murderous act had yet to be cleaned away.
Our arrival in the throne room only increased my resentment. The windows that looked out upon the harbour had been broken, leaving jagged shards; empty wine bottles had been smashed in every corner. Peasant women were frantically sweeping up the glass with brooms.
‘His Majesty, King Ferrandino,’ the captain announced. The women stopped their work, so overwhelmed to see the King with his courtiers that one crossed herself instead of genuflecting. Another maidservant knelt on the top step leading to the throne, and was scrubbing the bare seat vigorously with a rag; she turned from the waist and bowed as best she could. The great chair itself had been hacked at; deep nicks in the arms and legs marred the pattern carved in the wood.
The throne cushion lay to one side on the floor; it had been slashed and stained with a dark liquid I thought at first was blood. I moved over to it, peered down, and recoiled at the smell of urine.
‘Your Majesty, Your Highnesses!’ the maidservant cried. ‘Forgive me. There were so many things to clean-the French committed unspeakable acts, everywhere in the palace, before they fled. They even befouled the throne.’
‘The only way the French could befoul our throne,’ I countered swiftly, ‘would be to set King Charles’ twisted little arse upon it.’
At this, everyone in our company laughed, though there was little humour in the sound.
The doors to the King’s office lay open; inside, Ferrante’s great desk had been chopped into a pile of kindling, the unused remainder stacked beside the fireplace. A few rustic chairs, confiscated from a commoner’s house, replaced the finer pieces which had once graced the chamber. The seneschal stood waiting.
‘I apologize for the conditions, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘It will take some time for us to import proper furniture.’
‘It matters not,’ Ferrandino replied, and went inside for his meeting.
The rest of us returned to our old chambers to oversee the unpacking of our belongings. I had not expected any of my furnishings to remain, but I had not expected to see Donna Esmeralda-who had sailed upon the same ship with us, but ridden in a different carriage with the other attendants-sitting on the floor in my bedchamber, her skirts swirled about her, a look of hatred on her face.
‘Your bed,’ she said, seething. ‘Your fine bed. The bastards set it afire; there is smoke all over the ceiling.’
I was taken aback; I had never heard her use such language. But her husband had been killed fighting the Angevins-men of French descent, and probably no different in her eyes from those who had marched with Charles.
‘It matters not,’ I echoed Ferrandino. ‘It matters not, because the bastards are gone, and we are here.’
And in Naples I remained. The first few months were difficult. Food was scarce and given the expense of rebuilding, the seneschal would not permit us to import wine or rations; we depended greatly on the few local huntsmen and fishermen who had survived the war. We drank water, and made do without our customary retinue of servants; often, I helped Donna Esmeralda, now my only attendant, perform menial tasks.
Yet each day brought improvement, and we were filled with optimism, especially since Ferrandino had the support of his people.
Then, in a chance moment of frustration, Jofre, tired of all the deprivation, said that we would be better off in Squillace. I at once requested an audience with Ferrandino, and quickly received permission to see him.
By that time, he had a desk-though not as grand a one as its predecessor-and a proper chair. He was in an expansive mood; now that the kingdom had stabilized, and sporadic fighting ceased, he had set the date for an official coronation ceremony and his wedding to Giovanna. He sat and listened as I said:
‘You once told me my presence brought you good luck. Do you believe that?’
He smiled, and with a hint of teasing in his voice, replied, ‘I do.’
‘Then let me and my husband remain in Naples. Make it an official decree, that I should not have to return to Squillace unless emergency requires it.’
His gaze became serious. ‘I told you once, Donna Sancha, that you could request anything of me and you would have it. This is a small favour to ask, and one that I will grant without hesitation.’
‘Thank you.’ I kissed his hand. I believed then that I had finally undone my father’s heartless trick, and that I was at last safely home to stay.
My husband was displeased by the promise I exacted from Ferrandino, but lacked the courage to protest. Autumn came-and with it, according to Jofre, a papal brief ordering the doomsayer Savonarola to cease preaching, a writ the wild-eyed preacher ignored. Winter followed. By Christmas, the Castel Nuovo had begun to resemble its former self. We did our best to aid the poor and the starving, made so by Charles’ destruction of that year’s harvest; as for us royalty, we enjoyed our first decent feast to celebrate the Nativity.
By then, Donna Esmeralda and I were sleeping on an actual bed, and the windows in the palace had been repaired or covered with heavy cloth to keep out the chill air. Drowsy after our Christmas feast, I had gone to lie down when Esmeralda called to me from the outer chamber.
‘Donna Sancha! Madonna Trusia is here!’
‘What?’ I sat up, fogged by sleep. For a moment, the announcement seemed very natural; it was Christmas, and my mother had come to visit her children, just as she did every holiday. I had forgotten that she had gone to Sicily; I had even forgotten about the uprising, and the French.
‘
In the instant before I laid eyes upon my mother, I hoped that she had come to her senses, had accepted my offer to come and live in Naples. My heart ached to think of her, cut off from the world, trapped with a man who might have loved her in his tortured way, but had never known how to demonstrate that love properly; now that he had gone mad, he could not even acknowledge her presence.
One glance at Madonna Trusia drew from me a horrified gasp. I expected a smiling, radiant beauty; instead, standing just inside the doorway next to Donna Esmeralda was a stricken old woman dressed in black. Even her golden hair was veiled, like the sun blotted out by storm clouds. She was frail, thin, with an ashen pallor and grey shadows beneath her eyes. It was as though all my father’s misery and pain had been transferred to her, sapping the joy and comeliness that had been hers.
My mother sagged into the nearest chair and spoke to Esmeralda without looking at either of us. ‘Fetch my son.’
Beyond that, she said no more; she did not need to, for I knew at once what had happened. I pulled a chair close to hers, and took her hand; she bowed her head, unwilling to meet my gaze. We sat in silence, waiting. I felt a constricting ache at the base of my throat, but did not permit myself to cry.
After a time, Alfonso appeared. He, too, took a single glance at our mother and knew at once what had transpired. ‘He is dead?’ he whispered.
Trusia nodded. My brother knelt before her and hugged her skirts, his head in her lap. She stroked his hair; I looked on, an outsider, for my greatest sorrow was not my father’s death, but the suffering it provoked in the two I loved most.
At last Alfonso raised his head. ‘Was he ill?’
My mother put a hand to her mouth and shook her head; for a long moment, she could not speak. When she at last had a measure of control, she lowered her hand, and in a tone that seemed rehearsed, began to tell the tale.
‘It was three weeks ago…He had seemed to come to himself previously, to realize what had occurred-but then he stopped sleeping altogether, and the madness returned worse than ever. He was angry, restless, often pacing and shouting, even when he was alone in his favourite chamber. You remember the room-the one with the great chair, and the sconce above it.
‘That night,’ she continued, with increasing difficulty, ‘I was awakened by a great groaning, scraping sound coming from Alfonso’s chamber. I feared he might have hurt himself, so I hurried to see him at once…I took a taper since he always sat in darkness.
‘I found him pushing his chair across the room, and when I asked him why he was doing so, he answered irritably, “I have grown weary of the view.” What else could I do?’ She paused, filled with sudden remorse. ‘The
