The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile (17 page)

I stared in disbelief at Villena’s sardonic face, his entire person perfumed and disdainful, as though he hadn’t spent the last twenty-six months agitating rebellion in Alfonso’s name. I was astonished that he still lived. Treason such as his deserved death.

Enrique appeared uncomfortable as I curtsied before him. After asking how I fared, he blurted, “We’ve found the means to end this infernal conflict.”

“That is good,” I answered, keeping my tone reserved. I pondered his use of “we.” If he and Villena were no longer at odds, was the war over? If so, where were Carrillo and Alfonso? I focused on ensuring that my expression remain impassive, despite my confusion, having finally understood the value of the advice Fernando had given me on the night of my arrival to court.

“We are relieved by Your Highness’s cooperation,” drawled Villena, “for you are instrumental to our success.”

I kept my eyes on Enrique, who shifted on his throne. He shot a glance at Bishop Mendoza; the bishop looked pained, unable to meet my eyes when Enrique ordered, “Tell her.”

Mendoza cleared his throat. I had taken a wary liking to him, ever since he tried to calm Queen Juana during our confrontation following the revelation of Alfonso’s complicity with the rebels. Though he was Mencia’s brother and a senior member of one of Castile’s oldest and most rapacious noble families, Mendoza was, by all accounts, devoted to his office, a man of piety and reserve who had always treated me with respect.

“We believe …” he began. Discomfort creased his brow. “That is to say, we think … it nearing Your Highness’s birthday, and with the revenues of the towns of Trujillo and Medina del Campo to be delivered to you upon your fifteenth year, as stated in King Juan your late father’s testament, that it would be incumbent for you … that is, for us, to—”

“God’s teeth,” spat Villena. “She needn’t be treated as if she has a choice!” He turned to me. “The king would end this crisis. He proposes two matches—one between his daughter, Princess Joanna, and the Infante Alfonso, to be ratified upon the princess’s fourteenth year, and another between yourself and my brother, Pedro de Girón. These marriages will bring accord and …”

The roar in my head drowned out his voice. I recalled Pedro de Girón as he’d been the last time I saw him, a leering giant with his sword, swinging at Beltrán de la Cueva as if the blade were nothing but a toy.

Enrique averted his eyes from me as I said haltingly, “I … I will not give my consent.”

Villena let out a crude laugh. “You are mistaken if you think we need it.”

I lifted my chin. “By the same will that bequeaths those towns to me on my fifteenth birthday, my father ordained that the Cortes must grant its approval before I wed. Has the Cortes been consulted about this proposed match with your brother, my lord?”

Silence fell. Torquemada had told me this in anticipation of the Portuguese alliance; now I wielded it in the desperate hope that a man like Girón would never gain the Cortes’s approval to wed me, no matter how powerful or wealthy he was.

Enrique gaped at me. Villena snarled, “Who has she been talking to?” He spun to Mendoza. “Is it true? Do we need the Cortes’s approval to wed her?”

Mendoza regarded me pensively. “I believe she is indeed correct. By the terms of King Juan’s will, the Cortes must approve any proposed alliance that involves the infantes. Even His Majesty had to request it when he sought to marry his second queen.”

“It cannot be! You told me this could all be done without fuss,” Villena hissed to Enrique. “We agreed: I gain the mastership of Santiago and the marriage for my brother, and you get Alfonso. I abandoned Carrillo for this! Now he and his rebel wolves are baying for my head, and this chit of a girl dares stand in my way?”

“I am an infanta of Castile,” I reminded him. “Did you think to barter me like cheap coin for your vanities?”

“Enough.” Enrique was trembling. “I told you, you must do as I say.”

“You asked me not to do anything to force you to act against your conscience,” I said, “and I have not. Yet now you ask me to go against my own conscience, to violate the terms of our father’s testament so my
lord the marquis can have a title he is not entitled to, one which by all rights belongs to my brother, the Infante Alfonso.”

