History's Great Queens 2-Book Bundle: The Last Queen and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici (100 page)

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H
old the reins firmly, Isabella. Don’t let him sense your fear. If he does, he’ll think he’s in control and he’ll try to throw you.”

Perched atop the elegant black stallion, I nodded, gripping the reins. I could feel the taut leather through the weather-worn tips of my gloves. Belatedly I thought I should have let Beatriz’s father, Don Pedro de Bobadilla, buy me the new gloves he had offered for my recent thirteenth birthday. Instead, pride—a sin I tried hard, but usually failed, to overcome—had refused to let me admit our penury by accepting the gift, though he lived with us and surely knew quite well how impoverished we were. Just as pride hadn’t let me refuse my brother’s challenge that it was time I learned to ride a proper horse.

So, here I sat, with old leather gloves that felt thin as silk to protect my hands, atop a magnificent animal. Though it was not a large horse it was still frightening; the creature shifted and pawed the ground as though it were ready to bolt at any moment, regardless of whether I could stay on or not.

Alfonso shook his head, leaning from his roan to pry my fingers further apart, so that the reins draped through them.

“Like that,” he said. “Firm, but not so firm that you’ll injure his mouth. And remember to sit straight when you canter and lean forward at a gallop. Canela isn’t one of those stupid mules you and Beatriz ride. He’s a purebred Arabian jennet, worthy of a caliph. He needs to know his rider is in charge at all times.”

I straightened my spine, settling my buttocks on the embossed saddle. I felt light as a thistle. Though I was of an age when most girls begin to develop, I remained so flat and thin that my friend and lady-in-waiting Beatriz, Don Bobadilla’s daughter, was constantly cajoling me to eat more. She eyed me now with concern, her significantly more curvaceous figure so gracefully erect upon her dappled gelding that it seemed she’d been riding one her entire life, her thick black hair coiled above her aquiline features under a fillet and veil.

She said to Alfonso, “I assume Your Highness has ensured this princely jennet of yours is properly broken. We wouldn’t want anything untoward to happen to your sister.”

“Of course he’s broken. Don Chacón and I broke him ourselves. Isabella will be fine. Won’t you,
hermana
?”

Even as I nodded, near-paralyzing doubt overcame me. How could I possibly be expected to show this beast that
I
was in charge? As if he sensed my thoughts, Canela pranced sideways. I let out a gasp, yanking at the reins. He came to a snorting halt, ears flattened, clearly displeased at the effort I’d exerted on his bit.

Alfonso winked at me. “See? She can handle him.” He looked at Beatriz. “Do you need any assistance, my lady?” he asked, in a jocular tone that hinted at his years of verbal sparring with our castle custodian’s headstrong only daughter.

“I can manage fine, thank you,” said Beatriz tartly. “Indeed, Her Highness and I will both be fine as soon as we get a feel for these Moorish steeds of yours. Lest you forget, we have ridden before, even if our mounts were, as you say, only stupid mules.”

Alfonso chuckled, pivoting on his roan with practiced ease for his mere ten years. His brilliant blue eyes glistened; his thick fair hair, shorn bluntly at his shoulders, enhanced his full, handsome face. “And lest you forget,” he said, “I’ve been riding every day since I was five. It is experience that makes for good horsemanship.”

“True,” rumbled Alfonso’s governor, Don Chacón, from his own massive horse. “The Infante Alfonso is already an accomplished equestrian. Riding is second nature to him.”

“We don’t doubt it,” I interjected before Beatriz could respond. I forced out a smile. “I believe we’re ready, brother. But, pray, not too fast.”

Alfonso nudged his roan forward, leading the way out of Arévalo’s enclosed inner courtyard, under the portcullis and through the main gates.

I shot a disapproving look at Beatriz.

Of course, this was all her doing. Bored by our daily regimen of lessons, prayer, and needlework, she had announced this morning that we must get some exercise, or we would turn into crones before our time. We’d been cooped up indoors too long, she said, which was true enough, winter having been particularly harsh this year. And when she asked our governess, Doña Clara, for permission, my
aya
had agreed because riding for us invariably consisted of taking the castle’s elderly mules on a leisurely jaunt around the curtain wall surrounding the castle and its adjoining township for an hour before supper.

But after I changed into my riding clothes and went with Beatriz into the courtyard, I found Alfonso standing there with Don Chacón and two impressive stallions—gifts sent by our half brother, King Enrique. The black horse was for me, Alfonso said. His name was Canela.

