The Scroll of Seduction (28 page)

Alas, I thought, if only we could be as lucid in life as we are in death! Beside the decrepit body of the man whose children were borne from me, who burrowed into me like a man digging a tunnel to let go of the sea that drowns him, I watched scenes of our agreements and disagreements parade by like ghosts reflected in a foggy mirror. I clung to his life, refusing to accept that it could be extinguished like the thousands of candles that burned out, one after the other, in the darkened room. Despising my parents' God, who listened to my prayers so selectively, I prayed desperately to other, more compassionate gods that I invented in imaginary Olympias. All to no avail. On the fifth day of fever, Philippe died in my arms.

It was September 25, 1506. Philippe was just thirty years old.

I
n the library beside Manuel, who so desperately wanted to feel Juana through me, I cried over Philippe's death.

“It's not him that I feel for, it's
her,”
I explained, trying to make light of my sentimentality. “She was so full of love, she created a Philippe worthy of her feelings. From broken pieces and shards, over and over, she made him into what she dreamed him to be so that the reality of who he was and his pettiness would not demean the tremendous love that made every sacrifice of hers worthwhile. I can identify with her. You find excuses for the people you love because if you condemn them, you're condemning yourself. I mean, even knowing what I know about my father, I can't curse him. I feel like it wouldn't hurt him; it would hurt me, because my love for him is part of who I am. “Does that make sense?”

“Philippe dying so young, and so suddenly,” I continued, thinking aloud, “must have contributed to Juana's adoration of the ‘other' Philippe, the idealized figure that she so desperately wanted to believe in. Nostalgia probably diluted her hatred, taking the sting out of her bad memories.” I hadn't been alive that long, but I knew how crafty the mind could be at smoothing out one's memories until they became a soft wrap one could cuddle with. Manuel smoked with his glistening eyes fixed on me. He seemed to be moved by my display of emotions. For a minute I even thought he was going to start crying too. Instead, he took off my
gown and made love to me next to the fireplace, as if he were trying to offer a different ending to the same story. Tenderness took hold of us, as if our exposed, bare, vulnerable bodies and the frailty of our own uncertain, unforeseen situation were a reflection of that sad moment in our characters' lives.

Gently, sweetly, he licked away my tears. He cradled my head against his chest and answered my sobbing with a plaintive, hoarse sound that rose up from the bottom of his lungs. He spoke of the paradox of loneliness being the emotion most deeply shared by human beings. Anyone could understand what it was like to experience it. It was hard to hate Philippe as he lay dying, as he went through that solitary transition, the most solitary of all. One could identify with him in that circumstance and feel compassion. Every time one imagined someone else's death, it was like rehearsing one's own. His theory was, he said, that the moment of transit from life to nothingness, the moment one consciously realized everything would be lost,
that
was hell; a hell where all sins were purged, an inferno no one could escape.

“And yet, Miss Lucía,” he said, getting up to pour himself a glass of cognac as I got dressed, “life is such an ephemeral deceit. Only through knowledge can we achieve a certain degree of self-realization, because knowledge is the sum of all other lives, and that multiplicity is the only thing that gives our infinitesimal existence the illusion of permanence and purpose.”

“Sex is another one of those eternal continuums,” he said. “If the solitude of death is hell, then copulation is heaven.” He smiled maliciously, raising his glass to me and making me laugh at his obscure philosophies. His affection made me feel much better. I went to bed calm. I didn't think about anything. I slept a deep sleep on that first night of what I imagined would be a long stay at the Denias' house.

When I woke up the next day and went down to breakfast, Águeda told me that Manuel had gone out.

“Don't let it bother you that he goes out. He likes to be alone. He goes to his apartment, but he'll be back. He always comes back, and now that you're here he's got all the more reason. Why don't I walk you through the house? You've never seen the whole thing.”

I accepted, curious. Deep down I felt an almost canine sense of gratitude toward Águeda. Another woman in her place would not have agreed to be an accomplice and would have told the nuns or my grandparents. So I was willing to do whatever she asked of me. Águeda opened a small wooden box that hung on the wall and took out a large ring of keys. I had already realized that she was methodical and orderly. Her routines probably helped her pass the time. And now I was going to see how she spent her days. Weekends she'd hardly interfered in our comings and goings, because that was when she went to church and to have her hair done.

