The Scroll of Seduction (11 page)

T
he clock turns back again. I don the gown. I take my seat. The Madrid afternoon fades away beneath the balcony.

 

JUANA'S UNIVERSE WAS TURNED UPSIDE DOWN AFTER HER FIRST
night with Philippe in that monastic cell turned makeshift wedding chamber.

 

DISCOVERING THE PLEASURES OF MY BODY MADE ME QUESTION
everything that so far I had considered certain in life. There was no place in the sensations I had experienced in bed for the guilt and damnation or the punishment associated with the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. If the nuns heard my cries there was no way of knowing what they must have thought, because Philippe encouraged me to groan and purr at will and he roared and cried out, and we both laughed out loud at our own shamelessness. It was hard for me to believe I was the same person I had been the day before. In just a few hours, all of the modesty and reserve I'd stored up in my lifetime had disappeared. I surrendered so willingly to pleasure and lost my inhibitions so thoroughly that people might have guessed me the daughter of a courtesan, not of the Catholic Queen.

In the morning, sitting naked on the bed with my legs crossed as I toyed with his soft, sleeping member–a distant cousin of the dragon
who was quietly regaining his fire–Philippe told me about the life I would lead in Flanders. Beauty, he said, was power's greatest reward, and living in his country I would soon forget the narrow-minded Spanish mentality. “They sent you here surrounded by spies, priests, soldiers, and severe, ascetic handmaidens. But here, as you have seen, the terrain is smooth and flat, misty and green. I'm going to teach you to enjoy life, to savor wine and yourself. Next to me your strong body will know the pleasures of being alive and sated. Your sense of touch will learn about silk and the intricate patterns of Bruges lace. Your eyes will surrender to the light of our painters. They will make you see why we sing the praises of creation. You will see how the colored threads in a tapestry can be as alive as the life they portray. You will eat from sets of dishes whose every plate is a work of art. You will see, Juana, the life you will discover with me. It will make you forget the bonfires where your people burn the poor devils accused of heresy. You will forget the intolerance of your lineage, but you will have to consent to being surrounded by our nobles, to being separated from the court you brought from Spain, the court that cannot comprehend our splendor, that is even suspicious of it.” He had placed his hand on my stomach and his index finger traced circles around my navel like a horseman circling a castle's moat. I so much wanted then to hand over to him–whom after all I was supposed to submit to–the reins of my life so that he would show me what lay beneath the obscurity attributed to pleasure at the Castilian court. We spent all day in bed. He rolled around in my hair, fed me his seed, he knew me like I could never get to know myself. At night he called for wine, bread, and fruit. He used my sex like a dish. We bit and tasted each other. He refused to let me sleep because he said he wanted to see the light of the rising sun shine on my skin, and so it was that we watched the dawn of a new day nude, exhausted, and insanely happy.

Manuel too brought me something to eat in bed. Unfortunately, he said, I would have to see the new day dawn from my room, but we could play at making a night of the afternoon.

I was naked, lying on my stomach, still panting, when Juana left the convent and said good-bye to Marie de Soissons.

 

I LET MY EYES EMBRACE THE SILHOUTTE OF THE ABBEY IN THE FIRST
morning light. Its gray walls appeared to be a liquid substance blending in the mist with the subdued color of the atmosphere. The nuns in their dark habits, standing in the doorway, lifted their arms, waving good-bye. Philippe's and my horses headed the procession at a trot. Shortly before Antwerp, we would separate so that Philippe could accompany his sister Marguerite to Arnemuiden, where she would board a ship to Spain. Marguerite had come to Lier to make my acquaintance. When she met me I was dressed only in a loose, white nightshirt, because my husband didn't lose time asking me whether I minded if she came into our bedchamber. I thought she would make Juan happy because, like her brother, Marguerite was full of vitality and contagious energy. All my fragile brother had to do was to allow himself to be loved. I could imagine how amazing it would be for him to be faced with the exhuberance of the Austrias and my sister-in-law's golden splendor. The letters I received from Spain, after the wedding, confirmed my intuition. Juan, who was only two years older than me, had surrendered himself passionately to her love.

