Between Two Kings (15 page)

François and Jean were alone in the study room. The moment of truth finally came.

François stared at Jean with an intensive gaze. “Monsieur de Montreuil, please tell me the truth,” he said firmly. “Anne de Ponthieu is the same lady as Anne Boleyn.” His last words sounded like an assertion rather than a question.

Jean kept silent. He didn’t know what to say. Then he finally spoke. “Your Majesty, I… I…” He stammered and coerced himself into silence.

“Monsieur Jean, you were a close, a good friend of my father. Thus, you are also my friend.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Jean replied with a bow.

François raised his brows in expectation. “I don’t believe in coincidences. She must be Anne Boleyn or her twin. But Anne Boleyn didn’t have a twin. I remember her very well. I also remember that you used to be a friend of Thomas Boleyn.”

Jean bent his head. “You are right, Your Majesty.”

“Thank you for the confirmation, Monsieur Jean.”

“Your Majesty, if I may ask, what are you going to do now? Will you send her back to England?”

François laughed. “It was the last thing on my mind.”

Jean emitted a sigh of relief. Nevertheless, he felt uneasy. “What will happen next?”

Absorbed in deep thought, François tapped his chin. Then his face illuminated with a smile as he turned to glance at Jean. “I will make a deal with Lady Anne – I will marry her.”

Jean felt his jaw dropping. He swallowed hard. Uneasiness and disbelief nearly choked him, and that feeling increased a hundredfold as he looked at the king’s serious face. “Your Majesty, as far as I remember, you are married.”

“Not any longer,” François clarified. His grin widened, and his amber eyes twinkled with delight. “In May, the pope annulled my marriage to the emperor’s elder sister Eleanor.”

Monsieur Jean didn’t know what to say. His silence was now an uncomfortable, yet curious thing. “Your Majesty, are you indeed going to marry Anne?” the old man asked to reassure himself.

The king smiled with a confident, effortless smile. “I will marry Lady Anne if she accepts my proposal. I will talk to her as soon as she feels better. It would be a marriage of convenience and mutual benefit. The reasons for the marriage are purely political.” François cleared his throat. “Monsieur Jean, I think you understand.”

Jean silently nodded. There was nothing more he needed to say on the matter.

June 1537, Venice, the Republic of Venice

Anne felt better and better every day. She still was a little pale and spent the majority of her time in the bed. Her life was in no danger. However, the physician ordered her to stay in bed for another week in order not to provoke a new wave of fever and to let the wound heal up.

Anne knew King François had come once to Count Jean de Montreuil’s house. However, she didn’t know what would happen now. She was afraid of the day when François would finally visit her and she would have to face him and explain what had happened to her. What would the King of France do with her? Anne viewed his visit as something akin to a day of atonement.

While Anne spent almost all her time in bed, King François and his courtiers had many meetings with the Dodge of the Republic of Venice and Venetian ministers. It appeared that the Republic of Venice was delighted to have an alliance with France and support France in the Italian war with the emperor. Both parties spent much time discussing various clauses of an alliance treaty.

Knowing that Anne was on her way to recovery, François decided that it was high time for them to speak. In the afternoon, the King of France came to Jean’s house and, after the dinner with Count de Montreuil, asked permission to see Anne. It was the moment that he had waited for in these many days since the incident in the cathedral.

François stood outside Anne’s bedchamber. They were not in France or England – they were in the city of Venice. She was not Anne Boleyn, the Queen of England, and she wasn’t the woman she pretended to be. François silently questioned how much Anne had changed after her dreadful near-death adventures in England.

When King François knocked on the door and went inside, he noticed that Anne was alone in the room. Holding a book in her hands, she lay on the large bed, wrapped in fine creamy silk bedcovers. As she noted that François was her visitor, she inwardly shuddered, but her face didn’t betray her true emotions. Her eyes observed his figure moving in her direction. As usual, he was dressed in luxurious Italian attire, wearing a doublet of light blue brocade, beaded with lapis, rubies and jade, and black Venetian pants. It matched to perfection a feathered toque of a darker blue hue. François, who was fascinated by Italian fashions, had his tailors copy that country’s most current styles.

