The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile

by C. W. Gortner

  “Finally,” said Doña Clara, in a tone that lacked its habitual bite. “Where on earth have you been? Her Highness your mother has been asking for you.”

  My mother had been asking for me. My heart started to pound; as if from far away I heard Beatriz say, “We were with His Highness, Doña Clara. Remember? We said we were—”

  “I know who you were with,” interrupted my aya, “impertinent child. What I asked was where you have been. You’ve been gone over three hours, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Three hours?” I stared at her. “But it hardly felt more than …” My voice faded as I met her grim stare. “Is something wrong? Has Mama …?”

  Doña Clara nodded. “A letter arrived while you were out. It distressed her greatly.”

  My stomach knotted. I reached for Beatriz’s hand as Doña Clara said, “The letter was from court. I took it myself from the messenger, so I saw the seal. The messenger did not wait for a reply; he said it wasn’t necessary. When my lady read the letter, she grew so upset we had to brew a draft of marigold and rhubarb. Doña Elvira tried to get her to drink it but she would not let anyone attend her. She went into her rooms and slammed the door.”

  Beatriz squeezed my hand. She didn’t have to say what we both were thinking. If a letter had come from court, whatever news it brought could not be good.

  “A letter now,” went on Doña Clara, “can you imagine it? After ten years of silence! Of course she’s upset. We’ve lived here for all this time with nary a summons or invitation, as if we were poor relations, an embarrassment to be kept hidden away. Only Carrillo has seen fit to send the payments promised for our upkeep, and even he, a prince of the Church, can’t squeeze gold from an unwilling treasury. Why, if it weren’t for our own livestock and harvest, we’d have starved to death by now. And look about you: We need new tapestries, carpets for the floors, not to mention clothes. His Grace the king knows this. He knows we cannot raise two children on air and hope alone.”

  Her vehemence was not unusual; in fact, her complaints of our penurious situation were so commonplace I hardly paid them heed most of the time. Yet as if she’d suddenly ripped a veil from my eyes, I saw the walls of the hall around me as they truly were, stained with mildew and draped in colorless hangings; the warped floorboards and decrepit furnishings, all of which belonged to an impoverished rural home and not the abode of the dowager queen of Castile and her royal children.

  Still, it was my home, the only one I remembered. A jolt went through me when I abruptly recalled that fleeting vision I’d had on the ridge, of velvet-clad figures in a hall. It seemed I had not forgotten that distant court where my family once lived….

  I wished I could go to the chapel to be alone for a while, to think. Though chill and austere, the castle chapel always brought me solace when I faced difficulty; the mere act of going to my knees and clasping my hands gave me consolation and focus, even if I failed to quiet my mind enough to actually pray.

  “You must go to her,” Doña Clara said to me. With an inward sigh, I nodded, crossing the hall to the staircase leading to the second floor with Beatriz at my side. At the landing, we came upon my mother’s head matron, Doña Elvira, seated on a stool. She stood quickly.

  “Oh, Isabella, my child!” She pressed a brown-spotted hand to her mouth, choking back ready tears. Poor Doña Elvira was always close to tears; I’d never met any woman who wept as copiously or as often as she did.

  I touched her thin shoulder in reassurance. She was a devoted servant who’d come from Portugal with my mother and stayed by her side throughout all our trials. She had a nervous constitution; she couldn’t help the fact that she didn’t know how to contend with my mother’s spells. In truth, no one in the castle did, except me.

  “You mustn’t worry,” I said softly.

  Elvira wiped tears from her wrinkled cheeks. “When that letter arrived—Blessed Virgin, you should have seen her. She went wild, screaming and railing. Oh, it was terrible to see! And then she—she slammed that door and refused to let anyone near, not even me. I begged her to drink the draft, to rest and calm herself until you came home, but she ordered me out. She told me no one save God could help her now.”

  “I’ll take care of her,” I said. “Go, prepare another draft. Only give me some time first, before you bring it in.” I gave her another reassuring smile and watched her shuffle away before I turned to the bedchamber door. I didn’t want to go in. I wanted to run away.

