The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile (14 page)

“Yes,” added Girón, spraying spit as he eyed the sentries, his fist clenching his sword as if he longed to lunge at the impassive Moors. “You can hide behind your infidel filth all you like, but in the end God’s truth
will
prevail!”

For a terrifying instant I thought Enrique would order his sentries to cut the marquis, his brother, and their men down; but he only stood there, trembling, his bewildered expression revealing he couldn’t believe any of this was happening.

“Do something,” Juana hissed at him. “Arrest them. They are lying; it is treason.”

“Is it?” said Enrique coldly. She recoiled. He looked at Villena. “You have my leave to depart this court if you no longer agree with my policies. But let me warn you, treason will not be tolerated, no matter how righteous you may think the cause.”

“I’ll remember that,” said Villena. With a mocking bow, he turned and made his way out. Girón brandished his sword again at Cueva, whose bruised face drained to sickly white. Then the marquis’s brother trudged out, barking lewd comments at a group of terrified court women huddled by the doors.

The sentries remained in position; Enrique uttered something in their native tongue and they retreated in unison, like well-trained hounds. I had no doubt that if he had ordered it, they’d have killed Villena and Girón without hesitation.

Juana swept from the dais, her ladies rushing to join her as she left the hall. Standing dazed and alone, Cueva looked imploringly to Enrique, who turned away. Only then did I notice Archbishop Carrillo bustling into the hall from a side entrance, concern visible on his florid features, Cabrera and several of the palace guards in his wake.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “I’ve just been informed. It’s an outrage! Villena goes too far. May I—”

Enrique whispered, “Take them away.”

Carrillo motioned. “Come, my children. Quickly.”

Alfonso and I stumbled from our chairs; Beatriz emerged from the watching courtiers to join us. As Carrillo led us out, I saw Enrique crumple upon his throne, burying his face in his hands as though he’d been delivered a mortal blow.

In the passageway, Carrillo directed Cabrera to take us to our apartments. “See that they stay inside tonight,” he said, and something in his voice, a dark edge, made me look at Alfonso, standing by the archbishop and his guards with a frightened cast on his face.

Cabrera began to herd us away; I heard the clanking of the sentries’ armor as they moved with Carrillo and my brother in the other direction.

Then Alfonso cried, “Isabella!” and I reeled about. He ran to me, throwing himself into my embrace. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I didn’t mean it. You’re not silly. It’s just that I … I am so scared.”

“Why? What is it, Alfonso? Why are you afraid?” As I spoke, I looked past him to where Carrillo stood impatiently, hands at his hips, his white robe flowing to his booted ankles, slightly parted to reveal a black tunic underneath, his broad waist encircled by a leather belt thicker than my arm, from which hung a sheathed sword.

He also was wearing a weapon at court. A man of God, garbed like a warrior. I had the sudden image of him roaring with bloodlust on a battlefield, swinging his broadsword as he cut off heads, and my heart started to pound.

“Stay here with us,” I said to Alfonso. “Please, don’t go with him.”

My brother shook his head. “I cannot. I promised I would do my duty. I’m sorry, Isabella.” He kissed me gently and returned to Carrillo. I stood still, as the light from the high windows filtered in dusty shafts
around me, watching the archbishop set his arm across my brother’s shoulders like an oak beam, guiding Alfonso away.

I wanted to run after them, make Alfonso swear to me that he’d not do anything to risk his life.

But I already knew that nothing I said or did could change what would occur. He was right: I was only a silly girl, without any influence; without any power to decide the course of our lives.

At that moment, I knew it would be a long time before I saw my brother again.

T
WO DAYS LATER
, as Beatriz and I huddled in our candlelit room and listened to the leopards in the king’s menagerie snarl in discontent, Cabrera came to us with news.

“Archbishop Carrillo has left court. He took the infante with him, claiming your mother entrusted Alfonso to him personally. The king has issued a demand for their return but no one knows where they’ve gone. Carrillo has many holdings, much support among his vassals. He could be anywhere. I’ll do everything I can for Your Highness, but….”

“I must also fend for myself,” I finished, forcing myself to smile. With Carrillo and my brother gone, this gentle man and Beatriz were my sole friends at court.

Cabrera reached into his doublet, removed a folded parchment. Silently, Beatriz slipped on her cloak. “We’ll leave you alone to read it,” she said, following Cabrera out.

I stared at the missive for a long moment before I broke the wax seal bearing the bars of Aragón. I slowly unfolded the crisp paper.

It was just six words:

CHAPTER EIGHT

A
s spring gave way to fiery summer, word spread throughout Castile, carried by vendors to outlying provinces and cities, where goodwives scattered it like seed among vassals, who hastened to convey it to the lords in their castles. By autumn, everyone had learned of Alfonso’s abrupt exit from court and of the marquis of Villena’s rebellion, which made the doubts surrounding Princess Joanna’s legitimacy gossip for public fodder.

I did not hear from my brother or Carrillo, nor did I dare send any letters. Though I dwelled in my apartments in the
casa real
, where I disposed of a small household, paid for by the king and overseen by Doña Cabrera, I was closely watched, my freedom circumscribed. Any excursion I wished to take outside the gates required both royal approval and the appropriate escort of guards.

Beatriz informed me of all the court gossip; through her, I learned that Villena and several other grandees had gathered in the northern city of Burgos, from which they had issued the declaration of an alliance formed in defense of my brother’s rights. The threat of civil war loomed over Castile like clouds awaiting the first roll of thunder, and not a day went by that Juana was not overheard haranguing Enrique to send an army against the rebels.

She did not mind her words even when I was present one morning, seated in a corner of her rooms, trying to make myself as small as I could.

