The Secret Bride (32 page)

After the little group moved inside the chapel, a High Mass was performed, and after the Archbishop of Canterbury preached a sermon in Latin, vows were exchanged. Through it all, she saw that Charles sat unmoving in the first row beside a proud, unaware Henry. Every time she caught a glimpse of him Mary made herself study every curve and turn of his face, even the shade of his hair. To give her strength for the difficult future that lay ahead, she needed to drink it all in, every nuance, since she knew how quickly she would be gone from these people she loved, especially Charles. Finally, painfully, as Longueville placed the French king’s ring on her finger, she turned to see Anne put a hand gently on Charles’s shoulder. Mary knew he believed he was losing her. But this was only the beginning. She was determined to see to that.

That night, Mary and Jane lay together in Mary’s bed, protected by the tapestry bed curtains drawn around them, and cuddling as they had when they were little girls. Jane’s nearness was a comfort when so much around her was changing.

Finally, all of the women who watched her every move, anticipating her needs, had gone to bed, and she had a bit of peace. Beyond the curtains, with only the slightest parting for a shaft of light, Mary’s rooms were full of open trunks, paintings down from their mountings, folded gowns, stuffed jewelry caskets, writing supplies, books, all prepared for packing. They were gathering everything she would need to take with her to France.

Even though the hour was late neither she nor Jane could sleep. They had needed to gossip and share, for both of them had stories they could tell to no other, and the evening had been long and humorous. After the proxy wedding, Henry had insisted on the symbolic intimacy between Mary and Longueville, witnessed and duly recorded. With Charles’s wounded eyes upon her and in the middle of all of the other attendants, Longueville, with a single bare leg, had joined Mary, in a silk and lace nightdress, in this very bed. With more witnesses than at a royal bear-baiting, he then touched one of Mary’s bare legs with his foot in what she found a bizarre, yet required, symbolic act. Only then were they allowed to rise, dress again, try to forget the embarrassment of the moment, and attend a wedding banquet.

“What is it like to actually make love?” Mary finally asked Jane on a whisper, looking up into the darkened canopy, her eyelids finally heavy with a need to sleep.

“It hurts at first. Then, before you know it, it is the most wonderful thing there is in the world.”

“And do you love Longueville?”

Jane looked at her, silent for a moment. “He is married with children back in France. But, yes, he makes me happier than I ever thought I could be again. I thank God every day that he will be returning with us, and that we can steal a bit of time together there.”

“You do not care if you are never made a wife?”

“Not if I have him beside me, no. Oh, do you think me awful, Mary? I’m sorry, but it is the truth.”

“I think you want love, and you have found it—albeit in an inconvenient place, yet you’ve found it nonetheless.”

“As you have.”

“As I have.” She kissed Jane’s smooth cheek then and let out a heavy sigh. “What would I do without you in France to confide in, to share with me? I accept my life there with an old and sick husband, but I certainly could not bear it without you.”

Jane laughed softly.
“Moi aussi,”
she said, then lifted Mary’s hand to study the black onyx and silver ring newly on her forefinger. “From him?”

“How did you know?”

“By the way you look at it, as if it is the Duke of Suffolk himself you are gazing at.”

Now Mary laughed. “I admired it long ago, and he said he wanted me to have something with me always so that I would never forget him.”

“We are not the sort of women who could ever do that. Is there no reasoning with the king? Perhaps asking him to include the Duke of Suffolk in your train who will accompany us? That at least might soften the blow for you both.”

“I was told by Wolsey that my brother leaves for London at first light. He says it is business, but I suspect he does not wish to risk any argument with me until I am safely on the ship at England’s shore. He and Katherine have promised to meet me at Dover to bid me farewell.”

“Poor Katherine—it is little wonder that she would want to be there for you. She knows well enough about leaving her home, and all that she loves, to do the duty to which she was born.”

“That she does.” Mary looked over at her friend then, both of their faces cast in shadow and light as a small, genuine smile began to turn her mouth into a little mirthful half-moon. “In spite of the risks, I really am so glad you will return to see France again, and with Longueville, although if I am ever asked, I will deny to the death that I ever said so scandalous a thing.”

Jane was still smiling, which was a sight Mary would never take for granted again. “
Merci, ma meilleure amie.

And something good for you will come of this marriage. I know it.”

“By the look of his face in the portrait he sent, the best I can hope for is that my husband’s illness prevents him from most things,” said Mary as her own brave smile began very swiftly to fade. “But I suspect it will not prevent him from it all.”

“What is this? We leave within the hour and you’re not even dressed,” Mary exclaimed, hands on her hips, as Jane sat curled in the window seat, knees to her chest.

“There has been a change of plans.”

“Whose?”

