Reign of Madness

by Lynn Cullen

  I was still breathing hard from my run, when, to the blare of trumpets and the pounding of kettledrums, Colón entered the hall.

  Though he had met with my parents several times before his voyage, this was the first that I had seen the sailor. He was tall like Mother, and big-boned. He had her red-gold hair, too, but his chin-length locks, limp and darkened from the drizzling rain, were liberally shot with pale gray. He had a strong hooked nose and thick proud-set lips, and though he swept off his velvet cap in deference, he held up his chin when he dropped to his knees before Mother. Perhaps she recognized something of her own proud self in him, and favored him for it, for she raised one corner of her mouth in a smile. Papa, however, buckled his dark brow at Colón’s arrogance. As with so many things, my parents’ opinions differed markedly, and we children were left to take sides. My lot, as ever, was with Papa. I frowned at the puffed-up mariner.

  Mother let him kiss her hand, then Papa’s, then drew him up. “Cristóbal Colón, please show us what you have brought from the Indies. Come sit. Sit.”

  The grandees glanced at one another as Mother beckoned for a page to bring a chair. None of them had ever been offered a seat in my mother’s presence. Nor, I realized at that moment, had I.

  The crossed gilt legs of the chair groaned as Colón eased his large person onto the leather seat.

  “Your Sacred Majesties Doña Isabel and Don Fernando, I thank you. With God’s great blessings, I have brought you all nature of wondrous things.” He clapped his hands. As the crowd murmured with approval, sailors dressed in red breeches and white shirts brought forth treasures: An open chest filled with nuggets of gold. Lengths of precious aromatic wood. Screeching green parrots in a silver cage. Exotic foods. One shriveled red fruit was so spicy that tears came to Mother’s eyes when she tasted it, though she liked the toasted seeds called maiz. How she laughed when a pair of long-legged rodents were led in on leashes.

  Colón grinned at her delight. “Hutias, they are called. Very good to eat. They taste much like rabbit.”

  Papa sat back as the hall stirred with increasing excitement. He was a listener, and a thinker, and, I thought then, the kindest person I knew. There was a reason he took the anvil as his personal emblem—you can strike it all day and it will remain silent and unbreakable. As much as Mother and others made of the perfection of their marriage, I did not think she appreciated him enough. Tanto monta, monta tanto—did it ever occur to her that he might be the stronger one?

  “Did you bring back any other Eastern beasts?” Papa asked. “Marco Polo talked of monkeys, tigers, elephants. I don’t recall any tales of edible rats.”

  “In truth,” said Colón, “they are more like rabbits.”

  Papa studied him calmly. “Perhaps these rats were too unimportant for him to mention.”

  The smile faded from Colón’s heavy lips. He gazed at Papa as if judging him anew. “Your Sacred Majesty, in the lands I claimed for you and Her Sacred Majesty the Queen, there were plenty of monkeys—a very loud type, as a matter of fact. I would not wish for their howling to disturb your peace.”

  Papa looked unmoved. “You are most thoughtful, Colón. Perhaps these, these—what did you call these rats?”

  “Hutias.”

  “—these hutias came from the City of Gold that Marco Polo referred to. Perhaps they are known to the Great Khan of Cathay.”

  “Perhaps,” Colón said warily. “I have not had the privilege of meeting him yet, as I have already written in my letter to you. I did not linger in the Indies, for I wished to hurry home as quickly as possible to share the good news with Your Sacred Majesties. However, I was able to bring you these.” He nodded at a sailor standing at the door.

  The sailor disappeared for a moment. When he reappeared, everyone fell silent. Six wildmen, naked save for red breeches, edged into the chamber at the point of their captors’ pikes. They each had a gold ring in their nose, fish bones bristling from their earlobes, and dull brown hair, as long as a girl’s but stiff, atop which feathers were fixed. Colón’s men held tightly to the chains that bound them as they crept forward, now lurching, now crying out, now staring wide-eyed at the crowd gaping back at them.

