The Last Queen (15 page)

My teeth cut into my lip. I unfolded my mother‟s letter. I forced myself to read it,

every word, and it was as though she stood in the room with me, her presence like

immutable stone. It read just as I‟d supposed― a matriarchal chastisement of a prince

who overstepped his bounds. Her high-handed treatment made me want to tear the

letter to shreds, even as I knew she only did what Besançon had goaded her to.

Beatriz came in, her pallor showing she‟d overheard everything. “
Princesa,
can I

help?”

I nodded. “Yes. Go and see if you can find out when Philip is scheduled to

return.”

She slipped out. Folding the letter into precise squares, I set it on my desk and

went to the window. Outside, the day had started to fade, the ebbing sun casting gold

over the Néthe and the hedges and flower beds of the gardens. I was not so naïve as

to think Philip would not hear first from Besançon that we‟d had an altercation, but

he would still come to me. He would come and I would ask him to send that odious

man away. I could not live under the same roof with him anymore. He had to go, for

the health of our unborn child if nothing else.

Beatriz returned to tell me Philip had indeed gone out riding but he had taken

only a small entourage and was expected back by nightfall. Throughout the rest of the

evening, as my women endeavored to distract me, I waited. Soraya and Beatriz served

my supper, but I picked at the food, looking at the door every time I heard footsteps

in the corridor. I sent Beatriz back out; she reported on her return that Philip had just arrived and gone to his apartments.

“He must be changing his clothes,” I said. I took up my neglected embroidery and

set myself to work, anticipating his arrival. The mechanical clock on my mantel

chimed each hour with excruciating slowness. By midnight, I realized he had no

intention of seeing me tonight. It was the first time we hadn‟t spent an evening

together while in the same palace, and as my women snuffed out the candles and

retired to their pallets I paced my bedchamber, my mind awhirl.

I began to imagine the worst, Besançon‟s words tumbling over and over in my

head. The choice he mentioned could only mean Philip would turn to France. He‟d

forge an alliance with Spain‟s enemy to spite my parents and bend them to his will,

causing me no end of trouble.

I slipped into a robe and low-heeled slippers. Doña Ana slept in a separate room,

and as I tiptoed past my ladies in the antechamber, I motioned to my ever-attentive

Beatriz to stay put.

On fleet feet I moved through the darkened palace, encountering only the

occasional stray hound, dozing courtier in an alcove and the night sentries.

At the door to his antechamber, I paused. In the small watching-room, the

candles were doused, the fire ebbing. The page who usually slept here, ready to attend

to whatever Philip might need in the middle of the night was nowhere in sight.

I was relieved. Let Philip express his frustrations while I listened patiently,

knowing there were no ready ears in the antechamber, recording every word. I had no

doubt I would win. The archbishop, for all his guile, was no match for a visibly

pregnant and anxious wife.

His bedchamber door was ajar and I saw flickering candles within. I felt a rush of

pity. He too was awake, probably unable to sleep, distressed as I was, uncertain as to―

I heard a burst of muffled laughter. I glanced over my shoulder. Was the page

here after all, entertaining some guest in the corner? Another burst of laughter rang

out, immediately followed by a unmistakable voice. “Be quiet, wench. You‟ll wake the

entire palace.”

I froze where I stood. The moment fractured about me. My hand poised over the

door‟s latch; without knowing what I was about to do, I pushed it open on its oiled

hinges.

His bed sat directly before me, the silver and blue brocade curtains pulled back. I

had a fleeting impression of rumpled white sheets before my gaze dropped to the

floor. Clothing littered the trampled rushes. I stared at a woman‟s overturned white

satin shoe. All sound faded. I lifted my gaze, slowly, in mounting horrified disbelief,

my entire body turned to ice.

The candelabra on the sideboard tossed his shadow onto the wainscoting, slashing

light across bare skin. Fleshy thighs poke out at either side of his hips, lifted in midair, the red-nailed toes curling upward. I saw the supple muscles of his buttocks flexing,

his spine tensing under his back as he increased his pace, plunging into the creature

beneath him.

