Once at Dover Castle, foul weather and high winds postponed our departure. Every time the storm abated, the wedding party prepared to embark, only to be turned back by the return of furious winds and lashing waves. There were occasional stretches of calm weather, but they lasted barely long enough for messengers to cross the Narrow Seas.
More than a week after our arrival in Dover, when one such lull gave promise of safe passage to France, I made my way through a scene of utter chaos in search of my mistress. I had to step around boxes and trunks and over garments made of cloth-of-gold and cloth-of-silver and other precious fabrics. We had been stranded for so long in Dover that, out of sheer boredom, Queen Mary had ordered all her new clothes unpacked. She had passed the time trying them on and admiring herself in the polished metal of an ornately framed mirror.
Now everything had to be packed away, and quickly, before the weather changed again—sixteen gowns, including a wedding dress, in the French fashion; six gowns in the Milanese style, with matching hats; and eight gowns of English cut. Each came with its own chemise, girdle, and accessories. The new queen also had fourteen pairs of double-soled shoes and hundreds of pieces of jewelry—gold chains and bracelets; carcanets of diamonds and rubies; pearled aiguillettes; golden, gem-studded frontlets; brooches, rings, and medallions.
I found the queen of France examining the contents of a golden coffer that stood open on a table in her bedchamber. A faint frown marred the perfection of her features. Mary Tudor might be accounted the most beautiful princess in Christendom—long golden hair, lively blue eyes, pale complexion, all flattered by a gown of blue velvet over a kirtle of tawny-colored damask—but just at present she was clearly out of sorts and still a little pale and wan from her reaction to the previous night’s thunderstorm.
“Leave us,” she ordered, dismissing the ladies-in-waiting hovering in the background. They left with ill grace. Sisters, wives, and daughters of noblemen all, they shot baleful glances my way in passing.
I ignored them, pretending to focus on the scattered contents of a small, ornately carved jewel chest. I was still accorded the courtesy title “keeper of jewels” and from force of habit counted two thick ropes of pearls, four brooches, three rings, and a diamond and ruby carcanet.
Only after the door closed with a solid thunk did I realize that Queen Mary had something to say to me that she wished to keep private. That did not bode well. “Your Grace?”
She heaved a heartfelt sigh, then took both my hands in hers. “There is no easy way to tell you this, Jane. It is hard news for both of us.”
“What is, Your Grace?”
“You have been forbidden to travel with me into France. You must stay behind in England.”
This announcement was so unexpected that at first I could think of nothing to say. I felt as if time had stopped, as if all my senses were wrapped in wool. Only after a long silence did I manage to stammer out a question. “But why, Your Grace?”
“The list of my attendants was sent to King Louis for approval. He crossed through your name.”
Struggling to comprehend the enormity of this setback, and to conceal how badly it rattled me, I asked who else he had rejected.
“Only you, Jane.” She squeezed my hands once and let go.
Bereft of that small comfort, the full impact of her words hit me with the force of a battle-ax. If I could not go to France with the queen, I might never discover the truth about my mother. I would be left behind, adrift and friendless. I would never see Guy again.
“I do not understand,” I whispered.
“Nor do I.” Mary spread her hands wide. “Henry thinks someone must have let slip that you were the duc de Longueville’s mistress while Longueville was in England.”
Although I allowed my outward demeanor to show little of my reaction, beneath the surface my emotions continued to be chaotic. The numbness that had engulfed me upon first hearing the news had worn off. In rapid succession I felt a rush of helplessness, a wave of frustration, and, finally, the welcome surge of anger. I ruthlessly suppressed any sign of this last. It was all well and good for one of the Tudors to make a display of temper. A lowly waiting gentlewoman did not have that luxury.
I hid my distress as best I could. There was nothing I could do to change what had happened. All Longueville’s fine designs for me, all my plans to investigate my past, had come to naught. And I would never see Guy again. I hastily pushed that thought away, and with it the deep sense of loss thinking it produced.
Taking my exterior calm at face value, the queen offered up what else she knew. “The king of France sounded most particular in his dislike of you, Jane. Has he any reason to mistrust you or your family?”
Surprised by the question, I almost blurted out what Guy had told me about the gens d’armes who had come looking for my mother. I caught myself in time. “I can think of none, Your Grace.”
“It is what King Louis said when he struck your name off the list that makes me wonder. By one account, his words were these: ‘If the king of England ordered Mistress Popyncourt to be burnt, it would be a good deed.’ And then he claimed that you would be an evil influence on me and said you should not be allowed in my company.”
“Burnt,” I whispered. Everything inside me turned to ice at the word. The king of France did not just want me to stay in England. He wanted me dead.
“A second witness reports that King Louis told Henry’s ambassador this: ‘As you love me, speak of her no more. I would she were burnt.’ Then the king claimed he acted only out of concern for my welfare and crossed out your name.” Mary gave a disdainful sniff. With complete lack of concern for their value, she began to toss the scattered bits of jewelry back into the open coffer.
The sound of the lid slamming shut echoed in the stone chamber. It resounded in my thoughts, as well, and with a snap almost as loud, a piece of the puzzle fell into place. My name, in French, was the same as my mother’s. Had Maman lived, she would be a woman barely forty, not yet too old to take a man of the duke’s age into her bed. Had King Louis mistaken me for her?
“It appears I have been wedded to a tiresome old prude who meddles in the love affairs of his nobles,” Mary grumbled.
I said nothing. My thoughts were still spinning. Mistress Popyncourt should be burnt? Lust did not lead to execution. The nobility of France were far more likely to honor long-term mistresses with important household posts than banish them.
I would she were burnt.
Burning was not the punishment for harlotry. It was a fate reserved for heretics, for witches, for wives who murdered their husbands…and for servants who killed their masters.
I felt myself blanch. A lady-in-waiting who poisoned her king fit into that last category all too well. I was certain I was right. King Louis had me confused with my mother, and he believed the rumor that she had poisoned King Charles.
I frowned. Louis had benefited from Charles’s death. Why should he drive Maman out of France? Why would he wish to keep her away?
A logical reason was not so very difficult to imagine. He would do both if Maman was a threat to him, if she knew, mayhap, that he had poisoned King Charles. Had he tried, all those years ago, to blame her for his crime?
“If I please King Louis sufficiently, perhaps he will allow me to send for you later.” Mary’s expression brightened at the thought.
“I will pray for that outcome, Your Grace, but I think it most unlikely that the king will change his mind.”
Even if he realized that I was not my mother, he would never allow me to set foot in France. He could not take the risk that Maman had confided in me.