History's Great Queens 2-Book Bundle: The Last Queen and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici (18 page)

Anne of Brittany’s face turned cold. “She’s had some colic. It will pass. I do hope you do not recommend fruit for your son, madame. It is known that such can affect a boy’s maturity, and my lord archbishop Besançon assured me he would grow up to be a strong, healthy husband.”

I froze. I could not take my eyes from her. The room went completely still, the women’s stares boring into me. The queen said, “Will you not kiss your daughter-in-law, madame?”

I felt as if she’d spewed filth on me. I could scarcely turn as, with a smirk, Mlle de Foix extracted the babe from her cradle, rousing an instant burst of wailing. I touched my lips to the little head, then turned and swept from the chamber without a word.

Behind me, I heard the queen and her ladies begin to laugh.

I banged into my chambers. Lopez sat at the table penning one of his dispatches; Beatriz and Soraya looked up in alarm.

“We are deceived!” My breath came in stifled gasps. “Besançon has betrothed my son to that mewling daughter of theirs. This visit is but a ruse!”

“Your Highness, please. Calm yourself.” Lopez rose hastily. “Are you sure of this?”

“Yes. The queen just told me; she practically rubbed my face in it.” I felt sick. I went to the nearest chair and sat. Beatriz immediately poured me a goblet of the fresh water I insisted on having in my rooms at all times, for I disliked drinking wine in the day.

She pressed the goblet into my hand. I drank. Then I looked at Lopez. He passed his ink-stained hand over his balding pate. “Her Majesty your mother feared something of this nature,” he said at length, and I could tell that while he sought to ease my distress, he was as shocked as I. “This is indeed the archbishop’s doing.”

“And he shall answer for it,” I declared hotly. “He’ll not get away with it, so help me God. I’ll never agree to his devil’s marriage and will tell it to Louis himself, if need be.”

“Your Highness, that wouldn’t be wise. The archduke your husband, he must know of this.”

I went still. “You think he…?” I swallowed. “He wouldn’t. He would have consulted with me at the very least before he agreed.”

“Yet, he must know. Arrangements for a royal betrothal do not happen overnight.” He paused. “Perhaps you should speak with him directly. He surely will explain why he didn’t inform you beforehand. Perhaps he feared your reaction. After all, no Spanish princess would welcome a French daughter for her son, but they are children,
princesa,
and much can occur between betrothal and marriage. It may be a political move, to bind Louis of France to peace. If so, your protest might cause undue concern and delay our departure for Spain.”

I nodded. I was horrified by the thought that Philip had had a part in this. I couldn’t ignore the wisdom in Lopez’s words, however, and I shared his desire to leave this treacherous land as soon as possible, before some other wretched surprise was sprung on me.

“Very well,” I said. “I’ll speak with him. I’ll send word this very hour.”

HE CAME TO ME THAT AFTERNOON
. I saw at once he’d heard about my encounter with the queen, and he entered my rooms with a defensive, slightly drunken swagger that made me want to throw something at him. It was evident he’d been carousing with the French court, though it was not midday, and that he had known all along about the betrothal.

He leaned to me, his breath reeking of claret. I turned from him, paced to the other side of the chamber. I’d prepared to be cool and composed. The moment he sought to kiss me, however, my anger flared. “Why did you bring me to this nest of vipers?” I asked, without preamble.

“God’s teeth,” he growled. “Not this again.”

“Would you take me for a fool? I know very well what you and Besançon plan.”

His face turned red. “And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?”

I lifted my chin. “You would give our son to France, though it’s an insult to our blood.”

My declaration had its desired effect. He stared in astonishment at me. A shudder rippled through his voice. “I warn you, don’t think to meddle in this matter. It’s not your concern.”

“It certainly is. Let Besançon wed Claude if he so wishes, but he’ll not use my son.”

“
Your
son? He is also my son. Blessed Christ, Besançon was right! You are a Spaniard through and through! You cannot see through that thick pride of yours that by wedding Louis’ daughter, our son stands to inherit the greatest realm this world has seen. He’ll sit on the thrones of Spain, the Habsburg states, and France. He’ll rule an empire to rival ancient Rome.”

“Yes, at Spain’s expense!” I could not stop myself now. Something fierce and cold rose in me, fed by these weeks of feigned obedience and years of swallowing my hatred of the archbishop. “I will not submit to this betrothal,” I said. “You will inform Louis as much, and we shall leave this accursed place. I command it.”

“You command it?” he repeated, incredulously. “Who are you to command anything?”

“The heiress to Spain. Without me, this alliance means nothing.”

I knew at once I had hit the mark. He looked as if he might yell. His cap crunched in his fist, and then he whirled about and strode from the room, slamming the door with such force it must have resounded throughout the château, with the result that the following morning when I entered the chapel for matins, the queen’s ladies nudged each other as I passed.

I sat on my pew, stone-faced, scarcely hearing Besançon as he intoned Mass. I had realized in the middle of the night that this was Philip’s and my first quarrel since his infidelity, and I blamed the archbishop all the more for it. The bell announcing the end of Mass rang and I heard the tromping of footsteps behind me. I resisted the urge to swivel in my pew; then Louis and Philip clad in ermine-collared mantles and escorted by an entourage of gentlemen filed down the aisle, past me. To the altar.

