Reign of Madness (15 page)

I laid my hand on my husband’s. “I alone.”

15.

13 Mach anno Domini 1498

P
hilippe and I were in a chamber off the dining hall in

Hendrik’s palace in Brussels, readying for a Carnival entertainment in which we were to play a part. Hands on hips, Philippe turned his chin so that his man could fasten the brooch at his shoulder.

“Come now, Puss. How am I to be a good Julius Caesar when you are such a glum Cleopatra?”

The Dowager Duchess leaned on the arm of madame de Hallewin. “I was Cleopatra once. In a pageant for my birthday.”

I wriggled under the darting hands of my Burgundian ladies, tucking my supplice into my belt, adjusting the circlet around my head, pinching the pleats of my skirt. The ladies hovered like bees at a honeypot, not out of concern for me, but to raise their own importance in the eyes of the court—and some of them, so it seemed to me, in the eyes of my husband. I had not caught Philippe wandering, but a nagging sense of insecurity had again crept into my belly. Not that I had firm evidence of his infidelity. No, all I had was a glimpse of his hand resting overlong on a lady’s neck when he pointed to a duck on a hunt. Or the discovery of a long dark hair upon his collar. Or the sight of a lady turning away sharply when I entered the room in which she and my husband were together. When I had confronted him with these things, he had laughed and called me mad. Was I? I had begun to think it might be so. I felt tired and strange in the head.

“I am not glum.” I put on a toothy smile.

“Puss, please. A snake looks jollier. Is it the letter you received from your mother today? I don’t know why you even bother to read them, as much as they upset you. I hate to see them come.” His brooch now clasped, he motioned for his man to bring him wine. “What did she say this time?”

The Dowager craned her neck forward, whisking her veil from her ear as if to improve her hearing.

I would not tell them about Mother’s worry that she was becoming as hard as a diamond from holding in her grief. She begged for a letter, saying how much it would mean to her now. “She says nothing. She asks why I do not write to her.”

“You haven’t yet?” said Philippe.

The Dowager stiffened, like a fox picking up a scent.

The Viscountess of Furnes, resplendent in a gown of silvered blue, straightened the serpent on my circlet, grinding the band into my scalp. I winced under her heavy touch. “I recently wrote my first letter to her since our wedding. Our letters must have crossed.”

“Your first?” Philippe wiped his mouth and guffawed. “Oho—that’s my Puss! The most powerful woman in the world, and her little daughter won’t take the time to write to her. That must get her goat.”

“That’s not why I haven’t written,” I said, though that was precisely why, at one time. It had been the only power her “little daughter” had over her. Now it shamed me to have taken the coward’s route for so long. What a relief it had been to finally write her, though it had been difficult to think of what to say to vindicate myself. I had ended up telling her exactly what my reasons had been, childish as they were, and begged, sincerely, for her forgiveness. Now I both dreaded and longed for her response.

“I would not write to my father.” Philippe handed his goblet to his man. “But he’d have me killed. Maybe your mother is not so powerful after all. How does she keep her holdings together without a few well-placed murders? It’s the tried-and-true method in some lands.” He shook his head. “Our English cousins. Who is more violent to their kin than they? Grand-mère’s own brother snuffed their other brother. In a barrel of beer, no less.”

“Malmsey,” the Dowager said. “You make it sound so bad.”

Philippe shook his head, grinning. “Grand-mère. To you, nothing is so terrible as long as Englishmen do it.”

“How about the Florentines?” she demanded. “What about Giuliano de’ Medici? He was murdered during Mass by his rivals, with the foreknowledge of the Pope.”

“As for me,” said Philippe, “I’m glad to have Habsburg blood. At least we have the sense to marry into our lands. ‘Let others fight—you, happy Austria, marry.’ ”

“That’s the Habsburgs,” the Dowager said sourly. “So damn happy.”

I picked at my Egyptian-style skirt. I wished Philippe would not harp so gleefully on the fact that his kin married with a keen eye toward financial gain. Our marriage may not have been made as a love match, but at least he could publicly acknowledge that we did love each other now.

“On the other hand,” said Philippe, “Spaniards have ice in their veins. How many relatives did Pedro the Cruel have to kill to keep his crown?”

“That was a long time ago.”

“What was it, fifty years? One hundred? Two? Probably not so long ago that Grand-mère wasn’t toddling around then.”

The Dowager struck at his arm.

