The Last Boleyn (2 page)

“Enough, lady. We have had all this discourse before, and to what end? Great Henry would have made you his mistress, the lovely blonde Howard beauty, Elizabeth, the Bullen bride, but you would have none of the honor. 'Sblood, madam, 'tis a miracle of cleverness and flattery we recovered from the blow at all. We would have been much farther on the road than this if you had accepted.”

“And it would have been only honor to you, my lord? It would not have caused you a moment's stir that your wife was ridden abed by Prince Henry and maybe got his seed to give her babes and they of no true Bullen blood to make your name!” She had spoken the tirade quietly, but desperate sobs threatened to well up at each word. Mary's eyes filled with tears at her tone rather than at the full impact of the meaning.

“Yes, of course I would have suffered, but it was the future king, lady, the present king. Well, it is ten years gone, but I promise you, I shall never let such a chance go by the wayside again!” There was a long silence, and Mary put a foot out to flee.

“Brussels is so far, Thomas. She is so young, so innocent.”

Innocent? Mary pondered the fear and shock she had felt in the last few minutes, her thoughts mingling with the excitement of her new importance and the thrill of the distant unknown. She turned toward the staircase but retreated back behind the door at her mother's voice, suddenly so close.

“I shall fetch Mary since Semmonet has been sent to pack for her. The children are out by the knot garden.” Her mother brushed by on the other side of the door.

“And tell her nothing of it, lady,” came her father's sharp voice after her. “I would tell her myself so she will understand the good fortune of it.”

Elizabeth Bullen's slender form never turned back as she raised her head and departed from the hall to search for Mary. How beautiful her mother's face and carriage, how lovely her golden hair now threaded with fine silver in the sunlight.

Mary decided to follow her and meet her as she returned. She would never know what her daughter had heard, or of her sadness. Should she say she was glad to go so mother would be comforted? Or would it hurt her to think her daughter would so easily leave her now—or ever?

Mary stepped quietly to the door and, hesitating, peered carefully into the courtyard to see that her mother had departed. It was quite empty and peaceful, beige cobbles, brick honey-colored walls all awash with sun. How she would fear to depart, hate to depart!

“Mary!” came her father's voice, nearly in her ear. She jumped. “Your lady mother said you were about the grounds. Where have you been?” He stood over her, tall and handsome and assured. His dark beard was precisely cut and his velvet-clad shoulders looked dazzling blood-red in the sun. His dark eyes regarded her carefully as he bent his head slightly. “Have you been about the hall long?”

“No, father. I was outside with George and Anne, but they went off and, well, I finally came in.”

“You have just missed your mother, but I have a wonderful surprise for you I would tell you alone.”

His slender, strong fingers fastened firmly on one of her shoulders, and he gestured toward the open solar door with his other jeweled hand. She walked unsteadily, suddenly wary, her excitement mixed with childish misgivings. She could feel King Henry's side-glancing eyes pursue her into the solar. She was most unused to private audiences with her father, for he was not often at Hever. How much she loved him and wanted to please him, even as he sought to please his king!

He pointed to the scroll-work stool beneath the lead paned windows where mother often sat doing needlework. He took a step as if to pace, and then abruptly sat in the master's chair and cleared his throat. It suddenly struck her funny that this great lord of the king might be afraid to inform her of the decision that his wife Elizabeth had protested.

“You are very beautiful, my Mary, your perfect oval face, your golden hair, the promise of your slender body. You are all I could ask in a lovely and obedient daughter.”

“I am glad, my lord. Semmonet declares I look as mother used to when you came new married from court to Hever.”

“Perhaps Semmonet remembers much it is better not to tell, Mary. Yes, you will favor your mother greatly as you grow to womanhood. Though I pray you have a more carefully molded character and may prove more pliable to your lord's wishes. Will you indeed prove so, my little golden Mary?”

He leaned close and patted her hand as he spoke. Again, as over and over in the few hours she spent in his presence, Mary fell instantly in love with him, beyond the bounds of a daughter's ties. For he was not a father she knew, this handsome, tall king's man. He never looked on her with smiles like this, nor spoke to her privately, nor touched her trembling hand.

“Yes, my lord father. I would wish to please you, always.” Her voice was a mere whisper and her curved mouth a wan ghost of a smile.

“Then we are off for the royal court of Margaret, Archduchess of Austria, Mary, I as royal ambassador and you to be with her maids-of-honor and learn the fine arts of beautiful and accomplished ladies. You shall have pretty dresses and meet lovely people and perfect your French. You would like that adventure, would you not, my dear?”

The girl raised her blonde head, and her clear blue eyes filled with tears as they met his intent, piercing ones.

“Will it be much like Hever, father?”

