“Madam, I...”
“Hush, Mary. And vow never to speak of my fears and thoughts that you have shared here tonight, to no one, especially not your father, however much you adore him. And never to the charming Dauphin. He, too, waits and watches, Mary.”
Puzzlement creased Mary’s brow again, but she hesitated not a moment, “I vow it, my queen.”
The slender Queen of France nodded and rose, her hands on the corners of the huge chessboard. Mary knew she was drained of energy and emotion, and she stood waiting patiently to be dismissed. But the queen leaned close to her again, and her quiet words came at Mary like steel-tipped arrows.
“You must understand you are an entirely vulnerable pawn, Mary. You are so lovely and will be more so as you mature. As I have told you, you will be the image of your beautiful Howard mother when she first came to my father’s court on her new husband’s arm. All looked on her and adored her. All, Mary, for she even stood high in favor with my brother Prince Harry before he wed the dowager widow, Spanish Catherine.”
She stopped her words, uneasy at their import for her young charge, but the blonde girl faced her squarely and did not flinch. “Your father is ambitious and would be even more powerful in the king’s shadow than he is now, so remember to keep your own heart hidden and intact. Maybe you shall find some ploy to choose where you would bestow your love someday, even as I pray I have.”
Her lithe hand briefly rested against her maid’s pale cheek. “But while I can, my English Mary, I shall protect and guide you. I will do that while I yet can.”
Mary nodded and smiled, her golden curls bobbing gently in affirmation. As she curtseyed to the queen and took a few steps backward to summon the royal attendants, her mistress’s voice came again.
“And Mary, we shall each keep one of these little painted pawns as a sign of our knowledge and our secret.” The girl stretched out her perspiring palm, and the queen pressed into it a marble green and white, gilded chess piece.
“See, my Mary, a mirror piece of mine, even to the emerald and white of Tudor colors. Tudor pawns, indeed!”
Again her swift silvered laughter filled the tiny privy chamber and Mary’s amazed ears as she departed the room.
CHAPTER THREE
December 29, 1514
Hotel De Cluny, Paris
The sick and old King Louis XII had been dead for a week. He had dropped off to eternal sleep as easily as a rotting apple drops to the ground from the still vigorous tree. The fruit remaining on the tree was ripe and healthy, and the whole vast orchard of fertile France tensed with anticipation.
The first long-expected cries of “Le roi est mort” soon became the vibrant shouts of “Vive le roi Francois!” as the lusty twenty-year-old nephew of the dead king ascended. Francois’s wily mother, Louise of Savoy, already assembled her son’s new counselors and his clever and passionate sister Marguerite sent him a barrage of instructions and suggestions. All necessary steps were taken by the new monarch to ensure and strengthen his long-awaited and often-doubted succession. Most importantly, the eighteen-year-old English-bred queen, who had gone from “la nouvelle reine Marie” to “la reine blanche” in the brief transition, was under royal orders of close confinement in the tiny old medieval palace of Cluny.
The grieving young widow, the dowager queen, was not in any danger, but was rather being protected and sheltered by her step-nephew, the new king. But, although she was not in danger, all knew she could become a danger, and so the custom was fulfilled: she was to be kept under lock and key for six weeks to assure the new king that no child of the dead monarch would come from her body to supplant Francois on his long-desired throne.