Philippe admired my riding skills on the cavalcade to Antwerp, and he had the woman who had been his governess–Jeanne de Commines, Madame de Hallewin–ride beside me. He told me he thought she should be in charge of the ladies in my court and be at my side to instruct me in the protocol and dealings within the Burgundian court. No one could do it better than her, he said. Madame de Hallewin wore a pointy hat with a delicate veil hanging from the tip. The hat–like all of her attire–was done in the latest French fashion, something that inspired in me an instant prejudice, which I tried to dismiss so as not to offend her or displease Philippe. Notwithstanding her French-style wardrobe, Madame de Hallewin had to her advantage the fact that she spoke Spanish perfectly. She was a middle-aged woman, with very fair skin, an angular face and kind, earthy green eyes. Her wide, well-defined mouth diminished somewhat the overall impression she gave of being a sexless angel. I told myself I had to get to know her better and not be guided just by my instinct. Given that she had been Philippe's governess and consid
ering how charming he was, there was no reason to think she wasn't worthy of my friendship and trust. As she began to speak about the festivities that were organized in Brussels, Ghent, and other cities to celebrate my wedding, I caught Beatriz de Bobadilla on my right, glancing over distrustfully. I took the first opportunity, during a stop to rest, to go to her and tell her about Philippe's provisions.

“I will have two first ladies,” I said, “because I am certainly not planning to renounce your company. You must not think that this madame can take your place, in my confidence or my heart.”

“Be careful, Juana,” she said. “I have the impression that your husband wishes to surround you with Flemish nobles and cast aside the Spaniards. It seems rather underhanded to me. Do not allow yourself to be blinded by love.”

It wasn't only love that blinded me. In the following months, the inhabitants of the Low Countries received Philippe and I in a series of joyous entries to the principal cities. The colors, the revelry, the joyfulness of those festivities–despite the gray skies and light rain falling like a veil over the Flemish landscape–filled me with an eager desire to take into my heart a country that was now mine. The bliss my flesh experienced every night incited me to rebel against the remnants of Castilian rigidity that prevailed in the retinue that accompanied me who continued to be loyal to my mother. I did not object when Philippe began to substitute them for noblemen and ladies he held in his confidence, people whose customs were better suited to our lifestyle. I even neglected my duties to some of those who, having risked their lives and served me faithfully, had accompanied me on the dangerous crossing from Laredo to Flanders. Some say soldiers in the thousands froze to death that winter, awaiting fair weather to set sail with Marguerite of Austria. I take that to be an exaggeration. But that is what they said. Beatriz reproached me. My confessor Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa reproached me and also complained about my lack of interest in religious devotions. He tried my patience, with his straitlaced prudishness and his severity, his discourses claiming that my subjects showed more interest in drinking well than in living the “good life,” as if food and drink were forbidden pleasures, as if they were sinful. After only one year, my royal household
had been restructured in line with Burgundian protocol, and only eighteen of the initial ninety-eight members of my Spanish entourage remained. With no income of my own, I could do little to retain them. The terms of my marriage stipulated that Philippe would maintain my servants and provide me with whatever I needed. And he did. But given that he was paying their wages, he also decided who they were. Beatriz complained. She said she could not understand how my parents could have agreed to such an arrangement. The nobles who returned to Spain must have brought my royal parents this news, because they sent an ambassador, Fray Tomás de Matienzo, to the Low Countries. His words made clear that they blamed me for the exodus of my Spanish courtiers, that they condemned my actions, and disapproved of my behavior. Independence had gone to my head like liquor. I still had not realized that my destiny had simply changed hands, from my parents to my husband. In Philippe's hands, all I saw were instruments that stroked and strummed me, making music emanate from within me. He was quite skilled at making me think his decisions were made in accordance with the same principles as mine. So when I obeyed his wishes I felt I was affirming my own and proving the existence of my own criteria. I had no doubt that I owed Spain my loyalty, but I thought that it would better serve the aims of my country to have the Flemish accept me as their sovereign, to have them see me as living proof of our respective countries' common interests. To think I could set up a Spanish island in Flanders was outlandish and utterly unrealistic. But for my parents not to understand that and to send Fray Tomás to scold me both hurt and infuriated me.

