The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile (30 page)

The next morning I donned my best day gown of gray wool, coiled my hair in a gilded net, and entered the hall to find Carrillo and Fernando facing each other across the table, while Admiral Fadrique and Chacón stood to one side, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

“You know nothing of how we do things here in Castile,” Carrillo was saying, his big features tinged scarlet with ire. “This is not the backwaters of Aragón, where you can overtake cities whenever you please.”

Fernando rattled a paper at him. “Look here, old man! This is from the lord mayor of Toro himself; he has
invited
us to overtake his city.
What more do you need, eh? Should we send for engraved proclamations? Will that suit your bloated sense of pride?”

“We need the princess’s approval,” snapped Carrillo, and as I saw Fernando’s fist clench over the paper, I stepped over the threshold.

“And here I am, my lords, so you may request it.”

The admiral’s face brightened with relief; Fernando, I saw at once, was furious—but he contained himself because he had no other choice. Because of our prenuptial agreement, in which he’d agreed to uphold Castile’s superiority over his realm, Carrillo had him in a stranglehold. My instincts had been correct: He needed me here, though he’d never admit it.

I sat at the table, strewn with discarded papers and quills. “What seems to be the issue?” I asked, regarding them placidly.

Con blandura
, I reminded myself. With a soft touch, almost anything can be accomplished—even with men as fiery as these two.

Carrillo bowed. “Your Highness, alas, I’m sorry to disturb you, but it seems His Highness and I are not in agreement over—”

“The issue,” interrupted Fernando, setting the paper before me, “is that my lord the archbishop seems to think we should refrain from asserting our rights, though it’s as plain as the nose on his face that Enrique and Villena are losing ground—valuable ground we should be taking full advantage of.”

“Oh?” I perused the paper. As its implications sank in, my heart quickened. It said that Enrique was seeking to affiance Joanna la Beltraneja to the Portuguese, and had brought the queen herself to Segovia to swear before the altar that the child was his. I looked up in disbelief. “I … I am to be deprived of all rights as princess. He has officially disinherited me.”

“Read further.” Fernando tapped the paper. I tried to focus. Through the pounding haze that overcame me, isolated words jumped out. None made sense. I finally had to whisper: “I cannot read this. Tell me, what does it say?”

Fernando shot a look at Carrillo. “It means that in disinheriting you, Enrique has made his last blunder. The realm is in an uproar; from Vizcaya to Jaén, and every city in between, the people cry out against your disinheritance and take to the streets.” His voice quickened. “Ávila
has thrown Villena’s henchmen out; Medina del Campo vows to fight for you to the death. They say Joanna la Beltraneja is the by-blow of an adulterous whore and that you are Castile’s sole successor. The people want you, Isabella—this paper is an invitation from Toro to enter the city. We’ve received dozens like it from all over Castile, pledging to open their gates to us.”

“Bribed is more like it,” sniffed Carrillo, “with promises we cannot keep.”

“Bribed?” I looked into Fernando’s fervent eyes. “How? We’ve nothing to offer.”

“Only the promise of peace, justice, and prosperity,” he replied. “It’s just as we discussed, remember? This is our
tanto monta
, come to pass. The cities know what we can offer them because I’ve sent personal delegates to tell them so. They cannot abide the starvation, the feuds, the debased coinage and arrogant grandees any longer. The king is despised and we are their only hope for righting the kingdom. This is our time. We must seize it.”

“With what?” Carrillo flung up his hands. “Stewards, pages, and grooms?” He brayed laughter. “Yes, why not? Let’s send Chacón here to claim Toro in your name!”

“I’ll lend support,” said the admiral quietly. Carrillo froze. Fadrique stepped to us—a small, confident figure in elegant dark velvet. “I promised Your Highness my retainers and I can summon more. We can take Toro and Tordesillas, certainly.”

“What of the others?” retorted Carrillo. “What about Ávila? Medina del Campo? Segovia? Will you take all those cities with your retainers, my lord? I hardly think even you, head of the powerful Enríquez family, can summon that many men.”

