The Last Boleyn (7 page)

Mary stood to his left, and he approached her slowly. His eyes seemed very red and tired. She curtseyed.

“Stand straight, my Diana, stand straight.
S,
the lines of the dress and hair are perfect. I knew they would set off your face the way I had seen it in my mind.”

He clasped his blue-veined hands tightly in approval, and she smiled at him in sincere appreciation and affection. He lowered his voice and turned his back on the hovering steward. “Would you like to see the rest of the frame for my creation, la Boullaine?”

“Oh, yes, Signor da Vinci! Would it be possible?” She almost bounced from excitement, but restrained herself properly.

“But of course. Cannot the artist share his visions with those he created?”

He gestured toward the doorway, ignoring the perturbed steward who obviously wished none of his costumed wards out of his realm of control. The double doors to the central courtyard stood ajar, and Mary sucked in her breath as they entered. It was magic. In the broad daylight of chill December he had made the gardens at Hever or Amboise. Above them stretched a clear starlit night with the golden star planets trembling overhead in a velvet blue heaven. Tears flooded her eyes at the wonder of it.

The master's cracking, gentle voice disturbed her speechless revery. “Though you say nothing, I know you understand. It is always in your eyes,
charmante
Boullaine.”

“It is magnificent, truly magnificent.”

“It is only waxed canvas painted with stars and hung with golden balls and set off with hundreds of candles and torches. But somehow it seems more, eh?” He smiled and his thick mustache lifted. “I did a much vaster one for Ludovico Sforza in Milan years ago, you know.”

He raised his fragile left hand and pointed. “The queen and queen mother will sit in the lower galleries and the king and his beloved sister Marguerite there in the center.” Her eyes took in a richly brocaded platform draped with flowers, boxwood and ivy. “
Du Roi
insisted on his shield and colors of tawny and white on the walls and as the carpet. Well, it is still the heavens of Florence or Milan, Francois's salamanders or not. All is ready. I had best return you to your jailer.” He smiled again.

“Though I have been much busy and have not seen you for, well, for a time, Mademoiselle Boullaine, I knew how you would carry your new year on your fair face. I have sketched you since we have been together, often as a chaste Diana and once as la Madonna.”

Mary's steps faltered. “The Blessed Virgin, Signor?”

“
S.
Do not be surprised or deem it only an honor. You see, that Mary showed pain in her eyes too and even at His birth and adoration, she could never hide the pain to come.
Adieu, mi
Boullaine.” He bowed slightly and drifted back toward his creation before she could thank him or say farewell or ask him what he meant, and the anxious steward immediately shooed her back into his skittish brood.

Too soon the hours flew by and they held their breath at the blare of trumpets and the shouts and bustling of the heralds and servers as each of the nine courses went to the tables of the feasters. The lilt of fife and viol came and went as did the dancers and singers. Then the twenty maids grew silent, for they knew their time had come.

Bearers appeared with flower-strewn trays of confections and sweetmeats which the golden nymphs would offer to the guests royal and honored, French and English. Mary marvelled briefly at the orange and lemon blossoms of December which lined her tray.

They stood in order, breathless. The doors swung inward. They smiled and tripped in gaily among the clustered tables, each a golden glory in the vibrant glow of six hundred candles.

The guests murmured to each other or sighed audibly, their sight again dazzled and newly surfeited as their palates had been with delicacies and fine wines. They chose their confections gingerly, and their admiring glances did not waver from the exquisite Florentine living creations of Master da Vinci.

Only after the sudden impact of their entry did individual sights sort themselves out for the excited girls. Mary's eyes again took in the incandescent magnificence of the overhanging heavens. Queen Claude and Louise du Savoy were ablaze with winking jewels. Mary could not pick out her father among the Englishmen though she scanned the jumbled faces as best she could. But Francois du Roi stood clearly before her gaze as she smiled and nodded and inclined her laden tray to the eager hands of guests on both sides.

