Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters (The Katherine of Aragon Story Book 1) (26 page)

Beatriz reached for Maria, putting her arm around her shoulders. A breeze teased the pool, rippling it alive and flecked with silver stars. The dragonfly winged close to them. The beauty of the moment left her breathless, aware of the sweetness of life. Surely nothing once loved is ever truly lost? Love, even if as brief in life as the ethereal, darting dance of a dragonfly flying across water, outlived time itself. Love held the pomegranate seeds of immortality.

Beatriz glanced at Maria, seeing her gaze down at her reflection.

“Avoid the mistake of Narcissus, child,” Beatriz said automatically, then scolded herself for stupidity. Maria wasn’t being vain, just contemplative, like she had been just seconds before. She wasn’t surprised when she heard Maria’s reply.

“I wasn’t admiring myself, Latina. The whole world drifted away to nothingness. I felt at peace, like I was in a dream, looking down at my face in the pool.”

Suddenly cold, Beatriz drew her mantle around her.

“What’s wrong?” Maria whispered, her eyes frightened.

“Your words remind me of an old belief of the long ago Greeks.” Beatriz took Maria’s hand onto her lap, saying no more. Their faces wavered together in the water, sparking with diamonds of light.

“What old belief, Teacher?” Maria directed her question at Beatriz’s reflection.

Beatriz considered the girl, biting her bottom lip.

“Tell me,” Maria begged.

Turning to her, Beatriz’s fear widened its jaws. Once again scolding herself for stupidity, Beatriz held Maria’s hand tighter, and inhaled deeply. “The Greeks once believed to dream seeing your reflection in water omened your death.”

Maria sputtered out laughter. “Fear not, teacher. I daydreamed of what might one day befall me, all my hopes for a marriage like my mother’s. There was no dream, daydream or otherwise, of my reflected face upon the tranquil water. Pray, don’t worry about me. God willing, I don’t plan to die, but to live a long, long life.”

“No one plans to die.” Beatriz cleared her throat, not daring to look at Maria. She tugged at her girdle, thinking of the prince. “Speak never thus aloud, for perchance we tempt fate.”

The low shadows of autumn lengthened. Beatriz shivered, the sunlight no longer warming her, but thin like Lady Lent. Downy clouds gathered above, blocking out the sun, dulling the pool to burnished steel. She trembled again, unable to stop the flood of memories. So many, many precious memories of the prince, glittering jewels strewn along a beach stretching back for years and years. Without Prince Juan the court would be a place dark and bereft. Already the threat of losing him buffeted them without mercy, tossing them like a ship floundering on storm-swept seas. If the prince died, it diminished them all.

“I prayed for the prince,” Maria said, lifting shining eyes.

Beatriz sighed. “We all are.”

“Do you think God will hear us?”

Beatriz reached again for Maria’s hand, shutting her eyes. “He hears us.” Helplessly, she shrugged. “But, always, there’s a time to be born and a time to die. Whether the time has come for Prince Juan we don’t yet know...”

Beatriz gazed back at the pool. The wind blew gently on its surface, and moved the clouds away from the sun. Light danced upon the water. Swaying backward and forth, the shadows of the surrounding trees lengthened as time moved forward. She closed her eyes, her skin tingling in the cool air. Death did not belong here, not in this garden, and surely not with Prince Juan. The happiness of so many depended on his life.

The garden seemed an Eden untouched by death – all that Beatriz loved safe within. The prince’s death would mantle them with cause for sorrow until the end of their days. Like blind bats, her twirling thoughts and prayers circled in her mind without mercy. Her head pounded when Maria asked, “Why didn’t the queen listen to the physicians?”

Beatriz stared at Maria, feeling the colour drain from her face. “What do you mean?”

“The prince was not well.”

Beatriz swallowed. “All close to him saw that. The queen also owned it in her heart.”

Maria grabbed her arm and shook. “If we all knew, why was nothing done?”

Beatriz lowered her head, retying her girdle. “Maria, ’tis hard to explain –”

“I beg you, tell me. I am no longer a child.”

Beatriz found it hard to look Maria’s way. “We are often blind when it comes to those we love. We only see what we want to see.”

Beatriz thought over the last five months. The prince and princess’s passion for one another resulted in disapproving and worried mutterings from many, not just the queen’s physicians.

