Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters (The Katherine of Aragon Story Book 1) (8 page)

Beatriz reached the girls. “Infanta! Maria! What do you do here? Dońa Teresa will be beside herself if she discovers you not in your chambers.”

Appearing suddenly guilt-stricken, the little girls stepped closer to one another.

Amused, Francisco, winked and grinned at her. Beatriz couldn’t stop herself grinning back. “Forgive me, Francisco, I must take these two back to their chambers before the queen discovers their disobedience.”

Francisco nodded, adoration shining from his dark brown eyes. “I look forward to continuing our conversation and the pleasure of your company on your return.”

Beatriz smiled at him, her dear friend, the man who wanted her as his wife, and turned her attention back to the two small girls. “No argument from either of you. Come now.”

Taking their hands she hurried to the door that would take them back to the royal chambers. “Night is no time for two small girls to take it into their minds to leave the safety of their bedchamber. I should by rights tell the queen,” she scolded.

She almost laughed when she saw Catalina and Maria share a smile. She shook her head. They knew her far too well; she would never tell on them. Tomorrow, translating Aristotle or some other dead philosopher would seem far more important to her than their small transgressions.

Catalina stopped her at the door. Some distance away but in view, the king, queen and Princess Isabel sat on the dais. Cardinal Mendoza, a man both respected and feared throughout the queen’s kingdom and beyond, occupied the chair beside the princess. A duke sat next to the cardinal, and next to the duke another noble, the Portuguese lord, an elderly cousin of Alfonso and his proxy at the coming wedding, two bishops, and finally Ahmed. The only child at the table and white-faced with exhaustion, he looked uncomfortable and unhappy

“Why is Ahmed there?” Catalina whispered to Beatriz.

She shrugged. “He is the first born son of the Moor king. The queen believed it right that he should be here, for the Portuguese to see him.”

Garbed in regal gowns, twenty women danced with cavaliers before the king and queen. Applause and murmurs of appreciation rippled around the chamber as the dance ended. Again the music rose and fell, the women returned alone to the floor, with girdles tied around their waists. The royals on the dais clapped, and Princess Isabel bent towards her mother and whispered. Queen Isabel smiled and nodded. Glittering with jewels and in a golden gown almost exactly like the queen’s, the princess stepped out to the floor with a lady from Portugal. Servants handed them girdles, and they joined the jubilant dance.

The women left the floor and the musicians struck up a solemn tune. This time the king and queen, hand-in-hand, stepped from the dais to dance a measure both grave and graceful. Jewels emblazed their royal garb, glittering and flashing with every movement in the light of countless candles and high torches.

“I love it when they dance.” Catalina drooped, her face pale and miserable. Breaking free of Beatriz and Maria, she stepped towards the dim corridor. “I want to leave. I want to go back to my chamber.”

“Why?” Maria asked, gazing back at the slow dance of the king and queen and around the chamber blazing with candlelight. Music throbbed and soared, and then plummeted to speak to all hearts.

“I hate it...”

Bewildered, Maria looked at Catalina, and then up at Beatriz. “Hate?”

“What do you hate, child?” Beatriz asked the infanta.

Catalina knotted her hands together. “My sister is leaving.”

Gazing back at Princess Isabel now talking animatedly to Cardinal Mendoza, Beatriz tried to think of words of comfort. Nothing came to mind.

···

Beatriz stood a short distance behind Catalina on the royal dais near the high altar. In the cathedral of Sevilla, a thousand and more lit-candles, reflected by mirror, gold and silver, mimicked the brightness of day. The smell of incense was heady and sickly sweet, making her head spin and ache, adding to her depression. Called back to battle, Francisco had left that very morning. Beatriz hoped it would not be long before the king followed after, or that it was true that the king had found himself a new leman. She had never been that. She was but the bitch he kicked in passing.

Below, her hand atop the king’s, Princess Isabel walked down the aisle of the cathedral to Alfonso’s proxy. Isabel, pale and petite like her three sisters, was so beautiful she could have been a figure painted in an illuminated book. Beatriz had never known her other than as an adult, but today, on her wedding day, the stillness of Isabel’s face made her appear utterly young, and vulnerable.
Thank God she possesses her mother’s strong mettle. The girl will need it.

With her head held high and eyes fixed straight ahead, Isabel displayed every iota of her usual pride as she paced towards the taking of her vows. The measured steps of Isabel and her father seemed a strange dance timed to the slow chanting of monks.