I followed her upstairs. Though I was still hoping that my pregnancy would fade away with the appearance of a big red stain on my underwear, the possibility that another member of that family could be taking shape within me made itself felt in the way I saw the house now. It had a square foundation and a high, coffered ceiling made of beautiful wood. The spiral staircase was off to one side and led up to the second-and third-floor hallways, with the bedrooms leading off of it. The top floor, as Águeda explained, had been rebuilt, which was why it looked more French, with rounded corners and cornices.

“Because this is a very Castilian house. Have I already told you this? It was built by Juan Gómez de Mora, the same architect that designed the Plaza Mayor in Madrid. It dates back to 1606. Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, Marquis of Denia, was the first man to live here when he moved to Madrid at the behest of Philippe III, as his premier. I disagree with Manuel's view of our ancestors, but I must admit that he was quite a schemer. There's no doubt that he increased the power his family held, but he wasn't completely honest in his methods. Ask Manuel about it. He knows all of the Denias' black legends.” She smiled ironically. “Poor thing. I think denigrating the family is his way of reconciling himself to what they did to his mother. Well, anyway…”

We were walking through the wing that I hadn't seen yet. The solid double doors all had modern security locks on them, in addition to the original ones. Águeda opened door after door. Despite the semidarkness, I could see that the closed windows were all spotlessly clean and in excellent condition, the furniture covered with gray and white slipcov
ers. “Aunt” Águeda led me through the music room, the sewing room, and a tiny chapel that she still used, with a beautiful sculpture of Christ, burning votive candles, and a wooden prie-dieu. The floors and ceilings of each room were antique wood marvels, solid and gleaming, and beautiful tapestries hung on the walls. It was hard to keep the paintings and tapestries in their original state, she said, which was why the rooms had such thick curtains and dehumidifiers in the corners. Every month, Águeda explained, a professional cleaning company came to polish the floors and do a thorough job of cleaning everything. She had no patience for cleaning ladies, and besides, she didn't trust them with all the fragile objects. She preferred to dust and polish them herself. It helped her pass the time. We reached a room smaller than the others, and she pulled a dustcover off of a beautifully shaped rolltop desk with a whole series of tiny drawers under its lid. It might be useful to me, she said, given that there was no writing table in my room. “And you'll be writing a lot of letters,” she added, with a touch of irony that I didn't find funny. We walked out and crossed a hallway with several closed doors on the third floor.

“Our most valuable possessions are in there. Many of them date back to Doña Juana's days. They used to be scattered all over the house, but I moved them into what used to be father's study, so I could clean them and take care of them better. I'll show you some other day.”

“How did your ancestors end up being involved with Doña Juana?” I asked. “Manuel hasn't really told me much about it. He clouds over when I ask him about it.”

“It was on March 15, 1518. Emperor Charles I of Spain and V of Germany named Don Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas as governor of his mother Juana's household, and of the town of Tordesillas. Don Bernardo had been first governor to Juana's father, King Ferdinand the Catholic, since 1504. He was with him until his death, and his final act was to take the king's body to Granada and place it beside his wife, Queen Isabella. They were cousins, you see. Ferdinand and Don Bernardo were cousins. That's why King Charles trusted him. They were a very illustrious bunch. Grandees of Spain. Only twenty-five families in the whole kingdom had that distinction. Plus, Don Bernardo was mar
ried to Doña Francisca Enríquez, who was related to Don Fadrique Enríquez.”

“The one who took Juana to Flanders, the admiral of Castile?”

“The very same. And Spain was in a state of turmoil then. The Denias took their obligation to protect the crown very seriously. Perhaps they were overzealous. But Juana's madness–or instability, if you prefer–was a risk. There was no lack of opportunists who tried to use the mother's lack of wits as a means of robbing the son of his power. But the Marquises of Denia were utterly loyal to Charles, who was the legitimate king, given that his mother couldn't rule.”

“But that's just it,” I said, “she
could
rule.”

“Oh, it doesn't matter who's right anymore, child. Neither she, nor them can contest what history has judged to be true, nor can they argue with increasingly fickle historians. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Come, I want to show you something before we go back downstairs. Manuel will be back soon.”

I followed her to the end of the hall. She opened a door and we walked into what must have been a child's room.

“This is where Manuel spent his childhood,” she said. “I'd come up here to tell him bedtime stories.”

