Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters (The Katherine of Aragon Story Book 1) (29 page)

“My Isabel –” He tried to pull her up from the ground. Again, he gazed around the room, this time at the queen’s weeping attendants. Pulling once more at his wife’s arm, King Ferdinand gathered back to him the guise of a king. “Let us go your bedchamber, and grieve in privacy.”

She shook off his hand. “Don’t touch me!”

The king took her arm again, speaking so softly that only those close enough to him could hear. “Wife, remember where you are. I say again, let’s us go to your rooms together and there grieve for our daughter.”

The queen shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes. “I don’t want you here. Leave me. Please, please, leave me alone.”

Bewildered, his mouth trembling, he stared at her. The king almost appeared like a child suddenly abandoned by his mother. “Isabel. Isabel –”

“Ferdinand –” The torments of Hell blazed out of the queen’s eyes.

Beatriz licked her dry lips.
Dear God. Pray, this latest tragedy does not drive the queen to madness like her
mother.

“Leave me now if you don’t want our love destroyed.”

Fear alight in his eyes, the king stared at his wife. He bowed, backed away, and left the queen to her women.

Beatriz thought,
She knows! She knows everything
. Next to her, Catalina began to weep. Murmuring, “I am here,” Beatriz led the shocked girl into the courtyard. Spring still embraced the season, but it seemed the bleakness of winter chilled all their hearts.

My love,

You are away from me too long – how I look forward to the day when I welcome your return. I received a letter from Josepha yesterday. She tells me our son is well and happy, and invites us to stay with her when our duties
allow.

The queen is sadly changed from the woman we knew years ago. Her sorrows weigh her down until she almost drowns under their weight. She closets herself with her priest for the hours and worries about dying well. Since her daughter’s death, she has placed her house in order and paid many debts.

The infanta Maria is now married to the King of Portugal. With his daughter Isabel securing the succession
of Aragon
by the birth of a son, the king was happy to see another of his daughters become a consort to a king. The queen told me that it was seeing the tenderness and devotion of Manuel for her Isabel that swayed her to marry him to Maria. Pray to God, may Maria have the happiness denied to her poor sister…

That tragic spring frittered away to autumn, to winter and then another spring. Spring restored verdant life to the land, but not to the spirit of Queen Isabel. Fighting her own battle against despair, Beatriz felt bereft of any words offering any real meaning as the increasingly fragile queen spiralled deeper where none could help her. But she tried to talk to her, tried to get her to open her heart to her. One day, she was more fortunate than on others.

“God’s wounds, Beatriz,” the queen said to her. “There isn’t one day or night when I do not doubt. Every day my doubts pull me down like hunting wolves in winter.”

“My queen, doubt is a part of life.”

“Part of life... Once life was not the dark world I find myself in now. Once, doubt never ruled me. Once, with all my heart, I believed I had to ensure the succession of a strong kingdom for my son. I believed I did it for God. I believed I did it for my son. Juan’s death showed me the error of that belief. What I believed came from God was but the drub of my own desire, my own fear and lack of true faith. Was it all for nought, Beatriz? The last few years have seen me like Job.”

“Your Grace, your losses would test the strength of saints. But cannot you think your hard trials prove God’s love for you? Suffering turns us to God and the truth of our existence. The labour pains of our Earthly life birth us into Heaven. Remember, sorrow comes in order to test faith.”

The queen sputtered a grim, bitter laugh. “You speak like my confessor. Perchance on another lighter day I’d give your words better credence. Today I am just too tired, too heart-sore. I have tried my upmost to be a just queen. I never wanted to be called a tyrant. I came to the throne believing with all my heart that Castilla was mine, that the deaths of my two brothers left me the rightful heir to our father’s crown. I never wanted to see Castilla endangered by passing to the rule of a foreign lineage. God, I truly believed, placed me in this royal state as rightful queen. All I thought was to do right by God and my country, to bring my subjects peace after years of so much evil and destruction.”

“And so you have, your Grace. You are a good queen.”

“I remember well the times you told me otherwise – if not in words, then a look I could not fail to understand. You were right. I made too many mistakes thinking I acted for God when it wasn’t that way at all. I only listened to myself, or my husband. I wasn’t listening to God at all.”

“My queen, please don’t torment yourself. We all make mistakes. We are human, after all.”

