1636: The Cardinal Virtues (34 page)

Chapter 44

Brussels

Sometimes
, Isabella thought to herself as she sat in the most comfortable chair in her apartments in the Coudenberg,
there is nothing to be done but to bow to the inevitable.

In these uncertain times—and that was a kind assessment of what the world had been since the up-timers’ Ring of Fire had changed it!—it had been necessary to adjust one’s worldview and expectations to the realities of the current situation. Fernando had learned to adjust, though there were certainly times that she had found it necessary to prod (or, even less delicately,
shove
) him in the right direction.

Philip had not. Truly it was unclear whether he ever would. His Most Catholic Majesty was in the thrall of that creature Olivares, just as he had been ensorcelled by Olivares’ predecessor, the duke of Lerma. Once Isabella had merely relegated Olivares to the status of
annoying little man
, but it had become abundantly clear that he was no mere annoyance, but a living, scheming threat. He knew that the Low Countries were likely lost to Spain’s direct control; Philip, in his
cordón sanitario
, serene and unconcerned with the petty affairs of the world, most likely did not.

It is as if Charles the Fifth still stood astride the world
, she thought.
As if the Hapsburgs were all one great, happy family. Those days are gone—and will likely never return.

She glanced at her most trusted lady-in-waiting, who sat as close to the fire as she could manage without actually being closer than her mistress. The woman was drowsing, doing her best imitation of a servant interested in Isabella’s well-being and comfort: letting her eyes dart this way and that, busying herself with a bit of embroidery, checking from the corner of her eye that Isabella was not looking. When she suddenly realized that Isabella was looking her way, she set the embroidery aside.

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“I should like to know,” she said, “how long I am to be kept waiting to bow to the inevitable.”

“Your pardon, my lady?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said, waving a hand. “I am impatient.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Are you saying that you disapprove of my impatience?”

“No, my lady—I mean, yes—no, I mean—”

“Never mind. You don’t know how to answer, and I don’t really care about your response in any case. Go find out what’s keeping our guests waiting.”

The lady-in-waiting stood up and arranged her skirts and sleeves, as if anyone was actually going to take notice of her appearance, and went to the door of Isabella’s sitting room. She opened it, only to find the artist Pieter Paul Rubens standing there, his hand raised as if to knock.

“Mynheer Rubens to see you, Highness,” the lady said, turning and curtseying.

“Let him in,” Isabella said. “And go find out what’s keeping them.”

The lady-in-waiting hesitated between leaving her archduchess unattended and following her orders. The orders won, and she went out the door without even a
by your leave
. Rubens closed the door behind her, and came to stand before Isabella, his hands folded in front of him, a rather more demure expression on his face.

“My niece is aware that I am old and getting older,” Isabella snapped at him, but then sighed. “Is it me, Pieter, or do things simply take longer than they did when I was young?”

“I suspect not, Your Highness,” Rubens answered. “Even though it might seem that way. Louis XIII’s widow merely wants to make a good impression. And the little prince—”

“The little prince is scarcely two months old,” Isabella said. “He cannot be expected to hold his water in the presence of royalty, nor conform to a schedule. So tell me—now that you have met her and traveled with her, what do you make of Queen Anne?”

“She is much different from what I expected,” Rubens answered. “We had heard much about how beaten down she was, how meek and retiring. But she is fierce, my lady. She reminds me of someone.”

“Really? Who?”

“You,” Rubens said. “She is a true Hapsburg.”

“I trust you mean that in a complimentary way.”

“Madame. What other way could I mean it? Your Highness knows that I am your most ardent admirer—as the up-timers might say, I am your
greatest fan
.”

“Once again, a compliment.”

“To be sure.”

“She faces difficult odds. Perhaps impossible ones. A young child—no husband—”

“But faith in God and His Son.” He paused, as if considering further words, but did not add any.
You mean
, Isabella thought,
for what that is worth.

“And is she truly the queen of France?”

