History's Great Queens 2-Book Bundle: The Last Queen and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici (16 page)

TWELVE

J
ust as Doña Ana predicted, my third pregnancy proved to be my worst. Never had I felt so wretched or exhausted. I did not bestir myself to witness Besançon’s pontifical departure for Spain, his saddlebags stuffed with documents and his retinue large enough to fill a hamlet. I did not greet the envoys who came from all over Europe to seek favor with the new heirs of Spain. I took refuge in my rooms, knowing as soon as I delivered my child, all of that, and more, would be waiting for me.

On June 15, 1501, after seven agonizing hours of labor that proved a fitting end to her gestation, I gave birth to another daughter. I barely looked up from my sweat-drenched pillows as the midwives cleansed and swaddled her. I feared I might hate her after the misery she’d put me through. But when she was set in my arms and I took one look at her limpid blue eyes, everything melted away. With the golden fuzz on her still-soft and misshapen head—sure sign that like my mother in her youth, she would have hair rich as a Castilian wheat field—she was the child I had awaited, without ever knowing it.

“Isabella,” I announced. “I shall call her Isabella, in honor of my mother and sister.”

I shook my head when Doña Ana came to take her from me to deliver to the robust peasant woman chosen as a nursemaid. Instead, to my duenna’s gasp, I unlaced my shift. The greedy nub of Isabella’s mouth on my aching nipple sent pleasure rippling through me. I closed my eyes, ignoring Doña Ana’s remark that such a thing had never been seen, a woman of the blood royal giving teat like a cow in a field.

Philip came to visit me while I recovered and recounted with a laugh that I was the scandal of the court, word having gotten out that I nursed my own infant. He held Isabella and complimented me on her perfection, and then he told me he had received a communiqué from Besançon, saying all was going as planned in Spain.

With the child out of my womb and my malaise subsided, the news made me sit upright. “What does he mean, ‘as planned’?”

“Nothing for you to fret about,” he said, and he kissed me. “Now rest. You need your strength. We have a trip to Spain to plan, remember?”

Three weeks after the birth, I still had not relinquished Isabella to Madame de Halewin and the battalion of servants waiting to earn their keep. I ordered a crib set up near my own bed, and kept her there at my side day and night.

Philip went to meet with his Estates-General, leaving me in a palace full of women and old men. Times past, I would have missed him. Not now. I had recovered my strength and my wits, and I had my own business to take care of. I sat at my desk and wrote a long missive to my mother, telling her of Isabella’s birth and asking for news. I included a substantial donation for masses to be said for my late sister and her dead babe and assured my mother I was preparing to come as soon as arrangements were made.

I then had my apartments cleaned, my plate polished, all my gowns aired. I saw to Eleanor’s first lessons and the weaning of Charles from his nursemaid; above all else, I attended to my Isabella. Never had I felt so protective. It was almost as though I sought to shield my child from some unseen threat, though I could not name what I feared.

We were playing together in my rooms, I dangling a gilded rattle with a tiny bell over her as she cooed and pedaled her tiny feet, when Beatriz brought me the letter.

“This just arrived with the courier from Brussels.” She gave me a searching look before she swept a delighted Isabella up, taking her into the bedchamber while I went to my desk, letter in hand. Cracking the seal, I unfolded the wide, rough parchment. I recognized its grain at once; my mother’s stationery lacked the silky hue of my own letter stock.

For a moment, all of my childhood trepidations came flooding back, as if the great Isabel might stride into my chamber at any moment to test my readiness to assume her throne. I had never been her favorite: I had never been her chosen successor. But as I held the letter closer to my face, I discerned the faint scent of candle smoke and a touch of lavender, and it brought sudden tears to my eyes. I looked at my mother’s handwriting slanted across the page:

I stood, silent, the letter open like a missal in my hands. I had not read the unswerving command of the mother I’d known; I had not found the asperity of a queen who must concede her succession to a daughter she’d never been close with. Instead, she sounded tired, almost defeated. I had expected stern reminders of duty, of the need to set every other consideration aside, but I never stopped to consider she had buried a son, a daughter, and a grandson in less than two years. I couldn’t imagine losing one child, much less two, and in that moment I saw her not as the invincible queen but as a vulnerable woman and mother, like me.

And Besançon! He was a snake with a tonsure, demanding all he could for Flanders while my parents faced a tomb filled with crushed hopes, an ever-fractious nobility and anxious Cortes. But I had the upper hand now. He could not wring for Philip what I, in my time, could freely give: the crown of king consort. The archbishop’s time of power was fast coming to an end.

My fingers grazed the letter’s splintered seal. I turned to stare into my chamber.