Queen Isabel laughed bitterly. “My husband assures me queens and kings do not make mistakes... But I have made them, Beatriz. I vowed to bring peace and prosperity to Castilla, only to bring the harbingers of death and destruction. I lie awake at night and think that the loss of Isabel and Juan is more God’s punishment for the evil of my mistakes. Remember, Abravanel promised divine punishment if I expelled the Jews. Perchance that’s the root for all my grief.

“My thoughts at night suck me into a black void of nothingness. I wonder then if this is Hell, for all my days seem Hell already.”

Her heart heavy, Beatriz thought,
Was the victory of the Holy War paid in sorrow? Did the queen reach for glory, only to find it hollow and worthless?

“Isabel, how I wish I knew the words to comfort you. If I was a priest, I’d probably say ’tis not for us to question the way of the Lord.”

“Those words do not help, Beatriz.”

“Then let me speak of what’s in my heart. Life means more than simply waiting for death. I believe everything in life happens for a purpose. I believe we are here to learn – and the lessons are so often hard. Sometimes, it would be far easier to let ourselves go under than keep on fighting. Yet this is what we must do. It is the only thing we can do.”

“There is no one in the city who is not Christian,
and all the mosques are
churches.”
~ Cisneros

I
n the Hall of the Two Sisters, the overhead cupola tempered forth a muted light – a light birthing another day, a light that conjured the imaginings of wide awake dreams. Beatriz wrote beside Catalina. The girl read
The City of Women
, while Beatriz wrote notes concerning her favourite tract of Aristotle.

On her lute Maria plucked notes, singing a slow song of love, betrayal and death. Catalina put her book down and rose from the bench. She began to dance, her movements flourishing the song’s lyrics with measured movements. Catalina was still tiny, but she danced in perfect harmony with her height.

Beatriz sighed. The girls were now thirteen and no longer children. Their bodies took on womanly forms and flowered to the promise of spring. Already small apple breasts pushed against their chemises, waists nipped in, widened hips boded fertility.

Months ago the queen had wept when Dońa Teresa Manrigue murmured of the start of Catalina’s courses. Discussions then became frequent about the right time for her to leave her mother’s court for England and make a true marriage. While the queen conceded these talks to the English, all knew she would not let her youngest child leave her court for some time yet, not only because Catalina was just thirteen. Queen Isabel needed her youngest child at her side.

Si, both her girls were no longer children. The presence of Doña Eliva Manuel, elected the duena who would one day go with the princess to England, now became a constant shadow on their day.

Overly efficient in her duties she strived to please Catalina, even biting back in the presence of the princess her dislike and jealousy of Beatriz. This morning Catalina escaped her watchful eye by asking her to oversee the selection of gowns for the expected arrival of English diplomats.

Lifting her head, Maria closed her eyes. Her beautiful voice soared and throbbed like the notes of her lute, touching Beatriz’s heart. The page she wrote on blurred, and she saw Francisco in her mind. They rode together on his horse from the abundant, colour rich gardens banked against the walls of the Alhambra. The river of Darro wound before her eyes, like a thin ribbon of silver, alive, pulsing, glittering and glinting, as if the morning light jewelled it with countless diamonds. The hills and plains of Granada stretched out as far as the sight of an eagle in flight. Sunlight seeped into the very air itself. The brown, flower-rich land swelled with life and passion, a land feeding and nourishing heart and soul.

Astride, mantle-less, skirts tucked up high, thighs pressed tight against the sides of the mount, Beatriz wound her arms around Francisco’s lean waist. Her long black hair streamed loose in the wind. Like Adam and Eve, they were the only man and woman in an innocent world. A world untouched by sorrow.

A string broke and woke Beatriz from her trance and daydream, desire firing her heart and coursing in her veins. She gazed at Maria. Still an awkward maid, the girl was like Catalina, protected from the gaze and touch of man. The girl looked bewildered, as if her song had stirred her too. Beatriz knew from their conversations that Maria yearned for adulthood, but feared it, too. Catalina also seemed disturbed, breathing hard from her dance, hands planted on her hips, she shook her head, as if shaking away the remnants of a dream.

Beatriz smiled and clapped her hands. “Your song goes well, Maria. It is finished, si?”

The girl blushed, her fingers strummed the unbroken strings, they made a jarring noise. “My infanta thinks it finished. But I’m not certain.”

Beatriz laughed. “In all the time I have been your teacher I have never seen you entirely satisfied with what you do. That makes me content because I know you’ll always strive to climb higher. All teachers should have such students.”

