The Wild Queen by Carolyn Meyer

Needlework, when my mother did take it out, usually lay forgotten in her lap. It had fallen to Sinclair to teach me the few simple embroidery stitches I knew.
    But stitchery, not dancing, was Queen Catherine’s passion, and she devoted many hours to it. I shyly showed her a piece of linen embroidered with a lopsided bird perched on a crooked branch bearing two withered-looking leaves. “You have chosen pretty colors for your bird, Madame Marie,” she said, examining my work. “But we shall have to begin at the beginning with the most basic stitches so that you learn them correctly. I have no doubt that with practice you will soon master them.”
    She showed me the running stitch, several in-and-out stitches in a row. That was one I already knew, and I quickly produced a sample I considered perfect.
    â€œVery nice,” she said. “Now let us see if you can improve them. You must make the stitches quite small and even, each one exactly the same size as the one next to it.”
    How annoying!
I thought. I did not like to be corrected, but I said nothing and did as she had asked.
    When I had mastered that to her satisfaction, I moved on to the backstitch, and then to the chain stitch, the split stitch, the tent stitch, the satin stitch, the herringbone. After I was introduced to each one, I practiced it over and over, until I did at last improve. Queen Catherine was always patient, as quick to praise as to correct. During those long and sometimes tedious hours I became better acquainted with her. I began to enjoy her company and look forward to our time together.
    While I worked on my embroidery, I listened to the conversation of the queen and her ladies, thinking I might learn something interesting to report when I next saw my uncles and grandparents. But the talk was dull, and my mind drifted off. When I was finally dismissed, I made a hurried
révérence
and rushed away.
    The dauphin often hovered outside his mother’s chambers waiting for me to emerge.
    â€œAh, dear friend!” François would pipe, taking my hand, and we would wander to the tennis court to watch his father play or to the lists to cheer when King Henri, mounted on horseback, charged against his opponent and knocked him off balance or sent him sprawling.
    François confided that his biggest dream was to participate in a real tournament with his father. “How exciting that w-w-would be!” he exclaimed.
    He insisted on demonstrating his skill for me. His servant helped him into his specially made suit of armor—a gift from my uncle François, the Scarred One—and seated him on his pony. Carrying a lance, the dauphin urged the pony to gallop at full speed at a series of rings suspended by cords from a wooden arm. He managed to pick off the rings one by one with the point of his lance, and then he trotted over to where I sat waiting, saluted me, and proudly presented me with the rings.
    Occasionally I persuaded the Four Maries to accompany me to the lists, and Princesse Élisabeth as well. But my friends were quickly bored. “It would be so much more exciting if we could actually do it, not just sit here and watch,” said Beaton. “Do you suppose they would let us try?”
    The rest of us turned to stare at her, stunned by her suggestion. Beaton, the most athletic of us, had been riding since her father set her on a horse when she was barely old enough to walk. Not yet seven, she was fearless.
    â€œThey will not let girls do it,” said La Flamin, always the most daring, the one who produced the wildest schemes, “but we could disguise ourselves as boys and creep into the royal stables and borrow horses.”
    â€œWho would saddle them for us?” Seton asked uncertainly.
    â€œI know how to saddle a horse,” Beaton declared. “I can show you how, or I can do it for you. We could use the dauphin’s ponies.” She turned to me. “Do you think he would