Reign of Madness (14 page)

14.

11 December anno Domini 1497

M
ore water, Katrien.”

Water splashed onto her wooden
klompen
as she lifted her bucket from the fireplace. Stray drops hissed in the great roaring conflagration she had built to keep me warm. “
Ja, Mevrouw
. Now coming.”

I sank lower into the copper tub, feeling guilty about the work I had caused her. But I did love a bath, and it was one of the few activities that court custom had not turned into a ritualized ceremony, mainly because taking baths in the winter had not been considered by my husband’s Burgundian ancestors. The need to make all my activities into a show had come to an excruciating head during my period of mourning for Juan. If I, by tradition, was required to sit at the foot of my bed for six weeks, my sixteen ladies-in-waiting (twelve Burgundians, three Spanish, and Beatriz, with a book in hand) insisted on sitting there with me. I was not allowed to read or make music or, if I had been a person inclined to do so, spin wool, but they could. And so I had been trapped in the beautiful rooms the Dowager had given me, listening to their banter, cringing at their songs, and going out of my mind with boredom while my husband was free to hunt, play tennis, or do whatever he pleased. I might as well have been buried alive.

When I was finally released from the prison of my mourning, freedom meant walking the frost-covered grounds with my ladies in tow, their servants following like drab ducklings. If there were any deer in the park, I never saw them. Not even the crows stuck around when a troop of gabbling ladies approached. Not that the ladies’ gabbling was directed at me. In spite of all my efforts to get into the spirit of Philippe’s court, I was still an outsider to the Burgundian ladies, and to my remaining Spanish ladies, save dear Beatriz, a disgrace.

So you can see why that afternoon, though it had been more than a week since the mourning period for my brother had passed, it suddenly became necessary for me to claim a private hour soaking before the fire. To achieve this, I’d had to tell my band that I was overcome with a headache and needed to be left alone. Madame de Hallewin insisted upon calling a physician, but I insisted even more strongly that doing so would only worsen my pain. The Viscountess of Furnes suggested, wryly, that she call a priest. I assured her that I should be fine, given a few hours in darkness. While the other ladies murmured their concern, Beatriz only watched me closely. I told them all that if I needed to retain anyone to attend to my needs, it would be Katrien, who then lifted her head in surprise from where she knelt at the fire. That way I should show preference to neither my Burgundian nor my Spanish ladies, I explained. Stalemated, they had left, after which time poor Katrien scoured the palace for a hip bath and hauled splashing buckets up two flights of stairs. Philippe need not know I was unattended. Surely he was busy at sport.

Now I hunkered lower in my tub. The fireplace in the former bedroom of the Dowager was as large as a shepherd’s hut, and the chamber walls were hung with tapestries, but not even Hell could keep its heat in mid-December in Malines.

“Here comes.”

The hot water burned soothingly through my wet shift as Katrien poured it over me. When her bucket was empty, she stood back.

“Is it me, Katrien, or do the Burgundian ladies disrespect me as much as I think?”

She cast down her gaze. A dog caught eating off the table would not have looked more trapped.

“You can tell me the truth, Katrien. I know that we have not truly spoken, but I should like to be friends. I promise, I shall be good to you.”

She wiped her hands on her apron, her mouth pursed.

“I’m sorry. I did not mean to put you in an uncomfortable position.” I plucked at my wet chemise and thought. “May I ask this, then—how do I get their respect?”

She swallowed, then frowned, before speaking at last. “They respect no one but themselves, Mevrouw. Not the Spanish, not the Flemish, no one.”

“That is for certain. One must be born into the ruling families of old Burgundy, or forget it. What I wonder is, has anyone told them that Burgundy is gone? As rich and fabled as was the duchy, consult the maps—it has disappeared. It is part of the French King’s lands now. Only the Netherlands remain. The duchy ceased when Philippe’s mother died, the last of the Burgundian line. Call himself Duke of Burgundy all he wants, Philippe is a Habsburg, like his father.”

“Do not tell him that,” Katrien murmured, then glanced at me, scared.

