Page 47 of Six Wild Crowns

“You spend time in Pilvreen,” she says to Wyatt.

“Time and too much money, my queen.”

“On ale, women, cards or all three?”

“My vices are many.”

“And amidst your vices, do you hear rumours?”

Wyatt glances at her curiously as they approach the sanctuary. A wooden door is set into the wall, and they wait for one of the guards to unlock it. Wyatt holds it open for Boleyn to pass through, then follows her in.

“I didn’t think you would concern yourself with rumours.”

The sanctuary stands in the middle of a graveyard. At one end of the lawn are the simpler gravestones of Brynd’s senior household – the stewards and stewardesses, the masters and mistresses of horse and so on. Boleyn finds herself drawn towards the other end, wheremore elaborate stones, each one topped with Cernunnos’s antlers, mark the graves of Brynd’s queens, right back to the ancient times.

“I think every monarch should know what is said about them. We only rule with the goodwill of our people, after all.”

“Or the goodwill of the king,” Wyatt says.

Something about the tone turns his words into a challenge.

“I’ve never doubted the king’s love for me,” she says.

“Why should you? He’s a most devoted husband.”

Boleyn resists slapping him. Wyatt always knows how to tenderise her.

“I don’t like the rumours that are being spread about me,” she says, coming to a halt in front of a crooked gravestone. In the long line of queens’ graves, this is the only one that has been left to the moss, the only one that has not a single wilting flower placed upon it in memory. The name engraved upon it is barely legible now, but no one needs to be able to read to know who lies beneath this stone.

Isabet, traitor consort.

“Do you think these rumours will last?” Wyatt asks.

“That’s what I wanted to ask you. Is this simply because the people of Brynd do not trust any of their queens, or is itmethey dislike?”

“You wish to know if it’s personal.”

“Yes. And I wish to know who started them.”

“Who started them?”

“Someone in my household is spreading half-truths, Master Wyatt.”

“Have you considered it might be me?” Wyatt says. He plucks a marigold from the edge of the cemetery and offers it to Boleyn. She smells the petals. They remind her of the pottage her family’s cook used to make with these very same flowers.

“Naturally, but I soon dismissed you.”

“I’m wounded. May I ask why?”

“You have a healthy respect for the person who pays for all those bad habits.”

“It’s true. I do value your coin mightily.”

Boleyn flicks the marigold at him. “So? What would you do if you were me?”

Wyatt considers Isabet’s grave. Boleyn wonders that she waspermitted a resting place at all. If Boleyn had been king, she’d have thrown the traitor’s body into the sea for the krakens to feast upon. The woman’s ghost may as well have haunted Pilvreen ever since her execution: certainly the people of this region have never trusted their consort since that day. Boleyn knew this when she accepted Henry’s proposal – he had warned her that she’d have none of the loyalty his other queens commanded – but she had thought she would be the exception. She would be the one to turn the tide for the consorts of Brynd. It seems that the blood of ancestors runs deeper and thicker in this part of the kingdom than she could ever have imagined.

“I’m not the person you should be asking,” Wyatt says at last. “You should ask your stewardess.”

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