Reign of Madness (20 page)

24.

7 May anno Domini 1502

W
e were on the road to Toledo. Behind us were mountains, distant and purple; ahead of us, an undulating carpet of grassland, dusty green against the endless blue sky. Here and there hillocks pushed up from the expanse, crowned with gnarled gray olive trees. Who tended these trees? Some fifty leagues to the north, on the plains near Zamora, farmers had dug homes into the sides of the hillocks. On progresses of my youth, I had seen them crawl out from their grass-roofed dwellings to plow the fields and mind their goats. But here there was no sign of life other than the bustards that waddled frantically through the grasses, panicked by the cavalcade that raised the ocher cloud wafting at our knees. The dust muffled the rattle of tossing bridles. It muted the tinkling of the thimble-sized bells hanging from the Canopy of State just before me, under which my husband’s and my father’s horses ambled side by side.

Plodding behind on my palfrey, I marveled at the sight of them. There was my papa, sitting upright, his scarlet cape spread over his horse’s thick haunches, his black hair streaked with gray under a crown heavy with rubies and diamonds. There was my husband, father of my children, proud, young, and golden, in his purple satin doublet and robe. I had worshipped both, once. I wished I still could.

It had been two weeks since I had first seen Papa. After we had kissed and embraced, he had held me out from himself. I could hardly bear the apologetic look in his eyes; it was as if he knew that I no longer idolized him, and agreed with my assessment.

“Juana.” His smile was heartbreakingly shy. “May I ask how that shirt you are making me might be coming along?”

Oh, Papa. So many things have changed. I am no longer a little girl. “Your shirt? I shall have it to you on Tuesday.”

Hope flickered in his eyes. “Then on Tuesday, I shall look like a king.”

My heart ached. For him, I would remain a child. “But Papa, you already are a king.”

The sweetness of reconciliation had warmed me as we had embraced again. If only one could forget as easily as one forgave. But in spite of the guarded happiness our fragile new détente gave me, the knot in my belly clenched even as I watched him and Philippe riding ahead under the Canopy of State.

I would see Mother today.

The jewel on Philippe’s cap swung out as he leaned toward Papa. “Monseigneur, how shall I address your wife when I meet her?”

“Isabel?” Papa grinned. “Isabel.”

“I can hardly call her that.”

“She’s not one to stand on ceremony, my boy. Address her any way you like, as long as you don’t wear that wig you wore in Medina.”

They laughed like old friends. Indeed, they seemed to have taken to each other immediately, in spite of Papa’s meeting Philippe under the most ignoble circumstances. We had been two leagues out of Toledo when Philippe had succumbed to chicken pox. The father of three, Archduke of Austria, Good Counselor, lover, and hunter, had been laid low by a child’s disease.

Father had ridden out from Toledo to meet us in our makeshift lodging in Olias. Poor Philippe had to receive him in his shift and shivering under a blanket, with clear pustules bubbling upon his face.

Now Philippe said, “I wish you had been in Medina, Monseigneur. The things you can do as the common man! It was brilliant of Pedro to think of disguising me in the wig and leather doublet of a soldier. I pinched all the titties I wanted without having to flip some proud papa a
maravedí
for the privilege. It’s pay the piper if you have a title to your name.”

Papa gave him a sidelong look, then mostly regained his amiable expression. “I dressed up once, to go meet my wife. Her brother didn’t favor the match and would have had me murdered had he known I was in Castile. I was costumed like a muleteer—did Juana tell you about it?”

“No, Monseigneur.”

I had. He did not remember.

“Surprising,” Papa said. “Well, it was quite a role to play. I had to curry the mules and feed them. To tell you the truth, I got to where I enjoyed it. Anyhow, my daughters love that story.”

Correction: Daughter. María. And to be honest, Catalina, too, now sixteen and in England, meeting, at last, the boy to whom she had been two years wed by proxy. Would she find young Arthur to her liking? Not that it would change her fate to become Princess of Wales, and someday, Queen of England.

A cough came from behind me.

I turned to see Beatriz, leaning forward on her pillion as she urged her horse ahead of madame de Hallewin’s gray palfrey. She caught my eye and nodded toward Papa and Philippe, indicating that I should join them under the canopy. Rightfully, I was to be at the head of the procession, since I was Mother’s true heir, not Philippe. Indeed, I was surprised to see Papa endorsing Philippe so openly. In this country, Philippe the Good was fast becoming known as Philippe the Drunken Reveler.

How happy he looked now, riding with Papa. He savored these ceremonies in a way I never could. But the more deference the Spanish showed him, at least to his face, the more he seemed to hunger for the crowns. He was as his
grand-mère
had said: a man whose appetite grew more voracious from eating.

I heard quickened hoofbeats behind me. The Archbishop of Besançon trotted his horse up next to Beatriz, the lappets of his miter flapping. He guided his mount into her path, forcing her animal to step back so that madame de Hallewin’s palfrey could come cantering around her. The Viscountess of Furnes, as creamy as ever in silvered blue, followed in madame’s wake, a sweet smile upon her lips.

I turned around, the fist doubling in my gut.

“Does the Queen’s health improve?” Philippe asked Papa.

Papa had come to Olias without Mother, who said she was ill. But it was rarely sickness that kept Mother in her bed. If her nobles disobeyed her, she would not punish them at the rack or by whipping but would stay under her covers, claiming her body suffered from the blows of their contempt. Only when they bent to her will would she get up, and then all of the Spains would seem sunnier. It did not bode well that she had not risen to meet me.