  “Judas’s soul!” My brother Juan peered at the men crouched shakily before him. “What are they?” Armor clinking, he reached out to one of them in wonder.

  The creature flinched, then shouted at him in a foreign tongue.

  The nobles, the ladies, Juan’s boys, even the musicians, went rigid. Colón swelled up as if he would have liked to leap from his chair to murder the beast. This savage had shown disrespect to the heir of the crowns of the Spains. With held breath, everyone looked to Mother.

  She gazed thoughtfully upon the wildman, who now cowered as though he knew he’d done wrong. “So.” She tapped her finger against her lips. “These are my new subjects.”

  The hush in the chamber rose like a loaf of resting dough.

  Slowly, she brought her hands together in applause. “Bravo, Cristóbal Colón, bravo.”

  Papa pulled his glance from something in the crowd, then clapped along with her. “Yes. Bravo.”

  His enthusiasm rekindled by relief, Colón animatedly described how he had found the strange men on what must be an outer island of China—perhaps near the famed isle of Cipangu. These were Chinamen or Cipangos or some such persons of the Far East. Men of the Indies, or “Indios,” he called them.

  “The land is populated with thousands more, just like these,” Colón said.

  “Are they cannibals?” asked my brother.

  “In spite of their rough appearance,” said Colón, “no. These men don’t eat human flesh. Indeed, you have never seen a more gentle, childlike people. They are affectionate and without covetousness. They love their neighbors as themselves.”

  Yet they were chained as if dangerous. I did not understand. Only enemies of Mother or the Church were treated in such a way, like the Moors after Mother’s defeat of Málaga. When I was seven, most of the population of that town—men, women, and children—had been put into chains for defying her. She had said that it was necessary, that they hated her, and the Church, and even me, and were threats to our security. When I asked her if even the children hated me, she sent me to Fray Hernando to be instructed, though it did me little good. Fray Hernando, with his warm brown eyes and smooth skin, had been so handsome and kind that I could not bear to look at him, let alone hear a word he uttered.

  “Your Sacred Majesty,” Colón said, “you should hear them speak. My Indios—”

  “Your Indios?” Mother said.

  Colón closed his mouth, then bowed. “Your Sacred Majesty, the deepest of pardons. My haste in marching to you from Seville must have weakened my brain. What I was trying to say was that your Indios have the sweetest speech in the world.”

  “Oh?” said Mother. “Have one speak.”

  Colón motioned for his man to rattle the chains of one of the Indios. He then said something to the creature in a foreign tongue.

  The Indio shivered, be it from the cold of the stone hall, bonechilling even in April, or from fear or illness, but he did not speak.

  “Your Sacred Majesty, I apologize,” said Colón. “As sweet a people as are your Indios, they must be taught how to behave. They are as unschooled and innocent as newborn babes.”

  Mother waved her hand. “Never mind. Tell us, how quickly can they be brought to the understanding of our faith?”

  I studied the shivering man as Mother, Colón, and Fray Hernando discussed the conversion of the savages both at hand and across the Ocean Sea. Did no one else notice that the man was miserable?

  Colón stopped speaking. Mother watched, puzzled, as he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his blue velvet gown.

  “Your Sacred Majesty,” he said, composing himself, “forgive my tears of joy. I am overcome by how miraculous it is that we should be speaking of these things now, with these riches from my voyage before us, after so many years of opposition by so many of
the principal persons of your household”—he paused, avoiding Papa’s cool gaze—“all of whom were against me and treated this undertaking as a folly. I thought I would never see this day.”

  Mother leaned forward. “Look what you have done with three ships and your own implacable will. This is what makes the success of your voyage so precious to me. It proves the theory dearest to my heart: that if a person so wills it, he can achieve anything.”

  Papa pursed his lips.

  Mother settled back. “I should like to greet your sons.”

  Colón bowed, unable to conceal his pleasure. “Your Sacred Majesty, we would be deeply honored.”

  He turned toward the boys in my brother’s household, who until now had been holding their clanking to a minimum. Metal struck metal as they moved to allow one of Juan’s pages to step forward.

