The Creation Of Eve (42 page)

I danced on Uncomfortably, through no fault of young Hercule, who tried his best to be a manly partner though the cards were against him, as his eyes were level with my bosom. It would not matter if he had the stature of his namesake. My mind was on Tiberio. As I performed the steps of the pavane with this child, he could be rowing Under the sting of a whip, his muscles burning, his belly groaning, his tongue swelling in his mouth. Even if he loved the Maestro, he did not deserve this punishment. But why had he taken me that night in Rome? To convince others--himself--that his leanings were like other men's?

I was dispiritedly trying to keep Up with my spritely companion, when I noticed My Lady had taken a new partner: Don Juan. As Don Carlos stewed Under the dais, My Lady and Don Juan stepped and hopped, not speaking, though a current flowed between their bodies, a current I could feel across the crowded floor, a frisson that raced between their lips and eyes and breasts. With dread that others might be watching, too, I watched as they stopped at the end of the pattern and, with a terrible slowness, lifted their gazes to each other. And as the dancers around them made meaningless talk and straightened their dress, their yearning swelled into the breach between them, jangling, jangling, jangling in a silent cacophony of desire.

The lute struck Up. Dancers leaned into their moves, and with them the Queen and Don Juan, their connection broken, though its reverberations sounded in my head even when the music stopped and the gnat-weight Hercule was leading me, shaken, toward his mother. For I knew their desire. And with me, Tiberio had known it, too. Our bodies had not lied. No matter what was said, he desired me that night.

Don Carlos jumped from his seat, startling My Lady, who approached the dais with Don Juan.

"Why do you avoid me?" he demanded of her. "Do you not care about me?"

Don Juan released My Lady's hand. She glanced at her dam, whose fleshy lips were pursed in grim expectation.

"Toad," said My Lady. "Dearest. You know I care about you."

"You haven't spoken to me all night, when I am the one who truly loves and esteems--"

The Queen's fool, a Spaniard called Cisneros, shook his rattle. "Crowns, crowns, King Felipe loves crowns! The new horns on his head--they fit him--zounds!"

Don Carlos's mouth dropped open. He lowered his face with a guilty frown, then burst into a noisy guffaw.

A wave of discomfort passed over the crowd. Did Don Carlos actually think the fool referred to him as the Queen's lover?

"What?" said Don Carlos. "It was just a jest. I have been brought Up too well to do anything Untoward with a lady."

I felt Francesca's gaze boring into me from a group of servants spilling out from behind a painted screen, questioning my countenance, still Unsettled from my memory of Tiberio.

After that evening, Don Carlos seemed to regain his newfound equanimity. For the rest of the visit--at the masques, at the tourneys, at the dinner where two thousand lords and ladies sat down to sup, he behaved as a gentleman, with a minimum of braying laughter or pushing about of the servants. He showed a mature level of compassion toward the Queen on our way home, leaving his own dinner to comfort her that miserable evening in the mountain village of Covarrubias, a day's journey south of Burgos.

We had been happily dining Upon a feast of the local fare--trout from the river at the foot of the town, venison, and
morcilla
, the black blood sausage stuffed with rice--when our host, the lord of the village castle, let slip that the tower in which the Queen would be staying had once housed, long ago, a princess who was in love with a shepherd.

The Queen had paused, the point of her knife piercing into a tender cut of venison. "Was she allowed to leave?"

"Your Majesty, no," said our host, a lean, black-haired gentleman whose rough face showed every black pore. "Never. They say her father had the church bells rung to drown out her cries. But even if the villagers could not hear her, they could see her. She would put her face to the bars of the window at the top of the tower."

With Uncharacteristic Unselfishness, Don Carlos left his own meal to jump Up from the table to join My Lady, who had excused herself, claiming a sudden need for air. They went outside, where My Lady paced along the river's edge, Francesca and I and a phalanx of the King's German guards trailing behind.

"What trouble you?" Francesca whispered to me.

I gazed Up at the little castle, at the barred opening at the top of its square tower. Had Tiberio had such a window out of which to gaze in the Castel Sant'Angelo? Or had he been in the darkest dungeon, the scapegoat for the Pope's campaign against Michelangelo? Now he was dying at the oars of a ship because someone had been needed as evidence of the Maestro's illicit leanings, and Tiberio, working in the Maestro's house and subject of the Maestro's poems, had been convenient. But there was proof that Tiberio, as much as he esteemed Michelangelo, was not his lover. Living proof that he had given his naked soul in the act of love to a woman. Me.

Later, Don Carlos rode at the Queen's side as we made our way through the mountains, then crossed the endless arid expanse of the Castilian
meseta
, our train raising a plume of ochre dust soon dispersed by the bone-dry wind. Too overwrought to entertain the Queen myself, I was grateful for his ability to speak to her day after day of his exploits in France and his great knowledge of the world as she sat in her litter with Cher-Ami in her lap, the silver tassels of the litter curtains swaying to the rhythm of the plodding mules.

Finally we neared Segovia, journey's end. The Queen sank back onto her divan, her strength flagging. We were amongst the flat green fields just north of the city; the golden towers of the castle, just now visible, crowned the plains. Behind the towers, the pale blue peaks of the Guadarramas rose in a jagged wall.

"The Camino Real that we take to Madrid runs along that ridge." Don Carlos pointed toward the mountains. "Way Up there to the left--see? Can you believe that we get Up so high there on our mules?"

My Lady nodded listlessly, then glanced behind our litter, where with a crowd of Spanish nobles rode Don Juan, smiling at his companions' talk, though his mirth did not reach his eyes.

"See the Mujer Muerta?" said Don Carlos.

The Queen looked startled. "The dead woman?"