My husband was no malingerer, but his advisors would have been more than happy to join forces with the Valois and not the Spanish if it weren't for King Maximilian. The Flemish nobility was much more influential than ours, and it did not take long for me to see that these men knew that with my parents so far away, they would eventually be able to increase their sway over me simply because they were constantly by my side.

As soon as Philippe and I had settled in Brussels, the Flemish took on all of the most important positions in my royal household, or shared
them with my aides and attendants, so that I could rarely be alone with those I knew and trusted. I protested, but Philippe used the burning passions of our intimacy to appease my discontent. He pampered me with endearments and fabulous gifts. Almost every afternoon, we would go riding through the forest close to the palace and make a game of galloping off at top speed to lose the nobles who'd accompanied us. Once we were alone, we would dismount in the nearby villages, stroll through the streets and visit the markets like two well-dressed commoners. Philippe liked to corner me someplace and kiss me passionately in full view of the passers-by. More than once, holding hands, we visited artisans' workshops where they made jousting swords or beautiful tapestries. The master craftsmen would invite us in for a glass of wine and tell us about their simple lives. And then, after our antics, we'd return to the intrigues of the palace, the jealousies between Philippe's courtiers and mine, the latent power struggles surging up around us that–when we were alone–we managed to elude. Then just our eyes making contact was enough to create a sheltered space protected from all else but the immense love we felt and that kept our blood rushing through our bodies like an impetuous river. Alas, our love was besieged by interests of State, and my naive infatuation suffered its first real disenchantment the afternoon I received the dreadful news of my brother Juan's death.

My sister-in-law Marguerite and the nobles at court had relayed the details of their lavish wedding ceremonies and celebrations. Like Philippe and I, Juan and Marguerite had fallen in love as soon as they set eyes on each other. But Juan did not possess my hearty constitution and he melted like a wax taper in the legendary passion of the Austrias. Or at least that is what people said: that he had given himself to Marguerite, and by the time he rose from the nuptial bed he'd already grown pale; that his body was unable to protect him when he came down with a high fever in Salamanca while visiting the city with his new wife. Barely seven months after his wedding, poor Juan died in my father's arms on October 6, 1497.

I never could have guessed anything like that would happen, especially because Marguerite had recently written to me to say that she was
with child. Juan's death unsettled my bones. I received the news on an opaque, listless autumn day in Brussels, and I was suddenly hit by the realization that Philippe had separated me from everything I loved. I had let my husband dismiss nearly all of my Spanish courtiers. I couldn't even share my sorrow with my own kind. Aside from Beatriz and Ana de Viamonte, no one in that room cared about Juan's death. In fact, sitting in an armchair by the fire, I could hear them chattering away animatedly. Crying for Juan, I regretted not having written to my mother, refusing to be influenced by her, as per Philippe's counsel. I don't know exactly when, but at some point I stood up and began to shout, banishing the Flemish attendants from my chamber because I could no longer stand the hideous sound of their guttural language nor bear to see their insincere expressions of condolence. They must have called Philippe, for he appeared almost instantly and, taking no notice of my sorrow, began raving like a madman, insisting we had to call the envoy–Señor Manrique–and tell him that since Juan was dead, we wanted the titles of Prince and Princess of Asturias bestowed upon us immediately. We had to avow our right to the crown. I told him he was mad. Not only was my sister Isabel alive, but his own sister Marguerite was pregnant. He in turn claimed that I was the mad one, for not seeing that this was the chance we needed to be considered heirs to the throne of Castile and Aragon. I can't recall all of the other things he said. At a certain point his words blurred into an indistinct drone and his face–which I never thought I could find objectionable–looked like that of a bird of prey perched on my brother's shoulder, waiting to disembowel his corpse. I covered my ears and ran from the room, telling him to do whatever he pleased. I didn't care. He would have my mother and father to contend with, after all.