Francois was the sun at the very core of the artificial universe as he circulated on his own course among his seated guests. He glowed in white satin embroidered with tiny dials and astronomers' instruments and mathematicians' compasses all in gold, no doubt also the wonderful work of the Master da Vinci. Mary tried to watch the king often, lifting her eyes whenever she moved from person to person or swung her tray from side to side.

“Thomas Bullen's daughter, so I hear,” a robust Englishman announced to his surrounding friends.

Mary smiled radiantly at him and replied, “Though I am raised at the French court, I am true English at heart, my lord.”

Several applauded and commented heartily to one another. She could not see her father to share this fine moment, and she felt it would seem foolish to ask the men where he sat. To her dismay, she
did
take in the avid gaze of the tall, brown-haired William Stafford, who sat but one person beyond the man she served now. How she would like to bypass him deliberately or give him a pert remark to wipe that wide-eyed smile from his lips, but she dared not in full view of so many.

As she turned toward the spot where she would be forced to offer him his choice, several of the Englishmen about her rose suddenly and she spun slightly, hoping to relocate the king. She nearly dropped her gilded tray, for he was so close that her flared nostrils took in his musky scent, and the white and gold shining satin of his doublet nearly blinded her. The room seemed to tilt as she curtseyed.

“A goddess in gold and white to match her king,” he spoke lightly in his peerless French. His eyes pierced her satins and her skirts, and her heart beat terribly fast. She could not answer. One slanting eyebrow arched even higher over his narrow, dark gaze. She began to tremble and fortunately he suddenly looked aside at the observant group of Englishmen.

“And now you can understand more fully the glories of my France,” he boasted to them. His eyes sparkled and his teeth gleamed in the rampant candlelight. He extended his jeweled hand and, in full view of the avid hall, stroked her blushing cheek with the backs of his slender fingers. He towered over her far into the painted heavens and the tiny instant of time seemed to hang eternally in the stillness.

“But, indeed, Your Grace, this golden nymph is one of the glories of fair England,” came a voice in halting French. “This is Mary, Ambassador Boullaine's eldest daughter.”

There were a few random stifled laughs, but most trained at court held back to see Francois's reaction.

“Then I am certainly anxious for more complete French and English relations, my lords,” he chortled, and the surrounding groups exploded in appreciative and relieved guffaws.

Mary went scarlet and her eyes darted from face to face, torn by fears of what her father might think of such sport. Her gaze caught and held with William Stafford's. He did not laugh with the others, but looked most annoyed.

Francois gently pulled her tray from her hands and set it on the edge of an ivory tablecloth. He boldly tucked her right hand under his arm and held it close to his warm, muscular, satin-covered ribs.

“I think, gentlemen, the English ambassador's daughter should be a more important part of this grand alliance of nations. Besides, she matches her French king better than any other lady here tonight. Our pure white and gold seem destined to make us a pair!”

He laughed again and kept her at his side as he strolled and chatted and drank in their adulation. But Mary, stunned and thrilled as she was, took in other realities under Signor da Vinci's gold and deep blue heavens: Queen Claude's condescending glance, his sister Marguerite's amused smile, and Francoise du Foix's bitter glare. Finally, when she saw her father's proud grin and curt nod, she relaxed somewhat, but she could not seem to escape the disapproving face of the impudent Sir William Stafford. And, too, she kept wondering what Leonardo da Vinci could read in her eyes if she had seen him again as she paraded under his painted waxen sky.

CHAPTER SEVEN

January 10, 1519

Chateau du Amboise

T
he familiar stifling silence had fallen on the queen's court again: for the fifth time in four years the twenty-one-year-old Claude was sickly and swollen with royal child. Again her young and vibrant maids whispered begrudgingly in the hallways and took care to smother their giggles and gossip. All too soon the twenty fortune-favored maids who had attended the lavish French and English ceremonies in Paris ran out of marvellous tales to relate, and life fell back into its ponderous pattern of prayers and readings and study and needlework.

