The Last Boleyn Read Free Page B

Princess Mary was now Queen of France, her marriage a binding seal between the two powerful nations, her body a human link between her brother England and her husband France.
    But Mary Bullen cried now, finally, her sobs so swift upon each other that she could scarce breathe. King Louis XII, the English Mary’s elderly husband, had ordered all the English ladies of his bride’s entourage dispatched from France forthwith.
    Father would be chagrined, yes, angered, but she could face that well enough, for it was no doing of her own that his master plan to have her reared at the French court and near the king’s own dear sister had gone awry. The pain was rather for the slender and radiant La Reine Marie, for the sweet lady would be as good as deserted in a foreign court with an old and sickly husband-king and her dangerous nephew Francois, the king’s wily heir, hungry for his throne. The sharp, wrenching pain was for herself, too. What would father do with her now? She adored the gentle French queen and was as loath to be torn from her as she was once from her own mother.
    Mary Bullen,
la petite Anglaise,
as King Louis himself had called her, had much company in her emotional agonies as she sat on a richly tapestried chair in the queen’s privy chamber. Sniffles, red eyes, and irregular half-choked sobs came from Elizabeth Gray and Margaret and Jane Dorset and the red-haired Rose Dacre. Even Lady Guildford, whom the laughing maids had smugly dubbed their “mother protector,” wiped her swollen eyes continually as she gave curt orders for the packing to the hovering French maids.
    â€œCome, all of you. Dry your eyes and regain your composure before our sweet queen returns. Would you have the parting be more painful for her than it already has been, for she has pleaded beyond propriety and beneath her dignity to have us stay.” She turned her silver head toward the maids. “
Oui, oui,
put all the busks and hoops together. It matters not. And perhaps,” Lady Guildford continued in one breath, suddenly addressing her English charges again, “perhaps His Grace shall protest this effrontery to his stubborn cousin King Louis!”
    Like the other older girls, Mary rose and tried to assume a calm demeanor. She shook out her lavender velvet skirts and dashed some of Jane Dorset’s rice powder on her flushed cheeks. She might be the youngest by far and a mere maid compared to the others, but she tried with all her strength to emulate the court ladies’ carriage, manners and style. Even her soft-clinging lavender gown over the pale yellow kirtle echoed the ornate French fashions the English maids of Queen Mary all strove for. The tight inner sleeve of yellow satin was embroidered and slashed to reveal her soft, lacy chemise which also peeked out from above the oval neckline, and her velvet slippers and folded back outer sleeves perfectly matched her gown. And certainly, she would do much more than copy styles to please the lovely and sad Queen Mary.
    The bustle of the packing ceased suddenly as the gold and ivory doors to the chamber swept open and the queen swished in buoyed by immense pink silk skirts and puffs of Chantilly lace. For warmth and elegance, the queen’s dress bore a five-foot pink silk train, and loops of ermine and jeweled girdle dripped from her narrow waist. Her angular headpiece picked up the ermine trim of her belt and her soft-edged pink slippers were studded with amethysts and emeralds.
    How calm, how radiant and beautiful she looked, as always, the newly-awed Mary thought. If she could only be like her some day, so beloved of her ladies and her family! How her brother the magnificent king Henry the Eighth of England had beamed when he hugged her goodbye and kissed her cheek with the fine words, “God be with you, my beloved sister Mary.” And she had grasped his great beringed hand, held it to her cheek and whispered in a voice so gentle few had