This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2025 by Holly Race

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Map illustration by Viv Mullett, The Flying Fish Studios

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2024946241

ISBNs: 9780316572927 (hardcover), 9780316572941 (ebook)

E3-20250402-JV-NF-ORI

To my parents, Louette and Bob,

who taught me to look for magic

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TRIGGER WARNINGS

While this is a work of fantasy, the world and characters are rooted in a deeply patriarchal society and the story explores many of the issues that this engenders. As such, some content may be distressing to some readers: this includes descriptions of emotional, physical and sexual abuse and abortion, and mentions of miscarriage, stillbirth, suicidal ideation and self-harm.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Tudor royals hold an enduring appeal. There is something very human in their tales of flirtation, passion, betrayal and loss. Yet we invariably prescribe stereotypes to them: the wronged queen; the home-wrecker; the submissive; the ugly one; the vacuous whore; the nurse. Even Henry is variously viewed as psychopathic or a romantic. Perhaps he’s both.

In recent decades, many brilliant historians have sought to bring more nuance to these women, and I am in their debt. Tracey Borman, Susanna Lipscomb, Hayley Nolan, Elizabeth Norton, Gareth Russell, Alison Weir and Lucy Worsley are among the many experts whose work I have leant on to colour both the world and characters of Six Wild Crowns. If you have an interest in the reality of sixteenth-century England and have not yet discovered their work, I urge you to pick up their books.

However, this is a fantasy and while the world of Elben is inspired by history (or herstory!) I have taken liberties with certain historical facts in some instances. For example, Mary Boleyn was actually the elder Boleyn sister whereas in my novel she is the younger. Jane Seymour had five siblings who lived to adulthood, rather than the more manageable two I have given her in this book. Some social conventions have been modified as well.

In a historical fantasy about a polyamorous king living in a world where horses and stags live alongside dragons, I trust that the occasional alteration from the historical record can be overlooked. Throughout, I have tried to write with the deepest respect for the six passionate, talented, maligned women who nearly five hundred years ago found themselves in impossible, life-and-death situations and who, nearly five hundred years on, continue to hold our fascination, and I hope that in reading Six Wild Crowns anyone who spots a historical inaccuracy will, to steal Anne Boleyn’s final words, “judge the best”!

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Thomas Wyatt

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Boleyn

Her wedding dress is the colour of the massacre of Pilvreen. A scarlet so vivid it had to be dyed three times in the spice of the Wyrtang tree, imported all the way from the distant land of Avahuc. A red so deep it must be stored in the petals of the Thefor flower, lest its vermillion fade. The fabric still smells of the blossom now, ambrosial, like a fine wine.

She had the seamstresses cut the bodice low on the shoulders, so it looks as though it could be pulled down her frame with one strong tug. The tailors avoided each other’s gaze as they pinned the silk and measured the trim, but she didn’t care. She is determined to make the most of her long neck and the dips above her clavicles, the places the king likes to kiss when they’re alone and, sometimes, scandalously, when they’re not.

They tried to fleece her on the train. “I want it to flow down the aisle,” she had told the seamstress. The seamstress claimed she had measured the length of High Hall’s sanctuary, and presented her with a receipt for thirty yards of velvet, but she knew, as soon as she saw that figure, that the woman had guessed at the length. That, or she was deliberately disobeying her. She had measured it herself, after the king proposed. The Royal Sanctuary is forty yards long, so she made the seamstress buy an extra twenty. Let the train flow out of the door, so they have to keep it open. So anyone passing by can see the two of them, and see how much the king loves her.

Even here, in the queen’s chambers of the largest building in Elben, the train can barely be contained. Elben’s monarchs are always married at High Hall – the one palace in the kingdom that is the king’s alone, unshared with any of his consorts. She has been here a handful of times, and even then she was only permitted in the lower levels – the halls and galleries reserved for lesser nobility. To be here, on the third level, to now have her own wing of the palace, is a sign of how very far she has climbed.

Her sister fusses around her hair.

“Boleyn,” she says, “You must have it up. I’ll fetch my maid – she can braid it very beautifully.”

“No.”

“It’s not right to keep it down.”

“I said no, Mary.”

Henry loves her hair loose. It reminds him of that first hunt, when her hood snagged in a branch and was torn off, and she kept riding anyway. The hunt where she caught not just the finest stag on her father’s estate, but also the king’s eye.

Mary chews her lip but relents, stepping back to let Boleyn’s maid finish brushing the dark locks. The girl fetches a bottle of oil and rubs a little on her fingers before smoothing them over Boleyn’s hair, paying particular attention to the ends. The smell fills the chamber – marjoram and something warmer – clove, perhaps. Sweet with a sting. The scents seep into the ancient beams that arch over her, carved with whorled figurines and roses. They even flavour the fire.

She thinks: this is the smell of my wedding day. I will remember this scent for the rest of my life. Suddenly, Boleyn feels as though she can’t breathe. The room is stuffy, too full of bodies.

“Make them all leave,” she tells Mary, and a moment later the maids fussing around her train and polishing the coronet are shepherded out. Boleyn goes to the window and inhales the draught. From here she can see the wild gardens and fishing lakes of High Hall and, beyond them, the distant Holtwode that blankets most of Boleyn’s future territory. She cannot spy the coast, or the towers of Brynd, but if she looks hard enough she thinks she sees, on the horizon, the bruising flicker of the bordweal: the god-given cocoon that protects the island from its enemies. Her chest loosens. She is going to be part of that cocoon. Part of Elben’s saviour, part of its legacy.

Mary returns, gentler.

“Don’t be nervous,” she says. “The king adores you.”

“Of course he does.”

Mary tugs Boleyn’s hair. “Shall I let George and the others in?”

“No. Let it be just us, for a moment longer.”

“All right, Your Majesty.”

“Berevia, mun ceripucun.”

Thank you, my pretty maid. The allusion to the Capetian queen’s nickname for the sisters when they served under her makes Mary laugh. They both used to bridle at the pejorative implied in maid, for pucun can mean both virgin and servant.

Mary leans over Boleyn, so her head is resting on her sister’s, and they stare into Boleyn’s mirror together. Two pale faces stare back – one full-cheeked and framed with gold; the other all shadows. One all honeysuckle sweetness; the other cedar wood and smoke.

Boleyn runs her hands over the crystals on her bodice, each one worth more than her entire dowry would have been had she married a man who required one. Silently, Mary fetches the coronet from its pillow and settles it on her head. It’s heavy for such a slender object, but Boleyn’s dark hair offsets the silver. Boleyn watches her sister, dressed in her widow’s black, in the mirror, and even though Boleyn is so, so happy and so, so in love, a sadness creeps across her. Mary has been her companion since childhood. The sun to her moon. Soon Boleyn will be swept up in her royal duties, and no matter how much favour she bestows upon Mary and her children, a growing distance is inevitable.

“Well, I suppose I’ll never be as beautiful as Queen Howard,” Boleyn says to fill the void.

“You don’t need to be,” Mary replies, smoothing the hair that has rucked up beneath the coronet.

Mary’s right. Boleyn has her hair, her neck, and her mind, and Henry fell in love with all three. The rest of her – thin lips, thin body, skin that never seems to hold any colour – will never be considered beautiful on this island. But she doesn’t need to be the most beautiful Queen to hold the king’s attention. Haven’t the last few months proved that?

A servant peers round the door. “My lady, it’s nearly time.”

“Are the ambassadors waiting?”

“They are all here.”

“Let them come in.”

The servant opens the door fully to reveal a packed antechamber, full of courtiers who have travelled to the centre of Elben to pay their respects to the newest queen. Mary busies herself with Boleyn’s train, pulling and heaving at the fabric to show off its length. Their family is waiting eagerly. Dearest brother George, bouncing on his tiptoes as he talks to his spouses, Rochford and Mark, and their parents, more reserved. Their mother smooths her dress, which is far finer than the gowns she’s used to wearing back at home, and their father puts an arm on her waist, muttering reassurances.

Boleyn ignores her family for now, instead paying attention to the five veiled women before her. Each one accompanies a gift – some small and wrapped in finely embroidered silk, and one so large it is carried by four servants. They curtsey in unison. Boleyn could so easily have been one of them. Before her engagement, she matched their rank – the almosts, the good but not the best. The ladies-in-waiting. In waiting.

Boleyn has never been good at waiting.

The first lady, dressed in the silver tulle of Queen Howard, offers Boleyn her queen’s gift and steps back, her hands coming to rest over her stomach. The tulle doesn’t suit this woman, and the poor thing knows it. She would have been better served in the subtler linen of Queen Parr, whose fashion would flatter this lady’s curves. Howard’s style is unforgiving.

“Oh, queen to be, I bring you a gift from Queen Howard of the Palace of Plythe. She wishes you great joy in your marriage to our king.”

Boleyn has been drilled in the correct reply. “I, Boleyn, soon to be consort of the Castle Brynd, thank Queen Howard for her gift and her wish, and hope to be a proper sister to her hereafter.”

The lady-in-waiting curtseys again and Boleyn passes the gift to Mary, who opens it on her behalf. Inside is a lute, with strings made from the vocal cords of the whales that patrol the river below the Palace of Plythe. Boleyn is impressed. Everything she’s heard about Queen Howard is that she’s an unthinking, flighty woman. The lute is frivolous but far from thoughtless.

The other ladies-in-waiting take their turns to step forward, offer their queen’s good wishes and a gift – a book of healing herbs from Queen Parr, the cover made from iridescent dragon leather; a jewel-encrusted headdress from the ailing Queen Blount of the Palace of Hyde; and, in the crate borne by servants, a dragon with a coat of silver from Queen Cleves. No annoying little lap dragon, this, but a guard dragon about the size of a greyhound. Boleyn thanks them all, and reckons she sounds very noble doing so.

Last comes the chosen ambassador of Queen Aragon, the first of Henry’s queens, married mere weeks after his ascension to the throne, twenty-four years ago. Aragon dresses all her ladies in heavy fabrics, the kind the Boleyns use as curtains. This lady looks as though she is buckling beneath the weight of her gown. If she’d only stand straight, she would tower over Boleyn, but her shoulders are curved in a constant apology. Boleyn can’t get a good look at the face beneath the veil, but when the woman curtseys, one hand resting over the other in her lap, she notices how the pale pink of her fingernails stands out against the tan of her skin. The lady isn’t holding a gift.

“From Queen Aragon I bring you the wish of friendship,” the woman says, her voice barely above a whisper.

Others have noticed her lack of gift too. No one knows what to do. This is unprecedented. The Queens of Elben are rarely friends but they do have to observe the customs. Boleyn refuses to show that she’s thrown by this, raising her chin and pasting on a smile as she considers Aragon’s reasons for such a snub. It can’t be her family’s status – Aragon and Cleves are the only two queens who come from royal blood themselves. The other three queens were raised from lower-born families than Boleyn’s. Is it Boleyn’s association with Capetia? Aragon, a Quistoan princess by birth, is naturally inclined against Capetia, but surely not enough to merit such a publicly hostile declaration.

Boleyn realises, with a glow of triumph, what this must mean – that of all the consorts, Aragon sees her as a true threat, and means to put her in her place. Well, she’s equal to that.

“I thank Queen Aragon for her wish, and desire that you should choose whichever of my gifts here that you think she might enjoy the most. It saddens me that a queen of such rich lineage should be unable to fulfil a tradition. It must hurt her greatly, and I wouldn’t wish to see our oldest and first of sisters brought so low.”

Boleyn doesn’t need to look to know that her brother, George, is smirking. The other ladies-in-waiting fidget in embarrassment, or excitement.

“Careful, B.,” Mary whispers. Boleyn knows she’s skirting the edge of decency, but this is all part of the game of court – knowing how to turn a phrase so that those listening can construe it in different ways. She learned the art in Capetia and regards it as the most precious part of her education. Played well, it can make you feared and admired. It can even make you queen.

“Oh,” the lady says. “My apologies, Your Grace. Queen Aragon did send a gift. She sent me.”

Boleyn stares at the mouse. “You?”

“She says…” The woman pauses, trying to recollect the exact words. “She says that the queens of Daven and Brynd should be the closest of sisters, and in recognition of this she sends you her most loyal attendant.”

“I see.” Boleyn’s theory was correct. Aragon does see her as a threat. “How very thoughtful. A new friend is the best and greatest of gifts. I welcome you into my household…?”

“Seymour,” the woman says, curtseying again.

“Lady Seymour.”

So, she’s going to have a cuckoo in her household. If this Seymour is Aragon’s spy, she must be made of stronger stuff than she looks.

CHAPTER TWO

Seymour

Seymour’s brothers have always claimed that they can smell her monthly blood. They have a litany of ways to describe it: musty, putrid, mouldy; like a damp tapestry or a fresh kill. She wonders if the other ladies here can smell it too. The wad of fabric tied between her thighs feels as claggy as the sweat beneath her armpits. Usually she loves the beautiful, embroidered fabrics of Queen Aragon’s uniform, but when she’s bleeding she wants to peel them off and run breezy in her shift. That’s what’s going through her mind when she steps forward and bungles what she’s supposed to say.

She should have included the fact that she was the “gift” – and what a poor gift she makes – from the start, so Lady Boleyn wouldn’t think that Queen Aragon had slighted her. The way Boleyn tightened should have made her realise immediately, but as usual she’s slow on the uptake. She has her suspicions as to why Aragon decided to gift a lady-in-waiting to Boleyn. What perplexes her is why Aragon has chosen her. Why not choose one of her inner circle? A daughter of one of the women who came with her from Quisto, perhaps. At least choose someone with intelligence, then mistakes like this would not happen. Or maybe the act of giving Boleyn her most uninspiring of ladies is the insult.

After the gift-giving, Seymour moves to the side of the chamber and watches, which is the one thing she’s passably good at. The formalities over, other members of Lady Boleyn’s new household are permitted to approach her. From beneath the veil, Seymour can look at her as much as she likes. There’s not a person present whose gaze isn’t drawn to her. Seen objectively, Lady Boleyn should be one of the last women in the room to be noticed. No artist would choose her as their muse – she’s too narrow and her features are too sharp. Her magic lies in her living. The grace with which she moves and speaks; the way she is so solidly present in her body. When she looks at someone, she gives them her entire attention. It is a rare and bewitching trait.

Boleyn’s brother and sister surround her, touching her bodice and bolstering her train, making a grand show of admiring her and, what’s more astonishing, meaning it. For all that Boleyn shines brightest, there is an open, easy complicity between the three siblings that brooks no disdain or jealousy. George’s spouses approach and are absorbed into the circle of confidants. Seymour has noticed Rochford around High Hall – she is always restrained, always watchful, in contrast to her husbands George and Mark, who have a reputation for being raucous.

“You must insist on it,” Boleyn’s sister says. “A fortnight. Nothing less.”

“Mary, you’re being too much,” Rochford says. Mary. A name purely for her, not like Boleyn or Seymour or Rochford, the brands of the first-born daughter to make sure everyone knows who their fathers are even after they take their husband’s last name.

“It will depend on how the war with Alpich goes,” Boleyn says, looking past her siblings to the gardens beyond the window. “He may need to return to his army. He must serve the kingdom.”

George places his hands on his sisters’ shoulders. “Cynn æ hredsigor.”

King and victory. The Boleyn family motto, as though their ancestors had foreseen this day.

The new queen reminds Seymour of a bow, the arrow already fitted: taut, dangerous, elegant. She wears her wit the way Seymour wears her veil. Comfortable armour. But there’s also something blunt about her. It must come from her time in Capetia, because it is certainly not Elben behaviour. It’s undoubtedly part of what makes her so interesting, but Seymour wonders whether such entertaining audacity might become tiresome after a while. It must be exhausting to perform.

In the very centre of High Hall, a bell tolls. It’s followed by the sound of music – a choir of young girls singing the traditional royal wedding madrigal. It’s so faint that it could be birdsong, heard on the brink of wakefulness. Seymour likes it at this distance – heard close the song is too aggressive for her liking.

Without instruction, Seymour and the other four ambassadors move to their appointed spots along Lady Boleyn’s train. It’s grotesquely long, Seymour doesn’t know what she or her seamstress were thinking. She tries not to catch the eyes of the others in case they all descend into laughter. Boleyn herself seems momentarily to be aware of how ridiculous it is, especially when she almost trips over the fabric. She regains her composure, and glances at them. Ambassadors are generally chosen for their tactfulness, so they play their parts perfectly. Eyes downcast beneath their veils, hands cupped over their stomachers. Boleyn turns at the door to address the room behind her and the crowd assembled in the antechamber outside.

“Shall we get married?” Boleyn says. Her voice is higher than normal, her hands fingering the objects on her pomander. There’s a brightness to her features though – these aren’t the nerves of a reluctant bride.

Another clot pushes its way into the cloth between Seymour’s legs as they process through the palace. Boleyn’s consort chambers are in the north-east wing, in accordance with her station as the queen-to-be of Castle Brynd. The Royal Sanctuary is situated on a higher floor, just beneath the king’s rooms at the very apex of High Hall. The procession must pass through the centre of the building – the series of halls and chambers that make up the spine of the palace. Each one contains a different assortment of courtiers – politicians, knights, artists and performers. Some of them are loyal to a particular queen, some to a political persuasion and some to one of the empires across the sea.

The other ladies-in-waiting begin to amass coteries. Foreign ambassadors and courtiers flock to Howard’s lady because, as the youngest queen, she is most likely to bear an heir. Seymour knows that this is why she and Cleves’s lady are largely left alone – Aragon is now past childbearing age, and with the new, Capetian-allied queen in the ascendant, Aragon’s Quistoan heritage makes her favour a gamble, and it is well known that the king rarely visits Queen Cleves. Even simpletons like Seymour understand the fundamental rule of Elben: without a male heir, the bordweal fails. Without a male heir, foreign powers invade. Without a male heir, Elben is lost. What puzzles her, though, are the lack of attendants to Queen Blount’s ambassador – Blount is still young, still in the king’s favour, or so she had thought.

Soon even the few courtiers keeping pace with Seymour drop away. Seymour is thankful for it. Queen Aragon still possesses some power, due to her royal lineage, but they’ve realised that Seymour is in no position to wield it. She watches anxiously for her own family, and with every chamber they pass through, she feels lighter. Maybe they’ve decided to stay away from High Hall today, or maybe they’re too busy scheming elsewhere.

The procession mounts the central staircase to the floor above. These higher floors are the domain of god and king and decorated according to the king’s taste. Initials are carved into the panelling – those of the monarch and his wives, entwined. In every window hangs an ornamental birdcage, from which canaries and nightingales warble, and the candles have been replaced by expensive lantern dragons that scamper around their cages in perpetual motion. The birdsong combines with the choir’s melody, which is louder now. The design of High Hall – a domed skep with six sides and a crowning turret – is such that the acoustics make distances ephemeral. When Seymour was a child, her nurse told her that the original architect designed it so there is a single spot in the king’s chambers from which he can hear the whispers of the quietest servants in their lodgings six floors below. Before Seymour came here, she thought it was superstition, like the myths of the sunscína – the fabled mirrors that permitted royalty to communicate across vast distances. Now, though, Seymour can well believe it. This is a building that is made for ears, whether by design or otherwise.

As the procession passes into another gallery, Seymour spots one of her brothers and feels her shoulders curling further inwards. Edward’s eyes land on her like a hawk on a sparrow. Seymour keeps her own on Boleyn’s naked hair. Unbidden, she imagines Boleyn winding it around her neck and pulling it tight, like deadly silk. The hairs on her arms stand on end.

Edward falls in beside his sister, so close that she can smell the hog he ate for lunch.

“Bare hair,” he comments, his eyes raking Boleyn’s back. “How common. Do you think she showed him her other hair to get him to the altar?”

“Shhh. People will hear,” Seymour says. She wants to shout at him to be quiet, but she’s never been able to stand up to either of her brothers. Besides, she’s still shaken by that image of Boleyn’s hair, by the way it shifted something in her stomach. She’s no prude, but an infatuation with the new queen would be excessively inconvenient.

“Blount’s on her own again,” Edward says, looking over at the third queen’s ambassador, a matronly woman in a deep grey veil. “The rumours must be true.”

“What rumours?” Seymour asks.

“She’s ill again,” Edward replies, making a slicing motion across his throat.

As if she’s heard him, Blount’s ambassador looks at Seymour across the expanse of Boleyn’s train. Her unhappiness is resigned and Seymour finds herself pulling back. So this is why she had so few attendants. For all that she will never be the brightest light at court, Seymour can sense a lost cause. It’s primal, especially in Elben where the death of a queen signals instability and the threat of invasion.

“They’re saying Gkontai warships have been spotted off the coast of Hyde,” Edward mutters. “They must be waiting. And the war in Alpich is going badly.”

“Remember what Thomas says about listening to rumours, brother,” Seymour says.

“Remember what Father says about women offering advice. Like a dog trying to write.” Edward reaches over and casually pinches the skin on the back of Seymour’s hand. She swallows her justifications and awaits what he is inevitably about to say. She’s stupid, but anyone who knows Edward can tell what his next scheme will be.

“I’d have preferred Plythe if we could be rid of Howard, but if Blount’s dying, Hyde would be better than nothing. You put yourself in his way, you hear?” Edward says. “Or don’t bother speaking to me again.”

They pass through a narrow gallery, and the sound of the choir becomes clearer. The doors at the end are already open. Beyond is the Royal Sanctuary, where the choir of angelic girls is assembled. Beyond them, at the head of the altar, waits King Henry in cloth of gold and purple, his eyes only for his new bride. How could he have eyes for anyone else? How could anyone? And how on earth is Seymour supposed to draw his attention when Boleyn is in the room?

Another clot slides into her cloth as Edward delivers his parting shot: “By the by – you stink.”

CHAPTER THREE

Boleyn

Every movement at court is a performance. This is the first thing Boleyn remembers learning, and the only knowledge that she reminds herself of daily. The Royal Sanctuary commands a display with its gilded formality. But when she sees Henry standing there, Boleyn forgets her mantra. She forgets the representatives from Capetia that she has been entertaining. She forgets the five ladies-in-waiting, the disdain and awe and jealousy she senses through their veils. She even forgets her own family, and all their practice. They had timed her walk to make sure she would reach Henry at exactly the right swell of the choir. But as soon as she sees him she flies up the sanctuary’s aisle, her hands outstretched for his.

It’s only when she stands opposite him – those eyes that always seem to be laughing, the soft waves of his hair, the whisper of divine magic that ripples across his skin – that Boleyn realises that despite the impropriety, it was absolutely the right thing to do. Henry’s grinning down at her: Not very ladylike, Boleyn. Desperate to make me yours, are you?

She tilts her head at him, silently replying: No more than you’re desperate to make me yours.

His grip tightens. Beneath his linen shirt, his arms tense. How she longs to push up those sleeves and run her hands along the ridges of his muscles, across his chest and down the tautness of his stomach, to revel in the hot balm of his magic as it plays across her skin as well as his. Yes, she wants to make him hers, as a dragon desires blood. She will always be hunting him, and he her. It was the way their courtship began, after all.

Slowly, the pews in the sanctuary fill. The royal family comes first – a handful of Henry’s cousins, his two sisters being abroad – followed by Boleyn’s family. After them are the high-ranking courtiers with their sable-trimmed doublets, and then the lower ranking nobility in crimson or blue damask. Boleyn clears her throat, turning away from her audience and towards Henry. In the silence that follows, she feels curiously aware of the space around her. The chapel is small, intimate, the huge stained-glass windows that line one side of it doing nothing to make it feel more spacious. It is busy, even without the mass of bodies filling it – every wall, every object is decorated or filigreed. In any other room, it would feel gaudy, but there’s a solemnity to the faded gold, the sad smiles of the statues looking down on them from the pillars. The only space that does not feel cluttered is the wall behind the altar, which is dominated by a pair of antlers, stark white and big as a man, that hangs from iron brackets.

Bishop More steps onto the dais. A chain, devoid of gems, seems too heavy for his slender frame. His cap hides a thick mane of dark hair. He avoids looking at either the king or the bride. He’s a well-known acolyte of Queen Aragon, despite his see lying in Boleyn’s new territory of Brynd. She wonders if Aragon is trying to pinch her between Lady Seymour and the bishop, to make her feel uneasy on her wedding day. If that’s the case, Aragon doesn’t know that Boleyn grows sharper with every such move. Behind More, two servants place a cage containing a ceremonial dragon about the size of a goat, pearl-scaled and meaty, on the altar. It is submissive, drugged with tincture of pypas, ready for the bonding.

More raises his arms to frame the giant antlers on the wall behind him. When he speaks, his voice is sonorous. “We are gathered here today, beneath His antlers, to celebrate the binding of the King of Elben to this honoured woman, the Lady Boleyn.” Boleyn stares into Henry’s eyes. It can’t have only been a few months since they met, since they fell in love beneath hazel trees.

The bishop turns to the antlers behind the altar, and raises his arms once more in supplication.

“Haehfaeder upyrdum, besiroth tusenunga debryd,” he intones. Highfather above us, we seek your blessing on this union. Old Elbenese is too guttural for Boleyn’s taste – she prefers the cradle-rock lilt of the Osharan languages – but More’s reverence lends the words a certain beauty. He turns back to the assembled guests, returning to the modern tongue: “Our precious island of Elben, the confluence and gem of the three oceans, has long been coveted by those who would strip it of its riches.”

Boleyn does not look away from Henry. She doesn’t want to see the Capetian ambassador scowling on a day when she – and he – should be victorious. She doesn’t even wish to see the discomfort of the Quistoan representatives. It may be tradition to tell the story of how Elben’s queens came to be, but More is being needlessly heavy-handed. Henry rubs his thumb across the back of her left hand. It will pass, he is telling her. It matters not.

“There came a time, in Elben’s youth, when it seemed as though our island might be overwhelmed and lost. Our verdant forests burned, our glittering mines turned to dust, our livestock and people slaughtered. The king, strong and fearless though he was, could not hold off our enemies.”

There is a rustling of satin and velvet as the foreign ambassadors shift in their pews. Boleyn knows precisely what they are thinking. It was the one point of contention between her and her hosts during her time in Capetia. No country likes to believe that their shared god favours another.

More opens the cage and the servants help him to lift the ceremonial dragon, still slumbering. Its scales wax cream and silver beneath the sanctuary’s candlelight. The only mark on its hide is a thin scar at its throat, where its vocal cords have been removed. The bishop brings the dragon to the altar, where the servants bind its feet and wings.

“In despair and hope,” More continues, “King Aethelred journeyed to the sacred mountains of Hyfostelle, and there he made a sacrifice before the great god Cernunnos.”

A servant brings More a plain, golden dagger. More raises it so that all can see, then stands over the sleeping dragon. The air in the sanctuary congeals around Boleyn.

“Beteoth tufolgestaella, Haehfaeder!” he calls, his voice echoing around the chamber. Protect your people, Highfather. More brings the dagger down upon the dragon’s stomach. The beast rears from its stupor, writhing. Its jaws stretch open in agony, but the only sound is the clanking of the chains against the marble altar.

It is the first time since entering the sanctuary that Henry and Boleyn have willingly taken their eyes from each other. More ignores the dragon’s death throes, carving through the length of its stomach and dipping a long hand into the cavity to collect the fire brewed there. The dragon has been fed with nothing but honeyed meat for a month, to ensure its flames are golden, but there is always the fear of fate speaking louder than design. Of brown flames, or pale yellow – augurs of a weak bordweal, or the wrong choice of queen. The stories tell of fire thick and red as blood at the wedding of the traitor Queen Isabet.

More pulls his hand out of the dragon’s stomach. Cradled in his bare palm is a swirl of fire, molten gold. In the smile that Henry and Boleyn share lies a promise: the gold means certainty, safety, a loyal queen and a strong bordweal. It means, surely: a son.

Boleyn turns to the guests. She doesn’t return the relieved smiles of her family – to do so would be to admit that she had been uncertain of the outcome of the sacrifice. No, she stands tall and justified as More deposits the flame into a lantern and continues the story.

“From the mountain, Cernunnos, the great Highfather, spoke. Our antlered god looked upon King Aethelred. He said, ‘For the great love I bear for you and for this blessed isle, I will grant you protection.’ From a crevice at the apex of the mountain he pulled forth six substances, and fashioned each into a fortress. From sand, he made the Palace of Daven and set it upon the north coast. From fire, he made the Castle of Brynd, and placed it beyond the Holtwode, facing the Sea of Hreonessa. From ice, he made the Palace of Hyde, and buried it in Elben’s eastern rocks. From flesh, he made the Palace of Cnothan on the southern coast. From air he spun the Palace of Plythe and placed it at the mouth of the Kyttle River. And from rock and earth, he made the Castle of Mathmas and set it on the western cliffs.”

As the bishop speaks, servants remove the dragon’s body and in its place set a platter of six locked boxes, each one forged from a different metal.

“Cernunnos said unto the king, ‘I hereby give to you my strength. The strength of a god. Take six wives, loyal and humble and true, and place each of them in one of these sovereign castles, and visit them. Through them, your divine strength shall flow, and through them this blessed isle shall be protected from those who seek to harm it.’”

Boleyn watches as Henry produces a set of keys from a leather pouch, and passes one to the bishop. The key is made of garnet, and it fits into a box beaten from copper plates and engraved with flames. The bishop unlocks the box and withdraws from it a length of tattered cloth, once vivid purple, now faded to grey. The binding cloth of the dowager queen, one of Henry’s stepmothers. As she watches More burn the old cloth in the dragon’s flame, Boleyn imagines a day long hence when her son will replace her binding cloth with a fresh one as he marries his own beloved queen. She stirs, trying to shift a sudden light-headedness, and focuses on More’s voice.

“And so King Aethelred found six wives, humble, loyal and true, and through their marriage he passed to them a portion of his new divine strength. Through their marriage, and through the castles of Cernunnos, the power of the bordweal was formed, and Elben’s enemies were expelled. And ever since that day, so long as Elben is ruled by an heir of Aethelred and the six castles are occupied by queens humble, loyal and true, the power of Cernunnos has flowed from king to queens to bordweal, and thus we have thrived. Heahthrima eCynn. Haethrima eHaehfaeder!” Glory to the King. Glory to the Highfather. More’s sudden shout echoes around the sanctuary, making Boleyn’s sister-in-law, Rochford, jump. Boleyn wills George not to descend into juvenile laughter as she raises her arm for the next part of the ceremony.

More takes fresh purple cloth and binds Henry and Boleyn’s arms together. The bishop is rougher than he needs to be, the cloth so tight around her forearm that the circulation begins to wane.

“With this cloth, I invoke the ancient magics of this country. Lord Cernunnos, with this marriage the six palaces of Elben are filled. Grant us safety and protection, we beg of you. Beteoth tufolgestaella, Haehfaeder.”

Something clouds Henry’s features. Boleyn doesn’t like the implication either – this reminder that the king must fill the six palaces, that he must have six queens, or the kingdom falls. His other marriages were of convenience, that’s what he’s always told Boleyn. This union, though – this is a love match. He and Howard may have a meeting of bodies; he and Aragon may have a meeting of minds, but he and Boleyn – they have both. She clasps Henry’s hand, but there’s still a shadow across his features that she cannot shift.

The Bishop holds the dragonflame lantern beneath their bound arms. His eyes are closed, as though he’s silently communing with Cernunnos. Boleyn fights the urge to laugh. George, in the front pew, is losing his own struggle. While she may defend Elbenese beliefs to the Capetians, the god has never been tangible to Boleyn the way He is to most. She has never heard Him answer her when she’s praying as Mary has. Nor does Boleyn like it when the good she has made happen is attributed to Cernunnos. It should be enough that He protects Elben. Let the mortals have their own victories.

But as Boleyn stands in the oppressive beauty of the sanctuary, she feels the heat from the lantern and the divine magic begin to work upon her. A heavy, floral scent fills the room. The cloth seems to flow across her skin, even though it doesn’t move. This is the start of the true bonding, where the king’s inexhaustible strength is meted out to the consorts for the good of the kingdom. Henry watches her. Of course, he’s been through this ceremony five times already. He knows what to expect. He had warned her that it would be uncomfortable, and that no matter what she feels, she cannot make a sound if the bonding is to work. But god help her this isn’t uncomfortable – this is torture. She had imagined the divine power would make her strong, but she has never felt weaker. Beneath her skin, she is being twisted, stretched, snapped, suffocated. The pain is a fever, engulfing. It is the bite of a hundred dragons. It is the bone-deep memory of overhearing her parents agreeing that Mary was the beautiful sister.

Henry exhibits no discomfort. Maybe her experience is different to his. Maybe the pain is reserved for the consorts. She clings to his gaze. Their love for each other is her lighthouse. As long as she has sight of him, safety is within reach.

As soon as Boleyn thinks she cannot stand the pain any more, that she must, must scream, it’s over. She wills her legs, damp beneath the impossible heaviness of her gown, to hold her up. The bishop extinguishes the flame and unwinds the cloth. Henry catches her as she stumbles.

“I’m here,” he whispers, his hands gentle but strong. “You won’t fall; I have you.”

She is left with the exhaustion that comes after a migraine, but the ceremony isn’t over yet. The bishop folds the binding cloth carefully and places it in the copper box, where until moments ago the dowager queen’s cloth sat.

“What tokens have you chosen, Your Majesty?” More asks her.

With fumbling fingers, Boleyn produces the objects tethered to her belt. It’s traditional for each queen to commission a number of tokens on her wedding day. They become a proclamation of the kind of consort the people can expect her to become. Her first, the stag, is one that makes Henry smile. He thinks it’s the representation of their first meeting – the race through the woods; the way their hands touched as they both took hold of the dead beast’s antlers. But it’s more than that – it’s a promise, from queen to king. For Henry is the embodiment of Cernunnos on the island, a birthright imbued in his blood, passed from father to son. In taking the god’s symbol for herself, Boleyn is sending a message – she’s ready to be Henry’s equal.

She speaks the words that she has spent many nights writing, George and Mary, Mark and Rochford advising. “With this stag I pledge my strength to you, my king,” she says.

Her other tokens are more obviously controversial. A quill, fashioned in silver and pointed with a crimson garnet. More’s eyes narrow when he sees it. His seat is in Pilvreen, after all. She had to get special dispensation to mine the garnet, and now that she looks at it, it seems to shift, to congeal, as if remembering the blood that once suffused it. A sound passes around the chapel – a sigh, like the expelling of a final breath.

Boleyn’s family cannot understand why using the Pilvreen garnet is so important to her. They don’t understand that she is trying to reclaim it from the legacy of the queen whose treachery created the garnets. That in using these gems, Boleyn is spinning their bloodied beauty into something pure.

“Words cannot help but betray truths, both open and hidden, so with this quill, I pledge my truth to you, my king.”

Henry’s eyes glitter.

Her final token is a thunderstorm: a cloud of obsidian, flecked with silver raindrops. It’s unlike anything any other queen has conceived of – with them it’s all flowers and rabbits and religious symbols. But Boleyn is not like other queens.

“With this storm I pledge my fertility to you, my king. For the flowers cannot bloom without the rain, and the sun never shines brighter than after the thunder.”

Henry’s smile this time is slow, almost rueful, as though he has turned a new page of a favourite book and discovered one final surprise. It is now his turn to pledge his troth. When Boleyn has asked him what token he plans on giving to her, he has been evasive. Now, a servant brings him a velvet cushion upon which rest two items: a nugget of gold, and a crystal sphere in which flutters a fairy.

“Oh, Henry,” Boleyn breathes.

“I told you I would find something that would do justice to my love for you,” he says. He rests the gold and the crystal in his palm. The divine magic that always plays across his muscles floods to his hand, forming an orb around both objects that shimmers with the light of the bordweal. Boleyn has never seen him use his magic in this way. She does not watch the orb, but her new husband’s face. The way his eyes are closed in concentration, the way his throat pulses as he swallows.

When the orb dissipates, what remains in Henry’s palm is a plain poesy ring. As Henry slips the band onto Boleyn’s finger, she imagines she can feel the fairy trapped inside beating against its golden cage. If Henry were to swear an oath on this ring and Boleyn were to accept it, he would be bound by the fairy within to honour his oath or suffer the most terrible of deaths. Of course, no one makes such oaths any more, for fear of accidentally falling foul of them. But the symbolism is plain for everyone present to see. It is truly a kingly gift, for only the kings of Elben possess the magic to make such jewellery, and they have not done so for centuries.

Henry says, “I accept your strength, your truth and your fertility, my queen, and pledge my own in return. Together let us protect our kingdom in unity with the six palaces, an island fortress eternally impenetrable.”

The solemnity in the chapel lifts. Boleyn’s family breaks into applause. The consorts’ ambassadors lift their veils, and the new queen sees clearly, for the first time, the Lady Seymour, Queen Aragon’s gift. She looks quite sickly, her brown skin shining with sweat.

Boleyn forgets her, allowing herself to be caught up in the happiness of the moment. Her siblings crowd around her and Henry’s hand remains on her waist as he talks to the bishop. They’ve done it. She’s a queen.

There is one final piece of the ceremony left to complete, though, and it must take place tonight, while the magic from the binding ceremony is still strong. It’s why Henry and Boleyn must leave immediately for her new palace of Brynd.

She clasps George and Mary to her. “Come directly in the morning,” she whispers to them, inexplicably sad.

“Have fun tonight,” Mary says. “Enjoy him all you can.”

George, who for all his ribaldry is sometimes more insightful than their sister, whispers in her ear as he hugs her farewell, “Remember this is for you and the king. Try to forget about everyone else.”

Boleyn quickly changes into her travelling clothes – a kirtle and petticoat beneath a fur gown, split at the front to reveal the silk.

“Pack my wedding gown away to be brought on to Brynd,” she tells the maids. They eye the material enviously. A single yard of it costs their yearly wage. Boleyn had better check the gown’s still intact when it arrives in her retinue tomorrow.

Henry helps her into the royal carriage, and the horses – six dappled chargers – spring away as soon as the door has closed. They must reach Brynd before nightfall, and as such they take the scrind road – the most direct route between High Hall and Boleyn’s new home, and one of six charmed, long ago, to convey those who travel upon them more swiftly than other paths. Henry settles himself opposite her, and for a moment Boleyn feels unaccountably nervous. They are here, husband and wife, at last. The performance can drop away – she doesn’t need to play the queen. He has chosen her above all others.

“Alone, my love,” he says.

“Alone,” she echoes.

The carriage jolts against a stone, and she braces herself against the wall. Outside the window, High Hall recedes. From this distance, the palace looks squat, ugly. Wooden houses, punctuated by the occasional inn, are strung out along the road like garlands. It is lined with subjects. Her subjects, now. They should all be cheering the passing of the newest consort, but these people are quiet. It’s only the occasional child, overcome by the ceremony and the grandness of the carriage, who shouts out happily. Boleyn permits them some grace: the people of her territory have been suspicious of their consorts ever since Queen Isabet. She will need to earn their joy.

Gradually, the houses ebb into countryside – fields of wheat and corn and livestock. In the distance, the Holtwode clouds the horizon.

“Are you nervous about tonight?” Henry asks her.

“No,” she says. “But I do wish we could consummate our love a different way.”

“Not with an audience, you mean?”

Cernunnos’s protection isn’t complete until a marriage is consummated, so tradition has it that a group of courtiers and religious men must bear witness, to make sure that the bordweal will hold. It’s necessary, but not what she wants for her first time. She explains this to Henry.

“The bordweal only requires us to make love in Brynd on the first night. It doesn’t require it to be our first time.”

“You mean, we could…?” she says. The knot in her stomach tightens, as it always does when she thinks about Henry’s body pressing against hers. The fields are giving way now, melting into the Holtwode. Woods like the one they fell in love in. Henry’s eyes meet hers, and she knows – like always – that they are thinking the same thing.

Henry knocks on the carriage wall. The driver pulls the chargers to a halt.

“Your Highness?” a groom says, peering into the window.

Henry gestures for him to open the door, then lifts Boleyn down onto the path as though she were no heavier than one of the leaves coating the ground.

“Give the horses a rest,” Henry says.

“But Your Highness – nightfall…” the groom stutters. “And there’s been talk of a crone in…”

Henry strikes the groom with the back of one hand, a clap of a movement that drives the boy into a nearby tree trunk. He lies at the tree’s base. Simply unconscious, Boleyn thinks, looking away from the smear of blood on the bark, and the uncanny jut of the groom’s jaw. There is a certain thrill in Henry’s demonstration of strength. Her desire twists.

“Give them a rest,” Henry repeats.

The driver bows deeply. Henry leads Boleyn away from the scrind road – a slight tug behind her navel the only sign she is leaving its magic – and towards a bed of bluebells. Her heart is hammering, even though she’s dreamed of this moment for months. One hears stories of first times. Mary’s very free with her tales. But then they reach the bluebells, where they can no longer see or hear the carriage. In the distance, something barks. He kisses her everywhere, tenderly stripping her of clothes and guile. Her hands skate over the linen shirt beneath his doublet, feeling muscles toned from years of hunting, jousting and battle. They have both waited far too long for this moment, and Boleyn had feared that the anticipation would be more delicious than the reality.

She need not have worried. Henry is uxorious. He kisses his way down her neck, her breasts, her stomach. When he’s on his knees, he pulls her to the ground, and a moment later she understands why – her legs would not have held beneath the intensity of the pleasure.

“What can I do for you?” she says between gasps. She dimly has some notion of unfairness. Henry presses her hand, and she understands: this is for you. She takes his gift and lets it bloom inside her, tendrils of rapture threading up her spine.

“Let me see you,” she says.

Her husband, her king, removes his shirt. She runs her hands down his chest. The magic whirling across his skin seems to reach for her. Then he is naked, and she understands how the power of a god could flow through such a man without destroying him. She pulls him down on top of her, wrapping her legs around his waist. His desire presses against her most intimate part, but he holds himself back, his mouth on her neck and lips, his hands in her hair. Unbidden, the image of the groom, his jaw twisted, springs to Boleyn’s mind. There is so much power in Henry, so much rage and destruction, but for her he is gentle. She has tamed him. She almost laughs.

“I’m ready,” she says.

He pushes inside her, joining their bodies at last, as their minds and hearts joined so many months ago. A mere pinch, and then she relaxes.

“My queen, my love, my strength and my future,” he says. “I would do anything for you, Boleyn.”

“And I you.”

As she rocks her hips in time with his, Boleyn cradles his head to her shoulder and smiles up at the canopy above. The trees whisper to each other of secrets and wild magic.

CHAPTER FOUR

Seymour

Once Boleyn and the king are on their way, Seymour excuses herself from the group of well-wishers and hurries back into High Hall. In a few weeks, she will join the new queen at Brynd Castle as a lady-in-waiting, but first she must tie up her affairs at Daven, and she desperately needs to change her cloth before she leaves. Before she can slip into the hall, though, her brother accosts her.

“The king’s going to be visiting Brynd often, until he can plant a brat inside her. I want you under his nose so if Blount dies, you’re already in his mind.”

“Every other available woman will be trying to do the same,” she points out.

“So do it better than them. There might not be anything remarkable about you, but we’ve raised you to be the perfect wife. So make that clear. Submissive. Dutiful. Pliable. Understand?”

“Maybe he doesn’t like those qualities in a woman,” she says. “Look at the new queen.”

“All men like those qualities when it comes down to it. Believe me, the king is only with her because he wants to see if he can tame her.”

Seymour thinks of the expressions on the couple’s faces in the Sanctuary. She had not thought of the king as a romantic. Chivalrous: yes. In love with being in love: yes. But true, heart-deep romance? No, she would never have thought him capable of that. And Boleyn – her first impression of her had been that she was a performer. But the way they looked at each other – that was real, Seymour is sure of it. She rubs the sweat from her palms as she thinks about the new queen. Boleyn has had such an easy life: a love match with a king, a family that supports her and an education and attitude that give her the impression of unattainability.

Thomas and Edward talk about how some families are blessed by Cernunnos with uncommon luck, and how that luck seems to either collect, like rain in cups, or drain away. It’s either all or nothing. They’re obsessed with the idea that their family, the Seymours, have been cursed. They want nothing more than to turn the family luck around. If they only scheme hard enough, maybe they can make Cernunnos smile upon them as he smiles upon other families. Seymour never believed it until today, until she saw Boleyn and all her varied luck.

That hair. That hair around her neck. Those eyes, looking at her the way they looked at the king. She shivers.

“How do you know he just wants to tame her?” she says.

“I want you married, understand?” he says. “So get the king, or I’ll find someone else to take you off my hands.”

He walks away before she can answer. She thinks of Edward’s friends – the kind of men he would seek to chain her to if she cannot find a husband herself. There are rumours of what they all do when they have ale and each other’s company, although no one has told her exactly what those rumours are. She pulls up the shoulders of her dress where they have slipped, and wrestles her mind to the present. She is not going to snare the king by dawdling in an empty gallery.

Seymour winds her way through the galleries, worrying with every step that her course will leak through her gown. It happened once, a few years ago. One of Queen Cleves’s ladies-in-waiting silently pointed at the stain. She hasn’t been able to bring herself to wear white since.

The lower floors of High Hall are divided into six wings, each one occupied by the household of a different queen, and each one serviced by its own entrance and courtyard. Boleyn’s suite is decorated in the Capetian style in Boleyn green and royal purple. The combination shouldn’t work, but Boleyn has found the right balance of the shades to make her rooms sumptuous rather than jarring. She darts through Boleyn’s rooms to Aragon’s in the neighbouring wing. The difference in style is stark. Where Boleyn has ornate murals adorning her walls, and swathes of delicate fabric draped across windows and over seats, Aragon has tapestries and bare wood. A fire crackles in a fireplace that could easily house a family. But Aragon’s chambers are quiet today. The queen isn’t at High Hall, but at her own palace, Daven, in the north of Elben. It is customary for the consorts to not be in attendance when the king is marrying a new queen – it is deemed tasteless. Queens must be friendly, but never friends. Indeed, they rarely congregate; usually only at the Moon Ball held in celebration of the bordweal and the mighty god who created it. A few servants and some of the queen’s lesser courtiers mill around – cleaning, reading, conversing in the quiet tones that Queen Aragon demands. Seymour catches snippets of what they’re saying.

“Quisto might throw its power behind Alpich. They’ll move against Elben.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“I’m more worried about Her Majesty. We cannot let him abandon her.”

Seymour tries to see this news through her brothers’ eyes. Even she, stupid though she is, can see that the family’s alliance with Queen Aragon will put them in a bad light if Elben goes to war with the queen’s home country. It follows, then, that it would be wise for them to distance themselves from Aragon. Maybe Edward’s command that she seduce the king comes from a place of concern, a desire to protect her from the association with her mistress.

Some of Aragon’s courtiers have already abandoned her – she spotted them bowing to Boleyn earlier today, wearing green instead of the blue they used to wear to signal their devotion to Queen Aragon. Now that she thinks on it, Edward had also divested himself of his usual blue handkerchief.

She thinks of Queen Aragon, sitting in Daven, so far from her homeland, feeling the foundations of her marriage shift, and pinches herself. Edward would do far worse if he knew how soft her thoughts are. She’s not going to be able to please both Queen Aragon and him. She’s going to end up betraying one of them. She can’t help but feel, though, that the only person she’ll truly be betraying is herself.

Seymour turns into the narrow corridor that houses bedchambers for Queen Aragon’s household and guests. Her room is at the end, tucked in between an identical bedchamber and a communal space where Aragon’s musicians and lesser courtiers gather. Clarice, Seymour’s servant, is waiting for her with a bowl of warm water infused with herbs.

“I’ve got clean cloths too,” Clarice says, holding up a length of cotton and passing Seymour a towel.

“You’re an angel,” Seymour says, turning so that Clarice can undo her laces. Seymour looks longingly at Clarice’s own clothes – a fitted doublet and hose over a simple linen shirt. No endless layers for the people of the Feorwa Isles as there are for those in Elben. Clarice sets up a screen so that Seymour can finish stripping and wash herself in private. She runs the cloth over her arms and stomach, and then over the faded, raised lines that streak her thighs. The only scars inflicted by herself, although she told Clarice once that Edward was responsible for the wounds. She’s not sure Clarice believed her.

“How was it?” Clarice asks from the other side of the screen.

“My brother was there.”

Clarice makes a sympathetic but non-committal noise, and passes the clean cotton around the side of the screen. Seymour resists the urge to tear the screen down. Clarice has seen her naked before. Felt her naked, too. But that was long ago, when they were friend and friend, not mistress and servant.

“I managed to get my hands on some pepperthorn balm,” Clarice says as Seymour secures the cloth in place with a girdle.

Seymour rubs some of the balm across her stomach, trying not to inhale its sharp scent. Immediately, the cramps diminish. Seymour puts on the rest of her clothes and Clarice gently pulls on her shoulders to correct her posture.

“Don’t, Clarice. I don’t like being a giant.”

“In Feorwa…”

“I know, I know. Maybe one day I’ll come and visit your family with you.”

The air between them shifts, as it always does when Seymour tries to recapture their lost intimacy.

“You’ll feel right at home, my lady,” Clarice says, filling the silence too late.

They sometimes laugh that Seymour was born the tallest of a short family, and Clarice was born the shortest on an island of tall people. They cling on to this joke, because it’s one insecurity they have in common, these two people for whom true friendship has become impossible.

Clarice finishes packing Seymour’s scant belongings and drags her trunk out through the servants’ quarters, while Seymour leaves through the main entrance to Queen Aragon’s wing.

Seymour has always adored the view from here, and regards it as the most beautiful of the six scrind roads leading out of High Hall. Facing due north, towards Daven, she can see the path winding up and up, until hill transforms into the mountain range of the Heahmores, brutal and elegant as hawks’ beaks.

The scrind roads fan out like a spider’s web, each one flowing through a series of ringed gardens. The inner segments of land adjacent to each queen’s wing is theirs to cultivate as they wish. Aragon has chosen to turn hers into orchards. A dozen orangeries dot the grounds, each one housing plants and fruit trees from Quisto – everything about Queen Aragon’s existence on Elben is a sign of her homesickness. It starts to rain while Seymour waits for Clarice to fetch a carriage, so she takes shelter in the nearest greenhouse. It’s nearly as big as the Royal Sanctuary, and it houses rows of fruit trees, interspersed between smaller plants. The air is loamy. At the far end of the greenhouse, a gardener pours cloudy liquid onto the base of the trees. He bows lightly as she approaches. Seymour sniffs a squat bush that sports the most beautiful dusky pink flowers, and finds herself coming over faint.

“Careful, my lady,” the gardener says, putting down his watering jug in alarm. “That’s mamera, that is.”

“I haven’t heard of it,” she says, allowing him to lead her to a wooden bench set on one side of the path.

“Put you right to sleep. Specially if you put it in your drink, but a good sniff like you had can do the trick too.”

“I had no idea. I didn’t mean to take you from your work.”

He takes Seymour’s words as a rebuke rather than an apology, returning to his watering jug with a scowl.

“Why are you not giving them water?” she asks him, trying to make things right between them.

“Water’s water,” he responds, and she doesn’t know what to say to that. “This stuff – this stuff’s extraordinary. Made up specially from manure sent by Queen Cleves herself.”

Queen Cleves is easy to forget about. She’s reputed to be ugly and dim-witted, so much so that the king never visits her if he can help it. But this man talks about her as if she’s a goddess.

“What’s so special about it?” Seymour asks, covering her nose surreptitiously, for the smell of the liquid, even at a distance, is exactly what one would expect of something made from dung.

“Cernunnos knows, but it works. Sweetest fruits we’ve ever had since Queen Cleves started sending it to us.”

He reaches up and plucks one of the fruits from a low-hanging branch, handing it to her. The fruit is a deep purple, with a fine fuzz across the skin. She’s seen these on the platters brought for the queen when the ambassadors from Quisto are visiting. Aragon has never allowed any Elben-born member of her household to try them before. Seymour wonders whether it’s wise to eat something fed by a mysterious liquid from a rival queen, but she supposes if Queen Cleves was going to poison them, she’d be subtler about it. She takes a bite. The flesh is scarlet inside, and the juice drips down her chin unbecomingly. She doesn’t care, though, even when the gardener smirks. It’s like spiced honey.

“I’ve never eaten anything more delicious,” she says.

“I told you so.”

The door to the greenhouse opens and Clarice puts their head around the door.

“My lady? Your carriage is ready.”

Seymour wipes the juice from her chin with her sleeve.

“You off to Daven?” the gardener says. When she nods, he makes her wait while he retrieves a basket and fills it with the purple fruits. He lays a cloth over the basket and hands it to her.

“There’s twenty in here,” he says loudly enough for anyone who might be loitering to hear, but looking at Seymour and Clarice pointedly. “For Queen Aragon only.”

Clarice brings the basket into the carriage and pulls the curtains shut as it trundles out of High Hall and towards the Heahmore mountains. Taking the scrind road always makes Seymour feel nauseous – there’s something about the dissonance between the stately speed they travel at and the rate at which the landscape beyond the road passes that turns her stomach.

When they’re sure that the groom clinging to the side of the carriage isn’t going to peer in, Seymour and Clarice flip the coverlet off the top of the basket and count the fruits inside – twenty-two. A gift, just for them. Maybe, Seymour thinks, as she devours hers, eyes closed, the Seymour luck is changing after all.

CHAPTER FIVE

Boleyn

Brynd Castle reminds Boleyn of the ancient goddesses, the ones whose wind-worn statues still stand on Elben’s deserted hilltops. Brynd is built on a precipice, tall, ancient and scarred. At its apex is a single turret, crowned with lightning rods, that leans out over the storm-ridden sea as though daring the waves to topple it. Beyond the sea, just visible in the fading light, is the bordweal. The bruised whorls of light are clearer on the horizon, where wind meets water. Purple and green flicker into red and turquoise like playful cubs. Boleyn cranes her neck, following the curve of the dome up, up, up. In her childhood, she and her siblings would lie on the grass outside Hever at sunset, simply to witness the storm of the island’s protection. They would imagine themselves as birds, with the ability to fly the full length of the bordweal, from Mathmas in the north-west, all the way to Hyde on the south-east coast.

But today the uppermost reaches of the dome are fainter than Boleyn remembers. Fainter, thus, frailer. It has been only a matter of months since the last surviving queen of Henry’s father, the Dowager Queen Huntlye died, leaving Brynd un-queened. Boleyn is certain the bordweal did not used to weaken so quickly. Perhaps things changed while she was abroad.

They arrive in the castle’s forecourt on the brink of sunset, the carriage hurtling across the drawbridge and coming to a halt before Boleyn’s new stewardess. Mistress Syndony is an ebony-haired grandmother with light-brown skin. Her expression is stern but the lines around her eyes suggest she is used to smiling, and often, in the right company. She welcomes Henry and Boleyn with a bob of a curtsey, very upright, and leads them towards the castle.

“The masters are assembled in the bedchamber already,” she tells them, only a shrewd flick of the eyes telling Boleyn how she feels about the tradition of public consummation.

“She needs to meld with the castle first,” Henry says.

He takes Boleyn to the outer wall, where a gargoyle head erupts from the stone at head height. Its grotesque expression – rolling eyes and distended tongue – is still sharply delineated despite its age.

“The spirit stone,” Boleyn whispers. She finds herself reluctant to touch it after the torture of the binding ceremony, but it must be done. She places her hand on the gargoyle’s forehead. “Gast tebibigenda,” she says. Bibigenda – an ancient, muddied word, that can mean queen, worshipper or even, in certain contexts, witch.

She prepares for more pain, but no sooner has she said the words, than pleasant coolness rushes through her body. It’s as though the castle itself is imbuing her with the weathered strength of its stone, and taking in return a piece of her own spirit. In the bonding with Henry, she had felt weak and alone. Now, she can sense the many other queens who have been mistress of Brynd, stretching back hundreds and hundreds of years. The stubborn drudge of the late Queen Huntlye, Boleyn’s immediate predecessor, is dominant, but Boleyn can feel others too – queens who were ruled by their anger, or considered quite mad, or held rebellion in their hearts. She tastes them all. Behind them, beyond them, is something eternal. It tastes like rain in summer, like a story told over an invalid, like a dragon on the brink of rage. That, she thinks, wonder and humility and pride flooding her, must be Cernunnos. The god whose power protects Elben. These are not emotions she has ever associated with the god, but they inspire an affinity to Him she has never before felt.

“And now for the final ceremony,” Henry says, taking her hand from the stone before she is ready, and leading her into the castle itself. She glances back at the gargoyle as they pass through the entrance.

They don’t have time, that night, to tour her new home properly, but she insists on seeing her antechamber. It is the glory of Brynd, set inside the lightning turret. One side of the chamber, facing the sea, is constructed entirely of glass. She has read about this room, but nothing prepares her for her first sight of it.

“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” Henry says as she rushes to the window and leans against the glass, craning to see the water below. Waves crash against rocks directly beneath them, the spray coating the window even at this height. Lightning dissects the sky. The rods above them catch it, and a fork of light shudders down the turret. The hairs on Boleyn’s neck stand on end.

“It’s me,” Boleyn says, turning to Henry. She wants to cry. “This castle is me.”

Henry smiles, snakes his arms around her waist. “I know, my lightning queen.”

Boleyn returns to the window, looking out now rather than down. The sea stretches in all directions. To the right, she can just glimpse the port of Garclyffe, and the shipyards where a dozen warships, bigger than any before seen on the known oceans, are being constructed from Holtwode oak. Not a league out from the coast, the dome of the bordweal flickers, brighter than when they first arrived, already healing from her presence. Beyond it, the horizon melts into cloud and mist. Her eyes try to give the cloud some definition, creating shadowy mountains. She knows, because she’s seen it on a map, that Quisto is somewhere ahead of them, many hundreds of miles away.

“On a calm day you can see their shores,” Henry says, close behind her.

“What’s that?” she says, spotting something just beneath the waves.

“It could be a kraken,” Mistress Syndony says from the doorway. “Or a kelpie. There’s an old wives’ tale about these waters.”

“Tell me.”

“They say that when people fall into the water, whether by choice or accident, or murder, they don’t die. Not properly. Some turn into krakens, and some into kelpies.”

Boleyn watches the shape beneath the roiling water. She imagines its tentacles greedy for the human life it was denied.

“I like that,” she says.

“Do you like the view?” Henry says, turning her to face him.

“It’s very handsome,” she says, pulling him towards her.

Syndony closes the door silently as Boleyn leans back against the glass and pushes Henry to his knees before her. Boleyn likes the idea of the sentries of Quisto watching them like this, from their distant turrets.

While her chamber is prepared for the consummation, Boleyn and Henry are taken to separate rooms to wash the sweat and musk of the journey from their bodies. Maids run scented flannels over Boleyn’s skin, leaving her smelling of cedarwood and thyme, while others braid green ribbons through her hair. When the sun is a sliver of red varnishing the sea, they cover Boleyn’s body with a loose-fitting gown for the walk to her chamber.

Boleyn has done all she can to prepare for this moment. She has written to the Capetian princesses she once served, asking them delicately for advice. She has talked about it with Mary; about how to balance the intimacy of her wedding night with its public performance. Still, her heart races as she climbs the steps. She has an intensely philosophical sense of the passing of herself through time, as she always does when she is nervous.

Her bedchamber is so full of bodies that she cannot get an idea of its true size. She can smell that there is a fire somewhere in it, and she can glimpse a window, almost as large as the one in the antechamber directly above. Mostly, all she sees is the bed, sitting in the centre of the room, its drapes tied back for now. Woollen blankets and furs are arranged neatly on the mattress.

Boleyn nods at the men crowded into the chamber, and they bow in return. She recognises a handful: Lord Wolsey, who carries himself with the benevolence of a pale snake; Henry’s younger advisor Cromwell, Black, jowly and sharp-eyed; and a few cousins who have wrangled an invitation to see the king at his most vulnerable on the basis of their distant relation to her. The thought makes her protective of her husband. It is him and her against these scavengers.

“My queen,” Henry says from behind her. As their audience bows, Boleyn turns to greet him. Like her, he’s wearing a long gown over his nakedness, and his hair is still damp from the bath.

“My king,” she says and holds out her hand, her chin high, her smile modest but warm. She must look relaxed, but not eager. Henry kisses her hand, then leads her to the bed where servants are waiting to close the drapes. As they are cocooned, Boleyn almost laughs. The fabric is semi-transparent by design – what point is there in a public consummation if the public cannot witness the act itself? She began her wedding day an artefact in a chamber full of spectators, and she will end it the same way.

Henry shoos away the maids and runs his hands down Boleyn’s arms, slipping her robe from her shoulders.

“Are you all right?” he whispers into her hair, his breath hot on her neck, and suddenly: she is. She straightens in her nakedness. Give them a good silhouette, Mary had said. They cannot see details through the drapes, but they will see nerves and awkwardness. You must appear queenly.

Henry shrugs off his robe and takes her in his arms, his shimmering magic stretching and contracting from his body to hers, wanting them to be joined. It might not have been planned, but she’s glad she’s already seen him naked, and has already discovered how if she nips his shoulder or his ear lobe, she can make him even harder – she wants the spectators to be in no doubt that their king desires her.

From beyond the cocoon of the curtains, Wolsey mutters, “My own chamber at Aspideas is a good deal larger than this.” Boleyn loses her focus. Even when Henry lifts her onto the bed, she cannot help but dwell on Wolsey’s insult.

Henry pauses in his worship. She’s going to lose him. She must do something – something that will bring them back to each other and, more importantly, rivet the men beyond the drapes. Boleyn kisses Henry deeply, then whispers, “Shall we cause a scandal?”

Henry bites her lip. “What did you have in mind?”

Their lovemaking in the Holtwode had been too intimate for much noise – any screaming would have broken the spell between them. But there can be no hope of intimacy here.

“You have caught me, my king. What are you now going to do with me?” she says, loud enough for the room to hear. She rakes her nails down Henry’s back as she pulls him on top of her. She’s still wet from his earlier ministrations.

“You have bewitched me, my queen,” Henry says, as he goes very slowly, very deeply, inside her. They are languid and loud in their tussle. Other brides might shrink in the face of spectators. Boleyn is not like other brides. She fills the chamber with her presence, because Henry is hers and she is his and together they are unstoppable. When she is close to ecstasy, he finds the spot to send her over the edge and sends a pulse of magic through her, making her scream and writhe, overwhelmed. No one can doubt his potency, or her desire.

“You did not need to do that, last night,” she remarks the next day as Henry shows her the rest of Brynd, his hands and lips never far from her waist and hips and neck.

“Do what?”

“You know what. I was close anyway. You did not need your magic.”

She lets him lead her through stone hall after stone hall, her new dragon, the gift from Cleves, playing with Henry’s dogs at their feet.

“I wanted to make sure you were satisfied, my love,” he says.

A suspicion flicks through Boleyn’s mind: if a woman is satisfied, she is more likely to conceive. Perhaps their lovemaking last night was not about them but about the heir that Elben needs. She doesn’t know why the thought shakes her. She intends to be the queen to give Henry his son. She was more than satisfied. Why is she being mulish?

Perhaps it’s because she’s disappointed at how stark Brynd is. Last night she had felt attuned to the castle and the savage glory of its lightning turret, but in daylight she can see how neglected the building has been under the Dowager Queen’s management. As the strongest fortress on Elben, the only one built for attack rather than defence or beauty, it is stubbornly thick-walled and austere. The household – the servants and gardeners and cooks that she’s inherited – are clothed in grey wool, with faces to match. When Mary and George arrive, she decides, they will begin the transformation. The castle will be unrecognisable by the following autumn, when she will take her place as host of the Moon Ball. She will make it a ball to remember, a ball to make all others jealous. She may have proved herself a queen worthy of Henry’s love. Now, she must prove herself worthy of her people, and her country.

CHAPTER SIX

Seymour

The Palace of Daven always seems to lie beneath a rosy sun. The peach stone absorbs light during the summer months and reflects it outwards in the winter. At night-time, the palace itself can be used as a beacon, peeking out from the bay that shelters it from the ocean’s tempests. The sailors coming across the seas from the northern wastelands of Pkolack, their ships laden with cold spices and desert berries, use its distant glow as they would a star. Seymour has always loved that about the palace, thinking as she does of Daven as a sanctuary from her family’s tumults. Her rooms, in a building on the edge of Daven’s grounds, are more home than Seymour’s childhood estate ever was. Seymour’s insignificance at court means that she is permitted a chamber far away from the intrigues of the palace’s more popular ladies-in-waiting, who are all housed more centrally. After a childhood of her brothers’ machinations, she is glad to have some respite.

Even with the speed of the scrind road, she arrived too late to see Queen Aragon immediately, and was told to wait for the morning. When she wakes up, the sun is high – the excitement of the wedding and the long journey has exhausted her. Seymour lies in her bed and looks up at the beams for the last time. She has been one of Queen Aragon’s ladies for a year, and in that time she and Clarice have made these rooms into a haven. Every seat is covered in furs to ward against the night-time chill, and every table is adorned with trinkets Clarice has picked up on their travels or brought from their homeland – unusual shells, puzzle boxes, broken clocks and embroidered motifs stretched across ivory frames. The only items truly belonging to Seymour are three dolls that were once her mother’s and which she has owned since childhood, which sit tattered on a corner table.

The door opens and Clarice pulls an empty trunk into the room. They notice that Seymour is awake and brandish a strip of parchment at her.

“I’m to measure you for your new gowns,” they say.

Seymour stands obediently, raising her arms as Clarice pulls the parchment around her waist and marks it off with a shard of graphite.

“What am I doing, Clarice?” Seymour sighs.

“Feeling sorry for yourself again, my lady?”

“Do you ever think that I would have been better off as a servant, and you as a noble? You’re so much better at ordering people around than me.”

Clarice shrugs, the graphite held between their teeth.

“Maybe we could play that game again,” Seymour pushes. “You remember?”

“I remember,” Clarice says, taking the graphite from their mouth and marking off the length of Seymour’s arms. When they were children, just after Clarice had taken up their role as Seymour’s servant, they used to exchange clothes. Seymour would curtsey to Clarice, and Clarice would make her perform increasingly strange tasks. A few years later, their games became altogether more daring. Clarice averts their eyes as they pass the paper around Seymour’s back and over her breasts. Seymour blushes, wondering whether Clarice, too, is remembering a time when their eyes would not be so averted. She thinks of Clarice’s teeth on her nipple, Clarice watching her reaction to see how hard they should bite before the pleasure seeped from the pain.

“There, all done,” Clarice says. Seymour wishes she was clever enough to break through this barrier that grew between them, seemingly overnight, even if they will never again be lovers.

“I suppose I had better see if the queen is well enough to receive me this morning,” Seymour says.

“Maybe try to act a little more pleased to be serving her, my lady.”

“I only learn from you, Clarice.”

It’s a pleasant walk along a sandy path, verged with hawthorn and star-lilies, to reach the palace itself. The air is tangy with salt, blown in from the sea and from the salt mines a little further along the coast. By the time Seymour reaches the palace, her face is coated in fine, white granules.

Daven’s vast vestibule is dominated by a tree planted in the very centre of the space. The trunk is as thick as four men and almost entirely hollow, housing as it does a gealgena dragon, a lithe wyrm that feasts on the sap and soft innards and in return keeps the tree alive with fire and loamy vomit. The tree’s ancient roots push up the floor tiles in waves that ripple outwards. At the ceiling, the tree bursts into an explosion of terracotta leaves. The walls of the hall are set not with pillars but with ladders, so that the queen’s gardeners can climb up to the ceiling for pruning.

For such a sprawling building, the heart of Queen Aragon’s palace is compact. Seymour only has to cross the hallway and she’s inside the queen’s suites. A mill of courtiers and ladies-in-waiting flirt in the outer receiving chamber. Seymour gives her name to the man guarding the door to the inner room, and retires to a corner. Usually people deem her too boring to pay attention to, but everyone knows that she was the queen’s ambassador, and they’re eager for gossip about the new consort. A handful of ladies detach themselves from the courtiers they’d been entertaining and accost her.

“So? What is the new queen like?” Lady Ginori asks, her voice flecked with the remnants of her Perfugian accent.

“I heard she’s this close to the ambassador of Capetia,” Lady Rkelen says, gesturing suggestively.

“She’s very arresting,” Seymour manages. She doesn’t understand how all these people want her to give an opinion on someone she’s barely spoken to.

“You’ll have to do better than that when you speak to the queen,” Lady Ginori says.

As though hearing her desperation to escape, the guard bangs his pole and calls out “Lady Seymour for Queen Aragon.”

Ginori and Rkelen return to their side of the chamber, heads together as they discuss what paltry information Seymour has given them.

Queen Aragon’s chamber is an ode to Quisto. Lush, heavy textiles and statues of reclining sphinxes or chimaeras baring their fangs. Behind the great throne, in the bay windows that look out over the beach, five smaller humanoid statues are lined up. A young lady wearing a black gown and hood, her back to Seymour, polishes each one with a velvet cloth.

Queen Aragon’s throne is hewn from the same sandstone as the palace itself, although it is hidden beneath cushions and throws. Seymour has only met her a handful of times in her year-long service, and she has never seen her standing. Nevertheless, she can tell that the queen is a short woman, but makes up for it with impeccable posture. She wears the beads of her religion – her guirnalda – around her neck, so that when she shifts in her seat they jangle hypnotically. Her skin is tanned, a little darker than Seymour’s. Seymour’s grandmother was from Quisto, a family distantly related to the royals – hence her place in Queen Aragon’s court – and there is some resemblance in their features. The austerity in their cheekbones; the way their mouths automatically lean to displeased. But there the resemblance ends. Where Seymour’s hair is straight, Aragon wears hers in elaborate braids that are just visible beneath her hood, which shimmers like iridescent fish in the sunlight. Curled around Queen Aragon’s neck is her pet monkey, Dizir, uncharacteristically silent for now.

“Lady Seymour,” Queen Aragon says in a voice clipped and proper, from years of studying Elbenese. “How did you find my husband’s wedding?”

Seymour sinks into a curtsey and repeats the platitudes she practised on the journey here. “Your Majesty. It was nothing compared to your—”

“No. No no no, Lady Seymour. I am told you are devoid of artifice. Do not disappoint me.”

Seymour stalls. Is this the answer to the question she’s asked herself every day since Queen Aragon told her she was gifting her to Boleyn – why her? Did Aragon choose her as ambassador because she’s apparently incapable of lying? It’s not a compliment. Not in any court beneath this sun. No one gets far without being a good liar. Seymour is glad her brothers aren’t here – they would be incandescent at such a description of their sister. But can she really tell the queen the truth? She’s already blundered her way through the gift-giving.

Aragon is watching her shrewdly, a smile hovering around her mouth. Even the lady-in-waiting has paused her polishing duties, back still to Seymour.

“You have more to fear from flattery than you do from honesty,” Aragon says at last. It’s not enough to settle Seymour’s nerves. She grew up with Edward and Thomas, after all, who delighted in tricking her into saying the wrong thing and then punishing her for doing so.

She decides to tell Aragon the facts: the cut and length of Queen Boleyn’s dress, the people present, the tokens she chose. When she mentions the obsidian storm cloud, Queen Aragon shifts. Seymour peters out.

“Go on,” she says. “What can you tell me that others will not?”

Seymour struggles to breathe. She’s not equal to this. She might find it hard to lie, but she also finds it hard to tell a hurtful truth. Aragon rests a hand on the table beside her throne. On it is a curious hand mirror: a silver frame, like the ones passed down in noble houses from mothers to their daughters. But the mirror itself is made of an odd kind of convex glass that refracts light strangely on the queen’s face, like water in a pool. Seymour focuses on it as she speaks what may very well be her final words.

“I believe they love each other very much, Your Majesty. Queen Boleyn is striking and alluring. She’s trying too hard to play the part of queen, and I don’t think people will like her for it. But she has something about her. I can see why the king married her.”

She waits, head lowered, to see if the queen orders her immediate execution or banishment.

“That is what I feared,” Aragon says at last. “Do you think his love will continue?”

“I don’t know, Your Majesty. I don’t know the king.”

“If you did, you would know that the answer to that question is always going to be no.”

Her face and voice are impassive, devoid of bitterness. She has known the king the longest. She was his first queen. If anyone knows him, she does.

“Well,” she continues, “thank you for your honesty. Do you think Queen Boleyn will like you joining her household?”

“No, Your Majesty,” she says.

“No. I would not either. It was cruel of me, but necessary.”

“You wish me to report back to you, Your Majesty?”

“I am no spymaster, Lady Seymour.”

Seymour bites her lip. She’s not built for the court’s quick footwork.

“Come here, my daughter,” Queen Aragon says. The woman who had been polishing the statues abandons her cloth and moves to the queen’s side. Seymour realises now that she’s not a lady-in-waiting at all, but the Princess Tudor. She’s still just a girl, but she’s tall, like the king, and she has his blue eyes. Her expressions, though, are all Aragon’s. Seymour is ten years her senior, but beneath the princess’s gaze, she feels like a child. From around Aragon’s neck, the monkey awakes and, sensing the tension, begins to chatter.

“You have heard of the Oracle of Evenesis, Lady Seymour?” Queen Aragon says, ignoring Dizir’s chirps.

“Yes.”

The royal oracle lives on an island in the seas north of Daven. It can only be reached for a few months each year, when the hurricanes that surround the island quell. The oracle only permits royalty to receive her prophecies.

“The princess visited the oracle on her coming of age. What she was told troubles us greatly.”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

“The remedy lies in your hands.”

“Mine?”

Queen Aragon dismisses the servants loitering at the edges of the room. When the door has closed behind the last one, she nods to her daughter. The princess takes Seymour’s hands, lifting her to her feet with an authority beyond her fifteen years. Even though they are alone, but for the queen, she leads Seymour to the window, where only the whispering sea might be able to hear them. The five faceless statues stand impassively at Seymour’s back, and she has to force herself to concentrate on the young woman before her rather than the sense of being watched behind.

The princess begins.

“This is what the oracle said to me: From the storm, a blossom. From the blossom, a tree. Tallest of all, strongest of all, to cast Daven’s seed into shade.”

