The Creation of Eve

by Lynn Cullen

  “What is this plant?” she asked.

  Doctor Debruyne smiled. “Coca.”

  “Please excuse my excess of zeal, Your Majesty,” said doctor Hernández. “We should not have spoken of this so soon. You must wait Until after we have carefully measured its properties before you can try it. As of now, we are relying on hearsay from the Indian people—accidents can happen if we rush into application.” He frowned at doctor Debruyne.

  “Accidents?” said the Queen.

  Just then Don Alessandro and Don Juan appeared in the bend of the path leading from the palace, Don Alessandro whacking the Undergrowth with his sword, Don Juan gazing Up into dappled light sparkling through the trees. When Cher-Ami bounded for the caballeros, yapping, Don Alessandro raised his sword in jest. Don Juan plucked Up the dog and tucked him Under his arm.

  “Your Majesty.” Don Alessandro sheathed his sword with the shish of metal Upon metal and took the Queen’s hand. He turned and opened it. “A leaf?”

  She dropped it, her cheeks bright pink. “Where have you been? You did not even say good-bye to me at Easter. I am much offended.”

  Her lips quivered with an ill-hid smile as first Don Alessandro kissed her hand and then Don Juan, who handed her the pup. I, too, was glad to see them. The palace was dull without them now that they were at University. How rarely they’d been home since the Queen’s riding accident a year and a half before.

  Don Alessandro grinned. He had matured into manhood over these past two years, though with his dark curls and darting eyes, he still had the mischievous air of a grown cherub. “Do not look on Us with such ill favor, My Lady. We would have come sooner if our tutors had let Us escape. Security has been tightened since Don Carlos’s adventure.” There was an Uncomfortable silence, acknowledging the tragic event to which Don Alessandro had so flippantly referred. Last October in Alcalá, during the dead of night, Don Carlos had fallen down the stairs of his lodgings and dashed his head against a stone step. He had teetered on the brink of death for eight days, Until, in desperation, the doctor called in from the Netherlands had ordered a hole to be drilled through his skull. From this surgery, Don Carlos developed a fever so high that only prayer and the intervention of Saint Isidro the Laborer, whose bones had been laid next to him in his sickbed, could have saved his life. Only after it was clear that Don Carlos was going to live did Don Juan come forward with the story that the Prince had been sneaking off to see the daughter of their porter. But when Don Alessandro retold this tale in the Prince’s presence when we first saw them again at Easter, Don Carlos was furious. He flashed the Queen a lovelorn look and said that it was to another lady he had been stealing.

  “It is because of Don Carlos we are here,” said Don Juan. “He sent Us to look for you, Your Majesty.”

  “He would have come himself,” said Don Alessandro, “but he has a tremendous headache, though we are not to tell you that. Doña Sofonisba, have you started on my portrait?”

  I confessed that I had not.

  “You’ve got your paper there. Why not sketch me now?”

  “Perhaps Don Carlos would benefit from your coca leaves,” the Queen said to doctor Hernández.

  Doctor Hernández grimaced. “I regret they aren’t ready to test.”

  “As his physician at court, señor, you should be informed,” said Don Juan. “Don Carlos has not gone a day without pain since his fall.”

  “He is lucky he ’s alive,” Don Alessandro muttered, “hard as he cracked his head.”

  “How much pain would you say he was in?” asked doctor Hernández.

  “He does not complain of his suffering,” said Don Juan, “but it is apparent in his behavior. His moods are dark, and he is provoked into violence by the smallest thing, which is not within his character. You know what a gentle soul he has.”

  I lowered my gaze. Don Juan was most generous. Even before his accident, Don Carlos was Unstable and easily Upset. I shuddered to think how difficult he must be now.

  “Please beg my pardon for interrupting,” doctor Debruyne said to his colleague, “but this is why we must learn more about this coca, to ease the suffering in cases like this.”

  “Yes,” said doctor Hernández, scowling, “but—”

  “Please, doctors,” said the Queen, “you must not let Us stop you, not if this could help Don Carlos. Please get on with your work.”

