The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile (31 page)

I had hoped Fernando would join me in visiting Arévalo, as he had not yet met my mother, but he was unexpectedly called to Aragón by his father to welcome a delegation sent by Cardinal Borgia, carrying our long-awaited dispensation. The cardinal wished to convoke a peace conference between Aragón and France, and peace was something we desired. If Aragón could find some way to stave off its much larger and aggressive neighbor, it would free up men for our ongoing struggle in Castile. Still, it was our first official parting since our marriage and Fernando could be gone for months. I knew I’d miss him terribly, though I endeavored not to show it. I packed his saddlebags full of clean shirts I had sewn with my own hands, kissed him goodbye, and made my own plans, thinking that if I kept occupied, time would pass more quickly and hasten his return.

Not knowing in what state I would find Arévalo, I reluctantly left my Isabel, who was almost four years old, in the care of attendants in our new residence. Inés and Chacón accompanied me, along with an escort of soldiers, in the spring of 1474. It was an uneventful trip but my fears regarding my childhood home were not unfounded; I found the castle more desolate and threadbare than even I recalled, with the animals crowded in filthy stockades and the smell of mold and smoke permeating the hall. My mother was gaunt, shockingly aged, her conversation meandering down blurred pathways between past and present, as if time were a river without any end. She spoke of Alfonso as though he were still alive but failed at moments to recognize me, staring at me with a vacant gaze that twined like barbs about my heart. Doña Clara, whose hair had turned snow-white yet whose presence remained forceful as ever despite her advanced years, informed me that my mother rarely left her apartments anymore, not even to go to her beloved Convent of Santa Ana. Travel in such unsettled times was ill advised and expensive, Doña Clara remarked, and money had been sporadic at best, dependent on what I sent, as Villena had cut the household allowance from the treasury in retaliation against me.

“Some days all we have to eat are a chicken, lentils, and a few onions,” Doña Clara said, as I inwardly seethed at the fact that even firewood—never abundant on the arid
meseta
—had required strict rationing, the hall so cold in the dead of winter that meat could be hung from its rafters without spoiling. “But we persevere,
mi niña
. What else can we do?”

As I sat embroidering with my mother, glancing at the brittle fingers worrying her needle through the cloth, shame choked me. I couldn’t keep her any longer in this deplorable state, no matter how limited my own means. She was becoming an invalid before her time, crippled by inactivity and these harsh living conditions she’d been obliged to endure. At the very least, new tapestries, carpets, braziers, and cloth for garments must be purchased; the castle must be cleaned from keep to cellar. While Chacón went to work with the soldiers, repairing the dilapidated stockades and replenishing the storehouses with game, I swallowed my pride and wrote to Carrillo. We’d not seen each other since his abrupt departure from Dueñas despite my various conciliatory missives, which he’d disdained like “a petulant sixty-year-old child,” as Fernando put it. Now, I abased myself in order to obtain the funds I needed; and something in my plea must have softened his heart, for one evening as we prepared to dine, Chacón strode in to announce that a visitor was requesting admittance at the gate.

“At this hour?” exclaimed Doña Clara, whose existence had become so insular she viewed any intrusion as a potential threat. The other elderly ladies exchanged apprehensive looks; they had all experienced Villena’s belligerent officers barging in to harass and intimidate.

I instructed Chacón to invite our guest in; we had fresh rabbit stew and a dried apple-and-carrot salad in almond milk, and what six can eat, eight can share. But as the small cloaked figure walked in and reached up to remove its cowl, I could not contain my cry. I dashed into a welcome embrace, to the astonishment of those seated around the table.

“How can it be?” I whispered, holding my dear friend close. “How can you be here?”

“Carrillo, of course.” Beatriz drew back with a smile. “He asked me to give you this.” She pressed a leather purse stuffed with coins into my
hand. “And to convey these tidings: Villena is dying of a stomach tumor and the Portuguese alliance for la Beltraneja has fallen apart. The king annulled his marriage to the queen and sent her into a convent. He is sick of conflict. He wishes to personally receive you in Segovia.”

