The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile (52 page)

When he turned and walked away, a swagger in his step, without so much as a by-your-leave, I had to smile. He was not one to shirk divine challenge. I’d assumed as much.

Though he had offered nothing save his word, I’d been captivated by this enigmatic stranger, who had given me a glimpse of the world’s larger mystery.

And I vowed that were it ever within my power, I would see to it that he had his voyage.

CHAPTER THIRTY

I
paced the colonnade, sweltering in Andalucía’s unremitting heat, my every sense attuned to the officials and other court servants bustling through the alcazar patio around me. I was waiting for news from the front.

“Where is he?” I asked, for no doubt the hundredth time, as my poor Inés tried to keep up with my erratic perambulations, perspiration dripping off her brow onto her damp bodice. “How long can it take for one messenger to arrive? Fernando and our men left for Loja over two weeks ago; surely, there must be some news by now.”

“My lady, His Majesty warned the siege on Loja might take time,” Inés said, as she had so many times before. “It is not so easy, he said, with my lord Boabdil determined to hold on to the city as part of his kingly rights.”

“He has no rights,” I snapped, “not after he turned on us to unite with that wolf, El Zagal.” I paused, immediately contrite about taking out my anger on her. “Forgive me. I’m at wits’ end, it seems. I long to
do
something; I can’t bear to be kept apart from the reconquest of my realm anymore.”

She nodded in sympathy; the fight for Loja was particularly symbolic. It was the site of Fernando’s first shattering defeat at the hands of the Moors, now taken over by that worm Boabdil as part of his new alliance with El Zagal. Our decision to wrest it back and send Boabdil packing to Granada with a taste of what was yet to come could have important ramifications, not the least of which being that if we failed, we would give El Zagal and his roving bands of warriors the incentive they needed to challenge all our previous accomplishments. It would ignite sieges and sweep attacks on several fronts.

I was about to regale Inés with all my worries again when I heard the
sudden clatter of running footsteps, accompanied by the clamor of courtiers. As I turned, I caught sight of a messenger in our livery rushing toward me, an excited crowd in his wake. He fell to one knee, extending a square of parchment.

I was unable to move. I couldn’t even reach for the paper. My gaze was fixed on the bowed man’s head, so Inés took the missive in my stead and, at my near-imperceptible nod, cracked the seal.

“What … what does it say?” I whispered, feeling the eyes of every courtier watching me.

Inés replied with a catch in her voice. “Loja has fallen,
Majestad
!”

“
I’M GOING TO
Loja and that’s the end of it.”

My councilors greeted my declaration with a stunned hush, followed immediately by an anxious outcry. “Your Majesty cannot! Think of your safety, of the risks. A Moorish assassin, any mishap on the road, not to mention the conditions at camp—none of these are conducive to a gentlewoman’s state, let alone that of a sovereign queen.”

I allowed myself a smile. “I cannot account for mishaps on the road or conditions at camp; these are in God’s hands. As for assassins, if they pose such a threat, I shall have a light suit of armor crafted especially for me, to protect my person.”

“A suit of armor?” they gasped in chorus, as if I had said I would don a codpiece.

I resisted a roll of my eyes. Chacón eyed me in amusement from his position in the corner of the chamber, arms crossed at his burly chest.

“Fine,” I conceded, “no armor. It’s too hot anyway. Just a breastplate and sword,” I added, “in case I should run into one of those mishaps you seem so concerned about.”

The lords couldn’t conceal their dismay, but I felt it was less for me and more about the possibility that they’d be obliged to accompany me; older nobles all, they would not set foot near the front if they could avoid it. They preferred to dispatch their retainers, sons, whomever they could find to fight in their place. Their cowardice made me want to laugh. All of our younger nobility had flocked to our standard; indeed, even middle-aged lords such as Medina Sidonia had waded knee-deep in infidel blood for our greater glory.

