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

by C. W. Gortner

  Alone in my rooms with my women, I vented my dismay. “I sent a golden infanta to Portugal and she’s come back a phantom! What on earth has happened to her? That a daughter of mine should want to lead a religious life is admirable, but she has a role to fulfill in this world, and it cannot be in a nunnery.”

  Inés sighed sadly. “The poor child must have loved her prince very much.”

  Beatriz met my eyes, and in her silent look, I read my innermost fears. My eldest daughter was behaving like my mother, indulging a melancholic penchant for drama that chilled me to my very bones.

  The realization bolstered my resolve: I ordered everyone to refuse to entertain any talk of convents, even if it made Isabel feel comforted. Everyone complied, but Juana, in characteristic fashion, goaded Isabel mercilessly. At eleven years of age, my second daughter was unwilling to concede any weakness in herself, much less in others.

  “You look like a crow,” Juana remarked as we sat in my pavilion after dinner one evening, the warm wind flowing through the tent’s open flaps. Outside a thousand campfires glittered on Granada’s vega like fallen stars as our men settled in for the night. “Always in black and moping about; it’s unseemly. After all, you were married less than a year. You can’t possibly have loved him that much.”

  Isabel stiffened on her stool, the altar cloth we embroidered between us tightening in her fingers. “And who are you to judge? What do you know of love or loss, spoiled selfish child that you are?”

  “I might be spoiled,” retorted Juana, “but at least I know I’d never love anyone so much that I’d forget myself.”

  As Isabel gasped, I said sharply, “Enough. I’ll hear no more recriminations from either of you. If you must argue, do so elsewhere than in my presence. Honestly”—I shot a reproving look at them—“what has come over you?”

  Isabel averted her eyes; Juana stuck out her tongue. I set my embroidery aside. I did not believe in corporal punishment but Juana was too impudent for her own good. I had a mind to—

  I paused. “Is that smoke I smell …?” I started to say, as Juana leapt to her feet, tossing her hopelessly tangled yarns to the floor and rushing to the pavilion entrance. She gasped. “Mama, look! The camp is on fire!”

  Pandemonium broke out. As the duennas and other ladies raced to the back of the pavilion to gather sleeping Catalina and María from their beds, I hurried with my older daughters outside. To my horror, I beheld flames leaping like nimble devils from tent to tent, incinerating the velvets and silks and brocades, consuming everything within their path in minutes. All around us courtiers and soldiers were shouting; horses whinnied in terror and tore loose from their tethers, galloping about in panic as the dogs bayed. I didn’t know where to turn; the smoke was already so thick I could barely draw in a breath. Suddenly, the marquis of Cádiz materialized out of nowhere, smut on his face and his clothes. “Majestad, come quickly!”

  “Where are my husband and son?” I cried as he led us around the burning encampment, toward a nearby hill that offered protection.

  “They are safe,” he said. “The fire started in my tent, where they slept, but they got out in time. The king’s hounds started barking the moment they saw the flames.”

  “Gracias a Dios.” I clutched Catalina to me. In the eerie interplay of fire and darkness, I caught sight of Juana’s face. She was pale and wide-eyed; her mouth ajar in an expression I could only describe as exultant, as if the catastrophe had been staged for her amusement. I was appalled. Did she have no fear, no sense of the destruction and loss happening around us?

  As if she read my thoughts, Isabel said quietly, “She doesn’t care. She thinks it’s a game. She has no respect for anything.”

  I hushed her. With Catalina in my arms and María held by Beatriz, we reached the hill’s summit, which offered a terrible view of the conflagration. Fernando came running out of the darkness, his loyal hounds at his heels. I glimpsed our son, Juan, nearby, still in his nightshirt, his sword in its jeweled scabbard gripped in his hand. He’d recently been knighted in honor of his thirteenth year and refused to be separated from his weapon, even while in bed. At the sight of him, his white-gold hair tangled, his face blackened by soot but otherwise unharmed, tears of relief sprang to my eyes.

  Juana plunged into Fernando’s embrace. Encircling her with his arm, he drew the rest of us close and we turned to watch our great cloth city, proof of our vanity and the whimsical folly of fate, burn entirely to the ground.

