The Creation Of Eve (37 page)

"I didn't realize you were interested."

"Of course I am," I said stiffly. "It is science."

He frowned. "I am sorry. It is just that I had the impression you were trying to avoid me in Aranjuez."

I could not speak. Had it not been he who was avoiding me?

"I was not so much offended when I came back with the pliers to remove your woman's tooth and found you both gone. I thought perhaps she had lost her courage or one of you did not feel well from the herb--I hoped that wasn't so. I was relieved when she came down to see me when I inquired about her and I was able to do the job. But whenever I saw you in the distance over the next few weeks, and thought of approaching you--"

He had seen me? And had thought of approaching me? Our gazes met and then flew apart.

"Well," he said, "it does not matter. The case for coca is closed. It seems that the stinging tendrils of the Inquisition reach all the way to the New World."

"The Inquisition?" I said, glad to speak of something else.

"When Inquisitor-General Valdes learned of an herb that soothes countless Indians in Peru, he decided it must be of the Devil. How could all those natives worship God with their heads numb with the green slimy stuff? When I told him I had encouraging therapeutic results from my experiments with it here, he accused me of worshipping science. He had me taken into custody for questioning."

"When?" I exclaimed.

"The summer after our experiment."

"Are you well?"

"The dwindling number of Spanish Protestants and heretics gave him altogether too much time to devote to me."

"That is terrible! You were trying to do such good."

"The King had me freed as soon as he heard, but I went to Sevilla to avoid the Inquisitor-General's eye for a while. I am sorry to say that when I passed through Aranjuez last month, on my way Up from Sevilla, all the coca had been destroyed."

"All of it? No! That cannot be. Those who need the relief it can bring will not be allowed to have it?"

"Do not worry,
juffrouw
. His Majesty will not fight the Church, but there are other herbs to try and he supports my work in bringing them to the people. The King wishes me to start an experimental garden of New World plants at El Escorial, too. My work will continue there as well as here."

"The King's new Royal Monastery--I have not been to see the construction yet. They say it will be the Ninth Wonder of the World. His Majesty says he will take the Queen when she has fully recovered, to see how the building is coming along."

"Oh, it is a wondrous sight--a magnificent monastery and palace combined, cradled by noble mountains. I hope you can see it soon. I had come here today to harvest some specimens for transplanting there, but as you see"--he held Up his empty basket--"I must change my plan. Oddly enough, a great swath of the planting I wished to harvest has been plucked Up, roots and all."

"Was it a valuable plant?"

"Not really. I was raising it only for the flowers, which are not particularly noteworthy. But for some reason, the King is quite fond of them. I was growing the specimens at his request."

"Do I know this flower?"

"Perhaps not." He tossed back the wing of shining dark hair that had crept into his eyes. "Moonflower, it is called."

I shook my head in nonrecognition.

"Few know it," he said, "even in my circle. It blooms only at night. By day, it 's a fairly plain plant. I can't think why anyone would want to steal it." He Used his basket to scratch his leg. "I just hope whoever took it is careful. It is quite poisonous. The cattle of New World settlers who have grazed Upon it have died a slow and painful death. Of the flux, it is said. The poor beasts are made to suffer and cramp Until they run dry and die."

I heard the crunch of pine needles. I turned to see Francesca marching toward Us, her veil whipping in righteous anger. "There you are,
signorina
!"

I blushed, realizing how openly I had been speaking with a man, and how much I had been enjoying it.

She pinned doctor Debruyne with a stern look.

"How is the tooth?" he asked pleasantly.

She flashed her empty gum. "
Bene
. My lady must not be alone when speak to the gentleman."

He laughed, then bowed to me. "You see that I must take my leave,
juffrouw
."

I curtseyed, then watched him go as I fought off feelings of regret. How easy it was to talk with him. How it stimulated my mind. But perhaps revealing my interest in herbs and science threatened him, as my serious pursuit of painting--and his perception of my success--had discouraged Tiberio. I heaved a sigh, then turned to follow Francesca.

Francesca's rough-spun veil grated against the coarse material of her gown as she shot me a look over her shoulder. "I tell you something now so you know to keep it hush. The Queen no need to hear this bad thing now."

"What bad thing?"

"Servants' talk."

"Not more gossip." But when I drew Up to her, I saw that her face was troubled. "What is it, Francesca?"

"The Prince of Ascoli, he died."

"Dona Eufrasia's husband?" I thought of the young man escorting the King's former mistress to the doomed reception. As lean and handsome as an Arabian stallion, the prince was the picture of virility. I remember thinking how gracious it had been of the King to reward his mistress with such a healthy specimen of manhood. "But he was so young."

"Twenty-three."

"How did he die?"

Her thick peasant's brows knitted together. "Stomach flux, for long, long time. Three week he is in terrible pain. The cramps, they nearly rip him in two. They say it is from poison, but
signorina,
what kind of the poison take so long?"

ITEM: It is said that in the ceiling above the studio of the great painter Albrecht Durer there existed a grated hole. Whenever Durer fell into his well-known fits of melancholia and lapsed into idleness, his wife, spying from above, would rap the grate to spur him into action.

ITEM: There is another famous hole in the floor. In the Royal palace of Saint-Germain in Paris, under the finest Turkey carpet in the French Queen Catherine's bedchamber--a room seldom visited by her husband--there is a narrow shaft that reaches down through the ceiling below. She no longer rolls back the carpet and looks through the hole--not now that Diane de Poitiers no longer stays in the bedroom below it and Henri of France is dead.

