of one hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, and she well believed it. The walls and floor were painted to look like marble, with gilded mouldings, the low, timbered ceiling covered with red buckram and embroidered with roses and pomegranates. Tiered buffets lined the walls, displaying a vast amount of gold plate. Bright banners hung from the ceiling.
And the people were clad in such sparkling raiment they added to the golden dazzlement. Many of the Spanish were in black, or wine red or burnt amber, but they served as an outline, a counterpoint to the English in their violet purple, silver tissue, sky blue, vivid rose, tawny and turquoise and sunny yellow.
And, at the end of the room, rose a triumphal arch painted with a large scene of—non! It could not be.
But it was. A painting of Henry’s long-ago victory over the French armies at the Battle of The-rouanne.
Alors! That was not so very diplomatic of the English king. Marguerite’s dazzlement faded into cold clarity. That audacious scene was just the reminder she needed of why she was really here. Why they were all here. To protect France from just such another defeat.
“Welcome, welcome!” a stentorious voice boomed, soaring above the hum of laughter and conversation. All other voices echoed away, and the crowd parted. “Bishop Grammont, for the great love we bear our brother King François, welcome to our Court.”
And the king himself appeared, for it could be none but the legendary Henry. He leaped down from a dais set up beneath the arch, a tall, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested figure swathed in cloth of gold trimmed with ermine and diamonds. He, unlike the queen, was just what Marguerite imagined. His redgold hair cut short in the French style, covered by a crimson velvet cap, his square face framed by a short beard.
He was all bluff heartiness, tremendous good cheer as he greeted the French. All lighthearted welcome. Yet Marguerite saw that his small, shining eyes missed nothing at all. They moved over her—and widened.
She gave him a deep curtsy, and he grinned at her. So, his rumoured regard for the ladies was true! But was it also true he now had attention only for Mistress Boleyn?
Which one was she? Marguerite wondered, studying the array of ladies behind the queen. She saw none there whose beauty could rival her own, but there would be time to look for Anne Boleyn later. They were shown to their seats, at a long table to the right of the hall. The Spanish were to the left, and Henry escorted Katherine back to the dais where they were seated with Grammont and Ambassador Mendoza.
The tables were spread with white damask cloths, embroidered with roses, crowns, and fleurs-de-lis; the benches where they sat were lined with soft gold velvet cushions. In the centre of the table was a golden salt cellar engraved with the initials H and K, and each place boasted a small loaf of manchet bread wrapped in a cover of embroidered linen and a tall silver goblet filled with fine Osney wine from Alsace. Servants soon appeared with great golden platters of venison, capons, partridge, lark and eels, game pie with oranges and King Henry’s favourite baked lampreys. A peacock, redressed in its own feathers, was ceremoniously presented to the king amid copious applause.
A lively song of recorders, lutes and pipes struck up from a gallery hidden behind one of the tapestries, and the conversation grew in vast waves around Marguerite. She nibbled at a piece of gingerbread painted with gold leaf, listening with half an ear as Father Pierre talked to her. All around her were the people she would have to get to know, would have to guard against and fend off, and perhaps even destroy in the end. Her first glimpse of the opposing army.
She knew she was not likely to learn much of use tonight. Everyone was on their best, most guarded behaviour, despite the flowing wine. They, too, were unsure of their surroundings. Unsure of the enemies’ real strength. In a few days, when everyone had settled into long days of delicate negotiations and longer evenings of revelry, when enmities and flirtations had both sprung to full flower, she would be better able to gauge the atmosphere. Better able to take full advantage of rivalries and passions.
Tonight she could only observe, perhaps begin to collect precious droplets of gossip.
An acrobat in motley livery and bright bells performed a series of backward flips along the aisle between the tables, followed by a gambolling troupe of dwarves and trained dogs. Pages poured more wine, carried in yet more platters of fine delicacies. Marguerite laughed at the antics, nibbled at what was put before her, yet always she watched. Watched and listened, as the voices grew louder and the laughter heartier as the night went on.
King Henry, she saw, betrayed no hint of ill will toward the queen. Indeed, he was all solicitude, making sure her goblet was full, that she had the choicest morsels of venison and capon. He laughed heartily at his fools’ jests, and listened intently when Wolsey murmured in his ear.
Princess Mary, the proposed bride of the Duc d’Orléans, sat by her mother, pale-faced and bright-haired, small for her age in her fine white brocade gown. She seemed shy and serene, speaking only to her mother, or to the Spanish ambassador in perfect Castilian Spanish.
The Spanish party across the aisle were not as raucous as the English, but neither were they so dour. They talked and jested just as everyone else did, led in conversation by a pretty woman of near Queen Katherine’s age, a lady with a ready smile and soft brown eyes. As Marguerite watched, the lady laughed gently, holding out her goblet for a man seated next to her to refill.
He leaned forward, illuminated by the rich amber glow of the candelabra. His loose, long hair, golden as the summer sun, fell forward like a curtain, and he swept it back over his shoulder in one smooth movement. His profile, sharply etched as an ancient cameo, was limned in the light.
Marguerite gasped, and shook her head hard, certain she was dreaming! That she had imbibed too much of the fine Alsatian wine and was imagining things. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
Yet when she opened them, he was still there. The Russian. Laughing boldly, and just as beautiful as that night in Venice. The fallen angel she had vowed to kill if ever their paths crossed again. There he was, mere steps away, in the last place she ever expected.
She banged her goblet down on the table so violently that vivid red wine splashed over its etched lip, spilling on to her fingers. Bright spots, like blood, bloomed on the white damask cloth.
“The bold cochon,” she muttered roughly.
“Are you ill, Mademoiselle Dumas?” Father Pierre asked solicitously.
Marguerite shook her head. “I am quite well, thank you. Merely tired from the journey, I think.”
“Perhaps a bit more wine will help,” he said, gesturing to one of the pages.
As the boy refilled her goblet, Marguerite surreptitiously studied Nicolai Ostrovsky. He did not appear to have noticed her yet. He sat there laughing and jesting with his companions, making sure the lady had the finest sweetmeats on her plate.
He was certainly far better dressed than in Venice! Or at least more elaborately so. Nor was the motley he wore to walk the tightrope in the Piazza San Marco in evidence. He was clad in a fine silk doublet of dark red trimmed with dull gold braid, his only jewel a single pearl in one ear, half-hidden by that shining golden hair.
What game did he play now?
She would just have to find out. Very soon, before he found her out first.
Chapter Five
The