It was as if I awoke from a long, torpid dream. The sunlight cascading through the velvet drapery illumined the costly tapestries on my walls, woven in Brussels and depicting satyrs and rubicund maidens in arbors. My Spanish standing cup sat on my cabinet, almost hidden behind a troop of porcelain shepherdesses sent by Anne of Brittany, Louis of France’s queen, as a gift in honor of the near-concurrent births of my Isabella and her own daughter, Claude of France.

I’d scarcely looked at the silly things, relegating them to the hundreds of objets d’art cluttering my suite. I’d been living so long among a plethora of paintings, statues, furnishings, and hangings that I had literally ceased to see them. Now as I stood there, surrounded by this opulence, I felt abruptly starved of air, the smell of sweet herbs sprinkled over the carpets underfoot coating my senses like soot.

In my mind, I saw Spain, immense and ever mutable, with its stark granite pinnacles and parched plateaus, its serpentine rivers and dense woodlands of pine and oak. Flanders was like an enamel gem box compared with the feral treasury of my native land, where fountains sang in mosaic patios and hills changed colors as the sun died, where chalk cities tumbled down eagle-haunted cliffs, crowned by stone castles that seemed rooted between heaven and earth. I longed for the taste of tart pomegranate, of lemons and oranges from Seville; I wanted to hear bells toll across an empty plain and see myself again in the resolute vigor of a people who never surrendered their pride. The loneliness pervading me was physical, like a voyager who has grown weary after years of wandering and now seeks the road home.

I was not afraid. I could learn to be queen. It was in my blood, the same blood that propelled my mother. She had not known everything the day she mounted the throne; yet like her, I had been called to it. Spain had bestowed upon me this crown.

My eyes opened. I called for Beatriz. She came to the door with Isabella cradled in her arms.

“My mother is sending a visitor,” I told her. “We must prepare.”

“
YOUR HIGHNESS, I AM DELIGHTED TO SEE YOU.” LOPEZ DE CONCHILLOS
bowed over my hand. He was a middle-aged, sprite man with benevolent brown eyes and a receding hairline, clad in a wool doublet that smelled of straw. I’d known him since my childhood: he’d served my mother faithfully as her chief secretary; to him, she entrusted her most important correspondence.

I smiled, indicating the chair opposite mine. “I too am pleased to see you, my lord. It has been too long since I welcomed a fellow countryman. Please, sit.”

Rain spattered the window, a pebbly murmur emphasized by my chamber’s unadorned walls. In the week preceding his arrival, I’d had my apartments stripped of all excess, including the lurid tapestries, and taken equal care with my appearance, donning a modest high-necked black gown. My jewelry consisted of my wedding bands and a small crucifix; I sought to exemplify the formality of a Castilian matron and saw in Lopez’s appraisal that I had succeeded.

Beatriz and Soraya slipped in with platters of stuffed olives, brown bread, cheese, and a decanter of claret. From under my lashes, I saw him nod in approval at this simple fare.

A brief silence ensued while I let him eat. Then I took a sealed envelope from my pocket. “I’ve written to Her Majesty. In here, she will find my solemn vow to comply with my duty.”

He inclined his head and took the letter from me. “Your words will no doubt assist Her Majesty greatly in her recovery.”

“Recovery?” I paused. “Is my mother ill?”

He sighed. “The doctors tell us it’s not serious. Her Majesty has been ordered to rest, and it is an order she does not take well to.”

I gave a faint smile. “No, she does not.” I paused. “I would know everything of Besançon’s visit, and what Her Majesty my mother requires of me.”

“Then I suggest you brace yourself,
princesa,
for it is not an edifying tale.”

My hands closed about my chair arms as he began to speak. It was much as I expected, though that didn’t make it any easier to hear. Besançon had acted in Spain with his customary arrogance, demanding concessions from my parents he had no right to, including several bishoprics and benefices for himself.

Then Lopez said something that sent a chill through me. “When their Majesties rebuked him for his presumption, the archbishop replied he had the means to make them reconsider. Though he did not say the words, there can be little doubt as to what he meant.” He paused, looked at me. “Is Your Highness aware that he recently met with envoys from France?”

“I was not,” I said. “Is it something I should be concerned about?”

“It could be. We don’t know why he chose this particular time to accept King Louis’ advances, but anything having to do with the French cannot behoove Spain. Her Majesty believes Besançon might seek French support for your husband, perhaps even an alliance that will, in effect, relegate Spain to the position of a suppliant.”

My voice flared at once. “Philip would not allow it! He knows Spain can never trust France.”

Lopez met my outburst with silence. Then he said, “Are you quite certain,
princesa
?”

“As certain as I am of my own self. My husband isn’t here to speak for himself, as he had to attend his Estates to gain their approval for us to undertake this journey, but I assure you he and I are in perfect accord. We would never ally ourselves with a realm that has invaded my father’s kingdom in the past and challenges his right to Naples.”