  The youth looked to be close to Juan’s age of nearly fifteen; he held the hand of a little boy of perhaps four or five. Both were dressed in my brother’s particolored livery of scarlet and green.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Colón said, “for allowing my sons, Diego and Fernando, to serve your illustrious son the Prince.”

  Haltingly, Colón’s sons advanced on Mother’s throne. I had seen the older boy, Diego, before, with Juan’s household, but did not know he was Colón’s son. He was always on the edge of Juan’s crowd, though he was handsome, in a somber way, with a narrow face, smooth black brows, and hair the shining brown of a bay stallion. I could not remember him jousting with the other boys, nor was he one to tease me when I passed, like the others. I had thought that his indifference to me was due to his being the ambitious son of a foreign duke, that he had found my rank in my family too low for his aspirations. I was appalled, therefore, to learn that I had been shunned by the son of a sailor. He must think me as ugly as a sheared ewe.

  This Diego stopped before Mother and fell on his knees. Then, just as he leaned in to kiss her hand, his little brother dashed forward and pecked it. Laughter echoed from the low stone arches of the hall.

  Mother pronounced, “This younger one has his father’s bold will.”

  Diego Colón sank back on his heels, shock, love for his brother, and shame chasing across his face.

  At that moment, one of the long-legged rats slipped its leash. Estrella, tempted beyond limit of reason, leaped yipping from my sleeve and chased the creature under Mother’s throne. I screamed as her guard thrust his halberd at my pup. The Indios thrashed against their chains and wailed in terror.

  “Juana!” Mother’s glare was more terrible than her cry.

  I pulled Estrella from under the gold fringe of her throne.

  “No harm done, Isabel,” said Father. “It’s just a rat.”

  I stood up, Estrella squirming in my arms. It was then that I noticed the row of hazelnut-sized rubies on the collar of Father’s robe. One of them was missing.

  2.

  17 April anno Domini 1493

  In the family legend that Mother loved to recount and that my younger sisters clung to like mystics to the Cross, Papa, determined to win her hand in marriage, had tramped all the way from Zaragoza to Valladolid disguised as a muleteer. He’d had to come on the sly because Mother’s brother King Enrique had forbidden the two cousins to marry. A marriage uniting the bloodlines would have weakened Enrique’s own daughter’s claim to the throne. But when my eighteen-year-old mother saw seventeen-year-old Papa in his rags, so handsome with his dark complexion, hooded eyes, and tranquil demeanor, she had to have him. They were married immediately. An hour after the ceremony, their attendants were on the balcony of their bedroom, holding out the stained sheets of their marital bed for all to see, proof of Mother’s virginity at the consummation of their marriage. My sisters loved that part, even if they did not fully understand it.

  As often as this story was retold within the family, it was not surprising that it should surface again that afternoon in the feasting hall of Cardinal Mendoza’s palace. Colón had been in Barcelona three days and there had been a feast in his honor each afternoon—quite generous, Papa had remarked, for someone who had done nothing more for the Spains than return from a voyage with six terrified men and some rats.

  “What color do you think Diego Colón’s eyes are?” asked my sister María. Little finger out like the dainty lady that she fervently wished to be, even at age ten, she nibbled her meat from the point of her knife. “Greenish-gray or grayish-green?”

  Lute music mingled with the hum of conversation as I spooned my own portion from the lamb stew. Over at our parents’ table, Diego Colón sat next to his father, a look of undisguised happiness lighting his face while he alternated between bolting his food and gazing up at his father.

  “Is there a difference?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes,” she said breathlessly.

  On the other side of María, Catalina sat up from petting one of the dogs under the table. “What are you saying?” she said with her child’s lisp. Seven years old and entering the gangling middle years of girlhood, she had recently lost both of her front teeth.

  “You think everyone is handsome, María,” I said, “even dusty muleteers carting stinking loads of sheepskins to the Medina del Campo fair.”