“And me?” Catalina asked. Standing beside her friend, a wide smile spread on her face.

Beatriz reached for the bowl next to her with pieces of dry apricot. Taking a piece, she put it in her mouth and chewed, thinking out her answer. “I never hide from you the great delight you give me. Often I regret I cannot train you to take my place as professor at Salamanca. You have so many skills and talents, just like the queen.”

Catalina bit at her bottom lip and blushed. “If I am just a little like my mother, I’ll be content.”

Her eyes staying on Catalina, Beatriz pulled her earlobe. “Infanta, don’t mistake my meaning. You bear the seeds of great promise, but they are different seeds to that of our noble queen. You are unique, we all are. If life teaches us anything it is to know ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses. Do not fall into the trap of yearning to be someone else. We praise God for much, but our greatest praise to Him must be to gift Him with our true selves.

“Be thankful, my princess, that God has given you the learning the queen lacked as a young girl. Most importantly, God places you where you can observe a woman ruler able to rule men. No lesson I could teach you has as much value as that.”

···

Another day, another sweet, pure voice sang another song:

For ever there remains with me one longing,
Ceaselessly, day and night, at every hour,
Tormenting me so I would gladly die,
For my life is nothing but a pining,
And in the end I’ll have to die of it.

I thought myself quite sure against
When that accursed longing in which I dwell
Overtook me, intent that I should die,
For my life is nothing but a pining,
And in the end I’ll have to die of it:

For ever.

Margot’s fingers plucked the final note. “For ever,” she repeated. The young woman stared as if at nothing, her tears dripping onto Juan’s lute. Beatriz met the miserable eyes of Catalina and Maria. What comfort can be given to one so full of grief, especially when you too share that grief?

Maria turned, rubbing at her eyes. The girl had grown up watching Juan play this lute, his beautiful voice wooing her from childhood to a sadder and more uncertain time. It was no wonder his wife begged the instrument from his mother. Maria probably wished she had the same right to ask for something, anything, once belonging to Juan. She had nothing of him but the memories they all shared. Somehow that thought comforted Beatriz. She gazed around so certain of Juan’s presence.

Despite the tears lighting her eyes, Margot seemed comforted too. “The queen and king have given me many gifts to take home, but none is more precious than this.”

“You will write, my sister?” Catalina asked.

Fresh pain thickened Margot’s voice. “I cannot promise you that, Uno Piqueño.”

Catalina turned a face furrowed by distress. “But why?”

Margot got up, placing the lute carefully on the stool’s cushion. She sat next to Catalina and wound her arm around her.

“Not because I don’t love you. Never think that. I will always love you. But you forget, I go back to be a pawn again. My father hates your father – and so does my brother. I do not believe we will be allowed the consolation of letters.” She gazed sadly at the lute. “Perchance that is for the best. I must stop myself from looking behind, otherwise my poems will come true and I’ll die of grief.” She rested her head on Catalina’s shoulder. “Juan...” Margot swallowed hard. “My sweet Juan would not want me to pine my life away.”

···

There was one more royal death during these dark years. Writing of it to her husband, Beatriz recalled the gossamer-winged dragonfly she had seen, just days before knowing Prince Juan was lost to them forever in this life. Across the water it darted, in an eye-blink of time, its shimmering, rainbow-hued wings flashing over the water’s surface before clouds blocked out the sun. A moment of beauty gone forever, but even though grief tore once more at Beatriz, she held onto the one thing she believed with all her heart: you cannot really lose what you love, for loving renders eternity.

Two years of life was more than enough time for love to bridge eternity. And how could any not love a little bright-eyed boy so filled with joy? Every day of his short life, he stretched out his arms for his family’s embrace. How could any ever think of him as a promise never fulfilled, a flower pushing through the winter snow to never bloom?

The boy made his grandmother smile again, sitting on her lap, one hand patting her face and the other playing with the heavy chain of her crucifix, chattering a mixture of real words and ones he made up in his attempt to tell one of those he loved the great story of his small life. The little one gave them the delight of hearing the queen laugh once more.

If not in his grandmother’s arms he was in the arms of those who attended her. Not a day passed after Isabel’s death when Catalina and Maria did not hold him, kiss him, play with him. Before they knew it, he grew from tiny infant to active child, wriggling out of arms, demanding to be let down, wanting to toddle around his world in his impatience to seize it.