Even Seymour can understand this riddle. A blossom from a storm, and the storm is, must be, Boleyn. The princess tries to keep her voice even, but she can’t quite disguise the hurt that anyone would feel when told that they are doomed to be outshone by a half-sibling.

“Do you know what I am asking you to do, Lady Seymour?” Queen Aragon says. “Do you understand the debt I would owe to you if you did this for me?”

Dizir’s chattering grows louder. He swings from his mistress’s arms across the room, perching on one of the statues and looking past Seymour, towards the distant sea.

A blossom that will cast Daven’s seed into shade. Queen Aragon will not let her daughter be overshadowed. And Seymour must be the one to make sure of it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Boleyn

It amazes Boleyn how quickly the two of them – people who delight in surprise – fall into a routine. They break their fast together, discussing the reports that have reached Brynd overnight from Henry’s spies across the kingdom and abroad, then they go hunting with Boleyn’s family through the orchards and woods around Brynd. Boleyn’s hunting dragons, their bellies and wings mottled green to blend with the trees, whisk above the treetops in search of unsuspecting prey. Their afternoons are given to strategy or games. These are the times that Boleyn treasures the most, even more than their nights together. These times show her that Henry trusts her mind. That she is more than the wife and broodmare lesser men might take her for.

She knows it cannot last for ever. Henry has matters of state to attend to. He must visit his other queens. More than both, he has a war to wage against Alpich. But she thinks she might keep him with her for a fortnight at least. Yet only six days after their wedding, a messenger gallops over Brynd’s drawbridge and rips through the idyll.

“Something has happened,” Boleyn says from her viewpoint closest to the window. She returns her bread to its plate, still smothered in sage butter, and discards a report on the hunting of a crone in the Holtwode. Henry doesn’t look up from his book. “It’s probably my sister Cecilia making a nuisance of herself again.”

“I think not, my love,” Boleyn says. She tells Syndony to fetch those advisors who are still loitering at Brynd: Lord Wolsey and Cromwell. She likes neither of them but knows that they are men who won’t suffer exclusion from important discussions. She wonders whether she should tell Syndony to retrieve a map of Alpich’s terrain as well, for it seems likely that the news is about the war.

“It’s Hyde,” Henry tells her when he reads the messenger’s letter.

“You told me the rumours were false,” Boleyn says, thinking both of the rumours of an ailing Queen Blount and the Gkontai ships that are supposedly amassing beyond the bordweal, in the Agassa Ocean.

“They were. They’re not any more.”

“Blount…?”

“The physicians are worried.”

Boleyn goes to him. He may not love Blount as he loves her, but she knows he’s fond of the Queen of Hyde.

“So the vultures are amassing,” she says.

“A dozen ships and twice as many war dragons, bearing the Lothairian crest.”

“Lothair? Surely they know they cannot match our strength.”

The kingdom of Lothair, nestled in the middle of Quisto’s empire, is perpetually bankrupt and passively bitter. Boleyn pores over the report, trying to find Lothair’s motive. Syndony shows Wolsey and Cromwell into the room, and a moment later fortifying wine and cheese are laid out for them. When the servants are gone, Henry tells his advisors what has happened.

“It must be Quisto,” Cromwell says immediately, holding a pair of reading glasses to his eyes as he peruses the messenger’s letter.

“You suspect they are funding Lothair?” Henry says.

Lord Wolsey casts a dark look at Cromwell. “I cannot think that Queen Aragon’s family would cause aggression against Elben. They wouldn’t undermine her so.”

Cromwell spreads his hands and bows his head reverently towards the older man. “With every respect towards the Queen of Daven, Quisto knows that her usefulness to them has faded given her inability to provide the king with an heir.”

“But to organise an attack upon us – what possible good could that do?” Wolsey says.

“The trade deal with Capetia,” Henry says.

Wolsey shakes his head, fretting at the rings on his fingers. “It’s not announced yet. They don’t know about it.”

“Are you certain about that?” Boleyn says from her place at the window. The men look at her in surprise. This is the first opportunity she’s had to attend such a meeting. Henry may know that she’s more than equal to such discussions, but the others don’t. She joins them at the table and sits, spreading her hands across the wood.

“My father makes it his business to know about such deals before they are announced. Surely you are not naive enough to believe that Quisto don’t have equally astute representatives within our court, Lord Wolsey?”

Wolsey flushes. Cromwell, smiling gently, intervenes. “Your father is an excellent ambassador, Your Majesty. I do not think that he has a match. However, perhaps Her Majesty is right, Lord Wolsey, and our news has found its way to Quisto before we are ready?”

And therein, Boleyn thinks, lies the difference between the two men. Wolsey was once as careful as Cromwell in his dealings with anyone of power. But the ageing lord has now turned into one of the men he once sought to manipulate. Boleyn will enjoy seeing whether Cromwell goes the same way, if he continues to rise through the ranks.

She continues: “Let us consider. Quisto hears that Capetia is about to sign a trade deal with us that places Quisto at a disadvantage. They know that their influence with Henry is waning, but they cannot afford to lose the use of Elben’s ports, sitting as we do in the middle of their empire.”

“We sit in the middle of many empires,” Wolsey says. “Who’s to say that Capetia is not behind this move, and is using the trade deal to mask their involvement?”

Boleyn frowns at Wolsey. She knew he favoured Queen Aragon and Quisto, but not to this extent. Why is he so eager to lay the blame with others?

“Lothair relies on trade at its ports to survive, given its land has little of value,” she says. “But it is overshadowed by Elben and Perfugi. It has little to offer, and little to threaten. There can be no doubt that if any nation were to be its puppet master, that nation would be Quisto. Quisto could absorb Lothair into its empire in a matter of weeks, should it choose to. So why does it not choose to?”

“They see Lothair as a useful tool,” Henry says, reaching to take her hand.

“Exactly, my love. They can make Lothair play their more unsavoury games. If Quisto funds Lothair to attack the bordweal in anticipation of Queen Blount’s passing, then Quisto can deny its involvement.”

Cromwell addresses Henry. “If you remember, Your Majesty, I showed you reports of Quisto breeding several large dragons in their eastern provinces. I did not think it so strange at the time – of course Quisto has always valued brawn – but Lothair is not known for its large dragons. Their native breed is slenderer and more suited to hunting if I recall correctly. I did raise a mild concern at the time.”

“So you did,” Henry laughs. “Wolsey dismissed you then as well, didn’t you, friend? Do we think that those war dragons are Quistoan, then?”

Wolsey straightens in his seat and purses his lips. “I can see where this is going, Your Majesty. If Lord Cromwell is correct, then I will of course admit my folly. I merely wish to be certain where the blame lies before starting a war with an empire that we cannot, to be frank, hope to defeat.”

“Do you have so little faith, my lord?” Henry says. His free hand – the one not holding Boleyn’s – is flat on the table. He presses it to the oak, his skin blanching. The divine magic shimmers down his arm, and a moment later the wood cracks, splinters rising like ice around his fingers.

In the silence that follows, Boleyn inhales the earthy bloom of magic. She cannot stop staring at the cracked wood, and thinking of her husband’s strength and power. She wants that power inside her, urgently.

“You should destroy them, my love,” she says.

Wolsey and Cromwell look at each other in alarm. “Your Majesty, we are already at war with Alpich. It would be unwise to stretch ourselves on two fronts,” Cromwell says.

“The last thing we need is to antagonise Quisto when the bordweal is weakened,” Wolsey adds.

“It wouldn’t be antagonising Quisto,” Boleyn says, her eyes never leaving Henry’s.

“Just as they are using Lothair to mask their involvement, we can claim that we are merely attacking Lothair, not Quisto,” Henry says.

Boleyn shifts closer to him. “Exactly. And Lothair is small and weak. We – you – are strong.”

Henry pulls her onto his lap. “I will destroy their ships, and when I have done so I will take our fleet and sail to Lothair and wage swift war on them.”

“It will send a message to Quisto that we should not be underestimated,” she says, running a hand down his chest.

“And with Lothair ours, it will be the start of the Elbenese empire,” Henry says into her ear. Then he pulls back, doubt clouding his features. “Do you wish this, Boleyn? It will be a sacrifice for you, too. And with Blount sick…”

She leans her forehead against his.

“I will hold the bordweal while you are gone, my love. If I have to sacrifice all of Brynd to Cernunnos, if I have to fasten myself to the spirit stone every hour of your absence, I will hold it.”

Henry claims her mouth with his. She is barely aware of Cromwell and Wolsey leaving the room.

Henry leaves for the east coast the next morning. From the port of Garclyffe to the villages that nestle in the shade of the Hyfostelle Mountains and further south to the fairy reeds of the Fietherford, the call goes out for men to join the glorious war. The nobility of Elben compete to see who can send the most fighting bodies.

The greatest recruiter of all is Henry himself, his youth eternal, his power undeniable. All believe, though none say it, that some of the king’s divine magic might be shared with them. That they, too, might become more than mere men if they join his cause.

Brynd feels empty without him, despite the efforts of Boleyn’s siblings. In only a few weeks, they transform the castle. As Henry sets sail in his royal warship, George fills the dank hallways with candles and bunches of dried flowers. The faded cornicing in the banqueting hall is painted bright blue to match the garlands of fabric that fall from the minstrels’ gallery and the rugs strewn across the stone floors. Every fireplace is lit at dawn, every table adorned with piles of iced wafers. As the Elbenese warships rain cannons upon Lothair’s fleet, Mark goes into Pilvreen and trawls the port of Garclyffe, returning to Brynd with musicians ready to fill the castle with folk songs. As what remains of Lothair’s navy turns tail and attempts to sail back to safety, Mary commissions artists to replace mould-ridden portraits and rusted metalwork. Rochford, who shares Boleyn’s love of finely illustrated manuscripts, takes it upon herself to oversee the restocking of Brynd’s library.

But for all Boleyn’s promises to hold the bordweal with the strength of dragons, she finds herself uncommonly tired. There are few days where she can rouse herself from bed before midday.

“He is still alive,” Mary says, unusually sharply, from her vigil at Boleyn’s bedside.

“It’s not because of that,” Boleyn says. Why must Mary always compare her grief with others’ feelings?

“Then why this lethargy, B.? It makes you very tiresome.”

Boleyn forces herself out of bed, even though she feels as though her ankles are in chains.

It is not until Boleyn receives word that the Lothairian warships have been destroyed that she understands what is happening to her. She and George climb up to the very top of the lightning tower, where they sip on mulled wine and stare out over the clear sky and still sea. A quiet celebration. A justification of Boleyn’s strategy.

“And look, a new moon,” George says, pointing up at the orb. It is fitting, she thinks. And then she thinks, My course should have begun by this moon. And then she knows.

“I am with child,” she says unthinkingly, because the realisation is too great to hold inside herself. Once she says it, though, she is glad that it is to George. Henry would have been too overjoyed. Mary would have fussed and grown all terse. George’s eyes widen, and he turns to her fully, a smile brimming.

“Are you happy?” he says.

She laughs. “Yes. Yes.” She has energy for the first time in weeks. She grabs George’s hands and together they jump like children around the silent tower. When they are out of breath, he envelops her in his arms.

“I warn you, I am going to be a very irresponsible uncle,” he says, his head next to hers.

“I actively encourage you to be. He will need some irresponsibility in his life.”

George pulls back, takes her by the shoulders. “If anyone can guarantee a boy through sheer force of will, I do believe it is you, Boleyn. But—”

Boleyn kisses him on the cheek. “Do not grow serious, brother. It doesn’t suit you.”

He accepts the diversion. She understands him, but she is not yet ready for the wave that she can already feel on the horizon of her thoughts. Soon a thousand worries will crash over her: what if she is mistaken? When should she tell Henry? When should she tell others? What if it is not a boy? What if she loses it? For now, she wants to rest in the pool of contentment.

There is one concern, though, that she must address now. “You’re not angry, or sad, or…?”

“Jealous?” George finishes for her. He cups her cheek lightly. “Do not worry about us, sister. If Rochford has a babe, we will be happy. If she does not, we will be happy, just the three of us. We do not need anyone else.”

“You always were my favourite brother,” she says. It’s an old jest, always certain to make him laugh.

They lean on the tower battlements, side by side.

“And you were always my favourite sister,” he says quietly.

In the still triumph of that night, a pulse in her womb, real or imagined, everything is perfect.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Seymour

Assassins are supposed to be quick and stealthy, skilled at either magic or knives. Seymour is none of those things, yet here she is – on her way to murder a royal. She had always imagined that assassins would feel powerful, but Seymour only feels like a puppet in a travelling show. Her strings are being pulled by too many people – her brothers, telling her to use her time at the palace to seduce the king. And now Aragon, telling her to kill Queen Boleyn before she falls pregnant. In her final weeks spent at Daven, waiting for her new uniform to be cut and sewn and tailored, she spent a lot of time pondering her dual masters, and which of them should command most loyalty. Mostly, she considered which of them would be more dangerous should she refuse to obey them. She never did reach a conclusion.

The Seymour family taught a curious form of survival – a dogged continuation, rather than the vivid lust for advancement that Seymour sees in the more ambitious courtiers. Her father always regarded ambition as distasteful while possessing entirely too much of it himself, and she and her brothers imbibed that view, were entangled in it. When Thomas came of age and pursued diplomacy, lobbying for greater and more prestigious foreign positions, their father railed against him. Called him upstart. And Edward and Seymour were caught in the middle, knotted up in stagnant intelligence, notions of old blood, and resentment of the new favourites.

Maybe that’s Seymour’s problem – the strings controlling her are tangled, and have been for some time.

The journey from the Palace of Daven to Brynd Castle takes three days by carriage. Ordinarily, Seymour would have returned inland to High Hall itself before travelling out to Brynd – quicker by a day thanks to the scrind magic. It was what Queen Aragon had expected her to do. But Seymour recoils at the thought of taking the instruments of her assassination into that hive of courtly politics. She feels sure that someone would discover the leaves, tucked neatly into a blank envelope at the base of her smallest trunk. So she takes the harder road: one that covers less distance – for there is barely one hundred miles between Daven and Brynd as the dragon flies – but takes much longer. It is only commoners, after all, who travel between the six territories. There is no need to maintain their roads. The nobility of Elben choose a queen and cleave to her. Any switch of loyalty is performed in the centre of the kingdom, at High Hall.

The road joining Daven and Brynd is made more impenetrable by the Mearcdyke – a canyon that slices deep into the island, an unnaturally straight line across the landscape reaching from the coast almost to High Hall itself. The canyon is wide and the rapids in its depths are too dangerous and deep to traverse by boat. The only road that crosses it winds down the side of the canyon in a series of sharp turns, littered with rockfall, before reaching a bridge at the bottom.

On the other side of the canyon, the weather thickens. After the dry cold of Daven, Seymour finds the humidity of Brynd an unwelcome change. Seymour’s clothes are not made to cope with it.

The carriage, emblazoned in fresh paint with her new mistress’s storm cloud emblem, jostles her and Clarice over the uneven surface until their hips and arms ache. The interior of the carriage has yet to be refreshed, and the seat cushions are threadbare. Seymour suspects that Boleyn has instructed the driver to tarry, because they stop at every opportunity and the three-day journey ekes out to four. Seymour reminds herself at every roadside inn that at least the horses will be happy. Still, even though she is in no hurry to reach Brynd, where she will need to follow Aragon’s orders or face the consequences, she is relieved when they spot the town of Pilvreen, which serves the castle of Brynd. They pass the barrows first – mounds topped with stone antlers, marking them as ancient mass graves lining the road. Then, in the distance, they see Pilvreen’s neat little rows of thatched houses, like a family of bristling urchins.

They make one more stop, the driver claiming that the horses need feeding. Clarice jumps down from the carriage and cracks their back. Seymour chooses to remain inside despite her discomfort – to get out here would feel like an unfair invasion of Boleyn’s territory, even though she knows that’s ridiculous. She peers out of the open door instead.

They have stopped on the edge of the town’s market. Two inns, busy but not unruly, do business on either side of the square. The one next to her carriage is marked with the swinging sign of a heart, skewered and bleeding. Seymour reaches out further to see the sign above the more distant inn. A woman’s disembodied head, her crown still atop her curls. Seymour shivers. Pilvreen may be famous for two things – its mines and its massacre – but she doesn’t see why it needs to revel in the latter. But then how can they forget, Seymour thinks, when reminders of the massacre surround them? Through the middle of Pilvreen flows a stream, but no washerwomen crouch on its banks, for either by the volume spilled or some old magic in the bones of Brynd, the water still runs red with ancient blood. Even from this distance she can hear the chisels and flame from the forest. The final and most potent reminder of the massacre: the garnet mines. How can a place throw off its dark history when so much of its wealth is derived from that blight? For the garnet mines did not exist before the massacre. The Pilvreen garnets are the finest jewels in the known world, and they were forged from blood. Before that time, Pilvreen sat upon a rich vein of clear crystal instead. Blood infects many things on the island of Elben: family, power, even the soil and the rocks.

It has been many, many generations since Queen Isabet of Brynd betrayed Elben, opened the bordweal to foreign powers and permitted them to slay her people in her quest to kill the king. Many, many years since she was executed for treason after the invasion failed. What good does it do to dwell on the gore of history?

“What are you grimacing about?” Clarice asks from outside.

“My own hypocrisy,” Seymour replies. Of course she doesn’t want to dwell on treason and death – she is about to become the deliverer of both.

Clarice shrugs, never one for entertaining Seymour’s self-pity. “I’m starved. Do you want me to buy you anything?”

Seymour gives Clarice three silver marks. They disappear into the bustling market stalls and return with two steaming pasties. Seymour watches the gravy dripping down Clarice’s chin. When they were younger, she would have reached over and wiped it off, and Clarice would have turned to her and licked the juice from her fingers. She bites into her own pasty and recognises the meat inside as hunigwyrm. Honeydragon. Undoubtedly poached from the Brynd estate, for no commoner should have access to such fine meat. It speaks to the locals’ disloyalty to their queen that the merchant is secure enough to sell such food publicly.

“What did you discover out there?” Seymour asks, as Clarice climbs back into the carriage. Clarice has a knack for being able to make friends quickly. It’s a talent they learned from their childhood spent on trade ships, sailing from port to port.

“She’s being very free with money. Seems as though she’s employed half of Pilvreen and Garclyffe.”

“That’s admirable, isn’t it?” Seymour says.

Clarice shrugs.

“I suppose she’ll have the king’s permission,” Seymour says.

“Of course she does, while he thinks she can give him what he wants.”

To say what it is the king wants out loud – a son – would be tasteless, but it hangs in the very air of High Hall. It is in the taste of loneliness and disappointment at Daven. The safety of Elben relies on an heir, and in the twenty years since King Henry inherited the throne, his five wives have not been able to supply him with a surviving male child. Maybe his sixth will do better. Seymour thinks of the statues in Queen Aragon’s antechamber, each one a reminder of a life grown and then lost. She thinks of the oracle’s prophecy – From the storm, a blossom. But not if Seymour is successful in her task.

Seymour hands Clarice the remains of her pasty. “You finish it. I’m no longer hungry.”

In another hour, Brynd bounces into view, all bleak towers against a bleaker sky. The stonework is covered in wooden scaffolding, and workers clad in leather overalls, tools swinging from belts, clamber across the vertical surfaces like insects. In one area, they scrub at the stone until it is burnished like a dark jewel. In others, they slather mortar between crumbling rocks. Seymour had heard that the Dowager Queen Huntlye had let the castle fall into ruin in her dotage, but she thought the rumours might be malicious court gossip. Clearly they were true.

The carriage crosses Brynd’s moat and draws into a cobbled courtyard. Two women emerge from the castle. One of them is the queen’s sister, Mary – plump where Boleyn is scrawny, but sharing her easy sensuality. The other is Boleyn’s sister-in-law, Lady Rochford, who is hard lines and harder-mouthed.

“You’re late!” Mary says jovially as Seymour climbs down and stretches her back out at last.

“Did you dine recently?” Rochford asks. “We saved some vittles for you just in case.”

“I ate a little in Pilvreen,” she admits.

“Oh, we can do better than market food,” Mary says. Seymour doubts that: they are unlikely to serve honeydragon to a lowly lady-in-waiting.

The two women thread their arms through hers. It’s a gesture of friendliness and companionship, but Seymour can only think of her tangled strings.

As soon as they step through the iron doors, Seymour’s senses are assaulted. The vestibule is garlanded with flowers and grasses, and swathes of blue silk that mirror the sea outside. A trio of violinists plays a jig in one corner. And the smell and heat of baking bread wafts up from a stairway that must lead down to the kitchens.

Rochford and Mary don’t allow Seymour time to orientate herself. They whisk her onwards, through one of the many doorways leading from the vestibule. Seymour loses her sense of direction as they wind her through dark galleries only lit by tallow candles, pointing out rooms as they pass – library, great hall, stewardess’s office and on and on. At last, they come to the base of a turret whose windows look out towards the ocean, and direct Seymour up the narrow steps. The workers haven’t yet blocked the holes in the stonework on this side of the castle, and the wind blowing in from Pkolack sends icy gusts right through the gaps and through Seymour’s gown. She shivers, her breath a smoky exhale.

“Your room is warmer,” Rochford says, guiding Seymour up the stairs ahead of her. Seymour imagines the women exchanging glances behind her back, and wonders what they make of her. She finds their hospitality coldly efficient, but maybe that’s because she herself is slow and dull. She can’t imagine ever fitting in with this household, which is so much livelier and sharper than Queen Aragon’s considered stateliness. Then again, she is not supposed to fit in. She is supposed to tear it all down.

Each flight of stairs is perforated by a plain oak door. Delicate copper initials have been inlaid into each door. Halfway up the turret, they come to a door with the initials S. S. Seymour Seymour. A key has been left in the lock.

“This is your room,” Mary says. “Mine is just above.”

Seymour pushes the door open. She hadn’t been expecting the smoky heat that assaults her after the chill of the staircase.

“It’s beautiful,” Seymour says. She had expected somewhere dingy and smelly, as punishment for her obvious role as spy to Queen Aragon. But her room is cosy and clean, a haven the way her rooms at Daven were. The space is dominated by a four-poster bed, covered in blankets and furs. A fire crackles on one side, and Seymour recognises the smell of heartwood. It must have been imported at great expense from the forests of Uuvek, where rich insomniacs are taken to find rest. The warmth of burning heartwood is a nurse’s embrace, broth after a windy ride, a beloved children’s tale told for the hundredth time.

Two chairs sit next to the fire, facing each other over a table, where a game of beadulác has been set up ready to play. On the other side of the room, beside the only window, a little bench sits next to another table. A platter of cheese, bread, fruit paste and wine is already laid out. Seymour spies the coastline through the window – a derelict sliver of cliff and rock, crowned by the distant port of Garclyffe.

“There’s a gift for you too,” Rochford says, pointing out a parcel on the bed.

Seymour pulls off the ribbon and tears the paper from the present, revealing a writing set, with perfumed paper and dainty quills from a bird she cannot place. The paper and the box bear Boleyn’s storm cloud insignia. This is her sting, for what does a spy need but paper and pen? If only she knew that the sting Seymour has been tasked with is so much worse than mere spying.

“This is too kind,” Seymour says.

“No, I don’t think so,” Mary says. “Kindness isn’t Boleyn’s way.”

Rochford tuts at Mary.

“What? My sister would agree with me. She’s not being kind. She’s saying that she’s willing to buy loyalty.” Mary looks hard at Seymour.

The women leave Seymour to dine in peace, telling her to join them in the queen’s antechamber once she’s rested. Even though she’s desperate to tuck into the food, she waits for Clarice to bring her trunks up and, once she’s alone again, she hurriedly opens the smallest one. Inside are her undergarments – her linen smocks and the fabric used for her monthly courses. Nestled at the bottom is an envelope. She checks that no one is loitering outside the door then draws it out. Inside, flattened by the journey, are a dozen, slender leaves. They look unremarkable to anyone who doesn’t know which plant they belong to.

Seymour casts around the room for a loose stone, but the draughts worry her – she imagines the envelope being blown loose while a maid is cleaning, or being sucked out of the wall and sinking into the sea below. She resorts to stuffing the envelope inside the cushion of her window seat. Hopefully no one will notice it. Only she will have the discomfort of knowing that she is eating good food while sitting on the instrument of her host’s death.

Just as she’s finishing her platter, Clarice knocks on the door and asks if they can help her unpack and change for the queen. Seymour isn’t ready to see Boleyn, but then she’s not sure she’ll ever be ready. Should she try to poison her immediately, or should she wait until she’s more settled? The latter will make Seymour appear less suspicious, but it risks the guilt consuming her. The thought of Boleyn’s long hair, dark and silken, already flits through her daydreams. It is dangerous to wait.

Clarice brings a bowl of water and rose petals and eases Seymour out of her travelling garments so that she can sponge the grime of the road and the sweat of a humid day from her body. Once she’s clean, Clarice helps her into a fresh bodice and petticoat, laces her into her gown and brings her sleeves bearing the queen’s insignia – the one piece of uniform that Seymour must always wear now that she is in Boleyn’s service. The green and gold of the sleeves look gaudy against the dusky pink of her gown, but Seymour has never cared about how she appears. Then Clarice brushes out her hair and pins her hood in.

“You’re ready, my lady,” they say.

She’s not, but she thanks Clarice anyway as she ascends the stairs leading up to the queen’s chambers. She makes as if to go up them, but once she’s sure Clarice has left, she doubles back and slips into her room, taking a single leaf from the envelope in the cushion and slipping it inside her sleeve so it rests against the inner embroidery of the storm cloud. Her own threat of thunder.

The stairs run up inside the turret and open out on to a wide gallery lined with portraits of kings and queens and minor royalty. Seymour only has to follow the sound of music and laughter to know which way to go. Boleyn’s antechamber is packed. The ceiling is lower than she’d expected, and the room wider and deeper. It is very different to Queen Aragon’s rooms, which are sparse and spacious and quiet. Here the corners are filled with courting couples. In every nook there is a bowl of fruit or a platter of biscuits. No tallow candles spitting fat here – tiny lantern dragons breathe their gentle flames from inside enchanted cages. At the fire, servants mull wine and roast chestnuts and try not to trip over the silver dragon that lies splayed there, belly and claws to the heat.

Mark, George Boleyn’s husband, steps into the middle of the floor, brandishing a fiddle.

“Who will dance for me?” he announces to general laughter. A handful of couples trip into formation. George cajoles Rochford into being his partner, and Mark cannot drag his eyes from his two spouses as he plays a jig. The Boleyns, always at the centre of every entertainment. But the queen herself doesn’t join in the dancing.

She sits on a throne at the head of the room, surrounded by courtiers and servants. Her head is bowed over something. She seems to sense someone watching her, for she looks up and catches Seymour’s gaze. Her eyes are piercingly dark, even when she smiles. She must be able to see straight through Seymour’s clothing, to the leaf hidden in her sleeve, to her bare skin.

“Lady Seymour,” Boleyn says, and the circle of courtiers reluctantly makes space for the new arrival. “I’m so glad you could join us at last.”

On her lap is a sequence of fabrics, all of them in varying shades of red.

“We’re trying to decide which one will work best for our victory dress.”

“I see,” Seymour says. “I was glad to hear of Lothair’s losses.”

“Yes,” Boleyn says. “And they will lose more before long, I wager.”

“I think this one,” someone says, picking up an ugly crepe.

“Then you have very poor judgement,” Boleyn says, snatching the crepe and tossing it to the floor.

No one else wants to offer an opinion.

“This one, Your Majesty,” Seymour says, pointing to a curious piece, part linen, part lace.

“Why?” Boleyn says, holding the fabric up to the light.

Seymour falters. Her reasoning is impulsive, embarrassing. Then she remembers what Queen Aragon said – you cannot lie. Best not to try, even if it’s mortifying. “I think it would suit your hair.”

Queen Boleyn laughs delightedly. She pulls her hair out of its elaborate braid and gathers it over her shoulder, so that she can see it against the fabric.

“Well, at least one of you has taste,” she pronounces eventually. She gives a servant the fabric Seymour chose. “This one. Make it up for the whole household.”

The servant scurries away. Boleyn eyes Seymour. “Well, Lady Seymour. I’m quite dependent on you already. I wouldn’t have guessed you’d have such an eye for fashion.”

Boleyn’s gaze lingers on Seymour’s gown, the pink clashing with the gold and green sleeves. Some of the other courtiers smirk. Seymour curtseys, because she doesn’t trust herself to say anything. Boleyn stands up.

“Someone must dance with me!” she cries, and a dozen men and women rush forward to offer their hand. She chooses her brother, George, and the two of them spin and clap in the centre of the room. George is a fine dancer, but his sister is incomparable. Seymour can’t take her eyes off Boleyn, even as she smarts from the insult bestowed upon her and glows from Boleyn’s praise. She drinks her up – the way the corner of her gown slips off her shoulder as she moves, the way her mouth promises cruel bliss and sweet danger.

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. She has to kill her. She has to kill her now.

It is not Seymour who fetches two glasses of mulled wine and takes them to a quiet corner. It is her puppet masters. Making sure no one is watching, she slips the leaf from her sleeve and breaks it in half, dunking the broken ends into one of the glasses and swirling them around, watching the sap form an oily sheen before dispersing. It is not her doing this – it is Queen Aragon.

She turns back to the dancers, holding both glasses, the strings at her wrists and arms jigging in time to the music. As the song comes to an end, she approaches Queen Boleyn.

“Your Majesty, I thought you might be thirsty.”

Boleyn takes the glass breathlessly. “Thank you. I must dance as much as I can now, you know.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” Boleyn says. Seymour knows what she is about to say before she says it, and with the realisation comes the cutting of her strings. The next choice is hers alone. “After all, it won’t be long before I’m unable to. What with the baby on its way.”

CHAPTER NINE

Boleyn

Boleyn has to give Lady Seymour credit – she barely reacts to the news. Boleyn catches the barest flicker of shock, and then she masks it.

“This is the most wonderful news.” Seymour smiles, then focuses on Boleyn’s wine glass. “May I?”

She plucks the glass from Boleyn’s grasp and exchanges it for hers. “I think yours was a little dirty. Please, have mine.”

Seymour moves away from Boleyn, towards the edge of the room, towards the door. Boleyn is minded to let her go – let her send the news back to Aragon as swiftly as possible – but then she decides to have a little fun.

“What do you think I’m carrying? A prince or a princess?” she asks.

Seymour freezes, staring at Boleyn like a stuffed fowl.

“Only Cernunnos knows such things.”

“But if you were a betting woman, Lady Seymour, although I must say you don’t look like one. Which would you pick?”

Seymour’s hand – the one holding the dirty glass – trembles. Interesting. If Seymour were truly as dull as she appears, she wouldn’t hesitate to answer Boleyn. Her dithering suggests that she understands the bind she is in: predict an heir and she betrays Queen Aragon, who could not give Henry a living son. Predict a princess and she will anger her new mistress.

Mary steps in. “Really, sister, allow your new lady to settle before you begin to taunt her.”

“A question is not a taunt, Mary.” Boleyn finishes her wine. “Come now, Lady Seymour, I won’t hold you to your prediction.”

Something settles across Seymour’s expression, like a veil falling.

“Whether it is a son or a daughter, any child of Queen Boleyn and King Henry must be a force to make all of Elben proud.”

Boleyn laughs despite herself. “Very good. I see I’m going to enjoy you.”

Boleyn turns away, not wanting anyone to see her interest in her new lady-in-waiting. In one exchange, she has become a riddle that Boleyn would rather like to solve. But by the time Boleyn has settled back on her throne, Seymour has fled the room and Boleyn’s mind has moved on to other matters.

The crash of worries engulfs her more often than she would like to admit. She informed Henry of the pregnancy the night she discovered it herself, and his replies have been effervescent, doing nothing to quench her anxieties. He is so sure it is a boy. So sure she will carry it to term. And while she is as certain of his love as she has ever been of anything, his persistent joy makes her think she needs something else in her armoury, to mitigate any disappointment should something untoward happen to the babe.

Something else, like a new stratagem, better and more daring even than her plan to take Lothair.

The day after Seymour’s arrival, Boleyn makes her first trip to Pilvreen. It has been too long since she galloped Fauvel, and the mare is delightfully skittish. Urial, the dragon gifted by Queen Cleves, flies beside her, twisting and snorting playfully in the sea gusts. Boleyn imagines how regal she must look on her golden horse with her silver dragon, her guards trailing in their dust.

The town of Pilvreen lies a mile to the east of Brynd and owes much of its wealth and employment to the castle. But as Boleyn proceeds into the high street, all she sees is distrust in the people she passes. She had been prepared for this attitude: the resentful doffing of hats, the murmurs of “Your Majesty”, as quiet as they can manage. While the other five territories venerate their queens, Brynd is different. Memories do not fade in Elben, and the massacre of Pilvreen casts a shadow centuries long.

The sanctuary is the only building that survives from that time, its stonework patched and pockmarked – scars of the battle that raged here. Bishop More is standing in the porch, as though he expected her, even though she sent no warning of her visit. While she has only told Henry and her family of her pregnancy, she is in no doubt that the news will have spread by now to the more influential courtiers and holy men of the country. Maybe even to the foreign courts. Perhaps this is More’s way of greeting a pregnant queen.

“Your Grace,” she says, dismounting Fauvel.

“Your Majesty.” He bows. “An auspicious time for you to come. I assume you are here to give thanks for our king’s victory over Lothair?”

“Indeed. And…” Boleyn notices how he draws away from her when she looks as though she might put a hand on his arm. “I was wondering if I might ask a favour.”

“I am entirely at your disposal.”

“I wish to have access to your library,” she says.

He tenses. “My library?”

“I’m an inveterate reader, you see,” Boleyn says.

“You won’t find much poetry in my collection, I’m afraid.”

He turns away, forcing her to follow him into the sanctuary – his territory.

“I don’t want poetry. I understand you have one of the finest collections of historical texts in Elben. I am interested in reading them.”

“I’m not sure…”

“That it’s appropriate for a woman to read such texts?” She keeps her tone friendly, but it’s clear from her expression who is the monarch.

“I meant no offence.”

“I take none,” she lies. “My desire to read your collection stems from a wish to see if there is anything in there that might allow us to strengthen the bordweal.”

More looks almost coquettish – it doesn’t suit him. “Surely the bordweal has just been proven to be as strong as ever?”

She refuses to fall into his trap: he must want her to confirm her pregnancy to him. She sidesteps.

“Strong enough to see off Lothair’s ships. Perhaps not strong enough to do what comes next.”

“What do you mean?”

She follows More to a chapel that sits in a nook off the eastern cloister. Eight shrouds are lined up in front of an altar. On the altar, on a cushion, sits a severed hand. This must be the hand of the famed Torthred, a beloved saint of the region, who was martyred in the massacre of Pilvreen. Boleyn does not know how to act. Is it wrong for a queen of Brynd to acknowledge the relic when it was a queen of Brynd who caused the saint’s death? More bows to the hand, then begins sprinkling the shrouds with holy water. Boleyn hesitates at the chapel’s entrance, eyeing the sheets. The fabric is shaped oddly, as though the figures beneath are not whole.

“What happened to these people?” she asks More.

“The Holtwode crone, Your Majesty. These were the men who hunted it.”

“Bless them for their sacrifice,” Boleyn says, making the sign of Cernunnos. She turns away from the bodies, but cannot find her thread. She is sure that one of the bodies is missing its head. She has mercifully not suffered from morning sickness, but the sight turns her stomach.

“You were speaking of what comes next, once the king has defeated Lothair,” More says.

“Yes. Why are we content to merely defend ourselves?” Boleyn says. “The king has god-given strength beyond any human, and he gives some of that to the bordweal through the consorts. But what if he could take on even more of Cernunnos’s power?”

More raises an eyebrow. “You wish to see the king risk his life in yet more foreign wars? Are Alpich and Lothair not enough?”

As More turns to leave the chapel, Boleyn steps into the doorway, blocking him. She has to be careful now, given More’s affiliation to Queen Aragon. For all she knows, he may be aware of Quisto’s involvement with Lothair. He may be devoted to Cernunnos above all, but he is not impartial when it comes to matters of politics. No one is, no matter what they may claim. She and he may be aligned in wishing to further Elben’s cause, but it does not follow that they will agree on how to do so. “I do not like bullies, Your Grace,” she says. “Elben should not have to live in constant fear of the bordweal failing. If we can make a show of strength beyond the protections, beyond paltry countries like Lothair, then perhaps those who covet our island will think better of their aggression. It is not enough that we simply take back our ancestral lands from Alpich. Elben deserves to be greater. It deserves more respect.”

“A most admirable aim,” More says. “But I doubt that my library would be of use. You may be better served by the records at High Hall.”

“I think not,” Boleyn says.

There’s a long silence. She enjoys watching the bishop squirm. If George or Mark were here, they would try to fill the void. But Boleyn knows how to wield silence.

The bishop breaks first, as she knew he would. “Anything that is in my home is yours. Only… may I issue a warning?”

“You may. I may not listen, though.”

“You call it my library, but it is not mine alone. Many generations of bishops have added to its collection. And among those texts are some dangerous ideas.”

“I am perfectly capable of discerning which ideas are useful and which are not.”

The bishop bows. “I don’t mean to suggest otherwise.”

Boleyn wants to push the point – What do you mean to suggest then? – but she knows she’s won. Best not humiliate him further. Besides, she’s pathetically grateful to leave that haunted chapel with its maimed corpses. More leads her through the sanctuary and into his library. It is a vast room. Every wall is lined with books and ancient scrolls. The few windows are narrow, to limit sun damage to the parchment. In the centre of the space, a wheel-like machine bears a dozen small tables, upon each of which lies an open tome. More shows Boleyn how the machine moves, so that a scholar may study several texts at once.

“I should like to read anything pertaining to the bordweal magic,” Boleyn tells More, running a hand along one of the shelves. “Particularly anything written at the time that the bordweal came into effect. If I can understand exactly how the magic works, perhaps I can work out how to wield the king’s power more effectively.”

“Very little survives from that time,” More says. “Much of that knowledge was burnt in the massacre, unfortunately. The only texts I possess from around that time are here.”

He leads her to a dark corner, where the books are noticeably older – many of them have peeling covers or discoloured pages. Boleyn trails a finger over their spines. She feels as though she could reach back through the ages to speak to their authors. Eventually, she picks a selection, using More’s increasing irritation with her choices as her guide.

As she mounts Fauvel, the books wrapped in beeswax cloth and stowed in a saddlebag, More bows. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Your Majesty. I truly do.”

“For the glory of Elben, Your Grace,” she replies.

His eyes follow her as she rides away.

CHAPTER TEN

Boleyn

The tomes are, for the most part, dull. They tell Boleyn little that she does not already know about the bordweal, regurgitating the history told at her wedding. Frustration niggles. She must help Henry. She must prove – not to him, but to the rest of the court – that she is worthy of being his equal regardless of the child in her belly. And since she cannot wield a sword or lead a navy into battle, she must do so through a display of intelligence.

Boleyn takes to reading the bishop’s books in the castle’s grounds, the castle itself being too delightfully chaotic for the focus she requires. A favourite spot of hers is the fruit orchards, where the trees muffle the sound of the wind and the nearby sea. Today, though, she wants to go further.

“Dress me for riding,” she tells her maid. The girl goes about braiding her hair, softly singing to herself while Boleyn casts an eye over the letters that arrived for her overnight.

There once was an orb all holy bound

Kept on a mountain like a crown

When the time was right and it was found

It made its powers clear.

One from her father, telling her what is said about her in Avahuc – she thrills that they know of her in Avahuc – one from a Capetian noblewoman, and one from Henry, detailing his preparations for sailing to Lothair. The maid’s voice twines around his words.

Near, far and oversea

The orb calls lonesome out to me

The women cut it three by three

And hold it very dear.

Boleyn traces Henry’s handwriting, as though she could step through the paper and be standing beside him on deck. I have mustered a strong easterly wind to whisk us to Lothair. Think of the tempest I will summon, victorious, to bring me back to you. I miss you, my beloved Boleyn, so fiercely it frightens me.

One became a looking glass,

One in a tower made of brass,

One underwater, buried alas

They made them disappear.

Boleyn thinks of the letter stowed in her writing desk, the one he sent her from Hyde in response to her own telling him of her pregnancy. He is certain she is carrying a son. The promised heir to seal her for ever as his primary queen. It was accompanied by Henry’s personal physician, who has taken up residence at Brynd for the duration of her pregnancy. She is grateful. His words and deeds stem from love. She must be grateful.

A lovely brooch they made of one,

Another an instrument for everyone,

The last it said not where but when

And always was with her.

“You have a pretty voice,” she tells the maid. “Is that a Bryndish song? I haven’t heard it before.”

“It’s an old mining song, Your Majesty. My mother always sung it to me, and her mother to her, and her forebears worked the garnets.”

Boleyn can see how the rhythm, sung to the swing of a hammer instead of in the mouth of a maidservant, might keep a miner going long after their arms had given up.

The maid finishes braiding Boleyn’s hair and tucks it beneath her hood, then helps her into a woollen riding gown. She will reply to Henry later. For now, she slips down to the stables, where Fauvel is waiting.

Out in the orchards, the mist is still heavy on the ground and Boleyn can’t see far ahead. As long as she keeps the sea within reach on her right, she shouldn’t lose her way, even if she decides to ride all morning.

Fauvel is in a mischievous mood, bucking and rearing at any opportunity, and Boleyn nearly comes off several times. The apple trees melt into apricots and then into pears, and Boleyn starts to wonder whether the mist has turned her around after all – the trees seem endless. She nudges Fauvel towards the sound of waves and erupts into the open air, looking over a cliff to the sea below. Behind them, Brynd looms, lopsided, over the rocky edge. The clouds above the lightning tower flicker. It won’t be long before another fork glances out and is caught by the tower, the lightning siphoned down and stored in a chamber far below the castle, ready to be directed beyond the bordweal, across the ocean. Centuries of lightning now roil beneath the castle’s foundations. To unleash them would be to unleash utter devastation; enough to bring down a civilisation.

Boleyn turns Fauvel away from Brynd and follows an old animal track along the cliff edge, aware that in the mare’s mood it would only take one fright to make her topple over the edge, plunging them both onto the rocks. But that’s part of the fun with Fauvel.

They were closer to the end of the orchard than Boleyn had thought – in the mist, distance takes on a strange quality. The trees come abruptly to an end and the track widens into a path that leads up a hill dotted with wildflowers and sea grasses. Spindly-legged birds race across the path in front of her. At the top of the hill, so windy Boleyn can barely breathe, is the remains of a folly. It’s a squat little cylinder so thickly covered in ivy that she cannot see the stone beneath. A set of crumbling steps leads up to a rotting wooden door. Curious, Boleyn dismounts, loosens Fauvel’s girth and removes her bridle, letting her explore the new flavours of the sea grasses while Boleyn explores the derelict building.

The folly door falls away before her touch. Inside there is a single room, with two windows: one looking out over the ocean, one towards Brynd. The glass in both is long gone, leaving behind a lacework of lead. A trapdoor in the ceiling tells her that there were once stairs or a ladder leading out onto the parapets. An old fireplace is tucked into one of the walls, and a trapdoor before the hearth opens onto a dank, musty cellar, but otherwise the interior has been stripped bare. Boleyn likes it immediately. There’s potential here, just as there was potential in the castle. Yes, she can work with this. It will make a charming spot for parties, or even for quiet reading, if she can restore it properly.

Peering out of the sea-side window, she spots something at the base of the folly, and goes outside to investigate. Someone has created a sunken, outdoor seating space. A long stone bench runs around the semicircle, facing towards the folly. Here, the ivy is at its thickest. At first, Boleyn wonders why the architect wouldn’t place a bench against the folly to afford a sea view, and then she sits on the bench and understands – in this place, when sitting, it is almost cosy, sheltered from the wind. Impulsively, Boleyn pulls one of the bishop’s books from her pocket.

It is written in the style of so many old men – verbose, full of self-congratulation. Needless diversions. But it’s an interesting enough account of the bordweal. She knows the story, of course – it’s whispered over newborns’ cots – but she reads it anyway, to see if there’s any detail she missed.

The tale goes that once, Elben was besieged by ancient empires – those that preceded Capetia or Quisto. It seemed as though Elben would be overwhelmed. King Aethelred prayed to Cernunnos, who constructed six castles around the coast of the island and ordered Aethelred to marry six women, humble, loyal and true, and to give each of them a castle. Cernunnos blessed Aethelred with his divine power, and the king in turn siphoned some little of that power through each of his queens – for women are not built to carry divine magic and royal men are. The consorts took the king’s divine power and used it to form a barrier around the island – the bordweal. Just in time, the enemy navies were destroyed, either by storm or sea monster or disease. Cernunnos told Aethelred that from then on, so long as the six castles were each occupied by a loyal consort who would use the king’s power to protect the kingdom, no enemy would ever be able to conquer the land.

Boleyn pauses over the text. Her knowledge of ancient Elbenese is rusty, and while she knows enough to understand the bones of the story, there are more than a few words that are alien to her. She spies the word sædlapa, which she thought meant vessel, but in the context of the story must refer to the queens. Someone who read this book before her had a fuller understanding of the old language, for they had circled a single word: nimæn. There are no notes in the margins, and no other words circled as far as she can see. She must find a scholar who knows what it might mean.

The rest of the tome holds nothing of note, so she moves on to the oldest of the books, a sorry-looking account of King Aethelred’s reign. Many of the pages are rotten, or the ink has worn away with age. A handful of leaves are missing entirely.

“Thus the Great God said unto the King, ‘Find yourself six queens, humble, loyal and true…’”

Boleyn snaps the book shut in frustration, dislodging a stray sheet of paper from its centre. It soars briefly, then glides to the ground. The problem, she thinks, is the power of the story. The orators and scribes recite the same words, the same phrases, instead of looking for details. She had hoped that an account from Aethelred’s time would offer her more than the common narrative, smoothed and perfected over generations.

Sighing, Boleyn retrieves the stray paper. The sun is high, turning the ivy on the folly walls a joyful green. Syndony will start to prepare luncheon soon, expecting her attendance. Even though Boleyn is queen and Syndony a stewardess, Boleyn is unwilling to risk the older woman’s ire.

She is about to retrieve Fauvel when something catches her eye.

“… beneath Pillar’s Vein…”

Boleyn pulls the stray sheet from the book and stares at those words. Pillar’s Vein was once, if her memory serves her right, the name for Pilvreen. The paper has been badly damaged – parts of it are scorched. She holds the paper up to the sun, hoping to decipher more words beneath the burn marks.

Cwe… hambre… rut… beneath Pillar’s Vein

She fills in the gaps with all manner of possible meanings. Could “Cwe” be the antiquated word for “queens’? “Hambre” could be another word for “hammer”, or perhaps it means “chamber”. Either would make sense in the context of “beneath Pillar’s Vein”, given Pilvreen’s mines are ancient.

Perhaps it’s trifling. Perhaps it will lead to nothing, but it’s the first nibble of something new she has discovered. If there’s the smallest chance that it will help Henry and Elben, then she must pursue it. On this occasion, she will risk Syndony’s wrath.

If her geography is correct, Boleyn should be able to pass through the woods that border Brynd, and emerge close to the mines without having to pass through Pilvreen. Fauvel makes light work of the journey. The only people they come across are a couple of poachers. Boleyn must tell her guards to patrol the woods from time to time – she doesn’t resent the loss of a few deer or even the occasional honeydragon, but she can’t be perceived as lax.

The mines are nestled at the edge of the woods that bridge Pilvreen and Brynd. The sound of chisels on rock echoes through the trees long before Boleyn emerges into a clearing and spots the entrance to the mines. The smell of camphor is pungent. Sacks of unpolished garnets sit, disordered, on carts. The men and women resting outside eye Boleyn from beneath their caps, their faces and clothes coated in grime. Several of them gulp at tankards of ale, or cough up red phlegm. Boleyn wonders whether she was wise to come here without her guards.

She notices an older man with a left hand that’s missing two fingers, passing from one miner to another, fetching fresh handkerchiefs for some, whispering words of consolation and encouragement to others.

“You, sir. What is your name?” she asks, dismounting.

“Oswyn,” he says warily. He does not bow, but then again, she has not introduced herself.

“Oswyn. Are you the foreman of these mines?”

“I am.”

“May I speak with you in private?”

He takes his time joining her at the far side of the clearing, out of earshot of the other miners. Up close, Boleyn can smell the sweat and iron on his skin more clearly. She tries not to show her distaste.

“I can see that you care for your workers, Master Oswyn.”

He dips his head in acknowledgement and crosses his arms. “I can care for ’em and still work ’em hard, Your Majesty.”

She raises an eyebrow. “So you do know who I am.”

“My son saw you in town the other week. Described you to me. In detail.”

“I see.”

“Then there’s you coming from the castle side of the woods. I can add two and two.”

“I find it interesting, then, that you did not address me as your queen sooner.”

Oswyn blushes, but remains silent. So does Boleyn. The silence stretches between them, until Boleyn realises that she will not flush this man out as she did Bishop More. He is the first person she has met who is impenetrable to this manipulation of hers. She could have him thrown into gaol for his impertinence, of course, but that would only turn her people against her even further.

“Very interesting,” she says eventually, smiling to show that she is unbothered by her failure. “The people of Pilvreen seem slow to trust the Queen of Brynd, but less slow to take her coin.”

“I’d answer that the Queen of Brynd is very quick to take her percentage of those garnets we are killing ourselves to mine.”

Ah. She now has her bargain.

“Yes,” she says, as though it’s something she’s been considering for some time. “This is why I wished to talk to you, Master Oswyn. I do think you and your people should keep a higher percentage for yourselves.”

“You do?”

“It’s only fair. And we should discuss a benevolence for those who are no longer well enough to work in the mines, in recognition of their service.”

Oswyn shifts. “And who’s to pay for this benevolence, then?”

“It would come out of Brynd’s income from the mines, of course.”

The foreman fiddles with his cap, looking back at his workers. Boleyn can see the battle waging in him: the desire to see his people treated well, to take what he views as theirs, against his innate distrust.

“What would you want in return?” he says at last.

“Nothing that would harm your morals, I assure you.”

Oswyn grunts, as though he doubts she knows what his morals are.

“I would like two things from you,” she says. “The first is your guidance. I wish to earn the trust of my people. Tell me how I may do that. The second is your miner’s instinct. I believe there may be an ancient site, somewhere beneath Pilvreen. Perhaps you have already come across it?”

Oswyn shakes his head. “I’ve seen nothing like that, and I’ve worked these mines all my life.”

“Well. Maybe it is nothing. But I’d like you to look for it, when you can, if you can. There. Those are my two conditions. If there is anything else you would like to implement here then we can discuss it. Do you accept?”

Oswyn bows. “I do, Your Majesty.”

Later, as she studiously ignores Syndony’s glares, Boleyn thinks of her bargain with Oswyn and considers that she may finally be on the path to taking her rightful place as the greatest Queen of Elben.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Seymour

Seymour has grown to despise letters. She receives them weekly from her brothers. Edward’s missives are full of commands to place herself in front of the king as soon as he returns to Brynd. He has married uglier women than you, sister, he writes often. It’s the closest to a compliment he will ever give to Seymour. Thomas’s letters are more realistic: If he wants to play with you while Queen Boleyn is with child, let him. You’ll receive some trinkets and you’ll do the family some good if you perform well.

But it is not these letters that cause Seymour most anguish. It is the one she must write, and soon.

Your Majesty, most kind and gracious Queen Aragon, she writes, When last we spoke you gave me a task…

She scrunches up the paper and tosses it into the fire. She has already burned a dozen sheets trying to explain why she has not yet killed her new mistress. She knows that her letters are likely being monitored, probably by more than one party. Boleyn herself; Wolsey; maybe even her brothers. Nothing can be stated baldly, but she needs to be frank enough to placate Queen Aragon. She has tried lying: intimating that she will do it, one day; that she’s biding her time. She has tried reasoning: suggesting that to kill Boleyn would place Aragon herself in danger from the king. But none of it rings true, and her words wither as they drop from her pen.

Seymour throws her quill down, then bangs the table. If she could only confide in her brothers, they would be able to craft something contrite. But Thomas is still abroad and Edward is probably scheming his advancement at High Hall. She must deal with this alone.

She smooths another piece of paper.

Queen Aragon, she writes, knowing she will burn this page alongside the others, You have turned me into a traitor, madam, whatever path I choose. Either I must betray you, you who gave me a safe haven, or I must betray Queen Boleyn, who—

Seymour pauses. She cannot write what she truly wants to write about Boleyn, even on a piece of paper destined for the flame.

If Queen Boleyn were simply pregnant, I think I could do what you ask. But the way she carries herself, hand on stomach, cheeks flushed, eyes fervent, is a poem. I cannot destroy a poem. Please do not make me.

Seymour stares at the drying ink. She disappeared the glass of poisoned wine the day after her arrival, the same way she once heard Thomas talk of wayward diplomats being disappeared in far off lands. A gentle push from a cliff, the ocean a raging, silent accomplice. The remaining leaves are still hidden in her window seat. She sometimes wonders whether she could still do half of the job, for Princess Tudor had informed her, when she gave her the leaves, that if turned into a paste and rubbed over the stomach they can bring about miscarriage. But even if she had the courage, how could Seymour manage to gain access to Queen Boleyn’s naked belly?

Sometimes she catches the queen watching her, and she sees the question form in Boleyn’s mind every time: what kind of spy are you? If spying were Seymour’s task, she is indeed doing a poor job of it. She asks no questions. She goes exactly where she is told. She does not try to ingratiate herself.

Perhaps… perhaps she could be a spy, though. She must give her former mistress something of value. Would Queen Aragon accept knowledge, in place of death? Does Seymour even possess the skills to gather such knowledge?

She makes her way upstairs with new determination. Winds, ferocious as the wild dragons that fly over Uuvek, buffet the tower. In the queen’s antechamber, servants are roasting spiced apples over the fire, so the whole room smells of caramel and aniseed. For once, Mark Smeaton is not playing an instrument but is sequestered beside the queen, along with his spouses and Mary Boleyn. Gaming tables have been set up along one side of the chamber, and most courtiers are busy gambling or playing cards, or the more aggressive beadulác. In another corner, Mary Boleyn’s children crouch over spinning tops.

Outside, a shard of lightning hits the tower and is absorbed through the stones, a living web of white light. The vibration shivers through Seymour’s body from her skull to her feet. When she first came here, Seymour had hated the sensation. There is much about Brynd that she has grown to enjoy. Love, even.

Seymour tarries beside the hearth until the first of the apples are ready, then follows the servants over to the queen, under pretence of waiting for food.

“What do you make of it, Lady Seymour?” Boleyn says as Seymour approaches. She stands and spins, her dress splaying out around her. It’s the scarlet fabric Seymour picked out. She was right – it does suit Boleyn. The shade lends the queen’s dark hair a warm sheen. It’s thin material too, emphasising the hint of a bump.

“It is beautiful, Your Majesty. But then you would look beautiful in anything,” Seymour says truthfully. There is a change in Boleyn, though. She seems more brittle. Fevered, even.

“Careful, George. Lady Seymour is going to steal your crown for most charming courtier,” Boleyn says. Mary, Mark and George laugh. Seymour joins in, pretending that she isn’t the object of their joke.

“Sit here and tell me all your secrets,” George says, offering her his chair.

Seymour does as she’s told, feeling as though she’s stepping into a dragon’s lair.

“My sister has us studying old maps,” Mary tells Seymour. A parchment is stretched between Rochford and Mark, not so much a map as a blueprint. Brynd’s craggy edges and maze-like rooms are drawn in detail. Seymour wonders if there might be any secrets hidden there that Queen Aragon would find interesting.

“I am considering digging an ice chamber,” Boleyn tells her. She points to a staircase that leads from the basement kitchens into the foundations of the castle, above the chamber where the lightning is held. “There’s an old tunnel that once led towards Pilvreen. We could dig out from there.”

George selects a roasted apple from the servant who’s been hovering nearby, and offers a spoonful first to Mark, then Rochford, since their hands are occupied with the map. “It’s winter, sister,” he says as he does so. “Why on earth would anyone want ice now?”

“It’s not for now, it’s for summer, you dullard.”

“No fighting, children,” Mary says. She turns to Seymour. “This is what I had to put up with as a child, Lady Seymour. Is it not a wonder that I’ve retained my sanity?”

Seymour smiles again, her heart twisting painfully. Her family is so unlike the Boleyns. Her brothers’ jibes are always intended to hurt.

“Are you not worried that the tunnels will cave in?” Rochford says once she’s swallowed her apple.

Boleyn simply looks at her. Seymour runs a hand over the parchment. “Do you like maps, Your Majesty?” she asks.

“I like exploring.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing when you leave Brynd?” Seymour says. The way Boleyn and her siblings glance at each other tells her that she was too obvious. Even she can see that it was a clumsy attempt to get information. Trying to cover her shame, she continues, “The very first Lord Seymour was an architect. My family’s home is full of such drawings. When I was a child I used to pore over them and imagine finding hidden rooms.”

George and Mary aren’t very good at hiding their smirks. Boleyn, though, tilts her head, staring at Seymour. “And what did you imagine finding in those hidden rooms?”

The truth is: nothing but solitude and escape. But she says: “Oh, what every girl dreams of. Fine jewels. Dresses. That kind of thing.”

Boleyn’s mouth twitches. Seymour is suddenly very sure that she did not dream of finding dresses or jewellery as a child.

“What else?” Boleyn says.

Seymour casts around for something that might impress the queen.

“Ancient things, Your Majesty, beyond common knowledge or power. A holy relic, or the Steorran sword. Or… or one of the sunscína.”

Mark looks up. “What is a sunscína?”

“It’s an old wives’ tale,” says Mary. “Six glass discs that the queens of Elben used to communicate with each other.”

“How did they work?” Mark asks.

“They didn’t, silly; they’re a myth,” George says, pinching Mark’s chin.

“Can you imagine the queens of Elben talking to each other willingly?” Rochford says. The group laughs.

Shortly afterwards, Boleyn decides to go for a walk, refusing all offers of accompaniment. Seymour slips out of the antechamber after her, knowing that her absence won’t be noticed. She follows the queen from a distance. Servants hurry to bring Boleyn’s hooded cloak and gloves. Seymour does not receive the same treatment, and has no opportunity to find Clarice or return to her room. She must face the chill air or risk losing Boleyn’s trail.

Tucking her hands into her sleeves, Seymour follows Boleyn through the herb gardens and up a flight of steps into the orchards. She keeps to the side, and flits between trees. As ice sinks into her extremities, she throws up a prayer to Cernunnos that Boleyn is indeed hiding something of value to Queen Aragon, otherwise her impending death from winter fever will be in vain.

Boleyn comes to a halt very suddenly, sinking to the ground as if at prayer. Seymour wonders, at first, whether she is digging something up. Then Boleyn’s shoulders shake, and Seymour realises that she is sobbing.

Without thinking, Seymour darts to Boleyn’s side, pulling a handkerchief from her dress pocket.

“Your Majesty,” she says, kneeling. “Can I help? Are you well?”

Boleyn accepts the handkerchief, tear-blurred and tear-confused. “Lady Seymour?”

“Should I fetch help?”

Boleyn shakes her head, one arm pressed across her stomach, the other frantically wiping away tears. Seymour must be the last person Boleyn wishes to see. And yet Seymour desperately wants to be the one Boleyn confides in – a desperation beyond her desire to spy for Aragon. A memory surfaces of another woman, stopping very still in the galleries of Wulfhall, hands cradling her swollen belly.

“Is it the baby?” Seymour whispers. “Do you need a doctor?”

And there is the memory again. Mother? Mother, do you need a doctor?

“What do you care?” Boleyn says, though her voice heaves with repressed grief. There is nothing that Seymour can say to make Boleyn trust her. Silently, she pulls off Boleyn’s gloves and holds the queen’s hands in her own, thumbs stroking Boleyn’s knuckles. Their knees touch through their gowns, the morning’s rain seeping through the fabric. The wash of the sea mingles with the sound of the wind through fruit trees, though the clearest sound of all, to Seymour’s ear, is her own heartbeat.

“Oh!” Boleyn says, pulling one hand from Seymour’s and clasping her belly. Her expression is radiant, her joy spilling through what had moments ago been despair. “Oh, I felt it!”

Seymour can’t help but smile back. “Is it the first time?”

“Yes. The first kick. There it is again!”

Boleyn laughs through a fresh wave of tears then, impulsively, says, “Would you like to feel?”

Seymour nods. She has no interest in the baby, but she knows she is sharing in something important. Boleyn places Seymour’s hand over the right side of her swell. Their misted breath mingles. After a moment, Seymour feels it – the tiniest pulse, right against her palm.

“I was certain I’d lost it,” Boleyn whispers. Her expression is so open – so sad and hopeful and vulnerable.

“But you haven’t. It is so alive,” Seymour says. Like you, she thinks.

She and Boleyn smile at each other. Boleyn looks down at Seymour’s dress, and her mask falls back into place.

“Why are you not wearing a cloak, Lady Seymour?” she says.

Seymour falters. “I… I don’t really feel the cold. I felt like some fresh air.”

The lie lands between them, obvious and ugly. Boleyn stands and smooths her dress. “I am sorry that you followed me for nothing,” she says, looking down at Seymour. “I’m afraid you will have only good news to send to Queen Aragon.”

She strides back towards the castle, leaving Seymour still kneeling in the damp.

The next day, work begins on digging out an ice chamber.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Boleyn

Boleyn sips her wine. It’s been mulled with nutmeg and citrus and puts her in mind of Mother’s Night celebrations at her family’s ancestral home, where the three Boleyn siblings would commandeer their own cauldron of the stuff and drink it until they were sick.

A rare wave of nausea passes through Boleyn, and she hands her glass to a passing servant and pretends to be watching the entertainment from her throne: a small travelling band of musicians from Capetia, who heard of her fondness for the country and begged to be allowed to play for her. They’re not bad, but they’re not worthy of a court – certainly no Capetian palace would have them. She’ll get the stewardess, Syndony, to dismiss them with some coin after supper.

Her hand plays gently across her stomach, as it always does when she thinks about the pregnancy. Thankfully Lady Seymour is off spying elsewhere – she has made herself largely absent since the day in the orchard. Boleyn grows hot with the shame of letting herself be so vulnerable in front of an imposter. She doesn’t want anyone to know about her moments of panic – the times when she is convinced that the baby is dead in her womb, the moments when she is sure she feels blood trickling down her thigh. All too often now, she becomes certain that this thing, not yet a human and yet, in her head, already a child, will come unstuck and abandon her in a rush of blood at any moment. No, no one must know, not even George – who will joke about it to try to make her smile – or Mary, who will be brusque and tell her that miscarriages happen all the time and she’ll conceive again. No one must see her at her weakest. No one must witness the crash of worries.

“Your Majesty, he’s here.”

Syndony is by her side, unsmiling as ever when in the presence of nobility. She nods to the door, where a wiry man with sharp, dancing eyes is waiting, watching. Wyatt, she thinks his name is. A scholar, supposedly. A recommendation from one of the lesser nobility at Brynd to her enquiries about someone who has a stronger grasp of Old Elbenese than she. Wyatt’s gaze slides over Boleyn as though she’s simply one of many people in the room.

“Let’s see what he has to say then,” Boleyn says. She dislikes him already, but if he can tell her more about that circled word – nimæn – in the bishop’s book, she supposes she can tolerate him.

Wyatt bows reluctantly before her. The music peters out as a semicircle forms around them, like an audience at a cockfight. Boleyn knows that she emits a certain energy when she is preparing for a fight. George calls it her executioner energy; a mental baring of her teeth.

“They tell me you’re a poet and a scholar,” Boleyn says. “You don’t look much like either.”

“They tell me you’re a whore,” Wyatt responds.

The whole room goes coldly silent.

“Which goes to show,” he continues, “that people are stupid.”

Boleyn lets the silence drag out as she surveys him. He is all bravado and nerves, his cocksure smile an act, just as the fine doublet he’s wearing cannot fully disguise the patches on his shirt.

“Mistress Syndony, please put this man on a horse back to whatever hovel he crawled from.”

He laughs. “Is this why you don’t have a jester, Your Majesty? Because you can’t take a joke?”

Boleyn nods to Syndony and stands, walking to the fireplace as nonchalantly as she can manage. Well, that nimæn will remain elusive for a little longer, that’s all, until she can find a scholar who will treat her as the queen she is. She accepts a bowl of hot chestnuts from a servant who cannot meet her eyes. If people are saying she’s a whore, it’s because they’re jealous. When the news of her pregnancy spreads, when she gives birth to a son, they will be forced to alter their opinion. Boleyn knows a little of gossip, having navigated four years in the Capetian court. She knows that in the eyes of the public, mothers are rarely considered prostitutes.

“Your Majesty, my apologies,” the poet calls out. “I beg one more chance.”

Wyatt is struggling against Syndony. Boleyn wouldn’t bet against her. Last week she witnessed the woman lift an entire hog from a cart without help.

“He’s got spirit, hasn’t he?” Mark whispers.

In the struggle, Wyatt knocks one of the side tables, and a little clock – a gift from Henry – topples to the floor and shatters, sending a starburst of golden mechanisms and glass shards across the floorboards. The lantern dragons on the walls twist in their cages, unsettled by the noise.

“Enough!” Boleyn says, clapping her hands. Syndony lets Wyatt go and he stumbles to the floor. When he rises, his palms are punctured by the remnants of the clock. He smiles at Boleyn, brushing his bloodied hands clean on his hose.

“I do not like disloyalty,” Boleyn says.

“What do you like?”

Boleyn pops a chestnut in her mouth as she circles the man. She comes to stand behind him, enjoying the flush rising on the back of his neck.

“I like people who are clever. I like people who are helpful. I like people who want to please me. At the moment, Master Wyatt, you seem to be none of those things.”

He turns to face her, and she pops another chestnut in her mouth. In the corner of her vision, she sees Mark place a hand on George’s arm in anticipation.

“I don’t believe I gave you permission to look at me,” she says.

Inexplicably, Wyatt grins and covers his face with his hands. The crowd edges backwards, wondering what this unpredictable commoner is playing at.

“Pardon me, Your Majesty, but I am not here.”

“What?” Boleyn says, almost choking on her chestnut.

“Imagine, if you will, that I was never here. Imagine that you could not admit me before, but left me waiting outside this very excellent door—”

As he speaks, Wyatt moves with exaggerated soft steps towards the door, the crowd parting before him.

“Imagine,” he continues, “that when this door closes behind me, all memories of what has been said and done between us are magically erased, quick and easy as a shooting star.”

Syndony looks pointedly at the remnants of the clock, scattered underfoot, and says, “How did we do that then?”

Wyatt bows to her, his arms wide. “A most excellent point, kind mistress. A regrettable accident. Who knows how it came about? But an accident that this stranger, who you will never have seen before when he enters, will most certainly clean up.”

Syndony puts her hands on her hips, refusing to be flattered. “He had better, because my maids aren’t doing it.”

Now so low to the ground that he looks utterly ridiculous, Wyatt opens the door and gives them all one final bow. “Remember, all memories – vanished!”

The mood of the crowd has shifted now. Not one person, even Syndony, can hold back a smile. Even Boleyn is minded to offer him a second chance.

Wyatt closes the door behind him, and silence descends. No one is quite sure how to play this out now. No one except Boleyn.

“Mistress Syndony,” she says, loudly enough for her voice to carry. “I believe we have kept our new visitor waiting long enough. Would you be so kind as to admit him into my presence?”

Syndony curtseys with a look that says she thinks the whole company is quite mad, but opens the door to reveal Wyatt standing, head proud, hand pressed to his heart. He strides in and kneels before Boleyn, his knee grinding glass fragments into the floor.

“Your Majesty, Thomas Wyatt at your service,” he says, hand still over his chest.

“Master Wyatt, it is good to meet you at last,” Boleyn replies. “I hear very bad reports of you.”

He keeps his head bowed, but she can see the corner of a smile. He knows how this game is going to go. He has humiliated himself, but now it is her turn to humiliate him. It is the only way that she can be seen to accept him into her household after what he said to her.

“I admit them all,” he replies. “I am a poor excuse for a man. I cannot wield a sword. I have no money because I am a gambler. I frequently say the wrong thing when I am nervous. I grow very nervous around women of wit and power.”

“What is the use of you then?” Boleyn says.

“A question my father asks often. Words are my business, my first and last love, my life’s labour. They are my weapons and my prey. They are my lover, my mistress, my muse and my wife. I read the way most men eat: because I have to, because without words I will fade away.”

“A fine speech, Master Wyatt. How shall we test it?”

“I can spin a gossamer poem the way a spider spins its web, my queen.”

Boleyn never could resist a poem. It was an integral part of Henry’s courtship. She made him propose to her with a poem before she said yes. She selects another chestnut.

“A poem, then. A new one, just for me. You have until I have finished this bowl.”

She steps away, letting Wyatt stand. He eyes the few uneaten chestnuts, then turns to examine the room, the view of the tempestuous sea through the windows. And then, ignoring the way the other courtiers and her family are watching him expectantly, he turns his gaze on her. Boleyn continues to make her way through the chestnuts, standing proudly before him as though posing for a portrait. She allows him to take in every part of her resplendent gown, the way her left hand, adorned with its poesy ring, continually returns to rest on her stomach, the challenge of her gaze. The chamber is almost silent, the only sounds the rustle of velvet and flame, and the crystal noise of the lantern dragons’ claws as they wind around their cages.

Boleyn holds up her final chestnut. Wyatt’s time is up. Slowly, reverently, he begins to speak.

Whoever wishes his wealth and ease retain,

Himself let him unknown contain.

Press not too fast in at that gate

Where the return stands by disdain,

For sure, thunder circles the throne.

The high mountains are blasted oft

When the low valley is mild and soft.

Fortune with Health stands at debate.

The fall is grievous from aloft.

And sure, thunder circles the throne.

Boleyn realises that she is clutching the silver stag symbol on her belt. Its antlers dig painfully into her palms.

“Very clever, Master Wyatt,” she says. “Thunder for my storm clouds. You can’t help but leave a sting in your words, can you?”

“I only sting those who can sting back.”

George lets out an involuntary giggle, partly at the tension, partly at the bawdy reference.

“My sting is far, far worse than yours.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

She shouldn’t forgive him. His poem was still disrespectful. She can tell that he’s going to cause her trouble. And yet… he has charm, and he’s shown himself to be clever and nimble, and his poetry moves her in a way little does these days. And maybe there’s part of her that wants to prove to him that she can weather a joke, even though she cannot see how calling someone a whore is amusing.

“I have one more test for you.”

She produces Bishop More’s book. The crowd surrounding them moves away, less interested in a translation of the history of Cernunnos and Elben’s queens; a history they all know by heart. The musicians strike up again. A few couples take to the floor, but their movement is desultory. They’ve been robbed of the fun of watching their queen decimate an upstart.

“I was told that you understand Old Elbenese?” Boleyn asks Wyatt.

“I make a hobby of studying it. I’m no expert, though.”

She opens the book to the page she’s found, and points at the circled word.

“Well, you had better make yourself an expert, because for all your clever poetry, this is the use I have for you. Why has someone marked this, can you think? I do not recognise the word.”

Wyatt frowns as he mouths the word. Nimæn. His lips bridge the two syllables like a dancer. He traces ink-stained fingers across the paper.

“Well, if memory serves me correctly, nimæn has several meanings.”

He hesitates. Boleyn huffs pointedly. “Do not test me, sir.”

“Well, given the context is the nature of the divine power being transferred to Aethelred’s queens, I think the author must mean ‘given’, or ‘channelled’. That’s the only translation that makes sense.”

She wants to jab him, but settles for raising an eyebrow.

“What translation wouldn’t make sense? What does the word truly mean?” she asks. “Do not conceal truths from me, Master Wyatt. I rarely take kindly to it.”

Wyatt makes an odd sort of noise, somewhere between laugh and puff. “The powerful are fond of saying such things, Your Majesty, up until you do their bidding. Then they are fond of threats.”

He catches her eye and relents. “The most common meaning of nimæn is simply: ‘stolen’. So you see why that cannot be the case here.”

Boleyn considers possible explanations. The most likely one is that Wyatt’s memory is faulty, but to say so would be churlish. “You may be right. The word must have different meanings depending on the context,” she says at last. Her finger hovers over the circled word, but this time she does not touch it.

Wyatt turns to her. “If Your Majesty has no objections, may I take some time to study the rest of the book? It will give me more time to shed light on this mistake, and I might be able to see if there are any other anomalies.”

He might simply be buying himself time, with no ability to truly decipher the book, but she no longer has the energy to challenge him. She hands him the book and dismisses him. On his way out of the room, Mary invites him to dance. Usually Boleyn would join them, a magnet to fix all eyes on her. But there is only one man she wants to dance with. She spins her poesy ring, the fairy trapped inside it pulsating with heat through the golden shell, as the longing for Henry’s arms overwhelms her. She’s missed him these last few months, even more so since she realised she was pregnant. She was the one who urged him to war, but now she wants him with her.

Absent-mindedly, she smooths her hand over the bodice where she imagines their baby growing, growing, feeding, leeching.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Seymour

It’s still dark outside when Clarice wakes Seymour. They are saying something in the gloom, but Seymour can’t hear them above the sound of the thunder and the waves.

“What time is it?” she murmurs.

“Never mind that, my lady,” Clarice says. “They’re evacuating the tower. Quickly, we must get you dressed.”

A fork of lightning illuminates the world outside, and Seymour watches a wave reach up to her window – halfway up the tower – and consume it. Suddenly, she is very awake.

Clarice hurriedly packs a few of Seymour’s more precious belongings in her smallest trunk.

“Are we leaving the castle?” Seymour asks as Clarice bundles her into the first gown they can find.

“No, it’s just this tower the stewardess is worried about. She’s never seen the waves so high and she doesn’t know if the stone will hold. Everyone’s gathering in the banqueting hall.”