  We bade the physicians good-bye and began down the path taken by Don Juan and Don Alessandro. The low heels of my slippers sank into the sandy soil as I padded along next to Don Alessandro, who had resumed his sport of whacking the trailside vegetation with his sword. I could smell the muddy river through the trees, though I could not see it from our path. Ahead of Us, the Queen walked with Don Juan, her hands folded over her belly. The King’s young brother has also matured since going to University. The top of My Lady’s head now reaches only to his shoulder. And though his complexion is still as fresh and rosy as when he was a youth straight from the country, his former open friendliness has been tempered with reserve.

  “It is good of you to be concerned about Don Carlos,” the Queen said to him. She looked not at Don Juan’s face, but at little Cher-Ami trotting on the trail before her.

  “I am worried about him, My Lady,” he said. “He is definitely not himself.”

  “I have heard Ugly rumors,” said the Queen. “It was all over Madrid—is it true that he forced a cobbler to eat the boots he had made because Don Carlos did not like their fit?”

  Next to me, Don Alessandro kept slashing. “Until the old man vomited them Up, he did,” he called to them.

  Don Juan turned on him. “Why do you say such things? People will believe you.”

  “Don’t get so hot,” said Don Alessandro. “You know I only jest.”

  “You Underestimate the power of the spoken word, my friend. Already My Lady has heard in Madrid the jest you started in Alcalá—which, by the way, I did not find humorous even the first time you told it. Should that not convince you how far a few dropped words can travel?”

  “I find it rather gratifying that my joke has carried so far,” said Don Alessandro. He grinned. “No harm done. No one truly believes our soft-hearted Prince would order such a thing.”

  There was a short silence.

  “Señor,” I asked, “how fares your Latin? Both of you, with your noses so much in the books these days—you must be veritable Virgils.”

  “My Latin is miserable,” said Don Alessandro. “I can no more speak it than can a turtle. However, we have learned the art of debate, have we not, Don Juan?”

  “Not so well,” said Don Juan. He threw Cher-Ami a stick.

  Don Alessandro poked at a yellow tree fungus with his sword point. “We have the most important topics to debate. The subject this week: Did God replace the rib he took from Adam to make Eve with another rib, or did He just pack a bit of flesh in its place?”

  The Queen glanced at Don Juan, then waited for Don Alessandro to catch Up. “And which position did you take?” she asked Don Alessandro.

  “I, señora, went with the flesh.”

  “And did you win the debate?”

  Don Alessandro smiled but did not answer.

  “Oh, he won, in his fashion,” said Don Juan, with disapproval in his voice. “In the end.”

  Don Alessandro twirled his sword. “My opponent saw my point, so to speak.”

  We walked along, Cher-Ami now darting, now pouncing Upon invisible creatures on the sandy path. “Back in France, the ladies had debates, too,” said the Queen, “among themselves.”

  “Oh, the old how-many-angels-dance-Upon-a-pinhead argument?” said Don Alessandro.

  “No.” The Queen took a few more steps, her skirts brushing the bracken sprawling into the trail. “We debated which is better in love: fulfillment or desire.”

  “Oho,” said Don Alessandro, “not the sort of thing our professors debate. Which did you argue, My Lady?”

  “I was a child,” she said lightly.
“I didn’t know which to champion.”

  “And now?” he said.

  “Now, monsieur, I know better than to deliberate this with you.”

  He whacked at a fern. “You hurt me, My Lady.”

  She twitched her skirt from the vegetation Upon which it had snagged. “Don Juan, my mother writes that not only have you discontinued your pursuit of my sister’s hand, but that you dropped your hunt for the hand of my cousin Mary Stuart.”

  “I think,” said Don Juan, “it was more a case of them dropping me. Apparently I was not an eager enough suitor. Both had been your mother’s idea for me to wed, not mine.”

  Don Alessandro sent a toad hopping at swordpoint. “Just be glad your brother the King feels your blood is not rich enough for ones of their high rank, or you would be in France just now, ‘eating peaches,’ as they say.”

  Don Juan cut him a look of warning.

  The Queen’s frown did not hide her good cheer. “You wouldn’t want them, anyhow. My sister is but a child and not suited for you at all, and Mary Stuart—I must tell you, she would be the worst shrew of a wife.”

