The Last Queen (30 page)

it?”

“From the courier! I should have known. Philip warned me; he said the only thing

that mattered to my mother was her kingdom. God in heaven, I should have listened

to him, followed him across the mountains. I should have heeded his warning when I

had the chance!”

I thrust Cisneros‟s letter into my gown pocket. “How could she? How could my

own mother plot against me after everything I‟ve done for her? And Philip― he‟[s

asked for me. All this time she‟s kept us apart and let us believe that neither cared for the other. She has a heart of stone. No mother would do this to her child.”

Beatriz reached out to me. “My lady, please, there must be some other

explanation. Her Majesty would never do this. It‟s too cruel. And she has been ill.”

My eyes brimmed with tears. I brushed them away angrily. “Why should I believe

anything they say anymore? I never spoke directly with her doctors. The old marquise

told me my mother was close to death when I first arrived and look at her: she‟s been

traveling around Castile as she always has. No, there is no other explanation. She

wants to lock me up in here to keep me from my husband and save Castile. She wants

my son to be her heir!”

Beatriz had gone white. “What will we do?” she whispered.

I stared at her. A fraught silence fell. What could I do, with Cisneros‟s men at my

gates and my life reduced to these four thick walls.

I whirled to a coffer, threw open its lid. “We must leave at once!” Dragging it to

my dressing table I pushed my hairbrushes and vials of lotion and perfume into it, to a

shattering of glass.

“I‟m done with it,” I cried, taking savage pleasure in hauling down the bed

curtains, throwing them into the coffer, and marching past Beatriz to the side table to

grab my candlesticks. “I‟m done trying to please her! She won‟t take my freedom. I

won‟t let her.”

I whirled back to Beatriz, who stood still. “Stop looking at me as if I‟ve lost my

mind! Help me, for pity‟s sake. Go get my child ready. He must come with us!”

She jerked forward to the nursery, where my babe had started to cry. “I strode to

the clothes pegs, taking down my gowns and capes. I tossed them into the coffer. I

was at my bed, ripping at the fur coverlets, when as if from across an abyss, I heard

approaching footsteps.

I halted. At the doorway of the nursery, Beatriz likewise froze.

I shifted from the bed. I had no weapon to defend myself with. The door opened.

Soraya sauntered in with Lopez, just returned from the trip to town to purchase

supplies. Lopez carried the box of candles I‟d requested.

My breath hissed through my teeth. Soraya flattened against the wall as I stalked

up to Lopez. “I trusted you. I thought you were my friend. And you lied to me. You

deceived me. You plot with my mother and Cisneros against me.”

He stammered, “Your Highness, what― what is the matter?”

I ripped out the letter. “Here is the matter, my lord: this letter from Cisneros the

courtier just brought. Would you deny you‟ve been doing his will against me all this

time?”

The color drained from his face. The box of candles fell from his hand. “I― I do

not understand. What does this letter say?”

I stared at him. “Here. Take it. Read it, though you know very well what it says!”

Lopez unfurled the crumpled parchment. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead as

he looked at me. “I swear to Your Highness, I do not know what this means.”

“You don‟t?” I let out a shrill laugh. “Do you or do you not serve my lord

Cisneros?”

He drew himself erect, a small trembling man. I thought in that instant I could

push him to the floor and stomp on him and he‟d not fight back. “I serve Your

Majesty,” he said. “I can see how this might appear but I assure you neither I nor Her

Majesty plots against you. The archbishop has exceeded his authority. I will return

word and tell him so myself.”

“Will you?” I took a step to him, saw him flinch. “Then why are you sweating like

a pig?”

“You― you misunderstand.” His voice rose. “You distress yourself to no

purpose.” He reached out a hand to me, as he had when we‟d met together in

Flanders.

Why are you afraid?

In that moment before his hand closed on my shoulder, I heard locks clang shut

in my mind. I pushed him aside with enough force to send him tumbling to the floor.

I fled the room.

