The Creation of Eve

by Lynn Cullen

  27 FEBRUARY 1561

  El Alcázar, Toledo

  After all these weeks, during two of which we despaired each day for her life, the Queen has survived her case of the Small Pox. Her vision, which for a time was lost, has been restored, but she is still very weak, and covered from head to toe in slowly fading red wounds. Once it was clear that she should live, the King reluctantly returned to his office to conduct the business of holding together his far-flung lands, and let the French Queen Mother take over her daughter’s care from afar.

  Upon the Queen Mother’s orders, My Lady’s frail body was bathed twice daily in asses’ milk, greased with a yellow ointment relayed to Us by couriers from France, and swaddled in silk gauze. I do not know what is in the ointment, but knowing the Queen Mother’s penchant for magic and the gruesome ingredients in the charms of the Black Arts, I do not wish to ask. I will say only that it smells of stale human Urine and scythed grass combined, and of tar. The Queen’s chamber does reek of this mixture and soured asses’ milk, and Francesca complains that I reek of it as well.

  But the results are encouraging, though the Queen’s skin remains reddened and her lovely hair has thinned to the point that you can glimpse her scalp in places.

  Late in the Queen’s illness, when her vision began to return, the condesa ordered that all mirrors be removed from Her Majesty’s chambers, to spare My Lady shock at her appearance. The condesa remains firm in this notion, even though the Queen’s imagination has begun to work and she fears she must be a dreadful monster indeed if the condesa forbids even a glimpse.

  Yesterday, we were peeling the linens from the Queen’s face, when again My Lady pleaded for a mirror.

  “Wait just a little longer, Your Majesty,” said the condesa, Unrolling a strip of gauze from around Her Majesty’s head, “Until your recovery is complete.”

  “If I am going to be Ugly,” said the Queen, “I must begin to get Used to it.”

  “Surely you’d rather wait to see yourself at your best,” said the condesa.

  I took the ball of Used gauze from the condesa as she started Upon another piece. I swear the condesa enjoys frightening Our Lady. “You are not Ugly, Your Majesty. You bear the marks of your suffering, but they are not so deep as to be permanent.”

  “Thank you for telling me the truth, Sofi. I can always depend on you. So Mother’s stinking ointment has worked?”

  “Wonderfully,” I said. “In fact, in my opinion, you might think to discontinue it. Perhaps your skin only needs now but to breathe.”

  “Then let Us stop it!” the Queen exclaimed. “How wonderful to be rid of this stench Up my nose! I fear I shall go on smelling it forever. How does madame de Clermont fare with it? Has she been Using the ointment I’ve sent?”

  I winced. Although a month had passed, I could still hear the sweet-natured French lady’s gasp when she discovered that first pustule upon her hand. And I could still see her rushing to a mirror and pushing back the top of her bodice, revealing another watery wound bubbling Up from the tender skin of her breast.

  “You are kind to think of madame, My Lady,” said the condesa, “though I know not how she fares. She is still recovering in her rooms.”

  I drew in a breath. Madame had not fared well. I had promised My Lady to always tell her the truth, but how did I break such troubling news?

  “Your Majesty,” the condesa said, “do you think discontinuing your treatment is wise? Do you not want to look your very best?”

  “Sofi,” said the Queen, “call for doctor Hernández. We shall let him judge.”

  I summoned a page. He ran off before the condesa could stop him.

  When doctor Hernández came, he did indeed pronounce Her Majesty’s skin to be healed enough to discontinue the malodorous balm. Influenced by the Queen’s fervent pleading, he even allowed her to leave her bed to sit in a chair by the brazier. This morning, she was feeling well enough for Us to wash her hair. No sooner than we had rinsed the last of the soap away with rose-scented water, attired her in a robe of black velvet lined with sable, and seated her near the warmth of the brazier with her hair spread down the back of the chair, did we hear a shouting from the rooms below.

  Footsteps pounded on the stairs; the heavy door flew open. In rushed Don Carlos, clutching a fistful of drooping snowdrops to his gaunt chest.

  “My Lady—I heard you are well! I rushed home from University to see you.”

  The Queen’s hair rippled down the chair back as she turned slowly, her hand to her wounded face.

