The Last Boleyn(20)
“Are you someone’s English secretary, sir,” she parried, hoping the point of her barb would sting.
But he just gave a shouted laugh, and she desperately hoped that the other girls and her father could not see them or hear his rudeness.
“I am a ward and often companion to our great King Henry, Mary, whom we all serve even when we are safely esconced in the cloistered court of Queen Claude.” His teeth shone very white when he smiled. It suddenly annoyed her that he could have sun color on his face in December when most Englishmen were silken pale.
“Indeed, sir, I meant not to offend, I...”
“But you did mean to offend, golden Mary. Touche!” He chuckled again at her, and she disliked him more than ever. How dare he gibe at her and read her thoughts. She had taken quite enough of his ill-timed wit, King Henry’s courtier or not.
“Your clear blue eyes give you away, Mary,” he was saying, apparently with all seriousness as she turned in a rustle of mauve brocade.
She did not look back even when his last words floated to her alert ears. “William Stafford at your service always, Mademoiselle Mary Bullen.”
It annoyed her that the impromptu interview had unsettled her so, and especially that William Stafford had seen her father dash off as though he cared not at all for his daughter. Still, her father had complimented her appearance, and she knew he felt proud that she was a part of this important international occasion.
She soon forgot the annoyance at being ignored by her father and teased by William Stafford in the pomp and glory of the afternoon. The king looked more godlike than ever, and she could watch his aquiline profile clearly over the queen’s plump shoulder from the screened platform in the corner of the stage. He sat enshrined on a royal dais, his silver cloak lined with herons’ feathers setting off his muscular body encased in golden silk. He nodded and raised his hand in salute to the Englishmen who displayed their official papers and recited the English king’s salutations in deep-voiced Latin. When it was over Francois, his advisors, and his trinity of bedecked and bejeweled women descended from the stage and retreated down the lengthy purple velvet path edged with two hundred gendarmes, gilt battle axes held perpendicularly before their grim faces.
Mary shuddered with excitement. Her eyes darted proudly to see her father’s alert gaze as she swept by poised on the left rim of Queen Claude’s heavy train. But she fought to control a grimace when she caught the intent stare of that rude William Stafford only one aisle beyond King Henry’s royal ambassadors.
The second day of the English visit continued in a marvelous fantasy of beauty, glory and grandeur. After an elaborate formal mass at Notre Dame early in the day, the crystal afternoon air resounded with the trumpet blares, crashes and rumbling clinks of a formal joust. Though Mary and the other maids of honor had not been able to attend the gay tournament, the loss was easy to bear, for they spent the afternoon in final fittings of their lovely Florentine gowns and in rehearsal for their roles at the evening banquet.
“It is the most beautiful gown I have ever had,” Mary admitted to Eugenie, fair, blonde and blue-eyed like herself. “The queen said Signor da Vinci sketched each costume separately to blend with his masque scenery. I cannot wait to see it all!”
“It will be magnificent,” responded the petite Eugenie as she stretched her silken arms luxuriously over her head. “I detest standing about for measurings and tuckings and...you know, Marie, we shall have to carry these gowns with us and dress at the Bastille. It would never do to offer du Roi a sweetmeat with a wrinkled skirt.” She laughed and turned away, and Mary’s excited eyes took in the tumble of gentle hued colors about the vast room: blonde beauties, all, with their silk garments of creams and whites, pale yellows and golds punctuated only by the more homely colors of the dressmakers who cleared their cluttered gear to depart. She wished desperately that the king himself might come to check on his chosen maids and that his eyes would rest on her again as they had so long ago.
She sighed and shrugged out of her dress. She was one of only three maids dressed entirely in gold and white, the full satin skirts flounced and gathered with tiny silken rose buds. They had told her that Signor da Vinci had labeled the drawing of this dress for the English maid Boullaine. She smiled at the compliment. The master had not forgotten the girl he had rescued in the gardens at Amboise more than a year ago.
The sparrow-like seamstress stuffed the dress’s sleeves with cotton batting and darted off with the garment held high. Mary drifted with the others in the direction of the special hairdressers assembled for the event. She soon found, to her great delight, that the mastermind of this elaborate spectacle had sent numerous sketches of hair styles for the setters to emulate on the maids. And one fine-lined drawing was of a clearly recognizable face while the others merely had the shapes of heads under the curled or upswept tresses. Mary gazed on the sketch in wonder.
“It is my face indeed,” she breathed.
“It seems, Mademoiselle Boullaine, the premier peintre du Roi has decreed this very look for you,” smiled her hair setter. “Sit, sit. I hope my art will not disappoint Monsieur da Vinci.”
The afternoon swept around Mary’s excited, spinning head on wings. Their carriages approached the massy Palais du Bastille an hour before the royal party, ambassadors, and the two hundred and fifty chosen revelers would arrive. The street leading to the Bastille gateway seemed more a tunnel through a deep forest, for fragrant boxwood, laurel and festoons of flowers decorated the shops and towering narrow houses.