It was tiny and narrow, like a cell. The furniture was dark, wooden, and somber, and I could see models piled up on all the bookshelves. Clearly, assembling them had been Manuel's favorite pursuit since he was a boy. I pictured him as a pale, serious, ten-year-old boy, lying in bed, reading beneath the crucifix on the wall. I felt sorry for him. It was a sad room. Just one tiny window, high up on the wall, like an attic. Now it was just a storeroom for things no one used anymore. In one corner stood a crib with carved rails, the hook for a mosquito net carved into the chubby face of a wooden cherub.

“This looks like my room at boarding school,” I said.

“My parents were fervent believers in Castilian austerity. They said it built character. But the crib is lovely, don't you think? And what's more, it's the family crib. This is where your son will sleep once he's born,” she said without looking at me, gliding over it lightly with the feather duster hanging from her waist.

“Or my daughter,” I replied.

“Oh, it'll be a boy, you'll see,” she said with an expression that left no room for debate.

I wanted her to be wrong. I didn't want to give the world any more Marquises of Denia. I didn't like the cold, severe faces of the ancestors whose paintings hung on walls all around the house.

After we went back downstairs and Águeda began to make phone calls, I wandered around the rooms, sensing the presence of history in the air, staring at the Persian rugs, the tapestries, the grand piano in the corner of the salon. Aside from the ancient oil paintings, and unlike the house where I grew up, here there wasn't a single photograph of the modern-day Denias.

Manuel came back at lunchtime. He asked me how I felt.

“Fine,” I said. “Your aunt showed me around the house. She told me a little about your family history.”

“Her version,” he said.

“And she showed me your old room.”

“Ah!” he said wryly. “If those walls could talk.”

“Let's go to the library,” I suggested. “I want to know what Juana did after Philippe died, what happened next. And you'll have to tell me about the Denias.”

“All in good time.” He smiled, pensive.

I
've already told you that Juana's behavior after Philippe's death has been interpreted in a variety of ways. In general, historians to this day have barely stopped to consider what it must have meant for a woman of her age, pregnant, in love, and besieged by intrigues of State, to have to face the sudden, unexpected death of her husband. Paraphrasing a poet, Juana and Philippe were an “ill-adjusted but tightly embraced couple.” That she got depressed would be considered nowadays a natural reaction, given the chain of events. Machismo might be the reason why, in her case, history has chosen to omit those considerations when judging her. Now, personally, I think Juana immersed herself so totally in last rites and funeral processions to avoid making decisions and allow Ferdinand time to return from Italy. Though her faith in her father had dwindled, she preferred this alternative rather than run the risk of the nobility casting her aside to set up her father-in-law Maximilian as regent until young Charles came of age. I think she realized she wouldn't be able to take Philippe's body all the way to Granada. She knew her time to give birth was fast approaching.

 

BEFORE THE EMBALMERS TOOK PHILIPPE'S BODY AWAY, I ASKED TO
be left alone with him and sat down by his side. I took his hands and stroked them, lifting each of his fingers in turn. Using the fingernail of my index finger, I cleaned under his nails, which were still dirty from his
last game of pelota. He didn't move. I stroked his forehead, straightened his hair. The submissiveness of his body was a new experience for me. I leaned over and tried to open his eyelids, so I could look into his eyes once more. For an instant I saw death stare at me in the total absence of light: the pupils dilated, fixed, opaque, like a door forever shut. I pulled my hand away in fear. Philippe, I whispered. Philippe, can you hear me? He made no reply. I was suddenly struck. With a clarity that left me breathless I realized that Philippe would never answer me again. I believe it was then that I became aware that ever since I saw Philippe for the first time, I had never imagined my life without him. And as I tried to visualize the future, I was filled with panic: I could only see myself keeping vigil over his cadaver.

Cadaver, I murmured, cavern, calamity, calvary, corpse, catafalque. What an awful word. The very sound of it was rigid, cold, putrid. That and nothing else was my husband now, the father of my children. After just four months in Spain he'd gone from the throne to the catafalque. I cried, imagining my children's faces when they heard the news, but my tears were short-lived downpours, like sorrows that wouldn't condense. I could hardly weep because I could hardly think. Ideas appeared in my mind, but they came crashing down with the weight of pebbles dropping into a void. I thought that if I stayed with the body, eventually I would have to convince myself of the reality of what had happened, but Philibert de Veyre–Philippe's ambassador in Spain–and Archbishop Cisneros appeared a short while later and compelled me to leave him. I gave in. I let him go with them. That night, a Burgundian-style wake was held. Philippe was laid out on a dais in the Casa del Cordón, dressed in his best clothes and surrounded by beautiful tapestries. The following day, doctors embalmed his body, and on the third day we held a procession that went from the constable's house to the Carthusian Monastery of Miraflores. I took part in the funeral services. The fluttering of life in my belly was the only thing that kept me from feeling as dead as Philippe.

