The Last Boleyn

by Karen Harper

  Jeanne’s silver laugh floated to Mary’s ears. “Guillaume, ma Anglaise charmante, is two years wed. Though that has stopped few dalliances of other men, with that bridegroom, the word is that he is faithful to her still.”

  “Marie, he is making his way over here. You are right—he is very awkward,” Jeanne went on. She patted her beautifully wrapped reddish tresses. “Shall Anne and I start on ahead? I would introduce her to my sister Louise.”

  Mary rose with them stubbornly. She did not like the way Jeanne assumed charge of her little sister, nor did she care to be deserted with the gangly Rene.

  “Do not be such a goose, Marie,” scolded Jeanne. “You are a ravishing maid—all the ladies say so—and it would do your reputation and experience no harm to be escorted by a courtier from a fine family, pimples or not. Maybe you can convince him to introduce you to his brother.” Her green eyes tilted up as she smiled at Mary.

  “Oh, do, Mary. I shall be fine with ma bonne amie, Jeanne,” added Anne as they turned and threaded their way through the courtiers.

  Mary felt like a stranded boat on a rainbow sea of silks only momentarily, for Rene soon approached and doffed his lavender-plumed hat. His gangly body was encased in pale purple silk and even the slightly-padded, ornate doublet and the deep-cut, white velvet-lined second sleeves could not make his thin shoulders look masculine, nor could the bulky tied and jeweled garters on his lean legs develop his calves or the swells a man’s legs should have. Her eyes darted behind him for anyone she might know; then she smiled and nodded and listened as he took her arm and guided her from the stands. She had not even set eyes on Francois, so the day was nearly ruined anyway. What could a walk with Rene add or detract to the once beautiful day now?

  “How does our Queen Claude after the birth of the Dauphin?” the tall lad was asking. He bent solicitously close for her answer.

  “Somewhat weak and sickly still, monsieur,” she responded, wishing he did not lean so near as he brushed against her. She was suddenly angry with herself that they had left the tournament early. She could still hear the clash of lance on shield and the solemn announcements of pursuivants clearly behind them.

  “You, no doubt, miss the Dowager English Queen Marie whom you served before,” he chatted on. “At least she has returned to her homeland now. Did you know she had to bribe her brother, and stole some of her queen’s jewels to do it, and when she reached Calais to sail home she had to hide from an angry mob? The French royalty do not make such foolish marriage vows. She is fortunate the English roi forgave her.”

  “Please, Rene,” Mary cut in, “say nothing unkind of her. I do miss her greatly. She was dear to me.”

  “Ah, of course, ma Marie. And do you know when you blush you are exquisite? Your hair looks so golden, so adorable uncovered, and your eyes and face are that of a Diana,” he said, putting out his hand against a tall, trimmed privet hedge to stop her slow progress. “I have worshipped your beauty from across the room too long.” His voice broke.

  Now, she thought warily, this is a swiftly different tack. He has learned fancy court flattery well.

  “I thank you for your kindness, Monsieur Rene.” She hesitated on the brink of either fleeing or giggling as he moved the other hand slowly, tentatively to her narrow waist.

  “Could you not learn to address me as mon Rene, cherie?”

  Before she could step back or raise a halting hand to his chest, he dipped suddenly and crushed her lips with his. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she thought instantly that it was quite impossible to even fantasize that she could so intrigue a charming, dashing man like Francois with this whelp wrapped around her. She pushed hard against his chest, but he did not budge. Instead, he tightened his grip, pulling her full breasts against his narrow silken chest.

  She turned her head stiffly away and was surprised to hear the shrill pitch of her voice. “Rene, no, si vous plait!”

  She twisted away. They went slightly off balance and bounced against the sharp pricker hedge. She shrieked in fright and pain as he bent to kiss her throat and pulled jerkily at the low square decolletage of her dress.

  “My precious Diana, I can do much for you here at court,” he was saying brokenly. He sounded quite breathless.

  He was from a powerful family. Perhaps her father would be angry if he ever heard she had offended a de Brosse. And that silly Jeanne would no doubt gossip and laugh.

