Reign of Madness

by Lynn Cullen

  Hendrik gave me a look, then idly plunked a key on the clavichord.

  “Nun!” Philippe roared to Beatriz. “Join in!”

  The Viscountess looked less than pleased, her expression resuming its gaiety only after Beatriz declined and she and Philippe had begun to jump again.

  Suddenly Hendrik rose.

  “My good guests! I should like you to see something special.”

  “Why?” cried Philippe, his leaps matched by the Viscountess. “Not now, man!”

  “Trust me,” said Hendrik. “You of all people will like it.”

  “Me?” He stopped jumping to kiss the Viscountess on the cheek. “Aliénor, you win.” Laughing, he climbed down. “Where is this thing? It had better be good.”

  Hendrik grasped my husband’s arm, then joined me to Philippe’s elbow. He patted my hand.

  “You will just have to see, won’t you?” he told Philippe.

  He took up a candelabrum, then started down the hall.

  Snickering, stumbling, the noble party crawled off the bed and followed us down the stone passageway, until Hendrik turned into a small room and stopped. Before us, on a heavy table, was a massive wooden case nearly the size of a wagon bed. It was met with hoots of derision.

  “What is this?” someone shouted. “An altarpiece? Did you take us to your chapel, Hendrik? We are hardly in shape for a Mass.”

  “That is the truth.” Hendrik held up the candelabrum, illuminating the outside of the case. The outer panels, closed like the doors of a cupboard, were painted in dull shades of grisaille, depicting a shadowy world contained in a luminescent bubble. Silvery waves of water broke upon a land from which rose hills and trees and strange spiked life-forms. Threatening dark clouds receded from the glistening sky. In a quiet, otherworldly way, it was the most beautiful painting I had ever seen.

  “What are you trying to do?” roared Philippe. “Put us to sleep?”

  “Patience, Your Grace.” Hendrick unlatched the case, laid open the outer panels, then raised the candelabrum. The crowd leaned in and gasped.

  The center painting was a Dionysian scene of lust. In a riot of bright yellow, red, and blue, men and women copulated with each other, with giant fruits, with birds. Fantastical beasts and young people of many lineages cavorted in lakes and on lawns. Not a soul wore a stitch. All were serenely engaged in eating and other physical pleasure.

  “What is it?” madame de Hallewin asked uneasily.

  “You tell me,” said Hendrik. “My uncle got it as a joke. It’s by a Netherlander called Hieronymus Bosch. I think he might be mad.”

  “It’s the portrayal of the world if Eve hadn’t sinned,” Philippe suggested. “See what the bitch made us miss.” He looked around, gratified, as the company laughed.

  “I believe you are correct, Your Grace,” said a gentleman. “That is exactly what it is. It’s a very devout picture. Paradise. See all of God’s children, tumbling in the hay, just as in the Bible.”

  “Where in the Bible?” doctor de Busleyden asked.

  “I don’t know. But it had better be in there.” The gentleman burped into his fist. “Otherwise, Hendrik, I think you have yourself a hot piece of heresy.”

  Philippe slapped Hendrik on the back. “Don’t worry. There are no inquisitors here. Unless my mother-in-law has smuggled one in. Or has she, François?”

  The Archbishop shook his head. “Not yet.”

  I felt chuckles aimed my way, but did not give them the dignity of a response. Wine-fueled anger flared up inside me. What did they know of Mother? She who had sent Colón off to find a real Paradise on earth. She did not play with silly pictures, but sought new lands and great things, always pushing, always thinking. What must she think of my waiting so long to write her, balking at putting pen to paper like a child refusing to be tied into her bonnet by her nurse? I was sick with shame.

  The party soon tired of the picture, and found their way back to Hendrik’s special bed. I was not one of them. I was looking out the window at the moonlit forest spreading down Coudenberg hill, remembering the orange full moon smoldering in the blue-velvet skies of Toledo. If only I could go home again.

  Philippe came over and kissed my neck, startling me out of my reverie.

  “Puss. Come here.” He grabbed my breasts.

  I cried out in pain.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  I put my hands to my breasts, still radiating with pain. A green wave surged over my body.

