Free The Scroll of Seduction by Gioconda Belli Page B

not let on that his fantasies and mine were both having an effect on my mind and body. He asked about school. The life of a student at a convent boarding school was not an especially riveting topic, I said. But I had questions I wanted to ask him, I continued, things that had come up in the silence of morning mass, or the long, quiet hours of study hall.
    â€œWhy are you so interested in Juana the Mad? How did you first start studying her? What made you want to know so much about her, about that time period?”
    â€œIt’s a family matter,” Manuel said, blowing smoke and staring atme with a certain irony. “My ancestors were quite involved in Doña Juana’s care. I grew up hearing stories about her, and in a certain way, as a historian, I wanted to discern reality from fiction. You must know that historians have a passion for the task of weeding out the fallacies that accumulate about a certain person or event over time.”
    â€œSo your ancestors were historians too?”
    â€œNot exactly. In fact, my ancestors’ role in the queen’s life was somewhat odious. Maybe that’s why I feel I owe it to her to make amends, at least to her memory.”
    His father’s name, Sandoval y Rojas, came from the line of the marquises of Denia. When King Ferdinand of Aragon died, Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas–and later, his son, Luis–were commissioned by Juana’s son Charles I of Spain–who was also Charles V of Germany–to govern her household in Tordesillas.
    â€œBut ‘govern’ is a euphemism,” Manuel said. “They were actually commissioned to keep the queen isolated and not let her speak to or have contact with anyone. She was surrounded by servants who were loyal to the marquis, whose complicity was essential in the creation of a fictitious world for Juana. You already know, I’m sure, that she was locked up there for forty-seven years.” Manuel stood up and brushed some ashes from his trousers, as if the task required all his concentration.
    â€œI know that, but I still don’t understand,” I confessed, standing up to get a glass of water from the kitchen. “I mean, I really don’t know much at all about Juana the Mad.”
    â€œYou’re not the only one. The truth is, we know very little about those who came before us. We inherit their anxieties, but not their experiences. I can assure you, though, that when I’m done telling you her story, you’ll feel like you were part of her, that you and Juana are not so different from each other after all. If you’d been in her position, you would have felt the same sorts of passions, the same rage, the same desperation…maybe even the same devoted love. We’ll bring the queen back to life. That’s the only way we’ll be able to understand her and judge her fairly. But you already know my conditions. I’ll come downstairs to help you with the dress.”
    We went back down to the darkness of his room, and once again I took my clothes off, this time more slowly, feeling my embarrassment give way to pleasure, as if every part of me was being freed from obscurity and brought into the light for the first time, as if by being discovered by someone else my body was able to discover itself. Sitting on a bench with his legs open, elbows on his knees and chin in his hand, Manuel watched me, though we both avoided looking into each other’s eyes.
    Finally, he fastened the ribbons that crisscrossed my back and were tied into a knot at the waist. The donning of the dress and the entire ceremony had a curious effect on my psyche. It was as if my skin’s contact with the voluminous skirt, the silk, the velvet, stirred up opaque memories of other times, and my will was overtaken by voices from history that flowed back and forth between Manuel and I like lost souls obliged to tell their secrets. I wondered if maybe in a previous life I had lived in that