Reign of Madness

by Lynn Cullen

  Riders trotted before us in a spray of muddy water, then halted, the plumes of their helmets drooping in the downpour. Mother got to her feet.

  “Stand,” she whispered.

  I was already nauseated from the odor of wet fur, damp smoky air, and manure, so an attempt at rising brought bile to my mouth. I eased back down onto the bench. I had never had this much trouble after giving birth. In truth, Fernando had come easily, pushing his way into the world after only four hours of labor, and I had felt wonderfully strong, instantly able to get up and walk to a garderobe, eschewing the use of the chamber pot offered by the midwife. But now, two weeks after my labor, I was suddenly foggy in the brain and weak, and my guts grumbled with sickness. I could not understand it. Yes, I expected after-pains. With the other children, the pangs in the days following their births were nearly as strong as the labor itself. But I had never felt this malaise.

  Mother glanced down when I did not rise. “Are you ill, Juana?”

  I tried to stand once more.

  She frowned, then folded her hands upon her belly. “Doña Beatriz, take her back to the palace at once.”

  “No!” I would not provide Mother yet another reason for disappointment. She had not waited the forty days for churching, but had attended all of her children’s Baptisms—once with a fever from childbed, another time during a minor earthquake, yet another while the Moors circled around her camp, riding high in their stirrups and shaking their spears. I would attend my son’s celebration, too.

  Beatriz slipped her hand under my elbow. I came to a shaky stand.

  Mother turned to the mounted gentlemen assembling before us on horses in sodden housings. At her signal the pageantry began.

  “Juana, if you are ill,” she said when we were seated again, “you must return to your chambers. This damp will do nothing for your health.”

  “I am fine,” I said, even as bile burned its way upward once more.

  “Stubborn,” Mother muttered.

  Trumpets blared, and a herald announced the gentlemen who would first be running at the lists. They pranced forward, rain pinging from their armor. After a nod to Mother, they snapped their visors shut with a clink, trotted to the far ends of the lists, leveled their lances, and hunching forward, spurred their steeds. Mud flew from the horses’ hooves, spattering the guards standing below us.

  Mother turned to me. Although I straightened quickly, she said, “I am sorry that I reinstated jousts. I have a notion to end this.”

  “Would you have called off a celebration after you’d borne a child?”

  Steely silence served as her answer.

  I closed my eyes in an effort to muster my strength while several more pairs of combatants rode at each other.

  “Your Highness,” Beatriz whispered.

  I opened them as another set of jousters rode their horses before us. Through his open visor I saw the somber face of Diego Colón.

  I stared at him, willing him to meet my gaze, but his eyes were only for Mother. He took the scarf from his neck and held it out to her with a bow. Upon it was a crest whose top two quarters displayed the Lion of León and the Castle of Castile. I could not make out the lower two.

  Mother raised her voice so that he might hear from the muddy grounds below. “Your new family crest?”

  “Your Sacred Majesty, will you accept it as a token of my service to you?”

  Mother beckoned for it to be brought to her. A guard took it on the point of his spear, and in that way raised it to her hands. She examined it.

  “It bears the sea islands amongst the waves, as we discussed. But this last quarter was to display your father’s symbol.”

  “A ship’s anchor is his symbol, Your Majesty.”

  Behind me, I heard someone whisper, “Where are the mosquitoes?”

  Mother did not seem to hear this slight upon the Colóns. She nodded. “Very nice.” She handed it to me. I smiled, hoping to catch Diego’s gaze.

  Mother waved him on.

  He closed his visor and galloped to the end of the lists. Bracing his lance against his breastplate, he looked to the master of ceremonies, who, with a drop of his flag, sent the horsemen charging. I held my breath as, in a shower of flying mud, Diego bore down upon his opponent. Lances crashed. Diego’s weapon glanced off the other man’s breastplate. The noble tumbled to the mud.

  Cheers went up. Diego galloped to the fallen man and jumped from his horse with a clang of armor. He removed his gauntlet and stepped stiff-legged to where the man lay, then extended a hand to help him to his feet.

  The man clasped Diego’s hand, then yanked hard, toppling him into a puddle. Laughter went up from the crowd as Diego struggled in the mud.

  At Mother’s signal, pages ran forth and righted him and the other man. Both opened their visors and, dripping with mud, saluted to Mother. The crowd roared its approval as the noble grinned broadly in the rain.

  They led away their horses. Not once had Diego met my eyes, though I willed him to see my look of sympathy.

  A herald blew his trumpet. From the palace came Cardinal Cisneros, under a canopy flapping in the rain-laden wind. Next to him one of Mother’s ladies carried a bundle of brocade.

  The clouds cleared in my head in a moment of outrage. “He must go back! This weather is wretched.”

  “Shh,” said Mother. “I asked for little Fernando to be brought out. The people need to see him. They need to know that we are like them, that we have children that we dote upon, husbands that we adore, families that need our care.”

  I stared at her incredulously.

  “I am sorry, Juana, but this is how it is.” After Cardinal Cisneros paraded my child the length of the stands and joined us on the dais, Mother asked him to give Fernando to me.

