The Last Queen (22 page)

Castile!”

Everyone went still. From his place on the dais with the king and queen, Philip‟s

eyes widened. Beside, Besançon went slack-jawed, food clinging to his many chins.

I moved down the chairs, clad in my traditional Spanish garb, my overskirt a rigid

cone over the whalebone farthingale favored by the royal women of Castile. My

mother‟s ruby encircled my throat; the hair tumbled loose to my waist under my

velvet hood, embroidered with Aragónese black lace. Coming before the dais, I raised

my chin to meet Louis‟ mordant gaze and Queen Anne‟s glower.

I gave them a cool smile. “Your Majesties of France,” I said, “I am a Spaniard

born and bred, and I will remain so until the day of my death.” I reached into my

gown pocket and removed the jewel with the arms of Castile that Philip had given me.

“I give your daughter this gift, so she can remember she will have me, Juana, future

queen of Spain, for a mother-in-law.”

Philip gripped his throne and half-rose. Louis said softly, “Madame Infanta is

bold.”

I glanced at him. His smile tugged at his lips, thin as a wire. “Will you not dine

with us?” he went on. “Such a shame it would be to waste such bravura on a mere

entrance.”

“Your Majesty,” I replied, “it would be more to my shame if I stayed.”

His gaze narrowed. I turned and walked out without pause, ignoring the stunned

courtiers at their tables and the staring nobles, going back to my apartments, a tickle

in my throat.

As soon as I closed my door, I slid to the floor before my astounded women, my

farthingale billowing about me like an inverted flower. Laughter escaped me in a

breathless gaze.

“We might as well start packing,” I said. “They‟ll not see me under their roof

another day.”

_________________

TO SPAIN, TO SPAIN.

I repeated the words in my mind as I walked into the courtyard, where servitors

hastened to finish the loading of the last of our belongings. As I expected, Besançon

had issued orders for our immediate departure, citing, to my amusement, a favorable

break in weather. Snow lashed out faces and the wind was cruel, but I did not care. I

had proven my mettle, though it did not alleviate the fact that my son had just been

promised to Spain‟s most pernicious foe.

Snowdrifts piled against the château walls. The entire court stood in unyielding

formation, muffled in oiled cloaks and sodden furs.

Louis smirked at my approach. “Madame Infanta, I fear it‟s been too brief a visit.”

“I regret you majesty lacks other means of entertainment,” I said, in the same

suave tone.

Without warning, his gloved hand gripped mine, pulling me close. “I do hope we

shall see each other again soon,” he whispered. I flinched, catching a lascivious glitter in his eyes.

At his side, Anne gave me a malignant glare. I had no doubt she would barricade

every border and every port, if necessary, to keep me from France again. Under the

circumstances, I forwent the traditional farewell kiss.

Philip steered me toward my mare, his hand like a vise on my sleeve. “You

deliberately ruined this occasion,” he said.

“Not as much as I would have liked,” I returned, and I pulled away to mount.

As we passed under the gatehouse, I threw back my head and laughed aloud.

__________________________________

orrential storms overcame us in Navarre― that tiny, strategically momentous

kingdom straddling France and Spain― obscuring the mountain pass ahead.

T We had to surrender our horses for return to Flanders with our less intrepid

servants and officials. The rest of us would cross the mountains on sure-footed mules

bred for the dangerous alpine roads, hired at an exorbitant rate from local guides.

I was used to riding a mule, it being the preferred mode of transport over the

rough roads of Castile, but even I began to think we‟d not survive hose treacherous

rivulets our guides dared call roads. Besieged by winds and snow that often blinded us

to the very path we sought to traverse, we lost several servants, and their laden mules,

when they tumbled over the edge to a shrieking death that echoed in the chilled air for

hours afterward. Besançon and his suite of secretaries were wretched, my ladies

hunched over their mounts in mute misery. Stunned out of his bad mood, Philip went

white and still, his discomfort exacerbated by a bad tooth he developed from all the

desserts and sweet wines he‟d imbued in France. I took to imploring every saint I

could think of, in appeal that we‟d not find ourselves entombed, lost to the world

until the spring when the goat herders uncovered our frozen bodies under the melting

snow.

