by Diane Haeger
Mary spent her afternoons and the early hours of the evening in Louis’ private bedchamber with him as he convalesced, either playing cards or reading to him in the English he hoped to improve. Everyone knew he was nursing an illness that was steadily growing worse, yet no one was allowed to speak of it, particularly not Mary, whom he would take hunting, he said, the first moment he was able.
“How is our great king?” Francois inquired of Mary as she left Louis’ apartments one bleak, cold afternoon.
He had fallen asleep and she found herself desperate for a bit of crisp winter air chilling her face, and some relief from the monotony of camphor and the king’s continual rheumy cough. Francois, it seemed, had come out of nowhere to walk beside her now down the length of the three connecting presence chambers that led eventually to the corridor, and a bank of uncovered windows, through which gray winter light poured. Mary felt a little ominous shudder at the tall, daunting presence beside her, but she pressed it back. It had occurred to her after Charles and the English delegation left a month ago now that, with Louis’ condition swiftly declining, she truly could not afford to antagonize his presumptive heir, no matter how she had stubbornly pressed it with him before. Francois was just arrogant and handsome enough to assume there was not a woman at the French court who would not desire him, given a bit of seductive prodding. To protect herself, she must not allow him to believe differently.
“My husband is improving each day.”
“That is not what I heard.”
Mary forced back the clever retort that rose to her lips.
“And what is it that you have heard?”
“That I shall be king soon enough.”
“If it is God’s will, then France shall bow to a new sovereign, and I along with it.”
“You, Mary?” He stopped suddenly, forcing her to stop along with him as his question hung between them. Once again she faced his charming sneer. “You will bow down to me? A man you love to hate?”
“I shall do as I am bid by my king.”
“Ah, now there is a promise worth fantasizing over.”
He reached out and ran a finger down the length of her puffed ivory silk sleeve, edged with tiny emeralds. “A lovely cloth. But I prefer you rather more boldly in claret red velvet with a spray of diamonds around your throat. That is, after you are finished wearing your widow’s weeds.” He lowered his hand then, but his eyes stayed rooted on her, his smile never changing from the clever one full of expectation.
“I shall pray each day that it is a very long time indeed before I must don anything sewn in the color white.”
“And yet, one is forced to wonder how that can be so, you so young and desirable, full of life, and with desires of your own—and our poor old king, trying his best to keep up with you, dining later now, dancing, drinking too much . . . making love a bit too often.”
By my faith, he is vulgar! And an expert at baiting a woman of whom he knows so little, she thought. Mary steeled herself against the sensation of rage. Instead, she tipped up her chin as she had become adept at doing, and forced a controlled smile onto her face.
“I do my duty to my husband in all things, and he seems pleased enough with me.”
Francois surprised her by laughing. “Pleased, yes, most assuredly, he is that. Made well, highly unlikely, with a young bride like you who will surely be the death of her ailing husband.”
“Well, I suppose we shall see about that.” She began to walk again, but he did not follow her. Instead Francois left her words to echo in the air between them as thoughts of Charles Brandon, and his rescuing her, at that moment seemed very far away.
“Come to bed,” Louis bid her with a smile and an outstretched hand.
After the dining and the dancing that evening, only a small portion of which he had been able to attend, the king had sent for Mary. It was Christmas Eve and the court had returned from Blois to Les Tournelles in Paris for the holiday. A light snow fell like feathers past the windows, blanketing the dark and gritty capital city in a fresh powder. Mary forced herself not to see the sickly man steadily weakening before her, but rather the king who desired her and showered her each day with gifts and adoration she knew she did not deserve.
She sank onto the bed beside him and he leaned over to embrace her. “I have missed you,” he murmured. “Missed us.”
She knew what he wanted. “But you are unwell, Louis.”
“I am well enough.” He smiled at her and took a bit of her long hair into his hand, then pressed it against his cheek.
“I have always delighted in the scent of your hair . . . the feel of your skin, so like silk. . . . You really are so very perfect.”
“I do not think you should—”
“Touch me,” he bade her, refusing her gentle warning and trailing his fingers down her breasts.
Mary sighed and opened her dressing gown. It was her duty to give him an heir if she could. The prospect, however unlikely, would secure her future and legacy in France, so long as the king survived. If he died and she were pregnant, Mary would be in the most grave danger, and she knew it.
Chapter Eighteen
And I thank you for the good service while he was here of the Duke of Suffolk. I beg you to believe that independent of the place that I know he holds with you, and the love you bear him, his virtues, manners, politeness and good condition, deserve that he should be received with even greater honor.
—From Louis XII’s final letter, December 28, 1514, sent to Henry VIII December 30, 1514, Westminster Palace
In elegant brown leather slashed with gold silk, Charles Brandon sprinted down the length of the corridor leading to Henry VIII’s private apartments, the heels of his kidskin boots echoing across the smooth inlaid wood floor.
It was five days after Christmas, and the announcement had just arrived from Paris.
“The king must see me! I have news!” he shouted breathlessly, pressing past the guards and the crowd gathered and awaiting admittance. His Highness’ dresser, various Gentlemen of the Chamber, guards and ambassadors who lingered near the door tried to object but he would not be stopped.