“Your Highness!” I heard him cry. But I was already running down the corridor,

flying down the staircase into the hall, pausing only to kick off my shoes and gain

speed as I dashed through the double doors into the keep.

Mules loaded with supplies from Medina del Campo stood tethered to rungs in

the wall. When I burst into the courtyard, they shied, whinnying. Tugging at their

reins, the muleteer tried to control the frightened animals, the servants unloading the

supplies pausing to stare at me as if the very demons of hell ripped at my heels.

The portcullis had been raised, the drawbridge lowered. My chest burned as I

sprinted forth. The retainers manning the drawbridge leapt to either side of the

pulleys controlling the portcullis, releasing its brakes. A drizzle drifted from the dark sky, turning the flagstones slick. I slid, cried out as I fell onto the hard stone flags. It knocked the breath out of me. Gasping, I struggled upright, feeling a trickle of blood

seep down my forehead.

The portcullis dropped on its oiled chains. From behind me, I heard Lopez yell,

“Your Highness, no!” and I let out a thwarted roar as I skidded to a halt barely

missing the huge teeth of the portcullis as it slammed down. Another second, and it

would have impaled me.

I screamed at the retainers, “Open it! I command you to open it! Open it now!”

Lopez came panting up behind me. I turned, blood dripping in my eye. I glared.

“Tell them to open this gate now before I tear it down about your miserable head.”

He regarded me in horrified disbelief. “Your Highness, this is a scandal. Please,

come with me. There is no need for this.”

“I am not your prisoner. Open this gate, I say.
Open it!
”

Behind him, I saw my women rushing out of the castle, Beatriz with my discarded

mantle, Soraya my shoes. Even from the distance I could discern their distress when

they saw me at the portcullis. Guards stepped forth, barring their passage. I heard

Beatriz lift her voice in outraged protest: “Her Highness is barefoot and without her

cloak!”

I had not been wrong. They meant to keep me here.

I wiped at the blood on my face, heedless to its smearing across my cheek.

“Would you take me by force?” I said to Lopez. “Bind me with ropes as if I were a

criminal?”

“Your Highness has lost all reason,” he whispered. “This behavior, it― it is

madness.”

Mad. It was the first time that word was linked to my name. I did not care. In

truth, I was mad. Mad with sorrow and the pain of betrayal. Mad with rage and grief

and fear.

“You may think me mad, I said, flinging the words in Lopez‟s face. “But I am still

an infanta of Castile and heiress of this realm. Set guards on me, and by God you will

pay for it.”

I watched him struggle to decide. He glanced at the retainers, then back, at me.

He pulled his shoulders to his neck and without another word trudged back to the

castle. He did not look back.

I did not move as night fell and the drizzle turned into the first winter snow.

__________________________________

vigil was set up in the keep. I heard voices, the lightening of fires, footsteps.

By dusk, I had to retreat into a thatched pen near the portcullis, where we

A kept goats. These poor creatures bleated and cowered, sensing my

desperation. But they emitted warmth in that small hovel and I knew I couldn‟t

survive the night outside in my gown and bare feet. Beatriz was al owed to bring me a

platter of food, my cloak, and a brazier. I wrapped myself in the former and huddled

over the latter, as wolves howled beyond the castle and the goats curled together.

“My lady,” Beatriz implored. “I Beg you, come inside. You‟ll catch your death.”

“No. Go see to my son. I‟ll not return to that prison. If I do, they‟ll never let me

out again.”

Beatriz kept up her pleas until a retainer obliged her to leave. the following

afternoon, as I dozed fitfully, always with an eye to the entrance lest they come and

attempt to drag me out, I heard the slap of sandals. There was only once person I

knew who wore sandals in winter.

I stiffened, crouching within my cloak.

A hooded head thrust through the hut entrance. Cisneros yanked back his cowl to

show his enraged jaundiced face. “Your Highness, come out of there this instant.”

“Open the gate,” I replied, “and I will do so.”

