For a Queen's Love: The Stories of the Royal Wives of Philip II (19 page)

And now he was going with his father to see this mad great-grandmother. It seemed that life was smiling for him at last.

As they rode the few miles between Valladolid and Tordesillas, Philip was wondering what effect Juana would have on Carlos. He would have preferred not to have his son accompany him, But how could it be arranged otherwise? Juana was a Queen, if living in retirement, and Carlos was her great-grandson.

Philip said as they came near to Tordesillas: “You will find your great-grandmother unlike other people whom you have known. You must be quiet in her presence and speak only when spoken to. Do not be alarmed by what may seem strange to you. I shall speak with your great-grandmother, and you will stand very still. You will receive her blessing.”

“Yes, Father.”

Was it imagination, thought Philip, or had the boy improved?

“You may hear me speak to your great-grandmother on religious matters,” went on Philip. “She is a little strange and needs guidance.”

“Father, is it true that she has offended the Holy Office?”

“You should not have heard such things. None has any right to say such things of a Queen.”

“But even Kings and Queens should not offend the Inquisition, should they, Father?”

“My son, one day, I hope, you will support the Inquisition with all your might … as I intend to do.”

Carlos seemed almost reverent. He was thinking of the torture chambers below the prisons of the Inquisition, where the walls were lined with heavy, quilted material so that the cries of the sufferers might be deadened. Carlos thought of blood and pain, but with less excitement than usual.

Carlos walked beside
Philip into the apartment of Queen Juana.

A few candles were burning, but they gave little light to such a vast room and the effect was one of gloom. On the floor food lay about in dishes on which flies had settled. The air seemed to hold the smell of decay.

Carlos thought it was a very strange room, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light he became aware of the woman in the chair, and she was stranger than anything else in that room. She sat on a chair with ornate arms; she looked like a witch. Her mouth was toothless; her gown was tattered and splashed with food; her hair hung loose about her shoulders; her long thin hands lay on her lap, showing uncared-for nails, black and overgrown.

So this was Juana, the Queen, who might now be Queen of Spain had it not been decided that she was mad, and that it was best for her to live out her crazy life in solitude.

Carlos was filled with horror that held something of fascination.

Members of Philip’s entourage had followed him and Carlos into the apartment; they stopped at a respectful distance.

Carlos felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, forcing him to his knees. Obediently he knelt before the Queen in the chair.

Philip, conquering his repulsion, took Juana’s hand and kissed it.

“Your Highness,” he said, “I have brought your great-grandson to pay you homage and receive your blessing.”

“Who is that?” asked Juana, her eyes growing suddenly wilder yet alert. “Carlos! Where is Carlos?”

“Here, at your Highness’s feet.” Philip took one of the dirty hands and laid it on Carlos’s head.

“Carlos,” she muttered, leaning forward. Her hair fell over her face and she peered through it as though it were a curtain. “Carlos. Carlos. That’s not my Carlos. That’s not Caesar … ruling the world.”

“Not your son,” said Philip. “But my son. Your grandson’s son. You are thinking of my father, the Emperor.”

“Ah!” The eyes were cunning. “You are trying to deceive me. You bring him here … as Esau was brought to Isaac. I know. I know.”

“Give him your blessing, I beg of you, Grandmother.”

Carlos then lifted wondering eyes to her face. She laughed, and Philip was reminded of the laughter of Carlos. There was the same wild abandonment which he had heard his son display.

But the old woman was looking at Carlos, and she seemed to sense some bond between herself and the boy. “Bless you,” she said quietly. “May God and the saints preserve you … give you long life, little Carlos, great happiness and many to love you.”

“To your feet, my son,” commanded Philip. “Kiss your great-grandmother’s hand and thank her for her blessing.”

Carlos, still as though under a spell, obeyed. The woman and the boy kept their eyes fixed on each other; then slowly tears began to flow down Juana’s cheeks, making furrows through the dirt on her skin. This was comforting to Carlos, but to Philip quite horrible. He signed to one of his attendants.

“Escort Don Carlos to his apartments,” he said. “And leave me alone with the Queen and Father Borgia.”

Carlos was led out of the room, and Philip was alone with the priest and his grandmother.

“Grandmother,” said Philip, “I have heard sad stories of your state.
I understand that you have once more spoken against Holy Church. Grandmother, cannot you see the folly of this?”

She shook her head, mumbling to herself: “We should not be forced to perform religious rites … We should worship as we please. I do not like these ceremonies … and if I do not like them I will not perform them … nor have them performed in my presence.”

“Grandmother, such words are in direct defiance of the Holy Inquisition itself.”

“So you have come to torture me … as I was tortured once before! I was tortured when I spoke against the Catholic Church and the Inquisition. They take people to their dungeons, they tear and burn the flesh … all in the name of God. Is He happy, think you? Does He say: ‘Look at all the blood they have shed in Spain! It is all for Me. It is all in My Name …’? Ha … ha …”

“Grandmother, I beg of you, be calm. Father Borgia tells me that you have been a little more reasonable of late, but that your conduct leaves much to be desired.”

“And who is this come to torment me, eh?”

“I am Philip, your grandson … Regent of Spain in the absence of the Emperor, but I have not come to torment you.”

“Philip … oh, speak not that name to me. You come to torture me with memories … and memories torture even as do the red-hot pincers … even as does the rack … Philip … oh, my beautiful Philip, I hate you. Yes. I do. I hate you … because you are so beautiful … and I love you …”

Philip looked helplessly at Father Borgia.

“She swept everything off the altar we set up for her, your Highness,” said the priest, “screaming out that she would not have it thus. But I beg your Highness not to despair of her soul. She grows more reasonable as her health fails.”

