22nd of March, 1542.
Paço Real de Évora, Portugal. 22nd of March, 1542.
Afonso bit at his nails as he paced outside the Princess' confinement chambers, unable to relax himself. His brother Filipe, aged fourteen, looked at him with a forcibly calm expression. The only sign of his own nerves was his white-knuckled grip on his rosary, blonde hair brushed to perfection.
Filipe had been the only person he allowed near his person in the two days since a servant came to inform him that María was in labour. His father had tried many a time to take him away, said being near the women’s work would make him go mad, but Afonso wanted to stay there. He wanted to be the first to hear when the child was born, when María would finally be able to rest from her labours. If it was a boy or a girl, if María would be alright.
When the second day rose in the horizon, the King’s own personal doctor came to give his opinion. He had not left yet. Afonso bit his lips, walking closer to the wall in an attempt to hear better. Since the doctor came, his wife, the Princess, had stopped screaming. Was that better? Afonso could not say. Women flew in and out of the room, carrying jugs of steaming water in and bloody rags out.
Every time the door opened, Afonso wanted to run inside. María had her ladies there, both Portuguese and Castilian, but he wanted to be there too. He would be useless, surely, but he wanted to be there.
He was scared. Two days was not normal, was it? It had not taken much for Jorge to be born. And María was weaker than most women, sickler too. Her heart was frail. Would she even…? He didn’t allow himself to finish the thought. María was his wife. His cousin. They shared blood, both grandchildren of Queen Juana and King Philip of Castile. She was not even eighteen, her birthday was in a month. The same day as Jorge would turn two.
They would have a great celebration. Their son would end his infancy and his wife… his wife would… The door opened.
It was Dona Isabel de Lencastre, Duchess of Braganza. María’s chief lady-in-waiting. Without a queen to serve, most of Portugal’s noblewomen had moved to the household of the Princess. She bowed her head to him. “Your Highness,” she said. “The Princess is calling for you.”
Afonso stood up slowly. “Is the baby--?” he asked. “Has the baby been born yet?”
Dona Isabel shook her head. “Please, Alteza,” she said. “There is not much time.”
The Prince looked at his brother and he felt a sense of helplessness, and fear. He remembered the days preceding and following his mother’s death, the grief of his father. The King had thrown himself into his work and when that didn’t cure the hole in his heart, he retired from Lisbon. Barely even visited the capital anymore.
Filipe nodded at him, understanding what he wanted even without him speaking. “I will call the King,” he said. Afonso nodded and entered the confinement chambers, his heart racing.
He found María in the bed, surrounded by pillows. She was wearing a linen shift that clinged to her body, bloody where it touched her legs. Her face was pale, exhausted and she had her mouth parted to let in weak shuddering breaths. When he came closer, Afonso noticed how swollen her legs were, and her lips seemed dark, as did the tips of her fingers. She opened her eyes just as the doctor approached him, his face stricken.
“Her heart is giving out,” he mumbled in a respectful tone. “The scarlet fever of her childhood weakened the organ considerably, as did the two close pregnancies.” He shook his head. “There is nothing that can be done. The Princess has no more strength to push out the child.”
His heart stuttered. “Nothing?” he asked. The doctor shook his head. “What about the baby?”
“It is likely that the child will die within the next few hours,” the doctor murmured and Afonso observed a midwife press wet rags to María’s swollen legs, as another lady cleaned the sweat off her forehead. “If the Princess lives to see it through, she will catch an infection and die in a matter of days.”
“If she lives?” Afonso asked. “Is she--” He could not speak. “Is she doomed, doctor?”
The doctor nodded. “Without a birth, the Princess and the child will both die,” he said. “There is the possibility to save the baby by cutting open the Princess, in which case she will most likely die in minutes.” Afonso took a deep breath, his hand against his chest, unable to breath. Unable to feel anything but pure, white and hot dread. “If the Princess attempts to push the child out again, her heart may give out, and the child will remain stuck in the birthing canal.”
“What does the midwife say?” Afonso trusted the midwives more in this matter. They had a greater span of knowledge at such work, had done births throughout their entire lives.
“The midwife agrees with my assessments and was the precursor of many theories,” he said. “When told of our findings, the Princess asked for the Prince.”
Afonso nodded and gulped down, the knot in his throat growing and growing. He walked to María’s bedside, kneeling down next to her and clutched her hand, her cold and clammy hand. His wife was a girl of seventeen, with blonde hair and black eyes. The Emperor’s eldest daughter, mother of his first and only grandson. She was supposed to be the Queen of Portugal, to reign together with him until their old age.
“This is my fault,” he murmured. “I wanted a second child.”
María shook her head. “Blaming yourself will only end in more pain,” she murmured, closing her eyes. “My father blamed himself and he pulled away from us, left us alone. You can’t do the same.”
“I won’t,” he promised.
