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

by C. W. Gortner

  I sat at the table, strewn with discarded papers and quills. “What seems to be the issue?” I asked, regarding them placidly.

  Con blandura, I reminded myself. With a soft touch, almost anything can be accomplished—even with men as fiery as these two.

  Carrillo bowed. “Your Highness, alas, I’m sorry to disturb you, but it seems His Highness and I are not in agreement over—”

  “The issue,” interrupted Fernando, setting the paper before me, “is that my lord the archbishop seems to think we should refrain from asserting our rights, though it’s as plain as the nose on his face that Enrique and Villena are losing ground—valuable ground we should be taking full advantage of.”

  “Oh?” I perused the paper. As its implications sank in, my heart quickened. It said that Enrique was seeking to affiance Joanna la Beltraneja to the Portuguese, and had brought the queen herself to Segovia to swear before the altar that the child was his. I looked up in disbelief. “I … I am to be deprived of all rights as princess. He has officially disinherited me.”

  “Read further.” Fernando tapped the paper. I tried to focus. Through the pounding haze that overcame me, isolated words jumped out. None made sense. I finally had to whisper: “I cannot read this. Tell me, what does it say?”

  Fernando shot a look at Carrillo. “It means that in disinheriting you, Enrique has made his last blunder. The realm is in an uproar; from Vizcaya to Jaén, and every city in between, the people cry out against your disinheritance and take to the streets.” His voice quickened. “Ávila has thrown Villena’s henchmen out; Medina del Campo vows to fight for you to the death. They say Joanna la Beltraneja is the by-blow of an adulterous whore and that you are Castile’s sole successor. The people want you, Isabella—this paper is an invitation from Toro to enter the city. We’ve received dozens like it from all over Castile, pledging to open their gates to us.”

  “Bribed is more like it,” sniffed Carrillo, “with promises we cannot keep.”

  “Bribed?” I looked into Fernando’s fervent eyes. “How? We’ve nothing to offer.”

  “Only the promise of peace, justice, and prosperity,” he replied. “It’s just as we discussed, remember? This is our tanto monta, come to pass. The cities know what we can offer them because I’ve sent personal delegates to tell them so. They cannot abide the starvation, the feuds, the debased coinage and arrogant grandees any longer. The king is despised and we are their only hope for righting the kingdom. This is our time. We must seize it.”

  “With what?” Carrillo flung up his hands. “Stewards, pages, and grooms?” He brayed laughter. “Yes, why not? Let’s send Chacón here to claim Toro in your name!”

  “I’ll lend support,” said the admiral quietly. Carrillo froze. Fadrique stepped to us—a small, confident figure in elegant dark velvet. “I promised Your Highness my retainers and I can summon more. We can take Toro and Tordesillas, certainly.”

  “What of the others?” retorted Carrillo. “What about Ávila? Medina del Campo? Segovia? Will you take all those cities with your retainers, my lord? I hardly think even you, head of the powerful Enríquez family, can summon that many men.”

  The admiral acknowledged this with an incline of his bald head. “Indeed. But I understand the marquis of Mendoza will assist us, and the duke of Medina Sidonia in Sevilla has also offered support. Surely between us we can gather enough of a show of force to make the king think twice about putting his decrees into effect.”

  “The marquis of Mendoza will assist us?” Carrillo turned slowly to Fernando. “But the Mendozas have always supported the king. How did you …?”

  “Easily.” Fernando smiled. “Like every grandee, my lord of Mendoza has an expensive lifestyle to maintain. In exchange for my offer of a cardinal’s hat for the marquis’s brother, the bishop, along with a significant stipend, Mendoza was more than willing to accept our terms.”

  “Cardinal’s hat …?” Carrillo stared at him in stunned disbelief, his face chalk-white. “You … you promised that mealymouthed Bishop Mendoza a prize that is mine by right?”

  “I did not promise anything.” Fernando’s voice was cold. “Cardinal Borgia of Valencia did. He also promised to send the dispensation you failed to obtain, sanctioning Her Highness’s and my marriage. So, as you can see, she now has no reason not to take a stand.”