The candle Clarice holds aloft does not reach far once they leave the warmth of Seymour’s room, and the stairs remain forbidding as they descend. The stone echoes strangely every time a wave hits the tower, as if some great beast is sating its rage against Brynd. By the time Seymour trips into the hall, her heart is thumping. The space is already half full. The evacuated tower is home to the bedchambers of nearly all the queen’s household, as well as the queen herself. They sit in quiet groups around the edges of the room, and every time lightning strikes the tower or thunder cracks the sky, they grow silent, waiting for the roar of collapsing stone. Seymour, though, finds herself happier to be among people rather than alone in that looming tower.

The queen sits in one corner with her sister and the poet Wyatt, who seems to have made himself indispensable since his arrival only a few weeks ago. She is fully dressed in her jewels and a deep green gown of velvet and satin, but her hair is unadorned, flowing loosely down her shoulders and pooling in her lap. Her pet dragon, Urial, is curled up on the hem of her dress, panting and heaving, his mistress’s hand on his back doing little to quell his fear. Seymour finds herself a spot not far from them, and settles herself on a cushion, content to watch them. She feels a strange kinship with Master Wyatt, perhaps because he has been humiliated at the queen’s hands, like Seymour. Or perhaps it’s because of the way he and the queen are with each other. She sees it now: the way Wyatt whispers something to Boleyn, the way she throws her lovely neck back and laughs, like a performance for the whole room. Wyatt’s habit of pressing his hand to his chest when he’s with her, and the over-mannered way he lifts the hem of the queen’s dress and kisses it.

“Oh, go away, little goat,” Boleyn says to him. “And take my sister with you. You’re both being tiresome.”

“I bleat only for you, Your Majesty,” he says. “But if the Lady Mary will have me, I’ll make another noise for her.”

Mary arches an eyebrow at him. “Maybe you can be my sheep.”

“I’d rather be your horse.”

Boleyn flicks Urial’s leash at them. “Go. Away.”

Seymour finds herself smiling. It is the most perfect display of courtly love she could have imagined. The balance of bawdiness and gentleness. The overwrought performance of sincerity that reassures player and audience that it is all staged. All meaningless. All safe.

“That’s a very singular smile, Lady Seymour,” Boleyn says. “Come over here and confess your secrets to me.”

Seymour does as she’s told, leaving the sanctuary of her corner. She shouldn’t have chosen a spot so close to the queen’s orbit.

“No secrets, Your Majesty,” she says, taking Mary’s place on a cushion at Boleyn’s feet. Urial moves his pitiful head so that it rests on Seymour’s lap. She feels the patch of drool through the fabric almost immediately, and can only hope that he doesn’t follow it up with a flaming cough.

“Nonsense. Everyone has secrets. It’s what makes us human.”

“Do you think so?” Seymour says.

“You don’t agree?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think much about things like that. Only… I suppose I’d be disappointed in us if that were true.”

“Why should you find that disappointing?” Boleyn says, the words a clear challenge. Seymour wonders whether she should pull back from what she wants to say, but she knows by now that the queen only tolerates those willing to disagree with her.

“Well, secrets are sinful, aren’t they?”

Boleyn laughs. “Oh, Lady Seymour, how very dull of you.”

“It’s how I feel.”

Boleyn leans towards Seymour and grips her chin, forcing Seymour to look at her. Seymour holds Boleyn’s gaze. When the queen speaks again, it is very quietly, so that not even the nearby courtiers can hear them.

“You only deal in the truth, then?” the queen says.

“I try to.”

“Very well. Have you been sent to spy on me, Lady Seymour?”

“No,” Seymour says, the word a hot breath between them. She was not sent to spy. That she has tried to do so is incidental.

“Are you happy to be here, in my service?”

“Yes.”

Boleyn pauses, a rare flicker of insecurity on her sharp features. “What do you think of me?”

Seymour’s heart quickens. She is acutely aware of the places where the queen’s fingers pinch her jaw. She knows that she must never mention the only truth she knows for sure – that Boleyn is frightened of losing her baby. She must reassure the queen that that particular secret is safe with her.

“I think you are clever. You grow bored easily. You love the king very much, but sometimes you worry that this castle is not interesting enough to hold you. You need to be worshipped.”

Boleyn drops her hand and looks away, adjusting her skirts, and Seymour knows she has needled her. It reminds her of that moment in the orchards, where all artifice was stripped from the woman. It makes Seymour bold.

“It bothers you when people pay more attention to your sister than you,” she says. “I think it has always bothered you, because you feel that you are better than her. Is that why you married the king? Because it proves that you’re better than her?”

Boleyn rakes her nails across Seymour’s cheek; not a slap but a silencing. Urial whimpers at the movement. Seymour strokes the dragon’s neck, as much to calm her own nerves as his.

“We all have secrets, Lady Seymour,” Boleyn says, sitting upright once again. “Even you. And I will have your secrets from you. After all, I do like to win.”

With a flick of a wrist, Seymour is dismissed. Extracting herself from beneath Urial’s head, she stumbles away, avoiding the interested glances of the others in the room. Clarice approaches her with a tankard of warm milk.

“What happened?” they ask.

Seymour tries to laugh. “The queen was making it very clear that she doesn’t trust me.”

Seymour has to hold the tankard in both hands but cannot lift it to her lips until she’s stopped trembling.

“Can she?” Clarice says lightly.

“What do you mean?”

Clarice looks out of the window, avoiding Seymour’s gaze and question.

“The storm’s dying off. You should be able to go back to your room soon.”

“Are you all right?” Seymour says.

“I always am, my lady.”

There’s a kerfuffle outside the hall, and a messenger strides in, heading straight for Queen Boleyn. He hands her a letter and she reads it quickly, avidly. The muted conversations that had whispered like snakes around the hall fall silent.

Boleyn stands up, flourishing the letter, holding it high.

“Lothair is ours! The king rides to Brynd to celebrate!”

George leads the cheering. No storm can dampen the spirits of those in the hall.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Seymour says to Clarice. The sudden lightness in her chest is overwhelming. For a natural outsider, like her, the joy of patriotism is one of the few ways she can feel connected to others.

“Congratulations, my lady,” Clarice says, unsmiling.

“Come on, Clarice, don’t sulk. This is a victory for all of us.”

“If you say so.” Clarice wanders off to talk to other servants, leaving Seymour to her milk. The Feorwa Isles, where Clarice is from, are part of Elben’s territory now, and have been for decades. This victory is theirs too. Well, Seymour refuses to let her servant’s behaviour affect her mood.

By the time Seymour has finished her milk, the stewardess has proclaimed the worst of the storm over.

“There’s no point going back to bed,” the queen announces. “Let us all have wine and cake in my chambers and make Master Wyatt recite poetry as we watch the storm’s death throes.”

Another cheer goes round the room. Everyone’s anticipating a delicious, lazy, silly day before the king’s arrival.

Seymour stops off in her bedchamber on the way up to the queen’s rooms to freshen up. In one corner of her room there’s an empty copper basin, a flannel and jug of water next to it. Seymour pours a little water into the basin and cradles some in her hands to rub up her wrists.

She can tell something’s wrong almost immediately. It starts as a prickle on her palms. Soon, it’s a fire. She watches in horror as the skin grows red, and then blisters. She grabs a towel and tries to dry her hands – but all that happens is that great discs of skin slough off, leaving bleeding, flayed flesh exposed. Seymour screams, the pain unbearable.

That’s when she sees it, on the mirror above the basin – someone has written, in red ink – or blood: DO YOUR JOB.

Clarice runs into the room and stops in their tracks, fixating on Seymour’s raised hands.

“Get help!” she shouts at them before they can see the writing on the mirror, and once they’re out of the room Seymour scrubs at the words, trying to use her arms and elbows instead of her hands. By the time Clarice has returned with an apothecary, no trace of the warning remains. The apothecary sets down his box of tools, tells Clarice to fetch fresh water, then sniffs the liquid in the basin.

“The Queen’s Kiss,” he whispers.

“What?” she says, her teeth gritted against the agony.

“It’s a flower, my lady. A very poisonous flower that grows only in darkness. It smells delightful. The petals are used in royal perfumes, hence the name. But the sap is strongly acidic. Put enough of it in water, and, well…”

He trails off, eyeing Seymour’s injuries with a mixture of disgust and professional interest.

“Can you heal me?” she asks.

“Certainly, but it will take time.”

He takes a pestle and mortar from one part of his toolbox and opens another compartment to reveal rows of glass bottles. He selects several – some herbs, some that look like balms and one that seems to be liquid silver, and measures them out into the mortar.

Seymour stumbles against the wall, dizzy. He rushes over to her.

“My apologies, my lady. I assumed, from your silence, that the pain wasn’t too bad.”

She gapes at him. “How could the pain not be bad?”

“I…” he doesn’t finish his sentence, only fumbles in his box for a vial of amber powder, which he heats in a spoon over the fire and then instructs her to drink. The relief is instantaneous – every part of her body goes numb. She sinks, blissful, to the floor.

When Clarice returns with water, the physician has ground the ingredients into a paste that smells of charcoal and hisses like embers in rain. He tears two lengths of muslin from his stock, plunges them into the water and wrings them out before applying the paste across one side.

“This may sting, despite the opiate,” he warns, before draping the muslin over her poor hands. It does sting a little, but nothing compared to what it was like before. He wraps the muslin with skilled fingers, knotting the ends tightly so that she looks as though she’s wearing mittens.

“We’ll need to change these daily,” he says, placing his vials back in his box. “I will return after lunch tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Seymour says through the fog in her mind. He bows softly and is about to leave when she remembers something. “Sir, may I ask – that you don’t mention this to anyone?”

She fumbles in her pocket for coins, the bandages and the medicine making her clumsy. The physician acknowledges the bribe silently before leaving. Clarice helps Seymour to her bed.

“Who would have done this?” they murmur, eyes flicking to the door, the window, anywhere but Seymour.

“I’ll be all right. It’s not as if I don’t have scars already,” she says. She doesn’t want Clarice to investigate, or they might uncover the task Seymour was given by Aragon. Clarice throws her an impenetrable look, and not for the first time Seymour wonders whether they really believe the lies she told them about the scars on her thighs – that they came from Edward.

“I’ll kill them,” Clarice says.

The Queen’s Kiss. DO YOUR JOB.

There can be no doubting that this is Queen Aragon’s work. And that means that she has other spies in the castle. Other spies willing to injure. Perhaps, even, willing to kill.

For the first time in her life, a plan begins to form in Seymour’s slow, stupid head.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Boleyn

Henry rides ahead of his guards, galloping across Brynd’s drawbridge a full hour before his retinue.

“My queen!” he bellows, his voice reaching through the castle and into Boleyn’s bedchamber. She doesn’t have her shoes on yet, but she escapes her maids and slips down the stairs and across the vestibule, out onto the cobbles. Henry sees her bare feet and strides towards her, laughing at her impropriety. He sweeps her up into his arms.

“You feral woman. You could have fallen and hurt the baby.”

She slaps him on the chest playfully. “Never mind hurting myself.”

He carries her into the palace, past dozens of courtiers. She spots Lady Seymour among them, head low, eyes up, watching them. Go and tell your queen of this, she thinks, as Henry carries her directly to her bedchamber, dismisses the maids waiting there and promptly undoes all their work.

Afterwards, they lie in bed, limbs interlocked, the draught wafting her hair across Henry’s shoulder. One of his hands is splayed protectively across her belly. She twists to move it to her waist. She doesn’t want to exclude him, but the baby isn’t his. Not yet. For now it is her precious burden alone.

“We will raise him to be the greatest king that Elben has ever known,” Henry says, almost to himself.

“It will be difficult to top his father, but we will try.”

He pushes her hair away from her cheek.

“Do you mean that, Boleyn?”

He is ten years older than her, but he looks like a boy who’s tumbled from a tree.

“How can you ask me that when you have just conquered an entire country?”

“People will say that Lothair is insignificant and weak. They won’t understand that in truth it’s Quisto we have wounded.”

She runs a hand down his cheek, his beard, his chest. “They will understand. Your ambassadors are clever.”

“Your father is a good man.”

“My father would have been no one if you had been like other kings.”

Lord Boleyn is by no means a commoner, but until Henry inherited the throne, he was a nobody. His fine, surgeon-sharp mind and talent for collecting languages had been neglected. All because his branch of the family tree was too far removed from the higher ranks of nobility. It was only when Henry came to power that Lord Boleyn’s talents were recognised and wielded for the good of Elben. The Boleyns’ ascent is chained to Henry’s understanding that knowledge can be found in the lowliest of men, and that power can be forged as well as trickled down a bloodline. This is another way of thinking that Boleyn and Henry share.

“Tell me the story of your childhood,” Henry says.

She laughs. “You know it better than me by now!”

“I like hearing it. It sounds so full of… so full.”

He strokes her body, from her collarbone, down her arm and to the bump of her hipbone and up again. The movement becomes the sway of ritual as she tells him once more of the way she and George and Mary were raised. Of summer days eating plums in the orchard at Hever Castle. Winter nights by the fire where both mother and father sat with all three of their children, drilling each of them in turn in Capetian and Uuvekese and the languages of the vanished empires. She tells Henry of the tutors the three of them shared, and how they had talked freely to their parents of who they wished to marry, and discussed suitable potential matches that might accord with their tastes.

Whenever Henry looks at Boleyn, it is with hunger. When she tells this story, the type of hunger changes.

“That is what I want for our son,” Henry says as she finishes. “I’ll listen to him. I’ll find him a happy match, the way you and I have happiness. And if we have a second son, I’ll listen to him too. They can learn everything together.”

“Yes,” she says. There is no need for her to say more. She knows that this is not about their theoretical sons, but about Henry and Arthur. Arthur and Henry. The first and the second, until the second became the only. It is her turn to stroke him, to pull him towards her and cradle him within her limbs. They make love again, languorously, with their eyes, hands and mouths. When they’re finished, the fire has sunken to embers and the sun lands high on the wall above them, turning grey stone to butter.

“Tell me more about this book of the bishop’s then,” Henry says. “Who is this Wyatt you wrote to me about?”

“He fancies himself a jester.”

“Ah well, you could do with one of those. Bring you down a peg or two,” Henry laughs. She slaps him on the chest again, but he catches her wrist and looks at her more seriously. “Don’t do that in public again, Boleyn. It undermines me in front of our subjects.”

His magic sparks across her skin. If he wanted it to, he could make it hurt her. She thinks how much he must love her that he stops it from doing so.

“Of course, my love,” she says. He lets go, kisses her on the nose.

“So? What has the jester discovered?”

“I am the one who discovered it. The jester merely did the hard work.”

It has taken Wyatt longer than it should have, but he now feels confident that he has translated the Old Elbenese correctly.

“I have not read his report yet,” she tells Henry. “I was waiting for you. Shall we look at it together?”

As Henry sits up, she reaches for the roll of parchment Wyatt gave her the previous evening. She had intended to read it first herself, but she had been so tired the words blurred. This way is better, though – they can read the parchment together.

“There’s something about the flow of power coming from the castles rather than from you…” she begins.

Boleyn is suddenly aware that her uncovered back is very cold. She can’t meet Henry’s eyes. This information skirts treason. Worse; it teeters on heresy.

“Which book is this?” Henry says.

“It’s very old. Before your father’s time.”

“Bring it to me.”

She gets up, wrapping the blanket around her naked body and leaving Henry uncovered to show him that she doesn’t take kindly to being ordered around. The book is on the window seat, its ancient pages curled. Henry examines it, pausing over the circled words as Boleyn points them out. Then he flips the book over and stares intently at the cover.

“We couldn’t decipher the title or the author,” Boleyn says.

“I can.” Henry’s eyesight, like everything about him, is better than any common man’s. “Boleyn, this is a very dangerous book.”

Boleyn laughs. The notion that any book could be dangerous is preposterous to her. People are dangerous. Swords and cannons are dangerous. Books can only ever be sustenance.

“You wouldn’t laugh if you could see what I can.”

“What do you see then, oh great one?” she asks.

Henry points at the faded lettering. “This book was written for a particular person. A queen. It belonged to Isabet.”

He may as well have punched Boleyn. She feels faint, and then she feels sick, and then she is coated in her own foolishness.

“I didn’t realise.”

The queen that exists only in cautionary tales of what happens when a consort betrays her country, king and god. The queen whose name for ever hangs over Brynd like storm clouds.

Henry lifts her onto his lap. “You weren’t to know, Boleyn. You’re only trying to help me. But you won’t find help in this book, you understand?”

“Of course.”

“More should never have let you take it. I didn’t think he would.”

Boleyn doesn’t mention that she didn’t give More much choice in the matter.

“Besides, I don’t think we should be looking to the past for answers,” he says. “Let us think of the future instead.”

He splays a hand over her stomach again.

Boleyn forces herself to smile. She has made his life more difficult at a time when he should be celebrating his victory over Lothair. “I was looking in the wrong books. I’ll find something of use to you, Henry. I promise.”

“My darling,” he says. “You’re not going to let this pregnancy slow you down, are you?”

“Why should it?” she lies, collecting the book. “I’ll return this to the bishop.”

“No.”

Henry takes it from her. He makes a fist, and the book, thick though it is, folds and crumples as though it were tin.

“What are you doing?” she whispers.

“This should never have survived so long.”

He opens his hand. A pitiful ball of paper and leather sits on his palm. Even if she had been allowed to, Boleyn knows that the pages would only tear if she tried to rescue them. Henry goes to the fire and tosses the ball into it, stoking the embers until they catch on the paper. The flame runs along the edge of a page and then rises, like a flag unfurling.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Seymour

When the king carries Boleyn past her, Seymour can’t help herself. She makes her way silently through the muttered gossip and embarrassed laughter in the vestibule and slips up the back stairway towards the queen’s chamber. The king’s guards haven’t yet arrived, or they would be stationed outside already. As it is, the door is unguarded. Seymour hesitates only momentarily before pressing her ear guiltily to the wood, craving the sounds of Boleyn’s pleasure. There is no artifice in the moans she hears. On the contrary, Boleyn sounds almost… shy. Eager to be pleased. She cannot hear the king, and she’s thankful for it – he would have ruined the illusion.

Seymour imagines pleasing the queen, the way she has pleased Clarice; the way she pleased the earl’s son she took as a lover a few years ago. She imagines Boleyn winding her hair around Seymour’s neck, her eyes dancing, her kisses deep, and pulling gently until Seymour teeters on the edge of danger, the way she and Clarice used to do before everything went wrong.

Seymour closes her eyes, letting the pressure grow inside her. When the heat becomes too much, she darts back to her own room and locks the door, hastily pulling her gown up so that she can find her own release, ignoring the pain in her flayed fingers for those moments of pulsating bliss.

Seymour haunts the king and queen over the following days, watching how they still court each other, even though the prize has been won. She makes a study of their love, supping on their sensuality. Seymour’s brothers talk a lot about the campaigns of seduction waged upon them and their friends by multitudes of scheming women. Edward speaks of his wife as though she were a merciless conqueror and he a surrendered castle, brought down at last by an insurmountable force of guile. Seymour is not sure that’s how it happened. Nothing about her brother’s wife gives Seymour the impression that she is thrilled to be married to him.

Watching Boleyn and the king, Seymour comes to realise that her brothers are mistaken. In a true Elbenese courtship, woman and man are both conqueror and conquered in equal measure. It is a dance of power: every promenade is a surrender, every set a foray. Maybe that is what makes her remember Boleyn’s moans when she is alone at night – the idyll of a partnership so ferociously equal.

She finds the solution in that idyll. Even the most uncaring of husbands would kill a thousand crones to protect a potential son. This king would do more than that to keep Boleyn safe. Perhaps even be willing to extend that protection, if the recipient proves themselves worthy. Seymour knows she must act before the bandages are removed from her hands and, more importantly, before the king leaves Brynd. Clarice is an attentive nurse, and with their ministrations, the blisters start to heal, leaving a moist layer of puckered skin that weeps pus and blood. For now, Seymour is still a victim.

Every afternoon, while Queen Boleyn rests, the king climbs the narrowing stairs to the top of Brynd’s tallest turret, where lightning crackles around the turret’s apex even on days where there is no storm. The castle gossip has invented several reasons for these daily trips, depending on who one asks and how loyal they are to the queen. Some say he goes to permit Boleyn to rest, away from his attentions. Some say he is fleeing her insatiable sexual appetite. Those who fear invasion say he goes to watch the bordweal and ensure Quisto’s navy is not sailing over the horizon. Seymour wonders whether he simply wishes for some respite from the fawning.

On a cold spring day, Seymour bundles up her courage and follows him. Guards are posted at the bottom and top of the steps, although they only give her the lightest of interrogations before allowing her to ascend – one of the many benefits of looking as unremarkable as she does. She couldn’t possibly be a danger. Through the haze of adrenalin and the pain relief of her poultice, Seymour realises that this is probably why Queen Aragon chose her to kill Boleyn. No one thinks her capable of it.

The king is standing at the very edge of the tower, leaning on the crenelations. He makes a dashing, lonely figure there, his shoulder-length hair billowing behind him. Her own dress isn’t made for this kind of weather – the wind keeps sneaking beneath her petticoats, so it looks as though the gown is a breathing thing. Moving across the turret, she feels as though a single strong gust of wind could lift her up and carry her over the wall across the sea, and she’d be lost to the krakens and kelpies below.

Suddenly, she can’t introduce herself. The desire for solitude radiates from him. Seymour has never been attracted to him before – all her attention has been for his wife – but in this moment she can see how one might fall in love with him.

“Do I know you?”

He doesn’t turn around. His voice is deep but warm, commanding but without accusation. In every movement, every nuance of him, it is evident that he was born to rule a kingdom, and Seymour has the impression that this is an affected stance. For Henry was not born to rule Elben. His brother was.

She curtseys, keeping her head low, subservient. “Your Majesty,” she says.

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

She can hear the smile on his face.

“I was at your wedding.”

He turns around at last and studies her. “Ah yes. You’re the gift.”

The smile is wider now. Like he’s trying not to laugh at the thought of her being a gift as valuable as the lute of rare wood or the silver dragon. A prouder woman than she would baulk at this humiliation, but it doesn’t touch her.

“Yes.”

“And what do you do for my queen here? Do you dance? Sing? Embroider? Entertain?”

“Not well.”

“I see. A gift of little value then?”

Cernunnos, if she’d wanted to be insulted by a man she could have returned to her family’s estate.

“Value can come in many guises.”

She immediately regrets the sharpness in her voice. Back at home, it would earn her a slap. The king just seems amused.

“So you do have teeth, after all.”

He approaches, moving like a cat. Seymour lowers her eyes. Close to, he is like a hidden current, inexorable beneath hypnotic waves. Yes, she can well understand how so many fall in love with him.

“Did you come up here to watch me or to talk to me?” he asks.

“The latter, Your Majesty.”

“Come, then.”

Seymour follows him back to the edge of the turret, and has to hold the wall to steady the onset of dizziness. Behind them, lightning crackles on the antlered points of the conductor. The turret leers out over the ocean. Far below, the water is foam and glass. Beneath the surface, Seymour could swear she glimpses a vast, pale creature, watching her from the depths.

The king, though, points at the horizon, at a shadowy shape veiled by distant mist.

“Do you see that?” he says.

“What is it?”

“The Quistoan navy.”

“Truly?”

Seymour can’t understand why he’s so calm if they’re under attack. A flare goes up from the mist, and momentarily the shadows recede and she can see clearly the shape of a huge warship. A moment later, there’s a low boom, and then a wave, greater than any she’s seen before, radiates out from the vessel. It hits the bruise-coloured barrier that lies between the ship and the coast, and dissipates.

“They cannot reach us. Not yet, anyway,” the king says. “They’re testing the bordweal.”

“Surely they won’t attack Elben while Queen Aragon is your consort?”

He laughs. “Do you really believe that? They said you were simple.”

She wants to ask who said that, but it doesn’t really matter. Besides, to know would only hurt her. Still, the king notices the way she curls in on herself, and turns fully towards her. He places a hand on her arm.

“My apologies. That was ungallant.”

“It is true that I understand little of politics.” She can’t quite bring herself to accept his apology.

“Marrying Queen Aragon offered us a reprieve, for as long as Quisto thought she might bear me a male heir.”

“Because then they would rule Elben through inheritance,” Seymour says.

“Exactly. The world’s trade passes through Elben’s ports. Quisto, Capetia, even Pkolack, would love nothing more than to make Elben a small but perfect jewel in the crown of their empires. But now that my first queen is past her childbearing years, and Quisto feels their influence waning at High Hall, they like their chances of invading while the bordweal is weakened.”

“Will you send your navy out to meet them in battle?”

He shakes his head. “Not while the bordweal holds. If I were to engage them now, they would tell the world that Elben had declared war. We would be perceived as the aggressor.”

“But they’re the ones who are trying to invade.”

“They will say that they were merely passing Elben, and that the cannon fire was a mistake.”

Seymour considers this. She has never been adept at beadulác, the game of war so popular in Elben, but she now sees that politics is less about who has the greater force, and more like the courtship between the king and Boleyn – the perception of surrender or attack.

“What will you do?”

“Fortify Lothair along the border it shares with Quisto. Beyond that, there are many roads I could take. Small bites, to make Quisto nervous. To prepare us for an invasion, if the time comes.”

Seymour thinks of the Quistoan empire, stretching from the borders of Pkolack in the north, across to the eastern lands and then down to the landmass it shares with Capetia and Ezzonid. She thinks about Thomas and wonders what his next move would be.

“Will you strike a deal with Capetia, Your Majesty?”

He looks at her sharply. “Why do you ask that?”

This isn’t why she wanted to talk to him, and she vaguely thinks that she should get the conversation back on track. “I remember my brother saying that the border between Capetia and Quisto is one of the hardest to maintain. I thought, given Queen Boleyn’s links to Capetia, that it would make sense to strike an alliance with them.”

A new idea forms in her head, as though Cernunnos himself had dropped it there, because she’s never before been clever enough for this kind of strategising.

“Then if you had Capetia pushing east from their border, and you pushed south from Lothair, it would be very difficult for Quisto to defend both…”

Henry laughs. “My word, you are intriguing. Have you been eavesdropping on Boleyn?”

Seymour flushes. “I would never…”

“I’m teasing you, Lady Seymour. I only ask because your proposal is almost exactly the same as hers.”

“Perhaps her remarkable mind is rubbing off on me.”

They both look out to the ocean again, but this time the silence is easier, more companionable. Seymour hopes that her unexpected insight has paved the way for her true aim.

“You must be very tired, Your Majesty,” she says.

He looks at her, surprised. “Why do you say that?”

She twists her mittened hands inside her furs. “It is a great burden to bear, ruling this country.”

“I don’t mind that. To be Elben’s ruler is the greatest gift our god could have given me.”

“But?” she says.

“I sometimes worry that I am not a good husband.”

It’s not at all the reply Seymour was expecting.

“Queen Boleyn adores you.”

“The Queen of Hyde is sick. You have heard this?”

Seymour nods.

“I haven’t visited her as often as I should have. The wars, my new marriage… I do love all of my queens, Lady Seymour. I truly do. Blount has given so much, and now she’s…”

He closes his eyes. The king should not weep. Seymour places a hand on his arm.

“You are the greatest man this island, this world, has known, Your Majesty, but not even Cernunnos himself can command time. No one – not your queens or your subjects or your worst enemy – doubts your devotion.”

The king’s eyes remain closed, but he’s listening. She imagines the eleven-year-old boy that must still lurk inside the man’s mind – the boy who’s overwhelmed by his responsibilities. It’s that boy she talks to.

“I know a little about the pressures of family. My brothers, they want me to do things for the good of the Seymours. Things I don’t feel equipped to do.”

“Such as?”

They look at each other directly for the first time. Seymour has the dizzying notion that he is looking at her the way he looks at Boleyn, even though that’s impossible. This had never been in Seymour’s plan. She had wished to gain his protection, nothing more. How could there be more? She is so unremarkable that the king would never see her that way. And yet… would it be so bad, to do what Edward has wanted her to do all along? Seymour is neither powerful nor poor enough to pursue anything so abstract as love: her fate is to marry for status, wealth or ideally a combination of the two. Being a queen would secure her something akin to freedom.

When she speaks, she uses the truth like a weapon, because it is the one weapon she knows she can wield.

“Seduce you. Become the next queen.”

Henry’s mouth flickers.

“I know,” she says. “It’s a ridiculous notion, isn’t it? And the queen…”

“Boleyn?”

“No. Queen Aragon.”

“She wants you to spy for her.”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

She unwraps the bandage on her left hand. The king frowns, moving closer.

“She wanted me to do something for her. And I won’t. I will remain loyal to Queen Boleyn for as long as she is my mistress.”

The bandage whips out of her hand and flies over the edge of the wall, lost to the mist. She imagines it landing like a flag on the mast of that distant Quistoan ship.

“My god,” the king says, staring in horror at the flayed remains of her hand.

“You must protect Queen Boleyn,” Seymour says.

The king looks at her in wonder. “I will. And I’ll protect you too, Lady Seymour.”

She curtseys deeply, and turns to go. And sees, there at the top of the stairs, Queen Boleyn, waiting, watching them, hating her. And she realises, seeing that hate, that it is not merely lust she feels for her queen. It is something much more precious, and much more dangerous.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Boleyn

Boleyn has never viewed Lady Seymour as a threat, even after she understood that there might be more to the woman than her mousy exterior. So why is Henry looking at Seymour with such admiration? Why do his eyes follow her as she brushes past Boleyn with a flushed curtsey and flees down the stairs? Why does it take him so long to meet Boleyn’s gaze?

“My queen,” he says, opening his arms for her. For the first time since that rainy race through the woods when they first met, she does not want to obey. She is unsure how to react. If she shows her displeasure, she’ll seem insecure. Unthinkable. But if she feigns ignorance, she betrays herself. She is the queen who is difficult to please. The queen who rules the king’s heart, who tussles with him in every way possible. That is her self-portrait.

“On the hunt for a new Queen of Hyde before the current one is dead, Henry?” she says at last, sidestepping his embrace and going instead to the apex of the tower. She presses her hand against the conductor. The fizzle of the latent lightning makes the muscles in her arm twitch.

“I was getting to know your mouse,” he says, pulling her away from the tower and lifting her onto one of the crenelations. His words are too light, too easy – he wants her to ask about Seymour, about their conversation. If she accepts his challenge, her insecurity will be obvious. She has no desire to spend more time on blasted Lady Seymour, so she wraps her legs around his waist, letting herself enjoy the warmth of his body, and leans back over the edge instead of replying.

“You’re a madwoman!” Henry laughs, looping his arms around her back to keep her from falling.

“Mad or free?” she says, letting the wind claim her words. Her hair whips around her face. The baby kicks, once, twice, little flutters just for her.

“I have to leave soon,” Henry says. She loses the high of the danger and lets him pull her up.

“No. Henry.” She fails to keep the whine from her voice.

“I’m sorry, my love. But we must press our advantage.”

“You’re going to ally with Capetia?”

The fact that Henry is following her advice almost makes her feel better about Seymour, and his imminent absence.

“Perhaps. I want to discuss it with Cromwell and Wolsey. Maybe More.”

“Hm.”

Henry kisses her, long and slow. “We must humour them,” he says.

The Quistoan ship beyond the bordweal fires another cannonball, sending another shock through the ocean and into the foundations of Brynd.

“When will you leave?” she asks.

“I’ll stay one more week, perhaps. Maybe two. I need to check some things. I have to put some more security in place for you.”

His eyes dart to the stairway.

“You can tell me anything, Henry,” she says.

He plays with her hair, looking over her shoulder towards the ship.

“Lady Seymour informed me of a plot hatched against you.”

Boleyn almost laughs. The ploy is so transparent. There’s little better way to a good man’s heart than claiming to care for those he loves. But all she says is, “Just because Lady Seymour is unable to protect herself, doesn’t mean I can’t.”

The physician told her about Seymour’s injuries. She assumes that it’s some strange Seymour matter. That family is cold. The ladies at court are warned not to be left alone with the eldest brother, Edward. It follows that Lady Seymour would try to spin a family quarrel into something grander, for her own ends.

“Truly, Henry, you’re worrying for nothing.”

“Don’t underestimate them,” he says. She sees two Henrys side by side: the flame-licked dragon, loving and frightening her in equal measures; and the scared little boy watching his older brother dying and, now, watching Queen Blount dying too. She holds him. “I won’t,” she whispers. “I’ll take good care, I promise.”

While Henry rides into Pilvreen to visit Bishop More, Boleyn rests. She used to believe that she had limitless energy, but she finds herself worn out too often these days. She knows it’s the baby, and Mary reassures her that her vigour will return after the birth, but the discontent still grows with her belly.

For as long as she can remember, Boleyn has felt intimately connected to her body. She has always known how much bread to eat before she will feel bloated, always known just where to touch to make herself feel pain or pleasure, always known that a gallop through the rain would make her chest light and her thighs present and solid. But as the child inside her grows, so does the distance between her metaphysical and her physical forms.

Now, she has to reach deeper to understand what her gut is telling her. Even when she can hear it, its directions are jumbled. Her mother told her that what’s best for baby is best for mother too, but now Boleyn isn’t so sure. If she rides and falls, she might lose the baby, but if she doesn’t ride she risks running mad. If she begins to eat the venison she so craves, she fears she won’t be able to stop until she has eaten the whole bloodied carcass. She has never wanted something more than she wants this pulsing entity inside her, and she has never been more frightened that it will consume her, dominate her, leave her.

A knock on the door rouses her from her anxious doze. It’s her maid, come with a bundle of letters. Boleyn leafs through them as the girl fixes her hair, humming her usual song.

Near, far and oversea

The orb calls lonesome out to me

The women cut it three by three

And hold it very dear.

The letters are mostly from minor nobility, asking in one shape or other for her favour – a position in her household, or her help in an inheritance dispute. Later, she will discuss them with Rochford and Mark, who have a knack for working out who should be assuaged and who should be kept in line. In the middle of the pile is a letter that is thicker than the others. The handwriting is uncertain. She recognises it at once – Oswyn, the foreman of the garnet mines. She rips it open. Has he at last found the secret chamber referenced in that ancient book?

One became a looking glass,

One in a tower made of brass,

One underwater, buried alas

They made them disappear.

A pamphlet falls out of the parchment – a single sheet of paper folded to make a booklet. It’s been crudely printed, the words arranged clumsily around several large portraits of the same ugly, peevish woman. The woman is unmistakably Boleyn.

Oswyn’s note is brief: “These are being given out all over, Your Majesty. I thought you should know.”

Boleyn folds the pamphlet back into the paper, her fingers trembling. The maid mustn’t see. Boleyn catches herself: the maid has probably seen already. Probably her entire household has, and Oswyn is the only one who thought to mention it to her.

“I want to ride,” she says. The maid stops singing abruptly and, sensing her mistress’s mood, readies her quickly.

Boleyn gallops Fauvel through the orchards of Brynd. She has little idea of where she is going, only that she welcomes the whip of branches on her skin, the tightness of her wind-stolen breath. It’s only when she emerges onto the cliffs and sees the silhouette of the crumbling folly that she realises she was coming here all along.

She dismounts Fauvel and circles the ivy-covered tower, finding refuge in the sunken seating space. There, feeling safely alone at last, she studies the pamphlet in detail.

NO QUEEN OF OURS!

Not content with stirring up hatred against our most beloved

Queen Aragon and her country of birth, the Imposter Boleyn

now revels in the sickness of Queen Blount. When Queen

Blount’s terrible illness was reported, The Imposter of Brynd

wore RED, the colour of victory, and LAUGHED joyfully at

her sister’s misfortune.

Some may ask why our great King does not punish this

Imposter? Why he married her at all? The answer is clear: she

is not merely an Imposter. She is a Witch.

Our poor King is under her spell. He has been heard to say so

himself, so strong is his Might that even through her sorcery he

calls for our help.

PROTECT ELBEN. FREE OUR KING OF THE WITCH

BOLEYN.

Boleyn’s first instinct is to laugh. It’s preposterous. Absolutely preposterous. But the more she thinks on it, she also sees how very clever it is. Her allegiance to Capetia and dislike of Quisto is well known, she has done nothing to conceal it. She did wear red, to celebrate Henry’s victory over Lothair, not the Queen of Hyde’s illness. And, now she recollects, Henry did say that she had bewitched him – on their first night together. It was a love murmur, nothing more. By seasoning lies with a little truth, the authors of this pamphlet have rendered their accusations credible.

Boleyn turns to the wind and screams, the pamphlet crumpled in her fist. It is not merely the injustice of it, and the fact it undermines all the work she has been doing to win over her citizens. The only people who would have seen her red gown are her household at Brynd. The only ones who could have heard Henry’s words – you have bewitched me, my queen – are the few nobility, family and servants who were present at her public consummation.

There is a spy in her ranks, beyond the upstart Lady Seymour. That or someone very high up is working against her – Cromwell or Wolsey, she wagers. Someone who poses a true threat.

She screams again, but this time she screams at the folly, that broken, useless mass of ivy and stone. She beats her fists against its walls, relishing the smack of pain. Then, in the absence of a person to humiliate, she tears at the ivy instead, pulling and pulling at the knotted vines until a great mass of them comes away, making her stumble and trip backwards.

When she sits up, she is no longer focused on the ivy. For beneath the leaves is not a stone wall, but a brass one. Its mottled patina glints here and there, as though blinking in unwelcome sunlight.

One became a looking glass,

One in a tower made of brass…

Her maid’s old mining song comes back to her now. Cernunnos knows she’s heard it enough times that it’s embedded in her brain. What was it about, though? An orb. An orb, cut by women, three by three. It doesn’t make sense to her yet, but what are the odds that a tower made of brass should be here, on Brynd, one of six castles – three by three, or three and three?

In an instant, Boleyn is back on her feet, the pamphlet forgotten. She pulls away more of the ivy, tugging at roots and stems that have grown and strengthened over centuries, until her hands are almost as flayed as Lady Seymour’s. With every tug, she reveals more brass, and she realises that the folly must, once, have been very beautiful. She is on the brink of giving up when she finds it, tucked away at one side, facing towards the sea. She can feel the edge of something new beneath the remaining ivy – a ridge. Even though her stomach is twinging, even though she knows she should ride back to Brynd and call for a workman, she pulls one last time. The ivy comes away.

There, no bigger than her head, is a six-sided shape, convex, as if hewn from a larger sphere. If she had not heard her maid’s song, she might mistake it for a mirror, or glass. The surface is impossibly smooth, almost liquid, and warm despite the wind. The depths of the piece glitter strangely with the green–purple–gold of divine magic. She presses her hands against it again, and then her ear. Her body prickles, as though the thing is feeding from her.

“She is dying.” A voice, coming from the stone and echoing through her head at the same time. A voice that she recognises: Wolsey’s nasal tone.

Boleyn pulls away from the stone, and almost screams in shock.

She is looking through the glass upon a chamber, not too dissimilar to her own. Simple fabrics cover a bed that sits beneath a glass dome. On the bed lies a withered woman, all limbs, like a mangled spider. Her eyes are glassy, but she looks directly at Boleyn.

Around her bed stand Wolsey and a handful of other men. Boleyn’s jaw tightens. She feels the invasion of the woman’s privacy keenly. Someone should cover her.

A doctor enters and sees the way she is lying. “Did you let her move?” he asks the men. Boleyn hears his voice both through the shape and inside her head. There is a dreamlike quality to it all, except that Boleyn has the strangest feeling that she is in the room with the dying woman, standing at the foot of her bed, even as she is also standing outside the folly at Brynd.

“Your Majesty? Can you hear me?” the doctor says. Boleyn realises with a shock that this must be Queen Blount, the consort of the Palace of Hyde, whose illness she has been accused of celebrating.

“She insisted,” one of the men replies. “Said she wanted to look outside one last time.”

Blount is staring directly at Boleyn, her eyes tired but intense. Then Wolsey turns around to see what Blount is looking at… and doesn’t react at all. He moves towards Boleyn, looks straight through her, as though he were peering through a perfectly normal window.

But the queen can see Boleyn, she’s sure of it. Boleyn sees her take one final, laboured breath. She sees Blount close her eyes. She sees the doctor take her pulse and shake his head at the other men. As they each make the sign of the antlered god, the vision fades, the stone becomes clear once more. Boleyn sinks to the ground as she pieces together what just happened.

This is no mere glass. It’s one of the sunscína – the far-sighted mirrors of ancient lore, and it works for the Queens of Elben alone.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Seymour

The day she hears of Queen Blount’s death, Seymour finds a parcel on her bed. Mindful of the Queen’s Kiss, she dons thick gloves and a veil before opening it. Inside is a length of blue silk and a white ermine fur and, laid on top of both, two pieces of jewellery. The first is a brooch depicting a damsel clutching a heart-shaped ruby. The second is a necklace with a mother-of-pearl pendant shaped like a crown. The meaning is clear, even to someone as simple as her: blue is the colour of royalty, so she knows it is a gift from the king. Ermines symbolise purity, like the purity Seymour showed in telling the king about Queen Aragon’s plot against Boleyn. And she is meant to be the damsel, offering her heart in exchange for a queenship.

Even though this isn’t love, Seymour thrills all the same. It is the perfect, courtly flirtation that she has spent so long admiring, never imagining she would experience it for herself. She must respond in kind – a symbolic gesture that honours the king’s generosity and tells him something of her own mindset. If only she were clever enough to know what that might be.

Before she can work out what to do, there’s a knock on Seymour’s door and without waiting for an answer, Mary Boleyn flounces in, her honeysuckle perfume filling the room, jewels – her trademark diamonds – glittering at her wrist and neck against the midnight of her mourning dress. Seymour rushes to cover up the gifts, but Mary spots them immediately.

“What did you get?” she asks, pulling the bedcovers back to reveal the cloth and jewels.

“Oh, you clever girl. No one saw you coming, did they? Boleyn told me we were underestimating you.”

“I’m sending them back,” Seymour says, blushing, wondering when Boleyn said such a thing. She bundles the gifts together and calls for Clarice. She hadn’t intended to send them back at all, but what else can she do in Mary’s presence?

“Wait.”

Mary takes the bundle and extracts the ermine. “He’ll be angry if you return it all. You have to learn to play the game. Anyway, you might as well get something for your efforts.”

Once Clarice has returned the remaining gifts to the king and Mary has left her alone, Seymour realises how clever her play was. The ermine, the symbol of purity, is the one item Seymour has kept. She is telling the king that she accepts his attention, but that she is too pure for his other presents. It sets her apart from Boleyn, who revels in her husband’s generosity. She wonders where Mary learned such game-playing, and why she is not furious on her sister’s behalf.

Seymour doesn’t have to wait long before Clarice returns.

“He wants to see you,” they say, eyebrow raised.

“Don’t,” Seymour says. She doesn’t need or want Clarice’s judgement. Clarice doesn’t understand how she’s stuck between her family, Boleyn, Aragon and the king.

She pulls on a simple gown of thin, soft wool and drapes the ermine around her neck. Time for the next move.

She finds him in the rose gardens, a maze of high brick walls sitting between the herb gardens and the orchards. Brynd’s gardeners have been very clever, planting summer and winter roses in alternating patterns, so that the garden is filled with perfume and colour in every season. Winter roses, from Pkolack and the colder deserts of the vast Uuvek empire, are pastels and sherbets, and their scents are subtler than their more vibrant summer counterparts. The king waits for her at the maze’s entrance, looking very gallant in hunting gear. If she were to stand straight, she would match his height. He offers her his arm and leads her into the maze, discreetly followed by his guards.

“You’re not like my other queens,” he says.

“I’m not a queen, Your Majesty.”

“But you want to be.”

“My brothers want me to be. I have no such ambition.”

That’s a misstep. He struggles to word his next sentence: “You don’t want me?”

Seymour almost laughs, the wounded pride is so obvious. But something tells her that she mustn’t laugh. That’s not the role he has allotted to her. Boleyn is allowed to laugh at him because she so clearly adores him. But for someone more reserved, like Seymour, laughter would be humiliating. She strokes the ermine.

“I only mean that I never dreamed you would notice me.”

He tilts her chin up with a gloved hand. His eyes are blue like lapis lazuli, like the clothing only people of the royal family can wear. They are flecked with something of the bordweal, purples and greens swirling in their depths.

Yes, she can understand why Boleyn fell in love with him. Why so many women do – he is the ultimate contradiction. A man of power and good looks and intelligence, but with all the vulnerability of the boy who watched his brother sicken and die, who took up the king’s mantle in a time of war and threat, who was raised being told that he alone can save the kingdom, but only if he marries the right six women.

“If I deem you worthy of my love, then you are worthy. Do you understand, Lady Seymour?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

He offers her his arm once more. Even though they are deep in the maze now, she feels a hundred eyes watching her from Brynd’s windows. Below the crunch of their feet on the path, she can hear the hum of the castle’s beehives at the centre of the maze.

“My people tell me you’re skilled at needlework,” he says. It’s flattering, she supposes, and it’s meant to be flattering – he, the king, has enquired about her.

“I enjoy it; I’m not sure that’s the same thing though.”

He laughs. “Like me and my grasp of languages. No matter how much I study them, I never feel as though I am making much sense to the natives.”

“I’ve heard you speak to the Capetian ambassador. No one would ever have thought you wanting.”

“Except the Capetian ambassador.” He grins.

They turn a corner, into the centre of the maze. A dozen skeps are nestled in the circular space – straw wound tightly into a dome. A beekeeper in a wide hat and long veil lifts one of the skeps and cuts some honeycomb into a clay bowl. The bees buzz around him, ineffective. Seymour wonders if they feel the loss of that honeycomb, won with such labour.

“Your family has an interesting heritage,” Henry says. “Your ancestor was the architect of the Tower, I believe?”

“We owe everything to the throne,” she agrees. The first Lord Seymour designed the gaol at High Hall, in which the most high-born prisoners are kept before their executions. It is a source of shame and pride to her family: when he was in a bad or drunken mood, her father used to show her the old blueprints, revealing all the machinations of that terrible place. But to be descended from a glorified tradesman is not something to admit to in highborn company.

“Another thing you have in common with Boleyn,” he says. She assumes he’s referring to her battle strategy suggestion.

“Will you ally with Capetia?” she asks.

He plucks one of the winter roses from its stem and turns to her, tucking the flower tenderly into the hair above her ear. The silver petals feel silken against her cheek.

“It would make my love for Boleyn very apparent.”

“Is that bad?”

“Have you heard? What my people are saying about her?”

Seymour has heard a little. She caught murmurings from the servants, from lesser courtiers. And of course, Clarice has told her, with a chin jut that says they hold the originators of the gossip in highest contempt, even as they spread the gossip.

“She doesn’t deserve to be so maligned,” is all she says.

“We have done a lot for her people, and this is how they repay us,” he says. Us? Seymour thinks. The only thing you did was give your wife money.

“So you will ally with Capetia to prove your love for her?”

The king smiles sadly. Some might say, nobly.

“I wish I could. Boleyn possesses the most brilliant mind. But these rumours have made it impossible for me to follow her schemes. It would be seen as further proof that she has bewitched me.”

“I cannot think that anyone can believe that,” Seymour says truthfully. No one who has been in the king’s presence, who has seen the aura of the divine magic surrounding him, could ever believe that sorcery would work on him.

“Do you know my people better than me, madam?” he says. He’s still smiling, toying with her the way Boleyn does.

“Of course not.” They continue walking.

“I am certain that you will find the right way. You must have many other ideas, so much better than anything anyone else could have imagined,” she says.

He laughs again. “Please don’t try to compliment me again, Lady Seymour. You’re clumsy when you’re not being honest.”

“I’m clumsy all the time,” Seymour says. “I find it overwhelming to be surrounded by all these quick wits at Brynd.”

“Well, if everyone was as clever as the Boleyn family, the world would be a tempestuous place,” he says. His smile fades. She hazards a guess at the cause – something that will make him feel good about himself, even if she is wrong.

“Are you thinking of Queen Blount?”

He nods.

“How long were you married?”

“Nigh on a decade. She was a wonderful woman. Very quiet, but she had the most incredible strength. She used to make this adorable face when she was reading. Like this.”

He screws up his face and bites his lower lip. Seymour laughs, even though she thinks how strange it is to be courted by a man with descriptions of his recently deceased wife. Stranger still that it makes him more attractive.

“You and she endured much together.” She’s referring to their son, the boy who would have been Elben’s heir. He survived longer than Queen Aragon’s sons, passing away from consumption as a boy.

Henry nods, pats her hand as though he’s the one comforting her. “She’ll be with him now, at least. Maybe that’s what hastened her illness. Maybe she wanted to see him again.”

He seems to be reassuring himself. Emboldened by this intimacy, Seymour says, “What do you think she would want you to do now, if she could speak to you from the heavens?”

“I think… I think she would understand that everything that I have done has been for Elben. She would understand.”

They continue their walk in silence. His hand is, once again, cocooning hers.

She becomes aware of two burly men approaching along a different path.

“These are your guards, now, Lady Seymour,” the king says.

“Guards?”

“You’ve placed yourself in great danger through your loyalty to me and mine. Now allow me to show my loyalty to you.”

Seymour thanks him, and curtseys again, and as he returns her to the castle he says, “One more thing, Lady Seymour. From now on, you may call me Henry.”

“Henry.” She lets the name swirl around her mouth as she detaches herself from him. Her guards follow her into the palace. That wasn’t so bad. He’s a good man. A kind and generous man. But then, so are all powerful men when they are pleased.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Boleyn

They’re in bed when Henry tells her the news. “You’re going to be angry with me,” he says, kissing his way down her stomach. “So I’m going to make it up to you.”

She hasn’t been sleeping well – her hips hurt, and there’s a patch of skin on her ribs that won’t stop itching, no matter how much meadowsweet paste she rubs on it. She sits up – she can no longer lie flat on her back without discomfort – and opens her legs for him. She lets herself admire the war-toned muscles of his arms. Then she closes her eyes and lets the bliss flow over her.

“Tell me,” she says.

He pauses in his attentions. “Wolsey is brokering a trade deal with Quisto.”

She says nothing. She had expected something like this ever since she saw the pamphlet. Henry had comforted her, of course, but she knew that he couldn’t possibly ally with Capetia with such rumours circulating. It hurts that he isn’t willing to stand by her unequivocally, but she must remember that he’s a king, not merely a husband. He must play the game.

And she, after all, is playing her own game. She has not told him about her discovery of the sunscína. She was going to, but when she returned from the folly, she could only remember the way he had looked at Lady Seymour on that turret.

“Will you return to the war in Alpich?” she asks, eyes still closed, trying to enjoy his ministrations but needing to know everything.

“Yes. And I’m going to take an armada up to Thawodest.”

A mostly barren set of islands far north of Elben, the kingdom of Thawodest sits between the independent and insular nation of Pkolack and the far reaches of Quisto’s empire. She has to admit that second to her plan to pincer Quisto between Lothair and Capetia, this is an excellent move. As with Lothair, taking Thawodest will expand the Elbenese empire and send a warning to Quisto without allowing them to claim that Henry is being aggressive towards them.

“Does Aragon know yet?”

“I’ve sent Cromwell to inform her.”

Boleyn smiles. So Henry isn’t so disloyal that he’s going to give Aragon the satisfaction of telling her himself. Henry props himself up. “How close are you?” he asks.

She draws him into her arms. “That felt wonderful, but I don’t think it’s going to happen,” she says.

Henry kisses her then grins. “That will never do.”

He slips two fingers inside her and works with concentration until she comes. She feels obliged to return the favour.

“You are blessed, sister,” Mary murmurs, as Boleyn waves Henry off later that day. He must return to High Hall for the Quisto negotiations, and to prepare for the invasion of Thawodest. Boleyn rests a hand on Mary’s arm. She cannot tell Mary that she doesn’t feel blessed, because at least Henry is healthier than ever, not festering in a plague-ridden coffin like Mary’s love.

Lady Seymour is part of the retinue that follows them inside. Boleyn doesn’t think he looked much at her before he left – all his attention was for Boleyn and her swollen stomach. But she has seen the two of them walking together through the grounds of Brynd, picking the flowers that Boleyn ordered planted.

She has underestimated Seymour. Most women who’ve tried to throw themselves at Henry since he and Boleyn married have flirted and played hard to get and been a little irritable, but none of them can do it the way Boleyn does. Seymour is using her own strengths. Maybe it’s time Boleyn started treating her like a rival. Maybe she needs to get to know her better.

“I feel like going to the font,” Boleyn announces, as soon as they reach her antechamber. Syndony gestures to the servants, who immediately leave the room to prepare a convoy. The Font of Cernunnos, sometimes known as the Royal Font, is nearly a day’s journey from Brynd, on the border of Hyde’s territory. It is reputed to contain healing properties. Only the royal family is permitted to go there, and Boleyn has never been.

“I think I’ll take an attendant,” she says, her eyes skimming those in the room. Rochford and Mary exchange smug glances, believing that one of them will be picked.

“Lady Seymour, perhaps you would be kind enough to join me?”

Seymour, hiding in the corner as usual, can’t conceal her shock.

“Me?”

“Certainly. It’s the least I can do for Queen Aragon’s gift. I hear you’ve been injured lately. Perhaps the waters of the font can help.”

Seymour flinches. “Thank you. I’m honoured.”

George whispers, “Behave, Boleyn. Don’t tease her too much.”

“Why? Do you think she’s too fragile to handle it?”

Mary catches up with her as she changes into her travelling clothes.

“What are you playing at, sister?” she says, throwing herself onto the bed.

“Get off my bed. We’re not children any more,” Boleyn says, throwing her muffler at her and rather undermining her point. Mary flounces over to the window seat instead.

“Well? I know you don’t want to spend time with her.”

“Nonsense. I’m enjoying discovering her hidden depths.”

Mary snorts.

Seymour barely speaks on the journey, barely even looks at Boleyn, although she answers her questions politely enough. Boleyn can’t make her out at all. There must be thoughts happening in that unremarkable head, but what sort?

They stop at the market in Pilvreen to purchase two bone mugs of perry, warm and frothed and sprinkled with nutmeg. As they sip their drinks, Oswyn approaches the carriage.

“Is all well, Master Oswyn?” she asks the top of his bowed head.

“Oh yes,” he replies. He darts a look at Seymour, and Boleyn shakes her head infinitesimally. They cannot speak freely.

“My workers think they’ve found… what you were looking for. They’re trying to break through to it, but the rock’s putting up a fight.”

She passes him a gold coin, aware of Seymour watching the exchange. It would not do for Seymour to catch wind of any hidden chambers in the mines, especially not chambers that may hold the secret to fortifying Henry’s divine magic, if she has deciphered Bishop More’s old book correctly.

“The eternal quest for more garnets,” she tells her companion as the carriage drives on. Seymour nods, pacified.

At some point Boleyn must doze, because a particularly sharp jolt from the carriage flings her from dreams of crystal, eyes wide awake to a landscape of rock and heather. They must have passed through the Holtwode already and left the scrind road. This must be the slow, sloping path up into the mountains.

There are shouts from above and the guard outside the window draws his weapon.

“What is it?” she asks Seymour.

Seymour is tense.

“A crone,” she says, and points out a distant silhouette. Far above them, a tall, spindled figure makes its way across the ridge of the mountainside. Boleyn shivers, despite her many layers. There’s something about crones that elicits the same reaction in her as spiders do in others. The way the front legs are so much longer than the back, the protrusion of the empty udders, just behind the front legs, and the long, lank hair of the beast’s head that is a mockery of a lady’s. Then she sees that this crone has something in its mouth.

“What is that?” Seymour asks.

The guards don’t answer. A moment later, Boleyn understands why. The creature is holding a human arm, severed at the shoulder.

“Should we kill it, Your Majesty?” the guard says.

Boleyn considers the figure. Either it hasn’t seen them or it is sated for now. Seymour’s knuckles are clenched on the window as she waits for her mistress’s verdict. It’s almost enough for Boleyn to say yes. But to fight a crone would likely end in at least one of their group dying.

“No, leave it alone as long as it doesn’t follow us.”

“Very good, Your Majesty.”

The guard doesn’t try to disguise his relief.

The carriage winds up and up a corkscrew road. As the hours tick on, the soft heather transforms into ashy soil. The sun is low in a sky of ombre oranges and pinks when they finally come within sight of the Font of Cernunnos. It’s uglier than Boleyn had imagined, not in keeping with the other royal estates, which are either elegant or impressive. The building that houses the font is squat, dwarfed by the mountain it sits atop. Long fingers of blackened lava streak down the rock, incongruous in the rest of Elben’s landscape. The air is unnaturally cold here, too, and the road turns icy. Once or twice the horses slip on the smooth surface, and the carriage topples alarmingly. They stop for the grooms to attach ice shoes to the horses’ hooves, and then they’re off again, climbing more steadily now to the very top of the mountain.

The font is made of the same ice and lava that runs down the hillside: hewn into bricks and laid in alternating patterns to create zigzags and diagonals of ivory and charcoal. The path from the carriage is so slippery that the grooms create a makeshift palanquin to carry first Boleyn and then Seymour into the safety of the building, where the floor is rough lava.

The Keeper of the Font, a monk bearing the antlered headdress of Cernunnos, greets them at the entrance. With him are six nuns, wearing stylised headdresses to emulate the ears of a doe. The nuns lead Boleyn and Seymour into an antechamber, where the steam from the font warms them as they undress. Seymour hunches as she removes her clothes, her back to Boleyn. Even in the dim light of the chamber, Boleyn’s eyes are drawn not to the bandages on Seymour’s hands, but to the thin, raised lines across her thighs. She thinks of the rumours that swirl around Edward Seymour, and assumes the scars are his doing. She wonders whether she, too, would be a mouse if she had such a brother. She likes to think she would have more spirit than that. That Edward would sport a few scars of his own.

“I hear the waters are cloudy,” Boleyn tells Seymour. “Shall we hide ourselves in their warmth?”

It’s an olive branch, but Seymour doesn’t acknowledge it. Boleyn’s maid helps them both into thick, red robes to hide their nakedness as they pass from the antechamber into the steam-filled suffocation of the font. A tiled path runs around the edges of the room. In the middle, a jagged-edged pool is formed from a crater. The waters are murky, bubbling with the perfumed air from deep within the mountain.

Murals on the walls tell the story of the font. The first King of Elben, Aethelred, praying to Cernunnos, beset by enemies. Aethelred answering Cernunnos’s summons and coming to him on the Hyfostelle mountains – these mountains. Cernunnos rising from the ground in a whirlwind of lava and smoke. The king’s amazement as Cernunnos fashions the six castles of Daven, Brynd, Hyde, Cnothan, Plythe and Mathmas, and sends them flying to the coasts of Elben. They show Aethelred with his six chosen wives, who would become the first vessels for the king’s power. And the ice-ridden mountain and the font, left behind once Cernunnos returned to the fabric of Elben, the water turned in the ensuing years into a kind of royal bath, still containing the blessing of the god. The weight of that history, of her great purpose, settles on Boleyn. Settles in her stomach. She covers the swell with a hand, feeling how hard the flesh is, where it was once supple.

Her maid removes her robe and two nuns support her as she moves down the uneven steps into the water. They settle her on a smooth ledge at the far end of the pool. A moment later, Lady Seymour is placed next to her. The nuns disappear, although they might still be within touching distance – it’s hard to tell through the steam. Boleyn takes deep lungfuls of hot, heady air – a touch of chilli, enough to tickle the throat pleasantly.

The water is deep, and Boleyn is short. As her toes scrabble for purchase on one of the many narrow ledges, they accidentally touch Seymour’s foot. Seymour blushes and pulls away.

“You are very proper, aren’t you, Lady Seymour?” Boleyn says.

“It’s what I’ve been taught,” Seymour says.

“What else have you been taught?” Boleyn says. Maybe it’s the spice in the air, or the crone earlier, but she wants nothing more than to needle Seymour until she cracks. How dare this woman act the prude when she has worked so hard to catch Henry’s attention?

Moving closer to her, almost pinning her into her corner, Boleyn takes hold of Seymour’s bandaged hands.

“What are you…?”

“The waters of the font are healing,” Boleyn says, unwinding the fabric. The apothecary has done an excellent job. The flayed skin is tender and raw, like plucked chicken, but already beginning to heal.

“Your brother’s work?” she asks. Seymour’s breath is short, like a frightened deer. Boleyn is so close she can see the flecks of volcanic ash clinging to the woman’s eyelashes.

“No.”

Boleyn lowers Seymour’s hands beneath the water and she lets out a shivery exhale that eddies the steam across Boleyn’s cheek.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“I don’t mind it,” Seymour says. Her eyes flick to Boleyn and away again.

“You act very timid for someone who approached the king by herself. For someone who seems to have so many enemies,” Boleyn says.

Seymour remains silent.

“Do you really think you could ever match me?” Boleyn says. Heat courses through her that has nothing to do with the warmth of the water. It is fury, the like of which she has spent most of her life trying to temper. She wants to find the chink in Seymour’s armour and stick a knife right through it.

“No,” Seymour whispers.

“You are nothing and he is mine.”

“Is he?” Seymour says. Her question is placid, but it hits Boleyn in the chest.

“I’m carrying his child.”

Seymour’s mouth twists, not unpleasantly.

“What?” Boleyn says.

“It is not for me to say.”

“I will decide that.” She’s still holding Seymour’s hands beneath the clouded water, and she pulls them now so that she’s nose to nose with her lady-in-waiting, her cuckoo.

“I used to be Queen Aragon’s attendant,” Seymour says. “He used to adore her once too.”

Boleyn flicks the comment away. “And you think he’ll adore you? For long enough to get you into Hyde?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. I don’t think he’ll adore me at all.”

Boleyn is taken aback by Seymour’s honesty, but she is still hiding something.

“Then what do you want, Lady Seymour?”

That flick of the eyes again, first to Boleyn’s eyes, then down to her mouth – what does it mean?

“Safety. That is all I want,” Seymour says.

Boleyn’s laughter echoes strangely through the font – the rock amplifies the sound while the steam distorts it. She is reminded of Wyatt’s impromptu poem: thunder circles the throne. Seymour is naive indeed if she thinks that safety is simple, or that she will find it in a crown.

“That is all,” Boleyn repeats, more quietly now. “Is that all?”

She leans towards Seymour, tilting her head up to reach the other woman’s ear. “Do you know what I despise about women like you? That you make people believe that purity and goodness go hand in hand with stupidity. It is a very clever ruse, but it is still a ruse. The cleverest thing you ever did was to make people think you are stupid, and every time you do it, you make women weaker. You leach us of our power. There is nothing good or pure in that. You should be ashamed.”

That’s when Boleyn feels it: the way Seymour angles her cheek, her ear, towards Boleyn’s mouth. Her eyes are closed, but not in fear or anger. They are closed, soft as prayer, the way Boleyn closes her eyes when Henry is kissing her. And just like that, Boleyn solves the riddle.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Seymour

Seymour feels the change in Boleyn before she even opens her eyes. The queen knows – knows that Seymour is in love with her. Seymour moves as though she’s been attacked, pulling away from the source of her torment and slipping on the ledge in her haste. She goes under, inhaling rancid water that burns her throat. The nuns haul her onto the side of the font and pound her on the back until she has cleared her lungs. She takes deep, wracking breaths and looks anywhere, anywhere but at the queen, until the nuns, satisfied that she’s out of danger, retire into the depths of the steam once more.

“How long?” Boleyn asks, so quietly that Seymour can barely hear her.

“Don’t pity me,” Seymour says. She’s spent a lifetime having people feel sorry for her, and she’s borne it. With Boleyn it’s different. Pity and Boleyn don’t belong together. She will take insults and ill will from the queen, but she will not take compassion.

“How long?” the queen asks again.

“Just because I love you does not mean I like you.”

They stare at each other through the haze. To Seymour, the font feels colder than it should. The room stale and the water rotten. The only magic here is in the pregnant woman standing before her, water lapping at her collarbones. Boleyn’s mouth twitches.

“I think that’s the first truly honest thing you’ve said to me, Lady Seymour.”

Another bout of coughing assaults Seymour, and before she can stop herself, her coughs turn to laughter. Before long, both women are heaving with mirth. The nuns appear once more, fluttering in distress until Boleyn and Seymour have control of themselves. Seymour feels their judgement as they wrap her and Boleyn in robes and brush out their damp hair.

Two simple lodging houses run adjacent to the font: one for the keeper and nuns, the other for the royal family and their guests and servants. Boleyn and Seymour are shown into the latter, hewn from the same ice and rock as the font but with little of that building’s warmth. They dine simply and in near silence, the weight of Seymour’s confession lying heavily between them. Seymour shivers through the meal, even though a fire staves off the worst of the mountain chill.

“It is your wounds healing,” Boleyn says, observing her. “The waters are still at work in your body.”

Seymour flexes her hands, still unwrapped. Skin, glistening, light brown, unfurls across the bare sinew and muscle like ice forming on glass.

Afterwards, they are shown into the only bedchamber and helped out of their gowns and into linen shifts. Seymour settles herself onto a long-chair strewn with furs and thick blankets, while Boleyn takes the bed. The nuns who had been attending them curtsey as they leave, closing the door behind them. Boleyn blows out the sole candle beside her bed, allowing shadows to flood the room. Outside, a howl from some creature rises above the moan of the wind.

“It will be warmer for both of us if we share the bed.” Boleyn’s voice comes through the darkness.

Seymour must be dreaming already. The room is so still, so unreal, as she pads from the long-chair to the four-poster bed and slips beneath the blankets. The covers are thicker than hers were, and her feet find the warm patch left by the bedpan. The bed is large enough that Seymour would need to reach out her arm to touch Boleyn, but the proximity is enough to bring Seymour’s breath to the top of her throat. Boleyn’s pale figure shifts so that she’s facing Seymour. When she speaks, her voice is barely audible over the wind.

“Is it only women you love? Or are you like my brother?”

Seymour bridles at the question. It’s never been as simple to her as women or men. She has never loved a body in its entirety. She loves specifics: a particular smile, or a turn of phrase spoken in a certain accent, or, in Boleyn’s case, her hair.

“The first person I ever loved was my servant, and they’re neither man nor woman,” she says. It’s the first time she’s admitted this to anyone, even Clarice.

“And men? Can you love men?” Boleyn says.

“Yes.” She had a dalliance with one of Thomas’s friends a few years ago. He was a sweet boy, out of his depth in Thomas’s circle, and they used each other to explore what felt nice and what felt uncomfortable.

“That’s good,” Boleyn says. Seymour knows what she means: her future will be less painful this way. If she were a second daughter, or royalty, or both, she might have more freedom – the king’s younger sister Cecilia is very happily installed in a palace in Perfugi, surrounded by male and female concubines. But as the first-born daughter of a lord, Seymour will be expected to bear children and advance the Seymour name.

“The king has noticed you,” Boleyn says. The question in the statement is implicit.

“That wasn’t my intention. Not to begin with, anyway.”

“Well, he has, so what will you do now?”

Seymour considers this. She might, if she were nimbler and more adept at courtly love, be able to turn the king aside without offending him. It would seem like the correct course to take now that Boleyn knows her true feelings. The real question is – does she want to? What would she have to gain from turning him away? Only the betrayal of herself and the woman she loves. A small price to pay.

“What would you do?” she says.

“You and I have very different needs,” Boleyn replies.

“What would you have me do?”

Boleyn is silent for a long time. “You mean to deceive Henry, to make him believe you love him. I can never approve of that,” she says at last.

“I see.”

“But I think I understand, Seymour. You will have neither my approval nor my judgement if you pursue him.”

It’s not the absolution Seymour wants from Boleyn, but nor is she forbidding her.

“And what about you?” Seymour says, hope pulsating through her. “Are you like your brother?”

Boleyn’s hand finds hers. She threads her fingers with Seymour’s, like a pact.

“I have only ever loved one person in that way,” Boleyn says softly.

“The king.”

“Yes. Henry.”

“I know.” Seymour has known this since the moment she met the queen. The day she offered herself up to Boleyn as a gift. They lapse into silence. Boleyn extricates her fingers from Seymour’s, and turns over. Even sharing a bed, even with the many blankets, Seymour is freezing. Boleyn exhales shakily from the other side of the bed.

“Are you cold?” Seymour says.

“A little. It’s my feet, really.”

Seymour shuffles over to Boleyn. The other woman is shivering gently, her back to Seymour. Seymour arranges herself so that her body, soft beneath her linen nightshift, cups Boleyn’s. Her mouth rests just behind Boleyn’s ear, her hand lightly over Boleyn’s bump. She tangles her feet with Boleyn’s, and the two of them gasp at how cold the other’s are.

“I thought you were trying to warm me, not chill me further,” Boleyn says, a grin in her voice.

Seymour laughs, then without thinking, says, “I can warm you another way if you’d like.”

The air between them changes instantly. A blooming heat of a different kind. Both women are very still.

“How?” Boleyn whispers.

Seymour moves her hand up over Boleyn’s shift, gentle as a fox, and grazes a thumb over her nipple. Boleyn emits a little “oh”. Seymour does it again. She leans into Boleyn’s ear, rubbing her cheek against the queen’s hair. It is just as soft and smooth as she imagined. “I could show you,” she whispers, the darkness giving her permission to be bold, “all the many ways we women were made for bliss.”

Boleyn’s breath is fast. Seymour’s hand skates down now, but Boleyn catches it.

“Stop,” she says.

She holds Seymour’s hand over her belly, their fingers interlinked. Seymour feels the king’s poesy ring, hard and cold, against her skin. She lies to herself, because it’s easier to do so: it is the ring that is the wall, keeping Boleyn from her. The ring and Boleyn’s naive, charming faithfulness. Nothing else, or why would Boleyn keep holding her hand?

There are more confessions then, whispered in the safety of darkness and the softness of their cupping bodies. Seymour’s true mission. The oracle’s prophecy.

“Would you have killed me if you hadn’t already begun to love me?” Boleyn asks.

“Yes,” Seymour says.

Boleyn laughs breathily, her stomach contracting beneath Seymour’s hand. “I can’t tell you how much that delights me.”

Seymour supposes that isn’t such a strange reaction for Boleyn – an escape from death is a victory, after all.

“Do you believe what the oracle told Princess Tudor?” Seymour asks.

“Of course. It is strange, though…”

“Go on.” Boleyn’s shoulder twitches against Seymour’s chest. Seymour has noticed that she moves her shoulders when she’s thinking deeply.

“From the storm, a blossom. From the blossom, a tree. Tallest of all, strongest of all, to cast Daven’s seed into shade.”

The prophecy sounds more melodious in Boleyn’s voice than it did in Princess Tudor’s. A promise, not a threat.

“Don’t you see the oddness?” Boleyn says.

Seymour shakes her head, even though Boleyn won’t be able to see her. She feels slow and dull once more.

“Surely that prophecy should have been for me or my child,” Boleyn continues. “Why did the oracle give it to the princess?”

Seymour hadn’t thought of this. “Maybe the fates of the princess and your child are so intertwined that their prophecies cannot be separated.”

Seymour feels Boleyn turn over to face her.

“You’re thinking something else,” Boleyn says.

“Only what a burden that would be, if it were true. To never be free of another’s name, spoken alongside your own. To be compared in perpetuity.”

Boleyn’s hand finds Seymour’s once more.

“I always thought you were quiet,” Boleyn says. “But I was wrong, wasn’t I? Now that I’m truly listening to you, I can hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“The endless scream of your soul.”

Boleyn’s breathing deepens as she falls asleep. Seymour knows, in that moment, that she will offer herself as a gift every day for the rest of her life if Boleyn will allow it.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Boleyn

Boleyn cannot forget the tenderness or the surety of Seymour’s embrace. She was telling the truth when she said that she has only ever loved one man. She has only ever been with one person, too – Henry. She had assumed that Seymour was a virgin. So when Seymour jokingly proposed warming her up, she was half curiosity, half pity – let Seymour explore Boleyn a little. But Seymour, it seems, is not inexperienced at all. Yet another secret. Yet another way in which Boleyn has been mistaken.

When they drive through Pilvreen on their return from the font, the disparity between her and her lady-in-waiting is more pronounced. So many of her people look at her with disgust. She can see them muttering whore and witch when they think she cannot see, and even though she knows it’s unfair and unkind, the rageful part of her wants to point at Seymour and shout, “She is the whore! She is the one built of lies!”

With one riddle solved, though, she can at least turn her attention to another: what to do about these pamphlets and these rumours. With Henry gone to war, she cannot find a solution with him, and in any case he has more important things to consider. She will find a way through without him, prove herself a help, not a burden.

If she cannot confide in Henry, though, who can she confide in? George would try to reassure her, and she cannot tell Mark or Rochford without them telling her brother. Something stops her from confiding in Mary – the two of them love each other ferociously, but there has always been an undercurrent of competition. That leaves only one person she can think of. That it might send Henry a little message – that her love should not be taken for granted – is a delightful afterthought.

“Tell Master Wyatt to join me for a turn around the palace grounds,” she tells Syndony.

Wyatt is pleasingly swift, finding her in the vestibule only moments later. This is how he makes himself useful now that Henry has destroyed the bishop’s book: with company, entertainment and light, safe flirtation. He is very good at pretending to adore her, which is just the way she likes it. She enjoys his mind, sharply political but honest. That’s what she needs now.

They walk, followed discreetly by Boleyn’s guards, towards Brynd’s sanctuary, which sits, tall and stolid, along the open road between the castle and the port. On the wall facing the ocean, the sanctuary’s stone has been blasted pale by the sea salt. On the inland side it is dull and grey. Boleyn’s mind is full of dualities at the moment. Light and shadow. True and false. Open and secret. Loyal and traitor.

“You spend time in Pilvreen,” she says to Wyatt.

“Time and too much money, my queen.”

“On ale, women, cards or all three?”

“My vices are many.”

“And amidst your vices, do you hear rumours?”

Wyatt glances at her curiously as they approach the sanctuary. A wooden door is set into the wall, and they wait for one of the guards to unlock it. Wyatt holds it open for Boleyn to pass through, then follows her in.

“I didn’t think you would concern yourself with rumours.”