  “I think I’m going to be ill.”

  16.

  15 November anno Domini 1498

  So you are the one whose limbs pushed hard knobs out of my belly, as if a leggy fawn were curled inside me instead of a child. You are the one who tugged on my entrails when you shifted during that final month, though I thought you were clever—you could knock a plate resting on my belly. You were the one who amused me with your hiccups. From the days when you were but a flicker of butterfly wings, you were always on my mind, the inhabitant of all my dreams, though I could never imagine your face. And now I see you, my dear mysterious companion. You look at me with the same wonder with which I look at you.

  The Viscountess of Furnes leaned over us, forcing her scent of lavender into our sacred space. “How sweet. A girl.”

  I raked the cloth-of-gold blanket higher upon my legs. So much gold thread had gone into its weaving that it was useless against the cold air seeping through windows and walls. Only its deep trim of ermine was warm. Philippe had it specially made for my recuperation … when he thought the child might be a boy.

  Beatriz edged from behind the Viscountess. “She looks like you, Your Highness.”

  I gazed at the child sleeping in my arms. She had my rounded forehead and Papa’s dark hair and eyes, and traces of pouches at the corners of her lips, just like Philippe’s. These things made me love her more, though I would have loved her even had she looked like a griffin.

  “Has the Archduke been in to see her yet?” the Viscountess asked.

  I touched my daughter’s fingers. How could they be so perfect yet so small? Philippe had come in the hour before her birth. He had stood by, mouth open, while I gritted my teeth against the blue-black pain gripping my loins. I had no control—my womb was in a vise being cranked by a devil. And then, the pain had let go. Released, I gasped for air.

  Philippe had come forward. “Are you well?”

  I glanced at the midwife, who was pouring water into a cup. Katrien knelt by the fire, feeding it sticks. I had ordered my other ladies out, even Beatriz, whose terrified face frightened me, and my husband’s gentlemen, too, not wanting any of them to see me, though it was their privilege to do so. My mother had asked for a handkerchief to cover her face to hide her terrible expressions, while allowing the nobles their right to keep vigil at her birthing bed. But I was not my mother. I had not her courage. Never had I felt such pain and such fear. How did I survive the relentless gripping? What if the baby stayed stuck in my womb until it died, and then I? Or if it came out and the bleeding of my torn womb could not be stanched? My sister Isabel had died in such a manner. Three months earlier, in August, a fact about which I had been informed in a tear-stained letter from María. Still, I could not imagine. Bossy, dear, imperious Isabel—gone? It could not be. I could not bear to think of her suffering. And now my own pains were worse, much worse, than I had ever imagined they could be.

  All persons in this world have put their mother through this pain?

  “You’re doing fine, Puss.” Philippe took my hand. “A little longer, and we will have a son.”

  A son. I could not promise him that. I could not promise him a live child, or even a live wife.

  “My father is coming. From Innsbruck.” Philippe kissed my knuckles. “He wishes to celebrate the birth of the heir to his lands and the Spains.”

  My brain was weak from exhaustion. I could not think how our child could possibly be the heir, even if he were a male child. My sister Isabel had died, but her infant had
survived. A boy, Miguel. He would be King. I had heard this from the Spanish ambassador.

  Why had Mother not written me these things herself? By now she must have received my letters, the first of which I had written nearly a year previously.

  “Our son is not—We are not the true heirs. Baby Miguel is.” At that moment, the vise clamped down in my womb. Its iron grip screwed tighter and tighter, taking control of my body. I dug my nails into Philippe’s palm. He had caused this pain. It was his seed that had brought me to this state.

  He wrenched my hand from his. “Ow. You hurt me.” He examined his palm as he backed away. “What is wrong with you?”

  A scream burned my lungs as he fled from the room.

  Now I pressed my daughter’s damp head to my lips, then met the gaze of the Viscountess of Furnes, looking upon me kindly. “I expect Philippe at any moment,” I said.

