Page 128 of Six Wild Crowns

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 thesunscína, 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 thesunscína, 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 andsunscínainto 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 thesunscínaon 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.

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