Reign of Madness

by Lynn Cullen

  My betrothed.

  God, help me.

  Philippe the Handsome, he was called—Filips de Schone, in the tongue of the Flemish people, a loud lot with angular faces, wiry bodies, and hair the color of dust. And from what I saw now, they were well and truly right. His skin was golden, like the inner flesh of a plum; his eyes the clearest pale blue; his lips neat pillows of rose, set between slight winsome pouches at the sides of his mouth that gave him the air of a playful boy.

  Already he had shunned me.

  He had not been in Bruges when I arrived. I had been stunned to learn that he had tarried in German lands when he knew I was to arrive. Did he think me defective? No one left a bride of royal blood waiting. Tongues would be wagging all over Christendom. He had stretched his journey home over three leisurely weeks, and then, when he arrived here at last, had gone hunting for six days—six!—in preference of meeting me. How different it had been for Mother, with Papa, filled with excitement and longing, hurrying across the plains to her in his muleteer’s rags.

  Shuttered within a small brick palace with Beatriz and my ladies, I’d had plenty of time for my anger to freeze into fear. In my own land, when Pedro the Cruel had not found his wife, Blanche of Bourbon, to be pleasing, he had shut her up in a tower until he found the time to have assassins end her miserable life. Urraca of Castile so disgusted her husband, Alfonso the Feisty, that he tried to poison her, and when that did not work, he sent armies against her until she agreed to an annulment. History has proven that if a husband finds his wife undesirable, she can lose more than her simple pride.

  Now my palfrey grew closer. I intensified my pleading with God.

  Blessed Lord, show me how I am to be. Make him love me enough not to hurt me, I beg of you.

  My betrothed settled his horse and bade his man hold the bridle. With the gyrfalcon still on his glove, he dismounted next to a linden tree that dropped its yellow leaves onto the church step. He was not so very tall, but he held himself loosely, as would one who had not a care in the world.

  Trumpets blew in a fanfare. Over the deafening clang of the bells now directly overhead, my page shouted, “Juana, Infanta of Castile!”

  My horse stopped, gentle traitor. The reins were being taken from me. The bells thundered in my ears as I was lifted down by the Admiral of Castile.

  The Archduke came forward. I dropped my gaze and fell to my knees, grinding a prince’s ransom of cloth-of-gold into the leaves on the wooden walkway.

  “So this will be my wife.” His voice was loud. On his fist, the falcon shifted with a jingle of tiny bells.

  Over the ringing of the bells, I heard the jangling of bridles. An infant cried out somewhere behind me; a pair of ducks flew quacking onto the canal behind the church. I would not look up. A man did not want a woman who called attention to herself. I would be chaste and modest, as all the books on marriage urged. I would make him love me. I had to.

  My betrothed coughed into his glove. “Well, the top of her head is certainly pretty.”

  The men next to him chuckled. I could feel the townsfolk edging closer behind me. A heart-shaped yellow leaf drifted onto the boards at my knees.

  I heard him relinquish the bird to his falconer.

  “Give me your hands.”

  My heart pounding in my throat, I held out my hands. Leatherclad hands clasped mine. Lips brushed against my knuckles.

  “She trembles!” he announced.

  I melted with humiliation as his men chuckled once more.

  He kept his grip on my hands as I knelt before him. “I do like an obedient woman, but enough now. Madame, look up at me.”

  Would he find my nose too long? My lips too full? My eyes frighteningly green when the ideal called for gentle gray?

  I raised my head and stared without seeing. I could feel his eyes inspecting my face, his gaze lingering upon each feature like a man searching for flaws on a horse he thinks to purchase.

  “Stand, Madame.”

  Our hands still joined, I struggled to my feet.

  “Are you well?” he asked.

  I brought my eyes into focus. His expression was of puzzlement.

  In his language, I said, “Monseigneur, oui.”

  “You speak French?”

  “Monseigneur, oui.” My prideful tongue—I could not help adding, in French, “And Latin and Spanish.”

  He shrugged. “Good, as long as you don’t quack in Flemish like my subjects—though you are so lovely, I might not much care.”

  Lovely. He said I was lovely.