The sanctuary stands in the middle of a graveyard. At one end of the lawn are the simpler gravestones of Brynd’s senior household – the stewards and stewardesses, the masters and mistresses of horse and so on. Boleyn finds herself drawn towards the other end, where more elaborate stones, each one topped with Cernunnos’s antlers, mark the graves of Brynd’s queens, right back to the ancient times.

“I think every monarch should know what is said about them. We only rule with the goodwill of our people, after all.”

“Or the goodwill of the king,” Wyatt says.

Something about the tone turns his words into a challenge.

“I’ve never doubted the king’s love for me,” she says.

“Why should you? He’s a most devoted husband.”

Boleyn resists slapping him. Wyatt always knows how to tenderise her.

“I don’t like the rumours that are being spread about me,” she says, coming to a halt in front of a crooked gravestone. In the long line of queens’ graves, this is the only one that has been left to the moss, the only one that has not a single wilting flower placed upon it in memory. The name engraved upon it is barely legible now, but no one needs to be able to read to know who lies beneath this stone.

Isabet, traitor consort.

“Do you think these rumours will last?” Wyatt asks.

“That’s what I wanted to ask you. Is this simply because the people of Brynd do not trust any of their queens, or is it me they dislike?”

“You wish to know if it’s personal.”

“Yes. And I wish to know who started them.”

“Who started them?”

“Someone in my household is spreading half-truths, Master Wyatt.”

“Have you considered it might be me?” Wyatt says. He plucks a marigold from the edge of the cemetery and offers it to Boleyn. She smells the petals. They remind her of the pottage her family’s cook used to make with these very same flowers.

“Naturally, but I soon dismissed you.”

“I’m wounded. May I ask why?”

“You have a healthy respect for the person who pays for all those bad habits.”

“It’s true. I do value your coin mightily.”

Boleyn flicks the marigold at him. “So? What would you do if you were me?”

Wyatt considers Isabet’s grave. Boleyn wonders that she was permitted a resting place at all. If Boleyn had been king, she’d have thrown the traitor’s body into the sea for the krakens to feast upon. The woman’s ghost may as well have haunted Pilvreen ever since her execution: certainly the people of this region have never trusted their consort since that day. Boleyn knew this when she accepted Henry’s proposal – he had warned her that she’d have none of the loyalty his other queens commanded – but she had thought she would be the exception. She would be the one to turn the tide for the consorts of Brynd. It seems that the blood of ancestors runs deeper and thicker in this part of the kingdom than she could ever have imagined.

“I’m not the person you should be asking,” Wyatt says at last. “You should ask your stewardess.”

“Syndony?”

“She’s local. Smart. She’ll have an inkling of what and who’s behind these rumours far better than me.”

Boleyn nods, and together they leave the graveyard and wander back towards the castle. Boleyn’s guards fall in step behind them. A lone seagull cries mournfully from the roof of the sanctuary.

“You really are no use at all, Wyatt,” she comments. “Why ever do I keep you around?”

“I ask myself the same question hourly. But I’m exceedingly grateful that you seem to have taken leave of your good judgement.”

A steady stream of workers has been restoring the folly: tearing off the last of the ivy, replacing the broken roof tiles, clearing the weeds from the sunken garden by the sea, and polishing the bronze exterior and the convex hexagon of the sunscína, the purpose of which only Boleyn knows. Now, it is almost complete. Inside, seamstresses make long curtains of heavy fabric that block out the draughts, and thick cushions for the window seats. The final touch is the entrance: the old iron frontage is polished and fixed to a new oak door, and at last the folly is watertight and cosy.

She meets Syndony here, not wishing to risk other servants overhearing her insecurities. When she arrives, Syndony refuses to show more than the most basic courtesy, as usual – a smileless bob of a curtsey – and sits in the chair offered to her with the air of someone about to be tortured for information.

“You have lived in Pilvreen and Brynd your whole life, I understand?” Boleyn asks.

“I have.”

Boleyn settles herself on her own chair. It’s difficult these days to find a comfortable position. Either her back starts to ache or her bladder complains of being full. She decides to be as direct with Syndony as she can.

“Syndony, please be honest with me. Have I done something to offend my people, or are they always like this?”

“Your people?”

“The people of Pilvreen.”

Syndony purses her lips.

“We’re not fools in this part of Elben,” Syndony says. “We know what you lords and ladies think of us, no matter how many leftovers you send to the almshouses. We’re still expendable to you. You’d all as soon see us dead in the streets than raise a sword for us, yet you expect us to give our lives for you.”

“That’s hardly fair,” Boleyn says. “Have I not shown that I appreciate skill no matter how low- or high-born someone is?”

Syndony shrugs. “You asked me. I’m just telling you the truth. I respect you well enough to know you won’t harm me for doing so.”

Boleyn nods. “Mistrusting me I can live with. But there are rumours…”

“I’ve heard them,” Syndony says stolidly. “I’ve told people they’re a lot of rubbish. And so has your man Oswyn.”

“You have?” Boleyn expected Oswyn’s loyalty, but she thought that Syndony despised her. If she’s defending Boleyn then maybe her icy exterior is merely a mask. Boleyn reaches across to the stewardess, folding her hand into Syndony’s.

“You’re a fair mistress, and I’ve had a few so I should know,” Syndony says.

“My predecessor?”

The dowager queen Huntlye – Henry’s youngest stepmother – had lived and died in Brynd. Once a queen is tied to her castle, the bordweal holds for as long as she lives there, even if she has been widowed.

“Ach, I can’t blame her for being difficult, I suppose,” Syndony says. “She was so ill, at the end. It’s a wonder she lasted as long as she did.”

“She was considered a beauty in her youth,” Boleyn says.

“She was. A very beautiful young woman. Active, too. She loved to dance and hunt.”

Boleyn thinks of the portrait of Huntlye that hangs in one of the galleries, painted just after the queen came to Brynd. She was a large woman, with rich brown skin, startlingly dark eyes and short black hair. Boleyn finds it hard to reconcile that portrait with the reports of Huntlye’s later bed-bound years.

“Do I need to worry about the rumours?” Boleyn says.

Syndony purses her lips again. Boleyn is starting to understand that this means she thinks Boleyn is being foolish.

“What is it, Syndony? What am I missing? I’m not above being schooled.”

Syndony rises abruptly to stoke the fire.

“What do you know of the other queens?” she asks, her attention on the charcoal.

Boleyn answers immediately. “Aragon is proud. Cleves is ugly and strange. Howard is beautiful but stupid. Parr is gentle and good at healing.”

“No,” Syndony says, “That’s what you’ve been told. Everything you know about them is because of rumour.”

Boleyn’s thoughts flick to Seymour, the woman everyone thinks is a mouse. The woman she thought was a mouse until recently. If Seymour becomes Queen of Hyde, will that be her legacy?

“It’s all a game,” Syndony says. “Who wins depends on whose rumour is the strongest.”

“So I need to wrest control back from whoever is spreading these rumours,” Boleyn says, standing now too. This is the lightest she’s felt in days. “If I can find people who are trusted in the towns and villages, then they can start to spread a counter-rumour…”

She turns to Syndony. “You know such people, don’t you?”

Syndony stands, satisfied that the fire is strong enough once more. “I have a large family. Children and grandchildren, all over your territory, and some beyond. All can be used for your purpose. For a price.”

Boleyn smiles. Oh, this woman is clever. She has led Boleyn to a contract like a child tricked into taking its medicine. She offers her hand, and Syndony takes it.

“Well, Syndony, it seems you have a new job. My stewardess and now my spymistress.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Seymour

If Seymour was in any doubt as to the king’s intentions when he left to wage war on Alpich and Thawodest, she is left in no doubt by the time she returns from the font. Their courtship is quick, carried out mostly by letter. She’s glad of it. Her appearance is hardly likely to sway him to want her, and it gives her more time to craft her replies.

I can be my true self with you, he writes often. She wonders how often he writes the same to Boleyn and his other queens.

The more you write to me, the more grateful I am for your love, she writes to him. You know that I am a poor, broken soul, and your radiance mends me.

But he is the broken one. Boleyn, with all of her vigour, her family a fortress against the world, shone on him. Now, Seymour thinks, he wants to be the one to shine.

The proposal comes a full three hours after she receives Edward’s triumphant letter, barely legible, informing her that the king had asked their father’s permission for her hand. She is sitting beside Boleyn in her antechamber when the messenger bursts in and hands it to her. She turns it over, realising too late that Boleyn will recognise Henry’s handwriting.

“Would you care to go for a walk, Lady Seymour?” Boleyn says, her face unreadable. Only the slightest waver in her voice betrays her feelings.

Seymour flees. She cannot bear to witness her queen’s pain. Even though she has Boleyn’s blessing, in so far as she is willing to give it, she knows that welcoming the king’s courtship is a betrayal of one of the few relationships she holds dear.

My dearest Lady Seymour,

I write to you from the cliffs of Mathmas. My days are spent at the port, readying our warships for the long voyage to Alpich. My nights belong to thoughts of you alone. You can be in no doubt of my regard for you. Your gentleness and empathy have won my heart, in a way I did not think possible after the loss of my beloved Queen Blount. There is nothing that I cannot tell you, nothing you will judge me for.

You know, from our letters, from our conversations, from your own diligent service to two of my wives, that being a queen is no easy task. It can be painful and tiring. It will drain you. But there is great joy to be found in a life of service to Elben, if you are willing.

You say you are broken. Permit me to make it my life’s work to mend you. Become my Queen of Hyde, as soon as the war allows me to return to High Hall? I know my courtship has been hasty – if we had all the time in the world I would woo you as you deserve to be wooed. But the bordweal weakens with every day that Hyde sits empty. I must marry soon to keep our kingdom safe, and there is no woman I wish to marry but you, my beloved.

Send your reply by this messenger.

Henry

With the letter is a gift – half a golden medallion. It’s a thoughtful betrothal present, for it is a nod to a tradition of Plythe, the territory where Seymour grew up. If he is following the usual custom, he will keep the other half of the medallion.

She sends her reply immediately, then retires to her room for the rest of the day, unable to face Boleyn and her family. There is no celebration for this victory.

Edward crows over his success as she dresses in her new royal chambers at High Hall. She’s chosen yellow for her wedding gown. Not quite gold, which would be too gaudy, but something jolly and inoffensive. A small train, and slashed sleeves. The cut of the bodice is in the old, boxy style, beloved of Elbenese mothers. Edward had sniffed at the choice, but Seymour stood firm.

When she had finally told Boleyn, the morning after the letter, she had simply nodded and said, “Distinguish yourself from the other queens, Seymour. Carve your own public image.”

It was not difficult to know what kind of queen she should be. The king has a certain view of her, and it suits her to promote that view. The quiet queen, to stand against Boleyn and Howard. The submissive queen, to stand against Aragon. The vacant queen, to stand against Cleves and Parr.

Clarice brings a selection of jewels, each laid out on a cushion of yellow velvet.

“Lord Thomas sent you these as a wedding gift,” Clarice says, pointing to a necklace of sapphires and diamonds that looks heavy enough to break any neck it adorns. How very like Thomas. Her brother couldn’t be bothered to journey back from his ambassadorial position in the Uuvek court for his sister’s wedding, but he could spend a fortune that he doesn’t have on an extravagant gift.

Seymour ignores Thomas’s present and selects the least impressive of the jewellery: a simple set of pearl earrings and a matching bracelet. Queen Seymour is not extravagant. She merely owns the jewels: she rarely wears them.

“I knew all my training would be worth it,” Edward says, incapable of standing still. He addresses her maid. “Can’t you clean her hair? It looks so dull.”

The maid curtseys to him but glances at Seymour, unsure how to react. The normal hierarchies are in flux – for the moment, her brothers and father still control her. But in a few hours she will be superior to them. Not that she can ever imagine them remembering that and behaving accordingly.

“Do as we discussed,” she tells the maid. “The flowers will make it look better.”

The maid sets about threading buttercups and snowdrops through Seymour’s elaborate plait.

“The ambassadors are outside already,” Edward says. “Let’s see what gifts they’ve brought.”

He flings open the door without checking she’s ready, and swings his arm wide to invite those outside in. Having been an ambassador herself less than a year ago, Seymour is all too aware of how she must appear, especially compared to Boleyn’s enormous train and glorious length of loose, dark hair.

Seymour promised herself that she wouldn’t think of Boleyn today, but there she is, filing in last, taking a space at the back of the room. She is dressed in her trademark velvet green, with an emerald silk veil over her face and her hair hidden beneath her hood. There is no crown upon her head to mark her as a queen, but from the way she holds herself, even with the swell of her belly, no one could mistake her for anything but royalty. Seymour stifles a strangled sound. Today is a joyful day. Today is not a farewell.

Why is she here?

“Come forward then,” Edward says loudly, ushering Aragon’s ambassador towards Seymour, oblivious to the twisted smile the woman gives her.

“Oh, queen-in-waiting,” she says. “I bring you a gift from Queen Aragon of the Palace of Daven. She wishes you long life in your marriage.”

She curtseys and passes Seymour a crystal vial that throws the dim light of the room into glittering circles on the walls. Inside is a golden liquid.

“It’s a perfume,” the ambassador explains. “A very special perfume, from a flower called the Queen’s Kiss.”

There’s the sting. The very flower whose leaves so recently flayed her hands. Seymour makes the obligatory thanks, grateful that her face is bland enough to mask how she really feels. With any luck, the ambassador thinks that she’s too stupid to understand the jibe.

The other gifts are given, and Edward snatches at them greedily, examining them and exclaiming over them as though they were for him. From Queen Howard, a clavichord. When Seymour lifts the lid to look at the keys, the room gasps in admiration at the fine painting on the inside – a representation of the Palace of Hyde, seen from beneath the waves. Seymour presses one of the keys, and it emits a sound like a fledgling bird, almost too quiet to hear in this big chamber with so many people. Seymour smiles. It’s a sweet, thoughtful gift from a queen who apparently has heard enough about her to know that she wouldn’t have appreciated anything louder.

From Queen Cleves’ ambassador, Seymour receives a large, hooded crate that’s carried by four servants. Beneath the cloth is a jet-black panther. It raises its head from its paws and looks through amber eyes at the many faces staring down at it.

“An obsidian panther, Your Majesty,” Cleves’ ambassador says, “to wish you fortitude.”

Seymour kneels to examine the creature. The crate has a plaque attached above the door, engraved with the creature’s name: Haltrasc.

“What does the name signify?” she asks.

“It is from the language of Her Majesty’s country,” the ambassador says. “Loosely translated, it means Holdfast.”

Seymour opens the door and takes up the leash attached to Haltrasc’s studded collar. She half expects the panther to pounce on her immediately, but he simply stretches, yawns and pads out of the cage as though he were a sulky child forced outside for a walk.

“Hello, Haltrasc,” Seymour says, already smitten. Cleves’ ambassador hands her a piece of dried meat, and she holds it out to the panther. He chews on it, his amber eyes never leaving Seymour’s brown ones, then he presses his silken head into her palm, encouraging her to scratch his ears. Seymour laughs delightedly.

“What a beast,” Edward says appreciatively. He leans down to stroke Haltrasc, and quick as lightning the panther whips round and nips his fingers. Edward cries out, more in fury than pain. He raises his arm to strike, and Seymour pushes the panther behind her. She has witnessed her brother throw animals across the floor in a rage before.

“No!” she says, louder than she’s ever spoken before. “He’s only nervous, brother.”

“Vermin,” Edward spits.

“He is a wonderful gift,” she tells Queen Cleves’ ambassador, passing Haltrasc back into his crate. “Please thank Her Majesty on my behalf.”

Seymour’s final gift is from Queen Boleyn. She steps forward to hushed muttering from the other ambassadors. Her presence here is a scandal.

The two queens curtsey to each other from a respectable distance.

“Sister,” Boleyn says softly, “I offer you this gift, from one consort to another, wishing you friendship.”

She presents Seymour with a golden locket. It is simple but beautifully worked, matte, and in a shape that Boleyn could only have guessed Seymour would take as one of her emblems – a sun, its beams radiating out from every side. A direct contrast to her storm cloud.

“May I?” she asks, and Seymour nods, trying not to betray her desire as Boleyn steps behind her. As she clasps the locket beneath the necklace of pearls Seymour is already wearing, Boleyn leans forward to whisper in Seymour’s ear. “Inside is something for tonight. From a true friend, who wishes only for your happiness.”

Seymour runs a hand over the locket, wondering what it is she’s hidden inside the sun. She understands that she shouldn’t look while other people are present.

“Thank you, sister,” she says as loudly as her quivering voice will allow. “I will for ever treasure it, and your friendship.”

The ceremony itself is a blur. Henry is handsome and smiling, although his expression falters when he spots Boleyn among the guests. Seymour has come to realise how much he needs to keep his queens in their own little boxes. Boleyn is the feisty one, the smart one. Aragon is the regal one. Howard the beauty. Parr the healer. And Seymour? She has been chosen to be the steadfast queen, boring but pure. A blank page, yielding, waiting for his words and his words alone to be written across her mind and body.

Her icons have been chosen to be as predictable as possible – the sun, for the easy happiness she promises Henry. The ermine, for purity. And an iron carving of the feathered plume that forms the centre of her family’s crest. That one had been at Edward’s insistence. Cernunnos forbid anyone should forget her kin.

Through it all – the melding, the vows, Seymour feels Boleyn’s sun pendant warm against her breastbone. And her, her, always her, silent and statuesque, in the pews, a physical reminder of Seymour’s betrayal of the king and of herself, because all she wants is to run to Boleyn and bury her face in her gown, where her natural scent would be at its strongest.

“Unsupportable,” Henry says afterwards, when he has helped Seymour into the carriage that will take them on to Hyde. “She should not have been there. She’s gone too far.”

“I did not mind.”

“Well, I minded. Today is for you and me.”

“I’m sure she didn’t have any ill intent. She and I were friends before you and I fell in love.”

He consciously calms himself, although Seymour can tell he’s still fuming at Boleyn from the sharp crackle of the divine magic around his body. He makes an effort to smile at her.

“You look very pretty,” he says, and pats her knee as the carriage joins the scrind road, skirting the Hyfostelle mountains.

“You look… incredible, Henry,” she says, trying to sound breathless, as though she still can’t believe her luck that he’s noticed her, let alone married her.

“Are you nervous about tonight?” he says. “I remember my first time, with Aragon. I was shaking.”

Seymour has tried very hard not to think about what must happen when they arrive at Hyde, after she has bonded with the palace and after they have dined. It is going to be the hardest and most terrible part of her plan. Henry can never know that she doesn’t desire him, or he’ll be mortally offended, and she’ll be left vulnerable again. She must lie as she’s never lied before.

“How could I ever be nervous when I am with you. You make me feel so safe.”

“I’ll be gentle,” he whispers, kissing her on the cheek. That’s something else he must never know – that she has already tasted and tested all kinds of bodies. He is not her first man.

Outside, the landscape changes from the rolling hills of the land around High Hall, to the lakes and marshes that lead to Hyde. The road leads past endless tracts of water, dozens of hamlets dotted round their edges. Children collect algae and seaweed, some for the pot, some to be dried and sold at market. In the distance, Seymour spots the famous fairy farms of this territory. Certain parts of the marshes are perfect breeding grounds for the rare creatures, but catching them is a fine art, and keeping them alive in captivity more difficult still.

The closer they get to Hyde, the fuller the roads are, and by the time they reach the stone pillars that mark the boundary of the palace estates, the roads are lined with people in their best clothing, all waving flags and shouting for the king and his new queen. Children balance on their parents’ shoulders. Hawkers sell crisp sweetbreads and biscuits with the letters “H” and “S” iced on them in rudimentary handwriting.

“This is all for us?” Seymour breaths, waving shyly from the window.

“For you,” Henry says. “They love you already.”

“They don’t know anything about me.”

“They know enough.”

Seymour understands. They are celebrating the blank page. The promise that she will be whatever each of them want her to be. God forbid she disappoints them.

The road winds along a raised trench. On either side, marshland stretches out to the sea. Seymour leans out of her window, desperate to see the tower of Hyde. There it is – a marble pillar shining silver in the dying sun. It reaches straight upwards like the arm of a drowning man, the fire burning at its apex a constant warning to the ships looking for Hyde’s port of Bediglath, further up the coast: steer away, for beneath these waves there lies an entire palace.

The sun has almost set by the time the carriage draws up in the courtyard. Hyde is, on the surface, less impressive than Daven or Brynd. It lacks Daven’s warmth or Brynd’s authority. On land, Hyde looks like any other homestead – rows of simple, tiled buildings that house the estate’s animals and, now, Haltrasc. The only feature that marks it as a palace is the white marble lighthouse, proud on the skyline. Beneath the waves, though, it is extraordinary.

The lighthouse has its foundations in a cave-like vestibule that rises out of the sea like an open maw. Henry helps Seymour down from the carriage and leads her to the right of a door made of winding copper tendrils. A gargoyle’s head protrudes from the stonework, its mouth open and its eyes suspicious, just like its sister in Brynd. The spirit stone of Hyde.

The king shows Seymour how to place her hand just so on the gargoyle’s head, and she welcomes the rush of companionship that fills her body, so different from the pain of her binding to the king in High Hall’s sanctuary.

As Seymour’s new household unpacks her belongings, she is shown around Hyde itself. The palace has long been regarded as one of the marvels of the known world, the old magic that keeps its vast underwater rooms watertight unfathomable, even to Elben’s kings, who wield the power that made it. Seymour has grown up proud to be part of a nation that contains such wonders, but to see it with her own eyes – more than that, to now live here as the mistress and keeper of such a place – is dizzying. It is the kind of soul-lurching feeling she had when she first saw the bordweal, or when she felt her mother’s fever and understood she was going to die.

The upper vestibule, the only part of the palace that lies above sea level, is lit by hundreds of candles, even during the daytime, for the space only has a few windows on the courtyard side. Leading from the vestibule are dozens of staircases that plunge into the rest of the palace, built against and beneath the might of the ocean. It is a rabbit warren, but made of glass so that it never feels claustrophobic. One staircase leads to the glass dome of Seymour’s private chambers – a gathering of smaller rooms set around her bedchamber; one leads to a modest banqueting hall hewn from the remnants of an underwater crater; a natural cylinder of rock with a man-made glass roof set over it to keep it watertight. The remaining wings house guest suites, offices and rooms of state. Every room has wide walls of glass that look out to the ocean – even the kitchen’s ovens watch over shoals of herring, while long pipes whisk the smoke into the open air, high above them. Seymour knows that once she is alone, she will happily wander the corridors for days, simply watching the play of light through sea and glass, or the play of fish and seaweed just beyond her reach.

“It is nearly sunset,” Seymour’s steward says, once they have completed their tour. Like the rest of Seymour’s household, he’s softly spoken, and moves like waves on a summer’s day. His tanned skin speaks either of many a year spent on a ship, or a Quistoan or Uuvek heritage. She cannot imagine how he or anyone here gets anything done. Surely it is impossible to grow accustomed to the flickering strangeness of this palace.

“We should go to my chamber then,” Seymour says, hoping she sounds more even-keeled than she feels. She only has to endure a sennight, and then Henry must return to war and she will be blissfully alone.

They take a hurried dinner in Seymour’s receiving chambers, which are in a low-ceilinged room with a view of a crumbling, underwater wall – presumably the remnants of an older part of Hyde, or of a village lost to the sea. A series of mirrors and crystals fractures candle and firelight across the walls and their faces. Then Henry leads Seymour down into her bedchamber. She can’t help herself – she stops at the doorway, her body screaming at her to run. The chamber is full of people, nearly all of them men. She recognises some of them – Wolsey, More, Cromwell. Her brother is there too, so eager not to miss a moment of his family’s ascension that he galloped his horse ahead of the carriage.

“It’s all right,” Henry says gently, easily, like a trainer calming a horse. Seymour steps over the threshold.

This room is full of windows, all of them submerged. Like most of Hyde, they look out onto shoals of small, darting fish and the eels that are a common cuisine in this part of Elben. She focuses on the fish as she steps towards the four-poster bed. Two maids, the only other women in the room, draw the curtains to hide her modesty. Silently, they undress her shaking body. Through the curtains, Seymour listens to Henry getting undressed, joking with his courtiers, with her brother. She wonders how Aragon bore this kind of humiliation, but then she remembers that Henry was much younger when she and he were married. According to him, he was as nervous as Aragon was. Then her thoughts slip to Boleyn, and how she stomached it. She probably got undressed outside the bed and made as many jokes as the men. Seymour supposes she must at least be thankful that Henry’s advisors checked when her monthly course was due before arranging a wedding date. The additional mortification of bleeding over her kingly husband in front of all these men would have been too humiliating to bear.

“Wait,” Seymour says, as one of the maids tries to unclasp the locket. “Would you mind giving me a moment?”

The maid steps away, and a moment later the other girl goes too, taking Seymour’s wedding gown with her. She is entirely naked now, except for the sun locket. Checking that no one’s watching, she unlocks it, careful not to spill the contents. Inside are three little pink pills, and a tiny note.

For enjoyment, the handwriting on the note reads. It’s Boleyn’s writing.

Without thinking, Seymour puts one of the pills on her tongue and downs it with a swig of the wine left on a table beside the bed. Then she unclasps the necklace and hides it beneath one of the pillows. She can’t risk Henry seeing it.

The effect is instantaneous. A pleasant fog fills her brain. Her shaking calms and her heartbeat slows. She is at the doorway to dreaming when Henry parts the curtains and climbs onto the bed. Through her fog, she admires his muscled stomach, the hair across his chest.

“Very pretty,” he says, running a hand down her body. The divine magic flickers from his skin to hers, a cool balm. She closes her eyes. He is not using her. She is using him. It’s strange that it only occurs to her now, when Boleyn’s drug is coursing through her veins, but she is the one who’s been in control of this courtship, this wedding, all along. She has been steering it. And she’s not going to secede control now, not tonight.

With a strength surprising to both Henry and her, Seymour pushes him back on the bed and climbs on top of him, to jeers and hoots. She leans down and kisses him hard, slipping her hand beneath the pillow to retrieve Boleyn’s gift. Then she rears back and closes her eyes again, the necklace hidden in her fist. She lowers herself onto him, and she thinks of her, her, her, her, her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Boleyn

Boleyn knew, when she decided to attend Seymour’s wedding to Henry, that she would shock people. It’s not right – not tasteful – for a Queen of Elben to witness her husband declaring his love for another woman. Boleyn had never questioned this before, and that bothers her, now she thinks about it. She has always regarded herself as naturally curious. She wants to understand how a heart pushes blood through the body. She wants to decipher the strange Pkolack alphabet. She loves an experiment, loves testing people as well as things. As a child, her parents were infinitely patient with her constant stream of whys.

So why has she never before questioned this tradition? It suggests a shortcoming in her. It follows that she must remedy that shortcoming. She is no ordinary woman. She is a rebel, a free thinker. Thus: she will attend the wedding. She will deliver the gift to Seymour in person.

She had told herself that Henry would enjoy seeing her there. Her contrariness is one of the reasons he loves her, after all. But she can’t shake the knot that has sat in her stomach since the moment he spotted her in the pews. His face froze. Like the rivers around Brynd in winter, all icy impassivity hiding a churning current. He did not find her act of disobedience charming, or lovable. He did not so much as look at her as he left the sanctuary with his new wife.

The journey from the sanctuary to her own chambers at High Hall is fraught with whispers. The wing that belongs to her and her guests is in the north-east of the palace, and like all the queens’ apartments, it is on the third of the hall’s six levels. She still isn’t familiar with the quickest way to reach her rooms – each storey is set around a series of courtyards, balconies and indoor gardens, and each courtyard is overlooked by myriad rooms. Bedchambers, antechambers, laundry rooms, pantries, garderobes and private kitchens, offices, watching chambers and dining chambers and guard chambers. Then there’s the etiquette of which staircases Boleyn is permitted, as queen, to move through, for some routes are reserved for the servants alone, to allow them to get quickly and discreetly from space to space.

Boleyn is used to such palaces – after all, the Capetian court where she spent her formative years is far grander than High Hall – but she has yet to familiarise herself with its routes the way she has at Brynd. Another failing. She must come to court more often. She must be seen here. She is beginning to realise that it would be foolish to rely solely on the king’s love.

The court is awash with colour. The songbirds in their cages, dangling from every oriel window, glitter gold, red, yellow and turquoise. Lap dragons wind around their mistresses’ necks, shimmering green. Then there are the people. Queen Aragon’s supporters, dressed in violets – the closest to royal blue they are permitted to wear – keep their distance from Boleyn, as do Parr’s supporters with their white gowns, hose or handkerchiefs. Queen Howard’s allies, sporting clothing of silver, bronze or gold, are warmer towards Boleyn. Perhaps they feel that she, like their own queen, is being unfairly maligned by rumour. Boleyn doesn’t spy any of Cleves’ supporters, which isn’t entirely surprising, but a few courtiers drift past her wearing the bright yellow that Seymour has chosen as her colour. These are the people who skirt her, smirking as though their new queen has won a great game against Boleyn. Boleyn clenches her fists inside her sleeves and raises her head still higher.

“Your Majesty?”

Boleyn pauses. A thickset man wearing a black cap and the red robes of an advisor stands, panting a little, in the doorway she’s just come through. Cromwell. The last time she saw him was just after her wedding, and she doesn’t think she made a good impression. She’s surprised, then, to spy a square of deep green fabric pinned to his doublet.

“Master Cromwell?”

“May I accompany you to your rooms?”

She nods her acquiescence. Cromwell is taller than her by some way, but despite his stature and build, there’s something insubstantial about him, as though the bulk of his being lies in intellectual rather than corporal matters.

“How wonderful of you to support your former lady-in-waiting today,” he says as they pass through a doorway and into an orangery filled with ripening grapevines.

“I’m glad you think so. I fear you may be alone,” she says.

“Not at all. Queen Seymour seemed very appreciative.”

He doesn’t look down at her as he says it, and his voice is level, agreeable. Still, a shiver runs up Boleyn’s spine. A distant cousin curtseys to Boleyn and she takes her time noticing the woman, thankful for the excuse not to answer Cromwell. When they keep moving, Cromwell changes the subject.

“The king told me of your research, Your Majesty.”

“Research?”

“Your desire to strengthen the bordweal and increase the divine magic?”

“Ah. Yes.” Boleyn smiles at Cromwell, determined to hide how wrong-footed she is that Henry has been discussing her with his advisors. She rebukes herself. Of course Henry’s discussed her. It shows how much he respects her, that he’s taken her research seriously enough to talk about it to others.

“It’s a desire I share,” Cromwell says. “I have long wanted to read the bishop’s books on the matter, but he is not fond of me.”

“I’m not sure the bishop is fond of anyone other than the great god,” Boleyn says.

“When the king told me that he had destroyed one of the books…” Cromwell places a fist over his heart in an exaggerated fashion. “There’s something distressing about the thought of ruining a book, isn’t there?”

Boleyn wonders whether Cromwell is trying to goad her into criticising Henry, which she will not do. Instead, she says, “I had no idea you were such a proponent of dangerous literature, Master Cromwell. You have become ten times more interesting to me.”

Cromwell laughs. Somehow, they have arrived at her guard chamber, although Boleyn could have sworn they were on the wrong floor. On the opposite side of the room, armed guards stand on either side of the gilt double doors to her privy chambers. Groups of courtiers and servants, all in green, stand when they spot her. Cromwell holds up a hand, warning them not to approach for now. It dislodges something in one of the pockets of his doublet.

“I wonder if I might assist you in your endeavour,” Cromwell says, lowering his voice and gesturing to her belly. “You will soon have your hands full with other matters, but I believe in your aims. We both know that our enemies are only waiting for the right moment to invade. If there is anything that can strengthen the bordweal and aid our king in Elben’s foreign wars, we must find it out.”

“And you wish to be the man to find it,” Boleyn says. “And to take the credit, no doubt.”

Cromwell presses his hand to his chest again. “How can we talk of credit when the safety of our country lies in the balance?”

“Indeed,” Boleyn says. She reaches over to his doublet and pulls from the pocket five squares of fabric: violet, white, silver, yellow and the orange of Cleves.

“Ah,” Cromwell says.

Boleyn hands him the squares.

“Loyalty above all, Master Cromwell.”

“I am loyal. I am loyal to the king.”

Henry doesn’t need anyone to pin their allegiance to their clothes. Their obeisance to him is a given.

Boleyn turns away from him, nodding to the waiting courtiers to approach. Cromwell blocks them.

“My apologies, Your Majesty. I did not mean to appear dishonest.”

“Then you should not be dishonest, sir.”

He bows. “There is much I would do to gain access to Bishop More’s library. Is there no agreement we could reach that would be beneficial to both of us?”

Boleyn regards him coolly. The truth is, she rather likes Cromwell. She regards him much as she regards Syndony: more worthy of her time than people born with wealth and status but lacking wit. And a Cromwell in her debt could be extremely useful. He has a network of spies and messengers almost as extensive as Wolsey’s. If Syndony cannot find out the origin of those rumours, Cromwell might be able to. And if he’s the originator, then this might be sufficient for him to stop them.

“I will think on it, Master Cromwell,” is all she says, as she sweeps past him towards her private apartments.

Her family is waiting for her, gathered around a game of beadulác. George and Mary are staring intently at their board, Rochford, Mark and Wyatt standing behind them. Mary’s children sit at the window with their tutor and grammar books.

“I’m taking very good odds on your sister,” Mark tells Boleyn as she approaches the gaming table. She holds the back of Mary’s seat, rocking gently from foot to foot to ease the discomfort in her back, making her hipbones click oddly.

She can see immediately that George is in the lead. He is surrounded by discs of copper and bronze, each one stamped with a different image – dukes, knights, queens, cavalry and foot soldiers. On the board is another pile of discs – some bronze, some copper, the images turned down so they’re not visible. George holds aloft a thicker, golden disc, ready to hit the pile and see how many he can flip.

“How was the wedding?” Mary says, her eyes never leaving the board.

“We saw her getting into her carriage,” Mark says. “What a drab little gown for a drab little queen.”

“If she’d been wearing anything more elaborate you’d have scorned her for trying too hard,” Boleyn remarks. “You don’t need to insult her for my sake, dear.”

“I was insulting her because she deserves it,” Mark says, but Rochford quiets him with a hand on his sleeve. The group’s focus returns to the game at hand.

“If I take this, you’ve lost, sister,” George tells Mary.

“If is a large word, brother,” Mary says. “I will not surrender if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“Cromwell wants my help,” Boleyn tells them as she leans over Mary to study the size of the discs in the pile.

“Does he indeed?” Mary says. “He’s an interesting man, isn’t he? I don’t think there’s a single subject he does not strive to be an expert on. I once asked him about the properties of the Hildew Mountains and he ended up giving me a lecture on gunpowder.”

George throws his king… and the pile remains intact. Rochford and Mark groan.

“Ha!” Mary shouts. She brandishes her own king, taunting George with his possible defeat, then throws it, flipping every disc so that George’s queens are displayed neatly next to Mary’s cavalry. Mary collects her winnings, ungracious in victory.

As the others pack up the game, Wyatt says, “You never did say how the wedding went.”

Before Boleyn can respond, George snorts.

“Can you imagine her in bed tonight,” he says, then does an impression of a limp fish.

“Especially after our little firework sister,” Mark says.

“Stop it,” Boleyn says. She watches Rochford, who is primly sorting George’s beadulác discs back into their box, eyes downcast. She has more in common with Seymour than she does with the Boleyn family, and she knows it.

“Stop it,” Boleyn says again. “Seymour was my lady-in-waiting not so long ago. She was our friend.”

“Some friend, taking your husband from beneath your very nose,” Mary points out.

“Maybe she had her reasons,” Rochford says quietly.

Boleyn can’t bring herself to agree with Rochford, because even though she understands Seymour’s reasons, she cannot give her blessing to Seymour’s deception of Henry. But her silence and the chill that permeates the room is enough for the others to drop the topic.

Mark springs across the room, plucking a lute from a hook on the wall. He strums it experimentally.

“An excellent instrument,” he says.

“Wasn’t that the one Queen Howard gave you?” Wyatt asks.

George snorts again. “It’s all she’s good for, from what I hear. Music and whoring.”

Boleyn turns on them. “And what do they say I’m good for, do you think?”

Mary looks stricken. “We’re on your side, sister.”

Boleyn stares at them, blood pounding in her head. Inside her womb, the baby kicks and squirms. Wyatt coughs softly, moving to the side of the room, removing himself from the family argument.

“I know you are,” Boleyn says. “That doesn’t mean you can’t be on theirs too.”

She walks silently to the chamber that serves as her office. It’s a round room, set in one of the turrets. A bookcase occupies one wall, and a desk and chair the other, set beneath the only window. Boleyn sits at the desk, calls for ink and paper and when it is brought, she begins to write.

To Her Majesty Queen Howard of the Palace of Plythe, in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of our husband, the great King Henry, eighth of his name.

My dear sister,

One of my company just played a tune on the lute you so kindly gave me at my marriage to our husband, and it made me think of you. It seems strange that we have never met, even though we are so intimately connected. I have heard much about you, and I am in no doubt that you have heard much about me.

Shall we meet each other and work out for ourselves who we each are and what we think of each other?

Yours in expectation,

Her Majesty Queen Boleyn of the Palace of Brynd

PART TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Dearest sister,

I cannot tell you how happy your letter made me. You are always welcome here at Plythe. I only hope that we can entertain you. Please come as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting at the gatehouse for you every day until you arrive.

In excitement,

Queen Howard of Plythe

Master Cromwell,

I have thought further on our conversation. It was kind of you to offer your assistance. I do want nothing more than to strengthen and solidify the power bestowed upon the King by our god. Bishop More has instructions from me to permit you to use his library at your convenience. I will bear the consequences, trusting that my intervention in this matter will be mentioned in your circles.

Your Queen,

Boleyn

Your Majesty,

I am eternally grateful to you for laying aside any grievances between us in order to work for the good of the Kingdom. Generosity leads to loyalty, does it not? I have cast aside all colours but green, and already it has been commented upon.

The King’s servant, and now yours,

Thomas Cromwell

Dear friend,

I write to thank you for your gift. A more beautiful wedding present I could not have imagined. It is steeped in memories of my time at Brynd. I only wish there were more to be had. The king has been very kind to me. I am sometimes overwhelmed by his generosity.

I don’t think I shall ever get used to being –

Queen Seymour of Hyde

Dear sister,

Alas, that there are no more memories to be had of Brynd, for you left us too soon! Please forgive me for calling the King back to my side at High Hall so soon after your wedding day. I experienced some discomfort and was worried about the baby. Luckily my symptoms subsided as soon as His Majesty arrived – perhaps the child knew that its father was present. You will be relieved to hear that he was able to depart for Alpich as planned. He will return victorious, god willing.

How do you like your new residence? Are you managing your household with appropriate severity? There is a question I wish to ask you, although you’ll think it strange. At Hyde is there an item – a mirror, perhaps, in your bedchamber – that is made of a strange form of glass? Idle curiosity on my behalf, based on something I read somewhere. Don’t feel you need to answer; it’s not important.

Your friend, always,

Queen Boleyn of Brynd

Dear friend,

Of course you are forgiven. I’m so pleased that the child seems to be well, and if that means that the King stays for ever at your side and never visits me, I shall make myself content.

You will probably have forgotten even asking now, as I know it was one of your curious whims, but you may be interested to know that I did find the glass you enquired about. It is a windowpane, not a mirror, but it was found in my bedchamber, as you thought. It is a beautiful room, sometimes I think it was built not from glass and rock but of peace itself. I am in the habit of enjoying time alone there at noon each day, just before luncheon.

My brother tells me you have gone to Plythe. I wish you all happiness and enjoyment there. Please convey my love to our sister.

Your devoted friend,

Queen Seymour of Hyde

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Boleyn

Boleyn has never ventured to the west side of Elben before. Her family’s estate is on the border of Queen Aragon and Queen Parr’s territories. She is used to cliff edges and mottled heather. But the countryside leading to Plythe is gentler, every hill a sigh. The houses are made not of stone but of wattle and daub, edged with carnations and covered in clematis. The climate, too, is different. Sheltered from the gales of the Sea of Hreónessa that batter Elben’s east coast, Plythe’s air is fresh but dry.

Dozens of carriages trundle behind her, bringing Boleyn’s clothes, jewellery, presents for Queen Howard, food for the journey, servants and pets. They can be heard across the many hills of this part of Elben – more effective than any herald with his trumpet. And from the hills, people flock to witness the queen astride her fine, golden mare. Newlyweds asking her for a fertility blessing. Youths looking to lay eyes on the king’s true love. Grandparents looking to lay eyes on his whore. They gift her flowers and bread, songs and insults, and in return Boleyn makes sure to give each one a smile and a coin, even those who stare boldly, their hats remaining on their heads.

Boleyn didn’t make friends as a child. They flocked to her and her siblings, like dogs to their masters. It was always the way with the Boleyns, even at the Capetian court where she was the outsider, subordinate not only to the queen and princesses but also to most of the ladies-in-waiting. She simply waited and they came to her, intrigued, jealous.

So for Boleyn to be seeking out Queen Howard in this way is alien to her. She is unaccountably nervous. She tries not to scratch the patch of skin on her ribcage, aware of her household’s eyes on her. The skin is now flaking off, despite her ointments, leaving unsightly and painful grey flesh beneath. She thinks of Queen Howard’s reputed beauty. Howard. Mary. She’d wager that neither of them has to contend with such matters.

“Is there a hunting forest near here?” she asks the guards flanking her on their stately geldings. She wants to feel good at something. She wants to kill.

“Yes, Your Majesty, but—”

“Then let us make a detour.”

The guard hesitates a moment, then rides back through her train, shouting instructions. No doubt they are under orders to keep her from doing anything too dangerous while she’s carrying Henry’s child, but few people have the courage to say no to Boleyn. It is, after all, why she is riding to Plythe rather than holed up in a carriage.

She waits, her eyes closed, face upturned to the grip of the afternoon chill, while most of the household sets up camp and a small contingent prepares to head north with her to the hunting grounds of Bræden Forest.

“Someone really should sculpt you like that,” a voice says, startling her. She opens her eyes to see Wyatt, perched uneasily on his own horse. He alone of her little Bryndish family chose to accompany her. Rochford, Mark and George remain at High Hall to join Mary and her children as they pay their annual pilgrimage to her husband’s grave.

“Do I make a good muse?” she asks him, raising her arms like the statues of the Capetian palaces.

“Now you’ve ruined it,” he says. “I was thinking of how to describe you in a poem. A queen usually so full of action in a rare moment of tranquillity.”

“You are the one who ruined my tranquillity.”

“And I do get so much pleasure from irritating you.”

She tsks fondly and turns away from him as the guard returns with her bow and a quiver of arrows. She settles the quiver over her pommel, so that it rests against her knee.

“Your Majesty,” the guard says, “A crone has been spotted in this vicinity. I really must advise caution. Perhaps we could wait until my men have driven it out?”

Boleyn gathers her reins. “If we leave the crone well alone it should not bother us.”

“But…”

“Either you can accompany me or I will ride alone,” she says.

With a heavy sigh, the guard signals to his fellows to fall in line. Wyatt is watching them, his usual smile vanished.

“May I join you?” he says.

“You’ll find no poems,” Boleyn warns him.

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

They reach Bræden within the hour – Fauvel is swift and tireless and desperate to stretch her legs after the long, slow journey thus far. Boleyn only brought a handful of hunting dogs, thinking to gift them to Queen Howard, but their baying is as glorious as the wind in her hair. Her hunting dragons remain at Brynd, but Urial will serve in their absence. He is a little bigger than a hunting dragon should be, nor is he the right colour to blend in with the trees, but he is wiry and swift and has an endearing nose for blood. She sends him high with a flick of her wrist as they enter the forest’s embrace. It does not take him long to spy something of interest, his neck weaving from side to side as he hovers some distance away; the tell-tale behaviour of a dragon that has spied prey. Now it will be her dogs’ job to flush the creature out.

Boleyn turns to laugh at her companions, and almost expects to see Henry there, his face as hungry as hers, for the hunt, for each other. The way his eyes sparkled in surprise as they watched her pull ahead of him. It’s been a long time since he enjoyed any surprise she threw at him.

She turns her attention back to the hunt as they go deeper, following Urial’s path.

It’s not long before the hounds pick up the scent and the guard jumps off his horse to examine the tracks.

“It’s the crone. We may have more luck in the other direction.”

Boleyn lets out a long, low whistle, telling Urial to look for other prey. They force the hounds to abandon the crone’s scent, and ride west through the woods instead of east, but wherever they go, they cannot seem to find any tracks but those of the crone. Urial calls mournfully from above, unable to find another mark. Eventually, the guard looks up at Boleyn. His voice quivers: “I think it is following us.”

“But that’s not what they do, is it?” Wyatt says, his voice higher than normal.

“No. No, it’s not.” The guard eyes Boleyn’s stomach, as though the baby is to blame. Ridiculous superstition.

“Well, if it is hunting us, we had better hunt it,” Boleyn says, whirling Fauvel round and urging her to follow the hounds before the men can stop her. Realising she won’t be refused, the guard and Wyatt are soon riding on either side of her. The humans are all silent now. The hounds’ baying increases.

“It is near,” the guard says.

“We don’t want the dogs getting hurt. Put them behind us,” Boleyn says.

The guard does as he’s told, his eyes wide. Something moves in the trees ahead, and a moment later the crone appears, staring straight at them. It’s a huge beast – as big as Fauvel. It moves with a muscled heaviness, and its claws, bent backwards, remind her of a human walking on all fours, knuckles pressing into the earth. A pair of tusks protrudes from the crone’s lower mouth, sharp on one side, like knives. But it’s the eyes that set Boleyn’s heart racing. They look slowly at each human in turn, before settling on her. It knows that she’s the leader of this pack.

Silently, Boleyn pulls an arrow from her quiver and notches it. She doesn’t raise the bow though, not yet – to do so would initiate a charge.

“If you’re frightened, stay behind me,” she tells the men.

The guards do not move, but nor do they advance to help her. Only Wyatt forces his horse to stand beside Fauvel.

“What can I do?” he says.

“Stay still,” Boleyn replies, grateful for his courage even though he’s useless to her.

With one smooth movement, Boleyn brings up her bow and releases the arrow. It flies straight at the crone’s head, but at the last moment the beast swerves, and the arrow embeds in a tree behind it.

“Damn,” Boleyn says.

The crone charges.

Fauvel bolts through the trees. Boleyn ducks beneath low-hanging branches, keeping her head close to the horse’s neck, the pommel digging painfully into her bump. The beast crashes through the forest behind her. Above her, Urial roars, and a blast of flame warms her back. Bless the creature, he’s trying to protect her, but crones do not fear fire. In the distance, Wyatt calls her name, but she is alone in the hunt now. She looks back, and for an instant she’s struck by how human the monster looks. The hunger on its face, the thrill of the chase…

The baby stirs in her stomach, shifting over, making her lurch.

Enough.

Boleyn takes control of Fauvel’s reins and swings her right, left, weaving between trees, supporting the mare’s balance with her calves. The crone is more cumbersome, and before long there is space between them again. When she has enough of a lead, Boleyn pulls Fauvel round to face it. She plucks three arrows from her quiver and aims them at the beast’s heart.

The first arrow hits its chest, and it huffs but keeps coming. The second arrow pierces its neck, and an arc of blood sprays the trees around them, mottling Fauvel’s golden coat. It keeps coming. It is nearly upon them. Fauvel shifts.

“Steady,” Boleyn tells the horse.

Her third arrow hits the crone in the eye with such force that it pierces its skull, its brain and protrudes out of the back of its head. It falters, stumbles and falls, inches from her. Boleyn slips off her horse’s back and approaches the dying creature. Its flesh is already cold, as though it is crafted from earth and wood and clay, not blood and sinew. Boleyn isn’t superstitious, but this creature is altogether wrong. Its breath is laboured, its remaining eye, small and red, watches her, but it cannot move. She pulls a small hunting knife from her belt and kneels.

“You cannot win against me,” Boleyn whispers. “Now rest.” She pulls the knife across the crone’s throat. The creature gives one final, rattling gasp.

The guards and Wyatt find her kneeling over the corpse, her hands covered in its blood. She locks eyes with Wyatt, and sees something shift in his expression. She is no longer the haughty queen to him. No longer the mistress to tease. Now – now she is the one he wishes to hunt.

Boleyn and Wyatt ride side by side in near silence, in the wake of the hunt. Her thirst for sport sated, Boleyn is eager to reach Plythe before nightfall. Still, it’s sunset when they crest a hill and spot the River Kyttle winding languidly below them. It is flush with narrowboats and fishing boats, moving in an orderly manner from dyke to dyke. Carthorses trudge along the banks pulling houseboats. On the far bank, a watermill’s wheel revolves. And below the water’s surface, dozens of pale shapes meander. The whales of Swegan. Were Boleyn to dive into the river, she would hear no sweeter song than the whales’ speech. It is their vocal cords, after all, that string the lute that brought her here.

“Does nothing happen quickly in this damn county?” Wyatt says.

“Evidently not. You should fit right in,” Boleyn replies, then with a laugh she urges Fauvel into a canter down the hill. They aren’t far away now. Boleyn lets the retinue stay on the main road, on the hills above, while she follows the river. She has read stories about what she will soon see. Her mother, who was once a lady-in-waiting here, has told her tales of the marvel of the palace and the Kyttle Falls. Even if she and Howard despise each other, it will be worth the journey to see this place with her own eyes.

As the smell of the sea grows, so does the sound. A low roar that undercuts the rumble of the carriages above her, and then, gradually, drowns them out. Then Boleyn turns one final river bend and they are laid out before her, like a curtain being drawn back on a painting: Kyttle Falls, and the Palace of Plythe.

The falls tower over Boleyn, as tall and thunderous as the lightning tower at Brynd. And at the top of the falls, a series of stone arches stretches from bank to bank, forming a bridge that leads, at the very centre of the river, to the gleaming points and many windows of the Palace of Plythe itself. The palace perches on the very edge of the falls with a fragile grace that makes it seem eternally on the brink of toppling. Boleyn flushes with the impossibility of its elegance.

Ahead of her, the riverside road splits. One branch climbs the bank in savage turns. One branch burrows through the rock in a more gentle incline, eventually coming up into the open air close to the coast on the other side of Plythe. And a third, final branch of the road curves out over the river, skating the froth, until it comes to a thick, stone pillar that soars from the base of the falls. A steady stream of wagons makes its way towards this pillar, depositing goods meant for the palace – food, livestock, fabric, candles – inside the stone, whereupon a mechanism powered by the plummeting water drives the goods up, inside the pillar, into the heart of the palace.

“This is one sight to which no poem can do justice,” Wyatt says, having caught up with Boleyn. He and she stare at Plythe, then silently follow the winding, fall-side road. At the top, they reunite with Boleyn’s retinue, and travel together the final steps to the first of the palace’s river arches, upon which sits a gatehouse. At the entrance, a small gathering of shapes shelters in the shadows of the porch. Boleyn pushes Fauvel into a tired trot, and as the gap between her and her companions widens, a figure detaches itself from the gatehouse and runs along the path towards her.

“Sister!” the shape shouts in a high voice, waving its arms. “Sister! You’ve arrived!”

As she runs out of the building’s shadow, Boleyn sees Queen Howard for the first time, and has to cling to Fauvel’s mane to steady herself. Howard has a slim waist and wide hips. Her skin, deepest brown, is smooth and gleaming. Her features are delicate, apart from her lips, which are plump and kissable, and her hair, which is a glory of curls. She is, undoubtedly, as beautiful as all the rumours said.

She is also, undoubtedly, just a child.

Howard comes to a stop at Boleyn’s stirrups, looking up at her with a wide smile. She is still wearing silken slippers, meant for the clean floors of a palace. They will be ruined on the pebbles. Boleyn tries to return the smile, but she cannot.

Howard is clearly naive, spendthrift, improper, silly.

A child.

“You look tired, sister,” Howard says. “Come inside and rest.”

“Yes, thank you,” Boleyn manages to say. “It’s been a long journey.”

Howard walks beside Fauvel, hand on the horse’s neck, until they pass beneath the gatehouse and into the first of several long, narrow courtyards set over the river. The walls are extraordinarily high, partly to defend from any unexpected flooding, and partly to provide some shelter from the noise of Kyttle Falls. Only a few narrow slots serve as windows through which Boleyn can spy the river. Still, despite the shelter, they have to shout in order to be heard. Seymour would hate it here, Boleyn thinks with a smile.

The gathering at the gatehouse turns out to be a mixture of Howard’s ladies-in-waiting and servants, milling together without thought to rank or propriety. When no one brings her a step, Boleyn attempts to dismount by herself; a task she would usually be able to accomplish with ease, but which she finds increasingly difficult as her pregnancy progresses.

“Let me help you,” Wyatt says, catching her as she slips awkwardly from Fauvel’s back. His arms are unusually strong for a man who spends his life writing, his grip around her waist firm and warm. She steadies herself on him as she lands and finds herself braced against his chest.

“There,” he says quietly. “I have my uses after all.”

It is the gentleness of the quip, more than his strength, that sends a jolt of unwelcome desire through her. She moves away from him, more quickly than is natural.

“Come in,” Howard says, pulling Boleyn towards the palace. “You must be exhausted. I want you to sleep immediately so that we can spend all morning together tomorrow.”

Boleyn follows her into an airy vestibule. Here the windows offer views on one side of the falls, and on the other out to the Swegan Sea. The floor is made of an intricate pattern of different shades of polished wood; nothing like the floorboards of Brynd or even the elaborate tiles of High Hall. Sunset streaks through the western windows, a peach sky over charcoal water.

As they make their way through the palace, Howard peppers Boleyn with inanities. The most interesting thing about Howard, as far as Boleyn can tell, is her lap dragon. As a rule, Boleyn dislikes the idea of lap dragons, even though they’re all the rage among the nobility and royalty of Elben and Capetia. Boleyn prefers her pets on the larger side – big dogs, horses and the like, and of course her own dragon Urial. But Howard’s lap dragon is, like its mistress, small and exquisitely beautiful. Its body is no bigger than one of the songbirds caged at High Hall, although its neck and tail are long and slender. Its soft, golden underbelly gives way to deep purple and blue scales on its head and along its back and wings. It twists its way around her arms and neck and waist in a constant flicker of motion.

Boleyn is shown into a delightful suite overlooking the falls, with a large fireplace and plenty of cushions on the window seats. On and around her bed are a dozen or more gifts – fabrics, trinkets and more musical instruments, and even an elaborately carved cradle.

“I had them made up especially for you and the baby,” Howard explains. “I thought they would make you happy, since you said you liked the lute.”

Boleyn clears her throat, hating herself for having been so unkind. “This is too much, sister.”

“I enjoy giving gifts. I give things to everyone,” Howard says, fluttering into the room and plucking the string of a harp. Boleyn stifles a sigh. She has only spent minutes in Howard’s presence and can’t imagine wanting to spend any more than that with her, despite coming here intending to fashion a friendship. Still, while she is already planning her escape back to Brynd, she cannot do so for at least a week without appearing rude. She will have to bear it for now, then she can safely keep Howard at a distance until they meet again at the Moon Ball, the festivity where the great and mighty of Elben congregate to celebrate the bordweal and honour Cernunnos. She invites Howard to sit with her on the window seat.

“You like beautiful things?” she says, stroking Howard’s lap dragon, which croons.

“Very much. All my ladies tease me about it.”

Boleyn goes to her own trunks, which have been stacked in one corner of the room, and pulls a prayer book from one of the smaller cases. She pauses over it, wondering whether she can bear to part with it to someone like Howard. Rochford would say yes; Mary would say no. She thinks of how cruel Mary was towards Seymour, and makes up her mind.

“I commissioned this when I was eighteen,” she tells Howard, handing her the book.

“Oh, how beautiful,” Howard says, stroking the leather cover, which is embossed with the antlers of Cernunnos, and has gold gilt around the edges.

“Open it,” Boleyn says.

Hesitantly, Howard does so, running her fingers over the calligraphy and illustrations.

“It’s my gift to you,” Boleyn says.

Howard snaps the book shut, and hands it back to Boleyn. “Oh, thank you, sister, but I cannot accept it.”

Boleyn laughs. “Are you so good at giving gifts that you can never receive them?”

“Please don’t think I’m ungrateful,” Howard says, taking Boleyn’s hands. “It’s only that – I have no use for it.”

Boleyn frowns, unable to work out this odd creature. “It’s a book. It isn’t meant to be used. It’s meant to be enjoyed. If you have too many of them then place it with your other books and simply pretend you have read it.”

“I don’t have any books,” Howard says. Her voice is carefree, but she draws her knees into her body.

Boleyn’s disbelieving laughter is on the tip of her tongue, but she swallows it when she sees Howard’s expression. The lap dragon nestles into Howard, sensing his mistress’s discomfort.

“You were never taught to read?” Boleyn asks.

“They tried,” Howard explains. “My cousins’ tutors did try to teach me. But I can’t… I’m not clever, like you or the king. The letters all mix together on the page.”

“But what about my letters? You read those, don’t you?”

“One of my ladies reads them to me, and then takes my dictation.”

Boleyn stands under the pretence of walking to the other window, unwilling to let Howard see her shock. It is constantly a surprise to her when high-born ladies, from families with means, are not educated. Her parents had been so forthright about the importance of all three of their children being taught to the same standard.

Howard follows her. “Please can we still be friends, sister? I know I’m stupid and silly…”

“Don’t say that,” Boleyn snaps, even though she was thinking it herself only moments before.

“It’s true though. Henry says so all the time.”

The blood that was thundering through Boleyn’s head goes quiet. She feels herself go very still, as though she is on the precipice of those falls outside her window, clinging to the edge.

“He says what?” she whispers.

Howard falters. “It’s all right,” she says, hands outstretched. “He doesn’t mean it as an insult; he’s just being truthful. He says lots of lovely things to me as well.”

Boleyn can’t answer her. She has never denigrated her husband. She has only ever worshipped him. She loved him, she married him, because she thought he was different to most men. He reminded her of her father, the way he admired her bookishness and the way she enjoyed hunting, the way he laughed when she teased him instead of becoming angry. But this man, this man who insults one of the women he is supposed to love – this is not the man she thought she had married.

“How old are you?” she asks Howard.

“I’ll be sixteen soon.”

Boleyn sinks onto the bed, one hand clutching the post, one cradling her stomach. Henry is thirty-three years old. He married Howard when she was thirteen, and he thirty-one. She is the same age as his daughter, Princess Tudor.

“People say I’m very mature for my age,” Howard adds, sitting beside her.

“Do they?” Boleyn replies faintly.

The baby stirs. Boleyn reaches out a foot and pushes the side of the cot. It rocks gently. She can’t think clearly.

“Can some wine be brought?” she asks. Howard runs to the door and calls for the best wine in the palace. It is brought in a pretty silver cup and jug. Boleyn sips at it as she thinks.

“I will understand if you wish to return to Brynd,” Howard says, hovering over her, pulling at her lovely hair.

“Why do you say that?”

Howard smiles brightly. “No one stays at Plythe very long. When I heard Henry stayed with you for a sennight the other month, I nearly fainted with jealousy.”

“Does he not stay that long with you?”

“No, never. Normally, he rides in at sunset, stays the night.” At this she raises an eyebrow coquettishly. “Then rides off again after breakfast.”

Boleyn supposes she should take this as a sign that Henry does love her after all, but she cannot feel any satisfaction. She pats the bed beside her and puts an arm around Howard’s shoulders.

“The first thing we must do is help you to read and write,” she tells Howard. When the girl opens her mouth to protest, Boleyn holds up a hand. “Everyone can do it if they are schooled right. Sister, there are so many wonderful worlds to be discovered in words. There is so much joy to be found in reading a pretty poem or a clever letter. Now, my father once told me of a tutor from the great libraries in Uuvek who was able to teach anyone, no matter how their mind worked. I will enquire with him. Let us see if we can tempt him to Plythe.”

Howard stares at Boleyn. “You would do such a thing for me?”

“It is hardly a difficult task,” Boleyn says, but Howard throws her arms around Boleyn’s waist, and kisses her cheeks again and again until Boleyn pushes her away.

“Enough of that. I can see we’re going to have to discuss how a queen behaves, and what she should expect from those around her. But we’ll take one thing at a time.”

Howard laughs. A proper, full-throated laugh, unlike her usual coy, high-pitched ones. “You’re going to teach me how to act like you?” She sits very upright, her chin raised, and places one hand on her stomach and one on her forehead, the picture of affected femininity. When she speaks, it’s in an uncanny approximation of Boleyn’s Capetian-flecked accent.

“Oh, sister, you are so very young, and I am so worldly and fertile…”

“Enough!” Boleyn says, smiling despite herself. “Don’t make me regret my offer.”

“I won’t,” Howard says, dropping her hands. The women smile at each other.

“Now I must rest,” Boleyn says. “But tomorrow there is someone I think you should meet.”

“Who is it? Are they coming to Plythe as well?”

“Not exactly. First, we must look for something. I know it must be somewhere in this palace.”

“What is it?”

“A sunscína, sister. One of the ancient mirrors of Elben’s queens.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Seymour

For someone who cannot swim, Seymour finds an inordinate amount of peace in living in an underwater palace. If Boleyn is Brynd – all storms and lightning – then Seymour is Hyde – muted, lilting. Seymour spends her days exploring her new abode. Her household is still depleted after Queen Blount’s passing, and she intends to keep it that way for as long as possible. She does not need elaborate feasts or hundreds of craftsmen. There is a solemn beauty in the silent galleries and dilapidated rooms, mottled with sea brightness. This place is hers. It is a place of splintered beauty, the kind that makes one weep silently. She doesn’t want to share it.

Seymour’s favourite place is reserved for her alone. It is reached through a glass tunnel that leads along the seabed from a hidden door in her private chambers. Walking through it at sunrise or sunset means that the sun refracts through both water and crystal and lends the tunnel a dreamlike quality, like a rainbow seen in a mirror. The tunnel ends in a set of steps that leads up to the surface of the water, and the side of a natural rock pool that erupts in the middle of the sea.

The local folk tales call this formation the “Selkie’s Pool”, but if it was once the home of the seal people, they have all been hunted into oblivion, or tricked into becoming the brides of mortal men. But there is something strange and wonderful about the pool. It is a literal circle of calm amidst the ocean’s heaving currents. Seymour spends long hours in her bathing dress, clinging to the side of the rock and either looking out towards the endless horizon, or back towards the submerged domes and low, terracotta grooves of Hyde. She finds it easier, here, to hear her thoughts. She finds it easier to live with the decisions she has made. There is peace in the torrents.

Clarice is the only person who knows where Seymour is when she goes bathing like this, and Seymour resents even that. Ever since Seymour’s hands were doused in the Queen’s Kiss, the distance between them has grown further. Seymour isn’t entirely sure who instigated the rift: Clarice, or her. She does know that whenever she looks at the soft skin on her new hands, her heart twists. She knows that the childish trust she once placed in Clarice is damaged.

And yet, she relies on Clarice for so much. She resents that too. She’s pondering this in the pool when Clarice climbs up the tunnel steps to tell her that it’s nearly time for luncheon. Seymour clings to the rock as she makes her way round to Clarice.

“I could teach you to swim,” Clarice says. “Then you wouldn’t need me to help you.”

“I’m a bit old to learn now, don’t you think?” Seymour replies.

Clarice shrugs, and attacks Seymour with a towel as soon as she’s sitting safely on the steps.

“Is my brother joining us again?” Seymour asks.

“He’s giving the cook instructions on how to roast porpoise, so I imagine so.”

Seymour pushes Clarice away, wrapping the towel around herself. With the pool empty, a seagull dives into it and comes to the surface, a fish in its beak.

“Do you want to visit your family for a while?” Seymour says. She always used to dread Clarice’s periodic trips to the Feorwa Isles where they were born, but now she thinks it might be nice not to have a servant constantly judging her.

“If you like.”

Seymour throws her hands up. “For Cernunnos’s sake, Clarice, what do I have to do to get you to stop sulking?”

Clarice crosses their arms. “You truly want to know?”

“Yes. I truly do.”

Clarice pauses a moment, then whips the towel from Seymour’s body and pushes her back into the rock pool. Seymour scrambles for purchase. She screams and takes in a mouthful of saltwater. This is it – this is how she dies, at the hands of a treacherous servant.

“Stop panicking and kick your legs,” Clarice shouts.

“What?”

“Legs!”

Seymour beats her legs, frog like, and her face rises above the waves.

“Now move your arms like this,” Clarice says, demonstrating. Seymour copies them. Clumsily, she makes her way across the pool. Clarice pulls her out and wraps her again in the damp towel.

“That’ll do for a start,” Clarice says.

Seymour glares at them. “Is that how you all learn to swim in Feorwa?”

“Learn to swim before we learn to walk,” Clarice replies.

Seymour supposes that makes sense for a seafaring tribe scattered across a dozen tiny islands in the middle of the Ajassa Ocean. She herself has never needed to learn. Still, it might be useful, living in Hyde. She remembers the feeling of power when she kicked her legs.

“All right, you can teach me,” she says. “Now help me get changed into dry clothes, I want to spend some time alone before I eat.”

“Of course. You must be worn out from all the socialising you’ve just done with the fishes.”

With her hair still damp, Seymour settles herself in a chair in her bedchamber, looking out to sea. But it is not the fishes or the seals she is looking at: it’s one of the hexagonal panes that constitute the dome of her bedchamber.

To most people, it looks like any other window. But this particular shape is not made of glass. The difference is infinitesimal – the pane slightly thicker, slightly warmer, than its companions, and it has a sheen that suggests it is not quite dry. It bulges outwards, as if the press of the sea has rounded it, and casts an odd light on the floor: a tinge of green and purple, colours she associates with magic, thanks to the bordweal. She would not have noticed it if she had not received Boleyn’s letter, asking her to search. When she first found it, she pressed a hand against it and reeled back at the transformation that occurred. Two faces appeared suddenly: one very familiar, one less so. Queen Aragon, her chamber at Daven sketched behind her, and another woman with shoulder-length, rich brown hair and skin a little darker than Seymour’s, whose portrait Seymour has seen at High Hall – Queen Parr. They had both started back as well, and the pane had turned blank a moment later. In the days that followed, Seymour made sense of it. Every child in Elben had heard of the fabled lost sunscína, and many had tried to find them.

Seymour has waited beside the sunscína every day since writing to Boleyn, longing to drink in her features. She has almost given up hope of seeing her, but she’s come to find a certain peacefulness in retiring to her chamber at noon and pressing her hand against the glass.

This time, though, the sunscína morphs almost instantly into the vision of a wood-panelled room covered in tapestries. Boleyn is there.

“I’m so happy to see you,” Seymour says.

“And I you,” Boleyn replies. She doesn’t look happy, though. The pregnancy has rounded her face, but there’s something pinched about her. For once, Seymour feels the switch in their positions – this time she is the contented one.

“May I introduce Queen Howard?” Boleyn says, and a second face appears. She reminds Seymour of a fledgling bird that has only ever known a cage. Seymour has met her once before, at her wedding to the king, but she doesn’t expect Howard to remember that. That wedding was a quiet, flittering sort of affair. Howard’s gown had been made entirely of golden tulle, so she looked like a fairy, fragile and ready to be snapped.

“It is so good to see you again, sister,” Howard says. “This is truly wondrous.”

“We are in Howard’s music room,” Boleyn explains. “The sunscína is on the inside of a harpsichord.”

Seymour nods, studying Boleyn’s face, looking for hints to her mindset, to her feelings for Seymour, to this new friendship with Queen Howard.

“Isn’t this perfect?” Boleyn says. “Here we can be honest without fear of someone spying on us. We can drop this tiresome pretence that we despise each other.”

She holds up a handful of letters, and Seymour spots her own handwriting on one of the papers. The coded lines they wrote to each other over the last several weeks, undoubtedly pored over by Wolsey, Cromwell, perhaps even the king. It is an unspoken rule between all of them that they must uphold the game of the queens. The game that separates them from each other – not only must they be spread across Elben physically, they must be enemies too, or at least not friends. They must promote their own factions, their own causes, and they can never overlap.

But for all Boleyn’s pretty words, Seymour knows already that she will not get what she needs from this conversation, not with Queen Howard hovering at Boleyn’s side. She fiddles with the sun locket as they talk of inconsequential matters – of the fabled history of the sunscína.

“Have either of you told our husband about them?” Howard asks.

Boleyn and Seymour don’t look at each other. Seymour finds this curious. She knows why she has not mentioned the sunscína to the king. But Boleyn loves him. Prides herself on the meeting of their minds. Why would she hide this?

“I… have not,” Boleyn says. “Sometimes it’s important for a woman to have something small for herself, is it not?”

Something small, like a magical artefact of myth and fable. Yes, very small, Boleyn.

“I don’t know if I can lie to our husband,” Howard says. She’s an incessant fiddler, scratching and pulling at something in her hair, and Seymour wishes she could reach through the sunscína and still the girl’s hands.

Seymour laughs. “Everyone can lie, sister, if the consequences are great enough.”

There’s an awkward pause, and then Howard speaks again. “Maybe he already knows about them. There might be one at High Hall, in his chambers.”

The thought sends a shiver up Seymour’s spine.

“I don’t think so,” Boleyn says. “High Hall was built centuries after the consorts’ castles. If these stones were installed at the castles’ foundation, then there’s no reason to suppose Henry would have one of his own.”

“Is that true?” Howard says, suddenly immobile.

“Why?” Boleyn asks.

“Oh. I’m probably being silly…” She peters out as she sees Boleyn’s expression. Seymour conceals a smile – Boleyn does not brook self-pity. It’s one of the reasons Seymour enjoys talking to her. She realises, suddenly, that it’s a trait that ties Clarice and Boleyn together.

“Well,” Howard says, sitting up straighter. “It only reminds me of a story my nurse used to tell me. When my aunt heard it, she drove Nurse from the house.”

Seymour leans forward, despite herself. Boleyn says, “What on earth could she have said to warrant that?”

“She was a Hleaw,” Howard says. Seymour and Boleyn nod. Hleaws, a strange people who live in the mountains surrounding the Font of Cernunnos, worship different gods. When they are employed by Elbenese – usually those wishing to save a penny or two, for the Hleaws offer cheap labour – it is on the understanding that they don’t spread their own religion.

The three women hesitate, acknowledging that they may be about to take a dangerous path. Heresy and treason are irrevocably intertwined in this country. Do they trust each other enough to share this? Seymour goes to the door of her room. No one is listening, as far as she can tell – her guards are standing further down the corridor. Still, she stuffs a handkerchief into the keyhole and places cushions at the base of the door to muffle the sound. When she returns to the sunscína, she sees that Boleyn and Howard have pulled curtains across the door behind them. Seymour giggles involuntarily.

“Tell us,” Boleyn says. Howard closes her eyes, dredging the story from her childhood memories. She moves her hands as she talks, like an orator, her wrists and fingers winding and twisting with each phrase.

“It was the Great War, when all the world wished to carve up Elben and make it their own. We were – we are – the Medrenkynd, the Mother’s people, and Elben lay under and over Her protection. She had crafted this island and all its beauteous gifts of wood and metal and rock, and she desired it to remain whole. So when the war was at its strongest, and it was thought that Elben was lost, Medren gave herself human form, and swept Elben’s enemies into the sea, where they were banished for as long as her mortal body would live.

“And so Medren ruled over Elben, a just and powerful queen, until her body began to fail. Elben’s enemies saw that their chance to take the riches of the island was near. They gathered in the seas around us, and hid in the nooks of the Isles of Idesa, waiting, waiting.

“But Medren vowed that as long as her people defended the island with a single will, Elben would never fall. On her deathbed, she prised out one of her eyes and carved it into six pieces. Each piece she gave to an elder of the Hleaw, and those elders took the pieces to the furthest reaches of Elben, passing them down from mother to daughter, always keeping them safe. It is said that when Elben is in great danger, Medren’s all-seeing eye will cry out to be joined, and the elders of the Hleaw tribes, scattered across the queendom, shall come together at last, and Medren’s might shall return to Elben.”

Howard opens her eyes. Seymour realises that her hands are clasped over her own heart. Howard told the story with such clarity and poise, she had been completely swept up in it.

“You remembered that from your childhood?” Boleyn asks.

Howard nods. “That’s exactly as my nurse used to tell it. If I hear something two or three times I can usually recall it.”

Boleyn grasps Howard’s hand, in a way that makes Seymour’s heart clench. “But that’s a marvel, sister. You do realise that, don’t you?”

“I can see why you would make the connection to the sunscína,” Seymour interjects. “Six pieces that might fit together to form a sphere. And an eye – for seeing, as the sunscína allow us to see each other.” Boleyn nods, her gaze flicking to Seymour’s. Perhaps she sees the other resemblance – the one they absolutely must not name until they know Howard better. That the fable twists the story of Cernunnos, eliminating him and Aethelred from the history of Elben and the bordweal, centring a goddess instead. Listening to Howard’s tale could be excused as curiosity. Stating the parallel to their own religion would be heresy.

Someone knocks on Seymour’s door. A guard’s voice says, “Your Majesty – your brother is asking for you to join him at luncheon.”

“One moment!” Seymour calls. She looks back at Boleyn and Howard, sequestered together at Plythe, forging their friendship while she, Seymour, is a week’s ride away with only her awful brother for company.

“Seymour,” Boleyn says. She presses a hand to the sunscína, and Seymour matches it, so their fingers are touching and not touching at the same time.

“Seymour. Come to Brynd for my confinement.”

“I can’t,” Seymour says. “How would we explain it? We’re supposed to hate each other.” She does not say that she is frightened of joining Boleyn for those final weeks of pregnancy and, crucially, of joining her for her labour, and the dreadful aftermath.

“I will think of a way. Never fear, sister,” Boleyn says.

As she always does, Boleyn has heard Seymour’s soul. She is saying, You will not lose me.