Enrique’s mouth worked. He stared at me as if he suddenly didn’t know who I was. Then he said, “How dare you? You do not rule here. I can’t bear this anymore. You and your brother. Carrillo. The grandees. All of you want me dead, so you can take everything I have.” His voice increased, growing shrill. He lunged to his feet. “I will have peace! And if it means you must wed Girón, then you will!”

I stood immobile, horrified. His eyes bulged, his hands curled before him like claws. I started to protest again but before I could utter a word, he bellowed,
“Get out!”

Behind me, the hall doors banged open. Footsteps raced toward me; I couldn’t move, frozen by the hatred and fear that I saw twisting the king’s face. All the bravery I thought I had found in the library, all the daring and strength, seemed to desert me as I realized that he had lost all control of himself. He was desperate, capable of anything.

Beatriz tugged at my sleeve. “My lady, please. We must go.”

Spittle flecked Enrique’s chin. He stood there, glaring at me, and I forced myself not to take my eyes off him. I had to engrave this moment in my memory, so that I would never again weaken, never doubt or forget that in the end, it was he who had forsaken me.

“You will do it,” he said. “You will marry Girón. If you do not, you will regret it.”

Those were the words I needed to hear. I curtsied, sinking almost to the floor.

Villena sneered, setting his slender hand on Enrique’s shoulder. The king shuddered. I was reminded with a cold jolt of the moment from my childhood, when I’d seen Constable Luna do much the same to my father.

I knew then, without a doubt, that nothing could save Enrique from his fate.

CHAPTER TEN

W
e were ordered to the alcazar of Madrid—a cramped stone fortress with suffocating staircases, crumbling battlements, and mildewed walls. Despite its adequate furnishings, it was devoid of the lavish embellishments of Enrique’s beloved Segovia, to which he’d devoted all his attention and money. The king let it be known via a circular posted throughout Castile—intended, no doubt, to test the rebels’ sincerity toward the proposed peace—that I’d been moved to Madrid for my own protection, the freedoms of the court being not conducive to an impressionable virgin about to be wed.

The queen, forced to move with me, now disdained my presence and forbade me from seeing Joanna. Even Mencia stopped pretending she was supposed to serve me, and Beatriz and I were left to the mercy of a chambermaid named Inés de la Torre, whom Mencia employed to spy on us. But out of pity or necessity, or perhaps both, Inés allowed herself to be bribed to our side instead, content to fetch our food, turn down our beds, and clean our rooms for a few extra coins and then deliver to Mencia only the most banal reports of our activities.

I was severed from everyone and everything I cared about—save Beatriz. Desolate over my impending marriage and her own separation from Andrés de Cabrera, one evening she seized the old bread knife and cried, “If that monster dares touch a hair on your head, I’ll plunge this blade into his black heart!”

I had to laugh, reminded of the time when she’d claimed she wanted to lead a crusade. “Come now, you know that dagger barely slices our cheese. We cannot fight like knights if we have no swords.”

“Then, what
can
we do? Wait to be bartered off like slaves to Moors? Because you have to admit, being Girón’s wife is tantamount to slavery.”

“I did not say we should not fight. We just need other weapons,” I said, echoing Torquemada. “Like lions, we must use our hearts.”

“Lions also have teeth,” she grumbled, but she joined me at the makeshift altar we’d set up, with a small marble image of the Virgin of the Sagrario, patroness of La Mancha, who hears all our sorrows.

I should have felt solace entrusting my fate to Our Lady. I didn’t. I was secretly terrified at the mere thought of having to bed Villena’s brother. I kept thinking of Fernando, wondering what he would do, what he would say, when he heard I’d been forcibly wed to another. He had seemed so certain we were destined for each other; now, at this dreaded hour, I wished it were so with all my heart. The thought of the bestial Girón taking Fernando’s place was so intolerable I felt I might welcome death first.

