History's Great Queens 2-Book Bundle: The Last Queen and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner

went on, too quickly, as if she sought to purge herself of a terrible burden. “She could no longer live in this world. I was only a child when she began having her first spells. Later, after I was queen, it became painfully clear she would never get well again. This was all I could do. This was the only place where she could be kept safe.”
    “Safe?” I echoed.
    Quick anger flushed her tone. “Don’t look at me like that. I assure you, no harm came to her. She had the services of her women and her custodians, a host of doctors, the entire castle to walk in, everything she could possibly want.”
    “Not everything. She was a queen once.” I paused. “Wasn’t she?”
    My mother’s eyes bore at me. I could almost smell her fear, her guilt. “I brought you to say goodbye, not to question. I told you, she was not harmed. Only once I’d been assured that her illness was beyond the remedy of any cure did I find myself forced to impose further restrictions. She…she could not be allowed out. She was not fit.”
    I clenched my fists at my sides. “Why did you bring me here? Why now?”
    Her words came at me like vengeance. “So that you can see that I too have had to make sacrifices; that sometimes even a queen must act against her heart if she is to survive. I had no choice. I did it for Spain and for our blood. Think of what might have happened if the world had found out? I couldn’t risk it. We had been through too much. My duty first was to protect Castile, above all else. Castile had to come first.”
    My throat closed on itself. She had done this. Isabel the queen had imposed this seclusion on Arévalo. It was simple, terrifyingly so. Her mother, the dowager, had become a hindrance. For the good of Spain, she had to be consigned to darkness, hidden away so no one would know that madness tainted our blood. What else was she capable of, this iron-hearted queen? What would she not do, not sacrifice, to safeguard her kingdom?
    I bowed my head, unable to endure the terrible secret in my mother’s eyes. “You should not have done it,” I said. “She is our family, our flesh and blood. She belonged with us.”
    My mother gave a choked sound, almost a cry. “You dare judge me? You do not know, you cannot know, the responsibility I faced, the enormous duty I had to shoulder on my own.”
    “Oh, but I do know, Mamá,” I said quietly. “How could I ever forget?”
    And I turned and walked from the room.

FIVE

    I faced the windswept cauldron of Laredo Bay two months later. Sailors and deckhands rushed about on the galleon; the air throbbed with their cries, the rumble of coffers dragged to flatboats, and coarse voices lifted in command.
    Behind me, my sisters and brother clustered together against the wind, regarding me in awe. I was the first of us to undertake such a trip, and at my mother’s gesture, I turned and went to them. To my surprise, it was Isabella, newly betrothed to the Portuguese heir, who embraced me first. “I shall never see you again in this life,
hermana,
” she whispered.
    “Nonsense,” I replied, even as her words moved through me. I drew back from her to allow Maria to kiss my cheek. “Be strong, Juana,” she said, “as you always are.”
    Catalina was next. I saw at once that she was losing her struggle to contain her tears. One look at her brimming eyes, at the strands of gold escaping her cowl, and I held her close. “You must be brave when your time comes to go to England. Think of me, as I will of you,
mi pequeñita.
”
    Catalina clung to me until her governess, Doña Manuel, pried her away.
    I curtsied before Juan. “May God keep you in good health, Your Highness.”
    “Will you be kind to Margaret when you see her?” he blurted, his face wan and eyes febrile from a recent attack of fever. “Will you be a friend to her until she comes to me?”
    “I’ll be like a sister to her and tell her she’s the most fortunate woman in the world to have such a handsome