My friendship with Harry had been strained for some time, both because his wife did not like me and in consequence of my liaison with the duc de Longueville. In spite of that, I hoped he might be willing to answer questions about his time in France.

My first opportunity to speak with him came when the dancing commenced. I singled him out during a lull between pavanes and motioned for him to join me in an antechamber.

“Does this mean you missed me?” he quipped.

“Try not to be any more foolish than God made you!”

He sobered instantly. “What is it, Jane?”

“The Frenchmen who were killed or gravely injured—was one of them Guy Dunois?”

“No. Dunois was hale and hearty the last time I saw him.”

My relief was so great that I had to brace my hand against the nearest tapestry-covered wall for support.

“Are you ill?”

“No.”

“Are you with child?”

“No!”

The baffled look on his face might have been comic if I had not been so full of other emotions. “Both Dunois and Longueville took part in the jousting. Once again, your duke acquitted himself well.”

When I did not respond, his eyes narrowed. He gave a low whistle. “So that’s the way of it. It is not the duke you pine for, but his bastard brother.”

“I am not pining for any man!”

Holding both hands up, palms out, he backed away from me, a huge grin splitting his face. I caught his arm. We did not have much time. Someone would come looking for us if we remained here long, most likely Harry’s wife. “Did he send any message to me?”

“Dunois?”

I glared at him. “Yes, Dunois. He offered to undertake an…errand for me in France.”

Harry scowled at that. “I could have carried out any commission—”

“It was to do with my mother,” I said in haste. I had not told Harry Guildford a great deal about my inquiries into my past, but I had mentioned them months before.

“I know nothing of that, but I think someone said that Dunois left Paris as soon as the tournament was over.”

When Harry returned to the dancing, I remained where I was awhile longer. In the dimly lit antechamber, I attempted to collect my thoughts. I was relieved of my concerns about Guy’s survival, but was left to wonder when and how he would contrive to send word to me of what he found at Amboise. I supposed that was where he had gone, unless the duke had sent him on an errand elsewhere.

It did no good to speculate. Either Guy would write to me again or he would not. In the meantime, I had no way to leave court, let alone make the journey to France to join him, even if I dared risk entering that country while King Louis reigned. The best thing I could do was concentrate on living the life I had. I would serve the queen and stay, as much as possible, in the background. With that I could be content…for now.

Returning to the festivities, I wandered aimlessly about the hall, listening in here and there to conversations. Much of the talk continued to be about the French tournament.

“In the tourney, Suffolk nearly killed a man and beat another to the ground and broke his sword on a third. He—”

“I hear the Dauphin dropped out because he broke a finger.”

“Our knights fought on despite injury.”

“—an attempt by the French to embarrass the Duke of Suffolk by substituting a German in the foot combats.”

I had already heard that tale, told by Charles Brandon himself, and I was not surprised to come upon him telling it yet again.

“Of a sudden I found myself facing a giant, hooded to conceal his identity. He was a powerful German fighter who had been substituted for a Frenchman, but I did not know that then. All I could see was a mountain of a man charging straight at me. By sheer strength, I fought off the attack, seizing the fellow by the neck and pummeling him so about the head that the blood issued out of his nose.”

“And was the French deceit revealed?” Bessie Blount asked in a breathless voice. She stared up at the Duke of Suffolk, her face full of admiration for his prowess.

By her side stood the king, looking less impressed and a trifle annoyed that he had to share her hero worship.

“The German was spirited away before his identity could be discovered, but we learned the truth later. And in the tournament as a whole, Englishmen were victorious. None was killed and few were injured.” Brandon affected a sheepish look—all for show!—and drew back his glove to show Bessie the small injury he’d sustained to one hand.

I continued on, my thoughts having once again strayed to Guy Dunois. I paid little attention to my surroundings until a great commotion drew my gaze to the dais where the queen sat. For a moment I could make no sense of what I saw there. Then both dismay and pity filled my heart.

The queen was in labor…and it was much too soon.











13

Bracing myself, I slipped into the room that had been intended for a nursery. The queen was just as I had seen her last, as if she had not slept or eaten or even prayed, although I knew she had. She had aged a decade in mere days and she was already nearly six years older than the king. Still as a statue, she sat by an empty cradle, head bowed, hands clasped in her lap. A week earlier, she had been delivered of a tiny scrap of a son who had lived only a few hours.

As I approached, she spoke, but not to me. “You must love me, Lord, to confer upon me the privilege of so much sorrow.” Her eyes were closed, but tears leaked out at the corners.

When King Henry and Queen Catherine had last lost a son, the entire court had gone into mourning. This time, King Henry made no show of grief. He seemed utterly unaffected by the loss, treating it like another miscarriage. Discounting his wife’s suffering, he acted as if the child’s premature birth was her fault. Her father’s betrayal had altered his devotion, and her failure to give him a living son now widened the divide between them.

The king ordered that preparations for Yuletide go forward as if nothing had happened. He continued to welcome Bessie into his bed, only now he did not seem to care who knew. Evenings were filled with music and dance, and the king’s boon companions organized snowball fights to pass the daylight hours.