But for once the enforced duties in the hush of Queen Claude's wing of rooms at Amboise seemed a welcome shelter to Mary Bullen. Claude's chambers were a precious haven before the storms of decisions and rolling emotions which surely must follow if she would be caught in the shoals of Francois's power outside the queen's influence. Jacqueline, Jeanne and Eugenie and her own dear Anne might murmur and complain under their breaths at the tightening new restrictions, but Mary was secretly glad for the respite.

It was true that the news of her glorious walk with the king at his banquet in the Bastille had done wonders for her reputation and power among the other maids. Anne had made her tell the story over and over, though she had not told any of her listeners of the ill-bred William Stafford, nor of Francois's lingering kiss on her lips as he departed to rejoin his imperious sister, nor of his quiet, deep-throated promise that he would see her again soon and in private.

It was that very thought that terrified her. She was not so unschooled in court ways to be naive as to his intent. She read his piercing gaze and felt his fingers brush her tight gold bodice as he bid her swift
adieu.
How she treasured each gilded moment with him—and how greatly she feared a future near him.

Her girlish fantasies of Francois quite eluded her now. She seemed frozen, unable to summon up the marvelous dreams she had paraded back and forth across the stage of her imagination since that magic time he had gazed on her long ago in Princess Mary Tudor's chilly room at Cluny. This was different. It was a flesh and blood Francois, and she could no longer control his longings and his chivalric manners by a mere turn of her mind's eye. She feared for her reputation and that her father and Queen Claude would disown her if she shamed them with the king. But then, was it not an honor, too, to be so chosen? She shuddered again though she sat full in the warmth of the vast hearth in the queen's anteroom.

“Are you cold, Marie? It is stifling in here in general, I think.” Anne's nimble fingers halted poised above her small tapestry loom, her needle trailing a thin shaft of crimson yarn.

“No, Anne. I am fine.”

“Your patience to sit about has certainly improved since your journey to Paris,” Anne responded, narrowing her dark almond-shaped eyes slightly. “You used to be happy to escape these dreary chambers once in a while.” She lowered her voice even more. “I think the sullen mood of Her Grace's pregnancies has mushed your spirit, Marie Boullaine.”

“Do not tease, Anne. It is gloomy outside today anyway. If you need the diversion of a stroll or high adventure in the frozen gardens, Jeanne will be only too willing to go with you. I shall remain within summons to Her Majesty. Besides, the queen mother and Madam Alencon will be here soon and they always provide diversion. Really they are as much at the heart of the realm as is the king.”

“Do you think much about seeing him again, Marie? How exciting that the great king truly knows you and favors you and recognizes you. Does not the sense of power thrill you?”

“His Grace was only being kind, Anne. I told you that we happened to be dressed much alike and I caught his eye. That is all.”

“Coward,” Anne teased and laughed. “I shall ask our father what he thought of it, next I see him.”

“Feel free to leave me, little sister, if you care more for your own interpretations.” Mary rose swiftly and some of her flaxen threads spilled from her full-skirted lap.

“My sweet sister Marie does indeed show the temper of which she used to accuse George and me,” said Anne, widening her gaze in gentle mockery as Mary bent to scoop her threads from the footstool and floor.

She felt miffed mostly at herself, and she instinctively sought the refuge of the queen's rooms, through the open doors where she knew neither Anne nor the others would willingly follow.

The fire in the queen's chamber burned quite low and her priest had evidently just departed. Queen Claude leaned back on a chaise couch, her prayer book open in her lap, a lady in waiting on both sides of her like silent sentinels. Her bulk was already great. Mary had noticed that with each close-spaced pregnancy, she carried the child lower and seemed to swell sooner. The queen's eyes slowly moved to Mary, like dark coals on her white face. Her left eye always seemed to squint, and this disconcerted her ladies.