Dark-haired like his father but with his mother’s sea-blue eyes, in his tiny palm he captured so many hearts during his brief life. With great pride, he spoke his first full, clear sentences the day the fever struck. Death again stole away the darting dragonfly of beauty and left them bereft once more. But Beatriz discovered that was not the end of grief.

···

Beatriz sat with Francisco by the hearth. Leaping flames of a famished fire flickered its reflections on the polished wood of his guitar. His fingers plucked the strings, the ruby in his heavy gold ring flashing in the firelight with each note. “Time for one more song before we go to bed?”

Her hand going to rub her throat, Beatriz laughed. “I think you said that about the last song. I am likely to be hoarse if I sing any more.”

Francisco laid his hand over her hand. “Sing for me. You don’t know how much I dream of evenings like this when I’m away from you. I hate and curse these unending skirmishes. I hate and curse those Moors who refuse to admit defeat. I resent anything that keeps me from your side. I’m an old, weary warhorse who only wants to be put out to pasture.”

Beatriz shook her head. Taking her hand from his, she placed a finger across his mouth. “Shhh – not old – never that. We can only pray that soon all the fighting will come to an end.”

Francisco averted his face and gazed at the fire. He sighed. “Don’t waste your prayers on something that never will happen. I have lived long enough to know to talk of peace and men is but a children’s fable.”

Beatriz clasped his hand. “Remember – we promised to speak of only happy things tonight, and all the nights we have together before you must leave me again.”

Francisco grinned at her like a young man. “So we did. And for me to play my guitar and for you to sing.”

Beatriz laughed at him. “All right – one last song. What will it be?”

Francisco brushed his fingers against the strings of his guitar and a familiar chord took shape.

Beatriz laughed again. “Will you sing it with me?”

Francisco leaned across and kissed her lips tenderly. “I am so happy,” he murmured.

Beatriz stroked his face, her finger tracing around his mouth. “While you are with me, love, so am I.”

Beatriz cleared her throat, and sang with her husband:

“I am so happy!”
All of the birds of the world of love were singing;
It was my love and yours that they had in mind.
“I am so happy!”
All of the birds of the world of love were chanting;
It was my love and yours that they were naming.
“I am so happy!”

···

In the school-room the next day, her own father also soldiering again, Maria hounded Beatriz mercilessly with her questions, trying to understand why her father must again go forth into battle when she knew he had so hoped to go home. Loud rumours at court blamed the most recent rebellion on the queen’s new confessor.

“You must know the Franciscan Cisneros is a man of deep convictions,” Beatriz at last answered. She bent over her desk, sorting through a thick pile of untidy papers.

“My princess tells me he once lived a hermit life in a wooden hut he built himself. He did not want to be confessor to the queen.”

Still searching amongst her papers she glanced up, relieved Maria was now thinking about other things. “Si. The dying Cardinal Mendoza thought Cisneros the right man to take his place.” She shrugged and tried to laugh. “Cisneros had his own doubts about this. He believed being the queen’s confessor would only bring him in too much contact with worldly matters. Cisneros understood confessor to the queen also meant political advisor. He did a great deal of soul-searching before accepting.”

“You mean Cardinal Cisneros ran away.” Maria giggled. “Remember when Cardinal Mendoza died? The queen wanted Cisneros to take upon the now vacant Archdiocese of Toledo? He raced from her chambers as if in fear for his life. The guards had to bring him back to the queen to accept.”

Beatriz placed one heap of papers to the side of the table, her hand weighing down the greater pile. She eyed Maria. “I’m not sure I blame him for doing so. The archdiocese brought with it the office of chancellor to the kingdom and all that entailed.”

Returning to their conversation about the new battle, Maria blurted out, “The king believes the cardinal is at fault at this latest rising at Granada.”

Beatriz cried out in delight, unfolding a paper and laying it flat on the table. It was a recipe to treat burns, something she wanted to give to Francisco before he left again. Francisco commanded another team of men in these last days of Queen Isabel’s Holy War, helping douse out the last flaring fires of resistance.

“The king is likely right. I also thought Talavera’s gentle approach wisest, and said as much to the queen. Talavera believed time, education and example would solve the problem of conversion. But when Cisneros joined him, all his work went to ruin. Cisneros forced Moors to convert, not only lapsed Christians. Can you imagine how the Moors must have felt when Cisneros burned countless and priceless manuscripts?” Biting back her own anger, Beatriz shook her head. “What utter stupidity – books we will never be able to replace. Thank God he didn’t burn books important to our knowledge of medicine.”