Geneviève turned her attention back to her message; it was but a few lines and she had it decoded in a matter of minutes. She read it once, and yet again.
My dear Geneviève,
You are fulfilling your destiny. You have our love and God’s blessing. Bring your first message to the monastery. Ask Father Bernard to hear your confession. Remember, you are never alone.
Henry R
With the page clasped firmly against her chest, the beat of Geneviève’s heart thumped through the thin parchment. Time passed unnoticed as she vacillated between reading the missive and holding it dear. It was as if he knew what lay in the depths of her heart, how alone she had felt in the den of the enemy. But his words were a succor lifting her up, setting her on her feet, and placing her back upon her course once more.
Only when she had indelibly etched each word on the pages of her mind, did she bring the two pieces of parchment—the message and the key—and a long, lit taper to the alcove of the cold fireplace. Crouching down, she held the paper over the flame, index finger and thumb holding the tip of a corner as the lick of fire ate it away, as the ashes fell onto the empty grate.
The words had vanished with the paper upon which they were written, but the spirit of the sender held her fast.
6
But disdain is vice and should be refused,
Yet nevertheless it is too much used.
—Henry VIII (1491–1547)
He stomped about in a pattern of perturbation in the small room behind the great hall, from the windows to the fire and back again. One hand thrust upon one hip, King Henry’s round, puffed cheeks held the high color of his agitation, his leather heels pounding out a rhythm upon the hard stone floor as decidedly as the drums of war called soldiers to battle. He did nothing to contain his anxiety, expecting instead for those around him to give him the assurance he needed.
“This does not look promising to me, not at all.” Henry stared squinty-eyed at the miniature in his hand, as if willing the countenance upon it to come to life, to see the woman with more clarity. He skidded to a stop before Thomas Cromwell, who met the gaze of his king without a speck of aversion, his thin, stern mouth closed firm.
Cromwell stood one step ahead of the others, a row of lords behind his back, the points of their venom no more sharp than if they held daggers against his flesh. Charles Brandon, Audley, Dudley, and more, all loathed him as a grasping parvenu, as disliked as Wolsey, if not more. Only Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury, called Cromwell friend, and yet the elder statesman did little to defend him or his position.
“I assure you, Sire, she is a beauty to behold, though the likeness does her little justice,” Cromwell said, holding out his hands in supplication. “Now is the perfect time to ally ourselves with the German princes. Every day they grow more and more suspicious of François and his vascillating. The pope asks him to act against them and they ask him for allegiance, but he is as irresolute on the subject as ever.”
“No doubt the pope will see such an alliance as an act against him.” Brandon’s voice cut with a sharp edge of derision. “Can we afford to further distance ourselves from the Vatican?”
Mumbles of agreement echoed through the chamber, but whether they were in agreement with Brandon’s contention or desired to speak against Cromwell, it was difficult to tell.
“Have we had any more word on communications between France and Spain?” Henry asked the room.
“Nothing decisive, Sire,” Audley mumbled. “We are sure they are communicating, but the nature of the negotiations remains elusive.”
“We know the Italian princess is magnificent to behold,” Brandon said bawdily, rousing a low but lewd chorus of agreement.
Henry sniffed with a smirk and a nod. “Yes, of that I am sure. But we have not heard from them, either, have we? You can give me no assurances there?”
The councilors and ministers all shook their heads with obvious disappointment.
“My lord, I can assure you—” Cromwell began, anxious to defend his choice for the king’s next bride.
“No one can seem to assure me of anything!” Spittle flew from Henry’s mouth as the full import of his anger fell upon the men in the room like a heavy rain.
Cromwell shook his head, jowls waggling. “Your Highness, listen, I beg you. I am certain both France and Spain are courting the Lutheran princes. We must align ourselves before they can turn them against us.”
The king’s curved upper lip curled inward, like an angered feral dog. “This is maddening. How can we purport ourselves to be the greatest nation in the world when we have no idea what is happening in it? If you are certain, you will bring me proof.”
“Uh … yes, yes of course, Your Majesty.” Cromwell lowered his shifting gaze.
“Dudley?” Henry called, without removing his scathing perusal from the minister’s blotched countenance.
“My lord?” The young, pointy-chinned Earl of Warwick stepped before his king with a dashing bow.
“How goes our project in France? Is she in place?”
“She is, Your Majesty,” Dudley assured him with a smile. “And first contact has been sent, by you, of course.”
For the first time that day, a genuine grin played upon the agitated king’s lips, and the collective sigh of relief was as loud as any alleluia chorus. Cromwell alone quaked with turbulent emotions.
“And she is with the duchesse d’Étampes?” Henry dropped his hands to the sides of his rotund belly as he climbed the steps of the dais and threw himself onto his throne.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Dudley said.
Henry nodded with a cynical but satisfied grunt. “Wonderful. François tells her more than he would ever tell Eleanor. It is our weakness, these mistresses of ours.”
7
A friendship that can be ended,
Didn’t ever start.
