by Lynn Cullen
I nodded silently. I set forth, my shawl flapping.
“Where you go?” she cried.
“I don’t know. To think.”
She followed, moaning as I marched along the south arcade of the palace, reviewing my warring thoughts. Only in a state of Unbalance would I question the King’s intentions. It was not rational to think our quiet King could poison his own beloved wife. But how could I ignore the possibility of a connection between the Queen’s inability to recover from childbirth and the “health-giving” elixirs the King was feeding her . . . if there was evidence.
“Signorina, where you go now!” cried Francesca.
I left the arcade and made for the courtyard before the main entrance of the palace, my slippers padding against the flagstones. When Francesca saw where I was headed, she bustled in front of me to block my way.
“No, signorina, you let it be! You follow this, it bring you harm.”
“And what of the Queen if I do not?”
“Signorina!”
I dodged around her and broke into a run. To the far end of the courtyard I dashed, and at last into the King’s flower garden, where leaf-heaped beds awaited the distant spring. The thorny canes of roses snatched at my sleeves as I ducked Under the trellis. I stopped, panting. Where in seasons past brushy stands of moonflower had flourished now stood a mound of rotting debris.
Francesca chugged Up, holding her side. “See?” she said, gasping for breath. “Nothing. No leaves for him to make the bad tea.”
I ran my slipper over the pile, Uncovering the withered nubs of stalks.
“Signorina.”
The terror in Francesca’s whisper jolted me Upright. My heart dashed against my chest: Just across the river, Under the alley of elms, the King approached carrying the Infanta, wrapped in a fur of ermine.
He leaned forward with a squint to ascertain who it was.
Francesca and I froze as do deer before an arquebus.
We waited as His Majesty paused to point out a nesting wood dove to the Infanta, who reached for it from her cozy wrap. He crossed the bridge before strolling to a stop before Us. I curtseyed deeply, wishing never to rise.
“Looking for something?” said the King.
He watched as I rose, his perfect brows arched. In his arms, the six-month-old Infanta watched, too, her own faint brows poised exactly like her father’s.
My heart pounded in my throat. “I look for signs of spring.”
He switched the Infanta to his other arm. “You won’t find many here. By the end of March, things will start to stir.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you. I shall come back then.”
He gazed at me, then at the dormant bed. He smiled briefly. “Are you interested in moonflowers?”
My blood froze within my veins.
“I thought you might be, as intent as you were on this bed.”
I shook my head.
The Infanta leaned across her father’s chest to latch on to his pointed beard, then chortled as his chin moved when he spoke. “If you wish to see it growing,” he said, “I have a pot of it near the south window of my library. I have found that by bringing it indoors, I can grow it year-round.”
I glanced away, my head light.
“Maybe you can explain to the Queen why I am so taken with the flower.”
I looked Up. He was studying me coolly, his expression mirrored on the baby’s plump face.
“My wife thinks the plant looks like a weed.”
My brain seethed with fear, even as my mouth boldly spoke. “Why do you grow it, then, Your Majesty?”
Behind me, Francesca stopped breathing.
A faint smile penetrated the King’s calm features. “My mother had morning glories trained around her window at the palace where I grew Up. It reminds me much of those.”
The Infanta bucked in his arms.
“Isabel Clara, I see a horse. Do you see a horse?” He lifted the child so that she might see the beast being walked from the palace to the stable yard by one of the palace grooms. “Horse. Horse.”
She watched, the whites of her widened eyes the moist pale blue of the very young.
“The Queen is resting now,” the King said to me. “She will want you when she rises.” He kissed the top of the Infanta’s head, then walked away.
I curtseyed to his retreating figure, then stood, my heart pounding as wood doves cooed serenely from the elms.
“Ohimè, signorina,” Francesca whispered. “We go home to Cremona, before you get in the trouble. Promise me you will do nothing—promise!”
I watched, ill, as the King strolled into the palace.
“If he want to hide the poison,” Francesca whispered, “why he tell you where he grow it?”
“What better way to remove himself from questioning than to hide in plain sight? And what cares he about the suspicions of a poor count’s daughter? He is King. He can do anything.”
