Reign of Madness (10 page)

“But I must not dirty you, My Lord.”

“Come now, Aliénor, dirt is never so dirty on me.”

She gave a silent laugh, then wiped her hand on my husband’s sleeve. She took her time, leaving a bloody smear like that on our conjugal sheets.

I could not bear to stand by idly. “How chivalrous you are, my husband.”

Both the Viscountess and Philippe turned as if surprised to find me there, though I was close enough to smell the mud on their clothes.

“To Philippe the Good!” I said staunchly.

Our party took up the cry. “To Philippe the Good!”

My husband beamed, then kissed me on the head, much as he had kissed Delilah, who was pulling the meat of the heron’s leg into bloody strings. I drew in a breath. I had won the first battle for my husband’s attention. I hoped that there would not be so very many more.

9.

14 November anno Domini 1496

T
hree choristers sang from the balcony above the feasting hall, their voices and the music of the flute and drum accompanying them unheard over the clinking of cutlery, the scrape of benches, and sudden roars of laughter. Dogs trotted under tables set with golden plates, gilded drinking horns, and fanciful ornaments worth a knight’s ransom each. Wine spouted from the breast of a naked woman carved in wood in the most lifelike fashion, down to the swirls of hair on her mound. Tapestries depicting the legend of the Golden Fleece, with Jason’s blond curls picked out in gold thread, rippled on the walls, moved by the drafts that seeped through the windows and walls.

I glanced at the table set perpendicular to ours, where Don Fadrique sawed at his meat with a frown. His tablemates—among them Philippe’s sister, Marguerite, and Philippe’s grandmother Margaret of York, the Dowager Duchess—dined unselfconsciously, in Marguerite’s case, laughing immodestly at the tales of the gentleman next to her. Meanwhile the Dowager Duchess held forth to a stunned and cowed Fray Diego on the superiority of springtime in England. In the Spains, usually only Mother dined at a table with men, and then only at feasts. Fray Hernando took her to task for even that. If he had his way, Mother would be as cloistered as a nun.

Here, though, nothing was thought of the mixing of the sexes. Truly, nothing was thought of throwing a feast. There had been one almost every night since our wedding ceremony of state, for every possible reason: for the union of our lands, for our health, for our children, for All Saints’ Day, with a rest the next day to clear our heads and ride to Antwerp. The excuse for celebrating tonight was to say good-bye to Marguerite, who was to ride in a few days to Middelburg and then sail for Spain. Would she find irony in the fact that her new country, while eternally sunny, was direly somber, while her native country, perpetually rainy, was always gay?

Behind my husband, on a precious piece of silver sculpted into a tree branch, Delilah hunched with her hooded head between her shoulders, feathers fluffed. Antwerp in November was as cold and damp as a Cantabrian cave, and the castle, though blazing with fires on its many hearths, was as chill as the murky waters of the River Scheldt that flowed at its ancient feet. But what the castle lacked in physical warmth, it made up for in conviviality. How I wished for my little sisters to see the place. They would appreciate it, even if my tradition-bound Spanish ladies could not.

I was thinking of María and Catalina as we rested after the last course of candied fruits, when, next to me, Philippe lifted the decoration perched before me on the table. It was a perfect miniature in gold of the type of carrack that had brought me to my husband’s lands. Tiny golden sailors the size of beetles clung to its gold-wire riggings; gold-leaf flags fluttered from its three masts; the rails of its fore and aft decks were wrought of delicate filigree. This wondrous little ship rested on the head and hands of a giant mermaid, whose golden naked body served as the vessel’s stem.

“Do you know what this holds?” he asked. He gave the precious object a gentle shake.

My gaze went to my husband’s lips. I could feel them upon my neck, upon my shoulder, trailing kisses down my back.
Hostias santas,
what was wrong with me? I wished to couple every moment. I lifted my eyes.

“Salt?” I said.

He laughed. “Only a Spaniard would guess that. Oh, don’t be hurt, Puss. I meant no ill. But you have to admit, the Spanish prefer piety to fun. They have their sights fixed on Heaven, while we Burgundians are content to eat and drink and wallow around here on earth.”

Even as I wished to protest, an incident from that afternoon came sharply to mind. My train of ladies and I had been about to enter the castle, concluding a foggy day’s ride from Malines, when the Viscountess of Furnes stopped before the arched gate.

“Your Grace,” she said, “it is the custom here for women who wish to bring babes to their wombs to honor a certain statue before entering.”

