The Scroll of Seduction Page 19

  My mother could not comprehend my silence. She sat with me, trying to have a conversation, asking me questions. She would demand I have some soup, some stew. I was dying of hunger, and thirst, but I had promised myself I would keep my mouth shut. For two or three days I did nothing but cry.

  Finally, Beatriz convinced me that I had to eat. For my child. For that bird who was pecking his way toward life from within me. My child demanded that I live, he was digging his heels into my ribs. Priests paid call, nuns paid call. Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros stopped by every morning to inquire as to my health, before leaving for the university he had founded. I listened to him, because he brought news of Philippe. It was through him that I learned of the trials that my husband had endured during the two months it took him to reach the French border, thanks to my father’s attempts to waylay his progress, ordering that he be denied horses and even lodging in castles along the way, under the pretext of the imminent war with France. I thought that perhaps so many obstacles would have made Philippe desist and took up hope, thinking he might turn back, but of course he did not. Finally, my father realized that his stubborn son-in-law would not give up, and he opted to give in himself, by entrusting Philippe to represent Spain in the negotiations with the king of France over the dispute for Naples.

  It was clear to me that my husband would not retrace his steps.

  ON MARCH 10, 1503, I GAVE BIRTH TO FERDINAND WITH A MINIMUM of pain and no complications. The palace bells rang in celebration announcing through Alcalá de Henares the good news that my second son had been born in Spain. My baby was healthy and handsome. He took more after my side of the family, escaping the protruding Hapsburg chin that my little Charles inherited. I thought I could finally return to Flanders, to Philippe and my children. There would be nothing stopping me now. Tremendously relieved, I slept for two days straight.

  A few days later, a horseman from Lyon arrived with a gift from Philippe: a beautiful gold choker with seven enormous pearls symbolizing the Virgin Mary’s seven joyful mysteries.

  Though black had been reintroduced as the official court color, I refused to dress in mourning on the day Ferdinand was baptized. I wore a dark red dress with golden embroidery and a plunging neckline designed to call attention to my necklace. As we entered the church, I insisted on carrying the baby myself. During the ceremony in the cathedral, the bishop of Málaga, Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa, the same one who had performed our wedding ceremony, praised me to the high heavens during the homily. He said that God had rewarded me with healthy children and that, just like the Virgin herself, I laughed and smiled while giving birth. Fifty days and fifty nights, he said, would not suffice to count my virtues. Though his flattery was quite exaggerated, my gratitude to him was heartfelt, because not only were my mother and father present, but all the grandees in the kingdom had come for the dedication. And clearly I could use some champions now that every thing I did or didn’t do was interpreted capriciously. Many attributed my melancholy and displeasure at being so far from my loved ones–even my lack of appetite–to a feeble mind and a lack of wits. This widespread disposition to portray me unfavorably and present Philippe and I as a threat to the stability and interests of the crown led my husband to command that no one be allowed to enter in my service without his permission.

  But when Ferdinand was born, my parents sent seventy Spanish nobles to work in my retinue, taking no notice whatsoever of Philippe’s wishes.

  I was at the center of a power struggle whose objectives became clear to me over time. The weeks went by and no one seemed to listen to my insistent demands that I be allowed to return to Flanders. When I grew impatient and proposed journeying to Lyon to meet up with my husband, they forced me to desist, brandishing the same reasons they’d given Philippe: I couldn’t risk being held captive by the French, used for ransom to obtain advantages in the war over Naples. When I asked to make the voyage by sea, they said it would be impossible until after spring, since the Biscayan sailors were predicting squalls throughout the season. Between my parents’ stance, the snippets of conversation I overheard, and the constant rumors, it slowly dawned on me that my mother planned to keep me in Spain indefinitely. She was convinced that time would wash away my regrets and that eventually I would realize that becoming the queen to whom she would bestow her legacy was well worth the sacrifice of living apart from Philippe. She trusted that I would place the duties of my station above my duties as wife and mother and that I would choose political power over domestic bliss and love.