“Carrillo is behind this,” she cried to my flustered half brother. “He has found his instrument of revenge and he intends to use it against you. You should never have let him take Alfonso away. You should have stopped it while you had the chance!”

“Juana, please.” Enrique stood before her with his red wool turban
crunched in his hands. “Alfonso is only a child. How can he possibly pose a threat to—”

“That child, as you call him, could turn this entire realm against us! God in Heaven, are you so blind that you cannot see the truth? Villena and Carrillo are at the head of this so-called alliance; they schemed together to make a scene at court so they could steal Alfonso away. You must put an end to their treason before it’s too late!”

Bowing his head, Enrique muttered that there was no evidence of treason and thus there was nothing he could do. Then he shot me an apologetic glance and promptly fled to his forest refuge of El Pardo in Madrid, as he so often did, leaving me behind to contend with his queen’s thwarted rage.

“I’ll not abide aspersions cast on my daughter, who is Castile’s rightful heir,” she declared, stabbing her ring-laden finger at me. “If Carrillo dares join that parcel of traitors in Burgos, it will cost him his head—and your brother’s, too. I’d pray extra hard if I were you, for I’ll see every last one of them dead before they take my child’s inheritance!”

I shuddered at her threats, even as I felt embarrassed for her. She strode about in her garish gowns, arms akimbo, swearing vengeance in language as crude as any tavern maid’s. Her very vociferousness, her insistent display of the cradle at every court event, where the poor babe cried and coughed as the soot from the torches trickled onto her coverlets, seemed to me the bravura of a coward in a gale.

Everywhere I turned, courtiers gathered to whisper; everywhere Juana looked she must have seen the same. Even Beltrán de la Cueva’s betrothal to Mencia de Mendoza had not quelled the gossip; on the contrary, everyone now said if his title as master of Santiago had not been reward enough for his efforts in the queen’s bed, marriage into the powerful Mendoza clan must certainly be, seeing as he was nothing but an upstart with only his good looks to commend him, while Mencia was the noble-born daughter of a grandee.

Juana’s reaction to this sordid speculation was to force my outward compliance, as though my public humiliation could bridle wagging tongues. She made me walk behind Joanna at every function to emphasize my lesser standing at court and sit and dangle silver rattles over the cradle for hours in her rooms while she played dice with her women. I
soon realized that while she might badger everyone in public about her child’s rights, in private she cared nothing for little Joanna. Not once did I see her hold the babe if there wasn’t an audience present, and Joanna always grew fretful when the queen was near, as if she could sense her mother’s indifference. I pitied the little girl and tried to give her my affection, even as I sensed a trap slowly closing in around me.

In April of 1465, I quietly celebrated my fourteenth birthday. It was now one year since I’d seen my brother. The blooms of the almond trees scattered; the earth soaked up Castile’s fervent sun, and Joanna took her first tentative steps, graduating from cradle to lead strings. As soon as the weather turned warm enough, Beatriz and I began to steal away to the gardens whenever we could, eager to escape the stagnant court and the queen’s sour face.

Joanna cooed and scuttled about on fat feet, trying to grab fistfuls of butterflies as her nursemaid held her upright in her reins. We went to view the sleek spotted leopards in their walled enclosure, a perfect replica of their native habitat, right down to the dismembered deer haunches buzzing with flies under drifts of leaves. After Joanna exhausted herself and her nursemaid rocked her to sleep, we sat under the arcade on the stone benches, chatting about inconsequential things.

Cabrera often joined us. He’d been true to his word, keeping watch over me as best he could. He saw to it we always had enough candles and extra covers for our beds, and his mother oversaw my rooms and acted as my honorary matron, assisting us with our wardrobe, for despite the queen’s promise she’d not provided me with a single gown and we soon outwore the few we’d brought. In those tense days, I came to look upon Cabrera as a surrogate uncle, with his broad tanned forehead, intelligent brown eyes, and his trim figure always impeccable in unadorned black velvet. He was friendly but never forward; he had consummate tact. But I did not fail to notice how Beatriz flushed whenever he addressed her and how his eyes, in turn, lingered on her. She had turned seventeen, a strikingly beautiful and exceedingly independent young woman. I sensed she returned Cabrera’s affection, even if she couldn’t yet admit it. I did not tease her or pry, as I’d promised, but the thought that she might have found love was one of the few joys I had, and a coveted gift I could only hope to one day find myself.

I had not heard from Fernando again, though I’d poured out my fears to him in a spontaneous letter, which Beatriz dispatched in secret. At first, his silence hurt me more than I had expected. I thought we had shared something unique, a kinship he treasured; he had said he would write, yet thus far I had only his one brief note. I was ashamed that I had been so forward with him, that I had let him affect me so much that I’d confessed more of my inner thoughts than I might otherwise have done. But I must have shown my disappointment somehow, for one day in early June Beatriz came to me in the gallery to declare, “I’ve just spoken to Cabrera about the situation in Aragón. I’m afraid to say, it’s not good.”

I looked up, startled, from the book in my hands. “What is wrong? Is Fernando …?” I couldn’t finish. I actually couldn’t even begin to imagine it.

Beatriz gave me a contemplative look. “I thought as much. You’ve been moping about for weeks since we sent that letter.”

“I have not,” I retorted at once, but of course I knew I must have been. Otherwise, she’d never have gone so far as to question Cabrera in order to obtain some news for me. I sighed. “You’re right. I was worried.”

“You had reason to worry.” She sat beside me, her voice subdued. “He’s gone to war, Isabella. The French have invaded those contested borderlands of Catalonia; apparently, Aragón and France have been dueling over the right to those territories for years. Fernando is leading the army because his mother is still very ill, and his father will not leave her side. Plus, apparently, King Juan is—”