IT WAS LATE November when Meg Guildford sought me out at court with surprising news. “Harry’s mother desires your company, Mistress Popyncourt,” she said. Her mouth was pursed with disapproval, making her look as if she’d just bitten into a lemon.
I dropped my needle in surprise. “She has returned to England?”
“She has. Will you come with me or not?”
I went. Mother Guildford was in full spate when we arrived at the double lodgings Meg and Harry occupied at court, complaining to Meg’s sister, Elizabeth, of King Louis’ many sins. She did not even pause for breath when Meg and I entered the room.
“He suffers from gout and God knows what else. Both hands and feet are crippled, and he can barely keep his seat on a horse. He needs the help of three servants to get him into the saddle. He is confined to bed for days at a time, and he is the most nervous fellow you would ever want to meet.”
“The king’s portrait showed a pleasant enough countenance,” I interrupted, remembering a strong face, weather beaten and sagging a little with middle age, but with striking features—large eyes and a long, thin nose.
“That was painted years ago. Now he looks a decade older than he is. Swollen cheeks. Bulbous nose. Decayed teeth. He is plagued by a catarrh, and he gulps his spittle when he talks. They say he was a tall man once, but you would not know it to look at him now.”
“I gather you did not get on with him,” I murmured.
She rounded on me and I heard both sisters suck in their breaths. Then, surprising all of us, Mother Guildford laughed. “You have changed little since I saw you last, Jane Popyncourt.”
“Have you news of the Lady Mary?”
“The queen of France, you mean.”
“Yes. The queen of France.”
“Only what all hear, that she sits beside her new husband’s bed, tending to him with loving kindness as he receives envoys from England.” Her face was a study in conflict, her dislike of King Louis at war with pride in Mary Tudor. “He sent me away on the day after the French wedding ceremony. Said I meddled.”
“That was nearly two months ago. Have you spent all this time traveling home?”
“On King Henry’s orders I went no farther than Boulogne, in case I should be called back. I spent weeks waiting there, hoping King Louis could be persuaded to change his mind. That foul old man! I should have heeded the omens.”
“The storm before you sailed, do you mean?”
“That one and the other tempest that struck when our ships were in the midst of the crossing from Dover. The fleet was scattered. The ship we were aboard ended up grounded on a sandbank.”
“My poor lady,” I murmured. “How terrified she must have been of the thunder and lightning.”
“That was the least of it,” Mother Guildford declared. “Her Grace was lowered into a rowing boat to be taken ashore, but even that small craft could not land. One of her entourage had to carry her through the surf in his arms. The queen of France! She arrived damp and bedraggled, hardly an auspicious beginning.”
“I am sure her new subjects took the weather into consideration. We have heard that there were pageants to welcome her and much rejoicing that the war was at an end.”
“The French put on a passable display,” Mother Guildford grudgingly admitted. “Both the Duke and the Duchess of Longueville came to greet their new queen,” she added, slanting her eyes in my direction. “The duchess is a striking woman. Very handsome. She and Longueville seemed most affectionate toward each other, as is only to be expected after such a long separation.”
That her comments failed to provoke a jealous reaction seemed to increase the old woman’s animosity toward me. She went on to provide elaborate descriptions of the journey to Abbeville and the official wedding ceremony held there, waxing vituperative and vitriolic once more about her dismissal from the queen’s service.
“Only a few minor attendants and six maidens too young to have had any experience at court remain with Queen Mary,” she complained. “I was replaced by a Frenchwoman, a Madam d’Aumont, about whom I know nothing.”
Mother Guildford’s litany of grievances was still going strong when I excused myself to return to my duties with Queen Catherine. Belatedly, she remembered that she had sent for me. She slid a sealed letter out of one of her long, loose sleeves.
“The Duke of Longueville’s man sends you this.” She fixed me with a gimlet-eyed stare, no doubt hoping for some telling reaction when she handed it over.
I thanked her politely and carried the letter away with me.
I stopped at the nearest window alcove after leaving the Guildfords’ lodgings and broke the seal, noticing as I did so that it showed signs of having been tampered with. I was not surprised, nor was I alarmed. Guy must have known that anything he wrote to me could be read by others.
He had written on the tenth of October, just before Mother Guildford’s departure from Abbeville. He began by expressing his sadness that I had been denied the opportunity to visit France. He made no mention of how the duke felt about that development. Then he said that it would be some time yet before he could travel to Amboise.
I read that sentence again. Amboise, not Beaugency, the duke’s home, nor yet Guy’s own lands, but Amboise, where I had hoped to go to ask questions about my mother. Did he mean to ask them for me?
A rustle of fabric had me hastily refolding the letter before I finished reading it.
“You are ill advised to fraternize with the French,” said Mother Guildford. “If you have the sense God gave a goose, you will live righteously from this day forward. No good ever comes of illicit love, nor yet from seeking to live above your station.”
“I am no longer in the schoolroom, madam, nor under your control. And I am no longer convinced that you have my best interests at heart.”
“Ungrateful girl!”
“Hardly a girl any longer, madam. And not best pleased to have been lied to.”
“What are you going on about now?”
“You, madam. You told me Queen Elizabeth’s ladies from my mother’s time had scattered, and you implied that most were dead. In truth, a goodly number of them now serve our present queen. And you must have known the name of the priest most likely to have heard my mother’s confession, for he went with your husband to the Holy Land and died there with him.” Once started, I could not seem to stop myself. “Was my mother really ill when she first came to court, or was that another lie?”
The look of panic on Mother Guildford’s face brought my tirade to an abrupt end. Bereft of speech, I watched as her eyes rolled up and her knees buckled. She landed in an ungainly heap at my feet.
Kneeling beside her, I called out for help. In short order she had been tucked into bed and a physician had been called to look after her. When Meg ordered me to leave, I did not argue, but I was puzzled by what had just happened. What had I said to cause such an extreme reaction?
Brooding, I returned to the queen’s presence chamber, where I was scolded for neglecting my duties. Many hours passed before I was able to finish reading the letter Guy had written to me more than a month earlier. When I did, a frisson of fear snaked through me.
The explanation for his delay in leaving for Amboise was both simple and terrifying. He intended to remain at the French court in order to participate in the tournament being held to celebrate Queen Mary’s coronation. He hoped to acquit himself better this time.
THE TOURNAMENT HAD originally been planned to last three days. In actuality, it stretched out over a much longer period because of delays caused by rain. The first event was held on Monday, the thirteenth day of November. Over three hundred contestants, fifty of them English, participated. Among them were Charles Brandon, Harry Guildford, and Ned Neville.
“Ten challengers were led by the Dauphin himself,” I heard someone say as I entered the queen’s presence chamber at Green-which the day following my encounter with Mother Guildford.