Someone heard my prayers. Tripping over the rugged paths, our hands and feet

numb, our cloaks crystallized with ice after what seemed an eternity (but was actually

just four days) that glacial hell had disappeared behind us.

The sky parted. Anemic sunlight stabbed from the clouds.

Mid-afternoon on January 26, 1502, I had my first glimpse of the Ebro Valley‟s

verdant expanse stretched out below us like a vision of paradise, the tiered white-

edged cliffs of Aragón rising toward the immensity of a cloud-washed sky.

I drew my reins to a halt. Beside me, Philip also stopped, his throbbing jaw

enveloped in a kerchief. He stared dully at the unfamiliar landscape. One of the guides

cantered ahead, to bring news of our arrival.

“España,” I breathed. “I am home.”

_________________

HOW CAN I DESCRIBE WHAT IT FELT LIKE TO SET FOOT ON MY NATIVE SOIL AFTER

SEVEN YEARS OF ABSENCE? I thought I had remembered it, the look and smell, the

very feel of Spain. But in truth it seemed as strange and vivid a world to me as

Flanders once had― both lush and austere in its complexity, with its broad-leaved

forests and forbidding mountains., the serpentine wind of the Ebro River seeming to

go on forever as we tripped to into the valley to encounter a ferocious wind blowing

off the Bay of Biscay.

I heard Philip mutter the first words he‟d deigned to say to me since leaving

France. “Damn your mulish pride. Had it not been for you, we could be gathered

around a hearth right now instead of freezing our arses off like peasants.” His words

lacked much bite, however, muffled as they were by the bandage, his face drawn from

the pain in his tooth.

I flashed back, “Yes, but here you‟ll be a king.” My words touched a never, for he

visibly straightened his shoulders and barked at his page to fetch him a clean cap and

cape.

Beatriz and Soraya gathered beside me. Their relief at being home shone through

their fatigue as we spied a company of lords with their retinue galloping toward us on

stallions.

I spurred my lathered mule to them. I knew them at once, these
grandes
of Spain, high nobles familiar to me since childhood― the slim and powerful Marquis of

Villena, whose holdings in eastern Castile rivaled the Crown‟s; and his ally, thickset

fiery-haired Count of Benavente, who liked his meat rare. I gave him an earnest nod

as they dismounted and bowed before me, but reserved my smile for the tall, lean

figure of the admiral Don Fadriqué, my mother‟s premier noble and head of our

armada, who had escorted me to my betrothal in Valladolid.

His dark hair was salted with silver now, his angular temple bearing a small scar

from a wound he took during the siege on Granada. His black costume gave him a

stark quality, though one belied by his regard. He had dark blue eyes, almost black,

deep-set and hooded― the worldly eyes of a temperate soul who did not let the

exigencies of life harden him. He looked at me now with a quiet reverence that made

me start in my saddle, thrusting home as nothing else had that I was no longer the

doe-eyed infanta who‟d left Spain years ago.

“Señores.”
I said, with a catch in my throat. “I am glad of you. Please welcome my husband His Highness the archduke Philip.”

They bowed to Philip who‟d ridden up in his fresh apparel. To my discomfiture,

he received their obeisance in silence, briefly lifting his chin, sans its bandage, before turning to Besançon, who, despite our recent privations had already killed one mule

from his weight and looked about to kill the one he currently sat astride like a

mountain in his soiled robes.

“We‟ve prepared a house for you,” the admiral announced in his gravelly timbre.

“His Majesty‟s own Dr. de Soto is here,” said the admiral and upon our arrival in

the simple manor a half hour later, the diminutive
converso
physician who‟d served my mother since her coronation examined Philip. “The gum is infected,” he said, his

thick brows meeting over his nose, his eyes lucid with his intelligence. “I must lance it before the humors infect his blood.”

