The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile (16 page)

Sequestered in Segovia, I grew thin, restless. I had to sit with Juana and her ladies during their silly entertainments, as the queen drank too much wine and danced the night away with gallants in skin-tight hose, making eyes at Beltrán de la Cueva even as he lolled in a chair with his wife at his side. I couldn’t forget what Enrique had said about how he had shared a bed with Juana and Beltrán. As I watched Juana draw her hand suggestively down some courtier’s muscled arm, her carmine lips parting in invitation, I had to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from leaping to my feet and marching out.

As soon as the snows thawed, the war resumed. Beatriz learned from Cabrera that various cities, including Toledo, still supported Alfonso. Toledo was Carrillo’s archbishopric, the oldest and wealthiest in Castile; its stance prompted many of our grandees to side with the rebels. Enrique was losing ground but I lived in daily fear that word would come of Alfonso’s death. In a place deep within my soul I still believed God would strike down those who sought to depose their rightful monarch.

I began a fast, thinking the time-honored ritual of the holy would offer the comfort I needed. Beatriz implored me to eat, saying I could
not afford to waste away, but I drank only water for weeks, until one frigid March night when she abruptly shook me awake.

With a finger at her lips as a warning, she threw my cloak about my shoulders and led me past the sleeping chambermaid in the passage, through the alcazar into the icy night. Crossing the great plaza we came before the cathedral.

Cabrera stood waiting. I’d not seen him in months and had missed him. But he did not give me the opportunity to say so; drawing me into the cathedral’s cavernous interior, he whispered, “We’ve little time. The prior of the Monastery of Santa Cruz has asked to speak with Your Highness; he says he has important news to impart. But you must be quick. Should the queen discover I let you meet him, she will deprive me of my post.”

I nodded, shivering. What was so important that the prior of Segovia’s oldest Dominican monastery should want to see me in the middle of the night? It was so cold I could see my breath like frost, my footsteps echoing eerily as I moved toward the elaborate wooden choir. Votive candles flickered before Our Lady of Sorrows, catching the crystalline tears on her flesh-colored cheeks and the glint of the gold dagger hilt protruding from her velvet-swathed breast. The scent of old incense permeated the air, a rich, smoky fragrance that not even the chill could dispel.

I almost failed to see the figure waiting in the shadows, his long veined hands folded across his white robe, his black cloak falling from his stooped shoulders. He was thin and tall, with an ascetic’s ageless angularity. His brooding eyes were of an unusual gray-blue hue, offsetting his broad flat nose and thin lips. As he inclined his tonsured head, his voice issued low and cultured—the voice of a man of strict restraint, who has dominated the unruliness of the flesh.

“Your Highness, I am Fray Tomás de Torquemada. It is an honor to meet you.”

I drew my cloak closer about me. “I was told you wished to speak to me?”

He nodded. “Forgive me; you must be cold. Come, we can sit by the candles. Though their light is feeble, the proximity to our Holy Mother will warm you.”

I perched beside him on a pew. He was silent for a long moment, his eyes fixed on Our Lady’s grieving face. Then he said, “I understand you’ve lived in Segovia for almost two years now without a private confessor. However, when I offered my services, I was denied.”

“Oh?” I was taken aback. “I did not know this. No one told me.”

His gaze shifted to me. He did not blink. Power emanated from him, even in his stillness. “How could you? I petitioned the king. But he was not concerned with the welfare of your soul. Quite the contrary, judging by his actions; yet despite all their attempts, it appears you have held steadfast against their corruption. Your heart is pure.”

I did not feel the cold anymore. I felt … recognized.

“Yet your trial is hard to bear,” he added. “You are young, untried; one of lesser faith might have given in by now, surrendered to licentiousness and luxury, succumbed to temptation, even if it meant losing God’s grace.”

I looked at the marbled floor. “It … it has not been easy,” I said softly.

