The Last Queen (16 page)

word, asking Philip to spare you the news until after your own child‟s birth. But when

I got to Lierre after that infernally long sea voyage and he told me what happened, I

insisted we must come to you at once. I didn‟t want you to be alone, in case you

learned the dreadful news elsewhere.”

My breath evaporated from my lungs. I did not feel myself move as memories

crashed over me. I saw Isabella in her widow‟s garb, mourning her dead prince; her

disapproval when Catalina and I escaped into the Alhambra‟s gardens; and I

remembered her words on the day I left Spain. She‟d said we would never see each

other again in his life. How had she known?

I buried my face in my hands. “God, it cannot be. Not again. Not my poor sister.”

Margaret moved to embrace me when a quiet voice said, “My infanta.”

I looked up. He stood in the doorway, his cap in hand. He looked pale, thin. “I

have your mother‟s letter,” he said. “I‟m afraid it‟s true. Isabella is dead.”

From my bedchamber door, Doña Ana let out a anguished wail. Beatriz guided

my bereaved duenna away. Philip approached me. I met his eyes. “My sister‟s child, is

it―”

“He is. A boy christened Miguel. But the birth nearly killed him too. Your mother

had taken him to Granada in hope his health will improve.”

“Granada. Yes, the air is pure there. Granada will heal him.”

I felt Philip take my hand. I was so cold. I wondered if I would ever feel warm

again. He said softly, “Please, forgive me,” and the pain resurfaced soft as a blade.

I pulled back. “I can‟t. Not now. Please, go. You‟ve done your duty. Let me grieve

in peace.”

His mouth tightened. “Juana, how long will you let this come between us?”

“I don‟t know,” I whispered, and I walked into my bedchamber without a

backward glance, closing the door on his frozen figure, Margaret helpless at his side.

I turned the key. Then I sat on the bed beside Doña Ana. Beatriz and Soraya

flanked us like silent sentinels as I put my arms about my poor duenna and let myself

weep.

_________________

I WENT INTO SECLUSION FOR THE OFFICIAL PERIOD OF mourning for my sister;

this time I did not deviate from the prescribed protocol. Directly afterward, I entered

confinement for childbirth in early November of 1498. After surprisingly few hours

of labor, I gave birth to a girl who was later christened Eleanor. The midwives and

physicians hastened to alleviate what the perceived as my disappointment with the

declaration that my apparent facility for childbirth indicated I would in time bear a

son. I nodded, hiding my covert pleasure. In bearing a daughter and not the prince he

had craved, I‟d thwarted Besançon‟s ambitions.

Philip demonstrated only joy in the squealing infant. My official presentation to

the applauding court after my churching and release from confinement concealed the

stalemate that had developed between us. We shared the same palace, attended the

hall to dine together, but after our public duties were done, I went alone to my rooms

and bolted my door. Though he tried at various times to implore me to reason, I

would not listen to him. I was hurt and confused; I had never expected Philip to want

another woman, much less bed her, and I did not know what to do next. I should

have been the happiest woman in the world, with a new baby and a husband who, in

the eyes of the world, was the perfect price, but I had never felt more wretched or

alone.

Following the new year‟s festivities of 1499, Margaret came to my apartments.

Her father, the emperor, had betrothed her to the Duke of Savoy, an elderly lord with

rich holdings, and she had been summoned to Vienna to meet her new bridegroom. I

liked my sister-in-law. She was a lively, intelligent woman who‟d survived my brother‟s

death and now faced another arranged marriage with equanimity; and upon hearing

her news, I gave her a brittle smile.

“I‟ll miss you,” I said.

She set hands on hips. “I‟m leaving next week, though I hardly see how I can with

matters as they are. Exactly how much longer to you intend to go on punishing

yourself? My brother is despondent. He barely eats or sleeps. And neither do you, by

the looks of it.”

“He betrayed me,” I retorted. “Why should he be despondent?”