  “A shrew?” Don Alessandro cried in mock horror.

  “She was always bossing me around the nursery. Father made me bow to her in all things, as it was known since she was an infant that she was to wed my brother and be the Queen of France as well as Scotland. It made her insufferable. Oh, she acted demure and sweet around Father—sweet to me, too, as long as she got her way. But if crossed, how she would roar . . . Until Father came. Then she was a meek little puss again.”

  “I would not like a two-faced woman,” said Don Juan.

  “Ah, so Uncle does know what he wants in a woman,” said Don Alessandro. “I suppose this comes with all the experience he is having with the ladies these days.”

  The Queen drew in a breath. “Is this true?”

  “No.”

  “Goat feathers,” said Don Alessandro. “You know the ladies love you. I’m sick of picking Up the gloves they ‘accidentally’ drop near you. Why don’t you just pick them Up yourself ?”

  Don Juan shrugged. “They’re throwing them at you.”

  “You know they’re not.” Don Alessandro snorted in disgust. “I don’t Understand. Why is it that those who try the least are always the most generously rewarded? Uncle dreams of being a modest gentleman’s child, then finds he is the Emperor’s son. He gives his books the briefest glance, then gets the highest praise from our profesores. He pays more attention to his dog than to the pretty señoritas, and the women throw their clothing at him.”

  “You exaggerate,” Don Juan muttered.

  An awkward silence fell over our group, amplifying the swish of skirts and breeches as we walked. At last we turned a corner Under the spreading branches of an oak. Ahead, before a fountain in which water splashed down the green mossy face of a stone lion, stood the King. He was leaning on an arquebus, its wooden stock sunk into the sandy soil, as he spoke to his sister Doña Juana and doña Eufrasia, whose little dogs snuffled through a drift of leaves near their skirts, oblivious of the King’s pair of mastiffs being restrained at leash a short distance away by one of the King’s men. It appeared to be an innocent encounter between siblings with their attendants. Perhaps that is all it was.

  The Queen’s pup scampered forward, then rolled on its back as the other ladies’ dogs rushed to meet it. The smile that lit the King’s eyes when he saw the Queen dimmed when he took in the presence of Don Juan.

  “My dear.” He hung his gun over his arm to kiss the Queen’s hand.

  He let Don Juan and Don Alessandro kiss his ring. “I heard you were here,” he said to the caballeros. “Why are you not at University?”

  “We came to celebrate El Sotillo,” said Don Alessandro.

  “Didn’t you overshoot your mark?” said the King. He smiled slightly at his sister’s chuckle. “The festival is in Madrid.”

  “Your son the Prince wanted to come here first, Your Majesty,” said Don Alessandro.

  “Have you seen him?” said Don Juan.

  A hint of worry shadowed the King’s cool face. “No.”

  “I fear his headaches grow worse,” said Don Juan. “I mentioned it to doctor Hernández just now.”

  The King beheld his brother dispassionately. With the two standing together, I could not help noticing the growing inequality between the brothers, a phenomenon only increasing with time. It made me wince for the King to see how much more handsome their shared features were in Don Juan.

  “Thank you for your concern for my son,” said the King, “but I am keeping an eye on the situation.”

  “Of course,” said Don Juan.

  “How are your studies coming along?” Doña Juana asked the two caballeros.

  The Queen spoke Up loudly, as if wishing to assert her place. “They are debating whether God replaced Adam’s rib with a fresh rib or with flesh after giving it to Eve. Don Alessandro thinks it was just flesh.”

  The King stood his gun back on the ground, causing one of his mastiffs to start forward. Its handler jerked him back.

  “What did you argue, little brother?” Doña Juana asked with a brittle smile. She picked Up her dog, leaving doña Eufrasia’s pet and Cher-Ami to snuffle companionably in the leaves. “About the rib?”

  Don Juan opened his mouth, then settled into himself with a frown. “I think trying to Understand God ’s mysteries is a waste of time.”

  “Oh?” said the King. “You wish not to know Our Lord?”

  “I think that we cannot know the workings of a being greater than ourselves, Your Majesty. To think that we can is to give ourselves more credit than we deserve.”

