Special Guest Post by Wendy J. Dunn, Author of Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters #HistoryWritersAdvent24

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Dońa Beatriz Galindo. Respected scholar. Tutor to royalty. Friend and advisor to Queen Isabel of Castile. Beatriz is an uneasy witness to the Holy War of Queen Isabel and her husband, Ferdinand, King of Aragon. A holy war seeing the Moors pushed out of territories ruled by them for centuries.

Beatriz stepped deeper into the garden, her movements breaking apart the silver light. A few butterflies flew close to her face, the wings of one tickling her nose in passing. A haze of showering light rendered them into flying, living sapphires, their wings edged with bright rubies. Laughing with simple joy, Beatriz spun around, watching their beauty vanish into the dark recesses edging the garden. She stood there, her palms upraised, grieving again for beauty lost. She wanted to rail and weep at her empty hands. How long must I wait to see them filled? Then she scolded herself. She had so much more than most women she knew.

From first part of Falling Pomegranate Seeds: the Katherine of Aragon story.

I first visited Spain in 2007 – a long time ago – after writing my original vision of Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters, a novel that imagines the growing-up years of Catalina of Aragon, one day known as Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. I wrote my first version of The Duty of Daughters through the point of view of the child Maria de Salinas, and then faced the fact I needed to write it through an adult point of view. 

While I knew this had to be Catalina of Aragon’s tutor, Beatriz Galindo, I also despaired at the thought of starting again. So much so, it took completing my Masters of Writing and then my PhD – when I wrote The Light in the Labyrinth as my creative artefact – before I felt ready to return to this work in 2016.

But back to 2007. Researching Spain and the places Catalina would have known fired my desire to go to Spain myself. There was one place I especially wanted to see – the Alhambra.

 

 Writing my first version, I kept on having visions of white butterflies, countless white butterflies, fluttering a graceful dance in a garden where sunlight flittered through pomegranate, orange and cypress trees. I did not know if the vision had any similarity to the reality of the gardens of the Alhambra, although an internet search reassured me that butterflies are indeed a part of the natural environment of the Alhambra. In fact, countless butterflies abound at the Alhambra.

My problem with imagining places still in existence today is that it only makes me more than yearn to see them with my own eyes. I live in Australia, but my imagination has never really latched onto the history of my beautiful homeland. My Australian ancestors only arrived here in the 1850’s. Yes, I am fortunate enough to count a convict as a forebear (we call them Australian royalty!) and have followed the trail of one my ancestors in his search for gold (his brother struck it rich, not him), but that does not take it away the simple fact that my ancestry is mostly British, with my Irish blood singing loud, too. For many years now, I have wondered about ancestral memory – and if that may explain why my imagination is so fixated on Britain.

In my lifetime, I have managed to fund six trips to the United Kingdom. Four of those overseas trips include time in Europe. That includes a seventeen-day tour of Spain in 2007, when I was working on my first version of Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters.

Those magical days in Spain enriched and fed my imagination. I saw in my mind Beatriz Galindo, sitting in sunlit courtyards edged by heavenly inspired gardens and shaded by cypress and orange trees, and talking with Catalina and Maria de Salinas,. I closed my eyes and smelled the perfume of flowers and heard in my mind the song of water cascading into stone water fountains. 

My then eleven-year-old son, who accompanied me on this wonderful adventure, was so impressed with all the water fountains we saw in Spain, he came home determined to convince his father to build one in our small front garden back in Australia. Alas, that never happened.

What happened was I fell in love in Spain – not with a person, but with a place; it is a love I know I share with so many. I only had a few hours at the Alhambra back in 2007. I remember well the grey sky, and my anxiety that a downpour of rain would spoil my long-awaited day. The rain held off until we left – long enough for the Alhambra to soak into my heart and psyche.

 

Once again, water fountains delighted my son, especially the stone lion protected fountain, which aptly named its courtyard: The Courtyard of the Lions. For myself, I delighted in Moorish architecture, water features and glorious gardens designed to feast the eye.

The Alhambra was built by Badis ibn Habus, the Berber King of Granada, in the 11th century. There is a romantic legend that the Alhambra, meaning ‘red castle’, was built at night, under torchlight. The family of Catalina of Aragon took possession of it from the Moors in 1492, and her parents Isabel and Ferdinand used it for their royal court. It was Catalina’s primary home from the time she was seven to fifteen.

Strolling in the gardens, it was easy to imagine Catalina there, growing up in this place of great beauty, until the day came when she would leave her parents forever. My time at the Alhambra helped me describe the palace and its surrounds in Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters. The stone interior and exterior seemed to me like delicate lace work – allowing light to filter in and out, dappling over floor and wall. 

The exquisite architecture of the Alhambra is married to water and its gardens. One water feature is very famous and has been the subject of countless photographs of tourists and the inspiration for artists. A long rectangular pool mirrors the arches of the partal façade in the Patio de los Arrayanes, or the court of the myrtles.

 
I was at the Alhambra for only a short time. It did not feel long enough, but it was long enough to embrace the Alhambra in my heart forever as one of my favourite places on Earth. I will never forget my time there, or its unbelievable beauties. It was also long enough to inspire my imagination. I saw Catalina and Maria practicing their dancing steps in The Courtyard of the Lion. 

I imagined them together in the bath of the Comares Palace, under a small stone dome cut with stars to let the light flicker like diamonds on the water. I saw them in the garden with Beatriz Galindo, sitting at her feet as she read them stories. I saw them preparing to say their last farewells before they started their long journey to England. To my immense delight, I have had readers let me know that they made the journey to the Alhambra because they read The Duty of Daughters.

Leaving the Alhambra, I promised to return one day. I was lucky enough to do that in 2019 – and I hope one day to make another return. Catalina of Aragon never returned. But I have no doubt she never forgot her years growing up in the sunlight of Spain – or in the beauty that is the Alhambra.

Wendy J. Dunn 

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About the Author

Wendy J. Dunn is an Australian author, playwright and poet who has been obsessed by Anne Boleyn and Tudor History since she was ten-years-old. She is the author of two Tudor novels: Dear Heart, How Like You This?, the winner of the 2003 Glyph Fiction Award and 2004 runner up in the Eric Hoffer Award for Commercial Fiction, and The Light in the Labyrinth, her first young adult novel. While she continues to have a very close and spooky relationship with Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder, serendipity of life now leaves her no longer wondering if she has been channeling Anne Boleyn and Sir Tom for years in her writing, but considering the possibility of ancestral memory. Her family tree reveals the intriguing fact that her ancestors – possibly over three generations – had purchased land from both the Boleyn and Wyatt families to build up their own holdings. It seems very likely Wendy’s ancestors knew the Wyatts and Boleyns personally. Wendy tutors at Swinburne University in their Master of Arts (Writing) program. Find out more at her website http://www.wendyjdunn.com/ and find her on Facebook and Twitter @wendyjdunn