A Note from the Author
Marguerite d’Angoulême
I was intentionally brief in my letter to Anne and Lina when I told them to come to Spain.
There was, of course, always the chance the letter could fall into the wrong hands.
That would have been problematic not only because I was consorting with presumed-dead English royalty, but also because I was inviting them to a property that I held in a foreign land on which the activities were… more than a little bit illegal.
That convent is also the greatest thing I’ve accomplished to date.
My masterpiece was born from an offhand remark Lina had made during our first visit.
Lina had had a tutor in her childhood, Maestra Beatriz Galindo, who studied at the Universidad de Salamanca, one of the astonishingly few women allowed to do so.
She was a brilliant woman—an expert in Latin and classical authors and philosophy and poetry—and Queen Isabel had all of her daughters study under her.
Later, after Lina was grown, the maestra founded a hospital and a convent called Santa Cruz de Madrid.
Of course, I felt compelled to visit. Maestra Galindo was ailing, but we met and found in each other a kindred spirit. Before she passed, a year prior to Lina returning home, I joined with her protégées to help fund the continuation of Santa Cruz.
And, well, I had some changes.