Maria shook her arm again. “I have learnt enough from you, Teacher, to recognise illness when I see it. The prince was not just frail... his recent malady was not the cause of this but just a small part.”

“Si.” Beatriz put her hand on her aching temple. “There was a translucent sheen to his skin; his eyes glowed with constant fever. He had lost much weight since his wedding.”

Maria stirred in anger. “I do not understand. You’ve told me to use my eyes and instincts, and act on it. Did not the prince’s physicians care enough? Why did no one do anything until now, perchance when ’tis too late? I am but a maid and of no importance, but the months since his wedding... Every time I looked on him, I felt anxious, scared for him. Passion did not cause this.”

Beatriz played for time by tightening her girdle. She sniffed. “No, you are right, my bright young student. There was another fire eating away at the prince. He fevered, not enough to bed him, but enough to drain away his strength.”

“Then why did no one do anything to stop it? Why did no one take good care of him? Bar for lots of mutterings in corners and the few physicians brave enough to speak to the queen, everyone kept a conspiracy of silence about him. And now look at what has happened.”

Beatriz bent her head and rubbed at her wet eyes. “You have known the prince since he was but a boy. You can answer this question just as easily as I.”

Tears falling down her face, Maria stared across the expanse of water. A steady eddy of wind blew a few stray autumn leaves into the clear pool. They drifted towards them, their colours, red, gold and almost purple, brought to brilliant life again by water and the gloaming. Beatriz rubbed her eyes again, her sight blurring. She took a deep breath, trying to keep in control. If she started to weep, the tears would never stop.

Juan’s fire of life had blazed bright alongside the bright light of his wife. Whereas Margot’s fire ate to its content from a healthy body and spirit, the prince’s stalwart spirit alone fed his. Others at the court saw this better and clearer than his family. They all wanted to believe the same as him and, God have pity, allowed Juan’s pretence of health, his desire to be worthy of the love of his wife and not prove a disappointment to her, to his family, to blind them all. Love, or perchance the great fear of losing what they love, often stopped them from seeing what they should see. “What God joined together let no man rip asunder,” the queen had said months ago. But what no man rips apart, death finds a way to do.

···

Almost two weeks passed, the queen still under strict instructions to rest in her chamber. Along with the infantas and Maria de Salinas, Beatriz was one of the few who daily attended her. Beatriz and the girls were with the queen when the king entered her chamber, unannounced. Before dropping to a low curtsey, Beatriz saw his defeated face. Her heart fluttered to her throat and seemed to strangle her. Watching him approach his wife, Beatriz wanted to disappear, to close her ears. His red-rimmed eyes told her his news before he said one word.

“Juan?” Queen Isabel attempted to lift herself out of her chair, but fell back, seeing the despair, the sorrow newly carved upon her husband’s face. She stared at him, her mouth moving silently. All his attention on his wife, he strode to the chair facing her and sat before taking hold of her trembling hands. His bottom lip jutted over the top one, a muscle in his chin jerking, tightening. Tears welled and overflowed down his cheeks. The king’s hollow voice echoed grief and hopelessness. “Our son is dead.”

Beside Beatriz, Catalina gasped as if knifed, and the infanta Maria let loose an awful cry.
The prince dead? Prince Juan dead? Their golden prince, dead?
Beatriz found Catalina in her arms, not knowing how it came to be, no longer able to make sense of anything. Time and life tangled into a knot, tightening like a hangman’s noose around her heart. Hugging Catalina to her, she knew she was not the only one in shock. It felt like a dream – a horrible, pitiless dream. The infanta Maria, her skirts gathered before her, sped from her mother’s chamber, leaving the door wide open. Her gasping, broken sobs and stumbling footsteps petered away. Time remained still, and strangely at rest.

Queen Isabel, her high cheekbones splotched with unhealthy colour, the rest of her skin chalk-white, snatched her hands away. Recoiling in her high back chair, she gripped its carved armrests as if holding onto life itself. “No, no! It cannot be! Your last message said Juan was better.”

The king muffled a ragged sigh with his hand. Hooding his eyes, he leaned against the back of the chair. Grief and exhaustion left him grey. More tears fell down his cheeks. Beatriz had now lived at court for over a decade. This was the first moment in all that time when she saw the man emerge from the king, a vulnerable man unashamedly exposing naked, raw emotions. He leant towards the queen, clasping her hands again.

