Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters (The Katherine of Aragon Story Book 1) (16 page)

A courtier outside the king’s chambers told her the news. Hours before, King Ferdinand’s fever had finally broken and he had asked for food. All the royal family remained with him.

She entered the large, inner chamber next to the king’s bedchamber. Before she reached the door of the king’s most private room, she paused, hearing the pure voice of Prince Juan close by, singing like an angel:

Glorious king, true light and clarity,
Almighty God, Lord, if it please You,
Be a faithful aid to my companion,
Because I have not seen him since the night came,
And soon it will be
dawn.

Beatriz looked towards the room’s embrasure. A haze of golden light enveloping both their forms, the prince sat with his sister Isabel across the other side of the room in the deep window seat. Isabel gazed out the window, her long, golden hair uncovered, knees drawn up, as her brother, his head lowered, played his lute and sang. They were so engrossed in their own private worlds they didn’t notice Beatriz across the room. Like a bee to pollen the prince’s beautiful voice drew her in. She leaned against the wall, letting the dark shadows cloak her, listening to the prince:

Fair companion, are you sleeping or
awake?
Don’t sleep any longer, but softly rouse yourself,
For in the east I see the star
arisen
Which brings on the day, I know it well,
And soon it will be
dawn.

Fair companion, I call you with
singing:
Don’t sleep any longer, because I hear the bird
sing
Which goes to seek the day through the woods,
And I fear that the jealous one may attack you,
And soon it will be
dawn.

Prince Juan looked out at the breaking day with his sister. “I wish my songs were as good. To write one song to last down the years, as this song has, is to have immortality.”

“Father will be soon well enough for you to sing to him.” Isabel spoke automatically, as if not really attending to his words.

Juan lowered his head and let out an odd sound. He put the lute down beside him, his hands gripping his upper legs. “Well or unwell, Father has never liked me singing to him.”

Isabel swung around. “Is that important when we praise God for giving back our father? What is a song, brother, long lasting or otherwise, compared to Father’s life? At least this hasn’t proven to be a death-watch like when I lost Alfonso.”

Juan reached and clasped her hand. “Isabel, you mistake my meaning. It goes without saying, I thank God for our father’s life. Perchance I have true and better reason to thank Him. For days I have feared I might be called to take Father’s throne.”

Isabel turned back to the window. “And if you were so called? Fear or not, ’tis your place to take up our Father’s crown. ’Tis your duty. Just thank God that you’ve more time to ready yourself for it.”

Juan picked up his lute and stared at it. “What if I am never ready for it?”

The prince looked drawn, pale, fearful. Beatriz began to steal away, going closer to the bedchamber of the king. All the time Beatriz kept her eyes on the prince, hoping his sister would offer a word of comfort and chase his sadness away. Isabel did not move, but kept looking out the window.

My love,

Pray, forgive my evil writing – my hand cramps from an afternoon spent translating a book I discovered in the library. A very difficult task it proved, too. The book is old and written in poor ink – some of the pages are almost impossible to read. But it is a valuable book, all about disorders of the blood. It is far too important not to try to
save.

We have moved to another
alcázar
– one better suited for King Ferdinand’s convalescence. He recovers slowly. Queen Isabel told me she feels like she has been to Hell and back. She prays daily for her family to be spared more grief. She does not think she could withstand any harder
trials.

Like many men forced to remain inactive, the king is often short-tempered with his family. The other day he muttered angrily, “Isabel. I am not Lazarus. Do not treat me as if I have been raised from the dead!” He was angrier still when she replied, “To see you suffering, my husband, was more than I could bear. I deserved to suffer in your place... I would have, if God had allowed.” Forgive me, love. I know you respect the king, but I wish he could look beyond himself and see how ill his wife is – and the great distress and fear of his
children...

Beatriz lifted her head. On her table, the candle flame flickered and danced in a draught, and wax dripped down the length of the thick candle. She sighed. Catalina was an utterly altered child since the threat of death touched her father. Normally a child who claimed happiness in the school-room, now she just came and attended silently to her books. She never brought up again that her father was a liar.