“You desire to say, as opposed to merely the widow of the king of France? Oh, she’s that all right, and devoted to her adopted country. I rather think that it is her brother-in-law who is devoted to the Spanish crown. Though the count-duke is none too happy with King Gaston at this moment.”

“And how would you know that?”

“The Spanish lack much skill with the use of codes. Radio is still a mystery to them, and they don’t realize that a broadcast from one transmitter can be received by anyone in range.”

“What has Gaston done to annoy them?”

“Apparently there’s been some sort of battle. Spanish troops have been defeated on French soil.”

“Philip
invaded France
?”

“Not exactly . . . they did not expect any opposition. They were opposed, and handily defeated by up-timer weapons. Mirabel has left Paris; France and Spain may be at war. Which puts us—”

“As soon as we receive Queen Anne, it puts us at war with France as well. If we refuse to receive her, we turn away family. I can’t see as there is any choice.”

“My lady,” Rubens said. “Did you not tell me that there is
always
a choice, if only we can determine what it is.”

“I find a number of things annoying in my advanced age, Pieter, but ranking high among them is having my own words parroted back at me as if by some dutiful school child.”

“But you admit the truth of it. She has not put us in this position; it was circumstance, and the schemes of a duplicitous prince. We are reacting to the situation. I received quite a tongue-lashing from the priest Mazarin on the subject. He asserted Queen Anne’s claims for her son, and then asked me if it would be sufficient for your Highness ‘to do the right and proper thing’—and I decided that it would. You told me I should make that determination and be very sure. Were you to have second thoughts at this juncture—”

“What makes you think I’m having second thoughts?”

“Your Highness is never happy when you feel that there is ‘no choice,’” Rubens answered. “But as we react, we mold the situation to our own desires.”

“That is a rosy face to put upon it. My grandmother used to say, ‘put a silken doublet on him, and yet he is still Mynheer Pig.’”

“It sounds better in the German, I trust, Highness.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose it does. All right then—I have sent that foolish girl in search of my niece. Perhaps you could expedite matters yourself. I am ready to meet this queen of France.”

◊ ◊ ◊

“No,” Anne said. “Explain it to me again, if you please.”

She had been pacing up and down in the anteroom for several minutes, waiting for the footman to return. A polished mirror over an ornate mantelpiece showed her image pacing as well; to Mazarin it seemed like the precise movements of a pair of royal guards at the Louvre Palace, keeping in exact step.

“It is the Archduchess’s choice to proceed as she sees fit, my lady. It seems clear that she is favorably disposed toward you, but . . .”

“But. But she does not think my son is the king of France.”

“She is very cautious.”

“I would characterize her response as
cowardly.
”

“To her face?”

Anne stopped her pacing and stared at Mazarin, the withering glance that she had begun to use so readily.

“Do you think I would not?”

“No,” Mazarin said. He sighed and folded his hands in his lap and looked at them for a long time. “No. I think you would not. The archduchess Isabella is a formidable woman, the ruler of this land, and
your aunt
. Surely you were trained to be more courteous than that, even if the court of Paris and recent experience has made you more forthright. You need her to acknowledge you and respect you, but you need her support and protection even more. You will gain nothing by antagonizing her.”

“She could keep me waiting forever.”

“She could,” Mazarin agreed. “Except that she does not have forever. She has had more time than the up-timer histories gave her; up-timer science has granted her that. But she hears life’s clock ticking more loudly than we do. She has a political situation that needs to be considered while she is still around to affect it.”

“So she hides behind politics.”

Mazarin admired Anne’s strength of character, but he could readily see that her patience was strained, as evidenced by her fraying temper.

“My lady,
everyone
with power and authority hides behind politics. It is impossible to avoid. If you would have her support, you must follow her direction.”

Anne tried to maintain the steely glare a little longer, then she looked aside, as if her emotions were trying to overtake her and she was incapable of pushing them away. She came over and sat beside Mazarin.

“I can hear the clock ticking as well,” she said.

