The Creation Of Eve (11 page)

"I would not think he had the strength."

Don Alessandro raised my hand to the music. "Truly? You have never seen the power of anger?"

Not long after, the dance concluded and the condesa de Uruena, madame de Clermont, and several other of Her Majesty's ladies were in the Queen's chamber, preparing her for bed as our own servants hovered in the background. The little Queen drooped, her face and neck flushed with exhaustion, as madame de Clermont Unpinned the Great Pearl and handed it to me, heavy as a plum in my hand. As the condesa waited nearby with a fresh chemise, madame removed the Queen's robes and Unlaced her tight bodice. She then pulled away the stiff cage of sumptuous cloth binding Her Majesty's thin chest. When she drew off the Queen's shift to remove the corset Underneath, she gasped.

The Queen looked Up heavily, her arms folded over the peaked buds of her breasts. Seeing madame 's face, she gazed down at her groin. A cluster of angry red pustules dotted her downy girl's mound.

"My Lady," madame said with haste, "it is nothing."

I turned to Francesca, standing along the wall. Sweetest Holy Mary, was it the Small Pox?

The condesa stepped forward to slip the clean chemise over the Queen's head, then without a word briskly left the room. Her voice rang harshly from the arcade outside. "Doctor Hernandez! Send for doctor Hernandez!"

Meek as a babe in a cradle, Her Majesty let madame de Clermont lay her in her bed. "Do not let the King come tonight," she whispered.

Anger flamed within me. Poor young thing, having to worry about a husband when her greatest concern should have been which of her lapdogs to take to bed. If it was the Small Pox, she would soon be battling for her life.

"Do not let him see me!" the Queen cried.

"Of course we won't, My Lady," said madame.

"Make certain!"

When the King did come, he scowled at madame de Clermont 's anxious whisperings, then shouldered his way past her to where the Queen lay very still, her eyes closed tight. Only doctor Hernandez's arrival and his subsequent dire warnings about contagion forced the King from the bedside.

No sooner had his departing footsteps stopped ringing from the cold stone walls than the ladies resumed huddling in their panicked knots. They wrung their hands and sniffed back tears, though whether their distress was driven by fear of exposure to the pox or the possible demise of My Lady, it is hard to say.

Now the dazed crowd lingers in the halls, waiting to see which way Fortune's wheel will turn. Heaven help this girl who lies on the damask bed of state. She is the slender branch Upon which the peace between two kingdoms hangs.

ITEM: The Small Pox should not be confused with the Great Pox. The Small Pox is characterized by a rash of pimples that become fluid-filled pustules by the sixth day. The pustules are found on the face and extremities, less commonly on the trunk, leaving lasting scars should the patient survive. The Great Pox covers the patient's body from the head to the knees, resulting in some instances in the flesh falling from the face. Bleeding is the recommended treatment for the Small Pox. The Great Pox may be relieved by the application of mercury to the skin, thus the saying, "A night in the arms of Venus results in a lifetime on Mercury." The Small Pox cannot be passed to a child at birth by an infected mother. The Great Pox can, though the infant may not show symptoms until later in childhood. These symptoms include rashes, fevers, and weakness.

ITEM: The best oil for mixing with pigments is achieved by cooking linseed oil over a very low flame for two turnings of an hourglass or until it is reduced by one half. It is good to keep an infusion of willow bark on hand for the resulting headache.

22 FEBRUARY 1560

El Alcazar, Toledo

The doctors have pronounced My Lady's malady indeed to be the Small Pox. The Queen has been quarantined with her ladies, who check themselves hourly for signs of infection. But after just two days, Her Majesty's fever has ebbed, leaving her with just a sprinkling of pustules, the most of which are centered, oddly enough, around her groin. There is, however, a single large pimple Upon her forehead and a rash Upon her cheeks.

None of this was enough to keep our little patient in her bed this afternoon. Nor was she daunted by the dried egg-white and lead mixture cracking Upon her face--a recipe to keep her from scarring, recommended by her mother, Catherine de' Medici, in instructions in case of afflictions of the flesh, sent with My Lady to Spain.

"Come away from the window, Your Majesty," the condesa de Uruena said from behind her pomander. "Do you want your subjects to see you like this?"

The condesa was even more implacable than usual, perhaps because of her exclusion from the ceremony at which the lords of the realm were to swear allegiance to Don Carlos today. By King's Order she was to remain in the Queen's quarters, robbed of the chance to dress in her finest garb and show off her high position at court. How she smiled when it was announced that none of the French ladies were to go to the ceremony, either.