  Over my head he called, “Is My Lady’s chaplain here?”

  I heard Fray Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa, the friar Mother had sent to be my confessor, raise his voice from behind me. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Would you be so good as to bless our union? I should like to take this fair lady as my wife.” The sweetly petulant pouches at either side of his mouth added to the charm of his smile. “What say you to that, Madame?”

  Was there to be no ceremony? No celebration? When my sister Isabel married Afonso of Portugal, there were five days of feasting, jousting, and presentations before she was delivered across the border to her husband. My betrothed had not even allowed for proper introductions to my attendants. Don Fadrique Enríquez de Cabrera, the Admiral of Castile, must be mortified. The highest-ranking member of Mother’s court did not come all this way to be snubbed by an eighteen-year-old archduke.

  I looked down the row of his gentlemen, dismounted and queued next to him, all smirking. A wife was not considered a wife, nor a husband a husband, until the marriage was consummated. We had spoken but a dozen words. Surely he did not mean—

  The bells still tolling, Fray Diego made his way to my side.

  “Say the words, my man,” Philippe said. “Do your work.”

  Fray Diego began the rite. In shock, I made my mouth move when he came to the part of the vows where I was asked if I would take this man and obey him. Philippe then promised to take me, too, and we processed into the church for Mass. As Fray Diego’s words echoed from the high stone vaults of the ceiling, I shivered from fear and confusion and the chill of the church, colder inside than outside at the steps. My new husband squeezed my hand during the Our Father, then took it again after we had received the Host. I stole a wondering look at him.

  He smiled.

  Dear Lord, did I truly please him?

  After Mass, we walked hand in hand down the street from which I’d come, to the palace where I had stayed in wait for him. Behind us rode our ladies and gentlemen—mine looking confused and angry, his winking and laughing. Behind them danced the townsfolk, cheering and singing as if going to the wedding feast of the miller’s daughter. Mother would be furious.

  Philippe caught my glance. “Are you well, Madame?”

  I had to do whatever it took to make him love me.

  “Yes, Monseigneur, I think.”

  “You ‘think’? Either you are or you aren’t. It is as simple as that.”

  “Then I am well, Monseigneur.”

  His smile was sweet and genuine. “Good. You should always be what you must be. And at this moment, I’d say you are the loveliest bride in Christendom.”

  Once inside the palace, I was ushered by my ladies to my bedchamber, where I was stripped to a shift of gossamer linen, given a draft of warm wine, then tucked to my chin beneath the sheets.

  Falcon on one hand, goblet in the other, Philippe arrived, accompanied by his men singing raucously, blowing horns and beating on drums. He passed his bird and his cup to his groomsmen. One of them, grinning, took his hat, his gold Chain of State, and his mantle and robe, then peeled off his heavy gloves. To loud cheers, Philippe’s sleeves were removed, then his doublet, and then his shoes and hose. Dressed only in a shift, he bade his groomsmen leave.

  He closed the chamber door behind him. The dim midday light streaming through the lumpy glass of the window caught the golden gleam of his hair where it curved below his chin. “My Lady Wife
.”

  “Monseigneur,” I whispered.

  My gaze fled to the tapestry on the wall as he pulled at the strings of his shift. I was conscious of the weight of the fur counterpane upon me, and of the cool thickness of the linen sheets, discernible through my sheer gown. Even if I could have thought of something else to say, the pounding of my heart in my throat would have prevented it.

  He went over to the fire snapping within the confines of its ornately carved niche and made to warm his hands before it, though his gloves had only just been removed. His groomsmen’s merrymaking could be heard as they paraded through the palace.

  In all her talk of the hanging of the sheets after the consummation of her marriage, Mother had never explained how she had performed the act. I had never gotten up the courage to ask her. Indeed, it was a subject I was loath to speak of with her. And whom else could I consult? Beatriz shied away from it as would a mare from a snake. She could not even be persuaded to marry. My younger sisters would find it a felicitous subject—oh, very much so—but their only knowledge came from troubadours’ songs.