“My love, I am your slave all my days... mine own beloved, I beg for your forgiveness and understanding. When I sent that message, our son was already prepared for his tomb. He died in my arms, on the Feast of Saint Francis.”

The queen’s eyes bulged, not focusing on anything, tears running down her face. Standing, she gripped the arms of her chair. Slowly enunciating each word as if she dipped them in venom, the queen asked, “My son… he died days ago, and you did not send word to me?”

The king clasped her clenched hand and bowed his head. His tears pattered like heavy raindrops upon their linked hands. Swallowing, he licked his chapped lips. Eyes swimming with more tears, he gazed at his wife. “Beloved, such news should not come other than from one able to grieve with you. I commanded no one to speak to you of our son’s death until we could console one another.”

Her eyes breaking from his, Queen Isabel swayed, fighting for breath. She raised her chin, breathing through her nose as if forcing back half-born sobs. Sitting back on her chair she shook her head, as if wanting to clear it, speaking in a voice hoarse with grief. “How did he...” Her trembling hand framed her face. Once again she shook her head. “How did my son die? Did Juan... did he suffer?”

The king averted his face from his wife, a rapid pulse twitching the eyelid of his weak eye. Anger flared a flush of normal colour to his grey face. “We must give thanks to God.” The king spoke bitterly. “He suffered but a little – and died confessed of all his sins.”

Queen Isabel leaned closer, gripping his hands. “What is it, Ferdinand?”

The king’s full, sensual mouth disappeared into one straight, hard and vicious line. Fearful, Beatriz recognised this look so well from the past – the need for the king to lash out at whatever stood in his way. “Juan resigned himself to death.” His teeth gnawing at one side of his mouth, the king shook his head. “By the time I arrived, he had lost all heart. Juan fought a little harder knowing I was there, but I could do nothing but watch our son die.” He glared at his wife. “I begged him to live. I reminded him of his wife, of his unborn child, the two kingdoms he would one day rule, joined together to their full glory. I do not understand why he gave up his battle for life so easily. He had so much to live for. Except for a too often frail body, he was the best of us...”

The king wiped the side of his hand under his dripping nose. “I cannot help remembering how we rejoiced at his birth, thanking God for him. Or how much I rejoiced knowing the man he grew to be and the strong kingdoms we were to pass to him. His death makes no sense to me – no sense at all. There’s no purpose in it other than to destroy all our hopes. It mocks at everything we have worked so hard to do. ’Tis God Himself who mocks us.”

The queen lowered her head. “Ferdinand, don’t.” Swallowing, she licked her chapped mouth. “You speak through grief. ’Tis pointless to go down that road, my husband.” She lifted desperate eyes. “God gave him to us, and He has now taken him back. My angel is with God, amongst God’s own angels.”

The queen crumbled, her fragile bridge of comfort collapsing. Taking her hands from her husband’s, she wound her arms tight across her chest. Bending forward, she wept.

King Ferdinand groaned. Violently shifting in his chair, he clunked his head against its back, bone against wood. Awash with tears, his eyes flew open. The king half stumbled, half tossed himself, kneeling beside his wife, gathering her in his rock-hard, muscular arms, befitting a soldier-king.

Man and woman sobbed, rocking together, united by mutual anguish, unaware of anyone or anything. Her arm around Catalina, Beatriz led her from the queen’s chamber. In the long hallways outside, shock and sorrow weighed down both their steps. Beatriz wanted to wake from this awful dream. But it was too real to be a dream. Everywhere she looked she saw and heard the mirror and echo of despair, of sorrow.

Beatriz slept in the princess’s chamber that night, knowing Maria out of her depths to comfort the Catalina. They prayed for the prince, prayed for God to comfort Juan’s grieving wife and parents. They prayed for themselves, for God to give them strength to bear this loss – a loss that seemed so insurmountable. Well into the night, the three of them wept together until, exhausted, they fell asleep.

Dagger-sharp grief pierced Beatriz’s dreams and she awoke to her tears chilling upon neck and face. Set close to the bed, the tall, guttering candle showed she had slept only perchance one hour or two. She wiped away her tears with the sleeve of her chemise. Still tears fell and fell.
Do I breathe only to weep? Our golden prince dead. Juan, dead... dead...
dead...