The king came eagerly to her bedchamber every night after that. Rarely were his amorous intentions met with the success he intended. In spite of the groping, grunting and perspiring, he was usually unable to completely make love to his wife.
Yet he would lie with her anyway in the pearl gray light of early morning, hold her hand, and whisper to her about his plans for their future. When it came time to ride toward her coronation outside of Paris, he explained to her that he wanted her to exercise a right of the queen that would endear her to the French people. As they passed into each town, one after the other, she must free all of the prisoners, a show of the new queen’s generosity and compassion. When he spoke of such things she heard the excited tremor of a boy, mixed with the exultant timbre of a completely happy man.
Each day, Louis would dress elegantly for her pleasure alone, he would tell her, and they would attend matins together. As they sat in stoic silence, surrounded by the spoken rhythmic elegance and the echo of Latin prayers, Louis would take her small hand and squeeze it in a way that no one would see. Then afterward, they would stroll slowly through the vast gardens that linked the private chapel and the Hotel de la Gruthuse, Louis pointing out to her his favorite flowers and plants. Marriage had transformed him, the duc de Longueville, Jane Popincourt’s love, told Mary one afternoon as the king sought to play a round of jeu de paume in order to impress his vibrant young bride. She sat with Longueville beneath a fluttering canopy, also with her collection of ladies, both English and French, all there to watch the king. Mary felt a little burst of triumph hearing it.
“People here were certainly skeptical at first. But no one at court has seen His Majesty behave like this for a decade or more.”
She smiled serenely, as she had seen her mother so often do. “It is a blessing to know a husband is well pleased by his wife.”
“And is the wife equally pleased?” There was just the smallest glimmer of sarcasm in the words and Mary looked up at him in response with a little frown. “Do not inquire about my heart, Longueville, and I shall not inquire about yours.”
“Oh, I spoke not of Your Majesty’s heart.” He threw back his silver-haired head, hiding a devilish, thin-lipped smile. His laugh was good-natured as his eyes crinkled at the corners, and she found herself wondering if so fun-loving an opportunist, returned now to his reality, truly was capable of missing Jane. How long could any man miss a woman once she had gone from his life? Even her brother Henry did not seem capable of real fidelity, in spite of his protestations of love for Katherine. Could Charles really be any different? Perhaps forever was something best left to the pages of the great romances. She had something solid now. Something sure. She was Mary, Queen of France. At least, as she watched the old man before her struggle with a gaming racket, that was what she tried her very best to convince herself.
As Louis came away from the field carried on a litter, looking ever more battered and weakened by his pervasive heart condition and the host of other illnesses that had aged him beyond his years, Norfolk met up with him. He bowed overly ceremoniously. “Your Majesty was brilliant. I could not have played a better round myself.”
“You are as old as I am, Norfolk,” he countered irritably, still trying to catch his breath, as a page held out a large silver basin and Louis splashed his face, trying to revive himself with water. In spite of his mood, Norfolk had ingratiated himself as skillfully with Louis as he had with Henry back in England, and Norfolk had managed very swiftly to become something of a confidant.
“As an Englishman of Henry’s court, I know that you know her well, you are accustomed to her behavior, so tell me, did the queen see me? Was she watching? That is really all that matters.”
“I’m afraid I only saw the duc de Longueville speaking with her. But Lady Guildford could not take her eyes from Your Majesty. That at least is something.”
“The old crone was not watching me, Norfolk. She was judging me, as always, since the day she set foot in France.”
Norfolk shook his balding head. “I never did understand Wolsey’s agreement with Henry in sending her over here. She is far too old for such a vivacious young queen, and far too judgmental,” he remarked, accustomed to making trouble and thus elevating himself everywhere he could. “But my lord of York, as he is called, now that he has found himself a title as archbishop, still clings to the notion that he knows better than our English king. I believe Lady Guildford sends him dispatches, reporting on anything he asks. Their affection for one another is of long standing. But perhaps I have said too much.”
