The Secret Bride (33 page)

“Willingly and without complaint.”

“Then it is promised by us both,” said Henry VIII, the grudging half smile returning as tears slid onto his bearded chin.

Mary could hardly believe what she had heard, what she had got him to promise. Yes, Wolsey had put the notion into her head but she had never actually believed in her heart that Henry would agree to something like that, especially after what Margaret had done to him. Now, just when things seemed the darkest, Mary actually felt she suddenly had something to give her strength. Something at least to hope for.

“Then I will wait with all patience and hope for what my brother promised,” she said.

“Yes, yes . . .” He swatted the air with a dismissive gesture, tired of the cold, the rain, and anxious to get back to his mistress now that this was resolved. “I did promise. One day, if you are widowed, you may have your way in it.”

He held her close then and, in that single fleeting moment, she could feel a desperation in their connection. “God-speed, my Mary,” Henry whispered.

God speed me back to England,
Mary was thinking.
And pray God, Charles waits for me because he knows nothing at all of any of this.

On the twenty-second of September 1514, King Louis 12th, very old and feeble, left Paris, to go to meet his young wife, Queen Mary.

—Louise de Savoy, from her journal September 1514, Abbeville, France They met in a town along the silvery, snaking Somme River. The wedding would take place not in Paris but amid the lush beauty of the French countryside. The ambassador explained that Louis wished to meet his bride without the delay of the long trip further on to Paris. Mary knew it was an old man wanting to make his best impression first on a beautiful young bride. So far it was succeeding, she thought, as she rode in her open litter down the long tree-lined causeway toward the grand and elegant brick Hotel de la Gruthuse.

She could already see that France was a completely different world from that which she had left behind. The trees, the sounds, even the fragrances of the flowers were different. An arc of plane trees, and a border of blood-red poppies and pink delphiniums, lined the gravel path that twisted and swayed in the warming late summer breeze.

Mary laid her head back against the cushion, closed her 
eyes and tried very hard not to see an image of Charles in her mind. This was survival now, and to do that she must not think of him, nor could she acknowledge her longing even to herself.

She must be more clever than her heart by half if she were to achieve her hopes. She withdrew from the litter with help from Lady Guildford and Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk, who was Buckingham’s daughter. Also chosen to accompany her, from a long list considered, were Mary’s familiar companion Lady Oxford, who was Norfolk’s daughter, and her friend Lady Monteagle. Elizabeth dutifully arranged Mary’s headdress, then straightened her thick silk skirts. The Duke of Norfolk, also selected for the journey, stood stoic and fatherly beside her litter, waiting. Mary’s legs were stiff from the journey, and she was still weak from the seasickness she had suffered on the crossing. Mary had eaten little since she had left England. But, nevertheless, she was a striking figure in cloth of gold on crimson, with tight English-style sleeves, and a headdress of matching crimson silk. She gave a defiant toss of her head, determined absolutely not to show the complexity of feeling behind her false smile. She meant with every part of herself to be the most remarkable queen possible and, pray God, the queen of shortest duration in France.

Before her, across a gravel-covered courtyard and past a grand stone fountain, a small delegation was waiting to greet her. Oh, how she missed Jane at this moment! Jane . . . who would have smoothed the way for her and made this first moment even the tiniest bit less awkward.

In the center of the well-dressed men, in their brocade doublets and fashionably padded trunk hose, jewels and chains, stood one much taller than the others—a chestnut-haired man with a regal air. That cannot be the king, Mary thought smugly; he is not nearly old or sickly enough. She bit back a smile as he came forward, hands clasped behind his back, chin lifted to an arrogant tilt and his amber-colored eyes glittering beneath heavy lids and long dark lashes.

“Your Highness,” he said in French, making her a reverent bow and sweeping a jeweled hand dramatically before him. “I welcome you to Abbeville. I am Francois d’Angouleme, duc de Valois, His Majesty’s son-in-law and heir.”

The last word left his lips on a slight note of challenge, just as his eyes met hers. Of course, she thought, the opportunistic son of Louise de Savoy, husband of Louis XII’s daughter. On the stormy trip from Dover, the duc de Longueville had told her all about them, and how Louise had made it her life’s work to see her son one day on the French throne.
He certainly cannot welcome me here, the potential mother of the child who would unseat him.
No matter how ingratiatingly he smiled now, Francois could never be a friend. Mary made a proper curtsy in return, then met his eyes fully, almost in a challenge of her own.

“I trust your journey was a pleasant one,” he added.

Pleasant as death, leaving behind those I love
. “Pleasant enough.”

“You are even lovelier than I was told.”

“And you are even more clever than they said.”

“Your Highness’s French is very good.”

“I have spoken it all of my life, so there are few things that will get past me here.”

Francois bit back a smile and nodded to her, his match having been well and quickly met in this proud little English girl before him. “I am certain you are anxious to meet your husband.”

“Most anxious, especially knowing how many others are looking forward to witnessing it.”

“Indeed they are. How did you know?”

“Everyone likes a good show, monsieur. I suspect your king and I are about to give them one which everyone will be speaking about for many years to come.”

So the arrogant heir is to be my true challenge here,
she thought ruefully as Francois began to lead her, and her ladies, up the sweeping outdoor staircase and into the palace in a flurry and rustle of silk and petticoats. He did not speak further as they entered the palace and he led them up a second grand curved flight of stairs to the king’s private apartments. But there was nothing positive he might have said to alter her impression. She did not like him.

