Page 37 of Six Wild Crowns

A knock on the door rouses her from her anxious doze. It’s her maid, come with a bundle of letters. Boleyn leafs through them as the girl fixes her hair, humming her usual song.

Near, far and oversea

The orb calls lonesome out to me

The women cut it three by three

And hold it very dear.

The letters are mostly from minor nobility, asking in one shape or other for her favour – a position in her household, or her help in an inheritance dispute. Later, she will discuss them with Rochford and Mark, who have a knack for working out who should be assuaged and who should be kept in line. In the middle of the pile is a letter that is thicker than the others. The handwriting is uncertain. She recognises it at once – Oswyn, the foreman of the garnet mines. She rips it open. Has he at last found the secret chamber referenced in that ancient book?

One became a looking glass,

One in a tower made of brass,

One underwater, buried alas

They made them disappear.

A pamphlet falls out of the parchment – a single sheet of paper folded to make a booklet. It’s been crudely printed, the words arranged clumsily around several large portraits of the same ugly, peevish woman. The woman is unmistakably Boleyn.

Oswyn’s note is brief: “These are being given out all over, Your Majesty. I thought you should know.”

Boleyn folds the pamphlet back into the paper, her fingers trembling. The maid mustn’t see. Boleyn catches herself: the maid has probably seen already. Probably her entire household has, and Oswyn is the only one who thought to mention it to her.

“I want to ride,” she says. The maid stops singing abruptly and, sensing her mistress’s mood, readies her quickly.

Boleyn gallops Fauvel through the orchards of Brynd. She has little idea of where she is going, only that she welcomes the whip of branches on her skin, the tightness of her wind-stolen breath. It’s only when she emerges onto the cliffs and sees the silhouette of the crumbling folly that she realises she was coming here all along.

She dismounts Fauvel and circles the ivy-covered tower, finding refuge in the sunken seating space. There, feeling safely alone at last, she studies the pamphlet in detail.

NO QUEEN OF OURS!

Not content with stirring up hatred against our most beloved

Queen Aragon and her country of birth, the Imposter Boleyn

now revels in the sickness of Queen Blount. When Queen

Blount’s terrible illness was reported, The Imposter of Brynd

wore RED, the colour of victory, and LAUGHED joyfully at

her sister’s misfortune.

Some may ask why our great King does not punish this

Imposter? Why he married her at all? The answer is clear: she

is not merely an Imposter. She is a Witch.

Our poor King is under her spell. He has been heard to say so

himself, so strong is his Might that even through her sorcery he

calls for our help.

PROTECT ELBEN. FREE OUR KING OF THE WITCH

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