“No, better, all more important and splendid and wonderful. Exciting people, great castles, lovely fountains and gardens. The archduchess shall be very pleased with your beauty and manners.”

Her voice quavered as she thought of her mother's loving face and nasty, dear George and Annie and Semmonet and the quiet horse she loved to ride at Hever. “Will you be near, father?”

“Yes, as king's ambassador, there whenever you would see me, child.”

“Then I know I shall be happy to be there with you,” she said in simple trust.

He rose swiftly and patted her slender shoulder. “Here, Mary,” he added quickly, reaching toward the table behind her. “Now that you are to set out in the fine world, I fetched you a Tudor rose from the king's gardens at Greenwich. You shall someday belong to the English court, my girl, so remember this when you are steeped in the luxurious beauties of the Belgian court.”

She was touched by this act, so unlike anything her aloof, clever father had done before. Surely she would be close to him now, since they would be far away together. The rose was a lovely velvet red despite its slight droop from being carried so far from its garden.

“It is a wonderful rose, father,” she said, but as she reached for its stem, she recoiled from the tiny stab of a thorn. She squeezed her finger and a crimson drop of blood formed.

“You must learn to beware of the hidden thorns, foolish girl,” he chided. “Come, take your rose and up to Semmonet. She has been packing your things this past hour. We leave Hever tomorrow at dawn and sail from Dover on Monday. Be gone, girl.”

Mary rose gracefully and, gingerly holding the flower, curtseyed solemnly. Then she heard herself ask, “And what did my lady mother say of this honor?”

He faced her squarely and looked down into her clear blue eyes. “She is absolutely thrilled that you have this wonderful opportunity,” he said. “She only hopes you will be true to the aristocratic Butler and Howard blood that flows in your proud Bullen veins. Now, be gone.”

The girl spun swiftly in a rustle of skirts and a whirl of golden hair. She did not want her father or anyone to see the new-learned doubt and pain stamped on her brow and hidden in her eyes.

CHAPTER TWO

November 4, 1514

Les Tournelles, Paris

F
or the first time in two years, ever since the bright facade of Hever had dropped behind the massive oaks and beeches already obscuring the dwindling forms of her mother and Semmonet, George and Annie, Mary sobbed wretchedly. She had not cried one whit when her lord father had left her in the opulent but austere world of Archduchess Margaret's vast court, nor when she felt the suffocating pangs of homesickness those first endless months, nor even when the archduchess had been sadly touched to part with her at the English Lord Ambassador's sudden insistence. Even departing England again hurriedly, this time with the lovely Princess Mary Tudor, King Henry's own beloved sister, the little Mary Bullen had not shed a tear. What good were weak and foolish sobbings when no one would listen and nothing would be changed?

Indeed, she was of full ten years now, and was thrilled to serve so beauteous and kind a lady as the Tudor Rose, herself sent from her home. But Princess Mary was now Queen of France, her marriage a binding seal between the two powerful nations, her body a human link between her brother England and her husband France.

But Mary Bullen cried now, finally, her sobs so swift upon each other that she could scarce breathe. King Louis XII, the English Mary's elderly husband, had ordered all the English ladies of his bride's entourage dispatched from France forthwith.

Father would be chagrined, yes, angered, but she could face that well enough, for it was no doing of her own that his master plan to have her reared at the French court and near the king's own dear sister had gone awry. The pain was rather for the slender and radiant La Reine Marie, for the sweet lady would be as good as deserted in a foreign court with an old and sickly husband-king and her dangerous nephew Francois, the king's wily heir, hungry for his throne. The sharp, wrenching pain was for herself, too. What would father do with her now? She adored the gentle French queen and was as loath to be torn from her as she was once from her own mother.

Mary Bullen,
la petite Anglaise,
as King Louis himself had called her, had much company in her emotional agonies as she sat on a richly tapestried chair in the queen's privy chamber. Sniffles, red eyes, and irregular half-choked sobs came from Elizabeth Gray and Margaret and Jane Dorset and the red-haired Rose Dacre. Even Lady Guildford, whom the laughing maids had smugly dubbed their “mother protector,” wiped her swollen eyes continually as she gave curt orders for the packing to the hovering French maids.

“Come, all of you. Dry your eyes and regain your composure before our sweet queen returns. Would you have the parting be more painful for her than it already has been, for she has pleaded beyond propriety and beneath her dignity to have us stay.” She turned her silver head toward the maids. “
Oui, oui,
put all the busks and hoops together. It matters not. And perhaps,” Lady Guildford continued in one breath, suddenly addressing her English charges again, “perhaps His Grace shall protest this effrontery to his stubborn cousin King Louis!”

