Page 20 of Six Wild Crowns

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 asquat 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 divinepower, 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 wordsædlapa, which she thought meantvessel, 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.

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