Katharine, the Virgin Widow Page 17

  Juana turned to look at him, and that soft, yearning look which sometimes amused, sometimes sickened him, came into her eyes.

  How beautiful he is! she thought. The wind had brought a richer color to his cheeks, which were always rosy; his long golden hair fell to his shoulders; his features were like those of a Greek god; his blue eyes sparkled with health and the joy of living. He was not tall, nor was he short; he was slim and he moved with grace. The title of Philip the Handsome, by which he was known, had not been given out of idle flattery.

  “The wind is rising,” she said, but her expression said something else, as it always did when he was near her. It implored him to stay with her every hour of the day and night, it betrayed the fact that she was only happy when he was with her.

  Philip turned to her suddenly and gripped her wrist. She felt the pain of this, but he was often cruel to her and she welcomed his cruelty. She was happier when he laid his hands on her—no matter how brutally—than when he reserved his affection or anger for others.

  “I anticipate trouble with that sly old fox, your father.”

  She winced. She was, after all, Isabella’s daughter, and Isabella had taught her children the importance of filial duty. Even in wild Juana, besotted as she was by her desire for this cruelly wayward husband, the influence of the great Isabella still persisted.

  “I doubt not that he will be pleased to see us,” she began.

  “Pleased? I’ll tell you what, my dear wife: He’s hoping we shall perish at sea. He’s hoping that he can take our son Charles under his guidance and rule Castile and Aragon as the boy’s Regent. That’s what Ferdinand hopes. And we are in his way.”

  “It cannot be so. He is my father. He loves me.”

  Philip laughed. “That’s your foolish woman’s reasoning. Your father never loved anything but crowns and ducats.”

  “Philip, when we are in Castile, don’t put me away. Let me stay with you.”

  He put that handsome head on one side and smiled at her sardonically. “That depends on you, my dear. We cannot show a madwoman to the people of Castile.”

  “Philip, I am not mad.… I am not mad…not when you’re kind to me. If you would only be affectionate to me. If there were no other women…”

  “Ah,” Philip mocked. “You ask too much.” Then he began to laugh and laid an arm about her shoulder. Immediately she clung to him, her feverish fingers tearing at his doublet: He looked at her with distaste and, turning from her to stare at the heaving water, he said: “This time, you will obey me. There shall be nothing like that Conchillos affair again, eh?”

  Juana began to tremble.

  “You have forgotten that little matter?” went on Philip. “You have forgotten that, when your father sought to become Regent of Castile, you were persuaded by that traitor, Conchillos, to sign a letter approving of your father’s acts?”

  “I did it because you were never with me. You did not care what became of me. You spent all your time with that big Flemish woman…”

  “So you turned traitor out of jealousy, eh? You said to yourself, I will serve my father, and if that means I am the enemy of my husband, what do I care?”

  “But I did care, Philip. If you had asked me I would never have signed it. I would have done everything you asked of me.”

  “Yet you knew that by signing that letter you went against my wishes. You set yourself on the side of your father against me. You thought you would take a little revenge because I preferred another woman to you. Look at yourself sometimes, my Queen. Think of yourself, and then ask yourself why I should prefer to spend my nights with someone else.”

  “You are cruel, Philip. You are too cruel.…”

  He gripped her arm, and again she bore the pain. She thought fleetingly: it will be bruised tomorrow. And she would kiss those bruises because they were the marks made by his fingers. Let him be cruel, but never let him leave her.

  “I ask you to remember what happened,” said Philip quietly. “Conchillos was put into a dungeon. What became of him there I do not know. But it was just reward, was it not, my cherished one, for a man who would come between a husband and his wife. As for my little Queen, my perfidious Juana, you know what happened to her. I had her put away. I said: My poor wife is suffering from delusions. She has inherited her madness from her mad grandmother, the old lady of Arevalo. It grieves me that I must shut her away from the world for a while. Remember. You are free again. You may be a sane woman for a while. You may go to Castile and claim your crown. But take care that you do not find yourself once more shut away from the world.”

  “You use me most brutally, Philip.”

  “Remember it,” he murmured, “and be warned by it.”

  He turned then and left her, and she looked after him longingly. With what grace he walked! He was like a god come to Earth from some pagan heaven. She wished she could control her desire for him; but she could not; it swamped all her emotions, all her sense. She was ready to jettison pride, dignity, decency—everything that her mother had taught her was the heritage of a Princess of Spain—all these she would cast aside for a brief ecstatic hour of Philip’s undivided attention.

  * * *

  THERE WAS DISASTER ABOARD. A few hours before, when they had sailed into the English Channel, there had been a strange calm on the sea and in the sky which had lasted almost an hour; then suddenly the wind rose, the sky darkened and the storm broke.

  Juana left her cabin; the wind pulled at her gown and tore her hair from the headdress. She laughed; she was not afraid. There was no one on board who feared death less than she did.

  “We shall die together,” she shouted. “He cannot leave me now. I shall be by his side; I shall wrap my arms about him and we shall go to meet Death together…together at last.”