She sighed, “
Ma chérie,
if every wife locked her door to her husband when she

caught him with his hose down, there‟d not be another legitimate child born in this

world.”

I knew she spoke the truth. After much reflection and tears, I knew it was a wife‟s

lot, and yet I couldn‟t resign myself. I didn‟t want to be one of those women who

turned the other cheek when her husband strayed. I didn‟t want to become my

mother.

“I‟ve tried to forgive him,” I said haltingly. “God only knows how much.” I

paused, meeting Margaret‟s gaze. “Should I pretend it never happened? Is that what

you advise?”

“No. He knows what he‟s done.” She stepped to me. “But you love him, and he

loves you. Believe me, pride makes for a very poor bedmate. At least, let him come to

you. Give him the opportunity to atone for his mistake.”

“How can he atone? How can I know it won‟t happen again?”

“You can‟t.” She sighed. “My dear, you are still so young in matters of the heart.

You do not understand that men are more imperfect than we are, for all their bluster

that we are the weaker sex. Who knows why a man strays? But I know this much: he

never meant to hurt you. He‟s simply more of a child than you, a boy forced to grow

up too soon. And when boys feel rejected or betrayed, they lash out, often at those

they love the most.”

“I did not betray him! I did not deny him the title he sought.”

“I know. All his life Philip has been taught that his overriding duty is to seek his

aggrandizement as a prince and when a Habsburg is wronged he must take his

vengeance.”

“I understand that. But he is a man now, and Besançon does him no favors. He

relies too much on that man.” I resisted the urge to add that I knew Besançon had

orchestrated this fissure on my marriage, that he had put Philip up to it, perhaps even

selected the woman. That day we confronted each other, he had warned me. He as

much as declared I should not aim above his power over Philip, and then he went and

made sure I understood my limitations.

“That may be,” said Margaret. “But you are his wife, not Besançon‟s. You must

find it in yourself to forgive him, because you are the stronger one.” She took my

hands in hers. “You‟ve no idea how much I prayed that he would find a wife like you,

to give him the happiness and care he so desperately needs. My brother lives in a hard

world. To survive, he‟s learned to close off his heart. But with time and patience, you

can make him see the error in his ways.”

How could I resist such a plea? I couldn‟t imaging the years stretching ahead

devoid of the companionship, the love and unity I‟d thought I had found. I was

nineteen. I had my entire life to live. And I wanted to share it with the man I had wed.

“I will speak to him, if you want me to,” she added, and I nodded, hugging her

close.

“I am sorry that I‟ve only given you more burdens to carry,” I murmured.

“Ah,
chérie,
” she replied, “what is a sister-in-law for? Were it not for the burdens of others, my own might be too great.”

We kissed each other‟s cheeks, and she left to pack for her trip to Austria.

Alone in my chamber, I let something dark and painful untangle in my heart. It

unraveled slowly, barb by barb, and I at last allowed myself the forgiveness I had

denied us both.

_________________

EIGHT DAYS LATER, AFTER MARGARET‟S FAREWELL BANQUET, Philip came to me.

I was sitting at my gilded dressing table as Beatriz removed my jewels. When I saw his

reflection in my mirror, a silhouette in white, I raised my hand. My women melted

from the room.

He hovered in the archway, as though afraid to cross the threshold. I drew a

breath.

“You may come in.”

He moved into the room. He looked as handsome as the day we‟d met, the

sapphires in his doublet catching the candlelight, vying in vain with the intense blue of his eyes, the shoulder-length hair streaked with white gold from riding under the sun

without a cap.

I looked up into his eyes. “Why?” I asked.

He frowned. “What?”

“Why? Why did you do it?”

He lowered his eyes. “I told you, I was angry. Besançon showed me your mother‟s

letter and it was as if I were with my father again, being told I wasn‟t worthy.”

“I see.” I looked down for a moment. I understood, as much as I didn‟t like it. He

had been refused his sovereign independence by his own Estates-General, only then

to be rejected by my parents. Though he‟d never had any right to ask it of them, he

had not intended to offend, nor could he admit as I did that his favored lord

chancellor Besançon, had led him astray.