“Ohimè!” she groaned. “That is the terrible talk. Do not say again!” But I did not have to say it again. The thought circulated Unspoken between Us for the rest of the evening. It festered in the air as we ate dinner, when we went to prayers, and as we readied the Queen for bed with the King. I could not meet Her Majesty’s eyes. I had promised that I would never keep the truth from her, and now I was withholding information on which her very life might depend. How was I to live with myself? Yet what if I was missing something? What if I was reacting only to the colored pigments on the surface of the picture, ignoring the true basis of the picture—the Underpainting beneath? I had to be misinterpreting appearances. In my years in the Queen’s service, the King had been only the most loving of husbands.
I shall not sleep tonight. I must figure out a plan, a scheme—some way to keep My Lady alive while I seek the truth.
IT EM : All rivers run to the sea.
30 JANUARY 1567
The Palace, Aranjuez
I awoke to the sound of barking dogs. It had taken me all night to drift into slumber, and now, soothed by the roar of the river outside my window, my weary mind floated. I imagined the King’s mastiffs finding an intruder in the rose garden—a ragged vagabond. The dogs leapt, knocking him onto the thorny bushes. Something silver thudded on the frosty ground—a knife, meant for the King.
Bells clanged into my dream . . . Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
Eight?
I opened my eyes. The palace bells were ringing, calling all to eight-thirty Mass.
I sprang Upright. “Why did you not wake me?” I cried at Francesca’s sleeping form. “The Queen is waiting!”
She did not answer.
How could she sleep so deeply after what we’d learned? Had I truly found evidence of the King’s desire to poison My Lady? Such is the stuff of books and legends, not of the quiet Paper King’s court. Let Francesca tell me it is all a fantasy, a dreamer’s whim, a chimera that dissolves Upon waking.
“Francesca, get Up! We ’re late.” Panicking now, I gave her a prod.
My fingers sank into the bulk. It was but a pillow Under the blanket.
I jumped out of bed, knocking the bed-warmer to the floor with a thud, spewing ash and charcoal into the rush matting, then went to the window and opened it a crack. Icy air rushed in with the daylight. A guard ’s call drifted over the low roaring of the river.
Softly, I pulled the window shut, my guts rolling with guilt though I had done nothing wrong.
I began to dress myself as quickly as I could. Without Francesca, putting on my corset was maddening work. The bell rang the quarter-hour after eight, Urging my fingers to move faster on the laces behind my back. Several frustrating minutes later, my bodice lopsided and gapping and my skirts askew, I hurried to the Queen’s chambers.
“Hello?”
No one answered. I examined My Lady’s dressing table. Water was still in the pitcher, the bowl dry, Her Majesty’s towel untouched.
Surely Francesca was with the Queen. She must have arisen late herself and rushed My Lady�
��s toilet and now they had gone to Mass. I glanced around the room. Where was the Queen’s nightgown? Nothing made sense.
The halls were empty because of the commencing service. I ran to the chapel inside the palace, my pace checked only Upon reaching the door. What would the condesa say when I arrived so late?
I eased my gaze through the stone arches of the windows that opened from the chapel into the hallway, as the priest sang the Kyrie Eleison: Mass had just started. On her pew, the condesa sat rigidly straight, her pomander to her nose. Next to her slumped madame, fingering her beads. On the other side of the crowded chapel, Don Alessandro sat with his chin Upon his doublet, sleeping.
The Queen was not there.
I dropped into a crouch, fearful of being discovered. At that very moment, the door to the outside opened at the far end of the hall, letting the cold morning sunshine come pouring inside. Sparked by an Urging inside me, I ran for the light, discovering Upon passing through the portal the reason for its open state: The man on the other side was polishing the iron straps of the door. He had stopped to chat with a guard; neither man marked the exit of a panicked woman in disheveled dress.
I ran through the garden and over the wooden bridge and into the elm woods. Had My Lady escaped once more to the freedom of the woods? Oh, but the condesa would be harsh with her for missing Mass. Doña Juana would file it away for future damning Use. Why had Francesca not stopped My Lady? Where was she?
