Page 114 of Six Wild Crowns

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 ismine.”

“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.

---