Page 51 of Six Wild Crowns

The two queens curtsey to each other from a respectable distance.

“Sister,” Boleyn says softly, “I offer you this gift, from one consort to another, wishing you friendship.”

She presents Seymour with a golden locket. It is simple but beautifully worked, matte, and in a shape that Boleyn could only have guessed Seymour would take as one of her emblems – a sun, its beams radiating out from every side. A direct contrast to her storm cloud.

“May I?” she asks, and Seymour nods, trying not to betray her desire as Boleyn steps behind her. As she clasps the locket beneath the necklace of pearls Seymour is already wearing, Boleyn leans forward to whisper in Seymour’s ear. “Inside is something for tonight. From a true friend, who wishes only for your happiness.”

Seymour runs a hand over the locket, wondering what it is she’s hidden inside the sun. She understands that she shouldn’t look while other people are present.

“Thank you, sister,” she says as loudly as her quivering voice will allow. “I will for ever treasure it, and your friendship.”

The ceremony itself is a blur. Henry is handsome and smiling, although his expression falters when he spots Boleyn among theguests. Seymour has come to realise how much he needs to keep his queens in their own little boxes. Boleyn is the feisty one, the smart one. Aragon is the regal one. Howard the beauty. Parr the healer. And Seymour? She has been chosen to be the steadfast queen, boring but pure. A blank page, yielding, waiting for his words and his words alone to be written across her mind and body.

Her icons have been chosen to be as predictable as possible – the sun, for the easy happiness she promises Henry. The ermine, for purity. And an iron carving of the feathered plume that forms the centre of her family’s crest. That one had been at Edward’s insistence. Cernunnos forbid anyone should forget her kin.

Through it all – the melding, the vows, Seymour feels Boleyn’s sun pendant warm against her breastbone. And her, her, always her, silent and statuesque, in the pews, a physical reminder of Seymour’s betrayal of the king and of herself, because all she wants is to run to Boleyn and bury her face in her gown, where her natural scent would be at its strongest.

“Unsupportable,” Henry says afterwards, when he has helped Seymour into the carriage that will take them on to Hyde. “She should not have been there. She’s gone too far.”

“I did not mind.”

“Well, I minded. Today is for you and me.”

“I’m sure she didn’t have any ill intent. She and I were friends before you and I fell in love.”

He consciously calms himself, although Seymour can tell he’s still fuming at Boleyn from the sharp crackle of the divine magic around his body. He makes an effort to smile at her.

“You look very pretty,” he says, and pats her knee as the carriage joins the scrind road, skirting the Hyfostelle mountains.

“You look… incredible, Henry,” she says, trying to sound breathless, as though she still can’t believe her luck that he’s noticed her, let alone married her.

“Are you nervous about tonight?” he says. “I remember my first time, with Aragon. I was shaking.”

Seymour has tried very hard not to think about what must happen when they arrive at Hyde, after she has bonded with the palace and after they have dined. It is going to be the hardest and most terrible part of her plan. Henry can never know that she doesn’t desire him, or he’ll be mortally offended, and she’ll be left vulnerable again. She must lie as she’s never lied before.

“How could I ever be nervous when I am with you. You make me feel so safe.”

“I’ll be gentle,” he whispers, kissing her on the cheek. That’s something else he must never know – that she has already tasted and tested all kinds of bodies. He is not her first man.

Outside, the landscape changes from the rolling hills of the land around High Hall, to the lakes and marshes that lead to Hyde. The road leads past endless tracts of water, dozens of hamlets dotted round their edges. Children collect algae and seaweed, some for the pot, some to be dried and sold at market. In the distance, Seymour spots the famous fairy farms of this territory. Certain parts of the marshes are perfect breeding grounds for the rare creatures, but catching them is a fine art, and keeping them alive in captivity more difficult still.

The closer they get to Hyde, the fuller the roads are, and by the time they reach the stone pillars that mark the boundary of the palace estates, the roads are lined with people in their best clothing, all waving flags and shouting for the king and his new queen. Children balance on their parents’ shoulders. Hawkers sell crisp sweetbreads and biscuits with the letters “H” and “S” iced on them in rudimentary handwriting.

“This is all for us?” Seymour breaths, waving shyly from the window.

“For you,” Henry says. “They love you already.”

“They don’t know anything about me.”

“They know enough.”

Seymour understands. They are celebrating the blank page. The promise that she will be whatever each of them want her to be. God forbid she disappoints them.

The road winds along a raised trench. On either side, marshland stretches out to the sea. Seymour leans out of her window, desperate to see the tower of Hyde. There it is – a marble pillar shining silver in the dying sun. It reaches straight upwards like the arm of a drowning man, the fire burning at its apex a constant warning to the ships looking for Hyde’s port of Bediglath, further up the coast: steer away, for beneath these waves there lies an entire palace.

The sun has almost set by the time the carriage draws up in the courtyard. Hyde is, on the surface, less impressive than Daven or Brynd. It lacks Daven’s warmth or Brynd’s authority. On land, Hyde looks like any other homestead – rows of simple, tiled buildings that house the estate’s animals and, now, Haltrasc. The only feature that marks it as a palace is the white marble lighthouse, proud on the skyline. Beneath the waves, though, it is extraordinary.

The lighthouse has its foundations in a cave-like vestibule that rises out of the sea like an open maw. Henry helps Seymour down from the carriage and leads her to the right of a door made of winding copper tendrils. A gargoyle’s head protrudes from the stonework, its mouth open and its eyes suspicious, just like its sister in Brynd. The spirit stone of Hyde.

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