The Last Boleyn(21)

They were ushered into a hallway adjacent to the courtyard where the banquet, dancing and masques would later take place. When they had been attired, they were scrutinized by the pointed stare of their steward and left on their own with warnings not to peek out when the royal persons arrived—and not to sit or lean. They stood about in beige and yellow clusters chatting, anticipating, and giggling nervously.

But then their steward was back, and with him strode the master of Francois’s fete du royale, Signor Leonardo da Vinci. He looked fragile and more stooped, Mary thought, but somehow dynamic force emanated from his face and gestures. The girls hushed at once.

“Perfect, perfect,” the old man chanted, nodding his masses of snowy hair in rhythm with his voice. “Olympian nymphs all with a Diana and a Venus too.”

Mary stood to his left, and he approached her slowly. His eyes seemed very red and tired. She curtseyed.

“Stand straight, my Diana, stand straight. S, the lines of the dress and hair are perfect. I knew they would set off your face the way I had seen it in my mind.”

He clasped his blue-veined hands tightly in approval, and she smiled at him in sincere appreciation and affection. He lowered his voice and turned his back on the hovering steward. “Would you like to see the rest of the frame for my creation, la Boullaine?”

“Oh, yes, Signor da Vinci! Would it be possible?” She almost bounced from excitement, but restrained herself properly.

“But of course. Cannot the artist share his visions with those he created?”

He gestured toward the doorway, ignoring the perturbed steward who obviously wished none of his costumed wards out of his realm of control. The double doors to the central courtyard stood ajar, and Mary sucked in her breath as they entered. It was magic. In the broad daylight of chill December he had made the gardens at Hever or Amboise. Above them stretched a clear starlit night with the golden star planets trembling overhead in a velvet blue heaven. Tears flooded her eyes at the wonder of it.

The master’s cracking, gentle voice disturbed her speechless revery. “Though you say nothing, I know you understand. It is always in your eyes, charmante Boullaine.”

“It is magnificent, truly magnificent.”

“It is only waxed canvas painted with stars and hung with golden balls and set off with hundreds of candles and torches. But somehow it seems more, eh?” He smiled and his thick mustache lifted. “I did a much vaster one for Ludovico Sforza in Milan years ago, you know.”

He raised his fragile left hand and pointed. “The queen and queen mother will sit in the lower galleries and the king and his beloved sister Marguerite there in the center.” Her eyes took in a richly brocaded platform draped with flowers, boxwood and ivy. “Du Roi insisted on his shield and colors of tawny and white on the walls and as the carpet. Well, it is still the heavens of Florence or Milan, Francois’s salamanders or not. All is ready. I had best return you to your jailer.” He smiled again.

“Though I have been much busy and have not seen you for, well, for a time, Mademoiselle Boullaine, I knew how you would carry your new year on your fair face. I have sketched you since we have been together, often as a chaste Diana and once as la Madonna.”

Mary’s steps faltered. “The Blessed Virgin, Signor?”

“S. Do not be surprised or deem it only an honor. You see, that Mary showed pain in her eyes too and even at His birth and adoration, she could never hide the pain to come. Adieu, mi Boullaine.” He bowed slightly and drifted back toward his creation before she could thank him or say farewell or ask him what he meant, and the anxious steward immediately shooed her back into his skittish brood.

Too soon the hours flew by and they held their breath at the blare of trumpets and the shouts and bustling of the heralds and servers as each of the nine courses went to the tables of the feasters. The lilt of fife and viol came and went as did the dancers and singers. Then the twenty maids grew silent, for they knew their time had come.

Bearers appeared with flower-strewn trays of confections and sweetmeats which the golden nymphs would offer to the guests royal and honored, French and English. Mary marvelled briefly at the orange and lemon blossoms of December which lined her tray.

They stood in order, breathless. The doors swung inward. They smiled and tripped in gaily among the clustered tables, each a golden glory in the vibrant glow of six hundred candles.

The guests murmured to each other or sighed audibly, their sight again dazzled and newly surfeited as their palates had been with delicacies and fine wines. They chose their confections gingerly, and their admiring glances did not waver from the exquisite Florentine living creations of Master da Vinci.

Only after the sudden impact of their entry did individual sights sort themselves out for the excited girls. Mary’s eyes again took in the incandescent magnificence of the overhanging heavens. Queen Claude and Louise du Savoy were ablaze with winking jewels. Mary could not pick out her father among the Englishmen though she scanned the jumbled faces as best she could. But Francois du Roi stood clearly before her gaze as she smiled and nodded and inclined her laden tray to the eager hands of guests on both sides.

Francois was the sun at the very core of the artificial universe as he circulated on his own course among his seated guests. He glowed in white satin embroidered with tiny dials and astronomers’ instruments and mathematicians’ compasses all in gold, no doubt also the wonderful work of the Master da Vinci. Mary tried to watch the king often, lifting her eyes whenever she moved from person to person or swung her tray from side to side.