I burst into laughter. “Oh, we definitely shall not. We must not burst the bubble of the new Philippe the Good.”

“Mevrouw
,
”
she breathed, scandalized.

I sank lower into my tub. “This land is mad. It is the one place in Christendom where the Seven Deadly Sins are considered virtues. I wonder if Mother knew just what kind of place she was sending me to.”

“Mevrouw?”

I let water trail from my fingertips. “Yes?”

“I found this when I was changing the sheets.” She pulled a letter from her apron.

I sighed. It was from Mother. I had received it that morning, and as my ladies stared, had popped it under my mattress. I had not wished to open it. Likely Mother was responding to my claim to the titles of Princes of Asturias, for which I was duly ashamed. Not only was it improper, but monstrously cold. How heartless I must seem, grabbing at titles, when my dear brother had just died. If only she knew how much I grieved for him.

“Do you not wish to read it?”

Sighing, I held out my hand.

Katrien placed the folded paper in it. “Would you like my knife?”

I nodded.

She produced a small utensil from in her girdle. The Flemings, like common folk everywhere, were always prepared for a meal.

I slid the knife under the large red pat of Mother’s seal, then shook open the letter—three sheets.

Dearest Juana,

By now you will have received word from our ambassador about the passing of our angel. I regret that I have not been able to write to you about it sooner, but in addition to keeping vigil for six weeks in my bed, I have been stricken with a strange illness, which has sapped my strength entirely. Indeed, I had been abed when your father and I received word that Juan was ill. It was the day after Isabel’s second wedding. Being the mother of the bride is always exhausting, but that morning, I could not rise. I was wondering how in the world I could endure two more weddings—might we do away with some of the ceremony when María and Catalina are wed?—when a messenger came with a letter. I saw immediately from the way he would not look at me that something was wrong.

The news was worse than I could imagine. It was from our dear new daughter Marguerite, begging me to come posthaste to Salamanca. Juan had taken ill, and though doctors had bled him and purged him with herbs, his temperature continued to rise. She said that Juan had forbidden his men to send word of his illness to me, lest he alarm me when I was so weary. He must have seen what a toll the wedding festivities had taken on me when we had parted at Ávila, I for Alcántara at the Portuguese border, he and Marguerite for Salamanca, where they wished to set up housekeeping. I am mortified that he saw my exhaustion. Am I becoming such an old lady that people must tiptoe around me?

When I told Fernando of Juan’s illness, he would not hear of my going. He said that Marguerite must be exaggerating. He would go see what was the matter; I should rest. And then he waited until I got back into bed before he would leave, which I did very quickly, for I did not want Juan to wait.

For a day I heard nothing. I thought I would go out of my head. Cardinal Cisneros prayed with me all night. And then express couriers came with the message: Juan is holding his own. Juan’s fever has broken. Juan will surely recover.

Then, for two days, nothing more.

Finally, a messenger came. When the Cardinal insisted that he speak, he fell to his knees.

The messenger said that the King was dead.

I thought I must be hearing incorrectly. Fernando had not even been ill.

The messenger sobbed and had to be taken away. Cardinal Cisneros began to pray. I heard Fernando’s name among his words.

I crawled on my knees to my prayer booth. I was in there, twelve hours later, when your father came.

It took me moments to find my voice. I told him I had heard that he was dead. He said, No, my dear, I am alive. Here I am. You have me.

I pulled away from him and asked, How is Juan? What about Juan?

He gathered me to himself, but I strug gled against his arms to see his face.

When I met his eyes, he shook his head.

I hit him. Hard. On the chest. Then again. And again.

When I asked him why he had told me like that, he said that he thought that if I found out he was alive when I believed he was dead, it would weaken the blow about Juan.

I wanted to kill him.

We cried together like babies—your father, for Juan, and for his own loss, and I, for Juan, and for the folly of your father’s thinking. For though your father understands many things, he does not know the relationship between a mother and her child. There was nothing he, or anyone in this world, could ever, ever, do to soften the loss of my angel.

“Mevrouw? More hot water?”