  “She needs to take him back to the palace and rest,” Mother said. “This is a difficult time for her.”

  Cardinal Cisneros smiled as I tightened Fernando’s wrappings. “Pining for your husband? It is wonderful to be so deeply in love.”

  I glanced up. That is why he thought I was ill?

  Mother spoke loudly enough for all to hear. “Oh, it is. What a blessing to have such a love for her husband. Go on, Juana. Go back and rest.”

  I felt the sympathetic gaze of the crowd upon me as I left the stands, my child in my arms. Is that how I appeared to them—a new mother suffering from the absence of her husband?

  Rain tapped on the canopy carried over my head as I crossed the grounds, Beatriz hurrying behind me with a pair of nurses. Once inside the arcade, I leaned against a column to catch my breath. The walk—and the charade—had exhausted me.

  “I am worried about you,” Beatriz said.

  “Oh? Do you think I am lovelorn, too?” I pressed Fernando to my lips.

  “I can see why it is advantageous for others to think so. For you, too, Your Highness. But the baby must be cold. Give him to the nurses—”

  “No!”

  The nurses glanced at each other. I had not meant to shout out. But they had the pleasure of feeding and caring for him. If only I could hold my own son a little longer. Why must I be so weary?

  “Give him to me, then,” said Beatriz, “and we will go to your chambers to rest.”

  I closed my eyes, then, sighing, handed him to Beatriz. I sank onto a bench against the inner wall of the arcade. “Take him to his nursery. I will be there in a moment.” I did not tell her that I was too exhausted to move. Her fear for my condition would only frighten me. If truth be known, I feared for my life. Something felt terribly wrong. “Look, it has stopped raining.”

  Beatriz gazed into the courtyard, where rainwater dripped from the wrought-iron arch over the well. “Finally.” She was not easily thrown from her duty. “I shall return in a moment.”

  “Make sure he is well tucked in.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” She smiled at the bundle in her arms. “Let us get warm, young man.”

  I closed my eyes and settled against the wall as she swept away w
ith the nurses. I shifted under the bands pressing against my breasts and tried to relax my mind. Images from Fernando’s birth cut through the fog, as vivid as the moment they had happened: the bearing down with my whole being; the giving way of flesh; the shocked, gusty wail; the baby’s first murky gaze.

  A metallic creaking, and then the groan of a crank being turned, jarred me awake. I opened my eyes and saw Diego Colón in the courtyard, lowering the bucket into the well.

  He must have entered from the other side of the arcade and not seen me in the shadows. I stayed very still while he drew up the bucket, stripped off his muddy shirt, and began washing himself. He splashed water onto his face, then onto his muscular chest and under his arms, where it dripped from the downy black hair that grew there.

  He was pouring water over the back of his neck when he saw me. He let go of the bucket. It jangled from its rope as he picked up his shirt from the edge of the well.

  “It is muddy, you know,” I said.

  He pulled on his shirt.

  “Your shirt—it’s muddy.”

  He looked down, then wordlessly strapped his buckler around his waist. Was he not speaking to me for shame of his treatment at the lists?

  “Don José was a scoundrel, pulling you into the mud like that.”

  He paused in his fastening as if about to speak, then changed his mind and continued dressing.

  I stood up. “Why will you not talk to me?”

  He bowed. “By your leave, Your Highness. Adiós.”

  “You punish me with your silence!”

  “I am not trying to punish you, Your Highness.”

  “Yet you act as if you did not know me.” A black fog clouded my vision. I tried to blink it away, even as a high-pitched buzzing whined in my ears.

  Don Diego took a step forward. “Are you well?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Where is your lady?”

  I dropped onto the bench.

  He hurried to my side. “You are ill.”

  “I am fine.” The ringing in my ears had become a pounding. “Just tell me why you will not talk to me.”

  “I was being foolish. Let me help you to your chambers.”

  I sank back against the wall. “You still have not told me why.”

  He drew in a breath. “I saw the pearl on your husband. But why shouldn’t you have given it to him? A wife should give any gift given to her by another man to her husband. Stupid of me.” He bent to help me. “I am taking you to Beatriz.”

  “No. Believe me, I did not give it to him. He took it from me.”

  “As he should. Everything that is yours is his.”

  “Yes, that is true, isn’t it?” I said bitterly. “Even my children. I promise you, I did not wish for him to see the pearl. I knew he would take it if he did. I tried to keep it hidden. It was—special to me.”

  He studied my face. “Señora, I am concerned. You are so pale. I must call your lady.”

  “No! What is the news from your father?”

  He sighed. “You simply won’t be taken to your rest, will you?”

  I shook my head.

  “I know that you are trying to divert me, but I will tell you quickly—and then I am going to find your lady.

  “As a matter of fact, I have not heard from Father in several months. His last letter was dated July of last year, after he had just survived a great maelstrom the Indios call a ‘hurricane.’ He had taken shelter in the mouth of the river in his town of Santo Domingo, heeding the Indios’ warning about the coming tempest, but the governor, Francisco de Bobadilla, and five hundred men set sail for Spain against the Indios’ advice. All of the governor’s party were lost at sea.”