  “Well spoken,” said the Queen.

  The King swung his gaze at her, then readdressed Don Juan. “So you think Scripture study is unnecessary?”

  “I am not saying that at all. I am saying only that time is better spent on problems we can solve for the good of the living than on theoretical questions we can never answer.”

  The King’s lips formed a thin red crescent in his beard. “Are you sUre that is not just lazy thinking?”

  “Dear little brother,” said Doña Juana, “I would not recommend speaking of this too loudly before Inquisitor-General Valdés. He has a poor sense of humor these days, with the Protestants renewing their rioting in France and emboldening heretics here.”

  “Who is joking?” said Don Juan.

  “You are,” said Doña Juana. “If you are smart.” She turned to me with a smile. “Doña Sofonisba. I have been meaning to tell you—Inquisitor-General Valdés says some poetry written by your Michelangelo to young men has recently come to light. There has been talk of his wickedness before, but his friends have always managed to hush it. Would you know of a young gentleman named—”

  One of the King’s mastiffs rushed out and bit Cher-Ami, who had just snatched something from the pile of leaves. Cher-Ami screamed sorely as the handler yanked away the mastiff, with Cher-Ami’s trophy—a dead canary—now in its own jaws.

  The Queen clutched her pet to her breast.

  “Is he hurt?” said the King.

  Don Juan stepped over to examine the pup, who licked him fearfully as Don Juan gently manipulated his leg. “Try setting him down,” he told the QUeen.

  She placed him on the ground. Cher-Ami yelped, then scuttled Under his mistress’s skirts.

  “He moves well,” said Don Juan. “I think he is more afraid than hurt.”

  “Who are you, Uncle?” Don Alessandro said with a laugh. “Saint Francis?”

  The Queen scooped Up her dog. “Merci, monsieur,” she said gratefully.

  “Juan didn’t do anything,” said the King. “The dog was Unharmed.”

  Francesca appeared, winded and sweating and mumbling in Italian as she struggled along the path with a basket the size of a soup kettle. She gasped when she looked Up and saw Us with the new members to our party. She dropped the basket and scuttled forward to kiss the King’s hand and cu
rtsey to Doña Juana. The King bade Us to repair to our picnic, and we did so, though without Don Juan, who did not want to leave Don Carlos waiting at the palace. Our smaller group picnicked on the banks of the river, eating cheese and ham and the famous strawberries of Aranjuez, as diving ducks popped Up from the water, drops rolling off their curled tails, and shiny green dragonflies poked among the bulrushes. Don Alessandro entertained the Queen and me with humorous stories about his life as a student at Alcalá while I sketched him, though I fear we were not the most appreciative of audiences, for the Queen’s gaze did rove toward the palace and mine toward the sunny slope on the other side of the woods. Even as I thought of doctor Debruyne kneeling in the soil, tending his miraculous coca, I wondered: To whom had the Maestro addressed his poems?

  ITEM: In Rome, as in Spain, the penalty for sodomy is death, or five years’ rowing in the King’s galleys, which is the same as death.

  1 MAY 1562

  The Palace, Aranjuez

  Francesca has been more irritable of late. True, that is like saying that vinegar grows tart. But this morning, as I readied to go to Madrid for El Sotillo, the festival of Saint James the Green, you would have thought Francesca would be pleased by the prospect of having a few days at her disposal, and would be in a light (for her) mood. And I especially needed her benevolence just then—Doña Juana’s accusation that the Maestro wrote poetry to young men Unsettled me.

  But no. Instead of attending me in a cheerful (for her) manner after she roused me before dawn, she tied my bodice as if strangling it. She plopped the rolls that pad my skirts onto my hips like a pair of saddlebags onto a mule, then jerked the strings of my skirt as if intending to rip them in two. When she braided my hair, she tugged it so hard that my scalp still tingled as I hurried down the corridor to the Queen’s chamber.

  “Your face, you cover it in the sun,” she ordered, stumping behind me.

  “I will,” I said. “But I doubt if I will get out of the carriage at the parade grounds. I hear that Their Majesties do not.”