The Creation Of Eve (31 page)

For even though I know the Queen and Don Juan did nothing more than play in the water like children, it must have looked bad to the King. What must he think of his wife, bare-headed and wet, frolicking Unattended with his brother? An unfaithful wife was never tolerated, and now, during these tumultuous times, especially when many in the Low Countries wished to throw off the yoke of his rule, the King could not afford to meekly don the shameful horns of a cuckold. If his seventeen-year-old wife could Undo him, others would be encouraged to do so, too. If implicated in her misdeed, I could be taken with her. What would become of Us? The Spanish do not behead their queens, that is not the Spanish way. No, the Spanish lock their errant queens in towers and lose the key, as they did to Queen Juana the Mad, the King's grandmother and rightful heir to the crown, whose only crime was to be so deranged that she kept the body of her dead husband with her. If a son could lock Up his mother, as the King's father, the Emperor Charles, had done to Queen Juana, what would a husband do to a wife who had dishonored him?

Tomorrow is the King's thirty-fifth birthday. I cannot think how he will wish to celebrate.

ITEM: The King's ancestor Alfonso XI was known as the Avenger, because of his taste for having his enemies' backs to be broken, or having them hanged and dragged at horse's tail, or causing them to be brought to the stake and burnt. Even his court whispered that his efforts to impose authority had strayed from justice to rigor.

21 MAY 1562

The Palace, Aranjuez

The King has had his revenge.

This morning, instead of ordering that his wife be seized and me along with her, the King ordered for his Royal barge to be fetched and for his wife and all the court to go picnicking downriver with him. A feast was promptly packed, and the court assembled after Mass; then we boarded the boats according to our rank while serenaded by Moorish guitarists. The King insisted that I ride with the Queen on his barge--a great honor. Why should he do so? How could he have forgiven me for letting his wife run wild? I could not forgive myself.

I entered the craft in the privileged company of the King and Queen. But I was too nervous to admire the barge's wondrous prow, carved like a sea serpent, or its gleaming sides of wood. As the guitarists played a soothing melody, I left the King at the entrance and followed the Queen past the rowers sitting at their oars. We ducked Under the cloth-of-gold canopy emblazoned with the King's and Queen's intertwining letters to join the King's sister Dona Juana, with her lady dona Eufrasia, sitting on a divan with their hands Upon their laps.

"There you are, sister," said Dona Juana. She remained seated while exchanging kisses with the Queen. "I have not seen you this past fortnight. The condesa de Uruena reports that you have been ill. With child, I hope?" She smiled coldly as My Lady blushed.

"I pray so," murmured the Queen.

"I suppose your care for your mistress accounts for why you have not come to paint me, Sofonisba--my brother did tell you that I wished for my portrait to be done?"

A murmur of delight rippled through the crowd on the landing. I looked around in time to see the King holding out his hand for Don Juan to kiss. The Queen and I exchanged miserable glances.

My Lady had not been unfaithful, not technically. What was the harm in splashing a little water? And even that small wrong was known by no one but the King.

The guitar players switched to a gay gypsy tune as Don Juan boarded the barge. The Queen and I settled on the couch beside Dona Juana and her lady. As I smoothed Her Majesty's skirts, the King took his place on the divan across from Us.

"Brother," he said to Don Juan. "Sit by me."

He sat, stiffly. Dona Juana whispered something to dona Eufrasia as the oarsmen bent to their work.

"Go slowly," the King told the captain standing just beyond the golden fringe of the canopy. "I wish to smell the flowers."

We sailed by the rose garden with its velvety sweet scent, by the beds of exotic specimens arranged in formal knots, by fountains splashing in mossy scallop-shaped basins. On the other bank, wood doves cooed from their nests in the crooks of the elms planted in perfect rows by order of the King. I gazed down one of the rows, hoping, foolishly, to catch sight of doctor Debruyne.

"Felipe," said Dona Juana, "do you like the painting I gave you for your birthday?" Her strident voice carried easily over the hushed splash of the rowers' oars. The closest boat of celebrants to join Us was still at the landing--their speech and the gypsy music were but a distant pleasant hum.

The King leaned around to speak to his sister. "The new van Eyck? You were most generous."

"I wish to turn your taste away from those odd paintings by that mad Fleming, El Bosco, which you insist Upon acquiring." She lowered her formidable brow. "Your new one,
The Garden of Earthly Delights,
is the worst. All those naked bodies, committing sins. How can you think the painting isn't heretical?"

"They are allegories." He flicked a glance toward the Queen. "We are to be reminded of our weaknesses and think what happens when we fall prey to them."

"Just because El Bosco's paintings are couched in religious themes," said Dona Juana, "does not absolve them. I am reminded of something Inquisitor-General Valdes was telling dona Eufrasia and me about your Michelangelo, Sofonisba."

Sweetest Holy Mary. Always she must refer to him as "my" Michelangelo. I composed myself. "My Lady?"

"Have you seen the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome?" she asked.

I stared at her warily, as in my mind's eye a field of muscular bodies writhed overhead. In the center of this panoply of flesh, beautiful Adam reached forth to receive the touch of life. The work was a wonder, no, a miracle of painting, and on a ceiling, no less, but the Maestro has done many more paintings and many other famous statues. Why did she bring Up this work again? "Yes, Your Majesty. I have had that privilege."

