The Lady in the Tower (5 page)

“He has not been long on the throne… only five years.”

“Is it then? How knowledgeable you are, little one.”

“I had a very good governess.”

“And those big eyes saw all… and often what was not intended for them, I'll warrant. And those little ears were always on the alert. That's so. And I talk too much to you, Mademoiselle Boleyn. Now I am going to shut my mouth like a trap and tell you nothing.”

I was downcast. I had been foolish to display my knowledge and remind her that I could remember what I had heard.

But of course she did not stop her confidences, and what she said one moment she had forgotten the next.

She told me about Louis's previous wives. “He had to marry Jeanne. She was the daughter of Louis XI. She was very ugly and had a hump on her back. But she was very good, saintly in fact. I suppose it is easy to be good if one is ugly.” She sighed. “I shall never be a saint. Why do you smile? I'll tell you this: you will not be one either.” Then she laughed and hugged me for a moment. She was very familiar when we were alone. She went on: “You amuse me with those big, wondering eyes. You are not in the least pretty, you know. But you have something more. You are going to find life very amusing, I am sure. You will not be like saintly Jeanne, I promise you. Poor girl, she could have no children. What store these kings set by children! Sons, sons, sons—that is what they want. It is an insult to our sex, is it not? Louis hopes I will have a son. François, his mother and his sister live in daily terror that I shall have one—for if I did, what would become of bold François's hopes of the crown, eh, tell me that? Sons… sons…Well, poor little hump-backed Jeanne could not have any and Louis—my husband now—begged the Pope to annul their marriage.” She paused and laughed.

I waited eagerly and then I said: “And did he, Madame?”

“But of course he did. You see, this Pope was the notorious Alexander VI—Roderigo Borgia. He had a son. Ah, you say, but Popes do not marry. No, little one, you are right. But it is not necessary to marry to have sons… and this Pope had a son called Cesare Borgia. He loved him dearly and sought great favors for him. Now Louis was in a position to be of great use to this young man, and in return for favors to Cesare, the annulment was granted.”

“What happened to Jeanne, Madame?”

“What do you think? She accepted her dismissal with quiet resignation. Would you have done so? I would not. But we do not belong to that band of worthy females. Louis was free and he married another saintly one—Anne of Brittany—the widow of the previous King. But she was not quite perfect. She was lame, but pretty, they say, very witty and clever. Both she and Louis had great respect for each other; and although she could not give him sons—fortunately for François—she did produce two daughters—Mesdames Claude and Renée whom you have seen at Court.”

She paused and I almost held my breath. I was always afraid that she would remember that she was talking too much, and stop. For the first time in my life I was glad that I was of little account.

“They were married for fifteen years,” she went on dreamily. “Fifteen years… think of that! She was a very good ruler, though some say she had more care for Brittany than for France. But she was greatly respected and Louis was very sorry when she died.”

“He is sorry no longer since he could not have married Your Grace if she had not died.”

“Oh, he is not sorry now. He is living as he never did before.”

Then she laughed and studied her face carefully in the mirror.

“So much gaiety,” she whispered. “I say to him: “Why does not my lord retire early? I will be at the revels in your stead. I will represent you.” But he says, “No. No, my Queen, I shall be there.” Poor tired old man! And he comes to his bed so wearily at night that there is nothing else for him to do but sleep the sleep of the exhausted.” She smiled. “He is afraid, you see, because…”

She looked at me steadily and I cast down my eyes and tried to look innocent and to hide my eager desire to hear more. “You see…he is afraid of François. I believe that François is in love with me…a little.”

“You are so beautiful that it is not surprising,” I told her.

She shook her head. “François is passionately in love with all things
beautiful. Fine buildings, fine music, poetry, pictures, statues and beautiful women. But most of all he is in love with himself. So, my clever little Boleyn, he would not have a great deal of love to spare for one person. He would like to make love to me—and the prospect is all the more enticing because he would be afraid to. What if I were to be with child…by him! What a situation! It is enough to make the gods laugh. He wants me… very much he wants me. He says so with his eyes. I know. But what if he gave me a child? That child would be the King of France because all would think it was the King's. His son would be a king, but it is himself he wants the crown for.”