—Mellin de Saint-Gelais (1491–1558)
The morning sun did not rise as eagerly as did Geneviève, bounding out of bed, calling for Carine and her gown, rushing from her chamber to that of the duchesse with little time wasted on her grooming. Her plan for the day was full, and she refused to tolerate delay or to be waylaid.
She was not the first to arrive at the room of her mistress; already ensconced by Anne’s side, Anne’s cousins shared in the woman’s morning meal and a conversation unaccompanied by any smile. Four other ladies sat about the room, seeing to their books or their stitching.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Gravois, how nice to see you looking so chipper this morning,” Anne greeted her with a raised goblet. “Have you broken your fast yet?”
Geneviève dipped a curtsy and rushed forward to the small table in front of the windows, bright with the low sun. Fresh, hot bread crusted with cheese, cold partridge, and apple tarts upon silver plates covered the sage linen, and at the table’s center stood a pitcher of hot spiced cider and waiting goblets.
“My apologies, madame. I did not intend to be late for my duties.” Geneviève stood contrite by Anne’s chair.
“Have not a care,” Anne assured her with a dismissive wave. “My troubles found me up before the sun. My cousins and my maids have served me well. Sit down and have something to eat. You look a little green about the gills.”
Geneviève did as bid, Sybille handing her a plate and Béatrice a goblet, without request, resuming their conversation as if there had been no lapse at all.
“By the end of the night the bags beneath her eyes were as low as her chin,” Sybille intoned, popping a morsel of apple tart into her mouth.
“They were not as low as her breasts,” Béatrice tutted snidely. “She really ought to wear a gown more befitting her age.”
“Diane is beautiful, no matter that she is ten years my senior, and we all know it, but I care not one whit for her beauty.” Anne stared past the women seated opposite her, out the window and into the distance beyond, as if her rival stood upon the lawn alongside the row of dark green yew trees. “I care that the number o
f her adherents, including the Dauphin’s, grows larger every day, and that many in their midst hold the king’s ear.”
Anne had little fear of other women, women whose beauty boasted naught more than feminine flirtations and feminine wiles. Beside her, they would pale in comparison; a second sun never shone as bright as the first. But this woman, this Diane de Poitiers, was different and it was her novelty Anne feared most, as the sun fears each day to fall to the moon.
Diane’s paternity—the daughter of the seigneur de Saint Val-lier, who had colluded with Bourbon in the greatest act of betrayal perpetrated against the French crown—fed Anne’s revulsion. Her devotion to François would not waver; his enemies were her enemies, as were their enemies’ children.
“She is rallying the most devoted to her cause and they are putting more and more pressure on the king with each passing day. Yet I know deep down he is sympathetic to the Lutherans and Calvinists. At the very least he is open to them. His own sister has told me so.” Anne pushed her plate away, more than half her food uneaten, rubbing at her head with a moue of pain. “I worry the king is himself unsure of his position on the matter. He is by birth and education a Catholic, and yet he possesses such a liberty of spirit, such a curious intellect, he is like a wondrous child who looks upon all new things with indulgence. How much he is loved for his generous thinking and yet how ridiculed for the same.”
Geneviève thought, as did so many of François’s critics, that such ambiguousness sounded like the symptom of an irresolute mind.
“Queen Marguerite, the king’s sister, is your good and stalwart friend. There you have a potent ally,” Sybille placated.
“Yes, and Diane has the constable by her side. It’s as if we play a game of chess, each with our own powerful pieces. Who moves them with the most mastery will win.”
Geneviève nibbled at her own repast in complete silence, refusing to intrude on the revealing, intimate dialogue, not daring to ask for the jam, out of reach across the table.
“Cousin, you have proven yourself her superior time and again. This latest challenge will be no different.”
Anne bestowed a look of gratitude upon Sybille. “How the woman can proclaim she is the most pious while a mistress—and to a man, a child, twenty years her junior—is beyond my understanding. The hypocrisy is so symptomatic of her beliefs.”
The door to the chamber opened. Arabelle and Jecelyn curtsied as they entered, the lightness of one in stark relief to the darkness of the other. Geneviève felt her wariness rise with Jecelyn among them, her feelings of unease in this woman’s presence, though unexplained, returning with the morn.
“The king comes, madame,” Arabelle announced as she approached.
Anne’s smile changed her entire face; gone were the wrinkles of worry chasing her beauty away, the gloominess replaced with a glow.
François arrived at the door before Anne stood, but she jumped at the sight of him, crossing the room with a quick, light step. The king wore a simple doublet of brown silk braided in gold, a yellow shirt of linen and lace showing through the slashings. His simple golden chain of office held amber stones that matched his eyes, and in his brown velvet toque he wore a hawk’s feather.
He held her small hands in his large ones, leaning down over them, kissing one then the other with the most temperate caress. His eyes held hers fast, bound by unfettered devotion.
“I am off to council but needed a glimpse of you to start my day,” he spoke with soft tenderness.
“And my day is brighter for it,” Anne replied.
There was little mistaking the affinity between them, one begun well over a decade ago in those festive, heady days following François’s release from the Spanish prison. He had chased her then with the same dogged determination as the hound did the fox. How strange it was that they had François’s own mother to thank for their meeting.