"I refer specifically to the twenty nude youths sitting above the cornices throughout the painting." Her beige-lashed eyes were pleasant beneath her broad brow. "What are they called, dona Eufrasia?"

Dona Eufrasia lowered her gaze. "
Ignudi
, Your Majesty."

"There are hundreds of figures in the fresco, Your Majesty," I said. "I cannot remember them all."

"You might remember these. Some are accompanied by acorns, either in sheaves Upon their backs or in great bunches Upon which they sit."

"Acorns?" said the King.

"Yes, Felipe. A certain large-headed kind. They have a name." Dona Juana grimaced as if sorry she had to speak of such.

I kept my silence, not rising to her bait.

"It is a coarse name, in Tuscan slang.
Testa di cazzo.
" She pressed her fingers to her puffy lips in innocence. "There, I said it. Could you translate it for Us, Sofonisba?"

She frowned when I said nothing. "Are you not Italian? Go on, tell Us what it means."

"I cannot say."

"Oh, please. Do not act as if you don't know it."

I saw that she would not rest Until I said it. I drew in a breath. "Prickhead."

The King turned to look at me.

I sank into a curtsey. "I beg your pardon, Your Majesty, and the pardon of all who are here."

Dona Juana shook her head. "There are bunches of these, these
acorns
, sheaves of them, in what is supposed to be a holy painting. I cannot see the reason for them. Nor are the youths who carry them necessary to the painting. The naked louts are just there, with their . . . seed-heads."

"Juana," said the King. "Enough."

"But I am not done. Inquisitor-General Valdes and I have discussed this matter and cannot come Up with a reason for their inclusion in the painting other than to please the artist's own despicable tastes. Perhaps there is another reason for this. Perhaps you could explain his thinking for Us, Sofonisba, since you know him so well."

"I was only his student."

Dona Juana drew back. "Perhaps you should think about this. The mood in Rome is very serious these days about art. Protestant mobs protesting symbols of the Catholic faith have been tearing down religious works in churches across Northern Europe. Pious work. Holy work. Centuries-old pieces of great value. Our bishops will not stand for it. They have called for an examination of all paintings for any possible seductive charm, perversion, or lasciviousness, to destroy them before the wicked hordes have an excuse to wreak their wanton destruction on holy pieces. All work in the Church must be pure beyond doubt." She smiled. "So you see, I am not just making indecorous conversation."

The King stood. He waved away a bit of meandering poplar fluff as he cleared his throat. "I wish to make an announcement."

Dona Juana lowered her brow in displeasure at being interrupted. The Queen's hand sidled to mine.

"Don Juan," said the King. "Please rise."

Don Juan stood. He lifted his chin, revealing the hollows Under his eyes. These past two weeks must have been a nightmare for him, too.

The King slid his hand to the back of Don Juan's neck. "I want to announce within the circle of family what will soon be made public."

A breeze stirred, rippling the fringe of the canopy. "Do you love the Church, Brother?" asked the King.

The light Under the canopy turned green as we passed into a tunnel of trees. I glanced at the riverbank, then drew in a sharp breath. We had come to the place where the King had discovered Us.

"I love my God," said Don Juan.

"Your God. That is good. Your private God." The King smiled slightly. "Congratulations, my brother. You shall leave for Rome tomorrow. When you come back, in several years' time, you shall be wedded to your God as a cardinal."

ITEM: "Painted figures must be done in such a way that the spectators are able with ease to recognize through their attitudes the thoughts of their minds."

--MAESTRO LEONARDO DA VINCI

22 JUNE 1562

EL Alcazar, Madrid

We returned to Madrid after the King's birthday. The Queen has been quiet and given to fevers. I have had to leave her in the care of Francesca while I work on studies for Dona Juana's portrait, for Dona Juana will brook no excuses for me not to go forward with her picture. But even in this drawing stage, the process is made painful by her constant disapproval. "My brow is so prominent that it looks like a smith could hammer a rod Upon it," she said yesterday, and the day before, "Those are a man's thick lips!" These are but two of the myriad complaints that have issued from her pursed mouth nearly every afternoon over the past month as she has stood before me in her severe black dress. She spares me exactly one turning of the hourglass, always in her chamber, and always with dona Eufrasia reading out loud to her from her Book of Hours. There is no conversation, not even about maestro Michelangelo--a blessing, though this makes it clear she thinks little more of me than as an instrument to needle My Lady, saving her pointed remarks about the Maestro for when we are in the presence of the Queen. Indeed, I have come to believe she wishes me to do her portrait only to deprive the Queen of my company.

Today, after her usual moaning, she struck Upon the idea of borrowing the little daughter of one of her ladies to "enliven" the picture, since I was obviously on the way to producing a dull portrait. I was enthusiastic. The music of a child's voice would have been a relief in that dreary chamber, heavy with the sounds of Dona Juana's stern breathing, dona Eufrasia's halting reading of the Scriptures, and the hiss of the sand dwindling in the hourglass. But no such music was to be heard. Once Dona Juana clamped her jeweled hand Upon the girl's thin shoulder, the child was terrified into silence.

I was holding out my chalk, visually taking measurements of the poor little girl to record on my paper, when dona Eufrasia's soft voice caught my attention. She was reading a lesson from John in her Book of Hours when I heard the word "Nicodemus." I paused. Nicodemus was the character from the Bible whom the Maestro had chosen to depict as himself in his Unfinished statue.