I raced down the sandy trail, mentally scolding the Queen, berating Francesca, hectoring myself, when I was startled by a further thought: What if the King had ordered My Lady to be taken away?
I hurried on, my stomach burning with anxiety, when around the bend I spied two beggar women in layers of ragged clothing. I drew back, fearful of discovery, even as a ball of white threw itself from within the cloak of the smaller beggar and charged toward me.
The larger beggar woman whirled around, her upturned chin trembling above her wimple. “Signorina!”
I gasped. “Francesca?” Cher-Ami bounded into my arms. “My Lady?”
I ran forth to embrace the Queen. Beneath her layers of rough black rags, she wore a simple cowl of fine ivory wool, added protection against the morning chill, but not enough for someone in her weakened state. “What are you doing, My Lady? Why are you dressed so?” I felt her forehead. She was feverish.
“You were not to find us!” Francesca groaned. “Go, signorina, while you can.”
“I will not! What are you doing?”
“Go back! No one will have to know.”
A low whistle came from the direction of the river. Cher-Ami leapt down and scrambled through the underbrush. Before I could make sense of it, Francesca helped My Lady limp after the dog.
“Francesca, what have you told her?” I demanded, following.
“I mean it—go!”
“I am not leaving!”
Moaning like a wounded bear, Francesca gathered up the Queen, then crashed through the greenery. She broke out at the river’s edge, where Don Juan waited in the water, holding the reins of a single mule and his great bay horse. His dog, Rojo, loped over to greet Cher-Ami.
With a last groan from the effort, Francesca relinquished the Queen into Don Juan’s arms. Wordlessly, My Lady melted against him. It shocked me to see her do so, she who had for so many years scrupulously avoided his touch.
Don Juan drew back and looked searchingly into her face, so pale within her coarse black shawls. “Are you well, My Lady?”
She drank in his gaze. “Yes.”
He cradled her to him, tenderly resting his chin Upon her shawl-covered head. “Did anyone see you?” he asked Francesca.
She scowled at me. “No.”
“I did not know you were coming,” Don Juan said to me.
“She not!” Francesca exclaimed. “We go!”
“Let me be the one to decide!”
With his free arm, Don Juan steadied the sidestepping mule and handed its reins to Francesca. “There is a stream that branches from the river just around the bend. We will follow that as far as we can toward Toledo to cover our tracks. Then we will have to ride hard for the Gredos.”
She nodded.
“I know places to hide there,” Don Juan told me. “When it is safe, we will ride to Portugal, then set sail for the New World.”
He pulled over his own horse and lifted the Queen Upon it. He grasped her hands. “Elisabeth, this puts you at great risk. Speak now and we abandon the venture.”
She gazed toward the palace. “My baby child. She won’t even know me.” “We won’t go. I will think of something else—kill the brute if I have to.”
“No! Juan! He will kill you.”
“Wouldn’t he love an excuse? But there has to be a better way than this.”
The Queen’s eyes filled with tears as she searched his face. “Don’t you know that I cannot stay?”
“Let me Up!” cried Francesca. She struggled to mount the mule.
Don Juan left the Queen to hoist Francesca onto her mule, which she straddled like a man. “Thank you, friend, for alerting me,” he said. “You have the heart of a noblewoman.”
She frowned darkly. “We go now.”
“I am sorry, Sofi,” he said. “This is not of your choosing. Stay—I Understand.”
I gazed at the Queen, drooping over her horse. She spoke the truth. As rapidly as she was failing, she would die if she stayed, whether by poisoning or from entrapment within her gilded cage. I had not acted quickly enough to save Tiberio. I would not make that mistake again.
“I won’t fail you,” I said.
Don Juan lifted me Up behind Francesca, seating me, too, in the more secure style of a man. He touched my arm. “I won’t forget this.”
The bell rang from the palace signaling the transubstantiation of the bread into the body of Christ. Mass would be ending soon.
Don Juan leapt Up behind My Lady and whistled for his dog. The animal bounded through the Undergrowth. Cher-Ami yapped at the feet of My Lady’s horse. The Queen reached down, her dog sprang into her arms, and thus our ragged band started off.