“I want a dukedom,” Edward says, spearing a sausage. “I hear the Duke of Graffe is out of favour. See if you can get that for me.”

“Brother, the king won’t give out dukedoms just because I ask,” Seymour says. She’s tired after her unexpected swimming lesson and the meeting with Boleyn and Howard.

“Why not? I heard he made George Boleyn a member of the Privy Chamber after his whore sister became queen.”

“Don’t call her that, please.”

Edward takes another sausage and waves it around to make his point. “I didn’t put up with you for all these years not to get anything out of it.”

“You have very fine rooms at Hyde and High Hall now,” she points out.

“They’re not mine though,” Edward says, leaning over to Seymour. “They’re yours and I just get to stay in them. I want something for me.”

Clarice leans between him and Seymour to refill their wine glasses. Edward bats them away with a flick of his hand, sending the jug flying. Clarice slips backwards and lands painfully on the tiled floor with a muffled oof.

Seymour is on her feet in an instant. “Are you all right?” she says.

“What are you doing,” Edward says in disgust. “It’s a servant.”

Clarice scrambles up, ignoring Seymour’s outstretched hand. They busy themselves with mopping up the spilled wine. With a blush, Seymour suddenly realises that that single jug of wine – a favourite of hers, imported at great expense from Quisto – probably costs more than Clarice’s yearly wage. How must it look to them, how must it feel, to know that her brother can afford to throw away something that costs that much? She feels ashamed that this has only occurred to her now, twenty years after Clarice was taken into her service.

“Oi, Seymour,” Edward says, clicking his fingers at her. “Are you listening to me?”

Something must be done about him.

Edward was always a wild boy. As he grew, his unchecked, seemingly boundless energy turned from play to tricks to destruction. Their parents used to joke that they wished they could tranquillise Edward and energise Seymour.

Clarice refills Edward’s cup, and Seymour nods vacantly as he continues to rant about dukedoms and power. Tranquillity. Suddenly, she is reminded of a pretty pink plant in Queen Aragon’s greenhouses at High Hall. Puts you right to sleep. Specially if you put it in your drink. That’s what the gardener had said, all those months ago. What was the plant called again? Seymour can’t recall the name, but she thinks she’d recognise it if she saw it.

A walk through Hyde’s gardens later, and she has them. Dusky pink petals that smell of dying summer. Seymour calls for a jug of wine and, once she’s alone again, drops the flowers into the wine, stirring them around with her finger before lifting them out again in a slop of petals. She stoppers the jug and clutches the bottle to her chest. If this works, she won’t need Boleyn’s pills after all, for either her brother or the king. All she will need is a handful of flowers from her very own gardens. Oh yes, Seymour sleeps very well at Hyde. And now, so will everyone else, if she wants them to. In her mind, she kicks, and she can breathe once more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Boleyn

Boleyn has always questioned the concept of trust. She doesn’t understand those who talk about who to trust or how to trust. Those phrases imply a decision. For Boleyn, trust is not a choice. It is a sense, every bit as strong as smell or hearing. She cannot decide to smell the lily unless she were to block up her nose. She cannot choose not to listen to the seagulls at dawn unless she covers her ears. To decide to trust or not to trust someone is akin to denying her body. It should not be done. The only decision to make is whether she trusts herself or not, and that is no decision at all. Of course she does.

But Boleyn is less and less sure of herself. Her inner circle is in flux, and a single question dominates her thoughts: who is the real Henry? Does he love her, or just the idea of her? What kind of man, who has seen war and ruled a kingdom for more than twenty years, marries a girl who has barely started her courses? Can she trust him now, and can she trust their unborn child in his care? Then the question follows – if she cannot, what can she do about it?

Since returning from Plythe, Boleyn has not slept well. She cannot make herself comfortable, no matter how many pillows her maids bring, or how Syndony arranges them. When she does dream, it is of Howard, and Seymour, and Henry. In Boleyn’s dreams, he peels his face off to be with his other queens, then wears a mask to be with her. She tries to tug the mask off, desperate to see what’s beneath the empty eye sockets, but he only laughs and presses her down, his bulk immoveable, his strength immeasurable.

It is in this mood that she visits Bishop More to make her will, Mary at her side. The bishop shows the sisters into his office, a small room added to one side of the sanctuary in Pilvreen. Boleyn goes to sit at the desk, but the bishop stops her.

“In this instance, Your Majesty, it is customary for me to write down your testament. You may dictate to me.”

He shows her and Mary to two less impressive chairs at the side of the room, and his servant brings them flatbreads and wine.

“My understanding is that you cannot share the contents of my will, my lord,” Boleyn says. More looks up from preparing his quills and ink and adjusting his paper so it sits perfectly perpendicular to the bottom of the desk.

“That is correct. You may rely on my discretion.”

She must choose to trust him and, strangely, she does. More has never been her friend, but he believes in right and righteousness above all else. He, perhaps alone of Henry’s friends and advisors, cannot be bought. Mary takes her hand. Boleyn knows how difficult this is for Mary – any mention of dead spouses, of a lone parent being left to raise children, makes her grow uncommonly quiet. George and Boleyn worry of a return to the weeks after Mary’s husband was taken by the plague, where neither they nor Mary’s children could reach her. But Mary is the only person at Brynd who Boleyn trusts who has made such a will. She wants Mary to be her advocate should the bishop try to persuade her out of her decisions.

“In the event that I die in childbirth and my child survives, I wish for my child to be cared for by one person alone.”

More nods. “The king.”

“No. My sister Mary.”

Bishop More and Mary look at each other. A silent conversation, eliminating the pregnant woman who surely cannot know her own mind.

“Sister, are you sure?” Mary says.

“Perfectly. Please write it down, my lord.”

Hesitantly, More does so. Boleyn continues: “Brynd will of course return to the king. My personal estate will pass to my child, held in trust with Mary. My jewels will be shared between Mary, my brother’s wife and the Queens Seymour and Howard. My plate should be divided between George and his husband, and my parents should they outlive me.”

Mary squeezes Boleyn’s hand. Boleyn turns to her. “I know it’s unusual, sister. But I’ve seen the way you raise your children. I know you will give any child of mine the attention and fairness they are due.”

“You know I will. But have you warned the king?”

“My will is binding, is it not?” Boleyn asks More.

“It is. Not even His Majesty is able to gainsay it. But he could make life very difficult for your sister.”

“Mary will be the judge of whether he can see the child.”

“It is unconventional. You are, it is hoped, carrying the heir to Elben’s throne,” More says.

“And Henry would be the first to admit that his childhood was warped. I would much rather my child be raised in a loving household, as I was, than in a household of nurses and tutors, only seeing their father when he can spare them a day or two in the midst of his kingly duties.”

More relaxes. “I understand perfectly. If the king objects, I will put those same arguments to him. I am sure he will see their logic.”

“Do you think he will see the logic?” Mary asks Boleyn as they ride back to Brynd. Mary has been quiet ever since the meeting with the bishop, but not in the soft lostness that Boleyn had expected. Her eyes are still sharp, her movements precise.

“I think I will live and he will never need to know, sister,” Boleyn says. Her own mind wanders to the mines on the other side of the town, where Oswyn even now is trying to break through to a chamber, perhaps the hambre mentioned in the bishop’s ancient book. She nods at a fruit-seller on the side of the road. The man nods back, barely bowing, and Boleyn spies a sheaf of pamphlets wedged at the side of his stall. Is this another attack on her, or something that Syndony has arranged? She pauses, not wanting Mary to see her insecurity. Curiosity wins out, as it always does with Boleyn.

“Pass me one of those,” she says to the trader. He flushes, and she might have laughed at his stammered attempts to refuse a queen if they did not tell her what the pamphlet contains. She holds the paper in one hand, reins in the other, reading as she rides.

“You do not look happy, sister,” Mary says.

“Is it any wonder?” Boleyn says, thrusting the pamphlet towards her.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR QUEENS?

In years past the Queens of Elben held the bordweal firm,

right and proper channels of our great King’s divine power.

They were humble, loyal and true.

What has gone so wrong?

Today the bordweal fractures and grows weak. Elben’s enemies

amass. Our men and boys go to war. Our King fights for our

freedom, his strength unchanged, his glory unabated.

It is the Queens who are failing us. They have one role: to

keep the bordweal STRONG. It began to weaken the moment

our King took a wife who was not humble, loyal and true. The

Queen of Brynd has notions above her station—

“Well that’s nonsense,” Mary says, crumpling the pamphlet and tossing it to the verge. “Everyone with a mite of sense knows that the bordweal has been getting weaker for years. Whatever the cause, you are not it.”

“People will still believe it,” Boleyn says, shifting in her saddle. The pommel now presses uncomfortably into her belly. She’s unused to finding riding so difficult.

“What does it matter if people believe it?”

“Don’t be naive, Mary. This isn’t some silly village gossip. I’m a queen now. It matters.”

Mary shrugs, a sharp flick of her shoulders, like dislodging a fly.

“Then get your stewardess’s people to point the finger at one of the other queens. I’d say Howard, since he married her around then, except for some unfathomable reason you seem to be fond of her.”

“If anyone is humble, loyal and true to Henry, it’s Howard,” Boleyn says. “You may have something there though. Would it be too obvious to blame Aragon?”

Mary shrugs. “It might be worth trying.”

Boleyn nods, but she still shifts in her saddle. She should be comforted by this decision, but she cannot set her mind to it. For some reason, the story told to Howard by her nurse comes back to her now – the image of Medren’s eye, broken into six pieces but meant to be united.

“Would it be the right thing to do?” she murmurs.

Fauvel and Mary snort at the same time.

“Cernunnos above, Boleyn, why this sudden preoccupation with what is right? Have you turned into Seymour? It’s the game, sister. You know how to play it. So play it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Seymour

By the time the campaign against Alpich is over and the king returns to Hyde, Seymour has perfected her drugging process. Her brother offers the perfect subject for her tests. It shocks her how little he notices. Perhaps Edward isn’t as clever as she always believed. Maybe his aggression isn’t a price she has to pay for his guidance.

Sedating Edward makes life at Hyde enjoyable when he is visiting. He no longer has the energy to storm around the palace, demanding the impossible, striking Seymour and her servants. She doesn’t need to lock Haltrasc away for fear that Edward will punish the panther for biting him. Instead, she spends long mornings in the Selkie’s Pool, sometimes daydreaming, sometimes attempting to swim with Clarice’s guidance. This is the life she envisioned for herself when the possibility of becoming queen presented itself: cocooned.

But a butterfly cannot stay encased for ever. When the king visits again, Seymour is ready for him. She knows, as soon as he leaps from his charger’s back, that something is wrong. His usually open face is clouded. His kiss is forceful. It makes Seymour step back inadvertently. He notices, and his mood sours further.

“You’ve no need to be such a blushing maiden with me now,” he says, stomping into Hyde, into Seymour’s haven, reminding her that it is only borrowed, and when he is here it is not truly hers.

She does everything right. Everything her upbringing – long, tedious hours learning how to be the perfectly submissive wife – taught her to do. She asks him questions about himself. She empathises with him when he talks darkly about Alpich’s refusal to surrender, how he cannot raise enough fighting men to go to Thawodest as planned, how the bordweal is so weak on the north-east coast that a boat carrying soldiers from Pkolack managed to break through and sail up the Mearcdyke. She tells him that she has no doubt his strength will overcome all. She strokes his arm and picks out the juiciest morsels of quail from her own plate to feed to him, and when the meal is over she asks him if she may sit in his lap. And she fills his glass with wine and toasts him.

None of it lifts him out of the sulk. He barely eats anything, and to Seymour’s dismay he only takes a sip of his drugged wine. Instead, he glowers over the assembled banqueters until the hall falls into hushed whispers and anxious glances. Before dinner is ended, he stands and announces that he is retiring to his room. Seymour tarries at the top table, smiling at her courtiers and nibbling at her food. She knows he didn’t drink enough. He will not be asleep. He will be waiting for her. She has never seen him in this mood before.

She takes a spoonful of her jelly, and her hand shakes so hard that it falls to the floor. She stares at the mess, immobile.

“I’ll take care of it,” Clarice says, kneeling with a cloth at the ready. As they rise, they grip Seymour’s wrist under the table, stilling the shaking.

“Your glass is empty,” they say. “Shall I fill it for you?”

Clarice unstoppers the wine, the question in their eyes. Seymour has never outright told Clarice what she has been doing, but Clarice is sharp. They will have connected the change in Edward’s behaviour with the wine Seymour reserves only for him. It’s tempting to welcome the loss of control. To willingly put herself to sleep. She knows what is about to happen. She does not need to be awake to endure it. Yet to do so would be to return to the woman she once was. The woman who accepted but did not strive.

She shakes her head.

In her bedchamber, she allows the maids to undress her, slip a night shift over her head and braid her hair. Almost as soon as the maids leave the room and she clambers into bed, she hears the king’s voice outside the door.

She pretends to be asleep as he enters, although it seems impossible that he should not hear the knock of her heartbeat.

“Are you awake?” he says roughly, his weight landing heavily beside her. He puts a hand on her waist and pulls her towards him. She pretends to wake as he kisses her. The very candles seem to flicker in fear of him, and she knows that she must put on the most cunning mask, the most particular lie, for this night.

“Oh, Henry,” she murmurs. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Do you love me?” he asks. Seymour wishes she still had her dinner knife with her. She would happily stab him in this moment. He doesn’t get to be vulnerable. He doesn’t warrant pity.

“Of course, my darling,” she says.

“Do you want me?”

She kisses him hard in reply.

“I am a good king. A good husband. It’s all worth it.”

She doesn’t think he’s really talking to her, but she says, “You are the best husband. The best king.”

His hand snakes downwards and she closes her eyes. Think of her. Think of her glorious black hair. Of her long, dextrous fingers.

“Look at me. You never look at me.”

Slowly, Seymour does as he says, locking eyes with him as he goes to work on her. She is the perfect wife, and the perfect wife knows what can happen when a man feels rejected by the woman who’s supposed to love him.

He stays in her bed all night, mounting her when the mood takes him, then rises early to hunt wildfowl in the marshes. When Clarice comes to wake her, Seymour is sitting up in bed already, her knees drawn to her chest.

“I don’t want to go swimming today,” she tells Clarice.

“No,” Clarice says. “I’m here to pour you a bath instead.”

In silence, they pull a tub into the room and fill it with jug after jug of warm water. When it is ready, they produce two vials from their pocket and pour a trail of oil from each into the bath.

“Cloves, for healing,” they explain. “And frankincense, for heartache.”

Clarice helps Seymour into the water. “Would you like me to stay with you?” they ask.

“Yes, but I don’t want to speak,” Seymour says.

So Clarice tells Seymour tales from their homeland. Of their family, that spends every summer on the high seas, then returns to their island in Feorwa for winter. Their trade is in knowledge, which – if it is the right knowledge – can be more valuable than any gemstone. Clarice tells Seymour of the traditions of Feorwa – the hadas ceremony, where those ready to do so choose whether they wish to be man, woman, or neither. Seymour has heard these tales before. Their familiarity comforts her.

Eventually, Clarice lapses into silence, their tales spent.

“I miss you, Clarice,” Seymour says, her eyes closed. The long years stretch between them – the bright friendship of their childhood, the intimacy of their youthful years and then the cool civility of the last decade. Clarice says nothing.

“What did I do?” Seymour says.

“Nothing, my lady.”

“Please tell me.” Seymour has wracked her memory for the deed that pushed Clarice away. She’s certain that it was something she did, but she’s too dull to understand what it was.

“Would you like one last story?” Clarice asks. Seymour nods.

“There was once a lady, very sweet she was, and very young. Her father got her a servant. He didn’t mean for it to happen, but the young lady and the young servant soon became fast friends, on account of the lady being a lonely type, still grieving her mother’s death, and the servant being sick for their homeland.”

Seymour opens her eyes. Clarice is watching her.

“The servant thought that nothing could ever come between them. They knew how lucky they were to have happened upon a lady who treated them as an equal. They loved that young lady, as a friend, as a lover, as a spouse. They would do anything for her. But then one summer’s day, something happened.”

Clarice pauses. Seymour touches their hand. “What happened to the lady and the servant, Clarice?”

“Nothing of significance,” Clarice says, turning their hand over so that Seymour’s rests in their palm. Seymour likes the feel of the calloused skin. It speaks of purpose. “The two of them were picnicking on the lawn. It was bright outside, and hot, and they kept squinting because of the sun. The lady told the servant to fetch a parasol.”

Seymour cannot remember this moment at all, although she remembers that it was summer when Clarice grew distant and broke off their intimacies. Doesn’t that illustrate Clarice’s point perfectly? Her inability to have noticed that she was altering her only friend’s entire perception of their relationship?

Clarice continues. “The servant did as they were told. They went to fetch the lady a parasol, and they smiled and they carried on talking. But inside, they understood.”

“Understood what?”

“That the lady was just that. A lady. And they were a servant. And pretending to be equals from time to time wouldn’t change that. It would only bring them heartache.”

Seymour sits up in the bath. “What could the lady do, to make it all go back to how it was?”

Clarice puffs out a breath, their smile pinched. “This is the way it has to be between them. There is no going back.”

Seymour lies back in the bath. Her tears now are not just for last night. They are for all her prideful mistakes, all the ways she has steered her ship into stormier waters through her refusal to take the wheel, through her own blind acceptance.

Well, her eyes are open now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Boleyn

The patch of skin on her ribs is itching again, so badly she cannot stand it. It has been tormenting Boleyn, making it difficult to concentrate on anything else. She sits on her throne, listening to an orator, hired at considerable expense, give an account of Henry’s victory in Lothair, and all she wants to do is scratch.

“The captain was gravely injured, and all seemed lost,” the orator says, sweeping an arm wide to illustrate the scale of the peril. “But even in the chaos and despair, our king took hold of the wheel, navigating the ship with a single hand against the Lothairian warships and the might of the storm. He stood on that prow: proud and solitary at the ship’s helm, Cernunnos’s magic lighting him up and reaching for the lightning – two unbreakable powers clashing in a single, divine bolt.”

Boleyn tries to look rapt. At any other time she would be. The orator is excellent. Even Mark, usually so cynical when it comes to the Elbenese’s admiration for their monarch, is staring up at the man, mouth open. Boleyn tugs on her bodice, hoping the friction of the fabric will ease the itching somewhat. The orator continues.

“Henry was the first of his men to leap from the ships. He strode through the shallows, his broadsword held aloft. The enemy was waiting on the shore with spears and swords and bows. A flurry of arrows were aimed at him, every Lothairian soldier desperate to claim the Elbenese king’s life. Unafraid, our monarch pushed onwards. Some arrows he swiped away with his sword. Some landed on his armour. And some found their mark, burying themselves in the joints of the iron plates at his elbows or legs. These he pulled from his body as though they were no more troublesome than a leech, the torn flesh mending in seconds, knit together by Cernunnos himself.

“‘Victory for Elben! Glory for Elben!’ the king roared above the waves, and the roar came back from his men, good and loyal and true: ‘Victory for Elben! Victory for our king!’”

The whole chamber erupts into applause. Even stoic Rochford turns away to wipe her eyes.

“Wonderful,” Boleyn says, rising as gracefully as she can manage. She tells Syndony to pay the man well, then escapes down the stairs to her private room. There, she manages, with some difficulty, to wriggle out of her gown, and pulls up her shift to give the area a good scratch. The release is blissful, even though she knows she’s only making the skin red-raw. Then her nails hitch on something, and she stops abruptly.

She moves to her mirror and examines the skin. Her nails have caught on a piece of flaking skin. Delicately, she peels the flake away, expecting it to be a little scab. But the skin keeps peeling.

Boleyn drops her hand and shift, stepping back in horror. But the flap of peeled skin makes the linen shape oddly. And it itches so, so badly.

With trembling fingers, Boleyn lifts her shift once more and examines the place where the skin has gone. Beneath it is a thin mask of greying flesh, through which the white ridges of her ribs can be seen. Her chest heaving, her breath unsteady, Boleyn touches the area. She feels… nothing. The flesh is utterly dead.

Boleyn considers calling for Syndony or the physician, but she doesn’t want anyone to see her like this. This… rot, infection, whatever it is, will be used as proof of her witchcraft, as proof that she does have something to do with the failing bordweal. Maybe even Syndony will desert her. Henry will hear of it and then he won’t want her any more.

After all, Boleyn reasons, maybe this is something that happens when one is pregnant. There is so much that she was never told to expect – the bloating, the gas, the bone aches. The strange way a woman’s body works when growing another being is something that cannot be spoken of, even to a physician. It wouldn’t be tasteful.

Boleyn pulls again at the skin, trying not to retch as the flap peels away entirely, leaving a patch of grey flesh as big as her hand. She opens her window and tosses the peeled skin into the sea below, then rifles through her closet for the linen used for her courses. She presses one pad to the flesh, gingerly even though she feels nothing, then ties a greater swathe of fabric around her ribs, keeping the pad in place and concealing the wound. There. All better. At least the itching has stopped. The flesh will heal. It must.

Once she is dressed, she stumbles out of her room, desperate for company and solitude at once. Boleyn’s family is making a nuisance of themselves in the vestibule, getting in the way of the servants trying to reach the kitchens. As Boleyn approaches, she sees that they’re tormenting Wyatt.

“How is your mummer’s play for the Moon Ball coming along?” Mary is asking him. Boleyn asked Wyatt to write something for the celebration some weeks ago to keep him occupied. She tells herself it is because she wishes to tie his talent to Brynd, not him.

“Writing for a troupe of actors is very different to writing poetry,” Wyatt says. “It takes time. I must take into account the different strengths…”

“Which is to say, you haven’t started writing it yet.” George grins, twirling a lock of Mark’s hair around his fingers and nuzzling into him.

“I’ve started. I’ve just not finished.”

“Don’t do what you usually do,” Rochford warns.

“What do I usually do, oh observant one?” Wyatt says.

“Leave it to the night before, then write with too much wine in your stomach.”

George, Mark and Mary guffaw.

“I am going to the nursery,” Boleyn announces as she passes, the command for them to follow implicit. She senses their concern, even though they continue their inane chatter out into the courtyard, all of it focused on the Moon Ball.

“Father told me about an alchemist who makes wonderful fireworks,” George says. “Do you think we can ship him over from Gkontai?”

“Never mind the fireworks. We must put our sister in the most beautiful gown anyone has ever seen. More memorable even than her wedding gown,” Mary says, trying to make Boleyn smile. Boleyn increases her pace, leaving the rest of them behind.

As she skirts the castle’s walls, Boleyn becomes aware of Wyatt, walking just behind her. By the time they round a corner of damson trees to reveal the nursery, modern red brick tacked on to the grey of the castle, the others are no longer in sight, having tarried where Boleyn and Wyatt walked quickly.

The nursery has been built on a patch of land abutting the castle and overlooking the orchards. It’s a traditional square, set around a central courtyard, with enough rooms for the child and their nurses and tutors, as well as enough space for future siblings. Boleyn pushes away the thought of more children. All around the nursery’s guttering, stone gargoyles ward off forest demons.

Boleyn goes through an archway and crosses the courtyard to a set of double doors that lead into the baby’s suite. There’s no furniture in the rooms yet, but the walls are already covered in decorative paintings: dragons wind around vines and the great god Cernunnos stalks between the beams. Boleyn commissioned an artist from Capetia to emulate murals she’s seen in their palaces, and he’s done an excellent job. Wyatt is still at her elbow. Still silent.

“Struck dumb again, Master Wyatt? For a wordsmith you are surprisingly bad at employing them, it seems.”

“All right, Your Majesty, I’ll be your pincushion.”

She turns to him at last. He smiles thinly, and unbuttons the top half of his jacket, pulling the fine fabric apart to reveal a white shirt and, beneath that, the hint of his chest.

“Needle me with your woes, my queen. Stab me with your anger. I’ll take any wound delivered by you.”

“I thought it was only men who were supposed to stab?”

“She jokes. A bawdy joke at that. Come on, give me more.”

Boleyn looks around the room. It has so much potential, so much promise, but it’s still empty. Still cold.

“I’m not sure I have the weapons I thought I did, Master Wyatt.”

“This from the queen who took down a crone. I assure you, you have weapons aplenty.”

Boleyn clenches her jaw and swallows tears. Wyatt steps closer and folds her hand in his own. Slowly, as though afraid a stray breath will frighten her into running, he brings Boleyn’s hand to his lips, and kisses it. Once, twice.

“Careful,” Boleyn whispers. His jacket is still undone.

“Careful yes? Or careful no?” He turns her hand over and kisses the inside of her wrist, his eyes never leaving hers.

“I…”

“Sister?” Mary is at the door, her hand across it, blocking the entrance from prying eyes. Her gaze darts between Wyatt and Boleyn as they pull apart. Wyatt turns away from everyone, hastily buttoning his jacket. When he turns round once more, his face is natural, as though he didn’t just try to seduce a queen. As though the queen wasn’t tempted.

“Forgive me, friends. I must return to the palace. Inspiration has struck!”

“For the play?” George says, peering over Mary’s arm.

“Her Majesty has helped me to see how to find my way to an ending.” He bows to Boleyn. “Thank you.”

She tries to match his composure. “I want to be credited if you’re going to steal my ideas.”

“I make no promises.”

And he’s off, doffing his cap at Mary, surely too cheerful for the others not to notice that something has just happened.

“Such a handsome man,” Rochford sighs. “Shame about the poetry.”

“Sister,” Mary whispers, threading an arm through Boleyn’s and drawing her into the next room. “What is going on?”

“Nothing.”

“What I saw wasn’t nothing.”

“It was nothing, Mary. Nothing happened.”

Mary shakes her. “You have a family, Boleyn. Don’t mess this up.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t play stupid.”

Boleyn laughs bitterly. “Indeed. If I lose my wits what will I have left?”

Mary steps back, studying her sister. “What has happened?”

“Noth—”

“Nothing, again. Fine. Do you need me to fetch a physician?”

“No.”

Boleyn runs her hand along the wooden panelling and goes to the window. In the distance, she can glimpse the turret of the folly just above the treetops.

“I’m worried about you. You’re not yourself,” Mary says, more gently now.

“I miss him, that is all,” Boleyn says. It’s a cruel thing to say to her sister, who has missed her own husband every moment of the past three years, but it will at least end the conversation. Except this time it doesn’t.

“Would you like me to write to the king and ask him to visit?” Mary says, rubbing Boleyn’s back.

“Why should you write to my husband?” Boleyn says, laughing at the notion.

“I take care of my family above all else. If a little impropriety will help you then I am not afraid of judgement,” Mary says.

Boleyn shakes her head. Henry cannot see her like this. It might disgust him, and there is no coming back from disgust. The thought rocks Boleyn: she always prided herself on marrying a man who loves her for her mind, not her beauty. So why is she so concerned about him seeing her ribs?

“Are you certain?” Mary says.

“When am I ever not certain, sister?” Boleyn says, trying to dismiss Mary with a flick of her hand. “I am not a mewling child in need of constant companionship, and if I were I am perfectly able to write to my husband myself.”

“Cynn æ hredsigor?” Mary says. King and victory. The family motto.

“Hredsigor,” Boleyn repeats. No king. Only victory.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Seymour

Something’s very wrong. Seymour realises it on the journey to Brynd, as the fenlands of her home morph into woodland and then thick forest. She tells the driver to ride as far and as fast as he can on the remains of a ruined scrind road that once followed the coastal path, so eager is she to reach Boleyn. They travel through the night, but by midnight, once the old scrind magic has worn out and they are moving more slowly, she realises her mistake.

“Stop the carriage!” Seymour calls out, hammering on the door.

“What’s the matter?” Clarice asks, woken from their doze. Seymour can only shake her head as the groomsman opens the door and she stumbles out into frostbitten dark, finally releasing a torrent of vomit onto the edge of the path.

No one says anything, they just quietly offer their mistress water and bread. Clarice brings a cloth to clean her mouth. They have to make two more stops for Seymour to bring up the remainder of her dinner, and by the third time, they all know what this might mean.

“It must be something I ate,” Seymour explains weakly, but she has no doubt that by the time they reach Brynd, the king will have been informed of her condition, even on his warship heading for the ice-ridden islands of Thawodest. He’ll be thrilled. A second pregnancy. The possibility of a new heir. A confirmation of his virility, after only one girl child to show for so many years of trying. Seymour should be returning her servants’ secret smiles of congratulation. She should be joking weakly about cravings. Clarice sits next to Seymour in the carriage, holding a dampened towel against her forehead. All Seymour sees is her mother, lying clammy on her birthing bed. All she hears is her shallow, birdlike breaths. The inevitable, terrible enacting of balance: life produced; life taken.

By the time the carriage trundles past the port of Garclyffe, the sun has risen and the sound of wind-buffeted seagulls echoes clear and shrill across the cliffs. From Garclyffe, the road curves away from the coast and towards Pilvreen instead of leading directly to Brynd. A little further on the forest recedes and they come to a crossroads. Ahead: the road to her old home at Daven. To the left: Pilvreen. And to the right: Brynd.

“I think someone’s coming this way,” Clarice says, craning their head out of the carriage, one arm still pressing the cloth to Seymour’s forehead. Seymour pushes Clarice’s arm away and looks out too, relishing the wind’s bite. Two figures are approaching down the road from Brynd, both on horseback, a silver dragon frisking in the air above them. There is no mistaking the figure who rides in front, even from this distance.

“Boleyn,” Seymour whispers, smiling for the first time in hours.

Boleyn is wearing a green, feathered cap and velvet riding gown, and uses one hand to guide her mare while the other clasps her stomach. Behind her, the stewardess of Brynd sits astride a palfrey.

“Sister!” Seymour shouts, then must swallow another wave of nausea.

Boleyn doesn’t reply until she reaches them. There is a brittleness to her smile that Seymour can’t read.

“Sister! We did not expect you until later today,” Boleyn says.

“We drove through the night,” Seymour says.

“Then you must go on to Brynd and rest immediately, so that we can celebrate your visit tonight.”

“Where are you going?” Seymour asks her, ignoring the mention of celebrations. Boleyn cannot know it, but Seymour has nothing to celebrate.

“The miners at Pilvreen have broken through to a new cave,” Boleyn says. “The foreman wants me to see what they have discovered.”

“And you must go now?”

“I must.” Boleyn’s gaze is intense, as though she wants to convey some hidden importance. Seymour bites her lip. The thought of a comfortable bed and the heartwood fires of Brynd is tempting, but…

“May I accompany you?” she asks. Boleyn hesitates, deciding whether Seymour is worthy of whatever secret this cave is harbouring.

“Certainly,” Boleyn says at last.

A horse is brought for Seymour from the rear of her retinue; a gelding that is fresher than those who’ve been pulling the carriages. Seymour climbs into the saddle slowly, stiff after the night spent in the carriage.

“Come, then,” Boleyn calls. “Let us see if we can reach the mines before luncheon.”

As they ride, Seymour’s head clears a little, the fresh air whisking away her tiredness and nausea. Boleyn talks of everything and nothing all the way through Pilvreen: her plans for the Moon Ball, her observations on the Palace of Plythe, the preparations she is making for the baby. It is only when they reach the other side of the town and the jarring sound of metal on rock greets them, that two things occur to Seymour: Boleyn has neither asked her about herself, nor has she said a single thing of substance. Seymour supposes she cannot speak freely in front of the stewardess.

The first shaft opening of the mines is just inside the forest’s perimeter, set between two natural rocks that look like pillars. The opening is narrow. The only things stopping it from being impossibly claustrophobic are the lamps burning inside the entrance.

“How often do you visit?” Seymour asks Boleyn as they dismount. Boleyn pauses as she reaches the ground, closing her eyes, hinged over. Before anyone can ask her if she’s all right, she replies:

“Not as often as I would like. Shall we go in? My stewardess here will look after the horses.”

Syndony waits in the clearing with the dragon Urial while Boleyn and Seymour pick their way across tree roots and stray rocks. The foreman – Oswyn, Boleyn calls him – looks between them with wide eyes. He had not bargained for two queens.

“Don’t worry about Queen Seymour, she’s perfectly capable,” Boleyn says, smiling back at her. “Shall we?”

She ducks inside the entrance, darting more quickly along the shaft than should be possible for a woman so pregnant. Seymour follows her rather more cautiously. Inside, candles set haphazardly into the walls light a slim passageway that leads deep into the rock. Tree roots emerge like snakes from the compacted soil.

As they move deeper into the mine, Seymour can feel the weight of the earth bearing down on her. The sound of hammers and chisels reverberate around the passageway. Sometimes the rock groans beneath the onslaught of the miners’ tools.

“How much further is it?” Seymour asks.

“This way,” Oswyn says, pointing towards an opening she hadn’t spotted. The crevice is so narrow Seymour tears her gown getting through it. She bites back an exclamation – it’s not Oswyn she wants to shout at, it’s Boleyn. What is she doing? How does she think this is appropriate for a queen? But Boleyn doesn’t look back. Seymour wonders if she ever has.

At last, when even lamplight can’t penetrate far through the darkness, Oswyn stops at a fissure of freshly tumbled rock and says, “It’s through here, Your Majesties.”

“Thank you, Oswyn, you can give me the torch now,” Boleyn says.

“Are you not coming with us?” Seymour asks.

Oswyn shakes his head. Seymour notices the way his hands jerk upwards and then down again, as though he were about to make a sign – a superstition, or the sign of Cernunnos, perhaps – and then caught himself.

“I… can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“When my men and I tried to pass through, something stopped us. I don’t think the caves through there are meant for the likes of me,” is all he says.

Intrigued, Seymour peers through the opening. Boleyn is standing in the middle of a cavern. Her torch glances off a craggy, crystal ceiling. She entered without any problem. But then again, Seymour can’t imagine even the most magical of doorways saying no to Boleyn.

“Come, sister.” Her voice echoes strangely in the space.

Seymour squeezes through the fissure, and the sudden smell of fish almost makes her vomit again. As her eyes adjust to the darkness, she realises that Boleyn’s torch is not the only source of light. The midnight recedes in the far corner of the cavern – the pall of daylight. She can’t understand why Oswyn had such trouble entering. It is a cave, as dank as any other.

“We must be beneath Brynd’s estate, by the sea,” Boleyn says.

Seymour nearly slips on the cave floor as she joins Boleyn in the centre. The mine shaft was as dry as a long summer, but here everything is covered in a wet sheen.

Boleyn moves away from Seymour, taking the torch with her towards one of the walls.

“No garnets, as far as I can tell,” she mutters.

Seymour tries to follow her and slips again. “Boleyn, stop, I can’t see.”

Boleyn sighs and returns to Seymour’s side, hooking an arm into Seymour’s elbow.

“That I should be the one supporting you, Seymour,” she says, with a crooked smile. Seymour doesn’t humour her with a laugh. It was a mistake to join Boleyn on this journey. She should have simply met her back at Brynd.

“Ahhh.” Boleyn doubles over, bracing herself against the wall.

Seymour hovers beside her, taking the torch. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

Seymour places a hand on top of Boleyn’s, over the marble swell of her stomach, trying to ignore the knowledge that in less than a year her own stomach will be as round, as alien as this. “Look at me, Boleyn.”

For the first time, Boleyn obeys her. “What are we doing here?” Seymour asks.

Boleyn closes her eyes. The torchlight picks out the sweat on her forehead.

“I was going to be such a good queen, Seymour,” she says at last.

“You are a good queen.”

Boleyn shakes her head. “My people despise me. My body is failing.” Her voice grows shakier. “Henry hasn’t visited me in such a long time.”

Seymour stands abruptly. She will listen to a certain amount of self-pity – she has, after all, doled out plenty in her time – but she cannot listen to Boleyn’s lovesickness. Not any more.

“I wouldn’t count that as a great loss,” she says.

“It is not his fault that I love him and not you, Seymour,” Boleyn says. “And it is not his fault that you chose to marry him when he asked.”

Seymour bangs her fist against the rock, ignoring the pain glancing up her wrist. “Do you truly think any woman of my station has a choice when a king proposes, Boleyn? I knew you were naive, but I never thought you stupid.”

Boleyn starts up, flushing. “There were a hundred ways you could have turned him away from you’d if you wanted to, Seymour. Do not pretend you did not crave your crown, and all the comfort it offers.”

“Comfort?” Seymour says, her voice rising. “Comfort!” She can hardly hear herself over the pounding in her head.

Seymour’s movement is so sudden it surprises even her. She pins Boleyn against the rock with one arm, the other holding the torch aloft, too close to Boleyn’s face. “He forced me, Boleyn,” she says, her spit landing on Boleyn’s cheek.

Seymour steels herself for denial, for Boleyn to say something that will break their friendship irrevocably. That word, forced, echoes silently in Boleyn’s mouth.

“He forced me and now… now I’m pregnant.”

Boleyn’s hands fly up to Seymour’s face, cupping her cheeks. Gently, she pulls Seymour’s head towards her own, and as their foreheads meet, Seymour begins to sob.

“I have to get out, Boleyn. I thought that becoming a queen would give me the peace I needed. I thought I could bear everything that came with that, especially when you gave me those pills. But I can’t. I’ll throw myself into the Mearcdyke rather than live like this, being prey to his whims.”

“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” Boleyn whispers.

Seymour can’t answer that. She can’t tell Boleyn that she has been asking for help ever since that strange and beautiful night at the font. And Boleyn did help her, in her own way. But the help Seymour needs is beyond Boleyn’s ability to grant.

“We will find a way,” Boleyn whispers.

Seymour cannot say who is leaning more on whom. She finds herself staring, through tears, at the wall behind Boleyn…

She stumbles back, pulling her friend with her.

“It’s…” Seymour can’t breathe. “It’s a person.”

“What?”

Boleyn takes the torch and holds it up to where Seymour is pointing. At first, all they see are the shadows and contours of the crystal, and the sea grime covering it, but when they move the light just so, it appears. A face, perfectly preserved – eyes closed, peaceful, as though standing in water.

“What is this place?” Seymour says, clutching her arms around her torso. Her tears are cold against her cheeks. Boleyn moves the torch along the wall, looking closely.

“There are more of them.”

“I’ll fetch someone,” Seymour says.

“No. Wait.”

Boleyn goes to the entrance of the cave and snatches up one of the tools. She hands Seymour the torch and begins to hammer inexpertly at the wall, chipping away until the crystal begins to thin.

“I need to get out of this gown.”

She pulls at the laces of her bodice. It pools at her feet and she steps out of it in her shift, dragging her embellished sleeves from her arms and leaving them on the floor of the cavern. Seymour thrusts the torch into a patch of sand and joins Boleyn. There is something haunted about the cavern, some strange energy in the air that flits between the women as they work. It fills them, driving the muscles in their arms, wicking away their sweat, calming the torrents inside them.

At last, the bodies are revealed, a layer of crystal still encasing them, now thin enough for all to be seen. Seymour and Boleyn step back, viewing all six side by side.

Blonde and red and chestnut and hair like midnight, some in waves, some in curls, some cropped, some flowing straight to the floor. Narrow and broad, curved and flat, soft and muscular, brown and bronze and beige and pale. Long torsos and long legs, short and tall, wombed and not. Big noses, breasts, eyes; small noses, breasts, eyes. No breasts, crooked limbs, moles and birthmarks and stretch marks and the scars of childbirth and the smoothness of childlessness. Each body so wholly different from its companions. All of them, women.

Seymour realises that she is clutching Boleyn’s hand. She is so filled with awe that she cannot move. She knows, even before Boleyn points out the inscription on the wall beside the women, who they are and why they are here.

Despite the salt of the sea, the carving is as fresh as though it had been chiselled yesterday.

While we lived

The Font of Medren

flowed through Us

“Are they the first queens?” Seymour whispers. She thinks of Howard’s nurse, the Hleaw, and her story about the Medrenkynd. Seymour knew that the Hleaws worshipped old gods. To be precise: they worship a goddess, Medren. Her father had taught her, with ferocious scorn, that of course Medren, a woman, was a false deity.

“It was never about him at all, or Cernunnos,” Boleyn says. “Nimæn.”

“Nimæn?”

“It means stolen. The king’s power was never channelled through us. It was ours to begin with. He has been taking it from us.”

She makes a sound, a tortured puff of air. Something wet splatters on Seymour’s stockinged feet. They both look down. Boleyn’s shift is sodden.

The baby is coming.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Boleyn

Boleyn has been ready to meet her child for weeks. Months. But now she is not ready at all. Her thoughts, once so ordered, are too tangled to be fruitful. If she gives birth in this state, her child will be tangled too.

Seymour is bracing her. “Boleyn?” she keeps saying. If she carries on she will wear the name out. “Boleyn? What do we do?”

Boleyn shakes her head, squatting as another surge passes across her belly and up her spine. She no longer knows what to do. Why does everyone want something? Want her to give to them, give give give? They have taken all the pieces of her and left her with nothing of herself. There is no certainty any more, anywhere.

That is not true at all, dear heart, a voice says. One moment she thinks it comes from a small, forgotten core deep within her. The next she thinks it emanates from the cavern itself, from the sleeping queens bearing silent witness to her labour. Boleyn spreads the fingers of one hand across the crystal, over the crossed arms of one of the women.

What do I do?

Trust yourself, the reply comes, swift as thought.

Seymour is spreading their discarded gowns across the floor into a makeshift bed. She squeezes out into the silent mine shaft, just outside the cave, and returns with an abandoned miner’s blanket, covered in the dust of garnets and rock. Seymour spreads it over the gowns. Boleyn’s child is going to be born into the presence of majesty upon dirty fabric.

“Lie down,” Seymour says, helping Boleyn to the ground. Her face is tight, eyes wide. “Lie back. That’s what happens, I think, isn’t it. It’s like a bed. It’s going to be all right. You’re going to be all right.”

She helps her down, but no sooner is Boleyn upon the floor than she rolls herself over onto all fours.

“Boleyn, lie back, then I’m going to fetch help.”

Boleyn shakes her head. She is listening for that small, still voice, and it is saying that her body does not want to lie down, to lie back, to be submissive. Her body wants to move, wants to sway and heave. It wants to plant her hands and knees on the rock and grow roots through them.

Dimly, Boleyn hears a commotion at the cavern’s entrance. Urial leaps through the hole and flows towards her. Behind him, more flustered than she’s ever seen her, is Syndony.

“The creature went wild,” Syndony is explaining to Seymour. “It kept pulling on my gown, like it wanted me to follow it. I thought it might burn me.”

Urial nuzzles into Boleyn, mewling over her stomach. Syndony crouches beside her, her eyes flicking to the sleeping queens and away again – she will tackle their meaning later. There are more pressing matters to deal with here.

“We need to get you out. You can’t give birth in here,” she says, her hands expertly kneading the base of Boleyn’s back.

“I don’t think she can go all that way,” Seymour says.

Follow the light, the voice tells Boleyn.

She gets to her feet, and stumbles through the cave, ignoring Syndony and Seymour’s alarm. She follows the smell of the sea.

There are more carvings on the rock faces here. Boleyn cannot stop to read them, but as she lurches through the cave their meaning works its way into her, like a dream, recalled in snatches of clarity. With every surge, a new vision. She sees those six women walk into the water of a volcano – the Font of Cernunnos? Or the font of another divinity? They emerge from their baptism as queens. She sees that same volcano rise from the earth, a great and terrible and beautiful woman. The woman breaks parts of herself from her rocky, icy, heathery body and gives a piece to each queen. A piece of stone that will become a gargoyle. The spirit stones of the castles of Elben.

The divine power was a gift, not from Cernunnos, but from Her, and not to the king, but to the queens. The Hleaws may have called her Medren, but she doesn’t have a name. She is the rich soil and the tune of the nightingale. She is the gasp of the lover and the groans within Boleyn now.

The inscriptions tell of the six queens building their castles, establishing the bordweal. Boleyn looks and looks as each new vision hits her, but nowhere can she see Him. No king, no antlered god. The bordweal was never bound to him. The power always, all along, came from the women in their six fortresses. The kings somehow stole it, subverted it, manipulated it for their own glory.

Another surge, stronger than before, and Boleyn lets out a roar to break chains.

She stumbles around one final corner, and almost falls into shallow water. The ceiling of this cavern, open to the ocean, is almost as high as the hall back at Brynd. It glitters with garnets, turning the pool of water inside scarlet, like the colour of her wedding dress. The cave’s entrance is concealed by a waterfall. Beyond it is the sea.

Boleyn wades out into the water. All she knows is that she needs to be out there.

“Where are you going?” Seymour shouts from the last dry step. Boleyn keeps going, letting the waterfall drench her hair, her body. There’s a ledge, and then a drop, and then she’s swimming, the chill of the waves numbing the next surge.

“Boleyn!”

Seymour wades out behind her, but clings to the side of the cave, beneath the waterfall. A storm is coming. The clouds gather above Boleyn, and the waves reach for them. Boleyn rides them, waiting in power, like those clouds. She lets the sea pull her under for a moment, communing with the hidden currents.

Syndony appears next to Boleyn, her own gown discarded.

“Let me check the babe?” she says, her voice gravelly. Boleyn nods. Syndony takes a deep breath and ducks beneath the waves. Boleyn feels her steady hands, pressing, pushing. When she rises again, her expression is impenetrable.

“Your womb has broken in the wrong place,” she says.

“What does that mean?” Boleyn asks.

“The babe is stuck. It cannot get out. We need to get you help.”

“No. I must give birth here, now.”

“I don’t know if I can get this child out safely without aid.”

Boleyn thrashes, no longer at one with the sea. Urial, from his position at the edge of the water, sends up a plaintive roar. Seymour sees that something is wrong. She throws herself into the water with ungainly strokes. When Syndony tells her, she takes hold of Boleyn’s shoulders.

“Boleyn, listen to me. The baby could die if we don’t find a physician.”

“This is not what I want,” Boleyn says.

“I know, my love. I know.”

Boleyn pulls away from her, searching for the voice that told her that this is what she needs. She cannot lose this child. She would rather die with it than lose it. But this is not what she wants. Her child is not meant to come into the world on a stale mattress with its mother curled on her back like a stranded turtle.

“Boleyn? Are you ready?” Seymour says.

“We must go now,” Syndony says. “Or it won’t just be the babe we lose.”

It is only seeing Seymour’s fear at those words that Boleyn recognises her own. Another surge comes over her. This is her body. Hers. She will do this the way that feels right to her. She screams, long and loud and furious.

The storm clouds hover, and the sea screams back.

The roar cannot be heard by the naked ear, but is felt in the water that eddies around the women. It is a roar not of rage or malice, but of hunger.

Shapes appear through the waves, dipping and rising through the froth. They move like fish, but their faces are of a different beast entirely. Kelpies. They skim towards the women, their horse heads fierce and fanged.

“Sweet gods,” Syndony whispers. “What do we do?”

“Wait,” Boleyn says.

As the kelpies reach them their faces morph, the muzzles shrinking, the seaweed manes condensing. Their front legs become arms. From the waist up, they are women, green-skinned, still fanged. They dart in and out of the water, their hands massaging Boleyn’s belly. They chatter to each other in their own language. Boleyn, Seymour and Syndony wait, poised in the water, holding each other against the wonder of it.

At last, one of the kelpies rises. She holds Boleyn’s face in her hands, and she utters a single cry. It is time.

Boleyn takes Seymour’s hands, and Syndony holds her hips from behind, and steadied by the kelpies she begins to push. Her screams echo off the cliffs, and the kelpies scream with her, enveloping her in the strength of their noise.

She labours until the storm clouds break and the sky meets the sea. She is at once not of herself and entirely herself, more than she has ever been. There is only her and her strength and the knowledge of her body.

When the baby is free of her, she reaches between her legs and pulls it from the water. Syndony and Seymour hold her as she stares at her creation. The child, bloody and wet, blinks half-closed eyes. A daughter fit for a prophecy. A wild daughter of the sea.

“You did it,” Seymour whispers, kissing Boleyn’s shoulder.

The kelpies approach mother and daughter, crooning in their alien tongue at the sight of the child. Gently, they cut the cord with their teeth, and press their green, calloused fingers into the girl’s flesh, and then the pack of them is gone, turned back into horses, darting through the flotsam and back into the depths of the ocean.

Syndony and Seymour help Boleyn to swim back to the cave, the baby pressed to her chest. She is heavy after the weightlessness of the sea. Urial cleans and warms the baby with his tongue as they cover themselves with dirty gowns. Together, they hobble back through the mines, towards the sound of hammering, brutal after the water’s embrace.

The miners drop their tools when they see the women. Oswyn rushes towards Boleyn.

“We must make sure she does not catch fever,” Seymour mutters, over and over.

“Your Majesty, will you allow me to carry you?” Oswyn says, wrapping his dusty shirt around her and the baby. He lifts them as gently as though they were made of the finest porcelain, following Urial through the passageways and out into the forest, where rain finds its way through the leaves and cleans the dust and salt from Boleyn’s upturned face.

“What will you name her, Your Majesty?” Syndony asks, one hand on Boleyn’s as they move.

Boleyn thinks of all she has learned, and she thinks of the traitor queen who, she is beginning to suspect, was not a traitor after all. She cannot name the child Isabet, but she can come close. A baby born into storms, in the territory of the queens of truth.

“Her name will be Elizabeth.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Seymour

Seymour has no desire to return to the cavern of queens, but she must make sure that no one else can stumble upon it.

“Are you certain?” Oswyn asks, ready with his trowel and a bucket of cement beside the opening that he and his men had pushed through with such effort.

“We’re certain,” she says. Afterwards, she hands him a purse of gold coins for his silence, and tells her driver that she plans to walk back to Brynd, to stretch her panther’s legs.

As the carriage trundles back towards Pilvreen, Seymour strokes Haltrasc’s head. Her guards wait for her to set off. She likes that no one questions her any more when she decides to do something unqueenly. Maybe Boleyn is having an influence on her after all.

She’s glad to have a brief respite from the music and laughter of Boleyn’s household. She misses the peace of Hyde. Every moment spent in the company of Boleyn and the new princess is a reminder to her of the being growing inside her. Walking through the forest allows Seymour to avoid Pilvreen, too, with all its bustle and doffing of caps. It has only been a few days since Elizabeth’s birth and already the road in and out of town is strewn with makeshift stalls selling straw dolls and copper coins commemorating the princess. God knows what furore would have occurred if she had been the longed-for prince. The boy child to make the bordweal strong. Seymour’s mouth twists into a smile. If only they knew, with all their pamphlets, how irrelevant a prince truly is to their fates.

Ferns encroach on the forest path. Fallen logs flank it, burgeoning with mushrooms. Haltrasc trots ahead of Seymour, lolloping after squirrels and sniffing out rabbits in the undergrowth. The trees are heaving with nests and the sound of birdsong, which strikes up in alarm as one bird then another spots the panther.

A herd of honeydragons, broader and bigger than cows and with only the barest suggestion of wings, grumble steam as they pass. One of the dragons is hunched over a dozen fledglings that pull viciously at her teats. Back at Hyde it is lambing season. All of nature is having babies, it seems, and for once Seymour is in accord with the rest of the kingdom. She can understand, of course, how the birth of a child could be greeted with so much joy. She takes pleasure in Boleyn’s expression when she takes Elizabeth from her wet nurse. But motherhood was never something Seymour aspired to. She has spent the last few months trying to rid herself of shackles, and having a child is, to her, the thickest chain of all.

Seymour’s mother, Cernunnos rest her soul, became a slave to her children, her pregnancies, even with all the wet nurses and tutors Lord Seymour bestowed upon her. Seymour, six years old, witnessed her mother’s stomach swelling and the way her father turned his attention elsewhere when she grew too large to please him. Seymour was by her mother’s side when she wept with the sickness and the headaches. She would throw things when the servants couldn’t bring her oranges in summer, then in the regret that followed she would cling to Seymour and Seymour would sing her lullabies, and neither of them would mention the parasite turning her from mother to monster.

Seymour remembers the first time her mother miscarried. They were playing in the gallery, a rare scene of familial joy – three children racing from end to end of the long hall, and their mother in the middle, laughingly trying to catch them. Two women and two men – equal in theory, but it didn’t feel that way, even then. The gallery was lined with portraits, every one of them men, bearded and sour-eyed, judging Seymour and her mother.

Seymour remembers how her mother stopped, suddenly, in the middle of the gallery and let out a little cry.

“Why have you stopped? I want to keep playing,” Thomas had said.

Edward had eyed her suspiciously. “What’s wrong with you now?”

Seymour had said nothing. All three of them had watched, and the sour-eyed Seymour ancestors had watched, as Mother weaved her way in silence towards her rooms. They never played that game again.

Lady Seymour remained in her bed for several days, refusing to see anyone. A second miscarriage followed a few months later, and then there was a period of peace, when Lord Seymour sated himself with girls pushed forward by local parents eager for this or that position on the family estates.

The forest closes in on Seymour, and she’s glad for the guards’ steady presence behind her. Suddenly, the rumours of a crone being spotted on this part of the coast don’t feel so improbable. She passes a bush laden with berries and stops to pick some. The fruit is small and sweet and leaves bloody stains on her fingers. In the distance, she can hear the sound of the sea, ever present, ever irascible, like time.

Then the final pregnancy. Seymour had known this one was different. Her mother’s body had expelled the others, but this one ate her up from the inside. Her face grew sallow, her cheekbones pronounced. Her arms, which had once been muscular, became bony. And as her stomach grew and grew, the rest of her shrank. The thing inside her was ravenous and merciless.

Too early, she gave birth to twins. One had the cord wrapped around its neck when it came out. The other screamed loud enough to compensate for its brother’s silence. Seymour’s mother held them both in her frail arms for a while, although she could barely keep her eyes open. That night, Seymour crawled into bed beside her and lay her head on her mother’s shoulder. She was hot as dragon’s breath, even though it was midwinter.

“Mother?” Seymour had whispered, knowing something was wrong even at eight years old.

“I do wish…” Lady Seymour had murmured, then moaned in pain and clutched at her stomach.

Seymour never did find out what she wished. Those were the last words her mother ever spoke. Seymour had fetched the steward, knowing her father wouldn’t like to be disturbed at this time of night, and the steward called for a physician, and the physician arrived and asked the steward what the problem was, as if Lady Seymour was simply livestock.

She died that afternoon. The child died the next day. So it was all for nothing anyway.

Seymour emerges from the forest into an orchard of pear trees. Gardeners are clearing the last of the winter detritus from the ground, and they doff their caps to her as she passes. She wonders what stories they tell of her stay at Brynd. Have they accepted the rumour that Boleyn and Seymour spread; that headstrong Boleyn wants to show off her new baby to submissive little Seymour?

Laughter rises from the new nursery wing, just beyond the trees. The sharp, contagious laughter of the Boleyn siblings.

Boleyn is in the largest room of the nursery, sitting beside the fireplace and rocking the cradle Queen Howard gave her. Her dragon, Urial, has clambered into the cradle’s side and is nuzzling the sleeping baby, crooning as though he were Elizabeth’s parent. Rochford is helping Syndony to arrange gifts around the space – toys, cushions and blankets from royalty and ambassadors and nobility from Elben and beyond.

“Queen Seymour,” Rochford says. “When Boleyn told us you were running errands, I scolded her. She should have allowed me to help, if a servant could not.”

“I was glad to do it,” Seymour says.

“What were you doing, exactly?” Rochford asks, busying herself with arranging a vase of lilies.

“Nothing of importance,” Seymour says. Rochford’s eyes flick to hers, and Seymour knows that she doesn’t believe her.

Mark takes a swathe of embroidered cotton from Syndony and holds it up for Boleyn to examine.

“I know a seamstress who will make you adorable Perfugian smocks from this.”

“Very well,” Boleyn says. She’s playing with the poesy ring on her wedding finger, as though thinking of a wish to make; one that will bind to the fairy inside. Seymour finds Boleyn at once softer and more predatory than she was before Elizabeth’s birth. She has crossed an invisible boundary. Seymour is supposed to follow, but she doesn’t think she can.

A little hand rises from the crib, and a moment later Elizabeth mewls.

“She’s just waking up,” Boleyn tells Seymour, reaching into the cradle as though she’s been waiting for the child to stir. Seymour studies her for signs of the fever that took her mother, but she’s more hale than Seymour has ever seen her.

When Rochford and Mark move into another room, Boleyn offers Elizabeth to Seymour. She takes her awkwardly. She weighs almost nothing and fits so neatly into the crook of Seymour’s arm. She has Boleyn’s dark eyes, but everything else about her is unmistakably the king’s. Henry’s seed.

“She likes you. She howls like a demon when Mary and George try to hold her.”

“I like her too,” Seymour says, letting Elizabeth take hold of her finger. Urial places its front claws onto Seymour’s lap and blows hot air across the baby’s hand.

“What are we going to do, Seymour?” Boleyn says softly. That simple sentence encompasses both the vast question of what they discovered in the cave, and the vaster question of the parasite growing in Seymour’s womb. Seymour reaches over and loops a finger beneath the pendant around Boleyn’s neck: a pair of golden antlers. A sign of Cernunnos, of faith.

“You truly believed in it all, didn’t you?” she says.

“You did not?” Boleyn says, raising an eyebrow.

“No, I did,” Seymour replies quickly. How can she explain her own experience to Boleyn, who has grown up around so many good, kind, clever men? For all Boleyn’s notions of equality, the sacred balance of man above woman must have felt as natural as bone beneath flesh, but for Seymour, the idea of male supremacy has never been a comfort. Perhaps her father and brothers’ rough dominance has been a blessing after all, because all she felt when the truth was revealed in that cave was freedom.

“I wonder how many others know,” Boleyn says, rising and pacing to the window. Seymour knows she’s thinking of the king, but neither of them have mentioned their husband since Seymour’s confession in the cave.

“He knows,” Seymour says. “How could he not?”

Boleyn nods silently, still not looking at Seymour. She seems to wrestle herself away from a precipice. When she turns back to Seymour, her expression is sharper.

“That brings us to the other matter,” she says.

Seymour looks down at Elizabeth, now blindly nosing towards her chest. She does like Elizabeth. But Seymour has far more in common with her own mother than she has in common with Boleyn. She knows, the way a woman knows her body if she only listens to it dutifully, that like her mother she will not survive a birth. The walk through the forest has made Seymour certain of something she’s felt since the moment she realised she was pregnant.

“I don’t want this baby,” she tells Boleyn.

“I know,” Boleyn says. “So what are we going to do about it?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Boleyn

High Hall seethes. In the kitchens and servants’ quarters on the lowest floor, the pantries overflow with freshly butchered meat. The smell of cream in the buttery is intoxicating, and the cellars are nearly emptied of wine and ale. Every minor nobility from across Elben, the Feorwa Isles and the Archipelago of Idesa congregates each morning in the great banqueting room, having ridden in from the inns and houses of the nearby towns. They are fed in a constant loop of sittings.

On the third floor, Boleyn’s rooms are festooned with fresh flowers and the tiniest dragon lanterns, imported from the breeding parlours of Perfugi. Every wall is lined with gifts for Princess Elizabeth. The other queens vacate their rooms, giving them over to the more important officials and courtiers. Their ceilings shudder with the footsteps of the advisors and ambassadors meeting on the floor above. Already, envoys jostle to brook engagements between the royal babe and their king, or their king’s son, and if they cannot secure an engagement, then perhaps an advantageous trade deal.

The sanctuary, near the top of High Hall, and Henry’s chambers at the very apex, offer the only tranquillity in the whole palace. One gives the calm of holy reverence, Cernunnos’s golden antlers decorated in the green of Queen Boleyn’s house. The other, the silence of its occupant’s displeasure.

In the grounds of High Hall, bowers and tents of golden cloth are erected, and the tiltyard’s viewing towers are decked with cushions and blankets to stave off the spring chill. The royal stables burst with horses, and the managed wilderness that blocks the Tower from the view of Queen Howard’s rooms is given over to their grazing.

Boleyn tries to enjoy it. There has not been a royal blessing for nine years, when the king’s only son, the late Prince Henry, was born. The celebrations for Elizabeth are nearly as grand, or so Boleyn is told. She does not think, when she surveys the preparations outside, about the fact that the jousting tournament is only a day instead of the three originally planned. She does not think, when she examines the gifts, that the hunting dragon Henry promised on the birth of their child is not among them, or that he has not yet come down from his chambers to see their daughter. She definitely does not think, when night falls and the palace is quiet at last, about Howard or Seymour or what she saw in that cavern, and what it means for her and her daughter.

She has forged, with her will and courage and womb, the perfect life for herself. A kingly husband she loves, a castle she is mistress of, a baby who is her whole world, an education any scholar would be envious of. To think on what he did to Seymour, on those sleeping queens, to test whether Henry knows the truth, would mean she might have to destroy her carefully fashioned fantasy.

She is happy. She is complete. As long as she does not think.

“The king is going to come to the blessing, isn’t he?” Mary says, the night before the celebrations. Their parents have gone to bed already, and the rest of them are lazing in the parlour in Boleyn’s chambers, shoes discarded and feet pushed towards the fire, Mary and Boleyn on chairs, Rochford and George curled around each other on a long chair. In the corner of the room, Mark dozes over a book, and Wyatt scribbles furiously, his back to them. He is another thing Boleyn doesn’t think about.

“Of course he will. He’s been meeting foreign dignitaries.”

“Hasn’t he been back from Thawodest for a week?” George asks her.

“There was infection on his ship. He didn’t want to put Elizabeth at risk,” Boleyn says.

“You mustn’t worry. A boy will follow,” Rochford says.

“I’m not worried.” Boleyn feels her lips narrow to a line.

“Don’t snap at her,” George says.

“Enough,” Mary says loudly, as Boleyn opens her mouth to retort. Mark starts awake, his book dropping to the floor with a slap. Mary looks round at them all. “We are a family. We do not argue.”

“I’m not family,” Wyatt pipes up from the corner.

“You are a stray my sister took pity on,” Mary says. “The rest of us are Boleyns, either by birth or by marriage. We are one. Cynn æ hredsigor, remember?”

George repeats the motto. Boleyn does not. Mark wanders over to them, studying Boleyn.

“You have lost your joy,” he remarks.

“I’m still tired from the pregnancy, that’s all,” Boleyn says with a flick of her wrist.

“No. You’re different since you gave birth,” Rochford says quietly.

“She’s a mother now,” Mary says, rubbing Boleyn’s arm.

“What happened in those caves?” Rochford asks. The room is very still. Even Wyatt has paused his writing. The firelight flickers across Boleyn’s face, as though she and it are conversing.

“I will tell you. Not here though.”

She is thinking of the ears of High Hall. The way anything spoken here seems to wind its way back to Henry. Besides, Rochford has been a little too curious for her liking of late.

They go to their rooms soon afterwards. Boleyn’s maid helps her out of her gown and into her night shift, looking away from the linen bandage secured around her ribs. She massages her breasts, which are still swollen with milk that will never be drunk. The maid brings a pot of cream that Boleyn rubs into her stomach. She doesn’t look in the mirror. The body she would see there isn’t yet hers. Her body is taut and light and supple. The puffy sack she inhabits now is someone else’s. When the maid leaves, Boleyn sits for a while by the window, looking out over the tiltyard, its flags of Boleyn green and royal purple fluttering like dreams in the moonlight. She takes the cream and, now she’s alone, rubs it into a patch of skin on her arm that has started to itch. She eases the bandage down over her ribs and examines the exposed grey flesh. It is spreading. There is so much that she must not think about.

In the next room, Elizabeth stirs. Boleyn drops her shift and goes to the door that separates them, pressing her ear to the wood. If Elizabeth wakes, she will go in there and quietly feed her. It would be improper, but no one need know. Her breasts prickle, making damp patches on her shift. She places a hand on the latch.

Elizabeth lets out a sharp little cry, but before Boleyn can slip into the room, the wet nurse stirs. Boleyn pulls away from the sounds of her daughter feeding. Well. It’s as it should be. Boleyn returns to her window seat, pulls a shawl around her shoulders and closes her eyes against the tears.

In the silence that follows, Boleyn becomes aware of a draught chilling her foot. She picks up a cushion and moves slowly through her room, feeling for the source. She finds it at the base of one of the wooden panels. Frowning, she feels beneath the panel. Instead of brick or stone, there is a cavity.

All worry forgotten, Boleyn feels her way around the panel, until she finds a hidden pressure point. The panel springs open. She holds a candle up – a narrow staircase, barely wide enough for a slim person, leads up. Boleyn has heard that High Hall is riddled with such secret passageways, but has never seen one until now. Boleyn follows it, her bare feet getting colder and colder as she rises. At the top of the staircase there’s another door that leads out onto a slim space between crenelations and a window of one of the bedrooms. So this is a trysting passage, an old way for lovers to meet at night. She wonders if her predecessor, Huntlye, used it at all. She holds less judgement at the idea than she once might have.

The wind blows out her candle almost immediately, but she can still see by moonlight. Boleyn goes first to the edge of the balcony, holding onto the parapets and leaning right over. The grounds below seem to be waiting for her alone, the gentle smell of blossom wafting up to her. She lets her fingers slip a little. A little more.

Someone taps on the window behind her. She scrambles back and whirls around. Wyatt is standing on the other side of the glass, his arms braced on the window as though he was about to burst through it to catch her should she fall. He is naked from the waist up, a scattering of dark hair across his chest that tapers down the muscles of his stomach and disappears beneath his hose. Without thinking, Boleyn takes a step towards him.

Reassured that she is no longer in danger, Wyatt pushes back from the window and stands before her, letting her look her fill. She looks, and she looks. She tells herself she is dreaming, not fully in control of herself, as she moves across the balcony and places one hand on the windowpane. If the glass was not there, her hand would be upon his chest. They bear witness to each other for a moment, before Wyatt’s hand moves towards the latch securing the window shut. It is as if someone has tossed her from a great height, waking her. She snatches her hand away, then flees back down the staircase, stumbling in the pitch, throwing herself into her bed and pulling the covers over her trembling body.

She waits, half dread, half hope. Will he come to her? What will she do if he does? For a while, she thinks she hears the creak of floorboards above her chamber. But he does not come down, and she does not leave her bed again.

Henry joins her in the morning, striding into her chambers and saying, “Where is my daughter? Bring me to her this instant!” so loudly that servants and courtiers alike laugh in admiration. Boleyn brings Elizabeth to him. He holds the baby to the window, beaming at her with pride. He shifts Elizabeth into one arm, and picks Boleyn up in the other, kissing her hard and long. She tries not to cry out when he touches her itching arm.

“My warrior of a wife,” he says, staring down at her. “How I’ve missed you.”

She stifles the words that rise to her lips: If you missed me, why have you not come to me before now? She does not want an answer. She does not want an argument. She does not want to think.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” is all Boleyn says, reaching across to Elizabeth.

“Beautiful,” he says, still looking at Boleyn. She adjusts her corset, so the bandage covering her ribs isn’t so tight. His eyes move across to Mary.

“Lady Mary, either my eyes are playing tricks on me or you are no longer wearing black.”

Mary twirls in her deep green velvet. “What better time to come out of mourning than my beloved niece’s blessing, Your Majesty?”

Henry laughs. Boleyn laughs. They are so merry.

The blessing takes place in the sanctuary, where less than a year ago Boleyn thought she was marrying the best man she could ever meet. The route from her wing up to the sanctuary is strewn with purple rose petals. Elizabeth is dressed in her blessing gown – a long white length of lace, embroidered with the same rose petals, stitched into the fabric with such care that not a single one has been torn or discoloured.

The sanctuary is bursting. Every noble in Elben is in attendance. As Bishop More makes the mark of Cernunnos on Elizabeth’s forehead, Boleyn looks at them all from her place at the front of the sanctuary. There are no queenly favours on display today, out of respect for the occasion, but Boleyn doesn’t need a square of fabric or a coloured sleeve to remember who is allied with whom. Let them look upon her perfect child, and remember that of all the queens, she fell pregnant the quickest, and can do so again.

The celebrations begin in earnest after the blessing. The guests flood into the gardens, jostling for a place at the front of the tiltyard’s wooden barriers. Boleyn is shown into the royal viewing tower. Lord Wolsey arrives soon afterwards, taking the seat beside her.

“Is Henry not…?” she begins.

“His Majesty asked me to keep you company.” Wolsey bows. Boleyn tries to smile, but inside she is a whirlwind. Once, she might have feared that Henry’s love for her was waning. Now, she finds she cares less about that and more about what his absence might mean for her and Elizabeth. His favour may be poisonous, but it is necessary to secure Elizabeth the life she deserves as a royal princess. Without him right there, she can fool herself into believing that she no longer loves him.

Sensing her turmoil, Mary leans over from the row of seats behind her and squeezes her shoulder. The trumpets sound and the first riders, anonymous in their armour but for the heraldry on their shields, ride into the tiltyard. The crowd cheers and boos. This is what most of them have been waiting for all day.

“You may be interested to know that I have received twenty offers of marriage for the princess,” Wolsey says casually.

The first rider is unhorsed. The crowd cheers. It’s an excellent start to the entertainment.

“Is that a good number?” Boleyn says, keeping her eyes on the field of combat.

“If I remember correctly, the king received seventeen for Princess Tudor.”

“I should feel very fortunate, then, to be victorious over Queen Aragon.”

“Well.” Wolsey frowns at her tone. “Perhaps not victorious. But I thought you would be pleased.”

The truth is, Boleyn cannot bring herself to like or feel pity for Queen Aragon, but she now has a taste of what she must have felt all those years ago, when it became clear that she was no longer Henry’s favourite wife. When it became obvious that his devotion was dependent on her providing a male heir.

“And are you pleased, Lord Wolsey?” she asks.

“I serve Elben,” Wolsey says. “The more alliances we can forge, the stronger our kingdom will be.”

“Will you accept any of them?” Boleyn asks. Two more riders canter into the arena and bring their horses to a halt in front of her tower. They raise their jousting poles and she acknowledges them. Once they have cantered on to their respective sides, Boleyn turns to Wolsey fully.

“Are you going to marry my daughter off before she is out of her cradle?”

“Oh, certainly not,” Wolsey says. “I have sent word to the kings of Capetia and Pkolack with news of how much interest we have received. We will wait to see if they throw their hats in the ring before deciding.”

Boleyn grips the balcony of the viewing tower, a flush rising up her throat.

“Sister,” George says loudly. “I think someone we know is about to joust.”

She glances at her brother. He’s staring at her intently. Keep your counsel, he’s saying. For all that she wishes to eviscerate Wolsey, she knows that George is right. Just because Boleyn was fortunate enough to fall in love with a king, it does not follow that any child of hers would be given the freedom to choose who they marry. She has always known this, but it feels different now she is hearing Wolsey talk about her daughter as though she were no more than a fine breeding mare.

Boleyn forces herself to follow George’s direction. The man riding into the tiltyard is, indeed, familiar. He is taller than his competitors by a clear head. His shield is nondescript and his face hidden, but everyone knows who it must be. If his stature wasn’t sign enough, the purple-green magic swirling across his armour would be.

The king.

Henry kicks his charger and it springs across the field, racing towards his opponent. The rider on the other side sits gallantly, but Henry is forward in his saddle. Boleyn has seen that stance before, when he is hunting, when the lust is upon him. As the men careen towards each other, Henry punches his jousting pole into his opponent’s chest with a spark of divine magic. It’s a clean hit, a strong hit. The other man flies from his horse.

Henry lifts his visor and holds up his arms in victory. The crowd cheers and cheers their king. Boleyn blows him a kiss, but her eyes keep flicking towards the unhorsed rider. Two servants are dragging his prone body from the tiltyard. One of his legs appears to be the wrong way around.

There was a time when Boleyn would have delighted in this show of Henry’s strength – Cernunnos’s strength, according to their religion. She would have taken him to bed immediately, delighting in his ferocity, tamed for her. Now she wonders whether he has ever been tame. A strange thought flits through her mind: that the man might still be alive if she had borne Henry a son.

After the jousting, there is feasting. Henry and Boleyn sit in the Great Watching Chamber with the most important nobles and ambassadors, while the rest of their guests dine in the banqueting hall.

The cooks have outdone themselves, and Henry is attentive. He feeds Boleyn oysters dripping with seawater, then offers her a dish made of chickpeas cooked in spices.

“I’m perfectly capable of holding my own spoon, you know,” she says at last.

He rests his forehead against hers, intimate. “I wanted to make sure you ate these dishes.”

“Why?”

“They’ll make it more fun tonight when we try for a prince.”

He nuzzles into Boleyn’s neck, but she can only stare down at her chickpeas. Eventually, Henry claps and cries, “Bring in the dessert!”

Four servants enter, carrying a tray bearing a cascade of spiced fruit cakes, decorated with sugared nuts, marchpane roses and candied columbines that twine around the cakes.

“Do you like it, my love?” he whispers into Boleyn’s ear. His hand is on her thigh. He squeezes.

Boleyn takes a slice and declares it the best she’s ever had. Before she can finish it, Henry laughs. “My darling wife is still eating for two!” The rest of the table titters. She puts down her spoon.

“Shall we go for a stroll, just the two of us?” Henry says.

He is all courtly gallant, tucking her arm into his, making sure she’s not too cold as they walk through the banqueting hall. Boleyn stares straight ahead as they pass Wyatt and go out into the night.

“Are you happy?” Henry asks her as they wander through the herb gardens.

“I am. I am the most happy I’ve ever been,” she lies.

“That’s all I want.”

He takes Boleyn in his arms then, kisses her and lifts her up, carrying her into the shadows of the hedge. Pinned against the foliage, Boleyn can just glimpse the Tower from this angle. She buries her face into Henry’s chest. She is safe. She is safe with him. She is different from the other queens – he will not treat her the way he treats them.

“Boleyn? What’s wrong?” he says.

“Nothing. I’m only… I’m only sad that we cannot spend more time together.”

He tilts her head up.

“You know that everything I do, I do to protect Elben.”

She searches his expression in silence, sure that if she looks hard enough, she will uncover whether he knows that he is lying, or whether he has been duped too.

“You were the one who wanted me to go to war,” he says.

“I know.”

“Thawodest will fall to us soon. The power of the bordweal is so strong in me.”

Is it? she thinks. Or is it strong in me? In Seymour? Which queen’s power are you taking to make yourself so magnificent?