“Marie,
entrez.
” Mary curtseyed and sat on the tiny prie-dieu near the queen's feet. “What is happening in the outside world today,
ma demoiselle
?”

“I have not been abroad, Your Grace,” Mary answered simply.

“But out of the windows, are the skies still gray, Marie?”

“
Oui,
Your Grace.”

“Then what use is it for me to try to let some light in here before my dear husband's mother and my dearest Marguerite arrive? I have been lying here summoning my strength for the interview.” She spoke almost to herself. “They bring such vitality, you know, and I seem to have none of my own lately.”

She ordered the shutters be spread inward anyway, and the room was diffused with a hazy gray light. She stood shakily and murmured to no one in particular, “And my poor Francois. How he chafes at the bit in such weather. Francois must always be active and have diversions. And this terrible business of who will be the next Holy Roman Emperor—ah, I pray hourly for it to fall to my husband.”

As though she had foreseen their approach, the queen turned to the door as Louise du Savoy and Marguerite entered in a rush. Marguerite wore a flame-colored velvet gown edged and lined everywhere with either golden satin or whitest ermine with black flecks in the fur, whereas the more subdued Louise's heavier body was swathed in richest burgundies weighted with gold thread, jeweled girdle, and heavy pearls. Each woman took Claude's hand solicitously. Mary and the other ladies stepped back to the wall, for the queen never liked to be without several attendants. The royal ladies clustered together before the hearth. Though the queen sat down again and tried to hold herself erect, her back was like a bent bow, but the other two reminded Mary of taut strings ready to send out a brace of sharp arrows.

“My poor daughter Claude,” began Louise du Savoy in her guttural voice, “how does this future prince you carry?”

“He stirs about and turns me blue along my belly, Mother,” the queen answered her mother-in-law, and Mary marvelled at her meekness with these two.

In both Marguerite and the queen mother, Mary could see the long-nosed, dark-eyed Francois, in each the coiled spring of wound power beneath the surface.

“And how does my husband lately?” the queen was asking. “He is much burdened by his rightful inheritance of the cloak of Holy Roman Emperor?”

“
Oui, Oui,
greatly burdened,” Marguerite responded in her quick sing-song French. “But if anyone can help to sway those wretched Germans who hold the important votes, it is the king's envoy Bonnivet. The Pope is already ours, Madam, but that she-wolf Margaret of Austria hates our house. I would strangle her for her meddling, if I could get my hands on her!”

Mary's head snapped up at the mention of her first royal guardian, the kindly Archduchess Margaret. It puzzled her that the dear old woman could hate Francois. She must remember to ask father someday if he would have time to explain.

“The money—the money is another problem, Madam,” Marguerite continued, her head bobbing vivaciously to punctuate her words. “Millions of francs and still the bankers quibble. Quibble with the King of France!”

Claude's voice came pale and listless after Marguerite's. “I am grateful that my dear lord's family can sustain him in these court matters. I am often from the realm of his influence.”

“That is as it should be, dear daughter,” Louise du Savoy responded. “Your support for your lord is made manifest here, in the loving care of his children. This is as it should be,” she repeated slowly.

“I do prefer it to other courtly duties, for what need is there of that when
du Roi
has you and his Marguerite?”

Louise du Savoy nodded silently as though that closed the matter, but Marguerite began again. “Francois is much unsettled lately, since you asked, sister. The English stance worries him and, you may be pleased to know, he has had a falling out with his ‘lady' the haughty Francoise du Foix. It is long overdue that he sees that woman's true colors.”

“Marguerite, please, I hardly think our dear Claude wishes to hear court gossip in her condition...”

“You detest that woman too, mother, and always have,” Marguerite answered, tossing her dark tresses. “The snow-goddess has carried on once too often with Bonnivet, and she shall reap her own harvest now.” She laughed quickly, sharply. “Maybe it is partly the cause of Bonnivet's appointment as legate in Germany far from the lady's wiles.”