  Don Carlos gasped. “Oh, My Lady!”

  She smiled sadly. “Am I that wretched?”

  Tears welled in his pale-lashed eyes. “I knew that your illness was grievous, but—”

  A gentle tapping sounded on the doorjamb. Don Juan leaned in the doorway with his hat in his hands; Don Alessandro stood behind him. “May we come in?”

  Don Carlos dropped to his knees and pressed the Queen’s hand to his cheek. “I prayed! I begged God to take my life for yours—”

  “And it seems that He has spared you both.” Don Juan entered quietly. “No need for tears, Carlos.”

  But Don Carlos was too deep within his grief to pay him mind. “Oh My Lady, your beautiful hair is so thin now, and your pretty skin—”

  The Queen gazed down Upon the hand still captive to Don Carlos. “Ah, well, so much for my need of a mirror now. I suppose I’ve received my report.”

  The Prince looked Up, tears streaming down his pasty face. “Did anyone tell you how hard I prayed for you? That I sent my love to you each day?”

  “Yes, my dear Toad,” she said gently, “and it helped me. I thank you for your kind wishes.”

  “They were not just kind wishes, My Lady! I desire only your greatest happiness. I—”

  “Come,” said Don Juan. “We need to allow her to rest.”

  Don Carlos leaned away from Don Juan. “You don’t know how I feel! She is nothing to you.” He looked Up beseechingly at the Queen. “He has not shed a single tear, while I have wept myself sick!” Recalling his misery, he laid his face in her lap and sobbed.

  The Queen stroked his hair. Slowly, she raised her head, Until her gaze was met by Don Juan.

  Don Alessandro looked between them. A crooked smile crossed his freckled face. “Perhaps not everyone needs to cry.”

  “What?” Don Carlos lifted his head, sniffing. Seeing Don Alessandro’s pointed look, he peered at the pair. His attention was broken by noise in the corridor.

  The King stormed into the chamber.

  “Carlos! Why do you weep? Get Up. I could hear your whimpering down the stairs.”

  Don Carlos released the Queen’s hand and struggled to his feet. “Father—”

  “Quiet yourself! Do you think you help her this way?”

  “But I think only of her welfare.”

  “Do you? Or do you think only of yourself ?”

  “Father!” Don Carlos’s voice cracked with brokenhearted wonder. “You have never spoken to me thus.”

  The King knotted his fists at his side, thumbs twitching against forefingers. “Just—pull yourself together.”

  Don Carlos nodded, his pale eyes watery with tears. To my surprise, the Queen’s eyes were full, too.

  “Too much crying around here.” The King’s cold voice belied the emotion etched on his brow. He has never been anything but protective of his son, even when others would have lost patience. I felt my own throat clog with tears as the King fought to master his countenance. Disconcertingly, I sensed that someone in the room did not share in the heartbreak of this scene. Over by the window, Don Alessandro slouched against the wall.

  He straightened when he saw me, and composed that freckle-dusted face, so charmingly framed by dark ringlets, into an expression so deeply sympathetic that I wondered if I only imagined the smirk I had seen just the moment before.

  ITEM: The Queen’s grandfather François I was celebrated for his love for the ladies. He formed his own personal gro
up of maids of honor, La Petite Bande—twenty-seven young beauties chosen for their looks and wit. He dressed them to his taste and bade them to follow him everywhere, even to his bed. Beyond these ladies, his conquests were many, though he also begot seven children upon his wife.

  ITEM: In preparation for transferring a drawing to a canvas, take care not to overfill your pounce bag with charcoal dust, for patting an overfull bag to the canvas will send dust into your eyes. As a preventative measure, it is best to keep on hand the eyewash solution made in the following manner: Steep one ounce of dried chamomile flowers in a glass horn of boiling water for ten minutes. Strain and use when cool. Also soothing for eyes swollen by an excess of tears.