The admiral acknowledged this with an incline of his bald head. “Indeed. But I understand the marquis of Mendoza will assist us, and the duke of Medina Sidonia in Sevilla has also offered support. Surely between us we can gather enough of a show of force to make the king think twice about putting his decrees into effect.”

“The marquis of Mendoza will assist us?” Carrillo turned slowly to Fernando. “But the Mendozas have always supported the king. How did you …?”

“Easily.” Fernando smiled. “Like every grandee, my lord of Mendoza has an expensive lifestyle to maintain. In exchange for my offer of a cardinal’s hat for the marquis’s brother, the bishop, along with a significant stipend, Mendoza was more than willing to accept our terms.”

“Cardinal’s hat …?” Carrillo stared at him in stunned disbelief, his face chalk-white. “You … you promised that mealymouthed Bishop Mendoza a prize that is mine by right?”

“I did not promise anything.” Fernando’s voice was cold. “Cardinal Borgia of Valencia did. He also promised to send the dispensation you failed to obtain, sanctioning Her Highness’s and my marriage. So, as you can see, she now has no reason not to take a stand.”

Carrillo met Fernando’s stare, his eyes bulging.
“It is mine!”
His roar reverberated through the
sala
, causing the hounds dozing by the fireplace to leap up, growling. “Mine!” He thumped his meaty fist on his chest. “That cardinalship belongs to me. By ecclesiastical law, it should be conferred on me. I am a lifelong servant of the Church in Castile. I am the one who has supported and fought for Her Highness’s cause these many years!”

He was panting, spittle spraying from his lips. I resisted the impulse to beg for civility. All of a sudden, it was as though everyone else in the room had ceased to exist to Fernando and Carrillo as they faced each other like combatants. The rest of us had become part of the backdrop, no more significant than the tapestries and candelabra and snarling dogs, spectators to a battle of wills between the man who’d dominated my life since he had first approached me in Ávila and the husband to whom I had given my heart.

Fernando did not move, did not take his unblinking gaze from Carrillo. He let the throbbing silence between them crack open like an abyss and then he turned to me and said, “My grandfather and I believe a condemnatory letter is in order. If you publicly reject the king’s actions and reiterate your injured stance, it should be enough to gain the cities’ loyalty. We do not need an army, though we will gather it. Your letter posted on every church door and in every plaza will be sufficient.
Con blandura
,” he added, with a smile. “Isn’t that what you always say?”

He had come to know me better in our year of marriage than Carrillo ever had. He understood, as Carrillo never would, that I abhorred
the senseless chaos of Enrique’s reign, that I’d prefer to maintain some semblance of outward peace, even as we paved my inexorable path to the throne. I did not want the people of this realm to suffer any more than they already had. I did not want death and destruction dealt in my name.

I nodded, feeling Carrillo’s stare boring into me. “Yes, that is what I say.” I turned my eyes from Fernando to the archbishop; a pang of sympathy made me want to offer him comfort, for he suddenly appeared so old, so tired. I’d never marked before the broken veins in his face, the watery eyes, the sagging jowls, the dull silver in his thinning mane. He’d been a figure of such tireless brute strength for so long, I’d failed to recognize how time had begun to weigh on him.

“I will do everything I can to ensure your contributions, ecclesiastical and otherwise, are recognized,” I told him. “Rest assured, you remain one of our most trusted advisors.”

He met my eyes for a long moment. I couldn’t read anything in his expression; it was as though something inside him had closed, shuttering his face. It frightened me, his sudden blankness. Before, he had always shown his emotions openly to me.

Then he turned and walked out. No one called him back; even as I started to move to go after him, I felt Fernando’s hand on my sleeve.

“No. Let him go,” he murmured. “We don’t need him anymore.”

I heard the archbishop’s heavy booted footsteps fade down the corridor. The dogs whined, settling back on the frayed carpet by the fire. The admiral waited for us to speak, his face averted. Chacón gave me a stalwart look, one that reflected my own realization that everything had just shifted on its axis.

