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

achieved the impossible. He has an heir.”
    I looked up, bewildered. “Surely it’s cause for celebration.”
    She laughed. “Oh, yes, there’ll be celebration! They’ll celebrate my demise. Everything I fought for is lost; I have no crown, no court; your brother Alfonso will be disinherited. And they will come. They’ll take you and Alfonso away. They’ll leave me here alone to rot, forgotten by the world.”
    “Mama, that’s not true. This letter, it merely announces the child’s birth. It says nothing about us going anywhere. Come, you are overwrought. Let us seek solace together.”
    I slipped the letter into my pocket and moved to her prayer bench. It was a comfort she’d instilled in me as a child, a ritual we had come to cherish; every evening we said our prayers together.
    I was reaching for the mother-of-pearl box where she kept her rosary when I heard her say, “No, no more prayer. God does not listen to me anymore.”
    I went still. “That … that is blasphemy. God always listens.” But in that moment my words sounded devoid of conviction and it terrified me. I felt the weight of things I barely understood bearing down, creating a chasm between us; I almost gasped aloud when a tentative knockcame at the door. I found Elvira standing there with goblet in hand; she gave me a questioning look as I took it from her. When I turned around, my mother stood by her bed again, watching me. “Ah,” she said, “my oblivion has come.”
    “It’s a draft to help you sleep. Mama, you must rest now.” I moved to her; she did not resist. She drank the draft and lay down on the tangled sheets. She looked so old, her eyes far too large for her gaunt face, lines engraving her once-supple mouth. She was only thirty-three, a young woman still, and it was as if she’d dwelled in this lonely fortress for a thousand years.
    “Rest now,” I said. “I am here; I will not leave you. Rest and all will be well.”
    Her eyelids fluttered. I started to sing under my breath, a nursery rhyme that all children learn: “
Duerme, pequeña mía; duerme feliz. Los lobos aúllan fuera pero aquí me tienes a mí
. Sleep, little one, sleep contentedly. The wolves howl outside but inside I am here.”
    Her eyes closed. She twitched once as the spell dissipated. She murmured. I leaned close to hear her words.
    “I did it for you,” she said, “for you and Alfonso. I killed Luna to save you.”
    I sat motionless at her side, plunged back to that night so long ago when we fled Valladolid. I had never pondered the events that led to our exile but now I understood the terrible secret that tore apart my mother’s soul.
    I watched her sleep. I wanted to pray for her; she was wrong, she had to be. God heeded us always, especially in our darkest hours. But all I could do was wonder if there might come a time when I too would be driven to this, forced to commit the unthinkable and then be haunted by my actions for eternity.
    Beatriz was waiting outside. She stood as I emerged; my brother had joined her.
    “I heard Mama is not well,” he said. “Is it …?”
    I nodded. “It was bad. We must entertain her, stay close to her. She needs us now.”
    “Of course. Anything you say,” he said. But I knew he’d prefer to stay away, to go lose himself in his weaponry and riding. Alfonso hadnever understood why our mother acted as she did, why her fervent embraces and gaiety could suddenly turn violent as the winter storms that howled across the plains. I had always sensed his fear of her and had done everything I could to shelter him from her fits. As he kissed my cheek awkwardly and went back down the stairs, I met Beatriz’s gaze. The crumpled letter sat like stone in my pocket.
    They will come. They will take you and Alfonso away
.
    Though everything inside me wanted to deny it, I knew it could be true.
    We had to prepare.

CHAPTER THREE
     

     
    T he following days passed without incident, belying my tumult. I stashed the king’s