"That's what they call those peaks. Look--she's lying down." He pointed to the distant blue ridges toward the right. "See the peak that is her head? You can see the profile of her forehead, nose, and chin. Way over there are her feet. She's got her hands folded on her belly and there, above her belly, are her--" He coughed into his fist.

I could hold it in no longer. "My Lady," I whispered into her ear. "I wish to talk to you."

She kept her eyes Upon the hazy blue mountaintops. "What, Sofi?"

I darted a glance at the condesa, dozing across from Us, her chin on her breast. Who could tell if madame, next to her, was listening, as wrapped as she was in her veils? I kept my voice low. "There is a man I wish to marry."

The Queen glanced at me, distracted, then returned her gaze to the Dead Woman. "What?"

"You wish for me to have a husband. Well, there is a man I desire. He is from Rome."

When she did not respond, I whispered Urgently, "Your Majesty, please, you must ask the King to send for him, as quickly as possible. His life is in danger, unjustly so, when I know he--he is a good man."

A single black horse streaked down the dusty road from Segovia, tail straight out, its rider leaning low into the horse's mane.

"Who the devil approaches Us like that?" snapped Don Carlos. "Guards!"

"I believe it is your father, Your Majesty," said one of the nobles.

Don Carlos squinted. "He's moving awfully fast." He raised his hand to halt the soldiers.

My Lady sat back in our litter.

The fore guards spurred their weary horses off the road, making way for the galloping rider. In a swirl of yellow dust, the King pulled his horse to a halt.

The cavalcade came to a ragged stop; all the gentlemen dismounted. Trumpets blared as the guardsmen called, "His Majesty the King!"

His Majesty, still mounted, paid no heed. His intense gaze sought the Queen. "My Lady."

She put out her gloved hand.

Don Carlos remained on his horse. "Father! What are you doing out here alone?"

The King brought his own steed near to kiss his Lady's hand. "How was France?" he said to Don Carlos, though gazing at the Queen. "Was it to your liking?"

Don Carlos shrugged.

"Your son acquitted himself well there," said the Queen.

"Good. Good for you, son. My Lady, would you be too weary to ride with me a ways? Valsain is but a few leagues away."

The Queen took back her hand. "I should like that, My Lord." She gave me her dog.

Upon the King's orders, two guards lifted the Queen from our litter and, her skirts billowing around her, set her Upon His Majesty's horse. The King locked his arms around her. She cast down her gaze as he whispered in her ear.

"Father--" Don Carlos began.

The King put spur to horse; they were away.

The condesa drew heavily Upon her dust-coated pomander as the gentlemen remounted. "A happy ending."

Don Juan urged his horse forward; he touched the Prince's arm.

"Happy?" Don Carlos shrugged away from Don Juan and yanked on his reins, reeling his horse around. "Happy?"

The condesa sniffed as if slapped.

"She was exhausted!" cried Don Carlos. "He 'll hurt her.
Fucker!
I'll kill him!"

A hush fell Upon the cavalcade, broken only by the breathing of our mules and the creak of saddles.

"What are you gaping at?" Don Carlos shouted at the crowd. "Have you never seen an old
pincho
fondle his wife?" He jabbed his spurs into his horse, making it scream before it plunged across the verdant plain.

The cavalcade slowly stirred to life. As the muleteers cracked their whips and men chirruped to their horses, the tired beasts strained forward with their burdens. Those of us remaining in the Queen's litter kept private company with our thoughts as our conveyance swayed into motion. The condesa sniffed her pomander; madame twisted her veil. As for me, I searched the empty plains, trying not to think of what the King would do once his son's treasonous words were whispered into his ear, and of Tiberio, rowing away his life Under a ship's flapping sail.

ITEM: The Spanish King Pedro the Cruel earned his title not only for quickly dispatching his enemies, but also for imprisoning his Queen, Dona Blanca, from their wedding night until the day of her death. Her crime? She did not please him.

18 JULY 1565

Valsain, the House in the Woods of Segovia

Thirty-eight hours after the King had ridden off with the Queen, she returned to her chambers, ravenous. I stood back in startled awe with the other attendants as My Lady, dressed in the clothes she 'd been wearing when I'd last seen her, fell Upon the platters of melon and meat and cheese like a man just released from Inquisitor-General Valdes's prison, with Cher-Ami yelping with joy. I wondered if she had eaten in the time during which she had disappeared with the King, but she offered no explanations of where they'd gone or what they'd done, and left no openings for one to ask. Without so much as a word about the previous day and a half, she cleaned the platters, downed a small jug of watered wine, then retired to a
siesta
from which she did not wake Until the following morning.

She kept her own counsel about what had transpired with the King as her ladies dressed her in the morning. She said so little as we readied her for Mass that I wondered if she was ill. Indeed, the rash at her throat was inflamed. But Upon retUrning from chapel, as we were following her through the arcade around the courtyard, she announced, "I should like to go on a walk in the woods."

"Are you sure?" said the condesa. "Would you rather not rest?"

"I would like to walk," the Queen said quietly.

The condesa frowned. "Very well. Inez," she said to her servant, "please get my black silk mask. There is enough sun, even in the woods, to mar my skin." She threw madame de Clermont a mournful glance, as if to say she was sorry the French lady would need no mask with all those veils. "And get the Queen's green mask," she added. "The green is good, is it not, My Lady?"

"Thank you, dona Maria," said the Queen, "but I think it best if only Sofi attends me. The King would like a new portrait done of me, and I want Sofi to do it. She needs quiet in which to consider how she might attempt it."

I let the leather-bound prayer book through which I'd been fitfully flipping drop on the cord around my waist. Although I had scribbled off hundreds of sketches during our trip to France, I had not put together studies for a portrait. Even if the King was interested, I had not yet been asked. But I could keep Up my end of the charade if needed.

The condesa smiled stiffly. "Who is to carry your train?"