“What are you mumbling about, eh, priest? What are you mumbling about there in the shadows? You are a woman in disguise, I believe. I won’t have women about me. He’s not to be trusted with women, that Philip!”

“There seems nothing I can say,” said Philip.

“We might apply … a little force, your Highness.”

Philip looked at the sad figure in the chair, the filthy hair, the tattered garments, the legs swollen with dropsy. Philip hated cruelty for its own sake. He hated war because that meant much bloodshed; in his opinion, the tortures of the Inquisition were only inflicted for the purpose of guiding heretics to the truth and saving their souls, or preparing them for eternal torment. That seemed to him reasonable. But to inflict suffering when no good could come of it disgusted him. And how could they, by torturing this woman, make her see the truth? She might see it for a day, but after that she would lapse into the old ways. She was mad; they must remember that.

He would not have her hurt. They must accept her madness as an additional burden on the royal house. They must try to lead her gently to salvation.

“Nay,” he said. “Persuade her with words only. I forbid aught else.”

“Your Highness has spoken. And it is a fact that she did not resist this day when I conducted the usual rites. Though I must report to your Highness that she always closes her eyes at the elevation of the Host.”

Philip sighed. “Continue to reason with her.”

“I will, your Highness. And I think you should know that there was an occasion when she stated that the blessed tapers stank.”

“You must have done well, Father Borgia, since she is quieter now. Continue with your work. I doubt not that we shall save her soul before she leaves this Earth.”

“That is what we will strive for,” promised the priest.

They looked at Juana; she had suddenly fallen asleep, her head lolling sideways, the mouth open as she emitted loud snores.

Philip said: “There is nothing more to be done at this stage. Let us leave her now.”

He went slowly to his apartments; he would be almost glad when next day they continued the journey to Corunna and England.

Carlos could not
sleep. He could not forget the old lady in the strange room. He wanted to know such a lot about her, because vaguely he believed she could tell him something which others would not.

He sat up in bed. It was very quiet and must be past midnight. His heart was beating very fast, but he was not afraid.

She would be in that room still, he knew, for he had heard that she rarely went to bed. She sat in her chair and slept at any time of the day or the night; and sometimes she lay on the floor.

If he tiptoed out of his apartment and went along the corridors he would come to that room. He knew the way, because he had noted it carefully.

Cautiously he got out of bed and tiptoed to the door. He could hear the rhythmic breathing of his attendants. They were all fast asleep.

He was in the corridor, clutching about him the cloak he had picked up as he had got out of bed. Along the corridors he went, creeping cautiously past the sleeping guards. Outside the door of his great-grandmother’s room were two men-at-arms. They were slumped on stools and both were fast asleep. Quickly Carlos slipped past them and into the room.

The candles were still burning and she was in her chair, sitting there just as he had seen her when he had entered this room with his father. He shut the door very quietly.

She moved in her chair. “Who is there?” she croaked.

“Carlos,” he whispered. “The little one.”

He limped across the room.

“You limp, little one,” she said. “Philip limped at times. It was one of the joints in his knees.” She spoke in whispers, as though she realized the need for quietness. “That did not stop his running after the women, though.”

“Did it not?” said Carlos.

“Sit at my feet.”

He sat, and she let her fingers run through his hair.

“He had thick hair,” she said. “Ripples and curls. He was the loveliest man in the world. Who are you? You’re not Philip.”

“He is Carlos, this little one. Philip is his father.”

“Carlos … Not that Carlos! Not my son. Not Caesar.”

“No … no. I am your great-grandson. The son of Philip.”

“My Carlos took him from me … He took my Philip. He said: ‘My Mother, you cannot keep a dead body with you forever. I must take him away for decent burial.’ But my Philip was not dead. I would sit by the coffin and I would have it open … and I would kiss his lips … He could not escape me then. He could not run to other women then.”

“The Emperor who took your Philip away is this little one’s grandfather. There is another Philip now. He is this little one’s father. Carlos hates that Philip. He hopes he will soon die.”

“Your Philip, Carlos? Your Philip. He is not my Philip. They said I must marry my Philip and I wept and I stormed. I could weep and storm, little Carlos. Oh … I could. And my father … Great Ferdinand … the King of Aragon … he said I was mad when it was good for me to be mad … Good for me … Who cared for me? It was good for him that I should be mad … and sometimes it was good that I should be sane … Mad … sane … mad … sane …”

“They look at Carlos as though he is mad.”

“Mad … sane … mad … sane,” she murmured.

“You hated your Philip, did you not?” asked Carlos.

“Hated because I loved … loved because I hated. I sat by the coffin. I’d take off the lid and kiss him … fondle him … I said: ‘You cannot leave me now, Philip. Where are your women now?’ Ha … ha …”

Carlos joined in her laughter, then held up his fingers to his lips to remind her of the need for quiet.

“I would let no woman come near the coffin,” she murmured.

“Why not?”

“I could not trust him. He was full of cunning. I thought he might slip out …
I
could not keep him from women. Could death?”

“Could death?” asked Carlos.

“They have taken him from me … Carlos …”

“Not this Carlos. The other one … the father of my father. Not this Carlos. He loves you. This little one is your friend.”

“This is my friend, this little one.”

“He wants to bring his Aunt Juana here and live with you forever.”

“Carlos … you will live with me here, then?”

“Yes … yes … When Philip goes to England, Carlos will run away … he will come to you …”

“They wished to send me to England.”

“No, no … It is Philip who goes to England.”

“They said the King of England cannot marry a mad woman. I was mad then, you see, little one. Mad … sane … mad … sane …
Mad!
They said the King of England did not mind insanity. Insanity did not stop the bearing of children … So said the English …”