Charles pulled back the bed draperies with a single snap.
“The King of France is dead!” he announced before he saw that the naked girl wound around Henry, crow black hair splayed across his chest, was not Katherine but Elizabeth Blount, one of the queen’s own ladies-in-waiting. Charles bowed, trying not to look at her, as Henry lifted his head from the pillow and struggled to open his eyes.
“Could you not have knocked, Brandon?” he asked on an irritated sigh. But he accepted Charles here in his midst like the brother he had become, and made no effort to have him removed.
“Louis is dead, and Mary now is widowed by it!”
“That is customarily how it works,” he said drolly. As he rolled onto his back he slapped his new mistress’s bottom, and she gave a little groan. “Get dressed,” he ordered her as he sat up and reached for his own dressing gown lying in a crimson silk pile at the foot of the massive bed. Charles lingered over them, not watching as the young girl slipped from the covers, plucked up her dress, petticoat and shoes and disappeared silently through a small door beside the fireplace hearth.
“All of those years to see her married to someone proper, and it is over in three months’ time?” Henry sighed, heading for the velvet-covered closed stool beside the bed and urinating into it as if there was no one else in the room.
“I am not certain she is safe there now, though. The dauphin—now King Francois—has a reputation and it was no secret when I was there that he had designs on Mary.”
“Mistress to the King of France was not exactly what I had in mind next for her.”
His grooms approached with a selection of ensembles for him to consider. He nodded at a blue velvet with gold slashes, and the others were swiftly withdrawn as a cup of wine was brought on a silver tray.
“Nor is that Mary’s desire, I think I am safe in saying,”
Charles said, and Henry shot him a glance. “I mean only that he is an arrogant sort and the queen is far too proud to serve anyone as a convenience.”
“Yes, that would be my sister.”
“A delegation should go to France for the funeral.”
Henry smiled, then sipped his wine. “And to support her in her grief?”
“She should be supported, even if it was never a love match.”
“Of course. She will be vulnerable now no matter what, as Katherine was here after Arthur died, and there should be someone there to look out for her just now.” The dresser silently drew a pair of gold-colored hose up over Henry’s muscled legs and a thin linen shirt over his chest. “You are rather fond of Mary, are you not, Charles?”
“I have known her since we were children. She is like a sister to me.”
Charles stood still, betraying nothing as Henry seemed suddenly to study his expression and, quite likely, his sincerity. “You have been there before. You know the various players. If Mary is in any sort of danger now I would trust you to assess it for me.”
He had said the word “trust” with more than a little insinuation. A warning, yet unspoken.
“I feel her loss too, Charles. Her light, that sparkle here at my court is sorely missed. By everyone, me especially.”
“You do not write to her often.”
He sighed. “It would be difficult for me with her life there now, as Margaret’s is in Scotland. I knew I needed to let them go, both to their destinies, and not soften about that.”
“Go to France with me, Harry. See her.”
“I could not, without a grand undertaking, an entourage as big as my army and months of planning. For what it would cost England to present myself to my new brother, I could finance a war,” he chuckled, amusing himself suddenly. But Charles heard the note of regret in his voice as well. “No. You go to France for me, Charles. You will make certain our Mary is safe. You will handle things there exactly as I would. Whatever you do, however, you must not antagonize Francois. We are too in need of the French alliance, no matter how arrogant he is, or how he might bait you.”
“He may be powerful, but you are the only sovereign who has power over me.”
“He has our Mary, though, until negotiations for her return and the remittance of her dowry can be finalized. We must not forget that. I have heard how that young wolf covets all the beauties at his court, especially since there is no one there any longer powerful enough to object. No doubt you will seem a white knight to her now that Louis is dead and she no longer has his protection.”
“I will do nothing to disappoint Your Highness.”
“You have changed and matured a great deal, Charles, since those wild days with Margaret Mortimer,” Henry declared on a sly smile, yet with a gaze full of commitment, friendship and the many shared years between them. “I trust no other so much as you.”
After Charles had bowed and gone, Henry called for Wolsey, who entered the king’s apartments in a swirl of scarlet cassock and cap. A heavy gold pectoral cross hung from a gold chain at his chest as he stood before the king. Henry turned back from the fireplace hearth and looked at him. “Have you heard everything?”
“Indeed, sire.”
“And do you concur with the thinking, or has he a personal reason to go to France?”
“I do not believe the new king will let our Mary leave, even if she is not pregnant, but especially if she is,” Wolsey said. “She is too valuable a bargaining chip now. I am told that he would happily marry her to the noble Claude de Lorraine so that he may keep her there at the French court for himself.”
“So Brandon told no lie in that.”
“Not from what my sources say, sire. And if she is pregnant, by some chance, she could be in grave danger. Francois will not want competition for his highly coveted crown now that he has already had his first taste of life as king.” They both knew that her child, if it were a boy, would supercede Francois automatically in the line of succession. Unless some untimely accident prevented his birth.