I shifted upon my pillion. It was common to venerate relics and statues of saints in Spain. And I did wish for a child. Even more, I wished to acknowledge, especially to the Viscountess of Furnes, with her exuberant golden curls and overfamiliar ways, that Philippe and I indulged in sexual congress often. Very often.

“I would not be surprised if a child is already on its way,” I said, “but I shall respect my people’s customs. Where is it?”

“Above you.”

I gazed up, my hood falling back. Through the drizzle I saw a small statue, perhaps the size of my forearm, which had been carved in relief over the archway, next to the door. But as I peered closer, I saw that the “blessing” this saint offered was its oversized turgid member, thrust from its body like a taunting tongue. The ladies laughed when I looked down in shock.

The Viscountess had straightened her pretty face. “You have just met Semini, the Norsemen’s god of fertility. Robust, isn’t he? Not that your womb would need his help.”

Now Philippe waved the golden ship before me again. “Take another guess. What is in this pretty thing?”

I tried to get into the spirit of the place. “Aphrodisiacs?”

On my other side, Hendrik coughed into his hand.

“Puss, you scandalize me.” Philippe lifted the top of the ship, exposing a sloshing hold full of wine. He swirled the red liquid under my nose. “Smell. Made from good Burgundy grapes.”

“Mm.”

He linked arms with me to drink.

“To good Burgundy grapes!” I exclaimed.

“To the sweet Spanish mussel.” Philippe kissed me soundly on the cheek, winking at Hendrik, who shook his head as we drank.

Too fuzzy with wine to ponder what he alluded to, I reached for the other table ornament set before us, a tree no taller than my forearm, its golden limbs bristling with pointed leaves made of a hard gray substance not unlike the Dowager Duchess’s eyes. A topaz as large as a walnut crowned the treetop. I had noticed this decoration at our table at other feasts. Perhaps it was a favorite of my husband’s, though he had not yet used it—there were so many precious cups and filigree-encrusted horns and jeweled ornaments to choose from.

“Is there wine in this tree, too?”

“Now she’s going to look for wine in everything,” Philippe said to Hendrik. “Watch your sword, my man—she’ll try to drink from it.”

Hendrik raised his brows at me. One of his hazel eyes was noticeably larger than the other, adding to his cheerfully awkward appearance. “Whatever it takes to quench your thirst, Madame.”

Laughing, I lifted the tree by its golden trunk, my long sleeves dragging onto the table. A guard rushed forward.

“No cause for alarm, Guillaume.” My husband gently took the ornament from my hands, then nodded at the guard, who reluctantly receded into the shadows.

“What did I do?” I whispered.

“He takes his job seriously.”

“Which is good for you, My Lord,” said Hendrik.

“Which is good for me,” Philippe agreed, “I suppose. Look.” He unscrewed the topaz bauble at the top of the tree, which must have loosened a mechanism in the branches, for he was then able to pluck one of the spiny gray leaves from a golden bough.

He held it up. “If this turns red when I put it in our wine, you and I have just drunk poison.”

He dipped the leaf into the red liquid in the ship.

Wine trickled down his hand as he righted the leaf. The petal remained gray.

“Evidently, we’re in luck this time,” he said with a laugh.

“What is that?” I asked in wine-fueled befuddlement.

“This”—he waved the dripping spear—“is a serpent’s tongue that has turned to stone. A most handy device. It divines poison—very effectively. Truly, one need not dunk it in poison to get it to react. It will start to sweat if poison is near. That’s why my dear good guards think they should keep some on my table.”

“I have not seen serpents’ tongues in Spain, Monseigneur. We just have tasters.”

“Well, the tongues are very rare, though one of my huntsmen said they resemble the teeth of a shark he once saw washed up on shore. I don’t know about that. But the guards do take the powers of these serpents’ tongues most seriously and will not brook anyone’s tampering with them. Apparently, not even my own wife’s.”

“I would never poison you!”

He grabbed my hand and kissed it. “I know. Who would?”

The warmth of his lips on my flesh sent a thrill through me. “They do right to protect you, Monseigneur. There are always those who wish to harm those above them. My papa, who would not hurt a flea, was attacked by a mad peasant and wounded most grievously.”

“That is Spain. This is here. We are all too busy having fun for that sort of thing.” He leaned closer to whisper. “Guillaume and his lot just do it for their pay. They have inherited their positions—they’d scream if we ended them. Besides,” he said, louder, “Antwerp is a lucky place—has been, since a little fellow named Brabo killed the giant”—he turned toward Hendrik—“what was his name?”

“Druon Antigoon.”