  Carrillo met Fernando’s stare, his eyes bulging. “It is mine!” His roar reverberated through the sala, causing the hounds dozing by the fireplace to leap up, growling. “Mine!” He thumped his meaty fist on his chest. “That cardinalship belongs to me. By ecclesiastical law, it should be conferred on me. I am a lifelong servant of the Church in Castile. I am the one who has supported and fought for Her Highness’s cause these many years!”

  He was panting, spittle spraying from his lips. I resisted the impulse to beg for civility. All of a sudden, it was as though everyone else in the room had ceased to exist to Fernando and Carrillo as they faced each other like combatants. The rest of us had become part of the backdrop, no more significant than the tapestries and candelabra and snarling dogs, spectators to a battle of wills between the man who’d dominated my life since he had first approached me in Ávila and the husband to whom I had given my heart.

  Fernando did not move, did not take his unblinking gaze from Carrillo. He let the throbbing silence between them crack open like an abyss and then he turned to me and said, “My grandfather and I believe a condemnatory letter is in order. If you publicly reject the king’s actions and reiterate your injured stance, it should be enough to gain the cities’ loyalty. We do not need an army, though we will gather it. Your letter posted on every church door and in every plaza will be sufficient. Con blandura,” he added, with a smile. “Isn’t that what you always say?”

  He had come to know me better in our year of marriage than Carrillo ever had. He understood, as Carrillo never would, that I abhorred the senseless chaos of Enrique’s reign, that I’d prefer to maintain some semblance of outward peace, even as we paved my inexorable path to the throne. I did not want the people of this realm to suffer any more than they already had. I did not want death and destruction dealt in my name.

  I nodded, feeling Carrillo’s stare boring into me. “Yes, that is what I say.” I turned my eyes from Fernando to the archbishop; a pang of sympathy made me want to offer him comfort, for he suddenly appeared so old, so tired. I’d never marked before the broken veins in his face, the watery eyes, the sagging jowls, the dull silver in his thinning mane. He’d been a figure of such tireless brute strength for so long, I’d failed to recognize how time had begun to weigh on him.

  “I will do everything I can to ensure your contributions, ecclesiastical and otherwise, are recognized,” I told him. “Rest assured, you remain one of our most trusted advisors.”

  He met my eyes for a long moment. I couldn’t read anything in his expression; it was as though something inside him had closed, shuttering his face. It frightened me, his sudden blankness. Before, he had always shown his emotions openly to me.

  Then he turned and walked out. No one called him back; even as I started to move to go after him, I felt Fernando’s hand on my sleeve.

  “No. Let him go,” he murmured. “We don’t need him anymore.”

  I heard the archbishop’s heavy booted footsteps fade down the corridor. The dogs whined, settling back on the frayed carpet by the fire. The admiral waited for us to speak, his face averted. Chacón gave me a stalwart look, one that reflected my own realization that everything had just shifted on its axis.

  After a lifetime of his influence, all of a sudden I was free of Carrillo.

  I turned to Fernando. “I need a fresh quill and ink,” I said quietly, and I resumed my seat, drawing a clean sheet of paper near.

  I had made my choice.

  From now on, Fernando and I alone would steer our course.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  My letter went out, claiming that “if by passion and ill advice Enrique were to deny my ri
ghts as heir, it would be a great insult and disgrace to the realm. God will hold the king responsible for this great evil, while my lord the prince and I will be blameless.”

  It was a brazen pronouncement, the closest I’d ever come to insinuating that Enrique endangered the kingdom. And in the months that followed, it generated the very reaction Fernando had predicted. Cities and townships which previously supported Enrique, or remained neutral, posted my letter and came over to our cause, hanging banners from their walls with our entwined initials and declaring: “Castile for Isabella!” When I protested to Fernando that I did not wish to appear as though I sought to usurp Enrique’s rights, he laughed.

  “What rights? Ávila, Medina del Campo, and six other cities are already for us, and I’m off tonight to throw Villena’s officials out of Sepulveda, at the town’s own request. If matters continue as they are, by Epiphany all of Castile will be ours.”

