Page 106 of Six Wild Crowns

“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 thesunscína. 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.”

---