  13 OCTOBER 1561

  El Alcázar, Madrid

  Almost eight months have passed since I last wrote. Once the Queen regained her strength, court was moved from Toledo to the recently refurbished El Alcázar in Madrid, the palace the King wishes to establish as his seat of power. To this effect, he has added towers and chapels and gardens to the old Moorish fortress. Shopkeepers have set Up stalls in the courtyard; courtiers build their palaces nearby; international merchants and ambassadors stride through the streets. Overnight the sleepy town has become a bustling place of commerce and influence. But more has changed here than the scenery.

  “Why, Sofi?” the Queen lamented to me yesterday morning as I helped her into her robe of sheer black silk embroidered with gold-work leaves. Francesca hovered in the background, folding the Queen’s night garb. The condesa and madame de Clermont were busy discussing who would receive the Queen’s garments from the previous day, since Her Majesty does not wear the same clothing twice. Meanwhile, over in a corner, little Cher-Ami chewed on a lady’s calfskin slipper he had dragged in from another chamber. “Why does the King come no more?” said the Queen. “Is it my reddened skin? My thin hair? My weak vision?”

  “You know none of that is true,” I said. “You have made a complete recovery from your illness. Your skin heals by the day, and your hair”—I twisted a lush hank of it away from the Upright edge of her wire-stiffened collar—“is thicker than ever. Darker, too.”

  “So are my eyebrows,” she said. “Pluck them, Sofi. I look like a bear. Mamma would think me a fright.”

  “Has My Lady thought of letting them grow in the Spanish fashion? They would only accent your lovely dark eyes. But regardless of any of this—you cannot say the King does not come to you.”

  She made a pouting face. “Oh, he comes—every Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday after vespers—he did not even make an exception for my birthday. You could set a clock by him. Indeed I think I shall. Where is that annoying buzzing piece of German frippery he gave me? I shall melt it down to a lump of gold.”

  “What is your complaint, My Lady?” asked the condesa, who was now l istening in.

  The Queen folded her arms over her chest as I began braiding her hair. “Nothing.”

  The condesa cleared her throat. “Perdón, My Lady, but did you not wish for madame de Clermont to have your gown from yesterday?”

  Poor madame. She fared less favorably than My Lady in her battle with the pox. She was so disfigured she has taken to wearing veils over her face, even now, when it is warm, and indoors, in the company of ladies. It is a shame. She was a beautiful woman, in the French way, with her pale blond hair, long nose, and hooded eyes. Now that madame is less a source of jealousy, the condesa smothers her with kindness, forcing the Queen’s castoff clothes Upon her, allowing her to take the place directly behind the Queen when we venture out in public. Unless I can manage to slip back farther in the pack, I am third now, behind the condesa, who tips Up her head so high Francesca hopes she will trip over a mule pile.

  Now madame ’s eyes closed wearily in the slit between her veils. “I am drowning in Used gowns, condesa. Please, take this one or I shall scream.”

  I clung to the Queen’s hair as she shook her head with impatience. “Give it to Sofi.”

  “My Lady,” I said, “the King has already been too generous, giving me five new gowns since Michaelmas.”

  “Give it to Sofi’s Francesca, then.”

  Francesca looked Up, startled. A smile grew on her square peasant ’s face. She was still smiling when the Queen excused her to take the gown to our chamber.

  Then the Queen shooed madame and the condesa from the room and picked Up her hand mirror as she waited for everyone to leave, save me.

  “I am so bored,” she told my reflection when they were gone. “He comes to me now as if to an appointment with his ministers. Bedding me has become a duty he must perform.”

  “That cannot be true, My Lady. He loves you. Do you not see the pleasure he takes in you? How he smiled when you sang for the Dutch Lord Egmont after supper last night!” I fought to keep the irritation from my voice. I grow weary of reassuring her by the hour. She has the eye of the most important man in the world and finds no joy in it.

  “The King was laughing at my stumbling over the words.” She scrunched her nose, which has lost all vestiges of its childish stubbiness. “Thank you for covering for my blunders on your clavichord. You play far better than I sing.”

  “That is not true,” I murmured. Stray wisps sprang free of her braid to curl at the nape of her neck. I wished I could seize my paintbrush and capture their sweetness on canvas. I have done so little painting since Her Majesty’s illness.

  The Queen saw my averted eyes. “So you do think he has lost delight in me!”

  “Your Majesty! Any fool can see his love for you. He is just being careful with you, as his father advised.”