After a lifetime of his influence, all of a sudden I was free of Carrillo.

I turned to Fernando. “I need a fresh quill and ink,” I said quietly, and I resumed my seat, drawing a clean sheet of paper near.

I had made my choice.

From now on, Fernando and I alone would steer our course.

CHAPTER TWENTY

M
y letter went out, claiming that
“if by passion and ill advice Enrique were to deny my rights as heir, it would be a great insult and disgrace to the realm. God will hold the king responsible for this great evil, while my lord the prince and I will be blameless.”

It was a brazen pronouncement, the closest I’d ever come to insinuating that Enrique endangered the kingdom. And in the months that followed, it generated the very reaction Fernando had predicted. Cities and townships which previously supported Enrique, or remained neutral, posted my letter and came over to our cause, hanging banners from their walls with our entwined initials and declaring: “Castile for Isabella!” When I protested to Fernando that I did not wish to appear as though I sought to usurp Enrique’s rights, he laughed.

“What rights? Ávila, Medina del Campo, and six other cities are already for us, and I’m off tonight to throw Villena’s officials out of Sepulveda, at the town’s own request. If matters continue as they are, by Epiphany all of Castile will be ours.”

He was in his element, donning his chain mail and breastplate to rally the admiral’s retainers and the forces sent by Medina Sidonia from the south into effective infiltration units that could scale walls, unlock gates, and overpower royal garrisons in the dead of night, with only the moon to illumine their way. By mid-1472, we held more than half of Castile’s fourteen major townships in our grasp, and by the beginning of 1473 we were confident enough of our safety to finally leave Dueñas for a grand new residence in Aranda de Duero, near Valladolid. Once we were established in our palatial estate, even the most recalcitrant grandees, who had opted to bolster Enrique and his villainous favorite, began to send us covert pledges of support—“no doubt,” remarked Fernando
acidly, “because they know that if they do not, I’ll tear their castles down about their ears and put their heads on spikes, to boot.”

Though I would never admit it out loud, this statement, more than anything else, proved Carrillo’s unwise comment that Fernando did not understand the ways of Castile. To harass the grandees was pointless, even dangerous. Pride and ambition were two sides of the same coin to these lords who had badgered, cajoled, and ignored their sovereign for centuries. They must be enticed, brought to heel without realizing it; otherwise they’d bite like the feral dogs they were at heart. I had seen it throughout my childhood, witnessed firsthand the chaos that Enrique had sown in trying to appease the grandee factions, the internecine intrigues and alliances that had tied him up in knots and turned him into a mere figurehead who must bend to the strongest wind.

Therefore, while Fernando assumed charge of our military affairs that year, I undertook the diplomatic—suffering endless hours of penning letters until spots danced before my red-rimmed eyes and my fingertips bled. I answered every missive I received personally. I did not miss an opportunity to inquire after a sick family member, congratulate a birth, or offer condolences on a death, determined to make myself known to these arrogant lords who could as easily defeat us as defend us. With my Isabel close at my side, playing with her toys or napping in her upholstered cradle by the fire, I worked harder than I ever had before, for I knew that these seemingly small gestures of recognition on my part, these simple exchanges of information and pleasantries, might, in the end, sway the grandees to my side when I most had need of them.

And as I worked, I could imagine Enrique’s despair, helpless once more as he watched his kingdom turn against him. Even Villena, it seemed, had fallen ill from the distress of watching his edifice of power and lies crumble. While I did not rejoice in physical suffering, I did take satisfaction that at least with Villena indisposed I was finally at liberty to visit my mother without fearing apprehension by the marquis’s zealous patrols. Time had fled by; and between my labors and caring for my child, I had been remiss in attending to my mother’s needs. Though I had sent money and letters to Arévalo whenever I
could, Doña Clara’s replies had been slow in coming and her unrevealing, dutiful tone made me suspect that matters in the household were not as they should be.