“When you conquer Thawodest – what will you do then?” she asks.

“Nothing without consulting that ferocious mind of yours, my darling.” He smiles, his hand stroking the top of her bosom. He digs out one of her breasts and takes the nipple in his mouth. Branches scrape against her neck. She used to crave this – Henry knows just how to bite her nipples to arouse her. But now her breasts respond to his touch differently. Mixed with the familiar arousal is the deep push of milk. She twists away from him before he can taste what is meant for Elizabeth. She worries that she is being prudish, which she has never been before, must not be now.

“What if I asked you to stay with me?” she asks him.

“I want that, Boleyn. You know I do.”

She tries to be coquettish. “Why do I sense a but, husband?”

He rubs her nose with his. “But the bordweal needs me to be a good husband to all my queens.”

Boleyn tries not to think of the other queens. Howard, her too young body yielding to him. Seymour, oh god, Seymour and what he did to her.

“I need a son,” he is saying. “You understand that, don’t you? If I cannot put an heir of my own in High Hall, Elben will be taken by a foreign king. It will be ripped apart while Quisto and Capetia war over who should have the spoils. We cannot let that happen to this island. To our people.”

She nods, watching his face carefully. “Without you, without a king, without the power the great god gave to you, the protection wouldn’t work. We queens would be nothing.”

There’s the briefest of hesitations. That’s all the confirmation she needs. Seymour was right. He knows.

“Kiss me,” she says.

He does. He’s so tender, so perfect. She sees now that her power over him was only ever an illusion, but as she lifts her skirts and hooks a leg around his waist, guiding him into her, she gives in to the fantasy one last time before it vanishes. She doesn’t let him see her tears, and she does not think.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Seymour

The tide is out when Seymour returns to Hyde. The palace is displayed like a woman reclining in bed, the blanket of the ocean discarded at her feet. Clarice sits opposite her in the carriage as she leans out of the window to drink in the sight of home.

“It’s more peaceful than Brynd, that’s for certain.”

“Indeed, Clarice. Indeed.”

Seymour’s love for Boleyn remains, but they are on different paths now: Boleyn is a mother, a rebel, a leader. Seymour is an eternal lost soul, lurching from one reckoning to another. Boleyn’s pity for Seymour stretches. Seymour’s love for Boleyn bends. But Seymour fears that there will come a point when the two must snap.

Her household is gathered in the courtyard when the carriage makes its way over the drawbridge and comes to a halt. Three long rows of them, every one wearing the livery of Seymour’s queenship – a yellow sun against a bright blue sky.

“We trust you had a good journey, Your Majesty,” her steward says, helping her down.

“Is everything in order?” she asks.

“Oh yes. Lord Edward has been most easy-going. We are almost run out of his favourite wine, though.”

The steward doesn’t look at Seymour as he speaks. She made sure to drug several bottles before she left for Brynd, giving her household strict instructions that only that wine should be served to her brother.

“We should order more directly,” she says, not glancing at him either, lest their mutual knowledge, never explicitly shared, become apparent.

The steward keeps hold of her hand as they go into the vestibule. She wonders why he is being so attentive, until she notices the way the rest of the household are acting around her. No task is too small for them. Their eyes constantly flick to her stomach. News of a possible heir spreads quicker than fire in Elben.

Even though Boleyn will still be at High Hall for Elizabeth’s blessing, Seymour goes to her room before luncheon anyway. The sunscína is there on her wall, innocuous next to the other glass panes. But even if Boleyn or Queen Howard were waiting to speak to her, she wishes to be alone.

She divests herself of her travelling cloak and boots and sits on the edge of her bed. Affixed to her belt is a little bag next to her pomander. She pulls it open, and stares at the contents.

It was easy enough for her to retrieve the envelope hidden in her old room at Brynd before she left. The leaves inside are brittle now, but just as effective. Imbibed, they are deadly, but they have other uses too. Princess Tudor told her as much, many months ago.

Seymour empties a silver trinket box and breaks the leaves into it, covering them with some ale from the jug left on her table. She pulls on an old pair of gloves and uses her fingers to mash the leaves into the ale until all that is left in the box is a grey-green paste that has the woody scent of orris root.

“Are you certain?” Boleyn had said. “I can help you get to Capetia. You could have the baby there.”

She was holding Elizabeth when she said it, and Seymour couldn’t tell her how forcefully she did not want this thing inside her. So she only shook her head, tight-lipped, and Boleyn had sighed and nodded.

Seymour pushes a dresser against the door, to prevent any unexpected entrances. Undressing herself is a pain, but eventually she manages it through a series of contortions. She sometimes wonders whether the way in which noblewomen are raised is designed to make them too incompetent to ever be able to survive alone. With her stomacher discarded on the floor, Seymour raises her smock and runs a hand over her stomach. There’s no bump yet, but the skin is hard instead of its usual yielding softness.

She asks herself one final time if she is ready. She imagines what it would be like to spend the next eight months sick and encumbered. She tries to imagine giving the child the same love and care that Boleyn gives to Elizabeth. She thinks she could do it, but it would cost her. Even if she did escape Elben and the king’s clutches, what kind of life would she be able to give the child? They would both be dependent on the kindness of strangers in a foreign land. Whichever way Seymour turns, she knows that the child would become a political pawn, just as she has been her brothers’ pawn. And if she left the child behind, to remain with the king – could she live with that guilt?

Her mind cannot touch upon the act of birth itself; the true reason she is doing this. The memories of what labour did to her mother are too deeply rooted. She thinks of that painful fever that overtook her mother in her final hours, and she thinks, That would be me. If she has this child, she will not survive. She knows it, as sure as she knows the taste of strawberries and the sound of the citole’s plucked strings. Either the baby grows, or Seymour survives, and she has ever been a survivor.

This is what is right for her, she has no doubt about that. She now only wonders whether she has the courage for everything that will come afterwards.

“It will be worth it,” she mutters to herself. To have this child would mean her death. And her life is important.

Seymour presses a hand to her chest, shocked. That’s the first time she’s ever thought that. Her life. Important. Even if only to her and no one else.

She takes a fingerful of the paste from the trinket box and rubs it across her stomach. The rash rises almost immediately, a messy patch of hives developing long before she has finished covering the area over her womb. Disposing of the remaining paste is harder. She tears one of her stockings, stuffing the foot with the trinket box to try to mask the smell, winding the fabric around and around until it’s a ball. By the time she has hidden the ball in one of her trunks, the hives are almost as painful as the Queen’s Kiss had been when it flayed her hands. She paces the room, holding the fabric of her shift away from her stomach so as not to irritate the area further. She tries to busy her hands with a book, with needlework, but nothing can take her mind off the fire working its way into her stomach. Eventually, she curls up on her bed and pushes her hands deep beneath her pillows to stop herself from rubbing the hives raw.

In the oblivion that follows, she fixes her eyes on the view outside her window. Glittering fish flit past in shoals. She has eaten such fish – small and unremarkable on the plate. But in their natural habitat, and in such great numbers, they are mesmerising. The shoals give way to small sharks, and then seals that move far more gracefully through the water than they do on the coastal rocks above.

She’s woken from her daze by a knock on the door.

“Your Majesty?” Clarice says. “The king is here.”

Seymour sits up, her hands flying to her face, her wild hair.

“The king?” she says. She must have misheard them.

“Yes, my lady. He wants to see you.”

Clarice tries to open the door, but the dresser is blocking it.

“Wait,” Seymour calls. “Wait one moment.”

She runs aimlessly around her chamber, unsure what to do. She isn’t yet ready for the performance she must give.

“Is something wrong?” Clarice says, more quietly. “Can I help?”

“No, no.” Seymour stops and presses her hands against the dome of glass. One breath. Two. Think, stupid girl. Think.

She goes to the trunk where she has hidden the leaves and finds a lock to secure it shut. Then she gathers her gown and pulls it roughly around herself, grimacing as it presses against her stomach. At last, she pulls the dresser away from the door and admits Clarice.

“Finish dressing me,” she says. Clarice eyes the moved furniture but does as they’re told.

“Leave the gown a little looser,” she says, and Clarice silently obeys. Seymour closes her eyes, steeling herself for what comes next.

Are you prepared? Boleyn had asked her. He must believe you want this baby so much. When you lose it, he must believe you’re devastated. It’s treason, what you’re going to do, sister.

Seymour knows the blueprints of the Tower at High Hall by heart. She knows exactly what horrors her ancestor designed there. If she has any power in this world, she will never set foot in that cursed place, not for anything, or anyone.

Seymour leaves her room dressed in a demure, simple gown of deepest blue, her square hood pushed forward in the Quistoan style, so that only a hint of her hair is visible. She holds her hands clenched over her stomach.

The king is waiting just along the gallery, in Seymour’s privy chamber. His hair is mussed and his skin pink from the long, fast horse ride. He’s been served refreshments, but they remain untouched, and he remains standing. Seymour girds herself, pastes on a smile even as her nails long to scratch and scratch at her stomach.

“My love! I did not think to have the pleasure of your company so soon,” she says.

He strides over to her, dismissing Clarice and the other servants with a look.

“How are you? Are you well?”

“I am very well,” she says, hoping to convey quiet satisfaction.

He licks his lips, his eyes darting to her stomach.

“I thought you might have come to High Hall on your way back to Hyde,” he says.

“I did not wish to interrupt the blessing. You must be so proud, Henry.”

He flicks his wrist at her and strides to the other side of the room, looking out of one of the windows to the sea beyond. Seymour forces herself to follow him.

“Have I said something to anger you, my lord?”

He looks at her, the light through the water playing over his face, mixing strangely with the divine magic. Her divine magic.

“I love Boleyn, I do. And I love Elizabeth already. She’s a bonnie little thing. But she cannot claim my throne, Seymour. She cannot keep Elben safe. I was so sure Boleyn would give me a son. So sure.”

Seymour rubs his back gently. “It has been very hard for you.”

“But why is it so hard?” he whispers, hands pressed against the glass. “My father was not as deserving as me. He did little to further the glory of Cernunnos. And yet he had two sons.”

He turns and grips Seymour’s arms. “I have heard things about you, though. Tell me, Seymour. Make me happy.”

She beams at him, unclasping his fingers and pulling them down to her belly. His hand there, pressing into her stomach, nearly makes her cry out in agony. His tortured expression vanishes in an instant. “I knew it would be you,” he says. He picks her up as though she were no heavier than a child, spinning and kissing her. She laughs and laughs with him.

“Our son, Henry. Your heir.”

He puts her down and drops to his knees, kissing her stomach. She wants to take his hair in her hands and tear at it. She could do it, she could scalp him, shove him through the window into the sea and hold him there until not even he could survive. Oh, if he could hear her thoughts, he would snap her neck.

“Ah!” she cries.

“What is it?” He’s on his feet again.

“I’m sorry, my love. I… I’m not feeling well.”

“The baby?”

“I don’t know.”

She does know, though. The leaves have, at last, worked their way through the layers of muscle and fat and into her womb. The thing that was growing there has been uprooted.

Henry carries her back to her rooms, whispering reassurances. She clings to him as though he were her saviour, not her gaoler. In her chamber, he calls for a physician and demands hot towels be brought for her stomach and a bucket of perfumed water for her feet. The physician places a poultice on her forehead, and when told that she is pregnant, asks to examine her.

“Of course,” the king says immediately. “Do whatever is necessary.”

And so Seymour is compelled to remove her gown. She insists on keeping her shift – she is after all a modest woman. Her hand is pressed at all times to her stomach, a sign of her concern and maternal nature.

“I’m sure I’ll feel better with a little rest,” she whispers.

The king drapes a hand over hers, and Seymour almost pities him. What he wants from her is already gone. The physician rises from his examination, his face taut with terror. Seymour watches him through half-closed eyes. Will he tell the king, or will he flee and let her give him the news some days later?

Henry does not need to be told. He stares at the physician’s hands, which are coated in blood.

“No,” Seymour whispers, half acting grief, half truly frightened, not by the blood but by her husband’s presence. She has seen many men overcome by their inadequacies in her time, but never one such as Henry. She has felt the strength in his arms. She knows what he is capable of, if he were to lose control. It’s why she came to Hyde to do it – she did not think he would follow her here so soon. She had hoped to deliver the news by letter, so that he would vent his rage elsewhere.

He turns away from her, rubbing his forehead. Then he spots the holy antlers affixed to the wall, their golden trim fading. He stares up at them, lost.

“What more must I do?” he asks them, and she realises that he’s addressing Cernunnos. “What more can I do?”

If Cernunnos answers, it is to Henry alone.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Boleyn

Brynd has a small mooring of its own, separate from the port town some way down the coast. The jetty, at the base of the castle, is large enough to receive the royal flotilla, or any important foreign emissaries wishing to bypass the commoners at Garclyffe.

Boleyn keeps several boats and barges at her disposal at this jetty, and one day, before the morning mist has cleared, she sets out in a small, high-prowed barge with Mary.

“This reminds me of stealing the fishmaster’s boat back at home,” Mary says, her voice muted in the fog and strained with the effort of rowing.

“What have you done with my trout?!” the sisters say in unison, the memory of childhood summers at Hever rising from the waves like smoke. Boleyn remembers the rancid smell of the stolen vessel, made bearable by the crime itself.

They manoeuvre the barge away from the jetty and, at Boleyn’s direction, along the cliffs, right beneath the lightning tower of Brynd. Perhaps it’s only the nostalgia she’s conjured playing tricks on her, but Boleyn thinks Mary looks younger out here, especially now that she’s no longer wearing her mourning dress. She rows steadily.

“Do you think I was right not to bring George and Rochford and Mark?” Boleyn asks.

“I don’t know, dearest,” Mary says.

“I want to tell them. Well, I want to tell George. It’s only that Rochford has been acting strangely of late.”

Mary shrugs. “She’s curious. We all are.”

Boleyn turns to face the front of the barge, calculating how far they still have to go. Now that she has made up her mind to pursue the truth, she is desperate to do it. Immediately after Elizabeth’s birth, the thought of admitting that everything she’d been raised to believe was a lie was insurmountable. But at High Hall, listening to Wolsey treat her daughter like breeding stock and Henry talk of conceiving a son, Boleyn knew she could not ignore it. Not on her own account, but Elizabeth’s. This magic could be her birthright. Who are Wolsey and Henry and Cromwell to seek to strip her of that?

There is no hint, beneath the water’s surface, of the creatures that came to her aid when she was in labour. Boleyn could almost tell herself that everything that happened – the kelpies, the cavern – was a fever dream, born of hysteria, except that Seymour and Syndony saw it as well.

She spies what looks like a waterfall in the distance, flowing out of the forest on the cliffs above. There is something broken about the geography here – as though a giant had clumsily carved away a chunk of land, leaving the trees and stream to simply end.

“Over there,” Boleyn says. They drop anchor as close to the waterfall as they can. So close to Brynd, so easy to reach from the royal jetty: it makes Boleyn wonder whether another queen might have made the same journey, many years ago, in search of answers. Isabet. The traitor queen.

“What now?” Mary asks her.

Boleyn dips a hand in the water and closes her eyes. She has had the strongest sense, since returning to Brynd, that the power she met in the caves is waiting for her. That the right call will summon it. But here, all is empty.

“I’m going into the caves,” Boleyn tells her. “If you want to find out what happened that day, come with me.”

She strips off her gown and dives into the sea. Her body, still more cumbersome than she’d like, welcomes the iciness. It numbs the red, flaking skin on her arm and the cramps that accompany her first course since giving birth. A few moments later, she hears Mary join her. Together they swim beneath the waterfall and emerge inside the cavern. The ghosts of their shared childhood are strong, and were they anywhere else they might have laughed. But the power of the cavern is stronger still, and they shiver silently in that crystal space.

Nothing has changed since Boleyn was last there, except for the cement that blocks the way out through the mines. Even the old miner’s blanket that Seymour had used as a makeshift bed is still spread out, like a beached sea creature. Boleyn had worried that Oswyn might have been tempted to tell the king or the bishop or Cromwell about the cavern, even if he does not know what it contains – for anyone’s loyalty can be bought for a price.

Mary spies the sleeping queens, their upright bodies encased in crystal crypts, and she steps back, her honeysuckle scent enveloping Boleyn as she reads the carved inscription.

While we lived

The Font of Medren

Flowed through Us

“Medren?” Mary says.

“The Hleaws worship her,” Boleyn says. Then, the magic of the cave making her bold: “She saved Elizabeth.”

Mary’s hand goes to the belt clumsily tied around her shift, and the bag attached to it. She pulls a handkerchief from the bag and presses it to her mouth.

“Do you feel it as well?” Boleyn says. She means the energy in the chamber, a glittering, feminine vigour.

Mary grips Boleyn’s arm. “This is dangerous, B. This is blasphemy.”

Boleyn had known that her sister might not wish to accept the truth. Since before they could walk, they have been raised in the religion of Cernunnos. Their society is founded on the belief that the Kings of Elben are blessed by Cernunnos, the one god, and that his power is channelled through his six queens for the protection of the kingdom. The very notion of a goddess, or of six queens with no need of a sovereign king, is anathema to every truth they have ever learned.

Boleyn takes her sibling’s hand and presses it to the crystal, over the queens’ hearts.

“Listen,” she says. They listen to the ocean supping on rock, the cry of a solitary seagull, the distant blows of the miners’ hammers, felt through their bare feet. And beneath it all, that peculiar silence, pregnant and aware, filling the cavern.

“Are you there?” Boleyn whispers.

We are here, the reply comes. Mary makes the sign of the antlers with the thumb and pointing finger of her free hand.

I need to know the truth, Boleyn thinks.

The cave seems to inhale, the stalactites elongating strangely.

Mary shouts incoherently.

Boleyn follows her gaze to the faces of the queens. One of them is now staring, unseeing, from eyes that were closed only a moment ago. She has brown skin and tight curls tipped with copper. She is taller than Boleyn, and stouter. She stares straight ahead, as though seeing into the future, or the past.

What truth do you seek, Queen of Brynd?

The voice doesn’t come from her mouth. It comes from the pools at Boleyn’s feet, using her body as a conduit. Mary closes her eyes, as if shutting out the sight will shut out the voice too.

“Am I speaking to a Queen of Elben?” Boleyn asks.

You are speaking to Me through one of my gifts.

“Goddess?”

Yes.

“Are you saying that these are – what – the first queens?” Mary says.

They were chosen by the people of Elben – six women, fierce and strong and free – to be blessed by my power. They were anointed in the Font high in the blessed mountains, and when they emerged my magic flowed through them. They each took a stone from the Font – from me – and used them to build the six castles of Elben.

Boleyn remembers the moment she touched the spirit stone of Brynd, and the way she felt connected not only to every queen that had ruled that castle but to a deeper, older power too. She should have questioned, even then, that she felt nothing of Henry or his forbears. The goddess is speaking again:

Those queens protected my kingdom for many years, and when they passed away, my power was passed on to their chosen heirs. They were interred in this chamber. The vein of crystal that has always enriched this part of my island took on some of my power.

“This is the only crystal; the rest is garnets,” Mary says.

“There were no garnets before the massacre of Pilvreen,” Boleyn says, thinking aloud. She had always thought it strange that the blood of the massacred transformed into gems, for usually such transformations do not take place without the presence of magic.

Yes, the magic of mine that runs through this rock met the blood of your people and turned crystal to garnet.

“This is all wrong. The six consorts were a gift from Cernunnos to King Aethelred,” Mary says, sounding like a petulant child.

You were lied to. My queens were sovereigns in their own right, wielding my power to protect the land that I created.

“So there was never a king?” Boleyn asks.

Never. The sovereigns ruled as a parliament.

Boleyn remembers a snippet of history her mother once told her: that before it was turned into a palace, High Hall was a crossroads where the great of Elben could meet and exchange ideas. Back then, it was not called High Hall. That name is a bastardisation of its original name: the Hive. A place ruled by queens.

Something else occurs to her.

“You said you gave the queens your power in order to protect the island. Protect them from whom?”

“From Capetia and Quisto,” Mary says, her eyes still closed.

From the upstart Cernunnos. He was always a lesser god, but greedy, and envious of my vast powers. He craves glory and worship above all else.

“What did he do?” Boleyn asks. Mary extricates her hand from Boleyn’s grasp and paces to the other end of the cavern. She doubles over, retching against the cement that now blocks the passage to the mines.

Cernunnos took one of his followers, a man who was wed to one of the queens of Elben, and he taught him a trick, so simple that I didn’t see it until it was too late. He taught Aethelred how to persuade the world that women could not rule alone. That they needed a man to govern them.

Once Aethelred had persuaded the people of Elben, the sovereigns were forced to capitulate. Cernunnos taught Aethelred how to twist the magic that I had placed upon the spirit stones and the women who ruled them, so that their power strengthened him as well as protecting the kingdom.

“And you were forced out. Cernunnos won.”

Yes.

A hiss whispers around the cave. Boleyn can’t be sure if it’s an echo from the mines nearby, or an expression of the goddess’s fury. The space makes it impossible to hear where it’s coming from. She has so many questions. Did Queen Isabet find the cave too? If she did, was that the cause of her uprising? Was she executed for treason, or because she had discovered the truth? How much does Henry know? And most importantly, how can Cernunnos’s hold over Elben be broken?

The hiss turns into a rumble.

“Boleyn, we have to go,” Mary says.

“You go then,” Boleyn replies, trying to sift her thoughts.

“We have to go. Boleyn, something’s not right.”

The ground is vibrating, and Boleyn realises: this is no witching. It is gunpowder.

“I think a mine’s collapsing,” Mary says.

“Wait!” Boleyn cries. “I need to know…”

You must run.

Mary is pulling her away from the wall, shouting her impatience.

“How can I talk to you again?” Boleyn says, clawing for purchase on the crystal.

You will come to me, at the end.

At last, Boleyn allows her sister to pull her out towards the sunlight. The waves envelop them as the cavern splinters inwards. The silence that had surrounded the goddess’s presence is broken. The cliff face crumbles, the earth crying out. The siblings paddle desperately towards the boat, the water around them peppered with shards of rock and garnet and crystal. Then a great wave overcomes them, pushing them under.

Boleyn is lost beneath the silent rage of the ocean. She reaches for Mary through the murk and finds her hands. Together they kick upwards, and at last they surface, coughing up water and inhaling salted air. They haul their soaked bodies onto the barge, where their clothes wait for them.

The explosion rumbles on, the water continues to heave and rock dust covers their arms and hair as they row away from the devastation.

“Stay close to the cliff,” Mary says. “I don’t like how easy it is to see us from up there.”

Boleyn lets Mary take control. She cannot stop shivering, no matter how hard she rows. She can still see the cloud of dust, bloody from garnets, billowing out over the sea. It clears slowly, revealing a crevice where the cave of queens once was. Pieces of mining machinery protrude from the debris. Of the queens and the crystal, there is no trace. The cave is utterly destroyed, and the truth it cherished is gone for ever.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Seymour

Seymour dreams fitfully of spiders’ webs. The dew-pricked threads seem so fragile at first. She winds herself inside them, unsure if she’s caught, cradled or cocooned. It is easy to rest in their hold. To the simple mind, there is nowhere safer than a gaol. But there is something in the cocoon with her. A hulking shadow. It makes her remember things: her mother, closing her eyes as her twin babes are taken from her arms; Thomas’s stoic expression when their father beat him. She finds that the web has tightened around her wrists and ankles, her neck. Then it is no web at all, but hair, dark and shining as obsidian.

When she wakes from the fever, she thinks at first that she is still in that web. But no – she is swaddled in blankets and furs, and something is pinning her to the mattress. She raises her head and sees that it is Haltrasc, his form a hill straddling her legs.

Clarice dozes on a chair wedged against the door. The lines of their face are etched in soot. Their hands are clasped around something in their lap. Seymour pushes herself up on her elbows. She’s trying to be quiet, but Clarice wakes immediately. They spring from the chair and rush to her side, the object from their lap abandoned on the floor. Seymour recognises it as one of her own childhood dolls, passed down to her from her mother. One of the dolls she and Clarice played with when Clarice first joined Seymour’s service.

“Drink,” Clarice says, pushing a cup of spiced wine to Seymour’s lips.

“How long have I?” Seymour says when she has swallowed. Her voice grates the back of her throat.

“A few days.”

Clarice takes Seymour’s hand and chews on their lip.

“Clarice,” Seymour says, leaning her forehead to theirs. “It’s all right. I’m alive.”

Clarice nods and turns away, keeping their back to Seymour as they stoke the fire. Haltrasc stretches on the end of the bed and licks the fabric covering her legs.

“He bit through his cage,” Clarice says gruffly. “Pushed his way in here and wouldn’t leave you.”

Seymour scratches Haltrasc’s ears. Her hand finds its way to her stomach. The itching has subsided. She glances at Clarice, wondering whether she can risk raising her shift to examine the skin.

“You’re all better now,” Clarice says, watching Seymour. “All better.”

Seymour nods. “Where is the king?”

“Not at Hyde.”

That’s all that matters, Seymour supposes. She doesn’t remember him leaving her chamber, but she can imagine him striding from the palace and climbing onto his charger, the beast still exhausted from the ride east. Has he returned to High Hall, she wonders, or is he even now with another of his queens? Or maybe he is sating his anger on the people of Thawodest or Alpich. How he must have raged. How he must have prayed for her not to wake from her fever.

“Are my people unharmed?” she says.

“Don’t worry about that,” Clarice says.

Seymour tries to sit up, but her arms are still weak.

“Lie back down,” Clarice says.

“What has happened to my people? Tell me, Clarice,” Seymour says.

“You’re not strong enough…”

“Do not tell me what I am strong enough to bear.” The tremor in her voice is enough to make Clarice pause. Haltrasc growls, long and low.

“Did the king hurt anyone?” Seymour asks.

“Not the king,” Clarice says.

As if summoned by their thoughts, the latch of her chamber rattles.

“Is she awake yet?” Edward’s voice says. “Let me in, damn you.”

Clarice runs to brace the door, but they’re too slow. With a heave, Edward pushes the door open, chair and all. He looks feral. He is clutching a goblet in one hand, and the other rests on the hilt of his sword. His eyes are bloodshot, and Seymour realises with a lurch that she did not have time to drug more wine before she was taken ill. It is her fault that her brother has been rampaging through the palace.

“Brother, give me a moment, I beg you,” she says.

“She’s only just woken up,” Clarice says, standing between Edward and the bed.

“You had one job,” Edward says. “Give him an heir. Instead you run off with the whore queen and lose his baby.”

“Don’t call her that.”

He laughs and staggers into the door frame.

“That’s what offends you?”

“What does it matter to you?” Seymour says. “You are a queen’s brother.”

“That’s all I am,” he spits. “If you’d given him a son my fortunes would be made. You could demand the king give me anything. A dukedom. A royal princess for my bride. And instead you’re just… the nothing queen. As boring as this palace.”

“I’m not,” Seymour whispers.

Haltrasc slips from the bed and pads to Clarice’s side, barring Edward’s way. He eyes the panther, then draws his sword.

“Haltrasc, come here,” Seymour says. Haltrasc growls but does not move. Edward points the blade at the panther’s head, swaying.

“Come,” Seymour says. Slowly, Haltrasc shifts to one side. Edward moves swiftly, swinging his sword wildly at Clarice to make them duck out of his way.

Seymour is ready for the strike of his fist. The first blow lands on her face, pain glancing through her cheekbone. The second punches down into her stomach with all the force he can muster. This time, the discomfort is muted through the many blankets. Seymour lets herself crumple into the bed for effect – if he thinks he didn’t hurt her enough, he’ll only keep going. He points a finger at her, so close she could reach out and bite it off.

“Get him back here. Fuck him until you get pregnant again. And don’t lose it next time.”

He thrusts a letter into her chest and stalks back to the door. Clarice crouches by the fireplace, clutching Haltrasc’s growling figure.

Edward whirls round at the door. “Oh, and that whore queen you like to chase across the country?” he says. “Don’t count on the king keeping her around for much longer. You’d do best to distance us from her, understand?”

Seymour stares at the floor.

“I said, do you understand?”

“Yes, brother.”

When he’s gone, Seymour pulls herself out of bed. As Clarice fetches food for her empty stomach and balm for her bruised face, she opens the letter Edward threw at her. Her other brother Thomas’s handwriting stares up at her.

Tell Seymour she needs to tread carefully with Queen Boleyn. Rumours are spreading that they’re not as at odds with each other as they should be. Boleyn is poison. Forces are moving against her.

Seymour crumples the letter and throws it into the fire. She goes to the glass dome and presses her hands to it, as though she could push the panes out of their frames and flood the whole palace. She has a sudden urge to bang her head against the glass until she loses consciousness again.

Clarice comes back into the room and, seeing her up, stops.

“Is everything all right?” they say.

Usually Seymour is slow to act but perhaps, having made the decision to end her pregnancy, something has unlocked inside her. She has taken control of one part of her life, and now she wants to take control of all of it. She can do nothing about the past, but she may be able to shape a little of the future. She makes a vow, to herself, to her dead mother, to the life she could have had if she had taken a different path.

“I will not merely survive. I will not merely be safe. I will be happy.”

“My lady?” Clarice says, dabbing a cream on Seymour’s face. It smells of the forest after rain.

“I have a task for you, Clarice,” Seymour says, taking the sponge from them and pressing the cream into her own skin. “How do you think your family would like to come to Hyde?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Boleyn

The explosion that destroyed the cave of queens caused a collapse in the mines beyond. Ancient tunnels, dug centuries ago along the garnet seam, in an instant became a crumpled vein of rock, soil and bodies.

A dozen miners were killed, all of them local men and women. Their funeral is all that it should be. Boleyn spared no expense, for even though she can’t know for certain that the explosion was linked to her knowledge of the chamber of queens, it is incomprehensible to her that it should not be. She is responsible for the deaths. Mary can say that mining is dangerous, that it was a coincidence. Boleyn knows she is right. She thinks Mary knows, too. Only what that means is too great a danger to face. It means a spy in their midst, and the possibility that the king knows about the chamber. Boleyn has seen it before on hunts: a doe will flee from the mere sound of breaking branches, but stare brazenly at the arrow aimed at its forehead. She is being warned. The arrow has been nocked, the string drawn, and Boleyn is staring at the huntsman, frozen.

The mourners stand on either side of the graves: royalty and nobility on one, commoners on the other. As Bishop More commits the caskets to the earth, Boleyn catches Oswyn’s eye across the lawn. She has never seen him smile, but there is something defeated about his frown now. He is perhaps the person outside her inner circle who knew the most, alongside Syndony. Yet she cannot resolve in her mind that either of them would have caused the explosions. They would not have killed so many innocent men and women for Henry’s sake, would they? Not even for the handsome price Henry or Wolsey would be willing to pay?

Boleyn can see the whispers passing along the mourners opposite. She can tell what they are thinking. Perhaps not even Syndony’s family will be able to stem this flood of suspicion.

After the ceremony, Bishop More stops Boleyn as she makes to return to Brynd.

“Your Majesty, would you permit me to offer some advice?”

She looks at his hand, placed on her arm, the coarse sack shirt of his flagellation just visible beneath his bishop’s robes.

“It is rude to refuse a gift, whether that gift is treasure or advice,” she says.

He inclines his head. “I think it would be politic to leave Brynd for a little while. Perhaps a trip to High Hall, where you and the princess can be made comfortable in your own apartments?”

Boleyn had been expecting him to tell her of some cultural error she had made in the funeral, now too late for her to do anything about. Or perhaps a judgement on Elizabeth’s nursing, the way people seem so apt to offer. This, though, is a surprise.

“Am I not welcome in my own castle now, my lord?”

“Far from it. I only mean that there is such strong feeling in Pilvreen around this terrible loss. It has led to some… unfortunate rumours. Perhaps a tactical retreat will give them space to die out.”

They are calling her a witch again, then.

“I am not a person who retreats,” she tells Bishop More.

“I know you are not. But if you do not retreat, you had better have a good plan of attack. Do you?”

She has no answer for him then. But there is one person who may see her next steps clearly.

Visiting the oracle isn’t without its dangers. Soothsayers are tricky, everyone knows that. Theirs is a difficult balancing act: they must use their powers truthfully, lest their veracity be called into question, and they must also keep the powers that pay them in awe of them without offending them. Then there’s the question of who fuels the oracle, for everyone knows that witches are aligned with the gods. To whom does she answer? To Cernunnos, perhaps? Or to the goddess who spoke to Boleyn in the cavern? Or to another deity, one worshipped in a different kingdom? Boleyn will need to ascertain this before she can trust the oracle. She has not forgotten her misgivings over the prophecy given to Princess Tudor.

Elizabeth affords her the excuse. It is tradition for newborn princes and princesses to be taken before the oracle. Henry cannot tell Boleyn not to go without seeming petty. What he does do is send Wolsey to accompany her. The man confines himself to his cabin, to suffer his seasickness in solitude, as the ship raises anchor from Brynd’s jetty and points its prow towards the icy deserts of Pkolack. The journey will take only one night with a strong wind behind them, and the wind is always strong on the eastern side of the island. Their route will take them around the coast of Elben, skirting Queen Aragon’s territories at Daven, and then breaking away from the mainland and towards the archipelago of Evenesis.

Still, Boleyn cannot be as open with her companions as she would like. Wolsey’s servants roam the ship, ready to scurry back to his vomit-stinking room with anything they hear. Boleyn spends the day bouncing Elizabeth on her knee under a canopy set up on the deck, telling children’s tales, petting Urial who would not be left behind, and listening to the sea pounding the sails. Once the sun has set, they lapse into silence beneath the constellations.

“The stag star is very bright,” Rochford says, drawing her cloak more tightly.

“In Capetia they call it the Maiden star,” Boleyn tells her. “They say she’s a young woman whose lover went off to war, and she has held a lantern in the hope of guiding him home ever since.”

Mary takes Elizabeth from Boleyn and points the child’s pudgy little finger to a different part of the sky, where an oblong set of stars is arranged, three of them redder than the rest. “And there he is, see? The Lost Warrior, holding his bloody sword, searching for home.”

Mark puts his arms around Rochford, and George puts his arms around them both, and the three of them stand like that for a long time, staring up at the separated lovers. Boleyn catches Mary watching them, and knows that she is thinking of her husband, taken too soon. Boleyn feels strangely jealous of her. Mary has nothing to fear from her love, lost though it is.

They reach the first of the islands of Evenesis at dawn – a rough, deserted patch of land housing only a few herds of sheep and their shepherds. It is gone midday when the oracle’s island comes into view, by which time the temperature has dropped. Boleyn is thankful that Syndony thought to bundle an extra trunkful of cloaks into the ship.

Wolsey emerges, green and wobbly, as they drop anchor.

“Have you been here before, my lord?” Boleyn asks him.

“Only once,” he says. “To accompany Queen Aragon and the Princess Tudor. I was a much younger man then. It is a handsome sight, is it not?”

She cannot disagree with him. The island itself is small – little more than a large hill erupting from the sea like the shell of some great hermit crab. But it is garlanded with trees all the colours of thoughtfulness: deep scarlet, royal violet, gentle ochre. A narrow path leads up from the jetty, winding between blankets of wildflowers. At the top of the island, sprouting between the trees, is the oracle itself. A tall, domed building that reminds Boleyn in its shape of High Hall, with columns framing doors wrought from silver that glint and flash in the icy sun.

Wolsey, Elizabeth, Boleyn and Urial are rowed to the jetty in the first boat, with her family in the second. The air here smells not of fish or seawater, but of the flowers draped everywhere, even sprouting from the tree trunks and the birds’ nests, smelling as soporific as they look.

Boleyn mounts the path, wondering how she can get rid of Wolsey if she decides it’s safe to be open with the oracle. He will not willingly help her when he has so clearly been sent to spy on her by Henry. But his goals are not perfectly aligned with the king’s. He has his own power base and his own ambitions. He is more disposed to peace, and the opportunities for international advancement that affords him.

“How would you like to consult with the oracle, my lord?” Boleyn asks him.

Wolsey stops dead on the path. “But I am not royalty.”

“Come, you are closer to my husband than a father. Surely he would not resent you this privilege?”

Wolsey looks up at the oracle’s building. His face is all shadow and want.

“But if you are concerned,” Boleyn continues, “we can keep silent on the matter. A secret, between two of the king’s most beloved persons.”

Wolsey’s resolve wavers. “It would be the greatest of gifts,” he whispers. She can almost see the pride at work in him. For a merchant’s son to be permitted an audience with the oracle of royalty is beyond anything he could have imagined.

“Go,” she says, shifting Elizabeth to one hip and guiding Wolsey up the steps.

He pushes open the doors as in a dream. They close behind him with the softest of clicks.

Mary, Rochford, George and Mark join Boleyn as she waits outside.

“Are you sure about this, Boleyn?” Mary says, plucking one of the purple flowers for Elizabeth to bat at.

“Sure about what?”

Mary looks at her with hard eyes. They still have not told George or his spouses about the truth of Medren and the bordweal, or that revolution has seeded in Boleyn’s heart. “Don’t make me say it. For all we know the oracle could have enchanted the very trees to listen to us.”

“Now that would be a spell worth learning,” Boleyn says. Urial, seeing that Elizabeth likes the flowers, flies into the trees and returns with a mouthful of them.

“Just when I thought you two could not be more mysterious,” George says lightly. Neither he nor his spouses will look at the sisters. Boleyn knows he is hurt that she is keeping something from him, but he is careless and free with his words, and she worries that he would let something slip.

“Whatever you’re hiding, would it not be better to concentrate on Elizabeth?” Rochford says. Boleyn sneers at her. Part of her wonders whether Rochford already knows the truth.

I am concentrating on Elizabeth, Boleyn wants to shout. What she has discovered affects Elizabeth the most. If there was never any need of a male heir, if the six queens once ruled Elben equally, then to maintain Henry’s lie deprives Elizabeth of her birthright.

Mary sighs. “Fine. You’re set on this. I understand. Just… don’t lose your mind in there. Whatever she tells you.”

“Are you accusing me of being rash, sister?”

“Well, you did decide to seduce a king after five minutes of knowing him. And given what’s happened since, some might call that ill-advised, yes.”

“We must trust Boleyn,” George says. “And for Cernunnos’s sake can we please not argue.”

He strides off into the trees, Mark following. The rest of them lapse into silence, so the only sound is of Urial launching himself into the air and spinning furiously to make Elizabeth giggle. Rochford holds herself apart from the sisters. Boleyn wonders: could Rochford have followed them to the mines on horseback that morning, and caused the explosion?

The silver doors slide open and Wolsey appears, more animated than Boleyn has ever seen him. He springs down the steps to her.

“I am for ever indebted to Your Majesty,” he says.

“You are most welcome, my lord,” she says, taking Elizabeth from Mary and climbing the steps for her own turn. Wolsey follows her like a lapdog. She turns on him just before the doors, pressing a hand to his chest.

“No, no, Master Wolsey. I allowed you your prophecy in private. Now you will allow me mine. Our secret, remember?”

She almost laughs at his shock. He was so preoccupied with his own desires that he did not see the pact he was making. Perhaps he could not conceive of a woman outmanoeuvring him. Still, he can do nothing now, or Boleyn will simply inform Henry that a commoner had taken it upon themselves to consult with the Oracle of Evenesis. She has him caught.

Inside the dome, incense holders swing in pendulums from the ceiling. There is no altar at the far end, as Boleyn had imagined. Instead, in the middle of the room is a hexagonal font. The place appears to be empty, but there is no door other than the one Boleyn entered through. If the oracle was in here, she could not have left without being seen.

“The Queen of Brynd seeks an audience with the oracle,” Boleyn calls.

When the reply comes, it has no origin. It comes from the walls, from the pendulums, from the incense they waft.

“On whose behalf do you seek my counsel? For yourself, or for your daughter? You cannot do both.”

“Why can I not do both?” Boleyn says. She fingers the purse at her belt. She brought enough gold to bribe an army.

The voice laughs. “You could offer me the coronet on your head and I could not give you both prophecies, Queen.”

Boleyn whirls around, pulling Elizabeth to her chest, cradling her head, as though it were Elizabeth whose treacherous thoughts the oracle was reading.

“Show yourself,” Boleyn says.

“Or what?” the voice replies. Boleyn thinks it is curious, not cruel. It is not a voice to be threatened or bargained with.

“Please,” Boleyn says.

There’s a pause, and then a woman steps out of the misted air, directly in front of Boleyn. Her skin is faintly green, like the kelpies who aided Boleyn’s labour, her hair a scalp of close-cropped spikes. She wears a loose, thin gown of taffeta that is fastened at the belly. Boleyn’s gaze, though, is drawn to her eyes, which are wholly white, and drift like the incense from whence she stepped.

The women regard each other in silence. The oracle’s power is the stoic sovereignty of a withered tree. Boleyn has never felt girlish before, but she does now.

“Have you decided which prophecy you wish to hear?” the oracle says eventually. “Have you decided that you trust me enough to ask for yourself?”

“Why can’t I hear both prophecies?” Boleyn asks.

The oracle holds her arms out for Elizabeth. Boleyn gives the baby to her. Whatever else she may be or do, it is not in the oracle’s interest to hurt the child.

“A prophecy is not a fixed point,” the oracle explains. “It is a deed. In every future I foretell, I set in motion a series of events that change all prophecies that come thereafter. That is why I give all who visit me the choice to hear what I have to say, for in choosing not to hear, the very future I had foreseen for them may cease to exist.”

Boleyn considers this. “So you are saying that telling me one prophecy might change the other?”

“Can there be any future more intertwined than that of a parent and their child? Your actions, your choices, will determine Elizabeth’s actions and choices in the years to come. She will learn who she is from you.”

Elizabeth gurgles in the oracle’s arms. Even though Boleyn never breastfed her, and her milk has long dried, the sound echoes in her breasts. She is so little, so full of promise. Boleyn remembers Seymour’s description of the Princess Tudor as she recited the oracle’s prophecy about her. Boleyn thinks of how such a prophecy might bind Elizabeth rather than free her – bind her in webs of bitterness or anxiety, or ambition too powerful to allow joy. She sees how that prophecy set in motion everything that has happened since: Seymour’s coming to Brynd; their friendship; and how without Seymour’s friendship, Boleyn is not certain that she would have chosen to move against Henry when she learned the truth about the queens and the ancient magic that binds them to Elben’s bordweal.

“Tell me what I have really come here for,” she says.

The oracle returns Elizabeth to her and goes to a pile of provisions at one side of the space – blocks of incense, wood for fire, and several large buckets of smoking liquid. She hefts a wooden pail onto one shoulder and brings it to the font.

“Wine from the trees of this island,” she explains as she pours. “They have grown here for many thousands of years, and will continue to grow for many thousands more. They know the past and can see the future.”

She takes a knife and shaves a single spike from her hair, dropping it into the liquid.

“The practice of true magic is a delicate balance. We must give as well as take, or the earth and sea take matters into their own hands. The creation of many magical elements and creatures is due to the improper equilibrium of magic. With each of these elements, I adjust the scales of my spell.”

A series of herbs follow, and a glutinous substance from a small glass bottle. Finally, she turns to Boleyn. “Last, a drop of your blood, Queen.”

Boleyn holds out one hand. The oracle cuts deep into a finger and pushes the blood into the font. The pleasing pink of the liquid grows murky. The ingredients swirl. The blood sits in oily spheres on the surface.

The oracle dips a finger into the mess and flicks Boleyn’s face with it, then her own. Then she dips a wooden goblet in, filling it to the brim, and drinks the potion as though she has not seen water for weeks.

“I see,” the oracle says. It’s an incantation rather than a statement. “I see. I see.”

She swipes a hand through the font’s contents, and it rises into the air between them, the incense holders swinging through it, trailing molten smiles. The oracle waves her hand, and the liquid arranges itself into shapes: the silhouette of Brynd, a thunderstorm raging above it. The faces of the six queens who once were interred in the cave beneath the castle.

“You herald a storm, Queen Boleyn. A storm that seeks to lay waste to everything.”

Boleyn’s breath catches in her throat. She had been holding on to some notion of redressing the injustice to herself, Elizabeth and Seymour alone – a quiet gift of power that would allow every other part of her life to continue as normal. Of course, though, she had always known that it could not be. Is she truly ready to overturn Elben’s entire religion?

“Yes,” she says, holding Elizabeth closer.

“You cannot wield the storm alone,” the oracle says.

“I have allies.”

“Not enough.”

“How many do I need to turn the tide against the king? To set us free and reclaim the goddess’s power? How many allies?”

The oracle stares at Boleyn, her white eyes seeing beyond her. The lamps around the room flicker and dim. Another power is present. An ancient power, older even than that of the goddess that Boleyn felt in the cave of queens. A power that roves across Boleyn’s skin, neither malicious nor kind. The oracle’s outline glows in the darkness, crackling with ethereal energy. The incense pots sweep faster and faster, spreading the potion across the room in wild arcs. When the oracle speaks again, her voice seems to come from another era, echoing through centuries.

One rebel storm

Two perfidious diamonds

Three little deaths

Four queens everlasting

Five united in victory of

Six wild crowns.

The prophecy is repeated. The words rove around the space, but instead of dying out they grow louder with each repetition. Elizabeth wakes in Boleyn’s arms and begins to wail. The oracle’s skin grows brighter, like the sun, but Boleyn does not look away even as her eyes burn. It feels to her as though if she were to do so, the power of the prophecy would disintegrate. Five united. Something glittering beyond the oracle’s words tells her that the woman means not simply five allies but five queens. Elizabeth’s screams rise and rise, matching the echoes, until the sound disappears entirely, the oracle collapses to the floor, and with her Boleyn’s strength leaves her and she, too, crumples to her knees. The candles flicker to life again.

Boleyn is left on the flagstones, near blind from staring at the light, with only Elizabeth’s cries to tell her that she is still here, still alive, that this really happened. She latches onto four words. A lifeline. Five united in victory.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Seymour

Seymour’s first sighting of Cnothan is when she sees the donkeys. From her vantage point out of the carriage window, they look as though they’re wearing coats, which is odd given the air is golden and full of the promise of summer. Since crossing the Fietherford into Queen Cleves’s territory, she has already passed many hundreds of herds of animals – sheep, cows, wild horses and the occasional centicore, spotted leaping across hilltops, using its goatlike hooves and horns to climb impossible slopes. But this is the first time Seymour has seen any of them wearing anything manmade.

As they approach, the picture becomes even more confusing. The donkeys’ coats appear to be full of pockets, and in each pocket sits a lamb. The sight is so ridiculous that Clarice and Seymour can’t contain their giggles, and the whole convoy comes to a halt as guards, servants and courtiers alike crowd around to inspect the curiosity. Seymour spots a woman in shepherd’s weeds, her red hair shorn to just below her ears so that it frames her heart-shaped face rather fetchingly. She looks to be around Seymour’s age. Her sleeves are rolled all the way up her arms, revealing tanned muscles that speak of hard labour. The shepherd is marching across the hill towards them, gesturing wildly.

“You’re going to scare them! Move away! Move away now!” she shouts, in a heavy accent Seymour can’t place.

The courtiers and servants move back, fearing the woman’s ire. She eyes them all, huffing her disappointment.

“What were you thinking? Have you never met a donkey before? Or a newborn creature? You could have damn well near scared them to death.”

Clarice puffs up, and Seymour can tell they’re about to say something awful like Don’t you know who we are? So she steps in front of them, spreading her hands.

“My apologies,” Seymour says. “We’ve never seen anything like it before. What is the purpose of it?”

The shepherd examines her, in a way no one other than the king has dared to since she married him. Her eyes are bright, sharp, warm.

“The lambs lost their mothers to a wolf last night. This way I can bring them to a safer place and keep them comfortable.”

“That’s ingenious,” Seymour says.

They regard each other, a strange, pulsating energy batting between them. That’s when Seymour sees it – a brooch, a strange stone set in silver, fastened to the shepherd’s shirt. It glitters, and in the sunlight seems to take on the colours of a bruise, or darkest sunset. The colours of the bordweal. A sunscína, far smaller than her own.

The silence is broken by a commotion from further down the convoy – Haltrasc’s crate has tipped halfway off its wheels and Haltrasc himself is clamouring to be released.

“Whatever has got into your animal?” the shepherd says, twinkling.

A courtier undoes the crate’s lock. Haltrasc bounds past Seymour and, in two strides, each one the length of a man, leaps into the shepherd’s arms, licking her and making little mewls of pleasure.

“Get off me, you silly beast,” she says, her arms around him.

“Oh,” Clarice breathes, understanding at the same moment as Seymour.

“Queen Cleves, I presume?” Seymour says.

Cleves extracts herself from Haltrasc and approaches them, shaking Seymour’s hand in the Ezzonid fashion of greeting. Seymour tries not to stare at her bare arms.

“I’m sorry for deceiving you,” Cleves says, not sounding sorry at all. “It wasn’t my intention. I had been dressing to receive you when I heard the news about the lambs and I thought I had time to tend to them before you arrived.”

“I’m happy to take second place in your concern on this occasion,” Seymour says. “Can we help? Perhaps my household can offer you their hands as recompense for scaring your animals.”

And that’s how Seymour approaches Cnothan, Haltrasc on one side, Queen Cleves on the other and a newborn lamb clutched in her arms, all legs and fresh wool. Cleves makes it look very easy – her lamb seems to submit willingly to her clutches. Seymour’s, however, has its eyes on freedom, and disdains her embrace with every fibre of its being.

“You’re nervous of him, that’s why he’s not settling,” Cleves remarks as Seymour takes a hoof to the eye.

“I am not nervous of him. He’s nervous of me.”

“Imagine being scared of a lamb.” Cleves grins, then with a twist of her arms that Seymour can’t catch, switches lambs with her. The lamb that had been lying docilely in Cleves’ embrace looks up at Seymour through sleepy eyes, deems her a sufficient carriage and lays its head against her chest.

“Another trick,” Seymour says. “This is a habit of yours, I see.”

“Perhaps I enjoy watching your confusion.”

She grins at her again, then doubles over as Seymour’s old lamb kicks her in the stomach.

Cnothan is a higgledy sort of castle, set on an island hill that is attached to the mainland by a wide stone bridge. The foundations of the castle are the oldest of any on Elben, and some of the original walls are still hewn from weathered rock. Other wings and courtyards have been added over centuries, maybe even millennia, creating a sprawling mess of different architectural designs and shapes. The central courtyard, sitting at the apex of the hill, is hexagonal and made of simple timber and plaster, centring around a giant pond where fish of all sizes and colours dart and ducks feed. The suite of rooms where Seymour and her household are housed is a tower built from red brick. Her chamber is at the very top, reached by means of an ingenious pulley system designed by Cleves herself.

“I thought you might like to see my menagerie,” Cleves says as Seymour looks out from the window. Indeed, from here she can see exactly how Cleves has arranged every courtyard around a different animal – the fish in the pond; a lion prowling an old, dry moat; goats, chickens, griffins and dozens more, each housed to their liking within the castle grounds. Haltrasc sets his front paws on the windowsill and eyes the courtyard containing the goats.

The chaos of Cnothan continues at dinner. The banqueting hall is replete with beautiful dishes on wooden tables for Cleves’s human guests, but there is a parallel hall where troughs are filled for the animals. There is none of the fashionable refinement of Boleyn’s Brynd, but despite the cacophony of noise and smells, there is a considered intelligence and taste behind everything, all bolstered by Cleves’s refusal to bow to what might be expected of her as queen. She is, undoubtedly, just as regal as Queen Aragon, in her own way. Perhaps it’s because she and Aragon alone were born to royalty – maybe it’s something they wear, maybe something they were taught as babes in arms, that Boleyn or Seymour could never hope to emulate.

“I’d like you to ride out with me tomorrow,” Cleves says during a lull in conversation.

“More lambs on donkeys?”

“Perhaps. There is something I wish to show you. It is far from the castle.”

Far from prying eyes and ears.

“I’m looking forward to exploring your territory,” Seymour says.

They drink to secret talks and the cover of the countryside.

Clarice wakes Seymour early.

“Queen Cleves is waiting for you,” they tell Seymour, pulling the covers from Seymour’s form. Seymour groans. She is still bleary from the long journey and the late banquet. She peers out of the window – only the merest hint of dawn mars the charcoal sky.

“Does she not require sleep?” Seymour complains.

“Now you know what it’s like for your servants,” Clarice says pointedly.

“What do you make of her?” Seymour asks them as she hauls herself out of bed and permits Clarice to pull a gown over her head.

Haltrasc mewls in his sleep from the corner of the room, and his paws tremble. Maybe he’s dreaming of those castle goats. Clarice laces up Seymour’s cuffs and then pulls a white paste over her hair, before pinning a black silk veil to cover the hair and neck at the back. They pull out a plain tawny frontlet, but Seymour pulls away.

“Not that one,” she says. “That will look awful against the gown.”

Clarice gives her an odd look, before presenting her with some options. She picks a salmon frontlet, to match her gown, and Clarice pins it to her headdress with an annoying little smirk. Seymour stares at herself in the mirror, trying to work out if the embroidery on the frontlet is too fussy against the plain satin of her gown.

“You look beautiful,” Clarice says softly. “Go and have fun.”

The salmon gown was a mistake. Seymour realises it as soon as they leave the castle walls and Cleves nudges her horse into a gallop. Seymour follows suit, and soon they’re pounding through puddles that spray mud up onto her legs and dress. By the time they dismount on a hillside, the castle a doll’s house in the distance, her dress has an uneven brown hem.

Cleves’s clothes have fared little better. She is wearing a dark blue woollen dress in the Ezzonid style – it has no sleeves, so Cleves is wearing a thin white cotton blouse beneath it, with billowing sleeves that show off the silhouette of those exquisite arms.

Cleves examines the mud spattering her dress, shrugs, then pulls the hem up and hooks it to her belt at the front and back.

“I wish I’d thought to bring my own belt,” Seymour says. “I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely awake, and my servant isn’t used to dressing me for outdoor pursuits.”

“You don’t like the outside?”

“I like it well enough. But I’m not a hunter.”

Cleves begins untacking her horse, resting the saddle against an accommodating branch and hooking the bridle over it. She gives her horse a round smack on the rump, and it trots off to look for richer grass.

“I am not either. Come.”

Seymour quickly takes off her own horse’s saddle and slips the bit from his mouth. She doesn’t want to take the bridle off entirely because she’s not certain she knows how to put it back on again, and she doesn’t want to look even more of a fool.

Cleves leads Seymour further up the hillside, towards a grove of silver birch that grow like swords. As they approach the copse, a growing sense of unease fills Seymour. She does not want to approach those trees. It seems to her as though something is watching her from the shadow of the branches. Something that reminds her of nights spent with the king, or days spent with her brother.

“I told you that those lambs lost their mother to a wolf,” Cleves calls back. “But that wasn’t quite the truth.”

She points at a dark patch, just at the treeline. Against her better judgement, Seymour approaches and kneels to examine it, unsure what she’s supposed to be looking at. The grass has withered away. The nearby trees, too, are not as magnificent as she’d thought. Something has gnawed at the bark, leaving ugly rivulets of sap and broken wood along the trunk. The raw wood is flecked with blood and, about halfway down, something is sticking out of the wood. At first she thinks it’s a splinter, but it’s far too large for that. It’s a tooth, as long as Seymour’s finger.

“What manner of creature did that belong to?” she whispers.

“A crone,” Cleves replies.

“Are you certain?”

“There are more of them in Elben of late,” Cleves says, her eyes flicking towards Seymour. It is an oddly furtive look for someone who has been so open until now. Cleves runs a hand over the wood, over the blood, then tugs the tooth from its place.

“Have you found the beast?”

Cleves shakes her head. “Not yet. I hear your friend killed one though. Single-handedly by all accounts.”

“Boleyn? How did you hear that?”

Cleves hands Seymour the tooth and strides back to her saddle, undoing one of the bags strapped to it. Seymour follows her back into the sunlight, away from the darkness and stench of the trees. As Cleves removes vittles – cheeses, bread and fruit paste – Seymour turns the tooth over in her hand. One side of it is smooth, like a common knife. The other is jagged and stained yellow. The side used for killing, or for sawing up its meat. It must have been sharpening its teeth on the bark.

“Tell me about Queen Boleyn then,” Cleves says, as Seymour settles on the grass next to her and accepts a truncheon of bread smeared liberally with butter and soft, salty goats’ cheese.

“You seem to know enough about her already,” Seymour says. It feels wrong to talk about Boleyn with this woman, although Seymour can’t place why.

“I know that people seem to either love her or despise her. I think you are in the love camp, no?” Cleves says. She lies on her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows. A flush spreads up Seymour’s chest and neck.

“You don’t know her or me,” she says.

“So enlighten me. Is she wonderful? Is she as wild and beautiful and clever as she likes to appear?” Cleves grins again, kicking her feet up behind her.

“You can judge for yourself at the Moon Ball.”

Cleves laughs. “You are exactly right. I will make my own mind up. That is always my way. I never do anything just because my friends want me to.”

Seymour puts down her untouched bread. “Do you know why I’m here?”

“Your letter said you were touring. Is that not the case?” Cleves says, her eyes telling Seymour that she knows perfectly well Seymour has an ulterior motive. Seymour kneels, and indicates that Cleves should do so too – what she has to tell her is not fit to be heard lying on a blanket.

Seymour’s visit to Cnothan and, afterwards, Plythe, was only arranged with a few days’ notice. Boleyn had returned from the oracle with a fire in her eyes that Seymour could decipher even through the sunscína. It had all been arranged in an instant – Seymour would visit the two castles closest to her, while Boleyn would travel to Daven to reason with Queen Aragon and, through her, her ally Queen Parr. Boleyn believes that they need five queens to rebel against the king, to wrestle Elben from his and Cernunnos’s control. Three queens to persuade with something as strange and simple as the truth. The thought of uniting five queens of Elben, queens who have been guided to enmity throughout their rules, seems impossible to Seymour. But, as always, Boleyn persuaded her that this was their only chance at true freedom.

“And so Queen Boleyn wants my alliance,” Cleves says when Seymour has finished telling her of the cave, and the lie of the bordweal.

“We both do.”

Cleves smirks. “Is that so? I do not follow blindly, either the king or anyone else.”

“I am not blind,” Seymour says.

“No? Then why are you doing it? Your friend seeks power for her daughter. You do not strike me as ambitious, though.”

“I…” How can Seymour explain, to this woman who seems to have found so much peace and happiness in her lot, the silent howl that consumes her? How she might be able to smile and curtsey and say yes on the outside, when inside she wants to take her brother and husband and rip them apart in the same frenzy that the crone used to kill the mother of those lambs? How could Cleves possibly understand?

Cleves reaches for Seymour’s hand in a rare moment of seriousness. “It is hard for you when he visits. Yes?”

Seymour nods.

“I never had to undertake it,” she says. “Or I too would have lost myself.”

Seymour is slow to understand what she means, it seems so outlandish. “You mean, you and the king, have never…?”

“No, but he does not know that. There. I have given you one of my secrets, so you can trust me with yours.”

The fact that the king doesn’t currently sleep with Queen Cleves is well broadcast across the country, but to find out that it was by her design?

“How?”

Cleves looks towards the castle. The sun is at its zenith, and the sky is clear. In the far reaches of the horizon, Seymour can make out the isles of Feorwa, Clarice’s homeland, lying in the crook between Elben, Quisto and Capetia.

“I never desired the attentions of men, but I spent my childhood at their mercy. I wanted freedom. When I arrived at Cnothan, I knew it was going to be my home. It was as if it had been built just for me.”

“I feel the same way about Hyde.”

Cleves nods. “But I also knew that I could not live with myself being visited by the king, or any man. I had a week to settle at the palace before the wedding. I spent that week getting to know my household and getting to know Henry. And on the day before our wedding, I put my new-found knowledge to use.

“Henry has mistresses. You know this, yes? One such mistress was very much in love with him, and she was about my size and shape and age. She agreed to my plan, and I paid her handsomely. Then for the second part of my deception. I paid three men of my territory – minor nobility wishing to rise through the ranks, you know the like – to speak of me in the king’s hearing.”

“Speak of you?” Seymour says, leaning forward.

“To talk of me in a way that would make the king worry for his reputation were he to bed me. He’s the kind of man who cannot stand humiliation, especially sexual humiliation. He overheard them laughing at the idea of anyone being able to bed an ugly lump such as me.”

“But you’re not ugly at all,” Seymour says. With the light glancing on Cleves’s skin, taut and muscular from all her time spent outside, Seymour is not sure she has seen anyone more beautiful. She catches on the thought, on the betrayal of Boleyn it entails.

“I know,” Cleves says. “And Henry knew it too. But, at that moment, what he knew did not matter. He heard three virile men discuss me as a thing not to be touched. He thought that if he were to display any interest in me, he would be mocked.”

“Didn’t you care?”

“Of course not.”

Seymour takes a lemon cake and lies back on the grass, staring up at the sky. There is one very bright star clinging valiantly to the sky, despite the midday sun. Seymour thinks it must be the Lissa star, the apex star of a constellation of six that together, forms the shape of a heart.

An emptiness fills Seymour’s chest. Emptiness and wonder, at this woman’s cunning, wrapped up in the guise of someone so straightforward.

“Go on,” she says.

“He made his new advisor, Cromwell, ask me to call off the wedding. I told Cromwell, no, I wanted Cnothan, but I would accept us consummating our marriage in darkness, so that the protections around Elben were secured, and I would not expect him to visit my bed after that night.”

Seymour sits up. “So you had his mistress bed him in your place.”

“Yes.”

“But then as far as you knew, Cernunnos’s protection of Elben would be voided.”

“What do I care for the protection of Elben? It is not my homeland. Cnothan is easily defended. Once it was mine, I knew I’d be able to keep it, no matter who took the throne.”

Seymour doesn’t understand why this thought bothers her so much. She knows now that the king has nothing to do with the bordweal’s strength. So long as Cleves bonded with the spirit stone of Cnothan, the bordweal remained intact.

“How old were you when you married him?”

“Twenty-five. Why?”

So Cleves was four years younger than Seymour is now when she hatched this plan. She had more knowledge, of herself and others, at twenty-five than Seymour has at nearly thirty. She glances at Cleves again. She thinks the wedding was six, maybe seven years ago. They should be on an equal footing with each other, but Seymour is once again the dullard.

Cleves peers up at the sun, then stands, brushing off her gown. “We had better get you back, or your Clarice will think I have kidnapped you.”

Seymour stands too, the tooth still in her hand.

“Is that your answer?” she says. “You’re happy as you are?”

“For now. I will meet your Boleyn at the Moon Ball, and we will talk some more, and then I will decide.”

The silent howl crawls up Seymour’s throat. She has failed at the first hurdle. Failed Boleyn, failed herself. She grips the crone’s tooth with a trembling hand and digs it into her gown. She doesn’t understand the urge that’s come over her, all she knows is that she needs to destroy something. She tears the tooth through the satin, above the line of mud at the hem, and saws and saws at it until the muddied bottom comes away in her hands. She casts it on the ground, then stands, spent.

“There. Now I can walk freely.”

She marches over to the horses. Cleves catches up with her, and Seymour can feel the woman’s eyes on her all the way back.

“What?” she says.

Cleves overtakes her and walks backwards, staring at her still, an infuriating grin on her face. Seymour wants to grab her: to pull her towards herself or to shove her over, both are appealing.

“What?” she says again.

“Are you angry with me, Queen Seymour?”

“No.”

Cleves laughs throatily. “A spy. A rebel. A traitor. But she cannot hide when she is angry. I think it must be very wonderful to be loved by you.”

Seymour remains silent as they saddle up.

“Maybe I should ask Queen Boleyn, when I see her.”

Seymour finishes tightening her girth, then walks over to Cleves. She holds up the crone’s tooth, right to Cleves’s neck. For the first time since their meeting, Seymour is the one in control. Cleves’s back is to her horse, one of those toned arms splayed against the animal’s shoulder, the other raised in a half-surrender.

“This may be a game to you, sister,” Seymour says. “But it is not to me or Boleyn. You might not be our ally, but if you betray us I will destroy you. Do you understand?”

Cleves’s neck is taut against the pressure of the crone’s tooth. Her mouth is inches from Seymour’s.

“Oh yes,” she says. “I think it must be very wonderful indeed.”

Cleves looks up and catches sight of the Lissa star.

“We always say that stars are beautiful, don’t we?” she says.

“They are.”

“I sometimes wonder – are they beautiful? Or are they simply out of our reach? Maybe if we were to come close to them, to touch them even, we would discover that they’re just a simple being holding a bright lantern.”

“Don’t patronise me.”

Gently, Cleves takes hold of Seymour’s hand, the one holding the tooth, and lowers it.

“Then pick up your own lantern, my angry, angry queen, and shine.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Boleyn

When she was a girl, the village close to the Boleyn family’s estate fell victim to the howling sickness. It was ravaging Elben. People would lock themselves in their homes and choose to starve rather than fall ill with such a disease. But it invaded even the most well protected of homes, and so it was with the village. One sick woman, with the tell-tale froth at her mouth and the pink rings across her skin, infected her cousin, who infected their family and the village healer, who infected all of her patrons. Boleyn’s parents tried to limit their visitors, but most of their household came from the village. Infection was inevitable. Within a month, George and Boleyn fell sick, and for many days it was thought that Boleyn wouldn’t survive. She spent days slumbering fitfully, and nights suffering terrible seizures, her wrists secured to the posts of her bed with steel chains to prevent her from running wild. Thick, white hair sprouted from the rings on her skin. Her parents sat next to her through it all.

Gradually, she improved. But half of the household did not recover, and a new pack of wolves now roamed the mountains near the estate. From time to time, something reminds Boleyn of those days, and the weeks when they knew the plague was coming but could do little to stop it.

The memories come back now, in the wake of the miners’ funerals. This time it is not the howling sickness that is spreading. It is a different kind of sickness. It infects the townspeople of Pilvreen, who talk openly of the ancient massacre and the accident at the mines and look to Brynd with growing suspicion.

Boleyn’s trip to the oracle has not dulled her people’s memories. Many of them wear the insignia of Cernunnos – the branching antlers – either as badges sewn on their jackets, or as pendants on makeshift chains. Babies clutch pieces of antler for protection, gnawing on them toothlessly like old dogs. The sickness spreads to the merchants who pass through the kingdom, bearing tales of the famed misfortune of Brynd and the curse of the queens who rule it. At last it comes for Boleyn’s own servants – the gardeners who smirk and talk of her ways, and the kitchen staff who leave her service in such numbers that she cannot replace them.

Yes, the rumours are an infection, spreading through Boleyn’s territory, but the only life at stake is hers.

“I think you must leave,” Boleyn tells Wyatt. They are alone in the orchard, beneath the canopy of a crab apple tree. Boleyn and Wyatt stand in the snowstorm of its blossom.

Wyatt shakes his head. He takes Boleyn’s left hand, his fingers playing with the poesy ring Henry gave her on their wedding day. “Would he swear his all on this?” he asks. “Would he prove his love by invoking the fairy inside? Because I would.”

Boleyn pulls her hand free. Wyatt has no right to question Henry. He does not know what she does.

“It doesn’t matter what he would or would not do.”

“Doesn’t it?” Wyatt says. He is challenging her to step away from him. He should be the one to move away, not her. She is a queen. That he thinks he can take such liberties only proves to her that she is right to tell him to go.

“I am still married to him, Thomas. That means something to me,” she says. Her plan, before or after the cave, before or after the oracle, had never included being unfaithful. Certainly not unfaithful with this man. She still doesn’t truly know how she feels about him. There is lust there, certainly, and appreciation for his wit. But love? That’s an impossible question to answer, tangled as it is with the other impossible questions of her love for Henry, and Henry’s love for her.

“I don’t mind sharing your heart, Boleyn,” he says softly. “I don’t mind being your secret, either. I can be very discreet.”

The sordidness of his words wakens her to fury. She throws the jibe that rises to the back of her mind whenever she looks at Wyatt: “I am no whore.”

Wyatt frowns, confused, taking a moment to remember what he said at their very first meeting. He opens his mouth, a thousand excuses flooding to be uttered. It was months ago I called you that. I never meant it. I was nervous. I said it in jest… He swallows them, as understanding lands. And, at last, he nods.

“No one knows better than I that words can wound and fester. I will leave, Your Majesty. Please know, that if I could spool back the thread of time and redo that day all over again, I would simply throw myself at your feet and pledge you my paltry little life in exchange for the honour of being near you.”

As Wyatt rides out of Brynd, Henry rides in, on his way to Garclyffe to inspect the warships being built there. Boleyn wonders whether they crossed on the road, and if so whether her husband recognised her would-be lover. She finds herself running into his arms, inhaling his scent – pine, juniper and the sweat of travel. She tells herself it is self-preservation. Until she is sure of her five queens and is ready to move against the crown, she must conceal her plans and her true feelings. But it frightens her, how easy it is to slip into her role as his adoring consort. It was a mantle she wore for too long. After all, she used to see him as a cure, as Elben’s saviour. Now she wonders: was he the one to start the sickness?

“I have a gift for you, my queen,” he says as she leads him into Brynd.

She does love presents. Maybe it’s a sable, or the hunting dragon he promised her on Elizabeth’s birth. Maybe it’s jewels.

“Where is it?” she says.

“My men are preparing it. You shall see what it is after we have eaten,” he says.

She knows, then, that it is not jewels or fine clothes, but she has to pretend. Pretend, and hope. She entertains him over luncheon. She is all sparkle and fever.

“Do you remember when you first fell in love with me?” she asks him.

“I remember the exact moment,” he says, popping a sweetmeat into her mouth.

“Tell me. Let me see if it’s the same moment I fell in love with you.”

It is the same moment. It goes like this:

“Remember, Boleyn, never ride ahead of the king,” her father warns, knowing Boleyn’s tendencies.

“If he’s fast enough I won’t be able to,” she replies.

Had she known even then what she was doing? She thinks, somewhere, she probably had. The temptation to prove herself a man’s equal has always been integral to her. It was driven by the need to set herself apart from Mary with her sweet face and golden hair. Driven, too, by a desire to prove her parents right when they insisted that all three of their children received the same education. So when the horn sounds and their horses spring after the hounds, the hunting dragons swirling high above, across the fields surrounding Hever, Boleyn pushes Fauvel further than she’s ever pushed her before. And the king senses her, right on his heels. He turns to look at her, and his eyes widen with shock as he realises that he is about to be overtaken. He grins. Suddenly, hunting the stag isn’t important. What’s important is the race.

“Boleyn!” her father shouts as the two of them gallop ahead of the rest, into the cover of the woods, the hounds all around their horses’ hooves. A branch snags on Boleyn’s hood and whips it clean off, frontlet and cap together, leaving her black hair to stream out behind her as she bends low over Fauvel’s neck. Henry is just behind her, close enough that he can reach out and brush a hand across her thigh as they gallop.

By the time they stop, their horses’ sides heaving with exertion, and the rest of the hunt has caught up with them, they are already halfway to marriage. Lord Boleyn is furious at first, but when he sees the way the pair are looking at each other, his composure changes. His whole outlook on what is proper shifts. Maybe Boleyn isn’t just the clever one – because to him, for all his dedication to education, it is impossible that Henry could look at Boleyn like that, and not her sister, unless she is more beautiful than Mary.

“Your Majesty,” Lord Boleyn says, dismounting his horse. “Please allow me to formally introduce my eldest, Lady Boleyn, recently returned from the court of Capetia.”

“Boleyn!” It is the king’s voice this time, and Boleyn’s name is full of laughter and joy in his mouth. “Do you always make men chase after you so hard? You nearly killed my horse.”

“What’s the point of a hunt unless there’s a little death at the end?” she responds. The hush that follows, as everyone wonders how the king will take such a lewd remark, is the most thrilling of her life. Then Henry grins, looking at her like he wants to eat her up, and the rest of the hunt laughs, and that is that.

Boleyn and Henry stare at each other, the short distance between them suddenly an ocean. Their perfect love, tainted by a little truth.

Syndony appears, carrying a plate piled with apples, over-sweet and wrinkled from their storage in Brynd’s pantries.

“Here are the apples you’ve been craving, Your Majesty,” she says, placing the plate right in front of Boleyn, carefully not looking at her. Boleyn feels Henry’s sharp gaze, darting between the apples and her. Suddenly she realises: Syndony is offering her not food, but armour. It is unlikely that she could be pregnant again so soon after Elizabeth’s birth. Unlikely, but not impossible.

“At last,” she says. “Thank you. I could eat ten of these at once.”

And she proceeds to do so, not just ten but the entire plate, until juice drips down her chin and she thinks she’ll vomit if she has more. Maybe that would be a good thing.

“Would you like more?” Henry says, casually, as she casts the final core onto the silverware.

“Perhaps later,” she says, dabbing at her chin with the napkin on her shoulder. The sparkling fever is back, and she’s bolder now that she knows Henry thinks she has something that he wants.

“What would you do if I took six husbands?” she asks him.

“I would kill the other five and make myself your one,” he says.

“What if the kingdom depended on me marrying six men, as it does with you?”

“Then I would respect the laws of the kingdom, I suppose. But I wouldn’t like it. I certainly wouldn’t attempt to befriend your other husbands.”

“Why not? It isn’t their fault.”

“Of course not. But I think it would say something about my love for you. It might make you feel that my love was light.”

“Do you doubt my love?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

He offers her his hand. “Is it time for my gift?” she says.

“Yes. Come with me.”

He leads her from the table, out through the banqueting hall so that everyone can see them.

“Follow us!” he calls out.

The plague is coming for her. Her skin prickles with hidden white hair. George and Mary flank them. Mary puts a hand on Boleyn’s spare arm, steadying her.

Out in the courtyard, on the cobbles, a stage has been erected from the same dark wood as the mahogany trees in the forest around Brynd. Standing on it, their hands cuffed, are three people: Boleyn’s maidservant, the one with the pretty voice who led her to the sunscína; a young boy, the dirt of a hard day’s work upon him; and Oswyn.