“—the giant . . . something-something Antigoon, who was wreaking havoc at the harbor by charging ridiculous tolls and lopping off the hands of those who couldn’t pay. But the bully did not think so much of it when little Brabo came along and chopped off
his
great brute of a hand and threw it in the Scheldt. That is where the city takes its name, ‘to throw the hand,’ in the Flemish tongue.”

An excess of wine may bring on an excess of sorrow as quickly as it does an outpouring of joy. Suddenly I was in the depth of despair. I did not understand this place, with its worship of food and drink and pleasure. I came from a land where refreshment was to be taken in moderation, and prayer with greatest zeal. How was I ever to fit in? I missed my sisters—dear María, dreaming of chivalrous men; eager Catalina, always trying to keep up. I missed Papa, with his quiet humor and his self-deprecating ways. I missed Mother, though the thought of how deeply she would disapprove of my current behavior gave me a jolt through my vinous haze.

“Puss, will you dance?” Philippe pushed back our bench and held out his hand.

I leaned on his arm as he led me to the assembling dancers, the weight of my skirts and hanging sleeves nearly unmanageable in my dizzy state. Philippe glanced at me, and then, with a mischievous grin, swung me into the jolly swell of sackbut, shawm, and drum.

10.

15 November anno Domini 1496

T
he somber chanting of the choir echoed from the cold stone vaults of the chapel ceiling. Oily curls of incense snaked through the dank air. Though I kept my gaze on the priest, whose pearl-sewn vestment clicked against the altar as he made the Sign of the Cross over the Host, I could feel the questioning looks of my twelve Burgundian ladies on me as I walked down the center aisle. Worse, as surely as if I had second sight, I could feel the studied resolve of my twelve Spanish attendants, including Beatriz,
not
to look at me, as if I were an object of such great horror they feared to cast their gazes upon me.

I had started out to Mass that morning with both factions after my dressing, a process made arduous by both the Burgundian and the Spanish ladies’ insistence that they should have an equal hand in it. The result of this was that every lace to be tightened, every sleeve point to be tied, and every pin to be fixed in my headdress was an item for negotiation. Indeed, I had been made to stand naked in my drafty chamber, yearning for my warm bed and my husband, who had strolled unconcernedly from the room, until they could agree upon who should be allowed to change my chemise. (The Burgundians, it was decided, for the garment was made of Flemish lace and was a gift from my husband.) As we made our way through the ancient passageways of the Antwerp castle, the footsteps of my retinue ringing from the worn stone flags of the floor, I was already exhausted, although, if I was to be honest, no small part of my weariness was due to the festivities of the night before.

We were in the cloister that traversed the courtyard, with the chapel bell ringing the call to Mass, when my flock encountered Philippe and his men, two of whom were pissing in the courtyard.

Bows and curtseys were exchanged among ladies and gentlemen; silence was kept in deference to our preparation for worship. When I gained my husband’s side, he ran his finger down the back of my hand, sending a charge straight to my nether parts. Our eyes met. Without offering explanations to our attendants, we clasped hands and returned in the direction from which I had come, bursting into laughter once we turned into the passage to my chamber and away from the astonished stares of our attendants.

We did not make it all the way to my chamber. Devouring me with kisses, Philippe pushed me against the door of a storeroom, raked up my skirts, then took me on the spot, even as a thin dog trotted by, unfazed by our animal acts. When we were finished, panting from our exertion, we righted each other’s clothing, and then he led me, glowing and swollen, back through the dark halls to the chapel.

Outside the door, he kissed my hand.
“Adieu, Madame.”

The chanting of the choir issued forth as he shoved into the chapel. Head held high, he strode down the center aisle. I saw his men at the front of the church turn to him grinning, and then the door swung back, leaving me alone in the dreary hall.

In the Spains, to miss daily Mass or any part of it was a sin deemed barely forgivable. I could think of no day Mother missed hearing it sung at least once. If she was ill, her portable chapel was brought to her. If she was at war, a chapel was erected on the field before the first tent of her camp could be raised. If she was laboring in childbirth, her pangs were ignored until she could receive the Host. It is part of our family lore that Catalina just missed being caught by Fray Hernando at her birth. In the history of the Spains, women who gave up their lives to receive the sacrament of Communion when denied it by their pagan fathers or husbands were called saints. To willfully miss a part of Mass—there was a name for those women, too.

The longer I delayed outside the chapel, the blacker my reputation would be in the eyes of my Spanish ladies. I drew in a breath, then pulled the door open.