How beauteous is this garden where the flowers of the earth vie with the stars of heaven! What can compare with the vase of yon alabaster fountain, filled with crystal water? Nothing but the moon in her fullness, shining in the midst of an unclouded
sky!
~ Arabic inscription on the walls of the Alhambra

B
eatriz drooped and panted for breath, the heat of the day stifling her in the school-room. Seeing the pale faces of Catalina and Maria, she decided to end their Latin lesson, packing up their books, quills and writing equipment.

“Pray, could you not tell us a story?” entreated Catalina. Locking up her moveable desk, Beatriz thought longingly of an afternoon siesta. All she wanted was something to eat, and then to fall into bed, whiling away at least one hour of summer heat in slumber. But still she laughed. “Do I need to ask which one?”

Catalina’s eyes lit up, her tiny feet jigging on the tiles before doing a dancer’s turn, with one arm flung up, the other across her waist. Beatriz gave a sleepy laugh followed by a longer yawn, envying again the children’s boundless energy after hours of study, and pleased to see Catalina’s zest for learning making her happy and zestful in other ways.

Maria interjected. “Please, my princess, could it be my favourite story this time? The one about the three princesses locked in the tower?” Since listening to stories meant keeping their hands busy in other ways, Maria skipped to collect their embroidery frames from their exile at the side of the closed door.

Catalina tapped her mouth with a bent index finger. “All right, my choice of story for another time. But remember, my turn next. Shall we take our embroidery to the Hall of the Two Sisters?”

Beatriz forced herself to stop yawning. “A most fitting place for storytelling.” She gathered up the books about Alexander the Great and Charlemagne from the table. Tossing back her head, she laughed. “So we go from the tale of the king gifting his beloved wife a field of almond snow to that of a faithful daughter. Perchance my next lesson should not be history but give thought to the use of metaphors in fable.” She took care to place the books in their rightful places on the library shelves. When she faced the girls again, she smiled at them teasingly. “Did I say I agreed to this?”

Catalina and Maria laughed, and Catalina grinned. “Good teacher, have you ever refused us a story?”

Beatriz planted her long-fingered hands on her narrow hips and pretended to think. “Now, give me a moment to cast my mind back.” Catalina and Maria exchanged looks, grinning at one another. Drumming ink-stained fingers on the soft folds of the black velvet habito, she pursed her lips, as if preparing to whistle. “I have been your teacher for three years. Surely there has been one time when I told you girls no?”

Chuckling with mirth, Catalina shook her head. “Never! And for that, Latina, we’re both grateful. No other compares with you as a storyteller. We never get enough of your stories. They’re a perfect reward after a hard morning’s lesson, si, Maria?”

Maria nodded vigorously, turning begging eyes upon Beatriz.

Beatriz tilted her head to one side, fighting laughter. “You never get enough? I would have never guessed! But with praise like that from you, my infanta, Dońa Catalina, one day Queen of England, how can I refuse?”

From the library, Beatriz walked with the girls to the Hall of the Two Sisters. Soon, the murmur of water fountains melded with the soft pad of slippered feet upon the tiles of paved coloured marble. The cheerful chime of running water returned Beatriz’s thoughts to the Moors, awed anew by the creation wrought by their skills and labours. Here, as in so many of their alcázars, they created a paradise on Earth, rendering beauty from word to reality.

Water came down from the surrounding high mountains to the River Xenil. Building the Alhambra, the Moors had drawn from myriad tiny streams to make a system of aqueducts throughout Granada. Another alcázar
of gardens and fountains and the most glorious alcázar in all Castilla, high-ceiling chambers, honey-combed walls and archways melded together water, light and shadow, rendering the Alhambra a place of wonder, a place to nurture their very souls.

Beatriz eyed the inscriptions on the nearest wall: “There is no conqueror but God” and “Your God is one God”. Similar sentiments echoed upon the other walls too. Everywhere she looked the walls of the Alhambra gave voice to man’s reaching out to God, man’s love of God. The words built a bridge of man’s faith to a God of love and seemed as real and solid as the tangible stones that built the Alhambra. Years of long study had brought her to the belief the Moors worshipped the same God as Christians. Heavy of heart, she sighed. What right did they have to believe the Moors wrong? Did God really belong only to those who called themselves Catholic? A cold finger smote her. If she ever spoke her thoughts she knew what people would call her: Wicked! Evil! Sinner! Blasphemer! Repent, or you’ll end in Hell.