  The more aware I became of my mother’s wishes, the more incensed my heart became. Defying her turned into an obsession. I set out to destroy her peace and harmony, and to ensure that each day she forced me to wander the halls of that palace were bitter pills for her. I wanted her to long desperately for my departure. We would see who gave in first. It was not difficult to put my plan into action; I was wracked by rage, anguish, and desperation. I gave little Ferdinand to a wet nurse and, for want of allies, armies, or other weapons, turned to my last resort: my body and my willpower.

  “ISABEL NEVER EXPECTED SUCH SUSTAINED RESISTANCE,” MANUEL said, getting up to poke the fire. “But Juana had a queen’s mettle. She could go for days without eating, sitting motionless in bed, staring off into space, snubbing everyone, refusing everything. Her mother ordered the Cortes to be moved to Alcalá de Henares and, day and night, between running the State and taking care of business, she visited her daughter and berated her, insisting she give up this silent treatment. Juana would only repeat her demands: that they let her go to Flanders to rejoin Philippe and her children. It was obvious at first glance that the princess was losing weight. She was pale, unkempt, her vanity absent, as if she could care less about anything related to her person.

  I WANT MY MOTHER TO BE ASHAMED BY THE CHORUS OF COURTIERS in the palace worrying about my demise. I want her to fear for my life, for my health. I want her to evoke the ghost of my grandmother. No doubt she remembers her mother wandering aimlessly with a forlorn look through the rooms in the Palace of Arevalo. Those memories are a private hell for her, and I fan the flames with no shame or regret, because what I now feel for my mother is something akin to hatred. As soon as I hear her footsteps echoing in the hallway and the sounds of whoever accompanies her on her daily visits, I feel my blood begin to bubble up like water boiling in the cauldron of my belly. I have no qualms in defying her when we are alone. If as a child I found her presence often overpowering, now I wait for her unmoved. Sometimes I simply refuse to respond, I don’t react at all when, fearfully, she takes my hands in hers. Totally absent from the room where we both sit, I use my clavichord trick and imagine my sheet music until she finally leaves, depressed and impotent. Other times, I cry or talk about my children.

  “Mother, is it possible that you do not miss Isabel and Juan, my dead siblings? Do you not remember when they were babies and their little bodies fit into the crook of your arm? Do you not remember their smiles, their squeals as they played together? Do you never think of wrenching them from their graves and bringing them back to childhood? Because I think about my children in Brussels, I think about them all the time. I think I can hear them, hear what they think of the mother, who has abandoned them. I do not know, my lady, how you who have suffered so many deaths and absences can do this to me. Or did we never matter to you, Mother? Did you never feel anything for us, and that is why you cannot understand how I can be so sad now?

  Or I remind her of how she was tormented by jealousy.

  “Do you remember, Mother, when you found out that father had gotten another woman with child? Did you picture him stroking and caressing another body with the same hands that touched you at night? Did you not perhaps feel, as I do, a mouthful of sharp teeth biting you from within? Philippe is young. He cannot survive for long without love, and when he seeks out another, what will happen if her kisses are sweeter, if forbidden love is more exciting for its sheer novelty? You shall be solely responsible for my misfortune; you and o
nly you. How do you make a stone feel, make it have a heart? I never ever want to be queen if it means becoming as hard and as heartless as you.”

  The queen asked me to be patient. She deceived me, saying that as soon as the weather improved I could leave. Then she recriminated me, insisting I remember that the destiny of Spain was so much greater than that of any of us. Her pale face, blue eyes, and the golden curls peeking out from her cap made her look like a candle wax virgin, remote and unlit. When I was angry, I turned red. She, however, grew pale. Often our conversations ended with hostile barbs. I spoke from my heart and said what I felt, without fear or favor. I showed my mother no respect or consideration. Why should I submit to her? I was suffering as her victim, and I refused to turn the other cheek.

  Beatriz reproached me. Upsetting my mother would only worsen her illness, she was sure, and my attitude only fueled the rumors that I had gone mad.