I took my place with my ladies in time to say the Our Father. Feeling keenly the Spanish ladies’ disapproval, I knelt in preparation of receiving the Host. Fluid trickled down my leg. In the quiet marked only with an occasional cough or sniffle and the priest’s murmured words, we were fed Christ’s body. I prayed not for my soul, nor for the good of the Church, but that I would not drip onto the floor when I stood.

After we had been sent to go in peace, I spoke to my Spanish ladies about the weather, wondering if for once we might have some sunshine. They responded quickly, and kindly, though the current of disapproval that flowed under their polite words was as cold as the drafty air of the castle. Beatriz would not look at me. The Burgundian ladies watched our exchanges, glancing among themselves, and then, when they caught my eye, flashed me conspiratorial smiles. Uncomfortable with all of them, I sent word to Philippe, asking to meet me for a stroll along the river, but my message was returned by his page, who said his master had gone hunting with his men.

“Why is everyone acting so strange?” I asked Beatriz. The two of us were breaking fast in my antechamber, with cold meat and bread, a book of Livy spread open on the table. I had bidden the others to leave us so that I could receive a quiet hour of instruction in Latin. They seemed only too happy to comply. “Yes, I did exchange a few words with my husband during Mass, but—”

Beatriz’s shapely brows disappeared under the white bandeau of her coif. “A few words?”

“A few embraces, then. I did nothing wrong. I was with my husband.”

“Perhaps it was the timing of these embraces that offended.”

“So it is true—I offended my ladies.”

“Perhaps—”

“I cannot help it! He desires me. And I desire him. And oh, dear Beatriz, it feels so good.”

She turned down her face.

“I am sorry. I am just being honest. If you would lower yourself to marry Francisco Ramírez, you would know of what I speak. He still waits for you, I know. María writes of it—the little dreamer cannot stand for you two to be apart. Why will you not wed him?”

“There are more important things besides marriage.”

I laughed. “Truly? Like what?”

“Like teaching at Salamanca.”

“You are jesting.” I looked into her face. “You are not jesting. Why have you never told me this?”

“You have never asked.”

“But you have already studied at Salerno—few women can make claim to that. You became so famous for your skill in Latin there that even Mother knew of you. She dragged you back here and made you teach every one of my family except Papa our Latin—how many feathers in your cap do you need?”

She gave me—for her—a defiant look. “I wish to be a professor.”

“But women are not professors.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” I stopped.

“You see? There is no real reason, other than tradition.” Within the frame of her wimple, her delicate face was pinched with earnestness. “Believe me, Your Grace, I feel the pull of a man’s body as much as anyone. Do you think that I am inured to Francisco’s caress? Do you think I don’t find him handsome? But once married, I will be expected to serve him only and to bear his children. I will have to give up my dream.”

Margaret of York, my husband’s step-grandmother, swept into the chamber, her two favorite ladies in attendance. The Dowager Duchess was a tall woman, taller than most men, and to judge from her face and neck—the only parts of her person not engulfed in yards and yards of costly stuffs—as lean as a hungry greyhound. She wore an ermine-trimmed surcot over a flowing gown of russet and gold brocade, and a black pointed hennin draped at the tip of its cone with a veil of sheerest lawn. This attire must have been the height of fashion in her youth, but now was so outmoded it would have been humorous on anyone but her. On her, it was an aggressive statement of personal taste. In keeping with the style of this tall headdress, a velvet loop descended from the base of its steeple onto her forehead, where age had etched fine lines into the soft skin. Her aging skin seemed to be the only tender part of her.

Around her arm she rewrapped her voluminous skirt, several lengths too long to allow walking—a fashion of generations past—then waved her hand at Beatriz. “You, girl who dresses like a nun. Be off.”

Beatriz arose from her bench with a look of worry. It was not correct for the Dowager to send away my lady in my presence. That was my prerogative, not hers.

Once Beatriz was gone, the Dowager sniffed. “We have not talked for a while.”

We had not talked ever, except at feasts, and then only she had done the talking, mostly about the superiority of things English.

“No.”

“How are you finding our lands?”

“Most lovely, Madame.”

“Truly?” She sniffed again. “A more dank prison on earth, I cannot imagine. Even England, with its tendency to rain, excels it, for at least in England there are rolling hills sweet with flowers in May. Here—mud and marshes, marshes and mud, with fields of plowed gray muck dug in between. But I did not come to talk about the scenery.”

I lowered my head. “Madame, I shall never be late to Mass again.”