Isabel’s slender form gave her the illusion of height, an illusion aided by high chopines. With every step she took, gold-patterned heels peeped out from under her gold-cloth gown. Each short, determined, cautious step bespoke constraints, constraints her position placed upon her. Even if she wanted to run away, her chopines forbade it as surely as if she wore fetters, fetters no one saw, but securely locked upon all the daughters of the queen. Beatriz sighed. Fetters placed too well on all women. But for the daughters of the queen the fetters were merciless.

Isabel stepped closer to Alfonso’s proxy, and closer to her heart’s desire. This marriage was one she never dared to voice and hope for. Taking her place next to the prince’s proxy, Isabel, her face solemn, knelt for the cardinal’s blessing.

The Princess Isabel now utterly and indissolubly joined to Alfonso in marriage, the weeks of celebrations arrived at an end. Another week passed and the queen and king and their two courts accompanied their eldest daughter to the border of Portugal and Castilla. Following closely behind Catalina and the rest of the royal family, Beatriz rode her mule to crest the last hill of their journey. Spread out far and wide on the green, lush valley below shimmered the colourful pageant of the richly dressed courtiers of Portugal. Mounted on horses, the king and prince were far more richly dressed than the superbly garbed men and women of their court.

Prince Alfonso leaned forward, eyes scanning the approaching company. The wind blew his long blond hair around his tanned face. He smiled – a smile of joy blazing out across the distance. The seventeen-year-old prince forgot royal protocol. With a loud cry he heeled his horse into a gallop, heading towards the mantle-covered, slender girl riding down the hill.

Reaching level ground, Isabel halted her mount. She bent low, patted the mule’s neck and murmured soft words, all the time watching her prince ride to her. Coming close, he vaulted from his horse and ran the short distance separating them. A gentle wind lifted Isabel’s thin veil and brushed its caress against her pale cheeks. The gossamer veil could not hide her smile. From the way her shoulders shook, Beatriz suspected she laughed, or perhaps wept – tears of happiness. She had hoped for this day for so long.

Now at her side Prince Alfonso held out his hand to Isabel, with palm upraised. Beatriz grinned at Catalina, trying to lift the child’s spirits. Not too difficult to discern the desire of the prince – he wanted Isabel’s hand in his.

Caught up in the moment, Beatriz heeled her mount closer to the royal family, wanting not to miss a moment. Isabel clasped Alfonso’s hand, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. Beatriz had never seen her so elated. Isabel leaned towards Alfonso, whispering something to him, her face hidden from all but the prince by the falling mantle hood. Seized by a sudden gust of strong wind, Isabel’s hood fell back as she lifted her head. Silken red tresses, aflame in the sunlight, escaped her veil to intertwine with his golden hair. The prince laughed, kissing the inner wrist of Isabel’s thin hand. It seemed to Beatriz that an illuminated page came to life.

Sharing their joy, smiles of two courts encircled the young couple. Despite years of reservations about this match, especially from the still disgruntled King Ferdinand, their union symbolised and strengthened the new peace between Castilla, Aragon and Portugal.

Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand gazed at one another. The king shrugged and, in the full view of everyone, he exchanged a rare, tender smile with his wife. They bowed in their saddles to King João, King Ferdinand lifting his black velvet bonnet to him. Returning the courtesy, King João’s countenance spoke to all of his great pride and delight. There could be no doubt of his love for his treasured and only legitimate son.

Taking the bridle of Isabel’s mule, the prince led his bride across the border. King João and his Portuguese subjects followed close after them. Cries of jubilation and the beat of many drums and trumpeting of horns marked the crossing from one country to another.

Princess Isabel turned in her saddle, gazed at her parents and waved. Almost in unison, they dipped their heads to her and raised their bonnets. A final wave and then Isabel faced Portugal. She did not turn again.

···

In Portugal, Isabel wedded once more the heir of its throne, but this time without proxy. For months Beatriz heard news of Isabel’s happiness with Alfonso. The queen reassured those closest to her, and so herself, that Isabel dwelt in peace and joy with her husband. Deciding upon this marriage had been the right and only decision for her eldest daughter.

Isabel’s wedding signalled the new era of concord between Castilla, Aragon and Portugal. Queen Isabel trusted her oldest daughter to do everything necessary to assure peace remained in that quarter, because a far more important war demanded her attention – a war moving closer to victory.

Her daughter’s departure aged the queen. For twenty years she had doted on her eldest daughter. In recent times, Isabel was one of the few to whom the queen opened up her true and secret heart. With the king now returned to the battle-front, Catalina seemed the only daughter able to raise her mother’s smile.

