“She’s plump and pretty … and she’s your bride. What is your name, boy? What did you say?”
“I am Philip …”
“Philip. Philip.” She peered about the room. “He will not come out today. It is because you are here. He is hiding behind the curtains. It is a pity. I should have liked you to see him. Philip … Philip the Handsome … the prettiest man in Zeeland … or Flanders … or Spain … wherever we were. I did not tell him that. There were too many to tell him. Child … child … come here, child.”
Maria Manoela hung back, but Philip pushed her gently forward and Juana took her by the wrist. Suddenly Maria Manoela felt her chin grasped by the bony hand.
“Plump and pretty. As he liked them … But dark. He liked them fair. You are looking for him … you sly creature. Yes you are. Take her away. I’ll not have women here. Can you see him? He comes in and laughs at me. They have tried to take him from me. He was in his coffin, but I kept him with me … and when it was night and all had left me I would look into the coffin and he would talk to me … laugh at me … boast about his women. He is so beautiful. I wanted to die when he was with the others … and when he came back I forgave him all … I was mad for him … sane for him … And you … you with your plump, pretty face have come to look for him …” The mad eyes were wild with sudden fury. Philip put an arm about Maria Manoela and drew her away. She caught her breath in a sobbing gasp and hastily she crossed herself.
“Nay, nay,” said Philip in his calm, clear voice. “Maria Manoela is my bride. Your husband is dead, dear Grandmother. It is many years since he died, and now we come to ask your blessing on our union.”
Juana lay back in her chair and the tears began to run down her cheeks. “Is it true, then? Is he dead? Is there no longer life in his beautiful body?”
“Grandmother, it is true. He is dead.”
The mirthless laughter rang out. “Come here. Come closer … both of you. He is dead, they say. That is what they say. But I will tell you a secret. He is here now … here in this room. He is laughing at us … He is kissing the fat Flemish women in the tapestry. One day I set it on fire. That’ll spoil his game, I said. And it did.” She glared at Maria Manoela. “Who is this girl?”
“My wife, Grandmother. Your granddaughter, Maria Manoela. Your daughter’s daughter.”
“My daughter’s daughter. What daughter was that?”
“Your daughter Katharine, Grandmother, she who married into Portugal.”
“Katharine … Katharine … sweet little Katharine …” Juana began to weep again. “They took her from me. I kept her here … in this palace close to me. She was so pretty … but they said I dressed her in dirty rags and I never let her go abroad. I dared not. I was afraid they would take her from me. Sweet little Katharine. I had a window made for her so that she could look from it … and I had children come and play that she might watch them … But I would not let her leave me … Did your mother speak of me, my child?”
“Y-yes, Grandmother,” stammered Maria Manoela. “She spoke of you.”
“Did she tell you how they came and took her from me? … It was my son Charles … my son, the Emperor … who is but a Prince and only rules because I am shut away. While I live I am the Queen … I am the true ruler of Spain.”
Philip said sternly: “Grandmother, you were speaking of your daughter Katharine.”
“My daughter Katharine … my sweet sweet Katharine. Charles my son had men come by night. They cut a hole in the wall of her chamber … at dead of night they came … and they took her away from me … my Katharine … my sweet little daughter.” Her tears ceased abruptly and she began to laugh. “But they brought her back. They had to.” She was sad again. “But I had lost my Katharine … They would not let me keep her to myself … There were tutors for her … She must be brought up like an Infanta, they said, not like the child of a mad woman … Mad … Sane … I was mad then. Thus it has always been. Mad … Sane … And which is it today?”
“Grandmother, I implore you, give us your blessing,” pleaded Philip.
“Come close to me that I may see you. Is he good to you, this husband, eh?”
“He … is good to me.”
“But you are newly wed. Wait … wait. Wait till he deceives you. Once I thought I was the happiest woman in the world. It was on that first night. He was lusty and golden-haired. He was a Hapsburg. He said: ‘Do not be afraid, my sweet Juana. You will not regret that they have married you to me.’ I did not know then that he would be making love to other women … the next night … the next day … any hour of the day … any hour of the night.”
“Grandmother!” said Philip coldly; but his coldness could not touch her; she was back in a past which was more real to her than this dirty room with its candles and black hangings. Instead of the young bride and groom, she saw another pair—herself and another Philip. She lived in that moment the agonies of jealousy from which she had never allowed herself to escape. She saw that Flemish woman with the big breasts and thighs—the woman to whom he had been faithful for two whole weeks, which was surely a record for him. What had she, that woman? How was she different from others? How had she kept fickle Philip faithful for two whole weeks? Her strength, like Samson’s, was in her beautiful hair. Never was there such hair—not before, not since. It was like gold in the sunshine and it rippled about her feet.
Juana began to laugh suddenly. She saw it so clearly: The woman standing before her, her hands bound behind her back. Juana mouthed the words: “Bring the barber in.” She shrieked with helpless laughter for she was seeing the woman standing blankly horrified while her beautiful hair fell about the floor. Then she had her stripped and put in a cupboard, and she had been helpless with laughter when Philip came in.
She began to shout: “There is your beauty. Do you not long for her? Can you wait, then? Do not take any notice of me. When did you ever? She is there … waiting for you as she has waited countless times before. Shameless hussy! Naked she has been, often enough for you … but to be thus before the Queen …”
Juana covered her face with her hands and rocked back and forth with her laughter.
“I beg of you …” began the real Philip.
She was recalled to the present. She said: “And when he saw who she was, he turned on me and he struck me across the mouth. I fell back … but then I flew at him. I scratched him and bit him. But I was happy, my children, because I loved him so much that I hated him … and I hated him so much that it was the second best pleasure in the world to fight with him.”