  “I’ll wait here,” Beatriz said, “in case you have need of me.”

  I drew a calming breath and reached for the latch. The inner lock had been dismantled some time ago, after my mother had bolted herself inside during one of her spells. She had remained sequestered for over two days. Finally, Don Chacón had been forced to break the door in.

  I saw the evidence of her outburst the moment I stepped into the room. Strewn across the floor were broken vials, papers, overturned objects from flung coffers. I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the gloom before I took a resolute step forward. My foot hit something; it clattered as it rolled away, glinting dully, leaving a wet residue.

  The goblet of Doña Elvira’s draft.

  “Mama?” I said. “Mama, it’s me, Isabella.”

  The vague smell of mold—constant in the old castle because of the river that ran beneath it—reached me. In the darkness, familiar objects began to materialize. I discerned her sagging tester bed, the brocade curtains grazing the rushes on the floor; her loom, her spindle of yarn on a distaff in front of the shuttered window, the unlit brazier, and in the alcove, her upholstered throne, a forlorn relic under its cloth of estate bearing the impaled arms of Castile and her native Portugal.

  “Mama?” My voice quivered. I clenched my fists at my side. There was nothing to be afraid of, I told myself. I had done this before. I alone had brought my mother back from the precipice time and time again. Of everyone in this household, only I had the ability to soothe her, to instill reason when her spells overcame her. Not once had she harmed me.

  I heard rustling fabric. Peering at the shadows by the bed, I discerned her figure. I had a terrible recollection of the night my father died, when I thought I’d seen the constable’s ghost.

  “Mama, I’m here. Come out. Tell me what has frightened you so.”

  She warily moved forth. Her disheveled hair framed her pallid face, her long white hands kneading her gown. “Hija mía, he is here. He’s come again to torment me.”

  “No, Mama. It’s only the wind.” I moved to the sideboard; as I struck flint to the candle there, she cried, “No, no light! He’ll see me! He’ll—”

  Her cry was cut short when I turned with the lit candle cupped between my hands. The wavering circle of light threw the shadows higher upon the walls. “See, Mama? There’s no one here but you and me.”

  Her greenish-blue eyes distended, searching the chamber as if she expected to find her tormentor lurking in the corners. I was about to take a wary step back when all of a sudden she went limp. Letting out a sigh of relief under my breath, I set the candle in a sconce and went to guide her to a chair. I pulled a stool beside her, took her icy hands in mine.

  “I know you don’t believe me,” she said, her voice still holding a frantic echo of fear. “But he was here. I saw him by the window, staring at me, just as he used to do when he was alive and wanted to prove how much power he had over your father.”

  “Mama, Constable Luna is dead. No one is here to harm you, I promise.”

  She pulled her hand from me. “How can you promise such a thing? You do not know; you don’t understand. No one can. But he does. He knows a debt of blood must be paid.”

  My skin crawled. “Mama, what are you talking about? What debt?”

  She didn’t seem to hear me. “I had no choice,” she said. “He took your father from me. He was an abomination, a demon: He seduced my own husband away from me. Yet they blamed me for it. The grandees, the people, your own father—they said it was my fault. Juan
told me he wished he too had died that day, so he could be with his beloved friend. And so it happened: he died. He did not even try to live, not for me, not for his own children. He preferred that … that unnatural man.”

  I did not want to hear this. It was not meant for my ears; I was not her confessor. But there was no one else; and I had to soothe her enough so that she’d at least let herself be attended. And there was the letter, the reason she’d fallen into this state in the first place. I had to find out what it said.

  “Papa died of an illness,” I said haltingly. “It was not on purpose. He was sick. He had a fever and—”

  “No!” She rose to her feet. “He wanted to die! He chose death so he could escape me. Sweet Virgin, this is why I cannot rest, why I live day after day in endless torment. Had I not done it, Juan might have lived. I’d still be queen. We’d still be in our rightful estate!”

  As if they were in the room, I heard the women’s words, whispered so long ago: That she-wolf did it…. She killed Luna.

