Juana:
Catalina had been waiting for weeks for Isabel’s return. She was certain that the moment our widowed sister stepped through the gates, our sister would be happy again. Over and over, she told me how Isabel would open her arms wide, how she would run into them and sit on her lap as she always had. Catalina spoke of nothing but Isabel’s laughter, her stories, her dancing, her love of sweetmeats and flowers, and how much she had missed her.
When Isabel finally arrived, she came riding side saddle on a humble donkey that clacked its hooves across the courtyard stones. The animal halted, but Isabel did not dismount at once. When she did, the breath caught in my throat.
She was veiled, her body swathed in black, moving slowly as though the very air weighed her down. Her hair was hidden. Her face was hidden. The joy was gone from her step.
The servants guided Isabel forward, their arms firm around her as if she might collapse. She did not look up. She did not greet us. She seemed smaller, thinner, her steps dragging. In her hands, she clutched a crucifix so tightly that Our Lord’s face must have imprinted itself into her skin.
Catalina cried out and tried to run to her, but I held her back. The picture she had carried in her head of Isabel laughing and of Isabel radiant, shattered in an instant. Isabel did not see us. She did not speak. She showed no joy at being home.
She passed beneath the archway, the veil trembling with her breath, and I saw only the shadow of my sister, hollowed by grief.
She wore the habit of a Poor Clare nun. And as I watched her move through the courtyard like a ghost, I thought, this is how sorrow must be lived.
oOo
Catalina:
We were herded into our parents’ bedchamber to greet Isabel. I clutched Juana’s hand, still half believing the picture in my mind of the Isabel I had always known, sensible and smiling and glad to be home.
But the figure before us was draped in black. Cloth hung from her shoulders, her veil heavy, she was dressed like a nun.
Isabel did not look at us. As she lay on our parents’ bed, her face turned to the wall, I saw that her lovely hair was gone. Her cheeks were hollow, and her bones were sharp beneath her skin.
I edged closer, desperate to speak. ‘Isabel,’ I whispered, my voice small.
She stirred only slightly, a hand twitching against the sheet. No words came.
The candle beside her flickered, throwing long shadows across her wasted body.
I stayed where I was, bewildered by all the tears for a prince none of us had ever met. The sister I remembered, the golden sister laughing and alive, was gone. In her place lay a new Isabel, silent, veiled, her sorrow filling the room as surely as smoke had filled our tent at Santa Fe.
I held out a single flower from the courtyard. It was bright, alive and fragile in my hand. Surely it would cheer her. She had always loved the smell of gardens, the soft brush of petals against her cheek.
I lifted the flower toward her. ‘Here,’ I whispered. ‘It is pretty. It will make you happy.’
She did not move. She turned her head further toward the wall, deeper into the dark.
The flower trembled in my hand. I thought of my grandmother, who everyone called mad, sitting alone in her shuttered chamber, refusing the sunlight. Isabel was the same now. She, too, was choosing darkness, choosing candlelight and choosing sorrow.
I placed the flower on the coverlet, close to her hand. ‘It is yours,’ I said, my voice breaking.
Isabel’s fingers did not even twitch. It was as if she, too, had died.
I stayed there, staring at the flower lying useless on the bed, knowing she would never reach out for me, never reach for happiness, and want only the dark.
I stood straighter, my fists tight at my sides.
I thought of my grandmother, choosing the dark. Isabel had chosen it too.
But I would not.
I would keep the colour, keep the sweetness of my life, even if no one else wanted it and even if no one wanted my love.
oOo
Juana:
I sat at the foot of the bed, our mother’s letter open in my hands. Isabel lay pale against the pillows, her eyes fixed on nothing. The book of Job rested beside her on Mother’s finest coverlet, open but unread. She had no strength for anything but weeping and lamenting her miserable fate.
‘Mother is returning from Santa Fe to comfort you,’ I whispered.
Isabel’s response was razor sharp. ‘Only because she wants me to marry again. She will be furious that the Portuguese alliance has failed. She will send me elsewhere the moment she can find a treaty that suits her.’
‘She loves you and wants the best for you, Isabel,’ Catalina said, and there was an edge in her voice that startled me.
‘What would you know, Catalina? You are but a child.’
‘At least I am not unkind like you are,’ Catalina shot back.
Silence fell, heavy and brittle. Then Isabel whispered, ‘What would you know about love? I will not marry again. No one can make me. I will enter a convent.’
Catalina perched on her stool, her feet swinging, restless. ‘Read it to me,’ she demanded, chin lifted. ‘I am the Princess of Wales. I must know what happens in England.’
I smoothed the parchment, lowering my voice so as not to disturb Isabel. ‘Mother writes of a youth in Ireland. Do you know where that is?’
Catalina nodded solemnly, so I continued. ‘He is calling himself Richard, Duke of York. They say he looks like King Edward, and Margaret of Burgundy has taken him in, claiming she recognises him. His name is Perkin Warbeck.’
Catalina’s eyes widened. ‘So, there is another person claiming to be one of the boys who died in the Bloody Tower and a new claimant to the Tudor throne?’ she whispered, hungry for intrigue and quick for her age.
I folded the letter carefully, my movements slow, as if gentleness might shield Isabel from the weight of her pain. ‘Yes. And that is why he is dangerous. Every enemy of England will swear he has a genuine claim.’
‘Does he?’
‘I think the Queen of England would know her own brother as easily as we would recognise Juan.’
‘Has she seen him?’
‘No. But if she did, she would know.’
Catalina nodded with all the gravity of a lady of our mother’s age, though her feet still swung absently above the floor.
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