Page 82 of Six Wild Crowns

“I love Boleyn, I do. And I love Elizabeth already. She’s a bonnie little thing. But she cannot claim my throne, Seymour. She cannot keep Elben safe. I was so sure Boleyn would give me a son. So sure.”

Seymour rubs his back gently. “It has been very hard for you.”

“Butwhyis it so hard?” he whispers, hands pressed against the glass. “My father was not as deserving as me. He did little to further the glory of Cernunnos. And yet he hadtwosons.”

He turns and grips Seymour’s arms. “I have heard things about you, though. Tell me, Seymour. Make me happy.”

She beams at him, unclasping his fingers and pulling them down to her belly. His hand there, pressing into her stomach, nearly makes her cry out in agony. His tortured expression vanishes in an instant. “Iknewit would be you,” he says. He picks her up as though she were no heavier than a child, spinning and kissing her. She laughs and laughs with him.

“Our son, Henry. Your heir.”

He puts her down and drops to his knees, kissing her stomach. She wants to take his hair in her hands and tear at it. She could do it, she could scalp him, shove him through the window into the sea and hold him there until not even he could survive. Oh, if he could hear her thoughts, he would snap her neck.

“Ah!” she cries.

“What is it?” He’s on his feet again.

“I’m sorry, my love. I… I’m not feeling well.”

“The baby?”

“I don’t know.”

She does know, though. The leaves have, at last, worked their way through the layers of muscle and fat and into her womb. The thing that was growing there has been uprooted.

Henry carries her back to her rooms, whispering reassurances. She clings to him as though he were her saviour, not her gaoler. In her chamber, he calls for a physician and demands hot towelsbe brought for her stomach and a bucket of perfumed water for her feet. The physician places a poultice on her forehead, and when told that she is pregnant, asks to examine her.

“Of course,” the king says immediately. “Do whatever is necessary.”

And so Seymour is compelled to remove her gown. She insists on keeping her shift – she is after all a modest woman. Her hand is pressed at all times to her stomach, a sign of her concern and maternal nature.

“I’m sure I’ll feel better with a little rest,” she whispers.

The king drapes a hand over hers, and Seymour almost pities him. What he wants from her is already gone. The physician rises from his examination, his face taut with terror. Seymour watches him through half-closed eyes. Will he tell the king, or will he flee and let her give him the news some days later?

Henry does not need to be told. He stares at the physician’s hands, which are coated in blood.

“No,” Seymour whispers, half acting grief, half truly frightened, not by the blood but by her husband’s presence. She has seen many men overcome by their inadequacies in her time, but never one such as Henry. She has felt the strength in his arms. She knows what he is capable of, if he were to lose control. It’s why she came to Hyde to do it – she did not think he would follow her here so soon. She had hoped to deliver the news by letter, so that he would vent his rage elsewhere.

He turns away from her, rubbing his forehead. Then he spots the holy antlers affixed to the wall, their golden trim fading. He stares up at them, lost.

“What more must I do?” he asks them, and she realises that he’s addressing Cernunnos. “What more can I do?”

If Cernunnos answers, it is to Henry alone.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Boleyn

Brynd has a small mooring of its own, separate from the port town some way down the coast. The jetty, at the base of the castle, is large enough to receive the royal flotilla, or any important foreign emissaries wishing to bypass the commoners at Garclyffe.

Boleyn keeps several boats and barges at her disposal at this jetty, and one day, before the morning mist has cleared, she sets out in a small, high-prowed barge with Mary.

“This reminds me of stealing the fishmaster’s boat back at home,” Mary says, her voice muted in the fog and strained with the effort of rowing.

“What have you done with my trout?!” the sisters say in unison, the memory of childhood summers at Hever rising from the waves like smoke. Boleyn remembers the rancid smell of the stolen vessel, made bearable by the crime itself.

They manoeuvre the barge away from the jetty and, at Boleyn’s direction, along the cliffs, right beneath the lightning tower of Brynd. Perhaps it’s only the nostalgia she’s conjured playing tricks on her, but Boleyn thinks Mary looks younger out here, especially now that she’s no longer wearing her mourning dress. She rows steadily.

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