  She put down her mirror. “You remember that stupid letter? Ridiculous, telling Felipe to curb his desire. Why should he heed such poor advice? He didn’t heed the part about learning French. Why should he obey the part that is boring?”

  “My Lady, it is because he cannot bear to lose you. Your illness impressed that fear upon him. Can you not see how much he cares for you?”

  “He cannot keep me like a vase on a shelf, Sofi. I am sixteen and alive.” She raised her mirror to smile at me ruefully. “You would not know what it is like, never having been awakened as a woman to a man, but believe me, once you’ve known carnal pleasure, it eats at you night and day if you don’t get it. You become a seething mass of need, just burning for—” She blew out a breath. “I cannot think about it.”

  I pushed a comb into her braid.

  “I am sorry, Sofi, I should not speak out so crudely. But he is cruel to put me off. It makes me look foolish, an Unwanted Ugly hag, like Anne of Cleves, rejected by my godfather King Henry when she came to his wedding bed.”

  “But the King does not reject you.” Not as I have been rejected by Tiberio. My silence since his letter a year ago has not provoked even his curiosity, let alone his dismay; he has not bothered to write.

  “Father said my godfather Henry called the poor dame the Flanders Mare. Sofi—oh! Does the King call me the French Mare? You must tell me! I will go into hiding.”

  “My Lady—please. You know better.”

  “I know people talk. Even my mother in Paris knows of his lack of interest. She badgers me in her letters more shrilly than ever. How am I ever to get with child, she demands, when he takes me only on occasion?”

  I tucked in the last comb, pretending I did not hear the Unspoken thought vibrating in the air between Us: The blame for the Queen’s inability to bear children could not be placed solely on the King’s alleged lack of desire. His fertility was proven; he had fathered Don Carlos. Even on his regimented schedule for lovemaking, they should have coupled enough by now for her to conceive.

  “There now,” I said, “your hair is done.” Though I grew impatient with her, even I wondered if the King’s great love would be never-ending for a wife who proved to be barren.

  To My Most Magnificent Signorina Sofonisba, In the Court of the Spanish King

  From your silence since my letter of September past, I fear I have offended you. I h
ad hoped you would understand that I had been away in Florence when you last wrote, and I replied as quickly as I could. I would cherish hearing back from you. I treasure our association and had never thought it would end so abruptly.

  Meanwhile, my work here continues to consume me. As the representative of the Maestro, I am overseeing the building of two new churches here in Rome. While I am glad to do this for the old man, it is my work on the unfinished Pietà that intrigues me. For every step forward I take on it, a new problem presents itself and I must go backward. I cannot seek the Maestro’s help with it. Even if he did not hold a particular grudge against this piece, I would not approach him on it, for he has grown more difficult than ever. His habit of walking in the evening in all weathers particularly alarms me. He is now seven-and-eighty, not young! but each night after supper he tramps off as if in a rage. When I bid him to at least put on a cape, he glares at me as if I had called his mother a whore. Although he has now offered me a room in his home as well as a studio, he has remained distant toward me since my return from Florence, or if not distant, agitated. I will admit this hurts me. Does he think I wish to take his mantle of the Greatest Artist in the World? I am hardly up to that. When I present his designs to patrons, I am careful to make it clear the designs are his and not mine. I know oh too well who the true Maestro is. Perhaps he has just grown weary from his many detractors. No man of his stature goes without acquiring his fair share of them. But in this current atmosphere of reform, with the Pope so anxious to give no one grounds to find fault with the Church, the Maestro’s critics grow more shrill about his work not being sufficiently rooted in the Scriptures. They complain particularly about the naked figures in the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, questioning their appropriateness in a place of worship. He has heard it all before. Those jealous of his talent have attacked the frescoes since they were completed decades ago, with that loudmouth Aretino increasing the noise about five years ago, but the outcry has grown more serious of late. I fear time, now, is not on his side. The constant condemnation of his work wears him down, and I am laid low myself by seeing him thus. How a letter from you would bring me cheer, though the Maestro warns me that with your duties at court you will not have time to write one. I hope he is wrong, though I do understand if he is right.