Page 28 of Six Wild Crowns

“I’d rather be your horse.”

Boleyn flicks Urial’s leash at them. “Go. Away.”

Seymour finds herself smiling. It is the most perfect display of courtly love she could have imagined. The balance of bawdiness and gentleness. The overwrought performance of sincerity that reassures player and audience that it is all staged. All meaningless. All safe.

“That’s a very singular smile, Lady Seymour,” Boleyn says. “Come over here and confess your secrets to me.”

Seymour does as she’s told, leaving the sanctuary of her corner. She shouldn’t have chosen a spot so close to the queen’s orbit.

“No secrets, Your Majesty,” she says, taking Mary’s place on a cushion at Boleyn’s feet. Urial moves his pitiful head so that it rests on Seymour’s lap. She feels the patch of drool through the fabric almost immediately, and can only hope that he doesn’t follow it up with a flaming cough.

“Nonsense. Everyone has secrets. It’s what makes us human.”

“Do you think so?” Seymour says.

“You don’t agree?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think much about things like that. Only… I suppose I’d be disappointed in us if that were true.”

“Why should you find that disappointing?” Boleyn says, the words a clear challenge. Seymour wonders whether she should pull back from what she wants to say, but she knows by now that the queen only tolerates those willing to disagree with her.

“Well, secrets are sinful, aren’t they?”

Boleyn laughs. “Oh, Lady Seymour, how very dull of you.”

“It’s how I feel.”

Boleyn leans towards Seymour and grips her chin, forcing Seymour to look at her. Seymour holds Boleyn’s gaze. When the queen speaks again, it is very quietly, so that not even the nearby courtiers can hear them.

“You only deal in the truth, then?” the queen says.

“I try to.”

“Very well. Have you been sent to spy on me, Lady Seymour?”

“No,” Seymour says, the word a hot breath between them. She was notsentto spy. That she has tried to do so is incidental.

“Are you happy to be here, in my service?”

“Yes.”

Boleyn pauses, a rare flicker of insecurity on her sharp features. “What do you think of me?”

Seymour’s heart quickens. She is acutely aware of the places where the queen’s fingers pinch her jaw. She knows that she mustnever mention the only truth she knows for sure – that Boleyn is frightened of losing her baby. She must reassure the queen that that particular secret is safe with her.

“I think you are clever. You grow bored easily. You love the king very much, but sometimes you worry that this castle is not interesting enough to hold you. You need to be worshipped.”

Boleyn drops her hand and looks away, adjusting her skirts, and Seymour knows she has needled her. It reminds her of that moment in the orchards, where all artifice was stripped from the woman. It makes Seymour bold.

“It bothers you when people pay more attention to your sister than you,” she says. “I think it has always bothered you, because you feel that you are better than her. Is that why you married the king? Because it proves that you’re better than her?”

Boleyn rakes her nails across Seymour’s cheek; not a slap but a silencing. Urial whimpers at the movement. Seymour strokes the dragon’s neck, as much to calm her own nerves as his.

“We all have secrets, Lady Seymour,” Boleyn says, sitting upright once again. “Even you. And I will have your secrets from you. After all, I do like to win.”

With a flick of a wrist, Seymour is dismissed. Extracting herself from beneath Urial’s head, she stumbles away, avoiding the interested glances of the others in the room. Clarice approaches her with a tankard of warm milk.

“What happened?” they ask.

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