  She touched my child’s fingers, the very soul of maternal sympathy, while dressed in a perfect silvered-blue gown, in the most current French style. The Viscountess had been absent a day here, a day there, during my confinement, days that coincided with Philippe’s absence from court. Her throat had plagued her, she said when I asked where she had been; she had a weakness in her throat. In her throat or her lips, I asked, to which she blinked in pretty confusion.

  In my final month of confinement, Philippe’s visits dwindled further. Days would go by when I would wait for him, wait for him. I detained the Viscountess and she grew restless while in wait for him, as if she, too, worried about being eclipsed by another lady.

  “Where have you been, Monseigneur?” I asked him when he appeared after a four-day absence. It was a bright afternoon in early November. The sunlight made rainbows on the edges of the windowpanes; a blackbird sang outside. I was buried alive, a swollen, living corpse, while the world was burgeoning above my grave.

  Philippe shrugged, rustling the puffy tops of his sleeves. “Nowhere. Just hunting.”

  “What did you catch?”

  “Ducks. A crane. The usual. Why?”

  “Did Delilah catch the crane?”

  He paused. “Yes. Yes, she did.”

  “Who accompanied you?”

  “Hendrik, François—why do you ask these silly questions?” He bent down and kissed my forehead.

  His familiar scent, the warmth of him near, loosened my tongue. “I am going mad, Philippe. I cannot bear these four walls.”

  “You’ll be better once you’ve had our son.” He sighed deeply. “François awaits with some papers. I must go.”

  I grabbed Philippe’s hand. “What shall we name him?”

  “Who?”

  “Our son.”

  He shrugged. “Philippe.”

  “Yes. Or Juan. After my brother.”

  “We’ll see. I must go.”

  I clung to his hand. “Your grand-mère wants to call him Charles, after her husband.”

  “Like hell.” He pulled out of my grip. “I’ll be back.”

  Five days passed before he returned.

  I now gathered the baby out of the Viscountess’s reach. She pulled back in oh-so-humorous offense. “New mother,” she said.

  Katrien came over, wiping her hands. “Mevrouw, may I bring you some watered wine?”

  “I’ll get it,” said the Viscountess. “Flemish trash,” she muttered under her breath. “Attending to the little mother is Beatriz’s job,” she said aloud. “Where is that strange bird?”

  I tipped my head to get the Viscountess out of my sight, and drank in my baby’s smell, sweet as blood. Surely the perfection of this child—her gray-blue eyes, her tuft of black hair, the tiny pouches by her lips—would be taken into account by those who would call me a failure.

  17.

  26 December anno Domini 1498

  Acold wind flapped the yellow velvet hangings under which I sat and the lappets of my headdress. Out on the boards of the lists, the flags snapped as if to be torn free and sent sailing into the crowd. I pulled my robe closer until the ermine collar brushed my lips. December, not the choicest month for a tournament. Not the choicest month for any activity in this cold, wet land, besides huddling before a roaring fire. But Philippe would have a tournament celebrating the birth, now—as he preferred all his activities, once he thought of them—and how could I complain when he told me that he had conceived of it to celebrate my churching. With the smell of ermine pelt in my nose, I clapped to the blast of six golden trumpets hung with my husband’s standards. A herald rode before the stands.

  “I bring this from the hand of a mysterious lady!” He unrolled a parchment tied in yellow ribbon and read aloud. “‘To whoever receives this message: I am a fair and virtuous lady, held against my will by a giant. He wishes for my hand in marriage, but I have refused. Alas, he has taken my estates and locked me in a tower. I can be saved only by him who breaks one hundred and one lances in battle, or has one hundred and one lances broken against him, and then he must serve one hundred and one sword strokes, or have one hundred and one sword blows served against him. To him and him alone who endures this trial, the giant will release me from my tower. Until then, adieu.’ ”

  Next to me, the Dowager tipped my way. “We had the very same play at my wedding, only bigger.”

  Philippe came thundering out on a white destrier thickly caparisoned in quilted yellow brocade. The yellow plume atop his helmet whipped in the wind as he spoke.

  “I shall save this lady. Who shall go against me?” His lance pointing toward the sky, he reared up his horse. Its hooves flashed against its padded skirt.

  A gentleman plumed in green urged his warhorse before the stands, then threw down his plated gauntlet. “I shall.”

