“—held at the Parc des Tournelles in Paris.”
“The old palace there was the Louvre, but it is in such bad repair that no one uses it anymore.”
“—interrupted by heavy rains.”
“Suffolk wore small red crosses all over his armor, for St. George and England.”
“They all did.”
The king, seated on the dais with the queen, raised his hand for silence. “The news from France is good. I received earlier reports, but now I have a letter giving details. On the first day of the tournament, my lord of Suffolk ran fifteen courses. Several horses and one Frenchman were slain but none of our good English knights took any serious injury.”
For a moment I lost my breath. One Frenchman slain? I prayed with all my heart that it had not been Guy. I did not consider for a moment that it might have been the duc de Longueville. If he had been injured or killed, the king would have said so.
Bracing one hand against a window frame, I forced myself to listen to King Henry, who was now reading from a letter. It gave an account of the bouts fought on the eighteenth of November.
“‘—divers times both horse and man were overthrown. There were horses slain, and one Frenchman was hurt that is not likely to live.’”
Yet again, word of an unidentified Frenchman. Did the English competitors care so little for life that they could not even be bothered to name their victims?
“My lord of Suffolk ran only the first day,” the king continued, squinting to decipher the tiny letters on the page, “because there was no nobleman to be put against him, only poor men at arms and Scots. Many were injured on both sides, but of our Englishmen none were overthrown nor greatly hurt except a little upon their hands.”
There was more, but my attention wandered. Around me I could see that the lack of names troubled others among the queen’s ladies. That their husbands or lovers or sons might be hurt “a little upon their hands” was a concern to them. Injuries, even small ones, could all too easily lead to death.
My gaze darted back to the king when he laughed. He joked with Compton but ignored the queen. There had been a certain coldness between them since he’d first learned of King Ferdinand’s betrayal. No one could hold a grudge like King Henry. I doubted that the queen would regain his favor fully until she gave birth to his heir, and that event would not occur for some months.
If the queen knew about Bessie, she pretended not to. Tonight, once again, it would be Bessie who shared the king’s bed. I would be the one to accompany her to their rendezvous and ready her to receive him. Then I would wait with Will Compton in a drafty antechamber until it was time to escort Bessie away again. Wait…and worry.
It did not matter where I spent the night. I doubted I would sleep even if I had our soft feather bed all to myself. My thoughts would keep circling back to the unnamed Frenchman who had died in the tournament. Were there more dead by now, more “poor men at arms and Scots” who did not deserve to be mentioned by name?
And was one of them Guy Dunois?
IN DECEMBER, ELIZABETH Bryan married Nick Carew at Greenwich Palace. I was there, as part of the queen’s entourage, for Catherine attended the wedding even though she was hugely pregnant. The king was there, too. So were Harry Guildford, at last returned from France, and Mother Guildford, fully recovered from what she now termed a mere dizzy spell.
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.