The Scroll of Seduction (32 page)

My father died on January 23, 1516. I had been in Tordesillas for seven years without seeing a calendar, or counting the weeks or months, because seeing all that time mount up was too distressing. But I recall that day perfectly. I woke to a great ruckus, the whole town congregated in the little plaza beneath my window, clamoring for Mosen Luis Ferrer to be dismissed and punished. Doña Juana, Doña Juana! Anastasia exclaimed joyfully. They're running him off! I ran to the tower of San Antolín, and there I saw him being led off by a scornful crowd. Someone said that my father had died, but then someone else denied it. I presumed it had to be something serious for people to have dared to go after Ferrer, considering the rumors everybody had heard of how dreadfully he treated Catalina and me, but my confessor assured me that although my father was ill, he was still alive. Four years would go by before I finally found out the truth. That day, I closed my eyes for a moment, suddenly blinded by a surge of tears at the thought that it could be true. Oh, Juana, how easily you cry! I said to myself. I didn't cry anymore. I felt sheltered by the commoners who had come out in my defense.

Cisneros, who despised me, was kind enough to name Don Hernán, the Duke of Estrada, as head of my household. He was a handsome older man, Don Hernán, and from the moment he laid eyes on me he never once doubted neither my strength of character, nor the clarity of my thoughts. I could have easily made him my lover. I knew that my eyes, my voice got under his skin. The two of us spoke as I had never before spoken to any man or woman. For two years, we were like Abelard and Héloïse, and my wrath and outrage subsided. But my passion was
never rekindled. Strange, how one could come to this, to become a stranger to the pleasures of the body. Now only my mind brought me joy. Neither baths, nor perfumes, nor the feel of satin and velvet could arouse my flesh. My fire had been extinguished, and the carbon of my ashes had hardened into diamond. Sometimes I was saddened to recall the sensations my sex and my breasts had given me, but the clarity of my mind made up for my lack of desire. Seen from my barren outlook the world was like amber in which vestiges of my previous life were frozen. It was a prism allowing me to see the spikes, the multiplicity of human existence, the complexity of the stories we tell one another.

Don Hernán took pity on my little Catalina and ordered a large window to be opened in her small room. My daughter throws coins down to the children of Tordesillas, who play in the plaza below, so that she can watch them when they return every day. From here, every afternoon, I can hear her arbitrate their games and races and I marvel at the boundless fantasies of her childhood. Of course, Don Hernán could actually let her go out to play, but he's a man. He fears the others. He is kind, but his kindness doesn't go that far.

A
few days after Christmas, Manuel took my urine sample to the lab in a little cup, and a few days after that he came back and told me that the results were positive, just as he'd suspected. I was absolutely overjoyed for one fleeting moment, and then almost immediately wracked by new doubts. My mind surged back and forth, rising into high tides of maternal emotion and then ebbing into a melancholic state, resigned, with no illusions.

The week between Christmas and New Year's, I started to hear noises upstairs. The sound of Águeda setting the security system, locks clicking into place, was scary enough, but these new sounds–creaking and footsteps–kept me awake at night. My guess was that Manuel was either looking for the windows that appeared in the photo of his grandfather's study or else in search of Juana's trunk. In the mornings he'd get up late, bags under his eyes; plus he'd stopped coming into my room at night after his aunt went to bed. Just seeing his expression when he came down to breakfast was enough to tell me that his hunt was not proving fruitful. I would have liked to go with him, but I chose to feign ignorance. I couldn't force him to include me. To unveil that mystery was his prerogative.

The air in the Denia house was as thick and heavy with tension as it is before a tropical storm. Águeda flitted around the rooms with nervous energy. From the library I could hear her cleaning doggedly, busying
herself here and there with her ever-present feather duster. She went up to the third floor a lot, muttering to herself as she wandered from one room to another, a trail of unintelligible sounds in her wake. I suspected she was troubled because her nephew was on the trail of secrets she'd rather not stir up. Their obsession with history, the house, and everything in it bordered on the pathological, but I realized that even I felt an incomprehensible degree of fascination. I was intrigued by the mystery and electrified at the idea of unraveling it. I pictured myself taking part in a historic discovery that would be all over the headlines as soon as word got out. I pictured what it would be like to clear the hazy aura of madness that enshrouded Juana's image, to show her to the world as I could see her, now that I had grown so close to her and could fathom what she must have felt. Given that I never went out, and only breathed the entranced air of the house and its possessions, I had no reality to curb my imagination. On the stairs and in the halls, I imagined that I heard a little girl's footsteps following me. I imagined little Catalina, dressed in a coarse woolen sack dress, looking for someone to play with her in the gray rooms of that cold, lonely house on dark afternoons.

On New Year's Eve we ate dinner early. The Denias weren't in the habit of waiting up for midnight with the traditional twelve grapes and revelry. Manuel did make one concession to festivity, though, bringing out an almond tart. He was serving it when Águeda, in an unexpectedly sharp tone, asked when I was supposed to go back to school. Her demeanor and her cold stare startled me. The dry tart got stuck in my throat.