“The French king has spoken with your brother. I am unwelcome in France. It seems my behavior with a certain duke has scandalized even the French court and I am no longer considered a suitable companion for a virginal English bride.”

“That is preposterous! I will go to Harry myself. I will make him see that without you—”

“You waste your breath. I have just spoken with His Highness myself. It seems some part of his fond childhood memories are not entirely cut off to me, thus he did me the courtesy of informing me himself. Your future husband’s words apparently were rather to the point: he would rather see me burned alive than there to serve his queen.”

The harshness in that surprised Mary and made her despise Louis already. What a vile man he must be to judge Jane . . . to punish Mary when Jane alone would have brought her comfort in a foreign place. It was a foul thing to be a princess, not to have a life of one’s own.

Mary went to Jane and sank onto the window seat beside her. They both gazed down then onto the mist-shrouded, undulating countryside, dotted with sheep and poplar trees.

It was a vista, Mary realized then, she was not likely to see again for a very long time.

“I cannot bear the thought that I will not have Charles or you any longer in my life.”

“You shall be without your Charles and I shall be without my own Louis. We shall be bonded forever by our misfortune and unhappiness in that, no matter where we are.”

Mary kissed Jane’s cheek. But she spoke no more words. This was not their safe little storybook haven at Eltham. They were little girls no longer. Duty, obligation, that was what lay ahead. Both of them were being made to know that well enough indeed.

Mary and the retinue assigned to accompany her made their way toward the Dover shore, an impressive collection of over one hundred noble ladies-in-waiting, gentlewomen of the chamber, chaplains, her almoner, her own yeomen grooms, everyone she could have wished—but the two she cared about most. She had left Greenwich Palace in a litter, sealing herself up tightly behind the tapestry curtains as if to hide, without saying good-bye to Charles or to Jane because the pain of it would have been almost unbearable. Their final moments, and that last conversation with his sister, Anne, moved through her mind, snaking down over her wounded heart, as Mary stepped down from the litter and onto the dock, wind blowing her hair.

“Take care of him, will you?”

“I will watch over him, always, as he does me. You know, 
of course, that it will not be the same. There will never be another
you
for Charles.”

“He is all that is my heart, or ever shall be.”

She felt like a child now, uncertain, afraid, angry . . . so many things as they finally neared the shoreline. Mostly what she felt was desperation for the familiar, for the England behind her, when she turned toward the ink-black stormy water and saw the king’s newly completed ship, the
Mary Rose
, bobbing in the harbor awaiting them. Her brother awaited her too and as she joined him she saw tears shining in his eyes.

Katherine stood a pace away, arms wrapped around her waist. His sorrow was a surprise to Mary; she had not seen her brother show anything near to sorrow since they were small.

“I told you one day I would name a ship after you.”

“You told me a great many things. Like you would never want the two of us parted.”

“You will make a splendid queen,” he finally said in a voice that broke, as they walked alone together the final few paces out onto the bobbing wharf. “Forgive me, my Mary. But it is right for England and for France.”

Yet it is not right for me. . . .
She longed to say that but there was no point in it. It was her duty. She would do it. She was proud. A Tudor. Charles knew that and understood it as well as she did. Still, the seed of an idea planted by Wolsey had grown to an obsession now in Mary’s mind. Queen or not, this could not be the sum of her life. Her father had made two daughters who were far too determined for that.

Suddenly, Mary wished more than anything that she could speak with her sister, Margaret, whom she had not seen since she was seven years old. Mary longed for her counsel, and had sought it in so many others at court; Lady Guildford, Jane, even Charles’s sister, Anne. Yet Margaret alone would know how she might smoothly bring about a second marriage of her own choosing after a sacrifice made for England.

“Do not look at me like that, Mary. This must happen,”

Henry declared, a guilt she could hear bleeding through his every word. “You must understand. It is not a question of what
I
would want. It is what England requires!”

“And I am your loyal servant. Yet, grant me one favor and you will ease the burden upon my heart.”

He half smiled, and she realized he must be a little relieved by the idea that he could do something to lighten the burden of guilt he felt.

“I will go to France and marry the old King Louis. But if I am widowed, I ask only one small thing: allow me to make my future my own. After I have been useful to you, permit me to choose my own path.”

“But you are a princess, a king’s sister. Without Margaret now, I may well have need—”

“Do this for me, Harry. I bid you for all of our little remembered moments, for what we have always meant to one another. . . . Give me this one small gift to hold on to. . . . Allow a young woman with dreams to feel that my life is not entirely lost already. Let me hope, girlish and silly as it is, for happiness and love one day before my death.”

“Are you not a trifle young to be considering your death?” Henry asked.

“Tell that to our brother, Arthur.”

He was silent for a moment. His half smile became a frown. “If I agree to this you will go to France? And you’ll not make me feel more guilt, as only you have the power to do?”