“The herald said she was sitting up,” said Papa, “and able to take some broth this morning.”

“I must admit, Monseigneur, that she frightens me just a bit.”

Papa chuckled. “You must not worry. She has that effect on everyone. You should have seen the Moorish army when she charged up to the gates of Granada on a warhorse.”

“I cannot see Juana doing that.”

Papa smiled at me over his shoulder. “Oh, Juana’s a good girl. I never have to worry about her.”

Philippe twisted around in his saddle. “Are you doing well, Madame?”

“Yes, Monseigneur.”

He nodded, then turned back quickly, as if afraid I might claim my rightful place in the procession.

Ahead, the towers of Toledo rose above the plains. Inside the city walls erected by the Visigoths, fortified by the Moors, and now flying the colors of Castile and Aragón, Mother awaited.

Dear saints in Heaven, save me.

Mother’s hair was more white than I remembered, less red. In fact, I remembered no white at all. Pouches had been pulled out from under her chin, and gray bags from under her eyes, in the five and a half years that had passed. I could see them even at that distance across the hall. She wore plain black and her favorite crown, the one of delicate filigree upon a wide plain band of silver. I had tried it on, once, as a child, when she was meeting with her counselors. Its thick rim had slipped down my head and dug into the tender flesh at the top of my ears. How did she sit under that ring of pain for hours on end? I had prized it off and promptly dropped it on my foot. I would not tell my nurse why I was crying when she had come to get me, though my toe had throbbed as if broken.

My husband now took my hand and we started forward after Papa. I gazed in panic at the tapestries on the wall and the ladies and gentlemen lined up before them, dipping as we passed. Mother’s dear friend Beatriz de Bobadilla stood next to her, glancing nervously between my mother and me. A young woman near my age stood on Mother’s other side. Only the highest grandee or my kin would have such a place of honor. Did I know her?

Papa reached Mother and kissed her cheeks, and then kissed the cheeks of the unknown girl. Was she the daughter of the Constable of Castile, the older gentleman on her left, or of the Duke of Villena, at whose palace Mother was receiving us? No matter whose daughter she was, shouldn’t she be on her knees, waiting to kiss the hand of her King?

Philippe squeezed my fingers. Though he held up his chin and smiled nonchalantly, I could feel him tremble.

We came before Mother. We started to kneel.

I felt a touch on my shoulder.

“I had told your attendants that I would not have this. Up, Juana, up. You, too, Don Philippe.”

When I raised my eyes, Mother opened her arms.

She embraced me first. While we kissed, I heard the scrape of my husband’s shoes as he shifted nervously.

She let go of me, then held out her arms to him. “My son.” When she was clasping him to herself, I caught the glance of the young woman I did not know. Dark-haired, olive-skinned, she kept flicking me looks as if she wished to stare but was afraid to do so.

Mother released Philippe, then folded her hands over her belly, which had grown more substantial. “What a lovely couple you make. My ambassador tells me your children are strong and beautiful. He says little Charles rides a pony like a man.”

Did her ambassador also report my son’s troubles with language? Or his small stature, from his difficulties with eating?

Philippe grinned, unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge his son’s struggles. “I’ll have him at the lists before you know it. I’m having a suit of armor made for him.”

“There is time enough for that,” said Mother.

“Juana.” She turned to me and searched my face. After a moment, she said, “You remember doña Beatriz de Bobadilla?”

Mother’s lady kissed my hand, then smiled coolly as if censuring me.

“And this is Juana of Aragón, the wife of Don Bernardino.”

I put out my hand for the girl to kiss. So she was the young wife of the aging Constable of Castile. I blinked away the image of tender flesh being kneaded by hardened hands.

Her lips were pressed to my knuckles when Mother said, “She is your half sister.”

This Juana raised herself, an uncomfortable smile twitching at her mouth.

I did not understand. I had no half sister.

“We welcome her to court,” Mother said.

A half sister would make her Papa’s daughter.

I looked to Papa, but his face was blank. The courtiers turned their gazes away as I sought an explanation in their expressions.

Concerned only with his own thoughts, and so immune to the tension throbbing in the air, Philippe spoke into the silence.

“Your Majesty—”

“Mother,” Mother corrected.

“My Lady Mother, we visited the tombs of your parents.”

Mother smiled with surprise. “You went to Miraflores? How is the work coming along?”

“Most magnificently, Madame. There was much gold everywhere, even upon the fence that surrounded them.”

“Don’t be fooled. A nugget the size of a pea can be hammered into a sheet as large as my veil. But it is beautiful, isn’t it? It came from the Indies, you know. Admiral Colón’s gold.”

“Colón is bringing back more than slaves and pestilence?” Philippe grinned at the courtiers as if to bring them in on his joke.

“I should think so,” said Mother, unsmiling, “or I would not be sending him back a fourth time.” She gazed down her line of stone-faced gentlemen until she found one near the door. “Don Diego’s father should be sailing from Cadiz any day now.”

I followed her eyes to a young man dressed in her livery of scarlet and gold. Diego Colón bent into a slow bow. He was taller than I remembered, and thinner, but every bit as self-possessed, and, I found myself thinking
,
more handsome than ever in his quiet way. Had he returned to court from Salamanca?

Mother grasped my hand. “My dear son,” she said to Philippe, “do you mind if I borrow your wife for a moment? We do need to chat.”