9 OCTOBER 1564

Valsain, the House in the Woods of Segovia

The first of the October rains came this morning. It fell in a gray curtain outside the window of the King's office, its hiss blending with the strum of guitars and the scratch of the King's quill as he bent over his desk. I stood by the Queen, waiting to stack the documents that she had sprinkled with sand after the King had annotated and signed them.

It is not every day that I help the King in his office. Today, in fact, was the first. Two of his secretaries had taken ill last night, and when His Majesty mentioned to the Queen after Mass that he was summoning a third to help him plow through his daily stack of documents, she had asked to fill the role.

"I am Queen," she said to him, "yet I have not signed a single document other than letters to my mother since I arrived in Spain." We were strolling in the covered arcade around the courtyard--no other ladies were in attendance. The Queen said they tired her, and the King, never one to enjoy the tension between the French ladies and the Spanish, did not insist Upon their presence. Now the rain had begun, dampening one's clothes and impregnating the air with the smell of wet wood. "I do feel quite Useless, My Lord. I should like to be a help."

The King held her by the back of the neck as they walked. "You would find it very boring, pet. I read and write Until my eyes blur and my fingers cramp. Sometimes I can get quite testy."

"I would not mind."

"That is because you are perfect." He leaned in to kiss her. "But wouldn't you two rather be dabbling at your colors?" He looked over his shoulder at me.

I bobbed in a brief curtsey. These days mostly I read aloud while the Queen listlessly stitches.

"I cannot have my office turned into a hen's nest, My Lady," he said to the Queen. "But very well. Since I cannot see you at night."

She slid out her lip in a child's manner. "Cruel doctor Hernandez. He must stop thinking of me as an invalid."

I gazed out from the arcade. It had been the Queen who had appealed to doctor Hernandez for respite from her marital duties, telling him that she was too weak for coupling, begging him to bar the King from her bed. Doctor Hernandez had reluctantly agreed, but warned her that he would have to bleed her thoroughly if her weakness continued for more than another fortnight.

I saw the King's hand tighten around her neck. "Do not worry, pet. He has told me it will not be long Until you will be healthy enough to resume all your activities."

Soon we were in the King's office, where I waited with my hands clasped as the King wrote. The rain purred outside the window; the King's guitarists played a light gypsy song. The King was scribbling away at a document when the Queen asked, "Did dona Eufrasia have her baby, My Lord?"

He looked Up, his round-framed spectacles Upon his nose.
"?Como?"

"Dona Eufrasia. Was her child born? I have not heard."

"I don't know--yes, I suppose it was. I am working, pet."

She watched him write for a while. "It was a pity she lost her husband."

His pen stopped.

"I sent her a note of condolence," she said.

He resumed his writing. "That was good of you."

She sprinkled some sand into her hand, then blew it onto the floor. "Will you not call her back to court, My Lord, now that her husband is gone?"

"She has got a baby now," he said, not looking Up from his work. "Regardless, that would be my sister's decision. She is part of Juana's household, not mine."

"Have you seen this baby? Is he--she--"

"She. I think."

"Is she as pretty as dona Eufrasia? Or does she look like her father?"

"You are keeping me from my work, pet. Shall I call for another secretary?"

Don Carlos marched into the office, followed by Don Alessandro. The Prince went straight to his father's desk without a glance at the Queen.

The King put down his pen and got Up to embrace his son. "How are you today, Carlos? Did you try those herbs I gave you for your head pain?"

Don Carlos shrugged free. "No. It tastes foul. I won't drink it."

"Toad," said the Queen, "will you not say hello to me?"

Don Carlos turned slowly, clenching his fists at his sides as she stepped forward and kissed him on both cheeks.

"What have you to say for yourself, Toady? You have not come to see me for weeks."

"My Lady," he said, his voice breaking with earnestness, "I have heard you are not yet well."

"Do I not look well?" She turned this way and that, her gold and black gown rustling. "Oh dear! I have spilt some sand."

Don Carlos struggled for words as she went over to place the shaker on the King's desk. When she saw the Prince's discomfort, she exclaimed, "Look at your pretty new pendant!"

He gazed down at the ruby-studded jewel Upon his narrow chest, then raised his chin with resolve. "It is a locket."

She plucked it Up, still suspended around his neck, and opened it. "Why, Toad! It's a picture of me. Sofi, did you paint this?"

I did not need to examine it. I had painted nothing in months. "No, My Lady."

Still bound to the Queen by the chain of the locket, Don Carlos returned his gaze to the floor. "Don Alonso painted it, from the portrait Sofi painted of you."

"May I see?" said the King.

Don Carlos's eyes flashed with hatred. "Why don't you just take it? Take it, like you do everything else from me."

The King glanced at his musicians. They remained bent over their guitars.

"We came to take you walking, My Lady," said Don Alessandro. He had been unusually quiet. "May we please borrow her a moment, Your Majesty?"

"I hardly think that is a good idea," the King said, "with it raining."

"It stopped," Don Carlos said flatly.

We all looked to the window. Indeed, the rain had given way to watery sunshine, with the trees dripping in staccato.

"She is still recovering," said the King.

"She would not need to be recovering if you had not Used her for your base desires," said Don Carlos.

"Carlos!" the King said harshly.

A page entered with a tray of pomegranate slices.

Don Carlos marched to the door and, with a jab of his elbow, knocked over the page's tray on his way out. Porcelain smashed. Pomegranate slices, trailing seeds and rosy pulp, slid across the tile floor.

"Better watch him," the King said to Don Alessandro.

"Let me go with them, too, My Lord," said the Queen.

"Absolutely not. He is Unpredictable."