“My infanta,” he said softly, and he looked at me with a sorrow that cut to my

core. “I‟ve never asked for forgiveness from anyone before. But I am asking it from

you now.”

My throat nodded. “I― I want to. But you must promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Never again. Promise me, you‟ll never do it again.”

“I promise,” he said, and I could not control myself any longer. I reached out to

him, and he was suddenly in my arms, crushing me to him, as if he‟d been starved of

sustenance. He peeled off my clothes, and swept me to the bed, my hair entwined in

his fingers, my arms about him as by the light of the candle on the dressing table he

tore off his own clothes. I reveled in the interplay of flame and shadow across the

muscular body I knew so well and had missed so much.

Afterward, I traced his lips. He drew me close, coiling our legs and arms. A

sudden chill ran through me. I turned to him, searching. His eyes had already closed

in sleep.

_________________

I WAS OVERJOYED WHEN A FEW MONTHS LATER I REALIZED I HAD conceived

again. Phillip moved us back to Lierre and its canals and timber-framed houses; he

threw lavish feasts, bought me jewels, gowns, and perfumes. This time, we would be

blessed. This time, he declared, I would bear a son.

In early September, he departed for another convening of his Estates-General.

This time, he went well armed, having spent weeks beforehand with Besançon,

drawing up legal arguments and statutes that proved he had reached his maturity. He

took the archbishop with him, which was just as well. Though I hadn‟t told Philip

about our confrontation that awful day, Besançon knew by my frigid stance he‟d do

best to keep to his proper place. Seeing as I was again with child, he did.

I remained in my comfortable apartments to nurture the babe in my womb with

my little girl, Eleanor, by my side, As with my first pregnancy, I suffered only a few

weeks of the wretched nausea that prostrated other women and soon grew bored of

sitting around all day. My midwives bled me, gathered around the basin to gauge my

humors. They announced every sign indicated I carried a son, and I should indeed

engage in some mild exercise to fortify his growth.

So I walked in the galleries, selected fabrics for my birthing chamber, and spent

hours with Eleanor, who was a lovely, inquisitive babe. I also wrote to my sister

Catalina, who recently celebrated her fourteenth birthday, telling her all my news and

begging word of her. She wrote back a lengthy letter that startled me with its maturity,

relating that Castile had suffered a terrible winter but that our little nephew the infante was improving and my sister Maria had wed the widowed Manuel of Portugal.

Catalina added she was due to set sail for England soon and had begun exchanging

personal letters with her betrothed, Prince Arthur. She thought him a noble and

sincere prince, who seemed eager to meet her in person.

Remembering my anxieties when I learned I must leave Spain, I sent a reassuring

letter in return and enclosed a gold bracelet as a gift.

Be brave,
mi pequeñita, I told her.
You wil soon find that marriage is a blessed state.

_________________

IN FEBRUARY OF 1500, as an early and unexpected snow drifted over Brussels,

where‟d we come to stay after the New Year and where I delayed entering my

confinement, dreading the weeks of seclusion waiting for my child to be born, Beatriz

awoke me with news of Philip‟s return after five months of toil with his Estates-

General. I had received several letters from him in the interim, each relating that he

was closer than he‟d ever been to gaining his autonomy as a prince. Ignoring Doña

Ana‟s objection that I was far too close to my time to risk leaving my chambers, I rose

from bed, clapping my hands. My ladies trudged sleepily into the room.

“My toilette articles,” I said. “Fetch them. And my new gown with the extra panel

as well.”

An hour later, they stepped back to allow me a full view of myself in the mirror.

I could not believe it. I stared in awe at my rose-tinted cheeks , their angularity

rounded by extra weight. My eyes shone bright, my curvaceous figure accentuated by

the gown‟s cut, the bodice pushing up my full breasts, the overskirt with its extra waist panel draping in a swirling column over my belly to my feet. I gasped, my hands