  He was in his element, donning his chain mail and breastplate to rally the admiral’s retainers and the forces sent by Medina Sidonia from the south into effective infiltration units that could scale walls, unlock gates, and overpower royal garrisons in the dead of night, with only the moon to illumine their way. By mid-1472, we held more than half of Castile’s fourteen major townships in our grasp, and by the beginning of 1473 we were confident enough of our safety to finally leave Dueñas for a grand new residence in Aranda de Duero, near Valladolid. Once we were established in our palatial estate, even the most recalcitrant grandees, who had opted to bolster Enrique and his villainous favorite, began to send us covert pledges of support—“no doubt,” remarked Fernando acidly, “because they know that if they do not, I’ll tear their castles down about their ears and put their heads on spikes, to boot.”

  Though I would never admit it out loud, this statement, more than anything else, proved Carrillo’s unwise comment that Fernando did not understand the ways of Castile. To harass the grandees was pointless, even dangerous. Pride and ambition were two sides of the same coin to these lords who had badgered, cajoled, and ignored their sovereign for centuries. They must be enticed, brought to heel without realizing it; otherwise they’d bite like the feral dogs they were at heart. I had seen it throughout my childhood, witnessed firsthand the chaos that Enrique had sown in trying to appease the grandee factions, the internecine intrigues and alliances that had tied him up in knots and turned him into a mere figurehead who must bend to the strongest wind.

  Therefore, while Fernando assumed charge of our military affairs that year, I undertook the diplomatic—suffering endless hours of penning letters until spots danced before my red-rimmed eyes and my fingertips bled. I answered every missive I received personally. I did not miss an opportunity to inquire after a sick family member, congratulate a birth, or offer condolences on a death, determined to make myself known to these arrogant lords who could as easily defeat us as defend us. With my Isabel close at my side, playing with her toys or napping in her upholstered cradle by the fire, I worked harder than I ever had before, for I knew that these seemingly small gestures of recognition on my part, these simple exchanges of information and pleasantries, might, in the end, sway the grandees to my side when I most had need of them.

  And as I worked, I could imagine Enrique’s despair, helpless once more as he watched his kingdom turn against him. Even Villena, it seemed, had fallen ill from the distress of watching his edifice of power and lies crumble. While I did not rejoice in physical suffering, I did take satisfaction that at least with Villena indisposed I was finally at liberty to visit my mother without fearing apprehension by the marquis’s zealous patrols. Time had fled by; and between my labors and caring for my child, I had been remiss in attending to my mother’s needs. Though I had sent money and letters to Arévalo whenever I could, Doña Clara’s replies had been slow in coming and her unrevealing, dutiful tone made me suspect that matters in the household were not as they should be.

  I had hoped Fernando would join me in visiting Arévalo, as he had not yet met my mother, but he was unexpectedly called to Aragón by his father to welcome a delegation sent by Cardinal Borgia, carrying our long-awaited dispensation. The cardinal wished to convoke a peace conference between Aragón and France, and peace was something we desired. If Aragón could find some way to stave off its much larger and aggressive neighbor, it would free up men for our ongoing struggle in Castile. Still, it was our first official parting since our marriage and Fernando could be gone for months. I knew I’d miss him terribly, though I endeavored not to show it. I packed his saddlebags full of clean shirts I had sewn with my own hands, kissed him goodbye, and made my own plans, thinking that if I kept occupied, time would pass more quickly and hasten his return.

  Not knowing in what state I would find Arévalo, I reluctantly left my Isabel, who was almost four years old, in the care of attendants in our new residence. Inés and Chacón accompanied me, along with an escort of soldiers, in the spring of 1474. It was an uneventful trip but my fears regarding my childhood home were not unfounded; I found the castle more desolate and threadbare than even I recalled, with the animals crowded in filthy stockades and the smell of mold and smoke permeating the hall. My mother was gaunt, shockingly aged, her conversation meandering down blurred pathways between past and present, as if time were a river without any end. She spoke of Alfonso as though he were still alive but failed at moments to recognize me, staring at me with a vacant gaze that twined like barbs about my heart. Doña Clara, whose hair had turned snow-white yet whose presence remained forceful as ever despite her advanced years, informed me that my mother rarely left her apartments anymore, not even to go to her beloved Convent of Santa Ana. Travel in such unsettled times was ill advised and expensive, Doña Clara remarked, and money had been sporadic at best, dependent on what I sent, as Villena had cut the household allowance from the treasury in retaliation against me.

