Page 64 of Six Wild Crowns

Bishop More and Mary look at each other. A silent conversation, eliminating the pregnant woman who surely cannot know her own mind.

“Sister, are you sure?” Mary says.

“Perfectly. Please write it down, my lord.”

Hesitantly, More does so. Boleyn continues: “Brynd will of course return to the king. My personal estate will pass to my child, held in trust with Mary. My jewels will be shared between Mary, my brother’s wife and the Queens Seymour and Howard. My plate should be divided between George and his husband, and my parents should they outlive me.”

Mary squeezes Boleyn’s hand. Boleyn turns to her. “I know it’s unusual, sister. But I’ve seen the way you raise your children. I know you will give any child of mine the attention and fairness they are due.”

“You know I will. But have you warned the king?”

“My will is binding, is it not?” Boleyn asks More.

“It is. Not even His Majesty is able to gainsay it. But he could make life very difficult for your sister.”

“Mary will be the judge of whether he can see the child.”

“It is unconventional. You are, it is hoped, carrying the heir to Elben’s throne,” More says.

“And Henry would be the first to admit that his childhood was warped. I would much rather my child be raised in a loving household, as I was, than in a household of nurses and tutors, only seeing their father when he can spare them a day or two in the midst of his kingly duties.”

More relaxes. “I understand perfectly. If the king objects, I will put those same arguments to him. I am sure he will see their logic.”

“Do you think he will see the logic?” Mary asks Boleyn as they ride back to Brynd. Mary has been quiet ever since the meeting with the bishop, but not in the soft lostness that Boleyn had expected. Her eyes are still sharp, her movements precise.

“I think I will live and he will never need to know, sister,” Boleyn says. Her own mind wanders to the mines on the other side of the town, where Oswyn even now is trying to break through to achamber, perhaps thehambrementioned in the bishop’s ancient book. She nods at a fruit-seller on the side of the road. The man nods back, barely bowing, and Boleyn spies a sheaf of pamphlets wedged at the side of his stall. Is this another attack on her, or something that Syndony has arranged? She pauses, not wanting Mary to see her insecurity. Curiosity wins out, as it always does with Boleyn.

“Pass me one of those,” she says to the trader. He flushes, and she might have laughed at his stammered attempts to refuse a queen if they did not tell her what the pamphlet contains. She holds the paper in one hand, reins in the other, reading as she rides.

“You do not look happy, sister,” Mary says.

“Is it any wonder?” Boleyn says, thrusting the pamphlet towards her.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR QUEENS?

In years past the Queens of Elben held the bordweal firm,

right and proper channels of our great King’s divine power.

They were humble, loyal and true.

What has gone so wrong?

Today the bordweal fractures and grows weak. Elben’s enemies

amass. Our men and boys go to war. Our King fights for our

freedom, his strength unchanged, his glory unabated.

It is the Queens who are failing us. They have one role: to

keep the bordweal STRONG. It began to weaken the moment

our King took a wife who was not humble, loyal and true. The

Queen of Brynd has notions above her station—

“Well that’s nonsense,” Mary says, crumpling the pamphlet and tossing it to the verge. “Everyone with a mite of sense knows that the bordweal has been getting weaker for years. Whatever the cause,youare not it.”

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