She stopped suddenly. “What am I saying? You are a witch. You are probing my secret thoughts. Go away. You are dismissed.” Then she caught my arm and held it so tightly that I could have cried out with the pain. “If you ever mention a word of what I say to anyone…I'll have you in the Tower. Yes, I shall send to my brother and say, ‘The child Boleyn is to go to the Tower. She is a traitor.’”

“I will never say a word …”

“Go away. I don't want to see you. I want to go home. I want to see Charles again.”

I crept away. I was heartbroken for I did not know what I had done to displease her.

Time dragged heavily when I was not with her.

Those months were full of revelations for me. I think I grew up then. The Court was rather somber for the King had a reputation for parsimony. He was a good king and did not want to tax his people to pay for his extravagances, which was a habit most kings indulged in; and because of this they called him mean. He hated war, therefore they called him unadventurous. France prospered under him more than it had under his predecessors, but the people did not love him because he was not the glittering figure they liked their kings to be. I often thought how difficult it is to please the people; whatever one was, whatever one did, there would always be the other side of the picture to bring complaints.

Of course I saw him only from a distance, but I did realize how he doted on his beautiful young Queen. He often looked pale and fatigued; his eyes seemed to have grown more prominent, his neck more swollen. In the evenings at the revelries—which I was sometimes allowed to attend—he looked as though he needed nothing so much as sleep. But the Queen would be there dancing—often with François, laughing and coquetting. I thought it was not very kind; but I knew from those
monologues at the dressing table how she yearned for her Charles, and that her one idea was to get to him. I could understand that need in her but it did occur to me that she planned these feasts and revels with the great idea of tiring her husband so that he would be too weary for anything but sleep in the big canopied bed decorated with the fleurs-de-lys… and perhaps to hasten his end.

There were three women at Court who interested me. Perhaps it was because of their connection with François, who himself was the most interesting as well as the most attractive man at Court. These three were François's wife, Claude, his sister, Marguerite d'Alençon, and his mother, Louise of Savoy.

Claude was good and kind. She was like her father in that she tired easily; she was delicate in health and walking exhausted her because of her limp.

She took notice of me because I was so young and she thought that it was wrong for a child of my age to be sent away from her country to live with foreigners. I told her that I was very happy to be here and to serve the Queen.

“Ah, the Queen,” she sighed. “What a beautiful and healthy lady she is!”

There was no malice in her, but she must have hated to see the way in which her husband danced attendance on the Queen. I wondered what she felt like being married to such a man. She accepted her husband's infidelities as a matter of course. She had no doubt been brought up by the excellent Anne of Brittany to do her duty whatever it was, and as the daughter of the reigning King it was her duty to marry the heir presumptive to the throne—and this she had done.

They were hardly ever together; he was usually beside some dazzling beauty. He treated her with courtesy. François's exquisite manners would not have allowed him to do anything else, but at the same time it must have been very hard for her.

I liked to talk with her and really it was great condescension on her part to notice me. She made me read with her and insisted on correcting a slightly imperfect accent. She insisted that I learn to do very fine embroidery and
petit point
, which I quite enjoyed. She was very gentle and I could not help being fond of her.

But she was not as interesting as François's sister. There was a woman who amazed me. She was very beautiful and extremely well educated. She was noted for her cleverness; she wrote verses and was interested in every new idea which was presented to her. I saw her often with her brother,
their arms entwined. In fact, one would have thought
she
was his wife. They loved each other with a fierce passion. The Queen told me that if anyone said a word against François Marguerite would be ready to slay that person. “Of course,” she added, “no one ever does say a word against François…except the King, and even Marguerite could not slay him. The King is really worried about François. Not so much now but he thinks of what will happen after he has gone. You know how the King cares for the people. He does not want them to be subjected to taxation and hardship, nor to be involved in wars. I heard him say to one of his ministers the other day, ‘We are laboring in vain, the Big Boy will spoil everything when I am gone.’ The Big Boy, of course, is François. Marguerite did not hear that or she would have stormed into the royal chamber to castigate the King.”

