Free I, Jane: In The Court of Henry VIII by Diane Haeger

the description.”
    “Our princess really is quite beautiful, though,” Jane said as they were ushered forward.
    “She is already a queen, you know. There would have been no turning back for her no matter what he looked like after their proxy marriage back in England.”
    Jane knew nothing about that, but Mary spoke with such authority, being older and potentially wiser, that she automatically believed the Boleyn girl.
    The palace at Abbeville was different from anything Jane had ever seen. The tall walls were lime washed and bare of ornamentation, the floor cool marble. There were no carpets to warm them, so there was the constant echo of shoe heels as courtiers crossed the halls. Jane shivered as much from the newness as from the cold. She had been gone from Wolf Hall for only a few days and already she was dreadfully homesick. To make matters worse, it seemed the pages of honor, of which Edward was one, were sequestered from the girls, so that she still had not seen her brother since before they boardedthe massive English ship. When Jane felt her lower lip begin to quiver at the thought, she bit it.
    She must not disappoint her family.
    The tears of a child would most certainly do that.
    Jane and Mary Boleyn were pressed along with the others up a wide, curved stone staircase with a wrought-iron railing. When they arrived at what seemed like the front of a long line of silk-and-velvet-clad girls, they came to a round-faced woman with a steely, determined gaze. She was dressed in a forest green gabled hood and heavily embroidered dress with a pearl and gold chain at her waist. When Mary curtsied to the woman, Jane did the same.
    “Mother Guildford,” Mary said in deferential greeting.
    The woman arched a thick, graying brow. “Why, Mistress Boleyn, I see you were included after all. Your father must have pulled a great many strings to see both you and your younger sister among Her Majesty’s new train here in France.”
    “Is Anne already here, then?”
    “I am told young Mistress Anne was brought from Antwerp last week. I know not what favors are called in to bring about these postings, but ’tis not mine to question.”
    Jane took in the kaleidoscope of velvet, silk, pearls, beads, and elegant, full, bell-shaped sleeves around them.
    “Who have we here, then?” Mother Guildford said as her appraising gaze fell upon Jane.
    “This is Mistress Jane Seymour.”
    “Ah, so you are Jane,” Mother Guildford remarked with an indecipherable, thin-lipped smile. “You are Sir Francis’s choice.”
    “I am honored to be so.”
    “You are awfully young. Too young, ’twould seem.” She touched Jane’s chin with a discerning pinch.
    “I am nearly nine years old, mistress,” Jane tried to respond with a note of pride, but it dissolved almost before it left her lips. They began to quiver again in the face of such a bold-looking woman with so deep and steady a voice.
    “Yes, well, all of these other girls you see are at least twelve. Mary here is fourteen. Aren’t you, Mary?”
    Mary Boleyn nodded. “Yes, Mother Guildford.”
    “So what, then, I wonder, did Sir Francis have in mind in bringing you here?”
    “I was told only to accompany my brother Edward to France, mistress, not why I was to do so.”
    “First of all, child, you must address me as Mother Guildford, as the French queen herself does. I was in Her Majesty’s service before she was old enough to speak, and I am in charge of her girls. I am to organize you all and keep you in line. You would do well not to question authority, particularly the sort here at court, English or French. You shall go much further that way. Or at least have fewer problems. Mistress Seymour, you shall be in the dormitory with Mistress Boleyn and her sister, who is closer in age to you. That might be some comfort to you, at least in a strange land. This is your first time away from home, I gather?”
    Jane bit her lip even harder now and lowered her eyes to force away the