Page 33 of Six Wild Crowns

On a cold spring day, Seymour bundles up her courage and follows him. Guards are posted at the bottom and top of the steps, although they only give her the lightest of interrogations before allowing her to ascend – one of the many benefits of looking as unremarkable as she does. She couldn’t possibly be a danger. Through the haze of adrenalin and the pain relief of her poultice, Seymour realises that this is probably why Queen Aragon chose her to kill Boleyn. No one thinks her capable of it.

The king is standing at the very edge of the tower, leaning on the crenelations. He makes a dashing, lonely figure there, his shoulder-length hair billowing behind him. Her own dress isn’t made for this kind of weather – the wind keeps sneaking beneath her petticoats, so it looks as though the gown is a breathing thing. Moving across the turret, she feels as though a single strong gust of wind could lift her up and carry her over the wall across the sea, and she’d be lost to the krakens and kelpies below.

Suddenly, she can’t introduce herself. The desire for solitude radiates from him. Seymour has never been attracted to him before – all her attention has been for his wife – but in this moment she can see how one might fall in love with him.

“Do I know you?”

He doesn’t turn around. His voice is deep but warm, commanding but without accusation. In every movement, every nuance of him, it is evident that he was born to rule a kingdom, and Seymour has the impression that this is an affected stance. For Henry was not born to rule Elben. His brother was.

She curtseys, keeping her head low, subservient. “Your Majesty,” she says.

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

She can hear the smile on his face.

“I was at your wedding.”

He turns around at last and studies her. “Ah yes. You’re the gift.”

The smile is wider now. Like he’s trying not to laugh at the thought of her being a gift as valuable as the lute of rare wood or the silver dragon. A prouder woman than she would baulk at this humiliation, but it doesn’t touch her.

“Yes.”

“And what do you do for my queen here? Do you dance? Sing? Embroider? Entertain?”

“Not well.”

“I see. A gift of little value then?”

Cernunnos, if she’d wanted to be insulted by a man she could have returned to her family’s estate.

“Value can come in many guises.”

She immediately regrets the sharpness in her voice. Back at home, it would earn her a slap. The king just seems amused.

“So you do have teeth, after all.”

He approaches, moving like a cat. Seymour lowers her eyes. Close to, he is like a hidden current, inexorable beneath hypnotic waves. Yes, she can well understand how so many fall in love with him.

“Did you come up here to watch me or to talk to me?” he asks.

“The latter, Your Majesty.”

“Come, then.”

Seymour follows him back to the edge of the turret, and has to hold the wall to steady the onset of dizziness. Behind them, lightning crackles on the antlered points of the conductor. The turret leers out over the ocean. Far below, the water is foam and glass. Beneath the surface, Seymour could swear she glimpses a vast, pale creature, watching her from the depths.

The king, though, points at the horizon, at a shadowy shape veiled by distant mist.

“Do you see that?” he says.

“What is it?”

“The Quistoan navy.”

“Truly?”

Seymour can’t understand why he’s so calm if they’re under attack. A flare goes up from the mist, and momentarily the shadows recede and she can see clearly the shape of a huge warship. A moment later, there’s a lowboom, and then a wave, greater than any she’s seen before, radiates out from the vessel. It hits the bruise-coloured barrier that lies between the ship and the coast, and dissipates.

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