“As you remind me, I am their sovereign queen,” I said. “If I go to my husband’s side at his hour of victory, it will inspire our men to greater feats of courage. And I intend to go not as a timid woman, but as a warrior, ready to fight and die, as they do, for Castile.”

Chacón broke into a grin as I walked past him to the doors; a week later, the royal goldsmith delivered to my rooms the beautiful embossed breastplate, crafted of tempered iron and embellished with black-and-gold trellis tracery, its interior padded with fustian-stuffed crimson velvet shaped cleverly to accommodate my bosom.

As he helped me into it and fastened the straps, I felt as if I were encased in stone. “It’s so heavy,” I said, turning awkwardly to my mirror. “Are they always this heavy?”

The goldsmith shifted forward to adjust the fit. “This is one of the lightest I’ve ever crafted,
Majestad
. The armor that our lords and His Majesty wear is almost double this weight, as it’s composed of more sections to protect the body.”

“Double?” I had a newfound appreciation for our men. I wondered how it must feel to be surging up a steep escarpment in the blazing heat while wearing one of these things. I turned to retrieve the sword—a slim, shining length of blade with a ruby-and-emerald-studded hilt shaped like a crown. It too was heavier than I expected. As I returned to the mirror, the sword held aloft in my hand, I vividly recalled the moment from my childhood when Beatriz and I had watched the sun ebb over Ávila, arguing over the merits of our gender.

Who said a woman can’t take up the sword and cross, and march on Granada to vanquish the Moors?

“She was right,” I mused aloud, and Inés met my eyes in the glass.

“Who, my lady?”

I smiled, shaking my head. Beatriz was in Castile, finishing up the packing of my household and preparing my younger children for the trip south to join us.

Oh, but wouldn’t she be furious when she heard she had missed this!

EXHAUSTED AND BLOODIED
as they were, the soldiers lifted a deafening cheer at the unexpected sight of me riding into camp on my white
steed, clad in my breastplate, with my ornamental sword strapped to my waist. The men’s welcome resounded across the gaping fortifications of the shattered city, and I saw by their joy that I had been right to come as one of them, rather than as the lofty queen arrived to reap their hard-earned laurels. The captured infidels fell to their knees in supplication, scraping the dirt with their foreheads; their women scooped up handfuls of burnt earth and poured it, wailing, over their heads in abject grief.

“Look at them,” said Fernando, in awe. “They’re terrified of you.”

“They should be,” I replied. Ascending a dais to face our men, I declared, “I commend you this day, because as knights you’ve defended our faith from the infidel danger that threatens our land. God knows our cause is just and will not forget the hardships you have endured. He shall grant us our reward in Paradise. As for me, I thank you with all my heart for your sacrifices!”

I swiped off my broad-brimmed, tasseled hat, exposing my hair—darkened to deeper auburn in my maturity—to the glaring sunlight, as a sign of deference to their courage. The roar of acclaim that ensued caused the captive infidels to fall into cowering silence. In elation, I clasped Fernando, holding our twined hands aloft as I cried, “
Tanto monta, monta tanto!
Onward to Málaga and to victory!”

That night, Fernando took me with such a passion. “You are my warrior-queen,” he whispered, thrusting inside me. “Now, make us a son, my
luna
. Make us another prince.”

But within weeks, my menses had returned. When Beatriz arrived with my other children, I confided to her that since Catalina’s birth, my bleeding had become sporadic, sometimes accompanied by harsh cramping, though I was not yet forty.

As I paced Córdoba’s alcazar, restless as a caged lioness, without even the excuse of needing to safeguard a child in my womb, I knew what I must do. As soon as I heard that our army had entrenched itself before Málaga, I donned my breastplate and sword, left the younger children in Ines’s care and rode out with Beatriz and Isabel to inspire our troops.

My first sight of Málaga, fringed by the Sierra Blanca and lapped by the sapphire sea, took my breath away. The sultry May wind rustled the
spiked fronds of palm and date trees; above the city’s high ramparts hung a succulent thickness of smoke, incense, and that rich, indefinable musk of herbs and spices.