  “Some days all we have to eat are a chicken, lentils, and a few onions,” Doña Clara said, as I inwardly seethed at the fact that even firewood—never abundant on the arid meseta—had required strict rationing, the hall so cold in the dead of winter that meat could be hung from its rafters without spoiling. “But we persevere, mi niña. What else can we do?”

  As I sat embroidering with my mother, glancing at the brittle fingers worrying her needle through the cloth, shame choked me. I couldn’t keep her any longer in this deplorable state, no matter how limited my own means. She was becoming an invalid before her time, crippled by inactivity and these harsh living conditions she’d been obliged to endure. At the very least, new tapestries, carpets, braziers, and cloth for garments must be purchased; the castle must be cleaned from keep to cellar. While Chacón went to work with the soldiers, repairing the dilapidated stockades and replenishing the storehouses with game, I swallowed my pride and wrote to Carrillo. We’d not seen each other since his abrupt departure from Dueñas despite my various conciliatory missives, which he’d disdained like “a petulant sixty-year-old child,” as Fernando put it. Now, I abased myself in order to obtain the funds I needed; and something in my plea must have softened his heart, for one evening as we prepared to dine, Chacón strode in to announce that a visitor was requesting admittance at the gate.

  “At this hour?” exclaimed Doña Clara, whose existence had become so insular she viewed any intrusion as a potential threat. The other elderly ladies exchanged apprehensive looks; they had all experienced Villena’s belligerent officers barging in to harass and intimidate.

  I instructed Chacón to invite our guest in; we had fresh rabbit stew and a dried apple-and-carrot salad in almond milk, and what six can eat, eight can share. But as the small cloaked figure walked in and reached up to remove its cowl, I could not contain my cry. I dashed into a welcome embrace, to the astonishment of those seated around the table.

  “How can it be?” I whispered, holding my dear friend close. “How can you be here?”

  “Carrillo, of course.” Beatriz drew back with a smile. “He asked me to give y
ou this.” She pressed a leather purse stuffed with coins into my hand. “And to convey these tidings: Villena is dying of a stomach tumor and the Portuguese alliance for la Beltraneja has fallen apart. The king annulled his marriage to the queen and sent her into a convent. He is sick of conflict. He wishes to personally receive you in Segovia.”

  I DEPARTED ARÉVALO in the coppery haze of autumn. I had not wanted to show my eagerness by leaping at Enrique’s offer of a truce; instead, I composed a cautious reply that indicated I was overseeing my mother’s care and requested the release of those long-delayed funds due to me, as a gesture of his sincerity. Then I waited. The money came quickly, sure sign that Villena must indeed be on his deathbed. But Fernando advised me by letter that I should not go near Segovia until we knew for certain that the marquis had succumbed to his ailment, lest it all be an elaborate ruse to entrap me. It was sound advice and so I waited, summoning my Isabel to join me in Arévalo, while with my new funds I proceeded to refurbish the castle.

  Beatriz assisted me, regaling me with details of how Carrillo had hidden away from everyone to sulk in his palace in Alcalá, until one day, without warning, he made a brash move and appealed to the king, seeking to reinstate himself in the royal favor.

  “He’d heard Villena was ill and that Enrique wandered the countryside between Segovia and Madrid like a lost soul, unable to reconcile himself to the impending loss of his favorite.” Beatriz arched her brow; she had never dissembled her feelings and was not about to feign lament now at the end of Villena. “Enrique agreed to see him and together they hatched this reconciliation with you.”

  I eyed her as we measured the tester on my mother’s bed for new curtains. “And I suppose you and Cabrera had nothing to do with it?”

  “I didn’t say that. In fact, we had a great deal to do with it. My husband was the one who took Carrillo’s letter to the king, after it sat unopened for months on a pile of neglected correspondence as tall as the alcazar itself. And once he persuaded Enrique to receive the archbishop, I went to work.” She paused for effect. “I told Enrique that if he reconciled with you, he would restore peace to Castile, like ‘a tree whose dried branches have turned green again and will never wither.’ ”