  “I notice one muleteer who was handsome,” she said hotly, “and you will not let me forget it.”

  “Papa came to Mother dressed as a muleteer,” lisped Catalina. “Even in his rags, Mother thought he was the most handsome man in the world, and married him on the spot.” She smiled in gummy bliss.

  I could not bear to hear the story again. “How do you like Colón’s rats?” I said. “They’re in that dish, you know. ‘Very good to eat.’ ”

  María pulled the spoon from her mouth and spat onto the floor. “They are not.”

  Catalina emptied her own mouthful with maximum drama.

  I looked up with a grin only to find Mother staring at me from the high table, her face slack with disappointment. I turned away. I would not show emotion. Strike me all you want, I was an anvil like Papa. It was I who had stayed by him when that monster had stabbed him in the neck as we were leaving the palace. While my sisters had clung to one another in a wailing heap, and my brother had stormed the plaza with his sword drawn in a futile show of revenge, I had followed Papa to where his men, shouting and weeping, had lain him on the floor of the Saló del Tinell. He was bleeding onto his own cape, carefully folded under his head.

  He had opened his eyes when I stepped near. “Isabel.”

  “No, Papa—it’s Juana.”

  “Isabel, help me.”

  Mother was at a monastery outside the city, consulting with Fray Hernando. “It’s Juana, Papa. It’s me.”

  “Isabel,” he whispered. But it was my arm he grasped when they lifted the bloody chain from his neck.

  How dear Papa looked to me now, resting his chin on his hand as Mother, Fray Hernando, and Cardinal Mendoza questioned Colón. Listening, as always. The fur Papa wore covered most of the purple scar across his neck. He was not wearing the robe with the ruby missing from the collar—a relief to me, though I could not have told you why.

  Laughter erupted from the table of Juan’s household. Some of the boys were feeding the Indios great quantities of salted anchovies, then giving them unwatered wine to quench their resulting thirst. Juan had told me earlier that Colón steadily plied them with wine to keep them tame. It was a miracle that they could still sit.

  Suddenly the lute music broke off; trumpets blared. At the head table, Mother rose, her cloth-of-gold train rustling as it unfurled. Fray Hernando often took her to task for wearing such rich raiment, accusing her of wishing to draw the eyes of men to her person. How they argued about it, he with the heat of a jealous lover, she cold and angry, then contrite and tearful. You would think they were fighting about more than clothes.

  Now Fray Hernando gazed up at her fondly; that old lizard Mendoza was smiling and nodding. She folded her hands over her belly and looked benevolently over the crowd. />
  “Cardinal Mendoza, if I may say a few words… .”

  The aged cardinal lowered his head, his chameleon’s wrinkled jowls sagging. One of the tassels of his broad-brimmed hat dipped into his wine.

  “Thank you, Your Holiness. Dear Cardinal Mendoza and my friends, I wish to announce the titles that I will be bestowing upon our good friend Cristóbal Colón”—she looked down at Papa—“unless you would like to take the honors, My Lord?”

  Papa shook his head.

  “Then I shall speak for both of us.”

  Mother bade Colón to stand. I watched Papa throw back a swallowful of wine as Colón rose to his feet, nearly knocking over the servant assigned to tasting his food for poison. Mother must have thought Colón valuable to have asked Cardinal Mendoza to provide him with a taster. I glanced around to see who else had tasters: Mother, Papa, Juan, my sister Isabel. There was one for our table of royal daughters. We had our worth, too, as goods to be offered in exchange for political favor, though I tried very hard not to think of when our bill of sale would come due.

  “In gratitude for the service you have rendered the crowns of Aragón and Castile, henceforth you will be known as Don Cristóbal, Admiral of the Ocean Sea.”

  The grandees and high ladies clapped politely at their tables, quizzical expressions on their faces. Admirals were not made. The title of Admiral was something you inherited. Yet Mother had just made one of this bag of wind.

  “With this title,” she said, “comes a stipend of ten thousand maravedís, annually, for your life and for the lives of your heirs.”