They moved through a vast presence chamber decorated with massive Flemish tapestries, the ceiling painted azure and studded with gold fleurs-de-lys. It was stuffed with petitioners and ambassadors who had been waiting for hours to ask for favors or to do business with the king. They were silenced instantly by Mary as she passed, and she felt their eyes rooted on her. And she could not help but notice their manner. The French court was obviously an entirely different place from the English court she had thought of as glamorous. Now suddenly she felt out of place, that even her loveliest gowns would appear common. She also felt as if they were whispering as she passed, judging her. Imagine an English girl, she heard them say, the foreign princess pretending to be a proper French queen.

“Lift your chin,
ma fille
,” she heard the duc de Valois say behind her. “The king prefers an abundance of confidence in those who surround him . . . that is, in all but his heir. Me, he wants gone from his life. Ah, but then again, it is no different from what I wish of him.”

The way he said it made her stifle a laugh. Could she have misjudged him so quickly? Could someone dripping with such arrogance possibly understand from just their brief meeting the fear she felt, the bitterly homesick sensation and the sense of longing for all that she had left behind? Dressed up, painted, full of loyalty and duty, yet still she fought the urge to turn and run from her future.  The halls and corridors through which Francois led her seemed a maze and never ending. Paintings, statues, thick marble columns, frescoes and the cold echo of formality.

Henry’s court was warm and inviting by comparison to this quiet grandeur. But perhaps that was because she had been a part of it. Queen to be or not, here she was a stranger.

When they finally arrived in the third and last of the presence chambers, Mary felt a little intake of breath freeze her throat as she paused on the threshold of open, paneled double doors. Louis was suddenly before her, seated on a gilded throne with a thick purple silk cushion beneath him and matching tester above. His veined hands were hooked over the chair arms and he was slumped as if he were not quite conscious. He did not seem aware of her even as she approached and heard her name announced.

Around the king hovered a collection of ambassadors, aides, gentlemen and courtiers, not one of them breaking a welcoming smile in response to her arrival. Mary thought of them then as a circle of crows on the parapets of the Tower back in London, all waiting, watching expectantly to see her show her weakness.  
Am I actually meant to bed with him?

That thought had been clattering around in her mind for hours as she anticipated their meeting, yet it pressed now like a cough wanting to burst forth as Mary stood for the first time facing the stoop-shouldered man, made elderly looking by lengthy and repeated illness, she was about to marry. Even in the shimmering golden candle-and firelight his gray parchment-colored skin hung from the bones of his face and hands like paint peeling from a wall.

Finally, Francois cleared his throat, which seemed to startle the king, who looked up and opened his eyes. “Ah. So you have arrived then.”

His tone and lilting French were clotted and rheumy from his various illnesses, but Mary heard the definite note of sincere welcome behind it, the first since she had set foot in France. The king faltered to stand as she advanced, falling into a deep, respectful curtsy when she reached the throne.

The censure she heard muttered behind a hand from one of the courtiers was remarkably clear.

“For an English princess, she is actually prettier than I expected.”

“Pretty perhaps, but for all of the extravagance and bother they used getting her here, the style of her dress tells all. English fashion is really so unrefined.”

Entirely taken with her beauty and not the nasty exchange, Louis held out a hand that trembled slightly as he waited for Mary to take it. The odor of camphor swirled around him and she fought a grimace. A door closed and the sound echoed in the silence. More whispers followed. Louis smiled expectantly at her and Mary felt her knees weaken as she forced herself to regard the man with whom she would do her duty to link England and France. Louis XII’s patchy, untamable hair, in color, matched the long white satin shift edged in gold thread that he wore to hide the press of bones against his thin flesh.

She had been told by Longueville that the king, once a handsome warrior who had actively fought in several battles, was now worn down by years of crippling gout, bouts of smallpox, and a debilitating heart condition, all of which had weakened him to the point of him appearing a much older man. The continuous pain from his ailments could be seen in his every move. She had been told that Louis was fifty-two, but to Mary the ravages of illness made him look as old as time.

He was her duty, they both knew that, and duty was a powerful thing. But the French, all so smug and judgmental, had no idea yet with whom they were dealing. Determinedly, she pushed another sudden bright image of Charles from her mind. She could not have him here now. That was over. She was on her own. How she handled this meeting, and these next few days, she knew, would determine the rest of her life.

Now, a long way from Henry or his wishes for her, Mary was absolutely determined to play this part of her life, at last, entirely by her own rules.

“Your Majesty, it is an honor,” she said in impeccable French, slowly rising from her curtsy in a cool and dignified manner and meeting the king’s gaze.

“I would prefer our meeting were a pleasure to my queen. But I am too old and gouty a king to expect that.”

“I assure Your Majesty, the pleasure follows the honor closely.”

He smiled at that and Mary saw that, in contrast to the magnificent robe edged to the floor in ermine, his teeth were brown and uneven. Still there was something eager and surprisingly boyish in the expression he made. “Are you weary from your long journey? A rest first, perhaps?”

“Will Your Majesty walk with me?” Mary asked with a sweet smile.

“If we walk slowly. That would indeed be
my
great pleasure.”

So he appeared to be a kind and gentle man. Mary had not bargained on that, she thought as she met his dottering pace and they went outside within a little garden, where she could smell the sweet heady fragrance of roses and hear the bees as they buried themselves deep into the fat red blossoms all around her. He leaned heavily on a polished onyx-tipped stick as they walked, showing his weakened condition, and he told her of the exquisite palaces that were her many homes now, and that in each he was eager to have her feminine counsel. He wished their palaces to reflect her taste and desires as much as his own.