Juana:
The shade beneath the lemon tree was cool, and Maria sat cross legged, fists clenched, watching Juan with a hawk like intensity. He was twelve now and fancied himself a man. Today, he was pretending to be the High Inquisitor.
Two page boys knelt before him, wrists bound with garden twine. Juan strutted before them, robes billowing, although it was only a velvet curtain stolen from the nursery, pinned together with Isabel’s sewing pins. He raised a stick like a sceptre and proclaimed their heresy with theatrical solemnity.
Catalina dozed in my lap, her breath warm against my arm, fingers curled into my bodice. Beside me, Isabel’s needle hovered mid stitch.
‘I wonder,’ she murmured, ‘if Alfonso and I will still like each other now we’re grown.’
I brushed a curl from Catalina’s brow. ‘You speak perfect Portuguese, and you were fond of each other as children. By the time you’re Queen of Portugal, you’ll know your place, what your duties are, and your husband. That’s more than most brides can say.’
Isabel smiled faintly. ‘I know. But I’d rather not spend my life with someone dull. He used to laugh at my jokes.’
‘He will,’ I said. ‘You’re more mature now, but still amusing. That’s rare.’
She laughed softly. ‘Rare, but not romantic.’
‘Do your nightmares still wake you in the night, Isabel?’
‘Sometimes,’ She said, ‘but the fear of childbirth is natural for a new bride. Don’t you think?’
A cry split the air. One of the page boys gasped, face drained of colour. Juan had looped the twine around his neck and was pulling, not in play, but with grim, frightening fury.
I lurched to my feet, jolting Catalina awake. She wailed. ‘Maria! Fetch Mother!’
Dropping to my knees, I prised Juan’s hands from the boy’s throat. He resisted, flushed with triumph. The boy collapsed, coughing, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Juan sneered. ‘He is a false converso. He deserves it.’
‘He is a child!’ I spat, clutching Catalina to my chest. ‘What are you doing, Juan? Have you run mad? The boy is a servant and in your household. It’s.’
Maria sprinted across the scorched lawn. Moments later, Queen Isabella swept in, skirts flying, rosary clutched in her hand. She entered like a thunderclap.
‘Juan! Stop this at once!’
He dropped the twine but stood tall. ‘I was only doing what they do in the real trials.’
‘My angel,’ she said, voice trembling, ‘you mustn’t hurt people. Sometimes you are such a child, and the next so adult.’
Rage surged through me. ‘Do you think making children watch burnings will make us kind mother? Children turn the horror they see into games to try to make sense of it. Don’t you know that?’
Her eyes snapped to mine. Before I could brace, her hand struck my cheek. The sound rang through the garden like a bell.
I staggered. Catalina woke suddenly and screamed in my arms. Isabel dropped her embroidery.
‘You teach us cruelty, Mother, and call it justice,’ I said, voice shaking. ‘And now you’re surprised when it takes root in your son?’
Isabel slipped away before the storm could break. Juan sulked beneath the lemon tree, proud and silent. Catalina’s sobs softened into hiccups against my shoulder. My cheek burned, but the fire in my chest was fiercer.
The page boy had been carried off, pale and trembling. Only the Queen stood rigid, fury barely contained, rosary clenched in her shaking hands.
‘You taught him this,’ I said, low but steady. ‘And now you’re shocked when he acts it out. I’m surprised you still have shackles enough for all the so called heretics you have burned.’
She stepped closer, voice trembling. ‘We must protect Christians from conversos who cling to their old ways. They light candles on the Sabbath, refuse pork, and bury their dead with straight arms. They mock our faith.’
I shifted Catalina to my hip. ‘You do know Jesus was a Jew, don’t you? He will not approve of you garrotting his people.’
She ignored me, pacing. ‘The Jews turn their beds to the wall before death. They bury their dead in Christian soil but follow Jewish rites. It is heresy. Defiance.’
‘Is that why you dig up the dead? To burn their bones? Do you hear how mad that sounds? People will think you are as insane as Grandmother.’
Her hand twitched but did not strike. ‘Your grandmother is not insane. Her stepson betrayed her. She withdrew from the world because she was wise. And the conversos, they are Judaizers. They spread their beliefs among good Christians.’
I shook my head. ‘Most noble families in Castile and Aragon have Jewish blood. Judges, priests and even notaries were once Jews. Perhaps some cling to old customs. But so do the uneducated masses. You must stop the radical priests who whip up hatred. Your people are turning on each other.’
She lifted her chin. The Church deals with heresy through inquisitions. It always has.’
I looked at her, my mother, my queen, and I felt the distance between us stretch like a chasm. Catalina stirred, and I held her tighter.
‘You were seen, Juana,’ she said. Spitting out the host. The body of Christ. In front of the priest, before God.’
I turned slowly. ‘Yes. I spat it out.’
She gasped. ‘You desecrated the sacrament. You insulted the Church.’
‘I refuse to lie,’ I said. ‘I do not believe in your God who demonises the Jews. My Jesus is different from yours.’
Her shoulders tensed. ‘Why do you defend God’s enemies?’
‘Because it’s the truth.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You speak as if you know better than the Church.’
‘I speak as someone who has seen greed cloaked in a cassock,’ I snapped. ‘You know how it is, a woman covets her neighbour’s silver, so she calls her neighbour a heretic, and then she can take all the silver and her neighbour's house too. Conversos denounce their own brothers and sisters because they are poor and desperate. They cry “Judaiser!” and watch the men of the Inquisition drag them away. That is your justice, Mother!’
She stepped forward, voice trembling. ‘They betray Christ. They cling to old rites. They mock our sacraments, and all the time they pretend to be one of us.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘They have to pretend to survive, and you have let poverty become a weapon. You let envy masquerade as piety. You let the Church burn the innocent because someone wanted a gold cup or their debts forgiven.’
Her hand twitched again.
‘You think you’re clever,’ she said. ‘You think you know everything, but you are just young and naive.’
‘I have seen enough,’ I said. ‘Enough to know fear and greed do more harm than any secret prayers.’
She turned away, swinging her rosary like a flail. ‘You will go to your rooms. You will stay there until you are ready to kneel, confess, and take communion.’
I laughed a long, bitter, and hollow laugh.
Her face darkened, ‘This is not a joke.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It is a tragedy. You torture your people in public squares and burn children at the stake. You arrest the richest Jews, seize their property, and call it holy. And now you want me to swallow a wafer and call it God. I won’t. I will not kneel. Not for fear. Not for show.’
She pointed toward my apartments, then turned and left without another word.
And I stood in the silence, knowing I had made an enemy of my own blood.
