Free The Last Boleyn by Karen Harper Page A

again, Mademoiselle Boullaine.”
    He folded his notebook pertly under his brown-silk arm and bowed slowly. “Remember my motto, fairest lady. At court knowing how to see can be one’s very survival.
Adieu.
”
    He turned and walked slowly across the terraced lawn before she could reply, and she realized she had foolishly raised her hand to wave at his retreating back.
    Knowing how to see, yes, indeed. And knowing how to avoid that whelp Rene de Brosse and keep Jeanne from snickering, and Annie from prying.

CHAPTER SIX
    December 13, 1518
    Paris
    T he first two days of the visit of the King of England’s ambassadors to Paris were the most thrilling of Mary Bullen’s life. Her father was always rushing about the proximity of the Palais de Tournelles where Francois and Claude resided during the visit. Then, too, the ceremonies and festivities forced the newly pregnant queen to dispense with her usual strict and solemn schedule so that Mary would be able to see the wonderful Francois at close range. Most marvellous of all, Mary had been selected as one of the twenty ladies in waiting to accompany the queen as honor attendant. As the laughing, buoyant Francois had put it, “the lovely
demoiselles
shall be a very special scenery for this glorious
fete.
”
    Even on the first day of the official visit by King Henry VIII’s thirty hand-picked ambassadors and their privy advisors, Mary had been present to see the royal greeting. Francois was determined to match, indeed to surpass, the glittering reception his envoy Bonnivet had received last autumn at Hampton Court from Cardinal Wolsey and his dear “cousin” Henry. And now that the one-year-old French Dauphin was married by proxy to the two-year-old daughter of King Henry and his Spanish Queen Catherine of Aragon, Anglo-French relations were much improved and Francois would allow no stinginess of gala hospitality.
    All of the maidens who toted the ermine-edged trains of the king’s mother, sister and wife were fair and blonde, chosen from the three hundred ladies of the queen. On the morrow they were all to be dressed in gentle golds and beiges and creamy-hued silks to complement Master Leonardo da Vinci’s spectacular painted setting for the great celebration at the Palais du Bastille. But today at the Bastille, a more circumspect and regal pomp was the order of the day.
    Mary, in contrast to her expensive and frivolous dress for tomorrow, had chosen a gown of mauve colored silk and delicately sculpted brocade today. The smooth lilac bodice was taut to push her well-developed breasts fashionably up above the neckline rimmed with seed pearls, and the gently rustling skirts shifted from mauve to violet hues as she walked. The full outer sleeves were lined with soft but inexpensive rabbit fur and the fitted inner sleeves dripped a narrow cuff of open-weave Belgian lace.
    Mary nearly floated on a cloud of tremulous joy as she and the other maids arrived at the lumbering gray-stoned Bastille with the heavy trains of the king’s ladies. The French royal party would follow soon after to take up their official stances. Then on a fine-tuned cue, the English envoys would approach with their formal bobbing of heads and wax-sealed documents of greeting. But several of the peripheral English advisors were in evidence already, ascertaining propriety, scanning the vast expanse of the public audience hall, or scuttling about from the French marshalls to the self-important Ambassador Bullen and his privy staff.
    To Mary’s delight there was a pause in the bustlings and her father, looking resplendent in his ermine and velvet, his heavy chest crossed by a massive golden chain, motioned her to him. He stood behind a somewhat shaky portable desk with seals and wax and a disarray of paper, giving orders, questioning men who darted here and there at his will. As Mary neared him, carefully avoiding the vast length of purple velvet carpet on which