Page 60 of Six Wild Crowns

“No, never. Normally, he rides in at sunset, stays the night.” At this she raises an eyebrow coquettishly. “Then rides off again after breakfast.”

Boleyn supposes she should take this as a sign that Henry does love her after all, but she cannot feel any satisfaction. She pats the bed beside her and puts an arm around Howard’s shoulders.

“The first thing we must do is help you to read and write,” she tells Howard. When the girl opens her mouth to protest, Boleyn holds up a hand. “Everyone can do it if they are schooled right. Sister, there are so many wonderful worlds to be discovered in words. There is so much joy to be found in reading a pretty poem or aclever letter. Now, my father once told me of a tutor from the great libraries in Uuvek who was able to teach anyone, no matter how their mind worked. I will enquire with him. Let us see if we can tempt him to Plythe.”

Howard stares at Boleyn. “You would do such a thing for me?”

“It is hardly a difficult task,” Boleyn says, but Howard throws her arms around Boleyn’s waist, and kisses her cheeks again and again until Boleyn pushes her away.

“Enough of that. I can see we’re going to have to discuss how a queen behaves, and what she should expect from those around her. But we’ll take one thing at a time.”

Howard laughs. A proper, full-throated laugh, unlike her usual coy, high-pitched ones. “You’re going to teach me how to act like you?” She sits very upright, her chin raised, and places one hand on her stomach and one on her forehead, the picture of affected femininity. When she speaks, it’s in an uncanny approximation of Boleyn’s Capetian-flecked accent.

“Oh, sister, you are so very young, and I am so worldly and fertile…”

“Enough!” Boleyn says, smiling despite herself. “Don’t make me regret my offer.”

“I won’t,” Howard says, dropping her hands. The women smile at each other.

“Now I must rest,” Boleyn says. “But tomorrow there is someone I think you should meet.”

“Who is it? Are they coming to Plythe as well?”

“Not exactly. First, we must look for something. I know it must be somewhere in this palace.”

“What is it?”

“Asunscína, sister. One of the ancient mirrors of Elben’s queens.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Seymour

For someone who cannot swim, Seymour finds an inordinate amount of peace in living in an underwater palace. If Boleyn is Brynd – all storms and lightning – then Seymour is Hyde – muted, lilting. Seymour spends her days exploring her new abode. Her household is still depleted after Queen Blount’s passing, and she intends to keep it that way for as long as possible. She does not need elaborate feasts or hundreds of craftsmen. There is a solemn beauty in the silent galleries and dilapidated rooms, mottled with sea brightness. This place is hers. It is a place of splintered beauty, the kind that makes one weep silently. She doesn’t want to share it.

Seymour’s favourite place is reserved for her alone. It is reached through a glass tunnel that leads along the seabed from a hidden door in her private chambers. Walking through it at sunrise or sunset means that the sun refracts through both water and crystal and lends the tunnel a dreamlike quality, like a rainbow seen in a mirror. The tunnel ends in a set of steps that leads up to the surface of the water, and the side of a natural rock pool that erupts in the middle of the sea.

The local folk tales call this formation the “Selkie’s Pool”, but if it was once the home of the seal people, they have all beenhunted into oblivion, or tricked into becoming the brides of mortal men. But there is something strange and wonderful about the pool. It is a literal circle of calm amidst the ocean’s heaving currents. Seymour spends long hours in her bathing dress, clinging to the side of the rock and either looking out towards the endless horizon, or back towards the submerged domes and low, terracotta grooves of Hyde. She finds it easier, here, to hear her thoughts. She finds it easier to live with the decisions she has made. There is peace in the torrents.

Clarice is the only person who knows where Seymour is when she goes bathing like this, and Seymour resents even that. Ever since Seymour’s hands were doused in the Queen’s Kiss, the distance between them has grown further. Seymour isn’t entirely sure who instigated the rift: Clarice, or her. She does know that whenever she looks at the soft skin on her new hands, her heart twists. She knows that the childish trust she once placed in Clarice is damaged.

And yet, she relies on Clarice for so much. She resents that too. She’s pondering this in the pool when Clarice climbs up the tunnel steps to tell her that it’s nearly time for luncheon. Seymour clings to the rock as she makes her way round to Clarice.

“I could teach you to swim,” Clarice says. “Then you wouldn’t need me to help you.”

“I’m a bit old to learn now, don’t you think?” Seymour replies.

Clarice shrugs, and attacks Seymour with a towel as soon as she’s sitting safely on the steps.

“Is my brother joining us again?” Seymour asks.

“He’s giving the cook instructions on how to roast porpoise, so I imagine so.”

Seymour pushes Clarice away, wrapping the towel around herself. With the pool empty, a seagull dives into it and comes to the surface, a fish in its beak.

“Do you want to visit your family for a while?” Seymour says. She always used to dread Clarice’s periodic trips to the Feorwa Isles where they were born, but now she thinks it might be nice not to have a servant constantly judging her.

“If you like.”

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