“January 7.”

“Well, that's right around the corner. We'll have to decide what we're going to tell the nuns when they come looking for you.”

“Auntie,” Manuel said parsimoniously, “we'll say that she left here to go back to the convent, that we put her in a taxi and haven't heard back from her.”

“Easier said than done. They'll investigate. We'll be the chief suspects in her ‘disappearance.' I hope you've thought well and hard about this.”

“Well, I thought we were all on the same page so far.”

“Yes, I was. But the more I think about it, the more complicated it gets. I don't know if it's such a good idea for her to write those letters.”

“I'm a little worried about that part too,” I admitted. “The other option is for me to go to New York. That's where Isis lives. You know, my mother's friend; I've told you about her.”

“You're not going anywhere,” Manuel said, suddenly stern. “And that's the end of this conversation. Águeda, you and I will discuss this later.”

Nothing else was said. Águeda looked down and jabbed a fork violently into her crust. Manuel seemed to possess some sort of bizarre psychological ability to dominate her. All he had to do was raise his voice or get his feathers ruffled and look like he was ready for a cockfight and she–that self-confident, secure woman–would suddenly shrivel up, reduced to a powerless, frail old lady. Her wrath was visible only in her eyes. It scared me to see her looking at Manuel that way. Her pupils sparkled with a caustic, purple, pained glimmer.

I couldn't eat any more. I felt the apple of good and evil stuck in my throat. I stayed down in the library while Manuel went upstairs to talk to his Aunt Águeda.

In the old Denia palace, with its austere, quadrangular Castilian architecture, it was impossible to overhear their argument. I caught snatches of random words and the angry tone. I covered my ears with a sofa cushion. I thought that Águeda must finally be showing what she'd felt all along. It hadn't made any sense for her to be so calm and blasé about everything, given what had happened. To a certain point, I was relieved to see her behaving like a normal aunt. But then, her discomfort also made me face up to the precarious reality I had been avoiding by spending all my time with Juana and her ghosts. I felt a painful, empty feeling in my stomach.

The argument ended suddenly, and at almost the same instant Manuel walked into the library, looking flustered. He strode over to the table where he kept the cognac and poured himself a glass, downing it in one gulp.

“Manuel, Águeda's right. It would be better if I went to New York before they start searching for me. The other plan is really starting to seem ludicrous.”

“I said no. You're not going anywhere,” he declared categorically, pouring himself another glass.

“But–”

“But nothing. Let me handle this. I know what I'm doing. Águeda will get over it. Believe me, I know what I am saying. She's jealous, that's all. She's always resented having to share me with other women. Not even my mother escaped her. But she'll get over it. Relax. I'll tell you about the Denias. This is a good time for it. Go get changed, and put on the black dress.”

 

IT PAINS ME TO SAY IT, BUT THE PROCESS THAT TURNED MY CONFINEMENT
into a persistant, inconsolable torment began when my son charles and Daughter Leonor came to Tordesillas, on November 4, 1517. I'd been there nine years. The last few had been quite peaceful, thanks to Don Hernán. On November 6–my birthday–I awoke just like any other day. I was informed that Guillaume de Croy, Seignior de Chièvres, whom I remembered from Flanders, was here to see me. Not knowing what it was about, I welcomed him without much ceremony. He appeared before me, gushing and reverential, spoke of Charles and Leonor, and asked me if I had any desire to see them. I said of course, there was no need even to ask such a question.

I had no idea they were so close. They'd arrived two days earlier, though I had been told nothing of it. De Chièvres walked over to the door and opened it. Two youths stood before me. The last time I saw Charles and Leonor, he was five and she was seven. Twelve years had passed. Now he was seventeen and she was nineteen. I could see the specter of Philippe in their faces, mixed in with the lost beauty of my younger portraits. I recognized the children who'd been born of our love. They bowed before me. I closed my eyes. Living in a state of delusion, deceived and lied to by everyone, I could not trust my eyes. Are you really my children? I was stupefied, overcome, I devoured them with my eyes. My son had Philippe's face without Philippe's beauty; the face of a tired, lus
terless young man. Leonor, on the other hand, looked majestic and had my mother's light skin and blond hair. We sat down to talk. They behaved like the Burgundian prince and princess that they were, both in manner and language, as they hardly spoke a word of Spanish. I spoke to them in French, which surprised them. Every question I asked seemed to leave them aghast, as if they could not quite work out my ability to hold a conversation and were more confused by my sanity than they would have been at finding a deranged madwoman. Leonor laughed easily at several things I said, but Charles showed the same distrust I remembered so well from when I returned from my first trip to Spain and he came with his father to meet me at Blankenburg. Since then, he had never acknowledged me. It saddened me to see him so uncomfortable, so distant. Visiting me was clearly a formality for him, and he made no attempt to hide it. Overcome by the devastating pain of having lost them irrevocably so long ago, I insisted they should go to bed early and rest.