  Philippe spread his free arm first to us in the stands, then to the crowd of city folk gathered on the other side of the lists. “It is done.”

  The sun came out. Its reflection glinted off Philippe’s armor as he rode his horse to the far end of the lists, where his gentlemen lined up on their steeds, ready to take their place against him. How splendid he looked. He had not spared a livre on preparing for this tourney. Yet now, forty days after the birth of our child, he had not yet paid Leonor’s nurses. He had not paid for any of my household expenses since I had arrived in his realm, a fact I had stumbled upon as I prepared for my churching. When I had asked doña Eugenia what she would be wearing to the Mass, she ducked her bewhiskered face until at last she confessed she would not wear something new. When I questioned Beatriz, she said that there was no money. I was horrified to learn that neither she nor any of my three remaining Spanish ladies, let alone Leonor’s nurses, had been paid a stuiver for their expenses. None of them could pay for cloth, or shoes, or even tapers to carry into the service. Beatriz lifted her arm to show me her elbow. There was a hole in the coarse gray wool of the sleeve. The gown was the same one she had brought from the Spains.

  I had turned to Katrien, washing the baby’s cloths by the fire. “Have you been paid?”

  She ceased her rubbing. Her flushed face became even more red. “No, Mevrouw.”

  He had not even paid the washerwoman? But he was to pay for my household expenses. This was part of the wedding agreement forged between Mother and Philippe’s father.

  “How do you eat?”

  Katrien bowed her head. “My uncle is one of the Archduke’s cooks. There are usually scraps.”

  It was my turn to grow red. No wonder so many of my ladies had departed so very quickly—they were given neither support in their faith nor husbands, and now, I was learning, not even an allowance for their daily needs. Why had I not been told this? How could Philippe be so negligent? Had it been his purpose all along, to drive away those sympathetic to me and the Spains? Why would he do so? An icy chill gripped my guts. Who was this man?

  “He’s coming!” said the Dowager.

  Sand flew from the horses’ hooves. My husband and his challenger bore down on each other with pointed lances, their steeds separated only by a low wooden wall. I c
lenched my teeth. I hated the lists, hated seeing men flying at each other with lances. In the Spains, they threw darts made of cane at each other in tourneys—Mother had outlawed the lists. She refused to lose a single man in the name of sport. Papa had only smiled at her womanly weakness, but my brother Juan openly complained.

  Lance crashed upon lance with a tremendous crack. When I opened my eyes, the splintered lance of Philippe’s opponent was falling to the sand.

  The herald shouted: “One lance for our Archduke!”

  The Dowager batted at her sheer veil. “One hundred to go.”

  Another gentleman trotted out to challenge my husband. Again they rode hard; lances crashed; Philippe galloped away, his lance unbroken, the yellow scarf on its tip flitting in the wind.

  All this yellow. My color was crimson. I looked down my row of ladies. Which one wore yellow? Not madame de Hallewin in her russet. Nor the Viscountess in her perfect silvered blue. Not one of my ladies, Burgundian or Spanish, wore yellow, nor could I remember any doing so, although since Leonor was born my brain did trick me. But Philippe’s eye would not necessarily be restricted to my ladies. He could have taken as a lover any woman in the land.

  The spark of suspicion grew like fire. I looked out across the tiltyard to the townsfolk of Brussels. In the sea of white winged headdresses, might one of these women be his lover? I saw a familiar face—Katrien. She stood with a balding man whose visage, even rounder than hers, bore similarities in the thick cheekbones and brows. Perhaps it was her uncle from the kitchen.

  Behind her, a pretty girl stood on her tiptoes and shaded her eyes against the sun. A blond, like my husband. She looked to be fifteen or so, with full lips and large eyes. Already fresh-faced, her color was heightened by the wind.

  Had Mother felt this madness? Had she cast her gaze over a crowd, wondering which might be her husband’s current lover? She had not replied to any of my letters. Yes, I deserved to be punished for not writing her sooner, but I needed her now. I was isolated and lonely and given to wild thoughts.

  A loud splintering announced the third clash. I glanced up in time to see Philippe again ride free.