The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [235]
Madness. No, I was not mad. But these pounding headaches! Where was my head-medicine, the syrup that quieted these ragings? I would have a draught now. The servitor brought it. The pretty emerald syrup. It would course through my veins in time for the next audience.
“Monsieur le Ambassador, Marillac, awaits his audience.”
So he was here already? Very well, then. “We are ready,” I said.
Monsieur Marillac came into the Audience Chamber. He was virtually a stranger to me, having come to England only a few months previous. Francis did not allow any envoy to remain long enough to form a personal bond with me. Was it because he feared my charm, my influence?
“Your Majesty.” He dropped to one knee, then raised his face toward mine, smiling. Such a pretty smile he had.
Wolsey had had a pretty smile. Oh, and such a servile manner, all flattering and obsequious at once.
Wolsey ... there was no more Wolsey.
“We welcome you, Monsieur Marillac. ’Tis pity we have become so slightly acquainted with you, in all these weeks you have been on our soil. Come closer, Monsieur, and let me see you.” I examined his face, his costume. He was stout and placid, that much could I determine. The sort of man with whom I could make no headway. Rather like assaulting one of my new fortifications near the Isle of Wight—I had designed them massive, round, impregnable, and entirely modern, that is, given over to gun-defence and cannon-strategy. No romance or chivalry about them. So, too, this Frenchman.
“How does my brother Francis?” I asked quickly.
“Not well, I fear,” he said. “He is stricken with the sorrow that has afflicted Your Majesty.”
Yes, I had received Francis’s “condolence”—a letter wherein he had intoned, “The lightness of women does not touch the honour of men.” I had not known whether to take it as commiseration or taunt. Whatever it betokened, I did not wish to discuss it with this stranger.
“Ummm.” I grunted. My head yet throbbed. When would the syrup take effect?
“When you left him, what were his instructions? Were you to woo me as his friend, or raise porcupine-like quills against me?” There, that would startle him, make him cough out the truth.
“I—that is, he—”
I had guessed correctly. The rough-spoken English way had unbalanced him.
“When I left France, he was distant toward you. However, that was prior to—Your Majesty’s misfortune—”
“Lies!” I leapt up from my throne and slammed my fist on the arm of it. “It was prior to his own lover’s quarrel with the Emperor!” I swung round, then, and glared at him. “Is that not right, knave?”
It was all theatrics. Chapuys would have laughed. This greenwood knitted his brows, then did exactly as I had hoped: he blurted out the truth. “There has been a chilling of relations, since the Emperor has failed to recognize—”
“Aha! Yes! The Emperor always ‘fails to recognize.’ He fails to recognize his nose at the end of his face, eh? Eh?”
Marillac drew back. “Your Majest8221; I said casually, swinging round once more and sliding into my seat. “He knows he will have to do battle against me. Is he biding his time? Is that his game? Baiting me with foolishness like the money and support he sends the Scots, to incite them against me? Does he think I know not who prevented James from meeting me at York? Does he think I will forget the insult? Well? What does he think?”
Marillac stared back.
“Can you not speak for him? What sort of an ambassador are you, then? Have you no powers of representation? What, did you get no letters of instruction?”
He was pitiful. Not even worth sparring with. This was not sport, it was cruelty.
“Tell me this,” I finally said. “Is Francis in good health, or not?” I tried to make my tone gentle and disarming.
“Indeed he is,” replied Marillac haughtily.
Liar. I knew Francis was eaten up with the Great Pox, and it was beginning its deadly final assault on his mind.
“I am grateful to you for being so truthful.” I smiled. “Francis is doubly blessed, then, in both his good health and his true representative. You may tell my brother of France that