  Two of her women came to her; they believed that a fit of madness was about to take possession of her. It seemed understandable. Everyone on board ship was terrified and fearful that they would never reach Castile.

  “Highness,” they said, “you should be at your prayers.”

  She turned to them, her eyes wide and wild. “I have prayed so much,” she said quietly, “and my prayers have rarely been answered. I prayed for love. It was denied me. So why should I pray for life?”

  The women exchanged glances. There is no doubt, said those looks, the madness is near.

  One of them whispered: “Your mother would wish you to pray if she were here.”

  Juana was silent and they knew that she was thinking of Queen Isabella.

  “I must do what she would wish,” she murmured as though to herself. Then she shouted: “Come, help me dress. Find my richest gown and put it on me. Then bring me a purse of gold pieces.”

  “Your richest dress, Highness,” stammered one of the women.

  “That is what I said. My richest dress and gold which shall be strapped to my body. When I am washed up on some distant shore I would not have them say: ‘Here is a woman done to death by the sea’ but ‘Here is a Queen!’ That is what my mother would wish. I will write a note to say that the money is for my burial…a Queen’s burial. Come, why do you stand there? There may be little time left. We can scarcely hear ourselves speak now. We can scarcely keep upright. My dress…the purse…”

  She was laughing wildly as they went to obey her.

  * * *

  IN HER CEREMONIAL GOWN, her purse strapped firmly to her waist, Juana stumbled to her husband’s cabin. She scarcely recognized Philip the Handsome in the pale-faced man who shouted orders in a high voice cracked with fear, while his attendants helped him into an inflated leather jacket. Where was the swaggering heir of Maximilian now? The fair hair was in disorder, there were smudges of fatigue under the blue eyes, and the beautiful mouth was petulant and afraid.

  “Come,” screamed Philip. “Is this thing safe? Fasten it. Do you think we have hours to waste. At any minute…”

  Even as he spoke there was a sudden cry of “Fire!” and an ominous flickering light ra
pidly lightened the darkness.

  Juana, standing serene now in her rich garments, said in a voice much calmer than usual: “The ship is on fire.”

  “On fire!” shouted Philip. “Put out the fire. Put out the fire. What will become of us!”

  Don Juan Manuel, who was accompanying the royal party to Spain, said quietly: “All that can be done is being done, Highness.”

  “Where are the rest of the ships? Are they standing by?”

  “Highness, we have lost the rest of the ships. The storm has scattered them.”

  “Then what is to be done? We are doomed.”

  No one answered, and then Philip turned and looked into the face of his wife who stood beside him. They seemed in that moment to take measure of each other. She in her rich gown with the purse tied to her waist was calmly awaiting death. Philip, in his inflated leather garment which his attendants swore would keep him afloat in a rough sea, was afraid.

  She laughed in his face. “We are together now, Philip,” she cried. “You cannot leave me now.”

  Then she flung herself at his feet and embraced his knees. “I will cling to you,” she went on. “I will cling so closely that Death will not be able to separate us.”

  Philip did not answer; he remained still, looking down at her; and it seemed to some who watched them that he found comfort in her arms which were about him.

  She became tender and astonishingly calm, as though she realized that his fear made it necessary for her to be the strong one now.

  “Why, Philip,” she said, “whoever heard of a King’s being drowned? There was never a King who was drowned.”

  Philip closed his eyes as though he could not bear to contemplate the signs of impending disaster. His hand touched the leather garment on which the words “The King, Don Philip” had been painted in huge letters. He who had been so vital had never thought of death. He was not yet thirty years of age, and life had given him so much. It was only Juana whose mind often led her into strange paths, only Juana, who had suffered deeply, who could look death in the face with a smile which was not without welcome.

  He heard her voice shouting amid the tumult: “I am hungry. Is it not time we ate? Bring me a box with something to eat.”

  One of the men went off to do her bidding while she remained smiling, her arms about her trembling husband’s knees.

  * * *

  THE FIRE WAS NOW under control, thanks to the almost superhuman efforts of the crew. The ship was listing badly, and with the coming of day it was seen that land was close at hand.

  Philip cried out in relief, shouting that they must make for dry land with all speed.

  Don Juan Manuel was at his side. “This is England,” he said. “If we land, we put ourselves in the hands of the Tudor.”

  “What else could we do?” demanded Philip. “Is the Tudor more to be feared than a grave in the ocean bed?”

  Don Juan admitted that until their ship was repaired they would have little hope of reaching Spain.

  Philip spread his hands. The sight of land had restored his good spirits, because in his youthful arrogance he believed himself capable of handling the Tudor King; and it was only death that terrified him.

  “We’ll make for the shore with all speed,” he said.

  So at last into the shallow harbor of Melcombe Regis came the battered ship carrying Juana and Philip. The people all along the coast as far as Falmouth had seen that a fleet of ships was in distress, and they were unsure as to whether these ships belonged to friends or enemies.

  They gathered on the beaches, brandishing bows and arrows and their farming implements; and when Philip and Juana came into Melcombe Regis harbor they found a crowd of uncertain English men and women waiting for them.