The Moors knew what we intended; they’d had ample warning since Loja. The rotted heads of our fallen stared sightlessly down from the battlements as we approached; we were now an army of fifty thousand strong, spreading onto the scorched plain like avenging angels.

With its one hundred and twelve fortified towers, the city crouched at the foot of the crenellated sierra like a magnificent lion. I hid my distress at the thought of the devastation we must wreak, reviewing our ranks and supplies, dining with our commanders and ensuring that Fernando’s armor and sword were properly oiled so he’d suffer no mishap in battle. While our new cannon and catapults would inflict most of the damage, breaching the walls and destroying the battlements from which the Moors might pour hot oil, boiling pitch, or shoot poisoned arrows, hand-to-hand combat was inevitable, and I always worried, watching from my distant vantage spot with Isabel and praying for my husband’s safety.

For days we pounded Málaga’s walls. The dust of pulverized stone and mortar wafted on the air in suffocating gusts, so that we had to tie cloths about our noses and mouths. The dust settled on everything, in everything; our clothes chests, our beds, our utensils; even our food and drink tasted of grit. We had known it would not be easy, I reassured my daughter as we sat in our pavilion listening to the ceaseless clangor of the bells I had ordered to be rung day and night. The sound mingled with the keening of our wounded and the shrieks of despair coming from Málaga’s trapped inhabitants. Yet even I had begun to wonder at the Moors’ preternatural tenacity; with the port blockaded by our ships, and no way to relieve the city, starvation and disease must have started to take an insidious toll.

Finally, three months after the siege began, word came that the Moors wished to parley with us. By now it was evident no reinforcements would be forthcoming from Granada. The denizens sent a holy man of theirs, who claimed reverence for my status as queen, and I agreed to meet with him in my audience tent while Fernando rested after another long day of overseeing the siege. I had dressed carefully, in
my purple robe of estate, gold-lined caul, and sapphire diadem, but at the last minute, just as we were about to enter the tent, Beatriz snatched the diadem from my brow and pushed her way ahead of me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I hissed. She did not reply and I watched, aghast, as she sauntered into the richly appointed chamber and assumed my throne, leaving me open-mouthed and furious. Had she lost her mind? Had the heat and all this dust stirred some madness in her?

The red-haired marquis of Cádiz strode in moments later, accompanying a cloaked, turbaned man. This man lifted glowering eyes at the sight of Beatriz on my cushions; before any of us could react, he lunged forward with a howling cry, pushing Cádiz aside and reaching into his cloak. I froze when I saw the curved dagger raised in his hand.

Beatriz let out a piercing scream. The guards posted outside rushed in, almost throwing me to the ground. Tackling the Moor—who bellowed words none of us could understand—they gripped him by his wrists until he released the dagger. As it fell to the carpeted floor, I moved to take it.

“No!” cried Beatriz. “Don’t touch it!” With the edge of her skirt, she gingerly retrieved the dagger by its hilt. She showed it to me. My skin crawled as I stared at the engraved blade, on which glinted a faint green film.

“See?” she whispered. “Poison; he meant to stab you with a poisoned dagger.”

“Dios mío.”
I looked at her in disbelief. “You saved my life. How did you know?”

She shrugged. “I had a feeling.” She gave me a tremulous smile. “Forgive me for snatching your crown like that. But if he’d succeeded, better he had killed me than you.”

“He will die,” snarled Cádiz. “Drawn and quartered on the
vega
before the entire city, so his foul masters can watch!”

I turned to the assassin, held fast by our guards. He met my regard without discernible fear, though he must have known what awaited him. I doubted he spoke our language and was startled when he uttered words in a passionless voice that sent ice through my veins.

“This time, your crucified god has protected you. But from this day
forth, know that every hour you breathe, Christian queen, is an hour you borrow against death.”