Like the other older girls, Mary rose and tried to assume a calm demeanor. She shook out her lavender velvet skirts and dashed some of Jane Dorset's rice powder on her flushed cheeks. She might be the youngest by far and a mere maid compared to the others, but she tried with all her strength to emulate the court ladies' carriage, manners and style. Even her soft-clinging lavender gown over the pale yellow kirtle echoed the ornate French fashions the English maids of Queen Mary all strove for. The tight inner sleeve of yellow satin was embroidered and slashed to reveal her soft, lacy chemise which also peeked out from above the oval neckline, and her velvet slippers and folded back outer sleeves perfectly matched her gown. And certainly, she would do much more than copy styles to please the lovely and sad Queen Mary.

The bustle of the packing ceased suddenly as the gold and ivory doors to the chamber swept open and the queen swished in buoyed by immense pink silk skirts and puffs of Chantilly lace. For warmth and elegance, the queen's dress bore a five-foot pink silk train, and loops of ermine and jeweled girdle dripped from her narrow waist. Her angular headpiece picked up the ermine trim of her belt and her soft-edged pink slippers were studded with amethysts and emeralds.

How calm, how radiant and beautiful she looked, as always, the newly-awed Mary thought. If she could only be like her some day, so beloved of her ladies and her family! How her brother the magnificent king Henry the Eighth of England had beamed when he hugged her goodbye and kissed her cheek with the fine words, “God be with you, my beloved sister Mary.” And she had grasped his great beringed hand, held it to her cheek and whispered in a voice so gentle few had heard except the lady herself, her royal brother and the dainty, golden-haired maid who held her furred cloak.

“You will not forget your promise, my lord, not even if I be gone for years,” Mary Tudor had begged her brother Henry.

The king had answered bluntly with a swift sideways look not even regarding his sister's sad, upturned face, it seemed to the Bullen girl. “No, of course I shall not forget, lady,” he had said and turned away.

But that once-treasured memory of meeting the glorious Henry, King of England, while her father hovered solicitously behind her, was tarnished now by these events. And through it all, their beautifully complexioned, raven-haired queen was trying to be brave.

“Alas, my dears, my husband the king says he wishes me to be a French queen to him and not surrounded by those who would cushion me from French ways. For now,” she put her graceful hand on Lady Guildford's trembling arm, “we must obey. Perhaps when he is assured of how honest and true a French queen he has, though English Tudor blood flows proud in her veins, he will relent.”

“When your dear brother our Lord King hears of this cruelty, he shall have words for His Majesty, indeed,” flared the quick-witted Rose Dacre. “I shall tell him of it straightaway upon our return, Madam!”

“We must remain calm, Rose, and surely my brother will know of this...this problem, before you could tell him. I pray he will always remember his promised duties to his loyal sister.” She smiled a wan but, to Mary, a dazzling smile.

The queen caught Mary's serious face, and their eyes held. “His Grace
did
relent one tiny bit, Mistress Boullaine, for indeed he said he never meant that you must leave, since you are but a maid and sent to his court partly for a French education. His Majesty said he never meant
‘la petite blonde Boullaine'
was to be dispatched.”

She held out her hand to the girl, and Mary walked the few steps radiantly aglow, despite the surprised stares of the other English ladies.

“Madam, I am so pleased to be allowed to stay.” She curtseyed, then straightened. “Would that the others dearer to you might remain, but I shall do all I can to keep your company.”

The graceful answer pleased the queen and seemed to soothe the others who clustered about her for a solemn farewell. There would be no grievous departure scenes in public to kindle court gossip and the wicked snickers of which the mannered elite of the realm were fully capable. Mary Bullen's goods were hastily unpacked and with long last glances and curtseys and clinging of hands, Mary found herself, for the first time, alone with her adored Mary Tudor, the lonely new Queen of France.

It seemed most natural to the queen and most wonderful to the young Mary that they were frequently together in the next few months after the English ladies were banished. The feasts, the dancing, the masques went on without ceasing, although the elderly and ailing King Louis was often too weak to enjoy them. The young queen immersed herself in the royal revelries to the growing delight of most of the courtiers who would have been obliged to feel they should diminish their frivolities because their king was temporarily indisposed. Always nearby, lurked the charming, clever, and handsome Dauphin Francois; only twenty, but ageless in wit and watchfulness. The young queen found him engaging and quite irresistible, so the young Mary Bullen thought. To her ten-year-old eyes, he sparkled with glamor, magnetism and fascination.

And the sensitive, young English companion to the French queen, who observed much but participated little because she was yet a child, idolized her laughing mistress. Yet, though the queen seemed often among the courtiers, she was never really part of them. Indeed, the fair Reine Marie seemed to wish that time would fly on swifter wings.

Often when they were alone, closeted in the queen's privy chamber, Her Grace would talk on and on of England and her dearest bluff brother Hal from days before he ascended the throne, and of the most wonderful and jovial people of the Tudor court.

