“Why do you ask so many questions?” she demanded.
“I wish to know more about my mother.” She knew this already.
“She has been dead almost as long as I have known you. What can you possibly expect to learn now?”
There was no simple answer to her question. I did not know myself. I only knew that there had been something secretive about our coming to England, and about the way we had been treated once we arrived. Why had we left? Had the gens d’armes been looking for Maman, or only for the governess they’d taken away with them? But most of all I wanted to know why the king should have shown us favor. My uncle was only one of many knights at court. He was expert in the lists and in falconry, but beyond those skills he had nothing special to recommend him.
I could scarce explain all that to the Lady Mary, even if I possessed a greater understanding of events than I did. Instead, I offered the only crumb I had. “I have been thinking a great deal of late about my early days here as well as my years in France.”
“That was all very well when we were on our own in the Tower,” the Lady Mary said, “but here, showing an interest in anything French, even your own mother, is not at all wise. We are still at war.”
“But my mother was a Breton,” I reminded her.
“That hardly matters. When you ask these questions, you remind everyone that you are not English. If people should also learn that you have become close to the duke, you risk being branded a traitor.”
A little silence fell. I knew she was right. I silently cursed all rumor-mongering, small-minded courtiers.
“You must cease badgering the queen’s ladies with your questions,” the Lady Mary said.
I sighed. “Next you will say I must give up the duc de Longueville. I miss being in his bed more than I ever imagined I could.”
The princess gave me a curious look. “Do you think that perhaps it is not him you miss. Oh, do not look so shocked, Jane. Answer me this: If the king and his favorites were here at court, could you be tempted by any of them?”
My smile was rueful. “They are well favored to a man, and lusty, too, but I have known most of them too long and too well. I was never tempted before.”
“Mayhap it will be different now that you have discovered the joys of being with a man.”
I could not help but be amused by her naive logic. “But, Your Grace,” I said lightly, “would that not be far worse, not to mention much more difficult to keep secret?”
I expected her to laugh, but of a sudden she looked very serious. “It would be better for you, Jane. At least then your cater-cousin would be an Englishman!”
ON THE TWENTY-SECOND day of October, the king rode hard from Dover to surprise his wife at Richmond Palace. He burst into her privy chamber, followed by his closest companions, all noise and laughter. They were cock-a-hoop about their first venture into war, even though the battle they had won had been far less significant than the one fought at home at Flodden in their absence.
Henry Tudor was the largest man at his own court, well over six feet in height, with proportions to match. There was not an ounce of fat on him, for he kept trim with jousting and wrestling and other manly exercises. He was well favored, with pleasant facial features—not always the case with royalty—and broad shoulders and long, muscular legs. Those who had long memories always said he had the look of his mother’s father, King Edward. Edward himself had been big and blond and lusty.
After greeting his queen, King Henry moved into the crowd of courtiers, demanding kisses from every gentlewoman and lady in lieu of the bows he received from the men. When he reached his sister, he lifted her right off her feet and swung her around in a great circle, to the delight of everyone watching.
“By St. George, it is good to be home!”
The cheers and applause that greeted this sentiment were so loud that I did not hear the Lady Mary’s reply even though I stood right next to her. The king set her back on her feet and turned to me.
“And we are most pleased to have you back, Your Grace,” I said, prepared to greet him with a kiss.
The next moment, I gave a squeak of surprise as he swept me into the same embrace he had given the princess. Holding me with my feet still dangling a foot above the floor, he kissed me soundly, full on the lips.
Laughing, he set me on my feet again a moment later. I smiled up at him and said the first thing that popped into my head. “Your Grace has acquired some new finery at the Burgundian court.”
The king beamed at me. He had no modesty when it came to his apparel. He was garbed in the newest knee-length bases from Italy, heavily embroidered with vines and flowers. His brocade doublet had puffed and slashed sleeves. A dagger, purse, and gloves hung suspended by golden laces from a cloth-of-gold belt, and, following the current fashion, he had padded his codpiece and decorated it with jewel-encrusted points. It thrust out from the center opening of the bases, impossible to ignore.
Before becoming intimate with Longueville, I had never given much thought to that part of a man’s body, save when I came across some gentleman urinating in the corner of a courtyard and was forcibly reminded that men and women are differently made. Now I caught myself staring at the gaudy, ornate covering. Like everything else about the king, his yard was both oversized—or at least overstuffed—and blatant.
His Grace moved on, indiscriminately dispensing kisses until he came to young Bessie Blount. The maid of honor Queen Catherine had sent to fetch me to her on the day the French prisoners first arrived at court had gone north with the queen, but I had spoken with her several times since I had been at Richmond. She was a sweet-natured girl still growing accustomed to life at court.
The terrified expression on her face reminded me that she had not previously met King Henry. She had arrived after he left for France. She froze, uncertain whether to make an obeisance or go up on her tiptoes to kiss him in greeting.
His voice boomed out, audible in every corner of the presence chamber. “Here’s a pretty new flower since I went away to war! What is your name, sweeting?”
“Elizabeth Blount, if it please Your Majesty.”
“It does indeed!” He picked her up, as he had his sister and me, and kissed her soundly.
Bessie stared after him in bemusement as he moved on to another of the queen’s damsels. Had I looked like that, I wondered, the first time I beheld the duc de Longueville?
By the time the king resumed his place by the queen’s side, busy servants had the royal furniture in place. The king’s cushion had been placed upon the chair of estate and a canopy had hurriedly been erected over it. Queen Catherine, having lost her status as regent from the moment of her husband’s return, was relegated to a smaller chair with a lower canopy.
“Your Grace,” she greeted him in her low, throaty voice. And then, in tones even lower and more husky, she murmured, “My Henry.”
In spite of all the flirtation and the indiscriminate kissing, Henry Tudor had eyes only for his Catherine. She glowed, basking in his undivided attention. Their desire for each other was a palpable force in the presence chamber and no one doubted that the king would visit his wife’s bed come nightfall.
At court, however, ceremony surrounds every royal action. Music and dancing and games would come first, for the king rarely retired before midnight. After that, if he wished to lie with the queen, he would summon his grooms of the bedchamber. They would bring his night-robe, help him into it, and escort him through the private connecting stair or gallery—which one it was depended upon the palace—to the door of the queen’s bedchamber. The grooms would then wait outside that door until the king was ready to return to his own bed.
On this evening, however, King Henry departed from protocol. Halfway through the festivities, he abruptly rose, took Queen Catherine’s hand in his, and led her from the room. The attendants on duty scurried after, more than one of them aghast at the breech in etiquette. I hid a smile behind my hand as I heard a distant door close. Ceremony, it seemed, would for once take second place to desire.