When at last I was able to lock myself in my rooms, alone, I suddenly felt clearheaded and I plotted, coldly, exactly what I would have to do. My mother, who died in Medina del Campo, had been taken to
Granada. Philippe, as the anointed king he was, should lie beside her. He himself had made that clear in his last will and testament and repeated it to me on his deathbed. Carrying out his portentous request would give me the opportunity to travel to Andalusia, surround myself with supporters, and, once I had backing, assume my responsibilities as queen. I thought that under those circumstances, going to Granada would give me a chance to renew alliances, rid myself of Flemish courtiers, and guarantee that my son Charles's succession was assured beyond any shadow of a doubt.

My isolation at court, and the suspicions and fears all around me, turned out to be formidable obstacles that hindered my plans to take charge of the kingdom. I was informed then that while I was attending to Philippe on his deathbed, Archbishop Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros had managed to get appointed regent of Castile and had forced all the grandees in Spain to swear that not a single one of them would attempt to make use of my power or approach me to have it vested on them.

But Cisneros's regency wasn't to everyone's liking. After a few days, camps had divided into those who advocated my father's return and those who thought my father-in-law, Emperor Maximilian, should rule until Charles reached the age of majority.

Not a single one of the nobles–not even my good friend the admiral of Castile, Don Fadrique Enríquez–deigned to consider that I might be capable of taking charge. They must have felt it was more in their interest to obtain the favor of Ferdinand or Maximilian than that of a woman–a lonely, very pregnant widow. And as for me, I had not even the money required to buy the unconditional loyalty of soldiers and servants. The Andalusian nobles were the only ones willing to defend me, and they were several days' journey away. Maybe the people who did recognize me as queen would have opposed an attempt to cast me aside, but while I was seeing to the funeral rites, Archbishop Cisneros issued a number of edicts promising exrtemely harsh punishment to whoever dared rise up in arms. That way he made sure there would be no popular uprising in my favor.

With Philippe dead, I reorganized my household, employing ladies I considered loyal, but they slowly proved themselves to be subservient
to my father. His influence over the court was so great that, faced with the facts, even Cisneros chose to surrender and wrote him a letter requesting that he return from Italy: despite his repeated demands, I refused to sign this request, given that it could be read as an indication that I declined my right to rule.

When he received Cisneros's letter on his way to Naples, Ferdinand replied, recognizing my authority and my right to the throne, and affirming that Cisneros's regency was baseless. But as isolated as I was, my only means of disavowing the prelate's authority was to refuse to sign documents he presented me with, so that for several weeks the country was rudder-less, while at the same time my poor subjects were being decimated by the plague. The nobles–each more ambitious than the last–tried to turn things to their advantage by using their armies and privileges in order to sow chaos and settle old scores in an attempt to acquire influence they might keep once the situation had settled down.

In the solitude of my nights, I pondered my true duty, and yet my strength or desire to act could not surmount the apathy I had fallen into despite my best intentions. I suffered from a constant headache since Philippe's death. My only company was the child in my womb, who I dreamed was a boy that I would call Philippe. I pictured him as handsome as his father. I imagined that Philippe's spirit would live on in him and that somehow, mysteriously, his father's life would alight next to me once again when he was born, this time without causing me pain. Twice during that time I visited the Cartuja of Miraflores, where my husband's coffin lay. Both times, I had it opened to ascertain that his body was still there. I knew that the Flemish had taken his heart in a gold urn to bury it beside his ancestors, and I feared they had made off with his body too, given that they had no qualms about taking every possession Philippe had brought to Spain. They carted out tapestries, furniture, armor, jewels, horses, paintings, and more, as payment for services that I had no other means of reimbursing. I did nothing to stop them because at the time nothing mattered to me, but I did want to make sure they had not robbed me of his bones.