The light showered upon her and she felt disembodied, as if her spirit broke free from her body and she became one with the haze of light, seemingly veiling the air itself. She shook her head and returned to her body, back into the moment. She had no sense of evil here, rather the Alhambra deepened her awareness of God. Slow, reflective weeks at this citadel of the Moors made her feel whole.

She remembered her father telling her of his grandfather, a son of a learned rabbi, himself a descendant of the great Samuel ibn Nagella. Converting to Christian faith in young manhood, he had told his grandson that God was God whatever name man – whether Jew, Christian or Moor – gave Him. Many roads journey to the same destination, to God. Gazing around Beatriz pondered this, wondering whether men able to create such beauty truly deserved condemnation. The Alhambra sang a song of love and praise to the inner life of man, and spoke of eternity. Many times, walking along this same way, through the shadows of the arches, Beatriz sensed the watching ghosts of Moors, as if they held her presence somehow accountable. Perchance, this was the truth. She belonged to a people who had robbed this beauty from others. What gave them the right, when the Moors had wrought this beauty with their own hands, hearts and souls? Her people lived here only upon sufferance. They had no right to call this home. Beatriz felt a darkness falling on her spirit – a darkness as black as crow wings. In her mind flashed the memory of crows picking at death’s leavings on the edge of battle. She shivered, her heart as cold as the marble chilling her feet through her thin slippers.

Around the Hall of the Two Sisters exquisite tiles decorated the lower walls. Each one a work of art in its own right, some bore the escutcheons of former Moorish rulers. Above the tiles, interwoven with rich gilding and lapis lazuli gemstones, stuccowork formed large plates of arabesques. On the plates was written text from the Koran or verses from Moorish poetry. Sometimes she read the words out loud to the girls. She prayed that Catalina would one day understand:

My heart has become capable of every
form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
and a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Kaa’ba,
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the
Quran.
I follow the religion of
Love.

Beatriz brushed tears from her eyes. All she ever wanted was to understand. She gazed up at the cupola. Gentle golden light imbued the Hall of the Two Sisters and rendered it restful, but it was a serenity her conscience refused. No matter where she looked, voices of the former owners spoke from the walls of the alcázar, proclaiming loudly,
What you take, you never own.
To live in such ill-gotten beauty, tarnished by years of war and destruction, so often stole away her peace.

She led the girls to the far side of the chamber. They sat on a low ottoman, directly below an inner balcony belonging once to the harem. She gazed up, once more disturbed by fleeting shadows. Phantoms lingered there, up in the balcony – ghosts of beautiful, jewelled women, with slender wrists, ankles and waists encircled by chains of gold.

Half shutting her eyes, she imagined them gathered on the balcony, brushing and braiding each other’s hair, threading tiny jewels in their long dark or fair tresses. One ebony-haired woman turned her way. Spreading out long, henna-stained fingers, the woman’s deep-set, dark eyes stared down, her mouth clamped shut in a thin, straight line. Beatriz blinked, and saw a black skull, eye sockets embedded with fiery jewels. Hatred touched her soul. She blinked away the vision and trembled.

The girls waiting for their tale, Beatriz shut the door on her thoughts and lounged back on the cushions of her ottoman, closing her eyes. “Years ago, there lived in Granada a king named Mohamed El Hayzari, meaning Mohamed the Left-handed. His people named him thus because he used his left hand rather than his right, or perchance because he always conducted his life the wrong way around and was continually in some kind of trouble.”

“Your sister Juana is left-handed, too,” Maria whispered to Catalina. Frowning in annoyance, Catalina shushed her.

Beatriz opened her eyes. “Shall I go on, Maria?”

The rebuked child wiggled in discomfort. “Forgive me, Teacher. I will be silent.”

Beatriz smiled, all lightness again. “I am but teasing, little dońa. Now, where was I? Si, he was a brave king and managed to keep himself upon his throne no matter the trouble he brought on himself and his people. And not forgetting us Christians. When Mohamed was an old king, he rode with his people in the foothills of Elvira. It was spring and even the old find it difficult to stay always within stone walls...”

As she told the story, she found herself drawn to the cupola. Light. There’s always light. She looked at the girls. Si, light. Both the girls were that. Lights piercing through the darkness of her life.