François stood rooted to the spot as his eyes met Anne’s blue orbs. He was almost breathless. He hadn’t forgotten the details of her: the long line of her nose, her strikingly blue eyes, her slim, pink lips, and the magnetic, graceful bearing she held like that of a Dorian statue. Anne had always drawn men to herself unintentionally, and the King of France was no exception, even if he intended to propose to her mainly for political reasons.

François bowed and smiled. “Good afternoon, Lady Anne,” he said in French. He decided not to scare her and used French instead of English as she pretended to be a subject of France.

Anne inhaled and exhaled sharply. She felt as if the chillness of death had approached her. Although the king spoke to her in French, he referred to her as “Lady Anne”, not as “Madame Anne”. She was frightened, but she forced a fake smile. “Good afternoon, Your Majesty. I hope you will forgive me for not rising from the bed,” she replied in flawless French.

The king’s smile turned broader. “Lady Anne, only if you forgive me for not coming sooner to see you,” he said good humouredly.

The king was still standing and staring at her. To avoid the awkwardness of the situation, Anne decided to be a good hostess to the King of France. She managed a wan smile. “Would you like to take a seat in that armchair, Your Majesty?”

“Thank you, Lady Anne.” François settled himself in the whimsically carved, velvet-cushioned armchair. “I hope you are feeling much better today than ten days ago during our last meeting.”

“Thank you for your concern, Your Majesty. Indeed, I am feeling much better.”

“What are you reading?”

“It is 
The Prince
 by 
Niccolò Machiavelli
,” she replied.

François smiled with a friendly smile. “It is one of the finest books on political philosophy. In fact, we must thank Pope Clement VII who permitted printing of this book in 1532, five years after Machiavelli’s death. I consider us to be lucky that we are in Italy now because it is impossible to find this book in France.”

Anne looked at him in disbelief. “I didn’t know that it is not available in France.”

The king shrugged helplessly. “I see that there is some more room for the enculturation of the French society.” He chuckled. “Perhaps, I should become a more enthusiastic patron of arts.”

Anne was amazed with his words. “Your Majesty, you have done so much for France!” Her voice was edged with sincerity and appreciation.

The king’s mouth curved into an endearingly crooked smile. “Lady Anne, I am happy that you liked the time you spent at the French court.”

Anne felt her hands tremble at the king’s words. She put the book down on her lap, resting her hands above her bedcovers, and shut her eyes for an instant, gathering her composure. She needed patience. She needed poise. If she could regain self-control she would be able to treat François indifferently and politely, not revealing to him her weakness. It was her weapon against everybody from her past. Every movement counted. She inhaled and opened the eyes. She stared at the king and was silent.

The silence spun about them, reluctant and agonized. François broke it. “Lady Anne, I must express my most sincere gratitude to you for saving my life in the cathedral.”

Anne was afraid of him at that moment. She tensed. “Your Majesty, it was my duty to save my sovereign,” she murmured.

He didn’t correct her that he wasn’t her king because she was English by birth. “I would be happy if everybody thought so.” He cast an ever-penetrating gaze at Anne. “The Holy Roman Emperor’s people think that they have a right to murder the King of France,” he stated.

Anne blinked. “Emperor Charles V?”

“Exactly,” he confirmed. “Charles hates me with all his heart, and it is not his first attempt to kill me. Three weeks ago, in Piedmont, somebody tried to assassinate me, but His Eminence Cardinal de Tournon saved my life at that time. Two more attempts on my life have been prevented as well.”

Her expression was mingled bewilderment and sympathy. “I am very sorry, Your Majesty.”

“I will survive.” François looked up at the ceiling, then slid his gaze to Anne. “I won’t go round and round the subject of my visit. I wanted not only to thank you for the salvation of my life, but also to personally greet you in the Republic of Venice and to offer you a deal.”

A flicker of horror passed over her face. Then her facial expression became expressionless, her eyes blank. “Your Majesty, I would be happy to serve you.” Inside she was shaking with fright. She acknowledged that he had already known who she had been in her former life. Most likely, there was no use in refuting that. What was he going to do?