“I feel I could readily name them all now, Madam,” Mary admitted to her queen one night as they sat late over warmed wine and a gilded chess board, to which they paid scant attention as their talk skipped from point to point. “I feel as though I truly know our Queen Catherine and His Grace and even his dearest companions as well as, say, Sir Charles Brandon, the delightful Duke of Suffolk.” Mary Bullen laughed her lovely, lilting laugh at the thought of her father's surprise when she could show him she recognized all the important people of the court before his busy hands could even point them out. Then she stopped, suddenly unsure, for the queen had paled visibly and was grasping an ivory gilded chesspiece in a white-knuckled fist.

“Charles Brandon—delightful? Why do you term him that, Mary?” Her unsteady voice sounded not angry, as Mary had feared, but strangely puzzled and hurt.

“I meant nothing by it, Your Grace. It is a word you have used to describe him and I only thought to...”

“Did I now—delightful? Ah, indeed he is that,
ma petite.
” She smiled warmly but her gaze seemed clouded and distant.

She sees him even now in her mind's eye, Mary realized in wonderment.

“What else have I said of my brother-king's dearest, truest friend, my Mary?” she queried, her voice now playful.

Mary remembered well all the phrases of praise and happily recounted events, but she felt quickly shy of repeating her queen's words. The sure knowledge came swiftly to her naive mind that this woman could have loved elsewhere than her old husband the French king. Her marriage was, of course, arranged, and she had long before that been years promised to Charles of Castille, but she knew him not. Just because she was a princess and meant for a special marriage bond, could she not have given her heart elsewhere? Would not her own dear brother's best companion be often about and then...

“Perhaps I have often said too much to be remembered or related, Mary.” Her perfect teeth showed white, and her dark eyes sparkled. She leaned forward across the wide chess board, her jeweled crucifix trailing its heavy pearl-studded chain over the marble noisily. She reached her pale hand across to cover Mary's smaller one.

“God forgive me, Mary, but Charles Brandon is the dearest man in the world to me next, of course, to my brother and my lawful husband.”

Tears sprang to her eyes and hovered on her thick lashes. Her grasp on Mary's hand tightened. “It helps me to have said it, Mary. I pray you will keep my secret. Only three others know of it, His Grace and I and the Duke himself.” Her gentle voice trailed off and she loosed her grip on Mary's hand, seemingly surprised she held it so hard.

“You see, Mary, my lord, King Henry, has solemnly vowed that should I ever be widowed in my willing service to England as King Louis's queen that I—yes, I alone—may select my next husband!” The words were quiet but fervent.

Mary sat wide-eyed and intent, the impact of being privy to such high dealings crashing with the queen's passionate words on her ears and heart. “Indeed that is most generous and wondrous kind, Your Grace,” the girl was at a loss for proper words of comfort.

“His Majesty, my dear brother, generous and wondrous kind,
ma cherie?
” A musical chuckle floated to Mary across the chess board. “Well, maybe, but there is no way to be certain, you see, for it suited him well to give me that promise at the time. And if it suits him not, should I wish to collect on the strange bargain, the rhetorical question is, my Mary, will he even remember it? Will he honor it if I am needed to wed elsewhere? I tremble with the thrill of the possibility, but with the fear of it too!”

She held out her hand, palm up, fingers extended toward the girl and indeed she did tremble, and the carved queen piece quivered in the dancing candle gleams.

Her eyes seemed to focus on Mary's earnest, lovely face. “You must understand the way of it, Mary. You may thank the Queen of Heaven—the first Mary of all Mary's—that you are born to your lord father Sir Thomas Bullen, ambitious and clever though he is, and not to a blooded king.”

Mary's mouth formed an oval of surprise before she could hide her feelings, and her blue eyes widened honestly. Though she had been taught to cleverly mask her feelings at the court of the archduchess as well as at this witty French court, she remained somehow too naive and trusting to master the art.

“Mary, hearken now. It is this way in our world!” With one graceful swoop of her silken arm, the queen cleared their chess board, scattering the pieces noisily onto the parquet table top.

“Forget the pretended chess rules, Mary. This is how the game is truly played. This great king can do anything he wills at any time it suits him.” She slammed her elaborately carved king piece down in the center of the board with such vehemence that the girl jumped. “And here, Mary, all the little pawns to be spent at his whim to win his daily games at court or at Parliament or between kingdoms or whatever.”

She pressed a little handful of the gaily painted and gilded marble pawns haphazardly about the loftier king piece. “Of course, the king is surrounded by a few knights, men who deem themselves great, not quaint horses as these. But though few knights realize it, they are only pawns. And you and even I, Mary, we are pawns to go here or there as the king piece wills it.” Her nimble fingers flicked the tiny pawns about randomly.