  . . .

  LATER, JUANA INSISTED the Moors had shot a flame-tipped arrow into the camp to start the conflagration, though a remorseful Cádiz had assured us that someone or something, perhaps one of the dogs, had upset an oil lamp, setting his tent on fire. Whatever the cause, we’d lost most of our belongings, including our wardrobe, and the court ladies had to lend us gowns and other items of apparel while I sent to Sevilla for new things.

  From Granada’s ramparts, the denizens jeered. They clearly believed the fire would be our undoing, but we remained undaunted. Our possessions may have turned to cinders, but our will was intact. I ordered a new city built on the camp’s charred remains, this time made of stone. We would name it Santa Fe, in honor of our hallowed faith, which had saved us from a fiery death and guided us to safety.

  The sight of our masons at work silenced the taunts from Granada. More than a city, Santa Fe was a statement of our resolve. Here, we might live for years if need be, the only place in Andalucía unsullied by the Moors. Boabdil’s reaction was to fire his cannon and send out raiders to harass our troops. But as winter swept in and the city began to go hungry, riots began. With his people growing increasingly desperate and angry, Boabdil realized he had no option but to honor the terms we offered—full amnesty for his people, who would be allowed to maintain their customs, language, and dress. Anyone who wished to leave would be free to do so; we would even provide the means. And any who wished to convert would be welcomed into our Church, their past sins washed away by Holy Baptism. In addition, as our vassal, Boabdil would be granted the same domain in the Alpujarras that his uncle El Zagal had rejected. But under no circumstances could he ever return to Granada. On that point I was immutable.

  By January 1492, his envoys had submitted his surrender.

  WE ENTERED THE fallen city, last bastion of the Moor, as snow drifted down about our cortege like fine ash. The people stood in eerie silence, gathered at the sides of the road to watch us pass, the heraldic standards of our nobility fluttering in the frigid morning air. Many of our courtiers had donned traditional embroidered tunics in Moorish style, as a sign of our respect for the magnificent civilization which had left its indelible mark on our land, but an occasional bereaved lament from an unseen woman gazing at our advance from behind a latticed window conveyed the people’s awareness that the world as they had known it was gone.

  We accepted Boabdil’s surrender in person at the city gates, where he threw himself on his knees before us. Fernando dismounted to embrace him as a fellow sovereign; now that we were triumphant, my husband knew how to be magnanimous.

  With quivering hands and tears in his eyes, Boabdil offered up the keys to the city. “These are the last relics of our empire,” he said, his voice quavering. “To you go our trophies, our realm, and our person; such is the will of Allah.”

  Behind him, seated on a beautiful Arabian horse, a heavyset woman swathed in black veils lifted vicious kohl-lined eyes to me. I had my daughters around me, each clad in a new scarlet brocade and veiled in the Moorish tradition, though Juana had already lifted her veil to see more clearly, entranced by the events around us. As I returned the woman’s stare, I didn’t need to be told that she was the sultana, Boabdil’s mother, who’d fought for her son’s freedom. In her defiant regard, I found a pride that had nothing left to feed on save itself; and I knew, without doubt, that it had been she who’d sent the assassin to my tent, the dagger poisoned by her own hand.

  As she rode away with her son, she cast a final look at
me over her shoulder. There was no despair, no contrition; only furious regret that I had succeeded where she had failed.

  We ascended the road to the Alhambra. As we neared the infamous palace, built on legend and blood, I found myself leaning forward in my saddle, longing to kick in my heels and gallop straight to the massive vermilion gates. But I was a queen now, not a brash young infanta like Juana. I’d grown stout in my middle age, as had my beloved Canela, my favored horse whom I’d retired from service years ago due to his advanced age, but today I rode proudly, his thin form covered in a billowing gold-threaded caparison. While he no longer possessed the muscular fleetness of his youth, he had been with me from the beginning and he held his gray-flecked head high, a spry lift to his step, as if he understood the importance of this occasion.

