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

tears pressing forward. “It is, Mother Guildford.”
    “Then you would do well to make friends. Mary here is a respectable start.”
    The older woman bobbed her head like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence, then turned her attention to the two giggling girls behind them. The encounter was over. But not Jane’s fear and longing. No matter how they dressed her up, or what shemanaged to endure without weeping, she was still a little girl in a faraway place.
    “She does look a bit young,” remarked Sir Thomas Boleyn, standing in the shadows of the second-floor landing as the fresh crop of English girls presented themselves to Mother Guildford in the room just beyond him.
    Boleyn was a slim, dark-haired, elegant man, accustomed to court ways. He had a slightly crooked nose and eyes a little too deeply set, but his thick glossy waves of ebony-colored hair, along with a slightly wicked smile, helped label him one of the most desirable English courtiers.
    “She was the best I could do on short notice, and for the price,” Francis Bryan responded on a note of irritation. “And Jane shall do quite handsomely to make your two daughters appear old enough for your purposes, as you requested. Perhaps Mary and Anne will even look worldly now.”
    “That might be stretching it,” Boleyn replied snidely.
    One of the English king’s diplomats, Thomas had been posted this past year, by order of Henry VIII, to the Netherlands, where he had taken his younger daughter, Anne. His elder daughter, Mary, had grown a bit fat before they departed from Hever Castle in Kent, Francis recalled, so it was decided Anne would be the daughter capable of more quickly ingratiating herself, and to eventually move up the court ladder. The ultimate good would be to make an important enough marriage that it would benefit the entire Boleyn family. So far, little Anne Boleyn had not disappointed her father. Thomas was eventually able to bring her successfully into the house of Archduchess Margaret of Austria, where Annewas invited to remain with him until the invitation to France had come.
    It was in that heady and prideful moment that he had decided to bring both of his daughters to the court of France and to see if either of them could find a more permanent post. Anne was young, so placing someone young like Jane Seymour beside her was a calculation to enhance his daughter’s place.
    Fortunately, Francis Bryan had never been above bribery.
    Thomas Boleyn drew the small coin-stuffed black velvet pouch from his doublet and handed it to Francis, who tucked it away in the same fluid movement as both men glanced around, ensuring the exchange had not been witnessed.
    “You might have found one a bit prettier, though,” Thomas Boleyn could not resist saying. “In addition to being so young, your little charge there is really quite stunningly common about the face.”
    “Perhaps she will grow into her looks,” Francis weakly defended.
    “’Twould be more likely for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,” Thomas Boleyn said unkindly, before he turned and melted back into the swirling crowd, leaving Francis Bryan wondering if he had not just made a very grand error in judgment by bringing his cousin’s plain little daughter to France.
    The bed was cold but the dormitory room was colder, filled with an icy draft, shadows, and the whispering voices of strange girls.
    “Quiet, or she shall hear you!” Mary bid her younger sister in the darkness infused with pale moonlight streaming through the bank of uncurtained leaded windows. Jane, Mary, and Anne were in small beds next to one another beneath the windows.
    “I understand not why you talk to her, or what she is even doinghere. She is not like any of the rest of us. And she is as awkward as she is homely,” Anne whispered back.
    “Shh! She is bound to hear you, and she has been very nice to me.”
    “Well, I am not going to be nice to her,” Anne pronounced cruelly from beneath her downy