  “No, no,” she shouted, despite her fears as his long fingers plunged into her dress and brushed a taut nipple. Did he think her such an English simpleton as to lie with him here in broad daylight in the king’s gardens?

  “Pardon, jeune monsieur,” came a strange crackling voice, and a huge thin hand descended on Rene’s shoulder pressed close against her own now bare shoulder. Rene raised his head, his eyes wide, his mouth open. “The demoiselle does not wish your attentions now, monsieur, and it takes a wise warrior to know when to retreat, s?”

  Mary saw it was the old, white-haired artist from Italy whom King Francois so favored. Pray God, the king himself was not about to witness this shameful display.

  “Signor da Vinci,” Rene responded, taking his hands from Mary so suddenly that she almost tilted into the privet hedge again. The old man steadied her elbow, and she quickly shrugged her bare shoulder to pull up her dishevelled dress.

  “Perhaps midafternoon is a poor time for romance, especially in near view of the king’s tournament, eh? You are Monsieur de Brosse, are you not?”

  “Oui, Signor da Vinci.” Rene looked suddenly like a huge whipped puppy. That he unhanded her so quickly and did not show anger at Monsieur da Vinci was no doubt because the whole court knew well how the king cultivated and honored the old man. It was said they often spent hours together just talking.

  “Another time would be better then, Monsieur de Brosse. I shall be honored to walk your lady back to the Chateau.”

  Obviously disconcerted, but at a loss for a reply, Rene bowed, and leaned to scoop his hat from the even-cut turf. “Mademoiselle Boullaine,” he said curtly and disappeared around the hedge.

  “I have not rescued a maiden in distress for years, Mademoiselle Boullaine,” Signor da Vinci said quietly, musically, and she marvelled at the way he almost sang his French. “You are the English ambassador’s daughter, are you not,” he intoned.

  “Oui, Signor da Vinci. Merci beaucoup for your aid. The attentions were quite unwanted.”

  “Ah, s. We will say no more of that. I was just trying to see how the craigs across the valley touch the tiny cliff-clinging town on either side when I heard you. The Loire is much like the far reaches of the Arno, you see.”

  They strolled easily around the hedgerow and there was the lovely fountain and opening view where the girls had seen him earlier. He had not moved all afternoon.

  “I live at Cloux in a spacious house His Majesty granted me, but the vistas here are much more pleasant and, well, more like home.” His eyes went past her, far over her shoulder and clouded beneath his bushy, snowy eyebrows.

  “Florence, signor?”

  “S, Firenze. But now, this shall be my home.” He sighed and motioned for her to sit next to him on the marble fountain ledge. Pleased, she did so carefully as he picked up his discarded notebook and stick of brownish charcoal.

  “Is this,” he nodded his head toward the valley, “a French and Italian view only, or could it be your England?”

  She gazed slowly over the misty haze of easy hills and azure sky and plunging valley. “I have seen no English view like this, Signor, but England has its lovely rivers and beautiful hunt parks. And English gardens are wonderful.” Her voice trailed off.

  “You see one now, a lovely garden in the eye of your heart and you could tell me every tiny petal in it, every butterfly and sunny splash, could you not? Knowing how to see, that is the most important gift from God. ‘Sapere vedere.’”

  His left hand nearly skimmed over his paper now, but it seemed he seldom lowered his eyes from the stony
pinnacles beyond. She watched breathless, yet wanting to ask him what he discussed for long hours with his patron Francois, and what he thought of the wonderful man.

  He finished, then, and bent his head over his notebook. His huge nose seemed to point directly at the charcoal misty cliffs and forests and towns he had drawn so effortlessly. He writes backwards, she thought as he labeled the sketch, but assumed it was merely that the Italian looked so strange.

  He turned to her and seemed to stare for long minutes, but she felt totally at ease. “Has Clouet sketched you?” he questioned finally.

  “No, Signor. He is the court artist.”

  “And are you not of the court, Mademoiselle Boullaine?”

  “No, Signor, only one of Queen Claude’s maids of honor.”

  “Ah, that other peaceful and moral court,” he said and rose. “I move more in the worldly court of king’s projects,” he continued in lilting French. “I draw canals for Romartin, I sketch scenery for court masques, I keep my notebooks. I remember other kings and projects and notebooks. But enough of an old man’s whimsies.”