War at the outset is like a beautiful
maid
With whom every one wishes to
flirt.
At the end it is like a despised
hag
Bringing tears and sadness to whomever she
meets.
~ Samuel Ibn Nagrela

F
rom a distance, flower puffs of white and myriad vibrant colours seemed to embroider the brown, summer-seared hill. Closer still, Beatriz picked out the magnificent silk and brocade tents of the king and his grandees, surrounded by simpler soldier tents. Banners fluttered in the air everywhere. The tent city competed in colour and beauty with the looming Moorish city of high, reddish stone towers.

It was not simply the rich hues of the royal camp bespeaking the glory many found in the queen’s Holy War. Gazing at men in battle gear, hoping to find Francisco at the camp, Beatriz remembered Maria recounting her father’s conversation with her mother Josepha on their last visit home: “Castilla belongs only to those of the true faith. Soon our land will be cleansed of those heathen unbelievers.”

“Mother was sitting by the fire, sewing a new shirt for Father. Flames reflected in her eyes, and she looked at my father with fear. I could see my father’s eagerness to share the thrill of battle did not enthral her. When she returned to sewing, her needle flew in and out of my father’s shirt in unspoken anxiety.

“She hates this war, Teacher. But she is a soldier’s wife. Her duty binds her to silence just as Father’s duty means for him to go back to war.

“Mother does not like women who farewell their men with whining and beating their breasts for what none can change. She told us she will not be like Andromache, the wife of Hector of Troy, and plead with our father not to fight. She always bids my father, ‘Godspeed’ when he rides away from our home.

“As soon as we see him no more, Mother goes to her chamber. I believe she weeps there.”

Beatriz stopped the pull of memory. Up ahead, Queen Isabel, mounted on a chestnut mule covered by trappings of crimson edged with gold embroidery, gently rocked within her stately saddle-chair. Catalina’s proud gaze was all on her mother.

A beat of drums, a swelling of trumpet notes and a roar of thousands rose to the heavens at the queen’s approach. Many soldiers broke rank, rushing towards her, kneeling, uncaring of the dirt, along the road bringing her to them. Beatriz caught the answering cries of dismay from the defended citadel of the Moors in the wind.

His dark eyes alight with grim merriment, and garbed in a crimson doublet with breeches of yellow satin, the king rode his favourite black stallion towards his wife. A group of proud grandees closely shadowed the king. The men galloped their mounts as if invincible.

Queen Isabel tossed aside her deep scarlet mantle, freeing one arm to rein in her mule. Her agitated movements opened up her black velvet brial to its skirt of scarlet brocade underneath. Her three daughters wore gowns similar to the queen, even down to wide black hats with thick gold thread worked around top and edge.

The queen straightened her shoulders. Beatriz noticed pain flickering across her face. Travelling about Castilla caused the queen immense discomfort, swelling her legs to almost twice their normal size. Days of journey forced her to stay abed for as many days. She became sicker and sicker with every new year.

Coming within speaking distance and pulling hard at the reins of his horse, the king saluted her. King Ferdinand’s huge black beast pranced beside the queen’s mule as if eager to return to battle. “Did I not vow to you I’d pick out the seeds of this pomegranate? One by one, I have done so until there remains only one seed left.”

Angry shouting came from the walls of the fortress. On the battlement flashed the glint of armour and scimitar. Clusters of men waved lances, threatening to throw them on the queen’s soldiers below. Tossing his brocade mantle over his shoulder and displaying his sword with its eagle-winged hilt, the king grinned. His missing front tooth caused a slight whistle when he spoke. “Hear the Moors, wife! They rent their clothes and tear out their hair at seeing you come hither. They know time runs out for them. By sword or gunpowder, be assured, lady wife, conquest will soon be thine.”

Studying the citadel of their enemy, she offered a smile half-shadowed by her sunhat. Her bow almost touched her mule’s neck. She gazed back at the king. “Yours and mine together, husband, as it has been for every day since we first joined hands and our two kingdoms.”

The nearby stallions disturbed Beatriz’s nervous mule. Calming her mount before it decided to break away, she wondered yet again about the king and queen. She long knew the queen’s devotion to her husband surpassed his shallower affections. Almost every year she bought off another mistress whilst publicly and affectionately caring for the resulting bastards. It seemed to Beatriz the king loved his wife as the queen, and all the power her queenship brought him, rather than the ailing, fast-aging woman too often following him with doting, increasingly anguished eyes. Suddenly ill, Beatriz trembled, hunching under her cloak.
Dear God, please make the king leave me alone. Make him forget me, please.

Removing his bonnet, the king dipped his head and smiled. “My queen and lady wife, there is a loyal subject you must congratulate.”