Philippe shied out of the way. “At least Juana’s mother didn’t kill her brother’s daughter to take the throne. She just called the girl’s mother a whore and the girl a bastard. A fairly brilliant piece of work, actually. Much less messy than a butt of malmsey.”

The Dowager made as if to chase him. The Burgundian ladies tittered. I would have protested, the reaction he was going for—oh, how he enjoyed trying to provoke me, like a child teasing a cat—but that night I was feeling curiously weak and weepy. I had been feeling thus for days. I attributed it to the excesses of Carnival. How Philippe would laugh and call me truly Spanish if he knew how much I longed for the austerity of Lent. After more than a year in these lands, I still could not eat and drink as they did at this court.

“Nun,” Philippe called to Beatriz, standing behind the Burgundian ladies. “Where is your costume? When are you going to give up that ugly habit?”

The Burgundians turned to watch with interest. But Beatriz was spared from having to answer, as Hendrik’s master of ceremonies hurried into the room.

“Your Graces, it is time to enter the hall. I beg of you to follow me. All others, please, take your places at the banquet.”

Philippe watched the Dowager and my ladies leave, his gaze remaining on Beatriz.

The master of ceremonies bowed and spread forth his hand. “Your Graces, this way, please.”

“Does your mother mention my sister in her letter?” He offered his arm.

In late December, Marguerite had lost her baby, a poor misshapen thing too early for a name. Mother had attached a brief note to her ambassador’s report, its very brevity revealing her pain.

“Not this time.”

“She didn’t say anything to you yet about our taking the title of Princes of Asturias? She must be on her deathbed, as quiet as she has been about it.”

“You must greatly want to be a prince.”

Philippe shifted under his breastplate. “Not really. Though what’s so terribly wrong with it?”

“I fear the titles will not be ours, regardless. Mother reports that my sister Isabel is pregnant.” I winced, hating to speak of such when my own womb was still empty.

“Ah, well, that’s old news. François told me a fortnight ago.”

I nodded. Of course. The Archbishop of Besançon knew everything. For a former tutor, he had risen high at court. Indeed, he was Philippe’s closest counselor. He filled my husband’s ears with state information important and trivial—delivered from a point of view that was always antagonistic to the Spanish. Should I be paying more attention to this?

“Does your mother say when the child is due?” Philippe asked.

“Perhaps the Archbishop could tell us.”

“Puss, sarcasm does not become you.”

I sighed. “August.”

The master of ceremonies showed us to a barge, ready to be rolled into the banqueting hall by a team of servants dressed as mermen.

Philippe kissed my cheek as we took our places before the costumed oarsmen. “I still love you.”

I glanced at him in alarm. Still?

Later, after we had been rolled into the hall to a roar of approval, and had acted our parts and finished our meal, I found myself, dizzy with drink, at the clavichord in Hendrik’s chamber of state. I was playing a duet with Hendrik himself, to which one of Philippe’s men sang suggestive lyrics, provoking drunken snorts and giggles from the ladies and gentlemen gathered around. No Spanish women were included, save Beatriz, who stood uncomfortably by the clavichord, hands clasped.

“Bravo!” yelled Philippe when we finished.

Our singer slumped to his knees, then onto his chin, before curling into a ball on the floor.

Philippe roared with laughter. Like a man with his tail afire, he made a charge for the tremendous bed Hendrik had constructed in the chamber.

“Everyone!” Philippe jumped on the mattress. “Join in!”

I watched from the clavichord as gentlemen, and ladies, too, scrambled onto the bed. Jewels thumping and brocades flapping, they began to bounce like so many spring lambs. Even the Archbishop of Besançon joined in, of a fashion, standing at the bedside and testing the mattress with his elbow.

“Glorious bed, Hendrik,” said Philippe, jumping highest. He would have it no other way. “I must have one. How many does it hold?”

From next to me on the bench, Hendrik called out, “Fifty. Side by side.” He gave me an apologetic grimace. “It was made to toss gentlemen on when they’ve had too much to drink. I never pictured the ladies joining in.”

“Shortsighted of you,” Philippe roared, somehow able to hear us above the jiggling hilarity surrounding him. The Viscountess of Furnes hopped before him, her pneumatic cheeks dimpled in a grin. She brought him into a contest with her jumps.

Hendrik saw me watching. “You’d better get up there.”

“I think I should vomit,” I said coldly.

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.