“I always thought Wolsey a better judge of character than to allow the sort of woman to come here in my wife’s train to become a virtual spy in my own household against me.”
“I would have thought so once as well, sire. But ambition changes a man. Even a man of God.”
Louis’ eyes narrowed with irritation. “And has it changed you, Norfolk?”
He bowed deeply. “I like to believe I am the same man I have always been, Your Majesty.”
Two days later, Mary stood before Louis, her smooth face white with rage. Anger and panic were a potent brew seizing her throat, her heart and her ability to reason. Her hands were on her hips, covered now in a magnificent gown of ecru silk studded with tiny pearls, and the chain she wore jangled at her waist as she moved. “When did you plan to tell me what you had done?”
He shifted from one leg to the other and she saw the grimace of pain harden his face. “Certainly before we left for Fontainebleau.”
“In two days’ time? Yet you have told Lady Guildford and the Countess of Oxford that they are to return to England with Norfolk tomorrow?”
Mary did not remember ever being so angry. She forced herself to focus on the words that were swirling around in her mind, driven into a jumble by how she believed she had been duped. Forcing her to leave Jane behind had been horrid. But this was worse because she knew Louis now, and had even trusted him a little.
“They are no longer suitable for my court or yours,” he said curtly. “It really is that simple, ma chèrie. Make no more of it than that.”
Such hubris. Louis pretended to care what pleased her, yet he would do as he pleased, even with the things that mattered to her. “But have they done something?” she asked, unable to keep the pleading from her question because she could not imagine herself here, entirely cut off from everything, and now everyone, who had brought her some bit of comfort.
“Perhaps you did not know it, but Lady Guildford is like a mother to me, Louis.”
“I am aware of that. And to be frank, that is the very reason Lady Guildford is ever the more unwelcome by a husband. Her constant presence, her expressions of distaste, compromise the intimacy between us, and I will not have that.”
“And her absence compromises my happiness. I need her with me, Louis! I thought you wished me to be happy here!”
“I wish for us to be happy. Apparently, we can have one or the other.”
“I bid you, do not take them all away from me!”
“It is not all. I have chosen to allow your almoner, your personal physician, the Marquess of Dorset’s brother, Lord Grey, to remain, and grudgingly, even two Englishwomen to attend your bedchamber.”
“Those you name are nothing to me! They bring me no peace at all. I am going to write to my brother. I am going to tell him everything!”
“A wife is to cleave to her husband, not to her childhood friends—or her brother. Even if he is a king.” His bloodless mouth tightened and he stared at her, unmoved by her pleading. “I have seen that you cannot be the Queen of France I desire you to be if they remain. You are too tied to England with them here to remind you of your other life all of the time.”
“You wish to cut me off from all that I hold dear, then fence me in as if I were some sort of animal?”
“I thought you might hold your king dear, if not your husband.”
Mary felt ill suddenly. Betrayed. Trapped. “I deserve better than this, Louis.”
“Better than being Queen of France, chèrie Marie?” He arched a challenging snowy brow, then gave her a cold little shrug. “There is a price to be paid for all gifts with which the good Lord blesses us. You are young, so I shall forgive you a small bit of your self-indulgence. But one way or another, it is a lesson you shall learn well soon enough.”
Mary stood at the windows inside her bedchamber late that night, unmoving as she gazed down into the darkness of the vast gardens. Louis had been seized earlier by another attack of gout and would not come to her tonight. The announcement from one of his liveried grooms was a blessing, Lady Guildford knew. Tonight Mary could not have conjured the smile and encouragement he required, no matter how she might have tried.
“Dear heart,” she said soothingly to her young charge, touching her shoulder. “I have been entrusted with a letter. The gentleman who sent it knew I would see it safely to you.”