By the time New Year’s Eve was nigh, however, the queen’s state of mind had begun to concern even the most insensitive of courtiers. “The king must renew relations with her,” Charles Brandon said bluntly. “He needs a son.”

“Queen Catherine would never turn him away from her bed,” I said stiffly. No matter how callous his behavior toward her had been!

“Nevertheless,” Harry Guildford said, “Charles here thinks we need a special disguising, one that will both surprise and please the queen. We have devised a night of revelry designed to win Her Grace’s favor and lighten her spirits.”

I regarded Brandon’s participation with skepticism. He was all but illiterate in his letter writing and had no talent as a poet. I’d read one poor attempt he’d sent to the Lady Mary. A child of seven could have done better. The king, at seven, had.

But Brandon surprised me by suggesting several clever ideas for the queen’s entertainment. In the end, I agreed to act as a go-between to the queen’s steward and chamberlain to make certain that all would go smoothly.

On New Year’s Eve, word was sent to Queen Catherine that the evening’s festivities required her presence. Never one to shirk her duty, she allowed herself to be dressed in her finest clothing and sat down to sup with a better appetite than she had shown since she lost her child. If she was disappointed that the king did not share the meal with her, she gave no sign, but whether that was from indifference or stoicism was impossible to tell.

I slipped out of her bedchamber while she ate and hurriedly assumed my costume, an intricate garment of blue velvet in the Savoyard fashion, worn with a bonnet of burnished gold. As soon as food and table both had been cleared away, the queen’s steward announced that a troupe of poor players had come to her door and craved her indulgence that they might perform for her. After a slight hesitation, she gave her permission and the great double doors swung open.

Minstrels and drummers entered first, all clad in colorful motley. Next came four gentlemen dressed as knights of Portugal and, last, four ladies, faces hidden by elaborate masks.

“Such strange apparel!” The queen seemed much taken with our costumes. If she recognized the tallest of the knights as her husband, she did not let on.

When the music began, we danced, performing intricate steps to delight the queen and her ladies. The chamber was lit only by torchlight, adding to the romance of the performance. A pity I was paired with Charles Brandon. Harry and Nick Carew danced with their wives and the king partnered Bessie Blount.

“It has been a long time since I held you in my arms, Mistress Popyncourt,” Brandon whispered in my ear.

“I do not recall that we ever danced together,” I lied, unwilling to be reminded that once I had found him appealing. “But then I danced with all the young men at court, so I suppose you were one of them.”

“Ah, Jane, such a pity you did not turn out to be wealthy.”

“Would you have wed me for my money, then?”

“I thought to marry you for your powerful kin, but it was not to be.” What sounded like genuine regret in his voice distracted me for a moment from the words themselves. When I comprehended what he had said, I frowned.

“Sir Rowland Velville is scarcely a great magnate and seems unlikely ever to be one. Only you appear capable of rising so far and so fast.”

He took my comment as a compliment and I had sense enough to say no more. If he held me a little too tightly when we came together in the movements of the dance, forcing my body to rub against his, I pretended not to notice.

When at last it was time to remove our masks, the king approached his wife with cap in hand and threw off his visor with a flourish. A look of genuine surprise on her face, the queen rose from her chair, clapping her hands in delight.

“You have given me much pleasure,” she said, speaking to him alone, “in this goodly pastime.” Taking his face in both hands she kissed him full on the lips.

The courtiers cheered and applauded.

Laughing, Queen Catherine, arm linked through her husband’s, came down off her dais to thank each of us for entertaining her. She affected further surprise as each dancer in turn unmasked. Her smile faltered a bit when she recognized me. I had never been one of her favorites. But when she came to Bessie Blount, I saw something else, something far more ominous, flicker in her eyes.

Face taut, she managed a graceful compliment and passed on to Elizabeth Carew. Bessie shot a panicked glance my way. The queen knew.

That night and the next and the next, King Henry slept with his queen, leaving Bessie to sob into her pillow, convinced that His Majesty was through with her. “She pleases him better than I do,” she wailed.

“He needs a son, Bessie. That is all it is. If you want him, he’ll come back to you. Be patient, and above all do not rail at him for his neglect. He cannot bear to be criticized.”

WE HAD BARELY settled in at Eltham, where we were to celebrate Twelfth Night, when word came from France that King Louis was dead.

My first reaction was relief. I no longer had to fear for my life if I left the safety of the English court. Even better, with a new king on the throne in France, the prohibition against my journeying to that country could be lifted. I knew little about the new king, François I, except that he was young and yet another Longueville cousin, but I thought I might even find myself welcome at the French court.

I did not rush straight to King Henry to ask permission to leave England. It would be at least six weeks before the French succession was settled. By custom, the widowed queen must spend that length of time in seclusion. If, at the end of it, it was certain that Mary was not with child by the late king, her brother would doubtless demand that she return to England. If she was carrying Louis’ heir and gave birth to a boy…clearly it was too soon to make any plans.

A memorial service was held for King Louis at St. Paul’s, in London. That was the extent of royal mourning in England. In fact, King Henry commanded that The Pavilion on the Place Perilous, the masque we had been rehearsing for Twelfth Night, go on as planned…with one change. Bessie Blount’s role was given to another.

Once again, I consoled my bedfellow while she wept.