Sound rushed back to me in a sickening deluge. I heard groans, whimpers, the

slapping of skin against skin, and a woman‟s voice saying over and over,
“Oui, mon

coeur, oui, oui, oui―”

Philip arched, released a husky groan I knew well, then shuddered and collapsed.

The white thighs beneath his splendid body splayed onto the mattress. He rolled over,

a hand at his brow, his mouth curved in a satiated smile. The woman, half-submerged

within the pillows piled against the bed‟s headboard, gave a laugh, her large, blue-

veined breasts jiggling as she pushed tangled flaxen tresses from her face and sat

upright.

Her eyes flew at me. She let out a small high pitched gasp.
“Mon Dieu!”

Philip chuckled. “What now? Didn‟t you get enough, you greedy slut?” and he

looked about. I looked straight at him, at his stil -hard and wet sex. Tears burned in

the corners of my eyes.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, and I turned blindly back into the antechamber.

Behind me, there was commotion. Philip‟s brusque order: “Get out!” Bare feet hit

the floor. I pressed a fist into my mouth, fighting back a wail of pain and sorrow as I

saw the woman creep past me, gown and undergarments and white shoes clutched

against her.

I did not know who she was. I might have passed her a hundred times in the

gallery or in the hall and never know she‟d bedded my husband.

Then I heard Philip come up behind me. I whirled about. He‟d tossed on a scarlet

robe. “My infanta, I―” He looked chastened, like a boy caught misbehaving.

“How― how could you?” I heard myself say, the plaintive, distraught tone foreign

to my ears. “How could you do this to me?”

“I didn‟t mean to hurt you,” he muttered. He did not try to touch me, his hands

awkward at his sides. I wondered if his fingers smelled of her. “It was a bit of sport. It was nothing.”

“Nothing?” I whispered. My tears broke free. “You call it nothing, when you

betrayed me?”

“Betrayed you?” For a moment he seemed bewildered. “What, because of her? I

told you, she‟s nothing. A pastime. I‟ve had a dozen just like―” He stopped, eyes

widening.

“You‟ve done this before?” I echoed. and a sob thickened my voice.

“No, no.” He made a sudden move, his hand coming up as if to sooth me. I

flinched, recoiled. “I swear, not since our marriage,” he said hastily. “Please, Juana, I promise you.”

I wanted to believe him. The betrayal I felt was so unbearable, so unthinkable, I

wanted only for it to go away, for his touch to make me forget the searing memory of

him pumping his seed to into another.

But I didn‟t, because I knew I could never forget. Something precious and

irreparable had broken inside me.

“I must go,” I said, and I started to the door, moving like a woman underwater.

He caught my arm, not hard, but enough to pull me back. “Where are you

going?” he said, and I saw a flicker of impatience in his gaze.

“Away.” I pulled from his grip. “Anywhere but here.”

“What? This is ridiculous! All husbands do it, Juana. When their wife is with child,

they seek comfort elsewhere. It hardly matters.”

I felt my heart turn over. He was a stranger. I had made a terrible mistake. I had

married a man I did not know. An intense rage came over me. “Is that what Besançon

told you,” I said through my teeth, “that it doesn‟t matter? That you may do as you

please because I am with child? Well, it does matter! It matters to me! I am your wife!

And I loved you!”

“I was angry,” he flung back. “God‟s death, I was angry and hurt. Your mother

insulted me. She denied me my right as your husband and chastised me as if I were a

snot-nosed brat. I didn‟t mean for you to find out. Had you stayed in your rooms,

you‟d never have known.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “you‟re right. I would have never known. And you would

never have told me.” I turned away again, to the door.

He said, “Juana, come back. Please, let us talk about this. You‟re being

unreasonable.”

I moved into the corridor. I paused, looking around as if I had never seen this

place before. He stood silhouetted by the open doorway, the candlelight behind him. I

could not see his face.

