The Creation Of Eve (43 page)

"Sofi. Or Francesca, if Sofi is busy drawing."

Francesca smiled at Her Majesty as lovingly as a mother at her infant.

"Then--" sputtered the condesa, "then Your Majesty must wear a mask!"

"Certainly," the Queen said sweetly. Her skirts swished against the floor tiles as she left the chamber.

"Dinner is at two!" the condesa called after Us.

My prayer book thumping against my leg, I hung on to Her Majesty's train as she glided through the cloisters. Moving in and out of the shadows cast by the arches, she nodded at the nobles lingering about in hopes of getting the King's ear, at the German guards posted at their stations, at the servants falling into low and loving bows. I wondered how I was to work on a drawing without chalk or pen, but held my tongue, and she said nothing, either, about any subject, as we left the palace and its square pointed towers and entered the meadow on the south side of the estate. Save for the quiet pat of My Lady's slippers, the footsteps of myself and Francesca, and the snuffling of Cher-Ami as he explored a patch of crimson poppies, we walked silently, our skirts catching on the long bent grass.

Francesca and I held our tongues as we passed into a pasture where cows grazed, their bells languidly clanking. I kept my own counsel in the hope of encouraging the Queen to share hers. Once she had unburdened herself, I could remind her about my request for a husband. But on she sailed, over a humped stone footbridge and past a vegetable patch tended by gardeners who rose on their knees from their weeding like rabbits sniffing the air.

At last we gained the wild woods. Our footsteps now deadened by the fine grass sprawling between the pines, we pressed forward, Until deep within the forest Her Majesty came to a stop. I was stunned to see her shoulders quaking.

She kept her back to me as I held on to her train, trembling in my hands. "My Lady, what is it?"

She shook her head. A breeze picked Up, sending the pine boughs hissing.

"My Lady?" I whispered.

"It was terrible."

I took a careful breath.

"If he would have just given me time . . ."

The wind whipped a lock of hair from my braids and across my mouth. I dared not move.

"I know I should be glad." Her back still turned to me, she wiped her eyes with her hand. "A child can come of it."

I glanced over my shoulder at Francesca.

"But I hate him, Sofi. I hate him!"

"Shhh, My Lady!" I whispered. "You do not mean this."

She shook as she quietly cried.

I raked my mind for words of comfort but could find none. She had no rights to her body--it was the King's to claim. And he was not such a bad man, surely, not as bad as other kings have been.

Francesca stepped forward and took her hand. "Think how lovely is a child,
cara mia
. Your own little child."

"A son," I said.

Her hand still in Francesca's rough grasp, My Lady exclaimed, "I do not want a son! I want a daughter, a daughter I can love and keep and hold to my heart. I will never be like my mother, forcing her to marry just for my gain."

"No,
cara mia
," said Francesca. "Of course you no will. What name you like to give your little girl?"

She sniffed. "Diane. After my governess."

I drew in a breath: Diane de Poitiers may have been her governess, but she was also her mother's mortal enemy. My poor Lady, forever torn between the governess who had shown her love and care, and her natural but distant mother.

"Diana,"
Francesca said, her rough peasant accent caressing the final
a
.
"Bella."

"Why am I always to hate whom I love and to love whom I hate? Why, Francesca? Why am I never free to love whom I love?"

I let go of her train as Francesca gathered the Queen to her breast, clucking her tongue. "
Cara mia
, hush. Hush."

"Tell me the truth, Francesca--he killed the Prince of Ascoli, didn't he?"

Francesca stroked Her Majesty's cheek, shaking her head.

"He has no one to answer to," said the Queen. "He can kill whomever, whenever, however he wants."

"He is mostly a good man," said Francesca. "You must believe."

"And the part of him that is not good?"

Francesca stroked her again. "That part, you keep happy,
cara mia
. Make sure you keep it happy."

ITEM:A trapped lynx will chew off its own foot to make an escape.

ITEM:An amethyst placed in wine will cure the ills of having drunk too much wine the night before.

27 DECEMBER 1565

El Alcazar, Madrid

Let no one claim I have stopped painting. My most recent subject--done tonight--is a reworking of an old painting of myself, standing at the clavichord. I made Francesca stand behind me and, with the aid of a mirror, added her to the picture. I do believe I have made her into a grimacing brown ghost. What do I expect Under the influence of drink?

Items, items--more items for the notebook of the great and magnificent Sofonisba Virgo.

Note: Don't paint over Underpainting while it is wet, Unless you desire mud.

Note: Wine from along the Duero River is quite good.

Note: The Queen is again pregnant, perhaps two months so.

Oh, the King is thrilled. He dotes Upon her with renewed vigor, taking time from his hectic schedule to be with her each day, though war is closing in from all his distant worlds. The Turkish navy has struck in Malta. Protestant mobs have stormed churches in the Netherlands, smashing everything in sight. Spanish troops have massacred French settlers in the New World land of Florida against his express orders to leave them alone. Yet in spite of his mounting worries, he asks the Queen to remain with him during his audiences though she is ill. So patiently, patiently, he waits for her to retch into a basin before he grants entrance to his emissaries.

For while this pregnancy has already much weakened my Queen, it has made a new man of her husband. He dresses with Unprecedented thought to fashion, wearing a different doublet most days, not always a black one as before, but perhaps a dark gray or brown. He is growing his hair and mustaches longer, in the style of an adventuresome soldier. He takes more exercise at horse, and has the muscles to show for it, too--I have seen him flex them for the Queen.