I DEPARTED ARÉVALO
in the coppery haze of autumn. I had not wanted to show my eagerness by leaping at Enrique’s offer of a truce; instead, I composed a cautious reply that indicated I was overseeing my mother’s care and requested the release of those long-delayed funds due to me, as a gesture of his sincerity. Then I waited. The money came quickly, sure sign that Villena must indeed be on his deathbed. But Fernando advised me by letter that I should not go near Segovia until we knew for certain that the marquis had succumbed to his ailment, lest it all be an elaborate ruse to entrap me. It was sound advice and so I waited, summoning my Isabel to join me in Arévalo, while with my new funds I proceeded to refurbish the castle.

Beatriz assisted me, regaling me with details of how Carrillo had hidden away from everyone to sulk in his palace in Alcalá, until one day, without warning, he made a brash move and appealed to the king, seeking to reinstate himself in the royal favor.

“He’d heard Villena was ill and that Enrique wandered the countryside between Segovia and Madrid like a lost soul, unable to reconcile himself to the impending loss of his favorite.” Beatriz arched her brow; she had never dissembled her feelings and was not about to feign lament now at the end of Villena. “Enrique agreed to see him and together they hatched this reconciliation with you.”

I eyed her as we measured the tester on my mother’s bed for new curtains. “And I suppose you and Cabrera had nothing to do with it?”

“I didn’t say that. In fact, we had a great deal to do with it. My husband was the one who took Carrillo’s letter to the king, after it sat unopened for months on a pile of neglected correspondence as tall as the alcazar itself. And once he persuaded Enrique to receive the archbishop, I went to work.” She paused for effect. “I told Enrique that if he reconciled with you, he would restore peace to Castile, like ‘a tree whose dried branches have turned green again and will never wither.’ ”

“You said that?” I had difficulty repressing my smile. “I never took you for a poet.”

“Anything for my lady” was her tart reply, and as our eyes met, we burst into laughter, startling Isabel in the window seat.

“I have missed you so,” I said, wiping tears of mirth from my eyes. “I do not know how I’ve survived all this time without you.”

“But you have,” she said. “You have a beautiful little girl, and this one”—she made a good-natured moue at Inés, who unfurled the new damask—“to look after you now, not to mention that proud warrior-prince of yours, who defends you with shield and sword.”

“Yes,” I agreed softly. “I am indeed blessed.”

Though lovely as ever, my Beatriz had grown plump in her married state; she too, I could see, was happy, but it occurred to me that after all this time, she’d not yet conceived. I doubted the fault was hers. Though it was commonly believed women were to blame for childlessness in a couple, her robust health showed in the bloom of her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes. Perhaps it was because Cabrera was older, I reasoned. Maybe just as happened to women in their middle years, men lost their potency after a certain age.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, breaking into my reverie.

“Only that I am very happy we are together,” I said, and she gave me one of her discerning looks, as if she could see right through me. But she did not say anything, swooping over instead to twirl a delighted Isabel in her arms. My daughter had taken to Beatriz at once, dubbing her Tía Bea, and I saw in Beatriz’s adoring gaze that she too had formed a deep attachment to my child. A better mother would not be found; even with her severely aged and ill father, Don Bobadilla, who was now confined to bed in the castle and not long for this earth, she showed a stoic patience, always ready to attend him no matter how late the hour. I hoped that despite the odds, perhaps she might yet bear a child.

Finally, in early November, shortly after we buried poor Don Bobadilla and Beatriz went into mourning for him, word came of Villena’s demise. My most formidable foe, who had hounded me since my brother’s death and betrayed or deceived nearly every person he had come in contact with, was gone. He had died in great pain, eaten alive by his stomach ailment, but I found it difficult to summon any compassion
for him. With Villena dead, no longer did I need to worry that his malicious tongue and elaborate schemes would turn Enrique from his better judgment. At long last I was free to seek rapport with my half brother and put an end to the succession crisis in Castile.

