The Queen's Vow: A Novel of Isabella of Castile Read Online Free Page B

queen of Castile and her royal children.
    Still, it was my home, the only one I remembered. A jolt went through me when I abruptly recalled that fleeting vision I’d had on the ridge, of velvet-clad figures in a hall. It seemed I had not forgotten that distant court where my family once lived….
    I wished I could go to the chapel to be alone for a while, to think. Though chill and austere, the castle chapel always brought me solace when I faced difficulty; the mere act of going to my knees and clasping my hands gave me consolation and focus, even if I failed to quiet my mind enough to actually pray.
    “You must go to her,” Doña Clara said to me. With an inward sigh, I nodded, crossing the hall to the staircase leading to the second floor with Beatriz at my side. At the landing, we came upon my mother’s head matron, Doña Elvira, seated on a stool. She stood quickly.
    “Oh, Isabella, my child!” She pressed a brown-spotted hand to her mouth, choking back ready tears. Poor Doña Elvira was always close to tears; I’d never met any woman who wept as copiously or as often as she did.
    I touched her thin shoulder in reassurance. She was a devoted servant who’d come from Portugal with my mother and stayed by her side throughout all our trials. She had a nervous constitution; she couldn’t help the fact that she didn’t know how to contend with my mother’s spells. In truth, no one in the castle did, except me.
    “You mustn’t worry,” I said softly.
    Elvira wiped tears from her wrinkled cheeks. “When that letter arrived—Blessed Virgin, you should have seen her. She went wild, screaming and railing. Oh, it was terrible to see! And then she—she slammed that door and refused to let anyone near, not even me. I begged her to drink the draft, to rest and calm herself until you came home, but she ordered me out. She told me no one save God could help her now.”
    “I’ll take care of her,” I said. “Go, prepare another draft. Only give me some time first, before you bring it in.” I gave her another reassuring smile and watched her shuffle away before I turned to the bedchamber door. I didn’t want to go in. I wanted to run away.
    “I’ll wait here,” Beatriz said, “in case you have need of me.”
    I drew a calming breath and reached for the latch. The inner lock had been dismantled some time ago, after my mother had bolted herself inside during one of her spells. She had remained sequestered for over two days. Finally, Don Chacón had been forced to break the door in.
    I saw the evidence of her outburst the moment I stepped into theroom. Strewn across the floor were broken vials, papers, overturned objects from flung coffers. I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the gloom before I took a resolute step forward. My foot hit something; it clattered as it rolled away, glinting dully, leaving a wet residue.
    The goblet of Doña Elvira’s draft.
    “Mama?” I said. “Mama, it’s me, Isabella.”
    The vague smell of mold—constant in the old castle because of the river that ran beneath it—reached me. In the darkness, familiar objects began to materialize. I discerned her sagging tester bed, the brocade curtains grazing the rushes on the floor; her loom, her spindle of yarn on a distaff in front of the shuttered window, the unlit brazier, and in the alcove, her upholstered throne, a forlorn relic under its cloth of estate bearing the impaled arms of Castile and her native Portugal.
    “Mama?” My voice quivered. I clenched my fists at my side. There was nothing to be afraid of, I told myself. I had done this before. I alone had brought my mother back from the precipice time and time again. Of everyone in this household, only I had the ability to soothe her, to instill reason when her spells overcame her. Not once had she harmed me.
    I heard rustling fabric. Peering at the shadows by the bed, I discerned her figure. I had a terrible recollection of the night my father died, when I thought I’d seen the