“Indeed. And yet you must stay pure, for much will still be demanded of you. You must rely on the conviction of your faith, knowing that even in our darkest hour God does not abandon us. You must trust that He will not suffer a false king to rule over Castile.”

I looked up. The blues of his eyes were lit as if by inner flame. It was the sole sign of emotion in a face otherwise schooled to sculptural impassivity.

“How do you know this?” I asked. “How
can
you know?”

He sighed. “Doubt is the Devil’s handmaiden, sent to lure us into perdition. Enrique IV has forsaken his own throne; he hides away even as his realm falls prey to godlessness. Our Church is riddled with rot; monks and nuns abhor their holy vows in pursuit of worldly sin; heretics are free to practice their foul rites; and the infidel raids our southern lands with impunity. Discord and anarchy flourish, for our people are like sheep without a shepherd. The king knows all this and does nothing to abate it. He has turned his face from his duty and embraced his own weakness. And now he would set a bastard over us, usurping the succession of the one who can bring us salvation. Whatever else you think, my infanta, never doubt that the king is doomed.”

I’d only ever heard my mother speak like this of Enrique and a part of me resisted it, for I didn’t want to see my own half brother in so tarnished a light. Yet despite my efforts I recognized in Torquemada’s stark appraisal my own sense of Enrique as a lost soul, a man unable to bear the burden of his crown.

“He is still my king,” I said at length, “appointed by God and our Cortes to rule. Would you have me disavow my solemn duty to him as his sister and subject?”

Torquemada raised a brow. “I would have Your Highness do only what your conscience dictates. Your brother the infante fights to save Castile from damnation and God will strengthen his arm. But while he fights with the sword, you must fight with your will, for they would soon send you far from this realm. The queen has entered into secret negotiations to wed you to her brother, King Afonso of Portugal.”

“Afonso!” I exclaimed, before I could contain myself. “But he’s a widower already! And he has a son by his first marriage, an heir. How can such a union benefit me or Castile? I’ll be his second wife; whatever children I bear will have no rights unless his first son happens to die and …” My voice faded as the realization sank in. “The queen: She is determined to exile me.”

“She’ll certainly try,” Torquemada said. “She must invalidate your claim to the succession first, for with you out of the way, few will dare deny her bastard child. Yet you are the true daughter of Castile; in you runs the ancient blood of kings. And should your brother Alfonso fail, you must be prepared to take up his banner, for you are next in line to the throne. God needs you here.”

I looked at my hands, twined in my lap, then back at him. “What can I do?” I whispered. “I have no power. The king can wed me to whomever he wants. He’s warned me as much. My future, he said, is in his hands.”

Torquemada’s eyes glittered. “You are not without power. That is why I am here: to remind you of who you are. Tonight, I will absolve you of all prior oaths, so that you may live henceforth in virtue, following only the dictates of your heart.”

He knew I had sworn an oath to uphold Joanna; that I was bound by filial duty to obey my king. Yet, like me, he knew Joanna might not
be legitimate, that even as my half brother plunged Castile into chaos to uphold her claim, he too doubted her right to the throne. I had suffered endless doubt, questioning myself and everything around me. Was this austere man the answer to my prayers? Had God sent Torquemada to me to show me the truth?

I slipped from the pew to my knees, my hands clasped before me.

“Bless me, Father,” I said, “for I have sinned …”

Tomás de Torquemada leaned close to hear my confession.

I EMERGED FROM
the cathedral to find the moon skulking behind icy clouds. Beatriz and Cabrera hastened to me from the portico. I thanked Cabrera, promised I’d keep this meeting a secret, and returned with Beatriz to my rooms.

As we tiptoed in, I almost laughed aloud when I realized a weight had been lifted from me; I no longer felt afraid. I did not care if Mencia or Juana herself discovered I’d disobeyed them. I had been relieved of the turmoil that had gnawed at me since Alfonso declared himself king. I even felt hunger, for the first time in weeks; I was ravenous for simple hearty fare, like the food I used to enjoy in Arévalo.