Louise de Savoy, the powerful woman who had ruled France as regent during her son’s captivity, cared little for François’s first choice of lover, had indeed made the comtesse de Châteaubriant’s existence a misery in her son’s absence. Louise had been only too willing to offer him a tantalizing distraction, bringing her new maid of honor with her to greet her son upon his release. Little did Louise realize that she would be introducing her son to the woman who would become—if the heart were the regulator of relationships for royals—the king’s true mate. Anne’s role at court remained unsurpassed, as did the place she held in François’s heart; she lived at the very center of both, the fiery molten core of king and court.
“I will see you soon at chapel?” François asked, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand.
Anne’s eyes fluttered at his touch. “Of course.” She would be wherever he asked her to be. Unlike the queen, Anne accompanied the king everywhere, his wife in all manner of life, save legal.
* * *
Afternoon rain brought a quiet to the castle. With the king again sequestered with his council, the women were free to amuse themselves in whatever manner they chose. Anne took to her bed, the pain in her head needing the curtains to be drawn and a tincture of valerian root to be ingested. Their mistress attended and on her way to slumber, Arabelle and Geneviève tiptoed from the somber chamber, gently closing the door behind them.
They perched themselves together on one of the vacant settees like birds on a roof, as quiet as the other half dozen of Anne’s ladies scattered about the room. Some read, while others, like Ara-belle, worked upon their embroidery.
“We haven’t had much chance to talk since your arrival, Gene-viève,” Arabelle said as she threaded her needle with deep turquoise floss. “I believe you said your aunt raised you?”
“Oui, she did,” Geneviève responded with unintended curt-ness.
“Were your parents away at court?”
“My parents are dead,” Geneviève reported, devoid of emotion. Her foot tapped impatiently upon the floor and her eyes flicked to the door.
“Oh, mon Dieu. I am so sorry.” Arabelle reached to give Gene-viève’s hand an affectionate squeeze.
Geneviève shrugged off the sympathy as she retrieved her hand. “It is of little consequence. I was very little when they died. I remember them not at all.” She told the lie with ease, pushing down the gurgitation of anger that always rose in her at the thought of her parents’ demise, and the man responsible for it.
Arabelle gazed at Geneviève with eyes round with compassion. “I’m sure your aunt was a loving substitute.”
Geneviève fought the urge to laugh. “My childhood was all it needed to be.”
Arabelle recommenced her work, an expectant silence falling upon them. Geneviève twitched in her seat. It was proper for her to ask after Arabelle’s life, to return the interest, but she had no patience for pleasantries.
“Would it be acceptable to return to my rooms?” Geneviève whispered. Her mistress’s continued bed rest was a vital part of her plans, and she took extra care not to disturb her. “I would like to write my aunt and tell her I have arrived safely and been welcomed warmly.”
“Of course, of course,” Arabelle assured her, a furrow of concern forming between her eyes. “There are many of us here to attend our mistress. Have not a care.”
“Go along with you,” Jecelyn chimed in, her skirts puffing up as she flounced down upon the seat beside Arabelle, in the warmed place Geneviève had vacated. “I will keep her good company. There is nothing you can do for the duchesse that we cannot.”
The woman offered a counterfeit smile with her overly sweet sentiment.
With a cynical glance at her, Arabelle urged Geneviève on with a genuine smile. With relief and no pause to examine the reasons for Jecelyn’s politeness, Geneviève rushed from the room, rounding down the spiral staircase, skirts flying out behind her, quick steps echoing up into the high stone circle of the stairwell. But once at the bottom, she caught herself up short. Where did she begin to look for a man in a palace she knew nothing about?
; It was midafternoon and the court was at its leisure, not at the hunt nor involved in any other sport. Where would a nobleman who was not a member of the king’s council be? Where would a gentleman pass his leisure time? The idea burst upon her and she spun left, making a run for the great hall.
Fires burned in the giant stone recesses along the far wall, warding off the chill of a rainy spring day, but the crackle was no more than a simmering undercurrent, the low murmur of a babbling brook behind the cries of the forest animals.
Knights, soldiers, pages, and men of all sorts filled the long wooden tables in the hall, a serving girl or two scattered in the mix. Their riotous calls ebbed and flowed as cards were slammed down in defeat, as a chess bishop took the life of a queen.
Geneviève stood on the perimeter searching the faces, bearded and clean shaven, common and regal, but she found no familiar features. Granted, her male acquaintanceship at court was limited, but she should be able to find one of the men from her company the previous evening.
A young serving boy passed, a tray heavy with mugs and a pitcher balanced upon splayed hands, frantically serving a court confined indoors.
“Excusez-moi,” she said, stopping the young man with an outstretched hand.
“Mademoiselle?” He tarried but did not halt.
Geneviève skipped beside him. “Have you seen Baron Pitou, or perhaps the marquis de Limoges?”
The young man’s face scrunched up with thought. “I know not of a Baron Pitou and the marquis is no longer at court. I saw him leave myself this very morn.”
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