  Yet I knew from watching horses couple that the man must introduce his member to a woman’s purse, and from the sensation that I received in watching such in horses, I thought that receiving the member of a man I loved might be desirable. But this man was not my lover. Beyond my wedding vows, I had not yet spoken six sentences to him.

  He came and stood over me. “I am afraid that they will not go away. The men,” he said when I glanced at him. “They will not leave until they are satisfied.”

  Indeed, the gentlemen were now positioning themselves beneath our window, and were bawling out in lewd song.

  This man had left me waiting for him for six days while he hunted. He had cared so little he’d not met me at the ship. Now that I had his eye, I could not lose his attention, not when displeasing him might mean he would send me back to Mother or lock me in a tower in the best of circumstances, or poison me in the worst. My hand shaking, I slowly pulled back the covers, uncovering my breasts, my belly, and then my thighs, sheathed in filmy batiste.

  A smile played at his lips as he cast his gaze over my body. I wished to shrink away until nothing remained but my gown.

  He swallowed. “Just be certain to shout loud enough.”

  “Shout?” I whispered.

  “The Cry of the Maidenhead.”

  I shook my head, not understanding.

  He frowned in displeased surprise when his gaze returned to my face. “You don’t know of the Cry of the Maidenhead?”

  Shivering as much from nerves as from the cold of the room, I shook my head again.

  “In your land, you do not—I had thought that everyone …” He coughed into his hand. “Well. This is what it is: At the moment a bride loses her virginity to her husband, she is expected to cry out loudly enough for all to hear.”

  More groomsmen had found their way outside and below our balcony, where they shouted up sayings that would singe the ears of a whore. Philippe sighed. “I am sorry. They expect your cry, and I do swear they will not leave us alone until they have heard it.” I must have looked mortified, because he added, “At least there is a good bowl of hot caudle in it.”

  “Caudle?” I whispered.

  “Once they’ve heard the cry, they’ll bring in our bowl of it, they’ll toast, we’ll drink, and then they will go away, I promise.”

  To what kind of rude land had my mother shipped me? Yes, in the Spains a bride was bedded with her husband after the wedding, but she was not expected to crow at her deflowering like a whore. Tears pricked at my eyes.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I am sorry. It appears you did not expect this.”

  A merrymaker outside blasted on his trumpet. My husband turned his head and shouted, “Would you shut up!”

  I drew a breath. I could bear this. I could bear anything. “You must tell me when to shout, Monseigneur.”

  “When to shout?” He crossed his arms and puffed out his lips, accentuating their natural poutiness. “Should that not be obvious?”

  I breathed a miserable sigh. A lump of salt swelled in my throat.

  He studied my face. “I am sorry. It is not my purpose to dismay you, especially at the hands of my men.”

  “I shall be fine, Monseigneur.”

  “No. No!” He hit the bed with his fist, making me flinch. “I shall not let them tell me what I am to do with my wife. I am their lord, I can do whatever I want. They are not the ruler of me.” He gestured at the tear under my eye, indicating that I should wipe it. “Do not worry. I think we might outfox them.”

  His men came, as promised, bearing a silver bowl of caudle, smoking torches, and fortifying bread. We received them in our bed, me up to my chin under the counterpane, he sitting up, uncovered to the waist. He grinned as they slapped his back and complimented his manhood while he drank from the steaming bowl. After he drank his share, he lifted my head so I might sip. The hot spicy wine still warmed my belly as they left.

  The door shut. My husband sank under the covers to his chin. “Well done, chérie. That was a good and hearty shout, I must say. How did you know how to hoist such a yowl?”

  “There are cats in the Spains, Monseigneur, as well as here.”

  He glanced at me as if considering me anew, then broke into a laugh.

  The glow of pride I felt for amusing him dimmed quickly. For while we had tricked his men by having me cry out at his count of three, he had not tried to bed me. Did he find me so undesirable? Was his urgency to wed me just a show to impress his men?

  “What troubles you?” he asked.

  “I am not troubled, Monseigneur.”

  “Something does trouble you—you are as readable as a child’s book of beasts. Come now, you must always speak your mind to me. I shall do the same for you.”

  I paused. “Do I not please you?”

