Reign of Madness by Lynn Cullen

Author:Lynn Cullen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-06-22T05:00:00+00:00

The Royal Chapel smelled of cold marble. A chill emanated from the pale limestone floor, from the rough-hewn walls of granite, from the white alabaster tomb before us that bristled with dozens of masterfully carved saints and animals. How had the sculptor teased these beings out of stone? They were lifelike down to their individual expressions, to the very hairs upon their gleaming heads. Their magnificence was matched in the carved wooden altarpiece looming overhead. The saints and angels—and Mother, kneeling in the foreground—were drenched in brilliant gold.

“Juan the Second, King of Castile.” Philippe leaned against the intricately wrought gilded fence that surrounded my grandparents’ tombs. His voice echoed from the vaulted ceiling. “Was he a good king?”

“He was my mother’s father.”

“But was he good?”

I gazed at the robed figure reclining on the sarcophagus of whitest alabaster. His crowned head rested on a stone pillow; a stone dog slept at his feet. Beneath him, a lion roared, a wafer-thin alabaster curl of tongue lolling between its teeth. “He had a favorite whom he let rule while he played at his jousts and hunts and tourneys. Álvaro de Luna. He ran Castile for my grandfather.”

“That’s unwise.”

“Most unwise. Atrocities happened right under Grandfather’s nose, but he could not see this. If people complained to Grandfather, Luna had them killed. He poisoned Grandfather’s first wife when she tried to sound the alarm, and still Grandfather did not see. He was too busy . . . hunting.”

Philippe ran his hand along the fence rail, then inspected his finger to see if any gold had come off.

“Grandfather trusted him completely,” I said. “Luna was like a father to him. Grandfather’s own father had died when he was a toddling child, and Luna became his tutor.” I glanced at my husband. Did he not see the resemblance to his relationship with the Archbishop of Besançon?

He looked up. “Go on.”

“Luna was a hated name around our home, for making my grandfather look foolish, but even more so for what he did to her.” I nodded to the marble figure lying next to my grandfather.

“Isabel of Portugal,” he said. “The mad one.”

“Who told you that?”

“Everyone.” He shrugged. “Grand-mère. François. It’s no secret that your grandmother was zielsziek.”

“But she wasn’t, unless it was madness to challenge a monster like Luna. When she tried to tell Grandfather that Luna had murdered the first queen with poison, and that Luna threatened to poison her, too, if she tried to expose him, Grandfather wouldn’t listen. He couldn’t imagine Luna as anyone but the kindly father figure who had bounced him on his knee.”

“So did this Luna kill her?”

“You don’t have to kill to do damage. He gave her just enough poison each day to sicken her. When Abuela was ill from the poison, he spread rumors that she’d gone mad, and she was too sick to refute him.”

“But she got well?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did she not simply tell people what he did?”

“She did. But it was too late. Her reputation for madness was sealed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.