  Mary noticed other people now meandering back across the formal gardens from the tiltyard. If only Francois himself would come along and hail his artist and then...

  “I shall sketch you someday,” he was saying. “You could be a Florentine beauty, you know, fair and blonde and azure-eyed. You show your most inner thoughts in your eyes when it is an unfashionable thing to do, but how touching and how feminine. Like la Gioconda.” He smiled and his eyes were misty again. “I shall not forget you. I shall see you again, Mademoiselle Boullaine.”

  He folded his notebook pertly under his brown-silk arm and bowed slowly. “Remember my motto, fairest lady. At court knowing how to see can be one’s very survival. Adieu.”

  He turned and walked slowly across the terraced lawn before she could reply, and she realized she had foolishly raised her hand to wave at his retreating back.

  Knowing how to see, yes, indeed. And knowing how to avoid that whelp Rene de Brosse and keep Jeanne from snickering, and Annie from prying.

  CHAPTER SIX

  December 13, 1518

  Paris

  The first two days of the visit of the King of England’s ambassadors to Paris were the most thrilling of Mary Bullen’s life. Her father was always rushing about the proximity of the Palais de Tournelles where Francois and Claude resided during the visit. Then, too, the ceremonies and festivities forced the newly pregnant queen to dispense with her usual strict and solemn schedule so that Mary would be able to see the wonderful Francois at close range. Most marvellous of all, Mary had been selected as one of the twenty ladies in waiting to accompany the queen as honor attendant. As the laughing, buoyant Francois had put it, “the lovely demoiselles shall be a very special scenery for this glorious fete.”

  Even on the first day of the official visit by King Henry VIII’s thirty hand-picked ambassadors and their privy advisors, Mary had been present to see the royal greeting. Francois was determined to match, indeed to surpass, the glittering reception his envoy Bonnivet had received last autumn at Hampton Court from Cardinal Wolsey and his dear “cousin” Henry. And now that the one-year-old French Dauphin was married by proxy to the two-year-old daughter of King Henry and his Spanish Queen Catherine of Aragon, Anglo-French relations were much improved and Francois would allow no stinginess of gala hospitality.

  All of the maidens who toted the ermine-edged trains of the king’s mother, sister and wife were fair and blonde, chosen from the three hundred ladies of the queen. On the morrow they were all to be dressed in gentle golds and beiges and creamy-hued silks to complement Master Leonardo da Vinci’s spectacular painted setting for the great celebration at the Palais du Bastille. But today at the Bastille, a more circumspect and regal pomp was the order of the day.

  Mary, in contrast to her expensive and frivolous dress for tomorrow, had chosen a gown of mauve colored silk and delicately sculpted brocade today. The smooth lilac bodice was taut to push her well-developed breasts fashionably up above the neckline rimmed with seed pearls, and the gently rustling skirts shifted from mauve to violet hues as she walked. The full outer sleeves were lined with soft but inexpensive rabbit fur and the fitted inner sleeves dripped a narrow cuff of open-weave Belgian lace.

  Mary nearly floated on a cloud of tremulous joy as she and the other maids arrived at the lumbering gray-stoned Bastille with the heavy trains of the king’s ladies. The French royal party would follow soon after to take up their official stances. Then on a fine-tuned cue, the English envoys would approach with their formal bobbing of heads and wax-sealed documents of greeting. But several of the peripheral English advisors were in evidence already, ascertaining propriety, scanning the vast expanse of the public audience hall, or scuttling about from the French marshalls to the self-important Ambassador Bullen and his privy staff.

  To Mary’s delight there was a pause in the bustlings and her father, looking resplendent in his ermine and velvet, his heavy chest crossed by a massive golden chain, motioned her to him. He stood behind a somewhat shaky portable desk with seals and wax and a disarray of paper, giving orders, questioning men who darted here and there at his will. As Mary neared him, carefully avoiding the vast length of purple velvet carpet on which the English party would approach the enthroned Francois, he ordered the desk cleared and removed. Only one young man, taller and broader-shouldered than the rest, remained in low conversation, so Mary paused a few steps distant, poised, excited.