I finally wrote to tell Fernando what was happening, determined that he would not think I had forgotten him. Ironically, in Madrid we found it easier to send clandestine correspondence; an eager page besotted by Beatriz conveyed my letter to Segovia, and Cabrera forwarded it by courier to Aragón without anyone being the wiser.

But Fernando did not respond. I waited for days, weeks; I wrote again, two, three, five letters, until my quill went blunt and my remonstrations, churning like dark water in my head, turned bitter. I knew the war against France persisted, but could he not send one brief missive?

Be brave, Isabella
, he had said.
Wait for me
.

Yet it seemed he had stopped waiting for me.

I returned to my prayers, doubling my vigil. I did not shift when Mencia swept in to declare that Girón had left his castle and was on his way to Madrid, bringing with him three thousand lancers and a new bed for us to share. I did not look at her as she laughed spitefully and told me I’d best prepare myself, for she’d heard Girón was a rough lover; I did not let myself doubt that somehow, some way, I would be spared. Beatriz fretted over me. I knew I wasn’t eating enough, that I was too thin and too pale. She told me I would get sick; she wondered how I could possibly think my demise was the answer.

“Let me kill him,” she implored. “One thrust is all I need.”

I ignored her until the April morning he was scheduled to arrive.
When I moved to stand from my cushion before the altar, the chamber swayed in nauseating circles around me. I staggered to the mullioned window, cracked it open for air. Outside, I saw a horde of storks, circling the forbidding keep.

I gasped. Beatriz rushed to me, convinced I’d found a way to squeeze myself through that narrow opening to fling myself onto the flagstones far below. I could not tell her what I felt, for I had no faith in omens or superstitions; I’d never put store in the myriad fortune-tellers and soothsayers who plagued the court like vermin.

Yet in that moment, I sensed it. I knew my prayers had been heard.

I finally made myself eat and let Beatriz bathe and fuss over me; Mencia came in to taunt.

“He’ll be here,” she said. “He stopped in Jaén overnight and had a late start, but he’ll be here, have no doubt. A man like him, granted a royal prize like you—why, he’ll crawl here on his hands and knees, if he has to.”

“Get away from our sight, demon.” Beatriz held up crooked fingers to ward off the evil eye. Normally, I’d have chastised her for such foolishness but I just sat and waited. My deliverance would come; it already winged its way to me, fleet as the stork.

By nightfall, Juana herself appeared in my chambers. “Girón has taken ill,” she informed me as I sat on my chair, calmly sewing an altar cloth. “His departure from Jaén was delayed, but as soon as he recovers, the wedding will take place.”

I lifted my gaze to her, unperturbed.

“It will,” she spat, “even if I have to see you wed at his bedside!”

I slept soundly that night, without dreams. I awoke later than usual to discover Beatriz already dressed, staring out the window.

“Beatriz?” I asked.

She turned about slowly, a hand at her throat. “You knew,” she said. “You never spoke a word but you saw those storks and you
knew
. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you leave me to worry?”

I raised myself on my elbows. “Knew what? What on earth are you talking about?”

“Girón. He is dead. He had a sore throat, fever; he took to his bed and never got up. They say he saw storks the day before he died, flying
overhead. He feared it was an omen and asked his retinue what they thought. They told him it had to be a good omen, for the storks flew toward Madrid. But it wasn’t good. The storks were a harbinger of his death.”

I crossed myself. “God have mercy on his soul,” I murmured. I rose from bed, wrapping my robe about me. I went to her. She had tears in her eyes; taking my hand, she raised it to her lips before I could stop her, kissing it fervently.

“Cabrera is right,” she whispered. “Torquemada told him that God Himself watches over you. He has a special plan for Isabella of Castile.”

I drew my hand away. A sudden chill ran through me. “Don’t say that. I … I don’t like to hear such things. Girón perished of an illness. There is no divine plan at work here, just an everyday, average death.” Yet even as I spoke, relief and gratitude filled me. I had won. I had thwarted both Juana and Villena.

“Can you honestly say God had nothing to do with this?” said Beatriz.