History's Great Queens 2-Book Bundle: The Last Queen and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici (40 page)

I was taken aback by the announcement that Cisneros had been elevated to such prestige. My old feelings for him had not gone away, and I did not relish that he would now enjoy even greater ecclesiastical power in Castile. No one had told me beforehand the pope was considering him for a cardinalship and I wrote back to the admiral that I wished someone had seen fit to inform me as much. I assumed I would have to attend Cisneros’s investiture ceremony at some point and asked that I please be told in anticipation so I could prepare. I expected a reply within a few days; to my disconcertion I heard nothing more. “I wonder why I wasn’t consulted,” I remarked to Beatriz one night over supper. “Did they fear I might protest elevating Cisneros to such a rank? I certainly might have, but I’ve no say in how Rome chooses to reward her servants.”

I paid no heed to the servitors around us, ready with the decanter and clean napkin. No sooner had I vented my frustration than I forgot it and returned to my daily activities.

I wrote to my sister Catalina in England, asking for news of her and promising to help her in her struggle to wed her prince now that I was queen. I also wrote to my sister-in-law, Margaret, requesting that she prepare to send my daughters to me in the coming spring.

I hadn’t heard from her at all, not even a word of condolence on Philip’s passing. I knew Charles, as the new Habsburg heir, must remain in Flanders, and I suspected Margaret had assumed charge of him as well. I wondered if she had grown so attached to my children she kept silent in hope I wouldn’t ask for them. If so, I feared she must relinquish my three daughters. I wanted to raise them with Catalina and Fernando, as my mother had raised us together. I didn’t want my children to grow up strangers from each other, as Margaret and Philip had, and as so many royal children often did.

I was therefore preoccupied and completely unprepared when my father came barging into my chambers one afternoon, after months of absence.

“What?” he said, the hot tinge to his face betraying a hard ride in a temper. He threw off his cloak onto the nearest chair. “Have I so displeased you, you must remonstrate about me before everyone?”

My women sat with me, working on our sewing. Glancing at them, I saw my own surprise reflected in their expressions and started to wave them out.

My father laughed curtly. “Don’t send them away on my account. You’ve complained times enough behind my back, anything you say now will come as no surprise.”

I regarded him in silence as Beatriz rose with Soraya and left.

I set aside my sewing. “Papá, what is wrong? You are angry at me and I have no idea why.”

“You don’t?” He eyed me, his gloved hands clenched. “Are you saying you did not complain that I deliberately keep you ignorant of the state of this realm?”

“I…I never said that.” My mouth went dry. There was a hard, cruel edge to his voice I had never heard before.

“Never?”

“No.”

He spun to his cloak and reached into its folds. He removed a folded parchment, brandishing it between us with a trembling fist. “What of this, eh? Haven’t you learned that everything you say or do is important? By not consulting me, you cast doubts on your very trust in my abilities!”

For an endless moment, I could not draw breath.

My letter. He had intercepted my letter.

A shadow gathered in the corners of my mind. I made myself look away from the crunched paper in his hands to meet his stare. I found a cold and inscrutable stranger looking back at me, someone I did not know.

“I didn’t think I needed to consult you about my children,” I said carefully. “That letter is addressed to Philip’s sister, requesting news of my daughters, Eleanor, Isabella, and Mary. I haven’t heard of them in over a year, and I left Mary when she was just a babe.”

His jaw worked. “What do we want with another parcel of girls here?” he said, proof that he had not only intercepted but also read my correspondence. “They need households, dowries. We can’t afford it. Best leave them where they are and let the Habsburgs find matches for them.”

I felt an icy fear. I rose, moving past him to the window. “My daughters belong here with me,” I said at length. “If we can’t afford it, I’ll economize. I told you I don’t need so many servants, and what feeds three can feed five. If need be, my daughters can sleep in my bed.”

He pawed the floor with his booted foot. “Need or not, everything comes with a price.”

“So it would seem.” I turned to him. “As it would also seem I suffer spies in my house. I will not have it, Papá. I don’t understand what I have done to make you think you need watch my every move and intercept my private letters. Perhaps now would be a good time to tell me.”

His face changed in a flash, the anger fading as if it were a mask. I did not like the chameleon swiftness of it, nor his quick conciliatory tone as he said, “
Madrecita,
forgive me. My behavior, it’s inexcusable.”

My voice momentarily failed me. He had not denied he set spies on me. Why? What did he fear? Something shifted between us, crumbling the trust I had believed we shared.

“I’m overwrought,” he added. “I always did have a bad temper. Your mother used to chide me about it all the time.” He paused. “It’s those damn
grandes.
I tell you, they have no loyalty. Months I have spent in Burgos trying to bring them to reason, to no avail.”

That much I understood. I knew from experience that the lords of Castile could set a saint to gnashing his teeth. “What have they done this time?” I asked quietly.

“The usual. They’re threatening that if I do not honor the promises your dead husband made to them, they will find the means to make me regret it. They want everything your mother and I took from them, though they’ve done nothing to deserve it. They claim having helped me take Burgos deserves a reward. Your husband and that idiot Don Manuel taught them well, it seems. They now think that any time they obey me, I should give them a title or castle for it.”

I nodded, returned to my chair. It was only his temper, I told myself, that infamous Aragonese cauldron my mother had patiently curbed during their years of marriage.