  He turned onto his side to look at me. “Please me?” He took my chin in his hand. I could smell his scent of musk and wine as he turned my face gently from side to side. Our gazes met in the flickering lamplight.

  “I want to please you,” I whispered.

  Outside the wavy glass of the windows, rain commenced, first pounding in a curtain of gray, then softening into a silvery hum. He leaned down and touched his lips to mine. Warmth spread through my body, the waves continuing as he pulled away.

  “Then,” he whispered back, “you shall get your wish.”

  Yes, it hurt, at first. And there was blood, but not much—the amount one would spill from a small cut. The next time he gave me more chance to understand. He showed himself to me, a dear jaunty fellow sheathed in dusky silk. I touched his turtle dove’s eggs nestled beneath. And then he got on his elbows and explored me, talking to me gently as does a master to its frightened horse. Soon, very soon, the sweetness much outweighed the pain.

  We did not emerge from my chamber until the following afternoon, and only then to eat and drink. He bade me try the beer of which the Flemish people are so fond, and when I spat it out, he laughed as though I were the cleverest girl in the world. Then we retired again to my chamber, which still smelled strongly of sex, and held back our laughter while a page hurriedly remade the fire, dropping the wood out of nervousness as we watched him from our bed.

  We made love again. After that, he rose from me, washed his face in the basin, then threw himself on the fur spread of the bed. He propped his chin on his hand and touched his finger to my lips. “My sweet yowling Puss.”

  I kissed his finger, damp from his washing. “My Lord, I am reminded of a wedding custom in my country.”

  “Yes, Puss?”

  “There is no shouting, mind you.”

  “No. Shouting is for silly Flemings—though you were quite good at it.”

  “After a king takes his new-wed queen to his bed, they display their sheets to their subjects as proof of their consummation, and of his queen’s virginity.”

  “Lovely custom. How do they display
them?”

  “From their bedchamber balcony, Monseigneur. It is hung there for all to see.”

  He lifted the sheet below the fur on which we lay and peered at the sheet underneath. “If my people wished for proof of such, they should find much evidence here.” He put down the cover and extended his hands to me. “Up! Put on your robe. We are giving my people a taste for things Spanish.”

  Our robes hanging loosely from our shoulders, we tore the sheets from the bed, then laughingly stumbled with them across the rush-covered floor. My husband threw open the shutters to the cold gray morn, and together we let down the proof of our happy union.

  A stable boy leading a horse on the street below looked up.

  “Behold!” called my husband. “The flag of Austria and Spain!”

  The boy was still gaping when my husband drew me back into the room. He shut the window, and then tenderly gathered me into his arms, quieting my laughter with kisses.

  7.

  20 October anno Domini 1496

  We had moved to the palace in Malines, a short ride from Lier. Shut within the hangings of the bed, I lay atop the sheets and with my toe kicked a tassel dangling from the bedpole. I was giving most serious attention to keeping the golden cord a-swing, for if I stopped moving my leg for the merest moment, the nauseating spinning would resume in my head.

  How did these people drink so much wine? They drank vats of it at the suppers in the two days before our wedding ceremony of state, and then, at the feast after the nuptials, more wine flowed than does in all of Castile, León, and Aragón during the fiestas of Carnaval.

  And these people ate, too, as if they had never glimpsed food in their lives. Entire forests lay upon groaning tables at the wedding feast: pheasants, partridges, stags, rabbits, herons, boar. There were peacocks roasted and sewn back in their feathers; chickens minced and molded into a large castle for Castile; jellied calves’ feet formed into the shape of the Golden Fleece, symbol of Philippe’s House of Habsburg. All these foods were served upon great three-masted ships sailing among our tables, with smaller vessels filled with spices and fruit—a salute to the fleet that had brought me from the Spains. Course after course of this great bounty arrived, accompanied, to my ladies’ horrification, by naked women painted to look like mermaids. There were horses tricked up as sea monsters and boys riding white whales made of wood. Then a capacious pie was wheeled in, from which burst a choir singing about the glory of the union of the Houses of Habsburg and Burgundy with that of Trastámara. Or had I imagined all this in my drunkenness?