Page 91 of Six Wild Crowns

The courtiers and servants move back, fearing the woman’s ire. She eyes them all, huffing her disappointment.

“What were you thinking? Have you never met a donkey before? Or a newborn creature? You could have damn well near scared them to death.”

Clarice puffs up, and Seymour can tell they’re about to say something awful likeDon’t you know who we are?So she steps in front of them, spreading her hands.

“My apologies,” Seymour says. “We’ve never seen anything like it before. What is the purpose of it?”

The shepherd examines her, in a way no one other than the king has dared to since she married him. Her eyes are bright, sharp, warm.

“The lambs lost their mothers to a wolf last night. This way I can bring them to a safer place and keep them comfortable.”

“That’s ingenious,” Seymour says.

They regard each other, a strange, pulsating energy batting between them. That’s when Seymour sees it – a brooch, a strange stone set in silver, fastened to the shepherd’s shirt. It glitters, and in the sunlight seems to take on the colours of a bruise, or darkest sunset. The colours of the bordweal. Asunscína, far smaller than her own.

The silence is broken by a commotion from further down the convoy – Haltrasc’s crate has tipped halfway off its wheels and Haltrasc himself is clamouring to be released.

“Whatever has got into your animal?” the shepherd says, twinkling.

A courtier undoes the crate’s lock. Haltrasc bounds past Seymour and, in two strides, each one the length of a man, leaps into the shepherd’s arms, licking her and making little mewls of pleasure.

“Get off me, you silly beast,” she says, her arms around him.

“Oh,” Clarice breathes, understanding at the same moment as Seymour.

“Queen Cleves, I presume?” Seymour says.

Cleves extracts herself from Haltrasc and approaches them, shaking Seymour’s hand in the Ezzonid fashion of greeting. Seymour tries not to stare at her bare arms.

“I’m sorry for deceiving you,” Cleves says, not sounding sorry at all. “It wasn’t my intention. I had been dressing to receive you when I heard the news about the lambs and I thought I had time to tend to them before you arrived.”

“I’m happy to take second place in your concern on this occasion,” Seymour says. “Can we help? Perhaps my household can offer you their hands as recompense for scaring your animals.”

And that’s how Seymour approaches Cnothan, Haltrasc on one side, Queen Cleves on the other and a newborn lamb clutched in her arms, all legs and fresh wool. Cleves makes it look very easy –herlamb seems to submit willingly to her clutches. Seymour’s, however, has its eyes on freedom, and disdains her embrace with every fibre of its being.

“You’re nervous of him, that’s why he’s not settling,” Cleves remarks as Seymour takes a hoof to the eye.

“I am not nervous of him. He’s nervous of me.”

“Imagine being scared of a lamb.” Cleves grins, then with a twist of her arms that Seymour can’t catch, switches lambs with her. The lamb that had been lying docilely in Cleves’ embrace looks up at Seymour through sleepy eyes, deems her a sufficient carriage and lays its head against her chest.

“Another trick,” Seymour says. “This is a habit of yours, I see.”

“Perhaps I enjoy watching your confusion.”

She grins at her again, then doubles over as Seymour’s old lamb kicks her in the stomach.

Cnothan is a higgledy sort of castle, set on an island hill that is attached to the mainland by a wide stone bridge. The foundations of the castle are the oldest of any on Elben, and some of the original walls are still hewn from weathered rock. Other wings and courtyards have been added over centuries, maybe even millennia, creating asprawling mess of different architectural designs and shapes. The central courtyard, sitting at the apex of the hill, is hexagonal and made of simple timber and plaster, centring around a giant pond where fish of all sizes and colours dart and ducks feed. The suite of rooms where Seymour and her household are housed is a tower built from red brick. Her chamber is at the very top, reached by means of an ingenious pulley system designed by Cleves herself.

“I thought you might like to see my menagerie,” Cleves says as Seymour looks out from the window. Indeed, from here she can see exactly how Cleves has arranged every courtyard around a different animal – the fish in the pond; a lion prowling an old, dry moat; goats, chickens, griffins and dozens more, each housed to their liking within the castle grounds. Haltrasc sets his front paws on the windowsill and eyes the courtyard containing the goats.

The chaos of Cnothan continues at dinner. The banqueting hall is replete with beautiful dishes on wooden tables for Cleves’s human guests, but there is a parallel hall where troughs are filled for the animals. There is none of the fashionable refinement of Boleyn’s Brynd, but despite the cacophony of noise and smells, there is a considered intelligence and taste behind everything, all bolstered by Cleves’s refusal to bow to what might be expected of her as queen. She is, undoubtedly, just as regal as Queen Aragon, in her own way. Perhaps it’s because she and Aragon alone were born to royalty – maybe it’s something they wear, maybe something they were taught as babes in arms, that Boleyn or Seymour could never hope to emulate.

“I’d like you to ride out with me tomorrow,” Cleves says during a lull in conversation.

“More lambs on donkeys?”

“Perhaps. There is something I wish to show you. It is far from the castle.”

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