Page 7 of Six Wild Crowns

“All men like those qualities when it comes down to it. Believe me, the king is only with her because he wants to see if he can tame her.”

Seymour thinks of the expressions on the couple’s faces in theSanctuary. She had not thought of the king as a romantic. Chivalrous: yes. In love with being in love: yes. But true, heart-deep romance? No, she would never have thought him capable of that. And Boleyn – her first impression of her had been that she was a performer. But the way they looked at each other – that was real, Seymour is sure of it. She rubs the sweat from her palms as she thinks about the new queen. Boleyn has had such an easy life: a love match with a king, a family that supports her and an education and attitude that give her the impression of unattainability.

Thomas and Edward talk about how some families are blessed by Cernunnos with uncommon luck, and how that luck seems to either collect, like rain in cups, or drain away. It’s either all or nothing. They’re obsessed with the idea that their family, the Seymours, have been cursed. They want nothing more than to turn the family luck around. If they only scheme hard enough, maybe they can make Cernunnos smile upon them as he smiles upon other families. Seymour never believed it until today, until she saw Boleyn and all her varied luck.

That hair. That hair around her neck. Those eyes, looking at her the way they looked at the king. She shivers.

“How do you know he just wants to tame her?” she says.

“I want you married, understand?” he says. “So get the king, or I’ll find someone else to take you off my hands.”

He walks away before she can answer. She thinks of Edward’s friends – the kind of men he would seek to chain her to if she cannot find a husband herself. There are rumours of what they all do when they have ale and each other’s company, although no one has told her exactly what those rumours are. She pulls up the shoulders of her dress where they have slipped, and wrestles her mind to the present. She is not going to snare the king by dawdling in an empty gallery.

Seymour winds her way through the galleries, worrying with every step that her course will leak through her gown. It happened once, a few years ago. One of Queen Cleves’s ladies-in-waiting silently pointed at the stain. She hasn’t been able to bring herself to wear white since.

The lower floors of High Hall are divided into six wings, each one occupied by the household of a different queen, and each one serviced by its own entrance and courtyard. Boleyn’s suite is decorated in the Capetian style in Boleyn green and royal purple. The combination shouldn’t work, but Boleyn has found the right balance of the shades to make her rooms sumptuous rather than jarring. She darts through Boleyn’s rooms to Aragon’s in the neighbouring wing. The difference in style is stark. Where Boleyn has ornate murals adorning her walls, and swathes of delicate fabric draped across windows and over seats, Aragon has tapestries and bare wood. A fire crackles in a fireplace that could easily house a family. But Aragon’s chambers are quiet today. The queen isn’t at High Hall, but at her own palace, Daven, in the north of Elben. It is customary for the consorts to not be in attendance when the king is marrying a new queen – it is deemed tasteless. Queens must be friendly, but never friends. Indeed, they rarely congregate; usually only at the Moon Ball held in celebration of the bordweal and the mighty god who created it. A few servants and some of the queen’s lesser courtiers mill around – cleaning, reading, conversing in the quiet tones that Queen Aragon demands. Seymour catches snippets of what they’re saying.

“Quisto might throw its power behind Alpich. They’ll move against Elben.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“I’m more worried about Her Majesty. We cannot let him abandon her.”

Seymour tries to see this news through her brothers’ eyes. Even she, stupid though she is, can see that the family’s alliance with Queen Aragon will put them in a bad light if Elben goes to war with the queen’s home country. It follows, then, that it would be wise for them to distance themselves from Aragon. Maybe Edward’s command that she seduce the king comes from a place of concern, a desire to protect her from the association with her mistress.

Some of Aragon’s courtiers have already abandoned her – she spotted them bowing to Boleyn earlier today, wearing green instead of the blue they used to wear to signal their devotion to QueenAragon. Now that she thinks on it, Edward had also divested himself of his usual blue handkerchief.

She thinks of Queen Aragon, sitting in Daven, so far from her homeland, feeling the foundations of her marriage shift, and pinches herself. Edward would do far worse if he knew how soft her thoughts are. She’s not going to be able to please both Queen Aragon and him. She’s going to end up betraying one of them. She can’t help but feel, though, that the only person she’ll truly be betraying is herself.

Seymour turns into the narrow corridor that houses bedchambers for Queen Aragon’s household and guests. Her room is at the end, tucked in between an identical bedchamber and a communal space where Aragon’s musicians and lesser courtiers gather. Clarice, Seymour’s servant, is waiting for her with a bowl of warm water infused with herbs.

“I’ve got clean cloths too,” Clarice says, holding up a length of cotton and passing Seymour a towel.

“You’re an angel,” Seymour says, turning so that Clarice can undo her laces. Seymour looks longingly at Clarice’s own clothes – a fitted doublet and hose over a simple linen shirt. No endless layers for the people of the Feorwa Isles as there are for those in Elben. Clarice sets up a screen so that Seymour can finish stripping and wash herself in private. She runs the cloth over her arms and stomach, and then over the faded, raised lines that streak her thighs. The only scars inflicted by herself, although she told Clarice once that Edward was responsible for the wounds. She’s not sure Clarice believed her.

“How was it?” Clarice asks from the other side of the screen.

“My brother was there.”

Clarice makes a sympathetic but non-committal noise, and passes the clean cotton around the side of the screen. Seymour resists the urge to tear the screen down. Clarice has seen her naked before. Felt her naked, too. But that was long ago, when they were friend and friend, not mistress and servant.

“I managed to get my hands on some pepperthorn balm,” Clarice says as Seymour secures the cloth in place with a girdle.

Seymour rubs some of the balm across her stomach, trying not to inhale its sharp scent. Immediately, the cramps diminish. Seymour puts on the rest of her clothes and Clarice gently pulls on her shoulders to correct her posture.

“Don’t, Clarice. I don’t like being a giant.”

“In Feorwa…”

“I know, I know. Maybe one day I’ll come and visit your family with you.”

The air between them shifts, as it always does when Seymour tries to recapture their lost intimacy.

“You’ll feel right at home, my lady,” Clarice says, filling the silence too late.

They sometimes laugh that Seymour was born the tallest of a short family, and Clarice was born the shortest on an island of tall people. They cling on to this joke, because it’s one insecurity they have in common, these two people for whom true friendship has become impossible.

Clarice finishes packing Seymour’s scant belongings and drags her trunk out through the servants’ quarters, while Seymour leaves through the main entrance to Queen Aragon’s wing.

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