I had suppressed my alarm as I mounted the stallion with the aid of a footstool. I was even more alarmed, however, when it became clear I was expected to ride astride,
a la jineta
, the way the Moors did, perched on the narrow leather saddle with the stirrups drawn up high—an unfamiliar and unsettling sensation.

“An odd name for a horse,” I’d remarked, to disguise my apprehension. “Cinnamon is a light color, while this creature is black as night.”

Canela tossed his mane and swiveled his exquisitely shaped head about to nip my leg. I did not think it a good augury for the afternoon.

“Beatriz,” I now hissed as we rode out onto the plain, “why didn’t you tell me? You know I dislike surprises.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you,” she hissed back. “If I had, you wouldn’t have come. You’d have said we should read or sew or recite novenas. Say what you will, we have to have fun sometime.”

“I hardly see how being thrown from a horse can be deemed fun.”

“Bah. Just think of him as an overgrown dog. He’s big, yes, but quite harmless.”

“And how, pray, would you know?”

“Because Alfonso would never have let you ride Canela otherwise,” said Beatriz, with a truculent toss of her head that revealed the immutable self-confidence that had made her my closest companion and confidant—though, as ever, I found myself caught between amusement and discomfort when confronted with her irreverent character.

We were two years apart, and antithetical in temperament. Beatriz acted as though the realm outside our gates was a vast unexplored place filled with potential adventure. Doña Clara said her reckless attitude was due to the fact that Beatriz’s mother had died shortly after her birth; her father had raised her alone in Arévalo, without feminine supervision. Dark as I was fair, voluptuous as I was angular, Beatriz was also rebellious, unpredictable, and too outspoken for her own good. She even challenged the nuns at the Convent de las Agustinas where we went to take our lessons, driving poor Sor María to distraction with her endless questions. She was a loyal friend, and amusing as well, always quick to find mirth in what others did not; but she was also a constant headache for her elders and for Doña Clara, who’d tried in vain to teach Beatriz that well-bred ladies did not give in to random impulse whenever the urge overcame them.

“We should have told Doña Clara the truth,” I said, glancing at my hands. I was clenching the reins again and forced myself to loosen my grip. “I hardly think she’ll find our gallivanting about on horses appropriate.”

Beatriz pointed ahead. “Who cares about appropriate? Look around you!”

I did as she instructed, reluctantly.

The sun dipped toward the horizon, shedding a vibrant saffron glow over the bleached-bone sky. To our left Arévalo sat on its low hill, a dun-colored citadel with six towers and a crenellated keep, abutting the provincial market town bearing the same name. To our right wound the main road that led to Madrid, while all around us, stretching as far as my eyes could see, lay the open expanse of Castile—an endless land dotted with fields of barley and wheat, vegetable patches, and clusters of wind-twisted pine. The air was still, heady with the fragrance of resin and a whiff of melting snow that I always associated with the advent of spring.

“Isn’t it spectacular?” breathed Beatriz, her eyes shining. I nodded, gazing upon the countryside that had been my home for almost as long as I could remember. I’d seen it many times before, of course, from Arévalo’s keep and during our annual trips with Doña Clara to the neighboring town of Medina del Campo, where the biggest animal fair in Castile was held. But for a reason I could not have explained, today it looked different, like when one suddenly notices that time has transformed an oft-looked-at painting, darkening the colors to a new luster and deepening the contrast between light and shadow.

My practical nature assured me this was because I was seeing the land from higher up, perched on the back of Canela rather than on the mule I was used to. Still, tears pricked my eyes and, without warning, I had a sudden memory of an imposing
sala
filled with people in velvets and silks. The image faded as soon as it came, a phantom from the past, and when Alfonso waved to me from where he rode ahead with Don Chacón, I promptly forgot I sat upon an unfamiliar, potentially treacherous animal and jabbed my heels into its ribs.

Canela leapt forth, throwing me forward against his arched neck. I instinctively grabbed hold of his mane, lifting myself off the saddle and tensing my thighs. Canela responded with a satisfied snort. He quickened his pace, galloping past Alfonso, raising a whirlwind of ochre dust.

“Dios Mio!”
I heard Alfonso gasp as I tore past him. From the corner of my eye I saw Beatriz fast behind me, shouting to my brother and an astonished Don Chacón: “Years of experience, eh?”

I burst into laughter.

IT FELT MARVELOUS
, just what I imagined flying must be: to leave behind the cares of the classroom and studies, the chill flagstone of the castle and baskets of endless darning, the constant muttered worry over money and my mother’s erratic health; to be free and revel in the sensation of the horse moving beneath me and the landscape of Castile.