For a Queen's Love: The Stories of the Royal Wives of Philip II by Jean Plaidy Page A

daughter’s daughter. What daughter was that?”
    “Your daughter Katharine, Grandmother, she who married into Portugal.”
    “Katharine … Katharine … sweet little Katharine …” Juana began to weep again. “They took her from me. I kept her here … in this palace close to me. She was so pretty … but they said I dressed her in dirty rags and I never let her go abroad. I dared not. I was afraid they would take her from me. Sweet little Katharine. I had a window made for her so that she could look from it … and I had children come and play that she might watch them … But I would not let her leave me … Did your mother speak of me, my child?”
    “Y-yes, Grandmother,” stammered Maria Manoela. “She spoke of you.”
    “Did she tell you how they came and took her from me? … It was my son Charles … my son, the Emperor … who is but a Prince and only rules because I am shut away. While I live I am the Queen … I am the true ruler of Spain.”
    Philip said sternly: “Grandmother, you were speaking of your daughter Katharine.”
    “My daughter Katharine … my sweet sweet Katharine. Charles my son had men come by night. They cut a hole in the wall of her chamber … at dead of night they came … and they took her away from me … my Katharine … my sweet little daughter.” Her tears ceased abruptly and she began to laugh. “But they brought her back. They had to.” She was sad again. “But I had lost my Katharine … They would not let me keep her to myself … There were tutors for her … She mustbe brought up like an Infanta, they said, not like the child of a mad woman … Mad … Sane … I was mad then. Thus it has always been. Mad … Sane … And which is it today?”
    “Grandmother, I implore you, give us your blessing,” pleaded Philip.
    “Come close to me that I may see you. Is he good to you, this husband, eh?”
    “He … is good to me.”
    “But you are newly wed. Wait … wait. Wait till he deceives you. Once I thought I was the happiest woman in the world. It was on that first night. He was lusty and golden-haired. He was a Hapsburg. He said: ‘Do not be afraid, my sweet Juana. You will not regret that they have married you to me.’ I did not know then that he would be making love to other women … the next night … the next day … any hour of the day … any hour of the night.”
    “Grandmother!” said Philip coldly; but his coldness could not touch her; she was back in a past which was more real to her than this dirty room with its candles and black hangings. Instead of the young bride and groom, she saw another pair—herself and another Philip. She lived in that moment the agonies of jealousy from which she had never allowed herself to escape. She saw that Flemish woman with the big breasts and thighs—the woman to whom he had been faithful for two whole weeks, which was surely a record for him. What had she, that woman? How was she different from others? How had she kept fickle Philip faithful for two whole weeks? Her strength, like Samson’s, was in her beautiful hair. Never was there such hair—not before, not since. It was like gold in the sunshine and it rippled about her feet.
    Juana began to laugh suddenly. She saw it so clearly: The woman standing before her, her hands bound behind her back. Juana mouthed the words: “Bring the barber in.” She shrieked with helpless laughter for she was seeing the woman standing blankly horrified while her beautiful hair fell about the floor. Then she had her stripped and put in a cupboard, and she had been helpless with laughter when Philip came in.
    She began to shout: “There is your beauty. Do you not long for her? Can you wait, then? Do not take any notice of me. When did youever? She is there … waiting for you as she has waited countless times before. Shameless hussy! Naked she has been, often enough for you … but to be thus before the Queen …”
    Juana covered her face with her hands and rocked back and