“Jorge will need you,” she continued. The hand that he clutched moved to the swell of her belly, and he could feel her muscles tightening, then releasing. And the sudden kicks of a strong and healthy child. His eyes burned, full of tears and he wanted to scream. He would turn twenty years of age in August, too young to be… “Cut him out.”
He raised his eyes to look at María, at her determined pale face. “What?”
“The baby,” his wife clarified, as if that was what confused him. “Cut him out, while he is still alive.”
“María…” He remembered the doctor’s words, that this would take her life in a matter of minutes. And to cut her stomach, to pull their child from her womb as if she were a pig, butchered for meat.
“The doctor has told me that there is no hope for me.” She shrugged, though her face was one full of pain. Afonso kept his hand on her stomach, feeling the child kicking inside. Wanting to be born. “I’m dead anyway, but our son may live. He has a chance.”
“María…” He didn’t know what to say. What to do. In some deep part of him, Afonso knew she was right. He knew he should do whatever he could to save his child, another heir of his body, but he was weak. And a coward. He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t give the order.
“Please, Afonso.” María squeezed his hand, opening her brown eyes. Tears streamed down her face. “I’m exhausted. I can’t do it myself, I’m not strong enough.” She looked away from him, at the people surrounding them and Afonso followed her gaze as it stopped in the lambswool cradle near the wall. Filled with toys, and a warm blanket to receive their baby. “I want to be buried with my mother.”
“What?” She looked back at him.
“I want to be buried with my mother,” she repeated. “In the Alhambra Palace in Granada.” She closed her eyes, her lips almost purple now. “In the Royal Chapel, with the Catholic Monarchs and my grandfather, King Philip. Promise me to see it done.”
“I promise.” He kissed her hand and her face. “I promise by the Virgin and by St Anthony to see you buried in Granada.”
The door opened, a person coming inside, but Afonso could not look at it. He only looked at María, who was whispering the same words over and over, like a mantra. “I want to be buried with my mother in the Alhambra Palace in the Royal Chapel of Granada, with the Catholic Monarchs. I want to be buried with my mother. I want to be buried--”
Suddenly, she stopped and her hand went slack, her face turning towards him by an invisible force. Her mouth was still open, but her eyelids softened, revealing a white sliver of her eyes. Afonso held his breath as the midwife who observed them came closer, practically running so she could press two fingers to María’s neck. For a moment, no one spoke, all were frozen in their places to observe and then, the midwife turned to her attendants, eyes full of determination.
“The Princess is gone.” She crossed herself. “We have five minutes.”
“What?” Afonso clutched María’s hand as the servants around them burst into action, all knowing exactly what to do without question. Even the doctor was moving, pulling out a sheet of instruments, metallic under the candlelight. “What are you doing?”
A hand closed around his shoulder, the midwives pulling María by the feet to lay her flat against the mattress. She was limp, heavy and they tugged at her shift until her belly was revealed. Swollen beyond belief and criss-crossed with purple and blue scars of her previous pregnancy. Her chest was not rising, nor falling with a steady breathing and… And…
“Come, my son,” the King said. “Let them work.”
“No,” Afonso said. “What are they doing?”
“We must take the baby out, Your Highness,” someone said. He didn’t know who. Maybe Dona Isabel, or another of María’s ladies-in-waiting. “Or he will die with his mother.”
The doctor approached the bed holding a small metallic blade in his hand. He knelt before María, unconcerned with her nakedness and the midwife moved by his side. “Do not press in too deeply,” she told him, “Or you will cut the baby.”
“I know what I’m doing,” he said sharply. The King pulled at Afonso again, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything. He only stared at the corpse of what was once his wife, her belly moving as the child inside shifted. Trying to escape, most likely.
“Look away, Afonsinho,” his father said, the childhood nickname bringing the Prince back to a world where things were simpler. His mother was alive. And the future seemed bright.
When everything was done, and the baby was crying, drenched in his mother’s blood, Afonso was still there. Kneeling by María’s old bed. The midwife walked to him, holding the child.
“A boy, my prince,” she said. “Healthy, despite everything.”
He moved, tears streaming down his cheeks again. Afonso didn’t know if he had ever stopped crying. He stood up slowly, legs aching after so many minutes in the same position and he stretched his arms out.
The boy was still crying, his face swollen and red. How terrifying it all must seem to him, how strange the world was. Afonso tried to smile at the sight of him, but he couldn’t. This poor boy who would never know his mother’s laughter, who would never know the warmth of her embrace.
“The new infante needs a name, my son,” the King said beside him, his tone not unkindly. Afonso nodded and closed his eyes, hot tears splashing down the boy’s face.
When he opened them again, he looked back at his son. “St Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of Portugal,” he murmured. “He cares for the pregnant women, and the lost souls, and those with sterility.” The Prince of Portugal felt lost without María, holding her posthumous son in his arms. “He will be António.”
His father embraced him then, António stranded in the middle. Afonso laid his head over his father’s shoulder, as the King stroked the back of his neck. “You have to be strong, my son,” he murmured. “Your sons need you.”
Afonso closed his eyes.