  My mother had destroyed my father’s friend. This was why she believed his ghost haunted her; why she kept falling prey to these terrible spells. She believed in this debt of blood she had brought upon herself.

  I forced myself to stand. “It’s cold in here. Let me light the brazier.”

  “Yes! Why not? Light the fire. Or better yet, bring in torches and set the castle ablaze. It will be a taste of what awaits me in Hell.” She took to pacing the chamber again. “God in Heaven, what can I do? How can I protect you?” She whirled about. I froze, bracing myself. She did not scream, though; she did not rant or claw at herself as she had in the past. Instead she reached into the pocket of her gown and flung a crumpled parchment at me. Picking it up from the floor, I turned toward the candle. I found I was holding my breath. Silence fell as I read, broken only by the keening of the wind outside. The letter was from King Enrique. His wife, Queen Juana, had given birth to a daughter. They had christened the child Joanna, after her mother.

  My mother spoke: “Enrique has achieved the impossible. He has an heir.”

  I looked up, bewildered. “Surely it’s cause for celebration.”

  She laughed. “Oh, yes, there’ll be celebration! They’ll celebrate my demise. Everything I fought for is lost; I have no crown, no court; your brother Alfonso will be disinherited. And they will come. They’ll take you and Alfonso away. They’ll leave me here alone to rot, forgotten by the world.”

  “Mama, that’s not true. This letter, it merely announces the child’s birth. It says nothing about us going anywhere. Come, you are overwrought. Let us seek solace together.”

  I slipped the letter into my pocket and moved to her prayer bench. It was a comfort she’d instilled in me as a child, a ritual we had come to cherish; every evening we said our prayers together.

  I was reaching for the mother-of-pearl box where she kept her rosary when I heard her say, “No, no more prayer. God does not listen to me anymore.”

  I went still. “That … that is blasphemy. God always listens.” But in that moment my words sounded devoid of conviction and it terrified me. I felt the weight of things I barely understood bearing down, creating a chasm between us; I almost gasped aloud when a tentative knock came at the door. I found Elvira standing there with goblet in hand; she gave me a questioning look as I took it from her. When I turned around, my mother stood by her bed again, watching me. “Ah,” she said, “my oblivion has come.”

  “It’s a draft to help you sleep. Mama, you must rest now.” I moved to her; she did not resist. She drank the draft and lay down on the tangled sheets. She looked so old, her eyes far too large for her gaunt face, lines engraving her once-supple mouth. She was only thirty-three, a young woman still, and it was as if she’d dwelled in this lonely fortress for a thousand years.

  “Rest now,” I said. “I am here; I will not leave you. Rest and all will be well.”

  Her eyelids fluttered. I started to sing under my breath, a nursery rhyme that all children learn: “Duerme, pequeña mía; duerme feliz. Los lobos aúllan fuera pero aquí me tienes a mí. Sleep, little one, sleep contentedly. The wolves howl outside but inside I am here.”

  Her eyes closed. She twitched once as the spell dissipated. She murmured. I leaned close to hear her words.

  “I did it for you,” she said, “for you and Alfonso. I killed Luna to save you.”

  I sat motionless at her side, plunged back to that night so long ago when we fled Valladolid. I had never pondered the events that led to our exile but now I understood the terrible secret that tore apart my mother’s soul.

  I watched her sleep. I wanted to pray for her; she was wrong, she had to be. God heeded us always, especially in our darkest hours. But all I could do was wonder if there might come a time when I too would be driven to this, forced to commit the unthinkable and then be haunted by my actions for eternity.

  Beatriz was waiting outside. She stood as I emerged; my brother had joined her.

  “I heard Mama is not well,” he said. “Is it …?”

  I nodded. “It was bad. We must entertain her, stay close to her. She needs us now.”

  “Of course. Anything you say,” he said. But I knew he’d prefer to stay away, to go lose himself in his weaponry and riding. Alfonso had never understood why our mother acted as she did, why her fervent embraces and gaiety could suddenly turn violent as the winter storms that howled across the plains. I had always sensed his fear of her and had done everything I could to shelter him from her fits. As he kissed my cheek awkwardly and went back down the stairs, I met Beatriz’s gaze. The crumpled letter sat like stone in my pocket.