“That is impossible. Her Majesty has ordered that you not leave this castle.”

“Then here I will remain.”

“This is an outrage! The entire castle and most of Medina del Campo by now say

Your Highness has lost her wits. You are creating a scandal. Come out at once!”

“I care not a whit for what anyone says. And you are no one to tell me what I

should or should not do. I am the infanta and the heiress of Castile. You are but a

servant.

He pulled back. My entire body quickened when I heard him bark to someone

unseen outside, “We have no choice. We must take her out by force if need be.”

I heard Lopez murmur, “My lord, I beg your pardon, but I came to La Mota at

Her Majesty‟s express command. I cannot sanction any act that would harm Her

Highness. I fear you must summon Her Majesty.”

“And I tell you, Her Majesty is too ill,” Cisneros hissed, in a voice that made the

hair on my neck stand on end. “She cannot move from Madrigal. You will do as I

say!”

“No,” said Lopez, and the resolution in the voice caused me to inch to the hut

entrance. “My lord, it was your letter that caused this upset. I did not understand its

contents and do not understand you now. Her Majesty instructed me to keep Her

Highness comfortable and safe until she could be sent for. Unless I receive word to

the contrary from Her Majesty herself, I cannot comply. Find another man, if you

must.”

My entire world came to a halt. I could tell he spoke the truth. He did not know

what Cisneros meant. And my mother was ill. She lay in Madrigal, less than an hour

away. I knew she must be close to death, for otherwise she would have sent for me.

Cisneros must have waylaid her missives, usurping her power while she lay unaware

and intimidating Lopez into keeping me here, away from her.

I made myself rise, pull the cloak about me, and emerge with as much dignity as I

could. I must have presented a terrible sight― my hair marred, disheveled about my

sleepless face, my feet filthy, dried blood caked on my temple and cheek. I faced

Cisneros and Lopez with my chin raised and declared, “My lord Lopez, prepare an

escort. I will go to Madrigal. At once.”

Lopez bowed and hastened away.

I turned to the archbishop. His face was contorted with rage. “If I discover you‟ve

played my mother false, you can be sure that premier prelate or not, you‟ll have cause

to regret it.”

As I walked past him to the castle I felt his stare like fangs in my back.

But I knew this time he would not dare stop me.

_________________

I ARRIVED AT THE PALACE OF MADRIGAL as a glassy sun without warmth slid

behind the glacial bank of clouds, turning the sky into a dull gray shield.

No word had gone ahead of my arrival. I rode out of La Mora with only Lopez

and two retainers. My women had instructions to shut themselves in my room with

my child and await my return.

As we clattered into the empty courtyard of my mother‟s favorite palace, the place

of her birth, it looks deserted. But the sound of our horses‟ hooves on the

cobblestones alerted grooms and pages, who rushed out in obvious astonishment.

Moments later, I was striding down wood-paneled corridors to my mother‟s

apartments, past awestruck sentries and women who dropped to the floor in hasty

curtsies.

I wore a wool gown, my face scrubbed screen and my hair coiled at my nape.

The marquise, so stooped and gray she resembled a twist of cinders, met me at

the entrance. She took in my appearance with a judicious sweep of his eyes and

motioned to the women seated like guards at the doors of the bedchamber. My heart

cracked in my chest when she then took my arm― she who was my mother‟s most

intimate lady, who had known me since birth yet had never willingly touched a person

of royal blood without leave.

“I assume your delay in coming and that look in your eye means a grievous wrong

has been done,” she said. “It can be sorted out later. For now, Her Majesty need only

know that which can ease her passage to God.” Her fingers, so twig-thin they looked

as if they might snap at any moment, gripped me with surprising strength. “Do you

understand me,
princesa?
”

I nodded, set my other hand on hers. She released me. The women at the doors

rose and opened them. I walked through.

The curtains at the embrasure were drawn back, letting in colorless light. The

room was smothering, braziers in every corner, a haze of herb-laced smoke drifting