Page 45 of Six Wild Crowns

“That’s good,” Boleyn says. Seymour knows what she means: her future will be less painful this way. If she were a second daughter, or royalty, or both, she might have more freedom – the king’s younger sister Cecilia is very happily installed in a palace in Perfugi, surrounded by male and female concubines. But as the first-born daughter of a lord, Seymour will be expected to bear children and advance the Seymour name.

“The king has noticed you,” Boleyn says. The question in the statement is implicit.

“That wasn’t my intention. Not to begin with, anyway.”

“Well, he has, so what will you do now?”

Seymour considers this. She might, if she were nimbler and more adept at courtly love, be able to turn the king aside without offending him. It would seem like the correct course to take now that Boleyn knows her true feelings. The real question is – does she want to? What would she have to gain from turning him away? Only the betrayal of herself and the woman she loves. A small price to pay.

“What would you do?” she says.

“You and I have very different needs,” Boleyn replies.

“What would you have me do?”

Boleyn is silent for a long time. “You mean to deceive Henry, to make him believe you love him. I can never approve of that,” she says at last.

“I see.”

“But I think I understand, Seymour. You will have neither my approval nor my judgement if you pursue him.”

It’s not the absolution Seymour wants from Boleyn, but nor is she forbidding her.

“And what about you?” Seymour says, hope pulsating through her. “Are you like your brother?”

Boleyn’s hand finds hers. She threads her fingers with Seymour’s, like a pact.

“I have only ever loved one person in that way,” Boleyn says softly.

“The king.”

“Yes. Henry.”

“I know.” Seymour has known this since the moment she met the queen. The day she offered herself up to Boleyn as a gift. They lapse into silence. Boleyn extricates her fingers from Seymour’s, and turns over. Even sharing a bed, even with the many blankets, Seymour is freezing. Boleyn exhales shakily from the other side of the bed.

“Are you cold?” Seymour says.

“A little. It’s my feet, really.”

Seymour shuffles over to Boleyn. The other woman is shivering gently, her back to Seymour. Seymour arranges herself so that her body, soft beneath her linen nightshift, cups Boleyn’s. Her mouth rests just behind Boleyn’s ear, her hand lightly over Boleyn’s bump. She tangles her feet with Boleyn’s, and the two of them gasp at how cold the other’s are.

“I thought you were trying to warm me, not chill me further,” Boleyn says, a grin in her voice.

Seymour laughs, then without thinking, says, “I can warm you another way if you’d like.”

The air between them changes instantly. A blooming heat of a different kind. Both women are very still.

“How?” Boleyn whispers.

Seymour moves her hand up over Boleyn’s shift, gentle as a fox, and grazes a thumb over her nipple. Boleyn emits a little “oh”. Seymour does it again. She leans into Boleyn’s ear, rubbing her cheek against the queen’s hair. It is just as soft and smooth as she imagined. “I could show you,” she whispers, the darkness giving her permission to be bold, “all the many ways we women were made for bliss.”

Boleyn’s breath is fast. Seymour’s hand skates down now, but Boleyn catches it.

“Stop,” she says.

She holds Seymour’s hand over her belly, their fingers interlinked. Seymour feels the king’s poesy ring, hard and cold, against her skin. She lies to herself, because it’s easier to do so: it is the ring that is the wall, keeping Boleyn from her. The ring and Boleyn’s naive, charming faithfulness. Nothing else, or why would Boleyn keep holding her hand?

There are more confessions then, whispered in the safety of darkness and the softness of their cupping bodies. Seymour’s true mission. The oracle’s prophecy.

---