Page 65 of Six Wild Crowns

“People will still believe it,” Boleyn says, shifting in her saddle. The pommel now presses uncomfortably into her belly. She’s unused to finding riding so difficult.

“What does it matter if people believe it?”

“Don’t be naive, Mary. This isn’t some silly village gossip. I’m a queen now. It matters.”

Mary shrugs, a sharp flick of her shoulders, like dislodging a fly.

“Then get your stewardess’s people to point the finger at one of the other queens. I’d say Howard, since he married her around then, except for some unfathomable reason you seem to be fond of her.”

“If anyone is humble, loyal and true to Henry, it’s Howard,” Boleyn says. “You may have something there though. Would it be too obvious to blame Aragon?”

Mary shrugs. “It might be worth trying.”

Boleyn nods, but she still shifts in her saddle. She should be comforted by this decision, but she cannot set her mind to it. For some reason, the story told to Howard by her nurse comes back to her now – the image of Medren’s eye, broken into six pieces but meant to be united.

“Would it be the right thing to do?” she murmurs.

Fauvel and Mary snort at the same time.

“Cernunnos above, Boleyn, why this sudden preoccupation with what isright? Have you turned into Seymour? It’s the game, sister. You know how to play it. So play it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Seymour

By the time the campaign against Alpich is over and the king returns to Hyde, Seymour has perfected her drugging process. Her brother offers the perfect subject for her tests. It shocks her how little he notices. Perhaps Edward isn’t as clever as she always believed. Maybe his aggression isn’t a price she has to pay for his guidance.

Sedating Edward makes life at Hyde enjoyable when he is visiting. He no longer has the energy to storm around the palace, demanding the impossible, striking Seymour and her servants. She doesn’t need to lock Haltrasc away for fear that Edward will punish the panther for biting him. Instead, she spends long mornings in the Selkie’s Pool, sometimes daydreaming, sometimes attempting to swim with Clarice’s guidance. This is the life she envisioned for herself when the possibility of becoming queen presented itself: cocooned.

But a butterfly cannot stay encased for ever. When the king visits again, Seymour is ready for him. She knows, as soon as he leaps from his charger’s back, that something is wrong. His usually open face is clouded. His kiss is forceful. It makes Seymour step back inadvertently. He notices, and his mood sours further.

“You’ve no need to be such a blushing maiden with me now,”he says, stomping into Hyde, into Seymour’s haven, reminding her that it is only borrowed, and when he is here it is not truly hers.

She does everything right. Everything her upbringing – long, tedious hours learning how to be the perfectly submissive wife – taught her to do. She asks him questions about himself. She empathises with him when he talks darkly about Alpich’s refusal to surrender, how he cannot raise enough fighting men to go to Thawodest as planned, how the bordweal is so weak on the north-east coast that a boat carrying soldiers from Pkolack managed to break through and sail up the Mearcdyke. She tells him that she has no doubt his strength will overcome all. She strokes his arm and picks out the juiciest morsels of quail from her own plate to feed to him, and when the meal is over she asks him if she may sit in his lap. And she fills his glass with wine and toasts him.

None of it lifts him out of the sulk. He barely eats anything, and to Seymour’s dismay he only takes a sip of his drugged wine. Instead, he glowers over the assembled banqueters until the hall falls into hushed whispers and anxious glances. Before dinner is ended, he stands and announces that he is retiring to his room. Seymour tarries at the top table, smiling at her courtiers and nibbling at her food. She knows he didn’t drink enough. He will not be asleep. He will be waiting for her. She has never seen him in this mood before.

She takes a spoonful of her jelly, and her hand shakes so hard that it falls to the floor. She stares at the mess, immobile.

“I’ll take care of it,” Clarice says, kneeling with a cloth at the ready. As they rise, they grip Seymour’s wrist under the table, stilling the shaking.

“Your glass is empty,” they say. “Shall I fill it for you?”

Clarice unstoppers the wine, the question in their eyes. Seymour has never outright told Clarice what she has been doing, but Clarice is sharp. They will have connected the change in Edward’s behaviour with the wine Seymour reserves only for him. It’s tempting to welcome the loss of control. To willingly put herself to sleep. She knows what is about to happen. She does not need to be awake to endure it. Yet to do so would be to return to the woman she once was. The woman who accepted but did not strive.

She shakes her head.

In her bedchamber, she allows the maids to undress her, slip a night shift over her head and braid her hair. Almost as soon as the maids leave the room and she clambers into bed, she hears the king’s voice outside the door.

She pretends to be asleep as he enters, although it seems impossible that he should not hear the knock of her heartbeat.

“Are you awake?” he says roughly, his weight landing heavily beside her. He puts a hand on her waist and pulls her towards him. She pretends to wake as he kisses her. The very candles seem to flicker in fear of him, and she knows that she must put on the most cunning mask, the most particular lie, for this night.

“Oh, Henry,” she murmurs. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Do you love me?” he asks. Seymour wishes she still had her dinner knife with her. She would happily stab him in this moment. He doesn’t get to be vulnerable. He doesn’t warrant pity.

“Of course, my darling,” she says.

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