I dispatched the news to Fernando with due urgency. It would take at least two or three weeks for him to receive the letter and respond, so after I bid my mother farewell in her newly garrisoned abode, I brought Isabel to Aranda de Duero before making the return trip to Segovia with Beatriz. Despite my newfound confidence, I would not entrust my daughter to that court.

As the alcazar loomed into view, stark and pointed as a fang against the leaden winter sky, I was beset by sudden unease. I’d not stepped foot in Segovia since I had left the city seven years earlier; I had no fond memories of the time I’d spent in captivity in that fortress’s arabesque interior. Now here I was again, a grown woman and mother in my twenty-third year, about to enter it again.

I turned to Beatriz, saw in her steady gaze that she understood. “Do not worry,” she said. “Andrés has prepared everything with Rabbi Abraham Señeor. You will be safe.”

I had met the rabbi during my previous stay here. He was an erudite Jewish scholar whom Enrique had always favored, despite the antagonism leveled against him by Villena and others who disliked Sephardic influence at court. Don Abraham was Enrique’s head tax collector; he’d also offered invaluable support to Cabrera in his struggle to keep the treasury and crown jewels safe. If the rabbi was involved in my reception, I could indeed be assured of protection, and so I nodded, turning Canela in to the main courtyard, where hundreds waited to receive me.

A light snow began to drift down, dusting the plumed caps and sumptuous velvets of the courtiers as they dropped into obeisance. Canela’s hooves struck the cobblestones with a metallic ring that echoed around the courtyard. As I gazed uncertainly upon the anonymous sea of figures, fear rippled through me. What if Beatriz was wrong? What if despite all assurances to the contrary, Enrique had summoned me here to take me captive?

Then, I caught sight of the lone figure standing in the court’s midst—a pillar of black with his signature red turban.

I would not have recognized him without it. As Chacón assisted me from my saddle and I approached, I concealed my dismay at the king’s extreme thinness. He was jaundiced, sharply etched cheekbones showing under his skin. His mournful eyes were dull, sunk in bruised shadows, bearing testament to his grief. He had the haunted look of a man who has seen the depths of misfortune and I blinked back the sting of tears as I curtsied before him, taking his extended hand with the signet ring and raising it to my lips.

“Majestad,”
I said, “I am deeply honored to be in your presence again.”

Enrique did not speak. I glanced up, trembling, wondering why he had not bidden me to rise. Had he summoned me here only to humiliate me before his court? His amber eyes were fixed on me, unabashedly wet; as tears seeped down his face, mingling with the wet snow dripping from his turban, his mouth quivered. He did not speak because he could not. His emotion, held so long in check, threatened to overcome him.

I did not wait for his leave. I stood and enveloped him in my arms, not caring what any of the courtiers or grandees thought. All that mattered in that moment was that he and I shared the same blood. We were family, brother and sister.

“Hermano,”
I said, so low that only he could hear me, “I am so sorry.”

I felt his stifled sob. His emaciated body melted against mine. And he finally whispered with childlike bewilderment, “No, it is my fault. Mine. I am cursed. I destroy everything I touch….”

WE RODE CEREMONIOUSLY
on horseback through the streets, to demonstrate our reconciliation to the people. They responded with ear-shattering enthusiasm, waving pennons and shouting acclaim, as the skies turned dark, torches were lit, and the snow dissolved into sodden drifts.

In the alcazar, we dined in the great gilded
sala
, seated together on the dais overlooking the polished floor and crowded tables as if nothing had happened between us, as if the years of strife had never been. He had youth attending to him, as always—handsome boys with soft eyes
and perfumed hands, to proffer his plates, fill his goblet, cut his meat. His Moorish guard stood stationed behind him with their scimitars and aloof expressions; only the extravagant red flash of his much-maligned queen was missing to complete this bizarre regression to the past.