I broke into a desperate run. I didn‟t know where I was headed, only that once I

reached my chambers, I must have looked a fright, my hair disheveled, my bare feet

soiled from the passageways, my slippers discarded somewhere behind me.

Beatriz and my other women were awake, waiting. They gaped when they saw me.

“Start packing,” I cried. “We are leaving. Now.”

__________________________________

took my ladies back to Brussels. I would not confess to anyone, not even to my

beloved Beatriz, even as my pain and humiliation and anger ate at me like a

I canker. I ordered the startled staff in Brussels to ready my rooms, and though

they were only half-done cleansing the palace from our previous stay, without fresh

rushes on the floors or laundered carpets, tapestries or linens, the stinking slop piles

not yet carted away, I ensconced myself in my apartments and acted as if I had an

entire court about me.

Not once in two full weeks did Philip‟s name cross my lips.

At first, I made up wild plans to depart for Spain as soon as my child was born,

return home to the Alhambra to raise him as a Spanish prince. I wept more tears than

I care to recount when I thought of never seeing Philip again, but then like an injured

person fingers their wound, I made myself recall that scene in his bedroom and feel

again the terrible disbelief. I didn‟t know if he had done it before or if he would do it again, but he had shattered my trust in him and as the days passed I began to wonder

if everything we‟d felt, everything we‟d shared, the passion and laughter, the dancing

and sleepless nights, had been an illusion.

I‟d always known infidelity was an unfortunate but common part of marriage. My

father adored my mother yet had had mistresses. My mother never raised protest, at

least not publically. In fact, when one mistress bore him a son, and another a daughter

named Joanna, she had both children brought to court to be reared as befitted their

rank. The mistresses were also found suitable husbands, once my father‟s interest

waned. But how had Queen Isabel felt when she first discovered this rupture in what

she believed was the perfect union? Had she wept, railed at my father in private? Or

had she displayed only equanimity, burying her pain deep within? If so, I knew I

should do the same, if only because, like her, I had no other choice. Philip was my

spouse; I had no say in how he chose to behave. I should consider myself fortunate

he was young, comely and that he cared for me. Other princesses contented

themselves with far less.

And still, I couldn‟t accept it. The fact he‟d bedded another woman hurt me less

than the realization that he hadn‟t cared to deny himself. He‟d thought of his own

satisfaction rather than our love, squandering it the moment a difficulty came our way.

It felt careless, callous, the act of a vengeful boy, and I feared I might never find the resignation I needed to forgive him.

Then one afternoon, as I prepared to take my daily walk in the gardens, Beatriz

rushed in. “Your Highness, the archduchess Margaret is here, she insists that you

receive her.”

I went still. “Here? Why? I thought she―” My voice faded. The door opened and

Philip‟s sister swept in, clad head-to-toe in black, her hands outstretched.
“Ma chérie.”

She smothered me in her embrace, then drew back to regard me with a searching

look. I saw at once, she knew. She had returned home from Spain and seen Philip.

He‟d told her of our estrangement and now she was here, to make amends. But why

was she still in mourning?

I said quietly, “You wear black.”

“Yes,” Margaret lowered her eyes.

“But the six months of mourning for my brother are done.”

She whispered, “Oh, my dear, it‟s as I feared. You don‟t know. You haven‟t been

told.”

I met her eyes. The chamber started to keel. “Told what?” I heard myself say.

She did not speak. A tear slid down her cheek.

“Dear God,” I said, “what is it? Is it Philip? Has something happened to him?”

“No, my brother is well. He waits downstairs. He didn‟t know if you would see

him.”

I stiffened. “Philip is here?”

She took me by the arm. “I am not here for him. My dear, your sister Isabella― I

am so sorry. She is dead.”

I heard her words in utter silence. Then I said, “No. That is impossible.”

“I know it must come as a shock,” said Margaret. “Her pregnancy went so well,

almost perfect. No one expected the birth to be so hard on her. Your mother sent