I embraced Beatriz. “I know this was your doing,” I said, “and I love you all the more for it. You are my dearest friend. Should you ever wish to ask my leave to marry, you shall have it, by my solemn word.”

She drew back. “Marry? Desert you? Never!”

“Never is a very long time. Now, do you still keep that bread and cheese in the window seat? If so, go fetch it.”

She rushed to retrieve the food; we sat in bed and ate to our heart’s content, whispering and scattering crumbs for the mice that scampered in the corners. She did not ask me for any details of what had transpired in the cathedral, and I did not offer any.

But we both knew I was prepared for battle.

MY CALL TO
arms came a few months later.

In that time, I’d endeavored to spend fewer hours in the chapel and more in the alcazar library—an astonishing, neglected room with a high scarlet-and-azure vaulted ceiling and shelves crammed with ancient
texts, tomes, and folios. I lamented my rudimentary education; I’d never had occasion to master Latin or Greek, the languages employed by scholars, and was thus barred from reading many of the books. What I could find in our Castilian vernacular I devoured, including the statutes of Alfonso X, the king who had been known as El Sabio, for commissioning his famous
Partidas
, which were the basis for our current legal system. I also read other translated works from King Alfonso’s time, including Arabic fables and his
Mirror of Princes
, a multivolume treatise instructing monarchs in the ways of proper governance.

In between fevered bouts of reading, I was drawn again and again to a brass spherical globe of the known world standing in a corner, its glimmer dimmed by dust and age. I was mesmerized by its depiction of the Ocean Sea—a vast space of water which no man had dared to cross. Many believed nothing existed past the edge of the Ocean Sea, that terrible monsters lurked in its depths, waiting to hurl unsuspecting ships into a void. But others believed unknown lands existed far beyond our own. Tales of these distant shores and of the adventurers who sought them fascinated me; I couldn’t read enough of the chronicles of Marco Polo, who had opened a route to the Orient, now lost to us since the fall of Constantinople, or of the Portuguese prince known as Henrique the Navigator, who had funded intrepid expeditions to Africa.

When I read of these valiant men willing to risk everything for the promise of discovery, I forgot I sat alone with a musty book, an inexperienced girl who had never even seen the sea. I lost all sense of self and time, and became a man forged of salt and driftwood, permeated by spindrift and attuned to the siren’s call, with endless blue all around me. Such books proved to me that we have courage inside us we do not recognize until we are put to the test; their words roused in me a fervor I hadn’t known I possessed.

By the time Enrique returned to Segovia, following another confrontation with the rebels, I felt I was ready for anything he might demand of me. But as soon as I was called into the Sala de los Reyes, where the gilded statues of our ancestors looked down imposingly from their niches, I espied the lean figure of Villena at Enrique’s side.

Then I realized how little of the world I truly understood.

I stared in disbelief at Villena’s sardonic face, his entire person perfumed and disdainful, as though he hadn’t spent the last twenty-six months agitating rebellion in Alfonso’s name. I was astonished that he still lived. Treason such as his deserved death.

Enrique appeared uncomfortable as I curtsied before him. After asking how I fared, he blurted, “We’ve found the means to end this infernal conflict.”

“That is good,” I answered, keeping my tone reserved. I pondered his use of “we.” If he and Villena were no longer at odds, was the war over? If so, where were Carrillo and Alfonso? I focused on ensuring that my expression remain impassive, despite my confusion, having finally understood the value of the advice Fernando had given me on the night of my arrival to court.

“We are relieved by Your Highness’s cooperation,” drawled Villena, “for you are instrumental to our success.”

I kept my eyes on Enrique, who shifted on his throne. He shot a glance at Bishop Mendoza; the bishop looked pained, unable to meet my eyes when Enrique ordered, “Tell her.”