We followed the bank a short distance toward the palace, then doubled back in the water to muddle our track. Our steeds galloped along the shallow edge of the river Until we came to the stream of which Don Juan had spoken. We had not gone far when we heard trumpets calling.
Don Juan tightened his arms around My Lady, then spurred his horse. Francesca’s feet bounced from the barrel sides of our mount as she kicked it into action. The blasts of the trumpets were lost in our splashing.
When we stopped some time later, drenched, our steeds blowing hard, the horns sounded no more. We let our mounts drink the very water against which they’d been straining, then pulled Up reins and set forth again. I breathed shallowly, listening, listening. The cessation of a call to arms did not rule out a silent ambush.
The air resounded with the wet clopping of our steeds’ hooves Upon the shallow rocky bed of the stream. Birds darted in the tall browned grasses that grew Up between the boulders on the banks. A single buzzard stirred the relentlessly blue winter sky. The Queen, who for so many months had languished on a divan, leaned against Don Juan’s chest, speaking animatedly of her childhood, of playing hide and seek with her brothers, of crouching behind heavy carved furniture in the cold, musty rooms of the family palaces, of strolling hand in hand with her beloved governess, Diane de Poitiers, through gardens ringed with red-and-white-striped poles. She told of her favorite dog, a spaniel named Fitzhugh, that fit inside her sleeve, and of her sister, Margot, singing a nursery song during the solemn occasion of Hercule ’s baptism. Don Juan, son of the country, listened, his smile a mix of contentment, adoration, and worry.
We skirted Toledo, the spires of its cathedral and the towers of the palace blue in the far distance. The landscape grew more stark. Except for an occasional grove of gray-green olive trees hugging the hills, scrubby shrubs, or a single stunted oak, the terrain was Unrelenti
ngly dry and lifeless, a sea of bent bleached grass. Our valley had opened onto a vast plain, exposing Us to the eyes of anyone who would come looking.
“Should we have gone to France?” I asked Don Juan, my voice vibrating with the trotting of my mule. “My Lady’s mother the Queen would welcome Us there, I would think.”
“And have her marry me off to some prince?” said My Lady. “No, thank you. And once she hears that I was poisoned, she will wage war on Spain, and thousands will die, thousands who could be home, smoking their pipes and doting on their children. No, let her believe I shirked my duty as Queen and ran away. It will be easy for her to imagine. I have always been a disappointment to her.”
I lowered my face. How could she think that her mother, let alone the King, would let her go, as valuable a piece of property as she was? They would never rest Until they found her, and then what would they do to those who had helped her to escape? I wiped my brow with the back of my hand. I could not destroy her hope of making it to Portugal and thus across the Ocean Sea, not when I had no other plan.
At last Don Juan steered Us into an arid valley blanketed by a flock of grazing sheep. We rode amongst them, sending the herd flowing and eddying, the bell of the lead ewe clanking. Rojo padded beside Us, grinning as if apologizing to the rough-haired brown and white dog working to control the panicked flock, now chasing at their heels, now crouching in the dry grass.
The smell of garlic frying in olive oil came from a low mud hut. A man ducked out the door, sending an icy spear of fear through my innards. But with a glance and a nod, he withdrew, leaving his dog to silently escort Us away.
Who knows how long we kept plodding? As the winter sun festered overhead, My Lady fell asleep against Don Juan, Cher-Ami tucked in her lap, the strength she had borrowed from the excitement of escape finally abandoning her. More than once, exhausted from worry and a sleepless night, I slumbered, too, only to blink awake with my head against Francesca’s back. Then my scalp would tingle anew with fear each time I saw the silent, naked hills and remembered how I had come to be there.
But Don Juan had chosen our route well. Other than the shepherd in his hut and a farmer plodding down the dusty track, his empty olive basket wrapped around him like a bulky straw blanket, we encountered no living persons. Our only accomplices were the sheep grazing silently on the hills, the small birds that swooped from shrub to shrub, and an occasional soaring buzzard. An ember of hope caught heat within my breast—could we truly have escaped?