“Yes, please.” I swiped at my tears with my wet hand and read on.

Marguerite is pregnant. We look forward to the child’s birth. He might be the new Prince of Asturias, though he will never be Juan.

All I have of Juan now is his dog, Bruto. You must remember Bruto—the shaggy yellow cur that he insisted on keeping. He sleeps at my feet now, with your little Estrella. They have become playmates—though your Estrella is poor at sharing. She is fierce for such a little thing. I suppose that is the way of the world—the smallest dog barks the loudest.

Outside, the leaves have fallen from the pomegranate trees in the courtyard. They were still green when I had taken to my bed. I feel that I have awakened in a harsh new world, one in which I don’t know the language, the customs, or the climate. Is this how Colón’s Indios feel when they find themselves in the Spains?

I would like to ask how you fare, though I know you will not answer. Why do you not write, Juana? It has been over a year. If you wished to break my heart, you have succeeded. Do you punish me for sending you from the Spains? Someday you will understand why I did, and may not judge me so harshly. Until then, I will pray for your forgiveness, and for the forgiveness of God for my sins, of which there are many.

This 26th day of November, anno Domini 1497,

Your loving mother, Isabel

I let the letter flutter to the floor and then sank in the tub. Had she not received news of my claim to the title of Princes? And she was caring for Estrella? Her kindness confused me. I knew only how to defend myself from her. But how did I begin to have a relationship with this woman? It was like trying to befriend a mountain.

Later, at dinner, my husband said, “You’re looking pale, Puss.” Servants were gathering our plates in preparation for an entertainment between courses. “You haven’t said ten words.”

The Dowager spoke up from my other side. “Perhaps she is pregnant.” She raised her bald brows at Philippe. “If she is with child, she must guard her strength immediately. She must abstain from sweet milk and cheese, must not walk with a full stomach, or take any exercise at a fast pace. She must not walk at midday, or when it is cloudy.”

“Is she pregnant, Grand-mère, or dying?”

She flicked back her veil with a scowl. “Do not mock me, boy. Both conditions will come in their own good time.”

Madame de Hallewin leaned forward from the Dowager’s other side to address me. “Your Grace, I have heard of a physician in Antwerp who can offer an elixir sure to stir a sluggish womb.”

My lady-in-waiting, the aging and bewhiskered doña Eugenia, announced, “In the Spains, we turn to the mercy of Our Lord for our needs. When, after six years, Her Serene Majesty the Queen produced no more live children after the first, she undertook a pilgrimage to the tomb of San Juan de Ortega, outside Burgos. By the following year, she had conceived a son.”

Philippe kissed my shoulder. “It should take you only seventy years to walk to Burgos from here, if you avoid the midday and the clouds.”

The Dowager gave him a warning shake of her finger.

I was saved from explaining the current state of my womb by a troop of dwarfs. To the blast of trumpets, they rolled out a great castle tower, the wheels of the cart that bore it creaking under the massive burden. No sooner had the dwarfs scampered away than men dressed as Saracens clattered in on horses, slashing their scimitars at us as they rode to the castle. Their steeds’ hooves thudding against the rushes, they galloped around the castle and shook their turbaned heads.

The door of the castle fell open. Soldiers in armor dashed out and slew the terrible Saracens, save one. The soldier marched the unfortunate Saracen to our table and presented his sword to Philippe.

“Our enemies are yours to vanquish,” the soldier cried. “Will you save us?”

Philippe, laughing, took the sword. “And here’s where I say my motto, yes?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the soldier whispered.

Philippe waved the sword over his head. “Who shall dare?”

I watched, but my troubled mind was not engaged in it. I had succeeded in breaking my mother’s heart, when all I truly wanted was her respect. The question was not whether I would forgive her, but whether she would ever forgive me. How could I repair the damage I had wrought, when I might not ever see her again?

The Dowager nudged me with her arm. “Get up. Your turn.”

I rose, knowing my part in the drama for the evening. And while I had pronounced my motto at other entertainments and jousts, that night, though I was surrounded by hosts of smiling lords and ladies, the words rang true in a different way.