“Then I am right to send Charles to see that she is safe, and perhaps even to bring her back if he can. The Prince of Castile had wished to renew his suit in the event of Louis’ death. Perhaps, considering our options, that would be a good match after all.”
“Did Your Highness not promise your sister the freedom to select her own next husband?”
“I would have said anything to get her on that ship, Wolsey, you know that. Besides, I am king. Obviously I can decide something like that far better than a woman! The Prince of Castile was a sound choice for her then and he would be an even better choice for her now. I want you to write a letter to Mary. She will take it better, coming from you, and I know you have the greatest ability to be judicious.”
He nodded. “As you wish, sire.”
“Tell her that she is to do nothing impetuous, and that she must take great care with my French brother. I do not trust Francois, but he is the king, and at the moment, we need his alliance.”
Dear as their friendship was, they both had known Charles Brandon for a long time. No one, Henry thought privately, changed that much when they had led the wily, self-indulgent youth that Brandon had. It was better to let Wolsey handle this. He trusted the cleric completely in all things.
An hour later, Wolsey stood before two of his friars, who had been summoned to his apartments. “You are to personally deliver the king’s letter to his sister, the Queen of France.
And then you are to speak privately with Her Majesty. Warn her. Tell her that King Henry seeks to arrange her marriage to the emperor’s grandson after all.”
To be forewarned is to be forearmed in any good war, he thought. But he did not tell the friars that.
Eighty-two days and nights of wishing Louis XII did not even exist, so that she could return to England, and to Brandon’s powerful, reassuring arms. Now Louis was dead. Mary, who was called La Reine Blanche already, stood alone in stark white robes, a black cap and veil, gazing at his waxen body lying in state, in the great hall at Les Tournelles. Ringed around his bier were monks softly chanting low monotonous requiem prayers. Louis had been garbed in a crimson velvet robe, crown and gold scepter across his still chest. She saw his pride, even in death. If only you had known me when I was younger, he had so often said. Her eyes were filled with tears for a man who had made an unlikely friend in a marriage that had lasted such a short time.
“You mourn as if you actually cared for him,” Louise de Savoy imperiously remarked as she came up beside Mary in the irritatingly stealthy manner her son always used. “Lovely show.”
Mary shot her an angry stare as a throng of mourners and eager spectators was kept at bay, huddled silently back a distance near the door.
“You have no idea what I felt for His Majesty.”
“True.” She gave a small shrug standing in a sweeping black dress, edged extravagantly with satin and pearls. “I am rather good with my imagination. And I still cannot envision any sort of true, shall we say, receptivity toward an old man as he was, from you.”
“Ah, of course. You are afraid I am pregnant with the king’s child,” Mary exclaimed. “That would ruin everything for you. Now, when you lasted through his former two queens.”
“Unless you are very certain Louis was capable of a miracle, I would advise you to contain Your Majesty’s insolence with me.” Louise’s expression went very tight just then, anger seething from every part of it. “After all, after your period of mourning, if you are not very clearly pregnant by the king, it shall be my son, not yours, who shall be formally crowned King of France, and you shall be useless once more, a dowager without children.” She fingered the large ruby suspended from a gold chain at her throat. “An ugly word, ‘dowager.’ ”
Louise de Savoy repeated it with more emphasis and a slightly wrinkled nose, as if she had tasted something sour. “Speak the truth, ma fille. If there is a chance you were made pregnant—perhaps not with Louis’ child—the
n with some bastard you mean to hold up as—”
“Cease this, I bid you!” Claude cried out, her skin gray now and etched with sorrow, her voice echoing across the silent chasm.
Mary touched Claude’s shoulder in response. She did not believe she was pregnant by the king. From the time of her last courses, Louis had been unable to fully do his duty to her in a way that would make that likely. Neither, in his brief time in France, did she think it probable that she could be carrying Charles’s child. Even so, she knew when it came to that, that nothing was entirely impossible, and she must remain cautious.
Gazing into the face of such an embittered woman as Louise de Savoy, whose ambition had aged her well before her time, announcing a pregnancy from either man who would still unseat her son might almost have been worth the undertaking of such a ruse.
For the moment, though, Mary would not protest too much. Not until she knew for certain whether she carried either man’s child.
The Hotel de Cluny, on the rue des Mathurins St. Jacques overlooking the Seine, with its turrets, beige stone and gray roof, had once been a Benedictine abbey. Stark now and forbidding, it was the customary royal palace used for mourning. There, the law dictated, Mary must spend a full month’s time in isolation, heavy black draperies covering all of her windows to blot out any light or fresh air. She lay atop the bed, face to the ceiling, feeling as if she could actually suffocate, and with no earthly idea how she would survive the next twenty-eight days treated like a virtual prisoner.
As footsteps passed in the corridor beyond the heavily sealed door, she took up the letter from Wolsey once again and pressed it against her chest. His words had brought tears when she first had read them an hour ago for how much she missed her dear Thomas, his counsel and his friendship. She knew he was not well liked. His reputation, even here in France, had become one of a cleric bitten by wild ambition, greed and a raging desire to become pope, no matter the sacrifice.