  The young man listened earnestly to Lord Bullen, his strong brown head cocked, his muscular silken legs slightly apart, and still he was as tall as her father. She had never noted that man before. He was either French, on her father’s staff or maybe newly come from London. Anyway, he was in the way, for she seldom spoke with her father alone and never when he was in such a fine mood. She tapped her silken slipper in growing impatience.

  Then they both stopped and glanced at her and her father extended his beringed hand. “You look lovely, Mary. Being the English ambassador’s daughter has helped you to be here today, though you will look the part. Whose attendant are you to be?”

  “The queen’s, my lord, though the king’s mother and sister have as many bearers.”

  “Fine, fine.” He turned away and gestured to an aide who advanced swiftly. He seemed to forget she stood there at all and that he had not even seen her for three months. It was then she noticed the other man again, and realized he had never looked away from her nor stopped his deliberate slow perusal of her face, her figure, her mauve-hued brocaded dress. He seemed to study her, quite unabashed.

  Her first impulse was to turn heel on such a rude scrutiny, but she still hoped to speak further with her father. And, somehow, she was curious about this tall man, though his frank, roving gaze unsettled her.

  He wore rich browns to match his hair, but his raiment did not look as fussy or costly as she was used to seeing at the grand and glorious court of Francois. He had a rugged face with high cheekbones and not the chiseled features of a Francois or Rene de Brosse. His brows were raven dark and rakish; his jaw square and strong; his nose was well-formed enough, although it appeared he had broken it at least once, probably in some brawl or joust, she thought. She hated to admit it, but the man stood with an angular grace of easy stance and masculine charm. His mouth, which quirked up in apparent amusement or pleasure at her emboldened stare, was wry and somehow very interesting. Then he grinned brazenly and she looked away to feel the color mount to her breasts, pushed up above the neckline of mauve silk and seed pearls, to her neck, her cheeks.

  “Tell the fool to see to it in the anteroom before the gendarmes form up,” came her father’s exasperated words into her consciousness. “’Sblood, I shall see to it myself!”

  He spun and was gone in a swirl of jade green cloak, the distraught messenger trailing after him. Mary was embarrassed to find herself standing only four feet from the staring, tall man with no one in shouting distance in t
he whole, vast, purple-bedecked hall.

  “What good fortune,” came the man’s low voice in an English accent.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” she returned as icily as possible and stood her ground as he took a presumptuous step forward.

  “That the Lord Ambassador leaves me here as escort to his so lovely daughter, Mary Bullen.”

  He said her name somehow differently, and it intrigued her. “He hardly left you as escort, sir.” She hesitated, not wanting to leave despite his rank impudence. “I must return to my duties.”

  He fell in easily beside her as she walked slowly along the edge of the velvet runway. “Please allow me to introduce myself, Lady Mary. I am here on my first visit to France, and my French is rough at best. It pleases me to find so charming a lady with whom I can converse in my own tongue. The French women seem to flit about a great deal, but I prefer a fair and honest English maid anytime.”

  How did we get on this tack so suddenly, Mary wondered, keeping her eyes lowered. His huge feet almost brushed the hems of her skirts as they walked.

  “You have become shy, Mary Bullen. But a moment ago I was certain your fiery glance could match my own.”

  She lifted her head jerkily to face him and met those deep brown probing eyes again. He seemed young, yet somehow worldly.

  “Are you someone’s English secretary, sir,” she parried, hoping the point of her barb would sting.

  But he just gave a shouted laugh, and she desperately hoped that the other girls and her father could not see them or hear his rudeness.

  “I am a ward and often companion to our great King Henry, Mary, whom we all serve even when we are safely esconced in the cloistered court of Queen Claude.” His teeth shone very white when he smiled. It suddenly annoyed her that he could have sun color on his face in December when most Englishmen were silken pale.

  “Indeed, sir, I meant not to offend, I...”

  “But you did mean to offend, golden Mary. Touche!” He chuckled again at her, and she disliked him more than ever. How dare he gibe at her and read her thoughts. She had taken quite enough of his ill-timed wit, King Henry’s courtier or not.