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.