  The ship’s company had gathered on the deck, and for some moments the people ashore believed that the strangers had come to attack them, for their pleas for help were unintelligible.

  Then a young man, obviously of the gentry, pushed himself to the front of the crowd on the quay and shouted to the people on deck in French: “Who are you? And why do you come here?”

  The answer came: “We are carrying The Archduke and Duchess of Austria, King and Queen of Castile, who were on their way to Spain and have been wrecked on your shores.”

  That was enough. A stout, red-faced man came to stand beside the young man who had spoken in French.

  “Tell them,” he said, “that they must accept my hospitality. Let them come ashore and rest awhile in my house while I inform the King’s Grace of their arrival.”

  Thus Philip and Juana landed in England, and while they were given a sample of lavish English hospitality in the manor house of Sir John Trenchard in Melcombe Regis, close by Weymouth, couriers rode to Court to inform the King of the arrival of the royal pair.

  * * *

  HOW PLEASANT IT WAS to be on dry land, and how generous was the hospitality bestowed upon the party by Sir John Trenchard and his household.

  Juana and Philip were introduced to the comforts of an English manor house. Fires roared in enormous open fireplaces; great joints of meat turned on the kitchen spits and from the kitchens came the smell of baking.

  Philip was happy to relax, and so delighted to be on terra firma that, for a few days, he was kind to Juana, who was accordingly filled with bliss.

  News came that other ships of their fleet had found refuge along the coast as far west as Falmouth. Some were not damaged beyond repair and could in a short time put to sea again.

  This was comforting news, for when the storm had abated the weather was mild and the seas so calm that Don Juan Manuel was eager to continue with the journey.

  Sir John Trenchard was bluffly indignant when this was suggested.

  Nay, he declared. He’d not allow it. He would not be denied the honor of offering a little more entertainment to his distinguished guests. Why, his King would never forgive him if he let them go. It would seem churlish.

  Don Juan Manuel understood.

  “He is waiting for instructions from Henry,” he told Philip. “I doubt that the King of England will allow you to go until there has been a meeting.”

  “I see no reason why there should not be a meeting,” retorted Philip. “Although if I wished to go, nothing would deter me.”

  “The King of England might. Who knows, there might be an army approaching now to detain you.”

  “Why should he do that?”

  “Because you are in his country, and here he is all-powerful. It would be easier if you stayed here awhile as a guest rather than as a prisoner.”

  “I should like to see my sister Catalina,” said Juana. “How strange that a little while ago she wanted to arrange a meeting. Now the storm may have done that for us.”

  Philip studied his wife. She was in one of her sane periods at this time. The ordeal at sea had calmed her while it had distressed others. None would guess now that the seed of madness lurked in her.

  “Then,” said Philip, “we must perforce enjoy English hospitality a little longer. And I have no fears of a meeting with the King of England. Indeed there is much I would like to discuss with him.”

  Juan Manuel lowered his eyes. There were times when he was afraid of and for his reckless master.

  Philip was aware of Juan Manuel’s apprehension, and it amused him. He was going to make all his servants understand that he and he alone would make decisions as to policy. Seeing Juana quite normal now, Queen of Castile, Philip made up his mind that when he met Henry he would do so in his own right. He would meet him as the Archduke Philip, heir to Maximilian, not as the consort of the Queen of Castile, although of course it was Castile he wished to discuss with Henry. He was going to attempt to win Henry’s support against Ferdinand; and as Juana, in her sudden return to sanity, might remember that Ferdinand was her father, it would be well for him to go on ahead of Juana to meet the King of England.

  * * *

  NEWS FROM HENRY CAME quickly to Melcombe Regis. He would not allow his gues
ts to leave England until they had talked together. He was delighted to have such august visitors, and he was sending an escort to bring them to Windsor, where he and the Prince of Wales would be waiting to receive them.

  Philip was delighted when he saw the magnificence of the cavalcade which had been sent to take him to Windsor, but Don Juan Manuel and his more sober advisers were apprehensive, They knew that it was useless to caution their headstrong master. To do so might make him more reckless than ever.

  Juana came to her husband as he stood by a window looking out on the brilliantly caparisoned horses which were waiting below.

  “And they say,” cried Philip, “that Henry is a mean man.”

  “He has certainly treated my sister with great meanness,” replied Juana.

  Philip looked pleased. The King of England was mean to the daughter of Ferdinand but eager to shower honors on the son of Maximilian.

  Then he remembered that part of this show was for another of Ferdinand’s daughters, and that this was his wife, the Queen of Castile.

  “I look forward to the journey,” went on Juana. “It will be pleasant to see this country which is now Catalina’s. And what joy to see her at the end of the journey! My poor Catalina, her letters were often sad.”

  “Juana,” said Philip, “I am most solicitous for your comfort.”

  A smile of happiness touched her lips and she gazed at him ardently. “Oh Philip,” she murmured, “you need have no fear for me. I only have to be with you to be happy.”

  He gently unlaced her clinging fingers which were on his arm.

  “I must travel with all speed to Windsor,” he said. “You shall follow at a slower pace.”

  “You mean…you will go without me!” Her voice was shrill.