The Queen looked over her shoulder, her chin tucked back in a girlish grin. "Do you fear I might be mistaken for a Unicorn?" She raised her fingers to the white-crusted pustule on her forehead.

"Do not touch!" shouted the condesa.

The Queen lowered her hand.

"Until your mother hears of your illness and its progress and allows Us to discontinue the treatment she had expressly ordered, you must remain out of sight," said the condesa. "It is hardly attractive."

Her Majesty's chief French lady, madame de Clermont, sat on a pillow, languidly leafing through the brightly illustrated pages of her Book of Hours. "We are thankful Her Majesty's mother, the Most Serene Queen Mother of France, had the foresight to send such an efficacious remedy," she recited in the bored voice of someone toeing the official line.

"Her case is light and she probably would not have scarred anyway," said the condesa. "In fact, I wonder if it is the Small Pox at all."

The Queen blinked. "What is it, then?"

"A foreign rash."

Madame de Clermont looked Up from her book and frowned as if wondering if she had been insulted somehow. The Queen turned quickly to the window.

"Whatever it is," said the condesa, careful not to return madame 's gaze, "you can still catch a chill, Your Majesty. Come away from that window."

The Queen tossed her hair, which without a headdress hung in tight fawn-brown waves to her waist. "I think I shall die if I stay cooped Up in this room!"

She leaned out the window, then laughed when a passing priest looked Up and gasped.

"See what a spectacle you make of yourself !" the condesa exclaimed. "I shall tell the King I have no part in it." She strode over to her pillow, puffing on her pomander.

"Sofonisba, you join me," said the Queen.

I looked Up from where I had been adding depth to the shadows in one of the drawings I'd done of her while she had been abed.

The Queen smiled sweetly at the condesa. "She 's supposed to teach me to draw. My husband says."

I went to Her Majesty, ignoring the condesa's scowl and Francesca loudly clearing her throat from where she sewed with the other servants at the far end of the chamber. As pigeons strutted on the nearby ledges, My Lady and I looked out over the huddle of yellow and gray stone buildings from our position atop the highest hill in the city. Here and there a brick Moorish tower, pierced with pointed horseshoe-shaped windows, or a Flemish bell tower, recognizable by its four-sided pointed top, jutted above the red-tiled roofs. Dwarfing them all was the massive gray-slated dome of the Cathedral. With all the shapes and angles, the scene would make an interesting sketch.

But it seems my mind is drawn to portraying people. It is a thrill to capture in paint something so elusive that we seldom see it even when it is before our very eyes--the inner self. I had done so before, once, in the painting of my sisters playing chess, with Francesca watching them in the background. A glimmer of each one of their dear souls had peeked out from the canvas. Even Michelangelo had remarked Upon it. But limning one 's sisters and nurse well hardly made one a
maestra
.

"Your Majesty," I said to the Queen, "perhaps we ought to step back."

The Queen glanced at the condesa, now loudly haranguing one of the lesser French ladies, which served to embroil madame de Clermont in an argument. "I don't care if she has been at this court since she was a child," the Queen whispered, "and the King wants me to learn Spanish ways from her. I won't give in to her. She is just like my mother."

A trumpeting and shouting arose from below. A cavalcade issued forth from the side of the palace--the great lords of the land were riding to the ceremony.

The condesa rushed to the window. "Come away, Your Majesty!"

"Do you see him?" The Queen's hair tumbled over her shoulders as she strained to distinguish among the riders.

"Who?" I asked over the condesa's frantic bleats.

At that moment, Don Carlos, his slight figure wrapped to his crown in fur of ermine, trotted into view on a white charger housed in trappings of gold. Behind him rode Don Alessandro, in a cape of lynx, then Don Juan, his blond hair free in the wind.

The young bloods pulled aside their horses. The King came galloping through, his jeweled hands gripping the reins of his black stallion, his cape flowing over the horse 's muscular haunches.

"There is your King!" the condesa cried. "Does he not look magnificent?"

The Queen shrank back inside.

"Shame!" The condesa drew the mullioned windows closed with a bang. "Heaven knows who saw you in such a state!"

The Queen said nothing, but went over to her embroidery frame, called her little spaniel to her lap, and listlessly began to stitch. I withdrew to my table and took Up my chalk and paper. Before me, the German clock the King had given the Queen ticked on like Time itself, its golden parts spinning and whirling.

The Queen fell into a nap, her dog snoring in its nest in her skirts. Around the chamber the other ladies slumped on their pillows in various positions of slumber. Only Francesca remained awake, now plunging, now pulling her needle through the torn lace of my chemise. I scratched wanly with my chalk, my thoughts drifting to where they should not go--to Tiberio.