This morning the King claimed her directly after Mass. He excused me and the rest of her attendants from duty. I strode, immediately afterward, down the steep brick road to the gardens of the Casa de Campo. As frigid as it was, I had to get outside. But I did not escape. My thoughts of Tiberio caught up with me.

I had asked the King to send a man for him, but what if, when found, Tiberio agreed to marriage only to escape his deadly bonds? What if he had no love for me, just a desire to be free? A man would marry a mule to be released from certain death.

"Signorina!"
Francesca called from behind me.

I kept walking, letting the downward pull of the hill carry my feet.

"Signorina!"

I turned. Francesca was holding her side, trying to catch her wind. I waited Until she paddled forward, her footsteps ringing on cold brick.

"What the hurry?" she asked when she caught Up.

I shook my head.

"You worry about the
scultore
you ask the King to find for you."

Francesca was aware of my request to wed Tiberio, though I had never elaborated on our night together. I still feared her Unfavorable judgment. "Of course I do," I said. "How can I help it? Why should I not think he would take the King's offer just to save himself ?"

"What happen between you in Rome?"

I would not answer.

"You no have to tell me. I give Up after all the years. I just ask you to think what happen there. What you know in your heart"--she rapped on her chest, making the fringe of her shawl shake--"is the truth. The heart knows what the head do not."

I looked down toward the garden and sighed.

"I think you should paint,
signorina
."

"Paint," I scoffed. "What do my paintings matter? They are just portraits--if don Alonso doesn't get the commission for them first." I resumed walking.

"Who say to do portraits is bad? Nobody. Just you." Francesca drew her rough shawl more tightly about her broad shoulders as she stumped next to me. "I know you since you are a baby,
signorina
. When you learn to walk, you no hold my hand. You pull away, you rather fall than to take help."

"I am not asking you or anyone else to help me."

"
Bene
. But do you help yourself with the painting? No. You like to do the portraits, so do you try to make best there is? No. Yet you want to be the big
maestra
." She spat onto the road. "Just by say 'honey, honey' do not make the sweetness come to the mouth."

A commotion arose from the animal house at the bottom of the road ahead.

Don Carlos's high voice rang out. "I said loose her! I am your Prince and you
will
obey me!"

Francesca's thick brows dashed toward her nose. "What do he want now?"

Although I knew I should have turned back, perversely I walked on toward the pens. There, through the iron bars of the lioness's cage, I saw Don Carlos struggling to free himself from Don Juan, though Don Juan looked to be having an easy time of holding him. Behind them sat Don Juan's long-legged red mongrel, Rojo, scratching behind its ear.

"Believe me, Carlos," Don Juan said. "I am for the creature 's freedom as much as you are, but where would she go if she were loosed?"

Like a small child pulling from its nurse, Don Carlos strained toward the lioness padding along the brick wall on the far side of the enclosure. "I don't know--she 'll find her way. I don't care! My Lady wants her loose, so I'm letting her go."

"My Lady wants her freed?"

"Ow, Juan! You hurt me! Yes! She told me when I went to see her this morning. She was freeing the canary in my father's office in the French tower when I came in." He stopped struggling and smiled. "When he asked her what she was doing, she said it gave her great pleasure to see it go free, such pleasure that she would have all the caged creatures loosed in the land. You should have seen Father. For once it wiped that maddeningly calm expression off his face."

He broke free of Don Juan with a burst of energy. "Touch me again," he said, rubbing his wrist, "and I'll have you arrested!" He peered through the bars of the cage. "Sofi--are you and your woman just going to spy on me all day?"

"Your Majesty." I came around and curtseyed before him. "Your Excellency," I said to Don Juan.

"Tell Juan he must let me do what I want."

In spite of my troubled mind, I smiled sympathetically at Don Juan. Why he has taken it Upon himself to be his nephew's keeper all these years, I do not know. It is a hard job that grows more difficult by the day. Perhaps Don Carlos awakens Don Juan's natural compassion for injured creatures. For Don Carlos is as wounded a creature as any, his damaged brain given increasingly to fantasy and rages.

A clopping of hooves drew our attention. Down the road from which I'd just come trotted the King on a gleaming black stallion. The Queen's mule-drawn litter jostled just behind him, its brocade curtains closed against the December chill. A troop of burly German guards, mounted on mules, followed at a discreet remove.

"Here comes the old billy goat now," Don Carlos muttered Under his breath.

The King's horse clattered Up then reared back, hooves flashing, as His Majesty pulled the reins sharp. His horse still dancing, the King reached down and touched Don Carlos's shoulder. "My son."

Don Carlos knocked away his father's hand as the Queen's litter came to a halt before Us. A slim gloved hand drew back the curtains; My Lady peeked out. Her blink acknowledged Don Juan's presence before she smiled at Don Carlos.

"Toady."

"My Lady!" Spots of color appeared on the Prince's pasty cheeks.

The King retained his pleasant calm as he sat back into his saddle, a bracing wind ruffling the feather in his cap. "Juan," he said coolly. "Nothing better to do today than to admire the animals?"

"That is exactly what I am doing. I am studying patience from this one." He nodded at the lioness, treading in her enclosure.

The King's smile was all coolness. "You believe she has feelings? Thoughts, even?"

"I believe she thinks of her escape, yes."

"Oh, does she?" The King gazed at him a moment. "I suppose my horse is scheming, too. Planning to throw me, perhaps?"

"Perhaps," said Don Juan. "One cannot always know what is on the mind of the creatures around us."

The brothers stared at each other, the King settling his horse.

"My Lady," said Don Carlos, "I hope you are feeling better than when I saw you last. How is your headache?"

"Much better, Toad. You are sweet to ask."

"We would not be out if she did not feel well," the King said mildly.