“There have been troubling rumours spreading about you, my love,” Henry says loudly. “They say that you caused Queen Seymour’s miscarriage, and the mine collapse. They even say you are planning a rebellion against me. I don’t like it. I don’t like false rumours. All three of these people have spread such rumours. My present to you, therefore, is one of their lives.”

“That’s not necessary, my love,” Boleyn says, her voice hoarse.

“Of course it is. I won’t brook gossip around my beloved queens. If I don’t punish them, then people will think I believe the rumours. They will believe that the rumours are true. You don’t want that, do you?”

“But to execute them, Henry…”

She takes his arm and tries to make it seem like a loving gesture, rather than a way to stay upright.

“It is always necessary to punish treason, Boleyn. We must be a country united. You’re an intelligent woman. You know this.”

“But do you have proof that they are responsible, Henry?”

“I do.”

“May I see it?”

“Do you believe me capable of sentencing innocents to death?”

“No, of course not, Henry. Of course not.”

“So which one would you like to see punished? The other two will go free, to show my generosity.”

A gift indeed. A poisoned gift, to keep her in line, and to spread the rumours further. Because she will be the one blamed for this death. A child, a young woman or the man she is certain has only ever defended her. How can she possibly choose which life means the least?

“May I have a moment to consider who deserves death the most?”

“Of course.”

It’s an impossible choice. She cannot talk herself into justifying any one of them dying, and yet she must choose, or Henry will accuse her of all the rumours. He is making a murderer of her. She looks each of the accused in the eyes and sees only weariness there. God knows what they have endured since being taken by the king’s men. Then she realises one more thing: the stage is bare.

“How will they be executed?”

“Well, since I am only executing one, it must be a show of strength. They will be hung, drawn and quartered.”

Boleyn cannot stop the laughter from bubbling up through her throat. She turns blindly to her family, who step back instinctively. They cannot share this guilt. It must be hers alone.

“Who would you advise me to choose?” she asks Henry.

“No, no, my dear. You are the one who has been wronged. You alone must decide who must pay the price.”

The answer comes to her then, as clearly as if the goddess herself had placed it there. Except no goddess did this. This is her own conscience, telling her that while she may not have the courage to throw herself on that stage, she does have the cowardice to avoid the choice entirely.

“All of them,” she says. “Execute all of them, but, my king, because you are merciful, let it be a quicker death. Let them die by the axe.”

Henry smiles the slow smile of a hunter admiring its prey’s attempts to escape a trap. She wonders how much he knows, how much he suspects, and whether someone has told him or whether it is her own behaviour that has betrayed her.

“That seems like a fair bargain.”

He nods at a hooded man. All three, boy, woman, man, are pushed to their knees by their guards. Oswyn watches Boleyn blankly. The other two stare at the wooden stage. Their last sight is not of their loved ones or a comfortable pillow, but of a dirty, splintered plank.

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry, she thinks.

The executioner works swiftly, methodically. Thunk, thunk. Henry grips her arm and she knows she must watch. Oswyn is last, and he keeps his gaze fixed on hers until the very end. Thunk.

“Thank you for my present, my love,” she says. “You are very good.”

He turns her to him, his touch gentle as he tucks a stray lock of hair into her hood. “Come back to me, Boleyn,” he says, so that only she can hear. “I love you. You love me. I don’t like playing these games with you, my darling.”

Games.

“Do I still bewitch you, Henry?” Boleyn asks. He opens his mouth to answer, but the wails of a grieving woman rise from the road beyond Brynd, and Henry leads Boleyn back inside.

Beneath Boleyn’s gown, the old rings begin to prickle. The white hairs unfurl. Somewhere, across the forests of Brynd and the hills of her family estates, a wolf pack howls for the girl it could not take. Inside, Boleyn froths and shakes. So the rumours say she’s a witch do they? Well, maybe she is. Maybe she will be.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Seymour

Cromwell’s charming request that Seymour return to Hyde is still bristling through her when her carriage crests a hill and she sees the Palace of Plythe, balanced between cliffs over the raging River Kyttle. It’s nearly sunset, and every window glimmers with candlelight and the reflection of the sun and the water beneath, turning the palace into a shimmering arch, as though it were made of glass.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she whispers. She has been here once before, as a girl, when the palace was occupied by a dowager queen who favoured the Seymours. The swell of that first sight is a layer of sediment, placed in Seymour the girl, that has formed Seymour the woman.

She keeps forgetting that Clarice is not beside her to reply. The port abutting Cnothan Castle offers the easiest route for Clarice to reach their family in the Feorwa Isles. She and they will be reunited at Hyde, several weeks hence, just before the Moon Ball. Perhaps Clarice will bring her family too, and their ships, and their knowledge. Seymour is starting to think like Boleyn: knowledge gives power, and power, when wielded correctly, gives happiness.

Howard waits for Seymour at the gatehouse, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting. Seymour tries to reconcile the girl she has spoken to a handful of times in the sunscína with the girl before her. She does not know Howard as well as Boleyn does, but even Seymour can see a difference in the way Howard carries herself from the frantic bird of their first conversation, a few months ago. The difference lies in the certainty of her footfall as she approaches the carriage, the way her smile is now bestowed like one of her gifts, not thrown out as protection. Her lap dragon winds its way up her body and nuzzles into her neck, blowing puffs of smoke into her hair.

Seymour reckoned on Howard being more easily persuaded to join the cause than Queen Cleves. Her only concern was how to get Howard alone without being overheard. Now, though, she wonders whether she might find the endeavour more difficult. Howard no longer seems quite so eager to please as she once was.

“You look radiant, sister,” Seymour says as she steps out of the carriage.

“As do you,” Howard replies.

“Tell that to my bones,” Seymour replies, stretching her back with several satisfying clicks.

Howard laughs and leads Seymour into Plythe. The palace is more modern since Seymour’s last visit. Howard has installed a new form of flooring that creates beautiful patterns from different forms of wood. Warm cherry sits next to more sedate oak in exquisite designs of dragons and flowers. Paintings of women and men in flowing robes have replaced the iconography of Seymour’s memory.

Howard brings Seymour into the banqueting hall, where a bearded man waits for them. He wears the robe and bound headdress of the Uuveks and stands with his hands clasped in front of him, as though he could wait for an eternity without growing impatient.

“May I introduce my tutor, Voda Kelaverinn,” Howard says.

“Ah, you are the scholar Queen Boleyn spoke of?” Seymour says.

“Vadoum Boleyn wrote to me on the recommendation of her father,” Kelaverinn says. “She said that she had an intriguing student for me, if I was up to the challenge.”

“You’ve never told me this before,” Howard says, grinning. “Intriguing?”

“She said that the student was eager to learn, with an excellent memory, but had not the wherewithal to learn your alphabet through the traditional manner of teaching.”

They stop talking as servants show them to their seats at the high table. Howard insists on putting Seymour at the centre, flanked by herself and Kelaverinn, and makes a point of placing the pickled cucumbers directly before Seymour, having heard they are a favourite of hers. Once all the food has been served, Seymour turns to the tutor.

“So you do not teach in the usual manner?”

“I teach according to the pupil’s needs, not my own.”

Howard leans forward, spooning cloudy eggs onto her plate, followed by the rose syrup they were poached in. “I owe Queen Boleyn so much.”

And there is my way in, thinks Seymour. She does not relish the thought of manipulating Howard, but she relishes the thought of the king’s visits to Hyde even less.

They eat the rest of their dinner in companionable conversation, describing High Hall to Voda Kelaverinn.

“I am interested in this notion of inner sanctums,” he tells them. “The use of architecture to provide security to the king and his queens, and to maintain the hierarchy of your society.”

Seymour has never been spoken to like this by a man. She is used to the condescension of her brothers and father, the manipulative charm of the king and the superficial, polite interest of George Boleyn and Mark Smeaton. Kelaverinn’s manner is entirely different – he is a gull, diving for knowledge, and the nature of the water he dives in does not matter to him in the slightest.

“It goes beyond the building,” Seymour tells him. “The grounds around High Hall have a similar structure. You have concentric circles – one might contain a wilderness, or the fishponds that feed the hall, or knot gardens – but to get to the next circle you must pass through one of very few gates.”

“It’s true,” Howard says, feeding her lap dragon a morsel of lamb. “And each gate is guarded.”

“All day and all night?” Kelaverinn asks.

Before Seymour can stop her, Howard says, “More heavily at daytime, but even at night there’s a rigid schedule. Henry showed it to me once, when I was worried for his safety. There’s only a few minutes in every hour that each gate is left unguarded.”

“And let me guess – your impressive memory means you can recall the precise times?” Kelaverinn smiles.

Seymour suspects that Howard would happily relay the entire schedule if it meant impressing the older man. Before she can do so, Seymour places a hand on her sleeve. “Sister, I am tired, but in the morning perhaps you and I could find somewhere quiet to talk?”

Perhaps sensing Seymour’s urgency, Howard calls for her early the next morning. They take a staircase down into the bowels of the palace, where Seymour never went as a girl. It is on this lower floor that goods for the palace are deposited, having been lifted through a giant stone pillar from the base of the river. The queens sidestep the scurry of hand-held carts carrying cured meats, sacks of flour and vats of yoghurt and wine towards the pantries.

“This way,” Howard says, following Haltrasc and her lap dragon down a quieter passage. Here, the overture of the falls is deafening. The passage ends in a small iron door. Howard unlocks the door with a key from her belt and ushers Seymour onto a slippery, narrow ledge directly beneath the waterfall. Haltrasc pads along the ledge towards a wider platform, the lap dragon fluttering above him. Seymour follows them rather more unsteadily, clinging to the rock and trying not to think about the drop. She may be able to swim now, but no body could survive the crush of the falls.

Once Seymour is standing on the platform, her back leaning against the rock wall, her face upturned to the spray, she appreciates what an excellent spot this is for a secret conversation. No one can follow them, there are no nearby windows for eavesdropping, and the waterfall covers every other noise.

Seymour begins to talk, her mouth close to Howard’s ear, for even though no one else can hear, she can’t make herself speak treason and blasphemy any louder. She tells Howard about what she and Boleyn discovered in the cavern, and of the oracle’s prophecy.

“The prophecy says that all we need is five queens united to break Henry’s hold on Elben,” she tells Howard.

“But then who would rule?” Howard says.

“We would. Just think, Plythe would be yours,” Seymour says, thinking of Cleves’s attachment to Cnothan, and her own love for Hyde.

“It is mine now.”

“It is his. He allows you to use it in exchange for your submission. In exchange for your body.”

Howard frowns at her. Seymour, feeling the influence slipping from her, presses her point.

“Boleyn needs you to do this for her,” Seymour says.

Howard draws herself up, until she is almost as tall as Seymour. “I am grateful to our sister, truly I am. But what you and she are asking – it is too much.”

“I cannot live like this,” Seymour says, catching Howard before she can return to the palace. “Every time he comes to me at night…”

Howard shakes her off, then seeing Seymour’s desperation, softens. “I will think on it, I promise.”

She makes her way back to the door, and Seymour must be content with that. They return to the public rooms, surrounded by servants and courtiers. It feels to Seymour that they are all watching her. Was their disappearance noticed? Can Howard be trusted? Seymour wills the day away. She thinks of Clarice, who must even now be on the verge of landing in Feorwa and beginning the overland journey to their family’s homestead, hoping to find them there before they depart on their summer voyages.

In the afternoon, Howard retires to her music room with a few chosen friends. Seymour sits in a chair in the corner, eschewing the more prominent seats offered to her. She scratches the back of her hand. It’s been itching more and more lately. When she returns to Hyde, she will ask a physician for more of the paste she was given to treat the Queen’s Kiss poison.

“May I sit beside you?” Voda Kelaverinn says. She nods, glad of his company but hoping that he won’t wish to talk at length. Thankfully, Howard immediately invites her courtiers to sing and play for their entertainment, and there is little opportunity for conversation. Howard sits in front of Seymour and Kelaverinn, laughing and encouraging as she fiddles with her hair.

“Are you and Vadoum Howard very close?” Kelaverinn asks Seymour in a lull between songs.

“Not very,” Seymour admits. “I had hoped we might be, but I think I was mistaken.”

Howard shifts in her chair. Her lap dragon climbs up her chest and watches Seymour over its mistress’s shoulder.

“There is a riddle I heard while on my travels through Alpich,” Kelaverinn says. “What is the sapling with no leaves, the prize with no worth, that once lost cannot be found?”

Seymour has never heard the riddle before, but she can deduce the answer. Youth.

“I have no aptitude for riddles,” she says.

“Have you not?” Kelaverinn says mildly.

Howard stands up suddenly, blocking their view of the room with her back. Her lap dragon takes flight, puffing its discontent at the sudden loss of its seat. “It is my turn to play,” she announces. There is a barb in her voice that leaves Seymour in no doubt that Howard overheard their conversation.

Howard sits at the harpsichord, the one that must be inlaid with Plythe’s sunscína, and strikes up a tune. It’s a familiar jig, played often at family or local dances. Seymour has never liked it, finding the words too jarring alongside the jolly music.

There was a maiden who loved to dance

Upon the green of Cnorgleo Town.

With dainty feet she pranced and pranced

And her green gown did spin all around.

Beatrice was the maiden fair

Whose dancing was beyond compare.

Beatrice ne’er did stop to sleep

For the music it carried her onwards.

There came a lord to Cnorgleo Town

A mighty man with gold and land.

He was a man of some renown

Three score armies he did command.

The lord he stood at the Fietherford

And there he spied the maiden fair.

He lay down shield and he lay down sword

And to love her for ever did swear.

They wed one morn on a summer’s day

Before god and King and Cnorgleo Town.

Then off they went all bright and gay

To their castle before sundown.

The maid did dance and the lord did love

To watch her move before his gaze,

He locked her up in a tower above

And visited her always.

And so the lady danced for him

Her heart, her life she gave freely.

She danced until her light did dim

Then he mourned her very deeply.

As Howard finishes the song and snaps the harpsichord cover closed, her eyes rise to Seymour’s. Seymour realises that she has made a fundamental error. She had assumed that Howard viewed the king the same way that Seymour and Cleves viewed him – that conjugal relations are at best a chore and at worst a festering wound that eats into the mind and soul. She thinks she could have even persuaded Howard if she, like Boleyn, truly loved and desired him, but could recognise the injustice of what he is doing. She was wholly unprepared for Howard’s viewpoint: she has always understood her queenship as a transaction. And in that simple misunderstanding, Seymour has lost.

“Very well,” Seymour says. “I understand.”

CHAPTER FORTY

Boleyn

From the outside, the Palace of Daven reminds Boleyn of a tortoise; ancient, slow and dying. When she is shown into the vestibule with its vast tiled walls and the towering tree that vibrates with the gnawing of the gealgena dragon within, she sees nothing to change her mind. She can see how the Seymour who came to Brynd nigh on a year ago might have felt at home here. She wonders whether she would still find peace in this fading grandeur.

Boleyn would much rather have been having this conversation at Brynd, ideally through the sunscína. Mindful of how Seymour once came across Aragon and Parr, she tried to do the same, haunting her folly for days until they appeared in the glass. But no sooner had they seen her than they left without uttering a word. Boleyn had been forced to resort to inviting herself to Daven by the traditional method – a politely imperious letter brooking no refusal.

At least it is no wrench to leave Brynd now. Bishop More’s insight is proving correct, and Boleyn suspects that he plays at least some part in that, questioning her role in both the mine explosion and the executions in that mild way of his. The residents of Pilvreen now stare at her, openly hostile, when she ventures into the town. Even her own household falls silent when she passes. Only Syndony does not turn her back on Boleyn. Instead, she came to her chamber one day with a plain glass bottle and urged her to drink it when her monthly course is due.

“It’ll keep up the pretence, and keep you alive,” she told Boleyn.

But a missed course will not fool Henry’s spies for long.

Boleyn is shown into Aragon’s receiving chamber, with its vast window overlooking a wide beach, and beyond that a gentle sea cradled within a finger of land, so very different from the wild ocean at Brynd. The queen herself sits stiffly in her throne. Her lap is covered in blankets and furs that reach to the floor, and in her hand she holds a guirnalda, the beads of her faith. Boleyn observes her pet monkey clamber up her gown and onto her hood with a shudder. A girl about Howard’s age stands next to her, a hand on her shoulder. They make a pleasing picture, framed by the window and the statues that line it – undoubtedly the effect they were aiming for. Boleyn’s eyes fall on the hand-held mirror sitting on a table next to Aragon – her sunscína.

“Salutations, Queen Boleyn,” Aragon says. “Forgive our humble manner of greeting you. You hardly gave us time to prepare after receiving your letter.”

“Thank you for welcoming me into your beautiful palace,” Boleyn says, feeling how falsely her words ring. She must play the game of courtesy if she is to win Aragon over, and she must win her, or there will be no alliance against Henry.

“A beverage for our guest,” Queen Aragon says to a nearby servant. “She must be thirsty after her long journey.”

The two women smile at each other as the drink is poured and offered to Boleyn. Boleyn takes the goblet, large and heavy with sapphires. Inside is a thick red wine with a heady aroma. It would be all too easy to have sprinkled a little powder into it. This is precisely why Boleyn did not wish to meet Aragon in person. It is hard to build an alliance when one person has already tried to have the other killed.

Boleyn raises the goblet. “To our continued and everlasting friendship,” she says. She takes a deep breath, hoping that Aragon is wise enough not to murder a queen in her own palace, and drinks the goblet dry.

Queen Aragon’s laughter cuts through the haze that has come over Boleyn. She isn’t used to such strong wine.

“Staking everything on one throw, Your Majesty?” Princess Tudor says.

“Quiet,” Aragon says to her. “That was a gracious show of trust, all things considered. Please, Queen Boleyn, come and sit beside me.”

The seat is lower than Aragon’s throne – designed for a lesser mortal, so that the difference in status can never be doubted. Boleyn should rightfully demand a chair of equal height and grandeur, but today she is a diplomat, like her father. Her father would sit without complaint or pride. So she does.

“Leave us,” Aragon demands, and the servants and courtiers milling around the chamber leave instantly. Only Princess Tudor remains.

“You too,” Aragon tells her daughter.

“But, Mother…”

Aragon quells the protest with a look. The princess glares at Boleyn as she leaves her post.

“You have a very good daughter,” Boleyn comments when they are alone. “I only hope that mine grows up to be as loyal.”

Queen Aragon purses her lips. There is little she can say that wouldn’t be beyond the bounds of courtesy – after all, Aragon never wanted Elizabeth to be born at all.

“I think we both wish the best for our daughters, do we not?” Boleyn says.

Aragon inclines her head. “Of course.”

“Lord Wolsey is already plotting Elizabeth’s marriage. At least my brother George had some say in choosing his spouses. I doubt Elizabeth will have that luxury.”

“It is the price of being a princess,” Queen Aragon says. She holds her arm out, and her monkey clambers down it, batting at the guirnalda now looped around her wrist. “Your brother had a choice because he is not a prince. Or even a lord, if I remember correctly.”

Boleyn clenches her fists in her lap. She tries another way of sweetening Aragon. “I understand you have made Daven very prosperous since your marriage.”

“I have the wealthiest territory in Elben, yes.”

“And that was all through your own management. I am full of admiration. You have enriched Henry’s coffers significantly.”

Aragon looks at Boleyn through narrowed eyes. “Enough, Mistress Boleyn. Your attempts at charming me are clumsy. Let us speak honestly. My daughter, who as you have noticed is loyal to me, is guarding the door and will ensure that no one overhears us.”

She gestures to the table of wine. “Since we’re without help, would you be so kind as to pour me a drink?”

Boleyn does as she says, bringing them both goblets. Boleyn has no intention of touching hers – her head is already thick from the first. Aragon, however, drinks hers as though it’s honeyed tea, closing her eyes and taking deep inhalations between each sip. Boleyn tries not to notice as she tells her what she knows about the queens and the goddess. Aragon doesn’t pass comment, only listens, eyes mostly closed. If she’s shocked, she doesn’t show it, but that means nothing. She is a stateswoman – she will have learned not to betray her emotions.

“So do you think it possible for the six castles to form an agreement?” Boleyn finishes.

“Well, you certainly won’t catch Queen Parr without my involvement,” Aragon says. “She follows me in all matters political.”

“That is not an answer,” Boleyn says. If the oracle is right, she needs at least one of them on her side if she is to defeat Henry, otherwise she may as well not even try.

Aragon finally opens her eyes. She studies the goblet in her hand.

“My husband gifted this to me as a wedding present,” she says.

“It is very beautiful.”

“It’s made from Gythean silver. Do you know how precious that is? It’s only found in one place in the known world. At the very top of Mount Sancasias, where the old religions thought their gods dwelt. Only the very strongest can climb that high without losing their minds. It’s called the god’s metal. I think it might be the finest gift a king has ever given a queen, don’t you?”

“Our husband can be very generous when he is pleased.”

“He has never been anything but pleased with me.”

Boleyn sits back in her chair and looks around at the walls. The portrait she’s looking for sits above the fireplace – a huge painting of Queen Aragon, holding her daughter the Princess Tudor as a baby, her little round head covered in a bonnet embroidered with roses and pomegranates – the symbols of Elbenese and Quistoan royalty.

“I do admire that portrait. Although I wonder – could Henry not spare the time to stand with you and the princess?”

Queen Aragon flushes, and Boleyn knows she has her.

“Elben was at war with Capetia that year,” Aragon says. “He had to attend to his military duties. You would have been too young to remember.”

Boleyn pours more wine for them both, but when Aragon tries to take the goblet, Boleyn holds it out of her reach.

“If this lie is allowed to continue, the princess will be shipped off to goodness knows where as the consort of a stranger, when she could inherit Daven from you and rule as an equal sovereign.”

“I was shipped off to goodness knows where to be the consort of a stranger, madam, and I do not regret my life.”

Aragon tries to take the goblet once more, and once more Boleyn holds it out of her reach.

“And what of your future? If Henry does not have a male heir, then what happens to Elben?”

“My nephew…”

“Do you truly think that Capetia will permit a king of Quisto to take the most valuable trading post in the known world? There will be war, and you and the princess will be little more than playing pieces in their games of conquest. And we both know what happens to women who become entangled in such games.”

“Quisto will protect me,” she insists.

“Don’t you wish for a better life for your daughter?” Boleyn says.

“Never question my love for my daughter.”

“I’ll question it when you refuse to remove the man who is standing in the way of her greatness.”

“I have been happy. Tudor will be happy also.”

“And what if your daughter wishes to marry women? Elizabeth might be allowed, but do you think, as the eldest daughter, that she will be permitted to? She’ll be expected to have sons of her own.”

“You’re being crude,” Aragon says, looking away. Boleyn moves to the other side of her throne. Like a child, Aragon looks the other way again. Boleyn reaches out, knowing how rude she’s being, and takes hold of her chin, forcing the older woman to look at her.

“I am being truthful,” Boleyn says. “You may be the king’s first wife. Maybe you are his most valued. But that doesn’t mean he will place you or your daughter above the lowliest man when the time comes.”

Aragon jerks her head back. Boleyn wonders suddenly why she hasn’t got up yet. If she were Aragon, as strong and quick to anger, she would have been on her feet a long time ago.

“You’re wrong,” Aragon says. “I have not deserted my homeland and lived on this cold, dreary island for twenty years only to be discarded. I haven’t given up everything for him to turn his back on me and Tudor.”

“You’re sick,” Boleyn says, realisation suddenly dawning.

“No,” Aragon replies.

With a deft movement, Boleyn flicks back the blankets covering Aragon’s legs. Beneath them, her gown lacks the padding of layers Boleyn would expect from a queen. The fabric is soft and light, not the heavy brocade of her ladies’ dresses. A patient’s fabric.

“How dare you,” Aragon says, reaching for the blanket. Boleyn pulls it away and kneels before her.

“Can you not walk?”

“Give it back to me. I am cold.”

Boleyn lifts the hem the smallest amount. She catches a glimpse of wizened skin draped over bone. The skin is grey and lifeless. There is no muscle left to support it.

“Get away from her!” a voice cries. Princess Tudor is running towards them, her skirts balled up in her fists, her mouth snarled. Boleyn falls back, her hand automatically going to her ribs and arm, where grey flesh over bone is all that is left of her own once vibrant body. Tudor snatches the blanket from Boleyn and turns to her mother, smoothing the gown out gently over those lifeless legs before arranging the blanket so that it gives the impression of bulk.

“I’m so sorry,” Boleyn whispers. But the two women are murmuring to each other – both soothing the other. When the princess turns to Boleyn, she is stone once more. The rage has been caged, for now. But Boleyn doesn’t want it to be caged. She wants to wield it. Slowly, she unlaces the sleeve of her dress, pulling it down to expose the grey skin now ravaging her arm.

“Don’t you see?” Boleyn says to them both. “He has done this.”

Princess Tudor looks from Boleyn’s arm to her mother’s legs, her mouth open. “You said it was the holy fire…”

Boleyn purses her lips. Of course Aragon would say it was the holy fire; a disease said to only afflict the virtuous.

“Cernunnos has seen fit to take my strength…” Aragon says.

“No,” Boleyn says. “The same thing happened to Queen Blount. I saw her on her death bed.”

Boleyn sees it all so clearly now. It’s not simply that Henry is pretending to be the source of Cernunnos’s power when the power truly belongs to the queens. He is leaching his consorts of their lives. Marry him for long enough and all will fall ill and wither away, while he will only grow in power. She knows that the inhuman strength he possesses is not his at all – it is his wives’. And he is using them up.

Boleyn clutches the back of her chair. The bordweal weakening for the first time in centuries is not because the king is choosing the wrong queens, or for lack of a male heir, as the rumours have it. It’s because he is the first sovereign in hundreds of years to use the power to do more than protect Elben. He is using it to wage war, to display his prowess, to make poesy rings.

“When did you begin to waste away?” she asks Aragon.

“It is not your concern.”

“It was after the war with Alpich started,” Princess Tudor says.

Queen Aragon hisses, but Tudor, still kneeling at her mother’s side, gazes up at her, her hands clutching Aragon’s. “I want you to be cured, Mother. I just want you to be well.”

The two of them have another of those silent conversations. Boleyn thinks, longingly, of a time in the future when she and Elizabeth might have such a connection.

“It started soon after I came to Elben,” Aragon finally admits. “But I lost the use of my legs two years ago, yes.”

Boleyn flushes. The war with Alpich started two years ago. Now she comes to think of it, the rumours of Blount’s illness began then too. He used them to try to conquer Alpich. And what of Lothair? Is that why her sickness has spread so quickly? She was the one who encouraged him to go to war, after all. She thinks of Howard, scratching her scalp. They could have worked this out so much sooner if they had only talked to each other. But none of them were willing to admit that their bodies are wasting away. The fear of judgement and ridicule was too strong.

Aragon whispers to the princess, and she fetches her more wine.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Boleyn says. Aragon would be more shocked if this was news to her. “You knew all along. Why are you allowing him to kill you?”

Aragon passes her guirnalda, the beads of her religion, from hand to hand, so that her next words become a prayer.

“I am his wife. It is my role to sacrifice for my husband. Humble, loyal and true, that is what your people say, is it not?”

Boleyn shivers. For an instant, she wonders what kind of woman would remain loyal to her husband after such a betrayal. But she, perhaps alone of all the other queens, understands Aragon. Love, combined with faith, makes even the greatest humiliation seem like a noble sacrifice.

“You may go now,” Aragon says, before sipping the wine that Princess Tudor hands her. “I trust you will be comfortable in your rooms before you leave tomorrow.”

“If you speak a word of this to the king…” Boleyn says.

“You will do what?” Aragon replies.

Boleyn casts around for a credible threat. If she and Aragon are more alike than either of them would care to admit, then Aragon will have the same weaknesses.

“My network will inform Elben of your condition,” Boleyn says. She could go on, paint a portrait of the future – Henry’s public disgust, international ridicule, but that is too cruel even for Boleyn.

“I have nothing to hide,” Aragon says, but she pulls at her blankets. She will not tell.

The princess stands in front of her mother, a bodyguard as well as a nurse. Boleyn addresses her next.

“If you want to save your mother…” she begins.

“My mother will save herself, if god wills it. And if he does not, I will mourn and honour her as a true daughter should,” the princess says. Obstinate, destructive loyalty. Boleyn has no patience for it.

At the door, Boleyn tries one last time.

“I think there will come a time when you regret your devotion to our husband, Queen Aragon. Your wedding gift is very beautiful, and very rare. But I wonder – was it a gift, or a bribe? Because you are clever. Too clever to play consort when you could be equal. Why are you settling? Because of some special silver? Is that truly who you are?”

There is a long silence. Boleyn is not going to get an answer. She’s about to open the door when Aragon’s voice halts her.

“Would I be equal, though, Queen Boleyn? Or would I be another consort? A lesser queen to you and your daughter?”

“What do you mean?”

“You are an ambitious woman. Who’s to say that you will not wrestle control of the kingdom away from my husband, only to take control for yourself? Until you can prove to me that you truly work for all the queens, I will gladly die before I join your cause.”

PART THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Her Majesty Queen Boleyn of the Palace of Brynd, and His Majesty King Henry, eighth of his name, cordially invite you to the

Four hundred and ninety-ninth

MOON BALL

A celebration of the Kingdom of Elben as has never before been witnessed.

To Her Majesty Queen Boleyn,

I shall be glad to accept your invitation to the Moon Ball at Brynd. Please may I trouble you, in the spirit of sisterhood, to make provision in addition to the usual royal household, for three hounds, my hunting dragon and a dozen or so ferrets, from whom I cannot be parted. I trust that our sister has already warned you of my ways and hope you will not be alarmed.

Yours ever,

Queen Cleves of Cnothan Castle

Dear sister,

Your invitation to the Moon Ball was received with much excitement in my little remote castle, where entertainment is, I must confess, not easy to come by. I shall gladly attend with a small party of my most faithful nobility, and trust that we will all be very merry in celebrating our rightful and glorious marriage to the King, our most excellent and kind husband.

In anticipation,

Queen Parr of Mathmas Castle

To Queen Boleyn,

I send thanks for your invitation to the Moon Ball. Alas, as you are aware, my health conspires to keep me at Daven, but I will send my daughter in my place, trusting that she will be as welcomed by you as I would have been.

Please accept my good wishes in arranging such a ball. I have hosted many in my time as the first queen of our cherished husband, and it is never easy.

Always,

Queen Aragon of the Palace of Daven

Dear sister,

We shall be glad to attend the Ball.

Yours for ever,

Queen Seymour

To Her Majesty Qween Bolyn of the Palace of Brynd

Deer sister,

You see how I am getting better at my letters. Voda Kelaverinn teeches me well. I hope you are not angry with me. I cherysh you for ever and a day.

We are all very exited for the Moon Ball at Plythe. I am looking forwad to seeing you and the other qweens, and mostly littel princes Elizabet. I hav had the best gift made up for her. I think you and she wil like it.

So please take this as YES to your invitashun.

Your sister,

Qween Howard of Plythe

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Seymour

Seymour presses the sunscína and waits for Boleyn to appear. When she does she is wet through from one of Brynd’s wretched storms. Seymour can spy lightning prickling the clouds behind Boleyn’s face.

“I must be quick,” Boleyn says. There is no ceremony between them any more.

“They say no,” Seymour replies.

Boleyn whirls away from the stone with a cry of frustration.

“I tried,” Seymour says, “I truly tried.”

“Aragon says no as well,” Boleyn says. Seymour cannot help a small amount of satisfaction. It would have been terrible if she was the only one to fail. Then she feels guilty for her satisfaction.

“I think Cleves could be persuaded. Howard too,” she says. “Everything hinges on the Moon Ball. I think we must convince them there.”

Boleyn nods. “Aragon isn’t coming, but Parr is. Perhaps with them separated, Parr could be convinced. Then with Cleves and Howard we would have our five.”

Seymour hesitates. “Boleyn, do you think… are you certain you can trust the oracle? Are we even sure that it means we need five? Prophecies can be unreliable.”

Boleyn laughs unhappily. “I’m being rash. I do know that. But you weren’t there, Seymour. If you had been in the oracle’s presence and heard the way she said those words you wouldn’t doubt it.”

Seymour wishes she could take Boleyn in her arms, not to inhale her scent or feel the glory of her hair, but to comfort her.

Instead, she tries to be practical. “We must be careful. The ball – it’s very public.”

“And we’ll use that to our advantage,” Boleyn says. “Even if we cannot immediately bring the other queens to our way of thinking, perhaps showing others the truth will help to sway them.”

Seymour presses her hand to the glass. “Boleyn, no. Let us simply try to talk to the other queens in private…”

“I don’t have time, Seymour!” Boleyn says, her eyes wild. She tears off her sleeve, ripping the fine fabric tethering it to her gown. Beneath, her once alabaster skin is grey and withered, like cured meat gone rotten.

“Boleyn…” Seymour whispers. She puts a hand over her mouth, trying to mask her disgust and horror. And at the same time, her mind flies to the patch of flaking skin that she had taken as a resurgence of the Queen’s Kiss poison.

“I am dying,” Boleyn says. “I am dying, Seymour, as Blount died. As Queen Aragon is dying. Henry is leaching us of our lives as well as our power.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Seymour asks.

Boleyn’s mouth twists. Seymour can hardly hear her over the storm. “I didn’t want you to think me ugly.”

“Oh, my love,” Seymour says, pressing her hand to the sunscína. All the many truths they have shared with each other, and this smallest one is the one Boleyn felt she had to keep secret. Seymour realises that she would do the same. Her body must be smooth, supple, taut but not too taut, soft but not too soft. It must never, ever, betray the secrets of the life it has lived, the hardships or joys it has endured.

Boleyn pulls the sleeve over her withered arm. “I have no more time for polite conversations and secret bargaining. I must move against Henry soon, or it will be too late for me. Do you understand?”

Seymour does. Boleyn has no choice but to stake everything on a grand show of truth – a performance, a revelation that may persuade some to their cause, but will certainly doom them if they are unsuccessful. Seymour still has her vitality, for now. For Boleyn it is different: if she cannot persuade the queens then she is going to die anyway, and might it not be better to have a quick death by the axe? Being damned as a traitor is a more lasting legacy than simply fading into withered nothingness.

“We will manage it, dearest,” Seymour tells Boleyn. “We will win them over.”

Goddess help them if they do not.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Boleyn

Boleyn has never been to a Moon Ball before, yet here she is, hosting the first one she will ever attend. Mary, who has been to two, and George, who has been to five, enjoy holding this fact over her head. There is nothing quite like the joy of discovering a source of anxiety for a sibling who is usually unflappable. Normally, Boleyn would surround herself with people who know exactly what they’re doing – the best cooks, the best decorators, the best entertainers – but they have all deserted her.

“They’re scared,” Mark says, shrugging, when yet another refusal comes from a Capetian choir Boleyn heard when she was a girl. She thinks of Capetia as her second homeland, so the slight cuts deeper than the others. “They don’t want to become embroiled in whatever trouble you are brewing. Sometimes the silver isn’t worth it.”

“They were supposed to be my allies,” Boleyn says, uncharacteristically hysterical. Her conversation with Seymour echoes constantly in her mind. Everything about this ball must be a statement, encouraging unity between queens, making a grand show for the nobility of Elben. She had felt sure that a Capetian choir would do what she wanted.

There’s only one avenue open to her.

“I’m going to have to write to Master Wyatt.”

Mary’s eyebrows shoot up, but she says nothing in front of the servants. Boleyn senses her watching as she writes the letter. Her hand brushes Boleyn’s shoulder. She leans down and whispers, “Careful.”

He arrives a few days later, sooner than Boleyn could have imagined possible, cantering across the drawbridge on an old nag, his face filled with suspended hope.

“My faithful friend,” Boleyn says, running out to him. They stop at a distance, all the disappointment, the frustration, the need, filling the space between them.

Suddenly, Boleyn realises how tired and wild she must appear. Not that she cares what he thinks of her. Her heart belongs to Henry. No matter that it is Henry who she is trying to topple. It’s mere vanity – the knowing that Wyatt used to be attracted to her and must now be comparing her to the woman he used to covet. She must shake it off.

“My queen,” he says, narrowing the gap and kneeling to kiss her hand.

“We must get to work,” she says, tucking her hand into the sleeve of her other arm. The imprint of his kiss still tingles across the skin there. Hidden inside the sleeve, she touches it.

“I have already been hard at work in your service. You asked for loyal entertainers.”

“And have you found some?”

“Never doubt me.”

With a flourish, Wyatt gestures to the road beyond the drawbridge. Just visible, emerging from the forest, a convoy of shabby but brightly coloured wagons trundles towards them.

“The finest players, musicians and poets of our kingdom, who have yet to be discovered and are eager for patronage.”

“Even mine?”

“Especially yours. There’s nothing like the support of a suspected witch and famed temptress to arouse curiosity in those with money to squander.”

Boleyn swats Wyatt lightly on the cheek. “You are an insolent man, Master Wyatt. I’m going to put you to work as punishment.”

“Work me to the bone, Your Majesty. I’m all yours.”

As the performers set up their acts, the castle transforms. Boleyn watches each performance carefully, Syndony stolidly at her side, and together they design a different banquet for each of the rooms where the acts will take place. Blue sherbet syllabubs and salmon wrapped in pastry for a dance mimicking the sea around Elben. A roast pig and capon sewn together to make an entirely fictional creature, to accompany a poet that regales the audience with fairy tales of queens and witches. And the centrepiece for the banqueting hall: a veritable mountain of food, each dish balanced on acrobats that swing and climb each other as high as the minstrel’s gallery. Jellies, poached eels, subtleties of marzipan in the shape of each queen’s symbol, roasted beavers’ tails and woven garlands of onions and leeks, steeped in milk. In the courtyard outside they install six fountains. At the centre of each one, a statue of one of the queens of Elben, holding a vessel. From each vessel pours a different beverage – wine, ale, mead, perry, juice, rose water.

They wind wyverns through the portcullis and train them to greet each arriving guest with a burst of flame. Inside the castle, Mary and George surpass themselves in their designs of life-size ships, which workers from Pilvreen turn into wooden frames that are painted and studded with crystals and set in surprising places – beneath a staircase or emerging from topiary in the gardens. Outside, flame-throwers and sword-eaters perch in the trees, and garlands of fireflies, caught in glass beads, are strewn from branch to branch and across the castle, lighting it up so that it can be seen all the way across the ocean to Quisto.

Through it all, Wyatt dances, unaware of the game Boleyn is pulling him into. He knows the rumours about her. He knows what people think. But he does not know the truth. He does not know that she is planning a rebellion against the one man she truly loves. A man who is not him.

“Are you going to tell him?” Mary asks her one night, as they survey the grounds from the lightning tower.

“It’s not safe to tell him,” Boleyn says.

“Is that fair?”

“Nothing about this is fair.”

“You’re putting him in danger, Boleyn. You’re putting all of us in danger. All the people you claim to love. George will go along with it without understanding because he’s a Boleyn, and Boleyns take care of each other. And Rochford and Mark will follow him. But Wyatt is not a Boleyn. He would not betray you, even unwittingly as George might. He does not need to be in danger.”

“I do love you,” is all Boleyn can say.

“You’ve a fine way of showing it, sister. How can you be preparing this ball, inciting an uprising, knowing that the king is going to be here? Don’t you remember what he did to those people? Don’t you care?”

Boleyn shoves her, until her back hits the lightning tower. Mary cries out, jolted by the sparks.

“Of course I care,” Boleyn hisses. “How dare you say I don’t care? Can’t you see that I’m trying to make things right?”

Boleyn turns away, dashing tears from her cheeks. She will never tell Mary that the faces of those she doomed to execution appear whenever she sleeps. Their dead eyes follow her, no matter how far she runs or where she hides.

“Everyone deserves to know when they’re risking their lives,” Mary says, quieter now. “Would you have married the king if you’d known what he’s doing to his queens? Aren’t you doing exactly the same thing to Wyatt as the king did to you?”

She presses Boleyn’s left arm where the flesh is rotting. In the grounds below, a cheer goes up. Perhaps someone has given a particularly impressive rehearsal and the workers are exhausted enough to take every little victory as a reason to celebrate.

“Well? Would you have married him?” Mary says.

And Boleyn tells her the truth when she says, “Yes.”

She would still have married Henry, because she loved him to distraction. There wasn’t a moment that Boleyn didn’t want to spend in his presence, trying to elicit the smile he reserved for her alone. There wasn’t a thing he could have asked of her that she wouldn’t have given, and, when they were first married, there wasn’t a thing he did ask of her that she didn’t do, and enjoy. She would have gifted him her life willingly. She would have colluded in the lies of Cernunnos because he asked her to, and she trusted him, and his honesty would have justified that trust.

But he took from her without asking, just as he took from Seymour, and so many others. That’s what she cannot overcome.

Boleyn catches Mary’s hand. “I’ll tell Wyatt, I promise,” she says.

As the day of the ball draws nearer, the guests travel to Brynd. Henry will arrive last, but his confidantes and advisors are some of the first. Wolsey and Cromwell are among the first to descend, and while their words are honeyed, their eyes are shrewd.

Parr is the first of the queens. She is taller than Boleyn expected, with brown skin a little darker than Seymour’s and long coils of silvered hair. She keeps to her rooms and talks very little, no doubt awaiting instructions from Queen Aragon.

Next comes Howard, skipping from her carriage. When she sees Boleyn, she stops, biting her lip.

“Welcome to Brynd, little bird,” Boleyn says.

Howard kisses Boleyn on both cheeks. “I will sing for you, if you like, sister.”

“I would rather see you soar.”

After Howard, comes Seymour.

“My dear queen,” Boleyn says, taking her hands.

She holds herself differently – she has always been quiet, but this is a different sort of quietness, as though she has seen the future and already said her farewells.

“Is anything the matter?” Boleyn whispers.

“No,” she says, her eyes too bright. “Nothing’s the matter.”

They pull apart, maintaining the pretence of enmity in front of so many people. It will never do for Wolsey or Cromwell to see their friendship before they are ready. Maybe that’s why Seymour is being so cautious. Too many eyes. Too many ears.

“Has Queen Cleves arrived yet?” she asks, looking round the receiving chamber.

Boleyn tips her head, smiling, “I didn’t realise you were eager to see her again.”

“I’m not. She’s insufferable. In fact, I want to make sure I see as little of her as possible.”

Boleyn arches an eyebrow.

At that very moment, the herald announces Cleves. What follows is the most unusual procession Brynd has ever seen. A variety of animals – dogs, lap dragons, ferrets and pigs, each one wearing cotton coats bearing Cleves’s arms – enters in two lines, scattering the more squeamish nobility and servants as they take their places in the centre of the chamber. Then the woman herself – her red hair offsetting her green dress. Mary would consider the garment plain, but Boleyn can see that it’s cut to fit her figure perfectly.

“Well, sister,” she says, taking Boleyn’s hand. “I did warn you about the animals.”

“You did,” Boleyn replies. “Although I wasn’t expecting quite so many of them. Or for them to invade the castle.”

“Is it a problem?” she asks. Her smile is beatific, but the message is clear: if you want my help, you had better put up with my ways.

“Not at all. They’ll be better behaved than many of my own household.”

Cleves moves on. Boleyn watches Seymour’s eyes fixed on her as she leaves. Well, Boleyn thinks, she has a weakness for headstrong women, that’s for certain.

Princess Tudor arrives on the eve of the ball. Boleyn tries to engage her in friendly conversation, but she has been schooled in her behaviour and withstands all Boleyn’s attempts with icy cordiality. Like Queen Parr, she keeps to her rooms and offers only the briefest of greetings. Boleyn wants to push the matter, but there is so much to do. She must make sure all the flowers are fresh, ensure the fireworks are set just so. Wyatt remains beside her through it all, although they barely speak to each other. She still hasn’t told him her true aims, and she feels Mary’s judgement like a weight whenever they are together.

Before Boleyn can draw breath, it is the night of the Moon Ball. More guests flood in from Pilvreen and Garclyffe. Every room from Brynd to the Holtwode has been let to visitors come to enjoy the entertainment or ply their wares. Yet Henry still tarries at High Hall. Boleyn does not know whether to be grateful for the reprieve or concerned about what his absence might mean.

“You cannot think on it now,” Seymour says when she voices her concerns. “You must go and host.”

The night begins in the banqueting hall, where six tables are piled high with food brought from across Boleyn’s territory. At each table, a queen or princess holds court. It was Mary’s idea – a way for Boleyn to see which queens are most popular before they each retire to change into their finest gowns and the entertainment begins in earnest. Princess Tudor and Queen Parr are besieged. Boleyn spears a capon and bites into it, watching the princess deftly converse with both Wolsey and More while still making the lesser nobility at her table feel included.

“I must check on the final arrangements,” she says to her table. Outside, the bustle of the preparations has died down, with most of the workers gone to the kitchens for their supper. A stray wyvern drifts over the winter lavender, its belly teasing the white flowers, only visible in the darkness from the soft glow emanating from its full, hot stomach.

Boleyn runs through the gardens, seeking the sound and smell of the sea. She finds it on a promontory, sheltered from the view of the castle’s windows by a line of ancient trees. The water is her only witness. The sounds of the festivities are muted, ceding to the ocean’s roiling pendulum. Hand on her chest, Boleyn takes gulping breaths. She watches the glimmer of the bordweal – the goddess’s protection, not Cernunnos’s – play across the dark horizon. A dart of blue green purple like a fish flitting through waves.

“Your Majesty? Boleyn?” a voice says. Wyatt.

She senses him approaching her slowly.

“What’s this?” he says, the taunt evident in his voice. “Queen Boleyn frightened?”

“If you knew what I’m about to do you wouldn’t tease me for being frightened. You’d be on your knees with terror.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t know then.”

She turns, and finds him right there, looking down at her with reverence, the warmth of his body radiating through the layers of her clothing and sinking into her skin.

“I’ve drawn you into a net. You should know what that net is before it closes over your head.”

“Too late.”

“It’s not,” she whispers. “You can flee now before the king arrives.”

“Is that an order? Because I’m not leaving your side again unless you tell me to.”

He hooks his little finger, coarse and ink-spotted, around hers, the one on which she wears her wedding ring.

“I’ll swear on it if you wish,” he says.

“I’m dangerous, Thomas.”

The wind whips her words into the air, where they whisk between and around them. Wyatt smiles ruefully.

“Oh, I know. I don’t care. I love you, Boleyn. I love you as the anvil loves the hammer, as the rocks love the waves and the leaves love the autumn. You are destruction and promise. You are the storm, and I have been lost in your tornado for so long now that I no longer desire the sun.”

She closes the short distance between them, pressing her lips to his. His arms wrap around her waist, crushing her to him as she curls her fingers in his hair. Not because she loves him – there is only one man she has ever loved – but because he is the only man who has ever wanted her without trying to consume her.

She rips his doublet open and releases the shirt tucked into his hose, running her hands over his bare chest. He gasps as she rakes her fingernails over his skin.

“Permit me to undo your bodice,” he whispers into her hair.

“Yes.”

With trembling fingers he undoes the laces binding her, and tugs the gown over her head so that she stands before him in her shift.

“Permit me to set your hair free,” he says.

“Yes.”

He unclips her hood, then runs his fingers through her locks. She turns her face up to kiss him again, slowly this time, her hunger aching and bone deep.

“Permit me to look upon you,” he says, running a hand over the bandages that cover her ribs and arm.

She pulls the shift over her frame. Wyatt holds her in one arm, lending her his warmth, and with the other he unwinds the bandages. When she is naked, he says nothing.

“Will you be writing poems about me now, Master Wyatt?”

Wyatt smiles. “There is no need, my queen. We poets are truth-hunters, words our arrows. Why would I write a poem when you have given me the gift of perfect truth?”

He kisses her again but makes no attempt to do more.

“Don’t you want me?” she asks.

Wyatt presses himself against her with a laugh. “Can’t you feel the answer to that? Yes, my queen, my heart, my life, but I will not ask for more until you are free to give it.”

It is his final penance for their first meeting, and she thinks she could, one day, do more than lust for him. She reaches around his neck and presses herself against his bare chest. He holds her there, one hand tangled in her hair, one around her waist, and they are so still that the clamour of their hearts is their only movement.

Through the fog of their contemplation, Boleyn hears hooves in the distance.

In silence, they break apart, and Wyatt helps Boleyn into her gown, lacing up her bodice, tucking an errant strand of hair inside her hood, his fingers lingering on her skin.

A voice calls out, “The king! The king is here!”

Boleyn buttons up Wyatt’s doublet, then pulls his forehead to hers. Once this is done. Once she is free. She leaves him on that promontory, striding through the trees towards the castle. She does not look back.

The king is here, and the game has begun.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Seymour

When Boleyn enters on the king’s arm, her cheeks are flushed. At first, Seymour wonders if she’s changed her mind. Did she bed him when he arrived, knowing she is about to betray him? Then the poet, Master Wyatt, slips into the hall behind them and stands at the back, with the entertainers, and Seymour realises from the dark intensity in his eyes what must have happened.

Oh, Boleyn, you make the game more dangerous with every move.

The king is the very epitome of largesse. He leads Boleyn to her table, stopping to speak to every guest on the way, a joke or a comment for everyone. He is full of admiration for every one of his queens as he pays them his respects, but no one does he lavish more affection on than on Boleyn.

“Isn’t she a marvel? Do you know how much trouble she’s had finding the right people? Cromwell! I never thought I’d see you at a ball. My wife here has been so busy scheming, making this party happen, have you been helping her?”

Boleyn’s smile is brittle as a twig, her back as rigid. Clarice tops up Seymour’s wine goblet, and uses the opportunity to whisper in her ear, “Smile, my lady.”

That’s when Seymour realises how many people are watching her watching Boleyn. Which truth did they understand? How Seymour truly feels about her? Or how she feels about him? And which would be more perilous?

Seymour is certain that the king knows that something is underway. She wants to scream at Boleyn to retreat. Boleyn loves the king. Surely of all the queens next to Aragon, she would be most content to let him drain her of strength? Turn back, Seymour wants to shout across the banqueting hall. We will find another way.

Boleyn catches Seymour’s eye, and her whole posture changes. A hardening, a lightening, as though she herself has turned into a diamond – fragile in appearance alone.

She claps her hands. “Sisters!” she shouts across the hall. “It is time to prepare for the dance.”

Seymour rises with the other queens, and follows them out of the banqueting hall. Her rooms are on the other side of the castle to Boleyn’s, in the grander, colder quarters reserved for esteemed guests. As Clarice helps Seymour to strip, she finds herself nostalgic for her little chamber in Boleyn’s tower, with its heartwood fire and proximity to Boleyn. Clarice drops a gown of yellow satin over Seymour’s head.

“You and Queen Boleyn have been very secretive. Are you going to tell me what’s about to happen?” they say as they pull the bodice tight.

“It’s safer for you if I don’t,” Seymour says. Clarice finishes lacing her up then brings another gown from the bed, where it was waiting upon her arrival. A gift from Queen Boleyn: one for each of her queenly guests. Seymour’s is the only one that does not accompany a note requesting she wear it, for she already knows what she must do. The gown is nothing more than a gossamer layer which is designed to lie over the yellow satin. Simple, harmless. Surely safe for every queen to wear. Surely not a symbol of rebellion. Seymour holds it in place as Clarice binds it at the waist with a slender belt.

“It’s not my safety I’m worried about, my lady. I don’t want to see you in that tower your great-great-great-grandfather built.”

“I think you missed a few greats, and he didn’t build it, only designed it,” Seymour says, but Clarice has conjured the image of the Tower’s blueprints, secreted away in an office in her family’s home.

“Be careful, is all I’m saying.”

Seymour goes to the mirror. The fabric is barely visible in the candlelight. She is Seymour yellow. Hyde yellow. For now.

She is among the first of the queens to return to the banqueting hall. Only Princess Tudor is there already, dressed in a thick blue brocade. She must be impossibly warm, for the hall is packed with bodies and the lantern dragons emit more heat than candles. Seymour curtseys to her, out of habit – she is now the princess’s equal, after all. The princess merely nods in reply. She could not have given Seymour a cooler welcome within the bounds of decency, but then Seymour has betrayed her doubly; first by not killing Boleyn and then by marrying her father.

Cleves is next. She wears a simple skirt of deepest orange. The shade – thick and textured as amber – could only have been made from the Eolsand flower, harvested at great cost from the nameless wild meadows beyond the Garzac Sea. Seymour moves closer. Has Boleyn’s plan already failed? But no – Cleves, too, is wearing the gossamer overgown. She has bound it in place with a white, sleeveless waistcoat that dips low, displaying her breastbone. Seymour smiles. The gowns are a crucial element in bringing the queens to Boleyn’s side. Forcing them, not bringing them, if Seymour is honest with herself. For once the statement has been made publicly, as it will be soon, it will be harder for the queens to turn back.

Cleves catches Seymour staring and tilts her head at her from across the room. She ruffles the overgown playfully and shrugs. Curiosity, the shrug says, not a pledge.

Howard is next, the overgown draped loosely over a gown of bronze that matches the coronet on her curls. She takes in the other queens, and their matching fabric, and her movement grows more frantic as she realises that Boleyn has drawn her into something without her knowledge. Seymour thinks she might bolt straight out of the hall, until Cleves takes her by the arm and leads her further into the room. Seymour longs to know what Cleves is saying – her smile is mischievous – but it makes Howard laugh, so Seymour supposes she ought to be thankful.

Queen Parr enters shortly afterwards, in a dazzling gown made entirely of pearls that sounds like rainfall on glass when she moves. The courtiers gasp, and the nobility of Mathmas smirk with pride as though they themselves created the dress. She is not wearing the overgown.

Seymour wanders over to Parr and gestures at her dress. “This is a marvel,” she says.

“Thank you. You look very well too,” Parr says, her body angled away from Seymour.

Seymour checks to make sure the king hasn’t arrived, then says, “You did not care for our sister’s gift?”

“It is beautiful. I simply did not realise we were supposed to wear it tonight.”

“Oh. The note telling you as much must have been lost.”

“Yes. It must have been.”

Parr’s stare is impassive, and she so still that her dress is silent for the first time since she entered. Yet in her eyes Seymour senses a torrent, and she feels a strange kinship with this woman, despite her refusal to play Boleyn’s game. She dips her head and moves away.

“Queen Seymour…” Parr says.

Seymour stops.

“Your brother – I thought he would attend the Moon Ball.”

Seymour points out Edward, who is lording it over some of his friends.

“He never misses a party, believe me,” Seymour says.

Parr seems about to say something, then swallows and inclines her head graciously. Seymour has been a fool, again.

“Unless…” Seymour says. “I did not know you knew Thomas.”

“We met once or twice before my marriage. I think he went abroad some years ago?”

And there it is – the tremor in the pearl dress. Seymour reaches for Parr – if this is what she suspects, then perhaps this is her way to persuade Parr to join them – but before she can speak again, a herald bangs his spear against the floor and announces the entrance of the hosts.

The king looks even taller than usual, if that is possible. He is resplendent in a cloth of gold doublet and hose, and the divine magic swirls around him, stronger than ever. But if people gasped in admiration at Queen Parr, they fall silent and press their hands to their chests at the sight of Queen Boleyn. Her dress is of rich green velvet beneath the same shimmering overgown that Seymour, Cleves and Howard wear. Stitched across the bodice and kirtle is a twist of ribbons, each one a different shade of grey. The effect is of storm clouds over a forest. A collar of diamonds encircles her neck, and from it falls a cascade of gems – diamonds, crystals, glass and the occasional garnet. When Boleyn is still, she is stunning. When she moves, she is a goddess, for the cascade glances in the dragonlight like lightning. She is the storm, she is the rich earth, she is the bolt to tear the world asunder and make it afresh.

The curtain that had been fixed at one end of the hall is swept open to reveal the wooden frame of a stylised castle. A banner hung across the castle’s portcullis reads “Elben”. At the helm of the castle stands a masked actor wearing an oversized crown. Boleyn has cast him perfectly – he is muscular and well-shaped, and his hair is hazelnut red like the king’s, but there’s something about his pose that smacks of pretence. The assembled guests applaud, recognising Henry in this portrayal of what everyone knows must be Aethelred, the first king to create the bordweal. Boleyn whispers something in Henry’s ear, and he smiles gloatingly. He doesn’t see the cleverness of what she’s done.

With a bang, the doors at the other end of the hall burst open and an enormous ship is wheeled in amidst thick smoke and the sound of cannon fire. At its helm are a troupe of actors and actresses, all masked and wearing red doublets to signify evil. They each wear a badge affixed to their doublets, naming them. This was always going to be the trickiest part of the masque, for Boleyn couldn’t suggest they were from Capetia, Quisto, Uuvek or Ezzonid, given her allegiance to the former and Aragon and Cleve’s heritages. Instead, she has chosen to name them after sins – Greed, Lust, Tyranny, Disloyalty, Treason and so on.

As the ship bears down upon the castle, the cannons firing symbolically, puffs of flame and coloured smoke erupt from each of the turrets. From inside the castle, actors shift the wood to make it look as though the cannons have blown holes into the structure. The actor playing Aethelred waves his sword ineffectively, then raises his hands to the sky pleadingly.

At this point in the masque, Cernunnos should appear, his antlers proud and fierce. There’s a long history of such plays around the kingdom, where Cernunnos brings with him six bosomy queens, handing them over like glorious chattel. It’s the centrepiece of the traditional masque, usually accompanied by rousing music. Seymour once watched her father be so moved by this moment that he actually shed a tear.

The crowd quells, awaiting the expected reveal. Some of them look at the ceiling, wondering whether Boleyn has rigged an actor to fly in.

Instead of the rousing pounding of Cernunnos’s entrance, the music quietens. The harpist and violinist, silent until now, pick up their instruments and begin to play. Their duet is so gentle it forces the audience into silence. And the audience wants to hear, because the music is overwhelming in its delicacy. It makes Seymour’s heart stretch, like some hibernating creature waking up after a long sleep.

A further curtain, draped across the top of the hall, is wound up into the ceiling, revealing six acrobats in shimmering gowns. Each of them is posed in seemingly impossible positions above the mock castle, and each of them wears a headdress bearing the names of the six castles of Elben – the names of the original queens. The actor playing Aethelred bows, accepting their help. As the queens are lowered to the castle floor, there is no ceremonial handing over of women to man. The queens take their rightful places along the castle’s parapets. There is no moment where the king urges his power through his consorts – instead, he steps back, arms wide, honouring the queens as they get to work.

The acrobats fly from the castle walls, over the heads of the audience and straight at the enemy ship. Fireworks spark from their hands. The crowd coos at the masqued battle, as Daven arcs above, lifting Greed into the air and hauling him away. As Cnothan descends upon the ship, twirling impossibly fast so that the tulle of her gown becomes a tornado. As together, the queens land amidst emerald silk that is flurried to create a sea. Together, they place their hands against the ship’s hull, and push it back, out of the hall, the actors inside flailing helplessly.

The guests clap, but they all now understand that something is missing. The role of the king has been removed – he stands on the castle still, a strong light shining down on him, casting him heroically. Usually this would be expected, except that he has done nothing heroic. In previous masques he would be the one doing most of the fighting, while the queens stand stately and elegant on the battlements. Now, the king looks as he truly is – a thief of glory.

The real queens stand frozen. Their eyes are all on Henry – as is the entire court’s. They are wondering whether he will shout treason now or whether he has, for some inconceivable reason, approved this change to the well-worn story. Boleyn whispers something in his ear again, but even though he smiles and nods, there is no warmth behind it now. He understands what Boleyn is doing. But he can’t do anything about it at the Moon Ball. Boleyn was counting on his sense of courtly propriety, and once again she was right.

Each of the actors playing the queens approaches their real counterpart, offering them a flower. A single, white blossom. The Queen’s Kiss. Seymour accepts hers with a docile nod and affixes it to her gown.

Edward eyes it beadily, his gaze flicking towards Boleyn. To anyone who didn’t already understand what Boleyn is trying to do, it is the natural flower to offer to Henry’s queens – it is, after all, a symbol of their history. But to those who can see the ulterior meanings at work, it is a symbol of unity, for the Queen’s Kiss only ever offers up six flowers, all stemming from a single tree. Every queen understands what is being offered, and what is being asked. Seymour is the only one to fix her flower so readily to her gown.

“Take it off,” Edward mutters.

“Why? It’s a gift, is it not?” she says, trying to sound like a dullard. It is, after all, her greatest armour – that she is considered stupid. Boleyn’s greatest weakness is that she is known to be intelligent. For all that she is telling Henry that the masque is meant to soothe the other queens’ jealousy over her new pregnancy, he is no fool.

There is one more part of the masque to play. The final dance.

The minstrels in the gallery strike up a familiar tune. It is called “Queens of Fire” and is the traditional song of the Moon Ball. There must once have been lyrics, but most of them have been lost to the ages or were spoken in a tongue so ancient that the words no longer hold meaning. All that remains is a dance of six pairs that swirls across the floor, punctuated by stamps and claps that are supposed to mimic the sound of Cernunnos ripping open the earth to produce the six consorts. The partners switch throughout the dance, so that each follow dances with each lead. Boleyn curtseys to the king and looks at him coquettishly. For an instant, Seymour sees them as they were on their wedding day: for ever caught in a game of chase and catch, believing wholeheartedly that they could build a marriage on such a courtship. Then the moment passes, as Henry leads her to the centre of the floor, never anything less than a gentleman.

“Come then, sister,” Edward says, pulling Seymour to her feet and marching her to the floor. Even though she knew this must happen, Seymour’s shoulders hunch instinctively at the prospect of dancing in front of so many people. All those eyes witnessing her awkward steps.

She takes her place beside Boleyn and Henry, and on her other side, Cleves takes to the floor with her Master of Horse – that draws stares from the assembled crowds because he is wearing a doublet made of soft, warm chamlet, rather than the silk or velvet of nobility. Cleves and her dance partner look over at Seymour, and wink.

Ignoring the flush making its way up her neck, Seymour turns her attention to the other queens – Howard, who has invited George Boleyn to dance with her and is laughing merrily at one of his jokes. She may be unaware of the plan, but nevertheless she has played into Boleyn’s hands. George may not know what is about to happen, but he will see what Boleyn is doing and direct Howard to the right place when the time comes. On the far side of the circle, Princess Tudor takes her place opposite one of Aragon’s inner circle. Queen Parr accepts Lord Cromwell’s hand.

As the dance moves into its second phase, the lantern dragons are provoked to spout flame in time with the dancers’ movements. It’s all Seymour can do to remember where her own feet should go, despite the pounding through her heart and head. The watching crowd applauds, especially when larger dragons emerge, winding lazily across the ceiling. There are six of them, each wearing a ribboned collar to match one of the queens, and they are a rare breed who live and move in packs – the Annysse dragon. Henry is watching them too, his smile more and more fixed. If Boleyn were honouring the traditional symbolism, she would have a larger, male dragon appear to dominate the six. As the dance continues and no seventh dragon appears, the crowd understands that it won’t. Some of them mutter darkly. Wolsey whispers furiously to his men. More’s reaction is less predictable: he watches the dragons with something akin to devastation. The dragonlight glints on his tears.

The song builds to its crescendo. Boleyn and Seymour catch each other’s eye. As the key changes they nod at their respective partners and, defying all the known steps of the dance, turn to each other.

Seymour takes Boleyn’s outstretched hand and places her other lightly on her waist.

“Seymour, what are you…” Edward hisses, but Seymour ignores him, leading Boleyn across the floor so that he’s forced to move aside.

“Stand up straight,” Boleyn says. Seymour uncurls her back and shoulders, until she is looking down at the woman she loves, instead of matching her diminutive height.

The king watches them, frozen, then steps back, his arms outstretched, as though this was entirely his idea. Princess Tudor shakes her head at her partner, and he leads her out of the dance. Parr quickly follows suit, although when Cromwell tries to talk to her, she answers in monosyllables, her gaze fixed to the dance. Only Cleves and Howard remain on the dance floor with their own partners, although no one spares them a glance.

At a signal from Wyatt, the candles around the room are extinguished, leaving the only light that of the dragons on the ceiling. The dragons representing Boleyn and Seymour twine around each other, their scales glowing gold and green, casting an otherworldly glow on the faces of dancers and audience alike. When the dragons next spout flame, the meaning of the gossamer overgowns becomes clear: beneath the flame of the Annysse dragon, the overgowns reflect a single shade – the bruised turquoise of the bordweal. The queens that were once distinguished by their individual colours are now unified.

There is a slow, deep power to the moment that winds around Boleyn and Seymour alone. Neither of them had anticipated it. They had hoped only to create a public spectacle – one that would set the rumour mill of Elben turning with whispers of the truth. But the power building between them now is more than spectacle, more than a trick of dragonlight on gossamer. Sparks, blue, silver, green and copper, exactly like the lights of the bordweal, fly from their interlaced fingers and whisk around the hall, charging every onlooker with feral illumination. A smell permeates the room – the sea on a summer’s day. Seymour recognises it: it is the smell of Her. Medren. Anyone who has watched the bordweal from the coast on a winter’s evening recognises it. It is old magic. Magic that should be Cernunnos’s – magic that should be for the king to wield alone. And yet here it is, formed of two queens, dancing alone in the middle of their enemies.

It is seen, and felt, by every person in the hall, royalty, nobility, servants and performers alike. The poets among them will try to capture that feeling in their art in years to come, and fail. The servants of Brynd, newly understanding their mercurial queen, will attempt to speak of it with their families over bread and broth, and fall silent in contemplation. The nobility will gossip about it in public, and dream of it in private, wishing that they, too, could have been invited into that magic and knowing that they would not have had the courage to accept.

The atmosphere in the hall shifts, as more and more people begin to understand the truth. A kind of energy forms around the room, like the most dangerous current; peaceful on the surface but deadly beneath the waves. Through it all, Seymour keeps her eyes fixed on Boleyn, drinking in the steadfastness within her delicate frame.

You are my everything, she thinks. I would follow you into the abyss.

Boleyn smiles up at Seymour, and mouths, “I know, sister.”

Seymour is so engrossed in her, that she almost forgets the other queens. It’s only when someone taps her on the shoulder that she breaks away from Boleyn. Cleves is there, holding her hand out for Seymour’s. “This looks like fun. May I join you?”

She has stuck her flower behind her right ear.

Seymour moves from Boleyn’s arms to Cleves’s. Seymour spins her, their hands meeting at the end of her turn, fingers sliding into each other’s grasp. Then comes the part where Seymour pulls Cleves towards her, their bodies pressed together, the top of her head, short hair curled to bounce around her ears, caressing Seymour’s cheek.

“You are shining very brightly, my angry queen,” she whispers in Seymour’s ear.

Over her head, Seymour watches Howard approach Boleyn, her flower tucked into her coronet, peeping from her curls. She offers Boleyn her hand. They dance, twelve down to four – two coupled queens beneath the glow of dragons, and though Seymour has never felt more exposed, she has also never felt more alive.

Henry is whispering furiously with Wolsey now. It is only when Cromwell approaches them and points it out that Seymour sees it too – the divine magic that usually swirls around Henry is deserting him. It is reaching for the queens.

The music shifts one final time, growing in intensity, and the formation of the dance changes too. Usually, at this point, the six couples would form a circle. It is the only moment that Boleyn has tried to keep the same. She reaches for Seymour on one side and Howard on the other. Seymour spots Master Wyatt behind Queen Parr, whispering in her ear, and a moment later she too steps into the circle, taking Howard and Cleves’s hands. Only Princess Tudor continues to stand to one side, her glower a thin mask for fascination.

Henry approaches the circle, his expression the same as when he spied Boleyn at his wedding to Seymour; the same as the moment he realised Seymour had lost his child, and the night that child was conceived.

She must keep dancing.

Henry orbits the floor, one hand splayed towards them, the remnants of his divine magic sparking across his palm. Across the circle from her, Seymour sees Howard falter, as though her shoulders have been lashed. Henry is right behind her. Seymour wills Howard to stay on her feet, to hold the line, for they are women. They are used to pain. A crackle of light flashes from Seymour’s chest to Howard’s. Howard stands tall once more.

The five queens step from side to side – in one beat, out the other – their hands always joined, the four who wear their overgowns united in the colour of their dresses. Five dragons weave on the ceiling above them. Boleyn has designed this climax to build to fireworks – a suitably impressive ending, but she didn’t need to. The queens are alight with whirls of colour, the divine magic, Medren’s magic, dancing for and around them.

Beyond the light, the king’s advisors stride to the front of the crowd, as though they can shield what is happening from the rest of the audience. Henry mutters a quiet command to two of his guards. The men draw their swords and inch towards the queens.

The sparks between the dancing women sizzle and spit, growing in ferocity as the music reaches its final notes, bathing the musicians in eerie light. And as the last note plays, the dragons above them breathe a long, burning flame into the centre of the room, turning the lantern hanging there into a shower of molten copper. The guards use the climax as cover, moving forward to tear Boleyn from her place in the circle. Seymour tries to pull Boleyn out of the way, but she doesn’t need to. The sparks of the bordweal, of the goddess, rise to protect her. The guards’ armour glows red with heat as they touch Boleyn, and the men are thrown back, cracking against the remnants of the masqued castle.

Silence descends. The queens break apart, and something of the spell of the dance breaks too. The weight of treason settles back on Seymour’s shoulders. Parr scurries to Princess Tudor’s side. In the renewed light of the lantern dragons, the hall looks messy. A draught is flowing in through the open door. And the king is staring with unbridled hatred at the woman Seymour would die for.

Boleyn, what have we done?

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Boleyn

There is a moment, before every storm, where the clouds seem to gather, and pause, and take stock. As though the lightning is choosing where to strike, or the rain where to feed with water. The destruction and the feeding – the two are one. Wyatt told Boleyn that she is the storm, but here in the hall, with the feeling of the sparks and the ringing final note of the harpsichord still prickling her skin, she knows that she is not. Henry is the storm, and it is now only a matter of who he will destroy, and who he will elevate.

The silence that follows the dance is bloated with threat. Boleyn, for the first time in her life, is frozen. But if she does not act now, then Henry will. He will crush her right here in her own castle, and with her all hope of persuading the other queens to unite. She must do something, before Henry’s rage erupts into action.

“Play on!” she commands, clapping her hands towards the musicians in the gallery. Syndony drags the fallen guards out of sight. George, pale and stiff with revelation, clicks his fingers at the waiting servants and more food is carried in: platters of honeydragon meat, cured in sugar; mountains of oysters dripping in seaweed-green butter; cornucopias of fruits from every corner of the world. The acrobats who had been queens change costumes and continue to amaze the crowds.

Gradually, the conversation bleeds once more, and with it Henry’s opportunity to take immediate action against her. But Henry is no longer trying to conceal his anger. He glares at anyone but her from the other side of the hall. Boleyn knows that there is nothing she can say or do to contain it fully. The only power she has is to protect herself and those she loves for a little longer. Seymour plays the part of docile idiot so capably that Boleyn thinks he will believe her when she proclaims her innocence. Cleves knows how to play the game as well – the ever-jovial queen who bends and sways with whatever takes her fancy. Henry will not perceive her as a threat. Boleyn likes her immensely.

There are two who she fears for though. Howard flutters through the hall, aware of what she has done and what she is risking, but not capable of hiding her nerves. She is truly the bird freed from its cage, not knowing how to find sustenance, singing a broken song to the wind. And Wyatt. She thought she had concealed her plans from him well enough to protect him, but of course he suspected. How could he not, knowing her as he does? He shouldn’t have persuaded Parr to join the dance. Henry won’t like that at all. What is more humiliating: his wives joining forces against him or a lower-born man helping them, with all the familiarity that implies?

Unable to do anything else for now, Boleyn must continue her own performance. She keeps a hand lightly on her stomach, a physical reminder that she is protected, for even a rebellious queen cannot be harmed if she is carrying a baby who might be an heir who will in time find his own six consorts to leach. She tries to ignore the guards that shadow her and the other queens. She turns away from the whispers of “Witch” that shimmer around the hall.

At the end of the night, as the guests retire to their rooms, the musicians strike up one final melody.

“Shall we dance, Boleyn?” Henry says behind her, making her jump.

“Of course, my love,” Boleyn says, allowing him to lead her into the centre of the floor.

The song is a slow, mournful tune, perfect for the end of an evening, when tired feet won’t keep up with lively minds and conversation. The flute holds the tune with a harmony that soars above the other instruments.

“I find myself in a conundrum,” Henry says eventually, one hand on Boleyn’s waist, the other gently playing with her hair.

“Oh?”

“Will you help me to find a solution? You have always been so concerned with protecting Elben.”

Boleyn’s body prickles with unwanted desire. She doesn’t understand how she can still want him so badly, when she knows what he is, and how he’s betrayed her. How even now she can recognise the game he’s playing and want to play it with him. But that has always been their way: a love affair founded in games and chases. It has always been what they’ve both thrived on. It’s what makes them the perfect match, and the perfect opponents.

“If you’re not beyond help, my love, then I will always help you.”

Henry laughs, low and, in his own broken way, loving.

“Oh, Boleyn. I think you’ve made my decision for me. I was wondering which of my wives to visit tonight. But you always know just what to say to bring me back to you.”

From that moment on, it is the perfect night. Boleyn lets herself forget everything that has happened, and everything that will happen. They say goodnight to their guests. Boleyn ignores the way Wyatt turns away from her, and the way Mary squeezes her arm as she passes. Princess Tudor watches with steely eyes, and Boleyn forces herself to forget what Aragon said, and what this must seem like to her. She ignores Seymour’s lost gaze and tells herself that the way Cleves spent the evening looking at her is solace enough.

Halfway up the stairs to her chamber, she stops Henry and presses him against the wall. She kisses him, partly because she wants so desperately to have one final tryst with the man she thought he was before he destroys her. He does not respond at first. Perhaps she humiliated him too thoroughly for even one last night of pleasure. Then he lifts her, swinging them around and up a step, almost toppling down the spiral as she wraps her legs around his hips and lets him crush her against the stone. There is no softening, no gentle touching, no easing. By the time they reach her chamber he is already inside her. Their rage and betrayal is wrapped up in the blind passion of their coupling, the line between love and punishment irrevocably blurred. It is, in its own painful way, blissful. She can still surprise him. She can still hold his attention.