  Let them speak! Those who are born submissive and obedient like serfs have no will of their own and know not how to affirm their independence. I, instead, had been born a princess, was going to be queen, and my demands only extended to what was rightfully mine. It would please me to see how those who dared call me mad would act if they were in my place! For the life of me I could not understand my mother’s pretense that I gave precedence to my loyalty to her at the expense of the obligations to my own family. It was only her and my father’s ill will toward Philippe that made her demand such a thing. They could not forgive that he was loyal to his own dominions, nor his determination to decide by himself what was best for our future and that of our children.

  Philippe, in fact, had managed to negotiate a truce with Louis of France, by agreeing to divide Naples between France and Spain until our children, Charles and Claudia, were married, at which time it would become part of the unified crown that combined both of their realms. Philippe would act as regent for the Spanish, and Louis would name a French regent until they came of age.

  However, of this truce, which favored my return to Philippe’s side, I was not informed, on my mother’s explicit instructions. Had Beatriz de Bobadilla not contravened royal prohibition by telling me, I would never have known it had been signed.

  My mother and I had left Alcalá de Henares and gone to Segovia. I was led to believe that, in addition to escaping from the heat, by traveling north we were beginning the journey that would eventually take me to the port of Laredo, and from there to Flanders.

  Just as before, though, a week followed another and there was no sign of my trip getting under way. The disputes between my mother and I reached such an extreme, both of us were so distraught and convulsed, that the royal physicians Soto and De Juan finally convinced my mother that the two of us should not share the same space. It was decided that I would go to Medina del Campo, to La Mota Castle, farther north.

  Within this castle, with its high battlements and enormous walls rising up from the arid, red earth, I watched the summer I should have embarked to Flanders get to its end. A year had passed since I had seen Philippe and my three oldest children.

  The desperation caused by my impotence was wreaking havoc on my stomach. I was eating so little that I had no energy and no want other than sleep. I thought obsessively of Philippe and imagined his passions channeled into carefree lascivious pleasures. I pictured his lips traveling down the voluptuous and curved backs of seductive women in an orgy of naked bodies. Sometimes these fantasies aroused me uncontrollably, taking me to the peak of pleasure. At other times they left me in a morose heap on the floor, wailing and sweating profusely. I stopped bathing, stopped grooming myself. What did I care if I was filthy and unkempt? After all, I was a wretched prisoner locked up in those austere corridors, nothing more. How could I be expected to show even a scrap of dignity when my freedom was so utterly trampled? As the sun set each day, I thought I could sense my children’s growing oblivion: each day taking from their memories another feature of my face, making it fade just as the dying day faded away over the fields of Castile. I could feel the red liquid substance of Philippe’s love growing fainter too, dwindling, becoming a trickle that soon would dry altogether. My bitter thoughts were strangling my will to live. I refused to taste even a bite of food, determined to bring death to myself once and for all.

  IT WAS EARLY NOVEMBER. DAY OF THE DEAD HYMNS WERE STILL floating in the air when, one afternoon when the whole world seemed to have sunk in the mist, a rider appeared with a letter from Philippe. Beatriz came in and handed it to me. She remained by my side, waiting anxiously for my reaction with trembling hands, for she feared the force of my desolation. I read the letter by the window while the governess held little Ferdinand back, impeding his attempts to stand up by grabbing onto my skirts. From the first lines, I could tell it was a love letter. He couldn’t stand to be without me any longer, he said. I had to find a way to return to Flanders. And he sent me the name of the captain of a wool trading merchant ship who was ready to make the journey whenever I commanded.

  Just like a bear who comes out of hibernation after the coldest of winters, so did my heart awake in my chest, warmed and bursting with the desire to dash swiftly and hungrily into my husband’s arms.

  I called for a bath to be prepared for me and sent for some food. I called my most trusted ladies-in-waiting and told them of my plan to leave for Bilbao as soon as possible. No one else must know, I told them. Stealthily, we would prepare our trunks and leave in two days’ time.

