Page 1 of Six Wild Crowns

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 outof 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 ofBoleyn’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 inmaid,forpucuncan mean bothvirginandservant.

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.”

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