“I know you can, my Queen. So can I.” He reached over and took her hand, an intimacy she might not have permitted if they were in public—even if they were only in the presence of Anne’s entourage. “But when you do at last meet with Archduchess Isabella, you will be presenting yourself as the queen mother, and Louis Dieudonné as the rightful king. You will know who you are, and whose cause you represent. She will know that as well. It will only remain for her to choose the time and the way to declare it.”

“If at all.”

“Oh, she
will
. I have it on good authority that though she offered a safe haven to Monsieur Gaston for a time during his exile—and to his mother as well—there is very little love between them. But unless she is ready to formally break with her nephew, His Most Catholic Majesty—Gaston’s erstwhile ally—she will take no inflammatory steps.”

◊ ◊ ◊

Anne was aware that her aunt had entered the Franciscan order some years earlier, and generally adopted the austere and spare habit of that sisterhood when she appeared in public: but somehow Isabella seemed far from a humble sister from some nunnery when she got her first look at the archduchess.

The clothes of the sisterhood were set off with a golden chain of office that befitted her rank. The actual ducal authority had devolved upon her nephew Fernando, king in the Low Countries, but she still seemed to affect the trappings of that power; she sat upon a chair that had been placed upon a slightly raised dais that dominated the far end of a small, ornate receiving room. The setting was far less magnificent than the audience hall, at which Anne had been afforded a brief glance; but it was certainly more private.

Only Isabella was present, along with a lady-in-waiting who seemed to be busying herself with some sort of embroidery. There was no sign of Fernando or his queen. Nonetheless, the Hapsburg arms were prominently displayed, as well as a draped portrait of Albert, Isabella’s long-deceased husband.

For her part, it was not the formal presentation that Anne would have wanted, but it was not casual or intimate either—she would have to walk the length of the hall to reach the place where the archduchess sat, immobile and unsmiling. When the doors were opened and she and her son were announced—
Her Royal Highness Anne of Hapsburg and Bourbon, Dowager of France, and son—
she hesitated for several moments, looking at Achille and Mazarin, at the duchess of Chevreuse who held the sleeping child in her arms, and the other members of her entourage who would not be announced—and nearly turned to walk away.

From somewhere she gathered her will and her resolve, and began to walk forward toward her stern, aged aunt who might hold France’s and her own personal fate in her hands.

You will know who you are
.

Aña Maria Mauricia, daughter of Margaret of Austria and His Most Catholic Majesty Philip III of Spain. Sister of His Most Catholic Majesty Philip IV. Wife of the late Louis of Bourbon, Most Christian Monarch of France.

Mother of Louis, styled Dieudonné, Blessed of God, to be designated the fourteenth of his name, the true and rightful king of France. He is the king.

The King.

With each step she took toward her aunt, she felt her doubts drop away, that will and resolve strengthen. She walked uprightly and with slow, deliberate dignity as she had always been taught and as she knew—
knew!
—befit the queen mother, dowager or otherwise.

When she came to a point a dozen feet away she stopped and offered a polite curtsey, not as a subject to a monarch, but as an honor due to a distinguished elder. The others stopped farther back, as per arrangement with the court’s master of ceremonies.

There were several seconds of silence during which Isabella moved her head only slightly as her eyes seemed to survey the scene—queen mother, entourage and all—and Anne did not look away.

“You seem rather fierce, child,” Isabella said at last, letting her stern expression soften into something more pleasant. “You may keep the fire well banked, but I can see it reflected in your eyes.”

She greets me with metaphor?
Anne thought. “I will not deny my anger, Your Highness,” she said. “When one’s husband is murdered, it is difficult to put such anger aside.”

“So you have anger for the one who committed the deed. That is a relief, I daresay: I thought you were angry with
me
.”

“I am angry with the one who directed the murder, Your Highness,” Anne answered. She felt as if Vendôme, standing twenty feet away, was staring directly at her, but she did not look away. “As for yourself: is there a reason for me to be angry with you?”

If the question angered Isabella, she concealed it admirably.