François saw that horror had overcome Anne. “To tell you the truth, Lady Anne, I was almost overwhelmed in the first days after the incident in the church. However, very soon I realized that my assumption about your true personality was correct.” He trailed off and looked at her. He had distinguished the naked pain in her blue eyes for an instant and felt his heart swelling with sympathy to her. He sighed heavily. He had to ease her fears. “Lady Anne, I am not going to inform King Henry that you are alive. On the contrary, I am going to help you and in return, you will help me.”

Anne brushed her slender fingers across her slim alabaster throat, as though she had tried to avoid being strangled. “Your Majesty, I am sorry, but I don’t understand.”

The strong tide of softness filled him, and he smiled. “I will help you clear your name in England, although it won’t be easy.”

Anne gasped. “But…” She was at loss.

“I will help you clear your name,” François confirmed. He smiled with a slow, broad smile. “I suppose that it is Thomas Cromwell who designed that dreadful charade with false accusations,” he assumed.

“Yes,” she said numbly.

“Like you, I also don’t like Cromwell because he champions an alliance between England and the Holy Roman Empire. Besides, I don’t like what King Henry did to me, and, of course, I don’t appreciate the behavior of the emperor.”

“I see,” she muttered.

The king brought his finger to his chin for a moment. “Do you know what Henry did to me?”

Anne shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

François laughed bitterly. “King Henry financially supported the emperor in the Italian war of 1521–1526, which ended with my captivity at Pavia.”

“I didn’t know about that,” Anne said honestly.

“And neither did I. It had been a secret for many years before my spies discovered it a year ago,” François explained. “I was abashed when I learnt about Henry’s betrayal.”

Startled and shocked, Anne stared into the emptiness of the room. “Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had always publicly favored France. What a political hypocrite Wolsey was! I had always thought that Wolsey had been a cunning man, but I could have never imagined the depth of his hypocrisy.” She was amazed to the marrow of her bones.

“Exactly right.”

“I suppose that His Majesty King Henry did it so as to seek the pope’s support in the divorce from Queen Catherine, Henry’s first wife. The emperor interfered and influenced the pope to delay the consideration of the English king’s case. I guess King Henry and Wolsey tried to cajole the emperor from another angle, but it didn’t help,” Anne speculated. She was very impersonal towards her former husband and his first wife.

François smiled. He liked how Anne was thinking. Once again, he saw that she had an incredible mind. Unlike many other women, she was capable of thinking strategically and politically. She was born to control and to rule. She would be a great Queen Consort, he mused. “Lady Anne, you are absolutely right.” He emitted a heavy sigh. “You know that my two sons spent several years in captivity in Madrid.” He paused and glanced into her eyes. As she nodded in acknowledgement, he went on. “My eldest son François never regained his health after the years of Spanish captivity. He died less than a year ago.” He paused, looking into Anne’s eyes again. “Therefore, I cannot forgive either Charles or Henry. Maybe you understand me.”

Anne looked into François’ eyes. “Your Majesty, I understand you,” she replied compassionately. Then she turned her head, as she didn’t want him to see the raw emotion in her eyes. She understood him because she had lost her unborn child because of Henry’s lust for Jane Seymour.

The king smiled wistfully. “I know.”

“Was the captivity in Spain so bad?” she questioned, unexpectedly even for herself.

François sighed heavily. He didn’t want to talk about the darkest time in his life, but it would have been impolite to leave Anne’s question unanswered. “It was the darkest time in my life.”

Realizing what she had asked him, Anne automatically put a hand to her mouth. “I am sorry for asking. I shouldn’t have done that.”

The King of France smiled kindly at her. “It is fine, Lady Anne.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “My captivity in Spain was a turning point in the relations between Emperor Charles and me. While I was there, I was treated not only with ruthlessness unsuited to my rank, but with hardship which was almost inhuman. The emperor locked me in the old castle, with its poor conditions, and I stayed there until I contracted a severe fever. The emperor denied an audience with me, but he finally came to my prison when he was notified that I was gravely ill. He feigned pity, barely concealing his joy and pleasure that I was suffering the pain and the mollification of my imprisonment. In reality, Charles feared my death would diminish Spain’s triumph over France. He promised me he would do everything to procure my freedom in the near future. The emperor called me his friend and his brother, though it was an act of pure dissimulation. I was naive to believe the emperor’s promises at that time. But once the fears of my death were removed, Charles showed his true colors and his determination to keep me in captivity increased twofold.”