“Behold how joyous it is when kings and princes live in harmony,” Besançon declared, with a beaming smile he aimed straight at me. Before my incredulous eyes, Philip and Louis embraced, took up quills, and signed their alliance on a desk balanced on the backs of two kneeling pages.

My son had been betrothed to Claude of France.

My nails dug into my palms. The men walked out, leaving Anne and her ladies to gloat. The king’s confessor rang the offertory bell. Beside me, Beatriz started to fumble in her purse for the traditional coin when the odious Mlle de Foix leaned to me from the queen’s pew. “Her Majesty bids me to tell Madame it is customary in France to offer alms. She sends you this.”

She dropped a pouch into my lap.

Beatriz froze, no doubt fearing my explosion. Mastering the urge to whirl about and deliver a resounding slap to Mlle de Foix’s smug face, I plucked the pouch off me as though it were a bug and let it fall with a clink to the floor. “Tell Her Majesty,” I said in a voice I knew would carry, “that I am well aware of the custom, it being the same in my native land of Spain.”

Mlle de Foix recoiled. As intended, my words reached the queen, and Anne rose and limped out with as much indignant anger as she could muster, her ladies scuttling behind.

I did not move. The chapel descended into icy silence.

“They’re gone, Your Highness,” Beatriz ventured. “They wait for us outside.”

“Let them wait.”

“But it’s snowing…. The queen will catch cold.”

“Let her freeze to death for all I care. I’ll not stray behind her like a servant.”

I did not rise for another full ten minutes, counting the seconds one by one. Then I genuflected, stepped over the pouch, and moved down the aisle with deliberate slowness.

On the portico, the queen and her women huddled against the biting wind. When she saw me, Anne of Brittany stepped forth, her features livid with rage.

I held up a hand, staying her in her tracks. I continued to my apartments. There, I locked the door and turned to Beatriz. “Fetch
mi atenuado,
my Spanish gown, and my jewel coffer.”

That night as the court dined in the great hall, the trumpets blared and the lord chamberlain called out in a reedy, nervous voice, “Her Highness the infanta of Castile!”

Everyone went still. From his place on the dais with the king and queen, Philip’s eyes widened. Beside him, Besançon went slack-jawed, food clinging to his many chins.

I moved down the stairs, 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; my hair tumbled loose to my waist under my velvet hood, embroidered with Aragonese 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 till 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 gust.

“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 loading the last of our belongings. As I expected, Besançon had issued orders for our immediate departure, citing, to my amusement, a favorable break in the weather. Snow lashed our 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 Your 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 retorted, and I pulled away to mount.

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

FOURTEEN

T
orrential storms overcame us in Navarre—that tiny, strategically momentous kingdom straddling France and Spain—obscuring the mountain pass ahead. 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 tough roads of Castile, but even I began to think we’d not survive those 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’d 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 disappeared behind us.

The sky parted. Anemic sunlight stabbed from the clouds.

Midafternoon 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 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 nerve, 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 them 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.

“I thank you,” I said. “Is there a physician nearby? My husband is not well.”

“Her 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 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 draught. 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 manservants 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 some 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 woman, 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 know we are here?”

“Word was sent, yes,” said Villena. “However, their Majesties were called to Sevilla to contend with a
morisco
insurrection. Those godforsaken heretics are never content. Cisneros is on his way there now; he’ll deal with them 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 manservant behind him leaned over his chair to wipe his lips clean of crumbs. I found myself staring as the manservant 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 regarded me with attentive patience, demonstrating his years of service to a busy queen, in which he’d often been made to wait. At length, he said, “Your Highness appears troubled. I would not wish to be forward, but I hope you know you can rely on me should you feel the need.”

I smiled. “My mother always said that you are noble of heart.”

“I am humbled by Her Majesty’s favor,” he said, with true humility. “She has fought with a tenacity that exceeds any man’s for the good of Spain. We are blessed to have her as our queen.”

I was silent. Only now did I begin to recognize how much I would have to prove myself, how heavy was the crown I would one day inherit. I turned my goblet in my hands, thinking of how much at peace this great man of action seemed to be with silence. It presented a startling, somewhat disquieting, contrast to the fripperies and swaggering of my husband’s court.

“My mother,” I finally ventured, “she is well, yes?”

I could not ask outright if our visit to France had upset her enough to awaken reservations about entrusting her hard-earned throne to Philip. The contemplative hesitation in the admiral’s face made me think it had; he confirmed my unvoiced fear when he said, “Her Majesty has been troubled of late. The
grandes
have been acting up again, seeking their advantage as usual in her suffering. She took your brother’s death particularly hard. Many say she hasn’t been the same since. But she continues to do her duty for Spain. In that, she will never waver.”

“Yes,” I murmured. I looked into his eyes. “And she never expected this day would come.”

He understood. “She did not. Yet you are still her flesh and blood.”

“Has she…?” I swallowed. “Has she said anything about my husband?”

“No.” He glanced at my hands, twining about the goblet stem. “But others have,” he added, and I drew back. “Villena,” he went on. “Your Highness saw him, did you not? He is one of our most proud and troublesome of the nobles, and I fear he carries influence with many. He has been vocal about his displeasure that a Habsburg who made a peace with France will become our king consort. His Highness has much goodwill to win here, if he is to be accepted.”

“He is not a bad man,” I said quickly, feeling the urgent need to protect my husband from Spain’s ancient aversion to foreigners, born from centuries of enduring invaders like the Moors. “He’s young and he labors under less-than-exemplary guidance.”