday at her toilet, about how I had come across the King sitting in a chair on a landing of stairs in the palace here. Surprised to find His Majesty in such an odd place, I had fallen into a curtsey and was waiting for him to release me, when a passing servant advised me, chuckling, that the “King” was merely a mannequin dressed in His Majesty’s clothes and topped with a false head. The mannequin is for Use when the King is too busy to oversee the countless ceremonial processions that parade Under his balcony.
“Even the curls Upon the King’s head,” I said, “had been faithfully cast in silver and painted by the sculptor Leone Leoni—all in all a most convincing reproduction.” I thought surely the Queen would laugh.
But the Queen just held Up her face so I could wash it as the condesa de Urueña stood back with My Lady’s shift. “I told him that I welcomed him.”
“Leone Leoni, Your Majesty?” I asked.
“The King,” she said.
“Oh.” Had she heard a word I said? I scrubbed her cheek. “Perhaps he wants to be certain none of your ladies are about. You know how he has taken an aversion to Us.”
My Lady glanced at the condesa, who had turned away to scold one of the French ladies. “Not you, Sofi. It is the squabbling between the others he doesn’t like. But everyone left early last night, before the nightjars had begun to call. You know that.” She turned her head as I washed each ear—dear little shells that stuck out slightly like a country boy’s.
I lifted her heavy hair from her neck, revealing the thin red string knotted at the top of her spine. From it hung a walnut-sized amulet.
She followed my gaze. “Dried bullfrog. Mother says it will bring me a male child.”
I could not meet her eyes. There could be no child, male or female, without coupling.
“I tried again to do as you said once,” she whispered. “I trembled as he looked down Upon me.”
“Did it . . . work?”
“He asked me if I was chilled. I felt so foolish, I said yes, so he covered me Up to my chin and left. What did you mean by that, Sofi? Let him see you tremble. I don’t Understand.”
“Boccaccio,” I murmured. Who was I to give her advice? For though I may know Leonardo da Vinci’s theory on the Proportions of Man or how long to cook linseed oil before mixing it with pigment or the names of the constellations in the heavens, it is apparent I know nothing of men. I had thought Tiberio loved me. Like the greenest young milkmaid seduced by a cowherd, I had mistaken his lust for love. Now, if I am exposed by Michelangelo, it is too late for me to claim that Tiberio seduced me—a true victim would have cried foul sooner. I would look like a whore trying to put a good face on things. Still, I am glad that I had not tried to force myself Upon him since then. Because you cannot make someone love you.
Witness the Queen. She who can have anything that can be bought in this world—jewels, palaces, painting instructors—cannot have her man. The King’s recalcitrance takes its toll on her. When he is not around, she is quiet and wan, or, when in the presence of doña Eufrasia, cold and hurt. When the King is present, she laughs extra loud at the antics of his favorite female dwarf, Magdalena Ruiz. Magdalena merely has to steal the condesa’s wine or to fall, sputtering, on her rounded bottom and the Queen shrieks with laughter, a move that assuredly does not impress our austere King. If we are with Doña Juana, My Lady speaks extra loudly, trying, like a child, to get him to look at her and not at doña Eufrasia. There is only one circumstance in which Her Majesty’s true vivacious and sweet nature still shows itself—when she receives Don Carlos and his caballeros.
Yesterday afternoon Don Carlos had stormed into the Queen’s chambers, where she and her dozen or so ladies were working on their embroidery. He threw himself on some pillows near her feet.
“He says I cannot go to the Netherlands!” he exclaimed.
Don Alessandro strayed in, his lightly freckled face crooked in its characteristic playful smirk. “Don Carlos offered his services to rule there,” he explained as he kissed the Queen’s hand. “The King turned him down.”
“And he wonders why the people there are in revolt!” Don Carlos cried from his pillows. “They want a true ruler governing them, not some woman who is not even Queen—sorry, Don Alessandro. I know your mother does the best that she can as the regent there.”