And then I was alone with de Chièvres, Charles's first chamberlain and trusted advisor. He set about very kindly informing me of all the prince's wonderful qualities. It must be a comfort to me, he said, to have a son like him to further the interests of the kingdom. He was of the opinion that I should hurry and abdicate in his favor so that, while I was still alive, he could learn all he needed to know to be a good sovereign. If I gave my royal consent, the Cortes would authorize him to rule with me. I would not oppose it, I said. I presumed my father had agreed, which was reason to rejoice. All I demanded was the respect owed to me as queen: recognition for my royal stature and that he would rule in my name and with me, like my father should have done.

The Cortes imposed eighty-eight conditions before allowing Charles to be king. Three of them were in regard to the governing of my household and the dignity with which I was to be treated, as proprietary queen. Another specified that if God saw fit to return my good health, Charles would step down and allow me to rule. It was this clause that turned him into my enemy.

After Charles, avowed by me, began his rule, his attention turned to his sister Catalina. Everyone around me knew how I loved her. Catalina
was my stability, my anchor, she was what kept me afloat. Charles, who'd had a very pampered upbringing with Marguerite of Austria in Malines, was horrified by her modest dress, her games at the window. So he and his advisors hatched a plan to steal her away, to take her from me. And because there was no way to reach her room without crossing mine, they dug a tunnel through the wall and covered it with a tapestry, and then one night they forced Catalina through it, lowering her down onto the street. I reacted as anyone could have expected: I begged for death. I began a radical fast and abandoned myself to the most terrible and inconsolable despair. My servants and Don Hernán must have told Charles about my state. For once, my prayers were answered and my rebellion had a positive result. Three days later, I had Catalina back. She ran to my arms. We both wept. Juana Cuevas, my servant, told me later that the princess had warned her brother, saying that if I became distressed, nothing would stop her from coming back to me.

Catalina returned, but that episode was just the beginning of what was to come.

Just three months after his first visit, Charles withdrew kind Don Hernán, the Duke of Estrada, from my service. In his place, on March 15, 1518, he sent Don Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas and his wife, Doña Francisca Enríquez, the Marquises of Denia. My peace of mind and body ended the moment Don Hernán walked out the door. When we said our good-byes, I lamented the fact that no one had consulted me. “We are both servants of others, Doña Juana,” said the gentle man who, through it all, had attempted to be my friend and had, within the confined space of my captivity, managed to make me feel I was still a woman.

The Denias built a wall of faces, hands, and eyes around me. They forged a barrier of silence and oblivion to cloister me and conceal whatever evidence of my reason could threaten those who would stop at nothing to usurp my reign. Circles of hell, was how I referred to the nooses they used to strangle my voice. And there were three: in the first circle, two women kept guard, one inside and one outside my rooms, day and night, denying me the relief of privacy, the solace I could get from my own unemcumbered self. In the second circle were the twelve women
allegedly charged with my care. And beyond them, in the third circle, were the twenty-four
monteros,
elite armed guards, who surrounded me. I was forbidden to go to San Antolín. I was forbidden to attend mass at Santa Clara. The Marquis of Denia, pale, gray-haired, his eyes cold and blue, was the very picture of courteousness. But with every bow, he stabbed me in the back and still expected me to ignore it. Just like Mosen Luis Ferrer, he used the plague or my father's authority to justify my internment.

Why had I gotten it into my head that my father was dead? he once inquired when I expressed my doubts. He was ill, true, but he was laid up at a monastery, spending his days praying to our Lord. I should write to him. He would be so happy to have news from his daughter Juana.

“You write to him, Marquis,” I said. “You are his cousin; you write to him. You may give him my regards.”

The Denias were despots to my few loyal servants but went to church to display before wooden statuettes the devotion they didn't feel for their fellow human beings. I always considered religious ceremonies to be just public rituals that did little or nothing to ennoble the spirit. Even back in Flanders I was not particularly devoted. But the marquises worried about my soul, and so they arranged for masses to be said inside the palace so that they could force me to worship God and dispense with my need to go out under the sun. I categorically refused to attend these services and I only went to church when they allowed me to walk along the palace's exterior corridor to San Antolín. Once at the tower there, I would go down the spiral staircase to the Aldarete Chapel. I did this more to look at the view than to pay my respects to a God who had forsaken me.

I waged an all-out war against the Denias, using the few arms at my disposal. I lay in wait constantly, so that no one could take me by surprise. But I knew nothing of what went on outside the palace walls, and that was one weapon my jailers could always count on. While I was locked up, rotting away, Spain was being plundered. The riches from America were shipped off to Flanders. Foreigners were appointed to the highest positions of power. A seventeen-year-old boy was named cardinal of Toledo, and Adrian of Utrecht became governor of Castile.
When my son Charles left to be crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, on May 20, 1520, the people rose up in arms, having wearied of the constant abuse by the Flemish.