“Hush,
mignonne
,” scolded the older woman. “Your preoccupation with Guillaume du Bonnivet much questions your own interest in the man.” She frowned and shook her head.

Yes, remembered Mary suddenly, it is often rumored the Lady Marguerite has long favored Bonnivet though she is wed to Alencon.

“Anyway,” put in the unquenchable Marguerite, glancing down her nose at her annoyed mother, “our
roi du soleil
is bored and unsettled, and it is hardly weather to tilt at jousts or chase the deer or boar afield.”

Claude listened impassively, and though Mary could not see her face clearly, she pictured her white stare and blurry gaze gone awry.

“We must be going, dear Claude,” Louise du Savoy said in the awkward silence. “I would like to stop by the royal nursery wing on our way.”

“Of course,” said Claude properly, rising slowly with them. “All was well yesterday when I saw them, and the dauphin can nearly speak in sentences. They told me his first words were
‘du roi.'
It is appropriate, is it not?”

“Indeed, my daughter,” her mother-in-law said over her velvet shoulder as they approached the door.

Marguerite's falcon eyes caught Mary standing nearest the door. “Boullaine's daughter?” she asked, half to herself. “But not in gold and pure white today.” She laughed and was gone with her awesome mother trailing in her sweet-scented wake.

Mary fervently hoped the queen would not think the remark meant she had done anything wrong, for she had remarked kindly to Mary how lovely she and her dear husband had looked together at the feast. But Claude had sunk down in her vast cushions again and seemed to doze almost immediately. Mary sat at her feet for a soundless time, then rose to leave. Claude's voice floated to her again.

“Do not let Madam du Alencon tease, nor the queen mother frighten you,
petite
Boullaine. But have a care not to cross them either.”

Mary turned and her silken skirts rustled loudly in the quiet room. “
Merci,
Your Grace.”

But Queen Claude leaned as though she drowsed heavily, her bulky form outlined before the low-burning hearth.

Mary soon found she was foolish to think she could hide from facing the restive king by hovering close to the queen's well-guarded chamber. The arm of
du Roi,
she learned that same day, could reach anywhere.

“Marie, Monsieur du Fragonard is here in the blue room—to see you alone,” came Jeanne's excited words. She lowered her voice cautiously as she leaned closer. “No doubt, he bears a message from His Grace, Marie, for Fragonard is most intimate to royal business—in private matters.”

Mary could feel her heart beat a distinct thud, thud. “Then I must speak to Monsieur Fragonard,” she said only.

Jeanne trailed along down the narrow hallway to the reception room, one in a series of formal receiving chambers which the sequestered Claude seldom used. Jeanne lingered at the door while Mary rapped and entered.

Monsieur Fragonard had silver hair and his doublet and hose were of shimmery gray satin. He bowed elaborately and unnecessarily low.

“Mademoiselle Marie Boullaine.” He seemed to breathe her name rather than speak it. “May we sit together for a moment? I have a message for you from
du Roi.
” He smiled smoothly and she sat where he had indicated. “A message for your ears only.”

He leaned one lace-cuffed hand on his silver-headed walking stick. “Our king is still charmed by the memory of your warmth and beauty from your too brief time together in Paris last month. You, ah, no doubt, think fondly of him too.”

There was a tiny silence while her mind darted wildly about for a way to draw back from the looming precipice. Fool, she told herself, was this not what you have dreamed of for these last four years?

“
Oui,
monsieur. Of course I think fondly of
du Roi.
”

“I would explain to you as a friend, Mademoiselle, that the king is very busy lately and bears much upon his shoulders. It would be a joyous duty to lighten his burden and give him pleasant conversation and diversion, would it not?”

“All would wish to serve the king, monsieur.”

He searched her face carefully. “
Oui.
Then, I must inform you that His Grace requests the privilege of your company, Mademoiselle Boullaine.” He stood and meticulously pulled his lace shirt through the silver slashings of his doublet.