  BUT–ALAS!–WHILE WE BUZZED AROUND LIKE BEES PREPARING TO leave the hive, Captain Hugo de Urríes, betrayed Philippe’s and my desires and wrote to my father denouncing our plans.

  THE MULES WERE READY AND WAITING. WITH LITTLE FERDINAND IN my arms, I was out on the castle courtyard, ensuring that the trunks of clothes, books, and provisions were well secured when suddenly we heard the sound of horses approaching. Riding across the drawbridge, they galloped through the castle’s open gate, led by Juan de Fonseca, the bishop of Córdoba, who had once been my friend and advisor. The moment I saw him at the head of a party of soldiers, my legs went weak and quivery. This could only mean more obstacles in my way. The bishop dismounted, bowed reverently before me, and asked me to explain what was behind all of this bustling around.

  “I am leaving,” I said. “My husband awaits me in Flanders and I must join him.”

  “Forgive me, madam, but how is it that your mother the queen has no news of your departure, nor has she given her consent? How is it that you plan to take your leave without bidding her farewell?”

  “That is a matter between my mother and I. Neither she nor anyone else can oblige me to stay here so far from my family any longer.”

  “And where will you go? Captain Urríes, at your father’s urging, has desisted from his mission. There is no longer any boat awaiting you in Bilbao.”

  Beatriz and Madame de Hallewin came up on either side of me, taking my arms, encircling me and offering me their protection. I was blinded by rage. My body was a sea of lava, and a boiling, shrieking fury spilled out from my heart.

  “I don’t care if that wretched captain has decided to betray me,” I hollered. “I will journey through France.”

  “Do you not know, perchance, that France is at war with Spain?”

  “With Spain, yes, but not with me. Let’s go,” I cried, wrenching myself free of those who were trying to protect me, rushing to the middle of the courtyard to instruct the servants, who were waiting on edge. “Continue with the preparations.”

  “In the name of Her Majesty, Queen Isabella, I command you to stop,” the bishop shouted, contradicting me. Before I could prevent it, he motioned to the soldiers in his party to seal the castle gates.

  “I forbid you,” I screamed. “No gates will be sealed here until I have departed.”

  “Juana, Juana, I am only obeying the orders I have received from our lady, the queen, your mother. Please, I beg you, calm yourself,” the bishop said lowering his voice.

  At the mention of my mother’s name all
my efforts to impose my authority went unheeded. Deaf to my frenzied orders, the soldiers went ahead to raise the drawbridge and close the gates. Intimidated, my ladies began to retreat. Slowly, the servants started to untie the bundles and unload the trunks from the mules and carts. I ran from one to the next, upbraiding them for their submissiveness, but all I got in return were looks of fear and compassion. I was overcome with despair. The bishop had ridden out just before the drawbridge was raised. I deposited Ferdinand in Beatriz’s arms and charged up the parapet behind the walls. I could see him on the other side of the moat, and I shouted to him, insisting that if he did not let me out he would pay dearly when I was queen. I would have them all hung, each and every one, I screeched, frantic. I could not see any reason that could justify the shame and humiliaton I had been made to suffer at the eyes of everyone in my court. I believe at one point I charged against the soldiers posted at the gates. The poor men put up with me hurling abuse until Beatriz intervened.

  Bile rose up in my throat, I could taste it in my parched mouth. For quite some time all I could see were faces, spinning and twisting like snakes slithering up to strangle me; they were the faces of those I had confronted as I ran, crazed, back and forth across the palace courtyard. When I was back in my right mind, I sent a messenger to intercept the priest and try to convince him graciously to allow me to leave, as well as beg forgiveness for my sharp tongue. But he who had once been an ally sent back my envoy, Miguel de Ferrara, with the message that his patience was not to be tried with insults and disrespect, and that he would inform the queen of my behavior that very night. His reply wounded my pride. I sent Ferrara once again, to ask Fonseca to tell my mother that neither rain nor sun nor wind would force me back inside the fortress of La Mota. I would remain in the courtyard, waiting for the gates to be opened so that I might take my leave.