Love, Remember Me by Bertrice Small Page B

one of their siblings who was a blond, and with his light blue eyes he looked like a cherub. It was obvious that the Princess of Cleves doted on him, much to his embarrassment, but Giles was far too clever a boy to show anything but his good side to his mistress. Still he squirmed under the lady Anne's fingers, murmuring, " Madame! "
    It needed no translation, and she laughed, saying to Hans in her own tongue, "He is a little angel, and I cannot resist him."
    Hans translated, and Giles flushed at the giggles that erupted from the maids of honor. Cat Howard blew him a kiss, and the pretty Elizabeth FitzGerald winked at him. He was saved from further teasing by Dr. Kaye, the queen's almoner, who came to announce that the king was near.
    "Her highness must change into the dress she is to officially greet the king in," Lady Browne said. "Come, maids, you are far too idle. Fetch the princess's gown and jewels."
    The dress was of red taffeta embroidered with raised cloth-of-gold. It was made in a Dutch fashion with a round skirt and no train, but it was nonetheless pretty and elegant. A serving woman sponged Anne's arms, chest, and back with warm rose water. It had already been noted that the Princess of Cleves had a slightly stronger than usual body odor, and her women, knowing how fastidious the king was, sought to overcome her unfortunate difficulty as best they could. Once the gown was settled upon her, Nyssa brought forth a beautiful parure of rubies and diamonds. There was a necklace and pendant ear bobs. A caul held her thick blond hair in place, and on her head she wore a velvet cap encrusted with magnificent pearls.
    "The king is in sight, madame," Kate Carey said.
    The princess was escorted outside, and she blinked at the sunlight after the dimness of her pavilion. She was helped onto a snow-white palfrey which was richly caparisoned with a cloth-of-gold and diamond coverlet, and a saddle of finely tooled white leather. Her own personal footmen were mounted, and liveried in rich clothing embroidered with the Black Lion of Cleves. Young Hans von Grafsteen led them, carrying a banner with that same lion on it.
    Anne rode to meet her future husband, and the king, seeing her approach, stopped and waited for her arrival. When she had reached him, he doffed his bonnet gallantly to her with a brilliant smile, and for a moment Anne of Cleves saw him as he once was: the handsomest prince in Christendom. She smiled back at him as Hans translated his official words of welcome. Some of those words, she realized to her surprise, she had actually understood.
    "I will greet his majesty first in English, Hans, and then you may act the part of translator," she said.
    "Yes, madame," the boy replied.
    "I thank his majesty for his goot velcome," Anne said. "I vill try to be a goot vife to him, and a goot mutter to his kinder."
    The king raised an eyebrow slightly at her thick but understandable speech. "I was told the Princess of Cleves did not speak any language but her own," he said to no one in particular.
    "Her highness is trying hard to learn your tongue, Your Grace," Hans explained. "Lady Nyssa Wyndham is teaching her, and the other maids of honor as well. The princess is eager to please Your Grace."
    "Is she?" the king said dryly, and then remembering the cheering crowds about them, he leaned forward and embraced his bride, to the delight of the people. Together they smiled and waved as they returned to the magnificent pavilion, the trumpeters going before them; the Privy Council, the archbishop, and all the great lords both English and from Cleves, following them. " A Flanders mare ," the king murmured beneath his breath. " I am to be mated to a Flanders mare ."
    The royal couple shared a loving cup before the pavilion, and then the princess was transferred into a carved and gilded chariot for her processional journey to Greenwich. With her sat Mother Lowe, Anna's old nurse and now appointed mistress of her Clevion maids, and the