The revelation was soft, almost whispered. They had never once spoken of Charles Brandon in more than a passing way, yet it was clear Mary knew instantly that it was he whom she meant. Lady Guildford then held out a letter sealed with the familiar crimson wax letter B. The pain in the girl’s heart at that moment was impossible to witness.
“Toss it into the fire. You must leave no trace of it.”
“But you have not yet even—”
“You heard me well enough.” Mary turned away and gazed into the fire, purposefully pinching a piece of lace at the edge of her sleeve until she felt in control of herself again. She drew in a deep breath, willing her heart to slow.
Finally, she turned back, having pressed the tears back from her eyes. This was her life, her expression clearly said. She was a woman, a wife, a queen. There was no room for girlish fantasy now. She was not abandoning her dream, never that. But for the moment, with a husband, and duty, she could not afford to think of it.
“It will make me sad, and I cannot afford to be sad just now, Mother Guildford, with you leaving me as well.”
“Dearest child,” she said soothingly, her own round face touched by the same sadness as Mary’s, as she gently brushed the smooth plane of Mary’s cheek. “Life is long. Circumstances do change.”
“If I read his words, any of them, I would hear his voice in my head again, I would feel his arms around me, and to be a good wife, a good queen, to another man—I could not bear that.”
Knowing well enough the stubborn streak that ran through every Tudor vein, Joan Guildford nodded compliantly, then dutifully surrendered the letter to the flames.
Perhaps it was just as well, she thought as they stood together watching it turn to ash. Although she would never say it, she did not believe Charles Brandon was the marrying sort. Certainly not the seriously marrying sort for a matter of the heart. And Mary’s heart had been far too tied up with his for too long. Of course she had always known, because she was old and she understood about first love. From that first adoring, wide-eyed gaze up at him, when Mary was no older than that young Anne Boleyn, to that final heart-wrenching glance between them before she left for Dover, Mother Guildford had known it all. She too feared leaving Mary stranded here.
She had seen enough of Louise de Savoy and her ambitious son to know that, if Louis died, Mary would not be treated well by the new king. Leaving her now was like abandoning her own daughter. “You know that I have no wish to go, child.”
Mary took Lady Guildford’s warm, plump hand and squeezed it, fighting valiantly against the tears that only a moment ago she had all but vanquished. The light and shadow cast from the fire moved and danced between them.
“I do know that.”
“You are as dear to me as a daughter, Mary.”
“You have always been more than a mother to me,” Mary said, losing the struggle finally not to weep. She buried herself deep in Lady Guildford’s full, cushioning embrace, wishing in that moment that, like a mother, she could keep her child like that forever.
My good brother,
As heartily as I can recommend myself to your good Grace, I marvel much that I have not heard from you since my departure so often as I have written to you.
Now am I left alone, for my Chamberlain and all my other menservants were discharged and likewise my mother Guildford, with other of my women except those I care nothing about. I beseech you, if it may be by any means possible, I humbly request you to have Mother Guildford returned to me again.
I marvel much that my good Lord of Norfolk would so lightly grant everything else requested here but this. . . . I wish my lord of York, our dear Wolsey, had come and were here with me instead of Norfolk as I would have had much more ease of heart than I can possibly have now.
Thus I bid Your Grace, farewell.
By your loving sister, Mary Queen of France “Well, what the deuce am I to do for her, Wolsey? She’s his wife now and I’ll not jeopardize relations with France because of a little case of homesickness!”
Red-faced and fuming, Henry faced Wolsey, who had just read aloud Mary’s pleading letter, which had been addressed to “The King’s Grace my kind and loving brother.”
As Wolsey lowered the missive, Henry began to stalk the full length of his magnificently beamed great hall, ornamented by a new map from the Venetian ambassador. Katherine, stoutly pregnant now, sat across the room near the fire observing them.
Wolsey exchanged a cautious little glance with the queen.
“Respectfully, sire, Francois is an ambitious young man and I agree that, in combination with his mother, he is quite lethal.
