Nicolai grinned ruefully, slapping the scroll against his palm. Fifteen English Court ladies, and one French angel, all vying for their selected parts. All of them with the force of family and faction behind them.
Oh, Marc, Nicolai thought. I hope you appreciate what I do for the sake of friendship!
The French delegation was to gather in Queen Katherine’s presence chamber before progressing to the great new banquet hall. Once Marguerite was bathed and dressed, in a gown of emerald green velvet over an embroidered petticoat of gold satin, her wide oversleeves turned back to reveal more gold and a sable trim, she joined the others in Claudine’s apartment to wait for Bishop Grammont and his officers, including Claudine’s husband, the Comte de Calonne.
A rest seemed to have done Claudine some good, Marguerite observed. She was not as pale, and even looked a bit rosy in her dark crimson silk gown, her stays loosely laced over her swelling belly. That was very good. If she was confined to her chamber, then Marguerite, her ostensible attendant, would be hard pressed to find excuses to go about in Court.
Claudine’s maid was putting the finishing touches to her gingery red hair, lowering a stiffened gold headdress into place. Marguerite’s own headdress was the newer, lighter nimbus shape, of green velvet trimmed with pearls, her silvery hair falling free down her back under the short, sheer gold veil.
Claudine’s gaze narrowed when she saw Marguerite in her fine raiment. “How very youthful you look, Mademoiselle Dumas,” she muttered.
“Merci,” Marguerite answered lightly, smoothing down her sleeves. “I am sure we will all put the English and their rustic garments to shame!”
“And especially the Spanish,” Claudine’s husband, the Comte de Calonne, said, as he came into the room with his own richly clad attendants. “Michel tells me they are all in black, like a flock of crows!”
Everyone laughed, and fell into their places to be led into the English queen’s presence. There could be no Spanish jests there, naturellement!
Marguerite did not know what she expected of this lady, who had been daughter to the legendary Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Queen of England for nearly twenty years. A lady renowned for her piety and great learning, beloved by her subjects. A woman who, as aunt to the Emperor Charles, stood in the way of France’s interests on these shores.
Yet she did not look so formidable as she greeted them with a gracious smile, a few polite words in perfect French. She looked like a settled, contented matron of middle years, not very tall, stout from a plethora of pregnancies that had only produced one living child, Princess Mary. Her once fair hair was liberally streaked with grey, drawn back under a peaked pearl cap and gauze veil. She wore a fine gown of red-and-black figured brocade, flashing ruby jewels and a pearl-encrusted cross, yet all the finery did not conceal the deep lines of worry and care on her round face.
She took them all in with a sweeping glance of her dark eyes. “How very kind you are, Bishop Grammont, to relieve our winter doldrums with your presence!” she said, holding out a be-ringed hand for Grammont’s salute. “We have a great deal of merriment planned for your stay.”
“We thank your Majesty for such a gracious welcome,” the bishop answered. “Our two nations are united, as ever, in the warmest bonds of friendship.”
After a few more pleasantries, Grammont offered Katherine his arm, and they led the whole party along a gallery hung with tapestries of the story of David, lit on their way by green-and-white clad pages bearing torches.
“May I escort you, Mademoiselle Dumas?” a quiet voice asked, as Marguerite moved to take her place behind Claudine.
She turned sharply to find Father Pierre LeBeque standing close, his arm in its black woollen sleeve politely extended. His eyes glowed in the dim light, and he watched her with a tense expectation.
Marguerite glanced hastily around, but there was no one to come to her rescue. At any second it would be their turn to move forward, and she could not fall behind.
She nodded, and placed her hand lightly on his arm. It was coiled beneath her touch, stiff and bony. Was he frightened of something, then, to be so tense?
She had little time to ponder the oddities of Father Pierre. The long gallery opened to a vast banquet hall, where it seemed all the world waited in glittering array.
For a moment, her eyes were dazzled. This must be an enchanted kingdom, like in tales her father told her when she was a child! A land of gods and goddesses, powerful witches and princesses, not the stolid red-brick English world she saw outside. Roger Tilney had told her this space was newly built for this meeting, at vast dimensions of one hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, and she well believed it. The walls and floor were painted to look like marble, with gilded mouldings, the low, timbered ceiling covered with red buckram and embroidered with roses and pomegranates. Tiered buffets lined the walls, displaying a vast amount of gold plate. Bright banners hung from the ceiling.
And the people were clad in such sparkling raiment they added to the golden dazzlement. Many of the Spanish were in black, or wine red or burnt amber, but they served as an outline, a counterpoint to the English in their violet purple, silver tissue, sky blue, vivid rose, tawny and turquoise and sunny yellow.
And, at the end of the room, rose a triumphal arch painted with a large scene of—non! It could not be.
But it was. A painting of Henry’s long-ago victory over the French armies at the Battle of The-rouanne.
Alors! That was not so very diplomatic of the English king. Marguerite’s dazzlement faded into cold clarity. That audacious scene was just the reminder she needed of why she was really here. Why they were all here. To protect France from just such another defeat.
“Welcome, welcome!” a stentorious voice boomed, soaring above the hum of laughter and conversation. All other voices echoed away, and the crowd parted. “Bishop Grammont, for the great love we bear our brother King François, welcome to our Court.”
And the king himself appeared, for it could be none but the legendary Henry. He leaped down from a dais set up beneath the arch, a tall, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested figure swathed in cloth of gold trimmed with ermine and diamonds. He, unlike the queen, was just what Marguerite imagined. His redgold hair cut short in the French style, covered by a crimson velvet cap, his square face framed by a short beard.
He was all bluff heartiness, tremendous good cheer as he greeted the French. All lighthearted welcome. Yet Marguerite saw that his small, shining eyes missed nothing at all. They moved over her—and widened.
She gave him a deep curtsy, and he grinned at her. So, his rumoured regard for the ladies was true! But was it also true he now had attention only for Mistress Boleyn?
Which one was she? Marguerite wondered, studying the array of ladies behind the queen. She saw none there whose beauty could rival her own, but there would be time to look for Anne Boleyn later. They were shown to their seats, at a long table to the right of the hall. The Spanish were to the left, and Henry escorted Katherine back to the dais where they were seated with Grammont and Ambassador Mendoza.
The tables were spread with white damask cloths, embroidered with roses, crowns, and fleurs-de-lis; the benches where they sat were lined with soft gold velvet cushions. In the centre of the table was a golden salt cellar engraved with the initials H and K, and each place boasted a small loaf of manchet bread wrapped in a cover of embroidered linen and a tall silver goblet filled with fine Osney wine from Alsace. Servants soon appeared with great golden platters of venison, capons, partridge, lark and eels, game pie with oranges and King Henry’s favourite baked lampreys. A peacock, redressed in its own feathers, was ceremoniously presented to the king amid copious applause.
A lively song of recorders, lutes and pipes struck up from a gallery hidden behind one of the tapestries, and the conversation grew in vast waves around Marguerite. She nibbled at