Page 34 of Six Wild Crowns

“They cannot reach us. Not yet, anyway,” the king says. “They’re testing the bordweal.”

“Surely they won’t attack Elben while Queen Aragon is your consort?”

He laughs. “Do you really believe that? They said you were simple.”

She wants to ask who said that, but it doesn’t really matter. Besides, to know would only hurt her. Still, the king notices the way she curls in on herself, and turns fully towards her. He places a hand on her arm.

“My apologies. That was ungallant.”

“It is true that I understand little of politics.” She can’t quite bring herself to accept his apology.

“Marrying Queen Aragon offered us a reprieve, for as long as Quisto thought she might bear me a male heir.”

“Because then they would rule Elben through inheritance,” Seymour says.

“Exactly. The world’s trade passes through Elben’s ports. Quisto, Capetia, even Pkolack, would love nothing more than to make Elben a small but perfect jewel in the crown of their empires. But now that my first queen is past her childbearing years, and Quisto feels their influence waning at High Hall, they like their chances of invading while the bordweal is weakened.”

“Will you send your navy out to meet them in battle?”

He shakes his head. “Not while the bordweal holds. If I were to engage them now, they would tell the world that Elben had declared war. We would be perceived as the aggressor.”

“But they’re the ones who are trying to invade.”

“They will say that they were merely passing Elben, and that the cannon fire was a mistake.”

Seymour considers this. She has never been adept atbeadulác, the game of war so popular in Elben, but she now sees that politics is less about who has the greater force, and more like the courtship between the king and Boleyn – the perception of surrender or attack.

“What will you do?”

“Fortify Lothair along the border it shares with Quisto. Beyond that, there are many roads I could take. Small bites, to make Quisto nervous. To prepare us for an invasion, if the time comes.”

Seymour thinks of the Quistoan empire, stretching from the borders of Pkolack in the north, across to the eastern lands and then down to the landmass it shares with Capetia and Ezzonid. She thinks about Thomas and wonders what his next move would be.

“Will you strike a deal with Capetia, Your Majesty?”

He looks at her sharply. “Why do you ask that?”

This isn’t why she wanted to talk to him, and she vaguely thinks that she should get the conversation back on track. “I remember my brother saying that the border between Capetia and Quisto is one of the hardest to maintain. I thought, given Queen Boleyn’s links to Capetia, that it would make sense to strike an alliance with them.”

A new idea forms in her head, as though Cernunnos himself had dropped it there, because she’s never before been clever enough for this kind of strategising.

“Then if you had Capetia pushing east from their border, and you pushed south from Lothair, it would be very difficult for Quisto to defend both…”

Henry laughs. “My word, you are intriguing. Have you been eavesdropping on Boleyn?”

Seymour flushes. “I would never…”

“I’m teasing you, Lady Seymour. I only ask because your proposal is almost exactly the same as hers.”

“Perhaps her remarkable mind is rubbing off on me.”

They both look out to the ocean again, but this time the silence is easier, more companionable. Seymour hopes that her unexpected insight has paved the way for her true aim.

“You must be very tired, Your Majesty,” she says.

He looks at her, surprised. “Why do you say that?”

She twists her mittened hands inside her furs. “It is a great burden to bear, ruling this country.”

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