The second time I had the coffin opened was before I left for Torquemada on December 20 (I planned to stay there until I gave birth,
far from the intrigues and pressures of the nobles who surrounded me at Casa de la Vega. I had stayed there since Philippe's death, for I had no wish to ever go back to the house where he had died.) So opposed were the clerics to delivering Philippe's catafalque to me that I suspected his body was no longer inside. They opened the wooden box and then the lead one, and just like the first time, I saw him lying there, immobile, swathed in bandages and lime. The ambassadors and prelates were horrified that I could approach him and even touch him, but anyone who has loved as much as I would understand that seeing his corpse was no shock to me. In any case, there was nothing to see except the bandages covering his shape. For me what mattered, given my general distrust, was to corraborate with my own eyes what I had been told and free myself from the torment of speculation.

Finally, after praying before the coffin at the charterhouse altar that day, I made some decisions aimed at restoring order and royal patrimony.

My first act was to revoke all of the favors Philippe had conceded to nobles, since many of the legal disputes that had arisen were the result of my husband's munificence when it came to taking my father's supporters' possessions and distributing them among his own followers. I got rid of the members of the Royal Council that had been named by Gómez de Fuensalida, and held an audience with the procurators of the council. I ordered all things to revert back to the way they had been during my mother's life, and the government to be run in the same manner as when she was alive. Echoing Cisneros's wishes, they proposed that I invite my father to return from Naples to take over the matters of State. I neither agreed nor disagreed. I expressed affection for my father but signed no letter. Instead I reaffirmed my desire that they follow through what I, their queen, had commanded.

For me to assume my royal authority seemed to disconcert them, but I let them be disconcerted and ordered my entourage to depart for Torquemada with Philippe's coffin in tow.

 

NEITHER I NOR ANYONE WHO ACCOMPANIED ME NOR THE PEOPLE
who watched our procession go by would ever forget the images of that
night. It was the source of endless stories and legends, since after all of the setbacks we did not leave that day until an hour after sunset, amid a dense fog that seemed more like an eerie sea whose waves swelled and broke on terra firma. In order to light the way through the white clouds that enshrouded us, I ordered a great number of torches to be lit. Through the mist, my caravan advanced, led by the four horses that carried the coffin–covered in black-and-gold cloth–and Flemish cantors. We followed behind, the court and the clerics intoning funeral services. It must have looked like death itself was parading through the night, decked out in ghostly gauzes and ashen curtains.

I walked for quite a distance. I can recall the women who lined the roads to see me pass, and the way they gazed at me. They showed the veneration befitting a sacred personage, but in their eyes too was boundless understanding. As women, they knew the most hidden sorrows of my heart, and silently they showed me the support and compassion due to a widow about to give birth.

My travels over the course of those days gave me a little peace. The wide open country, pine trees clustered beside streams, red earth covered in olive groves, flocks of sheep and their tiny shepherds, and the blue sky after days of intrigues and imprisonment in Casa de la Vega did more for my spirits than all the incense and prayers for the dead. I was twenty-seven years old and life was coursing through my veins. The music of my Flemish cantors–the most precious thing I had held on to from my rule in Flanders–brought me great solace when we stopped to rest. During those days, Philippe's spirit, young and enamored, returned to me. Without him there, it was easy for me to invent a tale of the indescribable happiness that, despite our rough patches, we had shared. Sorrow and nostalgia erased all of the bad memories, and before my eyes danced only pleasant recollections of the man I had loved so dearly, whose love I could now hold and cherish without the disappointments of life.

I would have liked to carry on after a few days in Torquemada, but my body finally reminded me of the obligations my mind tried to forget and avoid. The moon waned, and with it, the baby in my womb announced its arrival.

At the home of the Cortes representative, who so hospitably housed me, my waters broke. I was so fatigued I thought I would not survive childbirth. The women accompanying me must have thought the same, for never before had I sensed such anxiety around me when I delivered. At times I have thought that Catalina bore herself, because all I remember is the urgency with which she pushed her way through my entrails. I simply relented. Without will, I abandoned myself to my body's labor, neither clinging to life, nor longing for death, but submitting to a destiny whose power was greater than me or my desire to challenge it. And when I was finally hollow and heard my baby cry, I closed my eyes and was happy to still be alive. Right after I saw her tiny face, a heavy torpor came over me. It was a girl, and she resembled me more than Philippe. Her eyes had a wise look from that very beginning. I had a feeling that more than a daughter, I had given birth to someone who would watch over me.

Further on, I often thought that Philippe's repentance moved my daughter's spirit, turning her into both my companion and my solace. Her love sustained me during so many long years.