—
It was frustrating being left behind at Calais when Henry sallied forth to Boulogne to spend four days with King Fran?ois. But Anne made the most of her time, going hawking, gambling at cards and dice, and feasting on delicacies sent by the French King—carp, porpoise, venison pasties, choice pears, and grapes. She also did her best to evade Mary’s blatant curiosity about the exact state of her relations with Henry.
The King returned in a jubilant mood.
“Fran?ois is sympathetic to us,” he told Anne. “I’ve invited him here on Friday.”
Anne was not especially eager to welcome Fran?ois, that great lecher, and Mary—who had thought not to see him—flinched at the news, but she agreed to attend Anne with the other ladies, there being safety in numbers. Anne made them all practice for a masque to be performed before Fran?ois. She expressed delight in the costly diamond he sent her by the Provost of Paris.
—
A three-thousand gun salute was fired in the French King’s honor when he arrived. For two days, at Henry’s request, Anne kept out of sight, but on the third evening she graced the high table at a lavish supper and banquet given by Henry in the great hall of the Staple Inn, where Fran?ois was staying. The hall looked magnificent, hung with gold and silver tissue and gold wreaths glittering with pearls and precious stones, which reflected the light from the twenty silver candelabra, each bearing a hundred wax candles. A dazzling display of gold plate on a seventier buffet proclaimed Henry’s riches, as did his suit of purple cloth of gold, his collar of fourteen rubies, and his two great ropes of pearls, from one of which hung the famous Black Prince’s ruby. They feasted on one hundred and seventy dishes, with a lavish variety of meats, game, and fish prepared from both English and French recipes.
Afterward, Anne led Mary, Jane Rochford, and four other ladies in the masque, attired in a costume of cloth of gold slashed with crimson satin, puffed with cloth of silver and laced with gold cords. All wore masks. After the ladies had danced before the two kings, Anne went up to Fran?ois, curtseyed, and led him out to the floor, at which Mary and her companions invited King Henry and the other lords to join them.
“These ten years have not changed you, my lady Marquess,” Fran?ois said gallantly. “We have missed you at the French court.” He himself had put on weight, and his saturnine features had coarsened. It repelled her to hold his hand, but she kept smiling and set herself to charm him, for he was willing to be a friend to Henry and could prove very helpful. This new alliance would counterbalance any threat from the Emperor.
Henry was laughing, going about the dancers and pulling off the ladies’ masks. He stopped before Anne and removed hers. “Now you may see how beautiful my lady is!” he said to Fran?ois.
Anne accepted the compliment graciously, as Henry led her into the next dance. She noticed that Mary was talking animatedly to her partner, a young man Anne did not know.
“Who is that?” she asked Henry.
“Young Stafford, a distant cousin of mine. He’s here in my train.”
They seemed to be getting on very well together. Anne watched Mary flirting with Stafford, who looked some years younger than her. It was good to see her enjoying herself after being a widow for so long.
After the French had left, with Fran?ois promising to do all in his power to bring about a reconciliation between Henry and the Pope, violent storms blew up in the English Channel, which meant that Henry and Anne had to stay on at the Exchequer for another fortnight. It did not matter. Henry welcomed his enforced break from state duties, and gave himself up entirely to Anne. They ate long, leisurely meals, rode out beyond the town walls to see the rolling countryside of the Calais Pale, a little part of England on the edge of France, and made love every night and morning. Anne even donned a pair of breeches and beat Henry at tennis. She felt closer to him than ever before.
Their idyll came to an end one midnight in the middle of November, when Henry decided that they should seize the opportunity afforded by a favorable wind to sail home to England. The voyage was appalling, twenty-nine hours of hell in roiling seas, and Anne, usually a good sailor, was more than grateful to see the cliffs of Dover ahead at last.
They took their time enjoying a sedate progress eastward through Kent. They lodged at Leeds, a fine castle that seemed to rise out of a lake, and then rode on to Stone Castle, where they stayed as guests of an old friend of Anne from Hever days, Bridget, Lady Wingfield. After a good dinner, Henry and Anne joined their hostess, Sir Francis Bryan, and Francis Weston in their favorite card game, Pope Julian, and a groaning Henry lost heavily to Anne.
Afterward, they all sat by the fire and talked, as spiced wine was served. Weston spoke of the happiness he had found in his recent marriage to Anne Pickering, and how much he was looking forward to seeing her.
“You mean Weston the wanton has finally settled down?” Bryan joked.
“I long to get home to Sutton Place,” Weston sighed.
“I hear the house is beautiful,” Anne said.
“It’s magnificent,” Henry told her. “It was my gift to Francis’s father for his good service to me. He must be very proud of you, Francis.”
“He is, sir, apart from when he’s telling me off for beating your Grace at cards.”
“He has a point there,” Henry grinned. “Come on, then, since Mark is abed, give us a song on your lute, Francis.”
Weston picked up the instrument. “Here’s one for your Grace and the Lady Anne.” And he sang in his rich baritone voice:
Whoso that will for grace sue
His intent must needs be true,
And love her in heart and deed,
Else it were pity that he should speed.
But love is a thing given by God,
In that therefore can be none odd;
But perfect indeed and between two,
Wherefore then should we it eschew?
Henry’s arm stole around Anne and he looked down at her with one eyebrow raised.
“It’s your own song,” she said. “No one surpasses you when it comes to the perfect marriage of music and lyrics.”
“Never mind that,” he muttered in her ear. “Just come to bed, as soon as he’s finished.”
—
They were at Whitehall Palace, preparing for Christmas, when Anne found a thin volume lying on the table in her privy chamber. It was a book of prophecies containing crude drawings, and it had been left open at a lurid one depicting a woman with her head cut off. As she looked closer, she realized it was meant to be her. The caption warned that this would be her fate if she married the King. Nan Saville, coming up behind her and seeing it, was horrified.
“If I thought it true, I would not have him, were he an emperor,” she declared.