Marguerite had noticed me even as Claude had.

She said: “You are young to be in a foreign Court,” just as Claude had. She questioned me and she must have been pleased with my answers for she gave me a book to read.

I read it avidly and when I returned it she questioned me about it. I felt gratified because I could see that I had impressed her with my intelligence.

She was twenty-two years old at the time—two years older than François. At the age of seventeen she had been married to the Duc d'Alençon; but it was clear to everyone that her feelings for him fell far short of those she cherished for her brother. Everyone paid homage to her—not only because of her wit, learning and beauty but because she was the sister of the man they expected shortly to be King and when he was in that supreme position, she would be his chief adviser; in fact, she would rule beside him.

The other who aroused my interest was Louise of Savoy. She had always ignored me; in fact, I do not think she was even aware of my existence. She was a very grand lady, very much aware of her royal connections. She had married Charles, the son of Jean d'Angoulême whose grandfather had been Charles V—hence François's claim to the throne.

Louise doted on François with the same idolatry which was bestowed on him by Marguerite. Mother, daughter and son were irreverently referred to as “the Holy Trinity.” And thus it was. From the date of François's birth Louise had been hoping for him to ascend the throne. It was said that she had refused all offers of marriage after she became a widow, because she wanted to give her entire attention to her son.

When he was a little boy, the possibility of his ascending the throne must have been remote and it would have seemed to Louise like a miracle when King Charles VIII, on his way to watch a game of tennis with his Queen Anne, had struck his head against a stone archway and died as a result. Consequently Louis d'Orléans became Louis XII and Louis was at that time married to crippled Jeanne who had no hope of bearing a child. That was why he had decided to rid himself of her and had done so with the help of the Borgia Pope; and then he married the late King's widow, Anne of Brittany.

Having seen what I had of Louise of Savoy, I could imagine her rejoicing. She was the sort of woman who would let nothing stand in the way of ambition and that ambition was for her son, her Caesar, as she called him. To her he was perfect; all his rash acts, his daring exploits, his love affairs, his infidelity to his wife, they were all regarded with indulgence by the devoted mother and sister. It was indeed a trinity—if not a holy one.

I was amused—and I knew the Queen was, too—to see the anxiety of this haughty lady now that the King had married a young wife; and so deeply were her hopes and ambitions involved that she could not hide her feelings.

The Queen said to me: “She fears I may be pregnant. Oh, what if I were! What if I bore the King's son? What of François's hopes then? I think it would kill his mother.”

“Is it…?” I was rash enough to begin.

She looked at me and taking my cheek between her finger and thumb pinched it hard.

“You must not take liberties, little Boleyn. Just because I show you favor.”

I cast down my eyes; and it occurred to me that it was not easy to tread safely when dealing with royalty.

But I was completely enthralled by life at Court and what I dreaded most was to be sent away.

The Queen was growing restive. December had come and, although the King often looked fatigued, he still attended the masques and entertainments which Marguerite and François devised. I believed that they, like the Queen, were anxious to tire him out.

Poor man, I thought. In a way it is a gentle sort of murder. How dreadful that people should want to be rid of you so much that they are
prepared to kill you…even gently. But what goals these people had! For the Trinity there was the crown; for the Queen there was Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.

I wondered if Louis knew. He was a very astute man, so it might have occurred to him.

I think he was longing for the Queen to be pregnant so that he could foil François's hopes. If what I heard was true, he was apprehensive about leaving the crown to François. He was a good king who cared about his country. I wished that I knew more about French history. I did know that there had been a hundred years’ war which the English had lost and that one of the Charleses—Charles VII, I believe—had been crowned because of the success of Joan of Arc who had been burned as a witch. But it was the present in which everyone was interested now and it seemed as eventful as anything that had gone before.