Catalina reined in her mule, restless like Beatriz’s, and watched her parents. She beckoned Maria de Salinas to come closer. The bells on the harness of Queen Isabel’s mount rang a discordant sound as her eyes searched the men at her husband’s back. She gestured, calling out: “My good Marques of Cadiz and Count of Cabra. Pray ride to me, my lords.”

Two men heeled their horses toward the queen. Followed by his banner bearer, one man edged his coal-black horse away from the other, stopping the huge beast before it chanced to overtake the king’s.

Forced again to attend to her fidgety mule, Beatriz recognised the banner of the Count of Cabra. Set upon a sanguine field was a crowned Moor, a gold chain around his neck, with twenty-two banners placed around a shield. The queen had told her the tale behind it. Seven years ago, the count had taken into custody the King of Granada after the defeat of his army, which saw the death of many and the taking of twenty-two banners of their enemies. Thus, the king and queen gave to the Cabra family the title of Don and awarded the gift of this banner. That same victory had seen Prince Ahmed handed over as an infant hostage for the release and good conduct of his father.

Before the count rode the Duke of Cadiz, a hot-tempered man who yet possessed a great heart, with the one-eyed ambition that came from proving himself worthy of the titles he inherited despite being his father’s bastard. With no other son to inherit, his father had wed his mother when the duke was a youth and already a demonstrated victor of famous battles. Coming from the enemy side in the early and uncertain years of Queen Isabel’s reign, now he was Godfather and sponsor to Prince Juan himself, having long proven his loyalty to the queen and her cause.

He squinted against the bright sunlight. Yanking his costly helmet off, his hood slipped back with the shake of his head revealing a mature face, older than the king’s or the queen’s, but a face so comely it drew Beatriz’s attention and made it difficult for her to look away. Long days in the sun had tanned his skin to brown leather. His dark, deep-set eyes glittered like jet. Firm cleft chin, sensual mouth, long, red hair streaked by silver curled around his face. The magnificent lord bowed low in his saddle to the queen. The duke lifted eyes that widened before hooding against the glaring noon sun. A hand shading his face, he bowed once more. “Gracious and most noble queen, pray forgive me for staying on my horse.”

Riding closer, Queen Isabel proffered her hand for his kiss. “My good duke.” She exchanged an amused look with her husband.

The Count of Cabra, a dark-haired man with a network of lines mapping a story of humour and careful diplomacy on his face, approached to give the queen homage.

The queen gazed at her two leaders. “Now, my congratulations must be to either of you, or maybe both, as has proven the case for many years in the past. Tell me, which is it now? Cadiz or Cabra?”

With a gruff, deep laugh, the count came closer. “The duke this time, Your Highness!”

The duke smiled. “A small thing, my queen.”

Horse hooves shuffled and shifted in the dirt. A protesting neigh pierced the air, as the king half-wheeled his horse to face the queen. “A small thing, Rodrigo? I do not think it a small thing when you saved so many from a grim fate. When bad weather caused soldiers to lose themselves in the mountain passes, the duke here lit beacons around his tent to guide the stragglers back to the campsite. Without that action, I would hate to think how many good men we would have lost on our journey here.”

“I was but in the right place at the right time,” the duke shrugged. “Any man with common sense would have done the same.”

The queen patted her restive mule. “You have a gift to be always there at the right time and the right place, my lord duke. I count myself fortunate to have you in my service. Your good sense and great prowess has brought great glory and victory to our Holy War.”

The duke bowed. “My queen, I am proud and honoured to serve you.”

“And I am proud and honoured to number such men as yourself and the good count as my leaders.” Queen Isabel grinned. “Now this tent my husband mentioned, ’tis the same magnificent tent I have seen on other occasions? If my eyes do not mistake me, I see it yonder?”

Beatriz followed the direction of the queen’s pointing finger. The duke’s pavilion travelled with him to every new battlefield. Decorated in Moorish taste, with inner compartments divided by walls of painted silk and curtains, the tent’s splendour left the tents of all the other nobility pale and lacklustre beside it. It dominated the city of tents as if an alcázar
itself, even daring to compete with the tent of the king.

The duke bowed in the saddle. “Gracious queen, allow me the pleasure of surrendering it to you.”

Her objective achieved, Queen Isabel’s eyes glinted with humour. “I thank you, my lord duke. You are as generous as always.”

Before settling her court into the camp of her army, Queen Isabel kept her eyes on the king and his men as they returned to the battlefield. She became so still, her face acquiring a strange look – as if her apparent calmness hid a thousand thoughts, a thousand heartaches. For the rest of the day, not even her daughters dared speak to her.