The morning begins bright and hot, the sun’s scorching rays waking Boleyn far earlier than normal. Or maybe it isn’t the sun, but the noise. A soft, mouselike scuffling. Boleyn turns over in bed, reaching for Henry’s body, only to find his space empty. For a moment, she thinks she must have dreamed last night. Then she understands what the noise must be. She sits up in bed, blinking her eyes open against grit. Henry is staring at her. He is rigid, and in his hands is the little glass bottle Syndony had given her to stop her courses.

“Pregnant with my son still?” Henry says, ever so quietly.

Boleyn pulls the bedsheets over her shift.

“How did you find that?”

“A little bird, humble, loyal and true.”

She immediately thinks of Rochford and her quiet watchfulness. Henry turns away, sniffing. There is nothing Boleyn can say. No trick to make this deception right. Even a shield wielded against someone who would kill you can be inexcusable.

Henry laughs. “My clever wife. The queens of Brynd always were too clever for their own good.”

“I had to,” Boleyn whispers.

“I would have given you everything.”

“Everything except my health, my life, Elizabeth’s rightful place.”

He stares at her, then with a movement fuelled by the strength of his betrayal, hurls the glass bottle at the bedstead above her head. The bottle shatters behind her, filling her hair, her neck, with needle shards, the dregs of the liquid staining her pillow purple.

“This is the way things are, Boleyn. I did not make these rules.” His handsome face is red with tension.

“It is not your power to wield, Henry. It is mine.”

“I chose you for Brynd. Without me, you and your family would be nothing,” he says.

“Have you always known the truth?” Boleyn asks.

Henry paces to the fire and back to the door before answering. “No,” he admits. “My father told me after Arthur died.”

Boleyn might have understood if he had been raised from infancy understanding the lie. But he would have been eleven when he was told. Old enough, clever enough, to know it was wrong. “And you did not care?” Boleyn hisses.

“It’s just the way it is, Boleyn.” Henry is agitated again, one moment almost beseeching her, the next furious. “Your goddess was defeated long ago. I merely follow my father’s legacy and his father’s before him. I never mistreated you, Boleyn. I loved you. And you repay me with betrayal.”

She clambers out of bed, dragging the sheets with her, ignoring the glass prickling the soles of her feet. “I loved you, Henry! And you repay me by lying to me, by killing me slowly!”

She discards the bedsheet, pulls her shift over her head and rips the bandages from her ribcage and arm, revealing the ugly, wizened patches of skin beneath.

“You call this love, Henry?” she hisses. “Because I don’t.”

Henry steps back, appalled at the sight of what he has done to her. His mouth twists in disgust, briefly but unmistakably. And even as she recognises the cruelty of that reaction, she can’t help but feel the sting of rejection.

“You did this, Henry. You knew what would happen to me and you went to war anyway.”

“You told me to.”

“I didn’t know it would kill me.”

“You didn’t mind hundreds of my soldiers dying. You didn’t mind risking my life,” he says.

“They and you had a choice. How can you not see the difference?”

But even as she says it, she wonders, is there a difference? Her thoughts, usually so clear, are twisting.

“We all sacrifice something, Boleyn,” Henry says. “I’m sorry that you don’t think me worthy of yours.”

He marches from the room, slamming the door, leaving Boleyn skewered. A few moments later, she hears the sound of hooves thundering out of Brynd’s courtyard.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there before Syndony enters. All she knows is that the sun has moved across the sky so that she is standing in a pool of heat, utterly naked. Syndony cleans around her, sweeping the glass from the floor and stripping the bed. Then she turns her attention to Boleyn, picking each shard from her neck and hair with gentle hands.

“Something spectacular today, Your Majesty?” she asks her.

“Something spectacular,” Boleyn echoes. As the meaning of Syndony’s words sinks in, Boleyn knows exactly what she wants to wear when she leaves the safety of her bedchamber and descends the stairs. Syndony follows Boleyn’s directions without comment, fastening the undergown around her ribs and hoisting the heavy overgown – its impossible train filling the room – over her frame. The sleeves come next, the blood red velvet already warm from the sun. And lastly, the coronet over loose hair.

“A true queen,” she says when she’s finished.

“I wonder if I could ask one last favour of you, Syndony,” Boleyn says.

“Of course.”

“I need you to get a message to the other queens.”

Boleyn whispers the message to her. “Quickly, and try not to let anyone see you.”

Syndony slips from the room, and Boleyn looks at herself in the mirror, squaring her shoulders against what is about to happen.

She had been blind to it on her wedding day, but the dress was too much after all. Fifty yards of scarlet fabric, to prove a point to people whose opinion really didn’t matter. Not done for herself, but to set herself apart from women like Seymour, like Cleves and Howard. To what end?

“Ridiculous,” she whispers.

The door feels heavier than normal as she pulls it open, as though it wants to protect her a little longer from what awaits her. But she is ready. She has set in motion the most important matter. Everything else must flow from that.

The banqueting hall is full, but Henry is nowhere to be seen. In fact, there is only one face in the mass of bodies there that Boleyn recognises. Wolsey stands at the head of a group of guards, every one of them impassive in the face of her magnificence.

“Lady Boleyn,” Wolsey says, as soon as she appears, his nasal voice ringing through the hall and into the corridors nearby. “I must arrest you for conspiracy to treason against His Majesty King Henry, and against the kingdom of Elben.”

As the guards step forward to manhandle Boleyn out of her palace, she looks towards the sea. The sun blazes down on her face. The storm has begun, and the lightning has chosen where to strike first.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Seymour

The news of Boleyn’s arrest finds Seymour on her way to Hyde, using the quicker scrind roads that flow through High Hall. Even though it is not a surprise – she knew as soon as she received Boleyn’s message and told Clarice to pack as quickly as possible – she still has to steady herself against the side of the carriage when Edward bellows the news through the window. He sounds like a man who’s just won at cards.

“This is an opportunity for us,” he says, not bothering to keep his voice down. “The whole Boleyn family is going to be ostracised, if they’re even permitted to live. You must see if you can get Hever for me.”

“Should I request it for you tonight, brother? Or can I wait until the executioner has cleaned his axe?”

“Don’t be impertinent. If the king visits you, you put your ugly little mouth to work to get me that estate, understand?”

“She understands,” Clarice says, and pulls the curtain across to block him from view. The sound of his horse’s footsteps recedes, along with his curses. Seymour stares at Clarice. “You did not need to speak for me.”

“My apologies,” Clarice says. “Usually I do.”

Their back is very straight, their gaze very bold.

“You’re angry,” Seymour says.

“My feelings don’t matter.”

“They matter to me, Clarice.”

Clarice adjusts their corset and crosses their legs, sitting back in the carriage and now refusing to look at her.

“Clarice,” Seymour says, leaning forward. “Are you angry with me for fleeing? Or for not chastising my brother? Or both?”

The silence that follows seems endless. Seymour suddenly remembers with awful clarity that summer’s day, and the one command that changed everything between them. She remembers the stiffness of Clarice’s bow as they rose to fetch the parasol. She remembers the way they stopped offering their opinions right after that.

She now sees herself through Clarice’s eyes: as the woman born with so much and married into more, who was too frightened of her own inferiority to wield any of her power as she should have done. The woman who was ready to befriend a foreigner of a lower class, but lacked the awareness to tear down the system that binds them.

And Clarice can say none of this, because Seymour is their mistress, the person who means they and their family have a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. Of course they could never be totally honest with her.

Seymour examines the rings on her fingers. Each one covered in jewels and wrought from metals so precious most people in Elben would never have laid eyes on them. Together, the decoration on one of Seymour’s hands could buy Clarice’s island home. She pulls every one from her right hand, leaving indentations on her fingers, and tips them into Clarice’s lap.

“What are you doing?” they say.

“These are yours, Clarice. You can speak freely to me now. So do so. Please.”

Slowly, Clarice picks up the rings, as though they were still molten from the forge, and slips them into their pockets. Then Clarice looks at Seymour, new respect in their eyes.

“He is nothing. He has never done a single thing for you, yet you always placate him. Whereas she – she has been a true friend to you, and you repay her by fleeing.”

“She told me to.”

“And you always do as you’re told.”

“No, that’s not…” she begins.

Seymour stretches her hands out to Clarice, pleading.

“What could I do? I’m not clever like her.”

“No? You were clever enough to seduce a king. You were clever enough to drug your brother without him realising. You were clever enough to make a whole kingdom think you hate someone when in truth you love them.”

Clarice snorts.

“You queens. All of you except Boleyn are so anxious that men think you’re not smarter than them that you end up believing it yourselves.”

“So clever she continued to bed him knowing what he did to me.”

Seymour clamps a hand over her mouth, surprised by her anger. Such thoughts had only fluttered through the darkest parts of her mind before. Now they are laid bare. Clarice raises an eyebrow. “She loves him, Seymour. People forget a lot when they’re in love. But she still moved against him. You don’t think that’s at least in part because of what he did to you?”

The coachman knocks twice on the roof of the carriage, to let them know that they are in sight of High Hall. It brings Seymour back to herself, and Clarice seems to follow her thoughts, because they raise a finger to their lips. They have been indiscreet. Seymour nods, then speaks more quietly. “I told you to be honest with me, Clarice. Are you certain you couldn’t be a little more excoriating?”

Clarice jingles their pocket. “You’d need to give me the other hand’s rings for that.”

Seymour laughs, peeking out of the window at the sight of High Hall, rising like a shining beehive from between the Holtwode that borders Brynd’s territory.

“What am I going to do, Clarice?” she says softly.

“What do you want to do?”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“That’s your brother’s thinking, and your father and the king and Wolsey and Cromwell getting into your head. What do you want to do?”

The carriage bumps and grates over the scrind road. The trees thin and, suddenly, they are in the light, a thin ray of sun illuminating the way ahead.

She stops at High Hall instead of going directly to Hyde. From her suites, Seymour sets one of her guards at the doorway, to keep Edward at bay. She changes into the most demure gown she owns – a black linen overgown, with cut sleeves revealing deep purple beneath and a matching hood. She forces her shoulders back as she studies herself in the mirror.

“You are clever. You are a liar. You can do this.” Haltrasc raises his head from the long chair beside her, and purrs in approval. From the bag secured to her belt, she pulls Boleyn’s message, relayed through her stewardess: Sunscína, at noon tomorrow. Run.

Outside the sanctuary of her rooms, the court is in disarray. Capetian ambassadors haunt Queen Parr’s rooms, attempting to curry favour with a potential ally who has not been arrested for treason. The courtiers who had once proudly worn Boleyn’s green token have hastily torn it off their clothes, leaving a shadow of the fabric’s shape as a reminder of their fickleness. Everywhere, the news whisks past her like an ill wind:

“… her pregnancy was a lie…”

“… some kind of witchcraft on the other queens…”

“… this will show her father – no good comes of educating a woman…”

“… is it true, do you think? About the bordweal…”

“… Shh. Are you mad? Don’t talk about it here…”

“… the brother’s gone back to Hever, tail between his legs…”

“… the king went directly to his rooms. Won’t see anyone apparently.”

As Seymour makes her way through the palace, she hears the light patter of a child’s footsteps coming closer. A moment later, Howard appears, her face taut and her movements even more fluttering than usual.

“Sister!” she calls. Seymour resists the urge to shush her in public, because they are being watched by half the court.

“I am pleased to see you, sister,” Seymour says, surreptitiously squeezing Howard’s arm to warn her to be careful. “I feel so disappointed in the treachery of one of our own. I was on my way to console our dear husband.”

“Oh. Oh yes,” Howard stumbles. “Disappointed.”

Seymour draws Howard as casually as she can into a quieter gallery, where the songbirds in their cages at the windows chirrup loudly enough to mask a conversation. Usually, this place would be populated by the king’s most important advisors, like Wolsey and Cromwell, but they must be in more official meetings, deciding exactly how to deal with Boleyn and her conspirators. In this moment, they have the room almost entirely to themselves, save for two guards at the other end of the space. Nevertheless, Seymour steers Howard to the opposite end of the gallery, where they pretend to be examining a portrait of one of the king’s ancestors.

“Did you get Boleyn’s message?” Seymour asks her quietly.

“Yes. I left Brynd immediately. I only stopped here to change the horses on my way to Plythe, but then I wondered if I should show my face at court as well.”

They stroll to the next painting. This one is of a distant cousin of the king’s – a sullen-looking girl carrying her lap dragon. The guards remain impassive, but Seymour drops her voice even further.

“Have you heard anything about what they’re doing with her?”

Howard shakes her head. “I saw her being put in one of the royal carriages as I was leaving. I tried to find out what was happening, but the guards told me to go away.”

“My friend is trying to find out what’s happening now.”

“We’re going to help her, aren’t we?” They drift to the other side of the gallery. Seymour wants to ask her so many things: why she wants to help Boleyn – is it out of love, or fear? She wants to test whether this is quick courage, the kind of courage she was so slow to find in herself, or whether it’s something built on a firmer foundation.

“We need information,” Seymour says. “But then, yes, of course we’re going to help her.”

“Well, if you need someone to act being a silly little girl, I can do that,” she says.

Seymour smiles. “Actually, that’s exactly what I think we need, sister. That, and your remarkable memory.”

They part ways shortly afterwards – Howard to repair to her rooms and be loudly vocal about her denunciation of Boleyn, and Seymour to talk to the king, if he will admit her.

His chambers are in the very centre of the palace, right at the top, beneath the highest dome of the skep-shaped building. If anyone had wanted to find the most influential men in the kingdom, they could do little better than search the king’s antechambers. As soon as Seymour climbs the wide staircase up to the highest floor, the noise of their scheming assaults her. Her brother is there, albeit in a corner, ignored by all but a few lesser politicians until her guilt or innocence in Boleyn’s schemes has been established.

Wolsey stands beside the doors to the king’s innermost chamber, deep in conversation with a group of churchmen. He peels away from them when he sees Seymour.

“Your Majesty, you travelled here quickly.”

Seymour curtseys to him, allowing her old subservient habits to lead her. “Can you blame me, my lord? My brother told me that I had been very foolish in taking part in the masque as I did. I must confess to my own ignorance, but I had no idea that what Queen Boleyn was doing was so evil. I merely thought that she intended to build bridges between us queens, given how plain she had made her prior dislike of me.”

“Indeed?” Wolsey says, a smirk playing across his face. His companions titter at Seymour’s stupidity.

“I suppose it was foolish, given our history, to think that it could be anything other than a scheme. My brother always says that I am too quick to forgive and too dull to understand the politics of such matters. Everyone else, it seems, saw a statement. I merely saw the dragons and heard the music.”

Wolsey pats her on the arm. “Well, it’s a blessing, really. I wouldn’t ever seek to change your… guilelessness. It does you credit.”

You have no idea.

“Do you think the king will see me?” Seymour asks. “I so wish to make sure he’s all right. The betrayal of his most beloved wife. I cannot imagine his devastation. I would be beside myself if someone had manipulated me in such a manner.”

“I believe he is upset, yes. He loves each of his queens greatly and feels betrayals deeply. Permit me to talk to him on your behalf?”

“I would be so grateful.”

She dips a curtsey again, head bowed, and Wolsey shoos the guards aside and enters the chamber. A few moments later, she is ushered in.

Despite being married to the king for a year, Seymour has never been inside this chamber. It is circular and crowned by a glass dome not unlike the one that frames her bedchamber at Hyde, except that hers is underwater and this one is high above it. Most of the chamber is inset with large, panelled windows that look out over the kingdom of Elben: across to the territory of Daven in the north, to Brynd and Hyde in the east, and to Mathmas and Plythe in the west. The only territory it does not spy upon is Cnothan.

The king is standing by one of the east windows, staring out at the Holtwode and, beyond it, Brynd. It is a clear day, and the castle’s towers, leaning out over the coast, are just visible, a grey shadow through haze.

The first thing Seymour notices about him is his smell. Usually, he smells of bonfire smoke and pinewood. But today there is a new note – honeysuckle. The sweetness is so jarring that Seymour almost steps back. And yet… she knows that scent. Where has she found it before?

“Wolsey tells me to forgive you your ignorance,” he says, not looking at her.

“If you do, it will be the truest mercy, for I cannot forgive myself, Henry. And I can never forgive her for drawing me unwittingly into her act of treason.”

“You make much of your stupidity, Seymour. I am starting to think it is a shield.”

Ice prickles up Seymour’s spine. Of everyone in this court, he is the one she must not underestimate.

“What can I do to prove my loyalty to you, my love?”

The last two words feel alien in her mouth, she so rarely uses them. Boleyn, she knows, addressed him as such, and his jaw tightens, reminded of her.

“I don’t know,” he says. “What can you do to prove your loyalty to me?”

Seymour thinks of the things she might offer. Sexual acts prove nothing, and besides, she is past the point where she is willing to sell her body for safety. She must do something that will get him to trust her. That will make him believe that she despises Boleyn. He has never truly got inside her head, but Seymour likes to think that she knows something of his mind. She knows what he values above all: his legacy. The legacy of an heir. She swallows bile at the terrible lie she is about to tell.

“I’m sorry to say it, Henry, but I’m angry with you for having such little faith in me, given what Boleyn did to me.”

He looks at her at last, frowning.

“What do you mean?”

“You heard the rumours, I know you did. That she was the cause of my miscarriage.”

“I thought they were simply the malicious whisperings of her enemies.”

Seymour turns away from him and covers her face, concealing her dry eyes.

“My brother had warned me that Boleyn was not to be trusted, but I did not want to believe it. The symptoms of my pregnancy started when I was on the road to stay with her prior to her confinement. She must have heard news of my pregnancy. Perhaps one of my servants was too free with their words. On the last day of my stay, she made her servants run me a scented bath.”

“And you obeyed her?”

“You know how domineering she can be, Henry. I am no match for her. The next day… Well, you were there.”

She pretends to sob into her hands. Henry’s heavy grip rests on her shoulder.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says, his deep voice vibrating.

“I wasn’t certain. It might have happened anyway, after all. But with what I now know about her…” she continues, still pretending to sob.

“I know. I know.” Henry paces to the window once more, and Seymour can almost hear Boleyn’s sentence being announced, his thoughts are so loud.

Oh, goddess, please let me help her, now that I’ve condemned her to save myself.

As he ruminates, his back to her, Seymour looks around the room once more. Its size had made her mistakenly think it devoid of decoration, but it has some adornment. Portraits on the walls, thick rugs across the wooden floor, and a vase on the table next to a long-chair. There’s something small and glittering next to the vase, and it takes Seymour a moment to see what it is from this distance – a woman’s bracelet, fitted with diamonds. Suddenly, she understands the strange scent on the king – he has another woman here, possibly just beyond the tapestry that conceals his bed. Perhaps he is already arranging Boleyn’s replacement. The bile returns to the back of her throat.

“It’s decided,” he says at last. “She’ll die tomorrow.”

Seymour doesn’t know how she manages it, but she makes the long walk back to her rooms, a demure smile fixed on her face like a mask. If anyone notes her brimful eyes, she can only hope that they attribute it to tiredness, or her naturally mousy demeanour. As soon as the guard opens the door to her rooms, she collapses. Clarice is already waiting for her. They usher out the other servants before helping her to a chair and fetching a sweet red wine. She gulps it down as she tells them what she has learned.

“I condemned her, Clarice,” she finishes. “I couldn’t see another way of proving my innocence, but I sentenced her to death.”

“No, you didn’t,” Clarice says roughly. “It was already decided she’d die, just not when. They’ve arrested the poet as well. The one who was fond of her.”

“Master Wyatt?”

“He’s to get the axe this evening, under cover of darkness. I’m guessing they don’t want anyone knowing she cuckolded the king.”

“I don’t think she did,” Seymour says. “I know it sounds mad, but I believe she loves him, despite everything.”

“Doesn’t matter what’s true, though, does it? All that matters is what things look like. If they execute him publicly people will think the king’s not got what it takes to satisfy a woman.”

Seymour nods shakily. “What else have you gleaned?”

“I heard that Parr went back to Mathmas, and Aragon’s obviously in Daven with the princess. But Queen Cleves is here.”

Seymour’s treacherous heart beats a little faster, and she tries not to respond too eagerly. “Yes? And did she say she’d help?”

“Not exactly,” Clarice says, frowning. “She gave me this note for you.”

They hand Seymour a folded piece of paper, written in haste. As Seymour reads it, and works out the messy letters, the plan that has been taking shape in her muddled brain, gets its final, missing piece.

Remember that Haltrasc likes to HUNT.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Boleyn

Boleyn never had business in the Tower of Elben, so she never thought much on it. Her eyes slid over the building whenever she walked the grounds of High Hall, erasing it from her view of the kingdom, the king, and the power he wields.

The Tower is set on an island abutting the south-west gardens of High Hall. Its exterior is coated in green enamel, so it gleams like poison. It is also entirely smooth – a gilded cruelty – a beautiful way of preventing anyone from climbing up, or down. Boleyn is led across the single bridge, over a moat filled not with water but with bubbling oil that leaves a greasy coat on her skin. She once heard, in one of those fairy tales told by nurses to frighten children, that the oil is kept hot by a legion of dragons, held in caves beneath the moat and fed with prisoners of war. Two of those dragons stand guard on either side of the bridge, their scales varnished with gimrodor, a precious oil that turns anything it is painted upon to stone. Only the dragons’ eyes remain uncoated, and they roll and gleam with fear and fury at any who pass.

At the crossing, one of Boleyn’s guards produces a short knife from his belt and brandishes it at her, smirking when she flinches. Silently, he hacks at her wedding dress, cutting the train until the gown sits raggedly just below her ankle. He balls up the rest of the fabric and hurls it over the bridge into the oil. Boleyn stares as the crimson velvet grows darker, the oil seeping into it, and is consumed and pulled beneath the surface. She wonders at the hatred this stranger bears her, that he is willing to destroy material that could have paid his annual salary many times over, simply for the pleasure of seeing her distress.

The guard leads her onwards. The wall seems to fracture, and a door appears. A maw.

Inside the Tower, no care has been taken to make it look palatable. The impressive door gives way to a windowless room filled with guards. They stare at Boleyn, so expressionless that they could be statues rather than living beings. At one side of the room, a narrow staircase winds up around a central pillar. The space is oppressively hot. Her throat burns when she inhales. A pit covered with iron bars sits in the centre of the space. Roars and growls rise from its depths, and with each one the pit glows with a burst of flame.

The guard pushes her up the stairway. She climbs, her calves burning after only a few floors. She tries to find mercy in the fact that the heat ebbs away as they go higher. By the time her skin is prickled all over with sweat, she stumbles out of the stairway into a narrow corridor lit by candles. They are at the apex of the Tower.

Before her, a new guard stands next to a heavy oak door set with a small, iron-clad window. Silently, the guard unlocks the door and opens it for her. With nowhere else to go, Boleyn enters the cell. Behind her, the key turns in the lock.

The cell is almost circular, apart from a single straight wall containing the door. It is bare except for a truckle bed and a pot for excretions. There is one glassless window, too small for any but the smallest of children to slip through. An icy wind snaps through the window. If she looks outward, she can see High Hall – the rooms that were, for a brief time, hers, and the dome where Henry might be, even now, deciding her fate.

Directly below her window is a courtyard, set across from the moat. There, a dozen or so men carry planks of wood, assembling them into a stage, hammering them into place and jumping on them to test the sturdiness of the platform. Fear and exhaustion have made Boleyn slow-witted, for it takes her some time to understand what they are making. It is only when they bring the block, with its horseshoe divet, that she realises. She screams, out into the mounting dusk, and the wind carries her scream far, far away, across the forest of her territory and out to the Sea of Hreonessa.

Once the sun has set, they bring torches. Boleyn clings to the windowsill until her hands ache and her wrists smart. Everything in her is numbed – her muscles, her mind, her heart. Yet even as she mourns the loss of her love, she can’t help but acknowledge that part of the reason she fell in love with Henry was his ruthlessness. He courted her with brutality, from the moment she urged her horse to overtake his in the woods. This execution is the natural ending to their courtship, and better by far than the slow-wasting death she would otherwise have endured.

As the sun sets behind the king’s dome, the guard comes in with a dirty plate of rotting meat and stale bread, along with a tankard of warm perry. He pauses in the doorway.

“I can get you better, if you want,” he says.

Boleyn stares at a maggot crawling over the meat and swallows her pride.

“Really?”

“Certainly. I’ll want paying, mind.”

She drags her eyes up from rotting meat to rotten man, and he smiles slowly as he slides a hand down the front of his trousers.

“You’re disgusting,” she whispers.

In an instant, that hand is out of his trousers and around her neck. He pushes her against the wall and squeezes until she chokes.

“Don’t think you’re better than me, you whore,” he whispers. He stinks of ale and arousal. He bangs her head once against the wall, then releases her, letting her slide to the floor gulping in ragged breaths. He kicks the plate towards her.

“You’re not even attractive,” he says, as though it’s the worst insult he could possibly throw at her. He slams the door and the key turns in the lock.

Boleyn refuses to let him hear her sobs, but she cannot stop the tears from coming. She covers her face with her sleeve to muffle the sound. When the worst has subsided, she crawls over to the plate and cup. She drinks the liquid but leaves the food, then returns, neck and head aching, to her position at the window. The lights in the palace have all been lit now, each window a star. She maps their constellations – that configuration belonging to Daven; that one to Hyde. And then the candles in Brynd’s rooms are lit, and her heart clenches. Who is occupying her rooms? Has Henry found another replacement, so soon? Or is this an unknowing servant merely doing their rounds? These questions torture her until renewed movement below catches her attention.

Someone is being brought into the courtyard, their hands tied behind their back. Boleyn strains to see who it is, praying to the goddess, to Cernunnos, to whoever might grant wishes to a doomed woman, that it isn’t either of her siblings. Then the prisoner is thrown onto the scaffold, and the torches illuminate their face.

Wyatt.

The man who would be her lover, the man who silently helped her commit treason without asking her why. Her hands slip on the windowsill, but she will not crumple. She will not look away. This is what she has done. This is where her blind pursuit of justice has led.

One of the guards points up at Boleyn’s window and says something to Wyatt. He looks up. Even from this distance, in the half-light, Boleyn can see that his face is a mess of bruises and cuts. He isn’t holding himself right either, his clothes hiding a litany of other injuries.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, knowing that he will never be able to hear her, even were she to scream it.

And yet, he does seem to hear her. Because he has always heard the beat of her heart, understood it better than the man she was married to. He straightens, slowly, every movement costing him. He tilts his head towards her, as though straining to glimpse the midday sun. His hands are bound in front of him, but he brings them to his chest, where his heart lies. He thumps them there, once, twice.

A salute. A promise. Forgiveness.

He keeps looking at Boleyn as they force him to his knees, refusing to allow them to place his head on the block. There’s some commotion that she cannot understand, and in it she takes the bottom of her dress and tears at the already ragged hem, stripping a piece of the red velvet from the rest of the garment. She thrusts it out of the window, far enough that she hopes he can see it.

He does. He raises his hands once more to his chest, just as someone passes the executioner a sword, and the executioner swings it, and Wyatt looks no more.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Seymour

There is a fine clock in Seymour’s rooms, made of gold filigree. It was given to Queen Blount, and inherited by Seymour when she married the king. Her rooms are full of such trinkets – heirlooms of past queens of Hyde. As she waits in her bedchamber, she feels those queens with her. Every one demure and proper and submissive. They are the reason Hyde is so peaceful. But now, as Seymour runs her hands over her strange clothes – dark trousers, linen blouse and the knife in its belt lent by Clarice, bodice from her own wardrobe – she hears their screams. By the time the clock strikes midnight, she is ready.

“Come, Haltrasc,” Seymour whispers, and the panther that had been snoozing at her feet rises silently.

Together, they slip from her rooms. The guards stationed outside are slumped against the wall, still clutching glasses drained of drugged wine. Seymour clings to the walls as she makes her way through the palace, Haltrasc’s presence beside her a balm. She has never navigated High Hall in the dark. It’s the first time she has seen it so still. The ghosts of long dead kings and courtiers feel present in every step, every curtain she brushes and every draught on the back of her neck. Her only light comes from the crescent moon, making ladders on the floors as she moves from gallery to gallery. The only sound is the occasional mournful pip of the songbirds of High Hall, restless in their cages even at midnight.

Down, down she goes, to the servants’ quarters at the base of the palace. There’s a plain, unguarded door in one of the corridors that leads out to the kitchen gardens, right where Clarice told Seymour it would be. She holds it open for Haltrasc and follows him out, propping it open with a stone for her return journey.

She had told Voda Kelaverinn about the concentric circles of the gardens of the royal palace, so familiar to her in daylight. She has never seen them in darkness. Every topiary becomes an armed guard; every whisper of wind through leaves a spy watching her.

The rotation schedule of the guards’ patrols, written in Howard’s untidy scrawl, scratches the soft skin beneath Seymour’s bodice as she approaches the first hedge. If Howard’s memory is as remarkable as they think, Seymour should be able to slip through to the second circle without being seen. She finds herself pulling the schedule out and checking it by moonlight, just to be sure. She pushes the metal gate open, cursing its thin creak, then slips through and into the shelter of the fruit trees beyond. She makes her way through the next two gates with ease, but at the fourth, one of the guards is not where they should be. Seymour comes face to face with a young, pale face, not much older than a boy, wearing the guard’s uniform. There’s an instant where the two of them could turn and leave, both unscathed, but then his hand twitches towards his sword and she knows what must be done.

“Haltrasc, hunt,” she says. The boy’s face turns towards the silent creature at her side, and his eyes widen as Haltrasc leaps for his throat.

Seymour had prepared herself for blood, but it’s a clean, swift kill. What shocks Seymour is seeing the precise moment the guard’s soul is extinguished. She used to find comfort in the idea of an afterlife, but at that moment she cannot see how there could be one. There is no passing, no transference from one plane to another. Only life and then, in a snap, death. She can’t honour the moment, or what it has done to her. She must keep moving, or the same will happen to Boleyn and she will be nowhere either in this world or another. Gone, not waiting.

“Come, Haltrasc,” Seymour whispers. The panther laps at the boy’s neck a little longer, then draws back to allow her to pull her knife across the wound, eradicating the panther’s bite marks. She turns away from her mutilation, hurrying onwards, and Haltrasc follows her, the fur around his mouth gleaming with blood in the moonlight. Seymour forces herself to bury her fingers in his fur as they walk. This murder is not his guilt. It is she who is the monster, she who should be feared.

They pass through the final two gates without incident, and at last reach the Tower. There, Seymour settles against the base of one of the dragon statues, ignoring the poor stone creature’s gleaming eyes and leaning in to Haltrasc’s steady warmth to fend against the chill. Her juddering breath makes wisps in the air; fear given form. The scaffold where the poet was executed earlier offers them some cover. Seymour tries not to think about the smell of copper, or the hum of flies cleaning the wood. She distracts herself with thoughts of honeysuckle, diamonds and betrayal.

The bottom floor of the Tower is raucous, the door left open carelessly. There are more guards than normal on night shift, no doubt due to the exalted nature of their prisoner. Seymour can sense their excitement. By rights they should be exhausted, but their conversation is punctuated by barks of laughter. Some of them cannot sit still, springing from their perches to peer outside, or do a jig for the amusement of their colleagues. Seymour spots one of them make an obscene gesture with his hips, and they all look up the stairs and laugh. Her fingers tighten in Haltrasc’s fur.

As the bell in High Hall’s sanctuary chimes the first hour of the morning, a servant dressed in nondescript clothing lugs a handcart across the cobbled courtyard. On the back of the wagon is a large wooden keg.

“What’s this then?” a guard says, squaring up to the servant, towering over them.

“A gift from the king, for your service,” the servant parrots. “Ale from Lothair.”

The guards gather around the keg, laughing and patting each other on the back. It takes six of them to haul the vessel into the Tower, while the others swagger around the servant, making crude comments. The servant flees, dragging the empty cart behind them, and the guards jeer as they go. Haltrasc bristles. Seymour strokes his fur. In time, panther, in time.

It takes longer than Seymour would like for the drugs to take effect. It was easy to pluck a handful of the leaves the gardener warned her about so many moons ago, and that she has used so often on Edward. She has become something of an expert in understanding the right dosage for slowing the mind, for inciting a gradual sleep. She accurately measured the right amount for the guards outside her doors in the palace, but she had to guess how much it would take to knock out so many guards speedily. The slighter ones fall first, crumpling to the ground where they stand, their tankards spilling and rolling across the floor.

The rest understand almost immediately what has happened, tossing their tankards away. Not quickly enough, though, for all of them have drunk from the ale, and the drugs are strong. Even as they try to wake up their comrades, they stumble, their words slurring. Only one thinks to try to call for help. He stumbles to the door and opens his mouth. Seymour wishes he wouldn’t.

“Haltrasc,” she says, and the panther springs across the courtyard, silencing the man for ever.

By the time Seymour has once again disguised Haltrasc’s mauling as knifework and slipped into the Tower, the heat coming from the moat and the dragon pit has turned the spilt ale into fumes. Seymour steps between bodies, holding a handkerchief over her mouth and nose, and calls Haltrasc to join her. The last thing she wants is for him to breathe in too much and fall asleep himself.

As she climbs the staircase, she is thankful that the rest of the Tower is empty. The prisoners inside the other cells haven’t been deemed important enough to merit their own personal guard.

Her legs are screaming by the time she reaches the penultimate floor. She can hear someone shifting above her.

“Who goes there?” a rough voice calls out. He’s edgy and, she can tell from the movement, bulky too. A smooth rasp tells her he’s drawn his sword. Seymour squeezes Haltrasc’s collar. His muscles are tense, his mouth open, pulled back in a snarl. She has never seen him with the bloodlust on him before. He was never a pet. He was always a weapon, wild and ferocious, like Boleyn.

No, like her. Like Seymour.

They round the final spiral of the stairs together and come upon a man with a shock of red hair. He looks so uncannily like the king that in that split second where his eyes meet hers, Seymour understands that her husband placing this man here was by design – a final, brutal taunt to Boleyn. His surprise at seeing a woman, especially a woman dressed in hose, gives her the advantage. She doesn’t even need to say the words now, Haltrasc is so attuned to what she needs. He springs from her grasp. But this guard is armed, and he raises his sword at the last moment.

“No!” Seymour shouts, springing forward to throw herself on his arm. She reaches him just in time to drive his sword upwards and out of his hand, giving Haltrasc the opening he needs to thrust the man to the floor and pin him there. Haltrasc bares his teeth.

“Wait,” she says. With infinite self-control, the panther stops and looks at her, his claws digging into the man’s neck and arm.

She feels down the guard’s doublet, finding the keys at his belt. He struggles against Haltrasc as she unclips the ring, three chests heaving in unison. She holds the keys on the ring before him one by one, until the slightest catch in his throat tells her she has the right one.

“Boleyn?” she calls through the door as she unlocks it. It catches against a discarded plate that clatters as it moves. A blast of freezing air, so much colder than on the ground, reaches through Seymour’s clothes and grips her skin. Boleyn is huddled opposite her, shivering beneath the window. Seymour rushes to her.

“You?” Boleyn whispers. Tears have crystallised on her eyelashes.

“Come with me.”

Seymour helps her to her feet. She walks stiffly to the door, her face downcast. The bruises on her neck tell Seymour a little of what she’s been through today. Haltrasc still has the guard pinned down. Seymour kneels to collect his sword and passes it to Boleyn.

“Would you like to say anything, sister?” she asks.

Boleyn takes the sword dazedly, as though she doesn’t know what she’s doing. But when she looks down at the guard, her grip steadies. She kneels beside him and places one hand on his throat.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” he croaks, as she squeezes and squeezes.

“They’re always sorry in the end,” she says, her own voice catching in her crushed neck. She holds the sword against the guard’s throat, gripping the hilt in one hand and the blade in the other. Seymour draws Haltrasc back as Boleyn clambers on top of the guard, kneeling on his chest to stop him from moving. She presses the blade down against the guard’s scream. His legs flail and struggle wildly, but once his voice has been taken, it isn’t long before his legs grow still too. Boleyn stays on top of his body for a moment longer, then rises, one hand dripping with her own blood, her face and chest sprayed with his. The red of her tattered wedding gown is now, truly, the red of slaughter.

“We must go, love,” Seymour tells her, holding out a hand. She lets Haltrasc lap at the opening in the guard’s neck as she leads Boleyn down the stairs to freedom. They remain silent, even when Haltrasc catches up with them. On the ground floor, dozens of rats, who came to sup on the spilled ale and the body of the dead guard, lie, bloated and sleeping. They pick their way through them all, and round the side of the Tower, towards High Hall. Keeping to the shadows of the trees, they follow the paths around the border of the palace grounds, until they reach Plythe’s wing. There, Seymour pulls Boleyn into the shelter of a bush, and they crouch there, Haltrasc between them for warmth, their fingers entwined in his fur.

“Thank you,” Boleyn whispers from time to time. Seymour inches her fingers over to hers until they are clasping hands, their skin frozen, their hearts warm, through the dregs of the night. As the sky mellows from black to blue, two figures emerge from a basement door and run at a crouch towards them. As they get closer, Clarice and Howard’s faces become clear.

“Did anyone see you?” Clarice says.

“No one who can tell anyone now,” Seymour replies. Howard is embracing Boleyn, whispering her affection into Boleyn’s ear. Something’s wrong with Boleyn, though, something none of them can voice, not even Boleyn herself. She returns Howard’s embrace stiffly, silently, her eyes vacantly fixed on something beyond their sight. Seymour thinks of the marks at her throat, and the smell of the scaffold below her window, and shudders.

“We must move before it gets too light,” Howard says at last, pulling Boleyn towards the service courtyard of her wing. The smell of the walnut trees and the light rain recedes and is replaced by that of unwashed cobbles and rotting vegetables. Wooden crates on carts are lined up on one side of the courtyard, each wagon waiting for a horse and driver. Clarice pulls one crate open, revealing a pile of rich fabrics. They show Boleyn the spyholes they’ve drilled into the side, the bag of food stowed there, with a knife to cut the apples and cheese, and the secret, sliding door they’ve installed in one side of the crate, facing away from the driver.

“These crates are destined for Garclyffe,” Howard explains. “When you get close to the town, you can slip out and make your way to Brynd. Take Elizabeth and a horse and get to the royal jetty. Clarice here has sent word to their cousins on that side of the island to have a ship ready to transport you to Capetia.”

Boleyn shakes Clarice’s hand. “I’m for ever in your debt,” she says. Clarice, impulsively, leans forward and kisses her on the cheek.

Boleyn turns to Seymour. “What about you? Will you be safe?”

“I’m returning to Hyde now, and Howard is going to Plythe. We should arrive in time for the meeting you arranged.”

It feels like an age since she received Boleyn’s hastily scribbled message: Sunscína, at noon tomorrow. The one message Boleyn sent to every queen before her arrest.

“I think Aragon is beyond hope,” she tells Seymour. “But see if you can get Parr. Once I reach Capetia, I’ll find a way to communicate with you. Hope is not lost.”

“I know. Now go,” Seymour says. Clarice and Howard step back, keeping watchful eyes on the windows and doors that lead onto the courtyard.

Boleyn clambers onto the cart, but before she gets into the crate, she turns and cups Seymour’s upturned face. Gently, she kisses Seymour on the lips. It’s a thanks, a blessing, a goodbye, entirely chaste and the most precious gift she could have given.

Howard, Clarice and Seymour slip back into the palace. Howard heads upstairs to her bedchamber, to feign sleep. Clarice peels off through the servants’ floor to ready Seymour’s carriage, taking Haltrasc with them. And Seymour pulls a skirt over her hose and slips upstairs – she will be able to explain her presence in the courtiers’ halls far more easily than in the servants’, even at this early hour. The palace is beginning to stir, servants coaching embers into fires and carrying freshly laundered linen to the nobility staying here. Seymour takes every back passageway she can to avoid the guards at the main doors, slipping up and down narrow staircases and pushing through bookcases to reach passages between walls. She should be going to her own quarters. It is the wise thing to do. But she has one final task in High Hall.

She nestles herself in a bay window near the core of the palace and waits there, opposite a plain oak panel. The caged bird above her flutters from side to side but makes no other sound. The sun is almost up when the wooden panel slides back and Seymour spies her, slipping out of a hidden staircase that must lead directly to the king’s chambers. She’s wearing a veil over her face, but Seymour recognises her gait. Seymour was right: she remembered in that long wait outside the Tower where she had smelled that honeysuckle scent before. Where she had spotted that diamond bracelet before she saw it on the king’s table.

The figure is halfway down the gallery when Seymour steps into her path. She jolts to a stop, her whole body tensing.

“How long?” Seymour whispers through the murky darkness.

Ever so slowly, Mary lifts her veil. She has deep circles beneath her eyes. She has always been deemed the beauty of the Boleyn family, the lovely, pliable younger sister, but in this moment she looks older than Boleyn. Seymour supposes betrayal will do that to a person.

“Three months,” she says.

“You were the one who arranged for the mine explosion,” Seymour says, remembering that Mary had accompanied Boleyn on the day of the explosion. She could have set it herself, before fleeing the cave with Boleyn.

“I had to,” Mary says. “I may not have known exactly what was in that cave before she took me there, but I know my sister. I knew she had discovered something dangerous. Master Cromwell once told me about gunpowder. I obtained some and took it with me, just in case.”

“You had to.” Seymour’s fingers close involuntarily, seeking the comfort of Haltrasc’s fur, thinking already of the command, but of course he’s not there. He’s safely with Clarice on the other side of the palace.

“She would have been found out eventually. Henry has so many spies. If I didn’t tell him, then someone else would have and our whole family would have been doomed. It was the only way to save George and Rochford and Mark from being executed for treason too. The only way to save my family’s name. My father would be broken if all of us were taken from him.”

“But Boleyn is expendable.”

Mary’s hard smile is so similar to Boleyn’s that it hurts.

“We have all been forced to make sacrifices.”

“And I suppose the fact that you’re sharing the king’s bed has nothing to do with your reasons?” Seymour parries.

“Do not tell me you’re jealous,” Mary fires back. “I know your feelings lie elsewhere.”

“If you truly thought that, you’d have told him and I’d be up in that Tower too,” Seymour says.

“I only told him what I had to, to save them,” Mary says. “I simply want everything to go back to how it should be, before Boleyn’s meddling.”

“What about the rumours?” Seymour says. “The ones that twisted truths to make her sound like a witch and a whore? Was that you too?”

“Of course not,” Mary says, far too quickly.

“And I suppose you had to do that too,” Seymour says.

“You’re being naive, Seymour. It no longer suits you. You should go now. I’ll never speak a word of your involvement. I will become Queen of Brynd, and we will make things as they should be. Exchanging cold pleasantries, hating each other from afar, performing for the kingdom, protecting it.”

Mary’s eyes dart towards the staircase she came down, the one that leads back to the king’s chambers. Seymour realises she shouldn’t have confronted her. It was impulsive. Clarice would be furious with her, and yet she had to hear Mary confirm that she was the one to betray her sister. She has no weapons on her, nothing except…

The rings on her left hand, the ones she has not yet given to Clarice, are bulky. Bulky enough to put some heft behind a punch.

“I think it’s a little late for that.”

Seymour flies towards Mary and lands a strike on her face. Mary reels back, landing heavily against a portrait that falls to the tiles with a crash, alerting every guard in the vicinity. Mary hits Seymour in the stomach and swings away, trying to get back to the staircase and the safety of the king’s chambers. Seymour grabs her dress from behind, ripping the edging from it as she claws her way up Mary’s body. Mary’s hood comes next, fluttering to the floor, leaving her with only the white cap perched on her scalp. Seymour pins her to the wall by her wrists, their faces uncomfortably close.

“Where do we go from here then?” Mary asks.

“I’m going to kill you, you treacherous bitch,” Seymour hisses, her spittle landing on Mary’s cheeks. She hadn’t realised it until this moment, but that’s exactly what she wants to do. It’s what she must do, if she’s to survive.

“You don’t have the stomach for it,” Mary replies, her eyes darting to the door. She’s biding for time, until the guards arrive.

“Tell that to the three men lying dead beyond these doors,” Seymour says. Mary stills, her gaze focusing properly on Seymour at last. Then that smile, the Boleyn smile, returns.

“Good for you,” she whispers, and thrusts her head forward, the women’s skulls cracking against each other. Seymour falls back, and Mary twists away, throwing herself up the hidden staircase two steps at a time. At the other end of the gallery, guards appear. Seymour struggles to her feet and dashes out of the other door, the appearance of a dishevelled queen enough to surprise the guards in the room beyond into a delay.

By the time Seymour bursts out of the building and flies across the courtyard of her own wing, the sun has risen fully. In the distance, a hue and cry is going up. Clarice is vibrating as they cling on to the side of the carriage. Seymour throws herself inside, next to Haltrasc, and Clarice slams shut the door.

“Go!” Clarice instructs the driver, his hands glittering with some of Seymour’s old rings. He urges the horses forward. They spring off, throwing Clarice and Seymour into the back of their seats. Seymour peers out of the curtain as they race down the track. There are soldiers at the end of the road, and they carry spears.

“Don’t you dare stop!” Clarice yells up at the driver. He cracks the horses’ harnesses, pushing them into a gallop.

“Move move move, you fools,” Seymour says, watching the soldiers stand firm in their line, their spears pointed directly towards them. The horses go faster, and faster, and faster…

At the last moment, the line of soldiers breaks. They scatter, throwing themselves out of the way of the careening steeds. Their shouts follow as the carriage swerves onto the scrind road towards Hyde. For now at least, Seymour is free.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Boleyn

Waiting has always been Boleyn’s downfall. She hates the anticipation of it. She needs to be doing something. Dancing, sewing, writing, reading. Her mind requires active employment, or it withers. So being stuck inside a box, waiting to see whether she will be able to escape to find her daughter, is a form of hell.

The cramp in her leg is excruciating by the time she hears voices. Her crate wobbles – someone has leaped into the driving seat of the cart. Boleyn massages the limb, craning to hear what the driver and his companions are discussing. It can’t be long before her disappearance is discovered. She didn’t want to mention the flaw in Seymour’s plan – that unless the goddess grants her a miracle, the king will prevent anyone from leaving the grounds of the palace until she is discovered. The smallest amount of hope is more precious than none at all.

There’s the sound of hooves on the cobblestones, and another shake as horses are attached to the cart’s harness. Someone makes a joke and his fellow laughs. Through the wood, it sounds like the laugh of the man lying dead at the top of the Tower. The one Boleyn beheaded, more slowly and cruelly than Wyatt’s execution. Boleyn wonders if he had a wife, or children. She wonders if he treated her the way he treated Boleyn, or if he reserved the worst of his behaviour for other women.

“Right, think we’re ready,” a voice says, right next to her crate. Even though he can’t see her, Boleyn leans away from the sound, pulling fabric around herself. For a moment, she is back in the Tower.

The cart jolts forward, and Boleyn risks peering out. The marble of the palace walls is sliding past them. The remaining crates containing jewels or food or weapons, destined for other towns and other ports, remain in place.

“Stop!” someone else shouts. Boleyn closes her eyes. Foolish hope.

“What’s the matter?” the driver says.

“There’s been an escape from the Tower. No one’s to leave the palace.”

“From the Tower?” the driver says. “It can’t be possible. How?”

“Never you mind. What’s in there?”

Boleyn pulls out the knife that Clarice left for her. They hadn’t said it, but she had understood that it was not just for food.

“What is this?” a familiar voice says. Howard. Boleyn risks peering out of the hole once more. There she is, her thick curls loose and abundant. Her gown is stunning – a thin velvet embroidered with flowers, the sleeves and undergown cut through with light blue tulle. She stands lightly, her head tilted, doll-like. The man she addresses is handsome the way a mad stallion is handsome. He is dressed in the satin of a gentleman, but he is no noble of significance, despite his easy confidence.

“Your Majesty,” the man says, unruffled by Howard’s sudden appearance. “We’ve been ordered to stop anything from leaving.”

“But I need this one gone,” Howard says, her voice high. “I’m sending fabrics of my own design to the dressmakers in Perfugi and they simply must be on today’s shipment.”

“The king’s orders…”

“Ugh!” Howard stamps her foot. “I said they need to be on today’s shipment! What don’t you understand about that?”

“This is a security matter.”

“I don’t know anything about that and I don’t care. It’s fabric. Fabric fabric fabric.”

She stamps her foot again. Too much, Boleyn thinks.

“Why don’t I check inside the crate?”

“And put your grubby hands on it? Absolutely not. Drive on,” Howard tells the driver. Boleyn imagines him looking between the irate queen and the gentleman and wondering whose anger is more dangerous.

“Then I’ll check with His Majesty,” the man says.

“Fine,” Howard says, crossing her arms. “Go on up and ask my husband if it’s all right for his wife to send a bit of fabric to the ports. But if it misses today’s shipment, then I swear I will make sure you lose whatever insignificant position you currently hold.”

There’s a deathly silence as Howard stares at the man. Then the man says, “Fine, you can go.”

The cart moves forward, and Howard, arms still folded, flicks her hair as she turns, and winks towards Boleyn’s crate.

“Angel,” Boleyn whispers.

Boleyn watches High Hall emerge through her peepholes, from plain stone slabs to its full majestic glory, and then recede to a toy. She thinks of her rooms. For a brief moment in time, an entire wing of that palace was hers to command. She had everything that a young girl raised on the idea of wifehood might hope for from her adult life. She discovered it was gilt on a rusted sword.

Her mind turns to her plan. The Moon Ball was a gamble, certainly, but she feels sure it has paid off. Cleves and Howard declared themselves for her. She has Seymour’s loyalty. That leaves only Parr or Aragon, and then she will have her five queens. Surely Seymour will be able to persuade Parr at the sunscína meeting at noon. And if not, Boleyn will send her such letters, such persuasions, once she is safely ensconced in Capetia, that Parr will be won over. It will be a temporary exile, and then Boleyn will return. The leader of an army of queens, set on taking back the power that was once theirs. She ignores the small voice telling her that there is another force at work here; one that betrayed her secrets to Henry and that may yet stymy her. She has got this far, when she should have been dead by now. Surely the goddess is watching over her.

The road rolls on and on, and Boleyn finds herself yearning for Fauvel. How they will gallop, Elizabeth tied to her chest, when they arrive at Brynd. As they enter the Holtwode, her appetite returns, and she gnaws hungrily at the bread and cheese.

By the time they leave the forest, both her calves and feet have cramped up. She massages them, knowing she must be ready to move quickly as soon as they pass the road to Brynd. Still, when the time comes, she is clumsier than normal. She is certain the driver will hear her sliding back the wooden panel. As loud as the horses’ hooves are, she is sure he will hear her edging her way out of the crate and the thump as she lands on the road. Nursing her ankle, she hobbles as quickly as she can into the cover of the hedgerows, hiding there until the cart has trundled out of sight.

The back road to Brynd, the one that bypasses Pilvreen, runs up one of the steep hills that perforate Boleyn’s territory. One of the other hills is the site of the folly. Another is home to a watchtower. This hill is mercifully uninhabited, but it affords spectacular views over the valley and the Holtwode behind, and of Brynd and the sea ahead. Boleyn climbs it, relishing the stretch in her muscles, and then pauses to take in her land for the last time. There is Brynd, the lightning tower calm under an empty sky. And beyond the castle, up the coast, she glimpses the port of Garclyffe, busy with ships that move like snails across a sun-sprayed ocean. She turns around, and spies a cloud of dust rising from the midst of the Holtwode, just where the road should be. She moans. Those kind of dust clouds usually herald only one thing: an army.

Boleyn races down the hill towards Brynd, tearing through brambles and scattering dust and mud behind her. By the time she reaches the castle gates, she looks utterly wild. The guards peer at her suspiciously.

“Please,” she pants.

“Don’t you recognise your queen?” a familiar voice cries. The guards spring to attention, pulling the gates open for Boleyn. Syndony, stolid and severe, is waiting.

“Elizabeth is safe,” she says as Boleyn approaches. “I told the king’s advisors she’d do better staying here with her nurses. I knew you’d get back to her somehow.”

“I think I’ve brought more than just myself.”

“I know. My little squirrels darted along the Holtwode before you. The king is coming at the head of a battalion.”

Bless Syndony’s network of spies and their quick-footedness.

“I only intend to fetch Elizabeth and take her down to the jetty. We can pretend I bewitched you…”

“I’m afraid that won’t work. The bordweal here is swarming with the king’s ships. Nothing’s getting past them.”

Boleyn swings round wildly, looking towards the orchards, back through the gates and up the road to Pilvreen. People begin to reach out of the windows of Brynd, pointing and calling to each other. And in the distance, just beneath the hum of conversation, is the sound of horses and armour, marching ever closer. There must be another way out. There must be.

“Your Majesty. Boleyn.”

She realises that Syndony has been trying to get her attention for some time. She grasps her arm, forcing Boleyn to look at her.

“No one else is going to die for me,” Boleyn says.

“Oh, I think they are, my lady,” Syndony says. “You’ve set something in motion here. Besides, death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a person. Now, we’re about to be besieged. So let’s work out a plan.”

It’s as if her strength is flowing into Boleyn through her grip, and suddenly, Boleyn understands exactly how it is going to go. Exactly how it was always meant to go, from the moment she heard the oracle’s prophecy. From the moment she opened More’s book and saw a single circled word. Perhaps, even, from the moment she took the lead in a race against the King of Elben. Syndony is right about many things, but she is not right about this. No one else is going to die for Boleyn today.

“Close the gates and pull up the drawbridge,” she instructs the guards.

Syndony strides beside her into Brynd. Elizabeth’s nurse is waiting there, Urial at her feet. Boleyn plucks the child from the woman’s grasp, burying her face in the squirming body for an instant and no more. She rocks her as she issues instructions – which doors are to be blocked, which horses to be saddled and which provisions to be packed.

With that done, she takes one last inhale of Elizabeth’s scent and hands her back to her nurse.

“You’re to go with Syndony through the tunnels to Pilvreen, do you understand?” she tells the woman. “Take whatever wealth you need from the vaults and my rooms to purchase yourselves transport.”

“Where are we to take her?” Syndony asks.

“In the first instance, get to your family. Then if it is safe to do so, take her to Queen Howard or Queen Cleves.”

“Not Queen Seymour?”

“She will soon be in my position, I fear. And my family will be watched too closely for you to take her to Mary.”

“And what about you?”

Boleyn smiles at her. “I’m going to be the distraction that allows you to escape.”

Syndony shakes her head. “No. No, you come through the tunnels with us. We’ll all go.”

“No, Syndony, that cannot happen.”

“Why not?” the woman juts her chin like a teenager.

“You know why.”

A hush settles over the castle. Outside, the army amasses beyond the gates.

“He’ll never stop until he’s found you,” Syndony says.

“That’s right. So I’m going to let him find me.”

Elizabeth begins to cry. Boleyn does not let herself comfort her, or her resolve will crumble. She forces herself to turn away as the nurse soothes her and Urial nuzzles her feet.

“You know there are some people here who’d die for you. That masque got people talking.”

“They think I’m a witch.”

“Not all of them. Not any more. You have loyal followers in this castle.”

“I will not allow another massacre to blight these people. Besides, Elben needs people to die fighting for the truth, not for me. There’s a difference, Syndony.”

Boleyn opens her arms, desperate for an embrace from this woman who helped her to birth her child, who stood by her when she didn’t need to, who put her trust in her when she had no use for trusting queens. But instead of stepping into Boleyn’s arms, she curtseys. A full, floor-deep curtsey as she has never before offered any noble.

“My queen,” she says. Then she rises, and leads the nurse away to the tunnels, without looking back. Boleyn kneels and strokes Urial’s scaled neck, letting the dragon’s warmth comfort her. “Protect her,” she tells the dragon. He licks Boleyn roughly, then twists into the air, following Syndony, the nurse and Elizabeth into Brynd’s depths.

Alone, Boleyn walks towards the stables, all the aches and pains of her journey and imprisonment filling her muscles once more. Fauvel is waiting for her, saddled up and jittery from lack of exercise. Boleyn runs her hand along the mare’s neck before swinging up into the saddle. The sun is almost at its zenith. It’s time. She asks the groom to fetch her something from the guardroom, and slings it over her shoulder.

Boleyn urges Fauvel out into the courtyard, where guards and servants mill nervously. Some of them clutch kitchen knives or gardening tools, pointing them inexpertly towards the closed gates.

“You don’t need to do that,” Boleyn calls. A semicircle forms around her.

“Raise the white flag,” she instructs a guard.

“But, Your Majesty, we can fight.”

“Remember you said that,” she says, pointing at him. “Remember you offered to fight for a queen of Brynd. But for now, retreat. Tell them you despise me. Tell them all the rumours about me are true. Tell them you are pleased I was taken.”

They stir, indignantly, uncomfortably. No one likes to know the truth and not shout about it.

“Do as I say – raise the white flag.”

Someone brings a bedsheet from the castle and thrusts it on a pole, so that it is visible over the gates.

“Open the gates if you surrender!” the king’s herald calls.

The guards look to Boleyn.

“Do as he says.”

They fall back behind her as the guards ease the gates apart. They creak open slowly. The last time they were closed, another queen accused of treason was mistress of this palace. Another queen who had discovered the truth and paid for it dearly.

As soon as the gates are open enough for Fauvel to fit through, Boleyn urges her into a canter and flies through the gap, leaning low over her neck to avoid any arrows. She takes the army waiting outside by surprise, as was her intention. Henry is at the front, as Boleyn knew he would be, and he is the first to spring into action.

“After her!” he commands, whipping his stallion into a gallop. The bulk of his army follows, streaming after Boleyn as she races towards the orchards and into the shelter of the trees.

“Boleyn!” Henry roars. There is no joy in his voice now. There is only the hunt.

Fauvel weaves between branches, her light hooves keeping ahead of the king’s charger. Boleyn steers her this way and that, always away from the castle, towards the outskirts of the orchards, towards the smell of the sea and the cries of the gulls.

They burst out of the cover of the trees and mount the hill that leads up to the folly. Boleyn halts Fauvel just as they reach the cliff. Henry and his army close in around them.

“Well done, girl,” Boleyn whispers, stroking her neck. Boleyn dismounts, and chases her beloved horse away from her, urging her to flee down the slope. She does not want her in the line of fire.

Henry dismounts his horse too, as Boleyn knew he would. His notions of courtly behaviour mean he cannot sanction anything else. It would be unseemly for an entire army to advance upon one weak woman. She takes the bow from her shoulder and notches an arrow into the string.

The distant bells of Pilvreen chime, the sound carried all this way on the wind, just for her. She edges around the side of the folly. One hand on her bow, she presses the sunscína, then springs away as Henry rounds the corner, his sword drawn.

In the corner of Boleyn’s vision, Seymour’s face appears. Then Howard’s. Then Cleves’s. And finally, the two queens she thought would never join them. Parr and Aragon, their expressions taut, lips pursed. As soon as they see Henry, and Boleyn’s arrow pointed directly at him, they are silenced.

“Boleyn,” Henry says, his voice deep and full, his eyes dragging over her body. The memory of their first meeting has filled both of them. “You’ve led me on quite a chase.”

“Well, you know how much I love a hunt.”

She keeps her arrow trained on him.

“You know what happens when the prey is cornered,” he says. “There’s always that moment where you see it in their eyes. The acceptance of their fate.”

He peers at her, and he has the audacity to smile in the way he knows used to make her weak. “I don’t see that in your eyes yet, Boleyn.”

“Maybe I’m not the prey.”

Henry laughs then, throwing his head back, exposing his neck. She takes the shot.

Her aim is true, but the arrow flies wide, disappearing into the cover of the orchard. Henry raises his sword.

“How unlike you to miss, Boleyn. Perhaps you don’t truly wish me dead.”

Boleyn knows the real problem. She needs five queens to defeat him, and neither Parr nor Aragon have pledged to join her yet. She just needs one of them to say the words, then she can shoot, then she can end this.

“Oh, Boleyn,” he says. “I do love you, you know. You’re so different from other women.”

Aragon hisses, almost inaudibly. Henry neither sees nor hears her – any of them, in fact, for the mirrors are for queens alone to use.

“I no longer find that a compliment, Henry,” Boleyn says. “I am exactly like other women, and I am proud to be one of them.” She’s lying, of course, but it must be said. She is nothing like the others, or she would not be here.

Henry laughs again, and Boleyn chances another shot. She aims at his chest this time. The arrow flies true, but at the last moment a sudden gust of wind, unnatural in this alcove of the folly, blows the arrow off course. It embeds, not in his chest, but in his thigh. Henry roars in pain and throws his sword towards Boleyn like an axe. She ducks out of its path, darting towards the sea. As she crests the cliff, only just in sight of the folly, she realises that while the sword missed her, it has broken her bow. She discards the weapon, raising her hands in surrender as Henry stumbles towards her, cursing. He pulls the arrow from his thigh and tosses it to one side. The goddess’s magic flows down his body to the wound, healing it, leaching life and strength from the six queens to mend the broken skin.

The oracle is right. Five queens are needed, not one, not four. Five. Boleyn must unite them somehow. She glances towards the sunscína. They are all still watching, Howard and Seymour through hands clasped over their mouths. Aragon is more circumspect. She arches an eyebrow, curious to know what Boleyn will do next.

Henry collects his sword from the ground.

“You’ll pay for that.”

“I found a way, you know,” she says.

Henry sneers, recognising the stalling tactic.

“I did. In More’s books. I found the truth. I found a way to make the magic even stronger.”

That makes Henry pause. “You’re lying,” he says.

“Am I?”

His two desires – to put her in her place, and to empower himself – are at war inside him. Eventually, one wins out.

“How?”

“Ah-ah.” She shakes her head. “I want assurances, Henry.”

“You’re hardly in a position to make demands.”

“And yet I am. Don’t you love that about me?”

He lowers his sword, and limps towards her. She backs away, until she feels the crumbling edge of the cliff beneath her feet. She holds out the knife Clarice left in the crate. It’s a pitiful weapon compared to his, but it has the right effect.

“What are your demands?”

Boleyn glances towards the sunscína. All five queens are still there, leaning forward to hear her. She raises her voice above the wind.

“I want to be your queen again, Henry. Your true queen, raised above all others. When you go into battle abroad and conquer the world, and you will, with my help, then I will rule as regent in your place.”

“Anything else?”

“Elizabeth will be named heir of Elben, no matter how many other children you have, or their gender.”

“You ask too much.”

“Not if what I have found could make you ruler of the known world. And it could, Henry. You will work your way through dozens of other queens, use them up in a year apiece, and you and Elben will prosper. But I will too, by your side. Unharmed. What is your answer?”

The wind reaches inside her clothes, the sea spray flying up towards her from hundreds of feet below as she teeters on the edge of the cliff, on the edge of destiny. She dares not look at the sunscína, to see the effect of her betrayal.

“All right. I promise,” Henry growls.

“Words are cheap, husband. Swear it on this.”

She pulls her wedding ring from her finger, the fairy still trapped inside it, fluttering for eternity, and throws it to him. He stares down at it.

“Is my word not enough, my love?” he says.

“No.”

Henry smiles again, rueful, and Boleyn realises that if he does this, if he swears on the ring, compelled to do all that he has promised, that they could be happy. Even after everything that has come to pass, they could fall in love again. She could scour More’s books to find the right words, or she could work to trick the goddess into helping her. She could will herself to forget everything he has done, to her and to others. They could be the perfect match once more. She could have everything.

“I swear it,” Henry says, and repeats the oath, word for word. The fairy inside the jewel spins and spins until it becomes an impossible, pulsating light. The victory is in Boleyn’s grasp. But it is not the victory that she desires.

“It is done,” Henry says, lifting the ring up, passing it back to her. “Now tell me what I need to do.”

“Thank you for the assurance, my love,” she says, and she turns fully towards the sunscína. As Wyatt did only yesterday, she lifts the wedding ring to her chest and she bows to the watching queens. As she straightens, she catches Aragon’s eye.

Until you can prove to me that you truly work for all the queens, I will die before I join your cause.

That’s what Aragon had told her. She hopes that this is proof enough.

When Boleyn speaks, she knows that the queens will know she speaks to them.

“Tell Elizabeth – tell Elizabeth that I wanted a fairer world for all of us. And whatever else happens – spin her a happy life.”

Her arms open of their own accord, the wedding ring, bright as a star, falling to the grass as she steps back into space. The sea calls to her, the deep cry of the ocean currents offering a cool embrace.

Five queens are all that are needed, and five queens remain.

Let the krakens take her.

Hredsigor.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Seymour

Seymour doesn’t know if she makes a sound when the woman she loves falls to her death. She knows that her body is unable to move. She knows that her hands are clasped over her face like shells, her mouth open. She knows that she will never forget the image of Boleyn falling from view, her tattered red dress still, somehow, magnificent, her hair trailing behind her, as though trying to reach for the cliff and save its mistress.

All Seymour knows is that at some point, the door to her bedchamber opens, and Edward strides in. She doesn’t look away from the sunscína, even though Boleyn can no longer be seen, and she cannot see the king’s reaction to her death. The other queens are talking, Howard is sobbing, but Seymour can’t focus on their words. Edward is speaking, but she cannot hear him.

She’s gone. She’s left her. How is she supposed to do this without her?

Edward clicks his fingers in front of Seymour’s face.

“What’s wrong with you?” he’s saying. “I’m trying to find out if the rumours are true, and you’re staring at the sea? You really are beyond help, Seymour.”

It’s as if Boleyn is in the room with Seymour. She can feel her expression, her raised eyebrow, the way she would look at Edward.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Seymour says.

“What did you say?” he snaps.

“I said, don’t talk to me like that.”

He throws up his hands. “I came here, riding ahead of the king’s army, because everyone thinks you were involved in the whore’s escape, and you’re worried about how I talk to you?”

He comes ever so close to her, raises his fingers, and snaps them in front of her nose again.

“I’ll talk to you however I damn well please, imbecile.”

Boleyn’s spirit shakes her head at Seymour. Are you going to allow him to do that?

Seymour snatches her brother’s finger and twists it, ignoring his cries of pain. He stumbles backwards then regains his footing. She sees the strike coming and ducks beneath his arm. Then, almost unaware of what she’s doing, she picks up a jug of water, and smashes it down on his head.

Edward crumples, his legs and arms splayed like a newborn colt.

“Thank you for the information, brother,” she says. So the king’s army is coming to reclaim Hyde, but Hyde is hers, and if she cannot have it, no one can.

The jug is still in her hand. She smashes it against the sunscína, again and again and again. Fractures appear in the glass, and the weight of the sea on the other side makes them crackle into spider webs. One more smash should do the trick.

Edward stirs, nursing his head.

“Bitch,” he mumbles, then he sees what she’s doing. “Stop! You’re mad!” he cries.

As he clambers to his feet unsteadily, Seymour smashes the jug one last time against the dome, and it shatters inwards, spraying glass and sunscína into the room. The seawater follows.

“You’re insane!” Edward shouts above the gushing water, running to the hole. He leans against it, plugging it with his body. Well, if that’s how he wants to go. Seymour shrugs, leaning down to shuffle through the shards of the sunscína on the floor, picking out the biggest one and slipping it into the bag hanging from her dress belt.

“Where are you going?” Edward shouts. “Seymour! Get back here. Fix this! Fix this now!”

“Goodbye, brother,” she says at the door. She slips through and closes it, locking it behind her. Edward’s screams, the sound of him banging on the wood and then spluttering as the room fills with water, follow her as she walks along the corridor.

“Seymour! I can’t swim, you bitch!”

She catches a passing servant. “Tell everyone to get out now,” she tells him. “The army is coming and Hyde is going to be flooded soon. It’s not safe for them to stay here. Tell them to take whatever they want from the palace.”

The servant looks as though he’s going to question her, but then he sees the water trickling along behind her and he flees.

Edward screams no longer. She is free of him, of the king, of the old Seymour. The water haunts her steps as she makes her way through the glass corridor that joins her antechamber to the ladder that leads up to Selkie’s Pool. She strips off her gown, removes her linen smock. Securing her bag, she takes the handle in her teeth as she plunges into the pool and out through an opening, into the sea itself. The waves pull her under, again and again, but she wrestles them as she would wrestle with Haltrasc – a friendly match. Her arms, strong and confident now, scythe through each surge. The horizon is a dream, but it is one she knows she can reach.

And there it is. The ship with many sails, each one bearing the sign of the crescent moon, the emblem of the Feorwa Isles. Clarice’s face appears overboard and a ladder is thrown down. It wobbles as Seymour climbs it, and she almost slips, but strong hands grab her before she falls, and pull her, naked and shivering onto the deck.

Clarice wraps her in linen and puts a tankard of ale in her hand. Haltrasc winds his body around her, his warmth settling her.

“We did it,” Clarice says, as together they turn away from Hyde, away from Elben. Clarice’s family pull on ropes and raise sails and call to each other from bow to stern, but the two friends are still, as the ship sets its sights on the distant shores of Quisto, and adventures beyond.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book was written in a flurry of fear and fury in the summer of 2022. I was convinced my writing career was over: I was out of contract with a mediocre sales record for my YA books behind me, and the agent I’d recently signed with had just dumped me after only three weeks. I was in the USA at a family reunion at the time, and my mother’s hotel room adjoined mine. She sat with me as I cried, then said (quietly so as not to wake my sleeping daughter), “I think you’re a writer through and through, but no one would blame you if you felt it was too hard to keep doing this.” Sometimes parents know exactly what to say.

The next day, I began writing Six Wild Crowns. So my first thanks must go to my mum, who alongside my father has been the most incredible support, both emotionally and practically. A lot of people who dream of entering creative spheres don’t have the unconditional support of their closest family, so I know that I am incredibly lucky in that respect. I cannot thank my parents enough, and that is why this book is dedicated to them.

Secondly, I’d like to thank my agent, Zoë Plant, for believing wholeheartedly in this story from the beginning. I knew from the moment we started sending each other Tudor-related memes that she was the perfect person to take Six Wild Crowns out into the world. Thank you, Zoë, for your steadfast advice, honesty and advocacy, and for being my first editor (and one of the best). This extends to all at the Bent Agency, particularly the brilliant Martha Perotto-Wills, Emma Lagarde, Molly Ker Hawn and Jenny Bent. This is truly a dream agency and I feel so fortunate to be with them.

Orbit is such a stalwart of SFF publishing, truly one of the greats, and I can’t quite believe that my books get to have the monochrome planet logo on their spines! Nadia Saward, my UK editor, is simply astonishing: a cheerleader who is also honest about what is possible and what is unlikely, and a brilliant editorial eye. Nadia, thank you for fangirling over Boleyn and Seymour and little murder-baby Haltrasc. Thank you also to editors Brit Hvide and Angelica Chong in the US for your enthusiasm and wonderful support, to Nazia Khatun in publicity, to Blanche Craig for making sure the book has as few typos as possible, and to the whole team at Orbit for embracing these six messy queens so full-heartedly.

Special thanks to Niall Grant, the illustrator who made this cover sing fiercely, and to designer Ellen Rockell for managing to unite Tudor history and fantasy so brilliantly.

These acknowledgements are being written over a year before publication, so there are many people who I have not yet met who will be involved in bringing the queens’ story to bookstores – people in marketing and publicity and sales and audio, booksellers and festival organisers and bookstagrammers and booktokkers. Please forgive my omission of your names here, but know that I am so grateful. This extends to those agents, publishers, editors and translators involved in the foreign rights editions, none of which have yet been announced. There is something incredibly special about seeing your book in a language you cannot understand, and then seeing it connect with readers in other countries and other cultures.

Next, thanks must go to my friends. The fellow authors who have commiserated and cheered and been so generous in their support: Bex Hogan, Menna van Praag, Gytha Lodge, Katharine Corr, Natasha Bowen, Julia Tuffs, Ava Eldred, Gillian Perdue, Clare Harlow, Lorraine Brown, James Bailey, Anna Bell, Tina Orr Munro, Andreina Cordani, Kat Ellis, Dawn Kurtagich, Gina Blaxill, Josh Winning, Kat Foxfield, Georgia Summers, Bea Fitzgerald, Kat Dunn… the list goes on. Special thanks to Katharine, Bea, Menna and fellow Orbit author Molly O’Neill for being the book’s first author readers and writing such kind blurbs. Thanks also to Katie Khan and Tasha Suri at the Novelry, who helped me through multiple confidence crises about whether I had the ability to write for adults, and to Amberley Lowis, who heard an early pitch when the book was still only partly written and told me that I had something special on my hands.

Then there are those friends who don’t work in publishing, who are consistently supportive and lovely and thoughtful while also, I suspect, being consistently baffled by the industry’s quirks. (Them: “what do you mean, you can’t negotiate an agent’s percentage of commission when you have multiple offers? That makes no sense!” Me: “welcome to books!”). You all know who you are: Quaranteam, Faber17, Bar Fight in Soho, the Diamond Dogs and members of many more ridiculously named Whatsapp groups. Thank you also to the folks at Bould Brothers, who make the best coffee in Cambridge and don’t mind me tapping away all day at one of their tables.

We’re nearly at the end! My husband, Alex Beckett, is the best of men. I am privileged in many ways, but he gave me the greatest privilege of all in telling me to stop trying to make money through a portfolio career and focus on writing for an entire year instead while he took on the entirety of the financial burden. It is rare that creativity can thrive in a life of financial and emotional pressure, and I know how fortunate I am to have been given that space. There are so many voices in the world who don’t get the same opportunity, and if I am ever in a position to pay it forward, I fully intend to. Thank you, darling.

My daughter, Ada, has a limited concept of what I do for a living, but I do love to see her making her own books about superheroes and saving nature and butterflies, and telling me that her books are better than mine because hers have more pictures. She’s probably not wrong. Pictures do make books better. This is just one of many lessons she has taught me, and I look forward to learning much more from her in the decades to come. Keep shining, sweetheart.

Finally, to you, reader: thank you thank you thank you for picking up this book.

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