“They dare to threaten me!” He hit his gloved fist in his hand. “It’s high time they were taught who rules over them. I’ll not have them destroy this kingdom after they connived with the Habsburg behind my back. They let him throw me out but now I am back, and by God, they will do me the proper honor.”

“You speak of civil war,” I said.

He scowled. “More like civil slaughter. I’ve subdued them before. If I must I’ll do it again.”

“But they are members of our nobility, with seats on the Cortes. If we declare war on them, it will indeed be a violation of their rights.”

“They have no rights! They scheme to no end, plot and intrigue, forgetting this is not the Spain of old. Isabel may have seen fit to placate them, but I will not.” He stopped abruptly, swallowing hard. “You must understand my predicament. These
grandes
are dogs, and like dogs they must be put down for the good of Castile.”

A surge of heat rose in me. I was sick of posturing and high-handedness in the name of Spain. I wanted this matter stopped before it led to further calamity.

“The last thing I desire is to begin my reign by sending an army of Spaniards against Spaniards. I agree this matter with the nobles is serious and do not disregard your frustration, Papá. But there must be another way to show them we’ve a higher authority in the realm now.” I straightened my shoulders. “Perhaps the time has come to announce my coronation.”

He stared at me. “Coronation?”

“Yes. You told me months ago, we would go to Toledo and have me invested and crowned. Why not now? It seems the perfect occasion. The high lords need to understand they have a queen. We needn’t make a production out of it, just enough to entertain the people and remind the lords of their proper place. The admiral once told me Mamá always made it a point to deal with the
grandes
firmly but gently. He said that it was one of her most impressive—”

“Your mother is dead.” His tone was flat. “I rule here now.”

I went still. My heart felt as though it stopped in my chest. He must have seen the look on my face, the utter horror, for he came to me, tried to take my hands in his. I pulled away.

“I did not mean that,” he said. “It was a figure of speech,
madrecita,
nothing more.”

I let out my withheld breath. I kept my gaze on his face.

“By the saints, I’m a hard man, unused to women’s sensibilities.” He grimaced. “I’m just working so hard to restore this realm to some semblance of order, and every time I turn my back one of those lords tries to counter me. They’re more treacherous than the Moors, I tell you. At least with the Moors you can threaten a burning to keep them in line.”

“I still think we must give them one more chance to mend their ways,” I heard myself say, despite the ice seeping through me. “I don’t want bloodshed. It will bring Spain no good. I want us to summon the Cortes for my investiture. It is time. Then, if the
grandes
resist, we can consider harsher measures.”

He nodded. “If that is what you desire.” He turned abruptly to gather his cloak. He strode to the door, his hand reaching for the latch before I managed to say, “Papá.”

He glanced over his shoulder at me.

“My letter,” I said. “You will send it on to Savoy.”

It was not a request, and I saw in the tightening of his face that he knew it. “Of course, I will. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

Yet as he left, I wondered if anything would ever be the same again.

I WAITED FOR DAYS AFTERWARD, REFRAINING FROM PRIVATE DISCOURSE
with anyone save my women and keeping any letters I needed to write neutral. I doubted my secretary, Lopez, had had anything to do with the interception of my letter to Margaret, but I no longer trusted that what I sent would arrive at its intended destination.

This much was easily managed, as letters required my signature. But it proved impossible to regain the placid passage of my days. With corrosive precision, that web of suspicion that had plagued my final years with Philip returned to haunt me and I could no more escape it than I had when he’d been alive.

My bastard sister, Joanna, for one, became insupportable. She headed the gaggle of sharp-nosed women who served me in my chambers, and where before I had put up with them, relegating them to mindless chores like cleaning out my hearths and seeing to my bed linens, now I found such an insidious way about them that I could not abide to look at them. I suspected that one, if not all, acted as informants and treated them with a remote formality, as I couldn’t refuse their services completely without bringing undue attention to myself.

Every night after my ladies retired, I spent the hours of moon-limned silence pacing, my doubt consuming me. The shadow unfurled its ominous wings in my mind, growing larger, more threatening, until I feared I might truly go mad this time, as I could no longer tell if what I felt was real or the delusions of a woman who’d been betrayed too many times before.

I needed confirmation and finally succumbed to what I’d struggled against ever since my father had come to me. I called for Beatriz and handed her a sealed missive.

“Find a trusted courier to get this to the admiral,” I told her. “I must see him.”

WE MADE ARRANGEMENTS TO MEET ON THE PLAINS IN A SECLUDED
woodland, where Fernandito often went hawking. We needed cover from prying eyes and I waited until the hour of the siesta to saddle up the mare I kept stabled for my ambles about the grounds. I had taken to riding weekly for exercise, or so I told my ladies, and therefore no one thought anything untoward when I went out with Beatriz on her mule to partake of the afternoon.

A slight breeze rustled the clumps of oaks and linden; from the west drifted the brackish smell of the Duero’s tributaries. Winter had bleached the plains of color, but clumps of wildflowers and startling yellow broom scrub had begun to rise with the incoming heat of summer, and I found myself gazing over the landscape with possessive tenderness.

At the woodland entrance, we dismounted and I left Beatriz with the horses while I proceeded alone under a whispering canopy of leaves.