Mary could well be at some risk were the king to die and she was left there entirely alone.”
“And so?”
“And so, allow me to write a letter to the king explaining the benefit to retaining Lady Guildford.”
Henry quirked a smile. “Ever the diplomat, hmm, Wolsey?”
“That is what you wish of me, sire.”
“Very well, write your letter,” Henry grumbled with a little swat of his hand, feeling suddenly like a man still too under the thumb of a controlling father. “But in it, say nothing that will endanger England’s relation with France.”
“On my life, sire. I shall take the utmost care.”
On All Saints’ Day, the Duke of Norfolk bowed deeply before the new young queen, and pressed away the distaste at having to do so. But image, he reminded himself, was everything. Then he kept an even pace with her as they walked across the gravel path in the garden. Lady Guildford had already been taken to Calais, and waited there only for final word on whether Henry VIII would intercede regarding her return to England. Mary was so angry with Louis that she had refused to go immediately with him to Paris for her own coronation. She knew that by waiting she was sacrificing the very public tradition of freeing prisoners, and thus an opportunity with the French people, but she was so upset she did not care.
Guildford’s dismissal was a complication Norfolk had not bargained on when he decided to be so exceedingly kind to Mary. She was trying to find a way to maneuver around the will of her own husband. But if Joan Guildford did remain in France, the soft old woman would surely find some way to encourage a renewal of things between Mary and Brandon.
If that happened, there was no telling how long it would take them to return to England and resume power, because between the two of them their influence over Henry would be unmatched. So he had planted a seed with the French king. It had taken hold with more speed than he had thought possible. Norfolk knew there was little he could do about it now—even if he had been inclined to. Yet he also knew that Mary, the spoiled twit, meant to ask him anyway when he was summoned by her. He had struggled and fought for everything he had. And all that was required of her was to maintain her beauty, he thought, as she walked beside him now in her vulgarly expensive gown, the collar and long bell cuffs of which were trimmed with rare marten fur.
“Thomas, my dear friend,” she began beneath an autumn sky full of heavy gray clouds, “I do so need your help. I have no one else to ask.”
> “If I can, Your Majesty, anything,” he lied.
“My husband favors you.”
“I have been graced by his pleasure in me, yes.”
“Then stop him from sending my Mother Guildford back to England. You alone can reason with him at this point. I have written to both Henry and Wolsey, but to no avail.”
They stopped walking as the cool wind blew the fur at her collar and flushed her pale cheeks. He let out a heavy sigh as though he were about to express real regret. “Oh, Your Majesty, I cannot.”
“And why not?”
“Because I do not disagree with him. He is your king after all.”
“Would you tell that beautiful little niece of yours, Anne Boleyn, the same thing if she asked you?”
“I would even tell a daughter of mine the same thing, yes, Your Majesty.”
“Then I pity her and I am glad you are leaving France,” she said in an angry staccato retort. “I thought you were my friend, Thomas. I have always thought that.”
“Ah, Your Majesty should take care with illusions. Few people in life shall ever be for you what they seem,” Thomas Howard calmly countered.
Since she was meant to be praying, Mary lowered her head, but her thoughts moved away from the memorized words and toward her strongest memories. They were always the same. England . . . Eltham. The laughter. Jane . . . Charles.
Happy times. Pulling her. Beckoning her to be remembered.
Dear Lord . . . help me . . . keep me. . . . I am alone here now. Afraid. I despise France . . . I detest my life. But it is not my life. Not truly. It all still feels like it belongs to someone else.
She shot to her feet, stubbornly determined not to be undone by her heart. She would not, could not, give in to this. Survival was the thing. Norfolk, Lady Guildford, all of them had left her now. Mary made the sign of the cross, genuflected and very swiftly left the chapel. She then went up the twisted staircase to her apartments. Francois’ wife, Claude, was waiting for her there. Willful little Anne Boleyn was beside her.