  The palace came into view, lounging on its plateau, its honey-brick walls seeming to reproach our advance. The same architects who had built this place had worked on Sevilla’s alcazar at the command of one of my ancestors, adhering to the Arabic custom that rulers must not display their wealth to the world lest it incite envy. I knew that within lay a realm of incomparable beauty—chambers of alabaster hung with stone pediments and arches of lace; patios and arcades ringed by pilasters graceful as dancing women; lily-strewn pools where the reflection of the sky turned the marble walls azure, and gardens smothered with roses, lavender, and jasmine, their fragrance drifting into cedar-vaulted halls cooled by ingenious wind-catchers and high arched apertures that captured and softened the light.

  I knew all this and still not even I was prepared for the magnificent emptiness of the place. Divans and quilted pillows had been left in disarray, as if their occupants had only just fled, and the scent of incense lingered like a lament.

  Juana floated about perched on tiptoes, clutching little Catalina by the hand, mesmerized. Later, she’d spin fanciful stories of doomed concubines leaping from the towers and spectral reproaches from departed caliphs, but what most struck me in that moment as we moved through rooms that flowed into each other, where the glint of winter sunlight scattered over the ceramic walls, was the silence—so absolute that I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears, loud as the clack of my heels on the marble floors.

  It was as though no one had ever lived here. After all his glory and thunder, the Moor had ceased to exist.

  Outside, our battered silver cross was lifted over the palace. Cannons fired thundering volleys, followed by the heralds’ cries: “Granada! Granada for our sovereigns, Don Fernando and Doña Isabella!”

  Fernando reached for my hand; his palm was hard, permanently callused from years of wielding his sword. Gazing at him, I saw passion ignite in his eyes.

  “We did it, my luna,” he said. “We have won. Spain is ours.”

  Together we knelt to offer our gratitude to God.

  So it was.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Congratulations on our conquest arrived from every major power in Europe; in Rome, the newly elected Spanish pope, Rodrigo Borgia, known as Pope Alexander VI, held a special procession and Mass in the basilica of Saint Peter and bestowed upon us the honorary title of the Catholic Monarchs, Defenders of the Faith.

  Grateful as I was for the accolades, I wanted life to return to normal as quickly as possible. Ten years of war had come to an end; it was time to begin the process of healing and consolidating our nation, of seeing to our children’s futures and upholding the Church’s glory. Ensconced in the Alhambra, I turned my attention first to my children. It was imperative that they resume their interrupted studies, in order to prepare for the roles they would one day assume.

  Juana, in particular, required firm oversight; her impressive educational accomplishments were overshadowed by her rebelliousness and her penchant for eccentric outings in the gardens, where she rushed here and there, dragging little Catalina along by the hand. Isabel likewise continued to worry me; she had recovered from the worst excesses of her grief, but she still insisted she was best suited to a holy life. She did not welcome any discussion of another marriage, though Portugal had again offered her a husband, this time in the form of her late husband’s uncle.

  María, however, was proving the balm to my troubles, a docile child who neither excelled nor failed in any of her undertakings. And Juan, my precious boy, became my primary focus, for I suspected I’d never bear another child. My menses had almost ceased. On Juan’s slim shoulders now rested all of our dynastic hopes; he would be the first king to rule our united realm, and I oversaw his schedule personally, so he could master the complex art of being a monarch.

  But my domestic respite was brief. Only weeks after we claimed Granada, we received word that our Jewish financiers were requesting urgent audience with us.

  As they walked into our presence, their bearded faces careworn, their robes dusty from the long ride, I braced myself. By now, rumors must have reached them of Torquemada’s claim about a widespread seditious Jewish plot to stiffen converso resistance and overthrow the Inquisition; they must have also heard of the riots in Castile and Aragón over the alleged crucifixion of Christian children, and other horrors supposedly perpetrated by their brethren. And as Mendoza had predicted, along with these vile reports, Torquemada had sent his renewed request that I issue an edict demanding the conversion of every Jew in the realm, on pain of forfeiture of goods and expulsion from my land.