  They will come. They will take you and Alfonso away.

  Though everything inside me wanted to deny it, I knew it could be true.

  We had to prepare.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The following days passed without incident, belying my tumult. I stashed the king’s letter in a coffer in my room; Beatriz asked ceaselessly about it, naturally, until I could bear no more and let her read it. She looked at me in astonishment, speechless for perhaps the first time in her life. I didn’t encourage her opinion; I was too preoccupied with my own troubled presentiment that we stood on the verge of irrevocable change.

  I devoted myself to my mother. There were no more spells, no more outbursts; though she remained too thin and pale, pecking at her food like a bird, she welcomed the visits Alfonso and I paid every afternoon.

  I was touched to discover that my brother had taken pains to learn a Portuguese song for her, which he performed with gusto even if his voice warbled. My brother was not musically inclined, yet as he sang out the native lyrics of my mother’s land, I saw her face soften, recapture its faded beauty. Dressed in her outdated court gown, her fingers laden with tarnished rings, she tapped the music out on the arms of her chair, her feet silently moving under her hem as she followed the steps of the intricate dance she’d once excelled in, flaunting her skill under the painted eaves of the great salas where she’d been the most powerful and sought-after woman at court.

  After Alfonso finished, his chin lifted high and arms flung wide, she clapped frenetically, as if she wished to impregnate the room with the rare sound of her joy. Then she motioned to me. “Dance, Isabella! Dance with your brother!” And as Beatriz picked out the song on the small, stringed cavaquinho, I joined hands with Alfonso, moving with studied steps, even when my brother treaded on my toes and grinned sheepishly, his face flushed with exertion.

  “It’s much easier to joust with cañas,” he whispered to me, and I smiled, for in no other way did he betray his masculine pride than at times like these, preferring to flaunt his agility on horseback with the sharp stakes used for hunting rather than risk embarrassment by tripping over his own feet in front of his family. I, on the other hand, loved to dance; it was one of the few pleasures I had in life, and I had to blink back my tears of joy when my mother spontaneously leapt from her chair to take us both by the hand and whirl us arou
nd in a dizzying display.

  “There,” she exclaimed, as we caught our breath. “That is how it is done! You must learn to dance well, children. You carry the blood of Portugal, Castile, and León in your veins; you must never let Enrique’s mincing courtiers put you to shame.”

  The mention of courtiers hovered in the air like a wisp of acrid smoke, but my mother didn’t seem to notice her slip. She stood beaming as Doña Clara, Elvira, and Beatriz broke into applause, and Alfonso then regaled us with a show of his mastery of the sword, enacting feints and thrusts in the middle of the room while my mother laughed and Doña Clara cried out for him to be careful, lest he skewer one of our cowering dogs.

  Later that night, when I kissed my mother good night after our evening devotions—for we’d returned to our daily prayers, much to my relief—she whispered, “This was a good day, Isabella. If I can only remember this day I think I’ll be able to bear anything.”

  It was the first allusion she’d made to our shared secret since her spell. As she held me close I vowed to myself that I would do everything possible to stave off the darkness that threatened my family.

  A few days later, she announced her decision to pay a visit to the Cistercian Convent of Santa Ana in Ávila. We had gone there before, several times, in fact; I’d even attended lessons with the nuns there after my mother completed my preliminary instruction in letters. It was one of my favorite places; the tranquil cloisters, the indoor patio with its fountain, the fragrant herb patches in the garden, the soughing of the nuns’ robes against the flagstones, always filled me with peace. The devout sisters excelled in needlework; their splendid altar cloths adorned the most famous cathedrals in the realm. Many an hour I’d spent in their company, learning the art of embroidery while listening to the murmur of their voices.

  Doña Elvira fretted that it would be too much exertion for my mother, but Doña Clara pronounced it an excellent idea and helped us pack for the journey.