Don Alessandro leaned against a wall. “No offense taken. I am deeply honored by every bone your father throws my family’s way.”
Don Carlos cocked his head as if deciding whether there was mockery in his cousin’s voice, then went on. “The Dutch need a Prince who will love them and respect them, and will let them have their religion. I do not care if they are Protestant—not if they would love me back.”
From her pillow at her embroidery frame, the condesa began, “One ’s subjects are not always the best judge of what is good for—”
“Of course they would love you, Toad,” said the Queen, breaking in. “You would rule with your heart.” My Lady, who had been crying over the death the previous day of the spaniel she had brought with her from France, wiped her eyes and pulled her needle through the linen stretched on a frame before her. It was to be a covering for a kneeler in the convent of the Descalzas Reales, where the King’s sister Doña Juana lives when in Madrid. I could not help wondering if the Queen took some pleasure in stabbing her needle into the cloth on which doña Eufrasia might someday kneel.
Don Carlos rolled onto his back and rearranged the pillows to gaze Up at her. “I would let the Dutch keep the profits they made from working their land.”
“That would be just like you,” she said. “So kind and so good.”
Madame de Clermont murmured in agreement.
He warmed to their encouragement. “And I would provide alms to the needy among them.”
“I know you would, Toad.”
“And I would—”
“—guarantee a hen in every Dutch peasant ’s stewing pot?” Don Alessandro grinned from his position against the wall. “I will tell my mother to try that.”
One of the French ladies laughed.
Don Carlos’s rapturous smile twisted into a frown. “This is nothing to laugh about.”
The French lady lowered her head. The Queen started to soothe him, but her words were cut off by the twelve-o’clock bells clanging from their tower above the Cathedral. As we waited for their incessant tolling to finish, I thought of the King’s motto: “Time and I can take on any two others.” Only the most powerful man in the world would dare claim Time as his personal ally. Most humans are mercifully unconscious of Time slipping through their fingers at every moment—certainly not conscious of it often enough to think of yoking it to their own purpose. For others of us, Time is a torture, spinning itself out in maddening fits and starts while we wait for our true lives to begin.
“Doña Sofonisba,” Don Alessandro said when the bells had stilled, “I like the picture you did of yourself.” He nodded to the canvas brought from my chamber and hung on the Queen’s wall at her request.
All heads turned to where I sat at my customary place by the window, sketching the Queen, then to the portrait. I could feel my cheeks color
. Although in response to maestro Mor’s painting I had carefully considered when to Use hard edges, employing them only on my eyes to give them what I hoped would be a look of intelligence, the portrait had not been a success, at least not to me. It lacked the vitality I had envisioned as I worked, resulting in little more life to it than maestro Mor’s soulless portrait of the Queen. For all my good intentions, I had not been able to find the spirit behind my own face.
“When are you going to paint me?” asked Don Alessandro.
“Thank you for your interest, Your Highness, but maestro Mor is the court painter.”
“Not any longer.” He laughed. “Mor is no more.”
I said I did not Understand.
“You had not heard?” he said. “Señor Mor left very suddenly the night before last, without a single good-bye. The details are not yet clear, but it seems Mor made the mistake of bragging to Doña Juana about all the heads of state he has painted when she was sitting for a portrait. When Doña Juana asked him to list these personages, among them were several German princes known to be sympathetic to Luther. Doña Juana then inquired—quite nicely, she told me—about the books maestro Mor has read. She had heard there might be Protestant books circulating behind closed doors at court, not that he would know of them, of course. He was gone the next day, the Unfinished painting of Doña Juana still on his easel. Word has it that he is on a ship to England.”
“If Sofonisba’s painting pictures now,” Don Carlos said from the pillows at the Queen’s feet, “she had better paint me first!”
I was too stunned by how quickly Mor had been ousted to respond. No matter. The condesa was only too pleased to speak for me. “Doña Sofonisba is here to give instruction to the Queen. Not to paint sundry portraits.”