  I did not believe the half of it, though in public I’d expressed appropriate consternation. In all my life, I had never seen a Jew harm anyone, much less kill babes in mockery of our Savior. But I could not deny any longer that the tension built on centuries of mistrust toward the Jews—always simmering like poison under the surface of our much-vaunted tradition of convivencia—had, with the fall of Granada and the uniting of our realm, reached its boiling point. All over the kingdom, declared Torquemada, devout Christians rose in demonstrations to storm the Jewish ghettos, pillage their businesses, and throw them bodily out onto the roads. They would have no Jews in their midst anymore, my head Inquisitor claimed. The time for tolerating Christ’s killers in Spain was at an end.

  While I had no proof, I presumed these alleged spontaneous uprisings were part of Torquemada’s quest to force Fernando and me into an impasse. His agents, now spread throughout the realm under the aegis of the Inquisition, brewed a cauldron of fear designed to push me into a decision I’d thus far refused to make. It infuriated me to think Torquemada believed he could manipulate me thus, but, manipulated or not, I had to face the ultimate consequence. I couldn’t ignore the potential civil disorder in Castile to protect a people who did not share our faith.

  Still, as I beheld these six huddled men who had come all the way from Castile to see us, who had lent us millions for our crusade and still held some of my most valued jewels as collateral, I felt the weight of their fears as if it were my own. I remembered when I’d faced this dilemma years before and failed to heed it; then, it had seemed foolhardy to reverse our centuries-old policy of tolerance.

  And as elderly Rabbi Señeor bowed, the azure velvet casket containing my nuptial necklace cradled in his knobby hands, I remembered what Talavera had said:

  The hour of reckoning must come. It is unavoidable, much as we may regret it.

  Rabbi Señeor lifted his voice, a mere thread of sound, all but exhausted by his journey. “We come before you to beg Your Majesties not to heed the Inquisitor General’s petition to expel us from this kingdom. As you well know, we’ve always supported your endeavors with every means at our disposal. Please tell us now, what do you want from us, your most humble subjects? Ask for anything and it shall be yours.”

  Fernando gave me a sharp glance. He had tensed as the men approached our dais, his face adopting the inflexible expression he sometimes wore when he felt challenged. He had supported the implementation of the Inquisition; I suspected he bore the Jews no particular love, though they’d acted as our treasurers. How would he react now?

  “We want nothing more than subservience t
o our dictate,” he suddenly said. “Much as we may regret it, the time has come to prove your loyalty beyond material goods.”

  His uncanny echoing of Talavera’s phrase startled me; I had not expected it and neither had Señeor, who visibly blanched as he turned to me. “Majestad, we beg you as our queen. We are so many and so powerless; we appeal to your greater wisdom.”

  It was a mistake; nothing could rouse Fernando’s ire more than to be disdained in favor of me. Before I could reply, Fernando pointed his finger at the rabbi. “Do you think to deny me?” he said, his voice soft with menace. “I too am ruler here; my heart is in the hands of our Lord, and it is to Him—and only Him—I need answer.”

  “Fernando,” I murmured. “Please, let us hear them out.” As my husband leaned back in his throne, his face white, I said to the rabbi, “What would you have us do, Don Señeor?”

  He motioned hastily to the black-robed figures behind him; from their midst stepped a youth with angular cheekbones and careworn brown eyes. He was Rabbi Meir, Señeor’s son-in-law, and another trusted financier of our court.

  “Go,” Señeor said to him. “Fetch it.”

  Meir and two of the others hastened out; they returned moments later with a large chest, which they lugged to the foot of our dais. Rabbi Meir unlocked the sturdy hinged lid. Within were several sacks, fastened with twine and sealed with red wax.

  “Thirty thousand ducats,” explained Señeor, as the others drew back. “Collected from our brethren to defray your Majesties’ debts; our usurers have also agreed to cancel all loans to you and return your jewels as delivered, without expectation of recompense.”

  My throat went dry. I looked again at Fernando; saw by the twitch of a nerve in his temple that they’d touched him. Religious considerations aside, we were impoverished, more so than we’d ever let on. Indeed, only these men knew the full extent of it. Only they understood how far thirty thousand ducats would go toward restoring our treasury, not to mention the cancellation of the numerous loans we’d accumulated over the years.