  The governor was much loved at Mother’s court, so I had heard distressed talk of this. The fact that many—albeit without reason—blamed Colón for the governor’s death surely contributed to don José’s disrespectful behavior toward Diego at the joust. People now felt that the lands Colón had found were more trouble than they were worth.

  I sighed. “It was a tragedy.”

  “It was. The worst of it is that Father feels compelled to seek even more new lands to cover the governor’s losses. He speaks of finding the land from which the pearl that I gave you came. The Indios say there is a place in which the shores are awash with pearls the width of your thumbnail. And now no one has heard from Father for months.” He drew in a breath. “My little brother Fernando is with him.”

  “I am so sorry.”

  “I should not bother you with this when you are ill. Why can I not control my speech around you? I buzz like one of the mosquitoes over which I am said to rule. Please forgive me.”

  “People are cruel and stupid. Don’t listen to them.”

  “I don’t. Not really. I know that someday I will govern Father’s lands, just as you, someday, will govern the Spains.”

  I glanced away. If I were ever Queen, Diego’s lands would truly be my lands and he would answer to me. As much as he wished to be equals, we would never be, even if his father’s lands produced more than mosquitoes and misery.

  A clattering of wood sounded against stone. We turned as Katrien entered the courtyard, carrying a wooden cask. She stopped with a final clack of her klompen. A fleeting look of surprise crossed her open face when she saw us, then a stronger emotion—fear?—before she put her head down, went to the well, and cranked the bucket.

  “Listen to me, rambling on when I should be seeking your comfort,” Diego said. He called to Katrien, “Señorita, please, the Princess needs a woman to accompany her to her rooms.”

  Katrien turned the crank slowly, her face still lowered.

  “Now, if you please. Our Lady is not well.”

  Katrien glanced up. Again, a jolt of strong feeling altered her countenance for the briefest moment. But once she had brought up the bucket and come to my bench, she resumed her usual blank expression.

  “I am fine, Katrien, really. I don’t need help.”

  She braced herself against me to help me rise.

  “You must like it here,” Diego said to her.

  Katrien, leaning into me, looked up.

  “You are one of the few who did not return to the Netherlands with the Princess’s Flemish train.”

  She avoided his inquiring gaze. Her arm around me, we started forward.

  Diego bowed. “I hope you are better soon, Señora.”

  “I am better already.”

  The surge of happiness that I felt from our encounter fortified me as I started down the arcade with Katrien. It lasted even after Beatriz met us and took me from Katrien. The girl would not leave at first; then, biting her lip, she lowered her head and hurried off. But my mind was occupied with recollecting Diego’s words. I thought no more of her.

  31.

  9 July anno Domini 1503

  The litter jerked and swayed, the bells on its fringe jingling, as the mules picked their way over the tree roots that laced the rocky trail. The brisk mountain air smelled of cool stone, pine, and the moss that furred the ground: health-giving air, mindclearing air. Surely it would cure me. Four months after giving birth to little Fernando, and still I was subject to the black clouds that floated through my head, blurring my thoughts and vision, robbing me of an appetite, weakening me. In response to an urgent post to the French court about my illness at the time of its inception, my husband insisted that I take a special Flemish preparation at dinner each day, administered by Katrien. He said that it had cured his grand-mère of a similar affliction. But I gained no strength from it. My bodice hung from the bones of my shoulders even after Beatriz laced it tight.

  I looked down at Fernando, stirring in my arms. I kissed his forehead. It was not his fault that I was ill. I was not suffering from childbed fever, as some of Mother’s doctors suggested. Nor was I pining away for his father—the ludicrous opinion of many, which Mother warned me not to dispute. It looked good for me to be missing him. The heir to the throne should project the image of strength
within her marriage as in all other things. For the sake of my own pride, I did not fight her. But whatever it was that actually plagued me, what I needed in order to recover was to be with my children again. Just seeing them would give me strength. I breathed in another draft of air. This journey north to Segovia would bring me that much closer to the port of Laredo. From there, God and Mother willing, I could sail to be with my chickens.

  “How are you?”

  I looked over at Mother, who had ridden up on her mule. “We are well,” I told her.

  She pulled the collar of her robe closer, then braced herself more tightly on her pillion seat. Even in July, it was cool in the Sierra de Guadarrama when the wind swept around the boulders, bending the trees and sending pinecones tumbling. “Why don’t you give Fernando to his nurse, and rest?”

  Next to me in the litter, Beatriz made a cradling motion with her arms. I shook my head. “I am fine.”

  Mother peered over my shoulder and smiled at my sleeping child. “You always used to travel well as an infant. You slept right through the pandemonium when the elephant given to us by the ambassador from Cyprus broke free from her handlers and trampled off into the fields when we were journeying to Madrid.”

  “We had an elephant?”

  “Oh, you should have seen your father, leading the beast into Toledo, two weeks before you were born. He had on new silver armor, and a cloak thrown over his shoulder like a Roman general. My ladies said he looked like a Caesar. I called him the new Charlemagne. He liked that best.”