On the bed, Philip lifted a shout of protest. While the admiral held him down by

the shoulders and I took hold of his feet, Soto relieved my husband of his abscess

with an expert prick of a red-hot needle, followed by a poppy-seed drought. Once I

was certain Philip slept, I went down to the hall alone to join the lords.

Benavente and Villena sat before the hearth, drinking wine and speaking in

hushed voices, their man-servants standing attentively at the wall. They clearly did not

expect me to appear by myself, I thought, as they rose hastily to bow, their dialogue

ceasing abruptly.

The admiral steered me with his large calloused hand to a chair, bowing low as I

sat. I bade them to be at ease, finding it uncomfortable to be reverenced. My rank as

heiress would take getting used to.

“My lords, we‟ve had a most trying journey,” I started to explain. “My husband is

not himself and asks that you pardon him. He is in need of rest.” I paused, resisting

the impulse to further excuse Philip, whose rudeness, despite his tooth, they had no

doubt been discussing.

“There is no need to explain,” said the admiral. I noted he did not drink nor did

he sit, taking his position with abstemious care by the wall. “A winter crossing of the

Pyrenees would try even the most courageous of men.”

I glanced at Villena. He arched an elegant brow, a sardonic smile playing on his

thin lips. I noticed he had garnished each of his small ears with a tiny red gem, his face coldly aloof as a predatory bird‟s, with swarthy skin and arresting sulfuric-green eyes. I knew his reputation. He was known as a ruthless
grande
of impeccable lineage, who‟d caused my parents more than their share of trials when he refused to surrender his

castles for requisitioning during the crusade against the Moor. My mother often spoke

of him with asperity; my father detested him.

I wondered what he thought of the Habsburg prince who had come here with his

Spanish wife to claim the title of prince-consort.

As if sensing my thoughts, the admiral said, “You must do us the honor of

sharing a meal with us,” and with a hearty bray of agreement, stolid Benavente

clapped his beefy hands.

Servants hustled in. The fare was simple: bread and cold ham and cheese. It tasted

like heaven. I ate like a starving women, asking between mouthfuls that food be

brought up to Philip and to my rooms as well, where my ladies attended to the

preparation of my chamber.

Then I asked, “What of their Majesties, my parents? Do they knew we are here?”

“Word was sent, yes,” said Villena. “However their Majesties was called to Sevilla

to contend with a
morisco
insurrection Thos godforsaken heretics are never content.

Cisneros is on his way there now; deal with him as a prince of the church. He often

said he should have had them all burned years ago.”

The marquis waved his jeweled hand fastidiously, as if he spoke of the

extermination of rats. The silent man-servant behind him leaned over his chair to

wipe his lips clean of crumbs. I found myself staring as the man-servant then poured

him a refill of wine. When Villena lifted his eyes to me, his mouth curved in a feral

half-smile and I quickly looked away.

“Nevertheless,” I heard the admiral say. whose appetite was apparently as spare as

his person, “their Majesties sent word that they will meet you in Toledo. Welcoming

festivities have been prepared though Holy Week is only a few weeks away.”

“Festivities?” I repeated. If they‟d prepared festivities, they must have known long

before any official word had been sent that we‟d left France. Lopez had done his job

well.

Villena purred, “Why, yes. it is our understanding these Flemish expect

divertissements. After all, you‟ve just been in a realm known for its
joie de vivre, n’est-ce-pas?
”

My stomach lurched. My mother, it seemed, had indeed been fully apprised. How

had she taken the news of the betrothal? What would she say to us about it?

I hoped my anxiety didn‟t show on my face. “How fare their Majesties my

parents?”

“In excellent health and most eager to see Your Highness,” interjected Benavente,

before Villena could reply. The admiral, I noticed, averted his eyes.

“Indeed,” I said quietly. “Then we must make haste, for I too am eager to see

them.”

We finished the rest of the meal in awkward silence. Villena and Benavente said

their good-nights; the admiral remained, as though he sensed my need to talk. He