“You were late to Mass? When? Today? I did not see. I did rest my eyes until my lady woke me to receive the Host. This is what comes with age—you cannot sleep at night or stay awake by day. Why were you late?”

I tried to find words.

“Come, come,” she said. “Spit it out.”

“My husband, he . . . desired . . .”

“He needed to sharpen his sword? Leave it to Philippe to want what he wants whenever the mood strikes him. Well, no harm in that. Your duty is to fill a cradle. I might have filled one myself had my husband stopped fighting his wars long enough to dip his lance with me. He seemed to think fighting would bring him more land than would producing children whom he could wed well. And look where it got him. Dead, in a frozen ditch, stripped of everything including his own two hands, in hale middle age. Where do you think that left me? No, it is your father-in-law and the rest of those overambitious Habsburgs who have it right: ‘
Bella gerant alli; tu, felix Austria, nube.
’ ”

“‘Let others make war; you, happy Austria, marry.’”

The Dowager sniffed once more, a practice, I now realized, that she used in lieu of a smile. “Good. You know your Latin. You might be as learned as your ambassador said you were. I believe only half of what those little men say. They produce a portrait and call it the truth, as if we were so gullible as to think painters have no imagination. Why your portraitist felt he had to make your hair ginger-red, I do not know. It is a serviceable-enough brown.” She tugged the rich cloth of her skirt off the floor and rewound it around her arm. “Well, how did your ladies take your late appearance at the liturgy?”

“They have said nothing to me about it.”

“Did they smile and speak cheerfully to you afterward?”

“Yes. At least the Burgundian ladies did.”

“That is what I was afraid of.”

“But they were merry.”

“They do not respect you enough to be concerned.”

“Perhaps they do not know what transpired.”

She snuffled bitterly. “Lovers think everyone else is blind.”

“Then perhaps they were afraid of offending me.”

She closed her eyes, then, shaking her head, opened them. “How old are you again?”

“Seventeen.” Though at that moment I felt like a child of seven.

“How are we going to undo this damage to your ladies’ respect for you?”

“Is there so very much?”

Her sniff verged on being a snort. “My dear, my dear.”

Hugging her extra length of gown against her chest, she commenced to moving about my chamber, touching my possessions as if weighing their value at a market stall. “You may ask yourself, why does the Dowager come to me today? She is an old widow woman, with neither wealth nor health to recommend her. Why should she care about me, a little girl from Spain?”

Indeed, a little girl who grew littler by the moment.

“I remember when I came to meet my husband. I was older than you, twenty-two. I was the King of England’s sister—well favored by an illustrious family, though, like you, at good remove for inheriting the crown. I was accustomed to the finest England had to offer, which was very fine indeed, but I was charmed by the efforts the Burgundians put forth to impress me. As I rode through the streets of the little Flemish towns, I marveled at the precious tapestries billowing from every building, the carefully painted tableaux, the rich costuming of the actors portraying great women from history—dramatic scenes were played out at every corner. Fountains flowed with wine in the market squares. Banquets were held, the most magnificent of which was called the Feast of the Golden Tree. Ask about it. They still talk about it in Bruges. And it was all for me. All for me.”

She picked up a jeweled cross given to me by Mother, held it to the light meekly filtering through the thick glass of the window, then put it down as if unimpressed.

“I was supping with my new husband in Ghent, watching yet another spectacle of dancing unicorns and men bursting out of hot pies in honor of my marriage, when one of the ranking gentlemen at the feast leaned toward my husband, a gold chain thick as a ship’s rope thudding against his chest. ‘Your Highness must wait to see what we have in store for you in Brussels,’ he said. ‘It will make this banquet look like an almsgiving.’

“And then, just as I was about to eat one more bite of minced peacock pie overseasoned with cloves, I realized: None of this was for me. Not the parades, not the tableaux, not a single dancing unicorn. None of it. It was all for the men, to show off to one another. Each was trying to prove he was richest, and the marriage of the Duke to me, sister of the English king—Margaret, if they bothered to learn my name—was just an excuse to do so.”

I turned away.

“Ah,” she cried, “I see you know of what I speak! We might as well be fattened beeves, sent by our kin to bring political favor. We were never meant to rule, just gifts to seal a treaty. Oh yes, I know how you feel. Though in your case, you are lucky. My grandson is a merry sort, unlike my ferocious Charles. I think Charles hated me from the minute we met and I had to bend down to receive his kiss, while he, all set jaw and beetling black brows, had to raise up on his toes to greet me. A man made to feel small all his life in comparison with his worshipped father does not take kindly to appearing short next to a woman.”